“Neither.” Her gown made a shushing sound on the ground as she walked. “It was work.”
“Work. The worst of the four-lettered words. What is he, a doctor?” Marsh asked. “Was it some life-and-death emergency operation that only he could perform that’s keeping him from your lovely side?”
Leila’s frustration turned to sharp annoyance. “Not everyone is a critically important small-town doctor.”
“Just curious.” He ignored her insult. “New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day are the two most important holidays for lovers. It seems peculiar that he isn’t here with you.”
Leila and Elliot weren’t lovers. Their relationship just hadn’t progressed in that direction. At least not yet. And Leila was in no hurry to change that. But she wasn’t about to correct Marsh and give him more ammunition to use against Elliot.
“One of his clients had an emergency,” she said. “To be specific, a financial emergency. Elliot is a financial consultant.”
“Splendid,” Marsh said, far too enthusiastically. “It’s truly comforting to know you’re considering spending the rest of your life with a man who believes that having bags of money is more important than silly old love. Of course that works out rather nicely since you’re not exactly in love with him, either.”
Leila shook her head in exasperation. “Simon told you about Elliot’s proposal, didn’t he? God, I don’t know why I’m surprised. He tells you everything. There’s no such thing as a secret on Sunrise Key, is there?”
“Ah, the great lack-of-privacy issue again. But this hasn’t anything to do with that. When Si told me you were bringing this Elliot fellow with you, naturally, I asked some questions.”
Leila shot him a look. “You don’t honestly expect me to believe that there’s a single person at this party who hasn’t heard I was bringing a man to the island with me?”
“Of course not.” Marsh held open the door to the house. “In a town this size, news of weddings and babies travels far and fast. Of course, everyone who’s heard about Elliot assumes you’re in love with the man. Only those privileged few of us know the real truth. I must say, marrying a man for his money…Somehow, I expected more from you, Leila.”
“I’m not marrying Elliot for his money. If I marry him—and that’s a great big ‘if’—it’s because—” She broke off, suddenly unwilling to tell him her real reasons for considering marriage with Elliot. She couldn’t bear to hear him mock her fears of spending her life alone, to have him ridicule her desires for children, for a family.
“My God.” Marsh somehow managed to read her mind. “Something has unleashed the traditional female in you. It’s time to have kids, so you latched on to the first idiot who came along!”
“Elliot’s not an idiot,” Leila said defensively. “It’s true that I’m not exactly in love with him, but he’s a good man, and I like him. If you don’t like that, that’s tough luck. But then again, why should I care? You’ve never liked anything I’ve ever done.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Marsh’s cool control was starting to slip. “Just because I was disappointed when you moved to New York City after college instead of back to the key—”
“Hah.” Leila all but smacked him with her mask. “Disappointed because I wouldn’t be around to torment and control. ‘There goes Simon’s little sister,’” she said in a mock English accent. “‘Let’s see if we can get her really mad.’”
“What a load of rubbish,” he muttered.
“It’s true. And while you’re at it, fix your stupid hair!”
“My what?” Marsh looked surprised. Was it possible he didn’t notice that he was peering at her through an infuriatingly unkempt lock of hair?
“Leila’s been home less than five hours, and you guys are already fighting?” a voice interrupted them. Simon, the mermaid clinging to his arm, stood in the doorway.
“Your hair is in your eyes,” Leila told Marsh with exaggerated enunciation. “Most normal people would find that annoying and do something about it. Like fix it.”
“I happen to like my hair just the way it is, thanks,” Marsh said icily.
“You’re arguing about Dev’s hair?” Simon’s voice dripped with amazement and disbelief.
“No, we’re arguing because Leila’s going to marry Elliot Something—I don’t even know his last name—”
“Tillis,” Leila supplied tightly.
“Right. Leila’s only going to marry Elliot bloody Tillis because of some biological imperative to knit diamond-studded booties.” Marsh pushed his hair out of his face. “Better now?” he said to Leila with overly done sweetness. But he didn’t give her a chance to answer before turning back to Simon. “That’s what this Elliot thing’s about. She’s afraid time’s running out and she wants to have a baby. She doesn’t even bloody well love this guy. Isn’t that the stupidest bloody thing you’ve ever heard?”
