“I say we go back to our respective homes and do some research into our branches of the family,” Erica suggested. “And we meet back here again in, say, a couple of months to decide about the mining lease.”
“Good enough, Washington,” Kat chimed. She gazed at Tess. “What d’ya say, California?”
Tess smiled. “If nothing else, I want to get to know you two better. Certainly.”
She held out her right hand. Erica and Kat placed their right hands on top of it. Tess had the oddest notion that someone, somewhere, was watching with approval.
WHUMP.
Tess careened sideways on her lounge chair. The large, ostentatious yacht bullied its way into the berth beside her sailboat, bumped it again, and sent Tess sprawling to the deck on her hands and knees.
This was not how she wanted to spend her first day back from the Georgia trip.
Tess staggered to her feet. Her Swedish Lady was forty feet long, big enough to have comfortable living space below deck and room for a patio table with a bright orange umbrella and four chairs above, but the yacht dwarfed it.
Against the sun she could make out only the silhouette of the man seated at the control console on the deck above her head. The yacht’s bow plowed into the marina dock and bounced at least five feet backward.
Luckily for the yacht, the thick concrete dock was lined with a wood buffer.
Tess huffed in dismay. He was probably another weekend captain who’d rented a berth at the marina so that he could park his floating mansion and serve cocktails.
The interloper cuts his engine off and stood up. Hmmm, at least this weekender had a nice build. Correction—he was wearing nothing but swim trunks, and he had a fantastic build, youthful but filled out.
When he raised his arms to ram both hands through his hair in disgust—the yacht was quickly sliding away from the dock—Tess was treated to an even more marvelous view of his body. He didn’t look particularly tall, but he was so perfectly proportioned that she couldn’t be certain. He gave “proportioned” a breathless new appeal.
And he was floating back out to sea.
Tess got up, stepped carefully around the Lady’s mast, and went to the port rail. She cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Come to the foredeck and throw me your lines!”
He looked down at her, a dark, intriguing form against the blue sky, his eyes covered by aviator-style sunglasses.
Tess waved toward the bow of his yacht with both hands. The movement opened the unbuttoned white shirt she wore over a black maillot. The newcomer pulled his sunglasses down an inch and studied her rakishly, smiling.
“What’s the foredeck?” he asked in a pleasantly deep voice.
The handsome idiot. “The front of the boat!” Tess ran to the bow of the Lady, crossed her gangplank to the dock, and went to the neighboring berth. Facing his monstrous boat, she yelled again, “Throw me your lines!”
He was smiling as he came down the staircase from the bridge, and despite herself Tess felt the effect of that smile. What she could see of his face seemed to be older than his youthful body, but that only made it more mesmerizing.
He trotted across his foredeck, and Tess fought to keep herself from gaping as she got a closer look at him. The sun glinted off tousled blond hair that was long and the rich color of wheat on top, short and dark gold around his ears.
The beautiful blond hair and his unforgettable, strong-jawed face reminded her of Robert Redford. Tess glanced up and down the busy Sunday-afternoon marina. Every woman within a radius of a hundred yards was staring at Captain Handsome.
Redford, definitely.
Moving with a fluid grace that stole her concentration, he lifted a heavy rope and carried it to the edge of the deck. A full thirty feet of bilge-green water separated him from the dock.
“Ahoy, me pretty,” he yelled cheerfully. “Don’t let me line catch you unawares.”
It already has, she thought numbly. Around the marina she had a reputation as a recluse. One frustrated suitor had called her “the unmerry widow.” So why was she staring up at Captain Blond as if she wanted to be his galley slave?
Tess clicked back to reality, stepped to one side, and watched him toss the heavy line with a coordinated strength that came from natural athletic ability. When it plopped on the dock she looped it around a cleat.
“Tow yourself in, captain, before someone clips you.”
He clutched a chest covered in curly, dark-blond hair. He staggered around, trying to look pitiful while he tugged at the bow rope and finally secured the yacht close to the dock.
