Eyes of Fire

by Heather Graham

  And it hurt to wonder, not to know, to envision what might have been.

  Well, he was back. And no matter what she wanted this time, she was going to have him on her like a leech.

  No spitting him out.

  Not this time, baby, he thought. This time, she was going to have to pay attention to him.

  Because she had to have the answers he wanted. He knew it.

  And she was going to give them to him.

  He gritted his teeth, locking his jaw. He was determined that he wasn’t going to give a damn how he got his answers.

  Because she was in danger.

  She didn’t know it, and he didn’t even know just how or when it was coming. He just knew it was coming.

  Soon.

  Very soon.

  He came off the mail boat, arriving at four-fifteen on a Tuesday afternoon. Sam would never forget the time, because she had been returning with her small group of intermediate divers, standing at the bow, ready to hop ashore to tie up.

  Instead she plummeted into the water, missing the dock at the sight of him.

  He was back.

  Amazingly, she didn’t recognize him at first.

  She just saw the mail boat pulling into the Seafire Isle dock at the same time as the Sloop Bee. Then she saw the man, standing in the aft section of the boat.

  It wasn’t that she wasn’t fairly secure in herself, nor was it that Seafire Isle didn’t draw its share of men, many of them single, and many of those handsome, adventurous, good-looking—even nice.

  She’d just never seen anyone quite like him arrive at all, ever—or so she thought at first.

  He was dressed casually, a tailored jacket worn loosely over a knit shirt against the wind, soft, worn jeans, sneakers. He carried a duffel bag, no more. It lay at his feet while he stood in the aft of the approaching mail boat, arms crossed over his chest. He had the easy stance of a man accustomed to boats, to the sea; his feet were set apart, and he stood balanced against the waves and rocking of the sea.

  He was a good six-foot-three—Sam could easily judge his height, since she was almost five-ten herself. Half the heartbreak of her school years had been in trying to find a boy who wasn’t eye level with her breasts at the dances.

  He carried himself extremely well. His shoulders were attractively broad; his chest appeared well-muscled, his waist very trim, his legs long and powerful. She found herself imagining what he would look like undressed. Not that undressed, of course, but in swim trunks.

  “Hey, Sam! The line!” Jem called to her.

  “Got it!” she called back, leaping out right before she fell in. Luckily for her, she’d spent the majority of her life on the island, with much of her time on boats and in the water. She could recover quickly—even as she wondered if she had actually been gaping and if the new arrival was laughing behind his Ray-Bans at the way she had so nearly fallen for him.

  Because he was watching her, she thought. She couldn’t see his eyes because of the dark glasses, but the tilt of his head was toward her. He wasn’t exactly smiling, but there did seem to be the slightest curve to his mouth. A generous mouth, very sensual, well-defined and beautifully shaped. His cheekbones were high and broad, somehow both cleanly hewn and rugged in appearance. His jaw was square, firm. His hair was dark, almost ebony, touched at the ends by a natural reddish tinge given by the sea and salt air to hair, no matter how dark it might be, when the body to which it was attached spent too much time in the sun and water. His face was almost bronze from the sun as well.

  Men could, perhaps, be more conventionally handsome, but she’d never seen anyone so completely electrifying and compelling in all her admittedly somewhat sheltered life.

  Never seen…except for once.

  Oh, God! It couldn’t be….

  Beneath the Ray-Bans, his eyes were blue-gray, a color that could be like mist, like metal; it could warm, cut, pierce, demand, burn with silver flames….

  No, it couldn’t be him. But it was.

  Dear God, it was.

  Her entire body seemed to twist into knots, to freeze.

  And it was then, at precisely that moment, that the Sloop Bee banged softly against the dock and she was unbalanced and tossed cleanly into the water.

  “Sam?” Jem Fisher, the tall, ebony-dark Bahamian who had been her best friend the majority of her life as well as her partner in most things, called from the deck of the Sloop Bee.

  Sputtering, furious with herself, Samantha surfaced, caught hold of the end of the wooden dock and pulled herself up.

  The water had been good. It had washed away the shock.

  And the startling pain, she assured herself.

