Authors: Elizabeth Lowell
At the words ‘ ‘dive instructor’’ the grim look vanished from Sutter’s face. He smiled and held out a tanned, callused hand. “Thanks for picking up my tanks for me. We had to dodge some early monsoon storms on the way from Kununurra. Took twice as long as it should have. Is the plane ready?“
“Just one more passenger and we can leave. Let’s weigh you in.“
Sutter followed Ray into the small air-conditioned passenger terminal. At a gesture from Ray, Sutter stepped onto a scale with his backpack in his arms. Ray’s eyebrows went up. He gave Sutter’s deceptively lithe length a reassessing look.
“You’re a diver, right enough,“ Ray said.
Sutter’s eyebrow lifted in a silent question.
“All muscle,“ Ray explained. “You weigh fifteen kilos more than you look.“
“Is that a problem?“ Sutter asked, remembering the strict weight restrictions for the flight to the island.
Shaking his head, Ray added Sutter’s weight onto the running total he was keeping for the plane. “No worries, mate. We’ve got seventy kilos left on this run. Unless your wife is built like you, we’ll do fine despite the heat.“
“I don’t have a wife.“
“Right. Your Sheila.“
“I don’t have a Sheila.“
“Then you’ve got worries, mate,“ Ray said, putting away his clipboard. “She’s the one we’re waiting for.“
“Bloody hell.“
Trying not to smile, Ray handed a folded piece of paper to Sutter. He eyed the note suspiciously, wondering what his aunt was up to now. The “early start“ on his vacation had turned out to be two days of flying, followed by three solid days and most nights of slogging through some of Australia’s choicer slices of tropical hell while discussing rain patterns and animal migrations with the most enigmatic natives Sutter had ever met anywhere on earth. He had a week’s growth of itchy beard and hadn’t washed himself in the same time – unless he counted periodic drenchings from Australia’s early monsoon rains – and now he was standing around on a blistering cement apron in one hundred degrees Fahrenheit and ninety-five percent humidity, waiting for…just what the hell was he waiting for?
Muttering, Sutter unfolded the paper and read silently:
I’m sending my latest project. She needs a vacation as much as you do.
The handwriting was both elegant and subtly imperious. The latter element was underlined by the sweeping signature.
Anthea.
Sutter looked at the horizon and silently counted to one hundred and thirty in the language that had no numbers. Ray watched from beneath his battered bush hat with the same deeply wary look the auctioneer had used.
And two goats is twenty. I don’t need this. A near moon and a rising sun is twenty-one. I need a bath, a night’s sleep, a good meal and a drink. Plus two goats is twenty-three. I need peace and quiet. And a pregnant goat is twenty-five. J need to be left alone. I need a vacation, not one of Anthea’s damned projects! And a full moon is twenty-eight….
It was several minutes before Sutter’s eyes focused on the sugarcane fields that surrounded the small airport. The cane was in all stages of production from bare red earth furrows to saw-toothed plants taller than the tallest man. Beneath a heat-shimmering sky of towering clouds, varying stages of the cane’s growth glowed in different shades of green, beginning with a pale chartreuse and progressing through a green so dark it was just short of black. With each movement of the hot, humid wind, the deceptively slender cane leaves shivered and swayed.
The wind shifted, bringing with it the rich aroma of Bundaberg’s only claim to fame – a rum distillery.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any of the local product on hand, would you?“ Sutter asked at last, focusing on Ray.
“Huh?“
“Rum,“ Sutter said succinctly.
The diver’s wariness vanished in a compassionate male smile. “Right. Got it in my kit bag. Follow me, mate. It will be too late to dive by the time we reach the island anyway.“
For the thirtieth time in as many hours, Mandy refused an airline attendant’s polite offer of food and drink. In the eternity since Anthea had blithely launched her latest project, said project had watched two in-flight movies, listened to everything from elevator music to Bach on the earphones and told herself repeatedly that she was sitting in a theater, not in an absurd piece of metal suspended by unknowable forces forty thousand feet over water so deep that it was almost entirely unknown to man.
On the whole, Mandy had been quite pleased with her handling of the trans-Pacific flight. She had managed to convince herself for several hours at a time that she was safe, if not quite sane. The flight on the 747 had been so long it had finally put her in an odd kind of trance, too tired to be actively frightened while the huge plane had chased midnight across half the world, never catching it, falling slowly farther and farther behind until an iridescent orange dawn had caught the airliner over the South Pacific.