“Thank you for your help, fair lady,” he said in a raspy tone. “I just got this boat last week, and this is my first time docking it. You were very gentle with me. I’ll never forget my first time with you.”
Tess sighed. “You’re welcome.”
“My name’s Jeopard Surprise. I love useful women with English accents and beautiful bodies.”
Tess grimaced at the tacky remark. She walked back aboard the Lady and picked her book up from the lounge chair. She decided it would be best to go downstairs and avoid Captain Tacky before he disappointed her more.
“You’re on your own, Mr. Surprise.”
“You saved me from washing out to sea! At least tell me your name, fair damsel!”
Tess pointed to her fawn-colored skin, then to the straight black hair that floated around her face and neck in a simple cut ornamented by softly structured bangs. “I’m hardly a fair damsel.” The events in Gold Ridge tugged at her in a compelling way, and suddenly she added with pride, “I’m approximately half Cherokee Indian.”
“Your berth’s registered to a Royce Benedict. Are you Mrs. Benedict?”
“Do you always investigate your neighbors?” she called.
“The information is in the marina’s files for anyone who wants to know.”
“Then you know without asking that I’m Tess Benedict and that my husband’s deceased.”
“I understand that your husband was a retired diamond broker—”
“Don’t play asinine games with me. Good day, cap’n.”
With those cool words, Tess went downstairs and out of sight, where she closed the curtains, stretched out on her queen-size bed, and tried to read her book.
Surprise. Jeopard Surprise. Who was he? What was he—aside from being a Redford imitator? And why did history suddenly seem so dull in comparison to current events?
JEOPARD HELD A cold glass of water against his forehead as if it could ease his pain that way. Gone was the wisecracking facade, and in its place was his true persona—quiet, serious, brooding.
All his smiling at Tess Gallatin Benedict had given him a headache.
He picked up the phone beside his bed, called the shore operator, and had her patch him in to a Florida number.
“Kyle? Yeah, it’s yours truly calling from Hell.”
Kyle Surprise laughed until Jeopard cut him off with a terse string of obscenities. “Is she as beautiful as the pictures in the surveillance report?” Kyle finally managed to ask.
Jeopard hesitated for a moment, shut his eyes, and remembered long legs, high breasts, and cheekbones a model would envy. He remembered a noble, slightly hooked nose and alluring, deep-set eyes that revealed her Cherokee heritage.
He remembered exotic dark hair that wasn’t quite black, and skin the color of a deep, golden tan. He remembered a melodic voice that sounded sweet even when she was annoyed.
He remembered that she was as sleek and expensive-looking as the silver Jaguar she kept in the marina parking lot.
“She’ll do.”
“Did she seem inclined to fit the report’s description? A bed bunny? Ready to hop for every carrot that comes by?”
“She watched me as if she might entertain the notion, but she didn’t exactly leap into my hutch. God, she’s so young. I felt ancient.”
“Chill out, gramps, you’re only thirty-eight.”
“I’m too old to play a male Mata
Hari.”
“This is a curse cast by all those poor women who trailed you over the years. For once, you have to be the chaser, not the chasee.”
“Remind me to go back to my old career. Busting spies and terrorists was easier than playing private investigator for the rich and famous.”
There was dead silence on Kyle’s end of the phone. Then finally, softly, “Not for me, bro. Not for me.”
Jeopard winced. “Hey, kid, what did the doc say yesterday?”
“A few more operations and I’ll only resemble Frankenstein when I’m in bright light.”
Jeopard felt a familiar ache of regret. Kyle had been badly hurt a year before during a mission in South America. A Russian agent had tossed him into a locked room with a pack of kill-trained dogs.
It had been the end of Kyle’s enthusiasm for security work, and Jeopard had seen the end coming for himself as well. Millie, their youngster sister, had begged them both to give it up, but particularly Jeopard.
