Crazy for You (5 page)

Quickly, he jumped out of the Jeep and ran up
to the side of her vehicle. The window was down. Tasha was draped
over the steering wheel, her back heaving up and down. The air bag
had been triggered. Small, guttural noises were coming from her
throat.

He reached out and touched her shoulder. “You
okay?”

Tasha jerked her head up. “Of all the stupid,
irresponsible, idiotic things—”

Andrew breathed a sigh that she was okay then
parked his fists on his hips. “I asked you if you were okay.”

“Okay? Okay? Oh, yeah, sure, I’m okay. Are
you okay?”

Andrew shifted his weight to his other foot
and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

The door burst open and hit him square in the
thigh, nearly knocking him off balance. Tasha jumped out, her arms
flailing. “What in the hell did you think you were doing back
there? You could have gotten us both killed. Are you an idiot or
what?”

Andrew narrowed his eyes at her. “No,
actually, I think that’s more your persona, not mine. I want my
car.”

“Your car? You want your car?” She reached
out and grabbed his shirt in both her hands, balling it up with her
fists. Andrew felt his eyes widen. “You materialistic pig! You
risked both our lives over the want of a stupid sporty little
car?”

She released him with a small shove and
Andrew stepped backward. The plan was, wasn’t it, that he was going
to strangle her? What had happened?

He watched Tasha crawl into the driver’s side
of the car on her hands and knees, reach for her bags on the other
side, all the while muttering about Communism, or Capitalism, or
something of the like…and an ill wind of a Fascist society.
Weird woman
.

Andrew couldn’t help but allow his gaze to be
drawn to her derriere poked up at him, perfectly framed in the door
opening. He found himself grinning, liking the way her shorts hiked
up slightly showing the bottom of two rounded cheeks. Then she
backed out, her gear in tow, and slammed the door shut. He wiped
the grin off his face as she reached in through the window to
retrieve something she’d dropped on the seat.

“You want your stupid car, take your stupid
car.” She walked off in a huff. He let her, watching her tight
little, slim-hipped, rear-end sway in the khaki hiking shorts as
she approached the Jeep, her ponytail slightly brushing the small
swell of her hips as she did. He stood there until she opened door,
reached in and grabbed his luggage and his briefcase, and tossed
them onto the pavement. A passing car nearly hit them. Andrew
cringed and darted forward.

“Hey! Be careful with that! It’s
expensive!”

“Then you better get it the hell off the
road,” she spouted back.

She jumped into the Jeep. He heard the
ignition start as he stepped closer to the vehicle. She tramped on
the accelerator. The Jeep didn’t budge. She tried again. Sand and
dirt flew up into an arc behind the Jeep as it rocked
forward...then backward...then forward...then backward again. She
stopped, then tried once more. More sand and gravel and dirt flew.
The Jeep stayed put.

Finally, she cut the engine and glared at
Andrew through the windshield.

A through struck him.

Frantically, he raced back toward the Miata,
opened the door, and dove into the driver’s seat. His fear was
realized—the ignition was empty. She’d taken the damn keys.

“Need these?”

He turned. Now standing beside of the Jeep,
she taunted him, keys swaying from her fingertips. And she was
smiling. The idiot was smiling.

Andrew felt like he did as a child when his
older brother used to play aggravating, teasing games with him. He
didn’t like it then; he didn’t like it now. He was tired of playing
this aggravating game with her.

“Yes, I would like the keys back, please. If
you don’t mind.”

And then she did it again. She smiled.

A dangerous, wicked smile.

In the next instance she reared her arm back
and threw the keys as hard and as far as she could over the ocean
side of the road. And immediately after that, she tossed his
luggage and briefcase after the keys.

She spared the laptop.

Andrew just stood there, spellbound, and
watched his things bounce on the rocks into the ocean.

Then it started to rain.

Ten

On the bus to Negril, and Eden II

Lucky for them, the bus to the resort came
rumbling by within the next fifteen minutes.

