The rocks were so slippery. She had fallen once. What if she fell now? Kemp was right behind her. She could hear him cursing.…
Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She didn’t want to die. Was this how those other women had felt before he plunged his knife into their flesh? What if she fell?
“Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.” Kemp’s litany pounded on her from behind. “Die, bitch. You’re going to die. You and that other brown-haired whore on the boat. Bitch. Bitch.”
She slipped. Recovered her balance. Kept on running.
A hoarse snarl of triumph behind her. He sounded closer.
He was closer. Running faster.
“No!” Jordan’s shout. “Kemp, you bastard. Me!”
Jordan meant Kemp was to take his life instead of hers, she realized through a panicky haze. He must know Kemp was going to catch her or he wouldn’t sound so frightened. Kemp was too fast. He wouldn’t stop. He never stopped.
A startled scream pierced through her raw terror. Was she screaming? No, it was someone else. Jordan? She risked a frantic glance over her shoulder. Jordan had tackled Kemp and, as she watched, Kemp lost his balance and toppled into the sea with a tremendous splash.
She stopped, her breath coming in shuddering gasps.
Kemp was struggling wildly, his arms thrashing to keep himself above the surface. His pale blue eyes protruded from his chalky face as his gaze fastened on her with hatred. “Bitch,” he shouted. His mouth filled with water and he choked and gasped, but as soon as he could breathe he shouted it again, “Bitch!”
He was jerked beneath the surface of the water as if pulled by the tentacles of a giant octopus.
He didn’t come up again.
Jordan was beside her, enfolding her with trembling arms. “Sara! My God, why? He almost killed you.”
Her arms slid around him and held on to him with all her strength. She burrowed her head into his shoulder. “He’s dead, isn’t he? The riptide …”
“He’s dead.” Jordan’s voice was trembling as much as his body. “It could have been you in the water. It could have been you.” His lips were pressing frantic kisses on her temples and cheeks. “You almost fell …”
She released him and turned to look at the place in the water where Kemp had disappeared. “I’m glad he’d dead,” she whispered. “I’m glad he can’t hurt anyone else. All those poor women …” She stiffened as the memory of Kemp’s words returned to her. “Penny.” She turned and started back to the pier at a dead run. “We’ve got to find out if he’s hurt Penny!”
“What do you think?” Penny touched her cut, swollen lip gingerly as she gazed ruefully at her bruised face in the hand mirror. “Do I look like Muhammed Ali or Sugar Ray Leonard? I think Leonard. Ali never got this beat up in his entire career.”
“Don’t joke.” Sara took the hand mirror and laid it facedown on the kitchen table. “I feel guilty enough knowing that it was my fault Kemp did this to you.” She gently applied salve to Penny’s cut lip. “I was so afraid he’d murdered you. When we found you tied up on that sailboat, you looked absolutely beautiful to me.”
Penny made a face. “You looked pretty good to me too after looking at nothing but Kemp’s ugly mug for almost forty-eight hours.”
“How did it happen?”
Penny shrugged. “He was more crafty than we all thought. He knew the New York police had set him up and he decided to make sure he didn’t fall into the trap. He showed up at World Report pretending to be a maintenance man and scouted around until he found out you’d left town and I’d been the one Mac told to handle getting you away. Then he paid a visit to my apartment and managed to get a key from the super by masquerading as an inspector from the gas company, sent to check on a reported leak.”
“How could he do that? Your apartment usually has great security.”
“His face,” she said simply. “He has the most ordinary face I’ve ever seen. He looks like the man who picks up your garbage or checks you out at the grocery store. He was very convincing whatever role he played.” She tried to smile. “However, he didn’t appear quite so ordinary to me after he’d worked on me for a while. He wanted to know where you’d gone and became quite upset when I told him to go to hell. Unfortunately, when he searched my apartment he found the receipt from the helicopter service.”
“Dammit, Penny, you should have told him where I’d gone and let me take my chances.”
“It wouldn’t have done any good,” she said wearily. “Then he would have taken great delight in slitting my throat. Until he was sure he knew where you were, I was safe. The phone practically rang off the hook that first day, and I was hoping Jordan would realize something was wrong and be on guard.” She looked at Sara inquiringly. “Where is Jordan? I haven’t seen him since the two of you brought me up to the house.”
“He’s down at the launch. He and Cam are radioing the police to tell them about Kemp.” Sara stepped back and gazed at Penny’s face in discontent. “That’s all I can do. You really should see a doctor.”
“No,” Penny said as she quickly stood up. “I’ll be fine. I’m going to take a shower and wash my hair before I radio Mac.” She turned away with a shiver. “Kemp was … I don’t know if I’ll ever feel really clean again.”
“Thank you, Penny,” Sara said quietly. “I know the words are inadequate, but they’re all I have to give you. I only hope someday I can repay you.”
“I don’t want to be repaid, it was my choice to help you.” Penny said, glancing back over her shoulder. “And I’d do it again. I learned something very important in the last forty-eight hours.”
“What?”
Penny smiled crookedly. “That there are no sanctuaries except those we have within ourselves.”
Sara watched Penny leave the kitchen, then turned back to replace the salve in the open first-aid kit on the table. It was over. It was difficult to believe the deadly threat that Kemp represented was in the past. He had haunted her for such a long time.
“How is she?”
Sara turned to see Cam standing in the doorway, his face clouded with concern. “She says she’s fine but it’s not true. I think that monster did more damage to her mind than he did to her body.” She closed the first-aid kit with a firm click. “Penny’s a survivor. It will take time, but she’ll work her way through it.”
