Fine Madness

by Bretton, Barbara

  She was proud of her independence, proud of her strength, but dear God in heaven, there was something so infinitely sweet about finding a man who was stronger and bending to his will...

  #

  The smartest thing PAX had ever done was set up this privately-owned phone line between New York and Tranquility Island. It was untraceable, totally secure, and right now the one thing saving them from a major problem.

  "Who is this?" The woman's voice was openly curious and obviously concerned. "Where is Kelly Madison?"

  Ryder clicked on the micro-recorder attached to the receiver. "The question is, who wants to know?"

  "This is Natalie Stryker from Madison Dynamics. Who are you?"

  Native New Yorkers were not known for their subtlety and Natalie Stryker was no exception. It was a welcome change from the cloak-and-dagger tap dancing he'd been involved in the past few weeks.

  "I work here," he said. "Can I help you?"

  The woman's wariness came right through the phone wires. "I want to speak to Kelly."

  "She's unavailable."

  "That's what you told me an hour ago."

  "You have a good ear for voices, Mrs. Stryker."

  "Voices are my business," she said. Then: "Hey, wait a minute! How do you know I'm married?"

  "That's my business," he countered. "I'll tell Ms. Madison you called."

  "You also told me that an hour ago, Mr. No Name Worker. You just tell her I'll call back."

  Not good.

  Ryder hung up the phone and reached for a cigarette. Not good at all.

  The invitations for Maximilian Steel's New Year's Eve party had been sent out and RSVP's were already being phoned into headquarters.

  The high and mighty were chomping at the bit to fly down to Rio for the event and, if sources were right, Sean Ryan and Viktor Maksymenko were going to be among them.

  As far as Ryder was concerned, New Year's couldn't happen soon enough.

  #

  Natalie Stryker believed in hard work and loyalty and women's intuition and her women's intuition was screaming at her loud and clear.

  Something was wrong.

  She didn't know what but it was as clear to her as the headlines on the New York Post that there were things going on that hadn't been covered in her job description.

  The light on line three flashed persistently as Sean Ryan waited for his daughter to speak to him. He'd called eight times in the past three hours and each time his voice grew more desperate, more imploring.

  Natalie had hoped to bridge Kelly in Florida with Sean in who-knows-where and let Kelly handle the problem but that anonymous man stubbornly refused to bring her employer to the phone.

  She clicked back into Sean's line. "I'm sorry, Mr. Ryan, but I can't seem to locate Kelly. If you--"

  "Please." His voice was low, urgent. "I know I am far from an exemplary father but, Natalie, if there's the slightest ounce of compassion in your soul for me, then please tell her to come to the telephone."

  She took a deep breath. "Sean, you simply don't understand. I can't tell Kelly to come to the phone. She isn't here."

  "Where is she?"

  "I can't tell you, Mr. Ryan. She's on an assignment and she--"

  "Blast it, woman! This is life and death I'm talking about, not paying off my latest bar debts." The roar of Captain Blood and the Masked Raider echoed in her ears. "Now where is she?"

  Natalie, however, hadn't been born in New York for nothing and caution was part of her constitution. "Whose life and whose death are we talking about here?"

  "Kelly's."

  That did it.

  "I'll give you her number."

  #

  Sean, sweat pouring down his face, hung up the telephone and stared at the number scribbled on a matchbook cover from the Fort Lauderdale Holiday Inn.

  305 area code.

  Florida.

  She was right there in South Florida, right near him.

  It was fate.

  It had to be. He glanced toward the sleek black Caddy parked at the curb some hundred feet away. They were watching him. They always watched him.

  This was probably even their idea, planted in some nefarious way inside his brain, tailored for their own purposes.

  He didn't care.

  He had to find Kelly, had to speak to her somehow. They could follow him all they want; it didn't matter. He'd make them think it was another aberration of a father who'd spent his life drinking too much and marrying too often and leaning on his daughter when the going got too tough.

  She was all that mattered.

  He'd get her to meet him some place plain and boring and safe where he could tell her about the danger, tell her to get away from Max Steel.

  Some place where could he could tell her that going to Rio might be the last thing she ever does.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sex had always been uncomplicated for Max.

  The equation was simple: A man, a woman, and some spare time.

  Satisfaction guaranteed.

  He didn't believe in tangling up things with unruly emotions or deeper feelings or needs that went beyond the bedroom.

  Sex for Max was like playing baseball or running on a beach: a lot of fun for the body without taxing the mind.

  At least that's how it was before Kelly.

  He'd heard all about romantic love, about flights of fancy, about forever after and all the other cliches he'd thought the province of optimists and fools.

  How it had found him was a mystery greater than the pyramids.

  But there it was: he'd fallen in love with Kelly Madison. The head-over-heels, forever after kind of love that he had no business getting into.

  He couldn't promise her anything. Not security or a house with a picket fence.

  He couldn't even offer her his real name.

  Arm in arm, they walked back to the main house after their interlude at the lagoon. Kelly's beautiful face had the soft glow of a woman well-satisfied but the primitive pleasure he felt at being responsible for that glow paled beside the uneasiness that had settled over him not long after they arrived at Tranquility.

