by JoAnn Ross
“The Maria Theresa, by the way, was named for King Philip’s grandmother. Philip inherited the throne through her brother Charles II. And what does all this have to do with that gun?”
She was going after him like a bull terrier with a bone. “You’ve got your history down pat,” he said. “But what do you know about the legend surrounding the ship?”
“About there also having been slaves smuggled aboard the Maria Theresa? And that their spirits haunt the ship, even now, bringing slow, painful deaths to anyone who tries to board?” she asked. “I don’t believe it. And you’re still not answering my question.” Her eyes widened in disbelief. “Surely you don’t believe ghosts killed Darcy?”
“No,” Dash agreed. “I don’t. But I do think there’s a possibility that he was killed by men who wanted to claim the Maria Theresa for their own. And that they used a convenient legend to cover their tracks.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t think so,” Dash said quietly. Firmly. “I also think that there’s a very good chance those same men might want to get rid of anyone else who knows too much about Darcy’s expedition.”
Color drained from her cheeks as his words slowly sank in. “Are you talking about me? You actually believe that someone might try to kill me?”
“Yes.” Both his voice and his expression had turned deadly serious. “I do.”
CHAPTER 6
“WHO ARE YOU?” Claren’s voice was thin, thready. “And more to the point, what are you?”
“I told you, I’m Dash MacKenzie. Darcy’s friend.”
“He never mentioned you.”
“He had me witness his will,” Dash pointed out.
“A handwritten will written on a water-stained yellow legal sheet. How do I know you didn’t force him to write it? At gunpoint.”
“Because if I’d forced him to write it,” Dash retorted, “wouldn’t I have been more likely to make myself the beneficiary? Instead of you?”
He had a point. But Claren couldn’t quite overcome the feeling that he hadn’t been completely honest with her from the beginning. “You could always force me to make out a will leaving my inheritance to you,” she said slowly. “And then, if something happened to me, you’d end up with everything. Or,” she said as the unsavory idea suddenly occurred to her, “you could marry me. Then you wouldn’t even have to bother with the will, since a husband is automatically a beneficiary.”
“Dammit!” Dash slammed his hand down onto the table. He stood up abruptly, causing his chair to overturn. “You’ve definitely been watching too many made-for-television movies. Do you actually believe I’d be capable of killing you?”
Actually she didn’t. But from the deft way he’d handled that gun, she had the uneasy feeling that he’d used it before.
“While you’re busy trying to solve a crime that hasn’t even happened, Ms. Perry Mason,” he ground out, “you’d better factor in the fact that I haven’t mentioned marriage once.”
Watching the muscle jerk in his cheek, Claren was sorry she’d brought up the subject. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I’m not accustomed to having a gun pointed at me. It’s also a little unsettling to hear that you think Darcy was murdered when I’m still trying to come to grips with the idea of him drowning. And I’m definitely not accustomed to hearing that my life might be in danger.”
Struggling for calm and trying to make sense of all this, she leaned back in her chair and took a long, soothing sip of her cooling coffee. “Is that really why you came? To protect me?”
Dash was finding it harder and harder to look into those soft green eyes and lie. He was definitely getting soft; if he wasn’t careful, he’d end up getting them both killed.
“That’s part of the reason,” he answered truthfully. “I knew if I let anything happen to you, Darcy would haunt me for the rest of my life.”
“And the other reason?”
“I told you,” he hedged, “I’ve always wanted to see the Northwest.”
There was something he wasn’t telling her. Claren could sense that he was holding back. But she was still too shaken by his revelation to dwell on it. “How long will you be staying?”
“As long as it takes,” he answered enigmatically.
She sighed, tired of trying to understand anything about Dash MacKenzie. “What would you have done if I’d gotten married yesterday?”
“It wouldn’t have changed a thing. I was all set to go to Hawaii. In fact, I’d booked a seat right behind you. On the aisle.”
“You were going to—what do they call it?—keep me under surveillance during my honeymoon?”
“I was going to do whatever it took to keep you safe.”
There was a quiet strength in his statement that fascinated Claren. “You really mean that,” she said in quiet wonder.
“It’s a man’s responsibility to protect the weaker sex.”
Claren lifted a tawny brow. “The weaker sex being women?”
“Of course.”
“You’ll excuse me if I don’t subscribe to that theory?”
He’d suspected that she wouldn’t. “You can argue the point all you like, Irish, but that doesn’t change a thing. Oh, I know that you’re pretty damn strong for a woman,” he allowed. “But there are still some things that you need to be protected from.”
God help her, even as she knew she should be screaming bloody murder at his outdated macho beliefs, Claren found herself actually enjoying this argument. “Such as?”
“How about murder, for a start?”
They were back to that again. Claren combed her fingers distractedly through her hair. “That’s some start,” she murmured.
For some reason, although he continued to insist that she was in danger, Claren didn’t feel afraid. Then she looked up into his granite face, looked deep into his wolf-gray eyes and knew why. “That’s what you were talking about last night, isn’t it?” she asked softly. “About it being your duty to protect me.”
