Bird of Paradise (5 page)

“It’s not that,” he answered morosely,
looking up and giving her the full benefit of his attention. Hero
rocked back on her heels in response. Lord, but he was everything
she could want in a man . . . except for his proclivity for
smuggling, that is. “Jesus is depressed. Suicidal, in fact. That’s
why I’m here, in an attempt to cure his depression.”

“Really?” Hero stood up slowly as the cat
strolled over to her luggage and began investigating it. Her heart
melted at the thought of a man who went to the trouble and expense
he did just to find a partner who would love and care for his cat.
He truly was one in a million. If only he could look beyond
appearances to see that such a woman didn’t have to come in a
svelte, tanned package . . . “I suppose you’re here to find him a
mum?”

“What?” The man looked startled. “Oh . . .
er . . . yes, that’s it. I’m here to find him a . . . mum.
Yes.”

“That’s terribly affecting, but you know, I
have to say . . . What is your name?”

He stood up. Adam . . . er . . .
Monday.”

“Adamermonday? That’s an unusual name.” Then
again his cat was named Jesus.

He looked intriguingly confused. “It’s just
Monday. Monday Marsh. Although my friends call me Adam.”

Her eyebrows rose.

“It’s . . . ah . . . middle name,” he
answered her silent question. “Prefer it. Over Monday.”

“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 yanked 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?