Welcome to Paradise

by Rosalind James

  And it was, he thought now with yet another stab of worry for Mira. Scott was seated next to Lupe at the end of the front row of benches opposite. Rachel rounded out the row, with the rest of the men on the bench behind them. Scott was still on the outside, obviously. Literally. Well, Gabe hadn’t expected anything else. Alec had hated the man from the first moment, and Hank and Calvin were no fools. Stripped of his lawyer clothes and the black BMW, what was Scott? Not anyone Gabe would have wanted on any kind of team. Out for himself, first and last.

  “Most importantly,” Cliff began, “let me assure all of you that Martin’s going to be all right. His Olympic sprinting career is probably a thing of the past, but the doctors tell me that everything should heal up just fine, and he’s already doing much better. Thanks to some pretty good first aid, they say,” he added with a nod at Gabe. “Which kept him from losing any more blood than he did.”

  “I just took over from Mira,” Gabe said. “She was the hero of the hour. Kept her head and did exactly the right things.” He looked across at her and smiled, saw her glow at his praise, even as she looked a bit flustered at the scrutiny from the opposite homestead, the knowledge that the camera was on her.

  He saw Scott’s obvious discomfiture and felt even better. Looked the challenge straight across at him. Going to take her away from you. And saw that the message was received, loud and clear.

  “I hear it wasn’t the only adventure you had yesterday, Mira,” Cliff said. “Talk about what happened earlier.”

  “Gabe can really say more,” Mira demurred. “He was there. I guess it was a close call, but that’s all.”

  “Take us through it, then, Gabe,” Cliff suggested.

  “We’ve had a little bit of everything,” Gabe said wryly. “Comedy to tragedy. Though it could’ve been a whole lot worse, in all cases.” As he described their garden fiasco, then the episode with the shotgun, he watched Scott’s expression grow ever darker, and his satisfaction changed to something a little less comfortable.

  “There’s been some excitement with the shotgun at Arcadia too, hasn’t there?” Cliff asked innocently as Gabe finished his recital. “Scott, what happened over there?”

  “Nothing,” Scott said shortly. “I chased off some deer, that’s all. Trying to get in the garden.”

  “Which isn’t fenced yet, I hear,” Cliff persisted. “Hank?”

  “Well . . .” Hank shot a glance at Alec, then down at Scott on the bench below him. “No. We haven’t got it fenced yet. We had a little . . . difference of opinion on a couple matters, ended up with some variation in the depth of our post holes. Turns out that they weren’t dug quite deep enough after all.”

  “So what happened?” Cliff asked.

  “The fence fell down, that’s what,” Calvin said bluntly. “Had to pull every . . . blessed post out of the ground and dig the holes deeper, and now we’re going to have to put the whole thing up again.”

  He glared across at Scott, who looked back at him defiantly. “It should have worked,” Scott snapped. “I was just trying to get the job done as efficiently as possible.”

  “Well, yeah,” Hank drawled. “Except it didn’t work, did it? So needless to say, we’re still sleeping out there, guarding our vegetables. And some of us guard more . . . enthusiastically than others.”

  “I was scaring the deer off,” Scott argued, his face flushing. “That’s why we have the gun.”

  “Duke was doing a pretty good job already,” Hank pointed out.

  “But I’m sure you’ve frightened them into the next county now,” Alec added with patently false sincerity. “Letting off both barrels at once like that. Good job.” He looked across at his brother and grinned, and Gabe got the message. Double team.

  “How did that happen?” Cliff pressed.

  Scott gave a quick, angry shrug of his shoulders. “I pulled both triggers. Which is way too easy to do. If you’d given us a modern shotgun like you should have, instead of some antique model, that couldn’t have happened.”

  “And what did that do?” Cliff asked.

  “Knocked him on his ass, is what it did,” Alec responded promptly. “And gave him the mother of all bruises too. You should see his shoulder. Want to have Gabe take a look, Scott? He’s a pretty good doctor, you know. Ask Mira. Sounds like she knows.”

  The look Scott shot him was pure poison. “We’ve all faced challenges out here,” he snarled. “Nobody’s been all that impressed with your performance either.”