  A few times this past week he'd cornered Ryder and tried to get some feeling for what his future would be but O'Neal had been tight-lipped.

  "One thing at a time," Ryder said just yesterday. "Let's get through New Year's Eve then we'll worry about it."

  "What's the big deal with New Year's Eve?" Max had asked. "We're not giving a party here are we?"

  Ryder only shook his head and disappeared into the room he'd claimed for an office--something that had puzzled Kelly no end.

  Max hadn't even tried to explain what a chauffeur was doing with his own office.

  The patio lights twinkled from the rear of the house and as they approached those lights gave an almost fairy-tale look to the verandah.

  "Let's eat dinner outside tonight," she said, looking up at him as they went inside. "It reminds me of our Thanksgiving dinner in Hawaii."

  "Anything you want," he said, wishing it were within his power. "I'll tell the cook."

  She raised up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "I'll start the bath."

  They parted in the center hallway and he watched as she rounded the corner, her hips twitching beneath her short terry robe in a maddeningly provocative fashion that was as natural to her as drawing breath.

  I'm not going to let you go, Kelly, he thought as he headed for the kitchen.

  Somehow he'd find a way to hold onto the little piece of heaven he found in her arms.

  #

  The master bathroom was larger than Kelly's New York living room and bedroom combined and even after two weeks of luxury, she was still enthralled with its splendor.

  Vivid red and orange light from the setting sun spilled in through the skylights, bathing the pale cream marble floor with a fiery glow. A sunken tub the size of a queen-size bed was set in the far corner by a wall of glass that overlooked the gardens below and the ocean beyond.


  Her laughter bounced off the marble walls, thanks to acoustics Pavarotti would have coveted, as she thought of Max leading the intrepid Robin Leach on a grand tour of Tranquility Island.

  A crystal decanter piled high with bath oil beads rested atop the lip of the tub and impulsively she tossed one into the warm water. The lust scent of gardenias blossomed and a rush of sensual pleasure filled her head.

  Humming an old love song she strolled back into the bedroom and was about to slip out of her cover-up and bikini when the phone on the nightstand trilled.

  "Kelly! Sweetheart, I have moved heaven and hell to find you. I--"

  "Sean?" Trembling, she sank to the edge of the bed. "How did you get this number?"

  "Natalie. I--"

  "Is she all right?"

  "Of course, she is."

  "Good," Kelly muttered. "Now I can kill her with a clear conscience." The last thing she'd wanted was reality to rear its ugly head in paradise.

  "Don't go hard on her, Kelly." Sean's voice was tremulous and apologetic in a way she'd never heard before. "I gave her no choice."

  Max walked into the bedroom and she motioned for him to be silent.

  "If it's money you need, Sean, Natalie can give you a check."

  Max stopped in the doorway to the bathroom at the sound of Sean's name.

  "I'm not in Manhattan, Kelly." She heard his ragged intake of breath. "I'm in Florida."

  "No!" The words tore from her throat. "Don't do this, Sean. Please!"

  Max crossed the room and placed a hand on her shoulder.

  "I'm in trouble, sweetheart," her father said. "I need to talk to you."

  She leaned into Max's warmth. "Five minutes," she said, hating the hard edge to her voice. "If that's not enough, we'll see each other in New York after the holidays."

  Were you ever there for me, Sean? Did you ever think of me?

  "I know I've asked so much of you in the past and I don't deserve consideration, but this time is different. Just once more..." His voice broke.

  He's an actor. Don't listen. Just the same old story with a different twist...

  "Just once more, princess. Do that for me."

  How unfair.

  She closed her eyes as a wave of old memories reached inside and grabbed her by the heart.

  For a moment that old nickname turned back the years and she was eleven years old again with her nose pressed against the window of her boarding school bedroom. She couldn't shake the memory of those days when her father was all she had between herself and a loneliness so dark, so deep, she could lose herself in it.

  "Where in Florida are you?"

  "Holiday Inn. Fort Lauderdale." He gave her an address near Commercial Boulevard and said he'd just finished a week as the husband in The Fourposter at a dinner theatre at a nearby retirement complex. "Where are you?"

  She hesitated. The island was special, Max's private retreat. "South of Miami," she said after a moment. That was all he needed to know. All she would tell him.

  "The Keys," he said and she didn't correct him. "You can make it here by mid-morning, the latest. I'll be here overnight. I'll wait."

  "I don't know. I have to--"

  "Do whatever you have to, but show up, princess. If you ever cared anything at all for me--"

  "Sean, I..." She stared at the receiver. "He hung up on me."

  Max's face was impassive as he brushed a lock of hair off her forehead. "He's in trouble?"

  She nodded, her mind splintering in a thousand directions. "He wants me to mmeet him in Fort Lauderdale tonight."

  "An unreasonable request."

  She replaced the receiver in the cradle. "Are you being sarcastic?"

  "I'm making an observation."

  "I don't think asking me to meet him is an unreasonable request."

