Almost Paradise Read online

  It was the night, Sherry decided, not the man. Oh please, not the man, she begged. She didn’t want to be so strongly attracted to Jeff Roarke. She didn’t want to be like all the others. The two of them were so different. They couldn’t agree on anything. Not him. Not her.

  Neither spoke, but the silence wasn’t a serene one. The darkness seemed charged with static electricity. Twice Sherry opened her mouth, ready to start some banal conversation simply to break the silence. Both times she found herself incapable of speaking. When she chanced a look in his direction, she discovered his thick eyebrows arched bewilderedly over a storm cloud of sea-green eyes.

  Naturally, neither one of them had the courage to introduce the phenomenon occurring between them into casual conversation. But Sherry was convinced Roarke felt the tug of physical attraction as strongly and powerfully as she did. And from the look of him, he was as baffled as she was.

  “Well, I suppose I should turn in,” she said, after the longest minute of her life.

  “I suppose I should, too.”

  But neither of them moved.

  “It really is a lovely night,” Sherry said, looking to the heavens, struck once again by the simple beauty of the starlit sky.

  “Yes, lovely,” Roarke repeated softly, but he wasn’t gazing at the heavens, he was looking at Sherry. He’d believed everything he’d said to her about romance being nonsense, but now the words came back to haunt him. Right now, this moment with her seemed more important than life itself. He felt trapped in awareness. The sensations that churned inside him were lethal to his mental health and he wouldn’t alter a one. This woman had completely thrown him off balance with the unexpected need he felt to hold her. Slipping his arm around her shoulders seemed the most natural act in the world…and strictly against his own camp policy. The urge to do so was so strong that he crossed his arms over his chest in an effort to keep them still. He was stunned at how close he’d come to giving in to temptation. Stunned and appalled.

  —

  Whatever caused Sherry to turn to meet his gaze, she didn’t know. Fate, possibly. But she did rotate her head so that her eyes were caught by his as effectively as if trapped in a vise. Mesmerized, their gazes locked in the faint light of the glorious moon. It was as though Sherry were looking at him for the first time—through a love-struck teen’s adoring eyes. He was devastatingly handsome. Dark, and compellingly masculine.

  Unable to stop herself, she raised her hand, prepared to outline his thick eyebrows with her fingertips, and paused halfway to his face. His troubled eyes were a mirror of her own doubtful expression, Sherry realized. Yet his were charged with curiosity. He seemed to want to hold her in his arms as much as she yearned to let him. His mouth appeared to hunger for the taste of hers just as she longed to sample his. His shallow breath mingled with her labored one. Deep grooves formed at the sides of his mouth, and when his lips parted, Sherry noted that his breathing was hesitant.

  Driven by something stronger than her own common sense, Sherry slowly, inch by inch, lowered her lashes, silently bending to his unspoken demand. Her own lips parted in welcome as her pulse fluttered wildly at the base of her throat.

  Roarke lowered his mouth to a scant inch above hers.

  Sherry was never sure what happened. A sound perhaps. A tree branch scraping against the roof of the cabin—perhaps an owl’s screeching cry as it flew overhead. Whatever it was instantly brought her to her senses, and she was eternally grateful. She jerked her head back and willfully checked her watch.

  “My goodness,” she cried in a wobbly, weak voice, “will you look at the time?”

  “Time?” he rasped.

  “It’s nearly eleven. I really must get inside.” Already she was on her feet, rushing toward the front door as though being chased by a mad dog.

  Not waiting for a response from Roarke, Sherry closed the door and weakly leaned against it. Her heart was thumping like a locomotive gone out of control. Her mouth felt dry and scratchy. Filled with purpose, she walked over to the small sink and turned on the cold-water faucet. She gulped down the first glass in huge swallows and automatically poured herself a second. In different circumstances, she would have taken her temperature. There was something in the air. Sherry almost wished it was a virus.

