by JoAnn Ross
“I spent some time in the hospital. Then, after I got out, I kept rerunning that night in my mind, trying to think what I could have done differently. I started drinking to blank the memories out so I could sleep, which was when things really began to go downhill.” Lucas knew that even Grace’s generous heart probably wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with him during those lost months.
Silence pooled around them; there was only the continued sound of the rain on the roof, the muffled moan of the ropes rubbing against the dock, the haunting, lonely sound of foghorns out in the bay.
“What happened to the traitor?” she asked finally. “The naval officer who was responsible for you being captured?”
“Seems the guilt must have gotten to him, or else he couldn’t take the idea of spending the rest of his life in a federal prison, because he was found dead in his San Diego condo. He’d been shot with his own gun. The autopsy concluded it was suicide.”
Lucas waited for her to question that statement. As he had himself on more than one occasion. The web of secrecy was a wide and tangled one; he could well imagine that people higher up than he might have thought one more death was a practical way of handling the potentially embarrassing situation.
Again, Grace surprised him.
“I’m glad he’s dead,” she decided.
“Me, too.” The rush of relief was like standing beneath a crystal waterfall. For the first time in years, Lucas felt clean. “And you really are incredible…. So, is it time for me to get lucky?”
“Absolutely.”
The dark, solemn mood lifted. Laughing again, Grace threw her arms around Lucas’s neck, covered his mouth with hers and spent the rest of the long, love-filled night showing him exactly how incredible she could be.
CHAPTER 11
IT HAD STOPPED RAINING and a bright July sun was streaming through the window when Grace woke up. She was alone in the stateroom, and a glance at the bedside clock radio told her it was almost noon. Having always been an early riser, she was amazed that she’d slept so late. But then again, she considered, as she climbed out of the high bed, by the time she’d finally drifted off to sleep in Lucas’s arms, the pearlescent light of a new day had already been filtering into the cabin through the slats of the blinds.
She showered quickly, threw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and sneakers, and went to find Lucas.
He was in the galley, the laptop computer on the table, the modern plugged into a phone jack.
“Good morning.” He rose and poured her a cup of coffee from the carafe. “How did you sleep?”
“Like the dead.” The irony of that statement, considering the circumstances, struck home. “I mean well,” she amended. “I slept amazingly well.” Which had been all the more surprising since she’d always been one of those people who never adapted to strange beds.
“It’s the water.” He handed her the earthenware mug. “It rocks you like a cradle. You can’t help but sleep like a baby.”
“Perhaps.” She took a sip of the French roast coffee and willed the caffeine to click in. “Then again, it could be all the exercise I had last night.”
“There is that,” he agreed in that smooth drawl that never failed to slip beneath her skin. “Would you like some breakfast? I’ve got some cinnamon rolls, or if you’re hungry, I can make bacon and eggs or pancakes.”
“No, thank you.” Before she’d met Lucas, Grace had never in her entire life had a man cook for her. She thought it ironic that the most masculine male she’d ever met would be the one to offer. “It’s so late, I think I’ll just wait for lunch”
“Your call,” he said agreeably, then sat back down at the table and began moving his fingers across the compact computer keyboard again. “Damn.”
“What?” Grace, who’d been watching a boat berthed nearby head away from the dock, turned back toward him.
“I forgot something.” He stood up again, brushed his
hands through her hair, which she’d left loose this morning, and lowered his mouth to hers.
The kiss was short, sweet and devastatingly potent. As she plunged straight into it, needs rose inside her like a blazing sun rising out of cool waters. Her head was still whirling when he released her.
“That’s better.” Lucas drank in the sight of her flushed cheeks, her unfocused eyes. Satisfied, at least for now, he resisted scooping her up and carrying her back to bed. “Lord, you really are amazing, Grade.”
“You’re not so bad yourself, sailor.”
They shared a laugh. Another quick, friendly kiss. “Mind if I work a little before we go back to the city?” he asked. “I’ve almost got it buttoned up.”
“Not at all.” If she were to be absolutely honest, Grace would have to admit that she didn’t care if she ever returned to the city. Or, more particularly, the conference.
As she strolled around the galley and adjoining main salon, examining the bits and pieces Lucas had obviously picked up on various sailing expeditions—a piece of driftwood shaped like a dolphin, a scattering of shells in a brass bowl from the Orient, an antique sextant—it dawned on Grace that she wasn’t suffering from any uncomfortable morning-after feelings.
On the contrary, being with Lucas this way seemed strangely right. In fact, it felt almost perfect, she mused as she sipped the coffee and watched the white sails skimming across the bay toward the bridge and the city. Or would be if it weren’t for the little matter of someone wanting to kill her.
“What are you working on?” She came back to the galley and stood behind him.
“A hunch.”
She leaned over his shoulder. “It looks like a bank statement.”
“That’s precisely what it is.”
“Whose?”
“Jamie Winston’s.”
“Jamie’s?” Grace stared at him. “You hacked your way into my best friend’s personal bank account?”
“Yeah.”
