Welcome to Paradise (15 page)

“Yes, but he said what I did was really helpful,” she argued.

“I’m glad he made you feel good, but I’m sure you could have left it to him and everything would have been fine. I’m telling you this for your own good, sweetie. We’ll do a lot better out here if you aren’t trying so hard to be the Queen Bee. Everyone can see what you’re doing, and it’s not attractive.”

“Now,” he went on smoothly, cutting off her protest, “we’ve got our work cut out for us. It looks like you’re doing all right with Maria-Elena and Zara, and
it’s
obvious Stanley likes you. I’ll work Hank and Lupe. I don’t think I can get Rachel,” he conceded, “but I may be able to turn Calvin against Alec. I’ve got a couple ideas there. Alec and Gabe are an obvious threat to win. That’s where I’m going, and I need you to plant that same seed on your side.”

“I’m not going to do that!” Mira protested, glancing over at Mike, wishing he weren’t recording this. “It wouldn’t work anyway. Gabe gets along with everyone. The women love him, and he’s
friends
with both the guys. And he’s the strongest one out here.”

“If he’s strong,” Scott explained, with the air of someone holding onto his patience by a thread, “that just makes him more of a threat. Try to think strategically. Anybody with any sense has to be thinking about voting him out at this point. You just need to work that. Be subtle. Ask them first, who do they think is the biggest threat to win? And if they say Gabe, you can say, ‘I wonder if we should consider voting him out? What do you think?’ Like that.”

“But if we voted him off,” she argued, “our homestead would be weaker for sure. Nobody’s going to go for that.”

He shrugged. “Two men left over there, and Stanley and Kevin are both strong. The challenges are all that really matter.”

“Gabe’s a lot stronger than Kevin,” she felt compelled to point out. “Stronger than Stanley too. That’s obvious. There’s nothing I can say that’s going to change people’s minds on that.”

“Exactly why he needs to go,” Scott snapped. “You just have to make the others see that. And try harder to fly under the radar yourself.”

She wasn’t going to do it, Mira thought rebelliously a few minutes later, as Paradise began the walk home. It wouldn’t work anyway, and she wasn’t going to try. If she and Scott were voted out, they were voted out. There was no chance they would win anyway, so what did it matter?

“Doing all right?” Zara asked, coming up to walk beside her.

“Yeah,” Mira said slowly.

“Good to see Scott?”

“Um . . .”
No.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked hesitantly.

“Sure.”

“When I was talking back there . . . Did I seem . . . stuck on myself? Like I was trying to make it all about me?”

Zara looked at her sharply. “Kevin,” she called back, “come up here.”

“No, wait,”
Mira
protested.

Zara ignored her. “Now, Kevin, my darling,” she began when he joined them. “Mira would like to know whether she seemed stuck on herself, back in our little assembly. Whoever do you think could have put that idea into her head?”

“That’s
what he had to say to you after today?” Kevin asked in astonishment. “What’s he going to do next, try to convince you that up is down? Day is night?”

“I didn’t think I did,” Mira said boldly. “And neither of you thought so either. Be honest.”

Kevin sighed. “Honey. He’s screwed the pooch over there, and he knows it. He’s scrambling like mad to somehow make it your fault when you guys get voted off. If he doesn’t end up “accidentally” shot first himself.”

“Hey, Stanley!” he called.

“Hmm?” Stanley rumbled, turning on the path ahead of them.

“What’s that thing they had in Vietnam, when some unpopular second lieutenant would end up an unfortunate casualty of war?” Kevin demanded.

“Fragging,” Stanley replied instantly. Then looked at Mira with a twinkle of speculation.

“That’s right,” Kevin said with satisfaction. “I think Boyfriend’s about due to get himself fragged. And I for one wouldn’t prosecute.”
 

Back at the cabin again, Kevin and Stanley took themselves off to see to the animals.

“You ladies need anything?” Gabe asked the women as Maria-Elena relit the stove. “We’re about done outside for today. Put me to use.”

“Chop some wood,” Zara decided. “Getting low. Martin was supposed to do more yesterday, and needless to say, that didn’t happen. And if you wouldn’t mind pulling up a few more buckets of water for us, too, that’d help.”

