He stood suddenly, his back to her.
“Never?”
“Never.” Again she paused. “Except when you left me,” she admitted.
“I had to leave you,” he said softly. Then he turned and came to her and gently massaged her temples.
“Why?” she whispered.
“I couldn’t stay after what happened.”
“But you didn’t do it, Brent, you didn’t.”
His hands went still. “I wish I could believe that,” he said quietly. He turned away from her and she knew he had ended the conversation, and that she hadn’t reached him at all. She stood up to follow him, determined to get through.
“Brent—”
“I saw some steaks in the freezer earlier. Want to do them on the grill? They come out best half frozen.”
“Sure. Fine. Brent—”
“Kathy,” he said curtly, “we’ve barely been back together at all, and already we’re fighting like cats and dogs.”
“Well, hell, it’s not that bad!” she protested. “You started it.”
“I did not.”
“You definitely did. You snatched the phone away from me and said really horrible and crude things to Axel. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to talk to him again.”
Brent took the steaks out of the freezer. “Good.”
“Good? You and I are just playing house, remember. What happens to my life when this is over? Assuming we have lives left, of course.”
“Well, you don’t date Axel again.”
“He’s a very nice man.”
“Yes, yes, he’s fine. But I told you, Kathy. You deserve someone wonderful.”
“Do I? What about you and the lady of the draping body?”
“There’s nothing between Marla and me. I told you that.”
“And I told you that Marla doesn’t know that.”
“Yes, you dealt with Marla very well.”
“At least I wasn’t crude.”
“Ah! The difference between us!” he exclaimed.
She threw up her hands in exasperation. Then she smiled, because at least he was smiling again. She walked into the kitchen and stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on the lips. “Steaks sound great. I’m going to take a shower and change. A bloody Mary would be great, too, if you wouldn’t mind fixing me one. I’ll be out in a few minutes. Okay?”
He nodded. “One bloody Mary.”
She started toward the bedroom. At the door she paused and called to him. “Brent?”
“Yeah?” He stood by the counter and watched her. His hair was ruffled and a little long over the collar. His shirt was in slight disarray, but he still looked great with his tall, lean, broad-shouldered physique, strong, handsome features and piercing, whiskey-colored eyes.
“You know what?” she asked him huskily.
“What?”
“You are wonderful,” she said quietly. “Really wonderful.” She grinned. “Even if you do say so yourself.”
Then she slipped into the bedroom and closed the door. It might be good to let him think about the precise meaning of her words.
The phone was giving off a dull buzz from where it lay on the floor. She picked it up and set it on the night-stand. Then she smiled again and hurried to the shower.
Chapter 8
After she’d showered, Kathy pulled back the curtains on the bathroom door and looked out. Brent had the barbecue going. He’d changed to a pair of cutoffs and was stoking up the coals.
She started out of the room, then noticed the bathing suit in the little wicker trash basket. The basket was clean; the two pieces of the bikini were the only things in it. It was Shanna’s bathing suit. Kathy couldn’t let him throw it away. And she was really in the mood to torture him—just a little bit.
She rinsed the bikini, wrung it out and slipped into it. After grabbing a towel, she casually sauntered onto the patio.
He was no longer standing by the barbecue; he had moved closer to the pool to stretch out on one of the redwood deck chairs. From this position, he could see all of the forty-by-sixty pool, the screened dome enclosure and the patio plants within it, and the yard and the wall beyond. It was very private.
He was wearing sunglasses and sitting with a can of beer and the sports section from the newspaper. But as soon as Kathy stepped out, he swung around so swiftly that she cried out, startled. He might be sitting casually, she thought. But he was ready for anything.
“It’s just me,” she said. She couldn’t see his eyes because of the sunglasses but she felt he was staring at her. “You were out here, so I was assuming you felt it was safe.”
He still didn’t say anything. She strolled over to the next deck chair and tossed down her towel. “Did you make my bloody Mary?” she asked him.
He gestured toward the round, glass-covered, wrought-iron patio table by the barbecue. She thanked him sweetly.
When she turned to take a seat, she found he was still watching her. He spoke at last. “I thought I had trashed that suit.”
She arched a brow delicately over the rim of her glass and took a bite out of her stalk of celery before replying. “Trashed it? Oh, well, I did find it in the wicker basket. I thought it must have fallen there accidentally.”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
“Oh? You don’t like the suit?”
“Not on you.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Brent said flatly. “What I mean is that it…it displays too much.”
“Brent, really, no more than any other bikini—”
“All right. It’s the way it displays what it does, then. Kathy, the damned thing is provocative as hell. You want old geezers jumping off their boats with their tongues stuck to the decks?”
She leaned back, smiling. “Only the old ones?”
“Kathy, you know something? There are times when you’re a real little witch.”
She sipped her drink, hiding a smile. “No, I’m really not. I’m just trying to plan ahead. For the future, you know.”
He slipped his glasses down his nose and stared at her. “What future?”
“Mine. Well, you’ve absolutely destroyed whatever I might have had with Axel.”
“You should thank me for that.”
