by C. B. Clark
Warning bells clamored in her head, cautioning her against going anywhere with the all-too-attractive Russ. She didn’t know him, didn’t know if she could trust him. After all, he was Angus Crawford’s son. She opened her mouth to refuse and tell him she was leaving, but the words that came out of her mouth shocked her. “Why not? I’d like that.” She smiled at the widening of his eyes, proof he hadn’t expected her to accept.
Well, he’d offered. She’d accepted. Done deal.
Her gut pinged. Done deal, indeed.
Chapter 12
The rope slipped the cleat for the third time, and he cursed under his breath. He’d done this task hundreds of times. He could do it blindfolded. Grinding his teeth, he forced himself to concentrate, but once again his gaze slid to his passenger.
She stood near the bow of the sleek craft, her long, shapely legs braced against the boat’s rolling motion. The black pants were so tight they looked like they’d been painted on, and they revealed the taut muscles in her thighs and the curve of her sweet ass. Her hair, a bright, tangled riot of curls, danced about her face. The ocean breeze flattened her pink T-shirt to her body, revealing the soft mounds of her breasts.
He gulped and cursed again. Time to get his mind off her to-die-for curves and focus on more important matters. Like his future. Was she telling the truth? Who would give up a fortune? No one. No one with any sense at any rate, and she didn’t strike him as stupid.
So…what was this about? What did she want from him? Because she sure as hell wanted something. No one gave away millions of dollars. Not unless they expected something in return, but for the life of him he couldn’t think what that could be. It was early times yet. That was why he’d offered to take her for a sail. He wanted more time with her to figure out her motives, to suss her out and learn what she was really after. One thing was certain—she wanted something. He’d only to figure out what that was. In the meantime, he had to keep his hands off her and stop drooling like she was a prime cut of grade A beef, and he was a starving dog.
Why had she agreed to go sailing? He hadn’t expected her to and was stunned when she’d said she would. The stiff set of her body had made clear she wanted to get away. But yet, there she was. On his boat. Sailing. With him.
The boat crested a wave and sank into the following furrow, and she staggered a few steps but braced her hands against the railing, holding steady. The rocking motion of the boat didn’t seem to bother her. In fact, ever since they’d left the wharf, she’d had a smile on her face. No question, she was enjoying herself.
Maybe he’d misjudged her. Hard to reconcile her childlike enthusiasm and obvious joy of sailing with the conniving, devious bitch he’d thought her to be. Normally he was a good judge of character. In the world of business, that skill had stood him in good stead. Maggie O’Flynn, or Athena Reynolds, or whatever the hell she wanted to be called, was definitely an enigma.
As if sensing the weight of his scrutiny, she twisted around and grinned. The sun shone on her mass of red hair, turning it into molten gold glowing around her gamin-like face. Her eyes matched the azure blue of the afternoon sky. “This is great, isn’t it?”
He swore his heart skipped a beat. As if under a spell, he stalked toward her, but then his brain kicked into gear, and instead of touching her, he jammed his hands into the front pockets of his pants and stared out at the sea, avoiding those tantalizing blue eyes.
“I’d forgotten how much I enjoy sailing.” Her husky voice carried over the rush of wind.
He held his body stiff, determined not to look, not to lose what little was left of his cool. “Have you done a lot of sailing?”
“I used to sail with my parents, but that was years ago.”
The pain in her voice slapped him, and he shot her a glance.
A cloud washed over her expressive face, and shadows dulled the vivid blue depths of her eyes.
Of course. Her parents were gone. They’d disappeared years ago from the island and left her behind. Why hadn’t he kept his damn mouth shut? The hurt of her loss was still there. He was all too familiar with the pain of losing parents, but he knew what happened to his mother and father; she was left forever wondering.
The sudden urge to offer comfort and ease her grief overwhelmed him, but he thrust the impulse aside. He refused to let sympathy for her affect his judgment. She wasn’t an innocent, abandoned child anymore. She was all grown up and devious enough to convince Angus to write her into his will as the main beneficiary. No, she was no saint. That was for damn sure. “How well did you know my father?”
