Chain of Love

by Anne Stuart

  “What were you about to say?” she questioned curiously, pulling herself to a sitting position and retying the straps to her bikini behind her neck.

  “Was I about to say something?” he murmured vaguely. “Can’t remember what.”

  “Maybe it was something about when we have to go back,” she prodded, a flicker of nervousness racing along her veins. “You know,” she added with an uneasy laugh, “I don’t really know what you do for a living.”

  There was no mistaking the wariness in his body. She knew every inch of it far too well by that time to miss his reaction. “Sure you do,” he said easily, too easily. “I told you before, I’m a consultant.”

  “But for whom?” she persisted. “Oh, I remember. That Joyce-woman said you own your own company. Is that why you’re able to just disappear on your honeymoon without telling anyone?”

  He put the piece of machinery down, turning to stare at her with lazy charm. “Why the cross-examination, Cathy?” he inquired evenly. “I’m more than happy to tell you anything you want to know.”

  “Even about Joyce?” she dared to ask.

  “Even about Joyce,” he agreed. “Though I can’t imagine why you’d want to know. I never pretended to be a monk before I met you, sweetheart. Joyce and I were... close at one time.”

  “You mean you were lovers,” she said flatly, miserably aware of how bitchy she sounded.

  “Yes.” His answer was unequivocal.

  “And how many others?”

  The last trace of a smile was wiped from his face. “I lost count,” he snapped, crossing the small section of deck to kneel down beside her. “What the hell is wrong with you, Cathy?” he demanded roughly, pulling her unresisting body into his arms with an anger that was oddly reassuring.

  “I’m sorry,” she said meekly against his firmly muscled chest. “I guess I’m just on edge. I’m afraid that everything is going to end in disaster since we’ve left the island. Can’t we go back?” she pleaded.

  Tenderly he pushed the hair from her face, a crooked smile that didn’t belie his own misgivings playing about his mobile mouth. “We’d starve to death, baby,” he said softly. “Don’t be so gloomy. We’ll stop at the store on Martin’s Head, be there for a total of fifteen minutes and then be off. You can do the shopping while I get fresh water and fuel on board. And then we’ll be miles away again, where no one can get to us. How does that sound?”

  His hand was gently stroking the slender curve of her waist as he held her against his broad, firm chest. He smelled of suntan oil and sun-heated flesh, a potent combination that stirred her senses. She could feel the tension draining out of her as she wondered if she’d ever tire of his magnificent body.

  “It sounds heavenly,” she sighed. But still, in the back of her mind, the misgivings remained.

  Martin’s Head was smaller than she had imagined, and the tiny store looked dark and depressing. Leaving Sin at the dock, haggling with a cheerful-looking pirate, she made her way up the winding path to the small store, determined to complete her business and be gone as quickly as possible. It was the sight of the telephone booth that diverted her intentions.

  The only cloud on her blissful horizon the last few days was the lack of word from her father. Meg had promised to call him from St. Alphonse with the news of Cathy’s precipitous wedding, but the absence of her father’s good wishes suddenly overwhelmed her. On impulse she abandoned her shopping for the telephone, her heart pounding with sudden excitement and happiness. She couldn’t wait to tell Pops about Sin. They’d like each other, she knew they would. And Pops would hardly object—he’d been wanting her to get married for years. While he was secretly very proud of her insistence on working at the day-care center, he still held to the antiquated notion that a woman couldn’t be happy unless she had a husband and children on the way. Cathy put a tentative hand on her flat belly as she waited for the call to go through, surprised to find that she was beginning to agree with him. The thought that she might be carrying Sin’s child was infinitely precious to her.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t my little sister Cathy,” Travis’s hateful voice drawled at the other end of the surprisingly good connection. “We hadn’t expected to hear from you for ages. How’s the honeymoon? Enjoying your stalwart private eye? Your father was fit to be tied, you know. Security is one thing, but this is carrying it a bit too far, don’t you think?”

