Josh looked sad to be leaving. “Bye, sir.”
“So long, mate.” Rafe shifted his gaze to Terra. “For the time being, at least.”
Terra didn’t meet his eyes. She gave Lalie a little smile. “See you this afternoon. Around two.”
WHEN THEY WERE GONE, Lalie came to the bedside chair and sat down. “Rafe,” she said, “imagine if you had run out the other day and this fever hit you.”
“It’s a pretty sure bet I’m not running out right now,” he replied.
“Don’t jive me. You’re thinking about it, more seriously than ever. You’ve got your conscience working overtime on who is involved now.”
“For God’s sake, Lalie, you and Terra are on the line. Without me, neither of you would have anything to fear.”
“Nobody’s twisting arms around here,” she stated indignantly.
Rafe shook his head. “The boy’s got no choice in the matter. This mess is getting out of hand.”
“You got out of hand with Terra, I know. Not that she spoke a word about it to me, but I didn’t miss much of the showdown you two had.”
Rafe turned his face away. “Don’t remind me.”
She chuckled. “At least you kissed and made up at the end.”
“Don’t remind me about that, either.”
“I won’t be surprised if it happens again,” Lalie mused. “Something about you two makes sense to me. Real sense.”
“Nothing’s going to happen if Terra stays out of here. After today, she sure as hell will.”
“You think so, do you?”
“Without any doubt. By the way, what were you two so secretive about outside before she left?”
Lalie replied, “The new security system that’s being installed at the resort. When I was there, Columbia mentioned security training classes that all the employees will have to take soon.
“The surveillance will be everywhere, except the village and estates. I reminded Terra to be careful wherever she is.”
Rafe already knew from Lalie that Thomas Graves, the new security chief, had taken charge at the resort. Graves had moved fast from the start, beginning with a reinvestigation of every employee’s security clearance. As a supplier to the kitchen, Lalie had been as closely scrutinized as the others. She’d passed muster without any problem.
Graves would have a coronary, Rafe thought, if he knew Lalie had been breaking the law, big-time, for two months now. Especially so with a Caribbean diplomats’ conference coming up, not to mention the rumors of a presidential vacation on the island.
Lalie got out of her chair, ready to leave. “Rafe, try not to worry yourself sicker than you already are. And while you’re at it, don’t be so sure you’ve seen the last of Terra Camden.”
“What makes you think otherwise?”
“My intuition.” She went to the door. “You two would make a fine match.”
AFTER SHE LEFT, Rafe settled into his pillows and pondered Lalie’s words. He didn’t believe her intuition, didn’t want to believe they’d make a fine match.
A man with nothing to offer couldn’t afford to torture himself with the idea that he’d met the woman of his dreams.
8
JOSH VOTED TO GO to the beach for lunch after leaving Lalie’s. A drinks-and-grill setup was there, serving burgers and snacks to sun worshippers and beachcombers. Terra brought several old menus to look through while Josh frolicked at the surfs edge and built sand castles. She did some people watching, too, at intervals.
There were no other children, unfortunately, among the small number of people there that day—a few couples of varying ages, a few singles, a lifeguard. One couple’s inability to keep their hands off each other identified them as possible honeymooners. At times, she found her attention drawn to their ardent displays of affection toward each other.
It made her think of Rafe and what had happened to her with him under the fresco ceiling. Maybe if she hadn’t been engrossed in a tour of memory lane when he woke up, none of it would have occurred, neither the confrontation nor the kiss. But engrossed she had been, and aroused to a more than immoderate level by her erotic memories of making love with Rafe Jermain.
She could see now that her own pent-up passion contributed to the argument and then escalated in a physical response that still had her trembling inside.
Although she had wanted him to kiss her, she hadn’t expected that she’d put everything into it, all the passion she had in her at that electrifying moment. It had felt so good, so right, so necessary, at the time.
But now she felt miserably aware that she hadn’t matured at all in one respect during the years between that spring break and the present. Where Rafe Jermain was concerned, she was still enchanted, still infatuated, with the same stranger in the night.
She gave a frustrated sigh and closed the menu she’d been scanning. Her gaze wandered again to the amorous couple who were suggestively positioned on a beach towel. The woman lay facedown, with her bikini top unfastened. The man knelt between her parted legs and stroked sun lotion on the skin of her back, his touch never failing to linger on the soft outer swells of her breasts.
At times, he stretched almost full-length upon her fanny and back to nuzzle her nape. Terra looked away and squeezed her eyes shut, unable to stop forming a mental image of herself and Rafe in the couple’s place.
Hastily, she gathered up her homework and called to Josh. The sooner she got away from the beach, the better she’d be able to put Rafe out of her mind.
Getting her mental focus off that subject, however, proved far more difficult than deserting a torrid stretch of sand.
RAFE WAS STILL dominating her thoughts when she took Josh back to Lalie’s a little after two o’clock that afternoon.
“Kermit is much improved,” Lalie informed her when they got there. “Lunch did him a world of good, and maybe the special attention he got from you helped him along just as well.”
Terra felt a hot flush creep up her neck to her cheeks. To cover it, she turned to Josh. “Nap time. All four-and-a-half-year-olds report to the hammock.”