She ignored his comment. “So I’m going to have to go out looking, you know, so I might as well be as prepared as possible, right?” She was trying to goad him. Into what, she wasn’t certain, but it didn’t seem to be working.
He smiled. “I promise to cut that thing to ribbons before I leave.”
“But when you leave is exactly when I’ll need it. Just how long do you think you’ll be staying, anyway?”
“That’s hard to tell, isn’t it?”
“You really had no right to do that to poor Axel. I’m being an extremely understanding ex-wife. I’m doing my very best while you destroy my life—”
“I’m trying to preserve your life, remember. And you haven’t really given me the impression I’m destraying your life. Damned if I didn’t think you were having, er, fun at various times along the way.”
“Oh, yes, you can be mildly entertaining.”
“Mildly entertaining?” he asked pleasantly.
She smiled, set down her drink, walked to the far end of the pool and dived in cleanly. The water was just the right temperature, cool against the heat of the day.
Seconds later, she heard a splash behind her. She quickened her strokes and moved to the side of the pool. Seconds later, Brent emerged from the depths before her. With a hand on either side of her he held on to the side. He asked again, “Mildly entertaining?”
She tried to slip below the surface and swim around his legs. In a second he had her by the foot and he was dragging her up. This time, his sleek bronze body pinned her against the side.
She didn’t speak. He kissed her and their lips were damp and cool from the water, but when his mouth parted hers, all the warmth rushed in. He kissed her throat and she wound her
arms around him as he nibbled her shoulders, biting her flesh lightly, running the hot liquid of his tongue over the spot to soothe away the erotic little hurt. She leaned her head back as he teased her throat again, as breath dampened and warmed her earlobe and collarbone. Then she felt his thumb and fingers running along the band of the bikini. “Let’s see, what is it that you want to hear? This thing is incredible on you, sexy as all hell, provocative, evocative, titillating. Old men, young men, in-between men would all be drooling at the sight. I love it on you. Here. In private. And I am going to cut the damn thing to ribbons before I leave.”
“You can’t do that. It belongs to Shanna.”
“Shanna! You mean you let her wear that thing?”
“She’ll be eighteen soon. I can’t stop her from using her own judgment. Besides, she looks absolutely dynamite in it. David loves it on her.”
Brent leaned back, groaning. “This is getting worse and worse.”
“Don’t you remember being that young?”
“I remember you being that young. And I remember a few of your outfits, too. And I remember—”
“What?” Kathy demanded as he broke off.
He started to laugh. “I remember a few of your father’s comments about them, too. It’s frightening, ’cause I know exactly what David feels.”
“What do you feel?” Kathy whispered.
His fingers moved below the waistband, erotically, intimately, against her flesh. If he wasn’t holding her, she would sink. She leaned her face on his shoulder while he replied huskily, “This.”
He pulled her closer against him, and she felt the mound beneath the fabric of his jeans, flush against her own sexuality.
She closed her eyes. But they flew open again as she heard a loud explosion. Like a gunshot. Then she heard the ferocious, deep, snapping growl of Sam’s bark.
Brent swore. Kathy’s eyes widened. “It’s probably just that car backfiring again,” she said.
“Kathy, that was a damned gunshot, and the bullet ripped into the water somewhere!”
“Oh!”
By now, Sam was sounding like a wild thing. The Doberman had rushed around the dome enclosure to the back wall.
Brent let out a loud expletive, grabbed her hand and dragged her to the steps. “Stay the hell down!” he warned her. Dripping, he raced across the patio, dragging her behind him. He paused briefly at the table that held the steaks and swept up a kitchen towel.
She realized his pistol was beneath the towel. Her heart started to hammer even more ferociously as they entered the house through the sunroom that led to the living room. Brent shoved Kathy toward the kitchen. “Get down and stay there!” he warned her briefly.
“Wait! Where the hell are you going?” she demanded.
“Get down, Kathy! I am not playing duck shoot for anyone!”
She grabbed for his arm, but he was gone. “Brent!” Terrified for him, she raced through the sunroom. Through the French doors, she could see that he had already reached the back wall, that Sam was barking like crazy as Brent scaled it. He disappeared over the wall, and there wasn’t anything she could do.
Call the police.
But even before she had taken two steps toward the phone in the kitchen, Sam started barking again. Kathy froze, watching the Doberman tear around from the back of the house to the front. She held still, paralyzed, then she tore to the front door and stared through the peephole.
It was Robert. Worn, tired, in his rumpled business suit, he stood there, waiting, keeping as far away as he could from Sam.
She gasped with relief, leaning against the door for a second. Then she remembered that Brent was out there, and she threw open the door as quickly as possible. She set the alarm code to Off and raced to the gate, swinging it open desperately.
“Get down, Sam! Robert! There was a shot. We were at the pool. Someone took a shot at us and then Brent went after him!”
“Where?” Robert said tensely.
“To Mrs. Fenniman’s. The neighbor’s yard. Around that way.”
“Keep that damned dog with you, Kathy. Get back in. I’ll go around.”
He shut the gate, pulled his gun from his shoulder holster and went off. Kathy bit her lip, wishing she was with them instead of being left alone.
