"That's where you're wrong. My father's never gotten over her death. I don't think he ever will. Talk of Skippy Rhett brings back that time for him. It's a time I don't want him to relive any more than he already does every day of his life."
Cara stared at Gray while a suspicion formed. She had witnessed the change in Bergie when he'd spoken of his lost love, but she had thought the son, and not the father, was the more reluctant to speak of Skippy Rhett. Now, as then, she couldn't figure out why.
She took a deep breath, determined not to let him intimidate her, even though her dinner churned in her stomach. Be brave, Cara, she told herself, and almost laughed aloud. Aside from the episode with Sam Peckenbush’s dog, which was surely an aberration, she’d never been brave in her life.
"I suppose I don't need your father to tell me about Skippy," she said deliberately, and again the name felt oddly familiar on her lips. "I'm sure I can find plenty of other people to talk to about him."
"Why don’t you drop the subject,” he said harshly, making her flinch. It didn’t sound like a request. It sounded like a demand, one that went a long way toward proving Cara's hunch. She was more sure than ever that Gray didn't want her to delve into the mystery of Skippy's death.
"I can't drop the subject when it's part of my story.”
"Are you writing a story?" he asked just loudly enough to be heard over the incoming waves.
She swallowed and willed herself not to look at him. If she did, she might not have the courage to continue her charade. Careful not to break her stride, Cara said, “Of course I am.”
"Then keep your facts straight. First you're driving through town, then you're staying. Then you're researching a story, yet you know so little about the man you're interviewing you’re not aware he's a nationally syndicated columnist. Suppose you tell me what's really going on?"
"I've already told you." Cara walked faster in a fruitless attempt to get away from his questions. He lengthened his stride to keep up with her. "I'm writing an article about small-town newspapers."
"Do you honestly expect me to believe that?"
"Frankly, I don’t care what you believe," Cara answered, walking faster still, feeling like the tortoise trying to outrun the hare. With a few steps, Gray drew even with her and grabbed her lightly by the upper arm.
"For God's sake, lady, would you stop for a minute and talk to me?"
She stopped, staring at the restraining hand on her arm and biting her lower lip to keep it from trembling. It occurred to her that Richard would never chase her down on a beach and demand answers. Nor would any of the men she’d associated with in the past. If they had, she suspected her body wouldn’t be reacting as violently as it was now. As though Gray had magnetized her by his touch.
"Let go of me," she rasped.
He immediately dropped his hand from her arm. As she had the first time he’d touched her outside the service station, she felt a chill where his hand had been. "Okay. I let go. Now talk.”
"We don’t have anything to talk about," she said, trying not to let him see exactly how intimidated she was.
"I can think of a few things. Such as what you were screaming at yesterday."
Her worst fears realized, Cara turned her gaze from his and stared unseeingly at the ever-changing water. Surely Gray knew Skippy Rhett had died on the street in front of the service station.
"Help me out here." Gray’s voice ran over her skin like the rush of a wave, and he touched her cheek. An incredible warmth rose in Cara like steam from a kettle. A familiar warmth. She'd felt his touch before yesterday; she was sure of it. Then he let her go, and the misty warmth evaporated. "I'm a cop. A lot of times, my gut instinct is all I have to go by, and something about you doesn't ring true."
Cara closed her eyes briefly, shutting the door on his questions. She wanted to tell him about seeing Skippy die again, but it was impossible. She was alone, with no one to trust but herself.
"I was screaming because I saw a bat," she said woodenly. "I have a deathly fear of bats."
He gave a short, disbelieving grunt. "Is this some kind of scam? Because if you think you can get any money out of my dad, you should know right now he doesn't have much."
Cara stared at him, not comprehending.
With a muttered oath, he grabbed her lightly by the shoulders and drew her closer to him, inch by tantalizing inch. By the time she figured out he was going to kiss her, his lips were molded to hers.
