“And I’ve told Ms. Alverson that what she wants will be impossible,” Sam said.
“Oh, my dear, Mr. Dundee is right.” Julian shook his head, grunting sadly. “Until this scandal dies down, I believe the safest place for you is Le Bijou Bleu. No one could reach you except by boat or helicopter, and it’s doubtful anyone would discover your whereabouts there.”
“I will not be run out of Biloxi!” Jeannie jerked her hands out of Julian’s grasp, positioned her wooden cane, then stood and confronted Sam. “I have my work at the school. The children need me. They’re very special children, with special needs. You’re going to have to find a way to protect me. Here in Biloxi. I intend to hold my head high and see this thing through to the end, without running away, without shirking my duties to the students at the Howell School.”
Marta, who still stood at the side of the settee, reached out and patted Jeannie on the back. “If continuing to work at the school puts you in any danger, we can make do without you for a while.”
Sam stared into Jeannie’s eyes, those faded brown eyes that he would never be able to forget. Julian Howell had mentioned Le Bijou Bleu, the island where Sam had washed ashore. Memories of those hours when Jeannie Alverson had acted as his angel of mercy flooded Sam’s mind.
“You’re the boss, Ms. Alverson. We’ll do things your way,” Sam said. “But it won’t be easy for you, and the minute things get out of hand, we start playing by my rules, no questions asked. Agreed?”
Jeannie was unaccustomed to men like Sam Dundee. Men who issued orders. Men who put their lives on the line to protect others. Men who carried guns. She had felt Sam’s holster when he held her in his arms.
“I agree to your terms,” Jeannie said. “We do it my way, and if that doesn’t work, then we’ll do it your way.”
“All right.” Sam turned to Julian Howell. “I’ll need a room as close to Ms. Alverson as possible. At this point, I think the physical danger to her isn’t life-threatening. The reporters will continue to hound her as long as they think the public is interested. My main concern is this Reverend Reeves. Fanatics are unpredictable, especially those who are under the false impression that God is on their side.”
“The reporters are a nuisance,” Julian said, “and I feel sorry for those poor people who are begging for Jeannie to heal them, but you’re quite right—what concerns me most is that this Reverend Reeves has threatened her. He and his congregation have accused Jeannie of being the devil’s daughter. Reeves told her that if she didn’t join his church, he would destroy her.”
“We can handle the threats,” Sam said. “As long as these people don’t act on them. If that happens, we’ll be in for some real trouble.”
“Maynard Reeves is the worst of his kind,” Marta said. “He uses every opportunity possible to get himself on TV and in the news.”
“Mark my words,” Julian said, “Reeves will do more than make threats. Jeannie has sensed he wants to kill her.”
Dammit, Sam thought, was Jeannie claiming to be telepathic, as well as empathic? He didn’t believe she was a healer, but he might buy her being psychic. His niece Elizabeth was psychic. She’d had the uncanny ability to read people’s minds and pick up on their feelings since she’d been a child.
“Are you telepathic, Ms. Alverson? Can you read people’s minds, send and receive messages?” Sam asked.
“Only to a limited degree,” Jeannie said. “But I am able to feel other people’s emotions. When Reverend Reeves touched me, I felt a deep hatred. If I don’t join his ministry, I think he plans to kill me.”
“It will be my job to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Sam clasped Jeannie’s elbow, uncertain what was true and real about this woman, and what was pure hype. “Why don’t you give me a tour of the house, Ms. Alverson? I’ll need to know what sort of security system y’all have here. And I’ll want a list of the people who would normally visit you or Dr. Howell here at home.”
“Fine.” Jeannie led Sam to the door, then stopped and turned, smiling at her foster father. “Why don’t you go upstairs for a nap before dinner? I’ll take care of Mr. Dundee.”
“Yes, very well,” Julian said. “Put him in the guest room directly across the hall from your room. I’ll have Ollie prepare it for him.”
“I’ll see Julian upstairs,” Marta said. “I’m staying for dinner, if that’s all right.”
