Bird of Paradise (13 page)

“Bloody hell, what timing,” she grumbled, sniffing
heavily and waving back. She dashed behind a tree and used a leaf
to mop up both tears and nose, reappearing with what she hoped was
a convincing smile.

It would never do to let the TV audience see that
her heart was broken here in paradise.

Chapter Six

The following day was gentlemen's choice. Hero knew
even before Adam and Jesus stalked across the crowded ballroom
toward her that he was going to demand her as his date. What she
didn't know was what she was going to do about it. Apologizing was
out of the question, she had wounded his male ego the day before,
which meant he was determined to prove her judgment of him was
wrong. He would be all that much prone to saying romantic things,
to flattering her, praising her, and quite probably attempting to
kiss her.

Lord, she hoped so.

She drove that rogue thought from her brain, telling
herself firmly that she might love him more than life itself, she
might have a shattered mound of dust where her heart had been, not
to mention the snapped-mind incident, but she would not tolerate
mutiny. That still left the issue of what was she to do to stem the
tide of affection he would no doubt be forced by his own sense of
injustice to slather upon her.

“I know one thing . . .” she said to herself as Adam
approached.

“Hero,” he said as he stopped before her, a
surprisingly grim look on his face. “Ten o'clock. The fishing dock,
Boat fifteen. Got it?”

“. . . I am not kissing you.”

Immediately his brilliant blue eyes looked at her
lips. “Hell.”

That was her thought exactly.

“Boat fifteen. Half an hour,” he said hoarsely,
dragging his gaze from her lips to give her a heated look that left
her knees melting into a puddle of water.

She summoned every last ounce of determination, and
put it in one word. “No.”

He frowned. “Now what?”

“No, I won't go on a date with you.” She made
shooing motions with her hands.

He goggled at her. “Did you just shoo me away?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I told you—I'm not going on a date with you. I
refuse your date.”

“You can't. It's my choice. I choose you. So
there.”

“Ha!” she said as he started to walk away.

He froze and slowly turned around. “What did you
say?”

“I said 'ha!' Disdainfully and with much scorn. And
for your information, Mr. Adam Monday Marsh Fuller, I am not the
sort of a woman who says 'ha!' disdainfully and with much scorn
lightly. So there yourself!”

He glowered at her, positively glowered at her now.
His jaw was tense and tight, his hands flexing as if they wanted to
be around her neck, the words fired out through clenched teeth with
all the warmth and friendliness of a bullet. “Boat fifteen. Fishing
dock. One. Half. Hour.”

“In your dreams,” she called after his receding
figure, using her favorite Americanism. She smiled smugly to
herself for a moment, then turned to see the horrifying sight of a
cameraman filming her. Despite swearing she was never going to
notice them, she simpered repulsively and waggled her fingers at
the camera. “I was just joking,” she explained.

The cameraman leaned out from behind the camera lens
and cocked an eyebrow at her.

She turned away and sighed. This
was going to be
another
one of those days.

“Why are you doing this?” Hero demanded as she
clambered aboard the fishing boat assigned to take out the sixteen
people for date of the morning—fishing.

“We have an agreement,” he said without looking at
her, bent over a struggling Jesus. The cat twisted, forcing a
buckle to slip between Adam’s fingers. “Damn!”

“I cancelled our agreement, if you recall,” she said
coldly. “I was quite clear about it.”

“Insultingly so,” he agreed, still bent over the
cat, wrestling to organize a series of belts and buckles around the
rotund furry body.

“I just want it understood that I am acceding to
this date under protest.”

“Consider it understood.”

“I want it perfectly clear that the whole thing was
your idea, and not mine.”

“I will hold myself entirely to blame for any
consequences of the date if it will make you feel better.”

“Good.” She moved closer. “I apologize if I've
insulted you. I simply wished to make myself clear.”

“Oh, you've succeeded there, have no fear,” he told
the top of Jesus's head as he struggled to reach a recalcitrant
buckle. “Stand still, cat!”

