Bird of Paradise Read online

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Marsh. As I was saying, your story is very affecting, but these countries have quarantine laws for a reason. I believe they are in place to prevent the spread of rabies from areas where the disease has been eradicated. You can see that it’s not fair to the other animals on the island if your cat is allowed to bypass regulations.”

  He pulled out a small sheet of paper. “Here’s his health certificate. The vet certifies that Jesus is free from any disease, rabies included.”

  Hero looked at the sheet. “Oh. Well, yes, I can see where you might feel it was acceptable for you to bring your cat if he poses no threat, but still—”

  “You don’t understand; I have no choice in this. He is deeply depressed and has had two suicide attempts already; I can’t leave him alone. His therapist says now is a very critical time for him.”

  “Therapist?” Your cat has a therapist?” Hero glanced over at the cat that sat cleaning his face by licking his front paw and wiping it over his long white whiskers. She’d never heard of a suicidal cat. “What on earth does a cat have to be depressed about?”

  Adam glanced over to the cat, then leaned in toward her. “He’s been neutered,” he whispered.

  “He has?” she whispered back.

  He nodded.

  She waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. “Are you trying to tell me that your cat is depressed because you had him neutered?”

  “Shh,” he hushed her, sending worried looks towards the cat, still involved in grooming himself. “He’ll hear you. It’s bad enough without reminding him of the problem.”

  She eyed him from toes to nose. “I think you’re a very nice man.”

  He turned his attention from the cat to her, his eyes crinkling again as he smiled. “Do you?”

  “Yes. Very nice.”

  “Thank you. I like you as well.”

  She opened her mouth to continue on, to tell him that although he was nice, he was quite obviously a candle or two short of a candelabrum when it came to his cat, but the words never formed. Warmth on her cheeks heralded another blush. “You do?”

  His smile deepened. “Yes.”

  She couldn’t help herself; she had to ask. “Why?”

  “You have an affinity for animals, you are curious about things other than yourself, you’re intelligent and honorable, but most of all—” He stopped suddenly, looking a bit embarrassed.

  Hero wasn’t about to let him get away with that. He was bamming her, obviously, sweet-talking her so she wouldn’t tell the officials about his cat, but even with that knowledge, she wanted more. “Most of all?” she prompted.

  “You remind me of a statue. One of those Greek ones. A goddess.”

  She stared at him. He waved a hand toward her torso. “Your . . . er . . . shape.”

  Her shape? He thought her shape was reminiscent of a statue? Instantly the blush flooding her cheeks turned to a raging inferno. He was making fun of her, pointing out that she was the fleshy personification of fat ancient Greek women. A statue indeed! And after she was thinking such nice thoughts about him!

  “I see,” she retorted, retrieving her purse from where Jesus the cat had dragged it over to a corner. “Regardless, I fail to understand exactly how a cat can become suicidal because of a simple operation, but I will accept your word that it is so. If you will excuse me, I believe I will return to the rest of the contestants.”

  “You’d be depressed too, if you had your balls lopped off,” Adam pointed out, his brow furrowed as he watched her gather up the rest of her things.

  “I highly doubt that.”

  “That’s because you’re a woman. You don’t understand the male attachment to our reproductive organs. They’re very important in our lives.”

  “No doubt,” she ground out, refraining from adding that since most me thought with their penises, it only made sense that their testicles were ranked next in line in value. Unlike silly little things like manners and kindness and simple consideration for another human being.

  “You seem to be mad at me all of a sudden,” Adam commented as he watched her wrestle with her bags. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “Ha, ha” she laughed gaily, or as gaily as she could with her heart shattering into little pieces at his cruelty. A snapped mind and a broken heart—oh, what a lovely way to start off her stay in paradise. “Ha, ha, ha, ha!”

  She left the room, ignoring him as he called for her to wait and allow him to apologize for whatever it was he had said, hurrying past several curious guards to rejoin what remained of the contestants in the main lobby.

