BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON
By
Sydney Somers
© copyright January 2008, Sydney Somers
Cover art by Eliza Black, © copyright January 2008
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author's imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
Dedication
To Jaycee. For brainstorming, listening, inspiring, and talking me down off the "I'm-stressing-and obsessing" ledge on a daily basis.
Chapter One
"You want me to what?" Harley McKinnon dropped into the chair opposite her boss's desk, juggling the stack of file folders in her arm. She brushed impatiently at a loose strand of brown hair that had worked its way from the clip at the back of her head. "It sounded like you were sending me on assignment."
Her boss pushed an envelope across the polished oak desk. "You leave in two days."
Harley didn't so much as glance at the envelope. "Tomorrow was supposed to be my last day."
Mac leaned back in his leather chair, his Cuban cigar dangled out of his mouth. With his short, square, salt and pepper hairstyle and piranha personality, Harley always thought he reminded her of the short tempered editor from the superhero movies.
A pair of manipulative green eyes pinned her in place. "Harley, I took a chance on you three years ago."
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Barely. For three years, she'd heard this line and she groaned inwardly knowing what would follow it.
"Your dad and I are playing golf next week." He followed the reminder up with another pointed look. "You're not slated to start teaching your journalism class for another few weeks, and your mother told me you already sent the final revisions for your novel off to your editor."
This was why people didn't go to work for their parents' best friend. There was no separation from work and home life.
Harley managed to swallow most of the sigh that worked up her throat. "Fine." From experience she knew if she didn't agree now, Mac would launch into wartime stories about how he had saved her father's life and brought him back to her mother. One of these days the stories would stretch back as far as the Second World War knowing Mac.
Snagging the envelope, she dragged in a resigned breath then opened it. She drew out a plane ticket. "Antigua? As in the Caribbean?"
Mac winked. "See. It's not so bad. What else did you have planned for the next week anyway, wilderness camping and yoga? Aside from a little investigative work, you can even work on your tan and sip on those fruity drinks with the cute umbrellas."
But Harley had been looking forward to the camping and yoga. It had been forever since she had taken a little down time and, with being done at the magazine and shipping off the final revisions for her first suspense book, she needed the break.
"There's nothing to this assignment, just a little poking around, asking a few questions."
Harley skimmed the file folder that came with the envelope, and frowned. "An adults only resort?"
Mac nodded, a glimmer of something in his eyes sent of alarm bells in her head. "I hope you were expecting me to go alone."
Mac shoved away from the desk, set his Cuban in the crystal ashtray, and reached for the health shake his wife insisted he drink at least twice a day. Harley recognized the banana and caramel aroma. Her mother had begun fostering them onto her dad for the last couple weeks. "You'll blend in better if you take someone, a guy someone, so I'm sending David along with you."
Harley bolted to her feet, almost losing the files to the floor. "No way." She couldn't get the refusal out fast enough. There was no way she'd share a plane, cab, or anything else with the brown nosing creep who routinely strolled into the women's bathroom--by mistake of course. Sure. His excuses were getting old seeing as how he'd worked for the magazine longer than she had. "I'll find someone."
Mac smiled at her, and she realized he'd half expected a complete refusal. "Okay then. I'm sure you won't have a problem. Who would turn down an all expense paid trip to a five star resort?"
"Someone that may need more than two days notice and doesn't already have a passport?" Harley slid the envelope on top of the pile she carried. She knew she should have called in sick today.
He waved his hand towards the door. "Well, David is on standby if you can't get anyone else."
A shudder snaked down her spine. She'd rather pay a male escort to go with her than so much as share a conversation with David.
Mac drained his health drink then, remembering his cigar, popped it back in his mouth. "Glad we have that settled. I have a good feeling about this one."
Harley pinched the bridge of her nose. The first stirrings of a migraine prickled behind her eye. "What's the story here?"
"My source told me there is something going on down at the resort he worked for."
Harley snorted. Too much tanning and beach volley ball? She hitched her hip against the corner of his desk. "Such as?"
"He didn't get into it." Mac tapped a few keys, his gaze trained on the computer monitor. She waited for him to add something before realizing he was reading his e-mail. Mac was, according to his very computer literate wife, an e-mail slut.
Setting the files aside, Harley leaned across the desk, her palms flat on the smooth wood. "Let me make sure I have this straight. You're sending me down there to investigate something, but you don't know what?"
He didn't take his eyes off the screen. "I've got a vibe."
Wonderful. Mac's vibes paid off only thirty percent of the time. His last vibe had landed her in jail for suspicion of scalping tickets at a basketball playoffs game. "So I'm supposed to go down there and just poke around? Behind the pool bar maybe? Could be I'll find a lead on your mystery story while parasailing."
Mac stubbed out his cigar. His lips twitched, but he contained the smile. "The guy already made the reservations. It's harder than Fort Knox to get into this place, but you're all set."
"When did you make the reservations?"
He at least had the decency to look guilty. "Last week."
