Paradise Burning (43 page)

Silently, Mandy applauded. How fortunate she
hadn’t told Peter what happened to Nadya. No one could doubt his
shock was totally genuine.

Mandy opened her eyes wide. “We . . .
well–um–we hadn’t gotten around to talking about that yet,” she
admitted. “You see . . . Nadya and I went to check on my RV and she
. . . well, she simply disappeared. I’m not sure what happened to
her.”

“
She wasn’t still upset about Shirazi,
was she?” Peter demanded. “I mean, not enough to . . . to go back
to the river?”

Mandy cocked her head to one side. “It’s
possible, I suppose. She always seemed so level-headed, but she
really lost it when Karim disappeared. She might have . . .” Mandy
paused, looked at Doug. “I told you about that last night, right?
That Karim took off while we were waiting for the second round of
boats. Just disappeared when no one was looking. Nadya was frantic.
She ran back toward the house. That’s when Peter and I had to
rescue her.”

“
I doubt Shirazi made it,” Peter added,
beginning to sense where all this was heading. The fullness of what
was expected of him.
Shit!
“The river was so full of creatures you could almost walk
across on their backs. If an alligator didn’t get him, a moccasin
or a rattler did. His body—or what’s left of it—will turn up
downstream next week . . . next month.”

“
I never realized how attached Nadya
was to him,” Mandy added sadly. “If she was convinced he was dead,
she might have . . .” She shook her head. “I just don’t
know.”

“
Nadya was an important witness,” Doug
growled.

“
You have seven others,” Peter told
him. “And several of them will be good ones. Elena, Felicidad,
Tama, and Kai were like rocks. They let out a shriek or two, but
mostly they just kept going. You don’t need Nadya.” And damn his
conniving little wife for whatever she had done with Nadya. He
hoped she was fully appreciating his loyalty. She might have told
him!

“
So you have no idea what happened to
Shirazi or his girlfriend?” Doug repeated, directing a sharp but
far-from-hopeful look at one Pennington, then the other.

“
Of course we have ideas,” Mandy
replied. “We just told you. We think they drowned. Or were eaten.
Or possibly they got away,” she added ingenuously.

“
Just walked away, like the guard,”
Doug mocked.

“
How else?” Mandy murmured, looking the
picture of innocence, her patrician New England face displaying all
her battle decorations of burns and scratches.

“
Wonderful!” Doug growled. “And that,
of course, is all you’re going to tell me.”

When Peter had shown the disgruntled FBI
agent out, he stood in the door to the family room, staring at his
wife, thinking hard. It appeared his country mouse had pulled off a
very neat switch. Just how neat he had yet to find out.

“
Anybody who thinks it never snows in
Florida hasn’t witnessed Amanda Armitage in action,” he declared,
watching his wife give him the same wide-eyed stare she had turned
on Doug Chalmers. Peter sat in a chair opposite the sofa where
Mandy was still perched. He steepled his fingers. “Tell me, Mandy,”
he inquired easily, “did your RV survive all right?”

“
Of course. There was no damage to the
campground.”

“
So it’s still there?”

“
Uh . . . well . . . no. I decided it
was safest to have someone drive it out. After all, I didn’t need
it any more.”

“
I presume,” Peter said, still very
softly, “that whoever drove it out just kept on going?”

“
Probably,” Mandy agreed, studying her
shoetops.

“
It’s possible it took two people to
drive the RV?” Peter suggested.

“
That seems likely.”

“
Why?” Peter began, then shook his
head.

“
We never would have made it without
him, and . . . well, I offered him the RV before the fire,” Mandy
said, the truth tumbling out at last. “I drew a map of the
campground, wrote out the license plate number, told him where to
find the hideout key. It seemed our only chance. I was almost
certain Karim wanted to get away as much as the girls did, but he
never actually said he’d accept. I couldn’t tell which way he was
going to jump.”

“
As bribes go,” Peter conceded
thoughtfully, “it was a damn good one.” He was going to have to
face the fact his mouse had permanently turned into a lion. However
. . .

