And she did want more business. Much different business from the guests she had.
There were a couple of rooms that remained empty. Over the past miserable months, she had insisted on renting a room, now and then, to someone from outside if she had a good reason: a former guest, a friend of a former guest, a neighbor’s relative. That allowed the pretense, at least, that everything was normal.
Normal? For her, turmoil had become normal.
She glanced outside as the door opened again. No one stood out there to stop her.
Still…her nerves tensed. Half unconsciously, she reached for the ostentatious diamond on her left hand—the damnable symbol of all that was wrong. She wasn’t considering this because the man reminded her of Cole, was she? He wasn’t Cole. He couldn’t help her. She had to help herself.
“You should know our rates first,” she waffled, glancing as a couple of teenagers moved past them. She quoted an amount that was higher than normal, but wasn’t too far out of line.
“Done!” he said with no hesitation, though she saw his eyes follow her fingers to her engagement ring. A hint of a scowl furrowed his broad forehead, and there was no hint of his earlier sensuality when he caught her glance this time.
Good. At least he wouldn’t get the wrong idea. She needed no further complications in her life. Her life was much too complicated as it was.
At his request, she gave him the address and directions.
“I’ll check out of my other place and be there in an hour.”
Before she could change her mind, John O’Rourke headed out the door. “Fine,” Alexa said with forced enthusiasm to his retreating back. “See you then.”
Oh, Lord, she thought as she wheeled her cart slowly out the door. What had she done?
Despite her resolve to be calm and forthright, her knees grew weak as she approached one of the two large SUVs that Vane had insisted they needed for the inn. It was parked in a crowded area in front of the gourmet food store, the last of a row of busy shops in Skytop Lake Village.
Vane sat sideways in the driver’s seat talking animatedly with his prize minion, Minos Flaherty, who was seated behind him.
Alexa took a deep breath. This wouldn’t be easy, but she had to say something now. It would be much too embarrassing to have an argument in front of John O’Rourke when he appeared to claim his room. And with so many people around here, Vane was unlikely to make a big scene.
Vane spotted her. He immediately stopped talking and slipped out the door. A smile lit his face as he approached.
Vane Walters was a man who would make any woman look twice. He was not quite six feet tall and worked out daily, and his attention to his physique showed in the proud way he held himself. He wore a blue button-down shirt tucked into blue jeans. His dirty blond hair was combed carefully to hide the fact that his hairline had begun to recede, and the deep lines that underscored his brown eyes when he grinned made it appear that he had a great sense of humor.
Perhaps he did—at the expense of other people. Alexa included.
“Hi, darling,” he said, and gave her a kiss full on the mouth. She forced herself to respond, even though she knew his attentiveness was for show. Once, his kisses had stirred her—some. She had cared for him, a lot. He had been so kind, so supportive…so deceitful.
She had wished fervently lately that she could simply end their partnership—and their engagement—like any normal woman would. But things were far from simple. And she had been warned.
“Hi,” she responded with forced cheerfulness, stepping ever so slightly back. “Would you mind helping me put the groceries in the car?”
“Minos!” Vane called.
The smaller but even more muscular man, whom Vane had hired only a few months earlier, was surprisingly graceful as he leapt from the car and began unloading the cart. Another shopper pulled into the neighboring parking space and got out of her car.
This was the moment for Alexa to speak. She took a deep breath. “Guess what?” she said brightly, ignoring the nervous unevenness of her voice. “We’ve a new guest arriving tonight.”
“What?” Vane stepped back and stared.
She could see the anger that lurked behind his eyes. But a woman was helping a child out of the car beside theirs, and Alexa saw Vane glance in their direction.
Quickly, Alexa gave an embellished version of what had happened in the store. She ached to flaunt her defiance, but that could be too dangerous. Instead, she acted defensive.
“He’s only planning to stay for a few days,” she lied. “I could hardly tell him to get lost right in front of Marian. I think she knows him.” Sure, that was a fib, but maybe it would fit the man into the group of outside guests whose presence Vane might accept. “It’ll be pleasant to have someone new stay with us for a little while.” She looked tellingly toward the mother and child as they walked toward the stores. “It’s an inn, for heaven’s sake,” she murmured under her breath. “Whatever is going on, surely it would be better for the place to continue to resemble a normal B & B.”
Vane was ten years older than Alexa’s thirty-one, but his features were youthful so he usually didn’t appear much older than she. Right now, though, his scowl made him look every bit his age.
She’d been wrong. He was going to make a scene, Alexa suddenly realized. Right here. Maybe he would even threaten her, as he did when they were alone.
She couldn’t deal with it. Not now. Not here.
Impulsively, she grabbed him and gave him as big a kiss as he had just given her. Stepping back, she forced herself to smile. “I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it because he worried her, and not because she otherwise regretted what she had done. “I won’t do it again without consulting you. But I think it’s a good thing, to make the inn look as busy as it used to.”
“We’ll see,” Vane said. “Now get in the car.”
Alexa turned and opened the vehicle’s door. This was one command—of too, too many—that she would obey.
