MacKenzie's Promise

by Catherine Spencer

  “Certainly not!” she said, sounding more like a deranged mouse with every syllable she uttered.

  “Then what were you doing?”

  The question held none of his earlier banter, any more than his eyes, fixed on her with laserlike intent, held so much as a glint of humor. Dearly though she would have liked to look away, she found her gaze imprisoned by his. “I couldn’t sleep,” she confessed. “I was looking for something to read.”

  He reached into the still-open drawer to where the manuscript pages lay in conspicuous disarray. “‘Something’ being this?”

  She didn’t have to admit to the sin. Guilt painting her face a flaming red spoke for itself.

  “Do you listen in on phone calls, as well?” he inquired coldly. “Intercept incoming e-mail? Steal? Should I keep everything under lock and key while you’re a guest in my house? Sleep with a gun under my pillow?”

  “No,” she said in a shaken voice, pulling the quilt up to her chin as if it could protect her from the chill of his displeasure. “Stop blowing everything out of proportion. I’m not a criminal.”

  “How do I know that? How do I know you didn’t make up this whole story about a missing baby, just to get past my front door and snoop through things which are none of your business?”

  “Oh, please! Stop being so paranoid! All I did was pick up a few typewritten pages. I didn’t even have time to read any of them before you caught me, for heaven’s sake, and I won’t touch them again.”

  “No, you won’t,” he said, tucking them under his arm. “I’ll make sure of that.”

  That he was furious yet remained utterly in control was enough for her to glimpse the steely sense of purpose from which he drew much of his strength. This was how he must have been during his detective days, she thought with an inward shiver. Merciless. Relentless.

  She would far rather have him on her side, than against her.

  But recognizing that didn’t stop her from putting to him a question she surely had the right to ask. “Why did you come down here to begin with? Were you spying on me?”

  “Now who’s being paranoid?” he shot back. “I heard you messing around in the drawer and figured the moonlight was keeping you awake and you were looking for the remote control, which operates the electronic blinds. So, like the good host I’m trying hard to be, I came down to give you a hand.”

  “I didn’t notice any remote control doohickey in the drawer.”

  “Naturally not. You were too busy playing with my condoms and reading material not meant for your eyes.” He yanked the drawer more fully open and withdrew the gadget in question. “This,” he said, slapping it down on the nightstand, “you may play with to your heart’s content. Kindly keep your cotton-picking chicken pluckers off everything else!”

  He stamped off, leaving her too cowed to ask if he had a book she could borrow. Better to lie there wide-awake for the rest of the night, than risk ticking him off any more than she already had. And yet, there was something very comforting and solid about his presence. Not much escaped him, nor did he tolerate fools easily. And although they were qualities which she found disconcerting when directed at her, instinct told her they’d prove very useful in the search for June’s baby.

  Surprisingly she fell asleep soon after, and didn’t stir until the bright light of morning glinting off the sea speared her eyelids just after seven the next day.

  There was no sound from above. Moving quietly so as not to disturb him, she brushed her teeth and washed her face, ran a brush through her hair and dressed in a blue fleece jogging suit. Then, carrying her running shoes, she crept up the stairs, intending to slip out of the house and go for a walk along the beach until he was up and about.

  They hadn’t parted on the best of terms, last night. She didn’t want to incur his further wrath by waking him before he was ready to face the day.

  She’d reached the bottom of the cliff steps when he suddenly appeared atop the sand dune directly in front of her. Towel flung over his shoulders, black swimming trunks clinging to his hips, and water dripping from his hair, he stood silhouetted against the sky like some proud sea god washed ashore by an errant wave.

  “So you’re up finally,” he said, bounding down to meet her with a surefooted agility she envied. It had taken more skill than she’d expected when she’d scaled the dunes the day before, and twice she’d gone sprawling as the deep, flour-soft sand gave way beneath her feet. “You were still out cold when I came downstairs.”

  “You were in my bedroom?” An uneasy thrill shot through her at the idea that he’d watched her sleeping. She’d never been the kind who, once she closed her eyes, was so dead to the world that nothing disturbed her. You’d know if a cat walked over the lawn, her father had once said, when she was about eight and had awoken in the middle of the night, sure she could hear something moving outside her window.

  “No,” Mac Sullivan said. “I was in mine. I keep my clothes and stuff down there and figured I’d better wear trunks today, with you likely to faint dead away if you happened to catch sight of me buck naked.”

  “You might as well not have bothered,” she said, unable to help noticing the stunning fidelity with which the wet fabric of his swimsuit followed the contours of his pelvis.

  “Then don’t look—unless, of course, you can’t tear your fascinated gaze away.”

  “Dream on!” she retorted, aiming for haughty indifference but managing to sound only as if she were slightly asthmatic. No man had the right to look so perfect regardless of what he was or wasn’t wearing. “I’ve got bigger things on my mind than anything you might want to show off!”

  She didn’t need his sudden brilliant smile to tell her he’d caught the unintentional innuendo in her words. “Perhaps you should rephrase that,” he informed her. “Otherwise, I might be tempted to show you how wrong you are.”