He must have expected resistance because his mouth was firm and demanding. The hands that held her shoulders were equally unforgiving, clamping as securely as the springs on a trap. Gray coaxed her lips apart with his tongue, and she willingly complied. That’s when the quality of the kiss changed.
His tongue swirled inside her mouth, creating a whirlpool of heat that radiated through her body and settled heavily in her stomach. Gray's hands left her shoulders and slid sensuously down her arms, barely brushing the curves of her breasts. Her own hands crept around his broad, muscled back and tangled in the curly black hair at his neck.
Cara had never been kissed like this. Never had a mere kiss caused her to press closer to a man, needing to feel her heart thud against his, his heat merge into hers.
Gray's mouth tugged on her upper lip, suckling it gently, then did the same with her lower lip. Cara gasped against his mouth, and he seemed to catch her breath and exhale it back at her, mingled with his own essence. She wondered absently if heaven could be as wonderful, and then the cool night air caressed her mouth instead of his warm lips.
"If you want to fool around with one of the DeBergs," he
whispered into the night, "I suggest it be me."
The impact of his words slammed into her. Cara shrugged violently away from him. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, trying to erase the feel of his lips on hers, trying to erase the lie.
"I don’t intend to fool around with either of you," she said as unfamiliar anger coursed through her. "I’m not scamming your father. How could you even think such a thing?"
"What am I supposed to think when you won't tell me what's really going on?" Gray asked, his eyes steady on her, appearing unaffected by their kiss when she still reeled from it.
Cara didn't say anything for long moments while she accepted that she couldn’t trust a man who didn’t trust her."You had no right to kiss me,” she said, her words clear and deliberate. “And you have no right to question me like this."
"I have every right to question you,” he said. “I'm the police chief of this town."
"And I'm a journalist exercising her first-amendment right of free speech. Listen very carefully, because I'm only saying this once. Go to hell, Mr. Police Chief."
She whirled and walked rapidly in the direction from which they had come. She heard Gray’s muttered curse, but didn’t stop until she reached the spot on the sand where they had left their shoes. She sat down, dusted off her now-dry feet and pulled on her loafers, angry at him for kissing her and angry at herself for responding.
She didn’t look at Gray while he stood over her, pulling on his own shoes. She pointedly ignored the hand he offered to help her up.
"Don’t bother asking me any more questions," Cara said as she rose unassisted, "because I’m not answering them."
He stared at her for a long moment, so long that she finally found the courage to lift her eyes to his. His glinted with an emotion she couldn’t identify.
"I was about to tell you the same thing," he said. "Don’t ask any more questions, Cara. Especially not of my father."
She felt the sheen of tears in her eyes, and looked quickly away from him out at the vast and churning ocean while she tried to blink away the moisture. She’d grieved for her parents after their deaths, but knew that Richard and her Aunt Clarice were still on her side.
Now, for the first time in her life, she felt well and truly alone.
She made a snap decision as a wave crashed onto the beach, because it seemed to be crushing wh
at remained of her courage as well.
Tomorrow morning, after another night at the Hotel Edison, she would get in her car, drive to Miami Beach and forget all about what she thought she’d seen in Secret Sound.
She’d forget, too, that she’d ever looked into Gray DeBerg’s beautiful blue-gray eyes and thought she’d seen the other half of her soul.
CHAPTER NINE
Karen Rhett strode through the doors of the Dew Drop Inn at half past nine, the high heels she wore under her tight designer jeans clicking on the linoleum floor. She tossed her dyed blonde hair and stood in the entrance for a moment, affecting a pose.
She'd lost ten pounds since she'd gotten up the courage to disappoint her parents by dissolving her sham of a marriage, and she knew she looked good. Gold hoop earrings dangled from her ear lobes, and her skin-tight yellow blouse hugged her naturally large breasts.
If Gray DeBerg didn't take notice of her tonight, it would be because he was blind.