“Maybe we can talk about this later,” Simon said mildly. “After the party.”
Marsh looked at Leila. “You know, you don’t need to marry a man who doesn’t love you simply to have a baby. Any man in the world can give you that. Axel Bayard could give you a baby. Old Martin Hampton could give you a baby. I could give you a baby.”
Marsh’s eyes were lit with the heat of anger as he glared at her. Anger, and a hint of something else. For an instant, his gaze raked her body, as if he were mentally undressing her. For an instant, her stomach felt as if she were riding a roller coaster. Gravity disappeared, and her insides flip-flopped.
Simon and the mermaid were watching her, waiting for her response to Marsh’s loaded comment. What would Marsh do, Leila wondered wildly, if she said, All right, I’ll take you up on that.
No doubt, knowing Marsh, he’d insist on going straight upstairs and “getting on with it, then.” And, while she had to admit that the prospect of making love to her lifelong nemesis was extremely intriguing, where would she be in the long term?
Alone with a baby.
So, instead, Leila snorted. “Thanks, but I’d rather have Elliot’s baby. I want to be married first. Being a single parent doesn’t appeal to me.”
“As if old Elliot’s ever going to be around to change the kid’s didee,” Marsh said hotly.
“So what?” Leila crossed her arms. It was true that marriage to Elliot would mean spending quite a bit of time without him. But since Marsh was raising the point, Leila was forced to defend herself. “That doesn’t mean I’ll be alone. I’ll be with the sweet Mary Poppins-type nanny that I can hire with Elliot’s bags of money.”
“Back to the money, are we?” Marsh said.
“Hey, are you guys going to fight the entire two weeks that Leila’s here?” Simon asked.
“Yes,” hissed Leila, turning on her glittering plastic heel and pushing her way out the door.
“Probably,” Marsh said, stomping up the stairs.
TWO
FRANKIE PARESKY, DRESSED as Cleopatra, was leaning against the bar that had been set up in the yard. With her shoulder-length dark hair and dark eyes, Leila’s best friend on Sunrise Key looked spookily realistic, as if she’d stepped out of a stone tablet of hieroglyphics, or traveled forward in time.
“Welcome back,” she shouted to Leila over the loud music, with a smile that quickly faded. “Uh-oh, what’s wrong?”
“My brother’s choice of friends, that’s what.” Leila stole a glass of wine from a nearby tray and took a long sip. “And these stupid plastic shoes are killing my feet.”
“Are you and Marsh Devlin fighting again?” Frankie asked. “Of course you are. Dumb question. You two are in this year’s revised copy of the dictionary under the word argumentative. You’ve been fighting ever since that very first vacation Marsh took down here with his dad.”
“He is such an infuriating snob,” Leila seethed.
“I don’t know,” Frankie said mildly in her gentle southern accent. “He’s been real polite to me whenever I talk to him. But he’s got that upper-class British thi
ng happening, you know, as if his collar’s too tight around his neck. Still, that doesn’t make him a snob. He’s just all backed up. I seriously doubt he acts that way intentionally.”
“Yeah, well, what he does do intentionally is push my buttons,” Leila said. “The man loves to torment me.”
“I always thought he had some kind of thing for you. I swear I’ve seen him looking at you like he wants to gobble you up.”
“Chew me up and spit me out is more like it.” Still, an unbidden picture of Marsh’s face as he told her he could give her a baby leaped into her mind.
Frankie smiled. “How are you?” she said, looking closely at Leila. “You look great. A little pale, but a few days on the beach’ll take care of that. So where’s this Yankee friend of yours?”
“Don’t ask,” Leila said.
“All right, I won’t.” Frankie changed the subject. “How’s your mom? Simon told me she spent Christmas with you in New York.”
“She’s doing all right. It’s hard for her to be here on the key now that Dad’s gone, especially at this time of year. She’s visiting relatives out west for a few weeks, then she’s going on a cruise with my aunt Carol. She won’t be back on Sunrise Key until February.”
