“I’m going inside,” she told Logan.
She got up so fast she lost her balance. She swayed, bracing herself with a hand on the table.
“Are you okay?” He rose, too, taking her gently by the elbow.
“I need to see if that’s Mike.” She headed into the bar, and Logan’s hand dropped away from her arm.
If the man was Mike, he’d have no trouble recognizing her. She still wore her hair long and straight. People told her all the time she hadn’t changed much since high school. A better question was whether Mike would be pleased to see her.
Her stomach cramped. It seemed more likely he’d still hold their last argument against her.
The Flying Monkey was more crowded than it had been an hour ago. Maria threaded past tall tables and small groups of people trying to converse above the noise of the jukebox.
She looked wildly around for the man with the guitar and spotted him up ahead through the crowd. He was behind some people seated at bar stools, perhaps waiting to ask the owner if he could play a few songs.
Maria made a beeline for him, her heart beating harder with each step she took. Around the bar, the press of people raised the temperature to an uncomfortable level. Suddenly it was hard to breathe.
She kept advancing until she was directly behind him. Drawing in a ragged breath, she lifted her hand and tapped him on the shoulder.
The man turned, an expectant look on his face. His nose was long and straight like Mike’s. He even had the square chin that had lent her brother an air of ruggedness.
But it wasn’t Mike.
Her knees felt weak as she stared at him. His mouth was wider than her brother’s, his lips thinner, his eyes closer together. It was hard to tell in the dim light of the bar, but she was pretty sure his eyes were brown instead of blue like hers.
“Did you want something?” The man’s mouth was different, too. With his overbite, he probably should have worn braces as a child.
“Sorry. I made a mistake.” She whirled, took a step and bumped straight into Logan.
“Whoa, there.” He took her by the shoulders to steady her. “What happened?”
“It’s not Mike,” she said.
Logan put a protective arm around her and led her away from the people crowding the bar, not stopping until they had some space.
“It’s not Mike,” she said again.
“Did you really expect it to be?” he asked gently.
She had, she realized. She’d gotten her hopes ridiculously high, all because some postal worker knew of a man who bore a slight resemblance to her brother. But what if the man she’d accosted wasn’t the right one? There were lots of musicians in Key West.
“Maybe it’s the wrong guy,” Maria said. “Maybe the postal worker meant somebody else.”
“It’s the right guy,” Logan stated. “Did you notice his limp? The postal worker mentioned that.”
“Lots of people have limps,” she said.
Logan gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. “Maria, it’s a dead end. Maybe it’s time to concentrate harder on Mike’s friends. He must have given that photo of Caroline to one of them. Somebody has to have a Key West connection.”
She felt her back stiffen. She still couldn’t imagine Mike passing on a naked photo of Caroline. And why couldn’t Logan understand that she had to exhaust the possibility that Mike was on the island before taking the investigation in another direction?
“I’m going to do things my way.” She wrenched away from him and walked back through the crowd, heading for the exit.
He caught up to her easily. “Where are you going?”
She might as well tell him. He was getting harder and harder to shake off. “Kayla told me about a local bar that’s not far from here. I’m going to show the age progression around.”
The bar was on a quiet lane three or four blocks removed from the activity of Duval Street, tucked between a coin Laundromat and an optician’s office. Patrons jammed the place, watching basketball games on overhead televisions, playing pool, drinking beer at mismatched tables and chairs that could have been picked up at a yard sale. Christmas decorations were nonexistent. Nobody there knew Mike, either.
“Let’s get out of here,” Logan said after about an hour. “You look dead on your feet.”
“I’m not ready to leave yet,” she said.
Coming into the bar was a guy with bleached blond hair and a deep tan, wearing baggy shorts that extended below his knees and a T-shirt decorated with a skull and crossbones. Maria marched straight up to him, the photo in hand, ignoring the up and down glance he gave her and the smell of alcohol that emanated from him.
“Excuse me,” she said, “can you tell me if you’ve ever seen this man?”
He barely glanced at the picture, his bleary gaze focused squarely on her breasts. “Lesh get some beers and discush it.”
“I’d like to discuss it now,” Maria said, holding her ground. “Have you seen him or not?”
“Don’t be that way, shweetheart.” He reached for her, his beefy hand clamping on her arm. “Come with me.”
“Let me go this instant,” she hissed at him, “or you’ll regret it.”
Before the bleached blond could process her words, Logan came up behind him and yanked his arm so he had to release her. The blond whirled, closing his fist and swinging wildly. His punch connected with Logan’s left eye. Logan staggered backward, crashing into a table and knocking over an empty chair. The blond swung again and hit air.
“Stop it!” Maria yelled.