She took a few steps into the establishment, wondering idly if the proprietor were trying to save on electricity. The lights were dim, lending the place an air of romance. Well, that was just perfect for what she had in mind. She'd have to get rid of Tyler Shaw first, of course, but in her experience getting Tyler to go away had never presented much of a problem.
She scanned the interior, searching for Gray. Most of the booths and the small tables that jammed the place were full. She didn’t see Gray at any of them. Neither was he playing pool at the back of the place.
Her eyes swung to the bar, moving over the patrons who sat on the tall stools. All of the men there but one had their backs to her. The exception leaned back in his chair, not disguising the fact he was staring at her. Up close, she knew his eyes were hazel. From this distance, they looked dark and even a little dangerous.
Tyler Shaw didn't give her the insolent up-and-down perusal she'd come to expect, but it seemed as though he were peering through her clothes to the woman he thought was underneath.
Damn him for looking at her like that, anyway. She supposed she should be used to it by now, considering that he'd been looking at her that way since they'd been barely in their teens. It always made her uncomfortable, though.
She squared her shoulders and tossed her hair. She had an image to uphold, and that was of a woman comfortable in any situation. However difficult. She drew her unflappable disposition around her like a protective cloak.
"Hey, Tyler," she said, for once not using the sexy drawl that came so easily to her. She wasn't about to waste it on Tyler Shaw. "Where's Gray? He said he was meeting you here and that I should come by and join you."
"By all means, join me." Tyler indicated the stool beside him, his eyes never leaving hers. Karen thought he had deliberately misunderstood her. She sat down anyway, angling her knees away from him so they didn't come in contact with his body.
He nodded at the bartender, a harried man in his fifties who bustled over to him. "Ready for another, Tyler?"
"I'm fine, Gene. I want to order for the lady." He shot Karen a look. "A gin and tonic, right? In a long, cool glass."
It was what she always drank, and the fact that Tyler Shaw had taken notice of that irked. Karen's eyes flicked from Tyler to the bartender, and she gave him a flirtatious smile. "I'll have a glass of white wine tonight, sugar. Not the house brand. How about serving me up something with a little more sophistication?"
"Coming up," the bartender said while Tyler watched her. She reached in her purse for her wallet.
"Put it on my tab, Gene," Tyler called to the bartender.
Karen started to tell him she was perfectly capable of paying for her own drink before it occurred to her that she'd accepted a hundred drinks from a hundred men at various times in her life. Why should she treat a drink from Tyler any differently?
The bartender set the wine in front of her. She took a sip and tried to stop her lips from pursing so Tyler didn't guess that she'd never particularly liked white wine.
"You still haven't told me where Gray is.” She slanted him a look before returning her attention to her drink. Tyler had been skinny in his youth, but years of hard work building his own lawn-care business had put muscles on a body that was lean and tall. The sun had lightened brown hair perpetually in need of a cut. He had an interesting face, with big hazel eyes, a wide mouth and a long nose sprinkled lightly with freckles.
Karen usually tried not to look at him, because she hadn’t wanted to encourage him. She was after a good time, not a small-town man with small-town values who looked at her for things she’d never be able to give any man. Thankfully, it had never taken much to discourage him.
"Gray called and said he wasn't coming.” He had no such compunction about looking at her. She could feel his eyes on her as she sipped the bitter wine. "Something came up that he had to deal with."
Karen pictured the attractive brunette who had left the newspaper office a few hours earlier with Gray and his father. Had she been the something that came up? The thought didn’t sit well.
"I should be going then," she said, half-rising.
Tyler's hand invaded the space between their seats and settled on her arm. Sparks of what felt like electricity shot through her. Always before, Tyler had looked, but never touched. She sank back down on the stool, and he removed his hand.
"You haven't finished your drink yet," he pointed out. "Seeing as to how you made a point of ordering exactly what you want, I'd expect you'd like to sit here and enjoy it."
He made it sound so reasonable Karen couldn't get up and leave without admitting she’d ordered the wine to spite him. She took another painful sip.