The color left her face. “Ang…Angus Crawford?”
He fixed her with a steely regard, searching for signs of deception.
“I didn’t. Not really.”
His gaze sharpened. “Then you understand why I’m curious as to why he left you an estate worth millions.”
“I have no idea.” A tiny frown line formed between her eyebrows. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, I think it does.” Does it matter? How could she ask that? He’d lost everything to an old man’s whim.
“Angus owned the island where I lived as a child. He knew my parents.” She shrugged. “Maybe…maybe that had something to do with his decision.”
He scrubbed the palms of his hands over his whiskered cheeks. “I remember. You and your family lived on Shelter Island. Your parents—” The stricken look on her face froze his words. Angus had refused to discuss the tragedy that occurred on the island he owned, but the story of the young girl whose parents disappeared from Shelter Island had inundated the news headlines.
Shadows clouded her blue eyes. Her face was pale, and she looked as if a breeze would blow her over.
Another unexpected wave of compassion washed over him. The police hadn’t discovered what happened to her parents. They vanished without a trace. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t worry about it. It was a long time ago.” Her eyes flattened. “That’s the reason I changed my name. I don’t want anyone’s pity.”
Her words said one thing, but the anguish on her stricken face made clear what he’d said was anything but okay. “I’m sorry.” Damn. Were those the only words he knew?
He licked his dry lips and attempted a change of topic, anything to erase the raw pain on her face. “I saw you once, you know. Years ago, on Shelter Island. Do you remember?” Angus had taken him to the island for a weekend of male bonding. They’d fished for salmon, dug on the beach for butter clams, and caught crabs on the incoming tide. The next day, Angus was busy with paperwork, so Russ had gone exploring. He’d found a small, sandy, crescent-shaped beach and was searching for shells and glass bottles from faraway lands when he spotted movement amongst the rocks.
A girl, skinny and gangly, all legs and arms, head topped by a mass of fiery red hair reaching the small of her back, clambered over the rocks above the small beach.
He hadn’t known anyone else was on the island, and he waved and called out.
For a second, their gazes locked, but then she wheeled around and scampered across the rocks and vanished into the forest.
He’d asked Angus who she was and was told the northern part of the small island was leased to a family. The girl Russ had seen was their daughter. Russ was intrigued. His favorite movie at the time was Swiss Family Robinson, a story about a family who were shipwrecked on an isolated island. He’d wondered what the redheaded girl’s life was like growing up on the rugged island with only her parents for companionship. But he was a kid himself and distracted by his all-too-fresh grief over the loss of his parents, and so he didn’t ask any more questions.
Shortly after that trip, Angus asked if Russ wanted to live with him on a fulltime basis in his sprawling house in West Vancouver. Russ liked Angus, and he’d agreed. It wasn’t like a slew of relatives were lining up to take him in. He was fourteen and alone. His choices were either move in with Angus or enter the foster care system.
Living with Angus
had been okay, but Angus never took Russ to Shelter Island again. Russ had asked many times if he could visit the island, but Angus always had an excuse—he was too busy to get away, the weather forecast called for a storm, the sailboat was in for repairs… Russ had his own problems dealing with grief and starting a new school, and he didn’t push. Before long, memories of the island and the skinny girl with the long red hair faded.
Until the story of her missing parents hit the news. It was a tragedy that caught the nation’s attention. The couple had a young daughter who’d been left behind.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the girl he’d seen. He’d been fascinated by the tragedy. Something about her inexplicable loss resonated. He’d read every newspaper article he could get his hands on, watched the TV news shows, even asked Angus if he knew anything regarding the missing couple. Angus refused to talk about the O’Flynns and made it clear he didn’t want Russ pursuing the matter.
