Beachcomber (45 page)

Amber echoed, “Yeah,
par
-ty.”

Christy braced herself for the resumption of the chant.

“This is Ocracoke,” Angie said dampeningly. “I don’t think they have nightclubs.”

Maxine made a dismissive gesture. “So we’ll hit some bars. This place has bars, doesn’t it? I’ve been dying for a margarita ever since I got here.”

“Yeah, that serial killer had us spooked to the point where we were afraid to go out at night,” Amber chimed in. “Now we can
par
-ty.”

Maxine took it up. “Yeah,
par
-ty.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Luke said, with the air of a man who was most concerned with heading a head-ringing chant off at the pass. “Gary, man, why don’t you take these ladies out on the town?”

“What about you?” Gary almost wailed as he was tugged into an impromptu shuffle with Amber. Christy watched Gary being danced around the room like a woeful rag doll and had to smile.

“You want to go?” Luke asked in her ear.

She shook her head. Call her a pessimist, but she was having trouble believing that the most urgent of
her problems could be solved so easily. Either the authorities had made a mistake and the serial killer wasn’t dead, or the serial killer was dead and it wasn’t going to matter for her, personally, because the guy who was after her was a hit man. In her world, that was how things tended to work out.

“We’re going to take a pass,” Luke said, loud enough so that everyone could hear.

“You want me to stay with you?” Angie asked her in a low tone. “You kind of look like you don’t feel so good.”

Christy shook her head. “It just gives me the shivers to think about that guy, is all,” she said.

“I bet.” Angie looked sympathetic. Then she glanced up at Luke. “You take care of her, hear?”

Angie’s tone was fierce. Her question, Christy realized, was the equivalent of her stamping Luke with her seal of approval. On the whole, Angie, who’d grown up in an entirely female household, didn’t have a lot of faith in men. The question indicated faith that Luke both could and would do as she asked, and was thus a compliment of the highest order. Not that Luke realized he was being complimented, of course; he didn’t know enough about how Angie’s psyche worked to see beyond the tough expression.

She couldn’t see Luke’s expression, but his arm tightened fractionally around her waist. “Don’t worry, I will.”

“Go have fun,” Christy encouraged her.

Only as Angie nodded and headed down the hall to primp for a few minutes did Christy realize that she’d
folded her arms on top of Luke’s as she’d spoken. The knowledge so unsettled her that she missed the opening salvo of Gary’s urgent protest to Luke, delivered in a near whisper as Amber and Maxine hurried after Angie.

“I’m going to go take a shower and change,” Christy said, and freed herself from Luke’s grip. Even though he was still talking with Gary, she could feel his eyes on her as she padded down the hall.

She deliberately took her time in the shower, refusing to allow a single unpleasant thought to enter her head, enjoying the steamy heat of the water hitting her face, breathing deeply of the mango-scented shampoo. When she finally got out, wrapped herself in a towel and padded into her bedroom, it was to find Marvin stretched out on her bed. He blinked sleepily at her as she scratched him behind an ear, and promptly went back to sleep. He might have a problem with men and noise, but it was hard to fault him for that. At different times she’d had problems with both herself.

When Christy padded barefoot back into the living room, she was wearing a pair of white capris she had borrowed from Angie’s closet—her own wardrobe having been sadly depleted by the loss of her suitcase—and a hot pink T. Her lips were slicked with a smidgen of sheer pink gloss. Other than that she wore no makeup, and when she thought about that it was kind of disconcerting. With Michael, she’d always been careful to wear full war paint, tastefully applied but definitely there; he had made no bones about liking her
to look good, and to know that she had made an effort for him. With Luke, making an effort had never even crossed her mind. The nature of their relationship combined with the circumstances had made worrying about what she looked like the least important item on the agenda. It occurred to her that with Luke she was more free to be herself than she had ever been with Michael.

The thought was vaguely unsettling.

