Here’s another chance to read this unforgettable tale of romance and suspense from New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham!
It was supposed to be a great gig: a high-profile photo shoot in the Florida Everglades, with Ashely Dane modeling a set of famous emeralds. Instead, Ashley finds herself fleeing through the swamp after witnessing a murder. Writer Eric Hawk is also on the run—he’s being hunted by a man from his past. Ashley doesn’t completely trust Eric, but she has no one else to turn to…and she finds him irresistible. Unrelenting threats keep them on the move through the dangerous terrain, and although they come from different worlds, their deepening feelings for each other make them believe they might have a future together…if they make it out alive.
Borrowed Angel
Heather Graham
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
CHAPTER 1
“There’s nothing a woman needs…. Nothing…but the primitive earth…and her Tyler jewels. Nothing, nothing at all….”
Stretched atop a fake boulder in the midst of wild orchids and lush foliage, the woman whispered the words softly and sensually for the camera. She was leaning on an elbow, her knees slightly bent, her mane of red hair curling over her shoulders. She wore a strapless tiger-striped bikini. Her lipstick was a fiery orange-red, and her green eye shadow brought out the highlights in her eyes. She wasn’t just beautiful; she was as erotic and sensual and arrestingly pagan as any man could imagine. Perhaps it was the abundance of her fire-colored hair. Perhaps it was her eyes, or the curve of her body, or maybe just the pulse of life that seemed to exude from her—seething, simmering, exciting. And dangerous, perhaps, but so vital that the sight of her, the sound of her whisper, seemed to dip into the very heart of every man’s fantasy and every woman’s dream of what she should be.
Around her throat she wore an emerald pendant. Emeralds dangled from her earlobes, and she wore one emerald ring and one emerald bracelet. Against the light tan of her flesh, the jewelry was striking. The emeralds matched her eyes. Eric Hawk was convinced that no woman could wear them more beguilingly.
He shifted suddenly, feeling uncomfortable. She was seducing him. She was making his heart beat too quickly, his breath come too hard, too fast. His muscles felt tightly wired. She seemed to be calling to every part of his body.
“Good!” someone called to the model.
She sighed, about to move from her perch. “Wait! Let’s go again!” the director of the commercial shouted.
The redhead gritted her teeth and glared at the man. She quickly covered the emotion, though, and waved to the young couple standing behind him.
She settled back down on the boulder. “There’s nothing a woman needs…. Nothing…but the primitive earth and her Tyler jewels. Nothing…nothing at all….”
She seemed to purr. Fascinating sensuality gleamed from her eyes. She was feline and graceful and striking.
Watching her, Eric Hawk had little notion that he was striking also. He was a tall man, nearly six-three. His hair was not just dark but the blue-black color of a raven’s wing. He wore his hair layered and slightly long. It fell over the edge of his collar and sometimes tumbled over his forehead and into his eyes. From the ancestors who had given him the color of his hair, he had inherited an arresting face. His cheekbones were high and and broad, his chin decidedly square, his nose long, and his eyes large and set wide apart. His brows matched his hair, and he was highly bronzed from constant exposure to the sun. Eric was an integral part of the wild and savage land where the company had come to film. He could move in absolute silence over the grasses and swamp and hummock alike, and he did so not with conscious thought, but by nature. He was as lean and sleek as the endangered panther that wandered the land; he could strike as swiftly as the snake.
From a different set of ancestors he had acquired one of his most striking features—his eyes. They were not the emerald shade of the model’s, but they, too, were green. And bright, penetrating, startling against the dark bronze color of his face. People looked his way and were caught by those eyes.
“One more time.”
“All right, all right!” the beautiful redhead called out. “One more time.” She paused, looking up at the sky.
The sun was leaving them. It was only early afternoon, but clouds were rolling in. Eric looked at the sky, too. There was a big storm brewing over Cuba and South Florida was on hurricane watch. The storm had barely gathered hurricane force during the last weather report Eric had seen, but he knew that storms picked up strength over the open water. Besides, here in the swamp, even a minor storm could be serious and even deadly. These people needed to finish—and get out.
