“So you’re on the lake, too?” she said in an effort to ease the strain.
“Not like at Luke’s, if that’s what you mean. My great-granddad who built The Haven preferred to be closer to the road, saving the bottomland for sugarcane.”
“Someone, April, I think it was, told me you worked in the cane fields as a teenager.”
“I expect that’s not all she told you.”
“No,” she admitted with a quick glance. “There was something about a nickname.”
He made a sound of disgust and shoved his hands into his back pockets.
Studying his closed expression as they moved down the steps, she said, “I take it you’re none too happy about it?”
“If April would stop telling people about how she gave it to me, it might die a natural death.”
“I think it’s interesting, even cool,” Regina said.
“Cool,” he repeated in pained tones.
“Very descriptive,” she added, controlling a smile.
“How would you know?” As they reached a gravel pathway meandering past a series of outbuildings and toward the distant glimmer of water through the trees, he gestured to indicate they should turn that way.
“Just guessing.” Her glimpse of his set face was fleeting as she passed him, then went on ahead.
“You couldn’t,” he said with deliberation, “be more wrong.”
Her stomach muscles clenched in a spasm. She sought a response and found none. They walked several more yards, passing beyond outbuildings that he described as an old smokehouse, a tractor shed and a barn. As they reached a wooded area and moved on through the cooler, lengthening shadows under the trees, she said finally, “Is there a point to this?”
“Actually, there is,” he said.
“And that would be?”
“Exercise, relaxation, companionship? Take your pick.”
She didn’t believe it, not for a second. Something in his voice snagged her attention, a shading very like regret. Uneasiness shifted inside her, and she opened her mouth to demand an explanation.
It was then that she heard a vehicle start up back at the house. She halted. “Isn’t that Luke’s Jeep?”
“Don’t panic,” he said, his gaze steady as he came even with her. “I told him I’d run you back to the motel.”
“Did you now? That was nice of you, nice and high-handed.”
“Wasn’t it?” he agreed, not at all perturbed.
“You might have asked.”
His gaze held humor as well as purpose before he moved on beneath the trees. Over his shoulder, he said, “And risk your refusing? Not a chance.”
“Of all the—” In her irritation, she couldn’t think of a phrase strong enough to satisfy her without being profane.
“Of all the chauvinistic, ill-mannered, downright redneck dumb tricks?” he supplied.
“Something like that.”
“That’s all right. Don’t spare my feelings.”
She stared after him. Her first impulse was to refuse to go another step, but what would she gain by it?
“I don’t intend to spare anything,” she declared as she closed the distance with fast, hard steps. “What is it with you? The women you know may be impressed by a take-charge attitude, but I don’t care for it. I’d just as soon go back to the motel, if you don’t mind.”
“But I do mind.”
He stopped as they came to the shore that was much the same as the water’s edge where she had watched the flight of the blue heron the first time he’d brought her to the lake. The main difference was the sturdy, covered boat dock built out over the water like a house on pilings and the fishing boats with motors, two of heavy fiberglass, two of lighter aluminum, which lay tied up in its slips. His eyes were a deep, vibrant blue in the summer sunlight as he turned to face her.
Annoyance combined with a half-formed fear that her attempt to reestablish a relationship between them might have worked too well roused her combative spirit. “I said I’m ready to go. If you won’t take me, I’ll find my own way.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Watch.” She spun on her heel, heading back toward the house.
He moved so silently she didn’t hear him, so fast her brain had no time to issue a warning. One moment, she was walking off; the next, she was caught and lifted against his chest in hard, enclosing arms. He swung her in a dizzying circle and stalked back toward the boat dock.
Disbelief held her rigid for long seconds. Then she strained against his hold, trying to shove away from him. He didn’t even slacken his pace. The warped boards of the dock rattled under his fast, hard strides. Face grim, mouth set, he marched to the slips where the boats floated above their wavering reflections and stopped at the very edge.
Regina went still, casting a quick look below her as she felt herself suspended above nothing but water. His hold loosened slightly, becoming less constricting. In quick reflex, she clutched his shirt collar.
“I’m not going to throw you in, no matter how tempting the idea may be, but we are going in the boat,” he said in grim warning. “Be careful how you fight if you don’t want to get wet.”
“What are you doing?” The question was embarrassingly husky. A strong shudder shook her, chased by one stronger still. She kept her gaze on the water, afraid to look at him.
He was silent an instant. Then he said in curt reply, “You’ll see.”
Swinging toward the nearest boat slip, he shifted his hold and released her knees to lower her feet to the dock. With one strong arm, he clamped her to his side, then stepped down into the larger fiberglass fishing boat and swung her into one of its center seats. The low craft rocked with the sudden motion, and she grabbed for the side. In that precarious moment, he cast off and shoved out of the slip, away from the dock. Reaching the driver’s seat beside her in a couple of long strides, he cranked the motor. It caught with a dull, spluttering rumble. Then they were off, skimming over the water, threading through the encroaching cypress trees into the main channel of the lake.