That hadn’t stopped him, of course. Angus’s reticence added fuel to Russ’s adolescent curiosity, and he’d continued his clandestine research. But eventually, the news story dropped from the headlines, and other events—making the cut for the basketball team, the cute girl from his French class whom he wanted to ask to the dance—caught his attention and, other than a secret trip there in his senior year with a bunch of buddies, he forgot about Shelter Island and its tragedy.
Now, after all those years, the details of the incident were fuzzy. According to the official reports, after the O’Flynns disappeared, the police scoured the island. The couple’s small boat was also missing, so the authorities sent divers into the stormy seas, checked nearby islands for wreckage, and pleaded for anyone with information on the couple’s disappearance to come forward. There’d even been a substantial reward posted, but no witness came forward. No evidence of foul play was ever found, and as far as he knew, the case remained unsolved.
He studied the woman in front of him. The waif he’d spotted on the headland so many years ago had grown up. The skinny, awkward child was long gone. She’d grown into a beautiful woman with mouthwatering curves and clear, almost translucent skin.
“I remember seeing you.” She threaded her long, slim fingers through her red curls. “I wondered who you were. We didn’t get many visitors.”
“My parents—” He swallowed. “—my parents, well, something happened to them, and Angus took me in.” Something happened to his parents? Really? Was that all it was? A vision of the car crash that ended his parents’ lives flashed before him, but he squashed the painful memory.
Her gaze softened. “I guess we have something in common after all.”
Her silent understanding hurt more than if she’d been openly curious about what happened to his parents. Stop! The command blazed through his brain. This wasn’t a therapy session. He didn’t need or want her sympathy.
He’d invited her to sail with him for a reason. He wanted time alone with her so he could dig for answers. Now was as good a time as any. “Why would Angus leave you his estate? Your family leased the land on Shelter Island, but you were just tenants.” He’d already asked, but she hadn’t given him an answer, not one that made sense. “What did you do to convince him? Did you sleep with him?” Of course, she had. She was too pretty. Angus would have been all over her. He wouldn’t have cared about her tragic past. Or maybe that was the wedge she used to get into his good graces. His lip curled. “You must be pretty damn good in the sack.” The cruel words hovered in the air between them like birds of prey on the attack.
She stumbled back a step. “You tell me. Leaving me his money was probably his sick idea of a joke.” She glared. “Do you want to know the truth?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I hated him. I’m glad he’s dead.” She enunciated each word as if it were chipped from ice.
A heavy silence thickened the air as he digested her heated words. Her attitude didn’t make sense. If she hated Angus so much, why would he leave her his fortune? A chill rippled along his spine as the truth dawned on him. “He did something to you, harmed you in some way, didn’t he?”
Her eyes blazed, but her lower lip trembled as if she fought back tears. “He destroyed my life.”
“You’d better explain.”
Her face was devoid of color, her eyes haunted. “He murdered my parents.” She sank onto a padded bench and averted her face, attempting to hide her tears.
What the hell was she talking about? Angus wasn’t a killer. He rubbed the tightness in the back of his neck. His father hadn’t been perfect. Not by any means. He was a hard-nosed businessman who’d been demanding of those around him. He worked hard his entire life to achieve success, and he’d been respected in the business community. He raised Russell with a stern hand, but underlying the rigidity, Angus had possessed a deep sense of honesty and integrity. No way would he have deliberately harmed anyone, let alone this woman’s parents. “I don’t believe you.”
Tears shimmered in her blue eyes, but her mouth curled in a sneer. “You’re just like the police investigators. They didn’t believe me either.” She swiped the back of her hand over her damp eyes. “But I know what I know. Angus Crawford murdered my parents.”
He rocked back on his heels, stunned by her venom. Was she insane? Was that what this was about? Had she lost her hold on reality? Or was this a scheme to trick him? She was holding all the cards. Angus had left her pretty well everything. That didn’t make sense either. Was it guilt? Is that why Angus left her so much? Had he somehow harmed her parents and was trying to make up for his crime? Was Angus’s gesture of generosity his version of repentance?