“Got it,” he agreed, and headed outside again.

“I was thinking that we could stew the rabbits this time,” Mira suggested to the others. “I could get some carrots and onions to go in with them, some green beans to add near the end. And I saw a recipe for dumplings in our recipe box. They look easy, and they’d cook right on top of the stew. That’d be almost the whole meal, and less to wash.”

“I like your thinking,” Zara decided.

“I could maybe bake a pie with some of those cherries, once we get the stew started,” Maria-Elena offered. “I’ll stay in here and do that.”

And have a chance to talk to Gabe, Mira thought with a bit of amusement. She couldn’t really feel jealous, despite her own growing attraction. Gabe couldn’t have treated Maria-Elena any more like a little sister. And Maria-Elena was clearly enjoying her crush so very much.

“We’re getting pretty competent, aren’t we?” she said with a smile for the girl. “It’s only been a couple weeks. Zara already knew how to cook, of course. But aren’t you kind of amazed that you and I can do all this?”

Maria-Elena laughed happily. “My friends at home are going to be
totally
shocked when I get back. And my mom—she’ll be thrilled. Because she’s always wanting to teach me, you know, how to make things, and I’m, like, ‘Mom,
lame.’
But now I wish I’d done it.”

“Maybe you can ask her for lessons when you get back,” Mira suggested.

“Yeah,” Maria-Elena agreed. “Maybe. I want to learn
mole.
We don’t have what you need for it here, but eating this bland food makes me crave
chiles
and spices, you know? I bet rabbit
mole
would be good.”

“Well, I’ll go get what we do have,” Mira decided. “Extra onions, at least. Spice it up as much as we can.”

Twenty minutes later, vegetables gathered, she’d set herself up with a chair under the shade of the big pine at the edge of the cabin clearing, snapping green beans and looking at her favorite mountain view. She turned, though, at the sight of Zara emerging from the cabin, Gabe following behind her like an acolyte with a second chair, which he set down across from Mira.

“I got a huge rip in my shirt,” he told Mira. “I backed up against the wall, caught it on a nail, and there it went. Luckily, I softened Zara up with my help in there, and she said she’d mend it for me.”

Mira smiled up at him. “Good thing she did. I couldn’t have. But I thought doctors knew how to sew.”

“
Shh
,” he said in mock alarm. “Don’t tell.”

Zara laughed. “Go on, go chop some more wood. And if you want to offer us a little entertainment out here, you can take off your shirt while you do it. Better than TV.”

He grinned. “Always happy to oblige a beautiful woman.”

“He’s really doing it,” Mira said, sneaking a glance across the yard, her hands stilling on her beans. “Wow.” She sighed as Gabe lifted the
axe,
his broad back to them, then brought it down with a powerful swing, splitting the heavy section neatly in two.

Zara took her own long look, a satisfied smile settling over her lean face, tanned now despite the sunbonnet, before she pulled needle and thread out of the little sewing basket. “I was right,” she said. “Better than TV. Ah, the simple pleasures.”

“Never thought I’d be sewing by hand again either,” she added wryly, turning her attention to the three-inch rip in the back yoke of Gabe’s shirt. “I have this lovely dry cleaner I take everything to, and it magically comes back perfect again. She’s another one I’m going to kiss when I’m done with this. A whole lot of people are going to be surprised by how affectionate I’ve become.”

“It must have been nice to be with Hank today,” Mira offered after a minute, continuing to snap off bean ends, pulling the strings and dropping the waste into her apron before tossing the beans into the bowl at her feet. “You guys always look so thrilled to see each other, even after all this time.”

“It’s true,” Zara agreed. “We’ve got so used to each other, working together, living together all these years, sometimes I forget how much I just plain like him.
Kinda
good for us to have this time. Apart from anything else, being reminded that we’re together because we want to be. Honestly, I can’t wait to be done with this, so I can hear everything he has to say about how it was over there. Sit on the couch with him and watch the show, see what the producers make of it.”

Mira sighed wistfully. “That’s great. You’re lucky.”

“Yep. I’ve spent a fair amount of time out here thinking about my first marriage, one way or another. That reminds me in a hot minute just how lucky I am.”

