Moonlight and Shadows

by Janzen, Tara

  Jack caught sight of her heading his way, and he quickly excused himself from Kevin and the public relations lady who’d been stalking him all night long. From the look on Lila’s face, he figured she must have noticed the redhead too. If she knew how little reason she had to be jealous of anyone, he’d be putty in her hands. Which, on second thought, didn’t sound like such a bad idea.

  Lord, she looked beautiful tonight. She’d gotten her hair to pile up on top of her head. He couldn’t wait to run his hands through it and pull it all back down. Her dress should have been outlawed. Royal blue sequins shimmered down the front, down her arms, and across the discreet, high-necked collar. They hugged the slender curves of her hips in unadorned simplicity. But the dress was very much like the woman who wore it, prim and proper on the face of it, and wonderfully uninhibited on the other side. There was no back, not until past the curve of her waist. She wouldn’t have lasted two minutes in that den of oversexed males called a university. Fortunately, the older corporate crowd was more subtle, though hardly less dangerous. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her the whole night.

  “Had enough?” he asked, reaching for her hand.

  His question brought Lila up short even as his arm drew her near. There it was again, she thought, his amazing reaction. Danny hadn’t exactly been a media hound, but he’d played every bit of promotion for all it was worth. Jack, on the other hand, was more inclined in the other direction. He gave “laid back” a whole new meaning.

  “Well, yes,” she said. “But have you?”

  He gave the room a thoughtful glance before looking back at her. “Yeah,” he said with a grin. “I think the excitement has worn down enough for me to tear myself away.”

  She had to ask. It was driving her crazy not to know. “Isn’t all this important to you?”

  “Sure. It’s great, a thrill, but the hoopla is almost over and you made a promise to me last week, one I’m holding you to.”

  She couldn’t stop her impish smile, but she did try for a reproachful tone. “That promise is for tomorrow morning, and you know I’m not going to back out on you.”

  “You’re not going to get a chance,” he informed her, a sultry light in his eye. “I’ve got plans for you, woman. Private plans.”

  “You’re bad, Jack Hudson,” she whispered, trying not to giggle. “All these people are here to pay homage to you, and you’re thinking about—”

  “The really important stuff. Are you packed?”

  “I have been for a week, as you very well know.” They’d been living out of two houses for a month, which was four weeks longer than Jack had liked.

  “Did you remember to put in the black outfit I bought you?”

  “Outfit?” She shot him a scandalized look. “By no stretch of the imagination is that scrap of black lace an outfit. It barely qualifies as a nightie.”

  “Right.” He grinned. “We’re going to have fun.”

  “I’ll probably freeze to death,” she said with a petulance he found particularly endearing on her sweet mouth. She’d changed into an unmerciful tease over the past weeks, revealing a playful side he doubted many people had ever seen, and he loved it.

  “Oh, no, honey,” he said softly, pulling her into his arms and bending his head down to whisper in her ear. “I’m not going to let you get cold, not even close. We’re probably going to melt snow down half the Vail valley.”

  “We could get arrested,” she murmured, snuggling up closer.

  “Nobody gets arrested on their honeymoon. I think it’s against the law.”

  “So is making love in corporate lobbies,” she teased.

  “We’re not making love.”

  “Not yet.”

  He stole a quick kiss off her cheek and almost lingered longer. She smelled so good and felt so soft.

  “Lila, honey,” he said, straightening away from her, but still holding her close. “There is one thing I think you ought to know before the wedding tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh?” She looked up at him, waiting.

  “Yeah, well, I can read.”

  “Oh.” Another mischievous smile curved her mouth. “Well, maybe there’s something I ought to tell you.”

  “Like what?” he asked, his curiosity immediately on alert.

  “I can’t cook.”

  He gazed at her for a long moment, then calmly said, “I knew that.”

  “Impossible.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I knew. I swear.”

  “How?”

  “Pots and pans. You don’t seem to need them no matter what you serve for dinner. Nobody’s freezer is that well stocked. I knew you had to have an outside source.”

  “Outside source?”

  “Your mother.”

