Shadowed Paradise

by Blair Bancroft

  Chapter Ten

  “It was four in the afternoon when we heard,” Claire said, her voice low and toneless as anguish swept over her, as real as that terrible day two years earlier. “I could tell the news was bad. Doug’s whole body sagged as he listened to whoever was on the phone. I hoped he was just upset because Jim got away, but of course . . . that wasn’t it. I suppose you read about it. It made the headlines everywhere. Jim was spotted by two different commercial pilots flying south, hugging the coastline. They tried to get him on the radio, but he wouldn’t respond. By the time he got to the Outer Banks off Hatteras they had a couple of chase planes on him.” Claire’s voice faded, then struggled on.

  “There were witnesses on the ground too. Fishermen, some boaters. They said he went up to about two thousand feet and simply dove straight in. They told me he didn’t suffer, that he was killed instantly. I’ve always hoped they were telling the truth.”

  Jesus! Brad felt helpless. There was nothing he could say to take away the pain. Whatever Jim Langdon’s sins, he’d died a hero for the sake of his family. “And Jamie?” he prompted softly.

  “A miracle. No one ever figured out why the kidnappers let him go. Doug said maybe even bad guys had to admire Jim’s guts. Jamie was found walking through the Jersey marshes, all alone. When he woke up that morning, the door of the little shack they’d kept him in was open, and everyone was gone. There was a big scene of course. Police, ambulances, swarms of the media. Jamie was never able to tell them anything. The men wore ski masks. But it’s easy to see why flashing lights and sirens, the possibility of endless questions, terrify him. He tries hard, but he still has nightmares. We both do.”

  On the far side of the bay a large cruiser headed north up the waterway, its running lights steady as it passed through the quiet waters of the Intracoastal. Numbly, Brad followed its progress, his mind seething with visions of what Claire and Jamie had endured.

  “And after you had Jamie back,” Brad said, “every government agency was on your case, trying to get you to fill in the blanks your husband took with him.” It wasn’t a question. He could picture it all quite clearly. He would have done the same.

  “I gave Doug my diary,” Claire sighed. “I was trying to be helpful, but suddenly the whole world wanted to talk to me. I was a cipher, a nothing to InterBank, but they just kept at it. They seemed to think if they asked the same question enough times, I’d somehow conjure an answer out of thin air.”

  “That bad?” Brad asked gently.

  “There were some who were brusque,” Claire admitted, hugging her arms around her chest as a cool breeze wafted across the deck, “but mostly it was simply endless. I’d think it was over, and someone else would want to run names and faces by me. One more agency jumping on the bandwagon with its own axe to grind. I kept thinking that if I told them everything I knew, if I really showed them I was cooperating, that would be it. They’d soak it all up and go away. But they kept coming back with questions and more questions.”

  With an impatient gesture, Claire brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen over one eye. “In the end there were only a few convictions,” she said. “And, of course, restitution. InterBank was almost like a pyramid scheme, you see. So many ordinary people, innocent depositors, lost nearly everything they had . . .”

  Claire’s voice wavered. She gulped for air. “I was so ashamed. Our only refuge was my family, and Florida was about as far away as Jamie and I could get on no money.”

  “There were InterBank branches in Florida too,” Brad said, trying to lighten her burden, keep her from absorbing all the guilt. “Your husband didn’t create InterBank’s way of doing business. He was just doing what InterBank was doing worldwide. There was a trial here with a wholly different cast of characters. It ended with some pretty stiff sentences.”

  “I didn’t know,” Claire murmured. “For a long time I couldn’t bring myself to read the newspapers or watch television news. We bottled ourselves up, Jamie and I. I drove him to school myself, picked him up. Other than that, we seldom went farther than the grocery store. The Alphabets always came to the house. About the only other people we saw were the prospective buyers the real estate agents brought in. It’s odd, I suppose, but I don’t remember being lonely. I was so . . . numb. I couldn’t feel. Couldn’t think. I simply existed.”

  The Yale bulldog, Handsome Dan, shook beneath her fingers as Claire paused for a sip of beer. “I tried to be a good mother,” she said. “I smiled for Jamie even when I thought my face would crack. He was my only reality, my only hold on life. Somehow, for his sake, I had to survive.”