The drunk guy kept advancing. Logan regained his balance and brought up his fists, warding off another blow. He bounced on the balls of his feet like a professional boxer and threw a punch of his own that caught the other man on his jaw. The drunk went down in a heap, moaning and rubbing his face.
“Hey, no fighting in here!” A thickset man at least six feet four barreled up to them, scowling and getting between the two. He pointed to Logan. “You need to leave!”
Logan’s hand went to his eye. “He threw the first punch.”
“I think he broke my face!” the drunk guy wailed from the floor, where he was writhing in seeming agony.
“Want me to call the cops?” the big man barked, advancing on Logan.
Logan didn’t budge. His gaze hardened and he lifted his chin.
“No, we don’t,” Maria answered. She crossed to his side, captured his hand and tugged. He didn’t move. “We’re leaving. Aren’t we, Logan?”
He glared at the big man, who glowered back. Maria could almost smell the testosterone in the air.
She yanked harder on Logan’s hand. He felt like an unmovable object, giving her no choice but to try to be an irresistible force. “Please,” she pleaded.
That simple word seemed to finally get through to him. He blinked, meeting her eyes and nodding once. As soon as they were outside in the night air, she dropped his hand.
“Are you okay?” Logan asked, his gaze running over her.
“I’m fine,” she retorted. “What was all that about? What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I wanted him to get his hands off you,” Logan said.
She was about to tell him she didn’t need him to come to her rescue, that she was trained as a police officer. But then one of the streetlights caught him in its glow. Blood trickled from a cut above his eye, which was already starting to swell.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
/>
“Yeah.” Logan touched the injured area, then looked down at his hand. “He must have been wearing a ring.”
The heat went out of Maria’s temper.
“C’mon,” she said. “Let’s get you back to the hotel so I can do something about that cut.”
CHAPTER SIX
LOGAN TRIED NOT TO WINCE as Maria dabbed at the cut above his eye with the antiseptic they’d bought at a twenty-four-hour drugstore. He was sitting on the edge of her hotel-room bed beside the bedside table, where the light was brightest.
She unwrapped one of the bandages she’d had in her toiletry bag, biting her lower lip as she focused on the task. “Hold still.”
After smoothing the bandage over his skin with gentle fingers, she stepped back and examined her handiwork. “There. Now for the ice.”
She went into the bathroom, where she’d left the ice bucket she’d filled from the dispenser down the hall. Taking some cubes, she wrapped them in a washcloth and seconds later was back at his side, handing him the cold compress.
“The ice will reduce the swelling, but you’ll still have a bit of a shiner,” she said. “Keep the ice on for twenty minutes and off for twenty and it won’t be too bad.”
“That means you’re stuck with me for the next twenty minutes,” he said.
“Only because you insisted on coming here instead of going to your own hotel.”
“I didn’t want you walking back by yourself,” he said.
She crossed her arms over her chest and considered him. “I used to be a cop. I can take care of myself. If you’d remembered that in the bar, you wouldn’t have a black eye.”
“I did remember it,” he said. “It didn’t help.”
“Do you get into a lot of fights?” She reached out, traced his not-quite-straight nose with a finger and then pulled her arm back. He resisted capturing her hand so they’d still have a physical connection. “It looks like your nose was broken.”
“Not in a fight, in a racquetball game. The other guy swung his racket and my face was in the way.”
“Ouch,” she said.
“Yeah.” Logan rubbed his nose, remembering the blast of pain. “My last fight was in high school.”
“You mean the time you decked Bobby Jones in the school parking lot?”
“Yep,” he said. That had been over Maria, too, although he’d never shared the particulars with her. She thought Bobby had started the fight because he was jealous that Logan had beaten him out as starting shortstop on the baseball team. In reality, Logan had hit Bobby for making a lewd comment about Maria.
She shook her head. “You’ll have to come up with a story for when you get back to New York. Telling clients you were in a bar fight won’t go over well.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” he said. “Don’t women like their financial planners with a dash of danger?”
“Ha!” she said, smiling. “That’s the last thing women look for in their financial advisors.”
“How about you?” He met and held her gaze. “What do you look for in a man?”
The mood in the room seemed to change, becoming more charged and reminding him of the lateness of the hour. Once upon a time, she’d told him he was everything she could ever want.
She wet her lips, bringing his gaze to her mouth. “Somebody who knows to duck when a punch is thrown,” she said, breaking the invisible thread of tension between them.
He laughed. “Smart aleck.”
“Your turn,” she said. “What do you look for in a woman?”
“Somebody like you.” He hadn’t thought before he spoke.
“Yeah, right.”
