“It’s good,” she said dispassionately. “Very good. More ‘solid gold’ in there somewhere, I’m sure.”
“Thanks.”
They were passing the long strip of A1A that would deliver them into the Keys. Snowy egrets dotted the slender landscape, and out in the deep azure water a pair of cormorants hovered over the horizon, hunting their breakfast. Leigh turned slightly in her seat to watch a great white heron standing proudly on one pencil-thin leg as he majestically surveyed his surroundings. She spun back around; the Audi was slowing as they entered Key Largo. Derek turned off the road shortly.
“What are you doing?” Leigh asked, puzzled. “This is Pennekamp.”
“I know where we are,” Derek stated flatly.
“All right then,” Leigh replied, growing irritated. “What are we doing here?” John Pennekamp was an underwater state park. It was a beautiful place, boasting miles of protected coral reefs. Leigh had come many times in her life and enjoyed them all. But what was she doing here now, with Derek.
“What do people usually do here?” Derek cross-queried sarcastically. “We’re going to go snorkeling.”
Leigh smashed out her cigarette and exhaled with exasperation. “You are a crazy man, Derek,” she said, repeating an earlier observation. “I thought you were in a big hurry to get to Key West.”
“No,” he corrected, “I was only in a big hurry to get started.”
“And we’re going to have a terrific time, I suppose?”
“I would think so.” Derek grinned boyishly. “We’ll be underwater most of the time. You’ll have to keep your mouth shut.”
“Funny, funny,” Leigh muttered. “I don’t have a bathing suit. We don’t have our snorkel gear—”
“They’ve a nice little shop here where you can buy a bathing suit and we can rent snorkel equipment.” Derek set aside her objections.
Leigh went silent with a resigned twist of her shoulders. If he wanted to stop and take a snorkeling trip, he would do it whether she agreed or not. Then a thought came to her as she glanced at Derek’s dark glasses. He had probably worn them more to conceal his identity than as shade against the sun. She almost laughed aloud. A devious little plan began to hatch in her mind.
“Perhaps this is a good idea,” she mused, keeping a small note of reluctance in her voice. He might become suspicious if she sounded too eager. They parked and she hurried out of the car. “Why don’t you check on the excursions and I’ll see if I can find a shop.”
“Okay.” Derek seemed pleased with her affable agreement, and he smiled almost tenderly as he watched her, his eyes swiftly raking over her auburn hair, glinting like spun gold in the sun, and her warm, thick-lashed hazel eyes. “Hurry up. I’ll meet you by the rental window.”
Leigh remained nonchalant and sedate until he disappeared from view. Then she rushed into the shop and purchased the first suit she could find in her own size, donned it hurriedly in the dressing room, and asked the kindly clerk for a public phone.
With feverishly trembling fingers, she called the local radio station and announced that the Derek Mallory of the London Company was at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. To assure the validity of her statement, she even gave her own name, while pleading that it not be divulged.
Then she smiled and hung up the phone, and slowly sauntered over to the rental window to meet Derek.
He came up shortly after she did, dressed in a pair of faded blue cutoffs. Leigh winced for a moment of regret. Clad so scantily, every rippling muscle, every tautly honed limb of his superb physique was visible. He would attract the attention of anything female whether his identity was known or not.
“We leave in forty-five minutes,” he told her. “A four-hour trip, all right?” His handsome smile was sincere as he slipped an arm around her shoulder. “Then we can shower, dress, and stop by Marker 88 for a meal before driving on to Key West. How’s that sound?”
“It sounds fine,” Leigh murmured, feigning attention to the rows of flippers that hung in the window. She didn’t want to meet his eyes. Guilt was taking a toll on her. Little pinpricks of uncertainty were telling her that Derek had really been trying to plan a nice day.
They had both just found masks and fins that fit reasonably well when the first shout came, followed by a cacophony of noise and shrill screams.
“It is him!”
“There he is!”
“Oh, my God!”
“Derek Mallory in the flesh!”