He turned around and walked over to the handsome young couple who stood some distance from the director.
Rafe Tyler, tall and with a commanding presence, flashed him a friendly smile. “Mr. Hawk.” He extended a hand. “Nice to see you. We didn’t hear you’d come.”
His wife, Tara, a beautiful blonde with wide blue eyes, an enchanting smile and belly swollen with child, spoke softly. “Thank you for coming! And thank you again for the use of the property. I think it’s wonderful.”
“The ad was Tara’s conception,” Rafe explained.
Eric nodded, smiling at the couple. He had been startled by his liking the Tylers. Eric had read somewhere that Rafe was one of the hundred richest men in the world. He hadn’t expected a lot from the man, but curious about Rafe’s proposition, Eric had agreed to see him. He had been impressed with the man’s energy, but Eric had explained that he didn’t feel right about letting his land be used for a commercial and receiving a fee. Rafe had convinced him with a deal—Eric wouldn’t be paid; instead Rafe would make a large contribution toward building a vocational school for which Eric had been working long and hard. In the end, the contribution had doubled, because Rafe had liked the children and seen the need.
“Mrs. Tyler—” Eric began.
“Tara, please.”
“Tara, I think that it was a wonderful idea.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hawk.”
“Eric,” he said grinning.
She laughed easily. “Eric. Anyway, I’m very pleased. We thank you sincerely.”
“Thank you,” Eric said. He looked at the sky again. “I was just thinking that you should wrap up here soon. I could be wrong, but I think that the storm is coming this way.”
“We’ll leave soon,” Tara promised him. “I just want to say goodbye to Ashley.”
Rafe handed Eric a card. “If you’re ever in New York, or if I can ever do anything for you, please don’t hesitate to call.”
Tara touched his hand. “Please do come see us!” she urged.
He nodded. “Sure. I’ll come sometime,” he told her. “I’m going to go and see that my family is all battened down. Don’t take too long, now. A storm here is nothing to take a chance with.”
Rafe’s arm tightened protectively around his wife. “I promise you that we’ll be out quickly.”
Eric nodded to them, smiled again and headed for his airboat. His sister-in-law Wendy’s house wasn’t far, just right across the canal, and he wondered if he shouldn’t go back and bring the Tylers to Wendy’s. Then he shrugged, deciding that he should check on his own family first and return to see if the Tylers had made it out. With that plan in mind, Eric hastened on his way.
On her rock, Ashley Dane repeated her lines again. For the fifth “one more time.
”
She knew that Harrison Mosby, the director, was giving her a hard time on purpose. He was talented, young, handsome—and up-and-coming. She couldn’t stand him, and she was tired of the way he treated her, touching her, taunting her with off-color remarks. She had almost protested to Tara and Rafe about his being there, but she knew that Rafe thought Harrison was a good director. Rafe didn’t know him as a man. Ashley had decided to endure.
“That’s great, Ashley!” Tara called to her, smiling happily from behind the cameraman. Ashley grimaced. Tara would have said that she had done great even if she had looked and sounded like the Incredible Hulk. Tara had talked her into the assignment.
“Thanks.”
“Ashley, super!” Rafe proclaimed. He was the owner of the illustrious Tyler Jewels and Tara’s husband and Ashley’s good friend. “Let’s get one more, though, okay? We don’t want to have to come all the way back here to film again.” He looked at Harrison. “Just one more, Harrison. We have to get out of here. The storm is going to break.”
“The storm?” Harrison asked.
“The storm,” Rafe said firmly. Harrison shook his blond head, but he didn’t dare argue.
“Is one more okay, Ashley?” Tara questioned worriedly.
“Sure!” Ashley agreed. She looked Tara straight in the eye and shivered. Tara laughed. “Come on, Ashley, it’s not that bad!”