Josh needed no coaxing. Within a few minutes he was settled in among the stuffed animals, telling them all about life on the beach.
Terra kissed him and returned to Lalie who was dusting furniture in the living room. “Lalie,” she said tentatively, “I hope you didn’t get the wrong idea earlier.”
Lalie raised her brows. “What wrong idea?”
“You know. Just that Rafe and I were, um, I mean…”
“Friendly,” Lalie tactfully supplied.
Terra nodded, feeling as awkward and inarticulate as a schoolgirl. “That’s one word for it.”
“Getting as friendly as you can with each other,” Lalie said, “wouldn’t hurt either of you, in my opin- ion.”
“But it would,” Terra protested. “Whether he’s guilty or not is still an unknown. At least to me.”
“Only because you don’t know him very well, yet.”
“That’s not the point, Lalie. You naturally think the best of him.”
“Terra, I know the best of him. You saw my photo album of Rafe’s progress through life. He needs that life back, needs to take it up where it got torn off and go on to happy years ahead. If his future includes you, so much the better.”
“Me?” Incredulous, Terra blinked at her. “I’m not at all involved with him, not the way you mean.”
Lalie questioned gently, “What I saw earlier wasn’t love at first something?”
“Lalie, it’s what got me in trouble with Rafe the first time. I’ve learned all I ever need to know about spontaneous combustion.” She checked the time on Lalie’s clock and stood. “I’d better get back to work.”
Lalie saw her to the front door. “Don’t mind me,” she said with an apologetic sigh. “I’m an old-style romantic about some things, noticing possibilities where maybe they don’t exist.”
“That’s all there is to it,” Terra readily agreed. “I’ll see you later
, four-thirty or five.”
She left, determined to stay away from seeing Rafe again. If Lalie needed any more help with him, she’d just have to find someone else to keep the fever watch. But who else?
BACK AT THE HOTEL, Terra went to meet with Columbia in the main kitchen. She found the chef and the kitchen crew all wearing galoshes and mopping up in the wake of a broken water pipe that had flooded the area. Liz was there, conferring with a quartet of plumbers.
Columbia withdrew from the commotion when she saw Terra and joined her on the stairs where it was dry.
“This just isn’t our day, Terra. How’s your jet lag?”
“Better, thanks. I’m hitting my stride, finally.”
“Good, then let’s meet at nine-thirty tomorrow, for sure,” Columbia said, pointing out her office at the other end of the kitchen.
Terra sidestepped out of everyone’s way and went back to her room. She felt somewhat at odds without Josh around, without any pressing work to do, without any real desire to swim, play golf, go horseback riding.
The beach was out of the question if the honeymooners were still there. Anyway, she wasn’t in a beach mood after going there two days in a row.
She wasn’t in any mood, except the only one she didn’t want to be in. The one that wouldn’t let up its pressure on her, and kept stepping up the tension so that her mind, heart and body were throbbing with a relentless desire to see Rafe again.
She thought of him all alone in that big house, unable to be out in the world. What did he do all day, every day? All night, every night?
She glanced at the phone, thinking, I could call him, but not from here. From a pay phone, perhaps. The homeowners’ name, she recalled, was Hamilton. If the number wasn’t unlisted, directory assistance would have it.
Terra went to the window and stared out at the peaceful, restful view of velvety lawns and mossdraped oaks. The view did nothing to calm her restlessness or stop her one-track thoughts. She couldn’t shake off the idea that Rafe was only a mile away, even less distance if a person walked north from the resort beach along the sandy shore to the estate.
She would have to go and pick up Josh anyway in an hour or so….
TEN MINUTES LATER, she had changed into shorts and sandals and was dropping a coin into the pay phone at the beach grill. Information gave her the number, no problem. She dialed it, let it ring three times, hung up, dialed again.
The phone on the other end picked up. Silence.
“It’s Terra,” she said.
More silence, then Rafe’s deep, wary voice. “Oh. Why?”
She took a deep breath. “Would you like some company for a little while?”
“Who, you?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, but if you wouldn’t like—”
“Hold it, I would. I, uh, yeah. Where are you? I hear surf.”
She explained where she was and added that she was on foot. Ignoring all the reasons she shouldn’t go, she concocted a flimsy excuse. “I thought I’d beachcomb and just, well, you happen to be there along the way, so I phoned.”
“Sure, sure. See you whenever you get here, I guess.”
Terra hung up, figuring it would take no more than fifteen minutes to get there if she remained insane and kept a brisk pace.
LIKE A SEA HAWK, Rafe watched the view through the kitchen window. He almost flattened his nose against the pane to get the closest possible outlook across the long stretch of property between the house and the shore. The beach itself wasn’t visible from anywhere in the home, except maybe the roof peak, but as soon as Terra reached the top of the stone steps leading up to the yard, he’d see her.
She’d be framed against the ocean blue—a welcome sight. Too damned welcome. But he hadn’t let that stop him when she called. His jaw had almost broken from its drop to the floor when he’d picked up the phone and heard her warm, sexy voice on the other end.
