“So, have you two geniuses figured out that you helped a criminal escape?” Annie crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Silk Robe said. “But how were we supposed to know who was telling the truth? The big guy—your boyfriend? your husband?—seemed dangerous. I thought he was going to kill the other man.”
“Mr. Carmichael is a former FBI agent. He came to my rescue earlier tonight when the man you let get away tried to kill me.” Annie lifted her blouse and pointed to her bandaged side.
“We heard you scream the first time and this gentleman and I both came out of our rooms,” Boxer Shorts said as he approached Annie. “When we didn’t hear anything else, we decided maybe it had come from a television, so we went back to our rooms. But then when you screamed the second time, we both came back out into the hall and agreed that we should investigate.”
“I know y’all meant well,” Annie said. “But why do you think I’d be screaming, if I was trying to rob somebody?”
Silk Robe hung his head. “I don’t guess we were thinking straight. But you’ve got to admit that the man—Mr. Carmichael—seemed to have the upper hand. We thought he was…well, it was an honest mistake.”
Annie sighed. “The police are on their way. You two just stay put right here until they arrive.” Annie headed toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Boxer Shorts asked.
“I’m going to find out if Dane caught that man!”
Leaving the two remorseful do-gooders seated, one on each bed, she walked out into the hallway and down to the elevators. Just as she punched the down button, the elevator doors swung open. Instinctively, she took a step backward and held her breath. Dane Carmichael glared at her as he emerged from the elevator.
“What happened?” Annie asked, the question gushing out on her released breath.
“He got away,” Dane mumbled disgustedly. “I could see him ahead of me, until we reached the parking deck. Then he just disappeared. I searched every inch of the deck, but he was long gone.”
“At least now I can give the police a description of him. That should help them track him down.”
“Just how the hell did he get into your room in the first place?” Dane asked.
“I let him in,” she reluctantly admitted.
“What?”
“He told me he was a policeman. He even showed me his badge.” Annie rubbed her forehead. “I feel like such a dope.”
Dane slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his side. “Don’t beat yourself up about it, hon—Annie. My guess is the guy’s a local hood. A hired gun. I doubt he’ll be caught. Being so near the Gulf, he’s got too many ways to escape.”
“If he’s just a hired gun, then he’s not important, is he?” Annie allowed herself the luxury of leaning on Dane, of absorbing his strength. As much as she usually hated relying on a man—any man—she couldn’t resist accepting the comfort and support Dane offered. “I mean, if the man who tried to kill me is just an employee, that means someone hired him. That’s the person I have to unearth—the person who thinks I know what Halley knew.”
“Come on, let’s go back to your room and wait for the police.” Dane led her down the hall.
“I’m not expecting much from the local authorities,” Annie said. “After all, they’ve got a very limited force and I’m sure they aren’t accustomed to attempted murder cases or kidnapping or—”
“Don’t go writing these guys off before you give them a chance. I have a feeling your lieutenant McCullough is going to pay attention to your suspicions now.”
Dane had been right. Lieutenant McCullough did pay attention to her suspicions and promised a full-fledged investigation into Halley Robinson’s disappearance and an all-out manhunt for Annie’s attacker. But she surmised that the lieutenant’s sudden about-face had as much to do with his discovery that Dane Carmichael was a former FBI agent as to the actual events surrounding Halley’s disappearance and the two attacks on her.
Annie checked the time on her wristwatch. Four thirty-eight. She’d had quite a night. One she hoped to never repeat. She kicked off her shoes and lay on the bed. Exhaustion claimed her body the moment she relaxed atop the quilted floral comforter.
Dane locked the door and secured the safety latch, then dropped his duffel bag on the floor. He paused by the bed, removed his hip holster and laid it on the nightstand. On their drive back from the police station, they’d stopped by the Sweet Savannah to pick up his things.
“I hated having to call Halley’s parents from the police station. Her father didn’t say so, but I know he blames me.” Annie closed her eyes and let her body go limp. God, she was tired! Tired and angry and frightened. And her side ached unbearably. “I blame myself. If I hadn’t given her a job on Today’s Alabama, she’d be married to Jonathan Lyles Wilkerson IV, be a member of the Junior League and probably secretary of her mother’s study club. And she’d be alive.”
Dane remembered that Lorna had belonged to the Junior League and been the treasurer of her aunt’s study club. And she had married Beauregard Dane Carmichael III.
“You don’t know for sure that Halley’s dead,” Dane said.
“Yes, I do. You know it, too.”
Dane flipped on the bathroom light switch. “Where’s your medicine?”
“Over here in the nightstand drawer.” When she turned and reached toward the drawer pull, excruciating pain took her breath away.
“Just lie still,” Dane told her. “I’ll get it.” He turned on the sink faucet, filled a glass with water, brought it over and set it on the bedside table.
“I’m not used to someone waiting on me, taking care of me.”
“Make an exception this time, Brown Eyes,” Dane said. “I promise I won’t think of you as a weak, helpless female.”
While he jerked both pillows out from underneath the comforter and braced them against the headboard, he slipped his other arm around Annie and lifted her. He placed her in a semi upright position, then handed her the glass of water.