“You come over here and stare at this giant, man-eating reptile for a while!” Ashley said indignantly, indicating the live creature leashed not twenty-five feet away from her.
The reptile wasn’t all that big by alligator standards, Ashley had been assured. The gator’s name was Henry and he was only four feet long, but two feet of that seemed to be his mouth alone. Besides Henry, who had been hired and whose trainer would be well paid, there might be dozens of other creatures just hanging around for whatever—and whoever!
Ashley and Tara had come to the Florida Everglades years ago when they had both modeled for the world-famous Galliard. A cloud of scandal and danger had hung over Tara’s life at that time. It had been solved in Caracas only two years ago when she had met Rafe and they had discovered that the danger had been caused not only by an ex-flame, but by Galliard himself. Wealthy, charming Rafe had fallen in love with Tara, and she and Ashley had gone into fashion design for themselves.
When Ashley had first heard the setting for the commercial that would kick off the massive new ad campaign for Tyler Jewels, she had protested. “I don’t think that it’s right for me. I just don’t care for things that crawl.”
“Oh, Ashley!” Tara had laughed. “Rafe will be there and I’ll be there, and nothing will crawl over you, I promise. This is a big deal for us. We’re putting months of planning into it!”
“There are snakes and alligators and who knows what else out there in the Florida Everglades.”
“But we’ll be fine!”
“You do it! You’re a model.”
“I can’t do it!”
“Why not?”
“We’re going to have a baby!”
Ashley had stopped protesting then, because she had been so happy for Tara. Tara explained that they were planning the shoot earlier than Rafe really wanted just so she could be there.
Still, Ashley had never liked the idea of coming out to the swamp. She simply didn’t like things that buzzed and flew and crawled and slithered. Not insects, not snakes and certainly not the disgusting alligators that opened their mouths that were filled with endless rows of teeth and made noises that sounded remarkably like the grunts of pigs.
“Harrison,” Ashley said impatiently, wondering what he was waiting for.
“Makeup!” Harrison shouted. “Come on, people, get with it! She has a sheen like a neon light on her face. Let’s move, people, let’s move.”
Mitchell Newman, the makeup artist, quickly approached Ashley and powdered her face. Grace Neeley, his assistant, rushed up behind him to redo Ashley’s hair. Ashley closed her eyes and waited patiently. She gave Mitchell an encouraging smile; Harrison had been on his case all day, too.
To her horror, Ashley blew her lines on the next take.
“Ashley, how could you!” Harrison groaned.
“What’s the matter with the first takes?” she demanded.
“Take five!” Harrison snapped.
Gritting her teeth, Ashley jumped off the rock. She’d been afraid to leap to the ground in her bare feet, but she had been watching Tara, and thought that her friend looked very tired.
She smiled at Norm Dillon, Gene Hack and Tory Robinson, the three cameramen. Susie Weylon, the representative from Tyler Jewels, looked as if she were about to have apoplexy. “Ashley! The jewels!”
“I’m walking ten feet to see Tara, that’s it!” Ashley promised.
Susie stood back, looking disgruntled. “Be careful!” she warned.
“Of course!” Ashley said. She watched where she was walking and hurried to Tara and Rafe. Rafe smiled and kissed her on the cheek. “Perfect, Ashley.”
“Thanks.” She grinned, then laughed. “I feel ridiculous. As long as I’ve been a model, this is absolutely the least that I have ever had on. I wouldn’t do this for just anyone, you know. I feel as if I’m half naked.”
“You are half naked. And you’re a sweetie,” Tara said. She grinned broadly. “But honestly, you look great. Doesn’t she, Rafe?”
“Now, am I damned if I do and damned if I don’t answer that?” Rafe asked her, his eyes ablaze with tenderness.
“You’re to answer honestly.”
“You look great half naked, Ashley. And you, darling, look stunning pregnant.”
Tara laughed delightedly. “I look like a house, but I don’t mind it a bit.” The wind lifted her blond locks.
