Her mark pulled up short, grabbed his knees and wheezed like a set of bagpipes that had seen better days.
Nice work, Antoine.
Red-faced and sweaty, Anna’s hero scooped her clutch from the sidewalk and limped back to her. “I believe this is yours, mademoiselle.”
“Oh, thank you, sir. Are you okay?” Her hand flew to her heart. “I—I was so frightened. I—I mean what if that young man had had a weapon?”
His bright red face blanched. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Well, you’re very brave just the same. Let me give you a reward.” She huffed out a breath and held out her hand for her purse.
“I couldn’t possibly take a penny.”
“No. No. No. I insist.” As she opened her clutch she bit the inside of her cheek, making her eyes fill with tears.
He peered inside her purse along with her, and sweat dripped from his forehead into her beautiful bag. That was going to leave a stain in the silk lining.
“Your purse is empty,” he said, brilliantly.
“I—I can’t believe it! I had five hundred dollars in there. That’s fifty thousand francs, my money for the whole month.”
“Let me give you something to get you home. How about two thousand francs?” Now it was his turn to pat her shoulder.
She stifled a sob. “Th-thank you but I can’t accept. I mean what good will it do me anyway? I—I don’t get paid again for two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” He put his hands in his pockets.
“Y-yes.”
“I could maybe spare a little more.”
“Oh, no. Unless . . .” She touched her index finger to her lips. “What about a loan? I insist on paying you back. Let me give you my number. Do you have a pen?”
“No. But I’ll add you to my contacts.” He sounded pleased.
And why not? He’d rescued a woman in jeopardy and then gotten her number. It was a story he could tell his friends at the bars.
While he typed into his phone, she dictated her favorite phony number.
“I’ve got ten thousand five hundred francs.”
“I’ll take ten thousand.” She’d leave him what she’d had to begin with. “Call me!” she cried as she hailed an approaching cab.
“Where to, mademoiselle?” the cabbie asked.
“Première Banque Nationale de Papeete.”
“Tout de suite.”
She kicked back in the cab and transferred her papers into her purse once more. The traffic was light and within minutes she pushed through the door of the First National Bank of Papeete—an establishment large enough to handle major transactions yet small enough to know your name. Papa’s name anyway.
She stopped in front of a chest-high counter, cleared her throat and signed the book.
Rightly interpreting the throat clearing as impatience, a slender woman dressed in much the same manner as Anna headed toward her. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” The woman glanced at the sign-in sheet. “If you’ll follow me?” She indicated a desk situated near several other desks, distinguishable only by the family photos and knickknacks on display.
Anna adjusted the satchel over her shoulder. “I’d like to speak to the manager please.”
“I’m the assistant manager. How may I help you?”
“I—I’m afraid I’ll need to s-speak to the manager.”
The assistant manager quirked an eyebrow. “I’ll see what I can do, mademoiselle.”
She straightened her back and infused her voice with authority. “Tell him it’s Anna Parker. George Parker’s daughter.”
Another lift of the brow and the woman left.
Anna stood, eschewing the leather chairs until a beefy-faced man hustled into the waiting area. He extended his hand while still a good yard away. “Anna Parker?”
He arrived, and she shook his hand. “Yes.”
“I’m Bertrand Fontaine, the bank manager. I was sorry to learn of your father’s passing. A wonderful man.”
“Thank you.” She cast her gaze around. “Is there somewhere private we can conduct our business?”
“Mais oui!” He reached his hand toward her shoulder but it didn’t land. He directed her, by only the insulation of a touch, into his office. Like the lobby, the walls were painted in vibrant colors. The desk looked to be genuine wood rather than veneer and thank goodness there was a door for privacy. After pulling out a chair for her, he took his place behind his upgraded desk and tapped his fingers together. “Such a pleasure to meet you, Mademoiselle Parker . . . but before we speak further I’m afraid I’m going to need to see proper identification.”
