by Lisa Jackson
For the next three nights, she pored over the documents, making notes to herself, reading all the information until the figures swam before her eyes, but she found nothing, not one shred of evidence concerning the missing funds. True, she wasn’t trained in accounting, and a dozen lawyers and accountants and auditors had gone over the books when the discrepancy was discovered, but she’d hoped… fantasized…that she would be able to unearth the crucial evidence that would prove Adam’s innocence, absolve him of the crime, and give him back his sterling reputation.
“You are a fool,” she told herself on Saturday morning as she dressed. Adam was due back in town later in the afternoon, and she planned on using the morning to visit the Marnie Lee. There was still the matter of Kent’s belongings on the boat, a point he’d made several times since she’d started work at the hotel, and she wanted all trace of him out of her private life. Of course, she’d have to find a way to buy out his half of the vessel, but that would have to wait until she had a little more cash or could talk to her banker. A loan would probably be impossible, though. She’d just started her own business, didn’t own her own home and her car was worth only a few thousand dollars. Her savings had to be used to keep her afloat until the receipts for the business exceeded the expenses.
The only person who would loan her enough money to buy out Kent was Victor, and she’d sell the boat rather than crawl back to her father and beg for money just when she was trying to prove she could make it on her own. It looked as if the Marnie Lee would soon be on the auction block. Kent had already indicated that he couldn’t afford to buy Marnie out—so there was no other option.
She drove to the marina and walked along the waterfront. The sun was bright, the air brisk and clear, the sky a vivid blue. Only a few wispy clouds dared to float across the heavens.
Marnie zipped up her jacket and watched as sails and flags snapped in the brisk breeze. She was almost to the Marnie Lee’s berth when she heard her name. “Miss Montgomery!”
Turning, she spied Ed, the caretaker for the marina, scurrying toward her. He was small and wiry, not any taller than she. “Miss Montgomery. I need to talk to you!” he said, a trifle breathless.
“Hi, Ed.”
“Hey, you told me to tell you if anyone asked about your boat, you want to know about it.”
Marnie grinned. So someone wanted the Marnie Lee! Just when she needed the cash! “Did he leave his name and number?”
“Nope. But I know the guy,” Ed said uncomfortably. “Name’s Kent Simms.”
“Oh.” All her hopes were crumpled, and anger coursed through her blood. “And what did he want?”
“On board. But I said, ‘No dice. Not unless you’re with Miss Montgomery.’ He left, but he was none-too-pleased about the situation.”
“I’ll bet not. When was he here?”
“Just yesterday around noon, and once before.” Ed explained that Kent had been trying to get aboard the Marnie Lee for nearly three weeks, off and on. Marnie was annoyed before she realized that maybe he wanted more than the few belongings stashed aboard the yacht. Maybe he wanted more. Perhaps he thought he owed her one by stealing the boat, just to get back at her for taking the Marnie Lee the night of the party.
She didn’t really blame him because she knew that Kent, right or wrong, considered the boat his. He’d had a strange attachment to the Marnie Lee from the first time he’d seen the boat, as Victor had proudly presented his gift to the two of them for “sailing along life’s choppy waters and calm seas.” Victor had walked them grandly through the cabins and decks, showing off a boat that was equal to his pride and joy, the Vanessa. Nonetheless, half the boat was hers, and the sooner Kent accepted that fact, the better for them both.
What if Kent balked when she put the sleek yacht up for sale? What if he refused to sign the papers?
After thanking Ed for his eagle eye and fierce loyalty, she walked down the sun-bleached planks of the pier and boarded the gently rocking boat. The Marnie Lee was a source of pride to her, as well. She rubbed a hand over the rail and eyed the teak decking and polished chrome fittings. Yes, it was beautiful and, now, after discovering Adam aboard this very boat, she had a special attachment to the craft as well. Unfortunately she couldn’t afford the upkeep.