Andrew and Tasha were both soaked to the
skin. Tasha had to chuckle. Served the guy right, maybe now he’d
get out of that awful suit and tie. Of course, she’d most likely
have to accompany him on a shopping excursion at one of the resort
shops. She’d hate to see what sort of beach ensemble the guy would
come up with.

Andrew was in a terrible mood and refused to
flag down the bus. Tasha decided to take matters in her own hands,
the hell with the arrogant businessman. She was ready for one wild
week of decadence and she didn’t care anymore whether he came with
her or not.

In fact, for a moment, she thought that he
was just going to stand there at the side of the road and not get
on the bus. At last, he did. He was a sight, of course, looking
like some sad, drowned puppy, clutching his laptop to his chest,
wading through the sea of Club Regale party-goers to the one vacant
seat on the bus.

It was far from her seat but she didn’t mind.
She wasn’t through with Andrew Jacob Powell III yet. Not by a
longshot.

She still had six days, seven nights of ahead
of her.

****

The deep green of rain forest shaded the
narrow, winding road that wound through the island jungle country
like a living, breathing tunnel. Every once in a while sunlight
speckled the road through the trees and huge, native wildflowers
splashed color into the day as Tasha took in her surroundings on
the bus ride to the resort. Children dashed off and on the road,
dancing in puddles and dodging vehicles and motorbikes. The rain
had stopped and the sun was poking out again between the clouds. It
was going to be a nice afternoon, after all.

She knew they were close, she’d followed
along on the map she’d been provided at the car rental desk and had
located all the landmarks along the way. They were on the outskirts
of Negril, with a little further to go, she suspected. And they had
made good time, it seemed, despite stopping to pick up the two of
them in the rainstorm, and for the half-hour they had lost when
they’d made a pit-stop at a roadside shanty so some of the guests
could purchase “necessities.”

She figured that they should be turning a
sharp curve to the left soon and coming upon a stone entrance just
about....

Now.

They had arrived.

Eleven

Eden II, the Club Regale Resort

The bus rolled between the unmarked stone
pillars of the entrance. At last. A peacefulness wafted over Tasha.
And as they drove slowly through the palm-treed area, up a
vine-covered incline and around a hill, she pulled down the window
beside her on the bus and drank in the essence of bliss. Quiet.
Clean air. Birds chirping. Waves pounding the surf not far
away.

Andrew Powell and all his idiosyncrasies were
forgotten.

“Ah... This is going to be heaven.” And after
what she’d gone through to get here, she was ready for it.

As the bus turned another curve on the narrow
unpaved road, Tasha suddenly found herself faced with a bright open
area, a parking lot about half full of cars, and a magnificent
structure behind it that she recognized from the pictures in the
brochure as the main building for lodging.

A week of passion and pleasure, the brochure
read, a respite for body and soul and spirit and mind. An
all-inclusive vacation package which boasted of unlimited cocktails
to unending nightlife to sunbathing au naturel...

Did Andrew Jacob Powell III really know what
he was getting into, Tasha wondered? Might be sort of fun to find
out.

She grinned.

The bus stopped. The Regalers, as she’d now
begun to call the Club Regale party-goers, began to exit. And they
were a mighty rowdy bunch!

It only took her a second to grab her
backpack and her other bag, hop out, and bounce to the front of the
bus to join them. No way would she miss out on the party now.

And as she exited, she came face to face with
the stuck-up Nordic God whom she suddenly wondered what he would
look like “au naturel.”

“Hi!”

Every feature of his face fell. He hugged his
laptop closer to his chest and turned toward the hotel
complex—walking very briskly.

Tasha followed. “Imagine that. From the
beginning, we were heading to the same place. Who would have
thought it?”

Andrew humphed.

“Thought you said you were in Miami on
business?”

He ignored her, his gaze locked on the
pavement in front of him.

“Are you in the habit of lying to
people?”

Andrew stopped and turned. “Leave me alone.
Go bother someone else. You are a walking time bomb and I don’t
want to be around when you explode.” He walked off again.