She slid her papers across the desk and studied his bald spot while he examined them.
“It all seems to be in order. How may I be of assistance?”
Smiling, she leaned in close and asked, “May I count on your discretion?”
Chapter 3
Tuesday
Plage Des Dauphins
(Dolphin Beach)
Tahiti Nui
A blade of light cleaved the sky into halves, giving Dr. Caitlin Cassidy the feeling she inhabited two worlds at once. In the distance, blood red dripped from cottony clouds over the South Pacific. But closer in, the sunset drama had not yet percolated through the pastel skies, and crystalline waves gently lapped the beach, imparting a sense of peace. When the tide retreated, it left behind a treasure trove of broken shells and polished stones.
Even a starfish.
Though the girl in her itched to claim the beautiful sea star as her own, she was a grown-up, and too conscious of its nature—it was a living, breathing creature—to grab it for herself. She settled for pointing it out and kept walking. The memory of its stunning blue arms sparkling in the sun would be souvenir enough. As she stored the image in her mind, a breeze lifted her long dark hair off her bare shoulders and played with the straps of her cotton sundress. The misted air felt wonderful against her basted skin and teased her senses with a delicious fragrance. “Is it my imagination, or does Tahiti smell like sugar?” She smiled at the man next to her, who kept shortening his stride to allow her to keep up—her fiancé, Special Agent Atticus Spenser.
“It does.” Spense tightened his hand around hers, and her heart squeezed, as though he held it, too. “Science might assert the salty ocean breeze, by contrast, brings out extra sweetness in the scent of tropical flowers, but you know what the natives say it is.”
Of course. Leave it to Spense to solve the puzzle. “Mana.”
The life force. The sweet spirit surrounding the soul.
“They say you can touch it, taste it . . .”
“Smell it.” She took a deep breath.
“Everywhere on the island. Happy?” The look he gave her was enough to make her burst.
“Sort of.” There had never been a more perfect day in the history of the universe. She was certain of it. But a single adjective couldn’t fully describe her feelings at the moment. She was a bit like the sky—one part calm and at peace, the other, teeming with tumultuous color and excitement—and with trepidation, too.
According to her mother, Arlene, all brides-to-be had the same nervous worries. But Caitlin didn’t think so. She didn’t have cold feet. Not at all. And considering how warm the sand beneath her toes was, and how high her spirits soared every time she caught so much as a glimpse of Spense’s profile, she couldn’t imagine such a thing to be possible.
He was her world.
Their wedding day couldn’t come soon enough.
He stopped and turned to her.
“I was hoping for a hell yes,” Spense said.
“Then hell yes, I’m happy.”
“But?” He arched an eyebrow, and she couldn’t help noticing how devastating he looked with his thick brown hair, normally clipped Bureau short, grown out longer than usual and blowing in the breeze. Greg Peck anyone?
“But nothing. I am happy . . . and nervous.” She recognized how ridiculous she was being. There was absolutely nothing to worry ab
out . . . only . . .
“You nervous about the ceremony? And here I thought I had the only bride who didn’t go bananas over the little things. It’ll go off without a hitch. I promise.”
“I hope so, but even if it doesn’t, as long we’re together when it’s over, that’s all that matters to me.”
“So what’s wrong? Are you thinking about your father?”
“Keep moving.” She tugged Spense’s hand, leading him farther down the beach. They were here to pick a site for their nuptials and hadn’t yet found the perfect stretch of sand. She missed her father terribly, but that wasn’t the problem—not directly. “Of course I wish my father were alive to share my wedding day. But I truly feel his presence—like he’s here with us.”
“Good . . . and . . . I’m still listening.” Spense sounded the soul of patience.
Which was very un-Spense-like. Maybe the slow pace of the island was having a soothing effect on those hypersensitive neurons of his. She should just come out with it before her hemming and hawing became too distracting. In fact this was usually the point where he’d pull out his Rubik’s cube and solve it in order to sort his unruly thoughts.
