by Anne Stuart
"Penny for your thoughts," he said, watching her. "I do believe you're blushing, Francey. They must be highly erotic thoughts. Is there someone here…?" He glanced around them, at the locals clustered inside at the bar, at the middle-aged couples near the door.
"Not erotic," she said firmly, looking at his hands on the green bottle of Dutch beer. Long-fingered, deft hands. Narrow palms. With scars. "I was thinking about what's on our agenda for this afternoon."
He raised a questioning eyebrow behind the mirrored sunglasses. "Don't you want to go swimming? You've promised me the water is absolutely tepid. If you'd rather not…"
"It's not the water, it's my bathing suit," she said flatly.
He waited patiently for an explanation, his hand still on the beer. That was one of the things she liked most about him. And found the most irritating. His seemingly inexhaustible patience. It always ended up with her saying more than she needed or wanted to.
"I didn't expect to enjoy myself when I came down here," she continued. "So I didn't pack a bathing suit. I bought one once I realized…well, once I realized how nice the water was." She was going to say once she realized she wanted to live after all, but she'd stopped herself in time. After all, Michael Dowd was a virtual stranger. A sympathetic, kindly, attractive stranger, but not one who needed to be privy to the darkest days of her life.
"Then what's the problem?" It was a reasonable enough question, one that required a reasonable answer.
"The only bathing suits they sell on St. Anne are French," she said flatly.
He was sharp; she had to admit it. He didn't ask for an explanation. He simply said, "Oh."
"Oh," she echoed.
He leaned back, taking off his sunglasses and letting them swing lazily in one hand. The sickly pallor of his skin had faded somewhat during his days under the bright sun, and she'd even noticed a dusting of freckles across his strong nose. "I tell you what," he said. "You don't look at my skinny, white, scarred body in baggy drawers, and I won't look at you in your skimpy bikini."
"You've got yourself a deal." She believed him, of course. He'd never done anything to give her the impression that he was as aware of her as she was of him. He probably had a wife and five kids tucked away back in Somerset.
Except that she knew he didn't. He hadn't told her much about his personal life, except to say he'd never been married, though he'd come close a number of times. He figured he was married to his job. And he certainly had enough fathering to do, with the hordes of schoolboys who passed through his care at Willingborough. Everything normal, upper middle class Brit, including his two years in military service when he was younger. He hadn't been stationed in Ireland—she'd made sure of that.
She knew he was thirty-seven, that the car accident hadn't been his fault, that he was expected back in England sometime soon to pick up the pieces of his safe, comfortable life. If he knew what she'd gone through, he would draw back in well-bred horror.
But he didn't know, and there was no reason why he should. As far as he was concerned, she was a motherly, friendly American with few responsibilities and ties, someone spending a few idle months in the Caribbean. And she preferred to leave it that way. Her attraction to him was an aberration, a brief moment of madness in reaction to her earlier foolishness in believing in Patrick Dugan. Michael Dowd was the antithesis of Patrick, safe and sane and harmless. It was no wonder she was drawn to him.
And that attraction would safely wither and disappear the moment he left for home. In the meantime, it did her no harm to let her mind drift into vague, erotic fantasies. Knowing she had absolutely no intention of following up on them.
She smiled at Michael, reaching out and putting her hand over his in a friendly gesture. His skin was cool, smooth beneath her innocent touch, and if she felt prickles of awareness between their flesh, his expression was completely bland and unmoved.
Harmless, sweet and definitely undersexed, she thought with dismay and relief. She couldn't be safer.
"You slept with her yet?" Ross Cardiff demanded. He had a high-pitched, nasally whine of a voice, with a trace of Northern England thrown in. Michael was originally from the North himself, and he'd always liked the sound of Yorkshire in a man's voice. But not since he'd been working with Ross Cardiff.
"None of your bloody business."