“Well…good. What is it you're doing to Jesus?”

Her lovely face came into view as she squatted next
to him, stroking the cat on the top if his head.

“Putting his life jacket on. He's in a bit of a snit
because I made him leave Gecko behind, and he's punishing me by
refusing to wear his flotation device.” He glanced up at her,
caught the ghost of a smile on her lips, and smiled in return. “The
things I do for this cat, huh?”

Her gaze dropped. “Something like that.”

He got the last buckle snapped into place and stood
up, straightening the lurid orange-and-blue feline life jacket and
giving Jesus a pat on the shoulder. “Stiff upper lip, cat. Gecko
will be waiting for you when you return.”

Adam slipped on a pair of mirrored sunglasses,
smiled cheerfully at the camera when it was pointed at him, and
spent the twenty-minute boat ride out to a secluded lagoon watching
Hero. She scratched Jesus's ears, ignored the cameramen, and sat by
herself at the back of the boat, staring into the water. She did
everything, in fact, but look at him. That gave him the time to
watch her, and to try to figure out how the devil he was going to
straighten out the mess he'd made of things.

The ship pulled alongside some trees hanging over
the water before he'd come to any conclusion.

“You're free to fish anywhere in the lagoon,” one of
the show's assistants told them. “We have floats available if you
want to do it from off shore.”

“Shore or float?” Adam asked Hero, holding out a
fishing pole for her.

She grimaced. “Shore.”

“Shore it is.” He gathered up Jesus and the fishing
gear, and slipped over the side of the boat, wading to shore to
deposit the cat and gear on a shady rock. “Stay put.”

Jesus gave him a disdainful one-eyed glare and
proceeded to lick his hind end.

“You're next,” he said as he waded back to the boat
where Hero was looking indecisively at the water. Several other
people were wading ashore, claiming spots up and down the lagoon.
The camera crew and sound people carefully held their equipment
above their heads as they headed for shore.

“What?” She looked up, startled at his words. “I'm
next for what?”

He stood next to the boat in waist-high water and
held out his arms. “I'm the ferry to the shore. Put your arms
around my neck.”

She stared at him, horror mingling with disbelief in
her beautiful grey eyes. “You can't be serious!”

“Never more so. Come on, if we don't get to it, all
the fish will be caught.”

She wrung her hands. “You can't carry me.”

“Why not?”

She looked around quickly, then leaned forward over
the edge of the boat, allowing him a delicious view down her loose
tunic. “I'm too heavy.”

He rolled his eyes. “You're not too heavy.”

“Shush!”

He lowered his voice. “Hero, you have three choices:
you can stay on the boat and not get any points, or you can wade
ashore yourself, or you can let me carry you the ten feet it'll
take to put you on solid ground.”

She wrung her hands even harder, then raised her
chin and reached for him, stepping over the rail of the boat to the
outer ledge. “If you drop me I'll never forgive you,” she whispered
as he slipped an arm behind her legs, swinging her away from the
boat.

“You mean like this?” he asked as he released her
for a moment.

“Adam
!”
she shrieked, clutching him, then scowling something fierce when he
started laughing. He carried her to shore with her scolding him
every step, and knew as he set her on the rock that whatever it
took, whatever he had to say to convince her, whatever acts of
bravery and heroism and valor she demanded he perform, he'd
perform, all because he had to have her. She was the woman meant
for him.

The problem was to get her to recognize that
fact.

“
So,” he asked a short while later,
leaning back against the rock and watching the float on his line
bob merrily in the waves. “This isn’t such a bad date, is it?
Better than that horrible one yesterday.”

Hero look like she didn’t want to ask him, but she
did. “The movie?”

“No, the other one. The shopping-for-shoes one. I
don’t know what you did, but the woman who was with me insisted on
modeling every single pair of shoes the shop had and asking for my
opinion on each. It was a horrible experience. I’ve never thought
up so many adjectives in my life. How you women can take a simple
act like buying a pair of shoes and turn it into a two hour torture
session is beyond me.”

