More Than Paradise Part 6

Charlotte gave her an understanding smile. "I didn't intend for you to pay for the cab." She started unb.u.t.toning her s.h.i.+rt at the waist, reaching for the conspicuous money belt.

"No." Ash caught her wrist. Embarra.s.sed, she instantly let go.

"I don't need your money. And you should never open that belt in public."

She stared at their warped re ections in a bra.s.s panel that capped a nearby pillar. The brief burn of Charlotte's skin against her own was like a maddening crumb thrown to a beggar. How could this be happening to her? Was she nally losing it before her next big a.s.signment? Was it time to punch out and spend the rest of her days converting her property holdings into a real estate fortune? She knew guys who'd made a killing in Somalia or Iraq and were now kicking back. Maybe she'd tell Tubby Nagle to go f.u.c.k himself. There were plenty more wild geese where she * 61 *

came from. He could burn down a village without her help. She didn't want to be there guarding the inhabitants after they'd gathered their few pitiful possessions and accepted their "compensation" before being trucked away like cattle.

"Ash?" Skin again, the tantalizing brush of her ngers. "Are you okay?"

Barely able to breathe, Ash said a shade too quickly, "I'd like to take you to dinner. I have other clothes." She braced herself for the brush-off.

Charlotte laughed. It was better than an outright no. "Dinner?" she repeated, like she was pleasantly surprised.

"Why not?" Ash slowed down, trying for a smooth and con dent demeanor. "We both speak English and unless you already have a date, you're going to be eating alone. It's the wrong signal to send around here."

Something ashed across Charlotte's features. Disappointment?

Ash could have kicked herself. She'd made it sound like she was doing her a favor.

An edge of stiffness con rmed the faux pas. "I suppose you have a point."

"Listen, I'm an a.s.s," Ash backpedaled swiftly. "Do me a favor and blame malaria or something. I'm asking you to waste a couple of hours of your life with me because you seem like an intelligent, interesting woman and I think we could enjoy each other's company while we eat what pa.s.ses for a decent meal here."

"So, this is a date?"

"Would you like it to be?"

Charlotte did something to her hair, a s.e.xual cue instantly called into question by her next declaration. "The kiss...back there. It was just an act. You know that, don't you? I mean, I'm not going to sleep with you."

Ash composed her features. "I'm crushed, but can we still have dinner?"

This time, little puckers transformed Charlotte's face to one of schoolgirl mischief. Ash ruthlessly suppressed an image of her perched on a desk in white knee socks and one of those black British schoolgirl uniforms she'd seen working security in the expat community. The thought of corrupting Charlotte in such attire did nothing for her concentration.

* 62 *

"Okay, let's have dinner," Charlotte said.

"There's a decent restaurant right here in the hotel. I'll reserve a table. How's seven thirty?"

"Perfect. Where will I nd you?"

Ash gestured toward a waiter weaving between tables, a tray of c.o.c.ktails balanced on one hand. "Over there in the bar." Drowning my sorrows because it really doesn't matter if I'm Mr. or Ms. It's never going to happen.

* 63 *

* 64 *

CHAPTER SIX.

Everything she'd packed made her look like a librarian, Charlotte thought.

She dragged the few non-work clothes she'd brought along out of the hotel closet and posed in front of her mirror, holding each out t up against her. It seemed silly to be peeved that she didn't have anything more sophisticated. She was dining with a man who looked like he could sleepwalk to any bar in the entire of this seedy tropical port.

It wasn't like she needed to impress him. And he was barking up the wrong tree if he thought he was going to get lucky. She'd spelled that out in words of one syllable.

She wasn't entirely sure why she'd agreed to meet him, except that she felt she owed him something, and he was unlike anyone she knew.

When you traveled to places like this, new experiences and new people were part of the deal. Ashley Evans probably had some fascinating tales to tell over dinner and he also knew the region. Charlotte had a few questions that her manager hadn't been able, or willing, to answer.

There was something else, too. If she were completely honest, she had been shocked by her response during their phony kiss in the bar.