  She didn’t glance toward the mail boat as she slicked back her newly soaked hair, waving a hand toward Jem. “It was just so hot!” she called. “Too much sun. I thought I’d cool down a little.”

  Jem arched dark brows over his deep brown eyes, his handsome black face set in a mask of puzzlement.

  It was obvious that she’d fallen in. She was lying, and he knew it. The rest of the passengers stared at her politely, trying to pretend that the wind on the way in hadn’t been cool enough to combat the heat of the sun.

  It didn’t matter. She lowered her eyes quickly, tying the bow rope to bring the Sloop Bee to rest at the dock, then scampering to tie the stern rope and wait while her guests stepped from the boat with whatever personal equipment they had brought aboard. The mail boat docked behind the Sloop Bee. Zeb Pike, the mailman, offered her a casual wave, tossing the mail packet on the dock. He looked tired and seemed to be in a hurry today. Apparently Zeb wasn’t coming ashore.

  But he was.

  Definitely.

  The back of her spine seemed to stiffen, and she determined to absolutely ignore him. Actually, at the moment, she had little choice. Her dive party was disembarking from the Sloop Bee, her Seafire Isle guests demanding her attention.

  “It was great, it was beautiful!” a very attractive young brunette told her with glowing eyes. The woman was accompanied by a young man with glossy blond hair and equally bright eyes. He smiled and nodded at her words. The Emersons, Joey and Sue, on their honeymoon. They hadn’t looked at a thing beneath the sea except for each other.

  Sam smiled. “I’m so glad you enjoyed the outing.”

  “Oh, we did!” Joey Emerson assured her.

  “We’ll see you for cocktails,” Sue said.

  Sam nodded. I’ll bet, she thought. They were headed off for one of the cottages that flanked the main house of the Seafire Inn. Despite her own suddenly slamming heart and rising temper, she smiled, watching them go.

  She didn’t imagine anyone would see them until the next day, and late the next day, at that.

  “We could have stayed down a little longer the second time.”

  Sam started and turned. She was being addressed by a guest in his mid to late forties, a tall, taut, well-muscled fellow with iron-gray hair, nearly black eyes and a stern, sun-leathered face. He probably did know diving—but if so, he should have known that she was going by all the proper rules and regulations.

  “Mr. Hinnerman, we’re a commercial enterprise, out to entertain you. We go by the dive tables, and that’s that. I’m so sorry if we disappointed you.”

  “I didn’t say I was disappointed,” Hinnerman said, inhaling heavily. “I just said we could have stayed down longer.”

  “Perhaps we could have, sir, but we shouldn’t have, I’m afraid. Do you need some help with anything?”

  “Help?” He arched a brow. The look told her that he found the idea of needing help with anything ludicrous. And he probably didn’t need help with anything—unless it was his personality. Strange man. Tough as nails. Yet his girlfriend—still sleeping up at the main house when the dive boat had left that morning—was just the opposite. Though Sam couldn’t quite determine her age, she decided that Jerry North couldn’t be very young, perhaps near forty, or even older. It didn’t matter. Jerry North was extremely attractive
and would probably be so to her dying day. She was pure froth. Slim, small—just adorable. A blue-eyed blonde who didn’t do anything that might mar her manicure. She loved Seafire Isle anyway, or so she said. She liked to lie around the pool and walk on the beach. She liked cocktail hour, and the fact that they built fires in the parlor of the main house at night against the slight chill of the air after sunset.

  She seemed to be a very nice woman, but, like Hinnerman, she sometimes made Sam uncomfortable.

  She always seemed to be watching Sam.

  “Mr. Hinnerman—”

  “Liam,” the man corrected.

  “Liam,” she agreed, and forced a smile, “I do hope you enjoyed what you were able to see.”

  One of those flashes of unease Hinnerman could evoke in her swept through Sam as his gaze moved over her. Almost like a touch.

  Just innuendo, never anything more. Still, she felt little shivers upon occasion, wondering what the truth about her guests might be. Perhaps they were just moderately kinky voyeurs. The looks Hinnerman gave her were definitely sexual.

  But Jerry North’s weren’t. They were strangely sad, if they were anything at all.

