High Tide Read online

  “Big city gal like you?” he asked. “Wasn’t it you who just a few days ago was mincing about in sand-filled shoes and complaining about Florida?”

  She looked out the car window. “That seems like another person and another life,” she said softly, and the thought of the last days came back to her. What was going on at her office? No, not her office any longer. Now the office … and Kimberly belonged to someone else.

  “So?” Ace said, interrupting her thoughts. “If you don’t want to get hair removed, or cut, or curled, or colored, what do you want to do?”

  “I want to work!” she spat out. “I’d like to do something other than listen to hippie stories. Or think about what happened when I was a kid. I’d like to … I don’t know, design one of your crocodolls, maybe.”

  “Really?” Ace said, turning to look at her in surprise. “I would have thought you’d be finished with that.”

  “About as much as you’re finished with looking at birds. And where are we going?”

  “You better check the map on the backseat.”

  Turning, Fiona leaned around the front seat to look in the back. There was no map anywhere, but there was a pair of high-powered binoculars sitting on top of a notebook, and beside them was a package wrapped in pink-and-white birthday paper, a pink ribbon about it.

  “No map,” she said as she turned around, then waited for him to say something, but he didn’t.

  “I guess the notebook and the binoculars are for your bird-watching,” she said after a while.

  “Mmmm,” he answered.

  For a moment she sat still, staring straight ahead. She was not going to ask him who the gift was for. But maybe if she said something ordinary, like, “So whose birthday is it?” that would be all right. Pink paper usually meant a female. So who had Ace bought a birthday gift for? One of the women in the Blue Orchid? Surely he wasn’t hot for a woman who had to be at least twenty years older than he was. Was he? Or was it business? But if he’d found out something, then why hadn’t he told her?

  Without thought for what she was doing, she doubled up her fist and smacked him on the shoulder.

  Ace burst out laughing. “You lasted longer than I thought you would. It’s for you.”

  Part of her was annoyed that he knew she’d be eaten with curiosity, and another part of her was annoyed that he seemed to know her so well. Whatever, she was definitely annoyed with him.

  But not enough not to grab the package and open it quickly. Inside was a sketch pad and a set of drawing pencils and a fat, soft, stretchy eraser. It was such a very personal gift, something that she wanted so much, something that was for her alone, that she could just look at it in wonder. Every man she’d ever known gave women either perfume or jewelry. Right now she’d rather have this sketch pad than the Hope Diamond.

  “Come on, Burke, you aren’t going to get maudlin on me now, are you?” he said, one eyebrow raised as he glanced at her.

  He’d never called her that before. Truth was, he’d never called her any name except “Miss Burkenhalter.”

  “So give me an idea about how I can make money for Kendrick Park.”

  “What?” She had to work to haul herself back to the present.

  “You owe me, remember? Remember the ’gator you broke?”

  “Oh, yeah. I saved your life. I forgot that.”

  He signaled, then turned left off the highway. “So save my park. When we get out of this mess, I’m going to need a way to make it pay. And you said that you could create a doll for my park.”

  At the way he said, “When,” she had to turn away and look out the window. “When” they get out. “When” they can stop hiding. “When” they can again join the world.

  “Well …” she said hesitantly, looking back at the sketch pad, running her hand over it.

  “I see. You’re a one-book author.”

  “And so was Margaret Mitchell,” she shot back at him, making him laugh.

  “So what would you do to market Kendrick Park? If it were yours, that is?”

  “I’d …” She hesitated as she thought about his question. “I’d try to come up with something that kids would want and drive their parents crazy for but they could only get here, at the park. Kids are the true consumers of the world. Hook them when they’re young and they’ll get their parents to buy it for them, and when they’re parents, they’ll buy it for their own kids out of nostalgia.”

  Ace gave a great sigh. “So maybe I could do some mechanical birds.”

  She didn’t seem to hear him. “You know, I’ve had some ideas over the years. I’ve often thought that if I had it to do again, I could create a doll that would knock Kimberly off the market.”

  Ace pulled off the paved thoroughfare onto a gravel road. “Don’t tell me,” he said, “she turns into a blue heron at night?”

  “No,” Fiona said slowly, thinking about the idea of a doll that would be connected to a bird sanctuary. “She owns the park, so she has to be a vet during the day and attend glamorous fund-raisers at night. She drives a Jeep and deals with poachers. Kimberly doesn’t have any villains in her life. And Kimberly …”

  “Kimberly what?” Ace said as he drove the Jeep into what looked like virgin swamp. But he must have known where he was going, because they didn’t sink into water.

  But at this point Fiona was only barely aware of where he was driving. When she spoke, her voice was hardly a whisper. “This doll is secretly in love with a man who can breathe underwater.” Her eyes were alight. “And when they get into jams, if her boyfriend is out of water too long, he dies.” She paused, then sighed. “No, no, been done. I’ll have to think of something else.”

  She looked up when Ace opened the car door for her, then reached out his hand to help her out.

  Once outside the car, she glanced about her. “We’re back at your park, aren’t we?”

  “I thought we could have a day out, a day away from Raphael and Roy Hudson, and anyone who can make a peace symbol. Okay with you?”

  “You can watch birds, and I can sketch.”

  “You don’t like that,” he said flatly, and she could hear the disappointment in his voice.

  “It’s a great idea; it’s just that …”

  “Out with it, what’s wrong?”

  “Money. It would be enjoyable to fantasize about such a doll, but it would be just that, a fantasy.” She took a breath. “I told you: Starting such a doll would take millions. I would refuse to work on some cheap doll with oversized eyes. Only the best vinyl, the best clothes, the best …” She paused. “So why aren’t you making fun of me?”

  “Because it’s not a bad idea. This place eats money. It would be nice to find a way to earn some back.” He paused. “Does Kimberly have her own TV show?”

  Fiona couldn’t hide her contempt. “No, those things have those nasty action figures. They are not dolls. No one has ever …” At the words of “no one has ever,” she hesitated, then looked up, her eyes wide.

  With an I-told-you-so smile, Ace took her hand and led her down a narrow path to a tiny dry hill, then made a motion for her to sit down.

  “Not even Disney?” he said as he put his binoculars to his eyes.

  “Puhlease. Those people pop them out for the movie, then two weeks later you can’t find them. I’m talking about something that lasts for twenty years.”

  Fiona glanced down at her sketchbook, but she hadn’t opened it yet.

  “So what’s her name?”

  “What?”

  “What’s the doll’s name? Swamp Girl?”

  “Oh, something to do with the sun,” Fiona said, then smiled. “Octavia ‘Tavie’ Holden. ‘Holden’ for William Holden the actor who later turned conservationist. Tavie has two boyfriends, one who lives in civilization and one who is a guide in the Everglades.”

  “Kind of like you,” Ace said softly. “One man on dry land and another from the swamps.”

  But Fiona wasn’t listening to him. “The guide is named Axel an