Strangers in Paradise (24 page)

“What?” she repeated, amazed and ready to burst into tears. She'd fallen so in love with him. She should have known it was too good to be true. This morning they'd sailed a turquoise sea under a golden sun, and now they were sitting here, drenched and ashen, staring at each other over the body of a man....

“Samson!” he said suddenly. “I hear Samson.”

She looked up. He was right. The shepherd was racing toward them, skidding across the kitchen floor so fast that he nearly flew into Rex's arms once he'd left the doorframe behind. He barked excitedly, jumping over John's body to crash into Alexi. She burst into tears, hugging the shepherd. It was too much. “Alexi—” Rex began.

“There you are!”

Rex turned to the doorframe and distractedly noticed Emily standing there in her trench coat. “Emily, thank God you're all right,” he said. He reached out for Alexi. She winced, jerking from his touch. “Alexi, it's going to be all right!”

“Rex!” Emily said in a strangled voice. She'd seen the body, Rex thought.

“Emily—” He began to turn.

“Oh, my God!” Alexi shrieked. “Rex—
she's
got a gun.”

But somehow that fact didn't quite penetrate Rex's mind. “Emily, what in God's name are you doing?” He started to walk toward her. She raised the barrel so it was even with his chest. “Stop where you are, Rex.”

He knew from her tone that she meant it. “Emily—”

“Back up, Rex—now. I mean it. I—I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt either of you. I've got to figure this out now. You'll all have to be found together. A love triangle. I don't know. Maybe you found the two of them together, Rex. Then shot yourself.”

Fingers were touching him. Reaching for his arm. It was Alexi. Numb, Rex encircled her with an arm, drawing her tightly to him.

“Why?” Alexi whispered. Emily looked at her and spoke as if she was trying to explain things to a half-witted child.

“Why, the treasure, child, of course. I finally found it. Today.”

“It's worthless, Emily!” Rex thundered. “It's worthless paper! It's not—”

“It's not paper at all, Rex Morrow!” Emily corrected him. She sniffed. “No one knew Pierre Brandywine—not even his beloved Eugenia! It was gold he left her. Gold bars! A fortune. A real treasure. And it's been in this house all these years because some foolish little maid didn't bother to forward a letter.” Emily smiled. “I found it, you see. I was cleaning up in the old kitchen before Gene had them put the new stuff in. I found Pierre's letter. Telling Eugenia he left her gold. Only Eugenia knew where it was hidden. I didn't. I had to search and search.”

Alexi's fingers were a vise around Rex's arm. He could feel her trembling, but she was determinedly standing there—buying time.

“You tried to scare me out, right, Emily?” she said shakily.

“I tried.”

Alexi kept stalling. In the terrible dark of the night, against the endless monotony of the rain, she was desperately stalling for time.

“You had no reason to ever be afraid of Samson. Samson was your best friend. You could search and search—and he wouldn't bark.”

“It was easy before you came,” Emily agreed. “I went through the house at my leisure. I looked and looked and couldn't find it, but I knew that gold was here somewhere. I followed you when you first came. You ran right into Rex. I slipped into the house. I thought you might believe in ghosts. I had to knock you out the other night. And now this man found me. I had to shoot him. It's your fault—you just wouldn't leave. And, Rex... I am so sorry. Really.”

He was going to have to jump her, Rex decided. Throw himself against her to at least give Alexi a chance to run. Alexi's fingers tightened around his arm again. She was thinking the same thing!

“Oh!”
Emily let out a startled little scream. The gun rose for a split second. “Oh, you damned dog!” Samson had nudged her with a cold nose. Maybe he wasn't her best friend after all.

“Get down!” Rex shouted to Alexi. She dived for the porch just as he threw himself at Emily and knocked her down, sending the gun skidding away along the old wood of the porch. Emily screamed then, striking out at Rex with her nails. “Stop!” Rex commanded her. Alexi was there then, drawing her belt from her shorts, then slipping it around Emily's wrists. Rex caught hold of it and tied it securely.