“Your first marriage?” Mira asked in surprise. “I didn’t know you were married before. You must have been awfully young.”

“Twenty. And it isn’t a secret. You clearly haven’t followed my fascinating life story nearly closely enough.”

“Sorry,” Mira said hastily. “I’m sure I’ve read it somewhere.”

Zara laughed. “Way before your time. And yeah, I was married before.
To the absolute wrong guy.
The
wrongest
guy you could ever hope to meet. Started out great, of course.
That kind always do
. Mr. Charm.”

“But pretty soon,” she went on thoughtfully, her head bent over the shirt, “all his compliments started to have that little sting in the tail. He’d tell me I looked good, much better than yesterday. Clue me in that nobody really wanted to hear me sing, that I was making a fool of myself. That was a great party, but hadn’t I been a little loud with his boss? Like that.”

“So you left?” Mira prompted.

Zara laughed ruefully, cut a thread. “Thread this needle for me, will you?” she asked, handing it across together with the spool of thread. “I do hate that part about getting older. You can’t see a thing, close up.”

“And no,” she went
on,
taking needle and spool back from Mira again. “Oh, no. That would’ve been way too easy. It took a lot more than that. Because by then, of course, I thought I
was
loud at that party. That nobody
did
want to hear me sing. He’d got me pretty beaten down. No, I left when he started beating me down for real. I had that much self-preservation left, at least.”

“He hit you?” Mira asked in shock.

“That started slowly too,” Zara explained. “Grabbing me, shoving me.
My fault, of course, for making him that mad.
Then being all lovey-dovey afterwards. Give a little, take it
right
back again the next time. Keep me off-balance. But the night he cracked two ribs, that was it. That woke me right up.”
 

“What did you do?”

“Called my dad. This was before the days of battered women’s shelters, when nobody had ever heard of domestic violence.
 
It was called a ‘family matter’ then.” Zara grimaced in remembrance. “The good old days. After he stormed out of the house, I called a friend. Out the door with nothing but my purse and what I had on my back, terrified I wouldn’t be in time, that he’d come back. It hurt so
bad
, I thought I was dying. I called my dad from my friend’s house. He drove through the night to get me. Took one look at me, put me into the car, and that was it. I was out of there.”

“Of course, now,” she went on, holding up the shirt to examine her
handiwork,
“I can see I should have called him about a year earlier. But I felt stupid, you see, for the longest time, for getting myself into a situation like that. Didn’t want to admit, even to myself, how bad it was. But after I’d been out of it a while, I realized . . . guys like that, they’ve been practicing forever. They’re experts at taking the weakest part of you and picking away at it, dragging you under. And I finally forgave myself for being dragged.”

“And then I met Hank,” she finished with a reminiscent smile. “Found out what it was like to be with somebody who appreciated what was best about me. Who wanted to build on our strong sides, so we could be even stronger
together.
What a concept.”

“Well.” She folded the shirt, gave it a little slap. “That’s about it for the walk down memory lane. I’ll just go see how Maria-Elena’s getting on in there. Those beans
about done?
”

“Yeah,” Mira said, lifting her apron carefully to take the bean ends to the chickens, then picking up her bowl. “Done.”

“Another pie?” Stanley asked with pleasure the next evening, when Mira brought it to the table after a supper of trout, cornbread, beet greens cooked with the last of the chard in a little bacon grease, and the inevitable beans.

“That’s Maria-Elena,” Mira said. “My crust always falls apart. I’ve given up on pies. But Maria-Elena’s a whiz.”

“You really are,” Gabe said as he took a bite. “This is plum, right? Delicious.”

Maria-Elena blushed right on cue at his compliment. “My mom taught me to make empanadas a long time ago. The pastry isn’t that different. And Mira picked the plums.”

“I did,” Mira laughed. “Try climbing a tree in a long skirt sometime. It’s a real feat.”

“You were careful, right?” Gabe asked in some alarm. “Next time, come get me before you do something like that.”

“You were busy haying,” she protested. “And that’s a whole lot more dangerous than climbing a tree.”

“Only if you’re Martin,” Kevin said.

“I shouldn’t laugh,” Mira said ruefully after she’d done just that. “But he
was
accident-prone.”

