by Dee Lloyd
"A cup of coffee, at least," Flo insisted.
"Thanks, but I really would like to get on our way." He turned to Milly almost apologetically. "I know I'm a bit early, Milly, but I told Kit we'd try to meet her at the boat between nine and nine-thirty. She and Ronald are planning to do a little deep-sea fishing today."
"Yvette mentioned they cut their honeymoon short because your father had a coronary. How is he?" Flo asked.
"His condition apparently is stable enough that his doctors decided to move him out of the Intensive Care Unit yesterday. Kit thought it was safe to spend the day with her new husband and wait until this evening to visit him."
"I appreciate her putting herself out to talk to me," Milly said. She wasn't as eager to see Kit's new husband.
"Kit's concerned about Yvette, too. Before we go," he added, "do you mind if I use your phone to check on my dad?"
Milly gestured to the little telephone desk in the corner of the kitchen. He was put through to his father's private nurse who informed him that Will was improving rapidly and getting more testy by the moment. Bret asked her to report that he wouldn't be in to see him until late that afternoon.
About twenty minutes later, they were in the midst of morning traffic moving steadily towards that stretch of road that Bret was learning to dread.
"Could we put on some music?" Milly asked.
He suspected that she was feeling a little awkward about the way she had shouted at him last night. He wished he didn't have to risk turning the stereo on. He had no idea whether having it on was essential to making the ghostly saxophone's riff blast through the car. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of a logical reason to refuse.
"Why not? Play whatever you like," he said indicating the storage bin built into the leather dash of his dad's Jaguar.
Milly started to sort through the CDs, then turned to look at him quizzically. "This is a wild collection. There's everything here from classical to hard rock. Did you choose it all?"
He had to smile at her amazement. He wondered what kind of tastes she expected him to have. For that matter, aside from torch songs like the ones he heard her sing last night, what kind of music did she listen to?
"All mine," he admitted.
When she popped a CD into the player and the swelling strains of a Beethoven symphony filled the car, it was his turn to be surprised.
"It's a Pastorale morning," she said with a contented sigh.
She was right. In the brilliant morning sunshine, even the scrub palms and Australian pines dotted amongst the sparse vegetation along the roadside were attractive. The countryside was anything but lush but the browns and greens were a soothing contrast to the reflected light that bounced off the metal and glass of the vehicles around them.
Bret found it hard to believe that his weird evening experiences had ever happened. The resemblance of the vital dark-haired woman who was sitting beside him to the ghostly figure he'd seen on the road was, however, still unsettling.
Milly's long dark hair was bound in a long, thick French braid. She wore neat, relatively modest navy shorts that still displayed a tempting length of gorgeous leg and a crisp, sleeveless, white cotton top. Even playing down her sensuality like this, she was every bit as sexy as she had been in the piano lounge last night.
But, her every movement reminded him of her sister. When he looked at Milly, Yvette's image was there in the background; either laughing and dancing as she'd been at the reception or in whatever dismal form she'd been in early last night. Why had Yvette chosen him to warn her sister? Even though Kit had thrown them together every chance she got, he had never known Yvette that well. True, she had mentioned a twin sister in their brief conversations, but neither of them had any reason to expect he would ever meet Milly.
They were half way around the curve of the road that skirted the construction site before the saxophone slashed through the symphonic music. It lasted five or six seconds; then, at the southern boundary, it was gone.
"What was that?" Milly's face had gone pale. "Where did that come from?"
"Some kind of freaky radio waves I think," Bret replied in a matter-of-fact voice. He wasn't about to admit that it was part of his recent hallucinations. "That's happened here before."
He glanced over at her. "Hey, are you all right?"
Milly was wide-eyed and looked absolutely terrified.
"You're trembling."
Bret pulled off the road and reached for her. She lunged into his arms. He was surprised at how natural it felt to be holding and trying to comfort her.
She pulled away too soon.