WHAT THE HELL had he expected? Cole Rappaport watched through the windshield while that little scene played out, his hands fisted on the steering wheel of the luxury car he had borrowed for this assignment.
Alexa and Vane.
Oh, he had known the facts before he’d gotten here. They owned that inn together. They were engaged—the woman he had once loved so consumingly, so profoundly, that he’d considered giving up everything for her, and the man he had considered almost a brother.
But he had been out of their lives a long time. Had allowed them to think he had disintegrated in that damn explosion. For their own good, or so he had believed.
The sound he made into the stillness of the car was more a bark than a laugh.
He watched as Alexa stepped into the late-model SUV, the way her jeans stretched tight over her well-shaped behind. He was fifty times a fool for noticing, but she still looked good. Too good, though he had noticed small wrinkles of strain at the corners of her wide blue eyes. Maybe she had missed him.
Maybe she felt guilty.
Right. And maybe he was really John O’Rourke here on vacation.
When they had been together, her golden-brown hair with its reddish highlights had either been caught up in a tight bun at the back of her head, or, when they were alone, loose around her shoulders. Today, it had been drawn back into a plastic clip at the base of her long, graceful neck.
She was thinner than he recalled. She wore a navy work shirt over her jeans. Had he ever seen her before in anything less than designer slacks and silk blouses? When she was clothed, that is. He had seen her in a lot less, once upon a time.
Even now, his body tensed in recollection of the passion they had once shared. But he pushed it aside. He had a job to do, and that was the only reason he was here.
And it was a damn important reason.
He watched their SUV drive away, Alexa in the passenger seat talking earnestly to her fiancé.
Her fiancé. The man who had a right to kiss her like
that. Cole had to remind himself of that little fact over and over, allow it to slice away at all the corners inside him that had eroded every time he had allowed himself, over the past couple of years, to think of Alexa. He needed every edge within him to be hard and sharp now.
He hadn’t planned on running into her just yet, but the chance meeting had worked to his advantage. And he would need a lot of advantages here to achieve all he had to.
She’d apparently thought she knew him—then realized her mistake. He hadn’t expected her to think he was Cole Rappaport, not with all the reconstruction done on his face after the explosion. It made disguise unnecessary.
Still, there was just the smallest bit of hurt clenching at his guts—hurt that had nothing to do with the residual, persistent pain from his injuries. A closer look had told her he wasn’t Cole. She hadn’t recognized him.
With an irritated snort, he lifted his cell phone from its stand on the console and pressed a single button.
“Bowman,” said the familiar, curt voice at the other end.
“It’s me. I’ve got a room reserved at the Hideaway By The Lake.” Cole hated talking on cell phones; they weren’t secure. There was a lot more he could say to his boss and mentor, Forbes Bowman—the man who had saved his life—but this wasn’t the time.
“Great” came the reply. “You have fun, hear? And check in now and then so I know you’re still alive.” The words, delivered in a hearty, amiable tone, could have been one friend talking to another. But Cole knew they were serious.
“Thanks,” he said. “Are you still looking into that sales data I asked for?”
“Yep,” Forbes replied. “I’ll pass it on when I get it.”
Of course the information Cole had requested had nothing to do with sales—and everything to do with his work here. “Later,” he finished. He pushed the End button and replaced the phone in its slot.
Since there was no lodge he needed to check out of, he had time to kill before showing up at the Hideaway By The Lake. He started the engine and drove around the Skytop Lake Village shopping center until he located a small convenience store. He got out and went inside.
Good. In a quiet corner far from the checkout stand, there was a public phone. It would, he hoped, suit his purposes later, when he wouldn’t trust the cell phone for what he needed to report to Forbes.
He glanced at his watch.
Soon it would be time for him to check in. To see Alexa and Vane on their home turf. To delve into the secrets they had kept from him two years ago, and the secrets they were keeping now.
Then, the fun would begin.
Chapter Two
Alexa carried the last bag of groceries into her professional gourmet kitchen. “Thanks, Minos,” she said to the man in the sleeveless T-shirt and torn jeans who had helped her.
Vane had disappeared as soon as they had pulled into the inn’s garage. Alexa figured he’d gone to socialize with some of the guests. He was good at that.
“No problem,” Minos said, hefting two bulging plastic bags onto the tile counter with ease. The short man with the large muscles looked at her with stern brown eyes beneath thick, dark brows, as though expecting her to say something else. To do something he would consider reportable to Vane.
Alexa hid her shudder. Between Minos and Vane, she felt under surveillance every moment of every day. She should be watching them. Not to mention all of the inn’s guests, every one of them here, she was certain, for some undivulged but nefarious purpose.
She’d seen similar deceitfulness before.
And when she had, the consequences had been unimaginably dire. Her parents had nearly lost their freedom.
She had irrevocably, horribly, lost Cole.
Minos hadn’t moved. At least he couldn’t stare into her thoughts. She swallowed her sigh. “I’m going to be starting dinner now,” she said with feigned cheerfulness. “If you want to hang around, I’ll put you to work mincing onions.”
“I’ve got things to do,” he said irritably.