“
That camper was a rental, Mandy.” For
the first time Peter sounded stern.

“
I’ll be buying it this afternoon.
Don’t worry, I can afford it.”

“
Do you have any idea what those things
cost?”

“
It was used,” Mandy pointed out with
maddening reasonableness, “but . . . if you were planning on living
off my savings, there may be some difficulty,” she
admitted.

“
Living off . . .” Peter spluttered to
a halt. His little lion was teasing him, and he’d fallen for it. He
was torn between a desire to take her in his arms and an urge to
spank her. Not that he ever would, but . . . there she was, Miss
Boston Prim and Proper, sitting there in her beige silk slacks and
some kind of designer-looking sweater, perfectly displayed against
the French blue leather, looking as if she were ready to take tea
in her Grandmother Kingsley’s drawing room. When, in truth, she’d
just bribed an employee of the Russian mafia with the gift of an RV
and aided and abetted the disappearance of a star FBI witness. A
star witness who should have been more interested in slitting
Shirazi’s throat than running away with him.

Peter steadied himself with a deep breath.
“So what the hell did those two have in common anyway?” No Russian
woman is going to go along with being Muslim. They’re too damn
independent.”

“
The way my Russian teacher described
it,” Mandy said, “women in Russia have equality when it comes to a
job. They can work at anything they want as long as they come home
and do all the cooking and cleaning as well.”

Peter opened his mouth, closed it . . .
thought it through. “Okay, I’ll buy that—we men are arrogant
bastards and all that—but I still can’t see Karim and Nadya
together. I mean, he hardly looked at her during the fire.”

“
You mean the way you didn’t look at
me?”

“
Sometimes, Mouse . . .,” Peter
threatened, once again forgetting he was talking to a lion. “That
was different. I knew . . .”

“
No, it wasn’t. But you did the right
thing. You had to help those who needed it more. And so did
Karim.”

“
But he left her. Walked out.
Vanished.”

Mandy gave him a very long look. “Yes, he
did, didn’t he?” Her eyes were bright, willing him to make the
connection.

He did.

“
For her own good,” Peter mused. “For
safety. Or because he thought she would be better off?”

“
Sound familiar?”

Peter nodded, eyes fixed an the rug. He was
afraid to utter a word. One wrong move and he was finished.

“
Sometimes love really does conquer
all,” Mandy commented softly.

“
You’re sure?”

“
Oh, yes,” Mandy breathed. “Karim was
already at the RV when we got there. I wish you could have seen
their faces when they saw each other.” Mandy wiped away a tear. “It
was beautiful. Whatever that RV costs,” she asserted, “it was worth
it.”

Peter lifted his head. “I guess there’s
something I’d like to know. Tell me, Mrs. Pennington, would you
have raced into the fire for me the way Nadya did for
Karim?”
Jesus!
She wasn’t
saying anything. She was actually
thinking
about it.

“
You have to remember,” Mandy replied
with careful precision, “that Nadya has a passionate Russian soul.
Mine, I’m afraid, is all New England. We’re known as God’s frozen
people, you know. I like to think I would have known you wouldn’t
be stupid enough to run back toward the fire, that you would have
sneaked off in the opposite direction, so I never would have
panicked and run the wrong way.”

“
For God’s sake, woman, are you going
to analyze this thing to death?”

“
But if I’d seen you run into the
fire,” Mandy continued doggedly, “I’d have done what you did for
me. Chased you down, saved your life. Or tried to,” she added
judiciously. “I’m afraid I might have had trouble dragging you
out.”

Peter groaned. “Does all that possibly mean
you love me? In spite of my obvious failings?” he prodded.

“
You know I love you, you big lunk,”
Mandy snapped. “And when
I
say I love you, it happens to be true.” She looked as if she
was about to grab up one of the couch cushions and fling it at
him.

“
You think I was lying?” Peter bounded
out of the chair, flung himself down onto the sofa next to Mandy,
at the last moment pulling back from touching her. If he did, this
conversation would go up in smoke and perhaps the rest of their
lives as well. There was only one way touching could end, and sex
was not among their problems.

