by Ginna Gray
"I think..." She cleared her throat and looked down at her fingers, which she was unconsciously twisting together. "I think we should use this time apart to.. .well.. .to be certain of our feelings."
"What's that suppose to mean?"
"Only that I think we should not have any contact for, say...a month."
"A month!"
A burst of static came over the open line, followed by the voice of the young radio operator. "This is the U.S. Coast Guard. Do you read me, Six Pac? Over."
"Oh, hell." Rhys snatched up the mike, spoke tersely into it for a few seconds, then slammed it down again. His scowl was fierce when he focused on Meghan. "Now listen to me. I don't need time to be certain of how I feel. I love you, dammit."
"Rhys, please. You have to admit that the past few months have been...well...unusual. In situations like that, people do things, feel things, that perhaps they wouldn't under normal circumstances. If what we have is real, it will still be there a month from now."
Rhys's eyes narrowed. "I know where this is coming from. It's all that damned propinquity business you were so worried about. You still think I fell for you because I didn't have any other choice. Isn't that right?''
"Rhys—"
"Never mind." He gripped the wheel and stared straight ahead. "For the record, I don't like this separation business. Not one bit But if that's what it will take to prove to you, once and for all, that I love you, then fine. For the next month you won't hear a peep out of me. Satisfied?"
Meghan twisted her fingers harder and looked at him uncertainly. "Well.. .there is one more thing."
The slice of his glance was lethal. "What's that?"
"Until we, uh...settle our relationship, I don't want anyone else to know about it."
"You mean your family," he said bitterly, and Meghan's cheeks heated.
"I think that would be best, under the circumstances," she admitted in a subdued voice.
"Fine. Whatever you want." Dismissing her with a hard look, he picked up the mike again. "This is the Six Pac calling the U.S. Coast Guard. Do you read me? Over."
That Rhys was furious with her was made abundantly clear throughout the trip. He remained distant and mostly ignored her. At regular intervals he made contact with the coast guard, but spoke to her only when it became necessary.
Meghan was crushed that they were spending what could very well be their last hours together in that way, but she knew she had hurt Rhys. She was right, though. She knew she was right. If what he felt for her wasn't real, she would rather know now, quickly, than watch him pull away from her day by day. Or worse, have him stay with her out of a misplaced sense of honor.
In less than an hour a helicopter found them. A short time later a coast-guard cutter came along side, and after signaling them to stop, a swarm of FBI agents boarded the Six Pac.
When the government men were satisfied that they were who they had claimed to be and they had given an abbreviated version of their story, Rhys and Meghan were transferred to the cutter. Two agents stayed on board the Six Pac, which was being impounded, and the chopper was given coordinates for the island and sent back to pick up Harley and Scratch.
The cutter was a much swifter craft than the dilapidated cabin cruiser. They made it back to port in half the time it would have taken otherwise. During the trip, Rhys and Meghan answered what seemed like thousands of questions. The agents were polite and considerate and elated over finding them alive and unharmed, but the kidnapping had created a furor in the press and among fans, and they were determined to do a thorough job of making an airtight case and leave no loopholes for Virgil and his cohorts to slip through in court.
The agent in charge, a pleasant, if tough-looking man in his mid-forties named Edward Barnes, seemed jubilant when they were done. "Well that about wraps it up. With what we've got, those three are going to prison for a long time," he said, flipping his notepad shut.
He smiled at Meghan and Rhys, who sat side by side on a bunk in the captain's cabin. "We've received messages that the chopper picked up the two on the island and your friend
Virgil is already in custody. And..." He leaned over and looked out the porthole. "I believe we're in the Houston ship channel. We should be at the dock in a few minutes. You'll be happy to know that your families are there waiting for you. Unfortunately, the press has gotten wind of the story. We're doing our best to keep them back during your reunion with your folks, but I warn you, they'll be howling for a story like a pack of wolves. We've arranged for police escorts to take you out when you're ready."
"Thanks," Rhys said. He turned his head and look fully at Meghan for the first time since their quarrel. She returned the look with all the pain of parting swimming in her eyes. Her lips quivered as she fought not to cry.
Rhys looked back at Agent Barnes. "Could I have a few minutes alone with Ms. McCall before we dock?"
Ed Barnes looked from one to the other, his intelligent eyes skimming over their skimpy attire and taut expressions. Finally he nodded and left the room without a word.
The instant the door closed, Rhys snatched Meghan into his arms. She made a desperate sound and flung her arms around his neck, holding on tight, her eyes squeezed shut.
His arms closed like steel bands around her, so tight she could barely breathe. "God I love you, woman." The words came out in a guttural rasp against the side of her neck, raw and shaking with emotion.
"Oh, Rhys," Meghan sobbed. "I love you, too. I love you so much."
He drew back partway and scowled down at her. "But you're still going to insist on this damned month apart, aren't you?"