His comments riled her up, just as he knew they
would. “I quite enjoyed my afternoon date. The gentleman I was with
had particularly good taste in espadrilles.”

“Honey, a man who spends two hours giving you advice
on shoes has only one thing on his mind.”

She rustled around in the large purse she carried
everywhere with her before looking up. “A shoe fetish?”

Adam shook his head, fighting a smile. “Let’s just
say I bet he’s trying to get you somewhere—and it isn’t into a good
pair of shoes. Hey, I think I have a nibble.”

“Oh really?” Hero pulled a small can out of her
purse and turned to face the water. Adam leaped to his feet when a
loud blast startled everything within, he was guessing, a five mile
radius.

“What the hell is that?” he swore, dropping his
fishing line and lunging for her.

She danced out of his reach, holding a small can
with a white plastic horn behind her. “It’s my air horn.”

He was too quick for her. Snagging her arm and
grabbing the air horn before she knew what he was doing.

“Your what?” He stared at it as people up and down
the lagoon shouted and called to each other. Adam yelled to a fast
approaching Eden assistant that it was all right, just a mistake
and nothing more. A cameraman and sound woman trailed after the
assistant.

“Why on earth do you have an air horn?” Adam asked
her before they were set upon with questions.

“You obviously have not noticed, but I’m a
vegetarian.”

He stared at her. “I had noticed, and so…?”

“I do not eat fish. I do not condone the slaughter
of fish for sporting purposes. Hence, the air horn to scare them
away so you won’t catch them. I couldn’t possibly have the death of
a fish on my conscious as a result of our date.”

He stuffed the air horn in the roomy pocket of his
knee-length shorts, shaking his head and muttering to himself
before turning a bright smile on the cameraman as he puffed his way
up to them. He explained the mistake to the assistant, apologized,
and tried to look like he was having a great time.

“You really are a terrible actor,” Hero told him
once the crew had scurried off to film one of the couples who had
fallen off their float and were floundering around in the water
trying to retrieve the woman’s missing bikini top. “No one will
believe you’re having a good time. You look like you want to
strangle someone.”

“I wonder who that could be,” he said with a tight
smile as he leaned back against the rock, forgetting the air horn
he’d securely pocketed. The sudden sensation of an icy blast
hitting his genitals coincided with another ear-shattering blast,
causing him to jump at least three feet straight off the ground,
and whirl around clutching at himself.

“Air horns gain their power from compressed carbon
dioxide,” Hero said helpfully as she watched him fall to his knees,
both hands cupped protectively over his groin. “I assume that
sounded in the close proximity of flesh, you might feel a certain
sensation of…shall we say discomfort?”

“You might say that,” Adam said, his voice sounding
rather like he were chewing on gravel. “The words ‘henceforth not
able to father any children’ also come to mind.”

Hero giggled.

Adam relaxed despite his frozen testicles attempting
to suck up inside his body. If she could giggle, he had a hope that
all could be made right. All he had to do was to make her see
herself through his eyes, to show her that she was beautiful and
warm and smart, and that he had only the most honorable of
intentions toward her.

In other words, he had to pull off a miracle.

He watched her wade knee-high in the sun-warmed
water, laughing at his cat when Jesus followed her from the safety
of dry land. Adam could only think of one way he was going to have
his miracle.

“Sorry, old boy,” he said softly, smiling as Hero
tossed a piece of seaweed to Jesus. “I think those prosthetic balls
of yours are just going to have to wait a bit longer. This is even
more important than restoring your manhood.”

Hero was ecstatic as she skipped down the stone path
toward the ballroom. The last three days had been blissfully
wonderful, all because of Adam. He had been attentive to her at
every opportunity, sitting with her at dinner, laughing with her
when they met during the day, teasing her, talking to her, and best
of all, kissing her every night outside her cabana. He hadn't made
love to her yet, but she knew it was inevitable. His constant,
unfailing interest in her, his gentle patience, and unstinting
devotion, had turned her anger and uncertainly toward him into
something that made her heart soar.