She hadn't experienced a jolt to the senses like that one since she'd fallen for Britt, and she'd more or less accepted that she would never feel so alive again. Yet that numb part of her was suddenly reacting. To a man. How was that possible?

Charlotte could almost hear her therapist. Men were safe. She wasn't attracted to them. She didn't have to worry about getting involved with one or being hurt. Whereas with women, she protected herself by choosing partners she felt neutral about at best. The theory * 65 *

made sense intellectually, but Charlotte still didn't see how a lesbian could react s.e.xually to a man. Was she so screwed up that this was the result-a grubby slob paws her in a bar on the wrong side of town and she gets turned on?

Another possibility presented itself. Ash was a gay man, and that's why she felt an af nity of sorts with him. He certainly had an androgynous look if you could get past the Indiana Jones exterior.

Charlotte noticed detail. That was one of the reasons she excelled in her eld. Very little about Ash Evans had escaped her. He was not the tallest of men, maybe ve-ten, but he had a physical presence that compensated for the average stature and he'd obviously worked hard to add muscle to a frame that was naturally lithe and athletic.

If she had to take a bet, Charlotte would guess he knew a martial art in addition to carrying the three guns he had mentioned. He walked with the self-aware grace of someone who possessed those highly trained re exes, and there was a quiet menace about him, revealed in his carriage and his narrowed watchful gaze. No doubt such skills were an advantage in this lawless part of the world.

For a man who spent a lot of his time in the jungle, he was also surprisingly well manicured and clean shaven, which, now that she thought about it, just screamed "gay man." During their kiss, she'd noticed how soft his skin felt, not a trace of beard. Being blond probably meant he had less regrowth to contend with than men with dark hair.

She thought about her brother, Brody. Like her, he had inherited their father's French coloring. Their older brother, Justin, was copper haired and fair skinned like their mother. Brody had to shave twice a day and Charlotte always teased that he got a two o'clock shadow and by ve he'd have a beard.

Thankfully, she wasn't cursed with the excessive female body hair that sometimes went with Mediterranean coloring, unlike some of her friends. They were forever bemoaning their wax treatments. She also liked her skin tone. It was somewhere between her mother's extreme milky white and her father's olive, a blend that looked good with a dark crimson stretch knit top she'd packed. Charlotte had been unsure about bringing it because it drew attention to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and if there was an evening event with the other scientists before or after the expedition, she didn't want to be seen to play on her femininity.

She held the top to her body and considered her re ection. It went well with the narrow knee-length black silk skirt she'd purchased in * 66 *

antic.i.p.ation of the tropical heat. And she had a lipstick that worked with it. Normally she didn't wear a dark red on her lips or nails. Her mouth was small but full-lipped and she worried that it appeared too prominent for her face if she applied anything but quiet, natural tones.

Britt had once told her that in full make-up she looked like a wh.o.r.e. Charlotte had never been able to shake the suspicion that her ex might have a point. After all, Britt was a trial lawyer. She knew how people were perceived. So most of the time she didn't wear make-up at all. And besides, it was a hazard in a laboratory setting where mascara could blot the lens of a microscope and skin products could corrupt anything they accidentally came in contact with.

She laid the crimson top down on the bed, found her make-up bag, and applied a few discreet dabs of Shalimar at her throat, elbows, and wrists. Real perfume extracts were an indulgence of hers. She was sure that her fascination for plants had something to do with it. She never wasted her time with eau de toilette sprays. In those rip-off colognes, the true notes of the various ower oils faded before they were even fully developed. None of her favorite scents-Shalimar, Jicky, and Must de Cartier-smelled like the same fragrance an hour after applying the watered-down version.

As she drew the top over her head, it struck her that she'd just put on the wrong perfume. She'd automatically selected Shalimar because she thought of it as an evening scent. However, it was the most seductive of the fragrances she had with her and she should probably have chosen something more everyday, like the innocuous Chamade.

Not that it really mattered. Her dinner companion didn't seem the type who would notice a scent.

Zipping her skirt, Charlotte re ected that she would have been a bundle of nerves if she'd been planning to have dinner with a woman who could kiss the way Ash Evans had kissed her that afternoon. In fact, she would not have been getting dressed up at all. She would never have agreed to the outing in the rst place, let alone be putting on make-up and wearing a top that showed cleavage. But Ash was only a man, even if he had evoked a disconcerting physical response from her.