Lights suddenly appeared, blinding them at first. A car stopped; they could hear the doors slamming. “Alexi! Rex!” It was Gene.

“Rex? Miss Jordan?”

“We're here, in the back!” Rex called out. “Mark Eliot,” he told Alexi. She smiled.

“If you can give that nice boy any bit of help, you do it,” Alexi said.

“I will,” Rex promised. He glanced over at John's body. “He might still make it.”

“He's alive?” Alexi demanded.

“Just barely.” He smiled at her ruefully. “I thought you had tried to kill him.”

“And I thought
you
had!”

“He hurt you so badly.”

“You once said that you
would
kill him,” she reminded him.

Rex groaned. “Alexi! That was a term of speech!”

“Well...” she murmured.

Emily was swearing viciously, but by that time, Gene and Mark had reached the porch. They both stared at John and then at Emily. It seemed to Alexi that everyone was talking at once. Gene looked so white that she quickly put her arms around him, anxious to assure him that she was fine. Rex was trying to explain the situation to Mark Eliot. Mark took one look at John Vinto's body and hurried to the car, calling for an ambulance. Then he returned and checked the body. “There's still a pulse—just barely,” he said grimly, staring at Emily.

“Come on, Mrs. Rider. Let's go to the car.” Mark exchanged the belt around her wrists for handcuffs. By then they could hear the ambulance's siren. A moment later, two paramedics were carefully working on John Vinto. Alexi stared at her ex-husband's features. She was shivering, but her fear of him was completely gone. She prayed that he would live. Rex slipped his arms around her as they took John away. “I wonder what he did want,” she murmured.

“I don't know,” Rex said.

“Why on earth did she shoot him?” Gene murmured.

“He just happened to come upon her when she had discovered her stash of gold at last,” Rex wearily told Gene.

“Gold!”

Rex smiled ruefully. “Pierre really did leave a ‘treasure,' Gene. No Confederate bills. Gold. Could I have your flashlight for a minute, Mark?”

“Take this, Rex,” Mark said. “I've got to take my prisoner on in. I'll need you all in the morning. Mr. Brandywine, now, you take care.”

“Thank you, Mr. Eliot,” Gene said. Rex and Alexi echoed his words, waving until he was gone.

Rex led the way, and they followed him to the ballroom. The bricks around the lower mantel under the portraits had been pulled out. An ancient, rusting trunk lay amid the rubble on the floor.

“It's your trunk,” Rex told Gene.

Gene stepped forward, lowered himself to his knees and flipped the lid on the old trunk. Bars and bars of gold sparkled before them in the glare of the flashlight.

“I'll be darned,” Gene said, flashing his head. “All these years...”

“He meant it to go to his heirs,” Rex murmured. “You're his grandson, Gene.”

Gene smiled at Rex a little wearily. “Poor man. He worried so much, and his wife and his children were a lot stronger than he gave them credit for.” He flashed a quick smile at Alexi. “A lot stronger, girl.”

Rex slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against him. “Very strong,” he said softly. “What are you going to do with it all?” he asked Gene.

Gene scratched his head for a minute. “A museum. Yes, I think a museum. We'll put Eugenia's diary in it, and the clothes from up in the attic—Pierre's old sword and the like. He'd approve, don't you think?”

“That I do, sir. That I do,” Rex agreed.

“Well, well,” Gene murmured. “It's a bit too much excitement for me for one night. Pierre's treasure almost cost me something he would have prized far, far more.” He touched Alexi's cheek. “I think I'll go on up to bed here. Do you mind, dear?”

“Gene! It's your house.”

“Yes. But of course you'll have a chaperone now.” He cleared his throat. “Rex Morrow—just what are your intentions regarding my great-granddaughter?”

Rex laughed. “The very best, sir.”

“Well?”

“I intend to marry her. As soon as possible.”

“He's only after your land!” Alexi warned Gene.