“It’s true,” he said. For years, his friends had been teasing him that he dated only tall women who wore their dark hair long and straight. “That’s probably why none of my relationships last.”
“Because the women get on your nerves?” she quipped.
“Because what I feel for them doesn’t compare to what I felt for you,” he said.
The words hung between them, and just like that the tension was back in the room. She gazed at him, her blue eyes huge in her pale face, her lips slightly parted.
He stood up abruptly, cleared his throat and lowered the washcloth from his eye. “It’s late. I should get going.”
“It hasn’t been twenty minutes yet,” she protested.
“I can’t last that long without doing something stupid,” he said, moving past her to drop the ice in the sink. When he came out of the bathroom, she was facing him.
“What if I want you to do something stupid?” she whispered, closing the distance between them until he could smell her light, flowery scent. She anchored her hands on his chest, stood on her tiptoes and put her mouth on his.
He didn’t try to resist her. He couldn’t, even if he’d wanted to. It had been almost a dozen years since they’d kissed, yet she tasted familiar. Their lips molded as though they’d never been apart. It didn’t take much coaxing for her to open her mouth so he could deepen the kiss. He gathered her close against him as their tongues began a sensual duel. And then they were kissing in earnest.
The old sensations swirled through him, even more powerful than he remembered. He was instantly hard, the same response she’d elicited in him years ago when he’d been a teenager. In the past, he’d always been the one to break off the kiss. If not for the control that almost killed him, he would have taken her virginity long before she was ready to lose it.
She wasn’t a virgin now. They were consenting adults who wanted each other as desperately as they had then. Maybe more so. In the years after he’d lost her, he’d dreamed of making love to her, never knowing whether the reality would have been better than his imagination.
He could find out now, but what if making love to her was everything he’d ever thought it would be? What then? He’d still need to be back in Manhattan, and the life he’d made for himself by the weekend.
He lifted his mouth and moved her away from him with gentle hands. Her jaw dropped and the corners of her eyes scrunched up. She didn’t understand; that was clear. But if he stayed in her hotel room even as long as it would take to explain, he might still be here in the morning.
With her fingertips, he touched the lips he’d just kissed. Even that contact sent desire shooting through him.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.
Then he turned and left. He didn’t dare glance back.
* * *
KAYLA HAD THOUGHT OF almost everything when she’d set out to make sure nobody messed with Santa.
She’d snagged a prime parking spot on Duval Street that provided a view of the intersection where the statue loomed. Then she’d settled into the front passenger seat for the long night ahead, a pair of binoculars and a thermos of coffee at the ready.
She had absolutely no doubt she could stay up all night. What she hadn’t counted on was the need to pace herself with the coffee. It wasn’t yet 2:00 a.m., the thermos was empty and she was in desperate need of a restroom.
As the hour grew later, she saw fewer cars and people. Across the street from the statue, one of the welcome centers that sold trolley rides of the island sights had closed hours ago. Pedestrians still walked by, though, many of them unsteady on their feet after a night of drinking.
Kayla squeezed her legs together. She’d had too much to drink, too, damn it.
There was a hotel down the block where she could probably talk her way into us
ing the restroom. But what if somebody defaced Santa in the interim? How could she ever convince Uncle Carl she could be a good detective if she couldn’t handle a simple surveillance?
Tomorrow night she wouldn’t have this problem. She’d taken Maria DiMarco’s advice and put a rush order on a wireless security camera that would free her from the front seat of her car. Kayla didn’t have that luxury tonight.
She slumped back against the seat, trying not to think about anything involving water, pretty hard when she was parked beside a bathing suit shop.
Drops of rain appeared on the windshield and she gazed skyward through the glass. “Somebody up there hates me.”
She trained her binoculars on the lonely statue and then swept them right and left, her vision helped by the businesses and residences that had opted to leave their Christmas lights on all night. Since nobody was coming, she might be able to chance running to the restroom. But, no, off in the distance, heading her way from the direction of Old Town, was a lone figure. A man with his shoulders hunched against the light rain. She’d have to stay put until he was past.
Kayla started to drop the binoculars when something about the man’s walk rang a bell. He moved fluidly with a long gait, just like Alex Suarez. She zeroed in on his face. It was Alex!
She grabbed her keys and jumped out of the car, barely remembering to shut the door. She was glad she’d thought to wear tennis shoes instead of her signature high-heeled sandals. They helped her run faster.
“Alex!” she called when he was within earshot. “Can you keep an eye on Santa for five minutes?”
He stopped, his head tilting curiously. “Kayla? What’s going on?”
“No time to explain. Catch!” She threw him her keys on the way past, and he snatched them out of the air. “Wait for me in the gray Civic.”
Wish Upon a Christmas Star Page 9