Jeannie nodded. “I’m glad you didn’t allow what happened today to change your plans to dine with us tonight.”
Sam cleared his throat. “Ready to give me that tour, Ms. Alverson?
“Yes, I’m ready.”
Nodding goodbye to Julian and Marta, Jeannie leaned heavily on her cane, the stress of the day’s upheaval having taken its toll on her. She willed herself to stand as straight as possible. Sam Dundee was watching her closely, and she did not want him to think of her as helpless. He was the kind of man who would respect strength, not weakness, and she very much wanted Sam’s respect. She dared not admit, even to herself, that she wanted far more than that from him, more than she’d ever wanted from any other man.
CHAPTER THREE
SAM PULLED BACK the green cotton velvet draperies in the room he had been given. The room’s elaborate style wasn’t to his taste, but that was of little importance. Over the years, he had discovered that he was equally restless or content, whatever his surroundings. Whether he slept on silk sheets or in a sleeping bag, Sam’s state of mind was the only factor dictating his satisfaction.
And tonight he was greatly dissatisfied. His gut instincts told him that this case might well be his undoing. After six years of waiting for the inevitable, Sam was now back in Biloxi, with the one person on earth who knew the depth of his torment and guilt.
Six years ago, Sam had been a DEA agent on an undercover assignment. Foolishly, he had thought he had the upper hand, that the game would be played by his rules. He’d been wrong. Dead wrong.
Sam removed his coat, laying it across the chair where he’d thrown his tie. There was definitely something different about Jeannie Alverson. She didn’t claim to be a healer; she professed to have only the power to take away a person’s pain. Temporarily. But did he believe her?
His memories of Jeannie were all tangled up in his mind with the memories of his last DEA assignment and the tragedy that had almost ended his life. He wouldn’t have met Jeannie, never would have washed ashore on her island, if he hadn’t been trying to entrap a big-time drug dealer.
Jeannie was lovely and sweet and certainly the type of woman who made a man want to protect her. All feminine and fragile. What man wouldn’t be attracted to her? It was only natural for a man to think about making love to her.
And Sam certainly didn’t live a celibate life. But he did choose his sexual partners with great care. It was a proven fact that Sam Dundee had a heart of stone, and he always steered clear of permanent entanglements.
He had learned, the hard way, never to have an affair while working on a case. Any man who allowed his sexual needs to overrule his better judgment was a fool. Sam had been a fool once, but never again! And most certainly not with Jeannie Alverson. A man with a raging beast inside him didn’t have the right to even think about making love to an angel.
Sam stormed out of the bedroom, slamming the massive wooden door behind him. Dammit, he hadn’t allowed himself to truly desire a woman in a long time.
He could handle his attraction to Jeannie Alverson, but he couldn’t forget how he felt about the woman who had saved his life. If he could separate the two in his mind, he didn’t have anything to worry about. But what if he couldn’t?
JEANNIE SAT AT the antique secretary in her bedroom. Staring down at the blank page in her daily journal, she lifted her pen. She dated the page, then wrote.
Today he came back into my life. Sam Dundee.
Clutching the pen in her hand, Jeannie bit her bottom lip as she thought about the day’s events.
For six long years she’d been unable to forget him, yet certain
she’d never see him again. And now here he was, in her home, a few yards away, across the hall. He would be at her side, near her day and night, protecting her from the nightmare her life had suddenly become, keeping her safe from the outside world.
Why had this happened? Why had she become front-page news? For thirteen years, her past had lain dormant, and she’d prayed it would never awaken. She could not—would not—allow the painful memories to destroy her, any more than she would allow recent events to take away the life she dearly loved.
A soft knock sounded on Jeannie’s door. Surely it wasn’t Julian. He had retired shortly after dinner. Perhaps it was Ollie, saying good-night before she went to bed.
Jeannie lifted the pastel floral silk robe off the edge of her bed, slipped into it and, leaning on her cane, walked across the room. She opened the door, smiling, prepared to say good-night to Ollie.
