Strangers in Paradise (9 page)

Tony squinted beneath the glare of the sun. “Well, we'll spray, but snakes... Well, you kind of have to find the little guys and put them out.” He scratched his head. “It rained last night, but it wasn't really a flood. Wonder how they got in.”

“There was a broken window.”

“Maybe.” Tony shrugged. “It wouldn't be unheard-of, but I find it kind of strange.”

Rex frowned, remembering how Alexi had accused him of putting the snakes into the house himself to scare her out. She was convinced that someone had been in the house last night. Maybe that same person had come back in after he had left early this morning.

He walked up the path with Tony and opened the door. Tony whistled. “How long has Gene been out of here?”

“Awhile. Nine months, maybe.”

“Nine months of breeding bugs. Well, I'll spray her real good. And I'll look out for a nest of ringnecks. I just doubt it, though, you know? If they were in the house, Miz Jordan should have noticed them when she came in, not this morning.” He laughed suddenly, “I've heard of ghosts in this place, but not snakes.”

“Yeah.” Rex laughed with Tony, but he wasn't amused. Tony went out for his equipment. Rex went on into the parlor and called the sheriff's office. A friend of his—a budding story-teller named Mark Eliot—was on the desk. Rex listened patiently to Mark's newest plot line, then told him that he was pretty sure someone was sneaking around the Brandywine house.

“Anything broken into?” Mark asked.

“Well...only by the rightful tenant. She couldn't get her key to work,” Rex explained. Then he told Mark about Alexi's hearing footsteps racing down the stairs—and about the snakes. He was annoyed when Mark chuckled.

“Snakes? You think somebody snuck in to leave a pack of ringnecks?”

“Never mind...”

“Sorry, Rex, sorry,” Mark apologized quickly. “Want me to come out?”

“No, there's nothing you can do now. Maybe someone could make an extra patrol at night and keep an eye on things.”

“Sure thing, Rex. Will do.”

Rex hung up, wondering why he still didn't feel right about things. He heard a whining sound and felt a cold nose against his hand. He patted the dog absently; he had forgotten that Samson was with him. “You should have been here last night, monster,” he told the dog affectionately. “You might have caught whoever ran. If there was a ‘whoever.' Come on, boy. Let's get Alexi's stuff, huh?”

That didn't even seem to be such a good idea. In the kitchen, Rex began to close the open suitcase on the table; he hesitated. Everything of hers had a wonderful scent. Her clothes...

He picked up the soft silk blouse on top and brought it to his face. It seemed to whisper of her essence. He dropped it back into the suitcase and slammed the suitcase shut.

Samson stood by him, thumping his tail against the floor. “This is getting serious, Samson. Frightening. I barely know her.”

How well did someone need to know a face that could launch a thousand ships?

He groaned out loud at the thought and picked up the suitcase. He found her purse in the parlor, called out to Tony that he would be right back and left the house. Ten minutes of brisk walking brought him back to his own.

To his own amazement, he didn't go in. He set Alexi's suitcase and purse inside the screen door, called out that he was dropping them off and turned around to walk back, Samson still at his heels.

His fingers were clenched into fists, braced behind his back. He knew he wouldn't go back that night. He'd give Emily a call and tell her that he would just stay at Gene's—making sure no more snakes appeared—and that he'd be back in the morning.

He just couldn't see Alexi Jordan again right away. It was still true that he barely knew her, and it was damned true that she was having an extraordinary effect on him. Unsettling. Insane.

The exterminator was just finishing up when Rex returned, and when Tony pulled out with his van, the cleaners were pulling in with theirs. Rex let them in with all their heavy-duty equipment, then went into the kitchen and heated up the remainder of the pizza, which he found in the refrigerator. He had it with a beer, reflecting that everything had suddenly turned into a sad state of affairs. He should have been working, and instead he was over here, hiding out from a blonde.

