More Than Paradise Part 7

accessories. She wrestled the image away and tried for the pensive response that was called for.

"You're talking like someone who knows depressing facts, that's all." She could relate. There were topics she never allowed herself to discuss because she knew how she would sound.

"I can get overly opinionated." Charlotte's tone suggested this characteristic sometimes exasperated her. "I grew up with two older brothers. It was compet.i.tive."

Ash didn't think any woman should apologize for being strong-minded. Wanting to put her at ease, she said, "I don't have a problem with people showing they care about something. But tell me, don't you nd it a dilemma, working in your eld?"

"Not at all. I believe what I'm doing will help people and if I have an ethical problem with anything, I won't do it."

Ash smiled inwardly. She made such rationalizations herself, drawing lines in the sand that made it possible for her to look at herself in the mirror every morning. She did not carry out political executions and she refused to provide operational support for the Indonesian rape and death squads that cleared the path for foreign investment and Javanese transmigration. She would only work on resettlement projects where the New Guineans were not physically harmed.

In the dirty business she was in, making those choices had cost her a lot of money and some powerful friends. But she never kidded herself that she was doing anything n.o.ble. She was just clinging to some imsy moral high ground on a slippery slope that was no place for any truly decent person. A woman like Charlotte would never have to choose the lesser of evils that were truly evil, and that was a good thing.

Ash's thoughts veered to the small truth she still hadn't mentioned.

Hiding her gender wasn't a matter of safety anymore, so it wasn't right to keep up the pretense, and if Charlotte had guessed, the least Ash should do was acknowledge it. As soon as the opportunity arose, she was going to do just that.

Charlotte had taken refuge in her c.o.c.ktail, clearly embarra.s.sed.

They'd broken the rst rule of pleasant socializing-don't talk about issues. "Maybe we should head over to the restaurant," she suggested, apparently determined to rein herself in. "Didn't you say our reservation is for seven thirty?"

"I sure did." Ash signaled the waiter to collect their drinks and they crossed the lobby. She caught a whiff of Charlotte's perfume as * 72 *

they walked. Shalimar. Ash would know it anywhere. Utterly delicious.

The perfume of the cla.s.sy woman who liked to get physical. Was that Charlotte?

As they settled at their table, Ash said, "How about this? I won't talk politics if you won't talk environment."

"I can live with that. And, between you and me," Charlotte's smile hinted at mischief, "if one more foreigner asks me when we're going to invade North Korea, I'm going to be arrested for doing grievous bodily harm."

"We're invading countries?" Ash marveled with mock innocence.

"I don't get out enough."

This raised a giggle that made Charlotte's b.r.e.a.s.t.s bounce slightly.

She sipped her c.o.c.ktail and asked, "Do you have family back home?"

Ash hesitated. She was cautious with personal questions. "Just my sister. I get back home to visit her several times a year." That was all she could say without her throat closing up.

"Where are you from, originally?"

The trouble with inane social chitchat was that it meant talking about family and job, topics Ash preferred not to get into. She said, "I was born and raised in Boston. You?"

"Greenwich, Connecticut, but I've been living in Boston since I graduated. Where did you go to school?"

"BU." Ash didn't explain that she'd dropped out in favor of West Point. Smart women like Charlotte always wanted to talk about s.e.xual hara.s.sment in the military, and that conversation was old. "Harvard, right?"

Charlotte's dark hair bobbed slightly as she shook her head.

"Stanford."

Their waiter arrived to explain the menu. Thankful for the diversion, Ash said, "I've had the barramundi here. It's decent if you like freshwater sh."

"I always worry about eating sh when I'm overseas. Refrigeration is such an issue. And the salad is a concern, too, don't you think? I hate to imagine the bacteria count given the water they must wash their lettuce in here."

Ash normally had no patience with fussiness, but it seemed germ-phobia was one of Charlotte's personal quirks. Worryingly, she found this cute. "You spend too much time looking through a microscope,"

she said with a grin.

* 73 *

As soon as they'd ordered, she was going to come right out and just say what she should have said in the rst place. Pretending to read her menu, she framed the words. There's something I've been meaning to tell you. I didn't say anything earlier because I didn't want you to feel embarra.s.sed about what happened in the bar. But I'm a woman, not a man. I wasn't sure if you'd noticed.

"It's weird." Charlotte observed suddenly. "I haven't done anything like this for ages."

The intimate lull of her voice made Ash lean forward to catch every word. Shalimar ooded her nostrils again, reminding her how much she liked to smell it on a lover. "Like what?"

Charlotte pondered for a moment, her head fetchingly angled.

"Said yes to having an adventure, I suppose."

"That stunt wasn't an adventure. It was an act of madness."

