More Than Paradise (2 page)

“A few. In the highlands. No one goes up there unless they’re stupid.”

Both women squealed.

“No way! Cannibals?” Karlah conÞ rmed with breathless horror.

Dani planted a small hand where her cleavage intersected.

“Omigod, can you imagine?”

“Cannibalism is almost unknown now,” Ash said curtly.

She needed to change the conversation. Already, she could feel the beginnings of irritation. Westerners who knew nothing about the region or its complex tribal cultures usually ß aunted their ignorance by repeating the most titillating stereotypes. No doubt Dani and Karlah pictured a real-life version of that asinine television show
Survivor
.

Ash didn’t kid herself that New Guinea would be transforming itself into a contemporary society any time soon. But as far as cannibalism went, the practice had all but disappeared. The Asmat in West Papua were the most dangerous of the cannibals. In their culture anyone who had never taken a head in battle went to his grave feeling like a sad failure who had betrayed the spirits of his ancestors.

The tribe was rumored to have killed and eaten Michael Rockefeller, the son and heir of Nelson Rockefeller. Back in the sixties, he’d been studying Asmat culture and was in their territory with another anthropologist when their canoe capsized. He vanished, and the ensuing search-and-rescue operation was the biggest the country ever saw.

The ofÞ cial conclusion was that he had drowned and been eaten by crocodiles. Ash had heard a very different tale from an old Asmat guide she hired occasionally. He said a white man had been killed in Otsjanep long ago, in revenge for the murder of the village leaders by the Dutch. Many years later another white man visited and paid an

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JENNIFER FULTON

impressive bounty for three prized skulls. They were the skulls of the only white people ever killed and eaten by the tribe. Ash had always wondered if Michael Rockefeller’s was among them.

The rumor had spread and these days tour companies brought thrill-seeking clients into the region and paid the local tribesmen to display their skull collections. Some day, Ash Þ gured a party of Westerners would insult or double-cross their hosts and end up on the dinner table.

The Asmat hadn’t forgotten their old ways, they had simply found new ones that paid better.

They were not the only cannibals in the area. Ash was certain human ß esh was still eaten upstream of Asmat territory by a couple of tribes in the Jayawijaya Mountains. There were some who had still never seen a white person. A few weeks before she’d caught the plane back to modernity, she had been drinking with a Californian tour guide in a pub in Bougainville. The guy had been making a buck hauling groups of ß ea-brained tourists on rafting trips in the high country, as only a card-carrying lunatic with a death wish would. He and his party got themselves ambushed one day when a group of tribesmen cut down some trees to slow their passage through a neck of water. At Þ rst the guide thought the noisy locals just wanted to sell souvenirs to the tourists. Then they started Þ ring arrows.

He’d quit his job after that narrow escape and seemed astonished that his passengers were happily snapping photos the whole time while he was Þ ghting to keep their asses out of the Þ re, so to speak. Ash felt like saying,
Wake up, pal.
In her experience, most tourists thought everything was part of a show staged expressly for their entertainment.

That’s why they made such great targets in a place like PNG. They had no idea how to keep a low proÞ le or why they needed to. Wasn’t the world one big fun park for the dumb, happy, and privileged?

Those rafters had been dead lucky that the average New Guinea tribesman was a lousy shot and still hadn’t progressed far enough from the Stone Age to put feathers on his arrows. That was one reason the Indonesians had been able to annihilate them so successfully since they took over West Papua. So far about thirty percent of the indigenous population had vanished to make way for the likes of Freeport-McMoRan and their “vital projects.” Where would the world be without another gold mine?

Ash steered her mind determinedly away from that track. She was here to kick back and have a good time, not guilt-trip herself

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into another drunken stupor, thinking about things she had no control over.

“What are you doing over there, anyway?” Dani asked.

“I’m a consultant in local affairs for foreign business interests.”