She knew how to give males the brush-off without having to announce her s.e.xuality. There was nothing to worry about. She could just relax and enjoy the local nightlife with an escort who was the next best thing to her own personal bodyguard. It was better than being alone and ordering room service.

* 67 *

After combing her hair out loose and attening her natural waves with some mousse, she blotted her lipstick and applied a ne line of violet kohl to each eyelid, just enough to make her lashes look heavier and her eyes less nondescript than their usual gray. She didn't need to pencil her eyebrows. They were black and she kept them tidily plucked without going overboard. It annoyed her that they wanted to be straight instead of curved. They made her look so serious that people sometimes thought she was frowning. To compensate, she smiled more than she might otherwise.

Charlotte checked the time and realized she was several minutes late, unheard of. Hastily, she slid her feet into the one pair of feminine sandals she'd brought with her, black high heels with a simple band across the toes. She hoped she wouldn't fall over trying to walk in them. A sprained ankle was all she needed before setting off into the rainforest for two months.

She transferred her pa.s.sport, cash, and credit cards into a small satchel, dropped this over her shoulder, and made a quick turn in front of the mirror to ensure nothing was out of place. She looked attractive but not shameless, and certainly not like a woman in search of a "good time." That was one signal she didn't want to send inadvertently. Her dinner companion would have something nice to look at across the table, and she would make a point of being pleasant. That was the least she could do for the man who had probably saved her from a fate worse than death.

v Ash had been in the bar for twenty minutes drinking a club soda when she really wanted a whiskey. She could not shake this feeling of restless antic.i.p.ation, and it bugged the c.r.a.p out of her. Charlotte was late. Maybe she'd had second thoughts and was not going to show. By now Ash would normally be checking out the talent around the room so she'd have a Plan B. But no. She was looking at her watch like a moonstruck high schooler.

When she nally caught sight of Charlotte stepping away from the elevator, she almost had a heart attack. The last time she'd seen anything so s.e.xy was...never. She dismissed the thought instantly as her libido talking. She saw s.e.xy women every time she hit a city outside of PNG and if she wanted to hang out around hotels like this one, she could see * 68 *

plenty right here. Or she could hit the Royal Yacht Club and hook up with some of the lonely, bored bi-curious housewives that abounded in the expat community. The reason she steered clear of that occupational hazard was that she had to live here and didn't need a jealous husband putting a price on her head. Five hundred bucks could buy a bullet between the eyes in Pom.

As Charlotte approached, Ash stumbled to her feet and almost knocked over the potted palm behind her chair. Off balance in more ways than one, she propped her hand against one of the hefty white pillars that studded the room and stared down at the beige and burgundy pattern in the carpet, collecting herself. She was only thirty-six. Was it possible that she was entering her midlife crisis fteen years early? Or had she nally contracted malaria? Swelling of the brain could account for temporary insanity.

She forced herself to look directly at her dinner date and wave with what she hoped was casual panache. She wasn't the only one gawking.

A couple of businessmen a few tables away were virtually drooling into their beer gla.s.ses. She wanted to slug them. It wasn't like Charlotte was hanging out of her dress or anything. In fact, if anything her out t was conservative, except that it clung all over in places her pants and s.h.i.+rt had concealed. Ash had noticed her compact body in the bar, but she had underestimated the curves.

"You clean up well," Charlotte informed her and extended a hand the way women did when they wanted to preempt an unwelcome male hug.

Ash obliged with a polite handshake. "You, too."

"I like my martinis dry and a little dirty," Charlotte announced, ahead of the game already.

Ash pried her attention away from the teasing bounce of her date's b.r.e.a.s.t.s beneath the clinging red top to ag down a pa.s.sing waiter. Her brain felt scrambled and foggy, and her heart was galloping. Under the circ.u.mstances, she gured whiskey was a bad idea, but she ordered one anyway and pulled a chair out for the cause of her disquiet.