Other people had looked out the window and murmured grateful appreciation of the glorious light sliding over the ocean. Mandy had closed her window shade and had kept it that way until the plane landed in Sydney. Every instant of the trip she had reminded herself that once the ocean went by, she was going to enjoy herself. Australia was the perfect destination for someone afraid of water – it was the driest continent on earth. After the landing she had walked off the plane with a soaring sense of pride and accomplishment that had lasted all through Customs and Immigration.
Then she had been directed to her connecting flight. Sydney wasn’t her ultimate destination. A place with the unlikely name of Bundaberg was. Her flight was to leave in twenty-eight minutes. The plane was not a 747. It wasn’t even half of one. It held less than one hundred people. If she hadn’t been nearly dead from jet lag and a lack of food and sleep, she never would have allowed the too-helpful crew to lead her aboard, tuck her into a front seat and hand her a magazine. She hadn’t exactly read the magazine during takeoff – she had tried to crawl between its pages.
After the first half hour of tightly clenched fear, her mind had slowly regained control of her body. She hadn’t exactly relaxed, but she had been able to force her fingers to turn magazine pages rather than to dig uselessly into the armrests. Food was still impossible to consider, much less to eat; fear-induced adrenaline had killed her appetite beyond hope of easy resurrection. Even water nauseated her, so she had simply endured the dryness in her mouth. The lightheadedness that had finally set in after thirty hours of absolute fasting was rather welcome. It took her mind off the size of the plane.
Mandy blinked, trying to remember what she had been attempting to read. Slowly her eyes focused on the creased, twisted pages in her lap. The map detailing Australian airlines’ domestic routes was indecipherable now, ruined be- yond any hope of use. She closed her eyes and prayed that Bundaberg was somewhere in the center of the outback, where water came no deeper than occasional puddles left by even more occasional rains.
The plane landed with no fuss and only a slight barking of the tires. While everyone else milled and descended the staircase that had been wheeled into place, Mandy breathed shakily and sat in her seat, telling herself that her ordeal was finally over. This was it. It was all done, finished, and she hadn’t disgraced herself. Tomorrow – whichever day that might be, for she had lost track of time somewhere in the endless midnight over the ocean – tomorrow she would feel proud of her accomplishment. Right now all she wanted to do was to crawl into bed and sleep for a week.
“Miss Blythe, are you well?“
Mandy lifted her head and smiled wearily at the anxious attendant. “Jet lag,“ she said. “My stomach is somewhere over Hawaii and my brain is still in California. The rest of me isn’t worth a bent penny.“
The woman smiled. “Let me get your rucksack. The pink striped one, right?“
“Yes. Thank you.“
Slowly Mandy stood up, feeling as though she were using a body that was on temporary loan rather than the one she had lived in for nearly twenty-eight years. The sunlight pouring in the airplane’s open door was so bright that she pulled sunglasses from her purse. The lenses were utterly black, contrasting starkly with the pallor of her skin, but the glasses reduced the sun’s tropic glare to a bearable level.
Mandy closed her hand over the rail of the rolling metal staircase, only to yank her fingers back. The rail was uncomfortably hot, and the air was so steamy that it was an effort to breathe. Very slowly she went down the stairs, sensing the attendant hovering helpfully behind. Finally her feet touched the apron. The solid feel of the earth was like a benediction to Mandy. She had never liked flying even before the accident; afterward, airplanes had become something she endured only because she wanted to be able to look herself in the mirror and not see a complete coward staring back out – just a partial coward.
With a sigh Mandy started toward the terminal, not even seeing the man who stood impatiently to one side, watching her. Sutter’s eyes had narrowed into unwelcoming slits of green when he recognized Mandy slowly descending from the airplane. The rum he had drank had loosened the muscles in his neck but hadn’t otherwise improved his disposition. The last thing he needed right now was three weeks of one-liners from Anthea’s smart-mouthed assistant – even if she did have the most elegant, sexy back he had ever seen or touched.
Sutter didn’t need Mandy, but he was stuck with her. There was no help for it. She was there and he was there and Anthea was wisely beyond reach. Swearing beneath his breath, Sutter covered the few yards separating him from Mandy.
