Chain Lightning (20 page)

Watching intently, Mandy stood motionless while the clouds of fish thinned into individual bodies shining in shades of silver and unexpected jeweled flashes of color. As the fish sorted themselves into species and went about their usual business in the Fish Pond’s small world, Mandy realized that, while she might not be able to go out and over the edge of the reef, she could see at least some of its life-forms in a natural habitat.

Eagerly Mandy watched the various fish. She knew from past study that none of their motions was random; each movement was in some way related to fish survival, whether it be eating, hiding, courting or defending a particular patch of coral as their very own. The skimming of wind over the surface of the lagoon hampered her observations by ruffling the water’s surface, making it opaque to a land dweller’s eyes. With a sudden stab of yearning Mandy remembered what it had been like to swim beneath the sea, her vision enhanced by a watertight mask. She had been in ocean water from Alaska to Scammon Lagoon in Mexico, but never had she gone diving in anything as clear as the sea surrounding Lady Elliot Island. If she had been wearing a mask, the water would have inhibited her sight barely more than air.

Brilliant observation, Dr. Samantha Blythe-Cameron,
she congratulated herself, underlining her sarcasm by using the name she had signed on her academic papers,
but just how do you propose getting your face into the drink long enough to enjoy all that rare marine visibility?

Suddenly Mandy had an idea of how she might see beneath the surface without getting wet. She was still congratulating herself on the idea’s brilliance when she returned from the cafeteria carrying two colorless water glasses. At first she simply waded in thigh-deep and poked the bottom of the glasses into the lagoon. Instantly a clear circle of vision appeared in the wind-ruffled water. All she had to do was stand around until something interesting swam into the narrow circle of focus formed by the bottom of the glass.

The fish weren’t feeling cooperative. Gingerly Mandy inched around the shallow end of the Fish Pond, holding the glasses partially submerged, trying to look through the clear circles without bending down or getting her face any closer to the lagoon’s liquid surface. She caught just enough tantalizing glimpses of marine life to keep her trying to see more. As the tide dropped she waded out farther, until finally she was waist-deep once more, utterly enthralled by her small windows into the warm world of the lagoon.

Finally voices seeped into Mandy’s awareness, the calls and laughter of the first wave of divers returning from the outer reef. She knew Sutter wouldn’t be with them. He would still be out in the shimmering blue world of the sea…weightless, soaring, watched by fish that were living jewels.

Mandy would have given her soul to be with him, free and unafraid, no longer the object of unwanted masculine pity.

Slowly she turned and waded ashore, reluctant to end her contact with even the brief flashes she had seen of the life beneath the warm sea. But she hadn’t eaten breakfast, and unless she wanted to face Sutter over lunch she had to eat with the divers who had just returned. So she traded her two wet glasses for a dry one at the cafeteria, ate hurriedly and then went to the dive shed before her courage deserted her.

Ray was there refilling tanks with Tommy’s help. Both men looked up at the same instant.

“G’day, luv,“ Ray said. “Are you…is everything all right?“

“Fine,“ Mandy said quickly.

“I’m sorry as bloody – “ began Tommy.

“It wasn’t your fault,“ she said, cutting across Tommy’s unwanted apology. “I should have told everyone right away that I have a problem with water. I was just too ashamed.“

“No reason to be,“ Ray said matter-of-factly. “Some people just don’t like water or heights or dark nights. Hold it steady, Tommy, or we’ll be squirting air all over the bleeding island.“

Mandy watched until the two men finished with the tank before she said, “Ray?“

He looked up.

“Is there an extra snorkeling mask around?“ she asked.

“Sure thing, luv, but why don’t you just take your own?“

Mandy blinked. “Mine?“

“It’s got your name on it, just like those two tanks, that wet suit, the fins, all that lot,“ he said, pointing toward a corner of the dive shed. “Came to Lady on your ticket.“

“Oh.“ Mandy looked at the new, beautifully made diving gear, mentally added up the cost and wondered how she would ever repay Anthea. “Well, in that case, I’ll take the mask.“

Ray handed it to her with a curious sidelong look but said nothing.

“Thanks,“ she muttered.

