He tried it. A night bird hooted somewhere in reply. He waited, with the damned bougainvillea vines scratching his neck. A shadow passed across the shutters. A moment later, the back door opened a crack.
He dashed across the yard, slipped inside the house, shut the door, bolted it, dropped all his packages, and in an excess of zeal, grabbed the gorgeous woman waiting for him and kissed her soundly on the mouth. Utter heaven.
She froze and backed away instantly. Charlie let her go. After all his promises to himself, he’d gone and done what he’d just sworn he wouldn’t do, but he didn’t regret it. In the dim light, she looked surprised and beautiful, not shocked or disgusted. Maybe Miss Penny just wasn’t used to a man grabbing and kissing her. He was an optimist by nature. Besides, he really liked the idea of having a beautiful woman waiting up for him. It assuaged some of the ache left by Raul’s death.
Her gaze dipped to the bundles scattered across the floor. “What did you do, rob a bank?”
“Burlap is easier to carry up a mountainside than suitcases. Most of your things should be in there somewhere.” Charlie stopped to inspect what she’d done to herself in his absence. She’d availed herself of Jacques’s shower, obviously. Her long thick hair hung down her back in a heavy sheet of black satin, still damp around the edges. She wore some bright red muumuulike thing that must have belonged to Jacques’s wife, confirming that Penelope could look good in a sack. Damn, but she managed to look exquisite and graceful and all those delicate things a female should be, while concealing a mind that could cut a man off at the balls.
“Up a mountainside? What did you do?” She seemed genuinely puzzled as she sorted through the packages.
“Took the boat to that deserted cove on the other side of the ridge from the resort. The path over the ridge isn’t particularly well laid out, and I didn’t want to be seen from the beach. So I reached the cabin from behind.”
Her head shot up and she stared at him through luminous eyes. Charlie would give his life savings if he could keep that expression forever, but right now, he was tired, hungry, and more vulnerable than he’d been in his life. Even his father’s death hadn’t left him this empty. He’d had time to prepare for his dad’s dying. Raul was too damned young. So maybe he wasn’t thinking straight when he saw admiration in her eyes.
“You climbed over that ridge behind the cabin?” she asked incredulously. “You must be mad.”
“Yeah, that’s what all the women say. Did Jacques leave anything to eat? I’m starved.”
Returning to the resort had not only been insane, but stupid. He’d just had an idiotic notion that she’d appreciate having some of her things, and he’d wanted to show his gratitude for her help. Silly of him.
“Jacques’s wife left a seafood concoction in the refrigerator.” She pounced on the laptop case, pulled it from the bundle of clothes, and carried it to the table, essentially forgetting his existence. So, she was a computer whiz and not a cook. He could accept that. It wasn’t as if he were going to marry her or anything.
“Don’t make yourself too comfortable. We have to get out of here as soon as I get something in my stomach.” Charlie rooted through the refrigerator, blessed Jacques for keeping beer on hand, found the casserole, and lugged it to the stove.
“Get out of here? Why? I’m asleep on my feet as it is. We have everything we need here. This couldn’t take more than a day or so.”
Charlie tuned out the incredulity and pain in her voice. He’d put her through hell today. “It looked like someone sifted through the cottage in our absence. If they’re onto us, it’s not safe here. Everyone on the damned island knows Jacques is a friend of mine. I’m hoping if someone really wants to kill me, they’ll think I went off the cliff with the car, but there’s no guarantee. I tried to leave the cottage looking as if we’d only taken a few days’ worth of stuff with us, but how many people take laptops on their honeymoon?” He spooned the casserole into a pan and turned up the heat.
“Computer geeks,” Penelope answered, as she reached around him, removed the pan, and added water to cover the bottom, to prevent scorching. “I can’t do anything without electricity and a good phone connection. My battery barely lasts four hours and it’s probably not charged up.” She slapped the pan back on the stove.
“Charge it up now.”
“That could take all night. Couldn’t we just take a boat to Castries and find another hotel room?”