"The hell it's not. You talked me into this, against my better judgment. We need to keep on Daniel Travers's good side, and we need to move very carefully in this issue. Patrick Dugan wasn't the only one involved in the attack on the Queen. There's no guarantee that he was the head of the Cadre…"
"I thought we'd already agreed that he wasn't," Michael said sharply, glancing through the smoked glass of the phone booth to Francey. She was sitting back in the white mesh chair, staring out at the sea, waiting while he put in a call to his dear old Mum. His mother had been dead in a drunken car accident since the early sixties, and no great shakes as a mother anyway. He smiled sourly, turning away from her.
"You decided," Ross corrected. "I'm not convinced. However, there's no denying that the Cadre's been active recently. Gearing up for something. Any more attempts?"
"Not as far as we can tell. Cecil's been clinging like a burr, and I upgraded the security system while she was sleeping. James Bond couldn't get through it."
"I rather thought you fancied you were James Bond," Ross said nastily.
"Hell, no, Ross," he said pleasantly. "You're the one with fantasies."
The dead silence that greeted that remark reminded Michael that there was a limit as to how far he could push Ross. Cardiff's sexual proclivities were not a topic of conversation, even if Michael's were.
"How long are you going to be there?" Cardiff demanded finally. "Why don't you just boff her, find out what she knows and get the hell out of there?"
"Not that simple. She seems fairly traumatized by her run-in with Dugan."
"And you believe that? You're getting soft."
Not likely, Michael thought absently, remembering his intermittent discomfort when Francey brushed by him in that huge, empty house that was too small for both of them. "I never believe anything until I'm ready to, Ross," he said. "I need more time."
"Two more days. If you can't get her in bed and find out her secrets by then, then you shouldn't be back in action. I told you that you should take some time off, spend a few months at your cottage in the Lake District…"
He was tired of this, Michael thought. Mortally tired of taking orders from shortsighted bureaucrats and weaselly, narrow-minded idiots like Cardiff. He'd done everything he could to get transferred from Ross's jurisdiction once he realized what a venal bungler the man was, but the bureaucracy had been adamant. Besides, he had a reputation for being a lone wolf. The powers-that-be figured at least Cardiff would irritate him enough to check in.
"I'll take as long as I bloody well need," he said flatly. "I'll check in tomorrow."
"Cougar…" That nasally whine was cut off as Michael slammed down the phone, keeping his back to Francey. He hated that name. There'd been a time in his life when he'd taken a romantic pleasure in it. That time was long past.
The damnable thing about it was that Ross was right this time. He was just wasting time. Francey Neeley was vulnerable, ready to fall, and all he had to do was reach out a hand. She would go—into his arms, into his bed—and she would tell him absolutely anything he wanted to know once he'd spent a few hours reminding her what bodies were made for. He was mad to hesitate.
He turned to look at her. The wind was tossing her sun-streaked hair back from her profile, and she looked both strong and vulnerable. Her mental health once he was finished with her wasn't his problem, his consideration. All he needed to think about was the Cadre, who and what and where they were. And how to stop them. In comparison to their vicious destructiveness, the well-being of one rich American female wasn't of great consequence.
He'd been sidelined too long. But he was no longer completely sure of that fact, even as he t
old himself he was. Maybe, much as he hated to admit it, for once in his life Ross Cardiff was right. He'd grown soft, emotionally and mentally, as his body had hardened.
No, he couldn't ever admit that a bug like Cardiff was right. Francey wanted him, whether she was completely sure of that fact or not. Tonight he was going to take her. He was going to spend a long, energetic night with her, working off the longest stretch of celibacy he'd known since he'd reached puberty. And by midday tomorrow, in a postcoital haze, she would tell him absolutely everything he needed to know.
"You look grim," she said when he reached the table, her eyes as sharp as usual. "Is your mother all right?"
"Mum's in fine shape. Just crabbing about the change of life." It was his only small measure of revenge against Cardiff's nit-picking. Referring to the man as his menopausal mother had the capacity to amuse him as few things did.
