Charmed and Dangerous

by Lori Wilde

  “For crying out loud. What are the odds of getting beaned by a coconut in the next five minutes?”

  “Good enough that they bothered to mention it in a guidebook.”

  “Well, I guarantee you’ll get beaned if you keep visualizing it. Fret about something enough and it’ll eventually happen.”

  “See there, you prove my point. That’s a perfectly good reason to keep out.”

  “It’s a perfectly good reason not to visualize falling coconuts.”

  “I can’t help but visualize them.” She worried her necklace with her fingers.

  “Fine, stay here if you want.” David dived into the grove, wasting no time in ditching her.

  Maddie hesitated, alternating between eyeing the coconuts dangling above and the FBI agent sneaking through the trees. Her innate sense of caution warred with her allegiance to her sister.

  Stay or go?

  Hang back and wait? Or take your chances and plunge ahead?

  Risk your noggin or Cassie’s life?

  Tick-tock.

  David was halfway through the grove when she realized loyalty trumped safety.

  “Okay, all right, wait up, I’m coming,” she whispered loudly.

  “Shhh. I think I hear the wedding march.” He stopped and cocked his head to listen.

  She clamped her lips shut and nervously duck-walked behind him as quickly as she could. It wasn’t easy, navigating the moist sand and the coconut trees in that position.

  When Maddie heard the deadly whoosh-thunk of a descending coconut to the left of her, she almost peed in her pants.

  Yikes!

  The second whoosh-thunk, closer even than the first sent her stomach into spasms and her heart rate into hyperdrive. She felt like she was in the video game Frogger she and Cassie used to play as kids.

  She scuttled faster and by the time she reached David, she felt edgy, overheated and even a bit faint. She cowered beside him, arms wrapped over her head, eyes squeezed closed. Her pulse stepped up its shallow, flighty beat.

  David reached out and laid a hand across her shoulder. “I want you to prepare yourself,” he murmured.

  “Prepare myself to die by coconut?” Maddie asked, peering over her shoulder and praying she wouldn’t see any angry island gods hurling ripe fruit at her.

  He took her chin between his fingers and thumb and turned her head toward the beach. “Look at the bride.”

  “Yeah, okay, I see her.”

  She squinted at the woman in white walking rather stiffly down the green Astroturf laid out as an aisle. Maddie was a tad nearsighted, but glasses got in the way of sports and she’d never gotten the hang of poking plastic contact lenses into her eyes.

  “You don’t recognize her?”

  “Should I?”

  “It’s your twin sister and unless I’m mistaken the groom is Peyton Shriver.”

  Before she could shriek, “What?” David clamped one hand over her mouth and snaked his other hand around her waist, pulling her down flush against his warm body.

  “I told you she ran off with him voluntarily,” he whispered.

  Maddie tensed and she struggled to break free from his overbearing grasp. She had to get to Cassie and stop that wedding now, but David wasn’t about to turn her loose. She aimed an elbow at his ribs and jabbed hard.

  “Ouch, that hurt. Stop fighting me.”

  “Turn me loose,” she mumbled around the salty taste of his skin.

  “Only if you promise not to go ballistic.”

  Yeah okay, she would promise anything in order to get David to let her go, but that didn’t mean she would sit here idly by and allow her sister to marry that sleazebag art thief.

  Slowly he released her and then slipped his gun from its shoulder holster.

  “Stay well behind me, or I’ll handcuff you to a tree,” he threatened.

  “I think you’re bluffing.”

  “Just try me.”

  Something in his tone of voice, told her he meant every word. The last thing she wanted was to be handcuffed to one of those coconut trees.

  They both looked toward the beach. Her sister—if indeed the bride was Cassie—reached the altar and the music stopped.

  “Dearly beloved,” she heard the minister say.

  She couldn’t heed David’s warning; she had to speak out. She didn’t care if he got mad and handcuffed her to a coconut tree, she’d take her chances. She had to stop her twin from making a horrible mistake.