"I only dropped by because I thought Gray would be here," she said, avoiding his eyes.
"So you said." He took a long pull from his beer bottle. "What I've been wondering is what you want with Gray. You and me, we've known him since we were kids. You know as well as me that Gray doesn't want a relationship."
"How could you know that?" Karen rounded on him, her eyes snapping. "He married Suzy, didn't he?"
"He married your cousin because she was pregnant," Tyler said, seemingly unaffected by her anger. "We both know he would have left her after she miscarried if she hadn't gotten sick. Gray's not about to tie himself down again, so you're wasting your time chasing him."
"You've got a lot of nerve, Tyler Shaw." There was a major error in his story, but Karen had never felt as though it were her place to correct it, especially when she was angry. "Who said I'm chasing anybody?"
"C'mon, Karen. You strut into this bar all gussied up in your tight clothes and your high heels, a cloud of perfume following you, and say you're looking for Gray. It doesn't take much to figure out what's going on in that pretty head of yours."
"So what!" Karen snapped, dropping her pretense. "It isn't any business of yours if I want Gray."
"Actually, I don't really think it is Gray you want." Tyler licked the beer from his lips and regarded her in that intent way of his. "I think you’d get bored with him, just like you do every other man you’ve ever been with, once the pursuing was over. That’s why I intend to stop you from making another mistake."
"You what?"
"I didn't say anything when you married Wes Summerfield, although I knew that one was a whopping mistake. All he had was a handsome face and a big wad of cash. He didn't know the first thing about keeping a woman like you happy."
"How dare you say that to me!"
"Now you're barely divorced a month and you come in here making noise about Gray," he continued as if he hadn't heard her. "Now I love Gray, I truly do. He's about the best friend I have in the world. But he'd be as wrong for you in his own way as Summerfield was in his."
Karen stared at him mutely, the blood rushing through her veins in a hot stream. She vaguely realized she’d seldom been this close to him. He was smiling at her, a half-grin that told her he realized he had stepped over the line she never wanted him to cross. She took a deep breath, intending to push
him back over it with harsh words.
"For your information, Tyler, I don't need a guardian," she said stiffly. "If I did, I certainly wouldn't choose you."
To her chagrin, he smiled. Not the half-grin that was his trademark, but a wide, warm smile that lit his hazel eyes with green and gold sparks and made her face the fact that the skinny boy she'd managed to avoid for so long had turned into a determined, breathtaking man.
"Good," he said.
"Good?"
"Yeah. Good." He extended one of his hands until he touched her cheek. She was so shocked at the contact she didn't try to remove it. "Haven't you figured it out yet, Karen? I'm through standing on the sidelines watching you make a mess of your life. I'm not going to be your guardian. I'm going to be your lover."
She slapped away the hand on her cheek and jerked to her feet, staring at him in horror. She sputtered.
"Of all the rude, impossible..."
"I wasn't being rude, and I don't intend to be impossible. What I was being was truthful." He lowered his voice, and goose bumps danced over her arms. "I thought it only fair that I state my intentions. We're going to be lovers, Karen, and you're going to want it every bit as much as I do."
Karen had raised her right hand and slapped him before she knew that was what she intended. She watched the dull, red imprint of her hand take shape on his face and the stung look come into eyes she had just noticed were beautiful.
Then she whirled and headed for the exit of the bar, wanting desperately to get away from him.
CHAPTER TEN
Cara kicked at the covers binding her legs and thrashed on the hotel bed, knowing she was dreaming, knowing what was coming, but unable to wake up.
Darkness had descended, and gun-metal gray clouds obscured the moon. The air was still, with a muggy thickness that made it difficult to breathe.
Cara stood on the ground with her head bowed and her eyes shut tight, not wanting to look up into the sky at what she knew would appear as if from nowhere. Maybe this time, if she didn’t look up, it wouldn’t come.
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