With the expansive horizon at his back and surrounded by azure water, the devilishly handsome Randy Tate might have been a postcard enticing her to indulge in an island fantasy. Frankie bit her bottom lip hard, sensing more was at stake here than a sunburn.
She might be an accomplished swimmer, but her sexy companion made her feel as if she was getting in way over her head.
5
RANDY SLUNG salty water out of his eyes and perused the slender beauty standing at the water’s edge. Minus the hat, her long curly hair whipped around her head like a red-gold sunburst. Fantastically pale, her skin glowed like a seashell, translucent and fragile-looking against the harsh backdrop of sea, sand and wind. She dipped a pink-tipped toe into the water, stalling. The borrowed bikini top bagged around her slight curves and the minuscule bottoms gave him a gut-clutching view of her slim hips and unending legs. He marveled at how quickly he had warmed to the little freckled fish out of water. Too quickly and too warm, he decided, squirming.
She took two tentative steps into the clear shallows, then raised her arms and dived gracefully toward him. She winnowed through the water and surfaced a few feet away, her head back, her hair slick and dripping. She let out a gasp. Then, grimacing, she rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands.
“Sorry,” he said sympathetically. “I’m used to the ocean water.”
She bobbed, treading water, then turned toward him, blinking rapidly.
Randy sucked in a breath between clenched teeth and nearly went under. The woman was an absolute stunner. Her smoothed-back hair revealed a deep widow’s peak and threw her delicate features into relief—incredibly blue eyes framed with glistening gold lashes, high cheekbones, chiseled nose and full lips over a neatly pointed chin.
A tentative smile lifted her face as she extended her arms, pushing at the water’s surface. “I feel so buoyant.”
“One advantage of saltwater,” he affirmed absently, then lay back to float and devour her beneath hooded eyelids.
She bounced up and down with the rolling waves, a smile playing on her lips. Like him, she was a water dog. He could tell by the glaze of sheer pleasure that slid over her expression, softening her eyes and relaxing her shapely shoulders. “Wonderful,” she murmured, tipping her face up to the warmth of the late-afternoon sun. “I have to admit this beats February weather in Cincinnati.”
“You’re from Ohio?” he asked, trying not to stare at the bikini top billowing loosely in the water.
Eyes closed, she nodded. “Uh-huh. Born and raised.”
The lines of her profile would inspire a sculptor, he was certain. A beat of desire drummed in his loins, low and prophetic. But he ground his teeth, suddenly determined to avoid the physical encounter he’d been so keen on initiating mere moments ago. He had the feeling that vulnerability was foreign for Frankie Jensen, and the fact that she had put her trust in him during a crisis was an honor he couldn’t breach. Dammit.
“Ever been to Ohio?” she asked, seemingly unaware of his struggle.
Glad for the distraction, Randy said, “I’ve been to Riverfront Stadium a few times.” He hadn’t thought of his and his brother’s weekend baseball excursions in years. Those days seemed like a lifetime ago.
She opened her eyes and glanced his way with a laugh. “Don’t tell me Key-Westers go to Ohio for vacation?”
“Conchs.”
“Hmm?”
“The locals are called Conchs.”
“Like a conch shell?”
Randy nodded. “Yeah, except a conch is the animal that once inhabited the shell—it’s kind of like a clam, and a favorite food around here.”
She nodded as if she were familiar with the cuisine. “Okay, so do Conchs go to Ohio for vacation?”
He shrugged. “People who settle in Key West typically get comfortable. I haven’t left since I arrived.” Randy immediately regretted opening a door to questions.
Frankie shifted to her back and floated, her arms out to the sides, her toes poking out of the foam in front of her. “When was that?”
The glass-clear water revealed every inch of her long, slender body. He swallowed hard and pretended to concentrate on a group of swimmers throwing a water Frisbee several hundred yards away. “A long time ago.”
“So you’re a Conch now?” she teased, her tone offhand.
“The natives tolerate me, I suppose.” Anxious to shift the subject away from himself, he asked, “Do you sail often?”
Frankie shook her head. “Not anymore.”