Before either man could ask what a woman who was terrified of water was going to do with a diving mask, Mandy had turned and quickly walked away, her fingers tightly wrapped around the familiar shape and texture of a diving mask with snorkel attached. She made a brief detour at the bread bowl just outside the cafeteria, but she didn’t hang around to listen to the divers talk about angelfish and sharks and anemones as big as soccer balls. She wouldn’t be seeing anything that spectacular where she was going.

But she would put her face in the water if it was the last thing she did on earth.

“Thanks, Ray,“ Sutter said, shrugging off the weight of the scuba tank and passing it over to the other diver.

“Sure you have time?“

“No worries, mate. I’m here to keep the paying blokes happy,“ Ray said, grinning as he took the tank and set it up to be refilled for an afternoon dive. “Besides, it’s a pat on the back.“

“What is?“

“Letting me take care of your equipment.“

Sutter paused, then grinned in return. He usually didn’t trust other people enough to let them take care of all those little items on which his own life could depend during a dive. But Ray had proven to be as meticulous as Sutter himself.

“And here I thought I was just getting lazy in my old age,“ Sutter said.

“Not you, mate. You’re like one of those deep-water sharks. No frills, no noise, no racing about, just muscle and confidence.“ Ray hesitated. “Your Sheila was in just a bit ago. Wanted her mask. You taking her snorkeling?“

Sutter’s eyes narrowed. He had spent most of the time since waking trying to keep Mandy out of his mind. He hadn’t been successful. “Did she say I was?“

“No.“

“Did she take her fins?“

Ray shook his head.

The breeze freshened suddenly, rippling through the low vegetation surrounding the dive shed and landing field.

“Squall line coming through,“ Ray said, breathing in, tasting the difference in the air as he scanned the changes in the sky. “Be raining soon.“

“Wind?“

“Too right,“ Ray said, sighing. “Maybe we can walk out on the reef again and dive off the wall. Depends on the swell.“

“Her mask, huh? Anything else?“ Sutter asked, unable to keep his mind off Mandy.

“Just a smile and a white bikini.“

Involuntarily Sutter’s expression changed as he thought of Mandy’s sweet body and of how little of that sweetness would be covered by a bikini.

Ray saw Sutter’s annoyance and smiled. “No worries, mate. There’s more cover in her bikini than in most around here.“

Sutter grunted and walked off toward the cafeteria. He had hoped a morning of particularly demanding diving would defuse the sexual tension that had had him in its grip since his first look at Mandy after dawn. Diving, however, hadn’t done the job. Although his body definitely knew that it had spent a physical morning – and an even more physical night – there was no decline in his baffling, prowling sexuality.

A swift look down the beach told Sutter that Mandy was wading in the Fish Pond, apparently oblivious to the comings and goings of the people on the beach. She was wearing the big mask pushed up on her forehead in the manner of a diver who had just come from the water, yet it was obvious that her hair and upper body were dry.

Sutter stood and watched for a few moments, screened by the she-oaks that grew up to the edge of the beach. Mandy was doing nothing but standing up to her hips in the lagoon, stirring her hands through the warm water, stroking it as though it were a lover. The thought of having her fingers stroking him in the same way sent sudden, white-hot desire spearing through Sutter, a need so fierce that it almost drove him to his knees. He closed his eyes against the sight of Mandy’s long, graceful back, her golden-brown skin curving in to a slender waist and her high breasts filling the bikini top as they had once filled his hands.

But closing his eyes didn’t banish Mandy from Sutter’s mind. Memories of the night before condensed, Mandy’s body glistening with moonlight and sensual heat, her hips sinuous, graceful, moving in slow, sexy rhythms until tiny cries rippled from her lips, cries that matched the rippling heat deep within her body.

Abruptly Sutter turned away from the beach, determined to put Mandy out of his mind. After a shower, a huge lunch and a desultory beer, he turned down an offer of cards. He was too restless to put up with penny-ante poker. A single look at the combers booming over the reef even at low tide told him that diving was out of the question. He turned his back on the beach leading to the Fish Pond, choosing instead the path that went in the opposite direction, skirting the noisy bird colony.