“You’re very astute, Mr. Carmichael.” Holding the glass in both hands, she tilted her chin and stared into Dane’s bright blue eyes.
He grinned. “It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out you’re no helpless Southern belle or that once upon a time some guy made the mistake of trying to turn you into one.”
Dane opened the nightstand drawer, pulled out the paper sack and dumped two small plastic bottles into his hand. After crumpling the sack, he tossed it across the room. It landed in the wastebasket by the dresser. Then he read the prescribed dosages, snapped open the lids, one at a time, and removed the medication.
He put the capsules in her hand. “One of each.”
“I hate taking—”
He laid his index finger across her lips. “Hush up and take the medicine. It’s no disgrace to admit you’re in pain. Even big, tough guys like me have downed pain pills.”
Without another word of protest, Annie popped the capsules into her mouth, gulped several sips of water and swallowed the medication. Dane took the glass out of her hand and set it on the table.
“Now, lie down, close your eyes and try to rest,” he told her, then turned off the bedside lamp, leaving only the light from the bathroom to illuminate the room.
“What are you going to do?” she asked as she scooted down in the bed.
Dane leaned over, rearranged her pillows and slid his hand beneath her hips, lifting her just enough so that he could jerk the covers down to the foot of the bed. He helped her adjust into a more comfortable position, then pulled the sheet and blanket up to her waist.
“I’m going to try to get some shut-eye, too.” When her gaze skipped past him and focused on the outer door, he gently grasped her chin. She looked up at him. “I’m a light sleeper. No one is going to get in here without my hearing them first.”
She nodded, smiled weakly, and closed her eyes. Dane lay on the other bed. Lifting
his arms, he placed his hands behind his head and stretched out. He glanced over at Annie. She was staring right at him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Thanks for coming back to the hotel to check on me. If you hadn’t come back, I might be dead now.”
He didn’t want to feel anything for this woman. Annie wasn’t sweet and demure, as Lorna had been. Nor was she quiet-spoken and soothing to a man’s nerves. But despite the fact that she was nothing like Lorna, didn’t even come close to being his ideal woman, he was attracted to her on some basic, even primitive level. Something about her drew him to her, made him not only want to possess her, but to protect her, as well. He hadn’t felt possessive and protective about a woman, in a personal sense, in years. Not since Lorna. But he had loved Lorna. She’d been his wife. Annie Harden was little more than a stranger. And although she begrudgingly accepted his protection, he suspected her independent nature would balk at ever being totally possessed by any man.
“I can postpone my vacation long enough to see you safely home,” he said. “You might not be safe making the trip alone.”
“I hadn’t realized… You’re right, though. Whoever hired that man to kill Halley and come after me, isn’t going to give up. They have no idea that Halley didn’t give me all the information about the story she’d uncovered.”
“I suggest we take your rental car to the airport and fly back to… Where do you live anyway?”
“Florence. That’s in the Shoals area. You know, the University of North Alabama. The Alabama Music Hall of Fame. And the birthplace of Helen Keller over in Tuscumbia.”
Lorna’s father lived in Florence now. At one time Dane and Richard had been as close as father and son. To this day he loved and respected the man who had served as a role model for him when he’d been younger. There was no man, other than his own father, whom he admired more.
Dane eased up, resting his jaw in his palm as he braced himself on his elbow. “One of my former father-in-law’s companies is in Florence. He and his second wife have had a home there for years.”
“Who is your father-in-law?”
“Richard Hughes. Do you know him?”
“Richard Hughes! I never knew he had a daughter. I know his son, of course. Dickie is CEO of Hughes Chemicals and Plastics. And Richard and my uncle Royce are business associates and golf buddies.” Annie clicked her tongue against her teeth. Small world. No wonder Dane had reminded her of her father and ex-husband. If he’d once been married to Richard Hughes’s daughter, then he had to be a part of their world. Her feminine intuition had been right on center. Dane Carmichael was a Southern gentleman, a member of the exclusive good ole boys’ club. He and his kind represented what Annie hated most—men who still thought of women as possessions, and felt that those women should be grateful for their benevolent protection and submit happily to their rules and regulations.
“Richard took Lorna’s death very hard.” Even after ten years, Dane could barely bring himself to talk about Lorna’s death. “I imagine he finds it difficult to remember and… Small world, isn’t it, your knowing my father-in-law so well? If your family lives in Florence, I’m surprised that Lorna and I never met you when we visited her father there.” And I would have remembered you, Ms. Annie Harden.
“I moved to Florence a few years ago,” Annie explained. “I grew up in Chattanooga, and lived in Memphis for years. After my father died, my mother moved to Florence, her hometown, and I moved there so I could be close to her.” So I could look after her, Annie thought. Her mother wasn’t entirely helpless, but she was lost without someone to lean on, the way she’d leaned on her husband.
“I haven’t seen Richard in years.” Dane had kept in touch with Lorna’s family for a while, but communication with them had seemed to cause them as much grief as it had him. Talking to each other, being around each other, always brought back memories of Lorna, especially memories of the way she had died. “I suppose I should drop in on him, after I see you safely home.”
