“I broke the compass,” she whispered, her long blond eyelashes blinking once…twice…her expression downright pitiful. She turned just enough to snuggle into Kee’s chest, tucking her head under his chin as she faced the others at the table. “And Ahab wants you to beat me.”
“I did not say ‘beat,’ ” Ahab declared, glaring at Mikaela, then looking at Kee. “I said ‘spank.’ There’s a mighty big difference. And if you’d take a firm hand to her naughty little bottom once in a while, we might come through the next fifteen years with our sanity intact,” he defended.
Not showing any reaction to either Mikaela’s or Ahab’s statements, Kee turned his daughter back around to face him, took hold of her chin, and lifted her face up to his. “What do you think I should do?” he asked.
“I think I’ve been punished enough, Daddy,” she said, her eyelashes batting again. “A whole week of missing you…and…and everyone,” she added, her voice quivering as she tried to look at the others at the table.
Kee wouldn’t let her, holding her facing him. “How did the compass get broken?”
“The boom fell on it.”
“And what made the boom fall?”
Her large blue eyes finally started to show some worry. “It might have fallen when I untied the rope,” she whispered.
“You untied the rope even though you’re not allowed to touch the rigging,” Kee said quietly.
Mikaela nodded. “I was trying to get to you faster, Daddy.”
Oh, she was good, Rachel decided. Miss Mikaela Oakes could give lessons to a courtesan. Rachel inched closer, noting the expressions on all the men’s faces.
Ahab’s eyes were glazed with resignation, apparently having witnessed this display of feminine wiles once too often. Duncan was frowning hard enough to damage his face, Luke was holding in a laugh, and Jason and Peter and Matthew were nodding agreement with Mikaela.
“Do you know what can happen to a boat without a compass?” Kee asked.
Mikaela slowly shook her chin back and forth in his fingers.
“It can get lost. If not for Ahab being such a good captain, you could be sitting in France right now instead of with us here in Maine.”
“I won’t touch the rigging again, Daddy.”
“No, you won’t,” Kee softly declared. “And you’re going to buy Ahab a new compass.”
“I don’t got any money.”
“Then you’ll have to earn some. Whatever Ahab pays his man to polish the brass on the Six-to-One Odds, he’ll pay you. And when you have enough money for the compass, you’ll buy him one.”
Unbelievably, her eyes got even bigger. “But that’s hard work,” she declared, pulling her chin free and crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m only a little girl.”
“If you’re strong enough to untie rigging, you’re strong enough to polish brass,” Kee said, cupping her face between his large hands and kissing her loudly on the forehead. He stood up and set her in his place on the chair, pushing the bowl of strawberries toward her. “Eat up. You can start tomorrow.”
Not at all happy with how things had turned out, Mikaela knelt on the chair and cuddled her bowl of strawberries to her chest, her shoulders hunched as she alternated between eating and shooting accusing glares at Ahab.
Ahab refilled his own bowl with strawberries, covered them with at least half a cup of sugar, and finished his feast with a satisfied smile on his face.
“Can I talk to you outside?” Kee asked, coming over to Rachel and placing a hand at her back, then guiding her out the screen door and off the porch and across the lawn toward the ocean.
“She’s adorable, Kee,” Rachel said as soon as they reached the pebble beach in front of her house. “She’s beautiful—and simply a treasure.”
“She’s a hellion,” he said, fierce affection and pride deepening his voice. “It’s a wonder we don’t all have a drinking problem.” He smiled and shook his head. “The last five years have been the longest years of my life, and I swear I’ve aged at least ten.”
He reached up and ran his knuckles gently down over her cheek. “But they’ve been the best years of my life, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world,” he softly declared, taking her in his arms, lifting her enough to bring her face up to his.
His mouth captured hers with heart-stopping possession.
Rachel wrapped her arms around his neck and parted her lips to give his strawberry-sweetened tongue complete access. His own arms held her so tightly against him that she could feel his heart thumping against her breasts.