He dug the pads of his fingers into his throbbing temples. “If the police didn’t believe Angus was involved in your parents’ disappearance, why are you so convinced he’s guilty? What exactly do you think he did?”
She shot to her feet. “You won’t believe anything I say, so why should I bother?”
She was right. He didn’t believe, not for a hot minute, that Angus murdered anyone. But her tone spoke volumes. She believed Angus was guilty. The raw pain in her compelling eyes struck him like a slap to the back of the head. Was it possible she was telling the truth? Was Angus responsible for what happened to her parents?
Nah. No way. She was delusional. Either that or her following him from the lawyer’s office and showing up on the dock was part of a crazy scam. What she hoped to gain from her baseless accusations was beyond his understanding. He dragged his gaze from her pale face. One way or another, he’d find out what she was up to. Damn straight. He’d find out the truth, and then he’d toss her sweet ass off his boat.
Chapter 13
Athena dug her fingers into the bench seat’s canvas-covered cushion and held tight as the boat rode the waves. Russ’s probing into the painful past had ripped off a scab and resurrected the old hurt and anguish. He didn’t believe her claims. She wasn’t surprised. No one believed her—not the police, not the private investigator her aunt had hired, not even Aunt Clara.
She’d agreed to go sailing with Russ so she could convince him to accept her offer and maybe find out why Angus had left her so much. Her plan had flopped. Russ hadn’t given her a chance to explain. That look in his eyes said he didn’t believe her. What was wrong with him? She was offering him a fortune. Why wouldn’t he take the damn money and be happy? Why all the questions?
A wave smashed the side of the sailboat, and a spray of icy seawater cascaded over the deck. The Minerva rose high in the air and plunged with a resounding thump into a deep trough.
Thrown off-balance, she lost her grip and fell, landing with a painful thud on the unforgiving deck. Before she could scramble up, Russ grasped her by the arms and hauled her to her feet.
“Are you all right?”
She stared into his golden eyes. Her skin tingled where his large, warm hands held her. “Ye…yes, I’m fine.” She tugged her arms free and stumbled back a step. “Thank you.”
A frown furrowed his brow. “The weather’s
turned, and we’re in for a bit of a blow. We should head back.”
She scanned the sky. “Look at those dark clouds.” Absorbed in her thoughts, she’d failed to notice the approaching storm. “They look pretty menacing.”
Loud slapping split the air as the mainsail halyard broke loose.
“Do you need help?” she shouted over the rising wind. At his hesitation, she planted her hands on her hips. “I haven’t sailed for years, but if you tell me what needs doing, I’ll do it. It’s like riding a bike, right?”
He hefted open the lid under the bench seat and held out a vibrant yellow lifejacket. “Put this on. You can take the wheel while I adjust the sails.”
She struggled into the musty-smelling life preserver, adjusted the straps, and zipped up the front closure.
He slipped into a matching lifejacket. Clasping her hand in a firm grip, he supported her as they staggered across the heaving deck toward the cockpit.
The wind howled, and salt spray blinded her as waves pounded the small vessel. She stumbled again, and he steadied her, pressing her close, shielding her with his body from the worst of the storm. Heat from his hands seeped into her chilled skin, but all too soon they lurched into the cockpit, and he relinquished his hold. The walls of the small enclosure blocked the gale-force winds and kept out the worst of the raging storm. She wiped her streaming face with the back of her hand.
He guided her to the wheel. “Hold on tight, and keep the bow pointed into the wind.”
The boat bucked and swayed like a wild animal fighting to break free. The wind shrieked as it blasted the small sailboat.
Two-meter-high waves crashed over the bow, drenching her with icy spray and mixing with the freezing rain pelting down from the sodden sky. She fought to keep her balance and hold on to the resisting wheel.
Russ, hair dripping, water streaming down his face, his clothes drenched, scrambled with sure-footed grace across the rocking deck, battening hatches, trimming the sails, and tightening ropes.