Even though women's personal products were advertised on TV all the time, Elise was embarrassed to have this tough, dangerous-looking man examining her most intimate, personal... things.
Without a blink, he shut the container and tossed it on the dash with the rest of the mess.
He found her billfold and began thumbing through it. "Credit card, blood donor card, Red Cross lifesaving card." He pulled out her driver's license. "Wisconsin? You're from Wisconsin? Quite a ways from home. If you came here looking for action, I'd say you found it."
He examined the license thoroughly. "Five-seven ... Hundred and fifteen pounds ... Age, twenty-four." He snapped the billfold shut and continued his rummaging.
Next came a brown plastic bottle. He opened it and shook some pills into his palm, inspecting them closely. "Pretty heavy drugs."
"They're prescription."
"That doesn't necessarily mean you got them legally."
Great. Now he thought she was a drug addict. Well, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of explaining that the pills were for cramps. He'd already delved into enough of her personal life. And it was none of his business.
"Who'd you get them from? Dr. Sebastian?"
"Very funny."
He palmed the tablets back into the bottle, replaced the lid, tossed the container on the dash and continued foraging. The next thing he found were her birth control pills. They'd been prescribed to lessen her cramps, too.
By now Elise wished she'd never mentioned her purse. By now she'd practically forgotten why she'd wanted it in the first place.
As he continued to dig, wave after wave of fatigue washed over her. It was hard to believe that the energy she'd accumulated over her seemingly endless days of counting ceiling tiles was now totally depleted. But it was. She was wiped out.
He tossed a pack of gum at her. She stared at it. It was a double pack, completely full of empty wrappers.
It figured.
She let out a sigh and was about to close her tired burning eyes when a rustling sound drew her attention. She looked over in time to see Dylan pull out a small bundle of foil packets bearing the interlocking Greek symbols for man and woman.
Oh, no. She'd completely forgotten about the gag gift from Tracy.
Looking ludicrously like a proud father showing off prized pictures of his children, Dylan lifted his hand high. Holding the bundle between his thumb and index finger, he let the perforated packets unfold to reach his lap. "You're really prepared. I admire that in a woman."
Heat rose in Elise's cheeks. "Those aren't mine."
"They were in your purse."
"What I mean is, I didn't buy them."
"Another gift from Daddy Sebastian?"
"No!" She tried to grab them, but he pulled his hand back, just out of reach.
"A regular traveling pharmacy, aren't you?"
She thought about the bon voyage party some of her fellow teachers had thrown. Tracy, ever the prankster, had even christened Cindy's Toyota with a bottle of cheap champagne, adding another dent to its fender.
Dylan carefully fanfolded the packets together again. Elise wished he would turn off the dome light, wished she'd never mentioned her purse.
That was when she realized what she was doing. She was acting as if she were the guilty one here. What had gotten into her? What did it matter what he thought? And even if she did try to explain, even if she did tell him the packets had been a gag gift given to her because she was the most unlikely person to carry such things, Dylan wouldn't believe her.
It was a good thing Tracy wasn't here right now. If she was, Elise would have been sorely tempted to wrap her fingers around the woman's throat. She'd felt like strangling her the day she'd presented her with the gift in front of male and female teachers alike. Tracy had howled. Tracy was always the first to laugh at her own jokes, oftentimes the only one to laugh at them. Elise had turned bright red and jammed the packets into her purse, her only thought being to get them out of sight as quickly as possible. And once something was condemned to her purse, it might never be seen again.
Later Tracy had teased her, calling her a prude, but then, Tracy was one of those females who didn't feel complete unless she had a man by her side, and in her bed, at all times. She'd already been through two husbands and countless boyfriends.
On the other hand, Elise didn't have much experience where men were concerned. The ones she'd liked, she hadn't liked in that way. And it never failed to irritate her that most of the guys she'd dated would pay for a meal or a movie, or both, then expect payment in return. Payment she didn't give, so she wasn't asked out again.
