by Cherry Adair
He couldn't have shot poor Lu, but could he have been responsible for the explosion on the Serendipity? Tally thought about it as she went upstairs.
Not likely. While Michael Wright looked dangerous, he was so laid back, it would take an act of Congress to get him motivated. No, she didn't think her pirate was responsible for the explosion.
Thank God.
She pushed open her bedroom door. A nap, a couple of hours of oblivion, sounded pretty good right now.
Light streamed through the shutters she'd left open in her room before heading down to the beach. She blinked. Then blinked again before comprehension dawned.
The tropical sun shone through the windows, and illuminated utter chaos.
Her room was completely trashed.
"Oh, for Pete's sake!"
Clothes and personal items had been tossed about like children's toys. The sateen lining of her suitcase and garment bag had been shredded; the leather sliced. Even the mattress had been mutilated, and hung half off the bed, the sheets cut through to the ticking cover.
That damn Frenchman had come back.
And this time he'd taken scissors, or a knife, to every garment. Even the soles of her shoes had been pried apart and split open.
"Damn it! Not my favorite red sandals!"
Tally gripped the doorjamb in a white-knuckled fist, and tried to take in the carnage.
Suddenly, Michael Wright looked a lot safer than being alone up here.
"And then it happened," she sang under her breath as she quietly closed the door and raced downstairs.
"Michael?"
He sat at a table on the lanai, shooting the breeze with the guys he'd helped with the body when she burst through the door from upstairs.
Michael glanced up as though he'd just seen her. He'd felt her presence, and one look at her ashen pallor told him that Tally had yet another problem. The woman was fraught with them.
She hadn't showered or changed yet. The beach towel remained firmly tucked under her arms and secured between her small breasts. She was barefoot, sand dusting her feet and legs. He glanced from her legs to her face—paler than the glistening sand clinging to her skin.
"Now what?" he asked warily. Christ, what next? An ax murder?
"May I talk to you privately for a moment?"
She actually spoke without moving her mouth. Her teeth were clenched so tight, it was a wonder she could draw a breath. No screaming hysterics for Tally. And if she was this scared, any moment now she'd burst into song.
"Sure." He pushed away from the table. Taking her arm, he felt the fine tremor traveling across her skin. He ushered her through the bar, grabbing the bottle of brandy and two glasses as he passed through. He pushed open the French doors to the enclosed, private lanai and headed for a small, round table in the shade of a flowering frangipani.
"Sit down before you fall down." He set the glasses on the table and uncorked the bottle. "What happened?" He poured her a healthy slug and handed her the glass. "Find another body?"
"Not yet, but the day is young." She sat down with a plop and scowled at him before picking up the glass and draining its contents. Her nose was a little pink from the sun, but beneath the unnatural pallor a golden tan was coming along nicely. Her dark hair was a silky tangle about her face, and her blue eyes looked a little haunted.
"That French guy came back and ransacked my room while I was at the beach. Damn. Damn. Damn. Everything is shredded and tossed on the floor like a mixed salad. And I was having such a good day. This is really ticking me off."
It struck him that, far from being afraid, Tally was furious.
Michael leaned against the wall beside her. "What makes you think it was the Frenchman?"
She frowned. "Who else could it be?"
The culprit, he strongly suspected, was sitting on the front lanai, her feet on a chair, chatting and laughing with her girlfriends. He'd smelled Tally's perfume on the girl the second they'd come up from the beach earlier. "I'm presuming that was a rhetorical question?"
"Not if you can answer it."
"Let me put it this way," Michael said. "I think this problem needs to be addressed by Auntie."
"Since it's my vacation wardrobe that's been slashed to shreds, I'd say this is a problem that should be addressed by me." Tally pushed her curly bangs out of her eyes. "This is giving me the willies. Michael, there are less than twenty people out there. One of them hates me enough to cut up all my"—her eyes narrowed as she glanced in the direction of laughter from the front of the bar—"that little brat!"
