Relative Strangers

by Joyce Lamb

  When reason returned, she pinned his shoulders to the bed and straddled him. He reached up to caress her breasts, but she captured his hands. "No, it's my turn."

  She made love to him with her mouth and hands until he was groaning beneath her, straining toward the edge of the abyss that she wouldn't allow him to dive into. Each time she felt his body tense to steel-hardness, she stopped and smiled at him, her hands braced on his shoulders, her legs tangled around his as her hair swayed above him.

  He was gasping for breath, and it seemed that every move she made snatched from him the air, and control, he needed. He concentrated to hold himself in check, certain that he would hurt her if he took what he wanted as violently as he wanted to take it. Instead, he let her set the pace and hoped he could keep track of his wits long enough to make her pay for it later.

  When she allowed him the pleasure, her own body tensed with spasms that left her breathless against his chest. His hands played against the slippery skin of her back, his heart hammering under her ear.

  Nothing could have been more perfect than this moment so close to him.

  "I can't move," she said, laughing.

  He loved the sound of her laugh and vowed to hear it often in the years ahead. "We'll kill each other if we keep this up."

  "Definitely, if we don't have food very soon," she said.

  "Good God, you haven't eaten since—"

  She grinned down at him.

  "What?"

  "You're so cute when you worry," she said.

  "Cute. I suppose there are worse things."

  "Oh, would you prefer devastatingly handsome?"

  "Hmm. Yes, that would be most flattering," he said.

  "Well, you're that, too. Unfortunately, I'm starving, and at the moment food is far more important to me than—" She broke off on a hitch of breath. Her eyes slid closed as a fresh wave of sensation swept her up. "Except that. How did you—" The thought was driven away. "God."

  Shifting their positions, Ryan smiled as she arched her head back into the pillow. "Open your eyes, Meg. I want to watch you."

  Her hands clutched at his shoulders as if she had to hang onto him or fall into oblivion. "What? Oh, Ryan." Gasping, she buried her face in his neck and clung to him.

  He didn't mind that she kept her eyes closed.

  Later, while he showered, Meg rummaged through the cupboards in the galley. She found chicken noodle soup, a box of crackers and a bag of pretzel rods. Ripping into the pretzels, she munched and searched drawers until she unearthed a can opener and went to work on the soup.

  Hearing herself humming, she paused. She was humming, smiling like a goof and feeling better than she had in months. Because of a man. That was something new.

  She went back to opening the can and humming. The lid popped up. For a moment, she thought the can was defective because there was no soup inside. Instead, black velvet lined the aluminum, and a ring lay in the bottom. She dumped it into her palm.

  Ryan ambled into the kitchen, buttoning a clean shirt. She looked damned sexy in just his T-shirt, her long legs tan and firm. He had to tamp down the instant desire, ordered himself to wait until she ate something first. "Find anything good?"

  Turning, she held up the ring. "How's chicken noodle and emerald soup?"

  He didn't laugh as she had expected. He reached for the ring. "I forgot to warn you about that."

  "About the ring?"

  "No, the fake soup can." He stared at the ring grasped between his fingers, his face serious.

  "I'm afraid I used the opener on it."

  He didn't respond, and she started to worry about who the ring belonged to. Perhaps there was someone in his life. Perhaps it had been meant for Kelsey. Damn it, she'd

  started humming too soon. "Whose is it?"

  He blinked at her. "What?"

  "The ring. Who's it for?"

  "Beau had it made for Margot with one of the Kama emer-alds."

  Relief made her feel lightheaded. "The ones she stole?"

  He gave her a humorless smile. "He never got a chance to give it to her before she helped herself to the other eleven."

  "How did you get it?"

  "It was in his pocket the night he was found dead. I didn't know what to do with it, so I put it in here until I could de-cide."

  "It's gorgeous. I've never seen anything like it. May I?"

  He handed it to her. "He loved her. I hope he never knew what she really wanted from him."

  "The stone, the setting, is fabulous. There's an inscrip-tion. 'Happy twenty-eighth birthday. Love you always. Oc-tober fifteenth—' " She broke off.