Regina briefly considered screaming, but that would be a waste of breath since there was no one near enough to hear. She could jump overboard and swim for shore, though the distance was widening every second and she wasn’t the strongest of swimmers. More than that, the water was dangerously full of stumps and cypress knees, plus there was no guarantee that Kane wouldn’t overtake her and haul her back. A mad urge to leap up and try to shove him overboard tugged at her, but she suspected strongly that she’d also wind up in the lake. She sat still, then, and tried to tell herself that he had threatened no bodily harm beyond a dunking. For all she knew, he might be taking her for a quick ride to prove some macho point.
Of one thing, however, she was absolutely sure. Kane Benedict was not nearly so upstanding and gentlemanly as his grandfather after all.
“Where are you taking me?” She pressed her palms flat against the cushioned boat seat on either side of her to keep her hands from shaking.
“You’ll see.” His attention was on a channel ahead that gave access to the open water. He sent the boat gliding through it.
“Don’t you think I have a right to know?”
He met her gaze, his own opaque. “And spoil the surprise?”
The dispassionate sound of his voice should have been a relief, but wasn’t. Instead, its deep timbre sent dread rushing along her nerves. “I don’t like surprises,” she said in tight control.
“Don’t you?” His gaze narrowed before he looked away. “I thought you did.”
What did he mean? And was there really a surprise to be seen, or did he intend something else altogether? She hovered on the edge of her seat as she tried to decide. It didn’t seem possible he meant her harm, but there was the incident with the coffin to consider. Besides, she had been wrong before, years ago.
She had not fought against being taken where she didn’t want to go that other time because she didn’t want to appear naive and foolish. Now she didn’t
want to look like an alarmist. Funny, how little she had changed.
The lake was smooth except for an occasional glittering wind shiver or the arrow-shaped ripple of a swimming waterbird. Its dark color, caused by the endless drip of tannin-loaded tree sap and a mud bottom, made a perfect mirror for the evening sky so that swathes of indigo, violet and crimson lay across its surface like painted streaks of watercolor. The stately cypress trees around the edges lifted their flat branches toward the clouds in open, pleading gestures. Regina stared around her, taking deep breaths, trying to stay calm. It didn’t help.
They were totally alone on the lake. She spotted three or four fishermen in boats along the shoreline, easing slowly along under the power of trolling motors as they cast for bass. A speedboat with a rooster tail of spume zipped toward them, then past them in the wide channel, and another bass boat crossed their bow and buzzed away for parts unknown.
She lifted her hand in a halfhearted signal to the man in the bass boat, but he only gave a brief wave and looked away, as if embarrassed to be caught staring at another man’s woman. It would have been infuriating if it wasn’t so discouraging.
Kane wove the boat deeper into the lake, taking one branching channel after the other. At first, Regina tried to remember the different turns, but soon lost track since they all looked the same. The boat ride became an endless blur of trees and water, of marsh grass and floating duckweed and mats of water hyacinths tucked into swampy inlets that smelled of mud and fish. Then the trees grew thicker again. Kane never hesitated, only twisted this way and that among them as if following a well-worn path. Several times, they passed small structures on stilts, too small for human habitation, too large for use by birds or animals. She thought they must be duck blinds since she’d heard a snatch of conversation at the open house about duck hunting.
Minutes after they had seen the first blind, Kane headed toward one that was somewhat larger than the others. He pulled the boat in under its tall, stiltlike pilings and cut the engine. In a quick, expert movement, he tied up beneath a ladder leading to what appeared to be a trapdoor above their heads. He stood and pushed the door open on its hinges, then laid it back on the floor inside.
“This is it,” he said, moving aside out of the way. “Climb up while I hold the boat steady.”
Her first instinct was to refuse, but that had gotten her exactly nowhere earlier. She tightened her lips, then stood gingerly and mounted the first rung. As she moved upward, Kane swung onto the ladder close behind her, too close. She climbed more quickly. When she gained the upper floor and got to her feet, he pulled himself inside with a lithe movement. Swinging around, he dropped the trapdoor shut with a solid thud. Then he straightened and turned to face her, his features masklike in the shadowed interior of the blind.
They were shut up together.
For a suffocating instant, Regina felt her old terror return. She was alone in this boxlike contraption with a man who had the promise of danger in his voice and empty eyes. The dim reaches of this swamp area on the edge of the lake spread around them, a buffer zone of watery silence. The day was waning and evening closing in. She was caught, isolated, weaponless against a menace she had brought on herself.
A cry of panic crowded her throat, but she swallowed it down. Desperately, she concentrated on the feel of the rough texture of the walls behind her and smell of damp cypress wood, the shifting air currents that touched her face, the lap of the water against the pilings and the boat under the blind. She dragged air into her lungs and let it out in slow control.