She turned to look up at him. "It's Leli'a, isn't it? Why on earth would she do something so vindictive? Just because she's jealous? Of what? Who? I don't get it. I should march out there and turn that little juvenile delinquent over my knee. Damn it. Besides everything else, she chopped up two pairs of my Manolo Blahniks."
Michael bit back a smile. "What the hell is a Manalow Blanick?" She was working herself up into a fine fury, and it was fascinating watching the thoughts drift across her features like gathering thunderheads.
Tally rolled her eyes at him. Damn, she was cute. "Shoes, Wright. Shoes. My passion, and my downfall."
He wanted to be her passion. Because he sure as shit was going to be her downfall. Hell.
"Yeah, well, be grateful that (a), you weren't in them when they were slashed, and (b), that the culprit was Leli'a and not your knife-wielding assassin."
"He didn't so much as touch my Blahniks. If he had, I'd've done worse than grab his privates and toss him over the lanai. I would've—"
"Yeah, I shudder to think. Shoes can be replaced. You can't."
Tally shoved her chair back. It screeched across the tile floor. With blood in her eye, she hitched the towel more securely around her chest.
"Now where are you off to?"
"I'm about to have a little chat with Tahitian Barbie out there."
Michael pushed away from the wall and followed her. "I'd hate to miss this."
Tally used both hands to push her way between the double French doors. She entered the bar like a gunslinger at noon and looked around. Only a handful of men remained. "Where's Leli'a?" she asked Henri, who was talking to a couple of guys playing chess.
"She went home, I think."
"Which is her house?" Tally asked pleasantly.
Henri glanced from Tally to Michael and back again. "The small pink one. What is it you—"
But Tally was gone, long, bare legs striding across the lanai, around the side of the hotel, and up the shell path.
By the time Michael caught up with her, she was pounding on the bright blue door of Leli'a's cottage.
"She's either stone deaf, or not here," he told her patiently.
"If she's smart," Tally said through her teeth, "she'll be on her way to Fatu Hiva or Bora-Bora. Preferably swimming. In shark-infested waters. With a small, bloody cut she got from the scissors she used to chop up my clothes!"
She closed her eyes, and inhaled slowly, deeply, and let her fist drop to her side. The towel slipped, revealing the top swell of her breasts. She struggled to maintain her poise. But the pulse in her throat beat harder. Michael wanted to put his mouth on the uneven pulse, to feel the beat of her heart against the tip of his tongue.
"It's unlikely she's left the island. She's got to be around somewhere."
"Yeah," Tally said with relish. "She can run, but she can't hide. Come on, let's go back." She turned back to the path, picking her way carefully over the sharp bits of shell and gravel in her bare feet.
"Leli'a was not home?" Henri asked, glancing up from scrubbing the counter.
"No. I'll catch her later," Tally told him calmly. Although Michael was walking behind her, he could tell her jaw was clenched. Her lightly tanned shoulders were stiff with fury as she pushed open the door.
He raised a hand to the older man—he'd talk to him later—and followed Tally back to their original spot on the back lanai.
She sat down and folded her arms on t
he table, pleats of exhaustion and annoyance between her eyes.
"Why don't you go up and grab a nap in my room?"
"I don't need a damn nap," she said irritably, then rubbed her forehead. "Sorry. I shouldn't be snapping at you. I don't have a single intact item of clothing left, thanks to her. Damn, and double damn."
"I think you should go and stay up at the house. Put a little distance between you."
"I'm not going to let that little brat scare me, for goodness's sake," she said indignantly. She tossed back an inch and a half of brandy without a blink.
God, he loved when her eyes lit up and flashed with annoyance. Her cheeks were no longer pale, but flushed. Michael felt an overwhelming urge to pull her into his lap and nuzzle his mouth against her soft, warm skin. Instead, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his shorts.
"I'm fine here until my father gets back. Besides," she said almost wistfully, "I'd feel really uncomfortable up there by myself."
Michael almost offered to accompany her. God. Wouldn't that be sweet when Church returned home? "Your choice. When's he due back?"
