An Innocent In Paradise Read online

  “Oh, I know this one,” Grace said as she downed the entire drink. “That’s yummy, but I can’t remember what it is.”

  “Cosmopolitan.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Grace nodded slowly. “I get lots of orders for those. I can see why.”

  “They’re smooth, but dangerous.” Dee mixed another small cosmo and handed it to Grace, then put the caps back on all the bottles. “I think we’re done.”

  “Oh.” Grace frowned in thought as she stared at the notepad, trying to discern her scribbling.

  “So you don’t ever go out to bars, Gracie?”

  “Not really,” she said, and pushed her notepad aside.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “No.” Grace grimaced. “I thought I did, but I was wrong.”

  Dee nodded sagely. “He was a jerk?”

  “Oh, yes. Big-time.”

  “Goody,” Dee said, rubbing her hands together. “Tell me all about him.”

  Grace laughed as she took a sip of her cosmo. “His name is Walter.”

  “Oh, sorry. But I have a creepy uncle Walter and that name is not a good sign,” Dee said darkly. “He already sounds like a jerk, for sure. So how did you meet him?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “God, yes. Spill everything.”

  “Okay.” She stretched her arms up for a few seconds, then pushed her hair back off her forehead, wondering where to begin. “Well, you know I work in a lab, and I’ve been so busy this past year that my boss decided to hire a new associate to help me. As soon as Walter started, we hit it off. It was nice, because we were spending long hours together. My experimentation phase was reaching a critical point.” It was odd, but her tongue felt numb.

  “Sounds very exciting,” Dee said, sipping her mini-margarita.

  “It was.” Grace took a moment to remember how it was in the beginning. “Walter was wonderful. We talked about so many things. He seemed to really like me and he was always telling me how much he admired my intelligence.”

  “That’s so sweet.”

  “It was,” Grace said. “I don’t get that a lot.”

  “Well, you should,” Dee declared. She tried to rest her chin in her hand but her chin slipped twice before she was able to get comfy. “So keep going. I want to hear every last ghastly detail.”

  “Oh, it’s ghastly all right,” Grace admitted. “So, anyway, I suppose it was silly to be so flattered by Walter’s attention, but he’s very nice-looking and I’ve never had much of a love life before, so what did I know?”

  “He took advantage of that.”

  “Yes. After two months of working together, he finally asked me out and I was over the moon. He took me out for a romantic candlelight dinner at a restaurant overlooking the lake. Then later when he took me home, he wanted to come inside. I was a little hesitant to let him in.”

  “It was your first date, right?”

  “Right.”

  “He should’ve kissed you good-night and left.”

  “That’s sort of what I thought. But he said we’d known each other long enough and he wanted to spend the night with me. Except he used a much cruder expression than that.” She frowned, remembering that night. But at the moment, Walter’s face in her memory was as fuzzy as her mind felt. She realized she liked him better that way. “Anyway, I told him I wasn’t ready to take that step and he got angry. He said he knew I wanted it, so what kind of game was I playing? He said he’d spent almost two hundred dollars on me and wanted to get his money’s worth. I ended up smacking him hard and while he was recovering, I ran inside my house and locked the door on him. He took it badly. Work became a nightmare with him around.”

  “Worse than a jerk,” Dee said. “I hate him.”

  “Thank you. Me, too. But at the time, I felt like an idiot.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Dee said, jumping up and grabbing two bottles of water off the dresser. “He was a toad.”

  “I know.” Grace popped open one bottle and took a long sip. “But I felt like such a cliché.”

  “Oh, been there, done that.”

  “Anyway, he finally quit, thank goodness, but he stayed in Minnesota. He’s at a rival university and he’s trying to claim my studies as his own.”

  Dee gasped. “What a total jackass.”

  “Yes, that describes him nicely.” Grace couldn’t sit still thinking about Walter, so she stood and walked over to Dee’s window. She stumbled, but caught herself, then frowned at the rug, looking for whatever had tripped her. She didn’t see anything. “I found out after he left that he’d stolen a small batch of my spores and some of my papers, and now he’s applied for new funding to allow him to work on the exact same line of research as mine.”

