“The bugs in this part of the world are why I’m here,” she reminded him.
“I don’t think of bees as bugs, somehow,” he said.
“Neither do I. To me, they’re special.”
“Want to tell me a little bit about your work?”
“I might as well. It looks as if you’re as wide-awake as I am.”
“Yeah,” he said, with a glance at Caloosa, who was finishing off the palmetto bug’s legs with a satisfied smirk.
“Well, the type of bee that I study doesn’t live in a hive, nor are there queens, workers and drones, as there are in colonies of social bees. My bees are called solitary bees. The species I study nests in existing hollows in the ground or in trees, and Halos Island is the only place where the species exists.”
“That hardly seems like enough of a reason to stay here for three years,” he said.
“We weren’t talking about that. I thought you wanted to know about my work,” Angel said in a hurt tone.
Stuart had spent most of the last year crewing on sailboats. The kind of women he’d met in waterfront dives along the way weren’t exactly the sensitive type. He’d almost forgotten how to get along with your average, ordinary, all-American girl.
“Go ahead,” he said. “I’m listening.”
Angel, after a long, penetrating look, went on to speak of bees and pollination, and he made himself concentrate on her low musical voice.
“And,” concluded Angel with a wry twist to her voice, “if all this information about bees doesn’t put you to sleep, probably nothing will.” She stood up, and he caught a tantalizing glimpse of one rounded breast through the opaque fabric of her gown.
He didn’t want her to leave. “Do you know that when you talk about your work, your face lights up and your eyes shine? You manage to make the most tedious facts interesting.”
Angel blinked at him. “I do?” she said.
“Rehearsing those vows, are you?” he said, meaning to tease her out of her seriousness.
She bit her lip. “I’m glad you can joke about it. I can’t. At least not yet.”
He stood up. To give her credit, she never let her gaze drop below his shoulders. He, on the other hand, could barely keep his eyes off the curvaceous lines of her figure, outlined by the hall light behind her. He wanted nothing so much as to touch her at that moment, to run his fingertips down the soft skin of her neck, to cup her chin and turn her face toward his.
“Thinking about marrying each other is bound to be difficult at this stage of the game. We hardly know each other,” he said softly.
“Neither do bees. They mate and never see each other again. The female lays her eggs, and then they hatch,” she said, talking so fast that he knew she was nervous.
“Birds do that, too. And now I suppose we’ve had the requisite lecture on the birds and the bees,” he said.
“You’re making fun of me,” she said.
“All I’m making is conversation. If you don’t like it, we can sit here and stare at each other, feeling more uncomfortable by the minute.”
“I’m going back to bed,” she said.
“Not so fast,” he said, his arm shooting out to bar her way.
“Stuart, it’s late. I have to get up early in the morning to go out to the east meadow, where I’m tracking pollination,” she said, but she didn’t meet his eyes.
“I’m aware of the time. I—well, I only wanted to say that I have no qualms about what we are going to do. You’ll be a fine mother for my child. I’m sure of it.” He waited to see what she would say.
Finally she looked at him. “You’re not just saying that? You mean it?” Her eyes searched his face.
“I mean it,” he said. “And—”
“And what?”
“And as for the mating, or whatever you want to call it, well, I want to. I desire you, Angel. But you already knew that, didn’t you?” He wanted to put her at ease, but his words seemed to make her more agitated.
Her chin shot up. “That makes it easy, then, doesn’t it?”
“I hope it won’t be difficult for you, either,” he said. He desperately needed assurance that he was as desirable to her as she was to him.
She didn’t give it to him, and he instantly regretted showing her how needy he was.
“No problem,” she said succinctly before pushing past him.
He heard her close and lock the door to her room, shutting him out.
He wouldn’t have gone to her, anyway. Stuart had every intention of waiting until they were married. He had promised her there would be no sex before marriage, and an Adams was, above all, a man of his word. It was an attribute that had been dinned into him by virtue of background and training ever since he was a small boy.