Sam Dundee, all six feet four inches of him, stood in her doorway, the muted hall light turning his blond hair to dark gold.
Jeannie’s smile faded as she gasped at the sight of the big man, who had discarded his jacket and tie and removed his gun holster. His shirt was partially unbuttoned, revealing his thick neck and a swirl of brown chest hair.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Ms. Alverson, but I’d like to speak to you for a few minutes.”
Sam tried not to look directly at her, focusing his gaze over her shoulder. Her room was even larger than the one he had been given and, if it was possible, even more elaborately decorated. In quick succession, he noted the intricately carved mirrored wardrobe, the massive matching bed, the pale pink quilted bedcover and the light floral-and-striped wallpaper.
“Yes, please come in, Mr. Dundee.” Jeannie stepped back, spreading out her arm in a gesture of welcome.
The only man who had ever been in her bedroom was Julian. She had to admit it felt odd having Sam Dundee enter her private feminine sanctuary.
“Won’t you sit down?” Jeannie indicated the sitting area by the floor-to-ceiling windows where the rococo-revival sofa, armchair and marble-topped table had been arranged.
“No. Thanks. This won’t take long.” Sam felt like a bull in a china shop. Despite the sturdy appearance of the antique furniture, Jeannie’s bedroom was totally feminine, as soft and delicate as the woman herself. He had the oddest feeling that if he walked too heavily, he would destroy the beauty of the room.
“What did you want to discuss with me?” Jeannie walked across the room, leaned on the bedpost and rested her cane against her side. Suddenly feeling exposed in her floor-length ivory silk gown and floral robe, she tightened the sash around her waist.
“As you already know, six years ago I was here in Biloxi on an undercover assignment for the DEA.” Sam looked directly at her then, searching for some sign to indicate how much she really knew about him. She walked away from him, seating herself on the sofa. “I was shot, then thrown overboard off a barge. Undoubtedly I wasn’t far from a small island. I don’t have any memory of what happened until I awoke on the beach and found myself in the arms of an…angel.”
Jeannie’s head lifted, and she gazed into Sam’s steely blue-gray eyes. She was indeed his angel of mercy, and at this precise moment she looked like an angel, her long, wavy brown hair cascading down her back like a waterfall of dusty beige silk.
“I only remember bits and pieces about that night. I was unconscious most of the time.” Sam sat in the chair beside the sofa. “I’ll never forget your gentle brown eyes and your soothing voice. Or the enormous dark-skinned man who carried me to the boat.”
“Manton,” Jeannie said. “His name is Manton.”
She had thought Sam Dundee remembered practically nothing about that night. After his release from the hospital, he had found her and thanked her for saving his life. He’d told her then that he remembered very little of what had happened after he was shot.
Did he know that, for one brief instant when she had borne his pain and cried his tears, their souls had been united? No, of course he didn’t.
“Manton, huh?” Spreading his legs apart, Sam leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. “When I came to in the hospital, after surgery, I was told that some huge bald man had carried me into the emergency room and then disappeared. If it hadn’t been for that report from the emergency room staff, I would have thought I’d dreamed the whole thing. The island. The woman. The man.
“Lucky for me one of the emergency room nurses had a child enrolled in the Howell School, or I would have had a tough time finding you. Why didn’t you and Manton stick around after he carried me into the emergency room?”
“We had done all we could do for you. There was no need for us to stay.”
“Where is Manton now?” Sam asked.
“Manton lives on Le Bijou Bleu. He never leaves the island unless there’s an emergency.” Jeannie rested her trembling hands in her lap. “When my mother and Randy bought the island, Manton was the caretaker, so they kept him on. Manton is a deaf-mute, but he can read lips.” And he and I can speak to each other telepathically, Jeannie thought.
“Then Le Bijou Bleu belongs to you?”
“Yes, it’s mine. I go there whenever I want to escape from the world.”
“Why did you protest so strongly when Dr. Howell suggested you go there now, until things settle down?”