  —

  The next morning, Sherry was on time for the staff meeting. She hadn’t slept well and was awake even before the alarm sounded. At least when she was a few minutes early, she could choose her own seat. The back of the room all but invited her, and she claimed a seat there.

  Lynn Duffy scooted in beside her.

  “Morning,” Sherry greeted her.

  “Hi. How’s it going?”

  Sherry pushed the cuticle back on her longest fingernail. “Just fine. The kids are great.”

  “You got Gretchen Hamburg—don’t tell me everything’s fine. I know better.”

  “She’s a cute kid!”

  “Gretchen?” Lynn grumbled. “You’ve got to be teasing. The kid’s a royal pain in the rear end!”

  Two days ago, Sherry would have agreed with her, but from the minute Gretchen had announced that fairy tales were “fun,” she’d won Sherry’s heart.

  Roarke stepped to the lectern, and the small gathering of staff went silent. Sherry noted that he took pains not to glance in her direction, which was fine by her. She preferred that he didn’t. This morning the memory of those few stolen moments alone under the stars was nothing short of embarrassing. She’d rather forget the entire episode. Chalk it up to the decreased layer of ozone in outer space. Or the way the planets were aligned. The moon was in its seventh house. Aquarius and Mars. A fluke, certainly. She could look at him this morning and feel nothing…Well, that wasn’t exactly true. The irritation was gone, replaced by a lingering fascination.

  After only a minimum of announcements, the staff was dismissed. Sherry stood, eager to make her escape.

  “Sherry,” Lynn said, following her out of the meeting room, “do you have some free time later?”

  “After breakfast.”

  Her friend looked a bit chagrined. “I have to run into town. Would you like to come along?”

  “Sure, I’ll come over to your cabin after I get my wizards off to their first class.”

  Lynn brightened. “I’ll look for you around eight, then.”

  Her friend took off in the opposite direction and Sherry’s gaze followed the younger girl. Now that she thought about it, Lynn didn’t seem to be her normal, cheerful self. Sherry had the impression that this jaunt into town was an excuse to talk.

  —

  It was.

  The minute Sherry got into Lynn’s car, she could feel the other girl’s coiled tension. Sherry was uncertain. She didn’t know if she should wait until Lynn mentioned what was troubling her or if she should say something to start Lynn talking. She chose the latter.

  “Are you enjoying the camp this summer?” Sherry asked.

  Lynn shrugged. “It’s different.”

  “How’s that?”

  Again her shoulders went up and down in a dismissive gesture. The long country road that led to the small city of Arrow Flats twisted and turned as it came down off the rugged hillside.

  “Have you noticed Peter Towne?” Lynn said quietly.

  “The lifeguard?”

  “Yeah…It’s his second year here, too. Last summer we were good friends. We even managed a few emails since then. I wished him a Merry Christmas, and he said hi at Easter and asked if I’d be coming back to camp. That sort of thing.”

  As Sherry recalled, Peter was a handsome sun-bleached blond who patrolled the beaches during the afternoons and worked in the kitchen after dinner. “How old is he?”

  “Nineteen—the same age as me.”

  Whatever was troubling Lynn obviously had to do with Peter. “He seems to be nice enough,” Sherry prodded.

  “Peter is more than nice,” Lynn said dreamily. “He’s wonderful.”

  Sherry wouldn’t have gone
quite that far to describe him. “So you two worked together last year?”

  “Right.”

  The teenager focused her attention on the roadway, which was just as well, since it looked treacherous enough to Sherry.

  “What makes you bring up his name?” Sherry ventured.

  “Peter’s?”

  “Yes, Peter’s.”

  “Did I bring him up?”

  “Lynn, honestly, you know you did.”

  The other girl bit the corner of her bottom lip. “Yeah, I suppose his name did casually pop into the conversation.”

  It seemed to Sherry that Lynn regretted having said anything, so she let the matter drop. “I had my first run-in with ol’ Ironjaw.”

  “You mean Mr. Roarke?”