All the same, he lay awake on the uncomfortable couch bed until the early-morning hours, thinking about Angel sleeping only a few feet away, thinking about sleeping beside her, and thinking about all the ways he knew how to pleasure her when he finally did.
In the meantime, he’d have to figure out some way to get a good night’s sleep on this miserable bed.
After a good bit of thrashing about, he finally curled up in as small a ball as possible, figuring that this position would minimize the damage to his spine. It wouldn’t do to be incapacitated on his wedding night.
* * *
PARADISE.
Halos Island was paradise, so of course it had an Angel.
And angelfish, swimming in the limpid depths of the green-glass water near the coral reef.
These were Stuart’s pleasant thoughts as he plunged into the surf the next morning, snorkel in mouth, flippers on feet. He’d found the gear in the closet in the living room and, for lack of anything better to do after rehanging the kitchen cabinet, he’d decided to explore the coral reef.
He’d been immediately glad he had. Here on the west side of the island, the water was so clear that the myriad colors of the reef were incredible. Lacy branches of coral undulated with the motion of the waves; fish swam past him, flicking his skin with their cool, silvery fins. Another world, beautiful and mysterious, existed beneath the surface of the water.
He hadn’t gone snorkeling since he and Valerie had explored the wreck of a fishing boat on the rocks off Nantucket years ago. Valerie had always been up for anything he suggested, always ready to take a dare. Once, when they were children, she had leaped off a high bluff into the crashing breakers below. Another time, in Boston, when they were teenagers, she had led them into one of the city’s most crime-ridden districts on a scavenger hunt; they had barely escaped being mugged.
And, on the night she died, she had dared him to accelerate over the sand dunes. Or at least that was what his brother, Fitz, who had been the only witness to what happened that night, said. He couldn’t remember, didn’t know why he’d even been driving Valerie’s brand-new Takawa Tsunami, a notoriously unstable vehicle, over such steep and soft terrain. He only knew that when he woke up in the hospital after days in a coma and with no memory of the accident, they had told him that Valerie was dead.
His well-hidden anger at this unfair twist of fate seethed inside him, and he kicked out forcefully, propelling himself into deeper water, purging the past in a sudden burst of energy. The past was over and done with, and he was on his way to someplace far away where he could start a new life, make new friends, and forget the whole nightmarish experience.
His sudden spurt of activity startled a school of creole wrasses, sending them flashing toward the open sea. He swam harder, wanting to swim until his muscles ached, until he was totally exhausted, but water seeping into his mask and stinging his eyes with salt finally made him lift his head. That was when he heard Angel’s urgent shouts from the beach.
When his eyes cleared, he saw that she was waving both hands and jumping up and down, and he couldn’t understand a word she was saying. Whatever it was, it seemed important enough to head for shore, employing the powerful crawl stroke that had made him a collegiate swim cha
mpion in his younger days.
As he waded onto the beach, Angel regarded him with her hands on her hips and an impatient scowl.
“Did you see the moray eel?” she said.
He pushed his hair back from his face. “Is there one?”
“Yes, a big one. He lives in a cave near the place where you were swimming.”
“I missed him. Or he missed me,” Stuart said, trying not to concentrate on the soft sensuality of Angel’s lower lip.
She was oblivious to the way he was looking at her. “The eel won’t bother you unless you disturb him. If you’d stirred him up, you’d have regretted it, and so would I. My limited first-aid skills don’t extend to coping with the results of eel attacks.”
Stuart tossed the mask and snorkel aside and flung himself down on the damp sand, where he proceeded to remove the flippers. He took care to keep his back turned away from Angel so that she wouldn’t see the narrow scar to the left of his spine; he didn’t want to have to explain it, at least not today.
“Maybe you’d better take a minute to fill me in on the dangers of this island,” he said. “Moray eels and flying cockroaches have convinced me that the whole place is a hazard.”