  He followed her out a few minutes later, but she steadfastly refused to acknowledge him. The cat was back in his carrier, no doubt to facilitate his transfer to the resort. Even though more than half of the excited contestants had been spirited away to the main buildings, the crowd remaining was still sizeable.

  Hero yanked her mind away from the contemplation of a pair of blue eyes and strolled through the outer doors to deposit her bag with the waiting luggage. Walking outside from the air-conditioned terminal was like entering into another world. The air slammed into her, a hot wall of humidity heavily scented with flowers. Greenery spilled onto the tarmac, the shrubs and bushed and trees alive with birdsong. Bright flashes of color flittered amid the branches, while high overhead sea birds—gulls and pelicans and terns—flew in lazy circles. Hero closed her eyes for a moment, soaking in the sensations of heat and noise and the smell of the tangy salt air and lush earth overlaying the more familiar scent of petrol fumes.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” a small blond woman standing next to her said, looking out into the dense foliage. “Just like the TV promos said it would be—sun and sea and beautiful scenery . . . it truly is paradise.”

  Hero smiled her agreement.

  “Or it would be if there weren’t a serpent slithering around to ruin everything.” The woman frowned over her should at someone. Hero followed her gaze and was more than a little surprised to find it focused on Adam. She looked back to the woman, her heart dropping as she took note of the heart-shaped face framed by thick, curly blond hair, a petite body obviously fit and well-toned, and casual taupe linen trousers and a shirt that Hero suspected cost more than her entire wardrobe. If this woman was indicative of the competition, she was in very deep trouble indeed.

  “A serpent?” she couldn’t help but ask.

  The woman glanced back at where Adam and a large cluster of women were approaching before opening her purse and looking inside for something. “Stalker is more like it. Everywhere I go, he’s there. Well, he’ll soon find out I mean what I say. Shoot, I don’t have anything to write on. Do you have a piece of paper I could use? My lawyer told me to keep notes on exactly what he does in case I want to sue him.”

  Hero stared at her, shocked. Perhaps she was speaking about someone else. Adam might be a little off-kilter, but he didn’t seem to her to be the stuff that stalkers were made of. Slowly she reached into her purse and pulled out a small tablet of note paper she’d filched from work. “Erm . . . you’re being stalked by someone on the show?”

  The blond woman fluttered her hands dismissively, taking the notepad and nodding her head toward Adam. “That man, the one surrounding himself with all the women. I’ve warned him and warned him, but I know how this is going to end—I’ll have to have him removed from the island if he insists on perusing me.”

  “He . . . he looks so nice,” Hero said softly, wishing she could take notes herself, but at the same time having difficulty resolving the woman’s claims with the warmhearted, animal-loving Adam. Perhaps the woman was referring to someone else. “You are talking about that man, the tall one with the dark hair and blue eyes? Monday Marsh?”

  The blonde snorted and pulled out a pen. “Monday Marsh. Oh, yes, I’m speaking of the tall man. The one all the women are slobbering over, more fools they. The Sentinel-Revue,” she read off the notepad. The blood drained from Hero’s face as she yan
ked her gaze back to the blonde beside her. Oh, Lord, what had she done?

  The woman looked up, a frown on her lovely brow. “You’re a journalist? An English journalist?”

  Now what was she supposed to do? She could deny it, but any quick denial would sound suspicious. She could admit the truth, but she knew full well that the Eden rules prohibited journalists from being contestants. She decided to tell the truth—with just a bit of judicious fibbing—the same fibbing that had gotten her on the show in the first place. “I was a journalist. My editor fired me for writing a silly story about the royal family. Now, I’m just . . . here.”

  “Oh,” the woman said, piercing her with a shrewd glance before turning back to make her notes. “A word to the wise—if you decide to write a story after the show is finished, you’ll have to look no farther than our babe magnet over there for a very choice subject.”

  Hero turned to look, a frown on her brow. What was he doing with all those women? They were clinging onto his arms. Laughing and giggling and smiling pouting little smiles at him. She sidled up a bit closer to do a little covert eavesdropping.