Running her hands down the polished rail, she entered the main salon and started rifling through drawers and cupboards, pulling out Kent’s personal chessboard, his brass compass, his deck of cards, a few sailing magazines and a couple of paperback murder mysteries. She checked the galley and packed up his gourmet coffee, popcorn and exotic teas. She didn’t want him to have any reason to return. She boxed everything she recognized as Kent’s and realized how little, she, herself, had added to the belongings on the boat.
In the main cabin, she tossed Kent’s clothes, shoes, swimsuit, slippers, cuff links, shaving kit and date book into a box. She started packing his laptop computer, but hesitated, then turned on the machine. Waiting until the tiny monitor warmed up, she wondered what she hoped to find. Her stomach knotted. What if this computer was the key, the proof of Kent’s duplicity? As the access screen glowed in front of her, she worked with the various menus, and spent two hours scanning the files. Nothing. Not one shred of incriminating evidence against him. She didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.
She unplugged the laptop and packed it in a box with Kent’s clothes. After double-checking the bureau a second time, she opened the closet and noticed the wall safe. She’d almost forgotten about it. The combination was easy; the numbers were a sequence of dates, the day, month and year of Kent’s birth. Grimly she turned the dial, listening for the tumblers to click.
Nothing. The lock didn’t budge.
She tried again, convinced she’d fouled up the number sequence in her haste.
Again the lock held.
“What the devil? Come on, you!” she muttered to the lock.
With renewed concentration, she redialed the combination three more times, giving up when she realized that Kent had changed the code. Probably after she’d broken up with him.
“Well, that’s great,” she muttered, hands on her hips, perspiration dotting her brow. “Just super!” Now she’d have to get the damned combination from Kent and return to the boat before she could be sure that nothing on board belonged to him. Frustrated, she threw the last of his belongings—a picture of the two of them, their arms wound around each other as if they were really in love—into a box.
It took most of the morning to clean out the boat and, with Ed’s help, carry all Kent’s belongings to her car, but when she was finished and was driving home she felt a sense of accomplishment, as if she’d managed to break the last remaining link of the chain that bound her to Kent. “Except you still have to dispose of the boat,” she reminded herself as she parked in her assigned parking space at her apartment. And there was the small but irritating matter of the wall safe.
As for Kent’s belongings, she’d leave them in her locked car and take them to the office on Monday, where in the basement parking lot of Montgomery Inns, they would separate once and for all.
* * *
THROUGH THE WINDOW, Adam noticed the sprawling suburbs of Seattle as the plane descended at SeaTac airport. He’d had two drinks on the way back from L.A., where his talk with Brodie hadn’t gone any better than the last time. Yes, Brodie and his investment group were interested, but, as before, if Adam couldn’t completely clear his name, the investors just weren’t able to do business with him.
He’d spoken to another man as well, Norman Howick, an oil man, a millionaire with a reputation for taking risks on new ventures. Howick had been interested, but hadn’t been able to commit. He’d been too much of a gentleman to mention Adam’s unsavory past, but the inference had hung in the air between them like a bad smell.
“Back to square one,” he muttered to himself as the 747 touched down with a chirp of tires and a bump. The big plane screamed as it slowed before taxiing toward the terminal.
Closing his eyes, pleasant thoughts of Marnie rippled through his mind. He realized his feelings for her had changed and deepened. He no longer viewed her as Victor’s daughter, and that was probably a mistake, but he couldn’t help himself.
Being with her brought a certain brilliance to his otherwise austere world. She was the light and he was night, she was a smile and he was a frown. Not that she didn’t have her own dark side and her temper—he’d been on the wrong end of that a time or two. He chuckled softly as he remembered her fury—the scarlet tinge on her cheeks, the fiery spark in her blue eyes, the rapier cut of her words and the haughty toss of her flaxen hair when she was truly angry.
“You’ve got it bad, Drake,” he chastised as he walked along the jetway and through the terminal. It took half an hour to locate his baggage and his car, and then he was speeding along the freeway and back to Marnie.