“They’re not flying cockroaches. They’re palmetto bugs,” Angel reminded him. After a moment’s hesitation, she sat down beside him.
Stuart exhaled an exasperated sigh and studied the curvature of her hip, which was only inches from his. “Palmetto bugs, then,” he conceded.
Angel had assumed a matter-of-fact tone, the kind he imagined she’d employ when lecturing a group of students. “The island is as safe as anyplace when you know how to live here,” she said. “For instance, sharks seldom penetrate past the coral reef, so don’t go swimming outside.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Then there are the dive-bombing mockingbirds. They’re nesting, and when their young are nearby, they’ll chase you unmercifully. I saw one ride on Caloosa’s back all the way down the dock the other day.”
“I’m not as worried about birds as I am about snakes,” he told her.
“You mostly have to watch for rattlesnakes on this island. You could possibly run across coral snakes and their lookalikes, the king snakes. Coral snakes are poisonous, and king snakes aren’t, but they both have black, red and yellow stripes in a different order, depending on which kind they are. The way to remember is, ‘red touching yellow, dangerous fellow.’”
“Red touching yellow, dangerous fellow. All right, anything else?”
“Keep an eye out for scorpions—they’re arachnids with curved tails, and their sting is painful and toxic.”
“Do I need to worry about the bees?”
“If you stay away from them, they’ll stay away from you.”
“Is that what you do?”
“I spend almost all my time observing them.”
“Ever been stung?”
“I’ve been hurt worse by contact with humans.”
He stared at her for a moment. She was serious. He’d touched a nerve, but he decided not to pursue it.
“Anything else I need to worry about?” he asked.
“The weather. It changes fast in the tropics. You’ll see waterspouts—tornadoes over water—regularly. We have horrendous thunderstorms at this time of year, continuing all summer. And, of course, we have hurricanes, but there’s usually plenty of time to leave the island before one of those hits. Far more dangerous are tropical storms, because they can spring up without much warning, but as long as you’re not in a boat when one arrives, it’s usually not too big a deal.”
“I’ve been thinking about getting a sailboat while I’m here, just for the fun of it,” he said.
She shook her head. “You may not be here long. I plan to get pregnant right away.” She scooped idly at the sand, raking it into whorled patterns; her fingernails were short and curved, like pink shells.
“Oh? And what makes you think you will?” He was frankly mystified by her certainty that it would be so easy.
“Maybe that’s what I prefer to think,” she said.
“So I’ll get the hell out of here?” he shot back, regretting it immediately when he saw how it affected her.
She stared at him for an instant before jumping to her feet. “I didn’t say that. You did,” she said before dusting the sand off her shapely derriere and flouncing up the beach.
Stuart watched her until she disappeared into the trees. She struck him as a bit touchy and definitely temperamental. Well, maybe he’d been off base saying what he had, especially since she’d obviously come here to get away from people. Sometimes when he let his own guard down, his anger erupted unexpectedly, and besides, he was impatient with her standoffishness, which, under these admittedly peculiar circumstances, seemed ridiculous.
But what did it matter? As soon as Angel was pregnant, he’d be off for another port. Tahiti, maybe. Or New Zealand. Somewhere in the South Seas.
One thing he knew for sure. If Angel McCabe didn’t get pregnant right away, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying on his part.
* * *
AS A PEACE OFFERING, Stuart decided to provide dinner. He spent the early afternoon waist-deep in water under the dock, chipping oysters off the dock pilings with a hammer and chisel. Caloosa, curious in the way of cats, kept him company, peering down at him between the boards and occasionally poking one of her large paws through a crack.
When they returned to the house, there was no sign of Angel, but the cat seemed agreeable to following the bag of oysters with its interesting scent to the rocky beach below the bungalow, where Stuart proceeded to build a driftwood fire. He nursed the dry tinder, shielding it from the wind with his body, until a tiny flame licked at the dry wood.