  She started to blush, but ended up laughing instead. “You’re bad, Jack Hudson, leading me on with all those compliments. And you’re the best.” Her voice softened, and her hand found his. “You’re the absolute best thing to ever happen to me. I never thought I’d love anybody the way I love you. I look at you and my heart flips right over. You kiss me and I come alive inside. I want to build dreams with you, yours and mine, and ours. I want us to last forever.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Lila,” he assured her with all the truth in his heart. “I’ll still be with you when the moon catches silver in your hair.”

  “When I’m old and wrinkly?”

  “And forgetful.”

  “And slow to get around?”

  “And crabby.”

  “I’m not going to be crabby,” she said, still intensely serious.

  “Good.” He kissed the frown off her brow. “You promise not to get crabby, and I’ll promise not to get stubborn. Deal?”

  “Deal,” she said, slipping her hand around in his for a shake.

  “Good.” He grinned and headed for the outside door. “Now let’s go home and make love before we both get too old and forgetful, and crabby and stubborn, to remember how to do it right.”

  “I’m sure we’ve got a few good years still in us,” she said, her heels clicking rapidly with her effort to keep up with him.

  “Yeah, but at this stage of the game, who wants to take any chances?”

  He had a point, she thought. A darn good point. So she let him slip her mink over her shoulders, and she let him hold her hand on the drive home, and she loved him the whole night long . . . and as she slept within the circle of his arms, with his warm breath sighing across her skin, she dreamed of hazel eyes and gentle strength, of a man and a woman under a harvest moon, and of forever.

  * * * * * * * * *

  Read on for excerpts for Dragon’s Eden and A Piece of Heaven.

  Dragon’s Eden

  One

  Sugar Caine stood next to the wicker chair closest to the bed, her gaze traveling the length of the man sprawled facedown across the tumbled disarray he’d made of her sheets. He was naked and beautiful . . . so beautiful, his body intrinsically sensual, a tawny, seductive landscape of lean , muscled curves and hard planes. Just looking at him started a wave of longing in her heart. She’d been alone for so long.

  Jackson was his name. Jack Sun. His dark hair fell forward, hiding his face and draping his shoulder before disappearing underneath him. Sunlight filtering through the jalousies that covered the leeward windows made stripes of light and darkness across his broad back, but most of his body was veiled by the deepening shadows of a Caribbean afternoon. The soles of his feet were callused, as were the palms of his hands. One shoulder was bandaged with white gauze, and the rest of him was simply perfect.

  A soft groan escaped him, a breath of pain as he shifted. Concern drew Sugar’s brows together. She leaned forward ever so slightly, ready to help him if he needed help, even while she prayed he wouldn’t. She didn’t want to touch him. She didn’t dare. She couldn’t afford to get that close to so much trouble, and he was trouble of the worst kind, a magnet for danger, a man marked for murder by Fang Baolian.

  With the grace
and languor of a slowly awakening animal, he rolled onto his back, sending a silky cascade of ebony hair sliding across his torso. The dark strands reached his waist, curving across his sleekly muscled chest and abdomen like a river of black satin. She’d wondered how long his hair was. When Shulan’s men had carried him up from the beach at dawn, it had been impossible to tell. The sky had still been too dark, his hair tangled in his ragged clothes. Her concern then had been more for his vital signs than his physical attributes.

  She wished she could still say the same. Her gaze lifted to his face, and she felt warmth bloom in her cheeks. He was easily as beautiful as his half sister, Sun Shulan, and equally exotic, a rare blend of East and West. Thick black lashes fringed his closed eyes. His eyebrows were dark with a slight curve, more like a red-tailed hawk’s wings than a shorebird’s. She wasn’t surprised. Even wounded and sound asleep, he had the aura of a predator.

  The blush she wouldn’t have admitted to for the world deepened as her gaze strayed to the juncture of his thighs. He was beautiful, his hair there silky and dark, his manhood glorious. Chastising herself, she reached down and pulled the top sheet up to his waist, for all the good it did her. A moment later he’d worked the sheet back off.

  “That boy, he likes being naked, Sugar.”

