MacKenzie's Promise

by Catherine Spencer

  “You’ll wake the neighbors,” he warned, chasing her the length of the garden when she slipped away from him. “You’ll get me arrested.”

  “Good!” she retorted on a whispered shriek, racing onto the beach with her nightdress billowing around her ankles. “It’s no less than you deserve!”

  He caught her almost at once, bringing her down on the sand in a flying tackle which almost knocked the wind out of her. But she wriggled away, heard the delicate fabric of her nightgown rip as she escaped, and didn’t care. Just for a little while, all the stress and fear which had dogged her every move for too long floated away, and she felt carefree and…joyful.

  She’d raced into the sea, taunting him. Thrown water in his face and dared him to follow, fully aware that he’d accept the challenge and make her pay for it.

  He came after her and she retreated until the waves lapped around her hips. She saw the gleam of his smile in the moonlight and knew retribution was at hand.

  He flung himself forward in a flat dive, sending up such a wash of spray that she was soaked all over and her nightgown clung to her like a second skin. Then, just as swiftly, he disappeared beneath the surface. She felt his hands close around her ankles and her balance shooting out from under her. The next minute, she’d been gasping for air as the milk-warm waves closed over her head.

  They’d wrestled, an uneven match to be sure, but playful nonetheless. Their bodies had clung, drifted apart, coiled around each other in a surreal kind of dance. She knotted her fingers in his hair. He imprisoned her hands behind her back. Loomed over her. Jeered at her futile efforts to escape him.

  And then, without warning, the mood changed. The laughter died. Exuberance slid into desire. His hold shifted from roguish restraint to urgent invitation.

  For a moment, he held her at arm’s length, like a sea god hoisting a trophy aloft. Drops of water spiked his lashes, and rolled like a shower of diamonds over his shoulders. His hair gleamed blue-black in the moonlight. His chest heaved, matching the breathless rise and fall of hers.

  His gaze slid over her, and came to rest on her mouth. “Gotcha!” he murmured, and pulled her close.

  His kiss tasted of passion, hot and sweet as honey caramelized over a slow-burning flame. Scorching. Torching.

  She wound her arms around his neck and let the swell of the incoming tide lift her so that her legs floated up and around his waist. Her nightdress ballooned around her, a dim white cotton cloud caught in the languid ebb and flow of the sea. It hadn’t mattered that she wore nothing underneath.

  His hands cushioned her, brought her snugly against him. She felt the urgent throb of his flesh nudging her belly. Felt the scalding rush of heat between her legs and knew that he discovered it, too, when he touched her there.

  He groaned against her mouth, filling it with the sound of her name. Dragged his lips to her ear and whispered how he wanted to please her. Except he hadn’t phrased it quite like that. Shocking and thrilling her at the same time, he’d said, “I want to feel you come,” and stroked his finger over her flesh in graphic encouragement.

  An arrow of sensation had darted through her, its path broadening as it burst free. She uttered a half sob, aching for completion and weak with desire. The hair coating his chest scraped lightly over her nipples, rousing them to an excruciating awareness, which spread to the farthest extremities of her body.

  He touched her again, a more potent and insistent caress this time. “Yes?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Yes!” she gasped.

  He guided her hand to his groin, urging her to release him from the clinging fabric of his briefs. He was hard as steel, smooth as silk, as ready for her as she knew she was ready for him.

  It had been at that crucial point that the Carrs’s next door neighbor turned on his porch light and threw open his back door. “Go do your stuff, Tiberius,” he commanded, shooing his golden lab outside.

  The dog meandered through the garden, stopped awhile to sniff through the bushes edging the property, then emerged onto the beach where he immediately picked up Linda’s familiar scent and, with a joyful yip, came galloping through the shallows toward her.

  “Cripes!” Mac dropped her like a sack of potatoes.

  “He’s friendly,” she’d spluttered, swallowing a mouthful of water.

