by Lori Wilde
“Oh?”
“When it comes to this investigation, you have to obey me without question.”
“I can’t agree to that.”
“Then I can’t take you along.”
“But what if you tell me to do something detrimental to either Cassie or myself?”
“I’m afraid you’re just going to have to trust me,” he said, feeling her muscles tense beneath his touch.
“Trusting a stranger isn’t my strong suit.”
“Mine either, kiddo.” He thrust his hands deep in the pockets of his trousers. “But for the foreseeable future, I’d say we’re stuck with each other.”
Chapter
FIVE
WHERE ARE WE going?” Maddie shouted an hour later as she sat in the passenger seat of the no-frills subcompact car David had rented.
The bargain basement vehicle didn’t have air conditioning so they had all four windows rolled down. Her hair lashed her face like a hundred tiny whips. Her skin stung and she felt as if she was sitting in a NASA wind tunnel.
“To see Shriver’s fence,” David answered.
“Who is that?” she asked, battling valiantly to smooth her hair down.
“Name’s Cory Philpot. He was raised in New York high society. He and Shriver have known each other for years,” David hollered.
Maddie was still feeling unnerved from their encounter in his motel room. She thought about the way David had used his bare chest as a weapon of intimidation. How he’d speared his knee to the wall between her spread legs. How he’d pinned her arms over her head.
Her stomach went quivery all over again.
He seemed much larger than he actually was. Even though his body wasn’t the least bit bulky, he had a bearish quality about him. Maybe it was the wide shoulders or the broad chest. Maybe it was the way he managed to come off gruff and cuddly all at the same time.
Or maybe it was his uncommon combination of brute strength, cocky self-confidence, dogged determination and pure animal magnetism. He was deeply intense at times, while at other moments he seemed cynical and flippant. She liked the contrast but she did not know why.
Usually, she went for quiet, brainy guys who analyzed everything to death just as she did. She’d only been in love once and that had been during her senior year in high school.
Lance was a wild, reckless guy who ditched her for being too cautious. He’d even had the audacity to ask her why she couldn’t be more like Cassie. Imagine! She’d told herself never again. She made it a habit to stay away from dangerous guys like the one sitting beside her.
The sun hunkered on the horizon, a big orange smoldering ball. The mingled smells of pungent fish, aromatic frangipani and sweet tropical fruits defined the aroma of Grand Cayman. They drove down the waterfront road passing quaint restaurants, souvenir shops and financial institution after financial institution after financial institution.
“What’s with all the banks?” she asked, abandoning the struggle to tame her hair.
“Offshore accounts, laundered mob money, tax evaders. The Caymans are a great place to stash cash you don’t want other people knowing about.”
“I see.”
David leaned back in the seat in a casual but oddly alert posture, like a male lion guarding his pride. One arm lay draped over the steering wheel, his other elbow rested against the window. Maddie tilted her head and surreptitiously studied his profile.
The wind tousled his short, golden brown hair. It gave him a relaxed, simple look and stirred a surprising appetite inside her. An appetite she tried to pass off as hunger. She hadn’t eaten anything all day except two handfuls of roasted almonds on the plane.
Without meaning to, Maddie found herself wondering what it would feel like to run her fingers through that thick, unruly hair. What would his heated skin taste like against her tongue?
Her errant thoughts spun dizzily, wildly as she pondered how his warm body would feel straddling hers, moving over her, supplying them both with stark physical pleasure.
Beneath her skin, a strange hotness extended, throbbing outward. Something about him, something mysterious yet fundamentally masculine, called to her. But Maddie was determined to ignore the summons.
Her hormones did not easily influence her. Unlike her earthy twin, she had never been a slave to either her libido or her impulses. So why now was her brain sending her body a dozen frantic messages all centered on sating her sexual desires?
The uncharacteristic bent of her thoughts alarmed her and she quickly jerked her gaze away from his face, but not before he caught her giving him the once over.
Jeez, she’d practically been drooling.
His eyes narrowed, his thick lashes lowered as he swept a glance at her lap. Maddie looked down. Her denim skirt had ridden up, revealing a yard of thigh.
One eyebrow quirked on his forehead and he grinned like a man with a dirty secret. The faint laugh lines at the corners of his eyes deepened, making him somehow—impossibly—even more good-looking.
Damn him.
Maddie tugged her skirt down as far as it would go, which unfortunately wasn’t far enough to extinguish the heat burning her cheeks.
Both sets of ’em.
“Eyes on the road, Mister.”
“I could say the same thing to you.” David chuckled. “I caught you checking me out.”
Disgruntled with her unruly hormones, Maddie snapped her head around, stared purposefully out the passenger window and wondered why she was having such a hard time breathing normally.
The sun slipped below the horizon. All along the waterfront festive lights flicked on. Bonfires blazed on the beach. Yachts on dinner cruises bobbed in the harbor. People strolled the sidewalks in brightly colored casual wear. Grand Cayman was a nice island. Too bad she wasn’t here to have a nice time.
“Where is this place?” she asked.