She gripped Sam by the collar. “Come on, Sam. You come in with me. You’re the only male I really trust.” She remembered how he hadn’t let out a peep while Brent silently broke into the bathroom. “Never mind. You’re a traitor, too, but you’re all I’ve got for the moment.”
She brought the dog into the house. The air-conditioning made it cool. She was wet and shivering, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. She felt numb. Brent was out there. He had gone tearing after a killer, so it seemed. He shouldn’t have done that, he should have stayed in the house. He could get himself killed.
He had to do it. She knew Brent so well, and she knew he would never sit still while others took crack shots at him. He would never wait this thing out. He couldn’t live that way.
They couldn’t live that way.
She sat on a bar stool and leaned her head against the counter. It was solid and soothing. She realized that Brent wasn’t going to stay. No matter what she said, no matter how she teased, no matter how she tried to tell him the truth, he wasn’t going to stay. It was all over.
And now he was out there.…
She really couldn’t bear it if he died. No matter what happened, she didn’t want him hurt. She did love him, very much, and she needed to know he was alive somewhere.
“Kathy!”
At the harsh sound of his voice, she turned, so startled that she nearly fell off the chair.
He was covered with dirt, his eyes bright against the smudges on his face. She didn’t know how he had gotten into the house so quietly. He hadn’t come through the gate. Then she remembered the back alarms were off because they’d been at the pool.
And that damned Sam. He never would warn her when Brent was coming.
“I told you to get into that kitchen and get down!” he told her harshly.
She arched her brows at him. “I asked you not to go running out there!”
“I had a gun—you didn’t.”
“What happened?”
“When I tell you to stay down from now on, stay down!”
“Brent, what happened?”
He set the gun on the counter and walked into the kitchen, then turned on the water at the sink and scrubbed his face. “Nothing happened. I chased him through the dirt and trees and bracken but he had a little motorboat out there waiting.” He paused. “I think l winged him. In the shoulder.”
“You shot him?”
“Kathy, he was shooting at us. Yes, I shot him. I wasn’t trying to kill him, though. I wanted to talk to him.”
He froze, grabbing the gun, as Sam started to go wild again, running for the front door, slamming his paws against it, whining furiously.
“What the hell—” Brent began.
“It’s just Robert.”
“Robert?”
“He came to the front—”
“And you answered the damn door? After I told you to stay down?”
“I could see that it was him through the peephole.”
“Kathy, I ought to blacken your hide!”
“Brent, this is my life you’re in, remember! I was careful, I—”
“You’re going to listen to me from now on!” he muttered fiercely, striding quickly by her. He keyed off the alarm again and went to the gate to meet Robert. Kathy followed him to the door. She watched as the two men talked for a moment, then Robert walked to his car. He must be using the radio.
Then the two men walked up to the house. Robert was still asking Brent to describe the man, but there was nothing much Brent could tell him. The man had been about medium height, medium build, thirty to forty years old, dark hair. He had disappeared into the bay in a motorboat.
“Well, we may get him,” Robert said. “Even if we do, s
ounds like a hired job to me. I don’t know what we’ll get out of him. I do think I’ve got something for you, though.”
“What?” Brent demanded. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of tea. He held the cold container against his face for a moment before walking across to the cabinet for glasses. “Anyone want to join me?”
Kathy shook her head, Robert accepted. He sipped the tea, then leaned over the counter. “We found a few guys at the state prison who were willing to talk about Harry Robertson.”
“And?” Brent demanded.
“Seems like Harry was always saying he was going to be okay once he got out. That he had the real prize stashed away somewhere. He’d had a partner, the guy who had gotten him into the smuggling to begin with. He felt that the partner had ruined his life, then let him take the rap all by himself. But he was going to get even with the partner. He was never going to let the guy find the real treasure. The one guy, Harry’s cell mate, seemed to think that there’s a warehouse vault in Miami somewhere with Harry’s treasure in it.”
“What does that have to do with Brent?” Kathy asked.
“Someone in the band knew the combination to the lock on the warehouse vault. And it has something to do with Brent. Harry said so.”
“What?” Brent demanded.
“You’ve got the number somehow, someway. You’re the one who’s got it.”
“So why try to kill Brent? Why kill Johnny?”
Robert shrugged. “Johnny had a reputation. Maybe Harry’s partner thought Johnny knew something. And knowing Johnny, he might have kept his mouth shut but told this guy—the partner—to kiss off. Maybe the partner didn’t give warnings. I don’t know. But at least you know a little more about what’s going on, Brent.”
Sure, they knew a little more, Kathy thought bitterly, but what good was it? They couldn’t even go outside without someone taking shots at them. And Brent was still insisting on going to the benefit on Star Island.
She heard sirens. “There are the patrol cars,” Robert said. Kathy looked at him with alarm and he smiled. “It’s all right, Kathy. They’re going to look through the woods out back, down to the water, to see if they can find something. Then we’ll need to fish the bullet out of the pool. Ballistics might help, you never know.”
Forever My Love Page 12
