Welcome to Paradise (10 page)

Zara laughed, finished soaping up and dipped herself into the deep swimming hole with a gasp at the frigid touch of the water, scrubbing vigorously to rinse off before joining Mira on the bank again. “You’ve got it. I don’t even need a restaurant. I’d settle for a refrigerator with some meat in it that I didn’t know personally.”

“Rabbit sounds good, though, after all that ham and beans,” Maria-Elena objected. She was sitting on a large boulder in her chemise, combing her hair.

“I about
died
,” Melody complained as she toweled off. “I don’t want to go to the garden first anymore. Not if there are going to be, like, dead bunnies hanging up!”

“I’ll go first tomorrow, if they’ve set more snares,” Mira volunteered. “And it’s not like we had to do the skinning and cleaning, thank goodness. I’ll admit that that’s one skill I’m happy to leave here without learning.” She exchanged a quick look with Zara, and knew the other woman was having the same thought she was. That Melody’s days of dead-bunny panic were probably limited.

“Dr. Gabe’s a mean
dissecter
,” Zara said lazily, wringing out her own hair. “And I’m sure those rabbits didn’t give him one moment’s pause. You know he’s cut up worse.”

“
Eww
,” Melody shuddered. “Don’t.”

“Shoot,” Mira realized, pulling on her clean chemise and sorting through the rest of her things. “I left my comb at the cabin.”

“You can use mine,” Zara offered.

“No,” Mira sighed. “Nobody else’s works on my hair. Not big enough.” She wouldn’t bother getting dressed, she decided. Her wet hair would just soak her dress. Anyway, the men were fishing upstream, hoping for some trout to augment their pre-challenge dinner after the skimpy lunch. One evening cameraman was with them, she knew, and the other wouldn’t show up until the women returned from the swimming hole. For once, she could count on being unobserved.

Gabe closed the cabin door behind him. Kevin had volunteered to come back to see to the animals, but Gabe wasn’t having any luck with the trout anyway. Truth
be
told, he didn’t mind at all. He
wasn’t actually hating
any of this, but he wasn’t used to living in such close quarters. He wouldn’t mind a bit of solitude, even if he were sharing it with a cow. Well, as much solitude as you could get when your every movement was being recorded.

He walked through the yard toward the corral, trailed by Steve with his camera. And stopped dead. Mira didn’t see them at first. She had her long fall of hair spread out over both hands, holding it out from her chemise.

Her
wet
chemise, Gabe realized. The afternoon sun shone through the thin, transparent material from hips to shins, revealing her legs clearly to the tops of her unlaced boots. The upper part of her didn’t need any help, the wet material clinging to her skin from the low scoop neck to well below her waist.
 
It was, somehow, more erotic than seeing her naked, and his blood was heating alarmingly at the sight. He was used to seeing her covered up, that was all, he told himself dumbly. But he’d forgotten that she was quite so . . . curvy.

“Oh,” she faltered, catching sight of him. She stopped, continued to hold the hair away from her body, and then let it fall around her, took a step back. “I was just . . .”

“I was . . .” he began at the same time, wrenching his gaze up from her breasts, the erect nipples clearly outlined against the wet fabric. He smiled ruefully and held up the bucket. “Coming back to do the milking.”

“I forgot my comb,” she said, the red creeping all the way up from the beautiful breasts that swelled from the top of the chemise. She looked down at herself, blushed even more brightly, hastily pulled her hair around to cover herself, her gaze darting between him and Steve. “I’ll
 
. .
. .
I’ll go get it.”

“Yeah,” he said, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “I’ll go milk.”

She nodded once, smiled awkwardly, and moved past him. He turned to watch her go. And saw that her hair had wet the back of the chemise too. And that those curves looked just as good as the ones in front, outlined against the translucent material, the pink of her skin shining through.

He called himself ten kinds of fool as he walked quickly to the corral, picked up the milking stool that sat outside, and lifted the latch on the gate. He hadn’t got laid in way too long if the sight of a woman—and not even a
naked
woman—had this much effect on him. If he needed to see a woman’s body that badly, he could probably make it happen with Melody. She’d be more than willing to fool around a little out here, if he could figure out a way to sneak away from the cameras. And why was he so eager anyway? Hell, he saw women more undressed than that every single day.
 

But none of them looked like Mira. None of them
was
Mira. She was the only woman he was aching—literally aching, he thought in dismay, shifting uncomfortably on the little stool—to see naked. That was the truth.
The overwhelming, ridiculous, disastrously inconvenient truth.

“There they are!”