"I'm sorry," she said. Her voice was shaky and she couldn't seem to look him in the eye. "I feel so foolish. But that tenor sax riff. I've heard it before."
"Here?" Bret asked. He immediately felt guilty at the surge of relief that someone else shared this weird experience.
She shook her head. "In my dreams," she told him. She shrank back against the passenger door. "Every night."
"Can you talk about it?"
To Milly's own surprise, the hazy, dreadful details of her nightly dreams began to pour out of her.
"The saxophone is playing. Someone... a man, is holding me down and choking me. He's on top of me. So heavy. I can't see his face."
Bret slid across the seat until he was right beside her.
"I don't know who it is," she couldn't keep the sob out of her voice.
Bret opened his arms and she snuggled against his chest again.
"You don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to," he said. One strong arm held her close and the other gently stroked her back.
"I think I need to," she said. With her cheek against his warm chest, she could handle this.
"It's always dark. Pitch dark. I don't know where I am. I fight him but he's too powerful. He hits me across the face. Then he starts to choke me. No matter how hard I struggle, I can't get his hands off my throat. The pressure gets stronger and stronger. I can't breathe at all and everything goes black. And that saxophone keeps on screaming."
She was on the verge of doing some screaming herself but, somehow, telling Bret slackened the nightmare's grip on her. She pulled back far enough to look at him. His blue gaze was fixed on her. She could see her own horror reflected in his eyes.
"And you endure that every time you fall asleep?" he whispered.
Once again, she found herself held tightly for a brief moment in Bret's muscular arms. It felt much too good. She made herself pull a little away from him.
"How did that music get on your stereo? It cut right through the Beethoven."
"I wish I knew." Bret still had one arm loosely around her shoulders but his fingers stopped stroking her upper arm. "It does that almost every time I drive by here. And it doesn't matter if I'm driving the pickup or one of the cars."
For a moment, she thought he was going to say something more but, instead, that closed, almost guilty look came over his face. What was he hiding? He couldn't possibly be the man who attacked her in her nightmare. Nothing about him was right for that role. He was strong enough but much too tall.
Finally, he spoke again. "You probably don't feel up to talking to strangers now. Ronald and Kit might be more than you want to cope with this morning."
Milly noted that he didn't seem to consider himself a stranger. Oddly enough, she felt the same way.
"I can talk to them and follow up any leads I get. That would probably be best." He apparently had come to another decision about what she was to do. "I'll take you home and call you tonight to let you know anything I find out."
That snapped her out of her self-pity.
"Not on your life," she said, sitting up and straightening her clothes. "Nothing has changed. I'm going with you."
Without a word of argument, Bret turned the key in the ignition and eased the Jag back onto the road.
"Kit said she'd have The Sprite at my dad's dock by the time we get there. It's in West Palm. That's closer for us than her place over
in South Palm Beach and they were stopping by to pick up a picnic lunch before they headed out to sea anyway."
His voice was brisk. It was as if the last few minutes had never happened. That was fine with her. She didn't want to think about the wild music and Bret's connection with it either.
"Kit couldn't tell me anything about where Yvette might have gone when I talked to her last Monday," Milly began, "I knew she had called Yvette at my place on Friday to ask her to put off her flight back to New York for a day or so."
"Did Yvette tell you why?"
"All she said was that Kit wanted her to draw up some papers for her and that she wanted it done in a hurry. Of course, she wouldn't talk about a client's business but I could tell she was angry. Yvette hates to change her plans."
"The rush doesn't mean the papers were important. Kit's always in a hurry," Bret told her. His fond smile told her how he felt about his cousin. "Let's go over any details you know about Yvette's movements on Sunday."
"She left my place on The Grove property first thing Sunday morning. She canceled her Saturday flight and was extremely annoyed when she discovered that every seat was booked on the Sunday evening flights. She had an important meeting Monday morning. Having to buy a First Class seat to get on the first flight out Monday morning didn't help her mood. Then she had to spend more money for an expensive room at one of the airport hotels Sunday night to take a pre-dawn shuttle to the airport. Yvette isn't cheap exactly but she hates 'paying for unnecessary frills.'"
