The Seductive Impostor

by Janet Chapman

  “She just doesn’t trust us,” Luke interjected. He suddenly grinned. “But we can change that.”

  “How?” Kee asked, lifting one brow.

  “By trusting her first,” Duncan quickly added, nodding agreement with Luke. “By not acting like we think she’s looting our home. Did ya not see her reaction when she realized things were missing? She was shocked.”

  “Yeah,” Matthew said, rubbing his hands together. “You’ve said it yourself, Kee. She feels proprietary toward this place. If we involve her, she’ll become an asset, just like Jason said.”

  “It could also put her in danger if there is a thief who is still nosing around,” Kee pointed out.

  Duncan waved that away. “We can protect her.” He suddenly stiffened. “What about Mikaela? When’s she due to arrive? Watching out for Rachel is one thing, but two females running loose around here is a bit more of a problem.”

  Kee couldn’t help but smile. “Our little angel is due to arrive in about three days.”

  Jason groaned. “Duncan’s right. Radio the Six-to-One Odds and have Ahab take the scenic route up the coast to buy us more time.”

  Kee snorted and tucked the emerald earring in his pocket. “I talked with our good captain this morning, and he’s pushing the wind as it is. One week is about all Ahab can take of Mikaela. He threatened to put her in the dinghy and tow her behind them if she didn’t stop rerigging his sails. I spent twenty minutes on the radio trying to convince her that schooners were not designed to fly spinnakers.”

  “You do know you’re raising a tyrant,” Jason said, smiling approval.

  “Not by myself,” Kee shot back, giving first Jason and then the rest of his men a good glare. “She has every one of you wrapped around her little finger.”

  And her father most of all, Kee silently admitted to himself. Mikaela Oakes was spoiled rotten, and every man in this room, and every member of the Six-to-One Odds crew, was guilty of contributing to the problem.

  Kee pitied the teacher who got Mikaela in school this fall.

  At only ten minutes old, the tiny, wide-eyed bundle had been placed in his arms, and Kee had felt a blow to his chest that had nearly brought him to his knees. But that had been nothing compared to his men’s reaction when he’d introduced his daughter to them not ten minutes later.

  Kee may have provided the seed for Mikaela’s conception, but she actually had six proud, doting, and overly protective fathers. And Duncan was the worst of the lot. The battle-hardened mercenary had taken the twenty-minute-old Mikaela in his arms and immediately turned into a mother hen.

  It was Duncan who’d come home with a small wolf cub no bigger than Mikaela herself three and a half years ago, claiming that every kid needed a pet. But Kee knew Duncan had more likely been getting yet another protector for their daughter.

  The men had named the wolf Rex Regum, the King of Kings.

  Two years ago Mikaela had renamed him Mickey Mouse.

  The wolf didn’t seem to care what he was called; like his two-legged counterparts, he was also deeply in love with their tyrannical little angel.

  If Mikaela got punished—which was always harder on the men than on her—it was Mickey who curled up with her in her bunk and patiently kept her company for the time-out.

  And when Mikaela got sick—which was always harder on the men than on her—everyone, including the wolf, went into a state of panic.

  Their daughter was God’s greatest blessing and their worst nightmare. It was a wonder the six of them had been able to keep the precocious, curious, and often exasperating child from killing herself.

  “We have three days before Mikaela arrives,” Kee told them. “Let’s make the most of it. Let’s solve this mystery and get on with the business of settling in here.” He looked at each of his men. “It’s time we put down roots. Mikaela needs to be enrolled in school, and I like the idea of raising her here in Puffin Harbor.”

  “But Kee,” Duncan said softly. “Ya know we can’t stay.”

  Everyone shifted uncomfortably at that declaration.

  “What about Rachel?” Jason asked into the ensuing silence. “What do we do about her?”

  Kee eyed each of his men in turn. “You just solve the problem of Thaddeus Lakeman’s missing art. I’ll take care of Rachel.”