“I realize that a modern career woman like yourself might find that idea ridiculous, but—”
“You’re wrong.” Claren stood up and put her hand on his arm. “I don’t find it ridiculous at all. Actually I find it rather sweet.”
“Sweet?” he roared. “You think I’m sweet?”
From his outburst, Claren realized that she’d struck a very sensitive nerve. “Wrong word, huh?”
“Horrendously wrong word,” Dash agreed. “But you did manage to get your point across. You’re not taking this at all seriously, are you?”
“I think you’re serious,” Claren allowed.
“But you also think I’m crazy.”
“Not crazy. Just mistaken.”
He shook his head, wondering why he’d thought things would be at all easier once he got them out in the open. “For both our sakes, Irish,” he said, “I hope you’re right.”
But Dash didn’t think so. Not even a little bit.
* * *
THEY SPENT the remainder of the day shopping. Dash followed Claren from store to store, watching her exchange greetings and accept condolences with the proprietors. That she was loved in the small, insular town was obvious. That Darcy had also been loved was equally clear.
They had lunch at a small café next to the ferry dock. The food was Chinese, and there was a lot of it. “Do you always eat like this?” Dash asked after he’d watched Claren single-handedly devour a bowl of hot-and-sour soup, an entire order of pot stickers, shrimp fried rice and Kung Pao chicken.
“I told you,” Claren said, “shopping always makes me hungry. Aren’t you going to eat your egg roll?”
“It’s all yours.” Dash pushed the plate across the table.
“Thanks. Actually, to tell the truth, I don’t usually eat so much,” she admitted. “I don’t know why, but ever since yesterday I’ve been absolutely starving.”
She was wearing a brightly hued, off-the-shoulder dress that reminded Dash of gypsies. Seeing her like
this, he found it impossible to imagine her in the dark tailored suits that she claimed had made up her wardrobe.
“Perhaps it’s repressed passions.”
“Perhaps,” she said mildly. Deciding it was time to change the subject, she asked, “Now that I know the reason for you being here, I don’t suppose you want to work around the house.”
“Hey,” Dash said, “we had a deal. You needed a handyman and I needed work.”
“You only accepted my job offer so you could stay at the house and keep an eye on me. For Darcy.”
“It may have started out being about Darcy, but things have changed.” Dash handed her his fortune cookie. “Whether you want to believe it or not, I have my own reasons for not wanting anything to happen to you.”
Claren couldn’t believe his preposterous story about her life being in danger. That unpalatable thought kept her from dwelling on exactly how Dash’s feelings toward her might have changed since yesterday.
“I still think—”
“It’s not your job to think,” he said, cutting her off with a sharp gesture. “It’s your job to obey your uncle’s dying wish and paint pretty pictures.”
“And you’ll do all the thinking.”
“You got it.” He folded his arms over his chest and gave her a long hard look that Claren was sure must make other women quake in their pumps.
She could feel her temper begin to fray again, strand by delicate strand. What was it about this man that had her constantly swinging from desire to fury? That’s what she got, she decided, inviting a wolf into her house, into her life. “How on earth did I ever survive without you?” She cracked open the cookie with more force than necessary, scattering crumbs over the white tablecloth.
“Beats me.” Dash plucked the slim white paper from between her fingers. “He is mad who trusts in the tameness of a wolf,” he read aloud.
No. It had to be a joke. The man couldn’t possibly read her mind. Claren drew in a quick, sharp breath and snatched the fortune from his fingers. “It really says that,” she said, staring in disbelief at the words printed on the paper.
Dash had watched the color drain from her cheeks and wondered at the cause. “I’ll admit it’s a little unusual,” he agreed. “A fortune cookie quoting Shakespeare, but—”
“This is Shakespeare?”
“From King Lear. It goes on to say that a man is also mad who believes in a horse’s health, a boy’s love or a whore’s oath.”
Claren didn’t know which surprised her most. The fact that the fortune coincidentally mentioned a wolf at the very same time she was mentally comparing him to the animal, or that this man, professing to be no more than an itinerant handyman—a handyman with a gun—could quote Shakespeare. First Oscar Wilde, then the bard. Amazing.
“I can’t figure you out,” she said, shaking her head.
Dash refilled the blue-and-white teacup. “Just because I took an intro to Shakespeare class my plebe year—”
“Your what?”
Damn. What was it about this woman that had him forgetting everything he’d learned? “I took a class on Shakespeare’s tragedies my freshman year in college. What’s so surprising about that?”
“You didn’t say freshman year,” Claren said. “You said ‘plebe year.’ You went to the naval academy.”
He felt the steel door of the trap closing shut and fought against it. “Yeah, I did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you didn’t ask.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Okay.” St. John was going to kill him for this. “I didn’t tell you because you didn’t ask for past employment history.”
“Are you in the navy now?”
“No.”
“Are you CIA?”
“CIA? Come on, Irish, give me a break. Where do you get these wild ideas, anyway?”