  They’d spent no more than a couple of minutes together, and already her resolve to keep the peace was wearing thin. Restraining herself with an effort, she said, “Let’s start over again. Good morning, Mr. Sullivan. Did you have a nice swim?”

  “I had a bloody cold swim. If you had a grain of pity in your soul, you’d offer to make me a nice hot breakfast.”

  “I’ll be happy to do that. I’d have started on it already, if I hadn’t been afraid of presuming too heavily on your hospitality. A man’s kitchen, at least in this instance, is his castle.”

  “I can always use a handmaiden. Feel free to make yourself useful while I shower, then we’ll go over strategies while we eat.”

  His refrigerator was well stocked, yielding everything she needed to put together a meal guaranteed to please even his discerning palate. By the time he came back upstairs, briefcase in hand, she had fresh-squeezed orange juice and coffee waiting on the patio table, and fresh-from-the-oven cornmeal muffins, pear preserves, and a blue cheese omelet garnished with Ribier grapes and kiwi fruit ready to serve.

  “Well,” he said, eyeing the plate she placed in front of him, “I must admit, I’m impressed. Where’d you learn to cook like this?”

  “Oh, here and there,” she said airily. “I’ve been known to turn out an acceptable dish or two in my time.”

  He sampled the omelet appreciatively. “No kidding! We’ve got more in common than I’d have guessed. I just might let you help me with dinner.”

  “Dinner?” She set down her coffee cup and regarded him with dismay, neither his compliment nor its unwitting irony impressed her nearly as much as the suggestion that they’d be spending another day there at his house. “But I thought we were going to start the search this morning?”

  “We are,” he said, slathering butter on a muffin.

  “We won’t get far if we’re still here this evening!”

  “Patience, cookie,” he counseled idly. “Cases don’t get solved by people running off half-cocked. Until we have some clue as to where Thayer might have gone, we stay put.”

  “But—!”

  “We stay put
, Linda. Here, where my contacts can reach me.” The lazy drawl was gone, eclipsed by the tough, unyielding tone she’d heard the night before. “We do this my way.”

  “And I don’t have any say at all in how?”

  “I laid down my terms very clearly last night and you didn’t seem to have a problem with them then. If, however, you’ve changed your mind in the interim, feel free to hit the road and go it alone.”

  “No,” she said hastily. “We’ll do it your way.”

  He removed a notepad and pen from the briefcase. “Okay, let’s get started. I’m going to question you at length. I want you to answer me as fully and truthfully as possible.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “Background information, mainly. Begin by telling me how your sister met Thayer.”

  “They worked in the same building.”

  “Same company?”

  “No. Not even on the same floor. They met in the elevator one day when it was pouring with rain, and shared a taxi to the airport. He was leaving on vacation, and she was meeting a friend flying in from down east. A few weeks later, she ran into him again, he invited her out, and that’s how it began.”

  “Do you know the name of the company he worked for?”

  “No. But all it’ll take is a phone call home to find out.”

  “Fine. We’ll put that at the top of your list of things to do, once we’re finished here. As soon as we’ve got a name, I’ll call in a few favors and get someone up in Washington to have him checked out. Vancouver’s not that large a city, so it shouldn’t take long.”

  “But we’re not from that Vancouver,” she exclaimed, realizing they were talking at cross-purposes. “We live in the one in British Columbia.”

  He stopped writing and stared at her incredulously. “Are you telling me you’re from Canada?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s where your niece was born?”

  “Well…yes. Is there something wrong with that?”

  “Only if you think my not having a single contact north of the border is a problem! Why the devil didn’t you say something before now? And why come to me for help, when you could have turned to the Mounties whose major claim to fame is that they always get their man?”

  “First, you didn’t ask. Second, the RCMP’s involvement came to a grinding halt the day they found out Kirk had skipped the country. And third, his movements were traced as far as Portland, which conveniently happens to be in Oregon where you also live.”

  “Linda…!” He leaned his elbow on the table and slapped the heel of his hand to his forehead.

  “What?” she cried. “Don’t tell me this makes a difference and you’ve changed your mind about helping me!”

  “It makes a difference,” he said. “For a start, even if the Vancouver police contacted the Portland police—”

  “They did! I know that for a fact.”

  “Even so,” he said, “the most the Portland PD would do is file the report. Honey, I don’t know how to tell you this, but hundreds of children go missing every year, and once it’s established they’ve been taken out of state, let alone out of the country, finding them becomes…”

  “Impossible?” She shook her head furiously. “No! Don’t even try telling me that, because I won’t accept it. You’ve done it yourself. Often. Everyone knows that. You’ve found people who didn’t want to be found. You’ve brought families together again.”

  She didn’t know exactly when she started crying, but she knew precisely why. She was frightened that he was going to back out of their deal and she’d be returning to Vancouver with nothing to show for her efforts. Petrified that if Angela wasn’t found soon, June would never be the same again. Horribly afraid that if things dragged on much longer, she’d end up burying her mother.

  “Hey!” He shoved back his chair and came around the table to where she sat, weeping helplessly. Hopelessly. “Hey!”