“Did something happen?”
“Yeah.” She laughed. “I joined the rat race.”
Been there. “Don’t you ever take time to relax?”
Her shoulders lifted in a little shrug. “The project I’ve been working on has kept me pretty tied up.”
Tied up? Randy wasn’t sure why everything the woman said seemed sexually charged. Her hair floated in the water behind her, beckoning him. Between her tempting body and her unsettling references to the corporate treadmill he himself had escaped by the skin of his teeth, his body temperature had definitely risen a few degrees. He dunked his head under the cool water, exhaled, then resurfaced and shook off the moisture. “You know what they say about all work and no play,” he chided gently.
“Makes Jill a successful executive,” she finished in a knowing tone.
Sympathy knifed through him for the woman’s misguided goals. Once he too had believed that a double-breasted suit, schmoozy lunches and long hours lined the path to success and self-fulfillment. Indeed, he had risen fairly quickly to become the youngest vice president in a thriving Atlanta savings and loan. Eager and naive, he hadn’t questioned suspicious practices until it was too late.
He peeked at Red and experienced a compelling urge to save her from herself. Yet he wondered if he would have listened to well-intentioned warnings when he’d been in the throes of his burgeoning investment career.
Money had flowed like water. The market was bullish and investors plentiful—until Black Monday. The S&L had slammed its doors and the next two years were a nightmarish blur of dealing with bankrupted customers, cooperating with state and federal banking agencies and testifying against his former bosses.
Afterward, Randolph Evan Tate III had liquidated his home, car and what was left of his own investments, packed one suitcase and hopped the train to Hartsfield Airport. In search of not only a new life, but a new way of life, he’d asked for a one-way ticket to a perpetually sunny destination. When the clerk suggested Key West, he’d agreed. Within a few days of arriving, Randolph had died, and Randy was born. He’d never looked back…until now.
“I’m the youngest project manager in my company,” Red continued, interrupting his thoughts.
Her voice sounded near. Randy glanced over to find she’d drifted closer to him, her head still back, her arms paddling slowly. If he spoke, she’d realize they were on a collision course, so he inexplicably remained silent. Ten seconds until contact.
“Not to mention the only woman,” she added.
He told himself to move out of the way. For some reason, this woman stirred sensations and memories best left dormant. Five seconds.
“The only woman, in this day and age, imagine that,” she remarked idly.
Her silken leg brushed his beneath the water, sending awareness through his body. She floundered in surprise and Randy impulsively scooped his arm around her back, kicking hard to keep them both afloat. “Easy,” he murmured against her hair, inhaling sharply at the overwhelming desire to pull her close.
“S-sorry,” she gasped, shrinking from his touch.
Sobered by his intense reaction to her, Randy released her gently. “Are you about ready for a bite to eat, Red?”
She straightened her shoulders, then the corners of her mouth drooped. “Do we have to leave?”
Amused, he smiled. For someone who’d been so reluctant to join him, she seemed to have acclimated quickly. Nodding toward shore, he said, “I brought a snack in t
he cooler. I have a couple of hours before I’m expected back at the bar.”
Her fetching mouth worked side to side. “I am a little hungry, but the water feels so good.”
“We’ll take another swim later, after the sun goes down a bit,” he promised as he headed in with a lazy backstroke, ridiculously reluctant to disappoint her. “I’d hate to see you fried on your first day.”
“The sun doesn’t seem that hot,” she said, following him nonetheless with a leisurely overhand crawl.
“The strength of the sun can be deceiving. Here you can get a sunburn in the shade.” In fact, he was feeling a little light-headed from heat and hunger himself—at least he hoped those were the reasons behind his sudden dizziness.
“Would you check your pager?” she asked behind him.
He nodded, then stood and waded ashore, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable. Since when had he let a woman get to him? Never. He wasn’t so desperate for a woman that the thought of not bedding Frankie Jensen should have him this unsettled. She was a virtual stranger, for Pete’s sake. Worry niggled at the base of his brain. Then one glance over his shoulder stopped him dead in his tracks.