At her apartment, he took the steps two at a time, rang the bell and scooped her into his arms when she opened the door. She let out a startled squeal as he twirled her back across the threshold and into her living room.
“Miss me?” she asked, her blue eyes laughing.
“Just a little.” He kissed her eyes, her throat, her neck… and she giggled like a delighted child. The scent of her was everywhere, and he buried his face in her hair and breathed deeply.
“I missed you, too,” she said, caressing his cheeks before she kissed him on the lips.
He couldn’t stop. So sensual yet innocent, Marnie unwittingly created a fever in him that raged through his blood, licking like fire to heat his loins and drive all thoughts—save the primal need to make love—from his mind. He kicked the door shut with one foot and carried her straight into the bedroom, then fell with her onto the bed.
“But I have dinner ready—”
“It’ll wait.” Her skin was warm to his touch, her smell intoxicating.
“So can we.”
“Speak for yourself,” he said, working on the buttons of her blouse as his lips and tongue touched the soft shell of her ear. She responded by moaning his name.
“Adam, oh, Adam…” Her eyes glazed over, but she smiled and said, “You’re incorrigible, you know.”
“Probably.” Her blouse parted.
“And totally without scruples. Oh!”
“Mmm.” He pressed hot, wet lips against the hollow between her breasts and felt the fluttering beat of her heart. “Not even one lousy scruple?”
“None,” she said, her voice breathy, a thin sheen of perspiration beginning to glow against her skin as he shoved the silky fabric of her blouse over her shoulder.
“Ah, what a lonely, unscrupulous life I lead,” he said, his breath whispering across her bare skin as he unclasped her bra and her breasts spilled forward, dusty pink nipples stiffening in the shadowy light.
He sucked in his breath, willing himself to take it slow, while the fire in his loins demanded release. All he wanted to do was thrust deep into her and get lost in the warmth of her body. She moved against him, rocking slightly, reaching up and linking her fingers behind his head, only to draw him downward so that his open mouth surrounded her waiting nipple.
He took that precious bud in his mouth and suckled, hard and long, drawing on her breast as she writhed against him. His fire had spread to her and she held him tight, breathing in shallow gasps, her skin slick with sweat.
She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and he wasted no time ripping off his clothes and ridding her of her jeans and panties. When at last he was over her, poised for entry, he hesitated only slightly, staring at her fair hair, feathered around her face like an angel’s halo, her innocent blue eyes staring up at him with infinite trust and hunger, her lips parted in desire.
At that precarious moment he hated himself. For what he’d done to her, for what he’d done to himself, for that frightening and overpowering need to claim her in a way as primitive as the very earth itself.
Yet he couldn’t stop himself. In that heartbeat when he should have told her that they would never have a future together, that their lives would soon part forever, he squeezed his eyes shut against her beauty, swore silently at himself, then plunged deep into the moist warmth and comfort that she so willingly offered.
* * *
SOMETHING HAD CHANGED. Marnie felt it. Ever since Adam had returned, he’d seemed different—desperate, but she didn’t understand why. They’d made love, and there’d been a savagery to their lovemaking that bordered on despair. As if Adam felt they would never make love again.
“I cleaned out the boat,” she said, once they were seated at the small table in her kitchen.
He looked at her, his brows raised.
“All Kent’s things. I’m taking them with me to work on Monday.” She took a bite of chicken-and-pasta salad. “He must really want them. He’s been hanging around the docks trying to get on board the Marnie Lee.”
“What was on board?” Adam asked. He’d eaten half his salad and was drinking from a long-necked bottle of beer.
“Nothing special. Just the usual male paraphernalia. You must’ve seen most of it when you were rooting around the boat looking for supplies.” Memories of the storm and rain running down the windowpanes as they’d made love in Deception Lodge floated through her mind. She swished her wine in her glass and studied the clear liquid. “But I don’t think he wanted his things. There wasn’t anything that valuable on board, though I couldn’t get into the safe—he changed the combination.” At that, Adam’s head jerked up. “I don’t think there’s anything really important in there, it’s too risky. Remember I had keys to the boat. Oh, and he left his laptop computer—or one of them. I think he has a couple. But I checked it out. Nothing.”