  “Easy for you to say,” he muttered grimly, returning his most prized possession to the safety of his briefs.

  Of course, the mood, the moment, were ruined. Embarrassment and dismay eclipsed magic and moonlight. He’d been gallant enough to turn so that she was shielded by his body as she struggled to cover herself with the clammy folds of her nightgown, but he’d shown no sign of regret that they’d been so rudely interrupted.

  On the contrary, when she’d reprimanded Tiberius for straying onto the beach, Mac had expelled an uneven breath and said, “Don’t get after the dog. He’s got more brains than I have.”

  “Linda…?” His voice, overriding the monotonous whine of the jet engines, startled her out of her reverie.

  She stared at him, confused. “I’m sorry. I was miles away. Did you want something?” Like me, perhaps? Or are you thanking your lucky stars you didn’t have to follow through with what we started last night?

  “I asked if you felt you’d made some sort of peace with your father.”

  She supposed that was as good a description as any. An awkward hug was probably about as much as either of them could hope for, given their long alienation. In fact, it was considerably more than she’d expected when she’d followed Martin to the beach that morning.

  “I’d like to apologize,” she’d said, catching up with him as he walked barefoot along the sand, “for the way I acted yesterday. I’m afraid I wasn’t at my best and I’m sorry for what I said. It seems to mean a lot to my mother that you’re here, and that ought to be reason enough for me to treat you with courtesy. You probably wish I could accept you as wholeheartedly as she’s able to do, and the best I can do right now is tell you that I’ll try, but it will take time. Just how much, depends on you.”

  He hadn’t replied, nor had she anticipated that he would. But as she turned away, she happened to glance at him and saw the solitary tear tracking down his face.

  She shouldn’t have cared. Heaven knew, she’d wasted enough tears on him over the years. But the silent dignity of the man as he tried to control his quivering lower lip, and the suffering she suddenly saw so clearly in his eyes, touched her with humility.

  Mac was right. People did make mistakes all the time, some with the kind of far-reaching effects, which could change the course of lives, and she ought to know. In the clear light of morning, last night’s escapade with him had shown itself for what it really had been: a serious lapse in judgment that might well have resulted in an unplanned pregnancy, and certainly had left her with a badly bruised heart. What right had she to castigate her father when she herself was as full of human error as the next person?

  Afraid she might embarrass Martin if she let him see how moved she was, she began retracing her steps to the house. She’d gone only a few yards when he spoke.

  “Thank you, baby,” he said, so softly the words floated away on the morning breeze before she could hold on to them.

  Electrified at how swiftly he’d taken her back to her childhood with those words, she’d half turned her head and nodded. It was the most she could manage. The lump in her throat had been too huge to allow for more.

  They hadn’t communicated directly again until it was time to leave for the airport, and he’d come to the door to see her off.

  “I’m relying on you to look after my mother while I’m gone,” she’d told him, as Mac loaded their luggage in the car.

  “I won’t let you down.”

  It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell him he’d better not, but she refrained. What was the point in taking one step forward, if it was followed by two steps back? So she’d hugged her mother and said, “I’ll be in touch as soon as there’s
anything to report.”

  “We’ll be waiting for your call, darling,” Jessie said, hugging her back. “Good luck.”

  She turned to her father again, not sure what either of them expected of the other. This time, though, he’d been the one to take the initiative. “Be careful,” he’d said, and caught her in a swift, hard hug, which took her breath away less for the energy behind it, than from the shock of feeling his arms around her. It had seemed so familiar. So right.

  She’d bolted to the car, afraid once again that she’d betray her feelings in tears. Mac had eyed her speculatively but thankfully made no comment. The last she’d seen of her parents as the car backed away from the garage, they’d been side by side at the front door, their hands raised in farewell. A perfectly ordinary couple doing the perfectly ordinary thing as their daughter left home.

  Except, of course, in their case, it wasn’t ordinary at all. It was, she supposed, leaning back in her seat and staring at the perfect curve of blue sky beyond the aircraft window, nothing short of miraculous.

