Читать книгу Protector, Lover...Husband? - Heather Graham, Heather Graham - Страница 12

“What?” she said sharply.

“You heard me. Tell me about the body.” He uncoiled from his position, coming toward her, taking a chair near hers. He was close, too close, and she instantly felt wary and, despite herself, unnerved. They’d been apart for a year, and she still felt far too familiar with the rugged planes of his face, the bronzed contours of his hands and fingers, idly folded now before him.

She managed to sit back, eyeing him with dignity and, she hoped, a certain disdain.

“What the hell are you doing on my porch? There’s a lobby for guests.”

“Get off it. You must have been in a panic. And Jay probably behaved like an asshole.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m trying to help you out.”

“If you want to help me out, get off the island.”

“Am I making you uneasy?”

“You bet,” she told him flatly.

That drew a smile to his lips. “Missed me, huh?”

She sat farther forward, setting her wine cooler on the rattan coffee table, preparing to rise.

“I assume you have a room. Why don’t you go put some clothes on.”

“Ah, that’s it. Can’t take the sight of my naked chest. It’s making you hot, huh?”

“More like leaving me cold,” she said icily. “Now go away, please.”

His smile faded for a moment. “Don’t worry. I know you want me to leave. I haven’t forgotten that you had the divorce papers sent to me without a word.”

“What was left to say?” she asked with what she hoped was quiet dignity.

“Hmm, let me think. Maybe your reasons for leaving me?”

She got to her feet. “You want the truth? I couldn’t take it. I was so in love with you, it hurt all the time. You were all that mattered to me. My dolphins were far too tame for you—and far too unimportant. Our agreement that we’d spend time dedicated to my pursuits didn’t mean a thing—not if a sunken ship turned up or a shark-research expedition was formed. Then it came to the point when I said you were welcome to go off even when you were supposed to be helping me—and you went. And then that became a way of life. There’s the story in a nutshell. You were gone long before I sent those papers. And sometime in there, I got over you. I love working with dolphins. No, it isn’t like finding a Spanish galleon, or even locating a yacht that went down ten years ago, maybe. But I love it. What you apparently needed, or wanted, was a different kind of wife. Either a pretty airhead who would follow you endlessly, or…someone as fanatic about treasure as you are. So go to your room and put some clothes on, or take a stroll over to the Tiki Hut and give someone else a thrill.”

She started inside, hoping he would stop her. Not because she wanted to be near him, but because he knew about the body.

Her back to him, she suddenly wondered how he knew. The question left her with a very uneasy feeling.

“Alexandra, whatever anger you’re feeling toward me, whatever I did or didn’t do, I swear, I’m just trying to help you now.”

She spun around. “How do you know about the body, anyway? Jay gave me very direct orders not to mention it to anyone.”

He cocked his head slightly. “Jay’s assistant talks.”

“What did you do? Flirt with Len, too?”

He arched an eyebrow, curiously, slowly. She wished she could take back the comment. It made it appear as if…as if jealousy had been the driving factor in her quest for freedom. And it hadn’t been.

Thankfully, David didn’t follow up on her comment. “I don’t think Len could contain himself. He tried to be smooth and cool, but I guess he feels he knows me and that I’m intelligent enough not to repeat what he said. He told me you’d all gone off in search of a body, and then it turned out to be gone. I overheard Jay tell him that part.”

She stood very still, watching him for a long moment. “You know, I came back here to be alone.”

“So talk to me, then I’ll leave you alone.”

“You know, this is very strange. Most people would scoff at the idea immediately. Bodies don’t turn up on a daily basis. And yet…it sounds as if you think that there…should have been a body.”

“No,” he corrected. “I didn’t say I thought there should be a body.”

Alex pressed her fingers to her temples. “I can’t do this,” she said.

She was startled when he suddenly moved close to her. “Alex, please. If there was a body, and you saw it—you could be in danger.”

She sighed. “Not if no one knows about the body.”

“But I know, so others could, as well.”

“You said Len only told you about it because he trusts you.”

“Others might have overheard.”

“Just what do you want?”

He was no more than an inch from her. He still carried the scent of salt and the sea, and it was a compelling mixture. She looked away.

