Blooming in the Wild (11 page)

To Do: The tour director will show only patience and a sunny demeanor. This will bring even the most challenging guest around
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Bella called Regina back, as requested. “How are the photos?” her boss asked.

“Well, Camille seems to know what she’s doing,” Bella admitted. “I guess I was wrong.”

Regina laughed. “Well, that’s a relief, hmm? And how is everything else? How is our celebrity doing? Giving us our money’s worth?”

Bella rolled her eyes. “Yes, but he’s a monumental pain in the ass.”

“Well,” said Regina. Her tone had changed, serious now. “I’m sorry to hear that, Bella. Because you’re going to have be very careful here. Joel Girand is big— very big. DelRay needs him to front this campaign. I’m sure you’ll do everything in your power to make him comfortable. Do you understand what I mean?”

Bella’s stomach tightened into a knot that matched the one gripping her shoulders and neck. She closed her eyes, swallowing. “I think I do, Regina. I assure you, I’ll…do my best to make Mr. Girand happy with his experience on the shoot.”

“Good. Thank you. Is there anything else?”

Bella shifted her shoulders, trying to ease the tension. “No, everything will be—everything is fine.”

“All right, good. Call me tomorrow, won’t you?” There was a clear note of command in the question.

“Certainly.”

Bella clicked her phone off and squeezed it in her hand, wishing it was a sturdy branch that she could use to swat something, or someone.

And with the timing of a sit-com, a familiar voice spoke behind her. “Keeping the world running the way it should, Ms. Moran?”

She swallowed a fiery retort and willed her expression to calm. Then she turned to face Joel. “It seems to be fine without me for now. Was there anything you needed?”

One of his brows arched quizzically, his gaze teasing. “Not a thing, unless you want to help me change for my swim.”

Her hand tightened on her phone until she felt the case bow, in imminent danger of snapping. Loosening her grip with an effort, she managed to laugh as if he’d made a funny joke. “No, thanks. Have a nice swim.”

Then she turned her back on him.

Joel stared after her, puzzled. She was taking his crap and not fighting back anymore. And she seemed to have lost interest in their flirtation.

In fact, that look on her pretty face had been completely unlike what he’d seen of her. It had been closed off, no irritation or other emotion at all. Her corporate face, he’d bet.

That was it. She was on that red phone of hers several times a day. He could tell when she was talking to someone she loved—family or friends. Her posture was relaxed, her face alight, and she gestured and laughed as if the other person could see her. But when the calls were business, she was different. Stiff and careful. The good little corporate cog. And she did that thing with her shoulders, rolling them to ease tension.

That was how she’d looked during her phone conversation.
Bingo.

“Hey,” he called. He followed her past the fire pit and into the trees. She ignored him. “Bella,” he said, putting some authority into his voice.

She stopped in her tracks, and he could see her take a deep breath before she turned, looking back at him over her shoulder. “Yes? Is there something you need?”

He caught up with her. This close, he could see every one of her lashes and the smoothness of her golden skin. “No, but there’s something I want.”

She looked wary.

He shook his head. “Listen. I don’t know quite how to put this, but…you don’t have to be polite to me,” he said. To his chagrin, he could feel his cheeks burn. Dammit, there was just no way to say this without revealing his awareness of his status as “star” of this deal. “Like I’m some big hotshot. I don’t need that, and I don’t want it.”

She raised one of her winged brows. “Really. Well, according to DelRay, you do, and you get it. And they’re my employer.”

“That’s bullshit,” he snapped, the heat in his face arrowing into his midriff and tightening his shoulders and arms. “Not to mention boring as hell.”

She cocked her head and smiled like a mannequin in a store window. “Then prepare to be bored, Mr. Girand.”

He shook his head and took a step back. Because if he didn’t, he was going to grab her and…do something he’d probably regret. To deny the impulse, he hid behind derision.

“Well, for the record, I liked the real Bella a lot better. Let me know when she’s back.”

Turning, he stalked back to his tent to change.

Tanah lounged by the water under an umbrella. She gave him a slow, triumphant smile as she approached.

“Ready for a swim?” she invited.

“You bet.” His ego still stinging, he held out one hand and helped her up. She clung to his hand as they walked into the water.

