Thunder On The Reef. Sara Craven

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      CHAPTER TWO

      MACY still felt restive as she showered and changed for dinner that evening.

      She put on white silk trousers and a matching sleeveless, low-necked top, defining her slender waist with a favourite belt of broad silver links. Her hair she pinned up into a loose coil, and she hung silver hoops in her ears.

      She looked like the ideal tourist, anticipating an evening of leisure and pleasure, she thought, grimacing at her reflection before turning away.

      She’d spent a quiet afternoon in a sheltered corner of the hotel gardens, making herself think coolly and rationally about the best course to follow when she came face to face with Boniface Hilliard. How to make the best impression.

      But in spite of everything, her thoughts kept turning compulsively back to Ross, although she knew she was a fool and worse than a fool to let him impinge even marginally on her consciousness.

      She didn’t mention his presence when she left a message on her father’s answering machine about the latest development in the negotiations.

      What Sir Edwin didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, she told herself defensively. She could imagine only too well how he’d react if he discovered Ross was within a thousand miles of her again.

      But then they’d been oil and water from their first meeting, she recalled with an inward shudder. On almost every issue—personal, professional, and political—they’d been on opposite sides of a steadily widening gulf, with her, trapped between them, suspended over some bitter, bottomless pit of divided loyalties.

      But she’d still hoped, with absurd optimism, that they might learn to get along for her sake.

      But then I was very naïve in those days, she thought in self-derision. My father, of course, saw through Ross right away—realised he was simply on the make. Why couldn’t I have believed him instead of finding out the hard way?

      In the thatched roof bar, adjoining the hotel dining-room, she chose a table overlooking the sea, and ordered a Margarita while she studied the menu.

      Once again she knew she was the object of scrutiny, but this time no mental alarms were being sounded. She was simply encountering the usual speculative, semi-lustful attention that women on their own tended to be subjected to. And apart from closeting herself in her bungalow, or wearing a bag over her head, there wasn’t a great deal she could do except ignore it, and hope the hint would be taken.

      The menu was heavily weighted towards seafood. Macy had noticed the huge conch shell displayed at the dining-room entrance, and conch was being offered cracked, frittered, as a salad or in the ever-popular chowder, along with grouper, snapper, and stewfish.

      I wish I were going to be here to sample them all, she thought, wondering at the same time how long she was going to be kept dangling.

      After due deliberation, she decided on asparagus tips in chive butter, baked in a pastry case, followed by lobster tails grilled with garlic and lemon juice, and accompanied by a bottle of crisp white wine.

      As the waiter left, Macy realised uncomfortably that there’d been no relaxation in the attention she was attracting. In particular, she was being fixedly stared at by an overweight man with thinning red hair and the loudest sports shirt in the Western hemisphere, who was sitting at the bar with three male companions of similar age and build.

      Macy delved into her bag and produced a paperback novel, using it as a barrier as she sipped her drink. Usually it worked. But not always, apparently.

      An ingratiating voice said, ‘All on your own, sweetheart.’

      The colours in his shirt were even more dazzling close at hand.

      ‘Yes.’ Macy kept her voice cool and level. ‘And that’s how I prefer it, thanks.’

      ‘Aw, come on, be friendly.’ The man put another Margarita down in front of her, then deposited himself in the opposite chair with his own beer. ‘Strangers in a foreign land, and all that.’

      Macy’s lips tightened. She said quietly, with glacial emphasis, ‘Would you rejoin your friends, please? I didn’t ask you to join me, and I don’t want another drink.’

      ‘I’m under orders to bring you back with me,’ her unwanted companion said with a leer. ‘We’d like to buy you dinner, a few drinks, a few laughs—know what I mean?’

      Only too well, she thought, her heart sinking.

      Aloud, she said, ‘You’re beginning to annoy me. Would you please leave me alone?’

      ‘What’s the matter. Think we can’t afford you?’ He showed her a wallet, stuffed to the gills with Bahamian dollars.

      ‘Very impressive.’ Macy lifted her chin. ‘Now go away before I call the manager.’

      He snorted. ‘Call who you like, girlie, and let them draw their own conclusions. Lookers like you don’t hang around on their own in bars for no reason.’

      ‘But the lady’s not by herself.’ Another voice, icily incisive, and all-too-familiar, cut into the confrontation. ‘She’s with me, and we’d both like you to leave.’

      Macy’s lips parted in a gasp of astonished outrage as Ross bent, lightly brushing his lips across her cheek.

      ‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ His eyes smiled into hers, challenging her to deny him. ‘Has it caused problems?’

      ‘Nothing I couldn’t handle,’ she returned tautly, glaring back at him. This time her warning antennae had let her down badly.

      ‘So I noticed.’ He turned to Loud Shirt who was already making himself scarce, apologising volubly for any misunderstanding.

      Ross watched him go, hands on hips, then turned back to Macy, who was struggling to regain her self-command. She could still feel the brief touch of his lips on her face as if she’d been branded there.

      How dared he take advantage of the situation like that? she thought angrily. But she couldn’t tax him with it. The last thing she wanted Ross to know was that he still had the power to disturb her. Play it cool, she adjured herself, her stomach churning.

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