“I don’t want anything. I’m deeply concerned. Alex, don’t you understand? You could be in danger!” His hands fell on her shoulders then. It was suddenly like old times. “You have to listen to me.”

She’d heard the words before. Felt his hands before. Memories of being crushed against that chest stirred within her. She didn’t want to believe that she had once been so in love with him just because he was so distinctively male and sensual. There had been times when they were together when his smile had been so quick, and then so lazy, when just a finger trailing across her bare arm or shoulder had…

“David, let go of me,” she said, stepping back.

His eyes were narrowed, hard. She’d seen them that way before, when he was intent on getting to the bottom of something.

“Talk to me, Alex.”

“All right. Yes, Jay acted like an asshole. Yes, I’m convinced I saw a body. A woman. A blonde. Other than that…I couldn’t see her face. The angle of her body was wrong, and she was tangled in seaweed. When we went back, she was gone. Even Laurie, who saw the body first, wasn’t sure we’d seen it anymore. She didn’t actually go near the body even when it was there. Anyway, there was no corpse. So, are you happy?”

He didn’t look happy. Actually, for a moment, he appeared ashen. She wanted to touch his face, but he was still David. Solid as rock.

“Please, will you leave me alone?” she asked him.

His voice was strange, scratchy, when he spoke. “I can’t leave you alone. Not now,” he said. And yet, contrary to his words, he turned and left her porch, disappearing along the back trail that led, in a roundabout way, to the other cottages and the lodge.

She stared after him, suddenly feeling the overwhelming urge to burst into tears. “Damn it, I got over you,” she grated out. “And here you are again, driving me crazy, making me doubt myself…and not doubt myself,” she finished softly.

She realized suddenly that twilight was coming.

And that she was afraid.

David had almost made her forget. No matter what anyone said, she’d seen a body on the beach. That was shattering in itself, but then the body had disappeared.

She slipped back inside, locking the sliding-glass door behind her. Then she looked outside and saw the shadows of dusk stretching out across the landscape.

She drew the curtains, uneasily checked her front door, and at last—after opening and finishing a new wine cooler—she managed to convince herself to take a shower.

David sat at a table at the Tiki Hut, watching Alex. Not happily. He had been sitting with Jay Galway, who hadn’t mentioned Alex’s discovery, naturally. There might be a major exodus from the lodge if word got out that a mysterious body had been found, then disappeared, and Galway would never stand for that.

During their conversation, David had asked Jay casually about recent guests, and any news in the world of salvage or the sea, and Jay had been just as cool, shrugging, and saying that, with summer in full swing, most of their guests were tourists, eager to swim with the dolphins, or snorkel or dive on the Florida reef. Naturally—that was what they were set up to do.

David had showered, changed and made a few phone calls in the time since he’d left Alex. He’d still arrived before her.

If she’d seen him at the table, she’d given him no notice, heading straight for the table where John Seymore was sitting with Hank Adamson. They were chatting now, and he had the feeling that part of Alex’s bubbling enthusiasm and the little intimate touches she was giving Seymore were strictly for his benefit, her message clear: Leave me the hell alone, hands off, I’ve moved on.

How far would it go?

All right, one way or the other, he would have been jealous, but now he was really concerned.

A woman’s body had been found on the beach, and he had not heard back from Alicia Farr—who was a blonde.

David couldn’t stop the reel playing through his head.

From what he’d overheard, Jay was convinced a trick had been played, or that Alex had assumed a dozing sunbather was a corpse. David didn’t see that as a possibility. Alex was far too intelligent, and she wouldn’t have walked away without assuring herself that the body no longer maintained the least semblance of a vital sign.

A trick? Maybe.

Real corpses didn’t get up and walk away, but they could be moved.

If there had been a real corpse and it had been moved, it had been moved by someone on the island. That meant Alex could be in serious danger. After all, Len had told David what was going on, so who knew who else he might have told?

An ex–navy SEAL, maybe? The perfect blond hero—but was that the truth behind John Seymore being at Moon Bay?

Hopefully he would find out soon enough.

“So?”

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” David said, realizing that Jay had been talking away, but he hadn’t heard a word.

“Well? Is it a photojournalism thing or a salvage dive?”

“What…?”