  Ryan, caught by memories, wasn't paying attention until she put a hand on the counter as if for balance. He saw that the blood had drained from her face. "Meg?"

  She shook her head, trying to think rationally. She'd sus-pected it after she'd seen the security tapes. They'd looked so much alike. But to actually know . . .

  "What's wrong?" Ryan asked. "Are you sick?"

  "We have the same birthday."

  Her voice was so low that he didn't hear her. "Come sit down." He led her into the bedroom where he sat beside her on the bed and took her hands into his. "Your hands are like ice. Tell me what's wrong."

  She pulled her hands free, unable to think with him touching her. "We have the same birthday. We're the same age." Her heart was slamming against her ribs.

  Ryan rubbed his hands over his face. Too soon. He had wanted her to have more time to heal. "Damn it. I was going to tell you—"

  "You knew?"

  "Nick said the FBI profile mentioned Margot's adoption, and you told him about yours. He cross-referenced your per-sonal information, and the birth dates came up a match."

  Pushing herself off the bed, she began to pace. She fo-cused on the anger. That was easier to deal with at the mo-ment. The larger, more important, issue was too overwhelming. "You knew, and you didn't tell me?"

  "Nick told me last night while you were sleeping. I wasn't going to drag you out of a sound sleep that you desperately needed to turn your world upside down all over again."

  Facing him, her eyes snapped with green fire. "When were you going to tell me, Ryan?"

  "Today. I was going to tell you today." He went to her, put his hands on her shoulders, felt her shaking. There wasn't a hint of color in her cheeks. "I was going to tell you. You have to believe that."

  She shrugged away from him, holding her hands up to keep him back. "Margot is my twin."

  The questions tumbled faster than her brain could process them. Had her parents known she had a sister? Was that why they hadn't told her she was adopted? Had they not wanted her to know they had separated twins? Were they that selfish? Certainly they could have afforded to adopt twins. So why hadn't they? She would never know. Never.

  And Margot Rhinehart was her sister. A thief. An accomplice to murder. And not just any murder, but Ryan's brother's. What was the irony in that? A long-lost sibling on a one-way road to prison for helping slay the brother of the only man she had ever felt passion for. And if that wasn't enough,

  Margot was also indirectly responsible for whatever had hap-pened to Dayle.

  Ryan watched the emotions lurch across her face. Disbe-lief and a grief so tangible he could almost taste the tears she wasn't shedding. He wanted to hold her until the pain in her eyes faded, until he could recapture the laughter they had shared for so short a time. But he kept his distance because that's what she wanted. The helplessness made him ache. "I'm sorry, Meg. God, I'm so sorry."

  She knew he was. She heard it in his voice, saw it in the gray eyes that begged her to lean on him. But she couldn't. If she allowed him to touch her now, she'd crack. Pulling in a long breath, she forced the shock away. "This changes every-thing."

  She was too calm, and that worried him. Especially when he saw the way her hand trembled when she dragged it through her hair. "How do you mean?" he asked.

  "How can you ask that?" She choked down the hysterical edge that c
rept into her voice. "She's my sister. My twin sister. Your brother loved her."

  "And look where it got him," he said.

  "It's not so cut and dried anymore."

  "What are you saying?" he asked. "She's forgiven for what she's done because she's the sister you never knew you had?"

  Sinking onto the bed, she drew a pillow onto her lap and hugged it to her. And grappled for a reason to believe that somewhere along the way she and Ryan had misjudged Margot, perhaps had misinterpreted her actions. "We don't know her side of it."

  "Like hell we don't. She works for Slater Nielsen, and one of her jobs was to set up my brother. Whether killing him was part of the deal or not doesn't change the final result. Beau is just as dead. Because of Margot. Maybe she didn't kill him

  herself, but she is responsible. You can't argue with that."

  She couldn't. A dull ache began to pound in her temples, and she rubbed at them. There was too much to think about. And she was still so tired.