“And you’ll be there to help her,” he said gently.
“You bet I will. All the way.” She turned to smile at him. “Why didn’t Jordan come with you?”
“He’s getting the launch ready to leave. He told me to come and tell you—”
Panic zipped through her. “Leave!” Her eyes were suddenly flashing with anger. “Hasn’t there been enough trouble without Jordan deciding this is the time to sail off into the sunset?”
“Sara, I didn’t say—”
She wasn’t listening to him. “I can’t believe it. Well, I’m not about to let him go off and …” The words trailed behind her as she ran from the room.
• • •
“You’re not leaving.” Sara strode down the pier, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “Do you hear me, Jordan? I’ll be damned if I’ll let you leave me.”
Jordan turned to face her, startled. “How’s Penny?”
“She could be better,” Sara said curtly. “I don’t want her to be alone right now, so I can’t be bothered to chase you halfway across the world. You’ll just have to stay with me.”
A faint smile touched his lips. “How militant you’re being. What if I don’t choose to stay? Will I be chained to your wrist like a diplomat’s briefcase?”
“If necessary.” She blinked back tears of anger and exhaustion. “I’ll do anything I can to keep you here. It’s stupid of you to even think of leaving me when you love me. And you do love me. Why don’t you admit it?”
“I love you,” he said obediently.
“You’re so damned frightened that I’m going to be hurt—” She stopped and tried to steady her voic
e. “Well, if you don’t stay with me, I’ll get Penny and Mac to give me the most dangerous assignments they can dredge up. Beirut, investigative reporting, drug running.”
The smile disappeared from Jordan’s face. “The hell you will.”
“And if they won’t do it, I’ll quit and go to work for a magazine that will.”
“Suicide assignments?” Jordan asked grimly.
“Not suicide. I’d try my best to stay alive. I told you I wasn’t like your mother.” She took a step closer, her eyes glistening like misty emeralds as she gazed up at him. “I’m strong enough to stand alone, but I’ll be damned if I want to. So I’m going to exert a little muscle. The only way you’re ever going to know I’m moderately safe is if you’re by my side.” The tears that had been brimming were now running down her cheeks. “Penny said the only sanctuary was within ourselves, but that’s not true. If you love someone, that can be a sanctuary too. You’re my sanctuary, and my safety, and the place that gives me pleasure and strength and—” Her voice broke. “Do you think I’ll ever let you take that away from me?”
“Evidently not.” Tenderness softened the hard planes of his face, and the way that he was looking at her was beautiful. He took her into his arms. “You’re a very formidable lady.”
“Only when I’m driven crazy by a stubborn, muddled man who—”
His fingers on her lips stemmed the tirade. “Stop maligning me. I was not leaving you. I only thought we should get Penny off the island to see a doctor. You’ve won.”
She went still. “I have?”
“If you call living the rest of your life with a man like me any kind of victory. You’ll probably regret it next month or next year.”
“I’ll never regret it.” Her gaze searched his face. “Why?”
“Kemp,” he said. “I’d never seen you that close to death, even when you fell and hit your head. It was something I’d always dreaded, my worst nightmare, and there it was before me. I knew then that if you lived, I’d never be strong enough to let you go again. I’d always have to be wherever you were, right next to you to try to help you and keep you safe.” He paused before adding haltingly, “And happy. Lord, I’ll try to keep you happy, Sara.”
“Sanctuary?” she asked softly.
“If that’s what you want, that’s what I’ll try to be for you. Life won’t be easy for you. I’ll probably still be possessive and jealous.”
“And loving.”
“Oh, yes.” He nodded, taking her into his arms with enormous tenderness. “Always loving. Is that compensation enough?”
Joy rippled through her like a glowing sunlit river. “Compensation?” She kissed him gently. “Jordan, loving is all that matters. Don’t you know that?”
He nodded, his smile as joyous as her own. “I think you’re beginning to teach me. I hope you’ll still think so fifty years from now.”
“I will,” she whispered as she gazed up at him lovingly. “You can count on it.”
The Editor’s Corner
Welcome to Loveswept!
April might bring showers, but over at Loveswept, we’re more than happy to fill your days with sunshine and romance with this month’s irresistible original stories.
If you’re looking for a new small-town contemporary romance, look no further than Plain Jayne, a funny, heartfelt story about best friends who reunite—only to realize that being “just friends” isn’t good enough anymore. Juliet Rosetti keeps readers swooning—and laughing—with Mazie Maguire and her hot boy toy, Ben Labeck, in the delightfully fun Tangled Thing Called Love. And Bronwen Evans delivers another scorching story in A Promise of More, the second Disgraced Lords book where a marriage rooted in convenience and revenge turns into something so much more.
And sure to brighten any gloomy days are classic romances like Sandra Chastain’s richly sensuous tales from the Wild West: The Outlaw Bride, The Mail Order Groom and Shotgun Groom. Also deeply satisfying is Iris Johansen’s unforgettable story Man From Half Moon Bay and Karen Leabo’s sexy and thrilling The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Linda Cajio’s Me and Mrs. Jones is another wonderful tale of passion you can’t miss. And you can never go wrong with Andrienne Staff and Sally Goldenbaum: check out the beautifully rendered Banjo Man by these two superstar writers.
∼Happy Romance!
Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher
Love stories you’ll never forget
by authors you’ll always remember
eOriginal Romance from Random House
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