“Your next excursion,” Jay said.

“Oh…well, I was looking into something, but my source seems to have dried up,” David told Jay. My key source either dried up, or was killed and washed up on your beach, and then disappeared, he thought. Then his attention was caught by Alex again.

The band was playing a rumba. She was up and in John Seymore’s arms. Head cast back, she was laughing at whatever he had to say. Her eyes were like gems. She was beautifully decked out in heels and a soft yellow halter dress that emphasized both her tan and her tall, sinewy length. Her long hair was free and a true golden blond, almost surreal in the light of the torches that burned here by night.

The lights were actually bug repellents. There was no escaping the fact that when you had foliage like this, you had bugs. But the glow they gave everything, especially Alex, was almost hypnotic.

David turned to Jay. “Sure you haven’t heard about anything?” he asked him.

“Me?” Galway laughed. “Hell, I’m a hanger-on. The big excitement in my life is when I get a taste of something because of the big-timers—like you.”

“Well, I’m looking at the moment,” David told him. “So, if you do get wind of anything, anything at all, I’d like to know.”

“You’d be the first one I’d go to,” Jay assured him solemnly.

“Interesting that you’d say so—with Seth Granger here and ready to pay.” And in the Tiki Hut at that moment, David realized. Granger was a big man and in excellent shape for his sixty-odd years. He was speaking with Ally Conroy, mother of Zach, at the bar. She was at least twenty years his junior, but he’d gathered from their bits of conversation before the swim that she was a widow, worried about rearing her son alone. Seth wasn’t all that well-liked by many people, yet Ally seemed to be giving him the admiration he craved. Maybe they were a perfect fit.

“Seth…well, you know. He’s always looking for something to bug his way into. Hell, why not? He’s rich, and he loves the sea, and he’d like to make a name for himself in his retirement years. Don’t you love it? Tons of money, no real knowledge, yet he wants to be right in the thick of things. Executive turned explorer.”

“Why not?” David said with a shrug. “Most expeditions need financial backing.”

“Yeah, why not? It’s what I’d love to do myself. I’ve got a great job here, mind you—but I sure wish I had his resources. Or your reputation. Every major corporation out there with a water-related product to sell is willing to finance you—even on a total wild-goose chase.”

“You know me—game for anything that has to do with the water,” David murmured absently.

Alex was leaning very close to John Seymore now. In a moment she’d be spilling out of her dress.

“Excuse me,” he said to Jay, rising, then went up to the couple on the floor. Alex wouldn’t be happy, but if John Seymore was really such an all-right kind of guy—or even pretending to be one—he would show him the courtesy of allowing him to cut in.

A tap on Seymore’s shoulder assured him that he had correctly assessed the situation. The other man, his eyes full of confident good humor, stepped back.

Alex gave David a look of sheer venom. But she wasn’t going to cause a scene in the Tiki Hut. She slipped into his arms.

“What are you doing?” she asked him.

“Dancing.”

“You know I don’t want to dance with you.”

He ignored her and said, “I guess you haven’t had a chance to talk with Seymore yet.”

“John and I have done lots of talking.”

“Well, I happened to mention to him one of the reasons I’m here.”

“And it has something to do with me?”

“Definitely.”

She arched a delicate eyebrow. “I guess you’re going to tell me—whether I want to know or not.”

“We’re not divorced.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said sharply. “I filed papers, you signed them.”

“I don’t quite get it myself, but apparently there was some little legal flaw. I must not have signed on all the dotted lines. The documents were never properly filed, and therefore the decision was declared null and void. I know what a busy woman you are, but I need to ask you when would be a good time to get together with my lawyer and rectify the situation.”

She wasn’t even pretending to dance anymore. She just stood on the floor, staring at him. His arms were still around her, tendrils of silky soft, newly washed blond hair slipping over his hands, teasing in their sensuality. He knew he needed to move away, but he didn’t.

“That’s impossible!” she exclaimed.

“Sorry.”

She stared at him, still amazed. “I don’t…I…can’t…”

“Look, Alex, I know how eager you are to be completely rid of me. I’m sorry. But as of this moment, we are still married.”

He wondered if lightning would come out of the sky to strike him dead.

It didn’t.

God must have understood his situation.