Focusing more carefully, she noticed the space was not as small as it first appeared, but was at least eight feet square and seven in height. A metal chest sat in one corner, along with a contraption that looked as if it might be a gas heater. Three of the side walls appeared to be hinged to allow them to swing down, probably for hunters to take aim on incoming ducks from various directions. Best of all, the roof was open to the sky halfway across its width, though the other half had a flat roof to provide rain protection.
She met Kane’s gaze while searching the last depths of her soul for bravado to use in place of her vanished courage. With the huskiness of cramped vocal cords, she said, “This is the surprise?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“I’ve seen it. We can go.” She took a step toward the entrance behind him.
He blocked her way, his shoulders looming twice as wide as normal, his feet planted directly above the only exit. “Not yet.”
She stopped, unwilling to come too close to him, to touch him. The implacable hardness of his voice made her heart kick into a faster rhythm. She moistened her lips. “There’s more?”
“You could say that.” He put his hands on his hips, his stance rock solid.
“Well?”
“Now we talk.”
“I may be wrong, but I thought we’d been talking.”
“This time,” he said deliberately, “I choose the subject.”
She stepped back to the opposite wall where she put her shoulders to it and crossed her arms over her chest. Praying her voice wouldn’t quiver, she said, “This should be interesting.”
“So it should. Let’s start with what you were discussing with Slater in front of the motel three days ago.”
It took her a split second too long to form an answer, but she tried anyway. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do. You were seen in broad daylight.”
“Whoever said so was mistaken.” The last rays of sunset through the cypress trees still had heat, she thought. She could feel droplets of perspiration dampening her hairline.
“Not likely.”
Betsy. It had to be. Regina felt her spirits sink. She should have realized someone that interested in people would be watching, might have remembered if she’d been less upset. In rapid recovery, she said, “If you must know, I got a little tired of being spied upon and decided to find out why.”
“And did you?”
The skeptical look in his eyes was intensely annoying, but she could hardly explain that Slater considered her his competition. “I think I convinced him that watching me wasn’t worth his time.”
“You’re lying,” he said evenly.
“No, I—”
“I think you are.” He took a slow step toward her, and then another. “I think you have been all along. But I know how to get at the truth, right here and now, once and for all.”
He was closing in too much, getting too near. She started to sidestep, but he shot out his hand to catch her arm, holding her against the wall while he moved in until his chest brushed the tips of her breasts and his thighs cradled hers. She turned her head, straining away from him, but he pressed his palms to the wall on either side of her head and leaned so near that his cheek brushed hers and his warm breath fluttered across her lips.
“Don’t!”
“Don’t what?” he whispered, his warm breath feathering along her neck. “Don’t touch you? Don’t hold you? Or just don’t expect to get what I want from you?”
His nearness was compelling yet frightening, both a powerful attraction and a profound disturbance. She wanted to be unmoved, but it didn’t work. At the same time, she was struck by the terrible irony of her position. She had meant to use sex to discover what she needed to know from Kane. Now it seemed he intended to use the same weapon against her. The worst of it was that he was far more expert at it than she’d ever dreamed of being.
There was a difference, however, or so she thought. It was not her susceptibility to his lovemaking that he expected to use as a lever, but rather her fear of it, her horror at intimacy in a confined space, which he had discovered in the antique coffin. That put an entirely different twist on it.
He eased closer still, brushing his warm lips along her cheek, inhaling as if he would take the essence of her into his body. The heat and power of him engulfed her, swamping her senses, sending her reactions and instincts tumbling in confusion. Then she felt the b
rief press of firm male heat against her abdomen.
She jerked her arms up, slamming her elbows into his ribs. As he gave way a fraction, she shoved hard and launched herself away from the wall. He stumbled back a step, unprepared. She lunged for the trapdoor. He caught her from behind as she bent to grab the handle. She staggered, tripped, went down. A sharp cry left her as she landed on one knee.
Then he was on her, his weight flattening her, knocking the air from her lungs. Before she could draw breath, she was rolled to her back. He flung himself across her upper body and pinned her legs with one knee. Snatching her wrists, one in each hand, he held them on either side of her face.
She lay still, eyes closed tight as she concentrated on breathing. She could feel her heart trying to burst out of her chest, feel his thudding against her also in a fast, pounding echo. Tremors ran along her nerves; she jerked again and again beneath his weight. In her mind was nothing except a red-black haze of dread.
Then Kane lowered his head until his lips were warm against hers, until he drank her harsh gasps. “Now,” he said in relentless calm, “where were we?”
11
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers with each syllable like tiny electrical charges.
“Decency?” It was a desperate chance. She could have sworn he had that in him.
He hesitated, for she felt it. Then he shook his head. “There are things I want to know, and I can think of no other way to get the truth from you. Try again.”
“You don’t know…what you’re doing to me.”
His laugh had a winded sound. “If it’s anything like what you’re doing to me, then I expect it to be highly effective.”
Her stomach muscles clenched as the deep resonance of his voice vibrated in places already sensitized by the heated heaviness of him against her. The words strangled, she cried, “I don’t know anything!”
“Somehow I have trouble believing that.”
Kane Page 15