Tracy had told her that was the way it was. Guys dropped you if you didn't "put out." Elise had decided she'd rather be single than get mixed up with someone whose reason for living dwelt somewhere beneath his belt.
Life would probably be easier, less complicated, without men. At least without boyfriends.
"Don't sweat it," Dylan said, sticking the packets into her purse. "I'm putting them back where I found them." He gave the bag a pat. "Never know when they might come in handy."
What did he mean by that? Fear jumped in her again, and her heart knocked against her rib cage. "You said you wouldn't hurt me."
He held the, open purse next to the dash, raked her belongings back inside, then dropped it behind his seat. With one arm draped over the steering wheel, he faced her, his strange gold-brown eyes reflecting the light. "Listen, honey, let's get this straight. I don't know what you're used to with Sebastian-he probably gets off on being rough, slapping women around, but I don't. And I'm sure as hell no rapist."
What would Tracy have to say about that? Elise wondered. Dylan thought she was Sebastian's sex toy. The idea was so ridiculous, so far from the truth, that she was tempted to laugh. But her flash of humor quickly died when she saw how rigidly stern Dylan's features had become.
A chameleon.
Suddenly she could feel the darkness in him, the danger, and a strange, underlying... pull. A coaxing, drawing ... pull.
Looking at him, it came to her with sudden shock that the man beside her oozed sexuality. His wet hair was lying against his neck, his damp black T-shirt stretched tight, molded to his broad chest, his biceps and triceps, the dome light casting shadows beneath his amber eyes, along his unshaven jaw. He was scary in a breathless, intimidating, hypnotic way. She thought about how hard his body had felt lying on top of hers, thought about his hands on her, thought about his wild eyes. A strange, heavy heat ran through her.
That was when Elise became aware of a new, totally different kind of fear. Fear of attraction. Of being drawn against her will to someone totally unsuitable, someone unsavory. A felon.
"And another thing." He latched the handcuff around her wrist, then reached up and switched off the dome light. "I'd never touch a woman Sebastian had touched."
Indignation rose in her, but she fought it, arguing with herself. She shouldn't be irritated; she should count herself lucky. As long as Dylan thought she was Sebastian's girlfriend, she was safe from his advances.
"Then I don't have anything to worry about, do I?" she asked coolly, mentally patting herself on the back for the steadiness of her voice, for having the nerve to claim Adrian Sebastian as her lover.
"Not a damn thing."
He turned the key in the ignition, and the engine rumbled to life. "That's what I've been trying to tell you."
After executing a tight U-turn, he drove down the levee toward the highway, toward the ocean.
The night wind lashed at Dylan's hair, and ocean spray stung his face. Occasionally the powerboat's hull broke contact with the water and rose, then slapped back down with a shuddering crash.
The storm had blown away; the stars were out. The boat's mounted spotlight cut a southern path through the darkness beyond the boat's bow, the light stretching out, reflecting off the water's choppy surface like some holy walkway to the Great Beyond.
Ther
e was nothing Dylan liked better than cruising the ocean at night. Well, almost nothing. But tonight it failed to work its magic, failed to soothe him.
Behind him, Elise Ramsey sat on the bench seat, handcuffed to the side rail. He felt bad about the cuffs, but he wasn't taking any chances. Not after the trick she'd pulled back there on the levee. This time she just might get the notion to go for a little moonlight swim, to dive off the side and head for the mainland-and get herself drowned in the process.
He let out a heavy sigh and raked his fingers through his wind-tangled hair. This wasn't going the way he'd imagined. He was coming off as the bad guy, and he didn't like it. Not one bit. What was messing everything up was Elise Ramsey. She wasn't the tough, thick-skinned showgirl he'd expected. He had to give Sebastian credit. The man had better taste than Dylan would have thought.
How the hell had someone like her gotten mixed up with a kinko scum-bag like Sebastian? It didn't add up. And Dylan couldn't quite picture the two of them together. In fact, his mind shunned the thought, made hint feel slightly ill.