Mira heard Maria-Elena’s exclamation, but couldn’t see anything yet from her position farther back in the line of homesteaders walking down the trail through the woods. Within a few more steps, though, she had come out into the large clearing. And saw the Arcadia team, together with Cliff and an entire production crew, standing near two big logs set off the ground in crude V-shaped stands.

“My clairvoyant powers tell me that we’re going to be sawing,” Kevin drawled from behind her. “And that the men get to go first. Oh, goody.”

“Not like you guys haven’t had some practice,” Mira pointed out. Felling trees was practically all the men had done this week, between constructing the corral and beginning work on the garden fence.

“I guess it’s too much to hope that Arcadia hasn’t,” Kevin replied. “Wow. Do
we
look like that? I really need to get a better mirror.”

The group opposite did look startlingly different from when she’d last seen them, Mira agreed privately. She’d become used to the Paradise men’s beard stubble, all of them having quickly abandoned close shaves with the straight razors they’d been issued. But seeing Alec’s regular, fine-hewn features roughened by the whiskers was a pleasant shock. He was
better-looking
than any man really had a right to be, she thought as he flashed a gleaming smile at the Paradise group before exchanging a complicated, obviously special handshake with his brother.

Scott, she thought disloyally, hadn’t improved as much. Maybe it was the straggly brown beard that wasn’t sending her. Or maybe it was just that Scott didn’t have the athletic build of the twins. She’d always admired his slim good looks, but now he just looked . . . skinny.

“How have you been doing?” he asked, looking her over critically in his turn as she approached.

“Good,” she answered lamely, returning his quick hug and kiss.

“I’m thinking Arcadia’s going to win today,” he started in immediately, his tone urgent. “And I’m working a pretty good alliance. I’ve got all the women but Rachel, and I’m pretty sure I can swing Calvin. As long as my team has the vote tomorrow, I’ve got it wrapped up. So don’t worry if you mess up on your part. I know you’re not that good at competition.”

“I’m pretty good at this, though,” she began to protest. “The stuff we’ve been doing.” But there was no time for more, to her frustration. She took the spot Cliff indicated with the rest of Paradise and listened to the plan for the day.

“Welcome to your first
America Alive
challenge,” Cliff began. “Well, maybe it’s been a bit of a challenge already, from the looks of you.” A ragged laugh greeted that. “Call it your first competition, then. And this one’s for the men. Don’t worry, ladies,” he assured them, “we’ll be getting to you soon enough.”

He indicated the double-buck saws lying near each end of the two huge logs, set about fifteen feet apart in the big clearing. “Each homestead will divide itself up into pairs, one on either end of your log. The contest is simple. Five minutes. I know you’ll wish it were longer,” he said, prompting some smiles. “The homestead with the most sections at the end of that time wins. I’ll give you a few minutes to sort out your pairs, and we’ll get started.”

The Paradise men immediately gathered into a knot as the women moved back out of the way to watch. Stanley had taken clear charge, gesticulating to nods of agreement from the others before he and Martin moved to one end of the log, Gabe and Kevin taking up stations at the other.

The same couldn’t be said for the other homestead. Three of the men were talking at once, Hank standing back from the fray with a bemused expression until Cliff called out, “Two minutes!” Then the older man stepped in, speaking urgently, and the men paired off, Hank staying with Scott while Alec and Calvin walked quickly to the other end of their log and picked up the big saw.

“Wait a minute,” Kevin announced when everyone was set. “Time out. This shirt is clean. And it was a whole lot of effort to get it that way. I’m not sweating through it. And you
know
my fan club wants to see the results of my stint at boot camp.” He quickly pulled the suspenders off his shoulders, unbuttoned his work shirt, pulled it off together with the undershirt beneath, and tossed both garments to Rachel.

“Well, if it’s a contest,” Calvin said with a grin over on his side, “I’ll represent.” Off came both his shirts as well, revealing an athletic, lean torso of gleaming brown. “Come on, Alec. Can’t let the team down.”

“Oh, boy,” Zara breathed as she watched Alec unbutton, and the rest of the men, reluctantly or otherwise, follow suit. “This is getting good.”

“I should be looking at my own husband, I know,” she sighed, “but, mmm, I’ve got to say, Stanley’s got one
hell
of a fine chest. There’s so much of that man. He could wrap you right up. What do you think, girls? Who’s your pick? That’s a whole lot of male beauty on display right there.”

“Alec,” Melody said decidedly, taking in the broad shoulders and narrow waist, the perfectly cut hair dark and sleek as an otter’s pelt, the black stubble. He was taller than any man out here but Stanley, and without a doubt the most handsome. Tanned, too. This wasn’t the first time he’d taken off his shirt on this show, Mira could tell.