“Does she ever shut up?” Rex asked Gene.

Gene smiled wickedly. “Sure she does, boy. You've got the knack, I'm quite sure.”

“Do I?” Rex said, smiling down at Alexi.

“Do you?” She slipped her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoe. He kissed her. He meant just to brush her lips, but there was just something about her....

The kiss went long and deep, very long and deep, until Gene cleared his throat. Rex broke from her. His eyes were glittering ebony as he challenged her, his voice gruff with tenderness. “Will you, Alexi? Will you marry me?”

She smiled. Rex knew that treasure had never lain in gold, nor in silver—nor in any other such tangible thing. Treasure was something that any man could find on earth, if he could trust in himself enough to reach for it.

“Yes, Rex. Yes!” Alexi told him.

He stared into her eyes, dazzled. “I love you, sweetheart.”

“Well, then, if it's all settled, go ahead and kiss her again,” Gene said. “But excuse me. I'm an old man.”

“An old fox!” Rex whispered.

“I heard that!” Gene said.

Alexi and Rex laughed and waved good-night. They heard a door close above them.

“Well, my love?” Rex whispered.

“You heard him,” Alexi murmured. “Go ahead. Kiss me again. Hmm... Morrow... Alexi Morrow.”

“I'll come with you to New York.”

“No, we'll live here.”

“But you don't have to give up your career—”

“I really don't care.”

“You don't have to give it up!”

“Don't tell me what to do!”

“I'm not! I'm trying—” He broke off suddenly, staring up at the picture of Pierre. He shook his head. “Maybe there is only one way to do it.”

“To do what—” Alexi began.

She never finished. He had decided to kiss her again.

Epilogue

June 2, Two Years
Later
Fernandina Beach, Florida

“T
here he is, Alexi. Down on the beach.”

Alexi stared out through the long trail of pines to the beach, where Gene's call directed her. She rose, a smile curving her lips, her heart, as always, taking flight.

Rex was alighting from one of their new acquisitions, a silver raft. The waves of the beach pounded against his bare, muscled calves as he splashed through the water. From a distance, he was beautiful and perfect.

“Rex!”

Upon the porch of the old house, Alexi called his name. He couldn't hear her, of course. He was too far away. She was certain, though, that his eyes had met her own, and that the love they shared between them sang and soared likewise in his soul.

He had seen her. He waved. He started to run. To run down the sand path carpeted in pine and shadowed by those same branches. Sun and shadow, shadow and sun; she could see his face clearly no longer.

“Gene? Take the baby for a minute?”

“With the greatest pleasure.”

Carefully—he was a very old man—Gene slipped his hands beneath the squirming body of his very first great-great-grandson. Alexi smiled at him briefly, then leaped down the steps, waving to Rex.

“I'll take him inside!” Gene called to Alexi. “It's getting a little bit hot out here. And don't you two worry—I can rock the boy to sleep just as well as the next person.”

Alexi turned in time to give Gene an appreciative thumbs-up sign. Then she started to run, running to meet her husband, running to meet her man.

Run...run, run, run. Sunlight continued to glitter through the trees, golden as it fell upon her love. She felt the padding of her feet against the carpet of sand and pine, and the great rush of her breath. Closer. Closer. She could see the love he bore her, the need to touch.

Her breath, ragged, in and out, in and out. Down that long, long trail of sand and pine.

“Rex!”

“Alexi!”

Laughing, she flew the last few steps; those steps that brought her into his arms. He lifted her high; he swirled her beneath the sun. He stared into her eyes, his smile soft as he cherished her and the life they had created between them.

“The baby?”

“He's with Gene.”

“They're okay?”

“They're perfect.”

Rex smiled and laced his fingers through his wife's. They started to walk toward the beach again. At the shore, where the warm, gentle water just rushed over their bare feet, Rex slipped his arms around Alexi's waist.

Time had been good to them; life had been good to them.