He still couldn’t quite believe she had phoned, that she was coming. Company for a little while. There was a lot of company he’d readily turn down, but not hers. Not now.
He promised himself he’d turn it down after this one time. Not that he thought there’d be any time after this that she’d call. Especially not if she was coming over to give him a piece of her mind about his behavior earlier in the day.
At the moment, though, he wouldn’t even mind being chewed out. He’d apologize right away, the minute she got inside.
If she really was coming. It seemed like hours since her call. Smart of her to use the pay phone at the grill. It gave him a glimmer of faith that she really didn’t want to see him get caught.
Or was he the world’s biggest fool for believing she’d show up without a squadron of federal agents? With his life on the line, he couldn’t give anyone but Lalie his full trust. He was paranoid, but under the circumstances he had to be.
He’d know soon enough if Terra had company with her, but God help him, he believed she was coming by herself.
All by herself.
His heart lost a beat as she came into view at the top of the steps. The sun was in her eyes and she shaded them with one hand, even though she was wearing sunglasses. The gesture brought her breasts to his rapt attention. She was wearing a pink T-shirt, boat-necked, full of feminine curves. It was tucked into white Bermuda shorts. Her shiny, breeze-blown hair had an auburn sheen in the sunlight.
Rafe swallowed hard, watching her graceful legs carry her closer and closer. She gave a hesitant little wave when she spotted him at the window and her mouth curved in a half smile. Closer and closer. Still by herself.
Rafe knew he wanted Terra Camden too badly to be inviting her in with him. And nothing on earth could stop him from deactivating the security alarm and opening the door for her when she got there.
“Hi,” she said breathlessly.
It gave him the idea that either she had rushed all the way, or the feds would explode out of the hedges in the next three seconds. The moments passed without incident, though, giving him time to reset the alarm.
He cleared his throat. “Nice of you to call.”
“Well, it was just a sudden thought,” she said, storing her sunglasses on her hair like a headband.
For several ticking seconds then, they stood looking at each other, tongue-tied.
“Sudden thought,” he repeated idiotically.
She nodded slowly. “Spur of the moment. You know.”
Rafe only knew that he wanted her company, her voice, the scent of her perfume in the air. Beyond that, he wanted to carry her off to the bedroom and keep her there for the next hundred years. But even if she’d let him sweep her off her feet, his back and bum knee would sabotage any romantic effort.
He wasn’t what he’d once been. Might never be again.
“Anything you’d like to do?” he heard himself say. “I mean, drink.”
“No, thanks. I called because, um, actually, I’d sort of like to apologize.”
“So would I.”
“I got a little too bossy,” she said. “About nothing, really.”
“Well,” he said, “I showed too much of my stubborn streak. And kissing you was out of line, too.”
A soft smile curved her lips. “I think I participated as much as you did.”
“You’re not going to slap my face and call me a barbarian?”
She shook her head. “No. In fact, I wouldn’t mind sitting down somewhere and just…well, visiting for a while until it’s time to get Josh.”
“Neither would I,” he assured her, leading the way out of the kitchen to the parlor. Going ahead of her, he hated for her to see his leg gimp and his back crick. He could just imagine the able-bodied males she’d observed on the beach today. Some contrast he was to them. Still, she was here, not there, which meant something. He wasn’t sure what.
Terra took a seat at one end of an antique Italian sofa. He chose the opposite end to keep himself a little more sane about her than he’d be if he sat c
loser.
“I promise to be more civil from now on,” he said. “Isolation gets to me, I guess.”
She tucked one leg under her and angled herself to face him. “I understand. I mean, all things considered, I don’t blame you for doing your best to shut me up.”
“My best,” he scoffed. “Before my whole life went to hell, I’d have sweet-talked you into not arguing with me. This morning, I—” He broke off and shook his head at himself. “Listen, I’m as sorry as can be.”
“Me, too. Enough said on both sides.” She sighed, as if with relief. “I’m glad I dropped by. Anyway, aside from wanting to say what I’ve already said, I was also wondering how you are.”
“Not racked with fever, thankfully. And thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome. It was no bother.”
He gave her a mock-cynical smile. “Great rapport we’re building with each other.”
“You said the same thing the other day for vastly different reasons,” she said, returning the smile.
Another silence lengthened between them, far less awkward than the previous gap in the kitchen. It was punctuated by the measured tempo of a grandfather clock in a corner of the room.
“So,” he finally said, “are you working hard at the resort?”
“Hardly.” She explained that the afternoon hadn’t gone as planned.
“Have you met my sister yet?”
“Briefly. She’s very impressive.”
“I miss her.” He felt his throat clutch and wondered why he was suddenly showing his deeper emotions. Yet, he went on. “I miss my whole family. Lalie keeps me filled in on everyone, though. It helps to know, at least.”
“Yes.” Terra nodded, her expression solemn. “It must. Family is all-important.”
“What about yours?” He was more curious than he should be.
Terra told him a little about them. Army. Chaplains. Retired from service. “They wouldn’t believe what I’ve gotten into here,” she concluded. “Not for a minute.”
Rafe said, “I have big trouble believing it myself.”
“You still don’t trust me very much.”
Stranger In The Night Page 11