Even when your worst nightmare came true.”
“If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have killed myself that night,” Mirri said soberly. She was silent for a minute, remembering the details of that horrible night. Too often they played through her mind. But Amanda was the only one she dared tell. “You took me home with you because Dad was out of town. I cried all night long after we got back from the hospital, and you sat up with me.”
“You should have accepted the counseling they offered,” Amanda ventured.
“Talk about...that...to a bunch of strangers?” Mirri asked, incredulous. “It’s bad enough to have Nelson Stuart looking at me as if he thinks I stepped out of a brothel. He thinks I’m one bad lady.”
“You might tell him that vivacious persona is a mask.”
“Are you nuts?!” Mirri burst out. “Anyway, Mr. Stuart’s opinion of me and fifty cents might buy me a cup of coffee.”
“You’re hopeless.”
“And getting worse. Look, I’ve got to run. You take care of yourself.”
“You, too. See you soon.”
As Mirri hung up, she became aware of dark eyes staring at her, glaring at her. She was wearing a colorful skirt with a red peasant blouse—wild colors that suited her and disguised the shamed severity of her soul. Her long red hair fell in natural waves to her shoulders, and her blue eyes were big and thick-lashed in a face dominated by pale skin and freckles.
“Using the company phone on company time, Miss Walsh?” he asked without smiling.
“It’s my coffee break, and I got called. I didn’t call anyone.” She propped her chin on her hands, supported by her elbows on the desk, and gave him a big-eyed stare. “May I ask you something, Mr. Stuart?”
One dark eye narrowed. “What?”
“Is that your real face, or one you glue on every morning?”
The glare got worse.
“It’s just that you never smile, sir,” she said with an irrepressible grin. “I only wondered if your face would crack if you tried.”
“Proper use of the telephone goes with your responsibilities,” he told her stiffly. “No personal calls on company time, whether or not you initiate them.”
“I still have—” she checked her watch “—two more minutes on my coffee break. And if you aren’t certain that I didn’t initiate the call, you can always check,” she offered. “After all, you whiz-bang FBI guys can get access to telephone company records, right?”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “In addition, I would appreciate it if you could dress in an appropriate manner around this predominantly masculine office.”
She looked at herself, from her huge dangly gold circle earrings to her jangly gold bracelets. “You mean, you’d like me to go naked?! Mr. Stuart!”
She raised her voice just as two of the younger agents came in the door and quickly averted their faces. They disappeared into another office with muffled hysteria while Mr. Stuart’s bruised dignity healed itself.
“On the contrary, Miss Walsh,” he said through his teeth, “having you naked in the office would be much less of a distraction than having you dress like a kaleidoscope!”
He turned and walked into his office, closing the door with a subdued thump.
Mirri watched the door for a minute. Then she licked the point of her index finger and, with a grin, made a mark in the air.
“One for my side,” she murmured dryly.
* * *
JOSHUA WAS PREOCCUPIED as he made his way out of the Lincoln he’d just driven around to the village on the other side of the island. He maintained a small cottage industry there so that the local people could better their standard of living.
The islanders on Opal Cay, like many of the Bahamian people, were skilled craftspersons. They wove palm fronds into intricately designed baskets and purses and hats and wall hangings. On New Providence, where Nassau was located, a huge warehouse had long since been converted at St. George Wharf into individual stalls where crafts could be sold by Bahamian merchants to tourists on incoming ocean liners that docked at the bay. But this was a notoriously low-paying procedure, especially as tourists felt obliged to bargain the friendly merchants down so low that they were making the equivalent of one US dollar for a purse or hat that had taken all day to make.
This sort of thing had irritated Josh, who knew full well that people who could afford the trip to the Bahamas could afford to pay five dollars for a handmade straw hat or purse. So he’d worked out a deal with a friend in Kansas who ran an import shop. Crafts made by his employees were marketed in a place far from the ocean, where such exotic goods were rare indeed and brought a fair price.
Joshua furnished the raw materials from which the crafts were made by people on Opal Cay and arranged for their transport and sale. The islanders paid no rent. After all, he reasoned when some of them protested, wasn’t it their land to begin with? A piece of paper was no claim on land that generations had loved and nurtured. There was a resident nurse and a small clinic where a French physician called twice a week. Joshua made available modern amenities like electricity and running water, but only for those who wanted them. He forced change and acculturation on no one. Studying the Native American experience had convinced him that trying to absorb a culture and change it completely was nothing more than slow genocide. What he was doing on Opal Cay was meant only to give the people the means to do as they pleased with their own culture. They had requested that he appoint a manager for their profits, which he had. With investments and securities, they were amassing a sizable nest egg. If something ever happened to him, or his empire, they would not be at the mercy of some newcomer who might buy the island and value profit over native population.
He felt at an ebb. The death of Amanda’s father had put more strain on him, and he was feeling the burden of endless rounds of talks and bargaining that he now had to shoulder alone. Brad was essentially a contact man, a public relations whiz who could charm just about anyone. But, if pushed hard enough, his brother would give in to deal-breaking points. Josh would crack wide open before he yielded an inch.
He paused in the study long enough to pour himself a small brandy. He’d planned to go into Nassau again to talk to the minister of education about upgrading the computers in the school system, but the gentleman was out of town, and he couldn’t get an appointment until next week.
He really was tired. Brad hadn’t come back from Montego Bay or telephoned, and he knew that meant one of two things: his baby brother had stumbled onto either a willing girl or a high-stakes poker game. He didn’t honestly know which would be worse. Brad was careful, but it was a dangerous world for a womanizer. His own reputation was more myth than fact, to keep women at bay. But Brad’s reputation was earned.
While he was glaring into his brandy snifter, Amanda came into the room, in jeans and a white tank top with her long black hair in a braid down her back.
She stopped at the door. “I didn’t hear you drive up.”
He studied her figure, liking its slender, elegant lines. “Imagine keeping a Lincoln just to drive around a tiny island. Extravagant,