She could have hit him. "You knew I was going to be done this week."
"Don't get your panties in a bunch. You were wrapping up that whistleblower piece. I didn't want to divide your concentration."
Harley paced away from the desk. "No. You knew I'd tell you I wasn't going." She glanced over and saw Mac absently rubbing his shoulder. His old war wound, the bullet he had taken trying to drag her father out of an ambush.
Manipulative. Plain and simple.
Sighing, Harley returned to the chair. "So what else did this guy say?"
"Just that this story would put the magazine, and the journalist reporting it, on the map."
Harley didn't bother to remind him she didn't need to be made. With her first book done, and her journalism class this fall, she was perfectly happy with her life.
"If you're not sure," Mac continued, "I can send Val down instead."
"Val would spend ninety percent of the time smearing herself in sun-block."
Mac stared at her expectantly. "So then...."
"I'll go." Harley folded her arms across her chest. "But I want to talk to this source first."
The phone rang. Mac ignored it, punching the button to direct the call to his voice mail. "You can't. He disappeared."
"Really?" She didn't bother to disguise her skepticism.
"We were supposed to have a meeting, face to face, and he didn't show. What does that tell you?"
"That maybe he's just blowing ho
t air."
Mac scoffed. "Sometimes, Harley girl, I wonder how your instincts ever pay off. Don't you smell the story here?"
What she smelled was bullshit, but she recognized the determined glint in Mac's eyes. She'd be on the flight to Antigua whether she really wanted to be or not. "So I leave in two days, huh?"
Mac beamed. "That's my girl."
* * * *
Harley set her bag down on the table near her front door and kicked the door shut.
"Hey," an indignant protest came from behind her. "If you don't want me to stop by, you could just tell me."
Harley smiled, her heart kicking up hearing the familiar sexy voice.
Cole leaned in the doorway, hands shoved in his jeans pockets, his blonde hair still wet from a shower, and those brown bedroom eyes that melted into her every time she held his gaze for more than a second didn't waver from her face.
She turned away before he noticed her staring and headed into the kitchen.
He strolled into the apartment behind her, flopped on the couch and stretched out like he did every day when she got home from work. Being a freelance photographer, Cole made his own hours, but she only ever saw him go on assignment once or twice a month.
"So tell me beautiful, how was work?"
Her stomach gave a soft tug hearing him call her that, and like always, she quickly squelched the feeling. Cole talked that way to everyone, and there was no point in reading anything into it.
Harley slid the jug of milk into the fridge, fighting off the urge to walk over and jump him just to see what he'd do. "I'm going to Antigua in two days."
Cole sat up and draped an arm across the back of the sofa as he stared over the counter separating the two spaces. "Really? You're finally taking a vacation?"
"Actually it's work." She glanced back to the counter, focused on folding the paper bag into a square so she didn't have to look at him and pretend she wasn't really looking.
"One of Mac's vibes?"
Harley laughed, wondering when she'd gotten so edgy around him that she needed to keep her distance. "Yeah. Some tip about this adults only resort."
His eyes brightened before he jumped over the couch and walked into the kitchen. "Adults only, huh? I thought you swore off men?"
"I did." And what had she been thinking with him just across the hall? Right. Cole wasn't interested in her. Not really anyway. There were plenty of times she caught him watching her, even caught the brief flicker of heat in his eyes before he glanced away. But after last month when an evening of too much Tequila prompted her to find her nerve, she had foolishly asked him why they hadn't hooked up. He gave her one of his trademark wolfish grins, said she was too good for him, brushed a chaste kiss across her forehead, and said goodnight.
Cole stared at her, waiting.
Harley shook her head. "It's just a business trip."
He cocked his head in that arrogant-and-I-know-it way of his, a knowing smile hugging the corner of his sexy mouth. "He's making you take someone isn't he?"
"Why would you assume that?"
"Because sending you to an adult only resort alone would mean less time to investigate anything when you'd be dealing with horny guys looking to coax you into hammocks made for two."
Harley shot him a sidelong glance. She swore she detected a hint of jealousy in his tone. Crazy.
"So who are you taking?"
"I don't know yet. Mac wants me to take David. I told him I'd find someone else."
"I'll go."
"No." There was no way she'd be able to concentrate on work with him lounging around next to naked.
Cole's eyebrows knitted together, but she ignored the hurt look she knew was just for show.
"Besides," she added, "You wouldn't be able to keep your eyes off all the other women. They'd know you weren't into me." She kept her tone light, knowing he wasn't nearly as much of a playboy as he pretended to be. At her last count he had only had three dates in the last six months.
"I'd behave," he promised. His gaze held hers for a moment longer than usual.
A slow heat stirred Harley's middle before she shifted her attention away from the six-foot-two temptation in front of her. "That's the point, you couldn't behave. We'd be pretending to be a couple. So, no." It was one thing to ask him on a date and get turned down, and another all together to go away, pretend to have a thing for each other, only to return home and go back to the way things were.