"Arnaud said Thursday." She hitched the towel up a little higher, then rubbed a hand across her face. "Darn it. What am I going to wear?" She looked at him and gave him a slightly loopy half smile, which cut to his gut. "Stupid, I know. But I want this meeting tomorrow to be perfect. And it's already screwed up because I don't—never mind. It's pointless to get myself in a knot about something I have no control over."
"There's sure to be something at the General Store."
"Right." She brightened. "I'll ask Auntie to open it for me later."
"She runs the store, too?"
"Haven't you noticed? She runs everything around here."
"You're going to have to tell her about Leli'a."
"I will. After Leli'a and I have our chat. I have to tell you, this has been one exciting vacation so far," Tally said dryly. "Beside a scissor-wielding teenage mutant Barbie, there's the Serendipity blowing up, a stinky guy with a knife. And now poor dead Lu." She rolled the glass between her palms. "All roads point to Mr. Slime himself. I'd just love to know what Arnaud was up to."
"And Leli'a."
"Yeah—thank God she didn't find my necklace."
"Only because she'd never think to look in the toilet tank." Tally's eyes widened, "Michael, you rat," she choked back a laugh. "What were you doing looking in the toilet tank?"
"Maybe I wanted to hide my jewels."
"I am so not going to touch that line," she said with a small smile. There was a look of strain in her eyes. She had been through a fair amount in the last couple of days. A hell of a lot more than anyone could expect on an island paradise.
"I'd hate to lose those pearls." She played with the glass, turning it in circles on the damp ring it left on the table. "My father gave them to me for my twenty-first birthday. Not only are they very expensive, but they have a lot of sentimental value for me."
"Did you actually check to make sure the pearls were still there?"
Tally frowned and shot to her feet. "No. I didn't. Wait here. I'll be right bac—"
"No, you wait. I'll get it."
Henri came outside a few moments later. Tally wondered if Michael had sent him out to watch over her while he was gone. While unlikely, it was a nice thought.
"Auntie says you should eat," Henri said, dark eyes twinkling. He placed a platter of small pupus on the table, then sat in the chair Michael had vacated.
"Oh, Lord." Tally eyed the appetizers with a small shudder. "Thanks, but I couldn't eat now if I tried. My tummy is churning."
"A bad thing this. Perhaps this is not Lu? The man's face was not recognizable, after all. Perhaps a fisherman's dispute? But what was a fisherman doing so close to our shore? The fishing here is not so good. Pearls. None." He gave a Gallic shrug. "A man in the wrong place, at the wrong time, it appears."
"No, it was Lu. I recognized the clothes he was wearing when we were onboard the Serendipity the other day."
"I wouldn't worry," Henri said, reaching for a shrimp puff. "This bad situation has nothing to do with you."
"I sincerely hope not." Should she voice her suspicions about Arnaud to Henri? Tally had no idea what kind of relationship the two men might have had. If they'd had any relationship at all. And what difference could it make now with Arnaud gone, too?
Henri motioned to her almost empty glass. "Would you like me to bring you a soda instead?"
"No thanks." Tally smiled. "I don't think I need the caffeine rush at the moment. How long have you been here, Henri? Were you born in Tahiti?" she asked in French.
He helped himself to a bite of poisson cru, raw fish in lime juice. "Non," he said in his native language. "My parents come to Bora-Bora for the pearl trade when I was a boy. They eventually went back to France. I remained. I did a little of this, a little of that. When I met Malie, she was married to another. I waited." His eyes twinkled. "Not so patiently, until she realized she was married to the wrong man."
Tally smiled. "And how long ago was that?"
"Twenty-four years. Twenty-four good years. The best. We were never blessed with children of our own. We came to Paradise, to take care of Leli'a, when Auntie's youngest sister died." While he talked, he polished off the pupus. "When she left for school, we opened the hotel to give us something to do other than make love all day." Henri grinned.
Michael stepped onto the lanai. The two men exchanged glances, then Henri pushed himself up with his hands on the table. "Better go back in and see what the boss wants me to do," he said with a lugubrious sigh.
"Thanks for the snacks," Tally said dryly, handing him the empty plate.
"No problem. I'll tell her you enjoyed them."