“Dead Man’s Cove, tip of the North Shore.”
“Quaint name,” she said dryly.
“The Caymans have a bit of a pirate past.”
“So I’ve gathered. What are we going to do when we get there?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’ll play it by ear.”
“Do you think Shriver is there? With Cassie? Fencing the Cézanne?”
Was her sister okay? Was Shriver treating her right? Was she getting enough to eat?
David shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Wow, you’re a real fount of information.”
“Detective work isn’t an exact science.”
“So tell me, is there anything you do know?”
“I know you’re a nosy pain-in-the-ass,” he said and glared at her.
“Watch the road,” she said and automatically braced the flat of both hands against the dashboard.
She hated it when drivers took their attention off the road. Her sister was the world’s worst. Cassie could talk on the cell phone, eat a bagel and apply mascara all the while hurtling down the freeway at seventy miles an hour. Maddie shuddered just thinking about it.
David might have muttered “bossy wench” but she could have misunderstood him. In actuality, he probably said something far less complimentary. You never knew about men.
Silence descended, broken only by the sound of Maddie’s rumbling stomach.
“You hungry?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“We don’t have time for a restaurant. Fast food in the car suit you?”
“Anything.” She nodded. As any athlete, she wasn’t much for greasy fries and burgers but under the circumstances she’d take what she could get.
“Ah, the ubiquitous burger franchise,” he said, wheeling the car through the drive-through. “What’ll you have?”
“A salad. Fat-free Italian dressing. Hold the croutons.”
“It’ll be kinda hard to eat a salad in the car. I’ll get you a burger.” He pulled up to the order box. “Two cheeseburgers, a couple of orde
rs of fries, two chocolate shakes and an apple pie,” he said into the intercom. To Maddie he asked, “You want an apple pie?”
“I want a salad.”
“Just one apple pie,” he cheerfully told the anonymous female voice taking his order.
“That’ll be twelve fifty-eight, sir. Please drive around.”
Maddie plucked a twenty from her purse and held it out to him.
He waved her off. “My treat.”
“If you planned on telling me what to eat, why did you ask what I wanted?”
“Because I’ve figured something out about you,” he said, paying for their order and handing her the sack of burgers.
The food smelled so good Maddie feared she might start salivating. He took their chocolate shakes from the cashier and slipped them into the console cup holders.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re the type of woman who does what’s good for her whether she likes it or not. You toe the line so you can take care of everyone else. But secretly, you’re just waiting for an excuse to let down your guard and do something wild like your adventurous sister.”
“Ooooh, you’ve got my number, all right.” She waved both hands in the air. “I’ve just been dreaming of a man who would come along and force-feed me junk food. Yeah, buddy, it doesn’t get any wilder than that.”
“Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
He chuckled and the deep sound wrapped around her like a comfortable hug. He was teasing her and damn, if she wasn’t enjoying it. Why did she feel charmed by him? She should be irritated, aggravated, annoyed. Instead her insides went all whooshy.
This wouldn’t do. Not at all.
“What’s that crack supposed to mean?” she asked in a quarrelsome tone. She would pick a fight with him if she had to. Anything to eradicate this warm, soft fuzzy sensation arrowing through her heart every time he glanced her way.
“You gotta start small.”
“I get it. Today it’s hamburgers, tomorrow the world.”
“Something like that.”
“You’re so full of bullshit. Obviously, you’ve confused me with my sister if you’re thinking I’m just waiting for some big strong man to come along and tell me what to do.”
“Now, now. Don’t disparage your sister. She might be in trouble, but she’s a good woman. She just falls for the wrong kind of guys. You’re lucky you have a sibling.”
He smiled and his teeth flashed white in the illumination of the neon lights. The lighting softened his rugged features and the tender look in his eyes took her by surprise. Maybe he wasn’t such a hard-ass after all. Could this tough guy be like the delightfully delicious sabras cactus? Prickly on the outside but sweet and soft on the inside. Her pulse skittered off kilter.
So why the armor-plated exterior? What was he so afraid of? He gestured toward the sack. “Pass me one of the burgers, will you?”
She moved the sack out of his reach, tucking it against the right side of her body. “Nope.”
“No?”
“I’ve got your number too, mister.”
His grin widened. “Let’s hear it.”
“You’re one of those guys who’s so focused on winning that you try to shut down your tender feelings by channeling your energy into blasting your way through any given situation.”
“Now why would I do that?”
“Because if you’re winning that means you’re in control. Because if—horrors—you’re not busy telling other people what to do, that means someone could be taking advantage of you. You view soft emotions as a weakness and nothing terrifies you more than being seen as weak.”
“You think?” David asked lightly, but Maddie noticed he’d lost his teasing smile. Ah-ha! Apparently it was quite a different story when the pop psychology was on the other ego.
“I think.”
“Well, I think you’re one of those women who doesn’t appreciate having their shortcomings pointed out to them, so in order not to have to face said shortcomings, they grasp at very thin straws and lash out at the person who observed their flaw in the first place.”
“You think that was lashing out?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Buddy, you don’t wanna see me lashing out.”