  “He and I had a difference of opinion about the evening sessions. He’d prefer for me to discuss the intricacies of U.S. foreign policy. I’d rather tell ghost stories. I imagine we’ll agree on a subject somewhere in between.”

  “I saw you put something on the lectern for him this morning.”

  “Lesson plans.”

  “He’s making you do that?”

  “As a precaution.”

  “Oh.”

  Lynn eased the car to a stop at the crossroads before turning onto the main thoroughfare. Arrow Flats was about ten miles north of the camp. Sherry noticed the way Lynn’s hands tightened around the steering wheel at the intersection.

  “Two nights ago, I couldn’t sleep,” she said in a strained, soft voice. “I decided to take a walk down to the lake. There was an old piece of driftwood there, so I sat down. Peter…couldn’t sleep, either. He happened to come by, and we sat and talked.”

  “From everything I’ve seen, Peter’s got a good head on his shoulders.”

  “It was nearly one before we went back to camp. He kissed me, Sherry. I never wanted anyone to kiss me more than Peter that night in the moonlight. It was so romantic and…I don’t know…I’ve never felt this strongly about any boy before.”

  Sherry could identify with that from her own surprising experience with Roarke the night before on the porch. Maybe there really was something in the air, she thought hopefully.

  “Now every time I look at Peter I see the same longing in his eyes. We want to be together. I…I think we might be falling in love.”

  Sherry thought it was wonderful that the friendship between the two had blossomed into something more, but she understood her friend’s dilemma. The camp was no place for a romance.

  “Oh Sherry, what am I going to do?” Lynn cried. “If Mr. Roarke finds out, both Peter and I will be fired.”

  Chapter 5

  “Good morning, Miss White.”

  Roarke’s voice rose to greet her when Sherry slipped into the back row of chairs in the staff room. She muttered something appropriate, embarrassed once again to be caught coming in tardy for yet another early-morning session. On this particular day, her only excuse was laziness. The alarm had gone off and she simply hadn’t been able to force herself out of bed.

  As always, Roarke waited until she’d settled in her seat before continuing.

  Sherry tried her best to listen to the day’s announcements, but her mind drifted to Lynn and Peter and their predicament. It felt peculiar to side with Roarke, but Sherry agreed that a romance at camp could be a source of problems for the teenagers and everyone else. Lynn’s attraction to Peter was a natural response for a nineteen-year-old girl, and Peter was a fine boy, but camp simply wasn’t the place for their courtship. Sherry had advised her friend to “cool it” as much as possible. In a couple months, once camp had been dismissed, the two could freely date each other.

  Sherry’s gaze skidded from the tall blond youth back to Lynn. They were doing their best to hide their growing affection for each other, but from the not-so-secret glances they shared, their feelings were all too obvious to Sherry. And if she could see how they felt, then it probably wouldn’t be long before Roarke did, too.

  A chill ran up Sherry’s arms, and she bundled her sweater more tightly around her. She yawned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, forcing herself to pay attention to what Roarke was saying.

  The others were beginning to stand and move about before she realized that the session had come to a close. Still, she didn’t move. Standing, walking about, thinking, seemed almost more than she could manage, especially without coffee. What she needed was some kind soul to intravenously feed her coffee a half-hour before the alarm went off.

  “Is there a problem, Miss White?”

  Sherry glanced up to find Roarke looming above her.

  “No,” she mumbled, and shook her head for emphasis.

  “Then shouldn’t you be getting back to your cabin?”

  She nodded, although that, too, required some effort. A giant yawn escaped, and she cupped her hand over her mouth. “I suppose.”

  “You really aren’t a morning person, are you?”

  Her smile was weak. “It just takes awhile for my heart to start working.”

  Roarke straddled a seat in the row in front of her and looped his arm over the chair as he studied her. She looked as though she could curl up right there and without much effort go back to sleep. The urge to wrap her in his arms and press her head against his shoulder was a powerful one. He could almost feel her softness yield against his muscled strength. Forcibly, he shook the image from his mind. His gaze softened as he studied her. “Did you hear anything of what I said?”