Milly's expressive hands flew even more than usual as she unconsciously imitated her sister's speaking style. Then she swallowed hard. "I called the hotel. She made it that far. But she never checked out. And she didn't make the flight. That's all I know."
"Then her luggage is still at the hotel?"
"I didn't think to ask."
"We'll pay them a visit after we see Kit."
Milly had lived in the area for almost six years now but she had never been in the elegant area of West Palm Beach that Bret drove through this morning. Some of the homes in this little tucked away section, close to the Lake Worth border, wouldn't have been out of place in South Palm Beach. All she could see through the formidable gates and walls around the mansions they guarded was the occasional glimpse of carved stone, molded concrete or vast sheets of glass. Bits of bright tiled roof peeked through the foliage of tall shade trees. She found everything expensively lush and green and a little intimidating.
Yvette had mentioned that Kit had inherited a major trust fund from her mother and that when her father died, she'd been left extremely wealthy. But it was Bret's family home they were headed towards. Had he, too, been brought up in this kind of neighborhood? It was sure a far cry from Niagara Falls.
Bret wheeled off onto a long curving driveway through elegantly landscaped grounds to a large, white, colonial style building that could have graced the grounds of Tara. He brought the car to a stop at a side entrance.
"Excuse me a minute," Bret said, as he slid out of the car. "I just want to pick up a hamper lunch from Anna."
Anna? She should have known there would be a woman in his life.
"Will's housekeeper," Bret explained over his shoulder.
Milly' looked away from him at the expanse of greenery. A couple of hundred feet down the way, she could see a medium-sized bungalow with white siding and a red tiled roof. Beyond it, she caught the glisten of the blue-green waters of the Intracoastal Waterway.
"On second thought," his voice came over her shoulder as he opened the passenger door. "Why don't you come in and meet her? She's going to pester me until I explain who you are anyway."
He extended his hand to assist her out of the low-slung car. She felt like Cinderella for a moment before she remembered that she had a real and serious mission here. This was not about her. She needed to find out every tiny bit of information that anyone in this elegant place had about Yvette's recent activities.
A tall, comfortably built woman with short, faded blond hair appeared in the doorway. Her face was wreathed in smiles and she was bearing a large wicker basket on one arm.
"So you finally made it, boy!" she said. "And who is this? Your lady at last?"
Bret shook his head and laughed. "Anna. Behave yourself. This is Milly Brzezynski. She is a friend and is not here to be harassed."
"I am not going to harass anyone. It's about time you brought your lovely lady to meet me. The insulated coolers for Kit are in the hallway. I will talk to Milly while you get them."
Bret shrugged and actually disappeared into the house. Milly felt like calling him back. She didn't belong here.
"Bret says that you don't have time to visit but..." Anna made a kind of dismissive but affectionate noise. "You will have some iced tea with me."
Milly smiled. Anna's authoritative manner reminded her so much of Bret. Had this woman had something to do with his upbringing?
"Oh, no, you don't, my sweet!" Bret put down the two coolers he was carrying and gave Anna a hug and a solid kiss on the cheek. "Turn my back for a minute and you countermand my orders. Who's the boss here?"
Anna gave Milly a wink. "That doesn't dignify an answer," she retorted with a straight face.
"I'm afraid Milly and I have important business, Anna. Kit should be waiting for us at the dock. I'll bring Milly back another time to visit with you. Kit says thanks for making the brunch that Kit wanted," he said, picking up the two coolers. "Will you get the basket, Milly?" he said over his shoulder.
Milly shot an annoyed glare at him but he was facing the other way.
"Aye, aye!" she said as she followed him out to the car.