“You’re a fine one to be talking about wild ideas, Dashiell MacKenzie,” she retorted, “after telling me that dear Darcy died because of the curse of the Maria Theresa.”
“I didn’t say the curse killed him.”
“Oh, that’s right. The truth of the matter is that the killers wanted us to think the ghosts murdered Darcy. And now they’re coming after me.” She tossed her hair over her shoulders. “You didn’t answer my question. Are you CIA? Is that why you’re so interested about what happened to Darcy? Because he stumbled into something dangerous on the island?”
She was getting too damn warm for comfort. “I’m not CIA,” he insisted tightly. “Nor am I FBI, DEA, IRS or any other governmental initials you might think up.”
“Then who do you work for?”
“At the moment I’m working for you. And if we don’t get going right now, I’m not going to have time to go by the hardware store before it closes.”
He pulled out his wallet and tossed some crisp new bills on the plastic tray. “In case you haven’t noticed, Irish, one of the front steps is loose. I thought I’d fix it before you break that lovely, albeit stubborn, neck.”
Frustrated by the way he insisted on total control, Claren had no choice but to follow him out of the restaurant.
She sulked as she trailed after him, watching with silent admiration as the order he gave to the hardware clerk displayed a surprising amount of knowledge of household repairs. Before they got out of the store, two different customers had come up to him asking for instructions on how to repair a leaking roof and a stopped-up garbage disposal. Perhaps he really was a handyman, after all, Claren considered. Of course he was. And she was Princess Di.
By the time the stores had closed, Claren had finished her own shopping and had filled the trunk and the back seat of Dash’s rental car with bags filled with a variety of paints—oils, watercolors, acrylics and pastels. She’d also bought thinner, a variety of different-sized canvases, an easel, chalk, several sketch pads and enough brushes to make Dash consider that a great many sable had had to die to provide the world with art.
“You certainly bought enough paint,” he said on the drive back to Darcy’s house.
“I don’t know where my talent lies,” she said. Still irritated at him, she directed her gaze out the passenger window, pretending an interest in the curtain of dark green Douglas fir lining the roadway. “So I thought I should be prepared for anything.”
“Makes sense to me. May I ask a question?”
“What?”
“Are you going to give me the silent treatment all night?”
“I’m not giving you the silent treatment.”
“The hell you aren’t. Are you mad at me just because I know a few Shakespeare quotes? Don’t you think that’s overreacting a bit?”
“I’m not angry about the Shakespeare. All right,” she admitted reluctantly, “perhaps I am, just a little. But I’m more envious than angry. My major was business administration and hotel management. I only took the liberal-arts classes that were required, and sometimes, when I’m around people who can throw quotes around like confetti, I get a little self-conscious.”
Her aunt and uncle, along with dear old Elliott, had really done a number on her self-confidence. Dash angrily wondered if she truly didn’t know what a remarkable woman she was.
“I took a few classes,” he said offhandedly. “Fortunately I have one of those memories that never gives anything up. It’s more a parlor trick than literary criticism. And as for your lack of education, how many people do you think can run a hotel?” Before she answered, he said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. How did you choose hotel management in the first place?”
“My parents ran a little inn in County Clare. It helped pay for the horse farm. It was nothing like a Whitfield Palace,” she said, warming to the subject. “It was more personal, like a bed and breakfast, but my mother served three meals a day. We lived in the inn, and I loved helping her. She always believed that a guest should be as comfortable as he was in his own home, only more so.”
“Sounds like a nice pl
ace to stay.”
“It was,” she said. “And it was a wonderful place to live. My mother had a way of making people feel welcome, like part of the family. I’ve tried to do that at the hotel, but, of course, it’s harder when you’re talking about three thousand guests instead of five or six.”
The tension between them had dissipated. Instead, there was a comfortable feeling of companionship that almost made Dash forget what he was doing here in the first place. At this moment, alone with her in the car as the sky around them gradually darkened, he could almost believe that his sole purpose in coming to Seattle was to meet her.
“Do you believe in fate?” she asked. “Or destiny?”
He glanced over at her, surprised. “Darcy didn’t tell me that one of your talents was mind reading. I was just thinking about fate.”
“And? Do you believe in it?”
“I didn’t,” Dash said frankly as he pulled up the curving driveway and parked the car in front of the house. “But lately I’m beginning to wonder.”
* * *
SOMEONE HAD BEEN BUSY while they were in town. The house looked as though a hurricane had blown through it. Furniture had been overturned, desk drawers emptied, Oriental vases smashed. Paper and broken glass littered the floor like confetti.
“Why?” she whispered.
Dash’s first thought was to get Claren out of here now, in case the intruders were still inside. But that was unlikely. Since the road was a private one, ending here at the house, the vandals would have had to pass Dash and Claren on the way back to the highway. His hand, which had instinctively reached for the pistol at the small of his back, under his leather bomber jacket, returned to his side.
“I can’t believe this.” Stunned, Claren roamed through the house, from room to room, staring at the destruction. When she got to the paneled library, she gasped in dismay.