  “Sometimes that’s all you can do. Believe me, I know.” Brad enveloped her hand in his.

  “It was such a relief when they said we could leave,” Claire admitted. “I realized what it must feel like to be let out of prison.”

  Prison. Once upon a time, not that long ago, Brad had reveled in the strange dark world that destroyed Claire Langdon’s life. Leaving it was like cutting out his heart, reducing the brilliance of a Van Gogh to a matte of flat gray. But coming home to Golden Beach was better than being tethered to a desk, forbidden to soar with the eagles..

  But after a while . . . after a while he could look back and see the prison. A prison of duty and danger, the challenge of pushing things to the edge. And maybe a bit beyond.

  It was addictive. And it could kill you.

  There had been some damn good times. And really bad ones. He’d done things that made Jim Langdon and InterBank look like participants in a Sunday School picnic. Claire Langdon wasn’t the only one with nightmares. A matched set—a damaged matched set-—that’s what they were.

  Back when he was new to the Dark Side, Claire’s confession might have mattered. Back when his world came in black and white, the good guys and the bad. Before he’d learned the infinite shades of gray the hard way. He had, on occasion, even discovered that black was white and white was black, and he himself was one of the bad guys.

  Now . . . now what he wanted was a world of color. A world of vivid brilliance . . . and soft pastels. A world of light and love and trust. A world of family. And if he wasn’t very careful about what he said and did next, he could blow it all.

  Brad released Claire’s hand and hunkered back into the cushions at one end of the couch. He crossed his arms over his chest and stretched his long legs out in front of him. After drawing in a deep breath, he let it out in a long-drawn, carefully calculated sigh. God, he had to get this right.

  “I should have guessed that Miss Blueblood of Yale and Manhattan’s Upper East Side is too good for Yevgeny Blukovsky’s little farm boy who only made it to University of Miami on a football scholarship. How’d you keep your face straight when I asked you out, Ms. Ivy League Langdon? What a joke, Brad Blue attempting to play Big Man on Campus in the Florida backwater of Golden Beach.”

  Claire’s head came up with a snap. She gaped at him. “Don’t be absurd!”

  “So what’s absurd?” he challenged. “You’re upper crust and I’m the farm kid from sticksville. Damn gracious of you to grant me a dinner for saving your life. Noblesse oblige and all that.” Brad maintained his slouched position, the perfect portrait of a grown man sulking. Time to zero in for the kill. “I trust I made a convenient chauffeur for the fireworks, madame, but now that I’ve served my usefulness, it’s time to fade away. Leave the poor little rich girl to lick her wounds and feel sorry for herself.”

  He’d gone too far. Brad wished those last words back as soon as he said them.

  “How dare you . . .?”

  “That’s just it,” Brad admitted sorrowfully, “I don’t.” He bent forward, hung his head and examined the sand still clinging to the toe of his sneaker.

  He heard a sound. Damn! Clumsy idiot, he’d made her cry. But the sound grew from choking into recognizable chuckles, admittedly tainted by a suspicious wetness threatening her cheeks when he swung his head to look at her.

  “You wretch!” Claire chok
ed out. “You ridiculous, miserable wretch. You know perfectly well that’s so outrageous I can’t help but be distracted. How can I be sad when you’re making me so damned angry?”

  “You think?”

  “Idiot,” Claire murmured. “Clever, devious, manipulative idiot,” she added more sharply. There ought to be law against men like you.”

  Leaning forward, Brad placed his index finger under Claire’s chin. He studied the luminous azure eyes, the tear-ravaged face, the wobbly smile. “We may have been on different sides of the great divide, my girl, but it looks like we’re survivors of the same alphabet mud puddle. Maybe we could try to help each other out. If that’s okay with you?”

  “I’d like that,” she said at last, “but trust is tough. I was so very naive, so stupid, that I’ve become a cynic. I’d like a relationship, but when it comes right down to put up or shut up, I’m terrified. I want . . . but I can’t.”