“She’s smart,” Frankie said. “Why stay here and get depressed?”
“Exactly.”
“Hey, did you hear I got my private investigator’s license?”
“Yeah. Congratulations. Simon told me the news. But…”
“There’s not a lot of cases to solve here on Sunrise Key,” Frankie finished for her. “I know, a place like this isn’t exactly rampant with crime. But last week, Liam Halliday’s office hired me as a consultant.” She laughed, her dark brown eyes sparkling. “I picked through the school dumpster, looking for the Tennison girl’s orthodontic retainer. Found it, too. A few more solid cases like that, and I’ll be ready to write my memoirs.”
“Liam Halliday.” Leila took a handful of celery sticks from a platter on the bar, and shifted her weight to her right foot, the one that hurt the least. “The name rings a bell, but I can’t place him.”
“He’s the sheriff,” Frankie said. “Tall, broad shoulders, dark hair, brown eyes…?”
Leila shook her head.
“Cowboy hat, Texas drawl, parties too hard…?” Frankie continued.
Leila shrugged. “Maybe I’ve never met him. Or maybe I did and I just don’t remember.”
“If you’d met him, you’d remember him,” Frankie said dryly. “He’s cute as hell, a real goodtime, good ol’ boy. He’s asked me out a few times, but I found excuses and turned him down. Going down to the Rustler’s Hideout and slamming back a six-pack or two isn’t my idea of a fun night out. I’m looking for a man who likes to spend a quiet evening at home, watching foreign films—and I’m not talking about Japanese monster movies.”
“Good luck. Are you seeing anyone at all these days?” Leila asked.
Frankie shook her head and her big earrings jingled. “Nope.”
“You’re not still carrying a torch for Noah Kavanaugh, are you?”
“Too bad for me, if I were.” Frankie rolled her eyes. “You know, he and Kim are having a baby. She’s already a week past the due date.”
“I heard that, too,” Leila said. “And let’s see, what else? Preston Seaholm is back in town.”
“I saw his Rolls out front. I think he’s here, somewhere, tonight.” Frankie looked around at the crowd.
“…without his wife,” Leila said. “What’s the scoop on that?”
“Apparently the new Mrs. Seaholm didn’t marry Pres merely for his money. Turns out she was using him as a stepping-stone. He knows a bunch of movie producers based in Orlando, and one of ’em liked Mrs. S. enough to screen-test her and she landed a supporting role in a movie. Pres wasn’t keen on spending eight months in Orlando, so he moved back here. Word has it, the divorce papers arrived in the mail less than a week after he was back. One thing’s certain—you can bet Pres is thanking God and his attorneys for that prenupt he had her sign.”
“So he’s single now.” Leila traded her empty glass for a full one, wishing the wine would heal the blisters that were starting to form on her feet. Plastic shoes were the pits. Did Cinderella have this much pain from her glass slippers? Probably. Leila bet those fairy tales were written by a man. “Why don’t you go out with him?”
Frankie laughed. “Oh, I am exactly Preston Seaholm’s type…not! Good grief, Lei, the man’s a billionaire, and I don’t even have a hundred bucks in my checking account.”
“So?”
“So, get real. He collects real estate for a living,” Frankie said. “I dig through dumpsters.”
“Simon told me there’s another new guy in town. A lifeguard or something?”
“Hayden Young,” Frankie told her. “Oh, baby. He can save my life anytime. He’s got the three essential Bs.”
“Which are…?”
“Blond hair, blue eyes, and big biceps. Not to mention his various other muscles.”
“Gee, and I thought one of those Bs would stand for brain,” Leila said wryly.
“Believe it or not, I think he’s got one of them, too. He’s working on getting a Ph.D. in—get this—philosophy. He took this lifeguard job as a way to earn money while he sits around and thinks about his dissertation.”
“He sounds perfect. Maybe he even watches foreign movies. Ask him out.”