Frankie waded slowly toward him in direct sunlight, the waves foaming around her lean calves. Sun-dappled water sluiced from her hair and fingertips, and the ill-fitting white bikini had become completely transparent—so transparent, in fact, it seemed evident she was indeed a natural redhead. The moisture in his mouth evaporated. Randy attempted to take a step backward and tripped instead, sitting down hard in the pale sand.
Frankie tilted her head to shake the water out of her ears and smiled at Randy’s clumsiness. Her steps faltered, however, when he pushed himself to his feet and brushed the sand from his hands. With his back to the sun, the man looked almost ethereal with his wide, bronze shoulders outlined and the light bouncing off the sun-bleached highlights of his wet hair. The gold earring and the dark shadow on his square jaw made him look like a pirate. Her heart jumped into her throat in raw appreciation while panic gripped her stomach. What was she thinking? Romping on the beach with a man so exotic, so unified with nature that the presence of the neon orange swim trunks—or any covering at all—struck her as absurd.
As casually as her shaking hands would allow, she pulled her hair over one shoulder and gently squeezed out the briny water. “How about your pager?” she asked without looking up. When her gaze wandered over her skimpy bikini, she froze—the wet, see-through fabric had adhered to her breasts and privates in a way that left no detail to the imagination. Frankie gasped, then jerked up her head, grateful Randy had turned his back. Had he seen her? Of course he’d seen her! Mortified, she crossed her arms in front of her and shuffled past him to drop to her knees on one of the towels beneath the bowed palms, her back to him.
The low rumble of his chuckle reached her. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Red.”
Her face burned with ridiculous pleasure as she yanked her wrinkled shirt from the gym bag. “Please don’t call me that.”
“Okay,” he said, his voice cordial as he leaned over and withdrew his pager. He made a regretful noise. “No word yet. Sorry, Re—I mean, Frankie.”
She pulled her shirt around her hurriedly and planted her rear end on the large blue towel, her earlier frustration flooding back. “How can I be sure the police are really working on my case?”
He picked up her hat and plopped it on her head before she could react, and lowered himself to the neighboring towel. “Because,” he said with a wink, “we take crime against tourists seriously around here—especially crime against pretty tourists.”
His gold-colored eyes sparkled, the dark frame of his lashes and eyebrows providing such a striking contrast, the intensity of his gaze unnerved her. Frankie glanced away, her skin tingly and tight from salty residue. She removed the dilapidated hat and finger-combed her hair, kinked and separated from the moisture. Her stomach ached, partly from anxiety over the lost briefcase, partly from hunger, partly from emotions kicked up by the near stranger next to her. “Where did you move from?” she asked, steering the situation back to safe conversation.
He lifted the lid of the cooler. “Atlanta.”
His deep voice sounded guarded, piquing her interest. Had he left a bad relationship? A bad marriage? Aware of the collision course, she derailed her train of thought. “I went to Atlanta twice for training last year.”
“Nice place,” he said, noncommittal.
“I didn’t sight-see,” she confessed, smiling in fond memory. “But I did visit a different restaurant every night.”
He laughed as he withdrew a nugget of ice and rubbed it on the back of his neck. “No offense, but you don’t look like much of an eater.”
Mesmerized, Frankie followed his tanned hand as his warm skin consumed the bit of ice. The temperature in their patch of shade shot up. “W-well, there’s more to a restaurant than the menu, you know.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “Like?”
Like a gorgeous man sitting across the table. “Like atmosphere and ambience.”
He grinned. “You mean smart-ass birds and staticky speakers?”
Relaxing an iota, she smiled. “Sort of.”
“A restaurant would have to be extraordinarily bad to fail in Atlanta,” he acknowledged. “Even with a tavern every few feet in the Highlands, the Friday-night wait used to be three hours.”
“Do you miss it?”
He hesitated, then scoffed and reached into the cooler again. “All that traffic—are you kidding?”
Realizing she’d hit a nerve, she proceeded slowly. “Where is your family?”
A look of affection crossed his face as he removed a frosty bottle of beer. “There’s just me and my younger brother. He’s a missionary in India.”
