by Rebecca York
Accepting the invitation, he took her into his mouth, stroking and sucking while he used his hand on the other breast.
He was so hot he thought he might set the bed on fire. And she seemed equally aroused.
It was impossible not to move his hips against her now. Impossible not to picture himself stripping off her shorts so he could touch her intimately.
His hand cupped her hip, and that was when her fingers grabbed his.
“Max…no,” she said, the words high and broken.
He raised his head and looked down at her, trying to make sense of what she’d just said. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. He was sure of that. But she was telling him to stop.
“Why not?” he asked, hearing the thickness of his own voice.
“Because it’s wrong. I mean…people aren’t supposed to do this.”
Certainly not on such short acquaintance, he thought. He knew that he’d let his own needs push him toward something dangerous. He still didn’t know if he could trust this woman, yet he was getting ready to make love with her. And that could be a bad mistake. He was already too emotionally involved. Lord, he’d even wondered what he’d do if her needs conflicted with his job.
“You’re right,” he growled, rolling onto his back and grabbing up a wad of bedding as he struggled to get his body under control.
After half a minute, he heaved himself off the bunk and started down the hall. Then he remembered the gun he left on the floor. Nice work, Dakota!
As much as he hated returning to her room, he couldn’t leave the weapon there. Reluctantly he stalked back to her cabin, ignoring her wide-eyed stare as he snatched up the Glock and departed again, thinking that he’d never acted with less professionalism in his damn life.
He was sure he couldn’t sleep now. He was too hot, too needy and too confounded by his own behavior. He’d never gotten involved with a woman this quickly. Not even Stephanie. Relationships had never been easy for him. Maybe that was why he’d liked the spy business. You had an excuse for not getting close. But Stephanie had been in the same profession. Their common experiences helped forge a bond between them.
Was that happening with Annie? He recognized a fellow misfit spook and was reaching out to her.
Somehow, after that, he did sleep, and he awoke again with a start. Again he heard Annie’s voice. This time she was outside. And this time she wasn’t alone. She was speaking to a man who sounded all too familiar.
Bert Trainer.
Every muscle in Max’s body tensed. He’d wondered if she was playing some kind of game with Trainer. Now it looked as if she’d sneaked out to meet the sheriff.
To make a report? Was that what this was all about? While he’d been trying to get her to accept his help, she’d been figuring out the best way to tell her friends what she’d learned about Max Dakota, the prize fool in the big boat.
He cursed under his breath. At the same time he racked his brain, trying to think if he’d let slip any information the bad guys in town could use.
Chapter Seven
Max pulled on a pair of shorts and shrugged into one of his aloha shirts, resisting the urge to bring the Glock along. That would be a dangerous move.
As he hurried barefoot up the companionway, he buttoned the shirt.
Through the windows of the lounge, in the glow from one of the overhead dock lights, he spotted two pairs of legs. The sheriff was wearing his usual dark pants and trooper boots. Annie’s legs were bare. But he could see she had finally put on the sandals he’d given her. They were at least two sizes too large for her feet, and he couldn’t stop himself from making a mental note to get her some that fit better. Damn. Why was he worrying about her shoes? Especially if he was going to be kicking her butt off the boat. That is, if he didn’t end up in a jail cell—or in the swamp.
Then the sheriff’s words filtered through to him.
“Tell me again how you happened to be sneaking around the dock at three in the morning,” Trainer was saying.
“I’m not sneaking around. I…I’m a guest of Max Dakota, and I came out here to get some fresh air.”
“Uh-huh,” Trainer said, as if he didn’t believe a word. As if he had never met her before and was doing his damnedest to find out who she was. “You plannin’ to go down to Nicki’s Paradise and get some more fresh air?” the lawman asked.
“What is…what’s that supposed to mean?” Annie parried, obviously trying to keep up with the conversation.
“You tell me, missy.”
Max waited to hear what she said, remembering that he’d mentioned the nightclub to her.
She didn’t say anything.
“Cat got your tongue, missy?” Trainer asked.
She still said nothing, and Max wondered if she understood the question, given her previous reactions to American idioms.
“I think you and me are going to take a trip to the station house where we can have a nice, cozy chat. What you can do to help yourself here, missy, is you can tell me what your boyfriend is up to.”
Max waited tensely for what she might say. Then he saw Annie shift her weight from one foot to the other and felt his own muscles turn to hard knots. He had come to know Annie’s body language all too well, and that little movement told him a lot. She wasn’t planning on going down to any station house. She was going to try the same thing on the sheriff that she’d tried on him. Attack and escape. But it seemed she didn’t know that Trainer was likely to shoot her in the back when she turned to make her getaway.
Unless the sheriff wanted information from her. It didn’t sound as if she was in on the Hermosa Harbor drug deal, but he couldn’t be sure. She could have been working with Trainer and decided she wanted out. When they’d concluded she was defecting, they’d tried to get rid of her. Now they were offering to let her go if she ratted on Max Dakota.