“They check passports up there. And that would be putting ourselves right in the Foundation’s hands.” Charlie stirred at the mess in the pan. He bordered on the edge of exhaustion himself, but the charred remains in that jungle cabin ate at his gut. He would have his revenge. His whole damned business could go down the tubes, but he’d get his hands around the neck of Raul’s murderer.
“Do you think Tammy got through to the airport all right?” She wilted wearily into a chair at the table after plugging in the laptop.
“Yeah, she’ll be fine. I have friends in Vieux Fort who will take care of things. Tammy will be winging her way to your sister in no time. You might want to e-mail a warning. I don’t know if we’ll be near a telephone in the morning.”
“Yeah, I remember your friends,” she said sarcastically, opening the computer and hitting a few buttons. “I hope that wasn’t real cocaine in the bag.”
Charlie shrugged and tested the casserole for warmth. “Who knows? It’s a good ruse for holding undesirables until they can really nail them. This isn’t precisely the good old U.S. of A.”
“Undesirables.” She snorted inelegantly and tapped away at the keyboard. “Do you really think it’s this Foundation that’s behind things? Or do you have any other suspects?”
She asked it innocently enough. Charlie couldn’t see her face clearly in the dim light as she worked over the computer. But he knew what she was asking.
“As far as I’m aware, the Foundation is made up of outsiders. There might be a few local stockholders, but all my contacts with them have been through Miami and European businessmen. Emile has lived here all his life. I’ve never seen him do more than play golf and tennis and occasionally talk to his lawyers and accountants, but he knows every damned person on this island. It wouldn’t take him long to find Raul’s hiding place.”
“Especially if he had someone follow Tammy,” she answered enigmatically, still not looking up.
“I don’t know how in hell she got out there,” Charlie muttered, removing the pan from the stove and taking it to the table. He found a fork in a drawer and carried his beer over too.
Penelope looked up and frowned at his crude table setting, but she had the wisdom not to comment. Instead, she pulled out a cord, got up, and strode directly to the kitchen phone. She’d apparently researched her surroundings thoroughly while she waited. Charlie watched as she unhooked the phone and plugged in the computer. He hoped to hell she had a connection out there somewhere. Even he knew phone modems were slow.
“Raul probably met her somewhere and took her back there in a jeep,” she said. “She’s not precisely a cripple, you realize. She can walk. It’s just tedious going. Can’t doctors do anything for her?”
“Doctors have operated. My mother has taken her to physical therapists. They’ve done all that is humanly possible.” Charlie answered all the other questions probably floating around Miss Penelope’s active mind. “She wouldn’t be walking at all if they hadn’t. It was some kind of birth defect. They couldn’t have done anything to prevent it.”
“How badly will they take her running away? And is there any way she can get word to them to tell them she’s safe? No matter what you may suspect your stepfather of, he has a right to know his daughter is safe.”
“She can call when she gets there.” Charlie ran his hand over his face and shoved in another forkful of food. He wasn’t hungry anymore. He just needed sleep. “Can you investigate Emile the same way you can look up the Foundation?”
She shrugged. “The Foundation probably has a
network of computers with a name that software can find with luck, patience, and hard work. Personal computers don’t have names. My software won’t reach his computer unless your stepfather has a connection with the Foundation’s or some other network.”
That made about as much sense as the financial statements his accountant prepared, Charlie decided wearily. He understood the bare bones necessary to get by. Maybe he should have spent more of his college years on financial courses. At the time, he’d thought them strictly the territory of knock- kneed nerds. He’d known he’d be going into his father’s company and never thought accounting and computers necessary for hard hats and hammers. The stupidity of youth.
“Yeah, well, check it out however you can. As far as I’m concerned, Emile is capable of ordering Raul murdered for just looking at Tammy. He probably has his sights on raising grandkids with aristocratic titles he can leave his money to. The man’s a snob of the worst sort.” He scraped his pot and carried it to the sink.
“That wouldn’t explain the problems at the land site.” Penelope hit a button, sat back, and watched the screen. “The server here is slow. Searching could take a while.”
