Bird of Paradise (4 page)

“Article? You’re a writer?” His head tipped
a little to the side in question, his smile doing all sorts of
squishy things to her insides.

Oh, Lord, now what had she done? “Writer?
Me? I . . . eh . . . just dabble in it.

“Ah.” He looked at his hand. “How do you
know I’m a romantic?”

Her heart did a little somersault as she
traced his heart line, her finger tingling with the heat of his
palm. “That’s your hear line. The way it’s curved indicates that
you have a romantic nature.”

“Ah,” he said again, the baby dimples back.
“What else does it say?”

She blinked at him, surprised he asked. Most
men pooh-poohed having their palms read, but this one just stood
there smiling at her with his nice eyes, and his almost dimples,
and a cat whose arm was reaching out to snag other unwary
travelers. A sudden spurt of hope came to life within her. Maybe
she could turn her snappage into something good.

He obviously took her silence as reticence.
“I’m sorry; you probably don’t want to be bothered with my hand.
Forget I asked.”

“No, I love your hand,” she said hurriedly,
then blushed at her words. “That is, it’s a very interesting hand.
I’d like to read it for you.”

“Perhaps later, then?” he asked with a look
in his eye that turned the little trickle of hope into something
stronger. Unbidden, her heart started beating faster. He wanted her
to read his palm? Was he just being nice, making polite talk in the
queue, or was he truly something special? Dared she hope that the
wonderfully warm feeling his smile was spreading through her was
reciprocated? Could it possibly be he was interested in her, as
well? Had he snapped, too?

“That would be lovely,” she managed to say
without throwing herself on him. She allowed herself a moment of
pride over her restraint, then immediately turned her thoughts
toward more important matters. Should she take the chance? Should
she be bold and courageous, as Gemma had advised, when meeting a
man who turned her crank? Her lips curved in response to his warm
smile. She would. She would take the chance. “Perhaps if you have
an hour free this evening after the orientation, I could read your
palm. It really is a fascinating art, taking into account all sorts
of things, like the size and shape of your fingers, fingernails,
lines on your palm, mounts, and such. You would be surprised, for
instance, what a person’s thumb can reveal—”

“Excuse me,” the dishy man muttered, picking
up his cat carrier in one hand and a suitcase in the other. “I see
someone I have to speak with.”

Before she could blink he was off, hurrying
down a dirty and dimly lit corridor leading out of the main customs
area.

“Well, hell,” she muttered to herself,
staring at the luggage at her feet, trying hard not to cry. All of
the wispy dreams and hopes beginning to solidify under the
influence of his intriguing presence were dashed, her heart leaden
and aching with the knowledge that no man, not even one with nice
eyes and a warm smile, could find her worth his time.

She picked up her bag and rejoined the crowd
queued up for customs, mulling over the tragedy of a freshly
snapped mind as she waited. Moving forward when the customs
official beckoned her, she answered his questions without thinking,
aware only of the devastating truth made crystal clear by the nice
man’s sudden defection as soon as she stupidly opened herself up to
him. When would she learn?

She blinked back a few tears of self-pity as
the official stamped her passport, and started toward the outer
reception area, where large groups of attractive men and women were
chatting and flirting with one another. Avoiding the beautiful
people, she retreated to the far corner, next to the corridor
containing a line of offices. Her stomach roiled for a moment at
the thought of what a personification of ugly duckling-ness she
would make among the collective beauty of the other contestants;
then her pride and determination and every ounce of fortitude
within her surged to life. She turned her back on them and gazed
down the corridor. So she had snapped and the snappee wasn’t
interested in her, so what? She had a job to do, and by the saints,
she’d do it, and do it so well that Stephen would have no choice
but to offer her not only her job back, but also an immediate pay
raise as well. Wasn’t it an American who had said “Damn the
torpedoes, full speed ahead?” Well, she’d take a page from his book
and show Mr. Nice Eyes. She didn’t give a fig for what he thought
of her. She couldn’t have cared any less about his opinion. She had
no interest in him, none whatsoever, not even the slightest bit of
curiosity about what it was he was doing skulking down at the
distant end of the corridor, speaking with a man in a customs
uniform, handing over not only his cat carrier, but what looked to
be a large handful of money as well.

