Theresa Weir - Iguana Bay

by Iguana Bay [SIM-339] (lit)

  The thought struck her like a blow.

  Standing there, looking at him, she realized she was falling for Dylan Davis-a criminal, a felon, a dreamer.

  She didn't say anything, just kept staring at him, feeling buffeted by the confused emotions running through her.

  "Hey..." He reached out and touched her chin, turning her face up to his. "You okay? I knew we shouldn't have stayed out that long. You're not used to the sun." He ran a finger down her arm, checking for sunburn. "Go take a cool shower."

  Suddenly she wanted to tell him the truth. Tell him who she was. The words formed in her head, but then, for some reason, she stopped. With a prickle that was part fear, part excitement, she realized that she didn't want to tell him because she was afraid he might take her back.

  And she didn’t want to leave. Not yet. The trial was two days away. There was plenty of time. Tomorrow. She would explain it all tomorrow.

  Dear Reader,

  This month we're bringing you an absolutely stellar lineup of books. In fact, I hardly know where to begin. First up is Runaway, by Emilie Richards. She delivers exactly the kind of knockout emotional punch she's come to be known for. This is the first of two novels about sisters separated by deception and distance, and it's a book with a very different sort of subject: teen runaways, the dangers they face and the lengths they sometimes have to go in order to survive. Next month's The Way Back Home completes the circle. I truly believe these two books will live in your memory for a long, long time.

  Theresa Weir has written for Silhouette Romance until now, and has also tried her hand at mainstream romance adventure. In Iguana Bay she makes her debut appearance in Silhouette Intimate Moments, and what a stunner this book is! The hero is anything but ordinary, as you'll discover the minute you meet him, and his meeting with the heroine is no less noteworthy. And lest you think that's all we have in store, the month is rounded out by two veterans of the bestseller lists and the award rosters: Heather Graham Pozzessere and Marilyn Pappano.

  Later in the year, the excitement will continue with new books from favorites such as Linda Howard, Kathleen Korbel and Linda Shaw, to name only a few. The moments are never dull at Silhouette Intimate Moments, so join us for all of them.

  Yours,

  Leslie J. Wainger

  Senior Editor and Editorial Coordinator

  Books by Theresa Weir

  Silhouette Romance

  The Forever Man #576

  Loving Jenny #650

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  Iguana Bay #337

  THERESA WEIR

  lives on an apple, cattle and sheep farm in Illinois, not far from the Mississippi River. She was a 1988 Romance Writers of America Golden Medallion fi­nalist for her first book, The Forever Man, a Silhouette Romance. She is also the winner of the 1988 Romantic Times New Romantic Adventure Writer Award for her non-series contemporary, Amazon Lily.

  This book is dedicated to four very special people :

  Connie Rinehold of Liaisons;

  Ann Milenovich of The Book Rack, Denver, Colorado;

  Amy Mitchell, writer;

  A. E. Ferguson of Alberta’s Romande Reader Service.

  Thank you.

  Chapter 1

  Awareness crept in like the slowly rising tide, seeping into the dark corners of Dylan Davis's mind. Sounds followed: waves breaking over the sand; and beyond, so constant that his subconscious tuned it out, the roar of the ocean. From above came the cries of wheeling gulls. Nearby, at ground level, he could hear the soft conver­sation of pigeons. Smells saturated his awakening senses, familiar smells of salt water and mildewed palm trees, of seaweed and sun-warmed driftwood.

  Dylan gradually became conscious of small, nagging discomforts: the sensation of sand under his itchy, unshaven jaw, a tropical sun baking his shoulders and the backs of his legs, and the even more unpleasant sensa­tion of a throbbing head –a just penance for last night's overindulgences.

  Trade winds, cooled from traveling miles across the Florida Straits, licked the surface of his overheated skin. The breeze teased and lifted a tuft of straight brown hair, hair so deep in color that people often called it black.

  Decked out as he was in nothing but a pair of ragged cutoffs, Dylan felt like some character out of a stranded­-on-a-desert-island comic. He opened his eyes a crack and lifted his head enough to get his bearings. What he saw was reassuringly familiar. About thirty feet away, under the shade of several banana palms, were his pigeons, milling back and forth in their wire cages.