After running water in the pot, Charlie turned and leaned against the cabinet to watch her. Miss Penny wasn’t wasting much time looking at him. She stared at the computer screen. “You sure you’re up for this? It’s too late to get off the island tonight, but I could put you on a plane tomorrow night.” He had to ask. He wasn’t entirely certain he would live up to his word if she decided to leave, but he really needed to know she was staying voluntarily.
She tilted her head and looked at him sideways, her long hair spilling over one shoulder. “I’m not an environmentalist. I don’t have time for causes. But I still have a conscience. If that old man died for helping us, I want the culprits caught. And if I can prevent this place from being turned into another hotel parking lot, I’m willing to expend a little effort. My main problem is my job. I can’t afford to lose it.”
She still didn’t fully comprehend the danger, Charlie realized. This was all like a TV movie to her. Two men die, a car crashes over a mountainside, and none of it related to her. He’d like to keep it that way. “I told you, I have connections in Miami. If you work for real assholes, I’ll get you a better place.”
“Yeah, right. I asked you before, how well does the Mafia pay?” She slammed the computer shut and began gathering up the phone cord. “Let’s just end this quickly and let me see if I can wiggle out of the problem. Maybe I came down with a bad case of dysentery while cruising the outback.”
“Better find some comfortable clothes. Without a jeep, we’ll have to hike out.”
Groaning, she stretched and arched her aching back and glared at him. Charlie ignored the look. He’d much rather watch the press of her breasts against the red fabric. A new hunger rumbled through him, but this one he’d have to deny.
“I didn’t bring hiking shoes,” she reminded him, abruptly righting herself and turning away to examine the contents of the sacks he’d brought.
The way she avoided his eyes, he’d wager she felt the electricity too. They’d been together every minute for almost two days now. And his practically attacking her this afternoon hadn’t helped. If she were his usual type, he’d just take her up to bed and they could work off some of the tension. Unfortunately, a woman like Penelope would probably punch him in the face first. He wasn’t up to that right now.
“I’m gonna shower while you dress. Be ready in ten minutes.” A cold shower ought to do the trick. It would wake him up, if nothing else.
***
Following behind Charlie, Penelope slung the strap of her padded laptop case over her shoulder and clutched her sack of clothing as they slipped past the edge of town and along the road into the interior. Dogs howled wherever they passed. A few curtains opened and dropped in darkened windows. One or two night owls staggered out of their alleys to watch them, but no one spoke. She could almost sense the innocence of this town, the lack of crime and greed that corrupted the cities back home. Which made the crimes she’d seen all the more sinister. They didn’t bode well for the future.
“I trust you have some definite goal in mind,” she whispered in exasperation as Charlie turned off the paved road onto what appeared to be little more than a goat path.
“Jacques has friends. One of them is in the States right now. We’ll borrow her place for a while.”
“Does it have a telephone?” she demanded. From the looks of the rustling trees on either side of the path and the thickness of the undergrowth, she wouldn’t bet on it.
“We can hope. The place is littered with telephone lines. I can always rig something up.”
Penelope watched Charlie’s narrow hips and heavy backpack precede her up the rocky path as if he didn’t have a tired bone in his body. She hadn’t exercised this much since her cheerleader days in college. She wanted to curl into a ball and fall asleep right here. Instead, she focused on his words. “You can rig up a telephone?”
“No big deal. I can steal electricity too, if we need it. You’ve got your talents, I’ve got mine.”
“Oh, great, you can steal electricity and telephones. Those are talents to be commended,” she answered dryly. She watched her step carefully, fearful she would stumble and fall and never rise again.
“Invading other people’s networks is a commendable talent?”
He had her there. “It is where I come from,” she muttered.
“Ditto here.” He shooed a curious goat from their path. “Sometimes things go wrong on a job site and emergency action is required. I make amends later. That’s more than some companies can say.”