The years of danger, of losing friends and lovers to an honorable but deadly game, had taken a toll on him. Never one to mince words, Millie had told him that he was becoming something worse than the enemy he fought. He was becoming a machine.
And so he and Kyle had formed Surprise Import/Export, Inc., based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The innocent facade hid a quiet, lucrative trade in high-level investigative work. It could be dangerous at times, but compared to the old career, it was easy.
Or so it had been, until now. This fluffy Tess Benedict job was perfect for Kyle—charming, outgoing, fun-loving Kyle. Only, Kyle didn’t think his face qualified him for such work anymore.
Jeopard hinted hopefully. “Even with scars, bro, you’d be better with this Benedict woman than I am.”
Kyle’s jaunty tone returned. “Oh, no, Jep. You’re gonna learn to enjoy being coy and cute. I insist. Consider it a challenge.”
“Maybe I can find out if she has the Kara diamond some other way.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I’ll threaten her with my Cary Grant routine. She’ll have to tell me about the diamond or die laughing.”
Kyle was still guffawing when Jeopard hung up the phone.
THE ANTLER CHARM. Tess was sitting on her cabin floor the next morning, surrounded by more history books, when she remembered it. Chastising herself for being senile at twenty-six, she hurried into the galley, went to a dining booth built into the wall, and knelt under the table.
She slid aside a specially designed panel and reached into the base of the booth, where a small safe was secured. A tiny light fixture, keyed to the opening of the panel, illuminated the safe’s well-worn dial.
The safe had belonged to Royce for many years, and in its time had protected jewels worth millions of dollars. He had given it to her as a sentimental wedding present, and along with it the promise that he’d teach her everything he knew about diamonds.
Tess spun the dial quickly, and the door popped open. She reached in, pushed aside personal jewelry, personal papers, and a cloth bag containing a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of uncut Brazilian diamonds-she had to deliver the diamonds to a wholesaler in Los Angeles the next week—and grasped a piece of deer antler the size of her thumb.
Her heart pounding with excitement, she quickly closed the safe and remained crouched under the table, studying the gift her father had given her not long before his death.
The amulet had been caressed by respectful fingers until it was nearly white. It was made from the curving tip of a deer antler, and the blunt end was covered by a cap of gold topped by a tiny ring, so that the amulet could be worn on a chain.
Her father had told her that the amulet had come to him from his father, Benjamin Gallatin, a blacksmith on the Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma. It might have been made by Benjamin’s father, Silas, the half-Cherokee son of Katherine and Justis.
Enchanted, Tess studied the most important aspect of the amulet—the Cherokee symbols carved deeply into its surface. She went back to the cabin and retrieved the gold medallion she’d left laying among her books.
The symbols on the medallion were undoubtedly separated into words or phrases, and she squealed with delight when she saw that one of the phrases matched the symbols on the antler amulet.
The security buzzer sounded, meaning that someone had stepped on a detection panel hidden in the bow deck. Tess went aboveboard and met a tall teenage boy carrying an enormous arrangement of cut flowers in a ceramic base.
“Hiya, Tess,” he said, peeking through the flowers. “Some guy called the shop and ordered these for ya. Mom said to tell ya she’s thrilled to have a partner who gets guys to order two hundred dollars’ worth of flowers.”
“Brandt, good lord, who sent these?”
“Uh, uh …” He nodded toward a card stuck in the jungle of blossoms.
Tess opened it and read, “I’d like to bump into you again and throw you some more lines. How about coming aboard for that margarita? Jeopard.”
She groaned at his determination. Dammit, why did this gorgeous, mature-looking man have the silly technique of a lounge lizard?
JEOPARD HATED PEEKING out the yacht’s window. In the old days his agents had called him the Iceman, because of his emotionless facade and unbending dignity. The Iceman had confronted Third World dictators face to face without breaking into a sweat; he’d impressed the most brutal terrorists with his utterly cold demeanor; he’d traded urbane witticisms with powerful women and watched with objective pleasure while they turned into purring kittens.