Only, she didn’t have enough information to do much damage in that department. Or did she? He’d thought she was asleep while he’d been at the computer. But she could have been prowling the boat, looking for stuff she could use against him. Was there anything she could have found that would link him to Light Street? Or to Jamie Jacobson?
Damn. He knew he should have been more careful about letting his emotions overcome his good sense. He knew he’d been operating in that mode for a while now, but the difference this time was that he’d let himself get wound up with Annie.
As those thoughts whirled in his head, he hurried up the companionway and onto the deck, then slowed his pace as he came in sight of the two people on the dock.
“Honey, there you are,” he said in the easy drawl he’d been using since he’d arrived in Hermosa Harbor. “I woke up and you weren’t in bed. And when you weren’t up in the lounge getting a glass of hot milk, I wondered where you’d gone.”
Annie goggled at him. When she didn’t answer, he turned to Trainer. “Is there some problem, Sheriff?”
Obviously both surprised and annoyed, the lawman swung around to give Max a considering look. “This lady claims to be a friend of yours. Is that accurate?”
“A very good friend,” Max said, keeping his voice calm and his stride easy as he moved across the deck. No use letting the opposition know that his dry mouth was making it difficult to speak.
He waited while a little swell made the boat sway, then climbed over the side and onto the dock. He noted Annie’s wide eyes and rigid stance as he sauntered over to her. When he slung his arm around her shoulder, he could feel the tautness in her body. As much to calm himself as to calm her, he stroked his hand up and down her arm, over the goose bumps that dotted her skin. Not from cold, he assumed, because the Florida night was balmy.
He made a tsking noise, as though speaking to a naughty child. “Honey, you should let me know when you’re planning to disappear on me in the middle of the night. I was worried. And it looks like Sheriff Trainer was worried, too.”
She gave a tight nod. Trainer flicked an assessing glance from Annie to him and back
again. He knew the sheriff caught the way she swallowed nervously.
“She wouldn’t tell me her name,” the lawman said.
“Well, Bert Trainer, meet Annie…Oakland,” he said, pausing just a beat when it occurred to him that Annie Oakley was going to sound like a joke.
“I’d like to see some identification,” Trainer said.
Panic bloomed on her face, so Max answered for her. “Unfortunately, her purse went over the side when the boat gave a lurch. She lost her driver’s license and all her credit cards.”
Trainer folded his arms across his chest and shot her a doubtful look. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” she agreed quickly.
“Kind of inconvenient.”
“You’ve got that right!” Max answered. “We’ll have to send for duplicates.”
“From where?”
“Well, she lives in Maryland. Outside Baltimore.”
“Address?”
Max cursed silently, wishing he hadn’t started manufacturing details. With an inward shrug, he gave his own address in Ellicott City.
Trainer wrote it down.
“You’d best not do any driving until you get a duplicate license.”
“Yes. Thank you for the advice,” Annie said, moving closer to Max.
“How exactly did you get here?” Trainer asked.
This time Max was the one who drew a blank. As he scrambled for an answer, Annie spoke up briskly.
“Max picked me up in Twin Rivers,” she answered, naming a town just to the north of them up the Florida coast. Good going, he thought.
Before Trainer could ask another question, Annie cleared her throat. “I probably should go back to bed,” she said.
“Good idea,” Max agreed, stroking her arm again before giving Trainer a direct look. “Thanks for taking such good care of my lady.”
“Don’t mention it,” the sheriff answered, a definite edge in his voice. With his arm around Annie, Max felt a small shiver go through her.
“Let’s go get comfortable, sweetie pie,” he said, hoping he wasn’t overdoing the endearments. Really, he was angry enough to strangle her, but it could be a fatal mistake to let Trainer know that.
Feeling the lawman’s eyes boring into his back, he escorted Annie onto the deck, then waited with her while Trainer’s footsteps receded slowly down the dock in the direction of the parking lot.
Without looking back, Max tightened his hold on Annie’s arm and led her back into the lounge.
Not until he’d closed the door behind them did he turn to her with his eyes flashing. “What the hell were you doing out there?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
She raised her chin. “I had to leave.”
“And just where did you think you were going?”
“I…” She stopped, shrugged.
“If I hadn’t come out there, your buddy Trainer would have hustled you off in his patrol car. And I’m not so sure you would have ended up at the station house.”
“He’s not my buddy,” she said.
“Are you sure of that? He seemed pretty interested in you. He seemed as if he might know you.”
“Where did you get that impression?”
“From your conversation,” he pressed, even though he didn’t know exactly how to interpret the conversation.
“No.”
“Then what?” he shouted, angry with himself for losing his cool.
Her face crumpled, and he felt a stab of guilt. She’d just had a very nasty, very close call. Struggling to speak slowly and distinctly, he said, “How do you know you’re not best pals, since you claim you can’t remember anything?”
“We have covered that ground before, I think,” she said defiantly. “When are you going to believe me?”
“When you start coming clean with me.”
“Coming clean?”
“Telling the truth!”
“I am.”
“Really? If you don’t remember anything, where did you get the name of Twin Rivers?”
“I looked on a map and saw it.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I have excellent map-reading skills.”