“Dane, I… It really won’t be necessary for you to fly home with me. I was going to drive back, but now that I’ve told Halley’s family… Well, you can just take me to the airport tomorrow and I’m sure I’ll be safe enough on the flight into Muscle Shoals.” Although she was grateful to Dane, perhaps even owed him her life, she knew he could be as dangerous as the man who had tried to kill her. She found Dane attractive, far too attractive. And she had one hard and fast rule: whenever she found a good ole boy Southern gentleman attractive, she ran like hell. After divorcing Preston, she had not only taken back her maiden name, but the right to live her own life—to make her own choices. Never again would any man run her life!
“And what about when you get home?” Dane asked. “You don’t think you’ll be out of danger then, do you?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that you need an investigator to help you find out what Halley Robinson knew and who wants you dead because of it. And I think you need a full-time bodyguard.”
“Are you saying that I should hire you?” The effects of the painkiller began spreading through Annie’s body, liquefying her bones and muddling her brain. “I can’t have you around all the time. No way.”
“I think you’re confused, Brown Eyes. I’m one of the good guys. Remember?”
Dane eased up off the bed, stood and looked down at Annie. Her dark eyes challenged him. The defiant thrust of her chin dared him. Despite her attempt to warn him off, he sat on the edge of her bed, reached out and ran the back of his hand across her cheek. She shuddered.
A knot formed in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted a woman so badly. And Annie wanted him. Her lips might deny it, but her small, luscious body gave her away. Dane knew the signs. Peaked nipples pressing into her bra and silk blouse. Flush spreading across her cheeks. Fire in her eyes. And her deep, labored breaths.
But, dammit all, he couldn’t take advantage of her—not in her condition. She had a nasty gash in her side and the medication would put her to sleep soon.
“You can’t go home with me.” Annie’s speech was already slightly slurred. “I can’t handle you.”
Dane chuckled. “You’re getting loopy. The pain medicine must have already kicked in.” He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “You’re not going to have to handle me, Annie. Not tonight, anyway.”
“That’s good to know,” she said. “I really like you. And I appreeze…appreshe…I’m thankful you were around to save my life. But you’re bad for me, you know. Southern gentleman are always bad news.”
“So he was a Southern gentleman, huh?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Annie patted Dane’s shoulder.
“Go to sleep.”
She nodded her head and closed her eyes. Dane lay down again, but it was more than an hour before he shut his eyes and another hour before he finally dozed off.
Dane lifted Annie’s suitcase and his duffel bag from the floor and followed her out into the hallway. Taking short, quick steps, she headed for the elevators. They had been arguing for the past thirty minutes, ever since he’d mentioned flying to Florence with her. Annie Harden had to be, without a doubt, the most stubborn, mule-headed woman he’d ever had the misfortune to run across. He was beginning to think she really didn’t know just how much danger she was in.
Annie jabbed the down button. Dane glanced up at the ceiling. She tapped her foot on the floor. He cleared his throat.
The elevator doors opened. Dane waited for her to enter, then stepped in beside her. She looked straight ahead, deliberately avoiding eye contact with him.
“I’ve got a good mind to buy a ticket and get on that plane with you, whether you want me to or not,” Dane said.
She snapped her head around and glared up at him. “Don’t you dare!”
Dane mumbled a few well-chosen obscenities under his breath. “Fine. I give up. Fly home alone. But I’m going to have Lieutenant McCullough get in touch
with the Florence police department and have an officer meet your plane.”
“Fine. Go right ahead. Have him notify the Alabama Highway Patrol, for all I care.”
When the elevator doors opened, Annie stomped out into the mini-lobby of the Marina House, swung open the outer door and headed into the ground-level parking deck. Dane caught up with her before she reached the blue rental car.
“Wait!” he called to her.
“Now what?” She paused, pursed her lips and narrowed her gaze.
“Leave the car here,” he said. “We’ll call a cab to take us to the airport.”
“I have to turn this car in before I go home.”
“I’ll take care of it. Later.”
Annie reached for the door handle.
“Don’t open the door!” Dane dropped the suitcase and duffel bag to the concrete floor, then grabbed Annie and whirled her away from the car.
Chapter 4
“What’s wrong with you?” Annie glared at Dane. “Have you lost your mind?”
Forcibly keeping her away from the car, Dane explained. “One of the simplest ways to kill somebody is to plant a bomb in their car.”
Annie stared at him, disbelief in her eyes. “I thought…I mean, surely he didn’t stick around last night, knowing the police might catch him.”
“He could have come back later,” Dane said. “But my guess is he sent someone else.”
“God, I feel as if I’ve walked right into the middle of a spy novel and gotten myself involved with James Bond.”
Dane released his tenacious hold on her. She relaxed against his side, her small frame just barely touching him.
“The name is Carmichael,” he said with a straight face. “Dane Carmichael.”
Grinning, Annie jabbed him in the arm. “So, why don’t you just check the car and see if there really is a bomb, 007?”
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