  “A…little,” she admitted sheepishly. He grinned at that, and she discovered that his smile completely disarmed her. Speaking of getting her heart revved up! One smile from Jeff Roarke worked wonders. No man had the right to look that good this early in the day. Her mind had come up with a list of concrete arguments for him to postpone these sessions to a more decent time of day, but one charming look shot them down like darts tossed at fat balloons. “I don’t know what it is about mornings, but I think I may be allergic to them.”

  “Perhaps if you tried going to bed earlier.”

  “It doesn’t work,” she said, and yawned again. “I wish I could, but at about ten every night, I come alive. My best work is done then.”

  Roarke glanced at his watch, nodded, and stood. “Your cabin is due in the mess hall in fifteen minutes.”

  Sherry groaned and dropped her feet. Her hand crisply touched her forehead. “Aye, aye, Commandant. We’ll be there.”

  Roarke chuckled and returned her mock salute.

  When Sherry entered the cabin, she discovered the girls in a frenzy. Pamela had climbed to the top of the dresser and was huddled into a tight ball clutching Ralph, her knees drawn up against her chest. Gretchen faced the open door, a broom raised above her head, prepared for attack, while Jan and Jill were nearby, holding their shoes in their fists like lethal weapons.

  Ginny was in as much of a tizzy as the girls.

  “What happened?” Sherry demanded.

  “He tried to kill Ralph,” Pamela screamed hysterically.

  “Who?”

  “I read about things like this,” Diane inserted calmly. “It’s a natural instinct.”

  “What is?” Sherry cried, hurriedly glancing from girl to girl.

  “The cat,” Jan and Jill said together.

  “Ralph was nearly eaten,” Pamela cried.

  Sherry sagged with relief. “That’s only Buttercup.”

  “Buttercup!”

  “She belongs to Mr. Roarke.”

  “Mr. Roarke has a cat named Buttercup?” Gretchen said, lowering her broom to the floor. A look of astonishment relaxed her mouth into a giant O.

  “Apparently so.”

  “But he tried to get Ralph.” Pamela opened her hands and the rodent squirmed his head out between two fingers and looked around anxiously.

  “We need a cage,” Sherry said decisively. “That shoe box is an open invitation to Buttercup.”

  “Can’t Mr. Roarke keep his cat chained up or something?” Wendy suggested. The Barbies and K
ens were scattered freely across the top of her mattress.

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to have pets,” Gretchen complained. “I find Mr. Roarke’s actions highly contradictory.”

  “Since we’re keeping Ralph, mentioning Buttercup to Mr. Roarke wouldn’t be wise,” Sherry informed them all with a tight upper lip.

  “But we’ve got to do something.”

  “Agreed.” One glance at her watch confirmed that her troop was already late for breakfast. “Hurry now, girls. I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Everything?” Pamela’s bold eyes studied her counselor.

  “Everything,” Sherry promised.

  By the time Sherry and her cabin arrived at the mess hall, the meal was already half over. The stacks of pancakes had cooled and the butter wouldn’t melt on them properly. Gretchen complained loudly enough for the cooks in the kitchen to hear.

  In the middle of breakfast, Sally produced a huge tannish-gold hawk moth she’d trapped the night before and passed it around the table for the others to admire, momentarily distracting Sherry.

  “Girls, manners. Please,” she cried, when Wendy stuffed a whole pancake into her mouth. Sticky syrup oozed down the preteen’s chin.

  “But we have to hurry,” Diane complained.

  “You’ll talk to Mr. Roarke about his cat, won’t you?” Pamela wanted to know as she climbed out of her chair, her meal untouched.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  When the last girl had left the dining room, rushing to her class, Sherry sighed with relief. She hadn’t so much as had her first cup of coffee and already the morning was a disaster.

  “Problems, Miss White?” Again, Roarke joined her. He handed her a steaming mug of coffee.

  She cupped it in her hands and savored the first sip. “Bless you.”