One of his hands captured her braid, winding it around and around until he reached the nape of her neck and used it to cant her head and deepen the kiss.
Rachel’s reaction was immediate, her blood simmering and her nerve endings coming alive, humming with desire. His heat permeated her clothes all the way to her skin, flushing her with salacious warmth. And his mouth—oh, his wonderful mouth—teased her passionately, sending erotic images through her mind of them together, naked, in bed, touching and loving and arousing each other senseless.
He lowered his free hand down her back, cupping her bottom and pulling her into him, and Rachel felt his own desire pushing against her. He broke the kiss, trailing his lips across her cheek to nibble her ear, causing her to shudder with need.
And then he straightened and set her away, his hands gripping her shoulders—which was a good thing, considering her legs were filled with jelly. “There,” he declared softly, taking a calming breath. “That’s better.”
Better? Better than what, a root canal? Hell, she’d been better before he’d started boiling her blood.
“Now, about Mikaela,” he said, letting her go and crossing his arms over his chest. “Can she stay with you?”
“Do I have a choice?”
He shrugged. “I can put her back aboard the Six-to-One Odds and hope Ahab doesn’t take her out to sea and throw her overboard,” he offered.
“Oh, come on,” Rachel said with a snort. “She can’t be that bad. She’s only five years old.”
“Going on sixty,” he clarified, rubbing a hand down over his face with a deep sigh. “She could use a bit of female company, I suspect. She’s been surrounded by men her entire life.”
“But what about her mother? Doesn’t she ever see her?”
His eyes hardened, and he shook his head. “No. Mikaela’s been mine since she was ten minutes old.”
“Is her mother…is she dead?” Rachel asked in a whisper.
“No. So do we have a deal?”
Apparently the subject of Mikaela’s mother was not open to discussion. “Could our deal start tomorrow instead? Willow and I have a little errand to do tonight.”
His brow lifted in question, and he nodded toward the green pickup parked in the yard. “Does this errand have anything to do with Larry Jenkins’s truck?”
“How do you know it’s Larry’s truck?”
“I know a lot of things. I know that you went to the Lakeman Boatyard this afternoon, and that while Willow distracted Mark Alder, you went snooping through his files. What were you looking for, Rachel?”
Rachel crossed her own arms under her breasts. “You had me followed.”
He nodded. “I told you I’d be keeping an eye on you, for your own protection.”
“It wasn’t supposed to start until after Mikaela arrived.”
He stepped forward and took hold of her shoulders. “It started the moment I realized you nearly fell off the cliff that first night,” he said, tightening his hands when she tried to pull free. “What are you and Willow doing tonight?”
“I had a life before you showed up here, you know,” she said, glaring at him. “Willow and I have had this thing planned for months.”
“What thing?”
“That’s none of your business. Just keep Mikaela tonight, and she can come here tomorrow morning. And quit following me. I am more than capable of taking care of myself.”
He pulled her against his ch
est, wrapped his arms around her with a growl, and kissed her soundly on the mouth. “I can take care of you better,” he whispered, trailing his lips across her cheek. “You could have broken your neck or drowned.”
Rachel leaned into him and tucked her head under his chin, breathing in his wonderful smell with a sigh. “Can your daughter keep a secret?” she asked.
She felt him nod. “When she’s motivated to,” he told her.
Rachel leaned back in his arms and looked up. “Willow and I have to sneak an eight-foot puffin into the town park tonight, and we could use a little manpower, I guess.”
“An eight-foot puffin?”
“We made a wooden statue of a puffin,” she told him, nodding. “As a gift for the town. But it has to be an anonymous gift.” She shrugged in his embrace and smiled. “For the past two years Willow and I have been leaving little surprises around town. Everyone’s been getting into the mystery of where they’re coming from, and who’s doing it. And tonight Puffy is making his debut.”