  “You think I should be worried?” Alec asked in mock alarm. “I’d better do some quick scrambling this week, I guess. Work on my alliances.”

  “I understand you practiced a little gender role reversal over there too, since the last time we were here, when we had our discussion about that,” Cliff said after a moment.

  “Yeah, we tried that too,” Alec agreed. “Since everything else was going so great. It didn’t work too well either. Surprise.”

  Gabe saw Chelsea and Melody look at each other on the jury bench. Arlene wasn’t with them. Staying with Martin, he guessed. But the blondes seemed to know what Alec was talking about.

  “I thought she had a point,” Rachel put in. “I mean,” she went on, “Arlene was right that in 1885, single women, widows, they homesteaded too. And they would have had to do everything themselves. We’ve already all figured out,” she said with a wry glance at Lupe, who nodded agreement, “that they had to be pretty tough in the first place. So when Arlene wanted to see what that was like, I kind of admired that.”

  “But you didn’t want to join her,” Cliff suggested.

  Rachel laughed. “Well, no. Pulling up all that water, taking care of the garden is bad enough. Not to mention the horror of the laundry. Isn’t that the worst?” She looked across at the other homestead, received nods and smiles of recognition. “I don’t need to be digging holes too. And I’m pretty sure that cooking breakfast is more fun than shoveling . . . manure.”

  “How long did that last?” Cliff asked.

  “One day,” Alec grinned. “Give her credit, she worked hard, but by dinner . . . What was it she said?” he asked Calvin.

  “Said, ‘I think we’ve all learned a lot from this experiment,’” Calvin said, clearly keeping his face straight with an effort, “‘but I’m satisfied that I’ve proved my point.’”

  “I’m not saying a woman couldn’t do the physical work out here,” he added with a hasty glance at his father, “and props to Arlene for trying it. But I think you’d have to be in shape, 1885 style. Growing up doing all that, you’d be talking some upper-body strength. But Arlene—not so much.”

  After the session, they were given a bit of time to talk to their teammates on the other side. With the cameras still trained on them, of course. Kevin had been right, clearly. This get-together was all about furthering the storyline: the strength of the original teams, the pull of the new homesteads.

  “Coming on a little strong, aren’t you, with Scott?” Gabe asked Alec after performing their ritual handshake and giving his brother a quick hug. Damn, it was good to see him.

  Alec shrugged. “Why not? Not like he’s got any friends out here. Lupe’s the only one who’s even civil to him at this point. Well, Hank. But he just says he’s known so many assholes after forty years in the music business, one more doesn’t even register.”

  “What you said at the beginning, though,” Gabe persisted. “About him imploding. He looks on the verge right now.”

  “So? What’s he going to do? And who are you to talk? You did everything but lay a big wet one on Mira right in front of him.”

  “That was before I saw how far he was down the road,” Gabe said slowly. “You need to back off. His ego can’t take much more.”

  “His ego got supersized a long time ago. He’s got plenty to spare.”

  “It’s big,” Gabe agreed. “But it’s fragile as hell. Quit baiting him so much. I mean it. I don’t have a good feeling.”

  Alec sighed. “If you say
so. You’re the one with the X-ray vision. You sure, though? I keep pushing him, he’s bound to do something outrageous enough to make even the lovely Mira give him the boot. And you can’t tell me that isn’t what you’re aiming for.”

  “I’ll take care of things with Mira,” Gabe said. “You just take care of yourself. And that means backing off.”

  “What else is happening over there?” he asked after a minute. “You doing all right with Hank and Calvin?”

  “Yeah. They’re both cool.”

  “Close, though?” Gabe pressed.

  Alec sighed. “Yes. Close. And yes, we have a plan.”

  “How about Rachel and Lupe? Where do they fit into it?”

  “A little tougher,” Alec acknowledged. “I’ve been working on Rachel. And no,” he put up a hand to forestall the next question, “I’m not going to be the poster boy for America Alive sluttiness this season. We’ve talked about adventure sports. She’s really into them, and so is Calvin. That’s all the bonding I’m doing with her. I’d be scared anyway. That woman knows a lot of knots.”

