‘Apparently not—there aren’t any snakes on the island.’
Tamara was tempted to put her name down for the walk. It sounded interesting, and after two days of simply lying soaking up the sun she was ready for something a little more physically demanding. As St Stephen’s was comparatively undeveloped there were very few organised tours apart from those involving cruising round the island and stopping off at various secluded bays for swimming and beach parties.
‘I think I’ll go,’ she announced impulsively. ‘I rather like the idea. When is it?’
‘Tomorrow,’ George told her. ‘How about it?’ he asked Dot. ‘Shall I put our names down?’
‘I suppose you might as well. It will be something to tell the kids about.’
‘Yes, I must remember to take my camera, they’ll enjoy seeing a shot of Mum “exploring the jungle”,’ George teased her.
In the end all three of them added their names to the short list.
‘The Somerfields—those are the young honeymooners, aren’t they?’ Dot asked her husband, scrutinising the list. ‘The Brownes and the Chalfonts—that’s the foursome who came together. They’re all in the fashion business,’ she explained to Tamara. ‘Alex Browne is a designer, apparently. Oh,’ she added, ‘Zachary Fletcher’s put his name down. In fact he was first on the list.’
‘If he’s been involved in an accident perhaps he needs the exercise,’ George suggested. ‘I noticed when we got off the plane with him that he was limping slightly.’
Zachary Fletcher! Tamara wished she had not decided to go. For some reason the dark-haired man disturbed her. Telling herself that it would look odd if she backed out now, she contented herself with the conviction that Zachary Fletcher was hardly likely to notice her; and then wondered why she should find the knowledge faintly depressing.
‘I think I’ll go up and change,’ she told the Partingtons. ‘I want to try and do a bit more sunbathing, especially if there won’t be time tomorrow.’
‘Wear your new bikini,’ Dot urged her. ‘We might see you later on the beach.’
When she went up to her room Tamara had no intention of changing into the cyclamen bikini, but she couldn’t resist taking it out of the bag, still amazed that she had actually bought it, knowing she would never wear it, and then, governed by some impulse she could not understand, she hurried into the bathroom and quickly changed into it, before she could change her mind, and not daring to visualise Malcolm’s reaction to her scantily clad body.
Picking up a white towelling robe and shrugging it on, she collected her book and the bag containing her suntan lotion and glasses before hurrying back outside.
The sun beat down with an intensity that burned right through her protective robe, and Tamara decided to forgo the beach in favour of the privacy of the gardens. She found a secluded spot protected by a low-growing hedge of tropical shrubs, their huge trumpet-shaped scarlet flowers almost too perfect to be real. The huge beach towel she had brought with her gave her something to lie on, and having smoothed as much of her body as she could reach with suntan cream she donned her glasses and picked up her book.
Half an hour slid by, before the book began to fail to hold her attention, which she found wandering to the antics of a tiny humming-bird darting in and out of the creeper adorning the walls of a nearby block of self-contained suites, and Tamara marvelled at the way the tiny creature delved so energetically in search of food.
She turned over, easing her stiff shoulders, tensing instinctively as she saw the black jean-clad legs in front of her, before her eyes moved slowly upwards over taut masculine thighs and a muscular chest before coming to rest on the saturnine face bent towards her.
Her skin went hot, burning with embarrassment as he glanced cynically over her body, so intimately revealed in her brief bikini.
‘Very provocative, but wasted here,’ he taunted softly. ‘Why aren’t you on the beach?’
Tamara suddenly found her voice, which to her chagrin was shaking with the pent-up force of her anger.
‘Why should I be?’ she demanded. ‘If you must know, I came here because I wanted …’
‘To be alone,’ he finished mockingly. ‘Snap! So what do we do now? Makes ourselves an interesting item of gossip or …’
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sp; Tamara scrambled to her feet, feeling at a distinct disadvantage lying at his feet like … like a sacrificial offering.
‘If you want to be alone, Mr Fletcher,’ she replied, stressing the formality of the ‘Mr’, ‘then I suggest you find somewhere else …’
‘I like it here,’ he told her calmly. ‘It’s quiet and it’s private.’ His teeth glinted in a white smile, the grooves either side of his mouth deepening, giving Tamara a glimpse of the man he might possibly be when he wasn’t either bored or indifferent. ‘Be a good girl,’ he suggested. ‘I’m sure you’ll find plenty of young men to admire you on the beach, and attractive though you are, I’m really well past the age where I’m incited to lust by the sight of a pretty girl with very little on.’
Throughout this speech Tamara’s eyes had gradually widened, as her body stiffened until she was staring at him in frozen outrage, scarcely able to speak for the anger building up inside her.
‘I don’t know what you’re trying to imply,’ she gritted out at last, hands clenched furiously at her sides, ‘but if you’re suggesting that I came here deliberately because you … because I knew you come here, you couldn’t be more wrong. You see,’ she told him sweetly, releasing the fingers of her left hand and raising it a little, ‘I don’t happen to need to run after other men—I’ve already managed to catch mine!’
She knew it was a vulgar little speech, but she really didn’t care; she didn’t care about anything but banishing from those green eyes the expression which said, quite plainly, that he thought she had deliberately come to this part of the gardens dressed as she was because she hoped to attract his attention.
‘I had no idea that you came here,’ she finished with a flourish. ‘If I had I would have made a point of avoiding it.’