"I'm not just talking about that. I mean everything." Charlotte swept a hand around. "I'm sitting in a restaurant with white linen and candelabras on the tables, and scary tribal masks all around the walls.

I haven't read a newspaper in days. I'm in a place where people speak eight hundred languages, mostly not English. I don't do impulsive things, normally, but here I am having dinner with a stranger who carries three guns and I'm feeling completely comfortable. It's weird.

It's like I've been cut adrift and all the rules have changed."

Ash had to prod herself mentally to come up with a reply. She'd lost herself so completely in the sensual melody of Charlotte's voice that she had barely heard the words. "Well, that's not surprising. Nothing you do here has any social consequences. The people who matter to you are ve thousand miles away."

"Exactly." Charlotte's eyes were pansy purple in the candlelight.

They looked like windows to a soul. Ash knew her own were shuttered, by contrast. "It's like there's a whole new paradigm, a conspiracy you join without even knowing it. Just because you're a stranger in a strange land."

"I think most travelers experience what you're describing. It's part of escaping."

Charlotte rested an elbow on the table and cupped her cheek in her hand. "Does it happen to you, too, when you come back here?"

That voice. It simply had to belong to her. Charlotte was from Boston and obviously hadn't been in PNG for more than a few days. The bizarre coincidence was unlikely but not impossible. Ash contemplated * 74 *

asking her if she knew Dani Bush, then realized how stupid that would be. Did she really want this woman nding out she was about to dine with the third person in the bedroom that night?

"Actually it's the other way 'round," she said, answering Charlotte's question. "As soon as the plane touches down back home all bets are off."

"I can't imagine you doing crazy stuff. You seem so...

controlled."

I'm doing crazy stuff right now. She was sitting opposite a woman she knew spelled trouble, trying to persuade herself that she only wanted to sleep with her, yet knowing there was already more to it than that. She was actually indulging in fantasies about having a future with a woman she'd only just met and who didn't even know her gender. As she'd driven to the hotel for their dinner date, she'd tried to see herself in a relations.h.i.+p. Then, when Charlotte was looking at the photos of the plantation house, Ash was picturing her on the balcony late at night, the two of them wallowing in the sunset, then going inside to make love.

Her stomach churned at the thought. That body, this woman, naked in her arms, belonging to her. An aching hunger clawed at her, making its familiar, restless claim on her senses. But there was something else, too, a yearning so profound, Ash was shaken by it. Comprehension ashed across her mind. Love at rst sight. She instantly rejected the idea. There was no such thing. People who felt guilty about no-strings s.e.x laid claim to that sentiment to justify their urges.

She sipped her whiskey and gathered herself. She was a disgrace to players all over the globe and a walking cliche. She should get up right now, burble some lame excuse, and get the h.e.l.l out of here. How many warning signs did she need? She didn't make love with women.

She didn't fall in love. Normally at this point in a dinner a.s.signation, her entire train of thought revolved around scoring as quickly as possible and planning an exit strategy that would avoid complications. Angry husbands and messy lesbian divorce dramas like the one in Brookline could ruin even the warmest afterglow.

Ash stared bleakly at the menu. Nothing sounded appetizing and the descriptions of the dishes seemed weirdly s.e.xual. Chicken bathed in a velvet merlot sauce. Succulent oysters clinging to the half sh.e.l.l. Ash didn't want to dip crusty French bread into a warm artichoke spread, she wanted to dip her tongue into Charlotte. And, shockingly, she wanted to wake up to her the next morning.

* 75 *

There had to be a reasonable explanation for her disturbing mind-set. Was she having some kind of reaction to the stressful situation with Emma? The thought of possibly losing the one person left in the world who knew her and loved her no matter what, the person her universe had revolved around for so long, was unbearable. Had it driven her into a panic state?

Charlotte possessed something Ash also saw in Emma, an innocence and tenderness that brought out the best in her. When she was with Emma, she tried to be the person her sister thought she was. A good person. Someone who led a blameless existence and could always be depended upon. And she actually felt like that person. She needed that and she was afraid that if she lost Emma, the feeling would be lost with her.

"I'm sorry, did I say something to offend you?" Charlotte studied her with a trace of alarm.

Ash shook her head, realizing it had been her turn to speak but she was too busy navel-gazing. "No. Just having a menu dilemma." Leave now, she thought. "Listen, I need to make a call before we eat."

"Would you like me to order for you?"

"Sure, thanks. The ginger chicken skewers." Ash made a show of s.h.i.+ng her cell phone from her jacket. She could feel Charlotte's eyes on her as she rose and walked away.

She headed out into the sti ing night air and stood a few yards from the doorman, wondering why she'd imagined that standing out here in this tropical soup would help clear her head. Having dinner with Charlotte Lascelles was the dumbest decision she'd made in years. Did she crave self-punishment? Did she want to spend a whole evening staring down the barrels of the life she might have had, the kind of woman she could have come home to every day, if things were very different? Ash paced up and down and puffed on a cigar, thinking through her options.