“I’d have to take a number and stand in line,” Frankie said. “Every woman over the age of fourteen and under the age of one hundred is going to the beach and batting her eyelashes at the guy.”
“Bummer.”
“Yeah,” Frankie agreed.
“Speaking of bummers, my feet are killing me.”
“So take the shoes off. Be an authentic Cinderella, and drop one somewhere. It’s almost midnight anyway. I don’t know about you, but I want to grab a lounge chair so I can see Simon’s fireworks without straining my neck.”
“I’ll catch up with you in a sec.” Leila leaned down and pulled off her shoes. Oh, Lord, that was much better. She straightened up, then jumped back, alarmed. One of the ninjas was standing directly in front of her.
He was dressed all in black. Black sweat pants, black shirt, black sash around his waist, black shoes, and a black mask that covered his hair and all of his face, except for his mouth and chin. His eyes glittered colorlessly from two holes cut into the mask.
He wasn’t really a ninja, Leila had to remind herself. He was only dressed like one. Still, he looked awfully mysterious.
Without warning, the lights dimmed even further, and the music kicked up in volume.
“Three minutes till countdown!” Simon’s voice boomed over the p.a. system. “Three minutes left in the old year!”
“Dance with me,” the ninja said. She couldn’t hear him over the music, she could only read his lips.
She shook her head. Who was he? She couldn’t identify him with that costume on. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He took her hand and led her to the crowded dance floor.
The song was an old, slow, romantic tune, something about night and day, day and night. The ninja pulled Leila close, holding her against him with a familiarity that was baffling. Who the heck was he?
His arms were solid—his whole body was solid and strong. She didn’t know any men on Sunrise Key with a body like this. Except maybe Simon. But this sure wasn’t her brother.
“Do I know you?” she whispered into the place under his mask where his ear should have been.
But he didn’t answer her. He only held her closer, tightening his arm around her waist until she was fully pressed against him, from her knees all the way up to her chest. The dance floor was so full, it was impossible to do more than rock back and forth. Still, he moved gracefully.
And he smelled good. Fresh and clean, as if he’d just stepped out of a shower. It was that more than anything else that made Leila give in to the moment and rest her head on the m
an’s shoulder. She felt him sigh, felt him touch the side of her face with gentle fingers, and she closed her eyes.
When was the last time she’d been held like this?
Not since she’d been dating Elliot, that much was for sure.
“Fifteen seconds to the new year!” Simon shouted, and Leila lifted her head as the crowd around them joined in with the countdown.
“Ten, nine, eight, seven…”
The ninja was watching her, and she stared back into his eyes, trying to guess their color in the dimness.
Hot. Whatever color they were, they were hot. He wanted her—as if she didn’t already know that from the intimate position of their bodies.
“Four, three, two, one! Happy New Year!” “Auld Lang Syne” blared from the loudspeakers.
“Happy New Year,” the ninja soundlessly said to Leila.
And then he kissed her.
It started out as little more than a sweet brushing of his lips against hers.
Leila wasn’t quite sure what happened, whether she was jostled by someone in the crowd, whether she lost her balance, or whether the ninja decided that one small taste was simply not enough and pulled her closer to him.
But suddenly, somehow, he was holding her even tighter, and her mouth had opened under his and he was really kissing her. It was a kiss of possession, a kiss of fire and flame, and Leila felt seared right to her heart. He tasted like champagne, seductively sweet, with one fantastically dangerous kick.
But just as suddenly as he’d begun, he pulled away.
Off balance, Leila wobbled, unsteady on her feet despite the fact that she’d taken off her high heels. She could see pure shock in the ninja’s eyes, shock she knew was mirrored in her own face as he reached for her, to steady her. That had been one hell of an amazing kiss.
Above them, the sky exploded into color, and they both looked up to see fireworks streaming down like giant, glittering sparklers.
The ninja smiled. And then he kissed her again.
This time he didn’t stop. He drank her in, inhaled her, devoured her in a long, slow, deep kiss as the music swirled around them, as the fireworks whistled and pounded and erupted overhead.
Kiss and Tell Page 2