And now he was hiding behind a curtain and cursing forcefully because the teenage delivery boy was still in Tess Benedict’s cabin twenty minutes after delivering his flowers.
Jeopard smiled sardonically.
If Mrs. Benedict was a cradle robber, then he might as well pack his gnarled old body back to Florida.
But there was hope—if he could impress her enough. After all, this was the self-serving woman who, at twenty, had married a wealthy man almost three times her own age.
It was definitely no love match, judging by the information Jeopard had received. She’d known from the beginning that Royce Benedict was dying of cancer. He’d taught her what he knew about diamonds and used his contacts to get her started as a respected broker.
Which was hilarious, considering that before his illness Benedict had been a jewel thief of international renown.
Jeopard sighed, hating the sordid business of prying into her life and wishing that his old cynicism would overwhelm him so that he wouldn’t care whether Tess Benedict was a gold digger—or in this case, a diamond digger.
For the first time in years Jeopard felt human and vulnerable. He pinched the skin on his stomach, poked his thigh muscles, flexed his biceps, and went to study himself in a mirror.
“SORRY ABOUT THE shower problem, Brandt.”
Brandt rolled his eyes and shrugged. “No problem. At least it’s fixed now.”
“Poor kid. I owe you one. Want to drive the Jag to school next week?”
He whooped loudly. “All week? We get out for the summer on Friday. Until Friday?”
“Sure. If I need a car, I’ll borrow my granddad’s station wagon.”
“You’re great! You’re really out there, Tess! You’re fantastic!”
After Brandt left she stood beside Jeopard Surprise’s yacht for nearly a minute, composing a firm speech. Her gaze drifted to the yacht’s name, painted on both sides of the bow in black script edged in gold. She hadn’t noticed it before.
Irresistible.
She shook her head in amused disgust. Tess climbed a wide gangplank to the bow deck and followed a canopied side deck toward the stern.
The yacht’s windows were at knee level along the deck. Tess knelt down, one hand raised to tap on them. She really didn’t mean to peer inside, but the curtains were thin.
Jeopard Surprise, wearing nothing but an air of concentration, stood in his luxurious bedroom admiring himself in a full-length mirro
r.
CHAPTER 2
SHE’D SEEN HIM in nothing but swim trunks the day before, but, oh, what a difference the loss of that simple covering made. His rapt scrutiny of himself confirmed her notion that he was vain. But in his case, vanity was justified.
His bedroom was small; after all, the yacht might be impressive, but it wasn’t the Love Boat. So he was less than ten feet from her, and the sheer window curtains made him more tantalizing by screening him with gauzy white.
Tess remained by the window, her fist frozen in a tapping gesture, her insides dissolving into worrisome sensations of elemental attraction, her eyes riveted to the most undeniably beautiful male body she’d ever seen.
He wasn’t beautiful in the sense of a sleek, boyish Greek statue; for one thing, he had a generous supply of hair on his chest, arms, and legs. He had the torso of a boxer—blocky and compact, not top-heavy with muscle. His upper body tapered only a little into his flanks, but there wasn’t a spare ounce of flesh around his waist.
No. Jeopard Surprise’s beauty came from a combination of muscle, grace, and virility that epitomized masculine charms. The virile part lay docile right now, but it was awesome, nonetheless. Like a sleeping lion, it looked ready to spring up majestically.
She doubted that he was more than six feet tall, but his legs were long, like a runner’s, and they gave him the illusion of more height. They were wonderful legs, and the parts they adjoined, both front and back, were enough to make Tess sigh with plaintive admiration.
He might be preening in front of the mirror, but at least he was dignified about it, she admitted. He seemed very serious and intense.
Turning from side to side, he rubbed his hands up and down his stomach, stopping just short of the luxurious triangle of blond hair low on his belly. He nodded solemnly at himself, then twisted to look over his shoulder at his rump. He slapped it on one side as if he were testing for tone. Then he braced his legs apart and slipped a hand between them to poke his inner thighs.
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