"Isn't she a little old for that?" Francey asked.
Michael's smile didn't waver, even as he mentally cursed. Maybe Cardiff was right after all. "She had me when she was a teenager," he said easily. "Are we going swimming?"
She made a face. "We're going swimming."
He was smiling at her again. Francey wondered absently whether he knew what it did to her when he smiled like that. She doubted it. If he knew his smile could be that powerful, he wouldn't be the gentle, unassuming man that he was.
But that smile made her nervous. It started her thinking that maybe he was just as attracted to her as she was to him. He seemed to have gotten a lot stronger in the time he'd been on St. Anne, and every now and then she thought she'd surprised a heated expression in his usually bland blue eyes. But it would be gone as quickly as she noticed it, and she'd told herself it was her imagination.
But ever since his troubling conversation with his mother, during the long drive back to Belle Reste, he'd been sending forth waves of charm that disturbed her as much as they drew her. She had the uneasy sense of being manipulated. Absurd. Patrick had managed to twist her mind around past common sense. Things had gotten out of hand when she couldn't even trust a straightforward schoolteacher.
"Funny," she said, fiddling with the front door key while Michael blocked the light behind her.
"What's funny?"
"The lock's not working properly. I'm certain I locked it when I left. Not that it's necessary, but you're so paranoid…"
"You locked it," he said easily, reaching out and taking the key from her. A second later the door swung open, and she started into the shadowy coolness.
His hand on her bare arm stopped her. "Wait a minute."
"But…"
"Hold still," he said, no longer gentle and polite. There was a wariness about him, and all gentleness, all sweetness, seemed to have vanished. "Someone's been here."
"Don't be absurd. Why should someone…?"
"Move back." It was a ridiculous statement. His hand was clamped around her upper arm so tightly it would likely leave bruises, and he was already moving her back, slowly, steadily.
"What's wrong, Michael?"
"Can't you smell the gas?"
She could. She hadn't noticed—indeed, she'd been so caught up in her confused feelings about Daniel's guest that she hadn't been paying much attention to anything. "The gas heater must have malfunctioned…"
They were back at the car. He practically shoved her into the passenger seat, and there was no hesitation in his movements, barely a trace of his troubling limp. "It was tampered with," he said flatly.
"Don't be ridiculous. Who… ?"
"The same person who cut your brake lines. Face it, Francey, someone wants to kill you." He started the car, spun it around and took off.
"Where are we going? We can't just leave it like that," she protested, dazed by his sudden forcefulness.
"We're getting the hell out of here. I only know one person I can trust on this island. Your friend Cecil."
"He's not my friend," she said. "I never saw him before last week."
He stopped the car in the middle of the narrow, deserted roadway. "Take your choice. Is there anyone else you want to turn to?"
She couldn't think of a soul. She didn't trust anyone. Except maybe this suddenly enigmatic stranger beside her. "Cecil," she said.
He didn't smile or look triumphant. He simply nodded, putting the car into gear once more. She glanced back at the house that had been her haven, her safety, her place of healing, just before the road twisted, putting it out of sight. And she wondered if she would ever see it again.
Chapter 5
« ^ »
"Stay in the car," Michael ordered, vaulting out with a lithe strength that was entirely at odds with his previously fragile air. They'd pulled up at a tumbledown shack near the harbor, one she hadn't realized was even inhabited. The windows were darkened, the door tightly shut, strange occurrences for a climate like theirs. But for the moment she was numb, too bewildered by the swift turn of events to even consider moving.
He was back in a moment, his face as shuttered as the ramshackle little cottage. "You know where Shaman's Cove is?"
She nodded. "It's a small, rocky inlet on the northern side of the island."
"Directions." The word was a command, brief, to the point, one she obeyed without question.
A car passed them as they drove up the long, winding road away from the deserted cottage, a new Land Rover with smoked windows, going so fast it nearly ran them off the road. "Was that Cecil?" she asked.
"Land Rovers cost more than that entire village makes in a year," he said flatly.