  Rachel had her own problems to take care of, and they seemed to be compounding exponentially. If finding out she’d inherited millions of dollars of stolen art wasn’t enough, now she was suspected of stealing legitimate art as well.

  Rachel fluffed the lump of towels under her blankets, shaping it into a curve that looked like her body. She smiled, realizing this was the oldest trick in the book and was probably the first place Kee would check.

  That thought quickly sobered her. Kee wouldn’t be checking anything, because he wouldn’t be coming to steal any kisses—not after tonight’s not-so-subtle encounter in the foyer.

  Rachel straightened, heaving a pitiful sigh. So much for Kee’s warning that denying her passion was a dangerous thing. She had finally decided that a hot and steamy, old-fashioned affair might be a good idea after all—that maybe this little attack of lust she was having was actually healthy.

  It should certainly be safe. Keenan Oakes didn’t seem to get emotionally attached to women, if his attitude toward Joan that first night was any indication. He hadn’t even taken the time to get over their breakup. In fact, he’d turned his attention—and kisses—to Rachel rather quickly, now that she thought about it.

  And what about Mikaela’s mother? There had never been any mention of her—from any of the men, for that matter. Not that Rachel had asked, though she did wonder if Kee was widowed or divorced.

  But did she really care? Nope. She just wanted to jump the guy’s sexy bones, not build a life with him.

  Rachel sat down on the bed next to her lumpy likeness and absently massaged her knee. Who was she kidding? It wasn’t simple lust she was experiencing, but full-blown, unadulterated, undeniable passion. She’d been living like a nun too long, and her newly awakened hormones had zeroed in on Mr. Arresting Oakes.

  Not that it mattered now.

  It was time to go home. Sub Rosa was up and running, finding Thadd’s secret room had just bottomed out on her list of priorities, and her need to gather the rest of her dad’s contraband—and discreetly dispose of it—had risen to the top.

  If she couldn’t locate Thadd’s secret room, Kee certainly wasn’t going to, even if he lived here for the rest of his life. And whoever had been stealing from Sub Rosa was Kee’s problem now. As long as the Foster name couldn’t be tied to any illegal activities—past or present—then she and Willow were safe.

  Bolstered by her reasoning, Rachel looked at her watch for the tenth time. Good Lord! While waiting for the house to quiet down, she’d spent more than four hours taking a bath, shaving her legs, covering every inch of her body with lotion, giving herself a manicure and pedicure, washing and drying and brushing her hair until it shone, and then weaving it into a single thick braid fastened with a barrette shaped like a moose and a pine tree.

  It was after midnight. Surely the men were asleep by now.

  Rachel stood up and checked to make sure she had the fake emerald necklace and single fake earring in her pocket. She still couldn’t believe she’d lost one of the earrings and that—just her luck—Kee had found it. Which only proved yet again that she must never consider becoming a professional burglar.

  She started toward the door, spotted her cane standing in the corner of her bedroom, and stopped and shifted most of her weight to her right leg. Her knee felt surprisingly sound, with barely a hint of pain, so Rachel decided the cane would be more of a nuisance than a help. She picked up the flashlight instead, which she’d pilfered from the kitchen earlier, and opened the bedroom door.

  She nearly tripped over Mickey.

  “Are you waiting to see me?” she whispered, bending down and patting the yawning wolf on the head. “Or are you hoping to s
neak in and eat my cat?”

  Mickey yawned again as he sat facing her, then cocked his head in lupine inquiry. Had Kee put the wolf on guard by her door, just as he had that first night, or was Mickey only looking for some female company?

  Rachel found herself in a quandary. Did she dare bring Mickey into the tunnels with her? Damn. If she did disappear into the wall without him, he’d likely scratch the panel raw trying to follow her.

  “Oh, come on,” she whispered, limping down the hall toward the great room. “I’m about to let you in on a very big secret, but you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

  Mickey silently padded beside her all the way to the great room until Rachel stopped in front of the huge granite hearth on the west wall.

  “Now, this is important,” she told her companion. “You have to know just which stone to push.”