  Ryan stared at the top of her bent head. He understood her well enough to know what she'd meant when she'd said, "This changes everything." She wouldn't turn her back. It wasn't her nature. Not when Margot needed help. Not when Meg would see their blood as a moral obligation to be the one to do the helping, regardless of Margot's guilt. That's what family was about. He had used the same logic when he searched for Beau's killers.

  Looking up at him, Meg blinked back tears. The grip she had was tenuous, and she didn't want him there when it slipped. He would be kind and soothing, and that would only make it more devastating. "I need some time alone."

  His face hardened, first with anger, then with hurt. "You're not going to shut me out."

  "I just need—"

  "Me," he cut in. "You need me."

  "Ryan, Jesus—" She pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead where the headache was raging. "I can't do this."

  "You can't do what?"

  She squeezed her eyes shut. "Please."

  Kneeling in front of her, he tugged her wrists down from her face. "Why are you hiding from me?"

  She tried to pull away, but he held on. "I'm not hiding," she said. "Let go."

  He released her and stood. "I want you to go home."

  She glanced up at him, surprised. "What?"

  "You heard me." He saw the temper flare in her eyes, watched with relief as it seared away the shock. "Until I can handle it," he said.

  "I just found out for sure that Margot is my twin, and you want me to go away so you can handle it? Of all the arrogant, chauvinistic, selfish—"

  "Wait a minute—"

  No, you wait a minute." She bounced off the bed, forcing him back a step and kicking a pillow out of her way that tumbled to the floor. Pacing at the foot of the bed, she struggled to control her anger. It was as if she was a puppet on a string, and he was her master. She had been the puppet most of her life. Her father had pulled the strings, repeatedly had done the very thing that Ryan was trying to do now. She'd be damned if anyone ever controlled her again—

  The inner tirade broke off when Ryan whirled her around. She was startled at first, then pushed at his chest. "Back off."

  Seizing the wrist she flung out at him, he jerked her toward him. "Listen to me, Meg. I'm asking this of you because I care, all right? I couldn't stand it if something happened to you. Something did happen, and it was ugly. What I felt was ugly. I couldn't live with it if you . . ." He trailed off, his cheeks paling. "God help me, I can't even say it."

  The breath left her as if he had tossed a light punch to her stomach. He cared. A lot. She knocked a loosely clenched fist against his chest, appalled when tears began spilling down her cheeks. "Bastard," she whispered, covering her face with her hands.

  Pulling her against him, he stroked a hand over her back, feeling the shudders that shook her. His own eyes welled up, and he blinked the emotion back. "It's okay," he murmured against her hair. "We'll work through it."

  The soothing words and the gentle hand on her back were foreign to her. Even when she'd been a child, comfort had not been offered with so little effort. The kindness shredded her defenses. And when she was defenseless against the emotion she had been holding in since her parents, and then Dayle, had been taken from her, she broke.

  Ryan felt her body convulse against him. Concerned, he pulled back, but she curled her fingers into the front of his shirt. "Don't leave me."

  The ragged pain in her voice tore at him, and he swept her up in his arms, frightened by how she wept, startled to see such raw emotion in a woman so strong.

  Sitting on the bed, he cradled her on his lap, soothing her in a low voice, until she lay curled against him, spent.

  Sniffling, she wiped at her face. "As a general rule, I'm not normally weepy. In case you're wondering."

  He caught her chin and angled her head back so their gazes met. "Your world has been turned upside down more than once. I'd be worried if you weren't emotional."

  He knew the right things to say. She turned her attention to a button on his shirt to avoid becoming a blubbering idiot again. "You made me mad on purpose."

  "You give me too much credit."

  "What are we going to do?"

  She'd said "we." The tightness in his chest loosened. "We can't do anything right now. The FBI hasn't found Margot."

  "But eventually they will."

  "I'm certain of it. And I'm also certain that we're not going to figure it out all at once. You're tired, Meg. You need sleep."

  "I sleep best with your help."

  Smiling, he eased her back on the bed. "If you get the urge to drift off, let me know."

