Remarried In Haste. Sandra Field
our country.”
Natalie’s head swerved. “Who the hell do—”
“Be quiet,” Peg ordered.
“This minute,” her cohort seconded.
As Natalie’s jaw dropped, Brant threw back his head and started to laugh, great bellows of laughter that released the tension in his chest and the ache in his belly that had been with him ever since he’d first seen Rowan in the airport at Grenada. Uncertainly Karen smiled and Sheldon joined her, a smile tugged at the corner of Rowan’s mouth and Steve said vengefully, “Shut up, Natalie.”
For a moment it looked as though Natalie was about to launch into another tirade. But then the custom’s officer said, “Next, please,” and Rowan said briskly, “Your turn, Natalie.”
As Natalie stepped over the painted line and fumbled for her passport, Steve said, “Two single rooms, Rowan, and it’s the last time I’ll travel anywhere with that b—” he caught sight of May’s clamped jaw and finished hastily “—broad.”
“I’ll do my best,” Rowan said.
“You’d better,” said Steve.
“There’s a marvelous word in the English language, Steve, called please,” Brant interposed softly. “You might try it sometime. Because I don’t like it when you order Rowan around.”
Steve took a step toward him, his fists bunched. Even more softly, Brant said, “Don’t do it. You’ll end up flat on the floor seeing a lot more than birds.”
This whole trip was getting away from her, Rowan thought wildly. A screaming match in the airport and now the threat of a brawl. But, try as she might, she couldn’t take her eyes off Brant. Once, she remembered, she and he had been walking down Yonge Street and had been accosted by a couple of teenagers with knives; that evening Brant had had the same air of understated menace, of a lean and altogether dangerous confidence in his ability to defend both himself and her.
It wasn’t his job to defend her. Not anymore. Besides which, dammit, it was time she asserted her own authority. “I’ve said I’ll do my best, Steve, that’s all I can do,” she announced. “And you’ll both have to pay extra money, you do realize that? Karen and Sheldon, why don’t you go through customs next?” That, at least, would keep Natalie and Steve apart. She’d have to get on the phone at the hotel in St. Vincent and rearrange all the other hotels. And if Steve and Natalie had a reconciliation before the end of the trip, they could darn well sleep apart. It would be good for them.
Not entirely by coincidence, she glanced at Brant. He was watching her, laughter gleaming anew in his blue eyes. It’s not funny, she told herself, and winked at him, her lips twitching; then suddenly remembered she was supposed to be keeping her cool. What a joke! How could she possibly keep her cool with Natalie and Steve fighting like alley cats, Peg and May acting like the imperious headmistresses of the very snootiest of private schools, and Karen and Sheldon looking superior because they knew they’d never do anything so crude as to argue?
Not to mention Brant. Handsome, sexy, irresistible Brant.
She looked away, flustered and upset. Deep down she could admit to herself that she was extremely gratified Brant had sprung to her defense. And explain that one, Rowan Carter.
The hotel in St. Vincent boasted enough bougainvillea and palm trees for any postcard, as well as a dining room open to a view of the beach and a bar with pleasant wicker furmture right at the edge of the beige-colored sand. Rowan was able to get Steve and Natalie single rooms in separate wings of the hotel, and suggested they all meet for an early lunch. She then had the baggage delivered to all the right rooms, got on the phone to the rest of the hotels, and did some groceries for the picnic lunch the next day. By which time she was supposed to be in the dining room.
Steve sat down on one side of her, Brant on the other. Natalie, she saw with an unholy quiver of amusement, immediately seized the chair on Brant’s far side. Okay, Rowan, she told herself, this time you really are going to keep your cool, and said brightly, “This afternoon we’ll head up to the rain forest, where we should see St. Vincent parrots.”
“Excellent,” said May.
“Exciting,” said Peg.
Steve nudged Rowan with something less than subtlety. “I’ll stand you a drink in the bar for every parrot we see.”
Over my dead body, thought Brant.
“I don’t think so,” Rowan responded. “We saw well over a dozen on our last trip here.”
“Steve excels at drinking too much, it’s his only talent,” Natalie said sweetly. “I bet you can hold your liquor, Brant.”
“So much so that I have no need to prove it,” Brant replied. “Rowan, how long a drive to the forest?”
He was smiling at her, his irises the deep blue of the sea, his dark hair ruffled by the breeze that came from the sea. We’re divorced, Rowan thought frantically, we’re finished, we’re over and done with, and gulped, “Oh, about an hour, depending if we stop on the way.”
“The St. Vincent parrots are the ones with yellow and blue on them.”
“That’s right, although it’s more like gold and bronze, along with blue, green and white.”
“You look tired,” he said quietly.
She was tired. Her period was due soon, and she knew she’d have to dose herself with medication to get through the cramps on the first day. She said in a loud voice, “Because they’re such handsome birds, they’ve been poached a lot for the parrot trade.”
This launched Peg and May into a discussion about the complexities of economics and environmentalism, and thankfully Rowan focused on her conch salad. When they’d all finished eating, she asked everyone to meet in the lobby in fifteen minutes, and scurried off to ask the kitchen if they’d cook some tortellini for the picnic lunch the next day.
The others went to their rooms. Brant filled his canteen with water from the table, enjoying the breeze, remembering how the skin beneath Rowan’s dark eyes was shadowed blue. He’d never before considered how hard she worked; her job had always seemed like a piece of cake compared to his. Not really worth his attention.
This wasn’t a particularly comfortable thought. His eyes fell to her chair; she’d left her haversack there. When he bent to pick it up so he could return it to her, he discovered that it was astonishingly heavy. Without stopping to think, he slid the zipper open and looked inside.
What for? Photos of himself? That was a laugh. Photos of another man? That wouldn’t be one bit funny.
She wasn’t dating anyone else. She’d told him so. And in all the years he’d known Rowan, she’d never tied to him.
Brant was highly skilled at swift searches. The weight of the haversack was due to binoculars, a camera and a zoom lens. No photos turned up. But in a pocket deep in a back compartment he found something that made his pulses lurch, then thrum in his ears. His fingers were caressing the cool ceramic surface of the earrings he’d had designed for her, earrings fashioned like the berries of the rowan tree.
“What are you doing?”
Like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Brant looked up. He fumbled for the earrings and held them up. “These were the first present I ever gave you.”
She whispered ferociously, “You’re on vacation, Brant—but you can’t give it a rest, can you? You’ve always got to be the perfect investigator, the one who invades and violates the privacy of others for your own ends. Why don’t you just lay off?”
“Why were these earrings buried in your haversack?”
“That’s none of your damned business!”
She was swearing at him, he thought in deep relief; the ice-cold, controlled