After Midnight

by Diana Palmer

  “I need to win the election. I can’t have the Lombards digging into our pasts.”

  “Clay, if they published everything they know, they still wouldn’t have a story,” she said quietly. “It’s Haralson’s head that would roll. Mosby is a victim. It would hurt him if things came out, but perhaps not as much as you think. He’s hardly a drinking, lecherous playboy.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Haralson is keeping you on a very short fuse,” she said bluntly. “He’s the one who’s obsessed with winning the election. Why don’t you find out why?”

  He frowned. “I know why. He’s trying to help me.”

  “Clay…”

  “I’ll be in later,” he said, smiling easily. “Don’t worry. It will be all right. So long as you keep away from Lombard,” he said firmly. “Don’t let me down, Nikki, please? No fraternizing with the enemy, regardless of what you owe him.”

  “All right.”

  She sounded subdued, but he trusted her. He winked lazily and left the house. Paying Derrie a visit had been on his mind for a long time. It wouldn’t hurt to see how she was faring. Besides, he thought, Haralson had mentioned something about Curt Morgan and having him followed. If Morgan was doing anything suspicious, perhaps he could get Derrie to let it slip.

  Nikki was more worried than ever as she sat watching the evening news. The environmental people had found another toxic waste dump on a deserted piece of farmland. Burke wasn’t implicated in this one, and there were no logos on the old oil drums full of toxic waste they found there.

  The cleanup crew was putting the drums in over-packs—metal envelopes the purpose of which was to prevent further leaking. Hundreds of gallons of the unidentified toxic substances had already leaked out, however, and leached into the soil. The extent of the damage would be found over time, but first the waste had to be analyzed and identified, and then cleanup operations would begin. The on-site EPA coordinator was hopping mad, promising retribution for this latest “midnight dump” and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.

  Along with the new report was a rehash of the site that Burke’s disposal operation and Lombard International were accused of creating. Charges were pending, and there had already been a red flag beside the company on the EPA list because of an earlier sewage leak. The news report made that one sound deliberate now, which was, Nikki thought, sure to make Kane’s defense even harder. Her eyes narrowed. How strange that the company should change waste handlers on the heels of the leak, and that Burke’s should be so easily traced to the site; how fortunate for the environmental people that the dumping site had been so quickly and easily located. And that the logos from Lombard International had been very readable, indeed. And painted on in orange…

  She got up from her chair and moved to the telephone without a single thought in her mind except that it had to be a frame. Why hadn’t anybody else thought of it? Why hadn’t Kane?

  She knew the number of his beach house on Seabrook Island. He probably wouldn’t be there, but perhaps she could coax his housekeeper into giving her the number.

  What if his lover answered? She panicked and almost put down the receiver. It was too dangerous. What if she hurt Clayton by doing this, what if Kane decided to use their time together against her, what if…

  “Lombard.”

  It was Kane himself. The shock of his deep voice, unexpected, almost caused her to drop the receiver. She fumbled it back to her ear.

  “Who is it?” came a curt demand.

  “It’s…Nikki.”

  There was a pause. “Are you all right?” he asked, and his voice was soft as velvet.

  Tears stung her eyes. She blinked them away. The concern was awesome.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “How are you?”

  “Notorious,” he returned dryly. “I trust your brother is enjoying the public renumeration of my alleged sins in connection with this latest dumping scandal?”

  “He isn’t here.”

  There was another pause. “Dangerous, isn’t it? Calling the enemy just to talk?”

  “Could I see you?” she asked.

  “Sure. They’re showing a file photo of my back on TV right now. Turn on channel…”

  “Kane, don’t joke. I’ve…found out something. Thought out something,” she corrected. “I have to talk to you.”

  “I don’t trust you, Nikki,” he said flatly. “And you shouldn’t trust me.”

  “You saved my life,” she said simply. “Think of it as the repayment of a debt. I don’t have anything to say that could compromise you any more than you’ve already been compromised. But I think you should listen to me.”

  “Go ahead,” he invited.

  She started to speak and then thought about possibilities. The telephone could be bugged. It would be a simple thing for someone with Haralson’s contacts to do. In fact, he had connections in the Justice Department, Clayton had said…

  “Suppose I meet you somewhere?” she asked.

  “Risky.”

  “It’s more risky to talk on the telephone. Someone might be listening.”

  “That’s true,” Kane said. “Okay. Where?”

  “Where I found you.”

  “When?”

  She was getting the hang of this. It was almost fun. “At the same time you got to the party in Washington.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Nikki put on a pair of dark jeans and a white sweatshirt with a jeweled rose on the front. This was going to take a little stealth. She’d looked out and the service truck she’d noticed earlier was still sitting there. It could be legitimate, of course, but she didn’t think it was. There was some cloak-and-dagger stuff going on here. If someone was trying to follow her, for any reason, she was going to make it very difficult.

  She went out through the basement. The back lot had two big live oaks in it, with the sidewalk just beyond, on the narrow street by the bay. There were some young people in a crowd going along it. In fact they were headed toward her house. She intercepted them, finding Phoebe Keller and a handsome young man and another couple in her path.