In the hot, sultry afternoon, the sky was a turmoil of wind-shredded clouds. The sea seethed and churned in shades of stormy gray.

Before Sutter was halfway around the island, rain began to fall. The drops were as warm as the air, as hot as his body. They gathered in his hair and ran down his cheeks like tears. He barely noticed. He simply walked on until he rounded the far end of the island to complete his circuit, striding along the section where waves were held at bay by the inner reef. A few hundred yards farther up the beach brought him to the sloping limestone shelf where he had first comforted, then wanted and finally seduced Mandy. He stood and looked at the small ribbons of sand caught in limestone troughs and fought not to remember how it had been to push into Mandy’s tight satin depths, to feel her clench in pleasure around him.

With a wild curse Sutter turned away from the rain-washed stone and strode up the beach. There was no one around to distract or disturb him. The weather had driven everyone into tents or cabins or to the card games and conversations in the tiny bar. Sutter walked on, oblivious to the wind and sheets of rain, until he suddenly realized that he wasn’t alone on the beach. Mandy had stayed in the Fish Pond, sitting so still that he hadn’t noticed her until he was within ten yards.

Without stopping to think, Sutter faded back into the she-oaks that fringed the beach. Motionless he watched while Mandy stared at the water that was barely up to her rib cage even though she was sitting down. The diving mask had been pulled into place and the attached snorkel was held between her lips as though she were going to push off and float facedown in the rain-swept lagoon. But she didn’t move.

At first Sutter couldn’t figure out what Mandy was doing. She would bend forward a fraction of an inch at a time, then jerk back and sit utterly still for several minutes. Then she would begin leaning forward again, slowly, slowly, slowly, only to jerk upright once more and sit motionless for a time.

After watching the sequence several times Sutter suddenly understood that Mandy was trying to force herself to put her face in the water. Chills roughened his skin at the realization. He had known that Mandy was afraid of water. He had heard the panic in her scream, seen it in her face, felt it in her thrashing body when he had pulled her from the Fish Pond; but he hadn’t truly understood just how great her fear was until this moment. She approached the surface of the lagoon as though it were molten metal that would burn her to the bone…or a prison where she would be chained, beaten, tortured. The certainty of her own destruction was written in every trembling line of her body.

Yet Mandy leaned closer to the water’s surface anyway, closer and then closer still – visibly, physically torn between the opposite demands of her fear and her determination to overcome that fear.

Why? Why is she so afraid? Why is she so determined? And where in God’s name does someone who is afraid of so many things get the courage to confront fear?

There were no answers to Sutter’s silent, almost anguished questions. There was nothing but rain pouring down in warm sheets, Mandy bending closer, closer, closer to the water while minutes sped by and he held his breath and prayed (hat this time she would make it…this time…this time,
please, God, let it be this time, let her torment end!

Mandy jerked back from the water.

Sutter’s breath hissed out through gritted teeth. His hands ached from being clenched into hard fists. His whole body was drawn with a tension almost equal to Mandy’s as she tilted her head toward the rain-churned sea and began to lean forward once more.

Sutter was halfway to Mandy before he realized what he intended to do: he was going to drag her out of the water, ending her torment
She’s not in any danger and you know it. So why interfere? What’s wrong with you?
he asked himself savagely.

The answer was as simple as it was baffling.

/
can’t bear to watch her pain.

So don’t watch.

I can’t bear that, either.

In the end Sutter remained where he was, fighting the nearly overwhelming need to end Mandy’s self-imposed ordeal. Yet, as much as he wanted it to end, he couldn’t help admiring the sheer grit Mandy displayed each time she forced herself to begin all over again.

Suddenly Mandy bent at the waist and fairly rushed the water, sending it splashing over her face and hair. Instantly she yanked herself upright again. Sutter felt waves of triumph and relief so great they made him light-headed. Finally it was over. She had done it. Now she could get up and get out of the water she so clearly hated and feared. Now he wouldn’t have to watch, feeling savage and helpless because there was nothing he could do to affect the outcome of Mandy’s ordeal, nothing he could do to take away pain or to give her strength or comfort. He was helpless. But no longer. It was over. Now he could take a deep breath and…