Caught In A Storm Of Passion

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_625d52e8-273c-50e2-9330-80dd738972e2)

Six hours earlier, Port Laurent, Tangaroa.

EVELYN PRACTICALLY FELL out of the cab as it came to a screeching halt in front of a squat building professing to be the offices of Tiki Sea & Air Charter Services. She’d flown halfway around the world, but the worst part of the journey by far had been the past five miles. Five miles of absolute white-knuckled terror in a cab that she was somewhat surprised to have survived.

Swaying in the intense midday heat, Eve clutched the side of the car and locked her wobbly knees against the urge to sink to the ground. The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that the road was hotter than the depths of hell and would fry anything on contact. If she didn’t get somewhere air-conditioned soon the soles of her elegant heels weren’t the only things in danger of vaporizing with a whimper.

She’d left Boston in freezing rain, landed at Heathrow in the middle of a snowstorm, and the smart little suit she’d bought to celebrate her new professional status was sticking to her skin as if she was a sealed gourmet snack. And, since her suitcase had been lost in transit, there was nothing in her overnight bag suitable for the current soaring temperatures and smothering humidity.

Fine. There was nothing in her suitcase either, but at least she’d have something fresh to change into. She’d lost count of the time zones she’d crossed to get to... Darn, where the heck was she?

Blinking, she looked around, but that didn’t help because she was in a daze of fatigue and jet lag and couldn’t remember the name of the South Pacific island she’d just landed on.

Oh, boy... The South Pacific.

Her pulse picked up, her ears buzzed and a prickly heat erupted over her body. For an awful moment she thought she was going to pass out, and quickly sucked in the warm, moist air to clear her head.

Who’d have thought when she’d stepped off the plane at Heathrow and turned on her phone that instead of heading for the Women and Birth conference, as she’d been supposed to, she’d be getting back on a plane to fly off to Tuka-Tuka.

Or was it Moramumu?

She sighed.

She’d never even heard of the Society Islands, let alone a chain called the Tuamotu Archipelago. Which begged the question: what the heck was her sister doing down here? The last she’d heard Amelia had been singing at some fancy hotel in Hawaii.

“Lady, you sure you wanna be here?” the cab driver yelled over the music pumping from the boom box mounted on the dashboard. “There’s a much better place on the other side of the marina.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Eve said, hopefully masking her horror at the thought of getting back into that death trap for one mile more than was absolutely necessary. The guy flashed his gold teeth and cackled uproariously, making her think that maybe she hadn’t been all that successful in hiding her dismay. But then she was about twenty-nine hours past exhausted and couldn’t be expected to control anything more than the urge to weep. Or maybe scream.

And that was only because she was clenching her teeth hard enough to pulverize bone and enamel.

With a cheerfulness that Eve wished she felt—she was in the South Pacific, for heaven’s sake—the driver wrestled her bag from the cab and dropped it at her feet, along with her heavy winter coat. Then he hopped back into his decrepit vehicle and took off like a lost soul out of hell, singing at the top of his lungs to the song blaring from his boom box.

Sucking in air so heavy with moisture she thought she might be forced to grow gills, Eve hoisted her bag and coat onto her shoulder. Clutching her laptop close, she headed across the road to the small building squatting like a smug hen in a bed of exotic flowers and dense vegetation.

Suddenly she had absolutely no idea what she was doing.

The wooden doors to Tiki Sea & Air were open, and Eve climbed the stone stairs to a wide wraparound porch decorated with hanging baskets exploding with exotic-looking flowers. The heady fragrance reminded her of the perfume counters at Bloomingdale’s. Rich, lush and exotic.

Inhaling the humid air, Eve looked around and decided she must be dreaming—heck, she was exhausted enough. It was as if she’d stepped into a brochure advertising glamorous holiday destinations. But since she’d never taken a holiday, let alone been tempted to research one, she couldn’t tell for certain.