“It’s…it’s impossible,” she repeated.

He shrugged, as if in complete understanding of her dismay. “I’m sorry.”

Something hardened in the depths of her ever-changing, sea-green eyes. “I’ll make time to see your attorney.”

“Great. We’ll set it up. Well, lover boy is waiting, so I’ll let you go in a sec. But first I need you to listen to me. Alex, I’m begging you, listen to me. You’ve got to be careful.”

She pulled back, searching his eyes, then shaking her head. “David, I understand why you’re here, and frankly, I’m surprised you took the time to actually ask me what would be convenient for me. But I don’t quite get this sudden interest. Where’s Bebe whats-her-name? Or the thin-but-oh-so-stacked Alicia Farr, the Harvard scholar?”

Her question sent an eerie chill up his spine. I think she’s your disappearing body.

“Alex, I’m afraid you’re in danger.” His words, he realized, sounded stiff and cold.

She shook her head. “No one else believes I discovered a corpse. Why should you?”

He hesitated for a minute. “I know you,” he told her. “You’re not a fool. You would have looked closely enough to know.”

“Well, thanks for the compliment. I wish Nigel Thompson felt that way. I couldn’t get through to him that though it’s improbable that a body was really there and somehow moved, it’s not impossible. So if you’ll let me off the dance floor…?”

He released her. But as she started to step past him, he caught her arm. She looked up, and for a moment, her eyes were vulnerable. Her scent seemed to wrap around him, caress him.

“Don’t trust anyone,” he said.

“I certainly don’t trust you.”

He pulled her back around to face him. “You know what? I’ve about had it with this.”

“Oh, you have, have you?”

“I got a long lecture. You can have one, too. You read a lot into a number of situations that just wasn’t there. You never had the right not to trust me. It was just that, to you, the minute a phone or a radio didn’t work, I had to be doing something. With someone. And you know what, Alex? That kind of thing gets really old, really quick.”

“Sorry, but it’s over anyway, isn’t it? You received the divorce papers and said, ‘Hey, go right ahead.’You were probably thankful you didn’t have to deal with any annoying baggage anymore. And now you’re suddenly going to be my champion, defending me from a danger that doesn’t exist?”

“Alex, you know me. You know what kind of man I am. Hell, hate me ‘til the sun falls from the sky, but trust me right now.”

“There are dozens of people here. I don’t think I’m in any danger in the middle of the Tiki Hut. And trust you?” She sounded angry, then a slow smile curved her lips.

“What?”

“I just find it rather amusing that you’re suddenly so determined to enjoy my company. There were so many times when…well, never mind.”

He stared at her blankly for a moment. “What are you talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.”

“Actually, it’s not,” he said. Again he waited for lightning to strike. Not that it should. He was doing this out of a very real fear for her life.

She waved a hand in the air. “All over but the shouting,” she murmured.

“Maybe that’s what we were lacking—the shouting.”

“Great. We should have had a few more fights?”

It was strange, he thought, but this was almost a conversation, a real one.

And then John Seymore chose that exact moment to return, tapping him on the shoulder. “Since you’re on the dance floor and not actually dancing…?”

“And it’s a salsa,” Alex put in.

“Salsa?” John murmured. “I’m not sure I know what I’m doing, but—”

“I do,” David said quickly, grinning, and catching Alex in his arms once again. “I’ll bring her back for the next number.”

“Since when do you salsa?” Alex demanded as they began to move.

“Since a friend married a dance instructor,” he told her.

She seemed startled, but he really did know what he was doing. He’d never imagined the dance instruction he’d so recently received from a friend’s wife would pay off so quickly. Alex was good, too. She’d probably honed her skills working here, being pleasant to the guests in the Tiki Hut at night.

After a minute, though, he wasn’t quite sure what he had gained. They looked good together on the floor, and he knew it. But the music was fast, so conversation was impossible. At the end of the song he managed to lead her into a perfect dip, so at least he was rewarded by the amazement in her eyes as they met his.

In fact, she stayed in his arms for several extra seconds, staring up at him before realizing that the music had ended and the gathering in the Tiki Hut was applauding them.

He grinned slowly as she straightened, then pushed against his chest. “The dance is over,” she said firmly, then walked quickly away.