  “Nikki!” Phoebe said, grinning. “I was just coming to see you. I couldn’t get Derrie on the phone and I thought she might be over here. It was just a whim, we were out walking…”

  “Come along with me for a minute, will you?” Nikki asked, glancing beyond them. A man was leaning out of the truck window watching another man steal toward her house.

  “What’s going on?” Phoebe asked.

  “I’m not sure. But I need to get away from the house without being seen.”

  “Hey, no problem,” Phoebe’s companion said. “Where do you want to go?”

  “To Seabrook Island. I have to get a cab…”

  “We’ll take you down,” Phoebe said gaily. “I love the island!”

  “Will they let us on it?” the boy asked.

  “I have my pass,” Nikki assured them. “And the refrigerator’s full…”

  “Say no more,” Phoebe said, clutching the boy’s hand tightly. “Nikki, you angel, we haven’t even had supper!”

  “Don’t expect haute cuisine,” she teased. This was an unexpected bonus. For all intents and purposes, she’d be out with her friend’s niece and the young crowd on the island. There was nothing to connect her with Kane, so far.

  “Hamburgers are cuisine to us,” Phoebe’s male companion said, chuckling.

  The beach house was all alight an hour later. Nikki took Phoebe to one side and turned up the radio. She couldn’t take a chance that the beach house might be bugged, too. They weren’t followed, she knew that. She’d watched all the way down here.

  “Listen,” she told Phoebe. “I’ve got to go down to the beach for a few minutes. Make a lot of noise, and if anyone comes asking for me, I’m lying down with a headache.”

  “Are you in trouble? Can I help?” Phoebe asked gently. “I know someone in law enforcement—well, sort of,” she amended, remembering the new friend she’d mad
e. She didn’t know where to find him, but her aunt had mentioned talking to him. That had surprised—and disturbed—Phoebe. She knew her aunt Derrie was still in love with Clayton Seymour. But it bothered her that Cortez had gone to see Derrie, despite the fact that Derrie said it was just business talk. She felt rather proprietorial about Cortez, despite the age difference.

  She shouldn’t, but knowing it didn’t help. She’d gone out with this young crowd tonight for no other reason than to force Cortez out of her mind.

  Nikki cleared her throat impatiently.

  “I’m sorry,” Phoebe said. “I tend to drift off. Nikki, you’re not in any trouble, are you?”

  “Not yet. I may be soon, though,” came the rueful reply. “Never mind. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  “It’s not too safe alone on that beach.”

  “I won’t be alone.” Nikki smiled and darted out the door.

  Kane was leaning against a moss-dripping live oak, smoking a cigarette. It was his second.

  “I didn’t know that you smoked,” Nikki said.

  He turned and moved to meet her. They were in the shelter of the tree at the water’s edge and couldn’t be seen from the beach house or the neighbor’s houses.

  “I stopped smoking,” he said. “Until a few weeks ago.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself. She couldn’t see him very well in the moonlit darkness, but she felt the warmth and size of him and felt secure despite the hostility between them.

  “There was a truck parked outside my house when I started to leave. I think the phone is bugged and I think I’m being watched.”

  “Were you followed?”

  She shook her head. “I made sure.” She looked up at him. “Something is going on. I seem to be in the middle of it, and so are you.”

  “Explain.”

  She leaned against the tree beside him, her eyes soft on what she could see of his face. She wanted so badly to go up close to him and slide her arms around him and let him hold her. It had been a long time since he’d held her so intimately at the party.

  “Someone is framing you.”

  “What?”

  “Haven’t you figured it out?” she asked. “The leak may have been accidental. But the dumping came right on its heels, as if somebody knew you’d be on the EPA’s hit list for a prior offense. The dumping site was found with ridiculous ease. The logo of your company was stenciled on those containers in bright orange fresh paint. Add it up.”

  His cigarette was hanging in midair. He’d been so upset by the charges and the publicity and the unrelenting persecution that his ability to reason had been impaired. She was right. He hadn’t appraised his situation at all. He’d been too busy defending it.

  He shifted closer to her, and bent to talk more softly. “If your brother was behind it, would you tell me?”

  “I love my brother,” she said quietly. “I’d do almost anything for him. He doesn’t realize that he’s become entangled in this mess, too, but I do. Someone is using the campaign as an excuse to destroy your company and your credibility. I get cold chills just thinking about what could happen. It’s cold-blooded and shrewd, and there has to be a very intelligent purpose behind it. I just can’t think what. But it has to be more than an underhanded way to help Clayton win the election, don’t you see?”

  His eyes narrowed as he finished the cigarette and ground it out under his heel. “What good would it do to put me in front of the media as a target?”

  “I don’t know. But there must be some reason. Kane, I know you weren’t responsible for what happened,” she said fiercely.

  He searched what he could see of her features. His head turned then and he stared out over the bay, toward the ocean, his eyes unseeing on the moonlight that sparkled in the waves.

  “Why don’t you think I did it?” he asked.

  She sighed as she leaned her head against the tree to study him. “You love the ocean, don’t you?” she asked. “You’re a naturalist through and through. People like that don’t try to destroy the environment.”