“Because I will not be run off. I will not allow others to dictate my actions.” Jeannie lifted her cane from the side of the sofa where she had placed it. “For years, Randy Foley controlled every moment of my life. Once I was no longer at his mercy, I swore that no one would ever again force me to do anything I didn’t want to do.”
Jeannie stood and walked to the windows. Noticing the way her shoulders quivered, Sam knew she was crying. He couldn’t bear to see her hurting. Hell, why did he let her get to him this way? Women’s tears usually had little, if any, effect on him.
Walking over to her, Sam placed his hand on her shoulder. She tensed. He draped his arm around her, then turned her slowly to face him, gripping her shoulders in his big hands.
“You saved my life that night.”
She did not try to hide her tears from him, but she ignored them, allowing them to fill her eyes and fall onto her cheeks. “I did all that I could to keep you alive until we arrived at the hospital.”
Sam let out a deep breath. “For six years I’ve wondered about you. Wondered if you were as pure and sweet and caring as I’d thought you were. Wondered if you really did take away my pain, or if I’d been delusional and just imagined the whole experience.”
“You didn’t imagine any of it. What happened between us was real.”
“Tell me something.”
“What?” Did he remember the moment when they had become one, the moment when she had prayed for his life and for her own, and the tears she had shed were the tears of two?
“Do you have the power to heal?” he asked, taking her chin in his hand and tilting her face.
She shook her head. “No, I’m not a true healer. I can’t make the sick well again. Randy passed me off as a faith healer, but I’ve never had that kind of power.”
“But you can take away pain? You draw physical and mental pain out of a person, and bear that pain yourself?”
“Yes. Julian and Miriam said that I was an empath, that I could experience another’s pain. Somehow I reach inside people’s minds, inside their hearts and their bodies, and feel what they’re feeling. I can heal temporarily, but the pain returns, as does the injury or the illness. It usually returns in a few hours. Sometimes the results last for a few days. But that’s rare.”
He wiped the tears away from her face, their moisture coating his fingertips. “That’s what you did for me six years ago on the beach, isn’t it? You drew the pain out of me and experienced it for me? Is that why I felt practically no pain, although I was suffering from gunshot wounds and exposure?”
“You were almost dead,” Jeannie said. “And you didn’t want to live. You fel
t a tremendous guilt for someone else’s death.”
“You absorbed that guilt, too, didn’t you? You took it away for a while.”
“I had no choice. Otherwise you might not have willed yourself to live.”
Releasing her abruptly, Sam backed away, his gaze riveted to her gentle face, her warm eyes, her caring smile. She lifted her hand, extending it toward him.
This woman had saved his life. There was no doubt about that fact. He remembered how the pain had left him, not only the physical pain from his wounds, but also the mental and emotional torment he’d suffered. Had she taken the burden of his pain, his guilt and his unspoken wish to die, and suffered for him, freeing him, saving him?
Did he dare believe her? Could he trust his own feverish memories?
Taking a tentative step toward her, Sam accepted her welcoming hand and pulled her into his arms. She gasped when their bodies touched. He released her, then cupped her face in his big hands.
“Jeannie.” He said her name with reverence.
“Sam.” The man she had dreamed of for six years, the stranger she had been unable to forget, was looking at her with a passionate, possessive hunger he could not disguise.
“I’ll take good care of you, Jeannie.” Lowering his head, he kissed her tenderly. A gentle, undemanding kiss. A kiss of gratitude. A kiss filled with promise.
Jeannie felt that sweet kiss in every nerve of her body, and for one tiny instant, she was tempted to ask for more. But now was not the time. Sam Dundee was confused about his feelings, about what was happening. She sensed his frustration, his doubts, his fears and the guilt that never left him.
Sam grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her gently. “Don’t misunderstand the reason I’m here. I’m not looking for healing and salvation. So don’t go probing into my past. Maybe you really can take away pain. Maybe you took mine away. Hell, I don’t know. But I do know I owe you my life. And I always pay my debts. Do we understand each other?”
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