  “Cassie, no!” she screamed. “Don’t do it!”

  David was on his feet, staying low, gun held at his side. Maddie was on his heels. They were at the edge of the grove when she glanced up and saw it, a coconut dangling precariously from the tree right above them.

  Don’t visualize it falling.

  But she couldn’t help herself. She was a worst-case scenario gal ever since that ill-fated Christmas day eighteen years ago. The harder she tried not to see the coconut cracking into David’s skull, the more vividly she pictured it.

  The coconut was going to fall.

  She knew it as surely as she knew the sun would rise. In order to prevent David from getting assassinated by one badass milk fruit, she had to act now.

  Without hesitation, Maddie lunged for his feet and knocked him on his back.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” he yelled, just as the coconut dropped.

  The hard green shell missed David, but lightly clipped the back of Maddie’s skull.

  Thwack!

  Sharp waves of pain mulched her brain. She saw a million shimmering stars—yellow, white, blue—and smelled a dozen strange odors. She tried to stand but her knees were noodles and she wobbled precariously, grateful she’d taken off those deadly sandals.

  “You saved my life,” David murmured, staring from Maddie to the coconut and back again, obviously not realizing she’d been bushwhacked.

  She blinked repeatedly and bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep from passing out. The pain was pretty intense, but she couldn’t black out, she had to stop Cassie from getting married. She pushed her palm against the back of her head and willed the earth to stop spinning so fast.

  “Maddie?” David knelt beside her. “Did you get hit?”

  She tried to nod but it hurt too much.

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are you all right?”

  Squinting she peered at David. How come there were two of him? He wasn’t a twin. “Stop moving.”

  “I’m not moving.”

  There was something she was supposed to be thinking about. What was it?

  Oh yeah. Cassie.

  She swung her gaze toward the beach, saw Cassie and some guy holding hands and running through the tide toward a dune buggy parked on the sand.

  “They’re getting away.” She gestured.

  David jumped up and started to run to the beach but he hesitated and glanced back over his shoulder at her. She saw the internal conflict play across his face.

  Stay and make sure she was okay, or go after his quarry?

  She was afraid to trust him, but she had no real choice. “Go. Stop them. Save my sister.”

  “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. Go!”

  He nodded, turned and sprinted off.

  And that’s when Maddie passed out cold.

  Chapter

  SIX

  DAVID RAN UP the beach, his heart thumping with adrenaline, his brain pounding out a single message. Stop Shriver. Stop Shriver. Stop Shriver.

  But he was too late. The flasher lights of the dune buggy winked on and off as it disappeared over a faraway sand dune.

  The well-dressed wedding guests gasped and scattered, knocking over folding chairs and shoving each other. The minister ducked behind the altar. One woman screamed. That’s when David realized he was running with his gun drawn.

  “Don’t be alarmed, ladies and gentlemen,” he said and held up his badge. “FBI.” He pointed at
the nearest man. “You, call an ambulance. My partner’s been hurt.”

  His partner? Why had he said that?

  He hurried to the grove, his gut knotting tighter with each step. He realized he was giving Cory Philpot plenty of time to hide the Cézanne if he did indeed possess it, but David couldn’t afford to care about that right now. Maddie needed him.

  It was dark in the grove and it took him a moment to see her body stretched out on the sand.

  “Maddie?” he said softly. Anxiety grabbed his gut and squeezed hard.

  He holstered his gun and knelt beside her. She looked so peaceful that at first he thought she was sleeping. He reached out to brush a lock of hair from her face and was startled to find her skin cool to the touch. He scooped her into his arms. She lay limp, not moving. Her breathing was shallow, but steady.

  When she didn’t respond, fear jammed his heart tight against his Adam’s apple.

  Please God, let her be okay.

  “Maddie, can you hear me?”

  Nothing.

  Where in hell was that ambulance?