Joel eyed the approaching rainclouds and the curtains of rain hanging underneath. They had at most another half hour of sunshine. Might as well enjoy it. If that storm kept coming this way, they’d all be heading for cover in the caves Frank had mentioned.

Once they were hip-deep, Joel freed his hand from Tanah’s and dove under. He splashed about, scrubbing salt water over his face and hair, rinsing away makeup and hair cream, and then lay back in the water, enjoying the cool buoyancy and the hot sun.

Tanah paddled toward him, and he splashed water her way. She retaliated, and they played for a little while, laughing. He liked her a lot better when she wasn’t trying to seduce him.

Cassie waded daintily in as well, in a tiny blue bikini, and swam out to them. “Oh, this is nice. Aren’t you glad to be done modeling, Joel?”

“Sure am. Don’t know how you put up with it.”

She shrugged. “I’ve only got a few more years before I’m too old. Until then, the money’s too good to quit.”

“Ah, if you don’t mind my asking, how old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

Joel stared at her lovely, youthful face. In a few years, she’d just be getting interesting, mature enough to know what she wanted and have some experiences, things to talk about, and from a man’s point of view, she’d still be plenty pretty. What a crazy industry. He was damned glad he was only a visitor.

“Why aren’t you modeling?” he asked Tanah. He knew there were plenty of jobs for women with her build. Most of them might be pretty racy stuff, but with her seductive nature, he didn’t think that would put her off. She’d look fine posing in front of a race car in one of her little bitty outfits.

The redhead made a face. “I used to model. I got out of it a few years ago, when the photographers started complaining about having to airbrush my photos too much.”

He shook his head in incomprehension, and she laughed. “Oh, Joel, you’re sweet. Sagging skin, honey. I’m almost thirty, and it shows.”

“You could have some work done,” Cassie pointed out.

“Yeah, and spend my whole paycheck on nips and tucks?” Tanah made a rude noise. “No, thanks. Rather have it in the bank.”

“Well, if thirty is too old,” Joel said, “I’m over the hill and sliding down fast.”

Now Bella Moran would be beautiful even when she was old, with that bone structure. He scanned the camp and found her, still standing in the shadows of the trees, watching them.

“Yes, but you’re a man,” Tanah said. “It’s different for you.”

“Yes, I am.” He swam toward Tanah, waggling his eyebrows at her.

She shrieked with pretend fear and let him catch her, bracing her hands on his shoulders as he lifted her out of the water. Then, as he let her go, she hung on and slid down his body, locking her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.

“Now you caught me, what are you gonna do with me?” she purred.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bella turn and dash into the forest, and the fun went out of his little game, just as the clouds edged over the sun and the air around them darkened.

He gave Tanah a friendly pat on her ass and tried to ignore her clamped over his groin like a limpet. “I’m going for a swim. You ladies want to come?”

“Depends on what we’re going to do once we get there.” Tanah pouted, and behind him, Cassie giggled.

Joel glanced from one to the other, realization jolting through him. The two were not only friends, it seemed they weren’t averse to being playmates. Whoa, he needed an out, and he needed one fast.

“Oh, it’s great out there past the reef,” he said. “Big waves rocking you around and turtles swimming by. If you’re lucky, you might even see a shark. They’re all along this coast, you know. Come on, it’s great.”

The two looked at him with identical expressions, brows crinkled, mouths open.

“No, thanks,” Cassie said, paddling backward toward the shore. “Anyway, haven’t you been watching those clouds? It’s going to rain.”

“I don’t think you should go out there,” Tanah added, eyeing the mouth of the little lagoon as if scanning for large shapes under the water.

“I’ll be fine, thanks. See you in a few.” Joel swam out of across the reef, smiling to himself.

He swam north along the lava shelf, diving a few times to view the fish along the reef. With the looming clouds, the water was dim and the colors muted, so he settled into a swim, stroking through the waves, enjoying the burn of working his muscles and his lungs. What he had told the women was true—there were sharks all along the coastline, but he knew they mainly hunted from dusk ’til dawn, and he wasn’t spearfishing, so there was no blood to attract them.