  “Can we kill him?”

  Grace blurted out a laugh. “Oh, Dee, you are the best.”

  “Hey, it’s an option.”

  “I wish,” she said, only half kidding. “No, all I can do is collect lots of new spores and continue my research when I get back. Thank goodness I never told him exactly where these rare spores could be found.”

  “A good thing for Walter,” Dee said with a decided edge to her voice. “Because if he showed up here, he’d be very sorry.”

  “I really appreciate that,” Grace said with a smile, then added, “even though you scare me a little.”

  She laughed. “I’ll scare Walter a lot worse and that’s a promise. I got your back, girlfriend.”

  Grace felt sudden tears prickling her eyes. Nobody had ever had her back before. Oh, she knew Phillippa would support her, if it came down to that. But somehow the way Dee had said it so simply and unconditionally, made Grace feel all warm and snuggly inside.

  And even though she trusted Dee, she couldn’t bear to confess the worst part to her. Yes, her university had promised to defend her against Walter’s lies, but Grace knew that if she couldn’t get the spores and raise the level of her research and experimentation to new heights, her reputation would suffer.

  She also had to prove to the foundation that her work was her own and that she was the one deserving of the funds, not Walter. Otherwise, within a month she could lose her funding, her job and, most important, her reputation.

  “Forget about stupid Walter,” Dee said, interrupting her worries. “What about Mr. Hunkadelic?”

  “What? Who?” Grace wondered if she’d had a few too many sips of Dee’s cocktails because the lightning-quick change of subject made her head spin.

  “You know who.” Dee stared meaningfully at Grace. “The hunky man who is our boss? Mr. Big?”

  “Oh, Logan.” Grace stared intently at the label on her water bottle. The letters looked wobbly. Very odd. “What about him?”

  “Something happening between you two?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why aren’t you looking at me?” Dee said, chuckling. “Do you have something to hide?”

  Grace whipped around. “No! I mean…okay, he kissed me, but-”

  “He kissed you?”

  She sighed and flopped down on the bed. “Yes, and I warned him not to do it again.”

  “You…wait.” Dee moved her chair so she could rest her feet on the bed. “Okay, I’ve got to hear your explanation for this one.”

  Grace stared at the ceiling as if help might be sent down from up above. But none came, so she finally met Dee’s gaze. “It was for his own good.”

  “I don’t get it. Is he a bad kisser?”

  “Oh, no,” Grace said, shaking her head. “He’s really good.”

  “Well, then…”

  “I ran away,” Grace said, and buried her face in her hands. Humiliation swept through her. She still couldn’t believe that she’d run from Logan like a teenager afraid of her own hormones.

  Dee’s eyebrows shot up and her feet thumped to the floor. “You ran away? Honey, are you crazy? Nobody runs away from Logan Sutherland. We’re all running toward him.”

  She had known that, deep down of course. Bu
t hearing Dee say it out loud only confirmed that once again, Grace was “not normal.” She didn’t do anything like your average woman did. Heck, she hadn’t even been able to stand her ground when a gorgeous man kissed her. It was pitiful. Just pitiful.

  Still, she had to try to defend herself, pointless though it might be. “Dee, he doesn’t know me. He’s the one who would go running if he knew…”

  “If he knew what?”

  Grace gritted her teeth and forced herself to say it. “If he knew how smart I really am.”

  Dee came over to the bed, grabbed a pillow and sat next to her, resting her back against the headboard. “Honey, I confess I’m not sure how smart you are, but what does it matter? He kissed you. He likes you. Why are you running away from that?”

  Grace folded her arms across her chest, anxious to make Dee understand. “Men don’t like smart women.”

  “Oh, Gracie, that’s just plain prehistoric. These days, men love smart women.”

  Grace shook her head stubbornly. “Not when they’re as smart as I am.”

  Dee’s mouth twisted in confusion. “Just how smart are you?”