Within seconds Derek was besieged in a sea of humanity, trapped between countless bodies and the rental window.
His scathing glance caught Leigh once before she was able to scramble away, and she began to regret her impish prank in earnest The message in his glimmering eyes couldn’t have been clearer had he shouted, You’ll pay for this!
Leigh decided not to wait around to see how Derek would extricate himself from the quickly formed crowd of fans. She scurried down to the dock and searched out the excursion boat they were to take. Luckily, the boat was in her berth. Leigh hopped aboard and found a seat in the stern, hugging her knees and rocking nervously.
It seemed like an eternity before the boat began to fill. She was pulling away from the dock when Derek finally came on board, breathing heavily. He was forced to stop several times as he strode forward, caught by new adulation from those who were scheduled on the same trip. Finally, after speaking to everyone, he pleaded to be thought of as nothing more than a fellow passenger. Leigh watched him with grudging respect and admiration. He managed the situation very well, and she had to admit there was reason for him to be thought of so highly within the business and out.
“Cute!” was his short, terse word for her when he sank down beside her. “I’ll thank you not to pull that again!”
She hesitated, then decided upon a play for innocence. “Pull what again? I can’t help it if you’re a recording star and people recognize …”
His tense features and blazing eyes caused her speech to trail away. “Don’t do it again, Leigh, I mean it.”
She was relieved when it appeared he was going to say nothing more. But at the time he really couldn’t have said much more. People were inching over to them, no longer determined to tear Derek apart as a celebrity, but fascinated that he was with them, an ordinary person out to view the beauties of the crystal waters. A number of young couples were on board and the conversation turned to water, sailing, snorkeling, and diving.
They dropped anchor and sent up their dive flag at the reef with the bronze statue of Christ set into the water. Derek and Leigh wet their equipment and donned it and plunged into the water, peacefully.
He was right; it would be difficult to argue with one’s mouth in the water.
The bathing suit Leigh had so quickly purchased was a kelly green bikini. Occasionally Derek’s fingers were pulled from hers to ripple down her back so that she might look in a special direction and view whatever it was he pointed out: a tremendous, friendly grouper, a colorful jellyfish to be seen but avoided, a school of brilliant yellow tangs. There was something very sensual about his touch in the water, something extra delicious about the feel of his extraordinary fingers.
Time passed quickly in the eerie little spot of oceanic heaven. Derek motioned her to bring her head out of the water and then suggested they move over to the statue before it was time to go back. Leigh nodded happily and followed him with a stiff kick of her large black flippers.
The others were leaving the statue as they approached it Leigh inhaled for a deep dive and plunged through the fifteen feet or so of water that would bring her to the base of the bronze Christ. Then she slowly swam up its length, curious as ever about the beautiful piece of art sitting in the coral reef. Suddenly she felt Derek behind her, his hands moving along her waist to her rib cage and on to her back. She didn’t fight him; the silky sensation was wonderful and besides, how far could he push in the middle of the reef with scores of people within forty feet of them? At the moment, she thought
, he was welcome to be a bit amorous …
But he wasn’t being amorous at all. He and the seductive sea had lulled her into a false sense of security. The hand on her back was not loving but devious. It abruptly pulled the strings of the kelly green bikini top and pulled the entire thing from Leigh’s body.
Leigh spun in the water but Derek was already a good ten feet away. She was running out of air, forced to surface. She kicked herself up and cleared her snorkel, glancing around desperately for Derek. He broke the surface too, shooting water from his snorkel, then laughing gaily as he caught sight of her furious, perplexed features.
“Damn you, Derek,” she shouted, “give that back!”
“In time,” was his cool, chuckled response.
Leigh struck out for him in the water and he didn’t move. She lunged for his hands to find that neither held her bikini top. “Where is it?” she demanded breathlessly.