For a while back there he'd even begun to think that he must have picked up the wrong woman.
But he hadn't. She'd admitted to being Sebastian's alibi, admitted to being Sebastian's lover.
Dylan tried to shake off the dark thoughts that were tugging at his brain. It wasn't his concern, wasn't his business who Elise Ramsey chose to sleep with. He had to remind himself that people were almost never what they appeared to be. You thought you saw them clearly, thought you had them all figured out, but you didn't. From far away things might look together, cohesive, solid. But get up close and all the cracks showed.
Dylan shook his head, letting the sea wind slap against his face. What he needed was about four hours of sleep. There was a buzzing in his head; his eyes felt as if they'd been sandblasted, and-every joint in his body ached. Worse than that, he'd gone past the-point of tired and had entered that realm of weird thoughts. He always got philosophical when he'd gone over, forty-eight hours without closing his eyes. Only problem was that all the earth-shattering revelations that came to him when his mind was wired with fatigue made absolutely no sense after a night's sleep.
He glanced over his shoulder. The running lights cast a glow, enough for him to see that Elise's eyes were still open. She was wearing his gray hooded sweatshirt and one of the orange life vests he kept on hand for Skeeter and his wife and kids. Dylan had made Elise put it on before they left the mainland. At first she'd refused. But when he'd threatened to put it on for her, she'd quickly relented, slipping it on herself.
Her head began to loll. She caught herself, jerking upright, bleary eyes forced wide open.
She was fighting sleep like a kid at Christmas. No way was she going to chance falling asleep. Not with big bag Dylan around.
She was scared, and who could blame her? But what could he do about it? Tell her, Hey, I'm a good guy who just happens to look and act like a bad guy? Sure. Or tell her he was a cop, or at least that he used to be a cop. Then she'd ask why he wasn't a cop anymore, and he'd have to tell her that he'd gone nuts, that was why.
Hardly the stuff reassurance was made of.
Her eyes closed, then opened unnaturally wide.
"Go to sleep. We won't be there for another hour."
She shook her head and straightened her spine even more.
He shrugged. "Suit yourself."
He turned his attention back to the ocean and the sky, making certain that the forestay on the bow lined up with the right star.
And still guilt edged its way into the perimeter of his thoughts. If it wasn't for the girl, he wouldn't give a rip. But he didn't like getting rough with women. Especially one as vulnerable looking as Elise Ramsey. And again he found himself wondering how somebody like her had ever gotten mixed up with Adrian Sebastian.
An hour later he cut the motor and steered the small boat toward the dock. Behind him, Elise Ramsey had lost the battle she'd been waging with herself and was now asleep, lying curled on the bench seat. At least, she appeared to be asleep. But he wasn't taking any chances. She might be playing possum, and he sure as hell didn't want to get kicked again.
He tied off the boat. Then, keeping as much distance between him and Elise as possible, he unlocked the handcuffs from her wrist and the railing, pocketing both keys and cuffs. Then he gave her shoulder a shake. "Wake up."
She blinked, then sat up slowly.
"We're-"
He stopped. He'd almost said, We're home, but that might seem a little ominous to her, like some hillbilly who'd come down from the hills just long enough to find himself a woman.
"We're here," he said instead, extending a hand to her, ready to help her off the boat.
She ignored his hand. So quickly that he wasn't sure it had even happened, he thought he noticed her eyes flit to the control console of the boat. He turned.
The keys.
They were still in the ignition, the gentle rocking of the boat making them blink in the moonlight. Dylan pulled them out and stuffed them deep into the front pocket of his rain-damp Levi's.
He turned back to Elise. She had pushed herself to her feet and was now shrugging out of the life jacket. Then, avoiding both his outstretched hand and eye contact, she crossed the shifting floor like a seasoned sailor and jumped from the boat to the dock. She stood there waiting, arms crossed tightly at her waist, hugging the sweatshirt to her.
"Where is here?"