  Rachel applied pressure to one of the granite stones until she heard a click come from the wall on the right side of the hearth. Mickey immediately stuck his nose in the crack.

  Rachel pulled the panel all the way open.

  Mickey disappeared into the dark void.

  Rachel snapped her flashlight on and followed, stopping only long enough to close the panel behind them.

  Dust immediately assaulted her nose. Mickey was already exploring the passage, well out of the beam of her flashlight.

  “Get back here,” she whispered, walking down the narrow passage. “You’re going to get lost.”

  Her only answer was the faint vibration of the electrical turbines humming in gentle echoes through the tunnel.

  Great. Another contrary male with a mind of his own.

  Rachel continued down the passageway, deciding that it was Mickey’s responsibility to find her, and didn’t stop until she came to an intersection of tunnels. To the left was a set of stairs that led all the way up to the third floor and came out in the tapestry room. Straight ahead led to another intersection that would bring her to the foyer. And if she went right, she’d end up in the tunnel that came out on the cliffs just above the Gulf of Maine.

  Rachel lowered the beam of her flashlight to the floor, looking for paw prints that would tell her which direction Mickey had taken.

  What she found, though, besides Mickey’s prints heading up the stairs to her left, were several human footprints, mostly traveling from the cliff tunnel and continuing up to the third floor. She leaned over and set the beam of her light on the clearest print.

  It was definitely male—a size eleven or twelve, maybe—and looked like a sneaker tread. She moved the light again, stopping on another print, this one smaller—definitely that of a woman.

  Rachel straightened and stared into the darkness. Two sets of footprints: one male, one female.

  Dammit. Who else knew about these tunnels?

  “Think,” she absently whispered to herself. “Who could possibly know about these passageways? Female. Female,” she softly repeated, trying to picture all the women who had visited Sub Rosa when Thadd was alive.

  Her mother, for one. Marian had certainly known about the tunnels. Rachel aimed the flashlight back at the floor. But these footprints were fresh, not three years old. There was almost no dust covering some of them.

  “Come on, Rachel. Who else?”

  Mary Alder, Thadd’s girlfriend, might have known about the passageways. Had Thadd and Mary been close enough that he’d trusted her with such a secret?

  Maybe. But if she did know, why would she be visiting Sub Rosa now, after all these years?

  Rachel considered Mary Alder. It was sad what had happened to Mary after Thadd’s death. The once proud, vibrant, and beautiful woman who’d enjoyed the status of being Thadd’s girlfriend had become a recluse after the tragedy. She was seen walking in town, only occasionally and usually at night, in a state of disarray, mindless of those around her and usually talking to herself.

  Which was why Rachel doubted these footprints belonged to Mary. And even if they did, that didn’t explain the male footprints.

  Mary did have a son. Mark Alder. He’d been running the Lakeman Boatyard for nearly eight years now.

  “Naw,” Rachel said to herself. “Not Mark. He’s weirder than his mother.”

  About six months after her parents had died, Mark started asking Rachel to go out with him. It had taken nearly a year of gentle refusals for Mark to finally get the message that she wasn’t interested.

  For lack of a better term, Mark Alder was a dork, and an odd dork at that. He was a mama’s boy, still living at home at the age of thirty-three, and he rode a rusty old bicycle to work even in winter. He’d been two years ahead of Rachel in high school, and even then he’d worked at Thadd’s boatyard as a painter.

  Naw. They couldn’t be Mark’s footprints. Besides, Mark had never liked Thadd—he always thought Thadd should have married his mother instead of just stringing her along.

  Maybe…maybe Willow had been here.

  Rachel aimed her flashlight back on the smaller footprint. It wasn’t a sneaker tread, like the larger one, but a dress shoe.

  Willow wore dress shoes. And she knew about the passageways. But she hated Sub Rosa.

  But did she hate it enough to pilfer its treasures?

  Nope. Not Willow. Besides, she’d been too focused on law school and pursuing her new career.

  Rachel sat down on the bottom granite step and absently massaged her knee. “Think. Who else?”