  She curved her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a long kiss. As he trailed his lips down her throat, she caught her hands in his hair. "I don't think drifting off is an option."

  Chapter 22

  Margot sank her toes into sand that held the morning sun's heat. It felt good, and she allowed herself to enjoy it. She didn't expect that there'd be many more mornings like this— sitting in a faded wooden chair outside the cabin of a Captiva resort on the shore of the Gulf—before she was forced to do what had to be done.

  Kill Slater Nielsen.

  She wondered what it would be like, how it would feel. Would she be relieved when it was done? Or sad? What would happen afterward?

  The best-case scenario: She would walk away, physically unscathed, to create a new life with a new name, a new past. She would do her damnedest to raise Beau's child to know the difference between right and wrong. She would be an ex-emplary mother, honest and caring, an upstanding citizen.

  However, she wasn't naive enough to think that she would actually get away with killing Slater. Perhaps, if she was caught, she could claim self-defense. Perhaps she could say she had been forced, threatened, terrorized. Perhaps a jury would take pity on her.

  Closing her eyes, she acknowledged that if she were caught, Beau's child would most likely be taken from her, to be raised by strangers. She might never know him, might never hold him. The thought was horrifying, but she accepted the risk because she had no other choice. Turning herself into the police now would make her an easy target. She would have no control, no protection. At the very least, she had to stay alive long enough to bring Beau's child into the world, and the only way to do that was to eliminate the biggest threat.

  It occurred to her now that if she did get caught, then per-haps her sister could take in Beau's baby.

  "Come here often?"

  She looked up with a sharp intake of breath. The sun was shining directly into her eyes, and she raised a hand to shield them. He wasn't a Slater thug. No man who worked for Slater would wear a Milwaukee Brewers baseball cap, khaki shorts, red polo and sandals. His smile was friendly, the skin around his dark eyes crinkling as if that smile was his most frequent facial expression.

  Undaunted by her lack of response, he said, "I'm in the cabin next door. Just checked in for the week." He extended his hand. "I guess we're neighbors. For a w
hile anyway."

  Staring at his hand, Margot was unsure of how to respond, so she didn't. She didn't have time for a new friend anyway.

  He let his hand drop to his side. "Well, it was nice meeting you." He started to turn away, but paused. "If you change your mind, get lonely, or whatever, I'm next door. I, uh, I'm alone, too."

  An alarm went off in her head. "How do you know I'm alone?"

  He seemed surprised that she spoke but recovered quickly. "The guy at the check-in desk mentioned it."

  "Why would he do that?"

  A broad smile curved his lips. "Hell if I know. Maybe he thought I'm a great-looking guy and I'm alone, and you're a beautiful woman and you're alone, perhaps . . . you know."

  For an unguarded moment, she smiled, liking him in spite of herself. "The guy at the check-in desk is playing match-maker?"

  "Well, he's right, after all. Are you vacationing?"

  "Not really. You?"

  "Naples resident," he said. "Just like to get away every once in a while, and this is a good spot for it. Where are you from?"

  "Doesn't matter."

  "No problem." He helped himself to the chair next to hers. "Mystery appeals to me."

  "Don't get comfortable."

  "Wouldn't dream of it," he said.

  "You look like you're getting comfortable."

  "Would that be so terrible?" Tipping his cap back, he grinned. "Want me to leave?"

  "Yes."

  He didn't look the least bit disappointed. "But I just got here."

  "Look, I'm not interested in—"

  He held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Neither am I. Just making conversation."

  "Whatever." She stood to go, brushing at the sand that clung to her shorts. She hesitated before turning her back on him. "Good-bye."

  "If you change your mind, just holler. I'll be just next door. Name's Nick Costello."

  Chapter 23

  Meg couldn't resist stretching like a cat on the towel spread across the deck. Sails snapped in the wind. Through slitted eyes, she saw clouds lining up along the horizon like mountain peaks. It was almost too cool, but the sun warming her skin kept the goose bumps at bay.