"Y-yes. I think it's for the best." She touched the crease between his eyes and smoothed her fingertips over one silky black eyebrow. "You have my telephone number at my apartment in Dallas. I'll be back at work in a week or so. When the month is up, if you still feel the same, you can call me there."
"I'll do better than that," he vowed in a tough voice. "I'll be there beating your door down exactly one month from today. Now kiss me goodbye. And make it good. This has to last me for a month.''
The kiss was long and heated, a voracious plundering to which Meghan surrendered willingly. It spoke of anger and dread, of hunger, of a loneliness that had already begun. With the sweet familiarity of perfectly attuned lovers, their near naked bodies strained together, quivering with want and frustration. But there was no time.
Above deck they heard shouts. Seconds later the hull of the boat bumped the pier, and reluctantly Rhys and Meghan drew apart. They looked into each others' eyes one last time, blue to palest gray, one set shimmering with tears, the other fierce and glittering.
Someone tapped on the cabin door. "We're here, Mr. Morgan," Agent Barnes called.
Something flashed in Rhys's eyes, then he clenched his jaw and took her hand. "C'mon. It's time to go."
The instant they stepped on deck, the press made their presence known. Jostling for position behind the barricade some thirty yards or more down the pier, they shouted questions and yelled requests for statements. A continuous barrage of lights flashed as frenzied photographers snapped picture after picture and television cameras rolled.
Meghan flinched at the intrusion, but she quickly forgot the vultures. As she and Rhys came down the short gang' plank she spotted a group of people waiting a few yards away, being held back by grinning policemen.
She saw her mother first, looking anxious and deliriously happy. Beside her, crying unashamedly, was her father. Beyond her parents were other dear faces, and as Meghan's gaze darted from one to another her heart began to soar.
At the front of the pack Quincy stood with his arm around a blond woman who looked vaguely familiar.
Meghan gave them only the briefest of glances. All her attention was for her family.
As she and Rhys reached the pier, everything seemed to happen at once.
Suddenly, the blond woman broke free from the others and ran forward with her arms outstretched, sobbing and laughing at th
e same time.
"Rhys! Rhys! Oh, my darling, thank God you've come back to me," the woman cried.
The next instant she flung herself against Rhys, wrapped her arms around his neck and brought his head down into a rapacious, openmouthed kiss.
Meghan was stunned, but before she could react with more than a slack-jawed stare her family came rushing at her.
"Baby. My poor baby," Maggie McCall cried, running forward with her arms open wide.
"Oh, Mom." Meghan's control shattered. With tears streaming down her face, she stepped into the embrace that had been the haven of her childhood, where countless times she had found ease from the pain of everything from skinned knees to hurt feelings and heartbreak.
Her mother's arms enfolded her and held her tight. "There, there, child. You're home now. You're safe. Everything will be all right. Oh, my sweet baby."
Closing her eyes, Meghan lay her head on her mother's shoulder and drew comfort from the familiar: the warm softness of her mother's body, the mingled scents of face powder and roses and fresh-baked bread that clung to her skin, the soothing words crooned so lovingly in her ear.
"I'm so glad you're here, Mom."
"I'd have liked to have seen anyone try and keep me away," Maggie huffed between sniffles.
"Not even the marines could have managed that," Colin McCall managed gruffly, patting her shoulder.
"Oh, Daddy." Fresh tears spurted in Meghan's eyes when she stepped from her mother's arms into her father's and felt another surge of love as she drew on his strength and buried her face against his sun-scorched neck.
"Hey! How about giving someone else a chance," Travis, the brother closest to Meghan in age, grumbled as he pulled her from her father's arms and claimed her in a bear hug.
They were all there—her parents, her aunt and uncle, her brothers and cousins and their spouses, her niece and nephew, Molly and Mike.
Also, in the arms of their proud parents, were two new additions to the family, who had arrived in her absence, and Meghan experienced a pang at having missed the birth of David and Abbey's twins.
The infants were decked out in frilly pink dresses, but she had only a fleeting second to comprehend that her long-suffering macho cousin, who had all of his life endured the trial of having twin sisters, had himself become the father of twin daughters.
The hilarity of that was not lost on Meghan, but she had no time to tease David as she was passed from person to person. Amid tears and laughter and babbled words of love and concern she was snatched from one tight embrace to another. She was hugged and kissed and touched and anxiously inspected, then hugged again. They all crowded close, all talking at once, each wanting—needing—to reassure themselves that she was truly back with them, alive and well and whole.
Until that moment, Meghan had not known it was possible to operate on two levels at once, to simultaneously experience two such extremes of emotion. She was deliriously happy to see her family. They were her safe harbor, the bedrock of her life, and she loved each and every one of them. From them she drew comfort and strength, and being back within the circle of their love filled her with indescribable joy.