The fact that he seemed so matter-of-fact about such subterfuge made a temper she’d never known she possessed flare. “I can’t believe it!” She rubbed at her temple as she began to pace. “Not only is it a horrible betrayal of someone I care about deeply—someone who cares about me—what right do you have to break the law like that?”
“I was hired to keep you safe. And I’ll break every damn law on the books to do that.”
His expression revealed not an iota of guilt; his voice was absolutely reasonable. Grace reminded herself that he’d been a spy. An assassin. Obviously, after all he’d done, he wasn’t going to take a little hacking very seriously.
“You were hired as a bodyguard,” she stated. “You’re not a detective.”
“True enough. But didn’t anyone ever tell you that knowledge is power, Gracie?”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
“On the contrary. I take it very seriously. Because I take you seriously.”
His quiet voice took a bit of the wind out of her sails. There was nothing she could say to that. She tilted her head and studied him. He was a man who lived by his own rules. If she were to allow herself to love him, she’d have to accept that part of him, just as she’d already accepted his past.
“I’ve never really believed in the ends justifying the means.”
“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Another silence stretched between them. Lucas seemed more than willing to wait until doomsday for her to make a decision.
Grace decided that the best thing to do would be just to say it straight out. “I need to know I can trust you.”
She saw the flash of disappointment in his eyes, but he nodded, as if her concern had merit. “That’s only reasonable. And all I can do is promise that although we got off to a rocky start, I’ll never lie to you.”
She was beginning to get a handle on how his mind worked. “How about keeping things from me?”
“Ah, what the good sisters at St. Cecilia’s used to call a sin of omission.”
“Exactly.
”
He thought about that for a minute. “That’s a harder one.”
It was her turn to wait.
“Okay,” Lucas said finally, throwing up his hands, both literally and figuratively. “You win. I won’t keep anything I think you need to know—”
“Anything,” she interjected.
He cursed and dragged his hand through his hair. “Whoever would have expected America’s most beloved romance author to be so damn mule headed?”
She lifted her chin and met his hard, frustrated gaze straight on. “Believe me, it’s coming as a surprise to me, as well.”
They looked at each other over a gulf that seemed as wide and as deep as the Grand Canyon.
“Anything.” Lucas finally ground out the promise through clenched teeth.
Grace’s smile was warm and gracious. “Thank you, Lucas.”
“You’re welcome.” He paused, trying to decide how to break this to her, then deciding it would best to tell her straight out. “Did you happen to know that your friend is in deep financial trouble?”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Her husband spent a lot of money setting up his office, which might not have been a problem if his mortgage, car payments and monthly expenses weren’t based on his former salary at his high-powered law firm.”
“But he received a generous payment for his partner’s share,” Grace said. “And Jamie said that some of his clients came with him to his new firm.”
“True. But as I said, he has a lot of start-up expenses. And neither of them have ever been all that frugal. They’ve been living on charge cards the past six months, floating payments from one to the other, and it appears their house of platinum cards is about to crumble.”
“I don’t believe it!” Grace shook her head and sank into a chair. “Why didn’t she tell me? I could have helped.”
“Pride is a powerful thing,” Lucas suggested.
“True. But we’re best friends.” A thought occurred to her. “This conference is not inexpensive. If they’re in financial difficulties, why…” Her voice drifted off as the answer came. “She said she wouldn’t miss seeing me win a ROMI. She spent money she didn’t have to support me.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps she came here to try to work a deal with Geraldine Manning, in the event the Roberta Grace name ends up with Penbrook Press.”
“She’d never do that,” Grace said firmly. “I can’t believe you’d even consider her a suspect.”
“I consider everyone a suspect,” he countered.
That idea made her more sad than angry. “That’s a terrible way to live.”
“Granted. Which is one more reason I’m getting out of the business. After we catch whoever it is who’s out to kill you.”
Grace caught his use of the word we and decided that while her newfound independence was all very well and good, there was definitely something to be said for being part of a team. What she didn’t like was Lucas thinking that Jamie could actually want her dead. Or Tina. Or Geraldine. Or any of the two thousand other conference attendees.
“I hate this,” she muttered.
“You’re not the only one. But then again, I’m not going to bitch, since I wouldn’t have met you if I hadn’t taken the case. Which definitely proves the old adage about a silver lining. And now, since we’ve agreed to be so honest with one another, want me to show you what I found in Geraldine’s personal account?”
For the next five minutes Grace watched as he pulled up the numbers showing three payments to Geraldine from the senior Dwyer. They’d been drawn on the Dwyer’s Diapers account and listed on those corporate books as bonuses.
“That’s not so surprising,” Grace argued. “Executives at her level often have bonus payments included in their income.”
“Granted. But they don’t show up anywhere on either Dwyer’s or Penbrook Press’s employee tax-withholding records.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What we seem to have going for us here, Grade, is some type of personal payoff. But I can’t figure out what for.” He did some more tapping and accessed Grace’s royalty statement. “Then there’s this little problem. I’ve tried to reconcile your print runs, the shipping numbers, the warehouse stock and the returns of books that didn’t sell with what you’ve been paid in royalties, and it just doesn’t add up.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are a lot of books missing, Gracie.”