  He pulled her up and held her against him. Wrapped his strong, beautiful arms around her and pressed her head into the angle of his broad, capable shoulder. Crooned that name she hated—cookie!—over and over again in her ear. Stroked his long, tanned fingers through her hair and down her neck. And when none of that stemmed the tears, he turned her face up to his and kissed her.

  It should not have happened like that, at a moment sodden with despair. Nothing so exquisitely bestowed deserved to be touched with the kind of grief she felt at that moment—exquisite not because it possessed all the seductive fire and fury of which she knew he was capable, but because of the gentleness he brought to bear on the moment. Because of the compassion.

  His lips lingered, firm and cool. Healing where they touched. Spreading a sense of calm that permeated her entire being until, at last, she could raise her eyes to his and say, “What comes next, Mac?”

  He stroked his finger down her cheek. Almost sighed, and instead blew out a long, unsteady breath that breezed sweetly over her face. “I’m taking you home,” he said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHE jerked away from him, swiping the back of her hand over her mouth as if she’d just tasted something vile. “Oh, silly me, to have thought that was a kiss, when it was really the big kiss-off! Well, I’m not leaving here, and you can’t make me!”

  Part of him wanted to laugh; another part to turn her reaction into an opportunity to wash his hands of the whole affair. But neither equaled the reeling impact of having held her in his arms and sampled her mouth.

  It was only a kiss, for Pete’s sake, and not even an exotic one at that! He’d kissed other women at much greater length and with a much more seductive goal in mind—but reaped less than one-tenth the stimulation he’d found in that brief exchange with her.

  Aiming to counteract her effect on him, he said, “Are you always this childish when you think you’ve been thwarted?”

  “Childish?” Her eyes were swimming again, but he refused to be swayed by the fact. One mistake a day was all he allowed himself. “How about ‘foolish’ for ever having believed I could count on you?”

  “And what have I said to make you think you can’t?”

  Her laugh edged a bit too close to hysteria for his liking. “Your threatening to send me home doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in your so-called commitment to my cause.”

  “Your inability to understand plain English doesn’t fill me with elation, either,” he said sharply. “I did not threaten to send you home, I said I was going to take you home. Recognize the difference.”

  That stopped her in midtirade. “You’re…coming with me?”

  “You’ve got it, cookie.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to talk to the people who knew this Kirk Thayer. If I’m going to run him to earth, I need to find out everything there is to know about him.” He gestured to the remains of their breakfast. “Clean up here and get yourself organized, while I throw some things in a suitcase and make a couple of phone calls. I want to be on the road within the hour.”

  She bristled, as he half expected she would. “You must have mistaken me for a police dog, trained to obey your every command.”

  “No chance of that ever happening,” he said, heading inside the house. “You don’t have the brains for the job.”

  Her reply floated after him: a three word suggestion, succinct and unmistakable in its meaning.

  “That’s anatomically impossible, even for me,” he called out, taking the stairs two at a time to his office on the third floor. “And shame on you for resorting to language that would make a stevedore blush.”

  They set off forty-five minutes later. “I thought about flying up to Vancouver,” he said, cruising north along the scenic coast road, just slightly above the speed limit, “but with all the hanging around and jumping through hoops it involves, we can be there almost as fast by driving.”

  “I doubt that. It took me two days to get to your place.”

  “Given the kind of car you drive, plus the fact that you were probably
poking along at forty miles an hour, that doesn’t surprise me.”

  The turnoff for the highway linking the coast road to the Interstate lay a couple of hundred yards ahead. Taking the exit ramp at a fair clip, he filtered into the mainstream traffic, steered past a couple of semis, and pulled into the passing lane.

  “I, on the other hand,” he said, stepping on the gas and enjoying her stifled gasp of alarm as the Jaguar, responsive to his slightest touch, leaped forward, “prefer to get to where I’m going with all due speed.”

  “I prefer to arrive alive, if you don’t mind!”

  “Relax, Linda,” he said, patting her knee. “I’ll get you there in one piece, I promise.”

  “And then what?”

  “We’ll do some nosing around. Check with the RCMP to see if anything new’s turned up. Talk to people who knew Thayer. Learn what we can about his background, habits, things like that.”

  “By people, I hope you don’t mean June. She’s pretty fragile right now.”

  “I mean anybody who might shed some light on his actions,” he said flatly. “June, your mother, Thayer’s neighbors, colleagues, friends. We’ve got to start somewhere, yes?”

  “I suppose so.” She stared at her clenched hands gloomily.

  “You’re not exactly brimming over with enthusiasm. Why is that, I wonder?”

  “I feel I’m running in circles and getting nowhere. I spent two whole days driving from Vancouver to Trillium Cove, and here we are, spending another whole day driving back again.”

  He swung another glance at her. With the top down on the car, the wind was having a heyday with her hair. In marked contrast to her otherwise troubled demeanor, it streamed around her face, carefree and wild.

  Squashing the crazy urge to reach out and feel its pale, corn-silk texture sliding through his fingers, he said, “You could have saved yourself the trip if you’d called me first, you know.”

  “Even if I’d been able to get hold of your phone number, would you have spoken to me? Agreed to help me?”

  “Probably not,” he admitted ruefully.