The pragmatic, sensible choice was to write a quick note claiming she'd been called away, pay for the meal, depart, and never look back.

The next option was to play the game she knew-get Charlotte into bed, have a good time, and say good-bye. Yet even supposing Charlotte wasn't p.i.s.sed when Ash nally owned up to being a woman, and even if she was both a lesbian and willing to be seduced by someone she barely knew, Ash was strangely uneasy about the idea of a one-night stand with her.

* 76 *

So what was the point in being here? What did she think was going to happen? She already knew they would never have a relations.h.i.+p.

Apart from the small matter that they lived in two different countries and probably had nothing in common, Ash had chosen a life that could only be complicated by the existence of loved ones. She did business with ugly people who used ugly methods to get what they wanted, and one thing she would never give them was an emotional lever. She had to be able to say no, or hold out for her price, without placing someone she cared about at risk. It was that simple.

No one over here knew her sister existed. Ash had made sure to circulate a awed newspaper report from her past in which Emma was reported bludgeoned to death along with their mother. The fact that her father was serving a life sentence was, however, widely known among her business a.s.sociates, as was the fact that Ash wouldn't lose any sleep if someone shanked him. She hadn't stayed in touch with friends from her past and avoided making new ones when she moved here. She knew Tubby had gured out she was queer, but he was the kind of guy who got worked up about "f.a.ggots" but thought lesbianism was hot. They never talked about it.

By tomorrow he would know Ash had rescued a woman from local thugs and then had dinner with her. He had sources all over town and a couple of his hirelings had entered the bar just as Ash did. There was bound to be someone at the hotel who would pa.s.s on the information if she slept with Charlotte. Then they could never be seen together again.

She paced resolutely for a few more seconds, then dialed. "Tubby.

You got something for me?"

"Yeah. A new customer. So don't p.i.s.s me off with any more of that s.h.i.+t about needing time out and business back home."

"You have my complete attention and I'm ready to get back to work." If nothing else, she needed the distraction while she got everything arranged so she could leave PNG for a long period.

"Security detail," he said. "Morons going native. The usual caper."

"Tourists looking for thrills?"

"Even dumber. Scientists."

Another geological research team surveying for new mining sites, Ash a.s.sumed. "Who's the customer?"

"It's not important."

* 77 *

Ash groaned inwardly. Since the Sandline scandal, Tubby had become the biggest private-security middleman in PNG, providing operational support for the likes of Rio Tinto and Freeport-McMoRan.

He didn't need any more mining clients, but he couldn't resist helping out competing interests for the right price. It created bad feelings, but the local chopper pilot shortage meant the big boys didn't have a whole lot of leverage. They were all deeply paranoid, all competing for the government's favor, and all trying to spy on one another. Tubby made a pile of money serving many masters and having loyalty to none.

"How much?"

Tubby sucked his lips. Ash would recognize that sound in her sleep. "Your end is fty."

"Fifty large? Just for ying them?"

"f.u.c.k, no. You'll be setting up their campsite. Running the close-protection team. Meeting them at pick-up points. The whole nine yards."

It still sounded like a cakewalk. "How many on the NGD team?"

"Four."

The standard team for a high-risk Iraqi gig was eight, so four seemed heavy duty for a few guys picking up rock samples. On the other hand, Tubby took advantage if he thought he could. He'd probably sold this new customer on a high-priced package, scaring executives with espionage horror stories. Mining companies still shuddered over the Bougainville asco. It had been a huge embarra.s.sment to have one of their own caught hand in glove with a corrupt government, funding a private army to attack the entire population of an island. All because the Bougainvilleans had dared to shut down the mining that was destroying their environment and poisoning their children.

Tubby had discovered he only had to mention that weeping public-relations scab and his clients opened their checkbooks. They wanted to do business discreetly and with as little collateral damage as possible.

If a problem happened, they liked everything cleaned up ASAP so they could disclaim all knowledge. Sweetheart close-protection a.s.signments like the one Ash was hearing about did not pay fty thousand bucks unless there was a serious y in the ointment.

"I'm in," she said. "What's the catch?"

"We can discuss that. Come by after you're done entertaining the broad."

Ash's pulse jumped. "News travels fast."

* 78 *

"Who is she?" More lip sucking.

"No one you know. Call it a favor to a friend. I'm baby-sitting till she hightails it back to her nice life."

Tubby wheezed, his version of laughter. "Hey, if she's stacked and lonely, you know where to nd me."

Ash ignored the remark and kept her tone even. "I'll see you later, Tubby. And chain those d.a.m.n dogs up before I get there. Okay?"