Temptation Bay (A Windfall Island Novel)

by Anna Sullivan

  Her mouth dropped open, and for a second she was at a complete loss for words. Until he pillowed his head on his hands and grinned even wider.

  “Your clothes must be dry by now,” she said curtly. “Have a nice run back to the village.” She started from the room, but he bounded up, catching her around the waist, lifting her feet off the floor, and bearing her back to the bed.

  Before she could catch her breath she was on her back with Dex on top of her, her arms and legs imprisoned under his bulk. She didn’t give him the satisfaction of struggling.

  “We’re not nearly done with one another,” Dex said, and kissed her, so slowly and thoroughly she felt real panic.

  Because she wanted to kiss him back, just as slowly, just as thoroughly, and without any walls. It scared the hell out of her, how badly she wanted to simply surrender. “Stop,” she said, when he gave her a second. “Please.”

  Dex leaned back, studied her face, then eased off her completely. “I’m sorry, Maggie—”

  “Don’t.” She rolled to her side, took a moment to deal with the mortification that she’d shown him that kind of weakness.

  “It doesn’t have to be war between us,” he said quietly.

  “Dex, I… I don’t know any other way.”

  “How about friendship, or partnership, if that’s easier.”

  She shifted back to face him, still feeling uncertain. “How can we be friends, or partners, without trust?”

  “I trust you, Maggie, and I’d say you trust me more than you believe. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here together, like this.”

  And that troubled her, too. Because she knew, deep down, he was right.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A hot shower, Maggie decided, was just what she needed. Time to remind herself what was at stake, both personally and for Windfall Island as a whole.

  When Dex stepped into the tub, she looked over her shoulder, irritated at having her peace interrupted. The sight of him naked didn’t do much for her self-control, either. “You just had a shower,” she pointed out.

  “There wasn’t anyone to wash my back,” Dex said, infuriatingly chipper. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you suffering the same fate.”

  “I never have anyone to wash my back. I manage.”

  “Why should you have to today?” he said, soaping his hands and rubbing them over her back.

  It felt good, she had to admit, moaning just a little as the heels of his hands worked her well-used muscles, hard enough to make it a massage as much as a cleansing. And when his hands slipped around, when he ran those hard palms and clever fingers over her breasts, she had to brace her hands on the cool tile of the shower.

  Dex pulled her back against him, nudged her legs apart, and she felt him, gloriously aroused, as he slipped inside her.

  “Shhhh,” he said when she tried to turn.

  His mouth dropped to her shoulder, biting lightly. One of his hands covered her breast, the other slipped down between her legs, and she was surrounded by him, overwhelmed. The hot water beat down on her, and the feel of Dex strong against her, hard inside her, of his hands driving her higher and tighter, simply destroyed her so that when she came, when Dex found his own release and let her go to brace himself against the shower walls, she slid down into a heap, barely feeling the cold ceramic of the tub against her heated skin.

  Dex slumped down beside her. They looked at each other and just laughed.

  “If we keep this up,” he said, “I’m not going to live to the end of the week.

  “I was only trying to take a shower,” Maggie reminded him.

  “And I was trying to help you. It’s not my fault you’re so appealing when you’re naked. And you started it, remember?”

  “Well, I’m finishing it,” she said, making a feeble attempt to climb to her feet.

  Dex took her by the hands, and they pulled each other up, swaying like drunks on legs still weak and trembling.

  “You owe me a back washing,” Dex said when they let each other go and neither of them fell down.

  “Yeah, not a good idea.” Maggie stepped out, handing him a washcloth. “Better hurry,” she added, “the water’s getting cold,” and she went into the bedroom, throwing on the first clothes she could find before he came into the room and tested her willpower.

  Two hours later, they were back in the dining room, with Dex sitting beside her at the paper-covered table. He claimed it would be easier for them to work together if they didn’t have to pass papers back and forth across the table. She thought he was trying to drive her insane.

  “Are you kidding me?” she said when he leaned in for the dozenth time, close enough to brush his body against hers from thigh to shoulder. Her heart galloped, her breath came short, and sweat popped out on her upper lip. For a woman who prided herself on her rigid self-control, it was embarrassing that he could, with nothing more than a simple touch, turn her inside out.

  “I need those pages over there,” he said, pointing to the pile farthest away from him.

  Maggie picked up the stack and slapped it down in front of him. Then she picked herself up and moved around the corner of the table.

  Dex slid into the chair she’d vacated, his knee bumping hers.

  “What are you, five?”

  “I’m surprised you have to ask that question, considering.”

  “Ego,” she snapped.

  Dex lost some of his humor—at least his mouth stopped twitching. “What are you so worked up about?”

  “Who’s worked up?” She pulled some papers over in front of her, then shoved them away again. “Having sex with you was supposed to make the craving go away.”

  “I’m not a grilled cheese sandwich.”

  She snorted. “You’re more like a bottle of booze at an AA meeting. You know you can’t have a drink, you know it’s the worst thing in the world for you, but that’s just logic.” And logic was no match for a need this big.

  “The worst thing in the world?”

