Diana Palmer - Escapade

“A hell of a waste of time!”

“You’re going to wear yourself out from the inside,” she pointed out. “First your brain, then your stomach, then your heart. In no time you’ll be a walking bone-and-skin frame with nothing inside.”

“You don’t say?” He took a handful of her long black hair in one hand and tugged on it as he had done when she was a kid. Only now her head eased back gently, and his eyes dropped to her soft pink mouth and lingered there before he spoke. “You’re sassy,” he said.

“I learned by watching you,” she said. Her voice sounded husky. She couldn’t breathe properly when he was this close, and she was afraid that it might show. “Joshua, you’re hurting my hair,” she whispered unsteadily.

His grip lessened, but only slightly. He actually leaned toward her, so that his coffee-and-smoke-scented breath cooled her parted lips. “Be careful that I don’t decide to take you over,” he said deeply. “You’d make one hell of an acquisition.”

“Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t match the decor in your office at all,” she said with forced lightness. Her body was already burning. “You like dark Mediterranean, and I’m French provincial. Besides, you’re too busy.”

“Is that what you really think? That I only have a cash register for a brain and a slide rule for a heart? You, of all people on earth, should know better,” he added, his voice as sensuous as velvet against bare skin. “I taught you to fight, but I guess you’ll have to learn just about everything else on your own. I’m too jaded to make a proper tutor.” He let her hair fall back to her shoulders and turned away from her.

She studied his long back with pure pleasure. “I have to get my education somewhere, Josh,” she murmured, striking just the right note of amused honesty to raise one of his eyebrows. “If you won’t sacrifice yourself for me, I guess I’ll have to advertise for someone who will.”

“No, you won’t. You don’t know how to play that kind of game. When you give yourself, it will be for keeps.”

She looked up at him openly, appreciating the hard lines of his face, the faint weariness there. “You’re tired. Why don’t you send Brad to Nassau and get some rest?”

Her concern almost pushed him over the edge. He didn’t want it; he didn’t need it! His hand clenched at his side. He took a draw from the cigar and sent up a cloud of smoke.

“Because Brad wouldn’t get any farther than the casino across the bridge on Paradise Island, and you know it,” he said flatly. “I’m going to keep him away from temptation, at least until we close this Saudi Arabian contract.”

Amanda had her own suspicions about how well Brad was avoiding temptation, but she couldn’t sell him out to his brother. Josh made no allowances for weakness.

“You’re hard to argue with,” she commented.

“Then stop doing it. I don’t have time, anyway.” He checked his watch again. “I’ll try to be back in time for dinner.”

“I haven’t seen you for thirty minutes at a stretch since I’ve been here. And I really do have to think about getting back to San Antonio.”

“It’s only a week since the funeral,” he said. “Stay a while longer. Why not fly over to Jamaica with me tomorrow? I’ll make sure I have time for you.”

“Don’t strain yourself,” she said, annoyed at his patronizing one.

“Don’t worry. I won’t,” he said with a pleasant smile.

She threw up her hands. “Every time I’m around you, I feel as if I’ve been dragged backward through a hedge.”

His face seemed faintly troubled. He touched her hair again, but this time he drew his hand away at once. He searched her eyes intently and held them until her heart ran away.

“I’m not a child, Josh,” she said huskily.

“You aren’t superficial, either,” he replied. “You’re as deep as the ocean, as enigmatic as a budding rose in a briar patch. I admire your values as much as I admire your spirit. I could never soil that.”

“You pirate,” she accused softly. “You’re as old-fashioned as I am.”

He nodded slowly. “Don’t tell anyone,” he said with a half smile, and started walking again. “I’d hate to ruin my image.”

CHAPTER FOUR

BRAD DIDN’T GO to Nassau. Josh went himself. But that evening at dinner, Josh did ask his brother to travel to Montego Bay.

“All right,” Brad said pleasantly. “I’ll go to Jamaica for you. But I do need to be back in San Antonio by the end of the week. I’ve got a prospective client to court, an aerospace executive.”

Amanda caught the flicker in Brad’s eyes that Josh missed. Perhaps she simply knew him better, but his reason for going home to Texas didn’t sound completely honest.

“Suit yourself, as long as you hold up your end,” Josh replied. “I have to admit that you’ve made some startling gains in new territory this year.”

Brad fingered his wineglass and didn’t look up. “Enough for a raise?”

“You still owe me six months’ salary,” Josh reminded him. “And you’re paying off a hell of a loan.”

Brad’s dark eyes flashed in anger at his brother. “Go ahead. Rub it in. So I lost. But sometimes I win. When I do, I win big!”

“Nobody wins at a gambling house,” Josh said coldly. “It’s a narcotic. You’re addicted, but you won’t admit it.”

Brad tossed down his napkin and got to his feet. “I’ll take the Learjet to Mo’ Bay in the morning. When I’ve finished there, I’m going home.” He dared his brother to argue.

Josh didn’t. He simply stared at the younger man, ending that argument. Brad glanced at Amanda with a strained smile and left the room.

“You ride him hard,” she told Josh.

“Try the quenelles,” he said, ignoring her comment. “They’re delicious.”

“He’s your brother.”

“That’s why I want him to wake up, before he squanders his inheritance and ruins his life.”

“You can’t drag him into some clinic, Josh,” she persisted. “He’s not a chair that you can send off to be reupholstered.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t want to start this tonight,” he said firmly, a faint threat in his voice.

She wasn’t going to change his mind. As usual, it was already solidifying as quickly as concrete. She lifted her fork to her mouth. He was right: the quenelles were delicious.

While a taciturn, uncommunicative Brad flew to Jamaica, Josh took Amanda out in the launch to another island, an uninhabited one near Opal Cay.

“You yourself said that I needed some time off,” he reminded her when she seemed surprised at his choice of location. “Harriet packed us a delicious picnic lunch and a bottle of wine.”

She smiled. The prospect of an entire day with Josh was devastating to her senses. Heaven.

Josh dropped the anchor and they disembarked. It was autumn back in San Antonio, but here it was eternal summer. The beach was as white as refined sugar. The sea was every shade of aqua and blue in existence. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was, Amanda thought as she waded ashore, a perfect day for a picnic.

She glanced at Josh, trying not to be obvious as she noticed his long, muscular legs in white Bermuda shorts. He was wearing a blue knit shirt with them, one that showed off the breadth of his chest and shoulders. He wore deck shoes and deftly unloaded their things in a few, easy strides. Amanda enjoyed watching him. She loved his hands. They were large and powerful, his fingers ending in broad, flat nails that were immaculately clean.

She’d tied her long hair back in a ponytail for comfort, but she felt smaller and younger than ever as she walked along in his shadow to the shelter of palm trees and sea grape trees along the beach.