Once the fire grew to the point where it no longer needed tending, Stuart walked the short distance back to the house and rummaged around in the pantry until he found a large, flat piece of metal that would work admirably for roasting oysters. He noticed that Angel’s bedroom door was closed, and he was sure it had been open earlier.
“Angel?”
She replied with a cautious “Yes?”
“Come down to the beach. I’m cooking dinner, and we can eat there,” he said. He took two baking potatoes from the pantry and stuffed them in a paper bag, along with leftover three-bean salad and half a stick of butter. Plates, plates...he recalled seeing paper plates on the shelf of the closet where he kept his clothes, and he went to get them.
“You’re cooking dinner?” Although she sounded intrigued, Angel still didn’t come out of her room.
“Yes. My turn,” he said. With the plates was a package of plastic forks and knives; he dropped several of them in his shirt pocket.
Silence fairly screamed from the other side of Angel’s door, so he picked up the bag and the sheet metal and left, taking along a big piece of burlap he spotted hanging from the railing of the back stoop.
Maybe Angel wouldn’t show up. If she doesn’t, do I care? he asked himself as he made his way down the overgrown path. He didn’t have to care about her. She certainly didn’t care about him, except as a means to an end.
But he did care; he couldn’t help it.
The sun was setting on the west side of the island, bathing the beach in a mellow golden glow. Caloosa scampered here and there, chasing tiny crabs into their burrows as Stuart tended the fire.
“Better watch it, or you’ll get bitten,” Stuart warned, but the cat only glared at him for a moment and sat down to wait for an elusive crab to reappear.
When the fire had subsided into a bed of hot coals, Stuart balanced the piece of sheet metal over the fire on four hefty rocks and buried the potatoes in the ashes. As he was washing his hands off in the surf, he glimpsed Angel walking down the path carrying a cooler and a tote bag. She looked determined, as if meeting him for dinner were something that she felt honor bound to do.
He felt a quick surge of anger. She was as aware of the sexual chemistry between them as he was, and he w
ished she’d stop pretending that it didn’t exist. If they didn’t make headway soon in establishing a personal relationship, their wedding night was doomed to be as awkward as hell.
Take it easy, man, he told himself as he watched her picking her way through clumps of sea grape bushes. You won’t get anywhere by making her angry. He figured he’d better temper his annoyance and establish a congenial atmosphere; otherwise, the whole deal could be scuttled.
Angel’s greeting was subdued, although her clothes were anything but. She was wearing a bright red blouse tucked into very short plaid shorts, and her hair was drawn back into a high ponytail to expose the white nape of her neck.
“I brought dessert,” she said. “It’s half a chocolate cake that I put in the freezer about a month ago.” She pulled a package out of the tote bag and handed it to him.
He adopted a genial expression that he hoped would put her at ease.
“We’ll set the cake here, on top of this log,” he said, taking it from her.
She opened the cooler. “And here’s a bottle of wine that I didn’t know what to do with. I brought plastic glasses, too.”
Wine. He wished he’d thought of it. A few good swigs might help her to loosen up.
“Where’d you find the oysters?” Angel walked over and looked at the bag.
“On the dock pilings,” he said. “There are a lot of them.”
“I know, but I never thought of eating any,” she said. Looking as if she weren’t sure what to do with herself, she finally sat down and stretched her legs out toward the ocean so that the waves spilled their foam near her feet.
“Don’t you like oysters?” he asked.
“Sure, but when I’m hungry, it’s easier to open a can of something,” she said, wiggling her toes in the sand and stretching back so that the long line of her neck was exposed. Stuart swallowed and looked away. He was sure that she had no idea how it affected him when she so unconsciously struck a seductive pose, as she often did.
“Well. This is pleasant, Stuart. I should take time to relax like this more often,” she said, gazing out at the breaking waves.
“Why don’t you?” he said, still not looking at her. He uncorked the wine with the corkscrew on his Swiss army knife and poured each of them a glass.
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