  “What in the world are you talking about, Travis?” Cathy demanded. The connection was crystal clear, but Travis’s conversation was definitely full of static. “Can I speak to Pops?”

  “Oh, you most assuredly can. There’s no way I can stop him—” His sentence ended in the middle, and then her father was on the phone, breathing heavily.

  “It’s about time you called,” he said gruffly. “Where the hell are you?”

  “On a small island called Martin’s Head,” she replied in bewilderment. “Didn’t Meg call you? I’m married. To a—”

  “Your idiot sister most certainly did call me. And I know Sin MacDonald a hell of a lot better than you do. I hired him.”

  Slowly, her body began to go numb. Starting at her toes, and working its way slowly upward through her loins and her heart, until the only part of her that still worked was her brain. “You what?” she echoed.

  “I hired him. Haven’t you ever heard of MacDonald and Anderson?” he snapped.

  “They’re your security firm,” she replied vaguely. “But what...?”

  “Sinclair MacDonald is the president of MacDonald and Anderson. He’s worked for me for years, on special projects and the like.”

  There was a long silence. “The latest of which is me?” she questioned finally in a dead voice.

  Her deathly reaction finally penetrated the miles of telephone cable to her father. “No, don’t take it like that, honey. You were in danger. That psycho you hooked yourself up with last spring has been trying to extort money from me. Said he’d wreck your life if I didn’t turn over a very large sum of money to him. I remember how much you seemed to love the guy—I thought he could do it. So I hired Sin MacDonald to get you out of the country and out of Danville’s way till we could take care of him.”

  “I see.” She was amazed at how calm her voice sounded. “And did Meg and Charles have anything to do with this?”

  “Well, of course.” Her father had the grace to sound somewhat sheepish. “How else could we have managed it? You weren’t about to fall for him on your own. But honey, listen, it’s all over. We’ve got Danville dead to rights. We’ve gotten a restraining order, and if he comes anywhere near you he’ll be slapped in jail so fast his head will spin. Even if we don’t make the charges stick he won’t ever try to pull a stunt like this one again.”

  “Great.”

  “So you can come home, honey. If that was a real marriage Sin arranged we can manage a speedy annulment. But I sure as hell can’t figure out why he went that far.”

  “I was about to fly back home,” Cathy said flatly. “He probably thought marrying me was the only way to stop me. He’s a very thorough man, Mr. Sinclair MacDonald.”

  “He is indeed,” her father agreed jovially, his voice plummy with satisfaction. “In that case I’m sure the marriage isn’t legal. No problem, then. You just catch the first plane home and we’ll put all this behind us. Meg and Charles are already back. You can tell Sin for me there’ll be a bonus for him. Not that he needs one, at the prices I pay him already.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell him. I’ll be home tomorrow.”

  “That long?” Brandon Whiteheart was displeased.

  “It’ll take a while to get to an island with an airport. I won’t take any longer than I have to—” The phone was removed from her hand with inexorable force. Turning to look up at her husband’s face, she let go, keeping her own face carefully blank.

  “It’s your boss,” she said politely, and turning her back on him, she walked back to the boat.

  * * *

  Chapter
Nineteen

  * * *

  It didn’t take her long to throw her clothes into the duffel bag she’d brought along. Sin had insisted she wouldn’t need many clothes on her honeymoon, an insistence time had borne out. Cathy was cold and dry-eyed, an icy film covering her heart and soul. Even the feel of Sin’s heavy footsteps climbing onto the boat failed to break through her iron control, although her senses told her when he entered the cabin on silent feet.

  “How long will it take to get to St. Alphonse?” She kept her back to him and her voice cool and composed.

  “Eight or ten hours, probably.” His voice matched hers for coolness. “We’d have to make it under power—there’s not a breath of wind.”

  “Then we can make it there by tonight?” She spent more time and attention folding a pair of jeans than she had taken with the entire sum of her other clothing.

  “By tomorrow. I’m not about to spend all night sailing, and it’s already five o’clock. We wouldn’t be in till three or four in the morning. It can wait.”

