But she wouldn’t find out by running away from him.
“More wine?” he asked. The balcony overlooked a stretch of Waikiki. Whitecaps rolled over the sand and receded again in a quiet crescendo that matched the cadence of his voice.
She placed a hand over her glass. “I don’t know if you’re counting, but I’ve imbibed more than my share tonight.”
“Two beers and a glass of wine with dinner doesn’t exactly make you a lush.”
“And half of your first beer…” Perhaps she wouldn’t mention those three shots up in her room. “I’m feeling just a bit light-headed,” she admitted.
“Okay, I’m cutting you off,” he teased, setting the bottle aside. “A walk along the beach might be just the ticket.”
While he took care of the bill, the fog lifted enough for her to realize that would be a mistake. “I think I’ll pass on the romantic moonlit walk.” Dinner seemed to be enough of a risk. She played with the stem of her glass. “I realize you may have expectations—”
“Maybe I’m just enjoying the company and don’t want the night to end,” he suggested, rising to his feet.
She looked up at him. “It has to end sometime, right?”
“Ever consider that those expectations you keep seeing in my eyes are a reflection of your own?”
She wished he wasn’t so good at word play. She had very little experience flirting. And didn’t know how to read his mind.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean, my help doesn’t come with a price tag. I have my own reasons. So let’s just say Uncle Sammy’s picking up the tab on this one—he owes you that much at least.” He held out his hand.
They hadn’t talked about her father, which only seemed to reinforce to her that he knew something he wasn’t telling her. But she’d decided she had no choice but to trust him, at least until he proved untrustworthy.
She put her hand in his and stumbled to her feet.
“Thought I just said I didn’t expect you to fall all over me in gratitude.”
“I’m pretty sure that was more wine than gratitude.”
“Lean on me,” he urged, wrapping her arm around his waist and his around her shoulder.
“I certainly hope I’m not embarrassing myself.” It was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other.
“We’re just another couple strolling through the village,” he reassured her.
With that she relaxed against him, allowing him to take the lead. She’d try not to think about how right it felt to lean on him. Or even that his shoulder made a comfortable place to lay her head.
Somehow, between her eyes drifting closed, then open again, they made it to a bank of elevators. He pushed the button and pulled her in with him when the door opened, then over to a corner where he propped them both up.
An older woman getting on behind them jabbed her husband in the ribs. “What did I tell you? They’re a honeymoon couple.”
“All the more reason for you not to bother them,” he said.
Tam recognized them from their matching leisure wear as the couple from that afternoon.
“How come you never put your arms around me anymore?”
“My arms don’t fit around you anymore.” He pretended to try and the woman swatted him for his efforts.
“This clown is what I’ve had to put up with for fifty-seven years,” she said, drawing them into the conversation. “How long have you two known each other?”
The lieutenant checked his watch. “Sixty-six hours, twenty minutes and twelve seconds.”
Startled by that revelation, Tam looked up at him. He’d made that up, right? He looked down at her and winked.
The old lady stared at them both. “Oh, my!” Her mouth softened to a smile. “Am I blushing? I didn’t think young people waited for their wedding night anymore. Of course I saved myself for marriage—”
“Gertie, nobody wants to hear that—”
Gertie ignored her husband. “We met when Bert was in the service, a Marine, stationed in the South Pacific. I was a Navy nurse, myself. Where did you two meet?”
“Midway,” they said in unison.
“But—” Tam tried to explain. “We’re not—”
“That’s going to be one to tell the grandkids.”
“No kids,” Tam managed to say as the elevator doors opened on her floor.
“Of course not, dear, give it a few months. Bert, hold the elevator door while I snap a picture of these two lovebirds with the new digital camera.”
Before Tam could utter a protest the deed was done.
“See how you can preview the picture?” Gertie showed off her new toy. “Give me your e-mail address and I’ll send it to you as a download.”
“I don’t have e-mail,” Tam said.
Bowie offered his address. “We’d love a copy, thank you.”
Tam started down the hallway before Bowie even exited the elevator. “I hope she bothers you every day asking about our kids and grandkids. The woman thinks we’ve known each other in the biblical sense for sixty-six odd hours, which she thinks is the amount of time that’s passed since our wedding. How did you come up with that number, anyway?”
“That’s when we met.”
She stopped in the middle of the hallway to stare up at him. “Oh.” That sixty-six hours seemed like a lifetime ago.
He turned her around to face the opposite direction. “Your room is that way.”
“Anyone can make that mistake in a hotel.”
“A lot of mistakes are made in hotel rooms. Do I need to carry you over the threshold?”
“No!”
“Then keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
She did until he turned her once again, this time to face a door. “Is this it?”
“This is it.”
After some difficulty, she managed to insert the key card and get the green light. She opened the door a crack. “Are you coming in?” she asked, turning around to face him.
“Are you asking?”
“Your things are still here. Besides, I owe you a kiss, not as payment, but because it’s tradition,” she said in a voice so husky it didn’t even sound like hers.
“Well, if it’s tradition.”