  Dylan's gaze panned to the right as he made a quick inventory of the hammock, the two-story beach house and-damn-his beached boat. High tide wouldn't touch it. He squeezed his eyes shut and let his forehead drop to rest on his arms.

  Last night seemed like a bad dream. It had started out innocently enough. One beer. Of course, one beer just naturally called for another. Three beers made a person reflective, four, sentimental. The fifth tasted like water, so it only followed he had to go for something with more of a kick.

  Dylan had a vague recollection of taking his Cruise­-craft out into the Gulf of Mexico, cutting the engine, then lying back to do a little stargazing. There's no better place to watch stars than the middle of the ocean. He was just damn lucky the Gulf Stream hadn't carried him halfway to Corpus Christi.

  As it was, he could barely remember cruising back to his island, but that didn't surprise him. There had been a time-years ago, when he'd been a naive kid, foolishly and embarrassingly eager to embrace life-when he had learned to navigate by the stars. It had certainly paid off, because now, night or day, drunk or sober, he could always find his way home to Iguana Bay.

  He groaned and rolled to his back, one hand falling across the hard, bunched muscles of his stomach, the beach sand burning hot against his flesh, and red-orange sun rays penetrating the skin of his eyelids.

  Red sky at morning, Dylan take warning.

  That bit of lunatic thought was quickly followed by another: if Aunt Pearl could only see me now, wouldn't she be proud.

  The sun pouring down on his upturned face gave him a stable fix on where he lay in relation to the ground be­neath him and the sky above. He was almost asleep again when a shadow fell across him. Reluctantly and with some irritation, he opened one eye, then the other.

  He found himself staring directly into an eclipse, caused by what appeared to be Skeeter Bradley's head. At first Dylan thought he must be hallucinating. It wasn't like Skeeter to just show up on Iguana Bay. Skeeter's feelings toward large bodies of water were similar to a cat's.

  Dylan's pupils were having a hard time responding to the contrast of glare and shadow. He blinked, and the picture before him sharpened. "Skeet," he croaked, his throat feeling stiff and raw and salt-rubbed, his voice sounding like a stranger's.

  His eyes continued to adjust, and now he could make out his friend's features clearly enough to see that Skeeter was frowning, wavy red-blond hair falling over hazel eyes, eyes that managed to look concerned, worried and exasperated all at the same time.

  "That's a fairly good imitation of Aunt Pearl," Dyl­an rasped out. Now he could see that Skeeter was wear­ing an orange regulation life jacket, securely zipped and buckled from waist to chin. No chances taken here.

  "Must have been some party." Skeeter's voice had al­ways seemed too deep for his all-American face, a face that still carried a hint of adolescence even though he was pushing thirty-five and had three kids. "I see you over­shot the dock again."

  "Purely intentional. Barnacles need scraping."

  "Yeah. Right. And my great-grandmother rides a Harley." Hands on hips, Skeeter looked in the direction of the sleek boat. "Well, between the two of us, maybe
we can shove it back into the water."

  Dylan still couldn't get over the fact that Skeeter had come all the way out here. He must have hugged the coastline as far as possible. "What's a landlubber like you doing here? Did Anne make you come out to check on me?"

  Dylan was relieved to note that his vocal chords were beginning to limber up. "If so, then you can tell your good wife I'm busy cleansing my mind and spirit with predawn meditations, and my body with clear liquids."

  "Which clear liquid? Tequila? Vodka? Gin?"

  Dylan grinned, then winced at the pain the movement caused. "All of the above."

  There had been a time when Skeeter would have laughed. Now his eyes only registered concern.

  "Yesterday was the day you were supposed to release my homing pigeons. Jason and I waited all afternoon."

  Oh, hell.

  Dylan sat up, letting his arms dangle over his bent knees. He felt like a jerk. How could he have disap­pointed a nice kid like Jason? "I'm sorry, man."

  "We thought maybe something happened. It's not like you-you've never forgotten to release the pigeons."

  "Let's make it next Saturday."