He was in the kitchen rummaging around in the refrigerator, and Christy perched on a barstool at the breakfast counter to watch. With the TV off now and no one else in the cottage, the lack of commotion was soothing.

“Hungry?” he asked over his shoulder. He was still wearing his blue trunks, she saw, and he’d pulled on his T-shirt, which was a faded and shapeless gray and which, if her memory served her correctly, had some sort of sports team logo on the front.

“Don’t tell me you cook, too,” she said, idly admiring the taut and muscular rear that did such a superb job of turning that ancient pair of swim trunks into a thing of beauty.

“Sure I cook. Want to watch? There’s some leftover pizza in here. How about I pop it in the microwave?”

Christy laughed, and felt some of the tension that had gripped her ease. For the first time since the TV broadcast she felt almost normal.

“Sounds good.”

“Great.” He pulled a pizza box and a bowl out of the refrigerator, set the bowl on the counter, lifted some
pizza slices out of the box and put them on a plate, then put the plate into the microwave. “There’s salad, too.” He waved a hand at the bowl.

“I can hardly wait.” A thought gripped her, and she frowned. “Um, do you have someone who usually does your cooking for you?”

Mouth curving, he turned, leaned back against the counter and folded his arms.

“FBI agents don’t get paid enough to hire a cook. At least, this one doesn’t.”

Christy gave him a look. He knew perfectly well what she was getting at. “I meant like a girlfriend. Or, um, a wife.”

“Honey, don’t you think it’s a little late in our relationship for you to be asking me if I’m married?” There was a little thread of amusement running through his voice.

“Just answer the question, will you?”

“No. Not married, and never have been. My last serious relationship broke up a little over two years ago, when my girlfriend got a job in Texas and wanted me to go with her.”

The microwave pinged. Luke turned, pulled the plate out, and closed the door. A few minutes later they were sitting at the table chatting companionably over pizza and salad. With the curtain open, the view was breathtaking. It was after seven, and the sunlight had taken on a mellow golden quality that rinsed everything in warm, glowing hues. The ocean rolled in, a deep, marine blue, and the sky was a near cloudless azure. The beach was still crowded, but not quite as
crowded as earlier. Closer at hand, the house’s shadow was just beginning to creep past the patio toward the dunes.

“So what do you think the chances are that this guy they were talking about on TV is the same guy who attacked me?” Christy asked, finally broaching the subject that had been preying on her mind as they carried their dishes to the kitchen.

“I don’t know.” Luke took her plate from her, put it into the dishwasher with his own, and turned to look at her. “The Bureau is certainly involved by now, even if it wasn’t there at the house at the beginning, so I’ll be able to get information as it comes in. By tomorrow we may know more. Right now, it’s safer to assume there’s still somebody out there who wants to kill you.”

Christy made a face, and turned away to walk over to the patio door. “That’s what I thought, too,” she said, staring out. “God, I wish this was over with.”

“Hey.” He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Christy stood unmoving for a moment as her heart speeded up and her breathing quickened. It was such a comfort to lean back against him, such a comfort to have his arms around her, such a comfort to know that whatever happened she was no longer alone. He smelled of soap and, faintly, of suntan lotion, and she found she loved the smell. Held against him like this, she could feel how tall he was, how strong and broad and solid, and she loved the way he felt. Then he bent his head, nuzzling her neck with his mouth, and she loved everything about that, too, from
the firm moist heat of his mouth to the scratchiness of his bristly chin.

Her eyes drooped, her bones melted, and her hands slid along the hard warmth of the arms at her waist. Then she remembered that he was going to be in her life for probably no more than another few days; she remembered the lies he had told, and who and what he really was; and she remembered, most of all, that a broken heart was something she really did not need.

“We had a deal,” she said, tamping firmly down on her own impulse to turn in his arms and lock her hands behind his neck and kiss him. “Remember the ground rules? No sex.”