"Come on, Harley. We've known each other for a couple years. Who else could you take and be perfectly comfortable with? And I wouldn't be trying to take advantage of you."
That was the problem. She wished he'd take advantage of her. Too often. She was almost at the point where she needed to read something dark and nightmarish before bed to fight off the dreams of Cole.
Harley shook her head. "No."
"You're not even going to consider taking me?"
Not unless she wanted to come back half in love with him. She knew it would only take one thought, one 'what if' and she'd be a goner. Ever since she kicked her ex out months ago, she'd managed to keep 'what if' far from her mind where Cole was concerned, unwilling to screw up their friendship--aside from that last time with the Tequila--just because he still did funny things to her insides.
Cole grabbed her hand and warmth seeped into her skin. Tempting brown eyes tunneled into hers. "Please?"
Lowering her eyes to their joined hands, she tugged it free. "Absolutely not."
* * * *
Cole paced the length of his living room, trying to figure out what in the hell he'd been thinking.
Go away with Harley. Pretend to be her lover. Get her into bed. Come home and go back to normal.
Damn, he was an ass to think he could have his proverbial cake and eat it, too. She sure as hell deserved better than a guy who just wanted to go away with her so he could get into her pants. Even liking Harley as much as he did, he'd been damn tempted to take her up on her offer of 'hooking up' a month ago. Turning her down topped his list for stupidest mistakes ever. But he knew then, just as he knew now, Harley wanted a guy who planned to stick around.
That pretty much put him out of the running.
And yet, just a few minutes ago he'd been trying to convince her to let him go along.
Cole flopped back on the couch and rubbed his hands over his eyes. He needed a change of scenery and not just the temporary kind. He should go get a paper and look for a new apartment instead of picturing Harley in a skimpy two-piece swimsuit that left nothing to the imagination.
Living across the hall from her... it had been fine when she still lived with Greg. Watching her kick that bastard out--seeing as he was just shy of doing it himself--had made him realize Harley possessed more backbone than he imagined. Of course afterwards he got to know her, really know her, and it screwed up his plans of coercing her into bed while she was on the rebound.
Cole stood up. Maybe if he promised to let her have the bed, she'd let him go?
Cursing under his breath, he stalked around the room. This was stupid. Did he think he could go down there, drag her into bed, spend hours figuring out what made her scream the loudest, and then come back and pretend it didn't happen?
Maybe she'd go for it.
Jesus, he needed his head examined. No, what he needed was to get laid and take away some of tension that rose inside him every time he saw Harley. It would help if he didn't go over there every damn day, and it sure as hell didn't help that on top of her being sexier than hell, she was actually fun to be around. He'd even watched chick flicks with her.
The calendar caught his eye. Well that explained his enthusiasm to play her lover. The full moon was in two days. His desire for her was always the hardest to control at that time, which was why he usually made a point to take an assignment out of town then. His current employer had changed the dates of his next job, leaving him across the hall from her at the worst possible time.
Which actually gave him the perfect excuse not to go a
nywhere with Harley. He'd never be able to keep his hands off her. With a full moon he might be able to keep the beast caged inside him and remain in human form, but his desire would be a whole lot harder to tame if he and Harley were in some tropical paradise with a big bed, a hot tub, and those patio loungers made for two.
He glanced at the door, knew it was Harley who stood on the other side even before she knocked. Crossing the room, Cole pulled it open just as she raised her hand.
Hand poised to knock, she frowned up at him. "How do you always do that?"
Cole propped a shoulder in the doorway, finding even the way her eyebrows scrunched together impossibly cute. "You couldn't find anyone else, huh?"
"Nope."
He tipped his head knowingly. "David called, didn't he?"
"Yup." Harley didn't roll her eyes, but he guessed she wanted to.
"What time do we leave?"
"Six-thirty AM, day after next."
Grinning, Cole tried and failed to remember all the reasons he should refuse. "Try not to look so happy about it, gorgeous."
Chapter Two
Harley fiddled with the ticket in her hand, trying her best not to look at Cole. Not an easy feat when he sat right next to her, and each time he shifted to get more comfortable, she could smell his soap. The scent alone triggered wicked daydreams of crawling into his lap and inhaling freshly shaven skin along his jaw.
As though to further torment her, Cole leaned back in the small airport chair, his long legs crossed and stretched out in front of him. His navy button up shirt revealed a tantalizing expanse of the smooth chest beneath, automatically calling to mind the one time she had seen him in only a towel. A pipe had broken in his apartment, leaving him with no hot water, and he'd asked to finish his shower at her place. Had she known how much she would enjoy the sinful sight of him, she would have messed with the pipes herself months before.
Sunglasses covered his eyes, making it impossible to see in what direction his gaze traveled. More than once she felt him watching her, but whenever she subtly glanced over, his face gave away no sign of interest. Wouldn't be the first time she read too much into one of his passing glances.
By the Light of the Moon Page 1