Every journalistic instinct within her stood
up and screamed at the nervous, guilty looks he was casting around
himself. Hero glanced over her shoulder at the crowd behind her.
Several members of the television show staff were trying to round
up contestants and herd them toward the shuttles that would take
them to the resort proper, but there were far more people than
space on the shuttles. She probably had at least ten minutes before
she’d need to be back in the main area. Still undecided, she picked
up her bag and looked back down the hallway to where the man was
disappearing through an unmarked door. She gnawed her lip for a
second, then started down the corridor after him. She had no idea
what was going on, but it looked to be the stuff that great stories
were made of, so it could only be to her benefit to follow through
on it.

She slipped through the
door after the two men and found herself in a large room
reminiscent of a warehouse, stacked from floor to ceiling with
large wooden crates. She ignored them and headed toward where she
heard voices, pausing to peer around a towering stack of crates
marked
Crescent Moon
Resort
.

The customs official signed a paper, then
handed it to the blue-eyed man. “Here is the quarantine
certificate. I’ll just add the stamps on the receipt, and you’ll be
able to pass through without comment.”

Quarantine? Hero vaguely remembered a note
about pet quarantine in the literature about Mystique Island that
came with her acceptance on the show. The man was smuggling his cat
through quarantine? What a personal interest story that would make!
Not to mention it was highly, highly illegal. Hero grinned as she
dug through her bag, her fingers closing tightly around the digital
camera loaned to her by the newspaper. She hadn’t had much of a
chance to use it yet, but knew from those prior experiences that it
could be tricky. If she could just get a photo or two of Mr. Blue
Eyes and the customs official doctoring the quarantine information,
she’d be a very happy woman. Ah, but revenge was sweet.

Both men spotter her with the very first
picture.

“Bugger and blast,” she said in a snarl at
the camera as the flash went off, attracting their attention. The
customs official disappeared instantly, leaving Hero to face the
irritated-looking man who stalked toward her.

“Hello again,” she said weakly, trying
unsuccessfully to hide the camera behind her back. “Fancy meeting
you here.”

“You were taking my picture,” the man
accused her, and rightly so, she had to admit. His luscious black
brows were drawn together in a frown that made him look even more
adorable, if that were passible. Hero sighed to herself and
promised a lecture to her libido at the earliest possible time.

“A picture? Why would I want to take a photo
of you?” she asked, knowing innocence was not a brilliant
subterfuge, but it was the best she could come up with under the
constraints of a snapped mind.

“That’s what I’d like to know. You don’t
work for Sally, do you?” He looked suspicious now, trying to see
what she held behind her back.

“Sally? No, I don’t even know a Sally. My,
look at these fascinating crates. I wonder what could be in them.
Isn’t this a fascinating room? You know, I find the whole customs
procedure simply fascinating. The rules, the regulations, the
officials . . . oh! That must be what you saw! I was taking a
picture of a customs man who was absolutely—”

“Fascinating?” he asked.

Hero nodded, slapping an insincere smile on
her face. “Yes! That’s it! He was fascinating. An now, if you’ll
excuse me, I believe the shuttles are leaving for the resort. I’ll
just dash out of your way and allow you to do whatever it was you
were doing secreted away in this room with the customs official.
Ta!”

“One moment, if you please, Miss North.” The
man’s hand shackled her free wrist as she turned to leave. “I’d
like to see your camera.”

See it? Hero smiled wanly. “It’s just a
camera, I assure you. Nothing special about it. Has a lens and a
flash and all that.”

He pulled her toward him gently but firmly.
“I’m afraid I can’t allow you to keep the film in your camera.”

“It’s a digital camera; it doesn’t have
film,” Hero retorted, beginning to be incensed at his high-handed
manner. He set the cat carrier down and pulled her hand forward
until the camera was between them. “You see? No film. Now please
release me. I have things to do, and they don’t include standing in
a room with a professional cat smuggler!”

