by Annie Seaton
And fuck, what am I reduced to now? Sitting around in boats and cars. Waiting.
This was his lot in life. Accept it. Move on.
In fact, life had been pretty boring over the past year. Six weeks in the hospital and rehab for his knee and then sitting around in his house until he could get around without crutches.
God, she’s been in there for more than a half hour. What the hell was she doing?
Had he been foolish to trust her? He’d been sitting there daydreaming like a lovesick adolescent, reliving the moment her lips had clung to his.
You’re getting soft. Get a grip, man.
Cursing under his breath, he opened the door and swung out of the car, wincing as the ever-present pain reminded him just why he was sitting around feeling soft…and useless. He stretched his knee and looked up just as one of the housemaids knocked on the door of Gracie’s room. They stood and waited but the door stayed firmly closed.
“Trust me, I won’t take off,” she’d promised and like the gullible fool he always was around a pretty face, he’d trusted her.
Jesus—she’d done a runner. Who knows what crazy scheme she had in mind next?
The heat shimmered in waves over the concrete and burned through his light, canvas shoes. He limped as quickly as he could across the car park toward the stairs leading up to the first floor. It was almost midday and the tropical sun was burning down relentlessly from a cloudless sky. Perspiration ran down into his eyes and he brushed it away impatiently. It was a relief to step into the shade of the building and he climbed the stairs and hurried along the semienclosed corridor to room twenty-one. Relief shot through him as the door opened and he caught a quick glimpse of Gracie peering around it, one towel wrapped turban-like around her head and her hands clutching another towel around her chest.
“Oh, sorry, love. We thought you’d left already,” the housemaid said apologetically.
“That’s okay.” Gracie flicked a knowing glance in Jake’s direction before she stepped back behind the door. “Just give me five minutes. I just have to dry my hair.”
Jake turned around and placed his hands on the railing tapping impatiently while he waited. He’d misjudged her; he always expected the worst where women were concerned. Nothing surprised him anymore; his mother and his ex-wife had seen to that. He turned around again to face the door, glancing at his watch. At this rate he wasn’t going to get any sleep this afternoon before he had to sail the sloop back around to the marina for tonight’s surveillance. It had been a damn nuisance having to take the boat out this morning but he couldn’t risk her being seen with him around the marina. As far as he knew, no one on the Midas knew they were under surveillance and he wanted it kept that way until he was convinced there was no danger. He didn’t want her to be connected with him. He’d kept a low profile around town but he was still known as an ex-cop and he’d prefer that she wasn’t associated with him. Not until he knew what was happening on that boat and why he’d been hired to take the photographs.
“I’m ready to go.” A quiet, polite voice interrupted his brooding.
He stood stock still as his gaze moved across the young face, now scrubbed free of the heavy makeup, with hair pulled back into a high pony tail swinging jauntily in the breeze. Crisp white shorts and a pale pink T-shirt edged with some sort of lacy stuff presented a very different picture to the sophisticated woman in the slinky, red dress from last night. His gaze traveled down to her feet. Gone were the vamp shoes, replaced by running shoes. A familiar feeling washed over Jake.
Guilt and a surge of protectiveness.
Christ, she was an absolute babe in the woods and here he had been having sexual daydreams about her while he had waited in the car.
“I’m just going down to the office to see if there are any messages. I e-mailed the name of the hotel to Regan when I checked in.” She strode ahead of him and slowly he followed her to the end of the corridor and down the stairs to the office. And he did try to keep his eyes off her firm ass.
“Great. You’ve decided to call a halt to this crazy notion of getting on the Midas, then?”
She pushed open the door to the reception office and didn’t answer him.
The cool air in the air-conditioned office was a welcome relief and Jake stood by the door while Gracie crossed to the counter
“Good afternoon, Ms. James.” The receptionist flicked a glance toward Jake giving him the once-over. The telltale smirk on her face annoyed him. What was it about women that always made them jump to conclusions?
“Any messages for me?” Gracie clasped her hands in front of her.
“Room twenty-one? Yes, there is.” The receptionist turned and pulled an envelope from the slot marked with her room number. Jake stepped forward, interested to see if it was from her sister.
Gracie opened the envelope and her face paled as she read the message before shoving it in the pocket of her shorts.
“Okay?” Jake moved over and took her arm and she stiffened in his grasp. “Is it from your sister?”
The receptionist looked on with interest and she answered him while Gracie stood silently beside him.
“No, it was her Uncle Paul and her cousin. I told them which room she was in but I think she was out when they knocked on the door so they left a message.”
She turned to Gracie and winked. “Your cousin’s a cutie. I love a buzz cut. Does he have a girlfriend?”
That was the final straw for Jake. He’d had enough of the simpering and winking and making assumptions. And who was this mysterious uncle and cousin? She hadn’t mentioned them yet. He and Gracie were overdue for a long talk. He reached over and grabbed her elbow. “Ready?” She pulled away from him and walked back to the counter.
“I’ve decided to check out early.” Her voice was quiet. “I’ll pay for the third night. Can you make my account, please?”
