Baited

by Crystal Green

  But he’d sure as hell guaranteed that wouldn’t happen.

  Gradually, a tone of betrayal seethed over him, claiming him, taking the place of the brokenhearted old man. He moaned, closed his eyes…

  Another headache.

  Kat reached for the gag, knowing that he would react to the pain with meaningless gestures. But she was too late.

  He opened those dark, clouded eyes.

  “I take everything back,” he said, voice low and ragged as he jerked to avoid the gag. “I feel…nothing for you, Katsu. You’re just…a goddamned mutt who doesn’t know any better—”

  She backed away in horror, frozen by his slur.

  “—a confused suck-up who…never gives anything back. And…after all the places…I wanted to take you…after all I did for you…”

  Even though Duke was nothing to her now, her heart had stopped beating at the word mutt and most of his words after that weren’t heard. A man who’d often said he’d valued her, who’d seen the wonderful things she was capable of and had raised her dreams above all the limitations she’d set for herself after she’d left Will…that this man could so completely try to remove all of that…It left her without air.

  But she breathed anyway. He couldn’t rob her of survival.

  A tremble had started in her throat, but now she knew she wasn’t going to cry, not for a murderer. She wasn’t going to fall down and weep because she was just now realizing that she’d been trying to force this unworthy man into the place of her father, someone who would see past all her barriers and just love her.

  It was like hearing about her dad’s death again and knowing that every chance to get him back had failed.

  Will raised his voice, but it was still weak. Only the undercurrent of a threat revealed strength. “Don’t ever talk to her like that.”

  Duke turned toward Will, avoiding the gag Kat was trying to put into his mouth. “How about you…Captain Ashton? I’ve heard you…have a yen for upward…mobility. What would it take to buy you? Five percent of…billions?”

  Kat’s five percent. Now he was toying with them, seeing if he could wedge them apart. With surprising strength, Duke bit her when she tried to gag him again.

  “What would it take,” he said, growing more agitated, “to have you…save Chris, Captain? Fifty percent? No one back on…the mainland would have to know…what happened here—”

  Too late for a gag. Kat looked over at Will to see him hesitate in an answer that should’ve been instant. She saw it in his eyes. He craved that money.

  There, in the eternal tide of one moment, was the beginning of it: all Will’s fantasies coming true. Reclaiming his family’s name. Feeling like a true man because he’d become somebody.

  God, it was happening again. Kat was drowning in suspicions, lost in his hesitation. Her power—her ocean—was slipping away, its flow cut by this one, all-important pause.

  A replay of that night, his shock and regret at the pregnancy, all the things he’d denied later.

  All the things she’d seen go through his naked gaze. She recognized them so well because she’d felt them, too.

  The fear was back. The doubts. The underwater threat that had almost killed her earlier.

  She glanced away, unable to watch, unable to swim in the depths of suspicion that were covering her and pinning her under. Even if he really did love her, he’d never gotten over his thirst for redeeming himself—his hunger for the money that promised to save him.

  “Cram your offer,” she heard him say to Duke in a rough, embattled voice. “And don’t ask again.”

  It should’ve lifted her up, relieved her, but when she looked at him again, she was crushed, unguarded in the wake of the silent truth.

  Now, in his eyes, all she found was hurt, because he knew exactly what she was thinking. That she’d gone right back to suspecting him of the worst.

  “Kat…?” He sounded like he’d lost everything.

  With sudden clarity, she realized that Will hadn’t been the reason they’d broken up in the first place. It’d been her. She’d been the producer and victim of doubts, creating and succumbing to them, running away from them as she invited them along.

  But that also meant that she had the power to save herself again. She wasn’t at the mercy of his hesitations, real or imagined.

  Not anymore.

  She could finally take herself back.

  During Will’s pause, Duke had grown increasingly frustrated. A vein was pulsing in his temple.

  “Duke, calm down,” she said. “Don’t—”

  “Please!” He raged against his bonds. “Help Chris! He’s…a good boy! Please let me—”

  He choked to a stop, eyes bugging out, face the color of embers.

  “Duke?” She flung the blanket off him. “Duke!”

  Will began to crawl over.

  Kat’s first instinct was to start CPR, but then she hesitated. Duffy, Alexandra, Eloise, Louis. It was like they were keeping Kat’s hands tied…

  But who was she to watch him die? How could she just sit here…?

  Remembering herself, she pressed her palms to his chest.

  But it was already over. His breathing whistled in his throat, his face a mask of surprise and denial. Tears gathered in his hazel eyes as he gazed at Kat.

  His mouth wrenched as he tried to talk.

  She bent down in time to hear him speak.

  But the words dissipated like spray, misting away before she could grasp them.

  No matter how hard she tried to fight it, sadness attacked her, breaking her down to the girl she’d been before she came to the island. The girl who’d sincerely adored this man who’d wanted to help her. The girl who’d been played for such a fool.

  Looking at him, she saw her father, the man who hadn’t even been able to afford a funeral for her to weep at. The man she’d lost touch with—the man she’d just plain lost.