His expression suddenly changed to one of understanding. “The statue in your basement,” he said with dawning awareness. “I saw it the day we picked up your clothes. You made that for the town? And the birdhouses and mailboxes on the workbench—you’ve been setting them out all over Puffin Harbor, haven’t you? I’ve passed one or two mailboxes like them and thought they looked familiar. But why?”
“For fun,” Rachel told him. “To give everyone something to talk about.”
“But why?” he repeated.
“I believe it’s called entertainment,” she told him with a laugh. “There’s not a whole heck of a lot to do around here in the winter, so Willow and I decided to create a mystery for the townspeople to solve.”
His smile slashed through the darkening twilight. “And you borrowed a sheriff’s truck for your clandestine operation,” he said in wonder, shaking his head. “And you want to take my daughter on this little adventure.”
“Only if she can keep our secret.”
Kee pulled her back against him, rocking her gently. “Maybe we’d better wait until she falls asleep, and leave Jason or Luke here with her. Duncan and I will go with you and be your muscle and lookout. Are you going to tell me what you were looking for at the Lakeman Boatyard?”
Rachel blinked at the sudden change of subject. “I was looking at Mark Alder’s feet,” she said.
He leaned back and looked down at her. “His feet,” he repeated evenly.
“And to ask how his mother is doing, and to sell him Willow’s shares in the boatyard.” She gave him a brilliant smile. “You’re partners with Mark Alder now instead of with the Foster sisters. We both sold Mark our shares.”
“Why were you looking at his feet?” he asked.
“To see if they were the same size as the prints I found in the tunnels. I think the smaller prints might belong to Mary Alder, Mark’s mother. And maybe the larger prints are Mark’s, and he’d gone to Sub Rosa to get her.”
“Do you think Mary Alder’s been taking the items?”
Rachel nodded. “Willow and I came to that conclusion this afternoon. Mary’s been…well, she’s been acting strange ever since Thadd died, and people do funny things when they’re grieving.”
“So if you believe that’s all that’s going on here, why were you were rifling through Alder’s files?”
“How do you know what I was doing?”
“That’s what Matt said,” he told her, shaking his head and smiling. “You really aren’t a very good burglar, Rachel. You should close the blinds before you start snooping. And when you’re hiding in a closet, wait at least ten minutes after you think the coast is clear before you try and sneak out.”
“Thanks for the advice,” she said sweetly, patting his chest. “I’ll remember that the next time.”
His arms tightened around her. “There won’t be a next time,” he growled. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Where?”
His sigh moved her hair. “At the boatyard,” he said, squeezing her.
“Oh. No. No, I didn’t.”
He pulled her back to his chest, resting his chin on her head and tucking her tightly against him with another deep, long-suffering sigh. “You need to trust me, Rachel,” he whispered.
“I trust you just as much as you trust me,” she whispered back, snuggling into his embrace.
His chest shook with a chuckle. “What in hell kind of answer is that?”
“An appropriate answer, considering.”
“Considering what?” he asked, pushing her away again—just enough to glare at her.
“Considering that I’ve known you less than a week.”
That was the wrong answer if his expression was any indication. He looked so confounded, Rachel had a moment’s worry that he might take a lesson from Ahab and throw her in the ocean.
“Are you in the habit of sleeping with men you don’t trust?” he asked softly.
“I’m not in the habit of sleeping with men at all,” she shot back, getting defensive. “Do you sleep with women you don’t trust?”
She snorted and pulled free, holding up her hand. “Never mind. That was a dumb question to ask a guy.” She turned and started back to the house, but stopped, turned again, and walked back to him.
“Let me ask you this instead. How come you knew the emeralds I put in the vault were real, and that they’re worth over a million dollars and had been stolen seventeen years ago? And how come you knew the other items were also stolen?” she asked, crossing her arms under her breasts again, waiting for his answer.
“I’m in the lost-and-found business, Rachel,” he explained, his smile almost—but not quite—indulgent. “They weren’t on Sub Rosa’s inventory list, and it was a simple matter to log on to a database of stolen and unrecovered art.”