  What about the workers who had built Sub Rosa? Rachel remembered discussing with her dad her worry that they would know about the secret passageways since they were actually building them. Frank Foster had thought he’d solved that problem—or at least minimized it—by bringing in a crew of stonemasons from Guatemala.

  But they could have told someone.

  Rachel suddenly tensed at a thought. Raoul Vegas. What about the dealer her dad had mentioned in his letter, who was in the business of “redistributing” stolen art? Could he possibly know about the tunnels?

  He might, if he’d dealt directly with Thadd.

  Rachel aimed the beam of her flashlight down the tunnel that led to the cliffs and hugged herself against the sudden shiver racing down her spine. She didn’t know much about criminals—that was Willow’s department—but she doubted they were very nice people.

  Had Raoul Vegas been quietly helping himself to Sub Rosa’s wealth for the last three years?

  Rachel shook that thought away, dismissing the idea—or rather hoping—that an international criminal had not been sneaking around here. Or that he might still be in the area.

  Besides, it still didn’t explain the smaller footprints.

  Well, heck. The more she thought about it, any number of people might know about the passageways.

  Rachel snorted. Here she was trying to keep her “big secret” from Kee, when a virtual parade of people had obviously been using the tunnels on a regular basis.

  Maybe when she left Sub Rosa later, she should simply leave one of the panels open. Kee would find the passageways and discover the footprints just as she had and know that someone besides his neighbor was roaming through his house at will.

  Something bumped against her back. Rachel jumped up and spun around, holding her flashlight like a weapon, only to find Mickey standing on the stairs above her, his tail wagging and his eyes gleaming like silver stars.

  Rachel covered her racing heart with her hand and took a calming breath. “Dammit. You scared me,” she scolded in a whisper. “Give a girl some warning, will you? Make a little noise next time.”

  Seemingly oblivious to her fright, Mickey turned and trotted back up the stairs. Rachel followed at a much slower pace, favoring her knee.

  And again she lost the wolf. She continued climbing, passing several intersecting tunnels on the second floor, and finally reached the panel that opened into the tapestry room.

  “Pssst. Here, Mickey.” She softly whistled. “Come on, boy. It’s time to go back to the real world.”

  She continued
to call, then finally gave up and slowly pushed on the panel. A warm current of air rushed into the room from the tunnel, creating an eerie moan.

  She pushed the panel all the way open, and Mickey brushed past her leg.

  “Will you cut that out!” she hissed, stepping out of the tunnel and sweeping her flashlight around the room. “You’re going to get us cau—”

  Rachel swallowed her words the moment the beam of her flashlight landed on a pair of leather-shoed feet, crossed at the ankles, attached to a shadowed but definitely male body sitting in a chair on the other side of the room.

  Chapter Ten

  Mickey was sitting facing the chair, his wagging tail sending wisps of dust sparkling through the narrow beam of her flashlight. Rachel clicked off the flashlight, dropped her head, and sighed. Damn. She definitely needed a new career. Sneaking around Sub Rosa was becoming an exercise in futility.

  And just as before, Keenan Oakes had nothing to say.

  Rachel lifted her head, squared her shoulders on a deep breath, and tried to see past the stark moonlight cutting through the room. “I’m not a thief,” she firmly whispered. “I have never taken anything from Sub Rosa.”

  The shadow stood.

  Then slowly started toward her.

  Rachel took a cautious step back. “I’m not a thief.”

  He stopped just six paces away, the moonlight slicing across his body, illuminating the broad stance of his legs while keeping the upper half of him in shadow. She couldn’t see his hands, and assumed he had his arms crossed over his chest—as he was in the habit of doing whenever he was in a speculative mood.

  “I’m not a thief,” she repeated, just in case he hadn’t heard her the first two times.

  “I know,” came his soft reply from the darkness.

  She took a step closer. “You know?”

  He also moved a step closer. “But you do like to trespass.”

  “I’m not trespassing. I’m a guest here.”

  He took another step forward, the moonlight now reaching his crossed arms. “You’re a guest who’s standing in the middle of a locked room.”