  “I have an IQ of 172,” she said, annoyed with the slight whine in her voice.

  “Oh, Gracie.” Dee reached out and grabbed Grace’s hand. “You realize that means nothing to me, right?”

  “Yes,” Grace said, laughing. “That’s just one reason why I like you so much.”

  “I like you, too, Gracie,” Dee said, “but really, is 172 good? I mean, what’s average?”

  “Well, that’s difficult to say, really, since IQ scores have been gaining three points every decade now for some time, but-”

  “Ballpark figure,” Dee interrupted. “What’s average?”

  “About 100,” Grace admitted with a sigh.

  “Whoa.” Dee blinked. “And what’s genius?”

  Grace groaned as she said, “One forty and above.”

  “Damn.” Dee grinned at her. “So, you’re like, what? Übergenius?”

  Stunned to discover that Dee’s opinion of her hadn’t changed, Grace relaxed and for the first time in her life, actually giggled. “Übergenius? I like that.”

  “You could be a superhero or something,” Dee continued. “You could be Smartgirl!”

  Relief and gratitude rushed through Grace as she returned Dee’s smile. She had been so worried that once Dee knew the truth about Grace, she wouldn’t want to be anywhere near her. After all, her own parents had run the other way from her, and that was a memory she really didn’t want to dwell on just now. No, right now she wanted to concentrate on the amazing sensation of having her fears dissolve. For the first time, she was being accepted and liked, completely, for exactly who she was, not how smart she was-although Dee seemed to think that was pretty cool, too.

  “Smartgirl? Sometimes I wonder,” she muttered, then brightened. “But I do have four doctorate degrees.”

  “Wow! Four?” Dee laughed. “I lasted about six weeks in college. I was so bored, I ran screaming.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah. So how long did it take you to get four degrees, cuz you look really young.”

  “I did all four of them concurrently.”

  “Wow.” Dee shook her head, then took a sip of her drink. “Your classes must’ve been intense. But now you’re like a PhD?”

  “Yes, times four.”

  “Holy moley.”

  “I know,” Grace whispered, then said, “Do you think we could have another mini-margarita?”

  “I think I need one, too.” Dee bounced off the bed and returned to the table to mix the drink. “So you work in your lab every day. But what do you do in your spare time?”

  “I don’t have much spare time,” Grace said as she joined her at the table and squeezed a lime into the shot glass. “My work in the lab is very important, so-” she shrugged “-that’s mostly what I do.”

  “Okay, I know you don’t go out to bars,” Dee said. “Do you like to shop or go to movies?”

  “I’ve never really had much time to do either,” Grace said, feeling more inadequate by the second.

  “So you’ve only ever gone to school and worked in a lab?”

  “That’s pretty much it.” She smiled cheerfully. “But I love my work.”

  “Oh, I like my job, too,” Dee said, as she mixed another mini-margarita for herself. “But I like shopping, too, and, well, lots of things. But especially shopping.”

  “School and work are all I’ve ever known,” Grace said, sipping her drink. “I started college when I was eight years old.”

  Dee’s gaze was awash in sympathy. “That’s terrible. College is hard enough on grown-ups, let alone a kid.”

  Grace blinked. She’d never shared that part of her background with anyone besides Phillippa. But that didn’t mean there had ever been a moment when she’d considered herself unfortunate. Far from it. “I was lucky. I got to live at school and study and learn.”

  “Your parents let you live at school? When you were eight?”

  “Well, I wasn’t alone. I lived with the head of the Science Department and his wife.”

  “But your own parents sent you away?” Dee said.

  “Oh, they were happy to do it,” Grace said lightly. “I belonged in college. And it worked out well for them because the university paid them for me to go to school.”

  Dee stopped in midpour. “Your parents got money for you?”

  “They didn’t have a lot of money,” Grace explained, “so I was glad to help them get by.”

  “But it sort of sounds like they sold you.”

  “Oh, no.” Grace laughed. “I wanted to go.”

  “Gotta say, Gracie…I think somebody needs to go back in time and give your folks a swift kick or two.”