Okay, that was a lie. She and her sister had used to dream all the time when they were kids about finding some exotic island where they’d live with their father and eat coconuts and fruit and maybe learn to catch fish. A place where they’d be safe and adored.

She snorted. Yeah, right. That had been so long ago it might have been someone else’s dream. Before she’d stopped believing in fairy tales. Before she’d learned that if she wanted “safe and secure” she’d have to create it herself.

Swiping at a trickle of perspiration, she glanced over to where an old man lay dozing on an old rattan sofa and experienced a moment of pure envy. She’d be willing to harvest her own kidney for a soft bed, clean sheets and about twenty-four hours of oblivion.

Oh, yeah...and air-conditioning.

She groaned as sweat ran down her throat and disappeared between her breasts. Definitely air-conditioning.

Deciding that she didn’t have the energy to fight the old guy for sofa space, Eve headed for the open door and stepped into an old French Colonial–style building that looked about three decades past its sell-by date.

The room looked like something out of a movie. There was a scattering of worn rattan furnishings, coconut fiber mats dotting the floor and a large overhead fan that lazily circulated the heavy air.

A large curved bamboo counter took up most of the far end of the room, and behind that, through the open slatted wooden French doors, Eve could see a back porch leading down to a long, wide wooden dock. Bobbing on the insanely bright turquoise water was a large white seaplane. Beyond that she could see a headland and the open sea, sparkling like a trillion jewels in the sun.

Approaching the counter, Eve peered over the scarred surface, hoping to find someone who could help her. Other than an empty mug, an overflowing wastebasket and about a ton of boxes, the only sign of life was a quietly humming computer and the soft clunk, clunk, clunk of the overhead fan.

She glanced through another open doorway behind the counter into a small messy office, but it too was deserted.

“Dammit,” Eve muttered, huffing out an irritated breath. “Where the heck is everyone?”

A loud, hoarse, “Ia ora na e Maeva!” had her jumping about a foot in the air. She looked around, wide-eyed, for the owner of that raspy voice. But other than the loud snoring coming from the old man on the front porch the building was quiet.

Quiet and deserted.

Wonderful. Now she was hearing voices on top of everything else.

Telling herself she wasn’t losing her grip on reality, Eve dropped her belongings onto a nearby chair and headed for the open doors, determined to find the source of that raspy voice. And hopefully someone who could tell her where to find a pilot named Chase.

She stepped onto the back porch and was instantly blinded by the midday light. Heat rose from the dock and the large bay reflected sunlight like a laser show.

Resisting the urge to retreat inside the blessedly dim building, she lifted a hand to shade her eyes as the raspy voice yelled, “Ia ora na e Maeva!” in her ear.

Heart lurching with fright, she swung around, expecting a hatchet-wielding psycho, and found herself face-to-beak with a large bright blue-and-scarlet parrot perched on a tree stump, watching her with baleful eyes.

“Oh!” she said to the bird on an explosive exhalation of relief, and took a cautionary step out of range of the wicked-looking beak. “Hi. Do you know where I can find, um...Chase?”

The bird cocked its head and Eve sighed. Now she was talking to a bird. Which probably meant lack of sleep along with stress and panic was sending her right over the edge.

“Okay. How about your owner?”

The parrot ruffled its bright feathers.

“Anyone?”

“Squaaawk!”

“Fine,” she said a little shortly. “I’ll just go find him myself, then, shall I?”

“Ma-oo roo-roo ro-aa,” the parrot crooned, and bobbed up and down.

“Yeah, you too,” she muttered, heading for the porch railing. She leaned over, looking past the abundant vegetation to follow where wide wooden planks led straight toward a fancy marina and the bustling business center. To her right it disappeared into the cluster of houses perched along the water’s edge a couple hundred yards away.

Not a living thing stirred, everything having most likely locked itself away from the suffocating heat.

Feeling a little queasy, Eve sank onto the top step, expelling a weary breath just as a long, tanned arm appeared out of the water and slapped onto the dock.