She pushed at the arms holding her, and, somewhat to her surprise, he let her go. Folding her arms, she turned to watch him as he dropped onto the couch. He slouched back, stretching one arm along the cushioned back, and looked at her out of eyes gone dark in the shadowy room.

“I remember the first time I ever saw you,” he said, and she nodded.

“On the patio. You said you were looking for Marvin.” Her voice was dry.

He shook his head. “Nah. The first time I ever saw you was long before that. I’ve been watching DePalma for a while, remember. It was about two years ago, in the fall. I remember, because when you got out of DePalma’s car and walked into this restaurant with him leaves were blowing from a big oak tree near the sidewalk and one got caught in your hair. It must have gotten tangled in there some way or another, because it
took you a minute to get it out. DePalma tried to help you and you looked up at him and laughed. You know you get dimples when you laugh? That was the first time I saw them, and they blew me away. I thought you were beautiful, and I thought DePalma didn’t deserve to have a girl as beautiful as you laughing up at him like that. When you came out of the restaurant with him, he kissed your hand.”

Christy drew a deep breath. There was a brooding quality to his tone that clutched at her heart.

“I remember that,” she said softly. “I’d just negotiated a big contract for a client, and Michael took me out to lunch to celebrate.”

“I remember how much I didn’t like watching him kiss your hand. Looking back now, I think, on some subconscious level, I might have been wishing you were mine.”

Christy felt her heart skip a beat. There was no mistaking the heat in his eyes.

“There you go, trying to sweet-talk me again.” She was trying to keep her emotions on an even keel, to remember why getting any further involved with him was a really, really bad idea. “Just so you know, it’s not going to work.”

His mouth curved wryly. “I’m opening my heart to you here, and all you can do is be suspicious.” He shook his head. “Honey, did it ever occur to you that maybe we’re falling in love?”

Christy’s eyes widened and her head came up as though at a blow. He was watching her, still sitting in that negligent attitude on the couch, a golden beach
god in swim trunks and a ratty T-shirt, and just looking at him made her stomach clench and her blood heat and her heart turn over. For a moment they simply stared at each other while heat seemed to sizzle in the air between them.

“No. Oh no.” It couldn’t be true. She didn’t want it to be true. The thought that it might be true terrified her.

“Think about it,” he said, very calmly, and then he leaned forward and caught her hand and pulled her down on the couch with him and kissed her.

33

A
T THE TOUCH OF HIS MOUTH
on hers she was lost. He kissed her gently, tenderly, his lips molding themselves to hers with exquisite care. Christy slid her hands over his broad shoulders and around his neck and kissed him back as if she’d die if she didn’t, pushing her tongue inside his mouth, loving the warm, faintly spicy taste of him. Pressing her body against his, she reveled in the feel of him against her, in the unyielding firmness of his chest against her breasts, in the sturdy strength of his neck, in the crispness of the curls at his nape. As her fingers threaded through them he made a slight, harsh sound and pulled her across his lap, twisting a little with her so that her head was pillowed on his hard arm. Then his lips turned hard as they slanted across hers, taking control of the kiss, making her quiver and burn. His hand found her breast… .

Just as waves of heat threatened to swamp her, Christy thought of something, and pulled her mouth from his.

“Wait, Luke, no,” she said, breathless, pushing at his
shoulders. He lifted his head to look down at her. His eyes were ablaze.

“Christy …” His jaw was clenched, she saw, and his voice was hoarse.

“The cameras.” It was capitulation, and they both knew it. There was nothing else she could do. She was so hot for him she was melting inside. She saw his eyes go all dark and dangerous, and she sucked in her breath.

“Damn the cameras,” he said through his teeth, but he scooped her up and got to his feet with her in his arms and started walking with her toward the bedroom. Christy clung to him, pressing short, sweet kisses in a line along his jaw, her lips brushing against the firm, warm skin with its faint bristles, her teeth finding his earlobe and nibbling at it playfully.