  She steeled herself to turn and meet his gaze. His face was completely expressionless in the dim confines of the cabin, and it was with an over-whelming effort that Cathy stopped herself from screaming at him. “Is there an island closer that has an airport?” she questioned politely.

  “St. Alphonse is the nearest one. Are you going home?” The question was asked in a tone of polite disinterest, a tone that Cathy matched perfectly.

  “As soon as I possibly can.”

  He stared down at her for a long, silent moment. She could see a tiny muscle working in his strong jaw, the only sign that her new-found knowledge affected him in the slightest.

  “In that case,” he said flatly, “I suppose we should get under way. There are still a few good hours of sunlight left.” Without another word he turned and left her alone in the cabin.

  She looked down at the wide bed they had shared, and an involuntary moan of pain issued from the back of her throat. She clamped her teeth shut on it, shoving the neatly folded jeans into the duffel bag and zipping it shut. The next twenty-four hours would take a century to pass, she thought wearily as she sat cross-legged on the bed. And I won’t cry. If I can just keep away from him I’ll make it through. As long as I don’t have to spend any more time with his lying eyes, that damnable smile that promised love and tenderness.

  But he never told you he loved you, she reminded herself, determined to be fair. He may have lied about everything else, but he never told that final, unforgivable lie. Damn it, don’t cry, she threatened herself, pinching her leg fiercely to stop the treacherous weakening. Because once you start crying, she warned herself, you won’t ever stop.

  The hours passed at a snail’s pace, even more slowly than Cathy had anticipated. At one point the faint aroma of chicken soup wafted through the tightly shut door, followed by a short, staccato knock.

  “Do you want anything to eat?” Sin’s voice was cool and composed, entirely in control of the situation, apparently.

  And why did the sound of his deep voice still have the power to melt her bones, after his lies and betrayal? “Nothing,” she snapped, more fiercely than she had intended. His footsteps moved away, leaving her once more to fight off the misery that threatened to overwhelm her. She stayed on the bunk, curled up in a tight, dry-eyed ball of despair behind her locked door, hidden away, her privacy the only solace she could find on that tiny, floating hell.

  When she awoke it was just past midnight, according to the luminous dial of the thin gold watch Sin had left by the bed. The boat was dark and silent—sometime during the last few hours Sin must have dropped anchor. Not a sound issued from the main cabin, nothing to hint that she wasn’t alone on the boat. But she knew far too well that she shared the boat, and the last thing in the world she wanted was to risk waking her—her father’s hired man. No matter how lonely the bed suddenly seemed.

  Nature, however, had other ideas. The only bathroom on the boat was just outside the tightly locked door, and it soon became apparent that she would have to leave the safety of her refuge. She would simply have to trust to a not very kind fate that Sin would be sound asleep and not notice her tiptoeing across the cabin.

  There was no sign of him as she slipped out of the master cabin and into the confines of the head. Breathing a sigh of relief, she decided to allow herself the luxury of brushing her teeth and washing her face. The haunted green eyes that stared back at her out of the curtain of silver-blond hair had an eerie familiarity. She had spent the summer just like this. She recovered from Greg Danville; why did she have the depressing conviction that Sin MacDonald would be a great deal harder to forget? She had always known it.

  Tears began to form in the green eyes, and she quickly splashed cold water in them. Sliding back the bathroom door, she started out into the main cabin, only to run smack into Sin’s large, immovable body.

  There was a quick, indrawn gasp, before Cathy jumped back. Or tried to. His large, strong hands caught her shoulders in an iron grip, holding her rigidly a few inches from him. From the glitter in his eyes she could tell he was in a deep, towering rage, from his rapid breath that fanned her face she could detect the faint trace of brandy. The look of the panther was back, overpowering in its threat of danger and savagery. It was all Cathy could do to stop from quailing before the intensity in his strongly marked face.