That’s more than she could say. How did one make amends for invading privacy? It wasn’t a talent she was proud of, but she’d learned it back in college and occasionally found it useful. She’d caught the partners unaware more than once. It was the only way she’d ever conquer their all-male ranks.
She didn’t know how far they’d walked. A million miles at least, she surmised. All uphill. Her shoes rubbed, her legs ached, and she couldn’t keep her eyes open. She was stumbling by the time Charlie halted ahead of her.
“Wake up, we’re almost there,” he whispered, catching her by the shoulder and holding her upright.
He possessed all the strength she’d never had. She wanted to lean into him and sleep right here. She’d never known leaning on someone could feel so good. She burrowed her nose against his shoulder as she slumped unconsciously into his embrace. “Almost, as in I can fall forward and hit the bed?” she mumbled into his shirt.
She heard the grin in his voice. “Something like that.”
Without further warning, Charlie swept her up in his arms and carried her down an overgrown path with leaves smacking them in the face every step of the way.
“Prince Charming,” she yawned as she cuddled her bundles in her arms. It didn’t seem the least bit strange to be riding along in Charlie’s arms. She really must be out of it.
“Wicked stepsister,” he retaliated, dropping her feet to the ground in front of a shack built into the hillside with the use of stilts.
Too tired to examine their surroundings more closely, Penelope followed him up the rickety stairs. A rooster crowed a warning from beneath the house.
Not bothering to search for the lights as he shoved open the unlocked door, Charlie steered her inside and toward the back room. “This way, Sleeping Beauty. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
With that reassuring thought, he pushed her onto a mosquito- netted bed and departed.
Unprotestingly, Penelope merely curled up on the sagging mattress beneath the heavy netting, closed her eyes, and, swearing to get even in the morning, slept.
Somewhere around dawn, Penelope woke and remembered the name of the angry man she’d seen leaving Emile’s estate. Jacobsen. His name was Jacobsen, and he was a big- time contractor. She’d have to remember to tell Charlie.
FIFTEEN
&n
bsp; “Go there and die,” Penelope muttered into her pillow as the hand resting on her breast took on a life of its own.
Her head wasn’t ready to awaken, but the rest of her was already aroused and responding to the large male body wrapped around hers. She’d hoped he would just politely roll away on his own. Polite wasn’t in Charlie’s vocabulary.
The hand lingered, playing a tempting tune along sensitive nerve endings. She had too much self-respect to do this. She had nothing whatsoever in common with Mr. Charlie Smith except this overcharged sexual energy that had come out of nowhere. She didn’t want to know what sex with Charlie Smith was like. She wanted to solve his problem—which had somehow become her problem too—and get out of here.
She refused to listen to the awakening voice whispering inside her head that said she’d never know what sex with Charlie was like until she tried it.
Scrambling out from beneath the covers, and batting back the mosquito netting, she escaped the trap of bed and man and her own repressed longings.
Charlie watched her go with a lot more than regret. He wasn’t a kid who needed instant gratification. He could deal with a morning erection without dying of it. But he wanted a lot more from Penelope than physical gratification. What he really wanted was to take the comfort she offered and forget the horrors of the real world for just a few minutes. Maybe then he could face the day with the strength he needed.
He’d never wanted a woman for that reason before.
Shaking his head at the mess his mind had become, Charlie crawled out of the sagging bed and looked around as he’d been too tired to do last night.
Jacques hadn’t led him astray. The place was sparsely furnished but well tended. The bed and a wicker chest were the only furniture in the room, but they were well made, clean, and more respectable than some places he’d occupied in his misspent youth. Miss Penny should have appreciated the clean sheets, if she’d been awake enough to notice.
Hearing her in the shower, he stumbled into the main room. An apartment-size electric stove, a sink above a single cabinet, and a table apparently made of tree trunks with polished boards for a top indicated the kitchen area. A hammock hanging from the timbered ceiling and the island version of a futon marked the living quarters. After a careful inspection, he discovered the telephone hiding beneath a towering stack of cotton fabric. Whoever owned the place sewed for a living.
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