It sounded better than
I’m a mercenary soldier turned hired gun and
chopper pilot, services for sale to the highest bidder. No questions
asked. Specialties—drug lords trying to muscle rivals, mining executives
scoping out new places to plunder, military goon squads hired by said
mining executives as “security,” plus the usual scumbags who show
up in Port Moresby looking for a place to hide.
PNG was one of the world’s primo destinations if you were on the run from the law. Or anything else.

“Cool,” both women said.

“So you’re here on vacation?” Dani sipped her cocktail and took a moment to slowly, temptingly lick the excess off her lips.

Ash registered the come-on with a throb between her legs.

Automatically she cast a glance around the bar, sizing up the alternatives just in case Dani and Karlah turned out to be nothing but bored housewives taking a walk on the wild side by ß irting with a lesbian.

The odds of scoring with such women were only slightly better than Þ fty percent and not worth her time. She was pretty sure Dani was looking for action, but she had been wrong before.

A mature, lushly attractive redhead a few tables away offered up a smile. A brittle blonde at the bar made eye contact. She always got lucky here, Ash reß ected. She had no idea why the place was a hang-out for upscale lesbians looking for no-strings sex, but she counted on it whenever she was in Boston. Ash acknowledged each of the women with a warm, ß attering sidelong glance. She’d be back here tomorrow, looking for company again. Maybe one of them would show up on the off chance.

Returning her attention to Dani, she said, “I’m in town for family reasons. But that’s not going to take up
all
of my time.”

How long would the dance continue? Ash hoped no one would have to tell her life story. A friend was always a complication, too, maybe more so tonight since both women seemed interested. Ash would happily settle for either. Her mind latched on to that idea and expanded on it. Picturing both her companions naked, she reached for her whiskey and felt her shirt slide across her tightening nipples. She could go there, she reß ected—two babes and her horny self. No problem.

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JENNIFER FULTON

She lowered her gaze to the amber-red liquid in her glass and reminded herself that girl-on-girl threesome action only happened in porn movies when actresses got paid, and it was schmucks like her whose money paid them. She had quite a collection of so-called lesbian porn back in Madang. Occasionally, when she left a DVD in the player by accident, she would come home and Þ nd her houseboy and cook watching it in bemusement. None of the PNG locals had ever heard of a lesbian, let alone seen two women getting it on in the sack, while wearing white stilettos the whole time, too, of course.

A hand connected possessively with her arm and Dani informed her, “We’re going home soon. Want to come?”

Ash repeated the invitation in her mind and Þ gured she should nail down exactly what was on offer. Women were sometimes just being nice and had visions of serving late-night coffee and talking about politics. Tonight she wasn’t in the mood to be disappointed, so she got right to the point.

“Only if you’re going to get naked with me.”

She said it mildly enough that it could sound like she was kidding.

That way things didn’t have to get awkward if Dani had something other than bare skin in mind. But the baby blue eyes ß irting with Ash got smoky and Dani lowered her hand from Ash’s arm to her thigh.

“Sure,” she answered the question. “Want to watch?” Her Þ ngers beat a rapid path upward.

For the sake of public decorum Ash arrested their progress just short of her crotch and smothered the groan of desire that tightened her throat. It had been way too long. “That would be a yes.”

Dani and Karlah exchanged knowing looks. Karlah didn’t seem pissed in any way that her friend was scoring and she wasn’t. Ash felt mildly irked by that. Didn’t Karlah Þ nd her hot? This adolescent reaction amused her. She wasn’t used to getting the brush-off in any form and it made her want the unimpressed woman.

“Let’s get out of here.” Dani eagerly ß agged down their cocktail waiter, who returned a few minutes later with a couple of fur coats and handed the check to Ash.

Once the Amex slip was signed and the women had on their status-symbol pelts, Dani started fumbling around in her oversized purse for the valet pass. While this was going on, Ash was surprised to feel a hand on her butt.

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“I hope you have lots of energy,” Karlah murmured hotly in her ear. “We’re both, like…needy.”

Ash’s pulse accelerated. It hadn’t occurred to her that they might all be on the same page in the fantasy department. Now that she thought about it, she could see why these two were hunting together.