  Sugar took a moment to clear her throat before she agreed with her friend. “I know, Carolina,” she said, looking up at the tall black woman standing in the open doorway.

  “You want I should tell your papa that boy is here?” Carolina asked, tying a bow in the yellow sash belting her tangerine-colored dress.

  “No. Not yet.” Sugar knew Dr. Thomas Caine would be apoplectic if he knew his daughter was harboring a bounty hunter who had crossed Fang Baolian. It would remind him too much of her youthful mistakes and a past best forgotten—though it could never truly be forgotten.

  “I don’ know why they brought that boy here,” Carolina said. She tilted her head and clipped a large tangerine-and-yellow earring on one ear. “It don’ make no sense, no how. They should’ve taken him to Kingstown and let your papa have him.”

  Sugar had told her old friend as much, but Shulan had assured her that the man she called half brother wasn’t in danger of dying. He’d been treated by the finest doctors in Hong Kong and spent weeks recuperating there before Shulan had transported him halfway around the world to the Caribbean. He did need care and watching over, but nothing beyond Sugar’s skills.

  Mostly he needed protection, Shulan had said, protection and confinement—for his own good.

  Sugar had understood what was being asked of her: repayment of a debt left too long unpaid. Shulan had given Sugar a sanctuary when she’d most needed it. In return for that salvation, the pirate princess wanted her to hold this man at Cocorico Bay, Sugar’s refuge at the end of the world, where her home hugged sheer rock walls and the sea offered the only escape.

  She wasn’t so sure Shulan had been right about her half brother’s health. The only sign of life he’d given all day, besides his breathing and occasional movement, had happened between the time when Shulan and her cohorts had left him fully clothed on the bed and a half hour later, when Carolina had gone in to check on him and let out a little scream of shocked sensibilities.

  What would possess an injured man to use his last ounce of strength to take his clothes off was beyond Sugar’s understanding. Unless, even injured and drugged, the pile of coolie clothes they’d found at the foot of the bed had offended him as much as they had offended Carolina. Carolina had immediately carried them over to the cabana and dumped them in the ragbag, grumbling about having no bondslaves on Cocorico.

  “If he hasn’t wakened by morning, I’ll make sure he gets to St. Vincent,” Sugar told Carolina. She wondered if Shulan knew what lengths she might have to go for the stranger’s life, what risks might be involved. She hadn’t been back to Kingstown since she’d left with the fear of God in her heart.

  “Your papa isn’t gonna like this. He isn’t gonna like any of this,” Carolina warned, clipping on her other earring.

  “I know. That’s why we’re not telling him, or Mamma either.”

  “What about that man?” Carolina asked, gesturing toward the courtyard.

  Sugar shook her head in resignation. She didn’t know anything about the ancient, fragile-looking man Shulan had left at Cocorico, except he was Chinese and he was there to protect Jackson.

  As she returned her attention to the man stretched out on the bed, a few quaint sayings went through her mind. Ones about chickens coming home to roost and reaping what you’ve sown. She’d learned a long time ago that some mistakes lasted a lifetime. The stranger on her bed was proof of that.

  “I don’ like the look of the old Chinee,” Carolina went on. “You want I should stay?”

  “No.” Sugar glanced at her friend. “You go on back to Kingstown. I’ll be fine. If it makes you feel better, have Henry come back in the morning.”

  “Henry.” Carolina gave a ladylike snort. “That man good for nothin’ at all.”

  Despite her friendship with the old sailor, Sugar couldn’t disagree. Henry, sweet as he was, was truly good for nothing. Too many years of rum and sunshine had taken all the gumption out of him.

  “I jus don’ like leaving you with a foreign devil and a naked boy. That’s all.”

  If the man on the bed had been a boy, Sugar would have had far fewer doubts herself. As for the foreign devil standing guard in the courtyard . . . She glanced out the open doorway at the old man staring at the sea. If a good wind didn’t blow him over, she’d count herself lucky. If a good wind did blow him over, then she’d have some explaining to do.