For one, John Vinto had lived. Rex had been worried when Alexi had insisted on visiting him in the hospital, but in the end he had been glad. John had wanted to see her just to apologize; he had thought there might be some way to hang on to his marriage. He'd met a new girl, but somehow he'd needed Alexi's forgiveness before he could start out in a new life. Alexi had promised her forgiveness with all her heart—if he would promise to get some counseling.

It hadn't been easy for Rex, standing there. Vinto was a handsome man, beach tan and white blond, successful—and earnest. But trust had been the ingredient he needed to instill in his heart, and when he had seen Alexi's eyes fall on him again, he had known that she loved him. She didn't need to make any comparisons between men—she loved Rex, and that was that. He had sworn to himself in a silent vow that he would give her that same unqualified love all his life.

Gene had used the gold to open a small Confederate museum. It gave him a new passion in life—the hunt for artifacts. Alexi and Rex had grown fascinated with the search themselves, and the three of them frequently traveled throughout the States to various shows to see what else they could acquire.

They'd had a wonderful wedding. A big, wonderful wedding in the Brandywine house, with Alexi's folks and his folks and cousins and aunts and uncles—and Mark Eliot and the carpenters and Joe's boy and anyone else in the world they could think of to invite. Rex had insisted on Alexi tying up some loose ends with her Helen of Troy work, and then Alexi had insisted on staying home for a while. She had a new line of work in mind. That new line of work—Jarod Eugene Morrow—was just five weeks old, and the center of their existence.

“What are you thinking?” Alexi murmured to him.

He squeezed her more tightly. “That it's been so very good here. That I love you so much. That we're so very lucky. Pierre Brandywine picked a beautiful place. I wonder if he can see that—even though he lost his own life and his own dreams—his family is still here. Jarod is his great-great-great-grandson.”

“Great, great, great, great—but who's counting,” Alexi murmured. “I'm sure Pierre knows,” she added softly.

“Yes, I like to think so.”

“Yes,” Alexi whispered. She smoothed her fingers gently over his hands. “It's been good.”

He nuzzled his chin against her cheek. “What were you thinking?”

“Hmmmm...well, I was thinking that Gene really is so very good with the baby.”

“Yes?”

“He took him inside, you know.”

“Yes?”

“It's just like we're alone in our very own Eden again.”

“Yes?”

She hesitated, a charming, slightly crooked smile curving into her features in such a way that he instantly felt the heat aroused tensely in his body. His pulse skipped a beat and then thundered, and he inhaled deeply. “Yes, Alexi?”

“Want to go skinny-dipping?”

“Yes!” He twisted her around and kissed her lips and smiled down into the beauty of her eyes. “I was hoping that you might ask.”

Alexi laughed as he fumbled eagerly with the zipper of her halter dress. “This is skinny-dipping. We both disrobe by mutual consent.”

“I'll dip you and you can dip me,” Rex retorted. The dress came over her head and landed in the sand. A moment later they were both down to their birthday suits and racing out to the water.

Rex caught Alexi beneath the benign warmth of a radiant sun. Their smiles recalled the first time—and reminded them that there would always be forever.

His arms swept around her. “I love you, Alexi.”

“And I love you,” she returned. Heat and salt and sea and the endless breeze swirled around them as they kissed, becoming one.

The pines dipped and rustled.

Back at the house, Gene stood beneath the beautiful old paintings of his grandparents and frowned curiously.

He wasn't superstitious, and he sure as hell didn't believe in haunted houses. He could remember Eugenia as clear as day, even though she had been dead for years and years and years.

No, he was too old for ghost stories. But holding Jarod Eugene Morrow beneath the portraits, he could have almost sworn that a little twist of a smile came to Pierre's lips.

“More than a century later, Pierre. And the boy here—he'll grow up right here, Pierre. More than we might have dreamed, huh? More than we might have dreamed.”

Gene winked at the picture.

And he was almost sure that the damned thing winked back.

* * * * *