Sleep was still evident in her voice, making it slightly husky. She looked like an orphan standing there, the sleeves of his sweatshirt hanging over her hands, her skirt, the one he'd admired in Miami, dirty and rumpled, her long shapely legs and feet all but bare except for the torn stockings.
"Iguana Bay," he said.
Her eyes scanned the beach and the two-story beach house. This time there was no mistaking the furtive, hopeful glance she cast over one shoulder. She was considering making another run for it.
"You already know I can run faster than you," he told her, jumping from the boat to the dock. "And it won't do you much good to scream because we're all alone here."
"It's just you." He smiled. "And me."
Chapter 5
A vague, uncomfortable feeling hovered at the edges of Elise’s dream.
Wake up.
The nagging words had to do with something she should be doing, but she couldn’t remember what that was. But that didn’t bother her. It would come to her later. Besides, she didn’t want to wake up. She was tired and felt safe within the confines of her dream. She wasn’t ready for it to end.
So she let herself drift deeper into the languid embrace of sleep, the comforting warmth of a dream that was more memory than anything conjured by unconsciousness…
It was the first day of summer vacation.
To an eleven-year-old, three months seemed like forever, and the next school year dwelled somewhere in the remote future, nothing but a mild, unreal threat. The present –that was real. Now.
On that first day of freedom a hint of pink crept across the dark, predawn sky. Inside the screened-in porch of the river cabin, the child Elise could smell the damp earth, smell the green of leaves that were covered with a fine mist that came with the night. From far off a dog barked, and the sound echoed the way sounds have a way of echoing at night –as if there weren’t enough people outside to absorb them.
Summer and all its wonders were out there, just waiting for her. Days of endless blue skies, of swimming, of walks in cool woods, of Saturday matinees at the Rivoli. And the nights… the nights would be full of cricket songs and lightning bugs and, in July, fireworks.
“Leesie! Hurry up!” Her grandmother’s voice carried from across the levee. “The fish are waiting!”
Elise, her small bare feet soft and tender from a long winter of shoes, flew down the wooden plankway to the dock, where her grandmother waited in the jonboat.
At the end of the dock Elise stopped and took a deep breath, her
fingers curled tightly around the cork handle of her fishing pole. Yes, the air held the promise of the most wonderful day, the most wonderful summer.
Time shifted… drifted…
They were anchored in one of her grandmother’s favorite fishing spots, a small cove where the water was shallow and the bullheads were fat and lazy. Elise lay on her back, the locked fingers of both hands cradling her head, staring up at the clouds and listening to her grandmother’s low, soothing voice, lulled by the warmth of the sun on her face, the gentle lapping of water against the boat’s hull.
Time and the dream shifted again…
Years moved in and out, intertwining like special golden threads woven in a multicolored tapestry. Meshing thoughts… the meshing of time…
And in all her memories, all her dreams, Grandma Max was there.
“Men are selfish,” her grandmother told her. “They’re just after one thing. When it comes to men, you’ve got to look out for yourself. Think with your head, not with your heart. Look what happened to your mother. A girl’s got to be careful, keep both eyes open. You remember that Leesie.”
“I will, Grandma.”
Time shifted…
“Don’t go out too far. The current!” Grandma Max shouted from the porch.
A teenage Elise stood on the dock. She was on the brink of womanhood, brimming with independence, with the thoughtlessness of youth. She knew that her grandmother was afraid for her, and that knowledge made Elise feel irritated, impatient. Couldn’t Grandma Max see that she was no longer a child?
Even though Elise knew she was dreaming, it saddened her to see the way she as treating her grandmother. She loved Grandma Max. She didn’t deserve to be treated badly.
But in the dream Elise didn’t listen. “Grandma, I know how to swim. I’ve been swimming for years and years.”
“The Mississippi doesn’t care how good a swimmer you are. Remember what happened to your mother.”
Yes. She remembered. She remembered the lifeless body being pulled from the river. Long, flowing black hair… Whispers of suicide…
Theresa Weir - Iguana Bay Page 5