“Sure.” The girl nodded and tapped the computer keyboard. “Anything from the minibar.”
“Yes.” Gracie glanced across at Jake before she answered. “Everything.”
What the fuck? Gracie kept her eyes on him as if daring him to say something and he shrugged.
“I’ll wait outside,” he said.
After she’d paid her account, Gracie stepped out of the office and stood staring over the marina. He waited without speaking while she looked at the yachts below them. Finally she turned to him and his gaze followed her hands as she clenched them and put them up to her mouth.
“My room was broken into. Someone’s been through my bags. Can you just get me away from here, please? As far away from the marina as we can get?” She raised a shaking hand and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’ve got to move.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. I’m not staying there. My room has been broken into, and I don’t want to be there if they come back.”
“Anything taken?” Now his cop instinct kicked right in. “Do you want to go to the police?”
“Just the contents of the minibar. I just want to find another hotel as far away from the marina as I can.” She walked across to the stairs. “I’m going to get my bags.”
Jake followed her and grabbed her arm.
“So why did you pay for the minibar stuff? Why didn’t you tell the receptionist about the break-in?” His instincts were kicking in and he knew she was holding something back. “Gracie?”
Gracie raised a shaking hand to her hair and fiddled with the band. “Jake, I don’t have an uncle or a cousin. It’s just Regan and me.” Realization dawned on him as she looked at him, her eyes wide and unblinking. “Will you take me to another hotel please? I’m scared.”
She pulled the crumpled note from her pocket and handed it to him.
A single line in block letters jumped out at him.
She’s gone. If you value your life, you piss off too.
Chapter Six
Gracie’s thoughts whirled around her head as Jake pulled into a large shopping center on the outsk
irts of the small industrial area. All she could think about were the two men on the Midas who she’d spoken to yesterday. One of them was young and had a buzz cut. It had to be them…there was no one else she’d spoken to since she’d arrived at Airlie Beach.
“Can you cook?” Jake interrupted her thoughts.
“What? Cook what?”
“Food,” he replied patiently. “I usually eat out. I rarely use my kitchen.”
“Ye…es,” she replied slowly. “I can cook.” Of course she could cook. She’d been looking after herself for as long as she could remember. Why was he talking about cooking? She turned and looked at him.
“Is there a hotel near here?”
Jake parked at the end of a row and took the keys from the ignition. “Look, I can see you’re really rattled by your room being broken into. You’ve already been to my place and seen my guest room and you’re coming back out to see the photos anyway.” He put his arm along the back of her seat and she jumped when his fingers brushed her shoulder. “I’m not going to be there and you’re more than welcome to stay.” He looked at her and his brow wrinkled. “In fact I think it would be a really good idea.”
Gracie swallowed and tired to ignore the shivers running down her arm where he’d touched her.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“I don’t know. It’s just as easy to go to a hotel.”
Jake continued to stare at her until the long silence became uncomfortable.
“If I told you I used to be a cop, would that reassure you?” He finally spoke, and she lifted her eyes to meet his steady gaze.
The thought of someone going through her stuff had really freaked her out and she needed time to think about her next step. Maybe she could do it out at his place.
“Why did you leave your job?” She wasn’t prepared to trust anyone at the moment.
“It was time.” His voice was clipped so she didn’t pursue the question.
“Okay.” She let out her breath in a sigh. “Thanks for the offer.”
“Great, so let’s go and buy some food.” Jake opened the door and stepped out of the car. He walked around to her side and opened the door but Gracie sat still and watched the passersby going about their normal business.
Just like I was doing only a few days ago.
An elderly couple stopped at the early model Mercedes sedan parked next to them and unloaded grocery bags into the trunk. A young mother pushed a stroller across the car park and held tightly onto the hand of another child. Gracie tried to focus her thoughts on the normalcy of the world around her but all she could think about was those two men who had somehow got into her room and gone through her belongings.
A raw sickness settled in her belly.
What if I’d been there?
What if I’d opened the door to them?
What were they looking for?
“Gracie? Gracie…” Jake’s voice was quiet and patient. It was hard to know how to take him…his moods were so mercurial. One minute, cold and hard. The next kind and comforting…and…well…kissing her.
But she wasn’t going to go back there. She’d filed that kiss away to take out and examine later tonight when he wasn’t around. Even though it was given in comfort, it had ignited a fire in her belly and a delicious quiver shot through her when she remembered the feel of his lips on hers.
“Are you okay to come in with me? How about some steaks? We can do them on the outdoor grill. The chances of anyone from the marina being over here are pretty slim.”
She grabbed her bag and slid down from the high seat to the hot concrete.“I’m okay. Come on…take me shopping. You can tell me what’s in your kitchen and I’ll do something to go with the steaks.” She forced a smile onto her face.
He grinned back at her. “Nothing.”
“What do you mean nothing?”
“There is nothing in the kitchen. Apart from the occasional steak on the grill, I don’t do kitchens…or cook.”
“But you have to eat,” Gracie insisted.
