He started to go outside. Remembering he needed to give her his insurance information, he stopped. He pulled the card out of his pocket and held out his hand, the card between two fingers. “Here. Call the insurance company and see if you can’t get the ball rollin’. They’ll want to talk to me, but tell them I’ve asked you to give them your particulars.”
She walked toward him but stopped far enough away that she had to lean forward and stretch to take the card.
He shook his head. “Coward.” He cocked an eyebrow.
A scowl covered her face. “Piss off, O’Connell.”
He tsked her, knowing even as he did so that it would raise her ire. But treading lightly and trying not to upset her hadn’t gotten him anywhere in the last four months. Perhaps getting her a little emotional and slightly off her stride would work in his favor. As she began to sputter some sort of indignant response, he pulled the door open wider. After checking the area, he glanced back at her and muttered, “Stay away from the windows,” and went onto the portico, closing the door softly behind him.
Let her stew for a while. If there was one thing that would make Pelicia act contrary, it was telling her she was something that she wasn’t. Calling her a coward should make her face her fears—and then, perhaps, him.
Pelicia ignored his damned order—really, no one would be shooting at her, but at stubborn, macho, infuriating Declan Joseph O’Connell? She’d believe that in a second. She wrapped her arms around herself and paced by the windows, her gaze fixed on Declan as he prowled around the front garden. The Nola perched on the edge of Hugh Town so there weren’t many people moving around nearby. For now, Declan was the only human in her sight.
Watching him as he bent to look at something, she sighed. His jeans pulled taut over the muscles of his ass. He was a sight worth seeing, she couldn’t deny that.
She sighed again. What had she been thinking, to let him kiss her like that? After all her posturing, all it took was hearing that sexy Irish brogue of his and one touch of his mouth against hers, and she’d melted like soft butter in a hot skillet.
One kiss and the folds of her pussy were slick and swollen, ready for sex. Her nipples were diamond-hard points that ached. God, she felt like it would take only the briefest, lightest of touches against her pulsing clit for her to splinter in an orgasm.
Declan had always been able to do that to her. Get her revved up in a millisecond, so on fire for him she would do about anything for his touch.
She wouldn’t go there again. She couldn’t. She had loved him with a depth she’d never before experienced, and he had torn her heart out. When she’d discovered that he had gotten close to her, that he’d made love to her as a means to complete his investigation, just as a way to get to her grandfather…that had been bad enough.
But when the police had come, handcuffing her in front of her boss, her friends, and hauled her off to jail to be booked and fingerprinted, tossed into a holding cell with prostitutes and drug addicts…. Her cheeks burned at the remembered humiliation. In the end it hadn’t mattered that she’d been an unwitting dupe, used by her own grandfather to transport forged documents to his clients who stayed as guests at the upscale hotel where she’d worked.
Pictures of her being shoved into the back of a police car had been plastered all over the front pages of the newspapers—legitimate ones and the tabloids as well. When the authorities had finally acknowledged her innocence—after two days behind bars—the damage to her reputation had been done. Senior management at the hotel didn’t want any notoriety associated with their good name, so within a matter of hours upon her release from jail she’d found herself released from employment as well.
She’d been made redundant.
She’d not had the emotional energy to fight it. She’d been heartsick at Declan’s duplicity—which had somehow seemed so much worse than the betrayal by her grandfather. For the first few days following her release from jail and the termination from her job, she’d lain in bed and slept. And cried. Slept some more and cried some more.
Eventually her growling tummy had roused her, and she’d realized that she had to find work—she didn’t have the financial wherewithal to lie around feeling sorry for herself. And so in the two months following her redundancy she’d tried to find work at other hotels but had hardly been able to secure any interviews. When she had, they’d gotten one look at her infamous face, conducted what was obviously a five-minute courtesy interview, and let her leave with a polite “We’ll be in touch.”
None of them ever had gotten “in touch” with her. Without a job she couldn’t afford her London flat. And without a place to stay—it was amazing how many of her so-called friends couldn’t afford to put her up on their sofa for a while—she couldn’t continue to look for work in the city.
She could have asked her father for help, or even his employer, Ryder Merrick, who owned a private island here in the Isles of Scilly. But she hadn’t wanted her dad to know how completely suckered in she’d been by Declan, how devastated she’d been by his betrayal. And she’d felt the need to hole up by herself and try to come to terms with what had happened.
But of course William Cobb had seen through her forced gaiety right away, and the story had come tumbling out. She’d never seen her father so angry, so ready to do battle.
A smile flitted across her lips. Her father stood barely five and a half feet tall, but he’d have taken on Declan in a heartbeat. She hadn’t wanted anything more to do with the man—her bruised and battered heart couldn’t take it—so she’d told her dad to drop it.
Now here she was, home on St. Mary’s, the largest of the Isles of Scilly, running her grandfather’s bed and breakfast. She did know the hotel business, after all, and with her grandfather in prison the Nola would otherwise be sitting empty. Thankfully the scandal in London was far enough removed from the Isles of Scilly that tourists had no idea about her past. And the locals—most of them, anyway—didn’t care, though there were a few who looked at her as if she had some sort of contagious disease.