  “No, no,” Grace said, pleased that her new friend would defend her, but knowing her parents had done the best they could. Maybe she hadn’t quite understood it at the time, but now she knew that her mom and dad were nice, simple, hardworking people who had never understood her at all. “I appreciate it, but everything worked out.”

  “Wow,” Dee said, taking an experimental sip, then another. “When I was eight, my big excitement was cutting all the hair off of my Barbie dolls. Guess we come from two different worlds.”

  “But we can still be friends,” Grace said, hating to sound so tentative.

  “Most indubitably,” Dee said, giggling as she held her glass out in a toast. “We are friends, Gracie. Never doubt it. To my friend, Gracie.”

  “To my friend, Dee.” Grace wiped away a happy tear as they clinked their glasses together.

  Grace wasn’t sleepy at all. So after leaving Dee dozing in her room, she walked out to the terrace and down to the beach. She couldn’t get over how beautiful it was here, even at night. The moon was as big and clear in the sky as Grace had ever seen. The water was as smooth and shiny as the heavy-gauge stainless steel table in the lab’s radiation room.

  “You’re hopeless,” she muttered, shaking her head at that comparison. Would her head always be stuck in the laboratory? She hoped not. She wanted to think carefree thoughts, dream frivolous dreams, like drinking champagne and kissing a handsome man under the Caribbean moon.

  Had she always harbored a secret wish to be so frivolous? No, she was absolutely sure this was something new for her. But it felt good.

  She hadn’t drunk any champagne yet, but she’d had plenty of mini-margaritas. And as far as kissing a handsome man? Well, she’d done that, too, except for the moonlight part.

  “And the part where you went scurrying away like a mouse,” she reminded herself. Other than that, the kiss had been pretty darn dreamy.

  The mild breeze whispered across her shoulders, ruffling her hair. Nudging her sandals off, she walked in bare feet through the cool sand. Oh, yes, she’d definitely had one too many mini-drinks, but she felt wonderful. At the water’s edge she stopped, then had the strongest urge to keep on going. Touching the water with her
toes, she discovered it was tepid. Not too cold, not too warm. Just right. And wouldn’t it be delightful to swim in the moonlight?

  “It’s not safe to swim alone at night.”

  She whirled around. Logan stood behind her. “Oh, hello. I didn’t hear you coming.”

  Logan came closer. “The sand swallows the sound of footsteps.”

  She smiled at his poetic words. “Are you taking a walk in the moonlight?”

  “It appears I am.”

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” she said, and spun around to take it all in.

  Logan grabbed her before she stumbled straight into the shallow water.

  “Oops,” she said, and giggled.

  “Have you had a few drinks tonight, Grace?” he asked as he pulled her closer to him. She wished he would smile again. He had such a nice smile. She couldn’t seem to get it out of her mind.

  Had he asked her a question? Oh, yes.

  “I have,” she said, resting her head on his chest because it seemed so inviting. “But it was strictly for business purposes. I was taking a test.”

  “A test?” he said, rubbing her back in a slow circle. “Which test was that?”

  She could hear in the tone of his voice that he was smiling. She liked that tone, too, and gazed up at him. “Dee calls it the cocktail quiz.”

  “Ah. And how did you do?”

  “I passed with flying colors because I’m very smart. Do you know how smart I am?”

  “You’ve mentioned several times that you’re very smart indeed,” he said.

  “But you don’t know how smart I really am,” she said, pointing her finger at his face, which was slightly blurry around the edges. “If you knew, you’d run for the hills.”

  “You said that before, too,” he murmured, wrapping his hand around her finger. “But you’re wrong.”

  “I think you’re very handsome,” she said, staring at him keenly.

  He chuckled. “And I think you’re toasted.”

  She thought about it, then nodded. “I think you’re right. And I’m okay with that.”

  “Glad to hear it,” he said, his arms wrapped securely around her waist. “Shall I walk you to your room now?”

  She looked up at the night sky, then at him. “Aren’t you going to kiss me again?”