  He cradled her in the crook of his arm and stared down into her face. In repose, she was especially beautiful, no worry lines furrowing her brow, no tension about her lips. A wisp of blonde hair curled against her cheekbone. He studied the curve of her chin, the sweet shape of her mouth, the slope of her cheek.

  He had no idea what possessed him. Perhaps it was the fairy tale myth of the sleeping damsel brought to life by a kiss. Perhaps it was a desperate maneuver spurred by the guilt and fear he was determined to deny. Perhaps it was simply gut instinct.

  He lowered his head and kissed her.

  The minute his lips touched hers, she responded. Her mouth softened, grew warmer and her eyelashes fluttered lightly.

  He felt her tongue gently probe his lips and she murmured a soft sound that turned him inside out.

  Now that she had responded, he knew he should break the kiss, pull away, but she shifted into him and wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him closer.

  Ah, hell, he was just a man.

  She tasted of heat and honey and heaven. She moved her lips against his, drinking him in. He heard his own heartbeat in his ears thumping loud and solid.

  Stop this. Now.

  But somehow the tables had turned and she was the one doing the kissing, giving him a momentous taste of her femininity. Her scent made him dizzy with desire.

  This was so wrong on so many levels. He tried to pull back, but she held on like a cockleburr.

  “Maddie,” he mumbled around her kisses, “are you awake?”

  She didn’t answer; she just kept kissing him.

  He gently shook her shoulders.

  She continued pressing her lips against his chin, his cheek, his nose, wherever her mouth landed. Her eyes were closed, her response totally automatic. Even though she was technically conscious, she was still wandering in a foggy, mental never-never land.

  “Sweetheart, can you hear me?”

  She nuzzled his neck. She smelled like Christmas morning, full of wonder and surprise.

  Stop thinking like this, he commanded himself.

  “Mmm,” she murmured.

  “Wake up.”

  She licked his throat, her hot, wicked tongue scaring the living daylights out of him. How much damage had that coconut done to the pleasure center of her brain. Had it somehow flipped on her sexual switch?

  He gulped and cautiously ran his fingers over her head in search of a bump. She purred like a kitten and arched her back into him. He found a small knot just above her left ear.

  Ho boy. What now?

  He tried to disentangle himself and ease away. It was difficult, considering he wanted nothing more than to kiss her right back, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who would exploit the situation, no matter how tempting. He liked his women to know exactly what they were doing when he made love to them.

  “Come on,” he coaxed. “That’s enough of that. No more kissing. Wake up now.” Gently he slapped her cheeks, hoping to rouse her to full waking consciousness.

  Without warning, Maddie sat bolt upright, doubled her fists and punched him squarely in the solar plexus.

  Peyton didn’t stop until they were several miles away from Dead Man’s Cove. He parked the dune buggy not far from the Rum Point ferry landing, and then he turned to clamp a hand over Cassie’s wrist.

  “What in bloody hell just happened back there?” he yelled.

  “I don’t know.” Cassie wasn’t lying. When she’d heard Maddie cry out her name she had been as surprised and confused as Peyton. How on earth had her sister managed to track her to Grand Cayman?

  And when David had come running from the coconut grove with his gun drawn, well, her heart had just about stopped.

  Undoubtedly, David and Maddie would have misinterpreted the wedding. They probably thought she loved Shriver and had decided to become Bonnie to his Clyde. Not that she could blame them from drawing those conclusions. The evidence was pretty damning.

  As unsettling as their appearance was, she was really glad they’d shown up when they did, otherwise, she would be Mrs. Peyton Shriver right now.

  Peyton grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. “Look me in the face, Cassie, and tell me the truth. Are you still working for David Marshall?”

  “N . . . n . . . no,” she stammered, her gaze locked with his. She’d never seen Peyton act so macho and forceful. It was more of a turn-on than scary.

  Easy, Cassie, no matter how sexy, he’s still a thief.

  His grip twisted like a vise against her wrist.