“Caity?”
She met his gorgeous brown eyes and, like always, melted inside.
Life was so good, so perfect, and that was the problem.
The last time she’d felt this secure, this happy, she was a teenager planning a month-long tour of the national parks with her dad. The cross-country trip was to have been both a high school graduation present and a reward for her becoming class valedictorian. At the time, she’d believed she’d had the world by the tail, and in typical adolescent fashion, she’d been sure she always would. But then, without warning, the universe had spiraled out of control. She and her father had never taken the trip—because he’d been arrested, and later, executed for a murder he didn’t commit.
She watched a plumeria blossom drift down from a nearby tree, and her hand fluttered to her stomach. She’d tried, but she couldn’t ignore the uneasy feeling that had been gnawing at her since yesterday when they’d arrived in this island paradise. “It’s as if this is all too good to be true.” Though complaining that life was too good certainly made her seem a grade-A dolt, if she didn’t explain herself, Spense might get the wrong idea and think she was having second thoughts about marrying him.
His lips tensed, as if he had something to say, but he didn’t interrupt.
“I haven’t exactly been walking through life with a lucky charm in my pocket.”
He nodded.
“So it’s hard for me to believe this is really happening. I want a life with you in it—I want that so badly I’m worried something will go terribly wrong.”
“You mean like a natural disaster? Are you cooking up a tsunami in your head?”
She forced a laugh. “More like man-made trouble. I dread the phone ringing because I’m afraid it will be the Bureau. ‘We’ve got a serial killer loose in French Polynesia and the locals are in over their heads. We need you to postpone your big day and come up with a profile ASAP,’” she boomed out in her best imitation of their boss, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, thus owning up to one of her fears, but not the other. Not the one that made her shiver, even on balmy days like today.
If anything ever happened to Spense . . .
Why hadn’t she thought to bring a sweater?
“That’s one of the reasons we chose Tahiti for the wedding. Remember? Murder rate: zilch. I give you my word there are no psychopathic killers here, and the BAU will not come calling. And even if there were and it did—which there aren’t, and it won’t—we would simply say no.”
She realized he was being utterly sincere, but . . . “We never say no.”
“Then this would be a first. We’re getting married. Nothing will stop that, because I won’t let it.” His gaze fixed on her with an intensity that made her tremble. “You have my word of honor. Five days from now, I’m going to make you my wife. I’m going to prove to you that life is good . . . great, in fact, and it’s going to stay that way. So start the countdown, Caity.” He checked his watch. “Sunday at sunset we’re going to be standing up in front of a preacher, somewhere on this very beach, gazing dumbstruck into each other’s eyes.”
“Not a preacher. A Tahitian priest.”
He waved his hand in the air. “The point is that nothing is going to get in the way of me making you mine forever.”
Her heart steadied. “I’m already yours forever.”
Spense closed his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. She looked up, blinking a moment, before the best face in the world descended to hers and literally blotted out the sun. She had more to say to him, but as his delicious, sun-warmed lips pressed against hers, she knew a longer conversation would have to wait. Sparks were flying over every inch of her skin, short-circuiting her brain. She couldn’t remember how to breathe. Her mouth opened beneath his and, as his tongue swept hers, she became completely lost, tasting a strange and compelling sweetness.
Mana.
Spense could kiss Caity all day long, but if he didn’t end this right this minute, he wasn’t going to be able to walk down the beach without embarrassing her. Reluctantly, he broke their embrace. Keeping hold of her hand, he moved to her side and waited for her to open her eyes.
She took her sweet time before allowing her lids to open, and when she finally did, he saw that her irises, usually a stunning, bright blue, had darkened to a color that reminded him of the ocean at midnight.
His fevered blood climbed another degree.
He’d done that to her—and it had been so easy.
While he stood there, admiring his handiwork, trying to decide whether he should comment on his kissing prowess or wait for her to bring it up, Caity suddenly pointed down the beach.