  “You’re not being very forthcoming today, cookie,” Mac observed. “Getting you to talk is worse than pulling teeth.”

  She turned her head and looked at him. “I could say the same for you.”

  He shrugged. “I’m planning the best line of attack with the Wagners.”

  “How diligent of you, thinking about the job ahead,” she said, ticked off at how easily he seemed able to dismiss the events of last night. Did he have to be so relentlessly down-to-earth all the time? Couldn’t he have said something to let her know she hadn’t been the only one swept away by the magic of the moment?

  Her waspish tone did not go unnoticed. “How else do you suggest I pass the time between here and there?” he asked, all innocently raised eyebrows and sweet reason.

  “Well, let’s see. Like most men, you seem to think you’re pretty hot stuff. Why not sip champagne and come on to the flight attendant?”

  “It’s too early in the day for champagne, and I outgrew putting the moves on flight attendants when I hit my late twenties.”

  “And how old are you now?” The question popped out, unrehearsed, as she struggled to come to terms with her complex reaction to the man beside her.

  “Thirty-seven. Old enough to be embarrassed at having compromised a woman’s reputation by almost seducing her in public.” He bent a disconcerting glance her way. “That is one of the things you’ve been stewing over, isn’t it—the fact that, last night, I didn’t pick up where we left off when the dog next door finally left the party?”

  “Actually,” she said, too annoyed with him for reading her mind so accurately to care about lying to his face, “I was wondering how old you were when you joined the police force.”

  “Twenty-two. Right after I graduated from university with the ink still wet on my criminology degree…. You tasted of toothpaste, you know. And smelled of shampoo and body lotion. I found it very attractive.”

  She didn’t want to be attractive to him. She wanted to be alluringly, fatally irresistible. She wanted him to look at her with eyes heavy with desire; to take every opportunity that came his way to touch her, casually if others were watching, intimately if they were not.

  “You needed a shave,” she said.

  “I needed to have my head read.” He reached across and played loosely with her fingers. “If I’m going to make love to a woman, Linda, I don’t want to be keeping an eye out in case the neighbor or the people in the next room walk in on us. It doesn’t exactly enhance my performance.”

  If he made love, he said. Not when. What a sublimely courteous brush-off!

  “It hardly matters to me, one way or the other,” she replied huffily. “What happened last night took me by surprise, but I won’t get taken in like that again.”

  “Nor I,” he said. “Look, there’s the Golden Gate Bridge. We’ll be landing shortly. Better return your seat to the upright position and stow your hand luggage—”

  “I know the drill, thank you very much.”

  But she didn’t, not where he was concerned. He kept her guessing too much. She had no idea what he was really thinking. Was it his police training which had taught him to hide his inner feelings so well, or was some woman—his wife, perhaps?—responsible?

  They stayed at the Hyatt in Union Square, not in adjoining rooms nor even on the same floor. She’d barely finished unpacking before Mac phoned.

  “I’ve got news,” he said. “We’ll talk over dinner. Meet me in the lobby in half an hour, and don’t bother dressing up. We’ll make it casual.”

  They found an Italian restaurant a few blocks away, a sprawling barn of a place where the chefs cooked steaks and fish over huge charcoal grills. Despite what he’d said, she bathed and changed into a pretty, narrow-fitting lime-green dress, added chunky gold earrings and bracelet and a straw bag with matching sandals.

  “Okay, here’s the scoop,” he said, as soon as they’d ordered and the waiter had left them with a tray of antipasto and a jug of wine. “I spoke to Mrs. Wagner herself, and we’re invited to join her and her husband for cocktails, tomorrow at six.”

  She was so surprised that she forgot to be annoyed that he hadn’t complimented her on her appearance. “Cocktails! My goodness, how did you manage that?”

  “I told her we were Angela’s aunt and uncle, in town on vacation, and that we’d like to stop by and say hello.”