She leaned back against the door and unceremoniously fell on her butt.
“On your feet.” He bent over to pick her up.
She became rag-doll limp. “I think I’m drunk.” She hiccupped, then giggled.
“I know you’re drunk.” He got her up only to have her go down again.
“I’ve never been drunk in my life.” She sat there stunned by the possibility.
“There’s a first time for everything.” He switched on the light and the door swung shut behind him. He half dragged, half carried her to the bed. “This would go a lot easier if you helped some.”
“You’re a big strong man, you should be able to wrestle me to the bed.”
“Not when you alternate between dead weight and hanging all over me.” He dropped her to the mattress.
She sprang back up and wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to pull him down with her. His lei fell forward, and she had to spit a gardenia petal out of her mouth. “I always knew we’d wind up in bed together.”
“Not tonight,” he said, unlocking her arms.
“You sound so serious.” She’d meant to sound light and flirty like earlier—but they were way beyond that now.
It had been a day of emotional ups and downs for her as well. Sixty-six hours of ups and downs. She needed a physical release. Before she bottled her emotions back up again. Funny how being tipsy gave her that clarity.
“Can you get undressed yourself? Or do you need me to help?”
“This afternoon you wanted me to undress you.” She reached for his belt buckle.
He tethered her wrists. “Slow down, Tam. Let’s start with your shoes and be glad you’re not going to remember any of this in the morning.” He knelt beside the bed, remov
ing first one shoe, then the other.
She fell back against the mattress and worked the buttons at her collar while staring up at the ceiling. She wanted him to hold her. To take her to a place where her father hadn’t abandoned her, where she didn’t have to be afraid of men in uniform…
He rubbed her instep with expert hands.
Her eyes drifted closed and she moaned. “You learned reflexology in Asia.”
“From a book.”
“You do know it’s possible for me to orgasm—” she sucked in her breath “—while you’re doing that.”
His hands stilled. “Maybe we won’t go there, just yet.”
“I’d like to go there with you.” The bed started spinning. “Oh, no, this isn’t good,” she groaned. Opening her eyes, she forced herself upright. “The bed— The room— They won’t stop moving.”
“Look at me,” he said. “Tam, honey, did you take something for your allergies?”
“What allergies?”
“Just making sure.”
“Rub my feet?” She wiggled her toes in his direction.
He sat back in his crouched position. “Ask me again when you’re sober. And I’ll rub all night long, I promise.”
“Please,” she begged.
When he responded by shaking his head, she slid off the bed onto the floor beside him. Reaching across the space, she slipped her hand between two buttons on his uniform shirt until her fingers touched his T-shirt right at the breastbone. He stilled her hand by covering it with his.
“Your heart’s beating so fast.” She brought their other hands to her breast. “Feel mine?”
“I feel it,” he admitted in a husky tone filled with hunger.
She could convince herself that was enough. And if she let him ease his body, he wouldn’t leave. Not tonight, anyway.
“Our heartbeats are one. That’s the nature of at traction.”
“I never said I didn’t want you. The timing’s off is all.” He pulled his hand back and began to push to his feet.
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“I know.”
She held out her arms. “Lai day, lam on.”
COME TO ME, PLEASE.
Only a fool would resist the invitation. Now he was a cramped fool, sitting on the floor, cradling a passed-out woman in his arms.
A beautifully exotic, highly erotic woman.
Bowie waited until Tam’s breathing became even before he stood and laid her on the bed. He stared down at her, and decided to finish what they’d started, at least as far as undressing her and putting her to bed.
He worked the row of buttons from the bottom to the top until the jacket fell open. A gentleman would have averted his eyes, but he’d already done his duty for the night. He could at least appreciate the silky bra that pushed her small breasts together. He was a breast man, but size didn’t matter. He liked her com pact frame.
He liked more than that. Tonight she’d touched him on many levels, not the least of which was his heart.
“Don’t even go there,” he warned himself. He would have been better off taking what she offered and leaving it at that. Never mind the favor he still owed her. And the fact that she’d been too wasted to honestly offer him anything.
He searched for and found the back zipper of her tailored pants, then tugged the pants off to find thong panties in the same silky material as the bra. That and the thigh-high stockings made him click his tongue at all she had hidden away from the world.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he lifted her up to peel off the jacket. She cuddled his chest in her sleep and he smiled, breathing in her soft scent. Brushing the left sleeve from her shoulder, he stopped and pushed aside the bra strap.
She had a small butterfly tattoo.
Snatches of their predinner conversation played in his head. “Flower auction…precious flower…opium and ba moui lam…butterfly…it’s a sad story, really.”
Then the other night at the Paper Tiger. Flashes of mirrors and light. Strippers on stage.
Ginger had that very same tattoo.
If Tam thought his heart had been beating fast earlier, she needed to feel it now. He held her close, pressed his lips to the butterfly on her shoulder and felt a gut-wrenching pain. “Ah, Tam. You didn’t tell me everything.”