Time to settle what was between them, once
and for all. Peter leaned back into the corner of the couch, a
frown rippling his forehead as he searched for a way to end their
misery once and for all.

“
Do you remember that last day we went
fishing?” Peter asked. “You were fifteen, a skinny kid with a
ponytail. You’d just caught a mother sunfish and then you looked
down and saw a whole pile of baby sunfish swimming around looking
for mommy. I helped you take the hook out and put her back, and
they all swam away into happily ever after. You never fished again,
did you, Mouse?”

Slowly, ruefully, Mandy shook her head.

“
Until then,” he added gently, “you
were just a kid I was babysitting while I waited for her to grow
up. But that day I fell in love. A little ahead of schedule maybe
but, believe me, it was love. I loved your kind heart and your
brilliant mind. And I love the woman you’ve become, the one who
stands up for herself and won’t let me boss her around. In fact . .
.” Peter paused for breath, a rueful smile lighting the angles of
his face. “I hate to admit it, but Karim was right. You’re a good
woman, Amanda Armitage. And I’d consider myself damn lucky if you
agree to stick around here and share my life.”

She wasn’t looking at him, Peter noted. The
carpet seemed to have developed some inexplicable fascination. Oh,
hell, he hadn’t said it right. Hadn’t done enough! What more could
she want? Or was she just making him suffer?

“
Look, Mou—Mandy,” Peter ground out,
“there’s nothing—not counting people—I love more than this house.
I’ve put my heart and soul into it. But if you want me to go back
to AKA . . .”

Mandy’s head jerked up, startled eyes met
his. “Never!” she exclaimed. “I was . . . I was just trying very
hard not to cry,” she added, wiping at her cheeks. “If I continue
with AKA, it can be done long distance. That’s what modems are for,
right?”

“
So I’m forgiven?” Peter breathed, eyes
alight with hope.

“
What about me?” Mandy countered.
“Forgiveness goes both ways.”

Peter held out his arms.

For a long time nothing more than muffled
loving fragments filled the air. They were lying tangled in the
black satin sheets of Peter’s bed, wonderfully, languorously
replete, the last nagging doubts fallen away before they managed
any coherent conversation. “Do you think we should renew our vows?”
Mandy asked, snuggling closer to Peter’s body, which was sheened
with sweat. “Claire says there’s a lovely chapel near here where
she and Brad were married.”

“
Sounds good.” At that point Peter
would have agreed to having little green men from Mars stage a
dance on the deck for the senior citizens of Calusa
Campground.

“
We’d invite Claire and Brad . . . and
Phil and Garrett—”

“
Garrett Whitlaw?” Peter questioned,
beginning to pay more attention. “Since when do you know the king
of Calusa County?”

“
Never met him,” Mandy admitted
blandly, “but I know his wife.” I’m practically a godmother, she
added smugly. “And we’d have to invite Glenda and Ed. And of course
there’s Claire’s son Jamie. And Bubba.”

Peter decided it was time to get into the
spirit of things. “I imagine the grandmothers might be offended if
they weren’t invited,” he suggested mildly.

“
The grandmothers?” Mandy echoed, “but
that would mean . . .”

“
Jeff and Eleanor. Don’t panic,” Peter
added quickly. “Try to picture Eleanor as a grandmother. Boggles
the mind, doesn’t it?”

“
Better yet,” Mandy chortled, “can’t
you just picture it? Eleanor Armitage with a grandson called
Bubba?”

Laughter shook the black satin sheets,
echoing out into the rooms that would eventually be filled with the
sounds of childish giggles, shouts, and tears. A house of love.

“
You know . . .,” Peter said, rolling
over until he was supported on his elbows directly above his
smiling wife. “To hell with the last five years. It’s the next
seventy that count.”

~The End~

About the Author:
Although Blair Bancroft is best known for her Regency
romances, she loves to venture into new genres and has written
romantic suspense, mystery, medieval romance, and futuristic, and
is about to tackle her first steampunk. Please look for
Shadowed Paradise,
the first of the
Paradise books, which tells Brad’s and Claire’s story.