“Well, she is damned good-looking,” he told Samson, stretching his legs out under the table. “The type that can seduce a guy and steal his soul, you say, Samson, boy? I agree, a hundred percent. I should stay away, huh? Hmm. Those eyes. With my luck, I'd be dumb enough to fall in love again. And she'd stay around for a month, then take off for the big city and her glamorous career. Aha!” He was silent for a minute, staring at the bottle. “I'll go nuts if I don't give it some good, sturdy effort.” He sipped his beer reflectively. “But not until tomorrow. I'm not so sure I could take seeing her again today—take it and behave civilly. Okay, Samson, so I haven't been so civil so far. I'm supposed to be a rude eccentric. I have my reputation to live up to, you know.”

Just then the phone started to ring. It was Emily, worried. He assured her things were going fine. “Just tell Alexi to stay there tonight and I'll stay here. The cleaners seem to be doing just fine; Tony sprayed, and I can still smell the stuff all over. It will be much better by tomorrow.... Okay, take care.”

He hung up, and walked into the hall, his hands in his pockets. The cleaning crew consisted of four men. They all knew what they were doing; they moved economically and efficiently. The house already looked better, and they hadn't even started with the steaming. He wandered back to the kitchen, restless. This was rough. He didn't know what to do. He didn't really know how to be idle.

He stared out the window over the sink for a moment, then smiled. In the drawer was a legal pad. He drew it out and sat at the table again. He could make this work.

He sketched out a rough story line about a wealthy family with a suddenly deceased patriarch. A family that began to die off rather quickly. He used Gene's house, and his victims fell as the snakes had, by the same weapons Alexi had utilized.

Within ten minutes, his fingers were flying over the page. A studious frown knitted his brow, and time became meaningless. His concentration was complete.

But then he realized that his heroine looked exactly like Alexi.

And his hero was strangely similar to himself.

He sat back, then forward again.

Well, what the hell, he thought. Who was he to argue with creative forces?

He was planning an awful lot of sex scenes for a murder mystery, though, he reflected. He paused, then laughed dryly.

What the hell...

* * *

Alexi stared up at the sun through the swaying fronds of a huge palm. She closed her eyes, the sun was so bright. But the warmth felt good against her flesh.

She rolled on her beach sheet and stared out at the water. The surf curled in softly, then ebbed in near silence. It was beautiful. Exquisitely beautiful. From here, the Atlantic seemed to stretch away forever. The sky tenderly kissed the water. It was peaceful and private. The sand was fine and white; the palms gave lovely shade.

She lay on her stomach, her chin cupped in her hands. She could even understand why Rex had seemed so aggrieved to discover that she was taking over the house. This was a paradise. Remote and exotic. Who would want intrusion?

She stretched and rolled onto her side again, idly drawing patterns in the sand.

Then, despite herself, she began to wonder if he came here often. Of course he did. Who wouldn't? The beach belonged to him. Not to both houses—to him.

He loved it, surely. His windows looked out over it. He probably walked over the sand all the time, possibly at sunset. At sunset, it would probably be even more beautiful. So very private.

And if he had a date...

He probably took her here. At sunset. He would hold hands with her, and they would walk along the sand. And maybe they would play where the water washed over the sand in a soft gurgle. Maybe she would laugh and spray him with water, and maybe he would retaliate and they would fall to the sand. They would make love with the water sliding over them, warm and exciting. Their clothing would lie strewn on the beach, but they really wouldn't need to worry; it was so private here. What would he look like...nude? Beautiful, she decided. He was so tall, broad-shouldered, lean where he should be, bronzed and so nicely, tightly sinewed.

“Hello.”

Alexi gasped and whirled around. Instantly fire-red coloring flushed her cheeks.

It was Rex. Of course it was Rex—it was his beach. But she hadn't expected him here. She hadn't seen him since he'd dropped her suitcase on his hallway floor. That was almost two days ago. She still hadn't been back into her house; she'd been in his, and he in hers. Impatience had brought her to the beach. Impatience and frustration. The cleaners had stayed so late on Monday that she hadn't gone back, and on Tuesday he had told Emily that the fumes were still too strong for Alexi to be able to do anything worthwhile.

Alexi had been determined to go back anyway. Emily had convinced her to stay, telling her that she would do much better for herself in the next few days if she allowed her foot to heal properly. And, Emily had told her with a wink, Rex was working—he was too immersed to notice the fumes.