“There!” she cried. “That’s it! The perfect spot.”
She meant for the wedding. To him the entire beach seemed like the perfect spot, but he followed her gaze anyway. “I see what you mean.” And he did. Thirty yards or so down, the sand formed a smooth crescent with an outcropping of rocks on one side. On the other, a line of thatched huts rose on stilts out of the ocean. To add to the idyllic scene, moored to a nearby dock, a group of brightly painted boats bounced atop the waves, their reds and yellows reflected off the ocean’s surface, transforming it into a churning kaleidoscope of color.
The setting sun hit the shore in such a way that the wedding party would not be squinting. The angle of light was ideal for photography, and, it seemed, another couple had arrived at the same conclusion. Spense’s gaze homed in on what appeared to be a bride and groom posing for post-nuptial photos.
Spense didn’t see any guests, but they had probably already headed off to the reception. Judging by the abundance of equipment the photographer was wrangling into submission—tripods, cases, lights, and a giant reflective umbrella—this wasn’t a Tahitian quickie but rather a planned affair, and, like his own upcoming wedding, would entail at least a few family and friends flying in to help celebrate.
The bride, whose long blond hair kept whipping into her face, wore white: a slim-fitting gown that revealed an impressive amount of cleavage, elaborately shored up with expensive-looking beadwork. The gown had a long train, but in keeping with the destination-wedding style—something Spense had heard quite a lot about lately—an absence of poof and net. It was a look he found pleasing. Caity hadn’t let him see her gown, but he suspected it would be simpler and would probably show a bit less—still he wouldn’t complain if it hugged her slender curves. Truthfully, he wouldn’t complain if she wore a T-shirt and jeans, or layered herself in big fancy petticoats, or wound a stuffed swan around her neck, as long as when the preacher said do you take this man? She did.
Like Spense, this groom was tall—well over six feet—and in shape. He was suited up in a gray tux. Spense had yet to be fitted for his, and he made a mental note to confirm his appointment
at the rental store. Both the bride and groom were barefoot. Two pairs of shoes had been left to sun atop a large boulder, safe from the whims of the swelling and receding tide. The couple frolicked, not a word Spense used often, but it was an apt description, along the shoreline. The photographer shouted instructions Spense couldn’t quite make out over the roar of waves and wind. With an obviously practiced eye, the man choreographed the shoot, directing the couple from a hand-holding stroll, to a cheek-to-cheek dance, to a bent-over-backward kiss.
Beside him, Caity seemed mesmerized by the happy couple’s antics.
“Want to get closer?” Spense asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to intrude. I feel a little guilty, staring.”
“This is a public beach. You can’t go putting on a show like that and expect no one to notice. In fact, I think it would be an insult if we didn’t stop and stare.” He let go of her hand to shade his eyes, watching the man lift the woman in his arms and carry her along the water’s edge. Sea spray bounced off the rocks, getting her good. The man turned, facing the ocean, showing them his back. He continued his forward march until the waves were up to his ankles.
Spense paced ahead with Caity on his heels. “Spense,” she called after him. “Not too close.”
“I’m sure they don’t mind.” He strained his neck as the groom carted his bride farther into the ocean—the water was past his knees now. “What the hell’s he doing?”
“Not too far!” the photographer yelled. They were close enough now to make out his words.
Spense frowned. He’d never been one, but he couldn’t imagine a bride wanting the train of her wedding gown dragged through the water like that. The thought unsettled him enough to make him pick up his pace, but Caity, who’d caught up to him, didn’t seem the least bit bothered.
She beamed her beautiful smile. “I give up. Let’s go watch. This is going to be fun.”
The bunched muscles in his shoulders loosened. Caity was grinning like she was in on a private joke. She obviously knew something he didn’t, and since it had to do with wedding photo-shoots, she was more the expert than him. “What’s going to be fun?”
Countdown Page 2