She took a step closer, uncrossing her arms in surprise. “So there really is a database for that stuff?”
“Yes. And there’s a reward. A ten percent finder’s fee is the standard, payable to anyone returning stolen items to the insurer of record.”
She stepped even closer. “And how does one go about returning stolen items without any questions being asked?” She suddenly frowned and stepped back. “And why didn’t you mention this little finder’s fee this morning, when you and I and Willow were discussing it in the kitchen?”
He shrugged. “It’s not like it’s a big secret or anything. Why? You want your stuff back?”
“No,” she said fiercely, turning on her heel and heading for the house again. “You are more than welcome to it.”
He caught her before she’d taken three steps. “Rachel,” he said, turning her around and pulling her back into his arms so he could kiss the tip of her nose. “I’m giving you my daughter. Doesn’t that say I trust you?”
“No. It only says that you trust I would never do anything to endanger her, and even then it comes with six watchdogs and a wolf. But it’s also a very convenient way for you to tie my hands and keep me out of the way.” She made a face, lowering her voice. “Put the womenfolk together and circle the wagons, and let the menfolk take care of business.”
He threw back his head in laughter, pulling her tightly against him and hugging her fiercely. “You little impostor,” he said with a bearlike growl. “You hide behind a nunlike demeanor, but you are a little feminist who is royally pissed that you’ve found a mystery but have promised to stay out of it.”
He kissed her now flushed-mad forehead, refusing to let her wiggle out of his arms. “I don’t think you’re trying to protect Willow nearly as much as you’re enjoying the adventure.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then tell me right now, Rachel, that sneaking into my library and opening that vault didn’t get your blood humming,” he softly entreated. “And that you didn’t enjoy bringing Sub Rosa back to life while disappearing into the tunnels right under our noses. And still that wasn’t enough. Today you rifled through Mark Alder’s files
while spying on his mother.”
He lifted her, bringing his mouth down on hers in a kiss so consuming that Rachel’s senses reeled. She clung to him, kissing him back just as fiercely, wishing she could simply crawl under his skin and put out the fire raging in the pit of her stomach.
“Sleeping Beauty’s been awakened,” he whispered as he continued to rain kisses over her face. “And she doesn’t want to go back to bed.”
Oh, yes she did. Right now, to Keenan Oakes’s bed, with no wolves or sisters or apostles to disturb them. And definitely no five-year-old hellions.
“How about giving me a tour of your boat?” Rachel suggested.
“There’re two crewmen on watch,” he told her. “How about you show me your camper instead?”
There was a sudden scream from the house, something crashed to the floor, and the screen door slapped open. Willow came running out onto the porch and down the steps.
Mickey was one step behind her, and Duncan was one step behind the wolf. Mikaela ran onto the porch, hopping up and down and waving her spoon, yelling at Mickey.
Willow ran to her car, jumped in, and slammed the door shut, peering out through the window with eyes the size of dinner plates glowing in the porch light.
Rachel wasn’t sure if it was Mickey that had Willow so riled or Duncan. Willow was looking from one to the other, shaking her head. She pushed down the car door lock.
Which meant it must be Duncan.
Kee set Rachel away with a sigh and went to the rescue. Rachel trailed behind and walked over to the passenger’s side of Willow’s car and climbed in.
“Hi,” she said to her startled sister.
“Lock your door,” Willow all but shouted, and pushed the button on her side of the car that locked all of them. “You left me alone in a house full of strangers,” she accused. “And you could have warned me they had a wolf. And this brute,” she added, nodding toward Duncan, who was now leaning down and grinning in the window. “Actually came upstairs looking for me. And he had a bowl of strawberries with him and was muttering something about eating the hair of the dog that bit me.”
“That’s Duncan,” Rachel told her, waving at him past Willow. “And he and Kee are going to help us put Puffy in the town park tonight.”
The Seductive Impostor Page 20