Adam scowled in frustration, and Marnie rambled on. “I think Kent really wanted back on the boat to steal it from me. You know, tit-for-tat, since I took the boat from him. Fortunately Ed, the caretaker, caught him and threw him out.”
“Why would Kent steal the boat?” Adam asked, his gaze keen as he took a long swallow of his beer.
“To get back at me.” She explained about Kent’s feeling of ownership for the Marnie Lee.
Eyeing her pensively, he finally asked, “What happened between you two?”
Marnie swallowed hard, then set her fork carefully on her plate. This, she felt, was a moment of truth. Could she trust her secret with Adam, the man who had so callously used her once before, a man with whom she knew she was falling in love? She cleared her throat, wondering if she had the courage to tell him the entire embarrassing story and deciding that he deserved the truth. Whether he admitted it or not, they were involved in a relationship. “Kent cheated on me,” she finally admitted, struggling with the damning words. Though Kent meant nothing to her anymore, her pride was still damaged. “Not just once, not just a fling, but he had an affair with his secretary for the entire duration of our engagement.”
“His secretary?”
“Dolores Tate,” she said, then felt foolish, like a common gossip. “It doesn’t matter, and I guess he did me a favor.”
Adam rotated his near empty bottle in his hands. “You loved him?”
Shrugging, she avoided his eyes and stared out the window near the table. Outside, a robin flew into the lacy branches of a willow tree. “I thought I did at the time.” She played with her fork. “But I think I was just caught up in the excitement of it all. Dad was so thrilled and the whole office congratulated us.”
“Except Dolores?”
“She and I were never close.” Clearing her throat, she looked up at him. “What about you? Any near brushes with the altar?”
“Nope.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
It was his turn to glance away. “Any time a woman got too pushy and started talking about settling down, I always found an excuse to end it.”
“Why?”
“I just never saw any reason for it.”
“No family pressure to get married and father gra
ndchildren?”
“No family.”
She bit her lip as she had a sudden insight into the man. She’d never heard him talk about his life, and thought he’d just been a private person, never thinking that his childhood might have been painful.
“Can’t remember my folks. My mother never told anyone who my father was, and she left when I was three. Never heard from her again. I was raised by Aunt Freda—really my mother’s aunt. She died a couple of years back.” He drained his beer, concluding the conversation.
Marnie swallowed hard. For the first time she understood some of the anger and pain she’d felt in Adam. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s all ancient history.”
“Didn’t you ever want to find your parents?” she asked.
“Never!” His face grew hard, and his eyes narrowed in barely repressed fury. “I never want to see the face of a woman who could walk away from her child.”
“Maybe she couldn’t afford—”
“What she couldn’t afford was an illegal abortion.”
She swallowed hard. “You don’t know…” Her voice trailed off.
“I do know. And I guess you couldn’t blame her. She had nothing but a mistake in her gut. But that’s not why I don’t want to find her.”
Tears burned the backs of Marnie’s eyes, and her throat clogged, but Adam, staring intently at his hands, didn’t seem to notice. “When I was three, she left with a sailor. A man she’d known two and a half days. Took off for L.A., and neither Freda nor I ever heard from her again. That’s why she’s as good as dead to me.”
Oh, God. She wanted to reach forward, to place her hand on his, instead she asked softly, “But what about your grandparents?”
“Never met ’em. They were older—my grandfather fifty-five, my grandmother forty at the time my mother was born. According to Freda, they never really understood my mother and disowned her when she turned up pregnant and unmarried at seventeen. Believe it or not, my grandfather was a minister. He couldn’t accept that his daughter ended up a sinner.” His voice was bitter and distant, as if it took all his willpower to speak at all. “And I was a part of that sin. Proof that his daughter had fallen. They never even saw me. Freda was the only decent relative in the whole family tree. And she’s gone now, so, no, I have no family.”