Yet at the same time, a part of her was miserably conscious of Rhys and his party standing just a few feet away.
Surrounded by Quincy and the road crew, he stood with his right arm around a tiny gray-haired woman whom Meghan assumed was Ella Morgan. On Rhys's other side, her body plastered against him like silly putty, the blonde clung to his arm looking smug and possessive as she tossed her hair and posed for the photographers who hung over the barricade.
Surreptitiously, as her family all chattered at once around her, Meghan sneaked peeks at the other woman. She was coiffed and groomed and dressed to the nines. Meghan became painfully conscious of what a pathetic picture she must make, dressed in crudely stitched, scanty shorts and halter top, with her bare, sandy feet, her wild mane hanging past her shoulder blades and her face without a smidgen of makeup and covered with freckles. On top of all that, she had stayed out in the sun too long the day before and her skin was pink as a boiled shrimp. She felt like a piece of flotsam the tide had washed up. Which, when she thought about it, wasn't far off the mark.
The woman threw her head back and gave a peal of laughter, turning more fully toward Meghan. At that moment her identity registered and Meghan's heart sank like a stone.
The luscious blonde was Larette Farraday, a top model with whom Rhys had been linked only a few weeks before the kidnapping.
Chapter Twelve
Rhys was seething. During the limo ride from the docks to the airport he held his tongue, because he did not want to upset his grandmother. It was difficult, especially with Larette sitting on his other side clinging to him like a leech. Hell, they'd only had a few dates, and he hadn't been all that interested even back then, but the way she was acting you'd think they were longtime lovers. Twice he had to remove the woman's wandering hand from his bare abdomen.
At the airport, Rhys gritted his teeth when Quincy escorted the model on board his private jet with them, just as though she had every right to be there. The moment Rhys had seen to his grandmother's comfort he snagged Quincy's arm and hauled him toward the bedroom at the rear of the plane.
"Come with me. I want to talk to you."
"Yeah, sure. Hey, take it easy, man. You're wrinkling my new Armani."
"Tough. You're lucky I don't punch your lights out."
"Hey, Rhys, buddy. What's the problem, man?"
Rhys shoved him into the small compartment and pulled the door shut. The look he gave his manager was hard as granite. "I want to know what the hell you think you're doing, bringing Larette here?"
"Is that all?" Flashing his cocky grin, Quincy flopped down onto the king-size bed and lay back with his hands stacked beneath his head. "That's called damage control, my boy."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I had to do something to squelch the rumors about you and Meghan. Those three rocket scientists who grabbed the two of you seemed to think she was your fiancee. The FBI boys figured you'd deliberately given them that impression so they wouldn't harm her. At the time I went along with it because I had no choice, but some fool leaked to the press that you and Meghan were engaged. The feds wouldn't let me set the record straight, in case the kidnappers got wind of it." Quincy made a disparaging sound and rolled his eyes. "As if those three could read. Anyway, this morning when we got the call that you were safe and on your way to Houston, I called a press conference and explained things.
"But by then the media people had learned that you and Meghan had been alone on that island for months and there was all kinds of speculation about your relationship. So.. .I sent for Larette to put an end to it."
"You needn't have bothered."
"Needn't—?" Quincy jerked upright and stared at Rhys. "Hey, wait a minute here. Are you saying there is something going on between you and the little redhead?"
"Never mind." Rhys clenched his jaw and looked away. Damn. He should never have promised Meghan he wouldn't tell anyone about them until the month was up. "Just keep Larette away from me. And from now on, stay out of my private life."
"Now, Rhys-"
"I mean it, Quincy." Rhys threw open the closet and snatched out some clothes. At the door to the bathroom he paused and looked back, his gaze spearing the older man. "No more arranging dates for me. From now on, I'll handle my own love life. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a shower and shave off this beard."
* * *
"There's another picture of Rhys Morgan and Larette Farraday in tonight's paper," Reilly announced cheerfully, glancing around his parents' living room at the other men.
Meghan gritted her teeth when she saw the satisfied look they exchanged, but she pretended an interest in the television program that her nephew was watching.
She knew what was behind that silent communication. Any hint that Rhys might be involved with another woman was reassurance that nothing had happ
ened between her and Rhys.
It hadn't taken long for the men in Meghan's family to raise the question of Rhys's behavior on the island.
Meghan suspected that they had intended to grill Rhys about it at the docks, but Quincy had foiled that plan. The minute the greetings had been over, before anyone in her family could even be introduced to Rhys, his manager had hustled him away, insisting that the police escort them all to their waiting vehicles. As they had run the gauntlet of pushy reporters and frenetic fans, Meghan had lost sight of Rhys.
Left with no choice, her male relatives had been forced to pump her for information.
"That slick ladies' man didn't try anything with you, did he?" Travis had demanded that evening a week ago when they'd arrived at her parents' home in Crockett.