“You really are a man of many talents.”

Turning, he saw Alex’s assistant, the pretty young blonde. She was leaning against the edge of the rustic wood bar.

“Thanks.”

“Do you cha-cha?” she asked, smiling.

“Yes, I do,” he said.

“Well, will you ask me? Or are you making me ask you?”

“Laurie, I would love to dance with you,” he said gallantly.

As they moved, she asked him frankly, “Why on earth did you two ever split up?”

“Actually, I don’t really know,” he told her.

“I bet I do,” she told him. “You must be pretty high maintenance.”

“High maintenance? I’m great at taking care of myself. I may not be a gourmet, but I can cook. I know every button on a washing machine. I usually even remember to put down the toilet seat.”

She laughed. “Well, there you go.”

“Excuse me? How is that high maintenance?”

“You don’t need anybody,” she said. “So it’s high maintenance for someone to figure out what they can do for you.”

She wasn’t making any sense, but she was sincere, and she made him smile.

Then the music came to an end, and he regretted that he had been so determined on proving his mettle with Alex, because he found himself being asked to dance by almost every woman in the Tiki Hut.

And somewhere, in the middle of a mambo, he realized that Alex had slipped away—and so had John Seymore.

Somehow, just when things had begun looking a little brighter, David had walked back into her life, and now he was ruining everything.

John’s arm sat casually around her shoulders as they strolled toward her cottage. “Hate to admit it,” he said casually, “but you two looked great out there. Did you spend a lot of time out dancing while you were married?”

“No. We didn’t spend much time together doing anything—other than diving for treasure or facing great whites or experiencing some other thrill.”

“Strange,” he said.

“What?”

“The way you sound. You love the sea so much, too.”

“Actually? I’m not into sharks. I was terrified every time I went into the water with them, but with the crew of hard-core fanatics that always seemed to be around, I didn’t want to look like a coward. I love the sea, yes. But I’m into warm-blooded, friendly creatures, myself.”

“You really love your dolphins, huh?”

She shrugged, liking the way his arm felt around her, but feeling a sense of discomfort, as well.

David. Telling her that they were still married. But they weren’t; they hadn’t been for a year. Not in any way that mattered. All he was talking about was legality. His words shouldn’t mean a thing.

Except that…

She was traditional. She’d been raised Catholic.

Damn David. He would know her thought process, that she would feel that she shouldn’t be with another man, that it wouldn’t be right, and…

Just how many women had he been with in the last year? What was wrong with her that she couldn’t see how ridiculous it was for her to be concerned over anything he had to say? Why had seeing him again made her uncertain, when she knew that an easy confidence and charm were just a part of his nature?

“I do love my dolphins,” she said, realizing she had been silent for too long after his question. “They are the most incredible animals. What I like most is that they seem to study us just as we study them, and just as we learn their behavior, they learn what our behavior is going to be. Sometimes their affinity for man, especially in the wild, can be dangerous for them, but still, the communication we can share is just amazing.”

“They are incredible,” he agreed. “I’ve seen them used in the navy in the most remarkable ways. Never worked with them myself,” he added quickly. “But I’ve seen what they can do.”

They had reached her porch. Strange, her thoughts had been filled with David’s behavior—she wished she could begin to understand the male of her own species half as well as she understood her dolphins—and then with John’s company, which, she had to admit, she had found all the more intoxicating just because she knew that it disturbed David.

Now, despite the light burning on her back porch, it seemed that the shadows of night were all around her, and she remembered the body on the beach. It wasn’t that she had ever forgotten, but despite her determination, the doubts of others had crept into her mind.

Was she insane, thinking the woman had been dead?

Or was she more insane now, trying to do what Jay had demanded, keep silent about the possibility of a body on the beach?

John had escorted her up the two wooden steps to her little back porch, with its charming, gingerbread railing. They were standing by her back door.

He was probably waiting to be invited in.

And just this morning, she had thought that if this moment came, she would invite him in.

She mentally damned her ex-husband again. Her almost-ex-husband.

She smiled up at John Seymore. His dimple was showing as he offered her a rueful smile.

“You’re really something,” he said.