  “Are you going to talk to me?” he demanded, all trace of composure gone. He shook her once, hard. “Are you? Or are you going to spend the rest of the time sulking in that damned cabin?”

  “I’m going to spend the rest of the time sulking in that damned cabin,” she shot back, her own coolness vanished in the face of his attack. “We have nothing to say to each other.” She struggled helplessly. “And get your hands off me.”

  Her heart was pounding with a mixture of fear, anger, and a desire that nothing could destroy, not even the full knowledge that he had tricked her. Maybe that’s what love is, she thought miserably, still glaring up into his angry eyes. A wanting that nothing can destroy. And some part of her wanted to reach up and smooth his tumbled hair out of his flushed face, to reassure him—to apologize, of all things! And what did she have to apologize for? He was the one who had lied and cheated, who trapped her with her own needs. She clenched her fists to keep that soothing hand from moving upward of its own volition.

  The fingers that clenched her shoulders loosened somewhat, to slide down her bare arms. “Maybe you’re right,” he said slowly, his eyes hooded. “Maybe we do have nothing to say to each other. And maybe you should spend the rest of the time in your cabin. With me,” he added crudely. “Because I sure as hell am not going to take my hands off you.” With a suddenness that threw her off balance he yanked her into his arms, so that she fell against his broad, hard chest. Her arms were trapped between them as his mouth came down on hers with punishing savagery. Desperately she fought him, keeping her mouth tightly shut against his insistent, probing tongue, as his hands slid down her arched back and cupped her firm buttocks, pressing her up against his angry male desire. And then the room swung crazily around as he scooped her slight body up and carried her back into the cabin, dropping her unceremoniously on the bunk.

  “Don’t you dare do this!” she spat at him as he stripped her thin cotton knit shirt over her head with deadly efficiency. “Haven’t you humiliated me enough?” His deft hands dispensed with her tight jeans, brushing aside her furious fists. A moment later he was naked in the bed beside her, her wrists held above her head in a grip of iron clothed in velvet. His other hand caught her chin and held it still, his eyes burning down into hers for a long, breathless moment.

  “I’m not going to rape you, Cathy,” he said huskily. “Because I know too well how to make you want me. You’re my wife, dammit. And even if it’s only for one more night, I intend to be your husband.” And his mouth dropped down to take possession of hers, this time with none of the savagery that had marked his rage in the outer cabin, but with a sl
ow, insinuating thoroughness that had her shuddering with a tightly controlled longing. His mouth trailed tiny, passionate kisses across her neck, down her collarbone, his lips capturing one nipple as it swelled in response. His callused hand traveled down the firmness of her flat belly, stroking the smooth, soft skin as his fingers moved ever closer to that aching, secret part of her that already knew him so well. And then his hand moved up, away, to stroke the outline of her hip, her waist, all the while his mouth concentrating on the upper half of her body, his lips teasing, tantalizing, until her slender frame squirmed with a longing she could no longer deny.

  Once more his hand trailed down her body, to dance lightly across her stomach, down to her thighs, and then away. Wordlessly she arched her body, vainly trying to reach his dilatory hand. He moved up and kissed her again, and this time she opened her mouth eagerly to him, her tongue meeting his in a tiny duel of passion that promised no victor and no vanquished. And then as a reward his hand moved back, to the very center of her longing, stroking her with a knowledge that scorched her even as it brought her to the edge of oblivion.

  Finally he released her wrists, levering his body across hers. She should push him away, she told herself dazedly, wrapping her arms tightly around him as her hips pushed mutely against his hand.

  “Say it,” he whispered in her ear, his breath hot on her yearning flesh. “Tell me you want me.

  She shook her head, clamping her strong white teeth down on her lips that would have told him anything he wanted. Abruptly his hand left her.

  “No,” she whispered, tears streaming down her pale face unbidden, the final vestiges of control vanishing. “No,” she repeated, refusing to give him his last victory. He knew as well as she did how much she wanted him; she wouldn’t give him the final triumph of begging him.