“All in good time,” Derek replied, a wicked grin planted firmly on his lips. Then his hands began to seek her. Then ran over her velvety flesh, fixed upon the soft mounds of her creamy breasts, began to tease the rosy nipples that were clearly visible in the amazingly translucent water …
Leigh desperately tried to pull away. “Derek, please!” she begged. “There are people …” Her struggles were stealing her breath as were his tantalizing maneuvers. “Please!”
He laughed again, a low, throaty sound, and allowed her to escape.
Then he calmly turned and began to swim slowly back to the boat.
“Derek!” Leigh screamed. He couldn’t really be doing this to her, leaving her half naked to return to a crowded boat!
He slowly turned to her again, treading water, his brows quirked beneath his mask. “Yes?”
“Please?” she implored again. “I promise, I’ll never play another trick on you again!” She waited, her legs nailing the water with strong strokes as he watched her, apparently mulling over a decision. “Derek!” she cried again, mournfully. The boat captain was calling his passengers back on board.
“All right,” Derek called.
Leigh waited again, with exasperation. Seconds were becoming minutes and he wasn’t moving.
“Throw it to me!” she exploded.
“Un-unh!” he returned with a shake of his curly head that sent a spray of saltwater flying. “You come get it.”
Leigh swallowed with resignation and swam to him warily. “Well?” She hovered two feet away from him.
“Get it yourself,” he taunted indifferently.
“Where is it?”
With half-closed eyes and a lazy drawl he replied, “Tucked in my pants.”
Ten hours of straight sun could not have turned Leigh’s body a darker shade of red. But his face was implacable.
If she wanted her green bikini top, she would have to get it herself. Cursing him all the while, she reached gingerly for his trim hips and delved into the faded blue cutoffs, praying she would touch nothing with her delicate fingers except her bikini top.
CHAPTER SIX
“CALM DOWN!” DEREK ORDERED as she continued to curse him while trying to adjust the bathing suit. He was still annoyingly amused. “You’d better let me help you before the boat leaves without us.”
Leigh stiffly turned her back on him and allowed him to retie the strings of her bikini. As soon as he finished, she kicked away, but a powerful kick brought him to her side and he jerked her back to face him. “Calm down!” he repeated harshly. “This evens the score. No more little pranks on either side. Agreed?”
“Ohhhh … agreed!” Leigh snapped. She really had no other choice. Besides, there could be more trouble back at the docks. Derek’s throng of fans might be waiting for his boat to return …
They managed to settle that problem back on board the boat. A sympathetic young man suggested Derek take his loud, tourist-type shirt and battered fishing cap and blend into their group: Derek gratefully accepted his offer, and suggested the convivial conspirators join them later at Marker 88. Needless to say, the man, his wife, and the couple with them were thrilled.
Derek did elude the crowds that had formed with the help of the captain and fellow passengers, promising them all autographed albums if they wished to call his agent. It was well known that he was a man who kept his promises.
An hour later they entered Marker 88 and were ushered to a rear table. The two young couples who had been so helpful on the boat joined them within a few minutes and Derek returned the borrowed shirt and cap. Leigh, who had hardly spoken to Derek since their encounter in the water, was surprised at how pleasant the meal turned out to be. They were bright young people, knowledgeable about many things, and conversation flowed easily. The waitress neatly rattled off the long list of special appetizers and entrees Marker 88 boasted daily, and between them they ordered one of everything. The snorkeling trip and the sun and sea had left everyone famished, and Leigh, as well as everyone else, dived ravenously into clams casino, oysters Rockefeller, escargots in mushroom caps, and several other delicacies. She ordered a scrumptiously prepared Florida lobster for her main course, and ignored Derek’s look of amusement when she accepted a taste of his king crab.
Sometime during the meal Derek mentioned nonchalantly that Leigh was Richard Tremayne’s widow. Leigh shot him a look of pure antagonism as she then was plied with questions, polite at that, about Richard. She was treated to more sympathy, until Darlene, the wife of the man who had lent Derek the loud shirt, squealed, “Oh, my goodness!” She turned to her companions with wide, bright eyes. “Then we’re part of an engagement party!” She looked at Leigh enviously. “I just read about it in a fan magazine. I should have remembered.”