  Skeeter shook his head. "Jason has a soccer game in Palm Beach."

  "Okay. A week from Saturday."

  An uncomfortable feeling crept over Dylan, a feeling suspiciously like shame, reminding him of the way he'd felt as a kid the few times when his dad had caught him ditching school. Now he raked long, suntanned fingers through his tangled mane of salt water cured, wind­-whipped hair, vaguely disconcerted to find that his hand trembled slightly.

  Skeeter was his friend; they'd been through a lot of tight spots together-some life and death. Partners. Brothers in arms. And in the wake of Dylan's newly rec­ognized shame, it occurred to him that he didn't like Skeeter finding him this way. There was nothing admi­rable about a hung over thirty-three-year-old.

  "You haven't been by the house for weeks," Skeeter said. "The kids have been bugging me about you, ask­ing if you're tired of being a beach bum yet."

  Dylan sighed. So that was it. Now he knew what Skeeter was really driving at, why he'd come.

  "Don't start that again. I'm not coming back to the force, so just forget it." He laughed-a harsh, grating sound, his disillusionment with the Federal Justice Sys­tem helping to instill the bitterness. "Bounty hunting suits me just fine."

  "Yeah, I can see that. Must be nice to pick your own hours. Get loaded whenever you feel like it. And if you run out of cash, you just go haul in another bail-jumping pimp."

  Skeeter's sarcasm wasn't lost on Dylan. He just chose to ignore it. "Yeah, an ideal life," he said. "T-shirt detective."

  Skeeter shot him an odd glance, then started unbuck­ling his vest, seeming to give it more attention than it actually merited.

  It dawned on Dylan that Skeeter was acting a little strange, a little uncomfortable. They had been friends for twenty-five years, and Dylan was long familiar with Skeeter's body language. The message he was sending now was the very one he used to send in grade school, whenever he had to get up in front of the whole class and give a report.

  Skeeter cleared his throat. "Anne swears you have some kind of death wish." Now he looked Dylan in the eye. "I told her that was crazy."

  He waited.

  Dylan knew he was waiting for him to argue or laugh it off, but suddenly he didn't feel like doing either one.

  "Maybe it isn't so crazy, eh?" Skeeter asked. "Have you taken a good look at yourself lately?"

  Dylan tried to make his voice light. "Come on, Skeet. I've always been a slob."

  "There are slobs and then there's what I'm looking at. Your hair is almost to your shoulders. The circles under your bloodshot eyes would scare my kids. When are you gonna get your act together?"

  The throbbing in Dylan's head was getting worse.

  He needed aspirin. He needed a drink. He needed Skeeter to shut up. This lecturing business wasn't like his friend. Skeeter didn't usually sweat the little things. Anyway, wasn't it some kind of unspoken code that guys didn't have heart-to-hearts with one another the way women did?

  Dylan's hangover was making him more irritable, less patient, than usual. "What the hell's gotten into you, Bradley?" Dylan rubbed his temples, trying to smooth away the pain. "If you came to lecture me, I'm not in­terested. You may as well hop in your rental boat and puttputt back to the mainland."

  Dylan knew he wasn't being fair, knew Skeeter was only here because he was concerned. But Dylan hadn't asked for and didn't want that kind of attention.

  There had been a time in his life when Dylan had thought that right would win out, that good conquered evil.

  But Dylan didn't think that way anymore. He knew better.

  Skeeter bent down and picked up a shell, examined it, then stuck it into his pocket. Dylan figured he planned to give it to his daughter, Mandy, when he got home. "You know," Skeeter said, eyes on the ocean, "I used to think your problem was that you cared too much. But now I'm beginning to wonder if you care at all."

  Not true, Dylan wanted to protest.

  There were things he cared about. He cared about Skeeter and Anne and their kids. He cared about his dad and his sisters. Hadn't it just about killed him when he had to finally break down and put his dad in a nursing home?

  Some of Dylan's remorse must have shown on his face, because Skeeter's next words came quietly. "It's been six months, Dylan."

  Dylan winced, his thoughts unwillingly returning to the very catalyst that had triggered his most recent bout of self-destruction. "Six months ago yesterday, to be pre­cise."