“I said ‘Hello,' not ‘Take your clothes off, please.' Do you have to look so horrified to see me?”

“I'm not,” she said quickly. She was. She looked down to the sand, not sure how to explain that he had interrupted her when she was imagining
him
without his clothes.

Not that he was wearing much. He was in a pair of cutoffs—and what she could see was very near what she had imagined. His flesh was very bronze, very sleek. His shoulders and chest were hard and sinewed; his legs were long and his thighs powerful. Dark hair grew on his chest in a swirl that tapered into a soft line down to the waistband of his shorts. He wore a gold St. Christopher medal and a black-banded sports watch.

He sank down beside her. She felt his gaze move over her, and it touched her with greater warmth than the sun. Actually, she wasn't exactly cocooned in clothing herself. Her bathing suit was one-piece, but it had no back, and the cut was very high on the thighs. To her horror, she felt her heartbeat quicken. Surely he could see the throb of her pulse in a dozen different places.

“Must you?” she demanded huskily.

“Must I what?”

“Come out with all those things.”

“What things?”

“About clothing. Or lack of them. Or sleeping with the Helen of Troy lady.”

He was silent for a moment, looking out to sea. He shrugged, then stared at her again. It took a lot of effort, but she finally lifted her eyes to his—and watched him as coolly as she could.

He smiled slowly, the curl of his lip very deliberate and sensual. “You were blushing before I opened my mouth.”

“The sun—”

“Hah!”

Alexi threw her hands up. “Mr. Morrow, meet Ms. Jordan. How do you do? How do you do? Pleasant weather, isn't it? Lovely weather, really lovely. That, Mr. Morrow, is the type of conversation that people who have just met exchange!”

He laughed, leaning back on an elbow. “You're forgetting the way that we met.”

“You mauled me.”

“And I loved every minute of it.”

“Would you stop?”

“If you want me to stop,” he said evenly, “why are you out here on my beach in that bathing suit?”

“It
is
a beach! People wear bathing suits on beaches.”

“Mmm. But not people who look like you, in bathing suits like that.”

“I'll wear my long johns next time.”

He laughed softly, then suddenly reached out for her shoulder and toppled her down beside him. She gasped, ready to protest, but then the smile left his face and he stared down at her so intently that all words fled from her mind. There was something about him. His eyes were so sharp they were almost pained; his features were taut and haggard.

He drew a finger down her cheek very slowly, barely touching her. Then he breezed that same finger over her lower lip, very slowly, never losing the sharp, hungry tension of his gaze upon her.

For the life of her, she couldn't move. She could only imagine him as she had before: with a nameless woman on the beach—naked.

He was Rex Morrow, the famous, talented recluse, who used women—and the world couldn't possibly know that she was incredibly naive and pathetically vulnerable. Well, she had some pride, and she couldn't be used!

“Rex—”

“It's going to happen, you know.”

“What?”

“Us. You and me. We're going to make love. Maybe right here, right where we are now.”

“You're incredibly arrogant.”

“I'm honest. Which you aren't at the moment.”

“Someone should really slap you—hard,” she told him disdainfully, though with some difficulty. He was still halfway over her. She could feel his body, so warm from the sun beating down upon it. So close. And both of them so...barren of substantial clothing. Her pulse was beating furiously again. And she wanted to touch him. She had never before known such temptation—a desire that defied good sense and pride and reason.

“Is that someone going to be you?” he said slyly.

“If you don't watch it,” she warned.

“Can't you feel it?” he asked her lazily. “The sun-baked sand, the whisper of the waves, rising, ebbing...rising. Can't you feel the heat from the sun, from the earth, becoming a part of us?”

He touched the rampant pulse at the base of her throat.

“Can't you feel the rhythm...throbbing?”

“You're an arrogant SOB—that's what I can feel,” she said coolly.

He laughed. The tension was gone; the hardened hunger of his gaze. He pushed himself up and landed on his feet with the grace of a great cat. He offered a hand to her. “Come on. I've got a present for you.”