  So she was sad and kinky, Sam thought.

  “I enjoyed it, all right,” Liam Hinnerman said, smiling at her broadly. “I always enjoy being with you. You are an excellent dive mistress.”

  “Sam!” To her relief, Brad Walker, a lanky, green-eyed, freckle-faced thirteen-year-old with stylishly half-long-half-shaved reddish hair, the youngest diver aboard, came rushing up. “Sam, that was neat!”

  “Neat,” Hinnerman muttered, and moved on.

  “I loved it!” Brad continued to enthuse. “Especially that World War Two ship. So sad, huh? Do you think there are bodies in it?”

  She shook her head, smiling. “No bodies, Brad.” To Brad, World War Two was as much past history as the American Revolution, yet she still had divers who came to see the navy wreck because they remembered comrades who had perished aboard it.

  “Sorry, Brad. Luckily, most of the men escaped when she sank. The navy went after the few who didn’t. But they left the ship there, and it’s a memorial to all of them now.”

  “It was cool. So cool,” Brad said.

  “He’s just immature.” Brad’s slightly older sister, Darlene, a very pretty strawberry blonde with a nicely budding figure and who was fifteen going on thirty, sauntered lazily up beside him. She shook her head at Sam, as if they shared a knowledge regarding the total immaturity of men at any age. Sam had to grin—agreeing with Darlene’s secret assurance to some extent. “It wasn’t cool, Sam, it was an enormously gratifying experience.”

  “It was cool,” Brad insisted.

  “Just so long as you both enjoyed it,” Sam said.

  “It would have been more fun if I’d had a real dive buddy,” Darlene said.

  “I’m the one without the real buddy. Thunder thighs here kept tugging at me the whole trip, squealing every time there was a barracuda within a mile,” Brad said contemptuously.

  Darlene shook her head in disgust. “There’ve got to be real men somewhere, don’t you think, Samantha?”

  “I’m sure there are a number of them,” Sam murmured. Where was he now? She jiggled Brad’s baseball cap. “There are lots more wrecks out there. We’ll do some different ones tomorrow, huh?”

  “Coo—el!” Brad agreed, running happily off, dragging his heavy dive bag along with him. The Walkers had been on Seafire Isle four days, but inclement weather had made this the first time they had been able to dive.

  Darlene shook her head again. “It can be so trying, you know. These family vacations…” she murmured.

  Her folks came up behind her. Judy and Lew Walker. They were very young for having half-grown kids. Judy had confided in Sam one night that she’d been just a junior in high school when she’d found out that she was going to have a baby. She and Lew had split up, gotten back together, discussed abortion—then run away and had the baby, Darlene. They’d spent the next few years struggling, but they’d been lucky. Both sets of parents had stepped in to help, and they’d both made it through college by working part-time. “The most miraculous thing, really,” Judy had told her, “is that we made it as a couple and that we didn’t totally destroy one another.” Then she had gone on to say, “This vacation means so much to all of us. We struggled for so many years that it’s extra-special now to have the beach, the moon, the sand, the fishing, the swimming. It’s heaven!”

  “Sam, a great trip,” Lew told her. He was lean, sandy-haired, still a big kid himself. A big responsible kid, Sam thought. She had liked both him and his wife—and their family—right away.

  “Super!” Judy told her. Judy was very tiny and thin to the point of skinny. She had freckles, sandy-red hair and dimples. She was in constant motion, pretty in her vividness, sweet as could be.

  “Super!” Sam agreed. She tried to keep smiling, but it was difficult when she didn’t know where he was. “Is that like coo—el?”

  “I think. No, I’m certain,” Lew said. He slipped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. Their dive bags were on wheels. They only needed one hand each to drag them behind them, leaving the other hand free for each other.

  Sam doubted she would be seeing the elder Walkers for cocktails, either. “Thanks,” she said.

  “Super, cool—and I had the best dive partner,” came a husky male voice.