  Brad cupped her face in his hands. Warmth flooded through her. Not fair! It wasn’t right that one man could wield such power. One touch and the wall she had so carefully built around herself began to crack. Like a bud opening into glorious flowering, she felt a rush of sunlight, of long-dormant passion.

  But sunlight burned. She wasn’t ready. A bud was closed, sealed tight. Safe. A flower was exposed. To sun and wind and storms. No, no, no! Concentrate. Brad was saying something.

  “Look, Claire, I’m not going to rape you, seduce you, or even coax. If you think that, you don’t remember that sad excuse for a kiss we exchanged right here on this couch last week.” Brad removed his palms from her cheeks, held them away from his body. Look, Ma, no hands. “Did I press you for more? No way. You’ve had holy hell dumped on you. You’re worn so thin I’ve been afraid you’d crumble to dust at the first touch. Until now I didn’t know why, but my instincts are damn good, so I didn’t push it. And I’m not going to push it now. Not that I don’t want to jump your bones,” he conceded magnanimously, “but I figure you’re worth waiting for.”

  Of course he was willing to wait, Claire thought. A man who’d had Diane Lake wasn’t going to have his libido whipped into overtime by Claire Langdon. So he was offering what? Friendship? A comfort snuggle? A mercy fuck?

  Claire looked up to find Brad’s large capable fingers stretched toward her like a horse trainer working with a recalcitrant colt. She resented the analogy. “No coaxing,” she snapped. “You promised.”

  The hand stayed where it was. “I don’t believe I promised no touching,” he pointed out with annoying reasonableness, making no attempt to hide the gleam of mischief dancing in his eyes. “How about a handshake to seal our bargain?”

  “What bargain?”

  “That we’re going to give each other aid and comfort.”

  “And just how did you arrive at that conclusion?”

  “Improvisation.” The hand never wavered.

  She was thirty-three years old, and except for Jim Langdon this was the only man to whom she had been drawn by an overwhelming attraction. A man like this was unlikely to come her way again. And there was Jamie. How could she reject the possibility of a man like Brad in his life? However ephemeral that hope might be. However many reservations she might have.

  Carpe diem. Seize the day. Jamie was as good an excuse as any for doing what her body was so desperately demanding.

  But she wouldn’t give in easily. “I suppose you trained skittish colts somewhere in your checkered past.”

  “Yeah . . . but they were a lot easier to tame.”

  Now was the time. The ball was in her corner. Slowly, tentatively, Claire, touched a finger to Brad’s palm, traced a small spiral.

  He sucked in his breath, gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to move. He wasn’t going to blow it now. No way.

  Deserting his palm, Claire’s fingers walked up the inside of his bare arm. Considerably more than his biceps twitched.

  In strangled tones he muttered a warning. “Claire! You don’t know what—”

  “Oh, yes, I do.” She touched her lips to his. A brief butterfly kiss and then she was away, back to the far end of the couch, hands folded primly in her lap. From under lowered lashes she said, “That was an IOU. Maybe this weekend . . . ?”

  He wouldn’t sleep all night and he bet she knew it. Claire Langdon was about as helpless as a piranha. “I’ll call you,” he muttered, and fled along the deck, down the outside stairs and into the night.

  Paula Marks was no one’s fool. She’d even snatched a few hot listings out from under Phil Tierney’s nose. She hated sitting Open Houses. Stupid waste of time. Nine years in real estate and she’d never written a contract as the result of an Open House.

  And today was worse than usual. Everyone must still be recovering from the holiday. She’d thought to try Saturday for a change. Brilliant! She had yet to see anyone other than a nosy neighbor.

  She’d kept busy on the phone, chatting up her owners, letting them know she was on the job. Real estate was not a profession for those who loathed the telephone.

  A blast of hot air brought Paula’s sagging sales instincts surging to the fore. She smiled blindly into the sunlight silhouetting the figure in the doorway.

  “I hope it was all right to just walk in?” A rich baritone, polite, sincere.

  The door closed, shutting out the brilliant light and heat, and there he was. Handsome, smiling, well dressed. Alone. Just what a single woman needed in the midst of a boring Saturday afternoon.