“Easy to have accidents out here, though,” Stanley said thoughtfully. “Farming’s still a mighty dangerous occupation, and even more then. For women and men both. And if something
did
happen, miles from a doctor, no way to get help . . .” He shrugged. “Wouldn’t have been good.
Still plenty of ways to get hurt even now.
So Gabe’s right. Be careful out there, Miss Mira.”

“I will,” she promised, with the glow that the men’s protective concern always aroused in her. Especially, she had to admit, Gabe’s. “But we’re making plum jam tomorrow, and you’re going to be glad I climbed that tree, Stanley, when you get some of that on your biscuits.”

“That’ll be right nice,” he agreed. “I’ll look forward to that.”

“This sounded like a good idea at the time,” Maria-Elena sighed late the next morning. “We’ll just barely be done with this, and it’ll be time to fix lunch.” She wiped her glistening face with her sleeve as she continued to stir the fruit and sugar on the hot stove, the water boiling in the big canning kettle adding its measure of steam to the climbing temperatures in the little cabin.

“Extra time in the creek this afternoon,” Zara promised. “And if we have a jam challenge, we’ll be all set. Step aside for a minute.” She reached into the kettle with her tongs, pulled out the jars and lids one by one and set them carefully on the clean dishtowels she’d spread ready on the table. “Ready to fill,” she declared. “Bring the fruit on over here, Maria-Elena.”

Maria-Elena obliged, using potholders and lifting the heavy pot with the muscles they’d all developed these past weeks. Mira bent down and opened the door to the firebox to add the extra wood they’d need for the processing time. And to cook lunch, she thought with a sigh of her own. She shoved the sticks of wood in, gave them a jab with the poker to settle them. Saw the glob of pitch catch fire, and jumped back from the resulting gout of flame a moment too late.

It took her precious seconds to work out what had happened. That the bottom of her hair, braided as usual at the side of her head, had swung into contact with the flame. Her hair was actually on fire, she realized with shock. It was shriveling up her braid, spreading to her blouse now.

Smother it,
she thought instantly as the room filled with a terrible stench and Zara and Maria-Elena turned alarmed faces her way, began to rush forward. Mira dropped the poker she realized she was still holding and grabbed for the bottom of her apron, frantically pushing the wadded fabric against her braid. Zara, with commendable presence of mind, picked up the bucket of water sitting by the stove and dashed it over her head. Reached for the hot pads Maria-Elena had dropped and pressed them into the shriveled hair to make sure the fire was out.

They stood for a moment, staring at each other, all three pairs of eyes wide with shock. Zara pulled the woefully scorched hair aside, exposed the long, charred patch of clothing beneath.

“Go get Gabe,” she snapped at Maria-Elena. “Run.”

Poor Maria-Elena, Mira thought, a bubble of hilarity rising within her, having to run for help yet again.
And poor Gabe.

“He didn’t think he was going to have to do so much doctoring on this show,” she said with a laugh that came out too shaky, and much higher than she’d intended.

“Sit down,” Zara ordered, pushing her into a chair by her unburned left shoulder. She hastily untied Mira’s apron and pulled it over her head, had begun unbuttoning her blouse when Gabe came bursting in through the door.

“You’re fast,” Mira said to him with another giddy laugh. Why did all this seem so funny? “The jam,” she remembered with a start. “We need to get it in the jars.”

Nobody paid any attention to her. “He was on his way back with the hay,” Maria-Elena got out, puffing inside in her turn.

Gabe had already taken over from Zara, was pulling Mira’s blouse gently off, exposing the corset and chemise beneath. “Looks like that corset’s done some good for once,” he muttered. “How do you unfasten it?”

Zara reached for the hooks. Removing the corset, however, caused the burned section at the top of the chemise to separate from the intact area below, which immediately dropped below Mira’s right breast, causing her to grab at it in embarrassment.

“What’s going on?” Stanley said in alarm, he and Kevin entering the little cabin and, Mira thought with another burst of inward laughter, turning the scene into a French bedroom farce, especially with Danny filming the whole thing. She struggled to pull the remnants of her chemise up higher and sent Gabe a wild glance.