She was certain he did—whatever Vane assigned to him. And Alexa was sure none of it would benefit the inn. Or her.
Or the world.
As Minos left, Alexa considered her duties of the moment. She did have to start cooking. She also had to make sure a room was ready for her new guest.
John O’Rourke. He seemed like a nice enough man. A home improvements salesman.
Why had he reminded her of Cole?
Well, she knew just how much good wishful thinking had done her. Zilch.
No knight in shining armor would come to save her from her dilemma. No Cole Rappaport, or even a surrogate, would arrive to make things right.
She would have to do it herself.
She had already tried once to run to the authorities. Mistake! She had learned a valuable lesson about who had more credibility: Vane or her. It wasn’t her.
And Vane had shown her then how he still could ruin her parents’ lives. Her life, too—even more than it already had been ruined.
Her options were limited, but she did have options.
She hoped.
PULLING THE CAR over to a curb, Cole glanced again at the directions Alexa had given him, then back up.
There it was, the Hideaway By The Lake. It was a large Swiss-style chalet with a peaked roof. The rails around the wide second-floor balcony were cut out in a uniform, gingerbread pattern.
Between the house and its neighbor was a tall bougainvillea hedge that lent privacy. Beyond, he glimpsed glistening blue water. A vacant lot next door was crowded with white pine trees.
“Nice,” he grumbled. He’d had no doubt that it would be.
Alexa had had good taste. Or so he had believed, until he had learned of her perfidy. Her betrayal.
And her engagement to Vane Walters.
Cole instinctively studied the rest of the street. Residential. Lined with resort-style houses of varying sizes— A-frames, small stucco haciendas—and all well-maintained. Not too close together, and a lot of secluding landscaping in between.
Plenty of places for someone to hide, though from what he gathered, no one was bothering to stay out of sight.
Just like last time.
Exiting the car, he popped the trunk and pulled out his single carry-on bag. He’d traveled light. He expected to be here for a while, but had no intention of worrying about how he dressed. The weight in his bag came from his laptop computer, some special equipment—and the Beretta 9 mm semiautomatic secreted in a hidden compartment.
The front door was large—carved black walnut. It was locked. Cole rang the bell, and in a moment Alexa answered.
“Mr. O’Rourke,” she said as she opened the door. He started to correct her, but she beat him to it. “John. Come in, please.” She stepped back, continuing to hold the door.
“Thanks.” He was highly conscious of her nearness as he skirted around her, his bag in his hand. The top of her head reached to just above his shoulder, and she looked almost childlike with her hair pulled back that way.
Almost. For there was no mistaking her sensuous curves in that casual outfit.
Then there was the subtle citrus scent that wafted about her. A familiar scent. Even after two years, she hadn’t changed that, at least. It reminded him of seduction. It reminded him of her.
He gritted his teeth. Okay, so he couldn’t be completely detached. She had been a desirable woman. She still was. He had seen it, felt it deep in his gut, earlier that day.
But he was a grown man. He would keep his lust in check. Unless there was some way to use it to further his goals….
Once, he had been determined to succeed, but he hadn’t been so much of an SOB as to cold-bloodedly engage in seduction to gain an advantage. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
“Is there something wrong, John?” Alexa asked.
He watched her anxious gaze take in the room in the direction he’d been staring, as though she feared she had missed cleaning some noxious piece of dirt.
; “Not at all.” He pasted his most innocuous salesman’s smile on his face and looked down into her troubled eyes.
Soft blue eyes. They were missing the teasing twinkle he remembered. Or had she lost it over the years, because of what happened? That would be a shame.
“This place looks charming,” he continued hastily, turning away.
He wasn’t lying, this time. The inn was charming. Its entry was a combination lodge-like living room and hotel reception area, with high wood-beamed ceilings and a long, tall cedar desk along one wall. The tangy aroma of burnt wood emerged from a huge stone fireplace at one end of the room, although no fire blazed there now.
As he approached the registration desk, he was greeted by a dog. It was a German shepherd—a young one, still gangly and waiting for his thin body to catch up with the size of his long legs and large paws. But the animal must already have been well trained. He made no watchdog noises. No growls at the intruder that was Cole. No, guest. He was a paying guest here.
A guest with an agenda that his host and hostess would abhor.
Alexa stooped gracefully to hug the squirming puppy. “John,” she said, “meet Phantom.”
Cole froze. Phantom.
That had been Alexa’s nickname for him.
For a moment, his guard lowered like a tinted car window opening to reveal the recent past. How he wanted to bring her to her feet and into his arms. To tell her who he was, why he was here, and damn the consequences.
Except that she had betrayed him once. She might not realize it now, but she was betraying him again.
And he could not allow her to get away with it. The stakes could be too high.
“What an interesting name,” he said, hearing how tight his voice sounded. He cleared his throat, as if an allergy had caused moisture there—and not emotion. Cole Rappaport didn’t let emotion interfere with what he needed to accomplish. Ever.
“I once had a…friend I called Phantom,” Alexa said as she rose. She stared with her assessing blue eyes as if sizing him up once more. Assuring herself he wasn’t that very friend.
Operation: Reunited Page 2