  “Oh, Monday, your insight about multiple orgasms is so on the money!” a lovely brunette cooed at him, batting her lashes in a manner that screamed wanton. Multiple orgasms? He was giving women advice about orgasms? “I have been multiorgasmic ever since you suggested incorporating the use of a vibrator in love-play. I just can’t believe I ever survived on only one orgasm during sex!”

  “Oh, yes, me too,” another woman interrupted as the pack moved by her. “One is just so passé now!”

  Hero glared at Adam. How could she have been so misled by him? How could she have fallen for his Mr. Nice Guy story about his cat? How could she have snapped for a man who was clearly the United States Sex Fiend of the Year?

  “I feel so much more in touch with my feminine side,” Yet another woman simpered, edging out a shorter woman to claim his arm as he stopped a few feet away from the shuttle sign, undoing the latch to the cat carrier. Adam, Hero noted sourly as he snapped the leash on Jesus to the stunned surprise of his audience, had adopted a little-boy-lost bashful look at the attention, no doubt carefully calculated to stimulate the women’s maternal need to mother him. Lord knew, if the size of their bosoms were anything to go by, their maternal instincts might well kill him.

  What a rotter.

  “Just listen to them,” the small blond woman said with a disgusted look at Adam and his groupies. “Fawning all over him and that monstrous cat. It’s disgusting, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not quite sure why, but evidently they feel grateful to him for their newly found multiorgasmic abilities,” Hero said dryly.

  The woman next to her snorted. “If they only knew.”

  Hero turned to her. “Knew what? Just who is he?”

  The blonde studied her for a moment, then held out a tanned hand. “ My name is Sally Simmons.”

  Sally? Sally? It couldn’t be a coincidence, not with her so obviously hostile to Adam. Hero wondered just why he had assumed she was working for Sally, and what the blonde’s history was with him. Pushing her musing aside, she shook the offered hand. “Hero North.”

  “Well, Hero North, what would you say if I were to tell you that Monday Marsh is the U.S.’s premier radio sex therapist?”

  Hero goggled at her. “Sex therapist? He offers sexual advice on the radio? Where anyone can hear it?”

  Sally nodded. “He has an extremely large following, particularly among women, as you can see.”

  “And then my nipples exploded in delight!” Adam said suddenly. Hero turned to stare at him, her mouth hanging open in surprise. The women around him burst into laughter and applause, attracting the few remaining men from inside the terminal.

  Dear Lord, what had she done? She’d snapped for an American sex maniac, one who discussed his nipples in public. With strangers. Along with orgasmic advice.

  Three shuttles pulled up at that moment, fortuitously keeping Hero from contemplating the insanity that had gripped her. She followed Sally to the line of people queuing for the first bus, claiming a seat near the door. Sally sat at the front, Adam and Jesus, Hero could not help but note, remained with the swarm of women before the second shuttle. Just as the driver was about to close the doors, Adam leaped up the stairs and stood looking up and down the aisle, Jesus clasped to his chest. He glanced down at Hero. He noticed an empty seat next to her. Her heart started racing at the warmth in his blue eyes. Had he sought her out? Had he left his adoring, orgasmic fans to sit with her? Could it be that he was looking for something not found in the shallow, vapid women who clung to him? Did he truly want . . . her?

  “Hero,” he said with a sigh of relief. Her heart did a few jumping jacks. “Do you mind?”

  She scooted her purse out of the way and tried to look cool and unconcerned. “Not in the least.”

  “Thank you.” He plopped the cat down on the seat next to her, and leaned forward over her. “He likes you; and he won’t be any trouble. Just don’t let him try to kill himself.”

  She looked down at her hand in complete and utter surprise. There was a leash in it. She looked at the seat next to her. Jesus was considering her with his one good eye. She looked up. Adam had claimed the empty seat next to Sally, and was leaning close to her, arguing vehemently, if quietly. Bloody hell!

  Pressure on her leg had her looking back at the cat. He curled up next to her, his huge head resting on her thigh. One side of his lip was curled under itself, exposing a fang.

  He was drooling on her dress.