He was single-minded and bossy but she had to be honest. He was very easy to talk to and had taken just the right tone about her nightmare. She dismissed his strange tie-in with the frightening music. Bret certainly seemed to understand her horror when she had awakened calling Yvette's name. She guessed it was being a twin.
Then too, it was impossible to ignore that he was tall, broad-shouldered, and did more for a pair of denim cut-offs than any other man she could think of. If she was going to pad along behind him like an obedient little serving maid, she thought with an appreciative grin, she might as well enjoy the view.
As they continued down the paved drive to the dock, Bret pointed out the one-story white house with the red roof that she had noticed earlier. "That's my place," he said. "The caretaker used to live there but when he died, Will hired a property maintenance company. So the house was free for me when I moved back last summer."
The house looked more suited to a small family than a bachelor, the U-shaped building surrounding a large patio and swimming pool that should have children splashing in it.
Two good-sized yachts were tied up at a long concrete dock.
"The smaller boat is Bart's and mine. Actually, Bart's the one who has always been crazy about boats but he's trying to turn me into a yachtsman," Bret told her, indicating a sleek, forty foot, gleaming white fiberglass boat with a royal blue tarp shading the top deck.
He hoped that Bart would surface soon from that mysterious mission he was involved in. He had a bad feeling about that. He dragged his thoughts back to the boat. "We named it The Two. Sounded less cutesy than Twins. I'll give you the tour if we have time."
He returned the wave of the blond woman on the deck of the larger, more traditionally shaped yacht. "And that is The Sprite, Kit's boat."
Excerpt from Change of Plans
By Dee Lloyd
ISBN 1-55316-008-8
Copyright June 2000
To Laura: who never ceases to fill me with pride and delight.
PROLOGUE
The woman leaned back in the black leather chair and stared unseeingly past the uncluttered plexiglass desktop at the bleak winter scene outside the office window. Oblique lines of wet snow and freezing rain were being driven across the pane and the thin light of a March afternoon was fading fast.
Eventually, all things came to an end. Her
youth, her hopes of having a husband and her own babies, even of growing old with the only man she had ever loved were gone. A bitter smile curled her lip and her black eyes narrowed. Her self-centered lover was sure that he could have it all. He was confident that she'd be content with the scraps of his affection, that she'd tolerate his marriage of convenience and still spend all her waking hours assuring his success and even, when he could find the time, welcome him to her bed.
Underestimating her was going to cost him. She would see that his dreams, too, went up in smoke. She had already arranged for the big deal to get the money he needed for his campaign to fall through. She could hardly wait to see the dismay on his arrogant face when it happened. And her cousin had promised to eliminate that pale, sexless woman her treacherous lover planned to marry. He would never take her to his bed.
She looked at her watch. Only a few hours now before her plans were set in motion. Within the week, he would pay for taking her years of devotion lightly.
CHAPTER ONE
Mike's eyes wandered dispassionately over yet another woman's body. There were dozens of them, alone or in pairs, all bright-eyed and eager. Every one of them seemed more than ready to leave the frigid temperatures that gripped the Lower Great Lakes area for a blast of sunshine and fun. One tall, dark-eyed woman of about his own age met his gaze with a challenging smile and an appreciative scrutiny of her own.
"Too aggressive," he decided, a little taken aback by her frank interest in the lower part of his anatomy. "Have to make sure I'm the predator here."
He was having trouble believing that he, Mike Garson, senior partner of Garson Construction International, was leaning against a concrete pillar, blatantly girl-watching like a lout in a Fifties' movie. All he needed was a Fedora tilted down over his eyes and a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth.
From his vantage point near the entrance to the departure lounges, he had a good view of the passengers lined up to go through airport security. Many of them would probably be heading for the charter flight that connected with the ms Theseus. If the right ones were taking it, the cruise mightn't be a total washout. He hadn't expected so many of the women traveling alone to be young and attractive. So far, two or three of them had been well worth his critical appraisal.