“So you did follow me!” the man said, taking
the camera from her. She snatched at it but he stepped back,
fiddling with the knobs and buttons.

“That’s mine; you have no right to it! I
must insist that you return it to me immediately!”

“You’re English,” he said, apropos of
nothing.

“Yes, I am, as if that makes a difference to
camera ownership. Give me back my property!”

“One moment.” He frowned, not even looking
at her as he pressed buttons until his image appeared on the small
screen. “There. I’ll just erase this picture—”

Hero ground an objection between her teeth,
furious that he was deleting her evidence, more determined than
ever to have her revenge on him.

“It matters little whether I have a photo of
you and that customs man falsifying quarantine documents,” she said
airily as he handed the camera back to her. “I imagine both the
television show producer and the head of customs will be most
interested in what I witnessed here. I’m sure a quick look at your
passport and the false papers for your cat will reveal everything.”
She tucked the camera away in her bag and gave him a bright smile.
“Good day!”

“Wait a minute; you can’t tell anyone about
Jesus!” The man looked horrified at the thought.

“Jesus?” Had the man snapped, too?

“My cat.”

She blinked in surprise. “You named your cat
Jesus? Isn’t that rather blasphemous?”

“It’s not intended to be blasphemous; it’s
just the only name he answers to,” the man said, resignation
written all over his face. He squatted down to release the door to
the carrier.

“He
answers
to the name
Jesus?”

“Yes,” the man said, pulling out a huge
gray-and-white cat, attaching a thin leather leash onto his collar.
“I think it’s because when most people see him, they say, ‘Jesus,
that’s a cat?’ Somehow the name just stuck.”

Hero looked at the huge animal as it hobbled
around. It was approximately the size and shape of a well-fed
bulldog, was missing one eye, and had a pronounced limp. Altogether
it was a very curious animal for a man to feel so strongly about
that he dared risk imprisonment to smuggle it through customs for a
six-week visit. “I begin to see your point,” she murmured watching
the cat as it investigated the nearby crates.

“Do you know what they’ll do to him if you
turn us in?” the man asked. Hero squatted down when the animal
limped over to her and smelled her shoes. She peered at his
front.

“Is one of his legs shorter than the
others?”

“Yes, he lost an inch and a half of bone on
one leg when he was hit by a car. That’s how I found him, as a
matter of fact, a stray lying by the side of the road after some
bastard had mowed him down. The vet was going to take the leg off,
but offered to do reconstructive surgery instead. As you can see,
it wasn’t entirely successful.”

“Poor puss,” Hero cooed, stroking the cat as
he rubbed against her, admiration for the sort of man who’d stop
for a wounded cat—not to mention pay for its surgery—doing much to
take the edge off her irritation with him. He might have named the
cat inappropriately, but he evidently had a very soft heart. “I
don’t think very many people would take in such an odd animal.”

A rueful smile curled the man’s lips “I seem
to have a habit of acquiring them. Back home I have a maniac
pheasant who likes to chase cars, a parrot that speaks only
Mandarin Chinese, two dogs that have six legs between them, and a
pygmy goat that’s happiest when she’s playing on a swing set. Him I
found about a year ago.”

Hero scratched behind the cat’s ears. He
leaned into her and almost pushed her over. “He must have suffered
terribly.”

“Yes, he has suffered, and he’ll suffer even
more if you tell the officials what you saw.”

The man’s eyes were dark with pleading.
Despite her earlier vow of revenge, Hero couldn’t help but be
affected by his obvious love for the huge cat. “I’m sure they
wouldn’t harm him. They’d just put him quarantine for a few months.
The animals are very well taken care of, I’m sure.”

“It would kill him,” the man argued, his
eyes soft as he scratched behind the cat’s ear.

“Oh, you exaggerate. I’m sure it wouldn’t’
be fun for Jesus, but I hardly believe quarantine would kill him.
I’m quite sure the attendants are fond of animals.”