Leigh felt as if she were short of breath. “Read about what?”
“Oh, it was all in there!” Darlene explained giddily. “That you and Derek were disappearing for a private romantic liaison before working on something new and getting married.”
“What—” Leigh moistened dry lips. “What magazine was this?”
It was, of course, Lavinia White’s magazine. But where had she gotten the rest of her information? Leigh allowed her suspicious and accusing gaze to fasten on Derek. He met her stare noncommittally, but she knew then that he had been the one to fill in all the blanks.
Derek ordered another round of drinks, and Leigh sipped hers slowly as the talk swirled around her. Damn him! she thought, for at least the hundredth time. And she had felt guilty over the trouble she caused him! Well, Mr. Mallory, she said silently, watching him covertly from the shade of her lashes, the hell with being “even”! You haven’t begun to see trouble yet! She downed her vodka and tonic in a single swallow.
It was growing late when they finished their leisurely meal and split company with their still awestruck new friends. Leigh was dismayed as she tripped over the gravel in the drive on their way to the Audi to discover that she had been angrily drinking too fast Derek gripped her elbow and ushered her into the car.
“I’m going to drive!” she muttered, further annoyed to find her speech slurring. “I have to drive! I have to drop you at a motel and—”
“You’re drunk,” Derek said flatly, “and you’re not driving. And I’ll be damned if I’m staying at a motel!”
Leigh carefully enunciated her words when she spoke again. “I’m only a little drunk.” She winced. She hated people who drove when they drank. “Okay, you drive. But you can’t stay at my house. My housekeeper doesn’t live in. The Casa Marina is a beautiful place, people come from all over the world—”
“I’m not staying at any motel,” Derek repeated firmly. He flashed her an evil grin. “I’m staying with my beloved fiancée.”
Leigh opened her mouth to argue but yawned instead. The food and drink and sunny exercise were combining to drain her of energy. Night had fallen and the lights of the Overseas Highway were mesmerizing her. Before she knew it, her eyes closed, her head fell to rest on Derek’s shoulder.
She awoke with a start to feel motion a
nd Derek’s strong arms around her. He was carrying her up the path to her house.
“I need the key,” he said as he noted her open eyes.
Leigh fumbled in her bag, which Derek had deposited in the curve of her stomach. “You can put me down now,” she said. “I’m awake.”
“But not terribly with it!” Derek chuckled. With one hand he took the key from her fingers while still holding her and inserted it dexterously into the lock. He kicked the door open and switched on the lights, then proceeded through the living room to the bedroom she had shared with Richard.
“I don’t sleep in there anymore,” Leigh protested thickly.
Derek’s arms stiffened around her. “Where do you sleep?”
“The next room,” she murmured. She was so sleepy!
He moved on down the hall and pushed the door open with his foot. Dim light surged in from the hall so he didn’t bother with another switch. He walked straight to the bed and deposited her in it. Leigh immediately began to curl into the comfort of her cool sheets. But she wasn’t left alone. Derek was unbuttoning her blouse and pulling at her jeans.
“Don’t!” she objected weakly, fighting for consciousness. “Please!”
“Please, what? You little fool,” he muttered harshly. “I’m not doing anything, but you can’t sleep like that.”
“But—”
“I’m not going to see anything I haven’t seen before,” he interrupted.
She fell silent, a limp rag doll as he hoisted her about to remove her clothing down to her brief panties. Then he tucked her into the covers and walked briskly to the door. Leigh struggled to sit up.
“Derek?”
“What?”
He was silhouetted in the doorway, his handsome form like a classical sculpture.
“Thank you,” Leigh whispered, a catch in her throat.
“For what?” There was a rapidly beating pulse apparent in his neck.
Leigh licked her lips to speak. “For helping me. I did overdo it.” She couldn’t tell him what she was really thinking. For not pushing or taking advantage when I’m so terribly vulnerable!
When Next We Love Page 10