  Letting out an exasperated sigh, Carolina strode forward and snapped the sheet up over the sleeping man’s body. Then she bent down and tucked the sheet under the mattress. “If this don’ hold him, nothin’ will,” she grumbled, walking around the end of the bed to do the same to the other side. “I swear, I’ve only covered this boy five times today. I ain’t never seen—”

  She stopped cold, the sudden halt in her speech bringing Sugar’s head up. Carolina had gone pale beneath the café au lait color of her skin. She dropped the sheet and took a step back from the bed, crossing herself.

  “Sweet God A’ mighty,” she murmured. “Obeahman.”

  Obeahman? Sugar turned to stare at the man on the bed. One look at where the river of his hair had flowed onto the bed, revealing the left side of his chest, was all she needed to see to know why Carolina suddenly held him in fear, why she thought he was a sorcerer of the island magic, obeah.

  Sugar was a bit more skeptical, despite his elaborate tattoo.

  “There are no white obeahmen, Carolina,” she said dryly.

  “There was, missy,” the older woman scolded as she crossed herself again. “Once they had a white obeahman on St. Lucia. I seen him myself.”

  “I saw him too. He wasn’t white.”

  “White enough,” Carolina said, arching an aristocratic eyebrow in her direction. “Jus’ like this boy.”

  Sugar tried another tack. “This man came here from Hong Kong. Who would go to Hong Kong to get an obeahman?”

  “Nobody with no sense, that’s for sure.” The older woman huffed.

  Sugar nodded in agreement. “This man is no obeahman.”

  “Well, he sure is something,” Carolina insisted.

  Sugar agreed with that, too, but she wasn’t sure what name to put to him—until she looked again at his tattoo.

  “He’s a dragon man, Carolina, and dragon men have no power in the lower latitudes.”

  Carolina rolled her eyes and cast a droll look in Sugar’s direction. “You, missy, got so much to learn, it ain’t even funny.”

  Sugar pressed her lips together to keep from grinning.

  “What you know about men fit on the head of a pin, girl. What you know about dragon men you don’ even need a pin to hold.”

  Sugar’s lips twitched.

  “Don’ you go gr
innin’ at me, missy. You may be too big to have your bottom paddled, but that don’ mean I might not try.” Carolina turned her attention to the man on the bed, leaning over and taking a good long look at the tattoo emblazoned on his left breast. “Why this here is nothin’ more than a naked dragon boy,” she said in a dismissive tone, rising to stand tall and straight next to the bed. “If’n he gives you any trouble, you call your papa.”

  “I will,” Sugar promised, her gaze straying to the sleeping man.

  Her smile faded. He was already giving her trouble, just by lying there. Without another move he was an added misadventure in a life she’d tried damn hard to keep on the straight and narrow.

  He kicked at the sheet, and a softly muttered curse rose from his lips. Sugar felt her heart sink lower in her chest. Lord help her. She had a dragon man in her bed, a beautiful, dangerous, fascinating dragon man.

  * * *

  Jackson woke slowly, drifting in and out of consciousness and confusion. His first realization was that he’d been drugged again, and he swore it would be the last time. Next time the bastards could just kill him and get it over with.

  Right. A grin graced his mouth, and he let out a short laugh. His self-righteousness had a habit of drawing the line at actual death. He was definitely not martyr material.

  He stretched, lifting one arm above his head and lengthening his torso. Damn, he wished he could open his eyes. They felt as if they’d been weighted down, but he knew that side effect of the drug would soon pass. All he had to do was wait.

  His grin returned. Waiting had never been his strong suit, and he’d already waited long enough for his body to heal. Shulan had taken him on a hell of a ride, but it was time to get off before she did something terrible, like run back to her momma using him as a peace offering.

  He tilted his head back to loosen the tightness in his neck, and a sigh escaped him. God, he wanted to go home.

  Sugar stood transfixed in the doorway, holding a water pitcher in her hand, mesmerized by the slow stretch and release of his muscles and the play of emotions across his face. His frown had been brief, while his smile kept returning, as if it couldn’t be contained. The pleased curve of his mouth was at once both sensual and wry, revealing straight white teeth and an unexpected confidence.