  As Duke’s eyes sheened over with stillness, Kat didn’t say a word. No I love you. No deathbed forgiveness. She hoped he was seeing all the faces she herself would picture during all the midnight hours to come: all the death masks that would haunt her.

  Numb, she joined Will, who’d moved by the fire. She felt cold with every loss suffered on this island.

  Over the flames, Will gazed at her. She saw his heart in his eyes, destroyed by the reawakened doubts both of them were having about each other.

  Swallowed by grief, Kat was afraid to jump into him again, afraid she might drown in the alien liquid-blue of doubt.

  And, soon, when the rescue helicopter roared overhead, Kat tried to be happy. But one thing kept her moored.

  The suspicion that she and Will were floating on an ocean that she wasn’t sure she could beat this time.

  Epilogue

  On board the Coast Guard cutter, Kat closed her eyes against the pale walls of the sick bay and rested her head against her pillow, giving in to the meds that were supposed to make her feel better. An IV poked out of her arm—the better to fight pneumonia with, the health service technician had told her.

  But what was going to chase away those faces—the masks, the patterns—from her mind?

  Pushing the images away, she opened her eyes again, turning her head to the side and training her gaze on the curtain that separated her from the rest of the room. She told herself everything would be okay: her roommate, Tracy, had already been contacted. Her best friend, the closest thing that Kat had to family, was waiting for her in San Diego, and she’d probably fuss over Kat endlessly.

  Yeah, everything was fine now, she kept telling herself. Nestor was in isolation, and the ship’s commanding officer had promised that he, himself, would see that the last Delacroix would be delivered ashore to face the music for his attempted shark-cage murder of Chris. Dr. Janelle Hopkins had been separated from everyone else, too, seeing as the CO considered her association with Nestor suspect. And, of course, Chris was under strict watch.

  Yet present circumstances weren’t what
was really bothering Kat. Part of her feared that Chris and Duke might somehow get away with murder, that their crimes would be kept under wraps because of the Harrington legacy.

  But she was going to do everything in her power to make sure that didn’t happen. For the sake of everyone who’d died. For the sake of anyone who might get hurt by Chris in the future.

  A cough welled up in her chest, as tight as her heart felt whenever she started to think about what was weighing her down the most.

  Will.

  She lay there some more, trying to imagine the ship slicing its way though the ocean back home, to a place where terror wouldn’t hide behind the dark of a storm only to be lit by jags of lightning.

  Just as she was forcing away the unsettling memories again, she heard the separating curtain open with the scrape of metal rings against the bar. With a start, she faced the intruder.

  Her heart clutched, adrenaline racing as she took in Will’s pale skin, the shaded red beneath his eyes, the sling that assuaged his wounded arm and shoulder. She’d been told that they’d patched him up and he’d been instructed to rest until they arrived in port.

  He’d never been great at following orders, though.

  “Hi,” he said quietly.

  Kat chanced a smile, too overcome to speak.

  Almost shyly, he gestured to a chair at the end of her bed. She nodded, and he collapsed into it, just like he’d spent his last ounce of energy making his way over to her.

  For a moment, he didn’t say anything, just fixed his gaze on her. A soft, apologetic gaze.

  “You doing okay?” he asked.

  “Mmm.” She worked up some saliva to talk. “Better.”

  “Good. I’m…” He trailed off, swallowing hard.

  All the agony of the last time they’d talked, on the beach before Search and Rescue detected them, came rushing back. A lump jammed in her throat, making her eyes sting.

  “You hear what the CO said?” Will continued, glancing at the floor instead of her, making small talk to ease their discomfort with each other.

  “No.” A whisper. It hurt.

  “Freak storm.” A slight smile touched his lips as he continued his assessment of the floor. “That’s what started all this. They’re researching what happened, and I know they’re chomping at the bit to ask me a million questions—”

  “Will?”

  He finally looked at her, light illuminating the blue-green of his eyes.

  A deep haven colored by the fear of what was keeping them apart. But there was something like hope there also. Wasn’t there?

  He’s waiting for you, she thought. Waiting for you to test his temperature to see if it’s okay to go all the way in.

  But all her safety alarms went off, buzzing with the questions she’d always had about Will, suspicions, barriers.

  Dammit, wasn’t she strong enough to survive anything now? What was stopping her from taking this one little chance when it was nothing compared to all the others she’d endured?

  The tightness in her throat ached. Making the first move wasn’t “nothing.” That’s what was so scary. Taking another risk on Will was everything right now, especially after she’d lost so much.

  Hadn’t she made just as many mistakes, hesitations as Will? Hadn’t she paused after Duke had offered her money to confess her love?

  Yeah, she had. God, yeah. Neither of them was perfect.

  At the foot of her bed, Will’s eyes shone under a glassy surface, steeped with emotion. And Kat took a deep, deep breath, finally ready to plunge in.

  To dive toward him, ready for whatever the unknown would bring.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5446-0

  BAITED

  Copyright © 2006 by Chris Marie Green

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

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