  His head turned toward her. “You’re perceptive.”

  “I suppose so, at times. What will you do?”

  “Nothing, except to keep my eyes and ears open.”

  “Kane, you won’t go to jail, will you?” she asked worriedly.

  “There’s very little chance of that. Why?” he added. “Are you afraid I might drag your name into it for an alibi?”

  “I know you wouldn’t,” she said quietly. “But I’d let you, if it meant a jail sentence otherwise.”

  His heard jumped, “And throw your brother’s political career into the garbage?”

  She didn’t blink. “Yes.”

  He felt himself moving, without conscious volition. He reached for her, lifted her, riveted her to his powerful body. Then he kissed her, with the wind blowing in from the bay rippling her hair.

  He backed her into the tree and edged himself between her jean-clad legs, shifting her abruptly so that the core of her was suddenly pressed to his raging arousal.

  She gasped, but he didn’t slow down. If anything, he became more ardent. She felt his hands on her thighs, under her taut bottom, lifting and pulling her into his hips so that only the fabric kept his body from penetrating hers right there.

  “The bark would hurt your bare back,” he said tightly, his breath moving against her lips as he spoke. “That’s the only reason I haven’t unzipped your jeans.”

  Her senses were dimmed, but returning. She shivered. The contact was so intimate that she was glad he couldn’t see her face.

  He moved sensually against her hips and she heard his breathing deepen. “Feel it?” he whispered. “I’m going to explode any minute.”

  She did blush, and buried her face in his throat.

  Curiosity suddenly overcame his desire. His body stilled. “Nikki…what’s wrong?”

  She made a gesture with her head, and her burning face pressed closer.

  He was remembering things. Confessions she’d made, little hints about a man she’d loved. She’d been married, but she’d said that her husband never wanted her. She’d said at one time that the man she loved…couldn’t.

  He felt his chest collapse under a rush of breath. He eased the crushing weight of himself away from her softness and rested gently on her, instead.

  “You’d better tell me, Nikki,” he said slowly.

  She drew her closed eyelids against the furious pulse in his throat. “You know already,” she whispered. “You’re very experienced, aren’t you?”

  “Experienced enough to know that I’ve shocked you. Nikki, I don’t think you know what sex is. Am I right?”

  “Oh, I’d say I have a pretty good idea of what it is, right now,” she managed with black humor.

  He lifted his head and moved her so that he could see her flushed face in the moonlight. He eased her up, pressed to the tree, and softly thrust against her. Her expression was unmistakable.

  “So many emotions,” he remarked while he fought for control. “I see fear and shock and, beyond it, desire. But I don’t think I could make you desperate enough to forget the consequences, could I?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  He let her slide down the tree. The bark was rough at the back of her sweatshirt. He held her by the waist, not quite touching him, and studied her.

  “You’ve avoided men since the divorce, they say,” he said. “Why? Because he couldn’t and you didn’t want to end up in the same trap again, wanting a man who couldn’t take you? There’s no possibility of that happening with me. I’m capable, in every way there is.”

  “So I noticed,” she replied sheepishly.

  “Nor do I practice irresponsible sex,” he persisted. He was almost shaking with passion. His hands contracted. “My house is empty. Deserted. And it’s not bugged. You could scream if you wanted to,” he whispered seductively. “I might even make you want to.”

  She remembered the feel of him against her a
nd the sound she’d made. It was a little embarrassing.

  He smoothed back her disheveled hair with hands that had a faint tremor. Then he began to unbutton his shirt, slowly, letting her see his chest come into view. There were beads of sweat clinging to the thick hairs that covered him to the collarbone, and his bronzed muscles were damp.

  “You’re sweating,” she remarked nervously.

  “I want you,” he replied simply. “A man’s body reacts in various ways to a woman’s allure. It becomes damp, it trembles. When he’s very much aroused, he swells.” He caught her hand and pulled it gently to him, pressing it the length of his arousal.

  She tried to jerk her hand away, but he held it securely.

  “Relax,” he said softly. “Just relax. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s as natural as the waves rolling onto the beach, as the wind blowing. Touch me, Nikki.”

  He pulled her cheek to his bare chest and smoothed her hair, kissing her forehead while his free hand curved around hers and helped her learn his body.

  “Not so frightening now, is it?” he whispered. He loosened his grasp and lightly stroked the fingers that touched him. He caught his breath and laughed at her expression. “You didn’t hurt me.”

  She drew her hand away just the same and he let her. His big hands slid around her, under the sweatshirt, against her bare back. They unclipped her bra. When she started to protest, he bent and brushed his open lips lightly against her mouth. The action stayed her movement.

  “You know what I feel like,” he whispered as his hands moved around her. “Now I want to know what you feel like.”

  She stood very still, barely breathing. His hands moved around her rib cage and tenderly lifted the slight weight of her firm breasts. His thumbs slipped over the hardening tips and stroked them lightly while he kissed her.

  “Lean back, Nikki,” he whispered. He eased her spine to the trunk of the tree. His hands bunched the fabric of the sweatshirt and slid it up, with her bra, baring her pearly breasts in the moonlight.