“That’s why restaurants and takeout were invented…and frozen pizza.” Jake’s face lit up in the first genuine smile she’d seen on his face and Gracie fixed her gaze on the laugh lines around his eyes. When he was being serious, he was dark and imposing and well…just huge. He had presence. When he smiled, his whole face came alive. It cheered her slightly to think she’d put that smile on his face. A yearning tugged deep within her to make him smile like that more often. He carried a sadness inside, there was something not right and she hoped to God—
“So what do you say? Are you going to help me shop, or should I just get frozen pizzas?” Jake interrupted her thoughts
“No frozen meals,” she said firmly.
Walking around a supermarket with him was surreal. For the past few months, she’d left school in a tearing hurry each afternoon, whipped around the small supermarket in Ashby Downs, and had driven out to David’s farm to mind his two kids and cook dinner for the family when he came in from the cattle yards.
“It’s so fucking demeaning, Gracie.” Regan’s voice had been full of fire and it had been the catalyst for the last argument they’d had. The one where Regan had threatened to come to the outback and “sort” David out. “You let people walk all over you. You’ve done it all your life. Learn to say no.”
Now here she was again, shopping and about to cook for a man. She threw a couple of trays of steak, a salad in a bag, and some bread into the trolley, all the while keeping a close lookout for any familiar faces.
“Do you have oil and garlic?” She looked up at him and waited for him to answer.
“Sweetheart, when I said the cupboard is bare, I meant bare. I have nothing.”
She shook her head in disbelief and hurried up the aisle throwing a few basic items on top of the steak.
“Breakfast stuff?”
Jake shook his head.
“Coffee?”
“Oh yes, I do have coffee. There’s a machine in the kitchen.”
Gracie’s stomach was growling. She hadn’t eaten since late yesterday afternoon. It was probably why she’d fainted. Nothing to do with a panic attack…and it must be why she felt so sick now. Turning into the last aisle to grab some energy bars, she jumped when Jake grabbed her and pushed her none too gently toward a shelf filled with breakfast cereals.
“Turn around. Face into the shelf,” he whispered urgently. He leaned over her, and she dropped her head, before turning to look at an array of cereal boxes in front of her, not game to turn and look behind her.
Jake put an arm on either side of her, reaching across, and she realized he was using his body to shield her while he reached for a box on the top shelf. He moved slowly, reading the bright advertisement on the front of the packet. A grocery cart trundled past and she looked up at the back of a portly man in a bright Hawaiian shirt, disappearing down the aisle toward the tinned foods.
“Sorry, I didn’t expect that.”
“Who was it?” she whispered.
“Dave from the marina. The security guy who was on duty last night,” Jake explained. “I didn’t want him to see you with me. Although”— that lazy grin did peculiar things to her stomach again— “you do look completely different from the siren in the red dress. I doubt if he would have recognized you.”
“Well, this is the real me you’re looking at now,” she replied sharply. “Boring, plain, Gracie.” She grabbed the cart and headed to the checkout, anxious to get away from this public place and to the safety of the car. “Give me the keys. I’ll wait in the car while you pay for the groceries.”
His eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline at her bossiness. He dug into his pocket, pulled out the keys and handed them to her with a grin.
“Put the air-conditioning on or you’ll swelter.”
Her nerves were jittering and she jumped when his warm fingers brushed against hers. “Thank you.”
Gracie hurried through the throngs of tourists crowding the stalls in th
e outdoor market that was set up on the edge of the car park. She kept her head down, not tempted to linger and look at the brightly colored sarongs and beach clothes flapping in the hot wind. Searching the car park for Jake’s car, she lifted her head at the distant sound of thunder rumbling through the charged air.
Huge thunderheads were building in the western sky. Brilliant white rolls of cumulonimbus clouds billowed in high, towering formations and contrasted with the faded blue sky to the west. There’d be a storm before nightfall.
Maybe Jake wouldn’t be able to take the boat out?
Climbing into the driver’s seat, she put the keys in the ignition and put the air-conditioning on high. Perspiration ran down her neck and her T-shirt was stuck to her back. Leaning back on the leather seat, she closed her eyes.
When did life become so complicated?
Gracie dozed lightly on the trip back to Jake’s house. No sleep, no food, and a bucket load of stress and worry overwhelmed her and her body took refuge in sleep. When they turned into the circular drive and the gates closed behind them, she opened her eyes and stretched.
“Isn’t it strange? I hardly know you, but I feel sort of safe here.” Immediately regretting her frank words and not wanting to give him any ideas, she hurried on. “Safer than in town anyway.
“That’s good,” he replied. “Because I’ve got to work out what we’re going to do.”
“Yes, we do.” She wondered how he would take the news when she told him she was going to work on the Midas. Better to leave it until after he showed her the photographs in case he became uncooperative. There was no way he was calling the shots; it was time she made her own decisions. Regan had been looking out for her for almost twenty-five years. It was time she returned the favor and stood on her own two feet and helped Regan out of whatever sticky situation she’d got herself into.
Stuff it.
He’s not going to boss me around. I don’t care who or what he is or what “local” knowledge he has. Gracie just hoped and prayed the local knowledge didn’t mean the criminal elements he was probably familiar with as a cop.