  “Ow,” she cried out. “You’re hurting me.”

  Okay, she was officially not turned on anymore.

  “The truth.” Peyton didn’t release her.

  “I’m not working for him. I promise.” She grimaced, her hand throbbing from the pressure of his clench.

  “Then how did he find us here? How come he shows up just in the nick of time to prevent us from getting married?”

  “I don’t know. I swear on my mother’s life. Please, Peyton, you’re really hurting me.”

  He let her go and sat back in the dune buggy. “Maybe it was Philpot,” he mused. “Double-crossing me. Trying to collect the reward the Kimbell is putting up.”

  “Or Jocko Blanco,” she pointed out. “You just double-crossed him and he’s bound to be looking for revenge.”

  Peyton shook his head. “Blanco would never rat me out to the feds. He’d just hunt me down and snap off my digits.”

  Cassie didn’t ask him to elaborate on which digits.

  “If it wasn’t you who betrayed me, it has to be Philpot.” Peyton nodded.

  “It wasn’t me, but maybe it wasn’t Philpot either. Maybe David is just a good detective.”

  “Not bloody likely.” Peyton laughed. “He’s been trying to catch me for ten years. Ever since I scammed his dear old auntie. The man couldn’t find his arse with both hands in a house of mirrors. No, someone ratted me out.”

  “It wasn’t me,” she insisted.

  “I guess I have a decision to make.” Peyton gave her a hard speculative stare.

  “A decision?” she echoed.

  “Whether to trust you and take you with me or leave you here for David Marshall to find. If you’re telling me the truth, then he’ll arrest you. The man is a bulldog. He won’t care that you fell in love with me. To him you’re as guilty as I am.”

  Cassie gulped. She was just starting to realize the trouble she was in. If she went with Shriver, David would be convinced she was in on the theft of the Cézanne. She would lose her job, and very likely go to prison when he caught up with them. If she stayed behind, Peyton would get away with the painting. She would probably still lose her job and she would not get what she wanted most in the world, to prove to Maddie that she was competent and capable and could stand on her own two feet.

  What to do?

  She wasn’t one to vacillate. She had to convince Peyton to tak
e her with him. The only way this whole scenario was going to have a happy resolution was if she set a trap for both Peyton and Jerome Levy, the art broker who had commissioned the theft of the Cézanne.

  What she needed was a plan. A big, bold plan so foolhardy it just might work. She also needed a way to let Maddie and David know that she was still working the case from the inside.

  But what and how?

  She had to be very careful. She could not arouse Peyton’s suspicions.

  The ferry docked.

  “There’s my ride,” he said.

  “Don’t you mean our ride?” she dared.

  Peyton studied her. Cassie did her best to look sad and vulnerable and sexy all at the same time.

  “Don’t make this goodbye,” she said, wracking her brain for a clue to leave behind that Maddie would understand. If her twin was convinced of her innocence, Cassie knew she would move heaven and earth to prove it to David.

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t leave you.”

  “Because I know something you don’t.”

  “And that is?” Peyton crossed his arms over his chest in a go-ahead-prove-yourself pose.

  “The Prado is in the process of installing a new state-of-the-art security system. Even if my friendship with the curator can get us in the door, we might not be able to bypass the alarm like you planned. It depends on how far along they are in implementing the new method.”

  “So your convincing argument is that you’re basically useless to me?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What exactly?”

  “I happen to know whose system they copied right down to the same security code.”

  “Whose?”

  She shook her head. “How stupid do I look? You take me with you, then I’ll let you in on my little secret.”

  He cocked his head and eyed her speculatively. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “Because I wasn’t sure I could trust you not to dump me once I’d served my purpose.”

  “The ace up your sleeve, ay?”

  “Something like that.”

  Peyton laughed. “Cassie luv, you’re some piece of work.”

  “So you’ll take me with you?” She caught her breath and waited. He took so long answering she thought she might black out from breathlessness.