He hadn't answered her question, she noticed. "Was that Cecil?" she asked again.
He glanced at her. The sunglasses were covering half his face, and his mouth was thin, grim. "Your guess is as good as mine."
He wasn't going to tell her anything more specific,. To ask again would be a waste of breath. "What's in Shaman's Cove?"
"Cecil will have a boat waiting. We're getting the hell out of here."
"But…"
"I've told him how to get in touch with your cousin. We'll have to leave it up to Travers to rescue us."
"The house. It'll blow…"
"Maybe. Cecil's going to see what he can do about it."
"Are you certain we're not overreacting? I mean, brakes do fail. Gas heaters do malfunction."
"You want to wait for the third attempt to be convinced? Chances are, that time they'll be successful."
Francey was suddenly very, very cold. She rubbed her bare arms, wishing she could ask him to put the top up on the convertible, wishing she'd brought a sweater, a bulletproof vest, a quart of Scotch. Anything for protection from the ice that was slicing down into her heart.
She'd been ready to put it all behind her. Even the near miss last week had been easy to explain away. Her involvement with Patrick Dugan had been a brief sojourn of misery, but it didn't need to wreck her life.
But now it seemed as if it was coming close to ending her life. She couldn't imagine how they'd managed to find her, or why they even wanted to kill her. For revenge, perhaps, for Patrick's and maybe Caitlin's deaths. She hadn't been responsible for Patrick, and she hadn't meant to push Caitlin in front of the car. She'd been fighting for her life.
But obviously someone didn't see it that way. Someone had come to her peaceful haven of St. Anne to make her pay. And the innocent, harried man beside her was going to pay the price, too, for something he'd had no involvement in.
"Stop the car," she said suddenly.
He glanced over at her, not slowing their hurtling pace in the slightest. "Why?"
"I want to get out."
"Don't be a fool." The words were calm, without rancor. He drove well, she noticed. Better even than she did. "I suppose there's a chance in hell that this was simply a coincidence, but I don't plan on taking that chance."
"It's not your chance to take. It's not you who's in danger. It's me. Stop the car and let me out."
"Virgin sacrifice?" he said pleasantly. "You wan
t me to find a live volcano so you can throw yourself in?"
"Don't be a fool."
"Don't you be a fool!" he said. "You seem to forget, I'm a perfect British gentleman. I was brought up to bring aid and comfort to damsels in distress."
"Not at the cost of your own life."
"Nobility makes me want to puke."
"Michael…"
"Which way?" They'd come to a crossroads. The narrow little-used dirt roadway led down to Shaman's Cove.
"I'm not telling you," she said.
He slammed on the brakes, hurling them both toward the padded dashboard. He took her wrist in his large hand, and the pain was sudden, numbing, unbelievable. "Which way?" he repeated in a calm, emotionless voice.
"The dirt road."
He released her, putting the car in gear again, and she glanced down at her wrist as she hugged herself. There was no mark. The sudden, shocking pain must have been in her imagination, part of this entire, unbelievable nightmare. Michael Dowd wouldn't hurt her. Wouldn't know how.
She didn't know whether Michael was fearless or simply terrified as he plowed the sports car down the narrow, overgrown roadway. At one point she closed her eyes, too frightened to watch as they hurtled toward certain doom. He was going fast, too fast, and he didn't know the area. They were going to die, no thanks to whoever had rigged the gas heater. She told herself she should regret dying, and, indeed, she did. She thought of the man beside her, driving with consummate skill and recklessness, and thought she might really want to live after all.
The car slammed to a stop, and her eyes flew open. By some miracle they'd made it to the bottom of the narrow roadway, out onto the tiny spit of pink sand. He killed the engine, glancing around them, and she told herself it was only her imagination that he seemed wary, dangerous, like the hunter instead of the hunted.
"Are you all right?" He had to ask twice before she pulled her scattered thoughts together enough to respond.
"I guess so."