She tried to contain her surprise, but at the sound of his belly laugh, she knew she had failed.
“That’s the typical reaction,” he said. The corded muscles in his forearm flexed as he twisted off the cap. He extended the bottle toward her.
She shook her head. “I don’t drink beer.”
“Maybe I should introduce you to my brother.”
Frankie bristled primly. “I never acquired a taste for it, that’s all.”
He shrugged. “Too bad—this is good stuff, brewed locally.” Rummaging in the cooler once more, he withdrew a bottle of water and handed it to her.
“So your brother is a missionary.” She brought the bottle to her mouth and drank deeply. The wind had picked up a bit, carrying sand and teasing the ends of his drying hair. Her unspoken words hung in the air between them. And you’re a bartender.
“That’s right,” he said cheerfully, as if he’d read her mind. “I corrupt souls, and he saves them. Fork?” He handed her a tiny two-prong utensil, then pulled a white net sack out of the cooler, heavy with shiny red-shelled delicacies.
“Crab legs?” she murmured in delight. “I’m impressed. All we’re missing is drawn butter.”
In answer, he lifted a small plastic container. “A few minutes in the sun, and we’ll have warm, drawn butter for dipping.”
Amazed, she shook her head as he leaned to the side, stretching to set the bowl on a smooth rock in the sun, just outside their little island of shade. Frankie inhaled the fresh air and stared up into swaying palm fronds. She couldn’t believe how her life had changed in the last few hours. By all rights, she should be insane with worry over losing those documents, but Randy Tate, Good Samaritan and self-proclaimed Conch, was having a decidedly calming effect on her.
“I think I’ll have a beer after all,” she ventured. For Oscar, she thought guiltily, who’d asked her to have a drink for him. Of course, he might not appreciate the fact that she was having his drink with a half-naked sun god.
Her companion nodded, then decapitated a second iced bottle and handed it to her. Frankie sniffed the musky aroma, then lifted the bottle to her mouth tentatively under his amused gaze. The cold liquid splashed down her throat smoothly, the f
ull bloom of the nutty bittersweet taste flowering on her tongue only after she swallowed. Her grimace elicited a laugh from Randy as he situated the bag of crab legs between them.
“The last drink will taste much better than the first,” he promised with an easy grin. He cracked a fat crab leg in several places with his strong fingers, and offered her the succulent prize.
Her mouth already watering, Frankie separated the broken shell and used the miniature utensil to pull out a chunk of white meat as thick as her thumb. Unwilling to wait for the butter, she plunged the morsel into her mouth, moaning with pleasure. “This is wonderful,” she said thickly.
Randy’s eyes danced as he forked a piece into his mouth. “Nothing better than long, tasty legs.” His hungry gaze flicked over her gams, and Frankie swallowed the second bite without chewing.
To keep from replying, she took another drink from the mahogany-colored bottle. He was right—the beer tasted better this time.
“Who’s Oscar?”
She blinked. “Hmm?”
Randy tossed a spent crab leg aside and cracked another. “The guy you called to wire you money. Boyfriend?”
Frankie swallowed and attempted an offhand laugh. “O-Oscar? Not really.”
“Good. Otherwise I’d have to question your judgment.”
She bristled. “Why?”
A few strands of shiny pecan-colored hair fell over his ear as he passed her a crab leg, then retrieved the bowl of butter. He seemed to take his time removing the lid with his wide, blunt-tipped fingers, and she unwittingly followed every move. “Because,” he said with a lazy grin, “the man would have to be downright stupid to let you go on a cruise by yourself.”
For a few seconds, Frankie basked in the heat of his compliment, experiencing a rush of pure feminine satisfaction. Then a stubborn sense of loyalty seized her. “As a matter of fact, Oscar wanted to come with me, but I convinced him we both couldn’t be spared from the project.”
He laughed. “And good old Oscar went along with that?”
Frankie frowned. “Of course. He’s a responsible man.”
“Can’t get up the nerve to tell him you’re not interested?”
Club Cupid Page 5