“You two and Maria-Elena,” Gabe ordered, “
get
out till I’m done here. You too, Danny.”

“But—” Danny protested. “I’m supposed to film everything.”

“You’re not filming this,” Gabe said, the set of his jaw leaving no doubt
of
his seriousness. “Get out or I’ll throw you out.”

“Thanks,” Mira said shakily when Danny had closed the door behind him. “I don’t . . .” The tears were coming now, the sense of hilarity vanishing. “I’m sorry. That was so stupid. I don’t know how I even did that.”

Gabe put his hands over her own where they were clutching her clothes. “I need to see what’s burned,” he told her gently. “I’m being a doctor here. Trust me.”

She swallowed and nodded, releasing the fabric and allowing him to pull the chemise off. When she’d imagined him taking off her clothes, she’d never thought of this. This was just . . . humiliating. And her skin was burning.

“Get me a wet towel,” Gabe ordered Zara. “Nothing too bad here,” he said with relief, his fingers moving over Mira gently, “but we’ll cool it down some more. Who poured water on her?”

“Me,” Zara said, coming back with the dripping towel.

“Good job with that. And you’re going to be just fine,” he told Mira reassuringly as he laid the cold, wet cloth against her heated skin. “A patch of first-degree burn, a few small blisters, nothing too much worse than a bad sunburn. And it’s only in this one area, on your shoulder and upper chest above your corset. That protected you from anything worse. Though I’m afraid your pretty hair’s done for,” he said with a rueful smile before he turned to the washstand, began to lather his hands.

“I don’t care about that,” Mira said, holding her left elbow awkwardly across her uncovered breast. “I’ve wanted to cut it for a long time. I guess I’ll get my wish.”

“I think you will,” he agreed, reaching for the first-aid kit they’d been given, then coming back to her, removing the wet towels, dabbing the area dry and gently applying a thin film of antibiotic ointment to the burned area, then covering it with gauze pads that he fixed to her skin with adhesive tape.

“The beautician part of this is going to be a lot harder than the doctor part,” he promised. “Because you’re all set.” He shook
out two Ibuprofen
and handed them to her. “Got a glass of water, Zara?”

“Here you go,” Zara said, pouring it out. “You take those, and I’ll go get you something to wear.”

“No corset for the next few days, until it isn’t hurting anymore,” Gabe declared. “I don’t want that rubbing up against the burn.”

“That’s going to be kind of . . . natural,” Mira said doubtfully, the embarrassment returning as she put both forearms up to cover her bare breasts.

He laughed. “Stanley will avert his eyes, and Kevin doesn’t care.”

“And you won’t be looking either, right?” Zara said dryly, coming down from the loft with an armful of clothes, helping Mira off with her skirt as she stood, then pulling the chemise over her head, dressing her as if she were a child. A gesture that felt strangely comforting.

“Well . . .” Gabe said
,
closing the first-aid kit and putting it neatly back in its place. “I’ll do my best.”

Which wasn’t going to be very good, he thought as he left the cabin. When he’d been worried about what he’d see, it was true, he’d been all doctor. But now that he knew she was all right . . . It might not have been the way he’d envisioned seeing her naked, but it had worked pretty well all the same. And those memories were going to be sticking around, he knew, making his life even more difficult.

“You can go in now,” he told the others. “Coast is clear.”

“How’s Mira doing?” Stanley asked, concern clearly visible on his kindly face.

“She’s going to be fine,” Gabe assured him. “A little shaken up, as you’d expect. But she’ll be good as new, with a new haircut and a few days.”

“And how are you?” Stanley pressed.

“Me?” Gabe shrugged. “I’m good. Like I said, she’s fine.”

“And that didn’t shake
you
up,” Stanley said flatly. “When Maria-Elena came flying out like that, and you heard Mira was burned. When you took off like a bat out of the hot spot.”

Gabe read the understanding in the older man’s face, the same look he’d seen a hundred times from his own dad, and caved. “Yeah,” he admitted on a sigh. “Yeah. That was a rough one.”

“About time to make your move, then, don’t you think?” Stanley asked.

Gabe looked at him, startled.

“There’s a time and a place for nobility,” Stanley advised. “And boy, this isn’t the time or the place.”