  Paula wound up her phone conversation fast. She advanced across the room, hand outstretched in greeting. “I’m Paula Marks,” she declared warmly. “Sorry to keep you waiting. This is a three bedroom. Is that the size home you’re looking for?” Okay, Paula, so you’re fishing. He probably knows it too. You could have been a bit more subtle about finding out if he’s after a home for the wife and kiddies.

  “I’m flexible,” the man replied easily. “There’s only me. I’m just looking for something I like that I can actually afford.” He smiled. A confiding, you-understand-the-bottom-line sort of smile. “What’s the price?”

  He considered her reply. “A bit steep,” he conceded, “but I’ll look around anyway. You never can tell.”

  Incredible. Paula attempted to stifle a rush of arousal. His eyes roamed her figure, his body language blatantly provocative. Almost as if he radiated some secret aphrodisiac. What his mouth said was the merest commonplace. What she was hearing was: What are you doing for dinner tonight?

  Paula had had exactly three dates since her divorce the year before. Soulful eyes—bedroom eyes—could not to be ignored. “Why don’t I just show you around?” she purred.

  “I’d like that.” With a gallant sweep of his hand, and a look that sent a wave of heat rushing to her already flushed face, he gestured for her to lead the way.

  By the time they entered the master suite Paula was holding on to her dignity by a thread. Only years of experience brought coherent sentences from her dazed mind and palpating body. “The master suite takes a kingsize bed without crowding,” she spouted automatically. “Notice the luggage shelf in the walk-in closet.”

  He dogged her footsteps, invaded her personal space. His breath caressed the back of her neck.

  Paula darted into the master bath and put her back to the wall. There was, after all, a limit to this sort of thing. They couldn’t very well jump into bed with Open House arrows in bright vermilion pointing the world straight to the front door. Dear God, she hadn’t thought she was this vulnerable . . . this man-hungry. It was embarrassing.

  “You’ll notice there’s a separate shower and the tub doubles as a whirlpool.” Her voice resounded, hoarse and breathless. She was sure she was turning purple.

  He glanced politely at the spacious bathroom’s amenities, then turned and smiled. It was a lovely smile, a you’re-so-good kind of smile. So why did her arousal—and shame—suddenly turn to terror?

  No time to analyze the feral gleam that animated his face. Blind instinct sent Pa
ula dashing for the door.

  She never made it.

  He grabbed her arm. Using her own momentum against her, he slung her backward toward the square tub, then head first into the unyielding ceramic of the toilet tank. Stunned, she crumpled onto the mauve-streaked tiles, her head coming to rest at an awkward angle against the bidet.

  He was still smiling when he clamped his hands around her throat.

  He no longer had any doubts. He preferred his women dead.

  Claire grasped Jamie by both hands and swung him in wide circles around her in the waist-deep water. The soft swell of an incoming wave rose over his head. Jamie came up grinning and shouting, “More, more!”

  “Either you’re getting too big or I’m getting too old,” Claire gasped, dropping his hands as she panted for breath. “Last year this was easy, but I think you’re going to have to make your own whirlies from now on.”

  “Aw, mom, you’re not that old.”

  “I am infinitely old,” Claire pronounced, raising her aching arms to wring the water out of her dripping hair.

  “You’ve got a boyfriend.”

  Claire eyed her son sharply. He was a miniature of Jim Langdon in more ways than looks. Jamie was being perfectly reasonable. Mom had a boyfriend. Therefore she wasn’t yet over the hill. “Maybe we’d better talk about that,” she said. “Let’s go find our towels, okay?”

  “Sure.” Jamie swam the few strokes necessary to bring him to knee-deep water, then splashed happily through the gentle surf, scampering ahead of her over the hot sand until he reached the place where they had spread their beach towels.

  When they’d dried off and added a new layer of sunscreen, Claire ran her hands through the pile of shells, sharks’ teeth, and small polished rocks Jamie had collected earlier. She was stalling for time. Thinking hard. This was a new experience. How do you ask your son for permission to go on a date? No, that wasn’t all of it. She wanted his approval for far more than that. And if Jamie said he hated Brad Blue, what would she do? But he didn’t hate Brad. She knew she was safe, so she didn’t hesitate to ask. Pure sophistry.