  “The situation. You know what I mean.”

  He ran a finger down the little line between her brows. “Stop thinking,” he murmured, “Stop figuring angles and worrying about what happens down the line.”

  She already knew what would happen if she was foolish enough to let herself fall for him. Ignoring it wouldn’t change it. “I can’t put my head in the sand.”

  He kissed her, another of those slow, gentle kisses that left her utterly undone.

  She put her hand on his cheek, eased back before he could take her under, make her forget there would even be a tomorrow. “Let’s work.”

  Dex rested his forehead on hers for a second before he shifted back into his chair. He took a deep breath as he surveyed the piles of papers scattered across the table. “Give me the high points,” he said.

  “I copied the journals,” she began, and at his questioning look, added, “I waited until after Jessi left for the day, so she doesn’t know. Some of them are really fragile, so I thought it best if we didn’t work directly with them. Besides, Meeker wasn’t going to let me keep them long before he started making noise. To me,” she added hastily when Dex’s eyebrows shot up. “He wouldn’t go public.”

  “You threatened him.”

  “Bet your ass,” Maggie said, “but there’s his pride, too. He wouldn’t admit he lent them to me, let alone why. But he’s a pain in the ass when he doesn’t get what he wants. I figured once we had the copies, I could give them back, even if we haven’t had time to go through them all.”

  “You told him they weren’t helpful?”

  “I didn’t tell him anything. I let him infer.”

  “Denial, especially when volunteered, often means just the opposite,” Dex said with a slight smile. “You’d make a pretty good PI.”

  She shook her head. “What goes around.”

  “How much have you looked at already?”

  “Not much before I fell asleep. It’s pretty dull reading, and I was up half the night manning th
e copier,” she added in her own defense.

  “Some trusty assistant you are.”

  “I obtained the journals. That makes you the assistant.”

  “I’m the PI.”

  Maggie laughed. “Sam Spade you’re not, and I’m no Effie Perine.”

  “You have the attitude, you just need the wardrobe.”

  “Effie didn’t wear flight suits?”

  Dex grinned. “No, but I bet she had lace on under her sensible clothes, just like you. Now, if you could scare up some garters…”

  Maggie just shot him a sidelong look.

  “I’d be willing to accommodate your fantasies,” he offered.

  “At the moment my fantasies consist of staying awake long enough to make it through one of these journals.”

  They worked in silence for a little while, not making much progress. Partly, Dex admitted, because it was damned hard to keep his mind on what he was reading. And since he couldn’t seem to keep her off his mind, he didn’t see why he couldn’t put his hands on her as well. At least he’d start with his hands. With a slight, speculative smile, he sent Maggie a sidelong look.

  She scowled back at him. It only made his smile widen.

  “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

  “It wasn’t in the gutter.” It was in her flight suit, and she wasn’t wearing anything beneath it but garters and hose. Sheer black hose—

  “Hey.”

  He jerked a little, tore his eyes off her. “We need some kind of system here.”

  “I’d suggest a blindfold, but that might be problematic under the circumstances.”

  “A blindfold wouldn’t solve the problem,” he said, grinning again.

  “Maybe I should move to another room.”

  “I used your soap and shampoo.” He drew her in with every breath he took, and wasn’t that part of the problem? Even when he managed to keep his eyes on the documents in front of him, it felt as though she was leaning over his shoulder, those long, strong arms of hers wrapped around him, the warmth of her breath at his neck and the heat of her body burning through him so all that was missing was the taste of her, like dark sweet cherries, tangy and edged with—

  She sighed hugely. “I repeat, get your mind out of the gutter, Keegan.”

  “Am I that obvious?”

  She shook her head and shoved the pile of journals over in front of him. “You said we need a system, come up with one.”

  He echoed her sigh, and, with an effort he thought heroic, put her out of his mind long enough to remember that he’d come to Windfall Island with a goal, and even if the side benefits were amazing and irresistible, there’d be time for that later.

  “Okay,” he said. “Eugenia was kidnapped in 1931, but since that event is closely linked to Prohibition, we should widen the scope to include anything from that era. The 18th Amendment was passed in 1919, and repealed by the 22nd Amendment in 1933. Anyone involved in running illegal booze could have been in a position to stumble across the nurse, Sonja Hanson, and the baby.

  “And even if there aren’t any references here,” he concluded, laying his palm on the journals, “it may be there were stories told in the family.”

  “I don’t know. I think if there were stories, they’d have come out by now. If a Windfaller, any Windfaller, took in a baby, how would it be kept secret? This place is gossip central, and it would only have been more so eighty years ago. Phones weren’t even that common back then. There would have been more community gatherings, more face to face.”

  “Eugenia went missing in mid October, just in time for people to hibernate for the winter.”

  “She was eight months old. She’d have been fourteen, fifteen months by the time spring came around. Somebody would have noticed.”

  “Maybe she was small for her age.”

  Maggie bumped up a shoulder. “I guess it’s possible, but there would have been rumors, suspicions.”