Ashley looked up at the sky. The storm was supposedly going in another direction, but now Ashley felt nervous. “Rafe, take her out of here.”
“We’ll wait for you,” he said, glancing at his watch with a shrug. “It shouldn’t be much longer.”
“No, please.”
“Ashley,” Tara said, “I know how you feel about Harrison—”
“I can handle Harrison. I’ll get a ride with Grace. I’ll be fine, I promise. Please, Tara, you’re making me so very nervous. I don’t like you out here with this storm.”
“Okay, okay. We’ll leave right now, and we’ll see you back at the hotel.”
“Okay! Now go!”
She kissed them both quickly. Rafe cast Harrison a warning look. He seemed about to say something, then seeing Ashley’s imploring eyes, clamped his mouth shut. “All right. Take care. And you’re perfect.”
Ashley watched them head through the dense foliage. It was difficult to believe that a major road lay just beyond. Well, not a major road. Alligator Alley was growing—or so Ashley had been told—but it seemed to her that there were still endless stretches of absolutely nothing but saw grass and swamp and canals and the occasional crane or egret standing one-legged in the water.
Ashley shivered and stepped back, looking up at the trees. There were snakes here, which could drop from the branches. She rather liked her boulder, come to think of it. Nothing was really close to her when she was on top of it. The mosquitoes didn’t even bother her.
“Ashley, let’s go,” Harrison called to her.
“I’m ready when you are.”
“Norm, get some extra shots of that gator,” Harrison commanded the cameraman. Norm nodded in silence. Ashley climbed back up on her rock. Harrison called for hair and makeup and she was primped and powdered again.
Ashley gritted her teeth. She wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her friendship with Tara and Rafe. She had started to grow weary with modeling when she was still with Galliard. Then, she and Tara had gone into fashion design. They did well. Ashley made enough money to support herself comfortably, and that was all that she needed. Rafe was paying her an absurd amount for this assignment, but she hadn’t done it for the money. She had done it for h
im and Tara—because it had been Tara’s concept and because the jewelry was Rafe’s.
She sighed. Not much longer. She could survive it.
One more time…
She said the lines without a hitch. She offered, very sweetly, to do it again. Harrison smiled at her. She hated his smiles; they were purely lascivious. “Right, sweetie, you do it one more time. For me, especially, hmm?”
He wouldn’t have dared sound that way had Rafe stayed, Ashley thought. But she didn’t want Rafe fighting her battles. She could handle herself. She had lived in New York City alone for years, and she knew how to handle the Harrison Mosbys of the world. She had met enough of them.
“Let’s just do this and go home, huh?” she said sweetly. She looked up. The sky was growing black. There was going to be a storm—one heck of a storm.
“Ready? Let’s go. Roll ‘em,” Harrison said.
Finally the last take was in. Ashley sighed and watched idly as the cameramen packed their gear. She hesitated to ask Grace for a ride, seeing that Grace was still busy. She started when Harrison touched her back.
“I want to talk to you, Ashley.”
The first time that she had met him, she had thought he was handsome, talented and witty. She had gone out with him once. He had drunk too much at dinner and bragged about himself all through it. He had forced his way into her apartment, and he had nearly forced himself on her. But she hadn’t been afraid to scream like a banshee and he had left her, swearing that she would never work in a commercial again. She had laughed at the threat; she hated commercials. It hadn’t been so long ago.
“I don’t want to talk to you, Harrison.”
“Come on.”
“No!”
He grabbed hold of her wrist, dragging her from the rock. Norm looked up. Ashley saw confusion and worry cross his features. He didn’t know what do do. He needed to keep working, and he didn’t want Harrison Mosby blackballing him back in New York City. On the other hand, Norm was a gentleman, married to a lovely woman, the father of three beautiful daughters. He couldn’t watch ill come to Ashley without taking some step. He would try to help her—and wind up jobless himself.
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