  "Asking you to meet him tonight is."

  Her backbone stiffened against the tone of his voice. "He didn't ask you to meet him tonight, Max," she said evenly.

  He moved away from her and leaned against the armoire. "No, he didn't. He asks you and you jump."

  "This doesn't concern you."

  "If you ask me to help you leave the island, it concerns me."

  This wasn't the Max Steel who had held her in his arms just an hour before.

  This was the Max Steel who built empires.

  "This isn't a maximum security prison," she said lightly. "I shouldn't think leaving for a few hours would present any problems."

  "I don't want you to go to him, Kelly. He's asking too much."

  "He's my father," she said, skirting the edges of anger. "He's--"

  "He's never done a thing for you in his life," Max broke in. "You deserve this time for yourself."

  "How can I take this time for myself if I know he's in trouble? What kind of person do you think I am?"

  His expression was blank and deep inside her, a ripple of apprehension unfurled.

  "I'll see what I can do," he said, then turned and left the room.

  I'll see what I can do?

  "Poor Maximilian Steel," she murmured as the door closed behind him.

  He could move mountains.

  He could make millions.

  He could bring multi-national corporations to their collective knees.

  But he couldn't get her off Tranquility Island?

  She just wasn't buying it.

  #

  "Forget it," Ryder said the second Max appeared in the office doorway.

  Max glared at him. "You don't even know what I'm going to say."

  "The hell I don't." He gestured toward the bank of phones on his desk. "I heard the whole thing."

  "I think we should let her go."

  "I think you should stick to your business and I'll stick to mine."

  "She loves him, O'Neal. She wants to help him."

  "If she wants to help him, she'll let us do our job."

  "She doesn't know we have a job to do."

  "That's the first thing you've said in three weeks that didn't make me real nervous, Max." With apologies to his wife Joanna, Ryder reached for a cigarette.

  "She said he sounded desperate," Max persisted.

  He took a long drag, holding the smoke a few seconds before exhaling. "He's an actor, Max. Keep that in mind."

  Max's eyes gleamed with a fierce possessiveness that put Ryder on alert. "He's her father."

  "He's also a traitor."

  Max raked his hand through his hair in a gesture evocative of their time in the jungles of Nam and Ryder's tension rose another notch. "What am I supposed to say to her?"

  "Anything short of the truth, pal." The truth was definitely off limits.

  "We could just fly in and out of Lauderdale and she--"

  "Forget it."

  "She's the one who's paying the price."

  Ryder tossed his cigarette into the ashtray. "Do you think I like that? It can't be helped."

  He's going over the hill. The feeling was as clear to Ryder as the pain on Max's face as he turned to go back to Kelly Madison.

  Ryder put his hand on his friend's arm.

  "Don't do it, old pal. You'll hurt her more if you bolt and run."

  Max turned and met his eyes. "Not if I take her with me."

  Chapter Twenty-One

  "You can't hold me prisoner, Max!" Kelly, her blonde hair tousled and wild, faced him down in the master bedroom. "Sean's in real trouble--I can feel it in my bones."

  "You have his address," he said. "Wire him some money."

  "He doesn't want money. He wants to see me. Don't you understand that? For the first time, he wants me, not what I can give."

  "He wants to manipulate you, Kelly, and you're helping him."

  Her dark blue eyes flashed with anger and he felt like a bastard because he knew how well-deserved that anger was.

  "You don't know the situation, Max. You can't judge."

  He moved to draw her into his arms but she pulled away.

  "I do know," he said, wishing he
could somehow convey the terrifying love he felt for her. "I know that girl who waited by the window for her father." he reached out and rested his hand against the silky fall of her hair. "I know the woman who went ten thousand miles on Thanksgiving night because he said he was in trouble."

  "You think I'm a fool, don't you?"

  "I think he doesn't deserve you."

  "That isn't your business, Max."

  "I think it is. I care about you, Kelly. I don't want to see you hurt."

  "Then help me. I need to get to the mainland."

  Ryder's words hammered inside his head. She's in danger. Remember, she's in real danger. "Impossible."

  She stared at him. "Impossible? You're one of the world's richest men and you can't get me to the mainland?"

  "The jet is en route to Europe."

  "You must have a boat."

  "The seas are too choppy tonight." Damn you, O'Neal, he thought. I'm running out of excuses.

  "I can see why you're so successful," she said in a voice he'd never before heard. "You have an answer for everything."

  "Call Natalie Stryker," he said. "Maybe she can tell you what this is all about."

  "I would call her if I thought she could get me off this island."

  Keep her here, Brody. It doesn't matter what she wants.

  "Kelly, it isn't as if I don't want to help you. It's just that I cannot."

  "Cannot? You can hire a 737 to take three people to a private island and you can't get me to Fort Lauderdale? You can do better than that, Mr. Steel."

  "You don't understand--"

  "You're right and I'm beginning to think there's a lot more about you I don't understand."

  She's getting suspicious, O'Neal. Isn't that worse in the long run? Won't that hurt the almighty PAX more?

  "You have a pilot's license, don't you?" she continued.