  “And Lupe?”

  “Surprisingly tricky. She likes Hank a lot, but she likes the rest of us too.”

  “So how is that tricky?”

  “She’s probably the swing vote, if Rachel gets sneaky and pulls Hank in. Hank’s a great guy, but a big threat to win. He’s been singing over there. That’s just way too endearing. And Lupe’s close to Rachel too. Scott’s a non-factor, but if the other three get together, and as popular as Hank is . . .”

  “The celebrity factor’s a tough one to beat,” Gabe agreed. “Same story over here on the allies. I’m tight with Stanley, pretty good with Zara and Kevin, though he’s a tricky bastard. He and Rachel have the best shot at making it further in the game, but we can win against them—if they don’t maneuver us out first, like you say.”

  “And all that’s important,” he finished, “but don’t forget what we started out with. Don’t push Scott to breaking point. He’s way too close already.”

  Mira watched Scott approach, dreading the coming minutes. He was still looking thunderous after the needling remarks from the other homesteaders. She knew how important appearances were to him, and nobody could say that he’d made a good impression just now. The knowledge that whatever he was about to say would be recorded made her cringe a bit inside.

  “Sorry to hear about your shoulder,” she said as he joined her. “Is it all right?”

  He brushed her question aside. “I’m fine. We don’t have much time, so listen. I’m having to rework alliances, now that Arlene and Chelsea are gone. Why did Martin have to go and chop his foot? That’s screwed things up royally.”

  “He was badly hurt,” Mira protested. “He was so lucky it wasn’t worse, and it was serious enough as it was. He could even have died, Gabe said, if he’d hit an artery or something. I was so glad when Gabe told me I did the right thing. It seemed like forever until he got there. The whole thing was terrifying,” she said with a shudder of remembered horror. “And it made me realize that there are things a whole lot more important than a million dollars. Or winning a game.”

  Surely Scott would say something about what she’d done. She didn’t think she’d been a hero, but she had kept her head. And it hadn’t been easy.

  “You hadn’t worked the alliance with Martin anyway, though, had you?” he accused instead.

  “No.” She refused to feel bad about that. “He almost shot me, for heaven’s sake! Nobody was going to keep him after that, even if he hadn’t left the gate open.”

  “He didn’t shoot you, though, did he?” Scott pressed. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, because I know you’re doing your best, but I need to tell you that it isn’t coming across well, the way you’ve presented all this. It’s looking like you have to be the center of every story. Because what I was hearing back there was: I was almost shot. I had to save the day when Martin got hurt. When actually, nothing at all happened when Martin let off the shotgun, did it?”

  “No,” she agreed, “but . . .”

  “Sweetie. Nothing happened,” he said patiently. “No more than it did when I shot at the deer. Both Martin and I did what we were trained to do out here, scare off some animals. And Gabe’s the one who did the important stuff for Martin when he got hurt, not you, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, but he said what I did was really helpful,” she argued.

  “I’m glad he made you feel good, but I’m sure you could have left it to him and everything would have been fine. I’m telling you this for your own good, sweetie. We’ll do a lot better out here if you aren’t trying so hard to be the Queen Bee. Everyone can see what you’re doing, and it’s not attractive.”

  “Now,” he went on smoothly, cutting off her protest, “we’ve got our work cut out for us. It looks like you’re doing all right with Maria-Elena and Zara, and it’s obvious Stanley likes you. I’ll work Hank and Lupe. I don’t think I can get Rachel,” he conceded, “but I may be able to turn Calvin against Alec. I’ve got a couple ideas there. Alec and Gabe are an obvious threat to win. That’s where I’m going, and I need you to plant that same seed on your side.”

  “I’m not going to do that!” Mira protested, glancing over at Mike, wishing he weren’t recording this. “It wouldn’t work anyway. Gabe gets along with everyone. The women love him, and he’s friends with both the guys. And he’s the strongest one out here.”