“Gabe,” Maria-Elena breathed, the color rising in her cheeks as his muscular torso emerged from the white undershirt.

Mira silently agreed. Scott, always wiry rather than built, looked positively thin now. But she could barely spare him a glance. No question, Alec looked good. He was much more chiseled than she’d realized. But Gabe was so much more.
So strong.
So . . . beautiful.
Standing facing her, shoulders broad and heavy, chest deep and powerful atop the trim waist, the defined ridges of his abdomen.
And his arms as he lifted the saw.
The slabs of his shoulders giving way to the bulge of biceps in front, triceps behind, the thick ropes of muscle on his forearms capping it all off.

And, she realized, he had a tattoo. Some kind of American Indian design, she thought,
A
band about an inch wide, zigzags above and below, an arrow pattern in the center, circling his left bicep. She didn’t normally go much for tattoos, but on him . . . It looked
good.
As if he needed something else to make him look hotter.

“Don’t stop now, boys,” Zara called out from beside her. “We washed your pants too, you know.”

Most of the men chuckled at that,
then
grew serious again, their expressions focused and intent as they picked up the heavy saws at Cliff’s cue.

“Teams ready . . .
set . . .
” Cliff announced dramatically. The men tensed, their hands gripping the handles. “And . . . GO!”

The contest was on. The saws ripped through the two-foot-diameter logs at an astounding rate. In what couldn’t have been more than fifteen seconds, the Paradise
team had two rounds lying on the ground and were
moving their saws over for the next.

“We’re winning!” Zara exclaimed, her hands gripping together. Then laughed distractedly. “Wait! Am I glad or sorry?”

“Glad!” Maria-Elena shouted. “Go! Go!” She was jumping up and down in her excitement as the Paradise men kicked it up another notch. Stanley was practically pulling Martin along, while Gabe and Kevin were blazing through each segment in a frenzy of straining muscle.

Things weren’t so rosy on the Arcadia side, Mira saw with a glance. Alec and Calvin were working together smoothly, although their pile of slices didn’t seem to be growing quite as fast as Gabe and Kevin’s. But Hank and Scott were out of rhythm, and she could clearly see the frustration on Scott’s face. When Cliff rang the big bell mounted in the middle of the clearing to signal that time was up, Scott practically threw his end of the saw on the ground and stalked off, the fury evident in every line of his body.

“Well, that was a disaster,” Hank said, joining Mira and Zara after Cliff had finished counting segments and had declared Paradise the winner, to nobody’s surprise. The older man pulled his handkerchief from a pocket to mop his streaming face and swallowed another huge mouthful from the jar of water handed to him by one of the omnipresent production assistants, then took his discarded clothes from his wife and began to pull on his undershirt. “Holy cow. Think they could’ve picked a hotter day for it?”

“We kicked your butt,” Zara said with a laugh.

“And you enjoyed it, didn’t you?” he grinned back at her, slipping on the heavy work shirt.

Mira decided she’d never get over her surprise at the down-to-earth quality he shared with his wife and costar, or her envy at their bond. “What happened?” she asked. “Did something go wrong?”

Hank looked at her, one corner of his mouth turned up quizzically as he did up buttons. “Let’s just say that your boyfriend knows all about competition, and not so much about cooperation. Got to be the big dog, or he won’t play. Should have paired off the way your team did, instead of putting the strongest performers together. Trouble is, Alec and Scott can’t stand each other, and Calvin’s getting there himself.”

“About . . .” Mira faltered.

“Yep,” he agreed. “About Scott. Sorry, but that’s how it’s going over at our place. Guess he never read that book about how to make friends and influence people.”

And here was the man himself, finally approaching Mira after standing for several minutes with hands on hips, back to the group, then pulling on his clothes with savage jerks that spoke clearly of his anger and frustration.

“Don’t worry,” he cut off her expression of sympathy. “The Arcadia women can still win. If it’s by enough points, we’ve still got it.”

“We’ve got it even if Paradise wins,” Mira countered. “If we vote, it won’t be you and me leaving.”

“That’s not the point. It’s our alliances that matter. Have you been doing what I asked?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean, not exactly?” he asked in alarm.

“Well, Maria-Elena, yes. But not Martin and Melody. It’s obvious they’re going first. It’d be stupid of me to align with them. I’d just put a target on my back to go next, don’t you see? Because that would be an alliance with the losers.”

“It’s stupid if you haven’t,” he rapped out. “I told you what our strategy was! All you had to do was follow it! I can’t believe this!”

“Never mind,” he recovered himself quickly as Cliff began announcing the next event. “There’s still time to fix it. We’ll talk after.”