  Like the grooves of a 45 played too many times, the memory of that night was so deeply embedded in Dyl­an's brain that it could never fade, never be forgotten.

  His girlfriend, Melissa, was dead because of him. Dead, from a bullet meant for him.

  "Life goes on, buddy," Skeeter said.

  "Life goes on?" A familiar ache tightened Dylan's throat, then moved to settle in his chest. Not for every­one.

  He stared out at the ocean, focusing on the incoming waves, on the hypnotic way the water crawled across the sand. Over and over.

  But he felt no peace.

  Dylan got to his feet. "I'm gonna do a couple laps," he announced, walking across the cool, water-packed sand toward the bay. He paused and looked over one shoulder. "Coming?"

  "Go to hell, Davis," Skeeter said, his voice mild.

  Skeeter couldn't swim. Dylan laughed and walked away, leaving his friend standing on the beach.

  The half mile long island was kidney shaped, creating a large bay within its crook. Back and forth within these calmer waters Dylan swam, long tortuous strokes, trying to drive the pounding headache from his brain, work the poison from his bloodstream.

  Trying to forget.

  Fifteen minutes later, salt water stinging his eyes and running in rivulets down the hard contours of his body, he sloshed his way back to the beach. The swim hadn't done a thing for his head. If possible, he felt worse. But if he was lucky, the swim would have given Skeeter time to get over the mother-hen phase he was going through. At least, Dylan hoped it was a phase.

  With both hands, Dylan reached up and raked his hair back from his forehead, vaguely surprised to find that Skeeter had been right about its length. Wet, his hair ac­tually did touch his shoulders. He'd always had a tendency toward the darker side of life, so he could imagine the sight he presented now.

  Skeeter was sitting on the porch in a cane chair, life jacket removed, sneakered feet on the railing, Dylan's cat, Scag, on his lap. And damned if Skeeter wasn't wearing one of Dylan's shirts. Dylan looked but didn't comment. For years they had both helped themselves to each other's belongings, and in all that time, neither had ever commented on their petty thefts.

  Water trickling from the frayed edges of his cutoffs, Dylan crossed the hot sand and joined Skeeter on the porch. He sank into a rattan chair and propped his bare feet on the railing, crossing them at the ankles.

  "
What's in the box?" That should be a safe subject, keep Skeet off the salvation bandwagon.

  Skeeter let his feet drop to the floor and leaned for­ward. "Care package from Anne." He shifted the contents around. "Powdered milk... granola... peanut butter... macaroons." He held up a rolled bunch of newspapers. "And here's some reading material." He tossed the bundle at Dylan, who caught it with both hands.

  "Thanks."

  "Just in case you're curious about what's been going on in the rest of the world." Skeeter dumped the cat from his lap and tugged a package of cheese curls from the box. He opened the package, gave a cheese curl to Scag, then settled back in his chair. As he munched, he kept an eye on Dylan.

  "Gotta admit," Dylan said with an exaggerated sigh, "it's been tough getting through each day without my horoscope."

  His glasses were inside, but it didn't matter. This was all for show, anyway. He snapped open the top paper and looked down. Suddenly all of his senses tunneled toward the headlines: Millionaire Murder Suspect Adrian Se­bastian Released On Bail.

  Sebastian.

  Dylan's blood froze; his heart stopped. Sebastian was the man responsible for Melissa's death. The man who had walked away from first-degree murder.

  Dylan shifted his gaze to the photo directly under the headlines, studying it intently. It was of Sebastian and his current ... lady. He read the caption. Her name was Elise Ramsey, and she was to be the star defense witness in Sebastian's upcoming murder trial. Not Melissa's murder. No, this time Sebastian was going up for the murder of Harry Zevon. Dylan was familiar with Harry-a sleazy lowlife who'd made a living producing porno flicks. As far as Dylan was concerned, his death was no great loss.

  Dylan scanned the story. It seemed this Elise Ramsey was Sebastian's alibi. She claimed to have been with him the night of the murder, while another person claimed to have seen Sebastian leaving the scene of the crime.