Tasha stood still for a moment. “I’m really
not that bad, you know,” she called after him. “Maybe you just need
to loosen up a bit.”

He stopped cold in his tracks and turned
slightly as if he were going to say something, thought better of
it, then started once more for the hotel. Tasha took off again.

“Look,” she said, trying to keep up with his
hurried strides. “I’ll apologize about the car thing. I mean, it
must have been this major screw-up or something. It really wasn’t
my fault. And you have to admit, you almost caused us to get killed
back there on that narrow little road.”

He just looked at her and shook his head.

They ascended the steps to the hotel.

“And...and the computer. I said I’d pay for
it, although I know it was probably pretty expensive and it would
take me a while, but—”

They reached the double glass door leading
into the lobby. Andrew shuffled his laptop underneath his left arm
and laid his right hand on the door handle. Tasha readjusted her
backpack over her shoulder and laid her hand on his. “Maybe we
could start over?”

Both turned to the other. For a moment, they
stood frozen. Tasha liked looking into those blue eyes. Then Andrew
broke the connection, slid his hand from underneath hers, and
pushed the door open, ignoring her.

He stepped several steps into the lobby.
Tasha tumbled in behind him, then stood by his side.

The room was large with thick red carpeting
and dark rough-hewn log walls. Plants of assorted sizes and species
decorated the room. Slow-moving fans hung from huge beams stretched
across the ceiling. There was a large reception desk to the left
with a man standing behind it, and a grouping of chairs to the
right. Across the back of the room was a wall full of
floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over an open area and some
individual cabins. A crowded pool was visible to the left.

But something else entirely caught Tasha’s
eye. Andrew’s too, she suspected.

The man behind the desk was nude from the
waist up. At least that was all she could see, the desk covered him
from the waist down.

My, but this place must really be casual to
allow the workers to go shirtless.

Shirtless?

Tasha glanced to Andrew’s paled face. His
gaze was trained out the window. She followed his line of
vision.

Squinting at the distant pool through the
mottled glass, she could barely make out that the pool’s occupants
appeared to swimming—

Without the proper bathing attire.

Ohmigod? Was this the “au naturel” swimming
and Jacuzzi the brochure talked about? Right up front?

Tasha grinned. Now, this was going to get
very interesting, very quickly.

Andrew’s laptop fell to the floor with a
thud, hitting Tasha’s toe. She ignored the pain and turned. His
eyes were wide and his mouth dropped open. Tasha’s tongue grazed
over her own lower lip as she found herself looking Andrew Powell
up and down, wondering just what he would look like without that
stuffy starched white shirt.

Then she realized he was doing the same to
her.

And what was that look in his eyes?

Tasha hesitantly smiled. Andrew snatched up
his laptop and bolted out the door.

“Wait!” She called out and followed him out
the door. “Andrew, wait!”

When she finally caught up with him, she
grasped his arm to stop him. “Wait. Think about this a minute,” she
gasped, out of breath. “This might be fun.”

He dropped his luggage and briefcase to the
ground and turned to her. “If you think I’m staying in a nudist
colony for a week, then you better think again.” He bent to pick up
his bags.

Tasha laughed. “This isn’t a nudist colony,
it’s a Club Regale resort. Eden II. Remember?”

“Those people didn’t have clothes on. And I’m
not so sure about the guy behind the desk.”

“Oh, he had shorts or something on, I’m
sure.”

“Well, I’m not,” he replied. “I’m
leaving.”

“Where to?”

“Back to Seattle.”

“Seattle?”

“Home.”

“And miss your vacation?”

“I’ll schedule another one.”

“But you’re here now. Why don’t you stay? It
took like, forever, to get here. Remember?”

Andrew paused, staring, then shook his head.
“If you think that after all you’ve put me through the past six or
seven hours that I’m going to share my vacation with you in a...a
place where people take their clothes off, then you’re just as
crazy as I thought you were.” He began walking toward the door.

“Whatsamatter? You chicken?”

She thought she could see the tiny hairs on
the back of his neck stand straight up. Again, he ignored her.
Tasha followed.