“You won’t be disappointed,” she said.

Karlah appraised her thoroughly. “That’s quite a promise.”

“I don’t make any I can’t keep.”

“Well, you just got
very
lucky, Ashley Evans,” she pronounced and wrapped an arm around Dani’s waist.

Both babes offered greedy little smiles.

• 17 •

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How long was it going on?” Charlotte Lascelles handed her best friend, Tamsin, a Kleenex and a compact mirror.

Tamsin wiped her running mascara and blew her nose, which made even more of a mess of her lipstick. “Months,” she hiccupped. “I can’t believe I could be so stupid. When I think about it now, it was so fucking obvious.”

She slapped the tissue down onto a mushy heap cluttering the table. Charlotte hoped the waiter would remove them soon. She didn’t like the thought of all that mucus accumulating near her dessert.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” She nudged her barely touched crème brûlée to one side. “It’s not your fault you trusted your partner and gave her the beneÞ t of the doubt. You’re a decent person.”

“She used me. All she really wanted was a part in Dad’s new show.”

Well, duh!
Charlotte kept her mouth shut. She’d known Dani Bush was a gold-digging bimbo the moment they’d met. Since then, she’d been waiting for the other shoe to fall for Tamsin.

“I can’t believe the lies.” Tamsin snufß ed. “It’s like I never knew her at all.”

“I’m so sorry you’re hurt, sweetie.” This was not the time to state the obvious—that Tamsin had refused to see what was right under her nose and only had herself to blame.

Tamsin sipped her coffee. Her eyes had the faraway look of a woman mining past events for the clues she should have added together.

“I suppose I got suspicious four months ago, but I kept thinking I was being paranoid.”

• 19 •

JENNIFER FULTON

“I know how that is,” Charlotte said dryly.

She’d been there herself during her one attempt at a long-term relationship. It had been hard to believe that Britt Conway, the successful attorney who talked all the time about the future they would build, the children they would have, and the importance of open and honest communication, had cheated on her. Worse than that, despite her deep suspicions, Charlotte had allowed herself to be taken in by Britt’s denials. She had even felt guilty and stupid when her initial attempts to seek reassurance were met with angry recriminations. Britt’s righteous indignation had eventually culminated in physical violence, at Þ rst shoves and slaps, then punches and kicks. Then much, much more.

Only when Charlotte found herself in the emergency room at Massachusetts General with a broken collarbone, two broken ribs, and a black eye did she Þ nally accept who her partner really was. Not the woman of her dreams who needed support and understanding because her work was so stressful, but an alcoholic in denial, unable to take responsibility for her behavior. She’d made herself a promise that night. No one would ever lay a hand on her again. Never again would she ignore her instincts.

Every train-wreck relationship she’d witnessed among her circle of friends since had added to her conviction that love was overrated and not worth mutilating heart and soul for. In fact, she’d concluded that love virtually guaranteed bad decision-making. Especially in her case.

Since Britt, her relationships had been few but pleasant because she only dated women who were as sensible and pragmatic about romance as she was. In other words, it was nice in theory, but in practice it did not occupy center stage in their lives. Charlotte supposed there were wonderful soul-mate relationships out there, but she didn’t know anyone who had one. Like mice on a treadmill, everyone seemed to endlessly repeat the same futile journey from lust to deluded optimism and commitment, then steadily downhill to disillusion and sorrow. All that misery, yet they still returned yet again to the quicksands of hope.

Charlotte knew better. She avoided visiting that risky terrain even for a minute.

Realizing she’d missed part of Tamsin’s sad tale, she tuned in again, nodding like her attention hadn’t slipped.

Tamsin said, “I thought it sounded like a good idea. You know, everyone wants unique handbags. I told her I would put up the capital, but she said that was maybe not such a good idea for a couple…one

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owing the other all that money for a business venture. I was proud of her. You know, for wanting to make it on her own.”

Charlotte kept a straight face to hide her exasperation. This uncharacteristic embrace of noble scruples should have set off alarm bells in the woman Dani had been bleeding white since day one.