He dragged in a breath and let it out in a rush. “Okay, let’s play it your way. You don’t know Hermosa Harbor. You don’t know what you’re doing here. But you think you’re just going to leave the boat—and go do what?”
She shrugged again.
“Well, maybe you’ll be thinking more clearly in the morning.” He regarded her for several moments, wondering what the hell he was going to do. One thing for sure, he couldn’t trust her to stay put.
“If I were smart, I’d just let you go. Then you’d be someone else’s problem. But I have the feeling that you wouldn’t get very far. So we’re going to try a quick fix. In the morning we’ll regroup.”
He was speaking as much for his own benefit as hers while he led her belowdecks once more.
The fight seemed to have gone out of her. She didn’t protest as he marched her down the hall to his room, where he turned his back on her so she couldn’t see what he was taking out of a drawer. Then he escorted her to the cabin where she’d been sleeping earlier. Or maybe she never had been sleeping. Maybe she’d just been lying in there waiting for him to drift off so she could make her escape.
“Lie down,” he said, gesturing toward the bunk.
She did so, staring up at him with an unreadable expression.
In one smooth motion, he slipped a handcuff onto her right wrist. Its mate went around the metal chain that held up the bunk.
She gasped, pulling at her hand, then letting it fall back to her side. “No!”
“Sorry. But I need to get some sleep, and it’s obvious that I can’t trust you to stay put. And I need to know what you were planning to take with you when you decided to bail out.”
As he spoke, he moved his hands expertly over her body. Into her pocket he found one of the steak knives from the galley.
Liberating it, he tossed it onto the desk.
She looked up at him with large, wounded eyes as he kept searching, and he saw that she was the one who felt betrayed. That gave him a twinge, but he stayed on task. In the other pocket, he felt the slippery surface of a plastic bag.
She hadn’t grabbed for the knife, but she grabbed for the little package. The cuffs stopped her, and she was forced to crouch in an awkward position before easing back onto the bed.
“What’s this? Your drug stash?” he asked, stepping out of her reach, disappointment making his tone harsh. “What are you on, honey? Uppers? Downers? Is that what’s causing your mood swings? Or maybe you’ve fried your brains and now you’re trying to figure out how to get your head out of your ass?”
“No!”
He held up the bag, trying to see the contents. As far as he could tell, there was a piece of paper inside. Which was how LSD was packaged. Drops of the stuff dripped onto absorbent paper. “What is it? Acid?”
“Give that back to me,” she said, unable to hide the note of panic in her voice.
“Not a chance.”
Moving to the desk, he turned on the light and held up the bag. She’d sealed it with tape. He opened it carefully, keeping one eye on her, watching the desperate set of her features as he pried off the tape, extracted the paper and unfolded it.
Tension radiated from her like a stove burner on high as he stared down at the sheet. There were no telltale dots. Instead, in the middle of the paper someone had drawn a symbol he didn’t recognize. A circle with an X through it.
“What the hell is this supposed to mean?” he asked.
She didn’t answer, but she kept her gaze pinned to him.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Something from a biker gang? A symbol for your distributor so he’ll know you? A message to your mom?” He laughed as he delivered the last line.
Apparently she didn’t think it was funny. “No,” she clipped out.
“Then what is it?” he shouted, somehow keeping himself from c
rossing the room, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her.
Again she pressed her lips together. Apparently she didn’t know how close he was to physical violence.
“Why is it so important?” he pressed.
She only shrugged.
“You say you can’t remember anything, but this thing is apparently important to you!”
As he struggled to hold himself together, he silently admitted that he didn’t know why he was so angry, except that he felt he’d been conned. And he shouldn’t—because he hadn’t known this woman long enough to form an emotional attachment. That was what he told himself, but deep down he understood that he didn’t believe it.
“Get some sleep,” he advised. “I’m ready to strangle you now, but maybe I’ll be more rational in the morning.”
THE LATE-NIGHT ENCOUNTER on the dock had shaken Bert Trainer. There was something about the woman who called herself Annie Oakland that set his teeth on edge.
She’d been tough. But she’d been afraid of him, and he would have gotten some information out of her if Max Dakota hadn’t picked the wrong time to show up.
They were up to something—and he was going to find out what. He didn’t like the way she’d suddenly appeared in town. He wanted to know why.
He pulled his cruiser into the drive-in lane at an all-night burger joint and ordered a greasy, double bacon cheeseburger. And a chocolate milk shake. Junk food. Rich and satisfying.
Then he drove home to the house he’d bought with his ill-gotten gains. He had a nice little racket going with Nicki Armstrong. She scratched his back, and he watched out for her. A very comfortable arrangement.
When he’d first gotten to south Florida, he’d been a fish out of water. It had taken some time for him to settle into a reasonable lifestyle. But he’d always been tough as alligator hide. And a quick study. He loved it here now with a passion that bordered on obsession.
But he was always waiting—waiting for something or someone to come along and screw it all up.
He carried his food out to the deck that overlooked the swamp. Nature in the raw. He could never get enough of the earthy smells wafting toward him in the breeze.