“Get your tail in gear,“ Sutter said in a clipped voice, grabbing her arm just above the elbow. “We’ve got to weigh you in. Where’s your luggage?“
Mandy stared at Sutter, too thick-witted to do more than hear his words. Barely. Understanding or answering him was beyond her.
“Here you go, mate,“ the stewardess said, handing over Mandy’s backpack. “She must be an experienced flier. She didn’t bring anything more than this.“
Sutter took the backpack, grimaced at the color, grunted his thanks to the stewardess and resumed hustling Mandy toward the small terminal. Before her body could adjust to the cool impact of the air conditioning, Sutter had lifted her onto the scale’s low platform, shoved her purse and backpack into her arms and let go of her.
“Sutter?“
He ignored Mandy, looking only at Ray.
“No worries, mate. I’ve got diving gear that weighs more than your Sheila.“
“She’s not mine,“ Sutter snarled.
Mandy flinched.
Ray looked over Mandy’s trim, womanly length. Even Mandy’s dense sunglasses couldn’t dim the impact of Ray’s smile as he helped her down from the scale. Despite her exhaustion Mandy smiled in return; Anthea had been right about Australian men. Compared to Sutter, they were marvelous.
But then, so was a rabid gorilla.
“There’s a good ‘un,“ Ray said soothingly, steadying her. “Tough flight?“
“Yes,“ Mandy said, her voice cracking from dryness and relief that her torment had ended.
“No worries, luv,“ Ray said, giving her arm a reassuring squeeze as he removed the backpack. “Earl will have us out to Lady before you can say vegemite. Just don’t try eating the stuff. Bloody awful. I’ve got to stow your gear now, but if you need anything on Lady, ask for Ray.“
Rather mournfully Mandy watched as the handsome, energetic young man vanished through a back door in the terminal. She hadn’t understood much of what he had said, but his smile had been like the local air conditioning – nearly overwhelming yet basically wonderful. She turned her attention back to Sutter. His mouth made as thin a line as his glittering jade eyes.
“Look, you have no idea how sorry I am,“ she said wearily, pushing the sunglasses up on her forehead so that she could rub her aching eyes. “Believe me, this wasn’t my idea.“ She tried to smile placatingly at Sutter, but her lips kept curving down rather than up.
Sutter’s glance was more comprehensive and less approving than Ray’s had been. All that kept Sutter from venting his anger and frustration over his ruined vacation was the certainty that Mandy was on the ragged edge of exhaustion. There wasn’t a bit of sauciness left in her.
Obviously Anthea had been right; Mandy needed a vacation as much as he did. Equally obviously, she hadn’t been prepared for this one. The conservative suit, nylons and heels she was wearing fairly screamed of Anthea’s old-fashioned office.
“How much warning did you get?“ Sutter asked reluctantly, feeling unwilling compassion stir for the wilted waif standing in front of him, silently pleading with him not to be angry.
“Warning?“ Mandy made a choked sound and shook her head.
“She means well,“ Sutter said, taking Mandy’s arm again and hustling her toward the door through which they had just entered the terminal. “C’mon, kid. They’re waiting for us. You can flake out on the way over.“
Mandy barely had time to pull her sunglasses into place before she stepped into Bundaberg’s natural outdoor sauna. It took a moment for her to realize that Sutter was taking her toward the landing strip, not the parking lot. She slowed. His grip on her arm tightened.
“Is the car around at the side?“ she asked.
“What car?“
“The one that… oh, no.
No.
”
Behind her sunglasses, Mandy’s eyes widened in horror. Ahead of them was a plane that looked like an overgrown white dragonfly. The tiny twin engines were revving, making conversation impossible as Sutter dragged her closer to the open passenger door. She tried to speak but was too exhausted and too frightened to make her tongue work. Her legs weren’t working very well, either, but Sutter didn’t seem to notice. He simply swept her along, ignoring her futile attempts to stop. When it came time to scramble into the plane, she balked. She couldn’t do it. She simply couldn’t.
“N-no,“ she stammered. “I d-don’t like small planes.“
“If you think this is small, wait until you see the runway at the other end. Come on, get in,“ Sutter said impatiently, wanting to get out of the sun. “We’ve waited an hour for you already.“