TAM AWOKE TO A QUIET CLICK and opened her eyes just in time to see Bowie slip through the door. She lifted her pounding head from the pillow to check the clock. After six. He’d stayed the night?
Panic set in. She sat up in bed.
She noticed the package of Alka-Seltzer on the nightstand. The half-empty glass of water. The postcard beneath it. Underneath his number, he’d written: Take two and call me in the morning. The lei he’d worn hung from the lamp, along with hers. She turned the postcard over. Reading it, she groaned. I got laid in Hawaii.
The mirrored closet door stood ajar. Her favorite suit hung neatly in the closet. She checked under the covers. Bra. Panties. Stockings? Who wore stockings to bed?
Unless he thought that was a turn-on.
Snatches of erotic imagery from last night clouded her brain. He’d undressed her. Held her. Kissed her. Had he kissed her?
She’d clung to him. Touched him. Unbuckled his belt…
Why didn’t she remember any more than that?
She threw back the covers and searched the room. His things were gone. And he must have showered because of the damp towel and wet tub. Not to mention the fresh scent of shampoo.
In desperation she dumped out all the waste baskets, hoping to find a condom, condom package, something! She didn’t. But she had three empty bottles to remind her a lot of mistakes were made in hotels.
0700 Saturday
THE NAVY-MARINE GOLF COURSE
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Bowie’s fist connected with Rob Stevens’s jaw.
Unprepared, Stevens ended up on the ground.
“Get up!”
All night long he’d watched over Tam from a chair in her hotel room. His head throbbed with the thought of first Stevens, then Xang. Finally one thing became clear. The two men were connected.
And both of them had hurt Tam.
Bowie would have rushed Stevens again, but his godfather stepped in between, calming everyone down after Harris threatened to call the SPs.
Stevens got to his feet and wiped blood from his mouth.
“What the hell happened to that cargo?” Bowie demanded.
“It’s all right,” Stevens said. “Let him go.”
Breathing heavily, Bowie shook himself free of the admiral’s restraining hand.
Stevens kept his distance. “You can either tell me what this is about or beat me to a pulp. Because I’m not going to fight you.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me that shipment of opium didn’t make it to the street. Tell me you don’t know anything about girls from the east being sold to the highest bidder.” Bowie dropped his voice an octave. “Tell me you had nothing to do with the Thai government letting Xang go—”
He’d hit his mark on all three counts.
“I could look you in the eye and lie, but I’m not going to.” Stevens turned to the admiral and Harris. “Go ahead and play through.”
Bowie stood in stunned silence, the fight still in him, but curtailed by the man’s admission. Stevens nodded toward a golf cart where he put away his club.
“Do you want to walk it off or ride?”
“Walk,” Bowie said.
“For a guy who doesn’t throw the first punch you have a mean left hook.” He grabbed a towel and used it to wipe his mouth, then tossed it aside.
They followed the path toward the tree line, where they’d be less likely to be overheard. Stevens remained calm, and Bowie wary.
“You have a top-secret clearance so I don’t need to tell you this is strictly confidential,” Stevens began. “Imagine my surprise when a renegade squad of Seabees took down a drug warlord just as my men were moving in on him.�
��
“You didn’t mention that during the debriefing.”
“You didn’t need to know. But a simple straightforward bust isn’t always the best when trying to bring down a whole organization. Yes, we arranged to have Xang let go. But only so he can be completely ruined. Thanks in part to you and your men, Xang now believes he’s above the law in not two, but four countries—he’s also desperate to make up for his losses, which has made him careless. An opportunity will present itself sooner or later. One thing I’ve learned over the years, this job takes patience.”
“You think doing it your way is worth the thirty years he’s been free?”
“It took him ten years after the war just to establish himself. It took us longer than that to even find him. He’s not our only concern over there. We hack off at the bottom and work our way up, otherwise the serpent just grows a new head.”
“Or maybe the serpent has two heads,” Bowie suggested.
“If you want to believe that, then there’s nothing I can do to change your mind. I’m in so deep my own mother doesn’t know me.”
“And the cargo?”
“It takes big bait to catch big fish. Xang has orders to fill and nothing in his warehouses. He’s already started production again, but he might be in the mood to buy, so I have a man working that angle. He must be moving drugs from distribution centers we don’t know about, too, because we’re not responsible for the influx of drugs on the street. As for the girls, that’s the other side of this ugly business. Poverty-stricken addicts can’t pay cash so they pay with their offspring.”
And what did Stevens know about his own offspring?
The man hadn’t told Bowie much he hadn’t already discovered—except to confirm that the CIA agent had his own way of doing things. Bowie had no reason to trust the man and every reason to distrust him.
“So the girls are just more pawns in your game?”
“I was young once, and an idealist. I’m trying to tell you there are always more drugs and more girls and there always will be. Maybe you don’t realize this, but I don’t work for a law enforcement agency. I’m just a pair of eyes in a foreign country. The INS received a tip-off yesterday about a girl. We may be able to save one. We’re looking into a couple of leads. Do you know a Seaman Nathan Jones?”
Midway Between You and Me (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 10