  “If he’s strong,” Scott explained, with the air of someone holding onto his patience by a thread, “that just makes him more of a threat. Try to think strategically. Anybody with any sense has to be thinking about voting him out at this point. You just need to work that. Be subtle. Ask them first, who do they think is the biggest threat to win? And if they say Gabe, you can say, ‘I wonder if we should consider voting him out? What do you think?’ Like that.”

  “But if we voted him off,” she argued, “our homestead would be weaker for sure. Nobody’s going to go for that.”

  He shrugged. “Two men left over there, and Stanley and Kevin are both strong. The challenges are all that really matter.”

  “Gabe’s a lot stronger than Kevin,” she felt compelled to point out. “Stronger than Stanley too. That’s obvious. There’s nothing I can say that’s going to change people’s minds on that.”

  “Exactly why he needs to go,” Scott snapped. “You just have to make the others see that. And try harder to fly under the radar yourself.”

  She wasn’t going to do it, Mira thought rebelliously a few minutes later, as Paradise began the walk home. It wouldn’t work anyway, and she wasn’t going to try. If she and Scott were voted out, they were voted out. There was no chance they would win anyway, so what did it matter?

  “Doing all right?” Zara asked, coming up to walk beside her.

  “Yeah,” Mira said slowly.

  “Good to see Scott?”

  “Um . . .” No. “Can I ask you something?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Sure.”

  “When I was talking back there . . . Did I seem . . . stuck on myself? Like I was trying to make it all about me?”

  Zara looked at her sharply. “Kevin,” she called back, “come up here.”

  “No, wait,” Mira protested.

  Zara ignored her. “Now, Kevin, my darling,” she began when he joined them. “Mira would like to know whether she seemed stuck on herself, back in our little assembly. Whoever do you think could have put that idea into her head?”

  “That’s what he had to say to you after today?” Kevin asked in astonishment. “What’s he going to do next, try to convince you that up is down? Day is night?”

  “I didn’t think I did,” Mira said boldly. “And neither of you thought so either. Be honest.”

  Kevin sighed. “Honey. He’s screwed the pooch over there, and he knows it. He’s scrambling like mad to somehow make it your fault when you guys get voted off. If he doesn’t end up “accidentally” shot first himself.”

  �
��Hey, Stanley!” he called.

  “Hmm?” Stanley rumbled, turning on the path ahead of them.

  “What’s that thing they had in Vietnam, when some unpopular second lieutenant would end up an unfortunate casualty of war?” Kevin demanded.

  “Fragging,” Stanley replied instantly. Then looked at Mira with a twinkle of speculation.

  “That’s right,” Kevin said with satisfaction. “I think Boyfriend’s about due to get himself fragged. And I for one wouldn’t prosecute.”

  A Walk Down Memory Lane

  Back at the cabin again, Kevin and Stanley took themselves off to see to the animals.

  “You ladies need anything?” Gabe asked the women as Maria-Elena relit the stove. “We’re about done outside for today. Put me to use.”

  “Chop some wood,” Zara decided. “Getting low. Martin was supposed to do more yesterday, and needless to say, that didn’t happen. And if you wouldn’t mind pulling up a few more buckets of water for us, too, that’d help.”

  “Got it,” he agreed, and headed outside again.

  “I was thinking that we could stew the rabbits this time,” Mira suggested to the others. “I could get some carrots and onions to go in with them, some green beans to add near the end. And I saw a recipe for dumplings in our recipe box. They look easy, and they’d cook right on top of the stew. That’d be almost the whole meal, and less to wash.”

  “I like your thinking,” Zara decided.

  “I could maybe bake a pie with some of those cherries, once we get the stew started,” Maria-Elena offered. “I’ll stay in here and do that.”

  And have a chance to talk to Gabe, Mira thought with a bit of amusement. She couldn’t really feel jealous, despite her own growing attraction. Gabe couldn’t have treated Maria-Elena any more like a little sister. And Maria-Elena was clearly enjoying her crush so very much.

  “We’re getting pretty competent, aren’t we?” she said with a smile for the girl. “It’s only been a couple weeks. Zara already knew how to cook, of course. But aren’t you kind of amazed that you and I can do all this?”