“I guess it would depend on what kind of lashing we’re talking about. A physical tongue lashing is quite a different animal from a verbal tongue lashing.”
“There you go with the sexual innuendo again.”
“But you’re so fun to tease.”
“Maybe we should examine the reason you feel compelled to tease me, if indeed it is, as you claim, teasing.”
“Maybe we should leave the psychoanalysis to the professionals,” he said.
“I’ll go for that.”
“Could I have my supper now, please?”
She relented. He had asked nicely. She unwrapped his burger and handed it over.
The next few minutes passed quietly as they concentrated on fueling their bodies. The farther north they traveled, the more rugged the terrain grew. Smooth sandy beaches gave way to dense scrub, rocky thickets and sedge swamps. Just when Maddie was beginning to think that David had no earthly idea where he was going, the beaches reappeared.
After finishing her food, Maddie wiped her hands on a napkin and stuffed it, along with the greasy wrapper, back into the paper bag.
Well-kept bungalows graduated to pricier digs until they found themselves in Cayman Kai where the manor houses were lavish and the condos exclusive. David followed a string of cars down the road to Dead Man’s Cove.
“Looks like someone is having one heck of a chichi party,” she said, impressed with the assortment of Jaguars, Porsches and Mercedes-Benzes.
The line of cars slowed as they turned into the private drive of a very swanky plantation-style house surrounded by coconut groves. The cars were stopping at a checkpoint manned by a uniformed security guard.
David backed the car up and narrowly missed running into a Viper. He slipped their outclassed rental into drive and eased past the party house.
“What’s going on?” Maddie asked.
“Change in plans.”
“You mean we’re not just going to walk up to the front door, ring the bell and say, Hey dude, you fencing Shriver’s stolen Cézanne?”
“That was never my plan.” He sounded irritated.
“What was your plan?”
“I agreed to bring you along, basically to keep you from screwing up my investigation. I did not agree to play twenty questions. Now hush,” he said, scanning the waterfront.
“What are you looking for?”
“What did I just say about asking nosy questions? Weren’t you listening? Or are you just bad at taking instructions?”
“That last part. Now what is it that you’re looking for?”
“A secluded place to stash the car. Satisfied?”
“See? How hard was that.”
“Woman, you try a man’s patience,” he growled under his breath and ran his fingers through his hair, as agitated as an air traffic controller on the heaviest travel day of the year.
She realized then that he saw her as nothing more than an annoyance he’d been forced to tolerate. She felt at once snubbed and defiant.
Who cares what he thinks about you? The only thing that matters is finding Cassie and bringing her home in one piece.
David switched off the headlights and edged down a narrow dirt lane leading to a public beach not far from Philpot’s house. He pulled the car off the road and cut the engine.
“Stay put,” he said, and got out of the car.
“No way. I’m coming with you.”
She popped from the passenger seat and found herself ankle deep in fine white sand. It sucked at her high-heeled sandals, dragging her down with each step. The damned shoes were ridiculously useless. How did Cassie walk in the things?
“Why am I not the least bit surprised,” he muttered.
>
Maddie slipped off the shoes, looped the straps over her fingers and hurried after him. They trudged through the sand, headed toward Philpot’s mansion. Music filtered through the air. She identified it as some schmaltzy tune by The Carpenters frequently played at weddings.
“Not much of a party song,” she commented.
But David wasn’t paying any attention to her. He was like a bloodhound tracking a raccoon. His eyes were narrowed, his posture tense, his attention focused on Philpot’s place. They couldn’t see much of that section of the beach from where they walked, cloaked as it was by the coconut grove.
But as they crept nearer, Maddie spotted a makeshift altar set up on the beach, along with dozens of folding chairs and flaming tiki torches.
“I think it’s a wedding,” Maddie whispered.
“We’re in luck,” David said. “They’ll be so busy with the wedding, no one will notice us. Now if fate is really smiling, Peyton Shriver will be among the guests.”
“And Cassie,” Maddie supplied, anxious for this single-minded FBI agent not to forget her sister.
“Get down,” David said roughly and dropped to a crouch. He tugged on the hem of her skirt.
The brush of his knuckles against her thigh was slight, but it was enough contact to send her pulse staggering against her throat. Deliberately struggling to ignore the sizzle of awareness he’d generated, she squatted beside him in the sand.
“Now what?” she asked.
Through the trunks of the trees they could see a robed minister standing at the altar and two other guys, presumably the groom and the best man, positioned in front of him, but from this distance, Maddie couldn’t make out their features.
“We go closer.”
“Through the coconut grove?” Anxiously, she glanced up at the trees with their thick, heavy fruit looming above them in the deepening twilight.
“Sure, why not.” David moved forward.
“Wait, wait.” She grabbed on to his belt loop.
“What is it?” He turned and glared at her.
“Are you always this testy?”
“Only when being pestered by some pesky female. What is it?” he repeated.
“I read a guidebook about Grand Cayman on the flight over.”
“And . . . ?”
“The article warned to watch out for falling coconuts.”