To them she smiled and waved, following something her clever dad had drilled into her from the time she’d been little—be kind to your friends and even kinder to your enemies.
For it will drive them insane.
She sighed. It had been hard work, getting the Nola ready for business. And lonely. She had a few friends still on the island, but most of them were gone—it was much easier to establish a career off-island. Most young people found that here on the islands they could have steady low-wage jobs that barely put food on the table. Establishing careers they could put their hearts and souls into was pretty much unheard of.
Which was what had sent Pelicia to London to begin with. Now here she was, back on the island, full circle. This was her second season to run the bed and breakfast. She tried to stay optimistic, but last season hadn’t gone so well. She’d had to tap into some of what remained of her savings just to put food on the table for her guests and pay the utilities. By the end of this season she had to be operating in the black or she wasn’t sure she could open up for guests next year.
Luckily over the last two years she’d had a sporadic guest year-round—a photojournalist who was working on a coffee table book and preferred taking his pictures without a lot of tourists getting in the way. Neal White had insisted on paying her the full rate throughout the year instead of the off-season rate she had offered, and with the state of her current finances she hadn’t been able to decline his generosity.
He would book a week or two at a time and then be gone for three months or so—working to support his project, she supposed. He’d just checked in for another two-week stay yesterday, plus she had another man who had arrived just this morning. She stopped pacing and stared out at the car still jammed into the corner of her house. It was a good thing both of them were out now, or they’d have had as big a surprise as she when the car had hit.
She’d thought the entire building was coming down.
&nbs
p; It was the same feeling she’d had just now when Declan kissed her.
Aaaargh! Enough already. Pelicia started pacing again. Four months ago Declan had approached her, wanting to talk about what had happened between them, and she’d had the strength to ignore him then, to turn the other way before he’d had a chance to get close enough to touch her. Why hadn’t she done that this time?
“Because he ran a bloody car into your house, you bloody idiot,” she muttered. She’d been so shocked, so disbelieving that she’d been thrown off balance.
She chewed on her thumbnail as she continued to stride back and forth in front of the windows. Absently she noticed that the sky had clouded over and was getting darker by the minute. She huffed a sigh.
Now even the weather suited her mood.
She couldn’t believe she’d let him kiss her. That could never happen again. She might still have feelings for the man—she really couldn’t deny it—but that didn’t mean she trusted him.
The front door opened, and she whirled to face her sexy bogeyman.
Declan closed the door behind him. “It seems clear outside.” His lips tightened. “I thought I told you to stay away from the windows.”
“They weren’t shooting at me.”
His gaze snagged hers, holding it for several seconds before she looked away. He sighed and said, “Well, no one took any pot shots at me, and I couldn’t see where anyone was hiding.”
“Well, then, I guess you can be on your way.” Pelicia hurriedly scribbled down the phone number of his insurance company and then put the card on a small telephone stand near the door. “There you go.”
“It still doesn’t mean you’re safe.” He frowned. “We need to call the police.”
Her eyes widened. “No!” God, that was all she needed—the local constable poking around, his vehicle and its flashing lights outside her bed and breakfast, driving away any additional tourists who might be thinking to stay at the Nola. Or scaring off the two guests she did have. “I can’t afford that kind of publicity.” Not again. Never again. She shook her head. “Besides, no one was shooting at me,” she said again. “I’m a nobody.”
His frown deepened. “No, you’re not, darlin’. You’re certainly somebody to me.”
And just that quickly her anger and hurt returned. Declan had ruined her past and now here he was, crashing his car into her remaining source of livelihood, trying to destroy her future as well.
She had no problem looking into his eyes now, and she did so with a glare. Her heart pounded fast and hard in her throat, making it difficult to speak. “And just how am I ‘somebody’ to you, O’Connell? Somebody you can use? Somebody you can betray?” She clenched her fists to keep him from seeing how badly her hands shook.
“Goddamnit!” Declan raked one big hand through his dark hair and returned her glower, shifting his stance so that the sunlight from the window lit his face.
For just a second she thought she saw his eyes lighten, but when she looked closer they were the same deep brown they’d always been. It must have been a trick of the light shining in his eyes that had given them that amber glow.
“If you’d just let me explain—”
“Explain what?” Pelicia threw up her hands. “Fine. Enlighten me as to how you thought seducing me, making me fall in love with you—having sex with me—was the best way you had to get close to my grandfather.” Her eyes burned with tears she refused to shed. She was bloody well done with crying because of him. “Well? Go on. Explain it to me.”
His jaw clamped down, a look of frustration spreading over his face.
She raised her eyebrows in an exaggerated lift, waiting for him. When he didn’t say anything, she muttered, “Oh, just go away, O’Connell. You’ve done enough damage for one day. For an entire lifetime.” Without waiting for his response, she turned and went down the hallway to the kitchen, closing the door behind her.
She collapsed on a chair and propped her elbows on the small country-style table, resting her forehead against her fists. God, dealing with him was exhausting. She wanted to curl up and sleep. At least then she wouldn’t have to think. Wouldn’t have to remember.