  Jim Santino. Darlene called him “Romeo” and giggled all the time when he was around. He was good-looking, with a charming smile and blond hair that was long enough to fling out of his face frequently, something like a mating ritual. She’d partnered up with him today because Liam Hinnerman had gone with Sukee Pontre, who was right behind Jim now. Sukee was in her early twenties, with short dark hair and eyes and flawless ivory skin. Her father had been French, her mother Vietnamese, and Sukee had benefited from both. She wasn’t just attractive, she was exotic. She had told Sam that she had come to Seafire Isle because she had heard that not just guys but rich guys came here for vacations. She was the kind of woman who would probably have made other women hate her except that she was so blunt and funny and forthright.

  “Really, handsome?” Sukee drawled to Jim. “And here I had thought you might consider me to be the perfect partner.”

  “Um, er…” Jim stuttered.

  “It’s difficult when there’s so damned much perfection around, isn’t it?” another voice cut in.

  Sam’s eyes were drawn upward, over Jim’s shoulder.

  It was him. The man from the mail boat.

  Adam O’Connor.

  Smiling below his Ray-Bans, his voice husky, deep, resonant. Somehow mocking.

  He lowered his glasses and locked eyes briefly with Sam—an antagonistic look, yet one that somehow warned her that he didn’t intend to acknowledge the fact that he knew her.

  Nor did he want her to recognize him.

  Jim turned, looking up at the newcomer. He seemed to acknowledge some kind of competition—he had to, the way Sukee was staring at the man—but he was quick to redon his charming manner. “The perfect guest, the perfect hostess.” He smiled at Sam, then at Sukee, then stared at the new addition to their number once again. “You’re right. So much…perfection.” He offered a hand to the man. “Jim Santino,” he said. “Welcome to—”

  “Perfection Isle?” Adam drawled. He smiled, accepting the handshake in a friendly manner.

  He’s a snake, Jim, Sam longed to say in warning. Yet, somehow, she managed to keep from doing so, despite the fact that each time Adam spoke, she could hear a slight, slight underlying tinge of mockery in his voice.

  The others laughed. Sam wasn’t sure Adam had meant to be amusing, even though he kept smiling. A killer smile. He had a dimple. Just one, in his left cheek.

  Adam looked at her then, smiling innocently. “You must be the perfect hostess, I imagine?” He stretched his hand out to her.

  If only she could bite the damned thing.

&n
bsp; “Welcome to Seafire Isle,” Sam said smoothly, offering her own hand. She took note of his when he gripped hers. Large, powerful. The nails were bluntly cut, clean. She had very long fingers. His engulfed hers.

  She drew her hand back quickly.

  “Thanks,” he told her.

  “Have you come to stay, or are you with the dinner party coming in tonight from Freeport?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m staying.”

  “Really?” She forced herself to sound interested. “Do you have a reservation?”

  Why was she playing this game? she asked herself.

  “No, but your agent back at Freeport—Miss Jensen, is that right?—said that it’s slow season and you’d surely have one room left, at the least.”

  “Did Miss Jensen say that?” Sam murmured. She could imagine how happy Miss Irma Jensen would have been to say it. Sam had only recently hired her to book newcomers, dinner parties and day trips to Seafire Isle. She was a sixty-year-old spinster who was certain that Sam needed to marry soon—or become a hopeless old maid herself. Irma was always delighted to book single men onto the island. She was convinced she was eventually going to make a match.

  Not this time, Irma, Sam thought.

  “Are you a diver, Mister, er…” Lew Walker began.

  The newcomer nodded his dark head. “O’Connor. Adam O’Connor. And yes, I dive.”

  “You’ll love the trips. The reefs are magnificent. And the wrecks are fascinating.”

  “Wrecks are always fascinating.”

  “Yes, but these are special. Sam entertains us with the history of each wreck before we reach it,” Judy said.

  “Sam is always entertaining—I imagine,” Adam said politely.

  “Best dive vacation I’ve ever taken,” Sukee offered. She smiled. “Mr. O’Connor. The best,” she ended sibilantly. It had a nice sexy sound to it. She’d come to flirt with all the free males—and maybe a few who were not so free. She’d concentrated on Jim so far, but now it was evident that she’d discovered a new quarry to pursue. “I just know you’ll enjoy Sam.”