Escapade. Diana Palmer

strain yourself,” she said, annoyed at his patronizing one.

      “Don’t worry. I won’t,” he said with a pleasant smile.

      She threw up her hands. “Every time I’m around you, I feel as if I’ve been dragged backward through a hedge.”

      His face seemed faintly troubled. He touched her hair again, but this time he drew his hand away at once. He searched her eyes intently and held them until her heart ran away.

      “I’m not a child, Josh,” she said huskily.

      “You aren’t superficial, either,” he replied. “You’re as deep as the ocean, as enigmatic as a budding rose in a briar patch. I admire your values as much as I admire your spirit. I could never soil that.”

      “You pirate,” she accused softly. “You’re as old-fashioned as I am.”

      He nodded slowly. “Don’t tell anyone,” he said with a half smile, and started walking again. “I’d hate to ruin my image.”

       CHAPTER FOUR

      BRAD DIDN’T GO to Nassau. Josh went himself. But that evening at dinner, Josh did ask his brother to travel to Montego Bay.

      “All right,” Brad said pleasantly. “I’ll go to Jamaica for you. But I do need to be back in San Antonio by the end of the week. I’ve got a prospective client to court, an aerospace executive.”

      Amanda caught the flicker in Brad’s eyes that Josh missed. Perhaps she simply knew him better, but his reason for going home to Texas didn’t sound completely honest.

      “Suit yourself, as long as you hold up your end,” Josh replied. “I have to admit that you’ve made some startling gains in new territory this year.”

      Brad fingered his wineglass and didn’t look up. “Enough for a raise?”

      “You still owe me six months’ salary,” Josh reminded him. “And you’re paying off a hell of a loan.”

      Brad’s dark eyes flashed in anger at his brother. “Go ahead. Rub it in. So I lost. But sometimes I win. When I do, I win big!”

      “Nobody wins at a gambling house,” Josh said coldly. “It’s a narcotic. You’re addicted, but you won’t admit it.”

      Brad tossed down his napkin and got to his feet. “I’ll take the Learjet to Mo’ Bay in the morning. When I’ve finished there, I’m going home.” He dared his brother to argue.

      Josh didn’t. He simply stared at the younger man, ending that argument. Brad glanced at Amanda with a strained smile and left the room.

      “You ride him hard,” she told Josh.

      “Try the quenelles,” he said, ignoring her comment. “They’re delicious.”

      “He’s your brother.”

      “That’s why I want him to wake up, before he squanders his inheritance and ruins his life.”

      “You can’t drag him into some clinic, Josh,” she persisted. “He’s not a chair that you can send off to be reupholstered.”

      He cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t want to start this tonight,” he said firmly, a faint threat in his voice.

      She wasn’t going to change his mind. As usual, it was already solidifying as quickly as concrete. She lifted her fork to her mouth. He was right: the quenelles were delicious.

      While a taciturn, uncommunicative Brad flew to Jamaica, Josh took Amanda out in the launch to another island, an uninhabited one near Opal Cay.

      “You yourself said that I needed some time off,” he reminded her when she seemed surprised at his choice of location. “Harriet packed us a delicious picnic lunch and a bottle of wine.”

      She smiled. The prospect of an entire day with Josh was devastating to her senses. Heaven.

      Josh dropped the anchor and they disembarked. It was autumn back in San Antonio, but here it was eternal summer. The beach was as white as refined sugar. The sea was every shade of aqua and blue in existence. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was, Amanda thought as she waded ashore, a perfect day for a picnic.

      She glanced at Josh, trying not to be obvious as she noticed his long, muscular legs in white Bermuda shorts. He was wearing a blue knit shirt with them, one that showed off the breadth of his chest and shoulders. He wore deck shoes and deftly unloaded their things in a few, easy strides. Amanda enjoyed watching him. She loved his hands. They were large and powerful, his fingers ending in broad, flat nails that were immaculately clean.

      She’d tied her long hair back in a ponytail for comfort, but she felt smaller and younger than ever as she walked along in his shadow to the shelter of palm trees and sea grape trees along the beach.

      “Was this an impulse?” she asked.

      He spread the white linen cloth on the ground and put the big wicker hamper on it, leaving Amanda to get out the plates and silverware while he removed the covered containers of food.

      “Yes. I do get them every once in a while,” he said. He glared teasingly at her over a tub of chilled tuna salad. “If you make one false move, so help me, I’ll bury you up to your pretty neck in the sand and leave you here.”

      She laughed, because he looked so menacing. “Would you, really?”

      “Probably not.”

      Her eyes met his. “I was only teasing, you know,” she said gently. “I don’t think of you as a...well, I really am old-fashioned about some things.”

      “I know.” He took a plate and handed her an open container with a service spoon. “Here. Eat something. You’ve been living on your nerves for too long already.”

      “It still hurts, a little,” she confessed, looking up. “Dad didn’t care very much for me, but he was all I had.”

      “That isn’t true. You still have Brad and Mirri and me.”

      “Yes. Yes, I do.” She took the container and filled her plate.

      Josh hadn’t brought swimming trunks, but that was just as well, because Amanda was more than content to lie in the sun. She was determined to get an even tan before she went home.

      Josh had stripped off his shirt and was lying on the beach bare-chested. She stared at him covertly, enjoying the power and masculine beauty of his body. He was very tan and muscular without being misshapen, as some overenthusiastic bodybuilders seemed to Amanda. He was long and lean, but not thin. His chest had a wedge of dark blond hair that ran in a wide band down to the waistband of his shorts. And probably beyond.

      “Are you tanned all over like that?” she asked without thinking.

      He didn’t open his eyes. He smiled, and one big hand went to the fastening of his shorts. “Want to see?”

      She laughed. The sound was silvery and sweet in the quiet of the island, unbroken except for the bubbling of the surf and the sound of sea gulls sweeping down onto the beach. “No. Thank you,” she added politely.

      He yawned. “Brad and I don’t bother with bathing suits when we’ve got the island to ourselves.” He glanced at her. “I don’t doubt that you’ve got white stripes all over, though.”

      Without looking at him she said, “With my luck, one of my neighbors would be hiding in the bushes with a videocamera, and I’d be on the six o’clock news for indecent exposure.”

      “There are spoilsports everywhere,” he murmured. “I’m tired.” He sounded faintly surprised.

      “You never sleep,” she said. “I’m amazed that you haven’t collapsed.”

      “I’m indestructible.”