“So are you,” she murmured. Blond hair, handsome face, shoulders to die for, arms that were wonderfully secure…

She slipped into them. He lowered his mouth to hers, and she allowed herself the kiss, but she couldn’t stop herself from analyzing it. Firm mouth, coercive, not demanding, fingers gently suggestive in her hair, tongue teasing at her lips, slipping into her mouth, warm, very warm, definitely seductive…

On a physical level, he was incredible.

So if she could just forget about David…

She couldn’t. Not when he was here, on the island, so irritatingly in-her-face.

She stepped back, stroking John’s cheek.

“You’re around for a little while longer, right?” she inquired softly, hoping he understood her signals. I’m interested, but it’s been a very long and strange day…

“I can arrange to be around for a very, very long time,” he told her. Then he grinned. “I’d like to come in. But I understand perfectly. Okay, well, not perfectly, and I am disappointed, wishing I could be sleeping with you tonight.”

She felt a flush touch her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to…lead you on, to suggest…”

“You didn’t. You’re just the most fascinating woman I’ve met in aeons, and…hell, good night. I’ll be around.”

“I—well, I know you’ve been talking to David. We are divorced. There’s just some ridiculous technicality.”

“I’m not worried about a technicality,” he told her.

“Neither am I.”

“But I will step back if the technicality isn’t just on paper, if it’s something a lot deeper.”

His words made her like him all the more. He wasn’t about to step into the middle of a triangle, or be secondstring to any other man.

“It’s only a technicality—really.” She meant to sound sincere. She wasn’t sure if she really was or not. And she wasn’t sure what he heard in her denial.

“Well…” he murmured.

He drew her to him, kissed her forehead. Then he walked down the steps, and started back along the foliage-bordered path.

She watched him disappear, realized she hadn’t opened her door, and felt the pressure of the night and the shadows again. She quickly slid her key into the bolt for the glass doors, then stepped inside, feeling a rise of anger. She had never felt afraid here before, ever.

And now…

Though the image had faded for a moment due to skepticism and doubt, she could now vividly recall the corpse on the beach. A corpse that had disappeared.

She locked the door, making certain it was secure; then, still feeling an almost panicky unease, she walked through the little Florida room, kitchen and living room, assuring herself that windows were tightly closed and the front door was locked.

Damn David a million times over for both the trials haunting her tonight. If it hadn’t been for him, John Seymore would be inside with her. Then she wouldn’t be afraid of the shadows, or the memories stirring in her mind.

She slipped through the hallway to the first of the two bedrooms in the cottage, the one she used for an office area. She checked the window there and even opened the closet door.

David’s suggestion that she might be in danger seemed to be invading her every nerve. But the office was empty and secure.

Finally she went to her own room, found it safe, then prepared for bed and slipped under the covers. The night-light she kept on in the bathroom had always provided her with more than enough illumination, but tonight it only added to the shadows.

Usually the sound of the waves and the sea breeze rustling through the trees was soothing, but tonight…

She lay there for several seconds. Waves…breeze…palms. Foliage that seemed to whisper softly in the night, usually so pleasant…

A sudden thumping sound startled her so badly that she nearly screamed aloud. She did jump out of bed.

She’d heard a thump, as if something heavy had just landed on her roof.

She stood dead still, waiting. And waiting…

Nothing, no sound at all. Had she been deceived? The sound might have come from elsewhere…

Or might not have come at all.

She almost let out a loud sigh of pure frustration, but swallowed it back, and slowly, silently, tiptoed from her bedroom.

Into the hall…through to the kitchen. From there she could see both the living room and the little Florida room and the glass doors that led out back. The curtain was partially open. Had she left it that way?

The noise had come from the roof. There was a fireplace in the living area of each of the cottages. Despite the fact that this was sunny Florida, in the winter, during the few days that dipped into the forties or even the thirties, a fire was incredibly nice. But the chimney was far too small for a man to slip through.

So she was safe. There was nothing.

She was letting the simple sounds of nature slip into her psyche and scare her because she was still so unnerved by the happenings of the day.

A coconut had probably fallen off a palm. Still, just to be sure…

She walked to the back, trying to stay behind the curtain, then peeked out the glass. She pulled the drape back just a little more…

And screamed.