  “Uncle? You?”

  “Well, why not? It’s a role I’m familiar with, seeing that I’ve got more nieces and nephews than I can keep track of. And I didn’t think we’d be quite as warmly received if I’d introduced myself as the retired police detective out to nail her adoptive son’s hide to the wall.”

  “I guess not.” She took a sip of wine. “So we’re supposed to be brother and sister?”

  “No. Just for tomorrow night, we’re husband and wife.”

  “I’m not sure I want to be married to you,” she said, suppressing the surge of excitement that bolted through her blood at the mere thought of such an arrangement, “even if it is only for one evening.”

  “Well, look at this way, cookie. People tend to ask questions of strangers who show up out of the blue and claim they want to find a missing baby. I don’t have a whole lot of background information about your family that I can just toss out as if it’s part of my history, and that just might arouse their suspicions. But I can give a very convincing performance of new husband not quite sure of his facts, and turn to my pretty little wife for verification of things I’m unsure of.”

  “I suppose that makes sense.”

  “Of course it does,” he said smugly, chewing on a fat green olive. “On top of which, older people tend to look fondly on newlyweds. Here’s the thing, though: leave me to do most of the talking. We don’t want to screw up what might well turn out to be the biggest break we’re going to get in resolving this case.”

  “And I’m just a congenital idiot who can’t string two words together without tripping over her tongue!”

  He smiled and raised his glass in a toast. “You’re a peach, darlin’, did I forget to mention that? Just show your dimples, act suitably smitten with your husband and you’ll do just fine. Oh, and we’d better dress up for the occasion. People who have a butler called Jackson probably don’t wear blue jeans when they receive company. Did you bring something spiffy that’ll do the job?”

  “If I didn’t,” she said, smarting at the implication that she needed sprucing up, “I’ve got all day tomorrow to shop, and there’s Nordstrom’s and Neiman Marcus within walking distance of the hotel. The question surely is, do you have something classier than what you’re wearing now?”

  “I’ll do my best not to embarrass you,” he said, batting his long dopey eyelashes at her. “But in return, you’ve got to polish your manners. Taking pot shots at your doting new husband kind of spoils the impression we’re trying to convey. You’re going to have to smile, darlin’, and look at me as if you worship the g
round I walk on. Can you do that?”

  All too easily, Linda thought glumly. The problem will be remembering it’s all just an act. “If you don’t go out of your way to provoke me, then yes.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “In that case,” he said, topping up their wineglasses, “you won’t mind if I run a little test by you, just to be on the safe side.”

  “Test?” She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, like a fox about to enter the henhouse. “What kind of test?”

  “Nothing illegal,” he said easily. “Just your standard newlywed quiz. Let’s begin with the basics. How did you and your husband meet, Mrs. Sullivan?”

  “That’s easy. I went to Oregon to find him—”

  “You went to Oregon looking for a husband? How quaint!”

  “No, of course that’s not why I went! Stop putting words in my mouth.”

  “So sorry,” he said, sounding anything but. “What was the reason, then? And please don’t say you went looking for an ex-cop to help you find your abducted niece, unless you want to blow our cover completely.”

  “Well…um…um…”

  “Okay, let’s skip that one and go to the next. How long have you known each other, dear?”

  “Four days.”

  “And you’re married already? My, my, you give new meaning to the term ‘anxious bride!’”

  “Four months, then!”

  “I see. And where did you meet?”

  “…I don’t know. In Canada?”

  “I thought you’d spent the last two years in Europe?”

  “Oh, all right, then! We met in Paris. Satisfied?”

  “No need to get testy, dear. We’re just interested in getting to know our granddaughter’s Canadian family. Your husband’s the youngest of four boys, isn’t he?”

  “No,” she said, shooting him a self-satisfied smile. “He’s the eldest of five.”

  “Really?” He beamed expansively. “Are they all charming and handsome like him?”