  “Which brings us back to where we started, but now we can’t limit our search to those involved in bootlegging. Anyone could have written down an idle suspicion.”

  “Why don’t we start with trying to date the journals, so we can at least eliminate the ones that are too early.”

  Dex scrubbed a hand over his face. “Got any coffee?”

  “Sure, it’s in the refrigerator. There’s a grinder on the counter, right next to the coffeemaker.”

  Meaning she wasn’t about to wait on him, just because she was a woman. He could have pointed out they were in her home and her gender had nothing to do with it. But he decided to pick his battles. “I could use something to eat,” he said instead.

  She only waved a hand absently and told him he was welcome to whatever he could find.

  A half hour later, Dex returned to the dining room, carrying a tray holding two mugs of coffee and one plate full of food. He set one of the cups next to Maggie, said, “I figured you take it black.”

  “Right the first time,” she said, but when she caught sight of the plate, she lifted her eyes to his, one brow piqued.

  “You’re an energetic woman, Maggie,” he said as he took his seat around the corner from her. “I’m going to need fuel to keep up with you.”

  He expected her to scowl at him again. Instead, she smiled, slow and sexy. “Where’s mine?”

  Dex laughed, scooted the plate to the corner between them, and picked up half a sandwich piled high with cold cuts, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes.

  Maggie did the same, saying around a mouthful, “While you were eating me out of house and home, I pulled together some reference materials.”

  Dex flipped through the short stack of books she shoved his way, choosing one that contained references to Prohibition along the east coast of the United States. In addition, there was a laptop computer open beside her.

  “Don’t look so surprised. I read on occasion.”

  “History?”

  “Okay, so that was research for my tourist flights. So what?”

  He just grinned. But in the back of his mind, he couldn’t say it surprised him that, even here, her life was all about her business. And how could he fault her for it when it was the same for him?

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t take a detour once in a while, especially when that side road led somewhere so interesting.

  “I prefer mustard over mayo, just so you’re aware,” she said evenly. She hit the power switch on her laptop, then looked up at him. “For next time.” She took a huge bite of her sandwich, absolutely straight-faced.

  Until Dex reached over and rubbed his thumb across her bottom lip before he nipped away a bit of mayo at the corner of her mouth. “I’ll remember that,” he said, keeping his gaze level despite the thrill it gave him to watch hers glaze over. “For next time.”

  Dex’s idea of organization began with trying to date the journals, then put them in chronological order. For the life of her Maggie couldn’t begin to know where he got his patience.

  She sat for hours at a time in a pilot’s chair, didn’t she? She spent long periods buried in one of her engines without losing focus. She even managed to handle the paperwork it took to operate an enterprise regulated by the government. And nobody could generate tedium like the government.

  Yet she couldn’t go five minutes without fidgeting. Even now, her leg was pistoning so madly the table was shaking.

  “Maggie,” Dex said mildly.

  “This is so boring.”

  “We’ll find something. We just need to stick with it.”

  She surveyed the stack of copies still waiting to be read. There wasn’t that much patience in the world. “We’re going to need help, Dex. Jessi actually likes paperwork. I don’t see why we can’t include her.”

  “Yes, you do, or you’d have told her already, no matter what I want.”

  She ground her teeth, pissed that he was right, and pissed that he sat there plowing through documents like some stodgy old historian while she felt like a sulky kid sentenced to an interminable load
of homework.

  “You ought to be wearing a cardigan, you know; one of those ones with the patches on the elbows, and a pair of horn rims.”

  “You ought to be reading.”

  Shit, she couldn’t even get him to snipe at her. At least a bout of snark would take the edge off the torture she’d brought down on herself. “I’ve never seen a group of people so averse to using dates in my life.”

  Dex merely laid a hand on a stack of papers off to his left. “These seem to be more ledgers than journals. There are counts of everything: people, supplies, ships that were salvaged and how the spoils were divided. They have to predate the twentieth century.”

  Maggie shoved her hands through her short cap of hair, tried to remember what was at stake. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything helpful until we get some more information.” She held up a hand before he could respond. “But we can read and index, and when your friend arrives with the rest of the story, the search shouldn’t take long.”

  Dex put down the papers he’d been holding. “Maggie, Alec doesn’t have any more information than I do.”

  “What about the papers Stanhope bought from the nanny’s grandson?”

  “They’re mostly about Sonja Hanson’s life after Eugenia went missing, claims that she’d been persecuted unfairly, without offering any real proof. Once the furor died down she got married, changed her name, had kids, and never told anyone she’d worked for the Stanhopes. But she kept this shoebox full of newspaper clippings, and when she knew she was dying, she told her daughter the truth.”

  “Her truth.”

  “It’s the only starting point we have. Some of the details are vague. Maybe her memory was going, or maybe she glossed over the details to make herself look better. The truth is she was young, barely twenty at the time, and single. And there’s no doubt she would have known of the nightly party that took place on the Rum Runners anchored off shore.

  “She claimed she’d asked for the night off, but the Stanhopes were attending a charity ball, and a couple of the other servants were already off duty, so she was refused.”

  “Why not just go another night?”