Her plan had been to get the misunderstanding about her gender out of the way right off the bat just in case Charlotte actually hadn't gured it out. Instead she said, like she was a channel for the world's twenty worst pick-up lines, "So, tell me. What brings you to PNG, Charlotte?"

"Well, I can't be explicit, since I've signed all kinds of * 69 *

nondisclosure agreements. But I work for an organization helping develop a new generation of pharmaceuticals. I'm here to gather samples of certain plant species."

"You've come to the right place. There's nothing that can't grow here. And if you want bugs, we've got a s.h.i.+tload. c.o.c.kroaches the size of rats, for starters."

"I noticed." An elegant shudder. "There was one walking along the counter at that bar. I'd swear it was drunk."

"It was. They crawl inside the gla.s.ses. You have to watch out if you put your drink down for more than ve minutes."

"Yeech." She glanced around in dismay. "Surely they don't have them in a place like this."

Ash didn't want to think about walking into the hotel kitchens in the dead of night and hitting the lights. In a place this size the usual scramble of gleaming beetle bodies would be something to see. She offered a more comforting image. "Not a chance. I'm guessing they have the exterminators in here every week."

"It could be cleaner," Charlotte con ded after the waiter had set their drinks down on frilly white bar napkins. "I mean, it's supposed to be the best hotel in the city, but you should see my bathroom. I had to scrub it myself after I checked in."

Ash chuckled. "Something you need to get used to here is lowering your expectations."

"You've been in PNG a while?"

"Ten years in paradise," she replied cynically. "I don't live in Pom anymore. I just keep an apartment here for when I have business in town. My home is in Madang."

She promptly did what she never did and took out a couple of the photos she carried in her wallet. Looking at her house was the only thing that kept her grounded sometimes. That and Emma. But she didn't get her sister's picture out. She only wanted to cry when she saw it, and tonight she was trying to get her mind off that unhappy subject.

"It's stunning." Charlotte examined the closer shot of the house at length. "I love it. The wooden porticos and that long balcony with the white pillars. Those huge palm trees. It's like something from a novel."

She pointed to a gure standing on the balcony, leaning against the railing. "Is that you?"

"Yes." Ash had bought her houseboy, Ramon, a Polaroid camera * 70 *

a while back and he'd lost his mind and taken pictures of everything.

"You can see the ocean from up there."

"Amazing. Do you have land?"

"Sixty acres. It's a coffee plantation. Kind of run down, but it provides the locals with some work. We just had our main harvest back in September."

"Coffee. I had no idea."

"It's one of PNG's biggest exports. Most of it ends up in Germany."

"Not in Starbucks?"

"Funny thing. We actually prefer to sell our crop for more than thirty cents a pound. It's hard to pay wages when you're giving the stuff away."

"I thought Starbucks had programs supporting small producers."

"Don't tell me you've been reading their propaganda over your morning hit?" Ash teased gently.

"G.o.d, no. They'd have to pay me serious money to drink a latte in any place that uses rBGH milk. I can't believe we're the last country on the planet to ban that c.r.a.p."

"I think they still serve it in Kazakhstan."

"What an endors.e.m.e.nt." Her face grew earnest. "You know what's happening back home? Our bought and paid for senate is about to pa.s.s the Monsanto laws. That means no more state regulations about food labeling. By all means, avoid telling the consumer about toxins and growth hormones. They know people are getting cancer from their Frankenfoods. That's why they want to hide the information for as long as they can. Just like the cigarette companies."

Ash didn't think she'd ever been so idealistic that hard truths could disillusion her. She said, "Down here we're so undeveloped no one can afford pesticides and antibiotics, so we only have organic foods."

"Lucky you." Charlotte's grave little face took on a brooding cast.

"Maybe it's because of my work, but this really bothers me. I mean, genetic modi cation is in its infancy as a science. No one has any idea of the impact of these foods. But they're putting them on our tables and releasing GE crops into our environment like it's nothing." She fell silent. "Okay, gag me. I'm talking like a crazy person."

A mental snapshot of a fetchingly gagged Charlotte played havoc with Ash's senses. Nothing hard-core, just one of those playful satin * 71 *