As he swam, Joel had plenty of time to think past his initial irritation with Bella. If her DelRay bosses were telling her to give him the star treatment, that was a very good sign. It meant they considered him a real asset.

He grinned to himself as he stroked through the gentle waves. Hot damn, this was good news.

He allowed himself half an hour, but when he heard thunder rumble over the sound of the surf, he headed back to the bay. He had a feeling they were going to have to break camp and move into those caves of Frank’s.

Bella could not walk away from the unwelcome emotion burning in her chest. She was sickeningly aware that she was an absolute fool, because she was, in a word—jealous. Old-fashioned, green-eyed, cat-scratch jealous. Of playful, seductive Tanah, who seemed to be just the kind of woman Joel wanted.

And why she cared, she could not understand. “He’s not nice to you, Bella,” she muttered to herself as she stalked up into the trees behind camp. “And he’s a man slut. So forget him.”

Maybe later she could drop a coconut on him. Yeah, right. She shook her head at her own wild imagination. She might as well go all the way and wrap him up with a vine and tickle him with flowers until he was crazy with desire for her, and then…she’d decided whether to use him or walk away. This last image was hot but also silly enough she had to snicker at herself. She wasn’t exactly the femme fatale type.

Focusing on her surroundings, she peered into the shadows under the fig trees. Behind them, just as Frank had said, was a dark opening.

She walked under the trees. The cave yawned before her, cloaked in shadows. The open mouth soared over her head, nearly ten feet high and wider than that by several feet.

She stepped cautiously inside, around a massive chunk of log that lay just inside the entrance as if the surf had rolled it there long ago. The cave’s roof curved down toward the back wall with only one break, a narrow tunnel that disappeared in inky blackness. The main cave seemed dry, and the floor was indeed sandy, with a sort of flat shelf at the back. There were a few dried palm fronds and a scattering of dried fig leaves that crinkled under her feet, but Bella saw no insects or other life.

Light shone through another opening in the cave wall, and peering through, she saw that there was another, smaller cave adjacent. It too was dry and habitable.

“Stay, little sister,”
rustled the figs, their branches swaying gracefully at the mouth of the cave. “
Shelter here with us.”

‘’Ae,” she murmured aloud. “I will take shelter.” But first, she wanted to make sure that tunnel wasn’t crawling with centipedes or other insects that would appear when the sun set. The rainforest had plenty of insects, large and small.

Warily, she pulled her small flashlight from her pocket and shined it into the narrow tunnel. The walls were of ebony lava, pocked with released air pockets. The floor was covered with a dusting of sand and broken bits of lava.

Not seeing any movement on the floor or walls, Bella stepped cautiously around a bend in the tunnel, flicking her light ahead, past a heap of fallen rubble. She edged past it and then froze as her light flashed over a long, angular shape leaning against the wall. The beam of her flashlight zipped back and hovered. She stared, her mind blank with shock.

Like a huge, ugly insect, a weapon crouched against the wall, stubby, lethal looking. Some kind of gun. She whipped her light past it, probing the next turn in the passage, but no movement stirred the shadows, and the only sounds were her breathing, swift and unsteady, and the surf outside, muffled by the walls of the tunnel.

Cautiously, her heart pounding, her instincts urging her to run the other way, Bella walked closer. Why had the weapon been left here? For protection or because someone intended harm? And who would want such a weapon here? It certainly wasn’t a hunting rifle. She knew smugglers brought drugs onto the islands all the time. There were too many ports and landing spots for Hawaiian law enforcement to patrol.

Anger curled in her belly. Someone had brought this instrument of death to her forest. She wanted it, and them, gone. But what to do with it? She couldn’t very well appear in camp with it.

Frank would know what to do. She’d go and tell him. She started to turn away and then stopped. What if the weapon’s owner was nearby? What if her group had landed where drug runners planned to meet, and they returned? She didn’t want them armed.

She set her jaw. She didn’t need Frank. There was another way to handle this.

Reaching down, wincing at having to hold such a lethal object, she picked up the weapon by the stock and carried it back along the passage, pointing the barrel carefully away from herself. She peeped cautiously out into the main cave. Seeing no one, she tiptoed across the cave to the entrance.