“How many is a lot?”
“At least a hundred thousand. Give or take a few thousand.”
“That many?” Grace sank down onto a chair. “How could that be?”
“Good question. At first I thought that Penbrook might be just cooking their books, but I checked out other writers’ accounts, and they seem to be pretty much on the money, except for the random mistake translating payments from foreign sales into dollars.”
Grace thought about that a moment. “Surely you don’t think that Geraldine could be skimming from my sales?”
“That’s what it looks like. Although that still doesn’t explain the payments from George Senior.”
Grace looked up at Lucas, her expression confused, her eyes distressed. “My last book stayed on all the lists longer than any of the previous ones, but my sales seemed to drop this spring royalty period.”
“Was any mention made of that?”
“Actually, Tina told me that Geraldine was using the lower numbers to play hardball on these new contract negotiations. Since Penbrook wasn’t the same place anymore, what with all the management changes, I was considering moving to another house. And although Geraldine talks a great line, telling me how much she loves my books, I have to admit I get the feeling that she isn’t exactly going to bend over backward to convince me to stay.”
“But you’re their bestselling writer.”
“I know.” Grace dragged her hand through her hair. “But it’s a subjective business. Perhaps Geraldine wants to change the type of book Rainbow Romances is publishing.”
“Has she spoken to you or Tina about changing the focus of your stories?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe Geraldine would do this to me. Admittedly, I don’t much like her, or her way of doing business. But I’ve been with Penbrook for years, I’ve made a lot of money for the company. Why would she choose me to steal from?”
“For the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks. Your books are where the money is. Your print runs are high enough that she probably figured she could get away with bleeding a few thousand bucks from the royalty account.”
Grace sighed. Had it been less than an hour ago that she’d awakened feeling so happy? So positive? Right now, faced with the possibility of such betrayal, she felt as if it could have been a lifetime ago. “But surely she’d get caught.”
“Perhaps. But if she forces you to go to another publisher, it’d probably never come out.”
“I still don’t understand,” Grace complained. “If I’m their bestselling author, why wouldn’t she want me to stay at Penbrook? After all, she’s promised the stockholders that she’ll boost profits. Isn’t that going to be harder to do if I leave?”
“It would seem to me that it would,” Lucas agreed.
“But then again, Gracie, as we’ve agreed before, you’re definitely working in one wacky business.” He skimmed a hand down her hair, a casual gesture meant to soothe. “I suppose we’ll have to ask the lady herself.”
“I suppose so,” Grace said with a decided lack of enthusiasm. Still, once again she couldn’t deny that she liked the sound of that we.
“But just because she may be stealing from me doesn’t necessarily mean Geraldine’s the one trying to kill me.”
“I never said she was,” he reminded her.
But Grace knew, as the silence returned, that they were both thinking about the possibility of just such a thing.
“May I make a suggestion?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“We can take you back to the city now, and get this over with before tonight’s awards banquet. Or we can play hooky.”
“Hooky?”
“The sun is shining, Gracie.” His smile belied the seriousness of the subject they’d been discussing. “What would you say to coming sailing on the bay with me?”
It was, with the exception of making love, the best idea he’d come up with yet. Grace smiled back. “I’d say yes.”
* * *
IT WAS HEAVEN. Grace had almost forgotten the pleasure to be found in flying across the water, the sails billowing in the wind, the tang of the salt spray in her face.
“I can’t believe how many years it’s been since I’ve been sailing,” she said to Lucas.
Last night, when she’d been decked out in satins and lace, he’d thought Grace was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Later, when he’d been making love to her by firelight, she’d been even more stunning.
But now, with her hair blown into a tousled cloud by the sea breeze, her exquisite face tinted pink by the sun, her arms outstretched as if she were about to fly off the bow of the boat, she was breathtaking.
“You’ve obviously been leading a deprived life.”
Her laugh was rich and throaty and made him want to drag her belowdecks. “I think you just might be right.”
“If you think this is fun, imagine how great it would be sailing out in the blue water. All the way up the coast to Alaska, Grade. Just you and me, with the entire world in front of us and the wind at our backs.”
“Lucas, please—”
“No.” He held up his hand, forestalling what he knew was going to be a refusal. “Don’t make up your mind yet. We’ve still got the rest of tonight. You can sleep on it, and give me your answer after the conference is over.”
“But you’ll still be going, won’t you?” Because she didn’t dare look at him when she asked this all-important question, Grace concentrated on where the sky met the water. “Whatever I decide.”
Although he’d promised never to lie to her, Lucas wanted—needed—her to care enough, to love enough, to trust her heart.
“Yeah.” He paused, choosing his words carefully, to protect her feelings as much as possible. “I’ve been in Sausalito longer than almost anywhere in my life. Someday I’ll probably want to settle down in a house with a white picket fence and mow the lawn on Saturday mornings, hang out in my La-Z-Boy watching ESPN on Saturday afternoons and burn steaks in the backyard on Sundays. But I’m not there yet, Gracie.”