Remember what his callused hands felt like against her skin. Remember the look of love in his eyes, the same love she’d felt for him. Remember the horribly blank look on his face—such an utter lack of expression she’d gone cold—when the police put her in handcuffs and read her her rights.
“It’s over,” Pelicia whispered and made herself get up. She went to the counter. She filled her copper teakettle with water and placed it on the hot plate. As she flipped the on switch, she sniffed back threatening tears. She’d done all the crying she was going to do over him. It was over, and she’d do well enough to get on with her life.
No matter how much Declan O’Connell tried to derail it.
Chapter 2
Declan stared at the closed kitchen door, fighting the urge to follow Pelicia and make her talk to him. But he knew he’d only upset her more, and they’d get nowhere. So instead he turned and left the Nola, closing the door behind him. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he stared up the street, trying to determine from where the shot had come. His eyes lit on a small knoll roughly eight hundred feet to the north that he’d noticed earlier.
An ideal spot for a sniper to lie in wait. He started up the street, keeping to the side to let vehicles and giggling tourists pass. Even though St. Mary’s was the largest of the Isles of Scilly, it was still a tiny island with only ten miles of roadway.
Ten miles of roads with about sixty times that many vehicles. He grinned. People back in Arizona thought having the winter visitors made traffic a nightmare—they should come here when tourist season was in full swing.
As he made his way up the incline, a steady rain began to fall. He paused, tilting his face up, letting the cool water hit his skin. Then realization dawned, and he muttered a curse.
The rain would wash away any scents and possibly evidence as well. He jogged the rest of the way up and crouched at an area where the grass was matted down. With his sensitive sense of smell he tried to filter through the various odors but the rain blurred the scents until the only thing he could smell was wet dirt.
But, wait…There was something more, something out of place. He drew in a deep breath and held it, trying to pick out the faint smell that was fading even as he tried to categorize it.
Gunpowder.
As he’d suspected, this was the spot from which the sniper had fired.
Looking down toward the Nola, Declan’s eyes burned.
The bastard. If he came near Pelicia again, he was a dead man. Even as he watched, he saw her hurrying toward the house, an umbrella protecting her from the rain but not hiding her blond hair from his sight.
He swore and got to his feet. She must have snuck out when his back was turned. By God, he was going to paddle her sweet bottom. What the hell was she doing out of the house?
Another woman stopped her, her head and shoulders hidden from his view by the large umbrella she carried. Her legs were bare beneath the thigh-length skirt she wore. He focused, his enhanced vision zeroing in on a tattoo on her left ankle—a red heart surrounded by thorns.
Interesting.
Before he could take more than a few steps, Pelicia moved away from the woman and went the last few feet up to the Nola. She stepped onto the small portico and collapsed the umbrella, propping it against the house beside the front door. As she did so, she partially turned her head, giving him a better view of her face.
His muscles eased. It wasn’t Pelicia—it was her friend Brenna Brown. And when Brenna Brown came for a visit, it lasted for hours. That made him feel better—at least Pelicia wouldn’t be alone. When the front door opened and Brenna went inside, he turned his attention back to the task at hand.
He palmed through the tamped down grass until something smooth hit his skin. He stopped and rooted it out of the wet grass. A spent shell casing. He brought it to his nose and sniffed,
but the overriding scent was gunpowder. No human odor remained for him to suss out the identity of the sniper.
Straightening, he pocketed the casing and looked again toward Pelicia’s bed and breakfast. The car had been towed away, and her place looked worse than it had with the car hiding the damage. A few rather sizable chunks of granite rested on the ground and those that remained intact in the building remained slightly skewed.
Since Brenna was there, he’d go back to Phelan’s Keep—the private island his friend Ryder Merrick’s family had owned for generations—and gather his things. Then he’d come back and sit a stakeout on the Nola to make sure Pelicia stayed safe.
After he made a call. It was time to get the police involved—and not the locals. No, he’d call his good friend DCI Rory Sullivan and see if he could interest the other man in an early vacation.
An hour later, Declan slouched on the leather sofa in the study of Ryder’s house. It seemed odd that such a short amount of time had passed since he’d come here with a friend, seeking Ryder’s help, and Declan had been bitten by a werewolf for his troubles.
On the other hand, four months sometimes felt like a lifetime. Four months of learning what being a werewolf was all about. Four months of Pelicia avoiding him.
Four months of fighting back a sense of hopelessness that he’d never be able to win her back.
“She hates me.” Resting his head against the plump back of the couch, he stared at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves across the room. Reference books mostly, though one shelf was dedicated to Ryder’s published books. Declan briefly closed his eyes on a sigh. He was no closer to mending things with Pelicia than he’d been months ago when he’d made his first attempt to see her.
Since then he’d been concentrating on learning just what being a werewolf involved. For one thing, he had an even greater appetite for red meat—the rarer, the better, though whatever he ate seemed to taste better now. His taste buds had grown more acute in sensing the differences between sweet and bitter, smooth and tart. His gut tightened.
Seducing the Moon Page 2