  Chapter Three

  “Orientation in the ballroom, ladies and gentlemen,” the TV show producer was saying, waving his clipboard at everyone as they emerged from the shuttles. “Your bags will be taken to your rooms. Ballroom inside and to the left. Move along, please. We have a schedule to keep.”

  Adam retrieved Jesus from the Englishwoman, thanking her politely for watching the cat while he tried to plead his case with Sally. Hero seemed to be a bit peeved with him, although he couldn't understand why. She'd said she liked cats, and Jesus had obviously taken to her, something he didn't do with many women. He was about to ask Hero if it was her first time in the Caribbean when the women he'd tried so hard to escape earlier pounced on him, driveling on about his cat, and how thrilled they were to meet him in person. He shot Hero a look begging for her help, or at the very least sympathy, but she didn't take pity on him, strolling on ahead without so much as a glance back at him.

  She really was something, he thought to himself as he followed the crowd into a brightly lit ballroom. Tall and statuesque with short, curly auburn hair, not to mention curves in places that would drive a monk mad, topped off with a charming English accent—why couldn't he have met her elsewhere? Why did it have to be here, where she would be sure to be swarmed with men wanting to get closer to all those delicious curves? His eyes followed her as she took a seat at one of the tables near the back of the ballroom.

  “Excuse me, will you, ladies? I see someone I know. Yes, yes, later, I promise we'll talk. Thank you all for the kind words.” He made his escape, hurrying toward the rear of the ballroom, his eyes on the tall Englishwoman. She was chatting happily with the woman next to her, a small woman with long blonde…damn!

  “Ladies,” he nodded as he pulled out the chair next to Hero. Both she and Sally turned gimlet eyes on him. He ignored the chilly reception and placed Jesus on the chair, taking the seat on the cat's far side. “I see we're just in time. Looks like they're about to start.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Crescent Moon Resort! Welcome to Eden!” A woman’s voice blared out from speakers in the ceiling, and the words, the ballroom suddenly burst to life. Huge arc lights lining the walls flashed on, making Adam and everyone at his table blink in response. Cameramen poured out of the doorways, spacing themselves around the room, their heavy shoulder-mounted cameras pointing at the people seated at the tables, shadowed by men and women with sound equipm
ent, microphones that followed the sweep of cameras. A number of other people emerged as well, each clutching a clipboard with the Eden TV show emblem blazoned on the front. On a small raised dais at the front of the room, several men in suits joined a couple of women standing around a computer setup.

  “Is everyone seated?” One of the women, a black woman with spiky hair and blood-red framed glasses asked, looking around the room. “Handlers, do we have everyone? Yes? Excellent. Welcome, contestants, to Eden! My name is Dara Thompson, and I'm the executive producer of Eden. Standing to my left is the president of Hawkeye Productions, Mr. Michael Hawkins. Before Mike welcomes you and explains what will be happening in the next few weeks, I'd like to introduce someone who I'm sure you'll all recognize—the host of our show, the fabulous Rupert Asterisk!”

  The audience applauded while Adam wrestled his orientation packet from where Jesus had dragged it to his chair, returning the folder with one soggy, chewed upon corner to the table. He dug through his pocket until he found a well-gnawed catnip mouse, giving it to the cat, who promptly growled and pounced on it, holding it with his front paws and rolling onto his back to kick at the mouse with his back legs. Adam looked up to find Hero's serious grey eyes on him. He smiled at her. She started to smile in return, then suddenly shifted her gaze to the front of the room, where the show's host, the well-known diminutive actor/comedian was entertaining the crowd with somewhat bawdy jokes about Adam and Eve. Adam smiled politely with the rest of the audience, but couldn't help but sneak a peek back to the woman sitting next to his cat.

  She was studying Jesus’s mouse with a perplexed expression. He grinned, and leaned across the cat to whisper, “It's a sock. Actually, it's three socks sewn together. Sturdier that way. I made it myself.”

  Her eyes met his, tiny lines of puzzlement between her arched brows smoothing out as she blinked at him. “You make him toys?”

  “I have to. He eats regular cat toys. This one will probably last a week or less before he guts it.”