Still smiling, Tally glanced at Michael as he pulled out a chair and sat down. "Find my pearls?"
"No. They're gone."
Chapter Twelve
« ^ »
"This never happen before," Auntie complained, huffing up the stairs with a handful of large, plastic garbage bags. She shuffled into Tally's room and started stuffing one of the bags with bits of leather suitcase she found on the floor, her mountainous bottom, draped in grape-colored cotton, pointed to the ceiling, her voice muffled by her own large breasts. Tally wondered how the poor woman could breathe in there. "I no like this nonsense. No, I surely do not."
"Thanks for the garbage bags." Tally tried to take them. Auntie held on. "There's no need for you to help. Michael's coming back to help me get everything cleaned up—"
"I no like some no-good travelin' tané comin' into my place of business and messing things up." Auntie righted herself, her face flushed and screwed up in anger.
Until Tally knew, 100 percent, that Leli'a was responsible for the damage to her room, and for stealing her pearls, she bit her tongue. "I'm sure you ar—"
"I'll be finding that—a hi'o!" Auntie held up a scrap of Tally's underwear. The pale pink cotton had been sliced into shreds. "What doin' this for? You tell me that? No te aha? Make no sense."
Tally reached for the bag the older woman was dragging about the room. "Let m—"
"Here, you take." The woman shoved the crackling plastic at her. "Auntie get new sheets. Fresh outta the bag from Sears catalog. Downstair. I be quick-quick."
Michael flattened himself against the door as Auntie stomped past him.
"I see we got some garbage bags," he said laconically, stepping into the room and surveying the damage. "No sign of Leli'a. But then she can't have gone far. Stop being so damn finicky. Everything's trashed. Toss it in here and we're done. Did you tell her Leli'a did this? And stole your necklace?"
She felt sick about the necklace. "No."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because I'm not one hundred percent sure she did. I'll have a little chat with the juvie first, before I involve Auntie."
"You'd probably cut the baby in half, too. Just to be fair. Fine. Your call." Michael scooped up the rest of her clothing off the floor and s
tuffed it into the bag. "Any of your clothes left intact?"
"Nope." Her fashion-conscious soul cringed at the desecration to her carefully selected, high-end wardrobe.
"Go into my room, help yourself to anything that'll work. My mast came in. I'm going down to the marina to work on the boat for a couple of hours."
Tally smiled. "What size bra do you wear?" She rather liked the idea of wearing Michael's shorts and T-shirts.
He walked up to her and dropped a quick kiss on her mouth. "Honey, leave off the bra. You don't need one. Besides, I like knowing you're naked under my clothes."
He started for the door, paused, and came back. He didn't touch Tally, but it was as though he'd tossed a sensual net over her as their gazes locked.
"You need to rethink your line in the sand, sweetheart. I find I'm not that patient after all."
The e-mail from his brothers was waiting for him on his computer when Michael went belowdecks.
Ah, the miracles of modern technology. The Musketeers could find him damn near anywhere. The message was brief, and pithy. Their code a mishmash of things each had learned over the years, and only the four of them could understand.
He'd kept them off his back for the last month. They knew what, and how, but he refused to tell them where.
He stood for a moment, scanned the missive once more. His brother Kane, he suspected, had sent this. Methodical, orderly Kane's renowned patience must've come to an end. Probably aided and abetted by his twin, Derek, and stirred up by Kyle. And the only reason they'd be this hysterical was if Jake had spilled his guts. Dolan fit into the family like the fifth finger on a glove.
Damn.
No way was Michael letting Church anywhere near his brothers. No fucking way.
Life was fragile. Death final. The double-edged sword of guilt and survival wasn't going to touch the people he loved most in the world.
He swiftly tapped out an equally cryptic response. Then routed it through various addresses, and set a time delay on it. They'd receive it on Friday morning. By then it would all be over but the shouting.
That done, he quickly assembled what he needed. He'd come to Paradise loaded for bear; everything from a little bang, to a giant big bang. He'd lucked out. Church's stash of ordnance was in such a confined space, it wouldn't take much to do a spectacular disposal.