His sandy, scarred snakeskin boots were rooted into the powdery sand, and his faded shirt hung open. Copper-tipped golden hair funneled to the small crescent of a navel, where a water-stained brown belt threaded through loops of sun-faded Levi’s saved him from indecent exposure. All that sun-and hair-gilded skin blinded her, caught her unaware as fear and adrenaline mingled with a sudden heat, stabbing her with a longing to touch that golden triangle, to remember something besides terror, a longing that left her edgy and irritable.
She took a careful, raspy breath and stepped away.
His deep green eyes watched her carefully, observing her even as he grinned. There was intelligence and cleverness lurking in those sea green eyes. She suspected the gleaming humor. Intelligence she could handle. Tinged with darkness, his humor unnerved her. And that blaze of a smile was wild, reckless. Too cocky by half.
Never taking her eyes off his, she retreated slowly, watching him every moment as his smile widened and those green eyes cataloged her.
This was a very, very dangerous man.
With the sun blazing in his dark golden red hair and tipping his bristled cheeks and square chin with gold, he looked like a dissipated, fallen angel, an angel with wickedness bred in the bone.
A wickedness that called to her, tempted her. A wickedness that left her dry mouthed with a hunger she’d never known. This seductive heat spinning through her blood sang inside her veins, sang an old, old song and stunned her, leaving her unable to look away from his green, knowing eyes.
Backing up, her sandals clogging with sand, she muttered, “Thank you very much, Mr., uhâ”
“Royal Gaines.” He moved too fast, stepping forward more quickly than she’d believed he could in his state. His long fingers closed around her hand, stopping her. “And who are you, lady with the wonderful hat?”
Tugging, she stepped back and regarded him briefly. His unkempt state should have made him unappealing. It didn’t.
Bristly, rumpled, his green eyes glinting with amusement and satisfaction, he made her think of unmade beds and crumpled sheets.
“Yes?” he encouraged.
She swallowed. “I’m a woman who doesn’t give her name to strangers.”
“Smart.” His fingers stayed around her wrist as he stepped forward, the tips of his boots sending sand spurting up between them. “But I’m the man who just saved your kid from a one-way trip to Cuba.” He tightened his grip. “Or wherever the tides would have carried him.”
Her throat closed up, and she glared at him, not able to speak.
“They would have, you know.” His voice was a soft wash of cream along her nerves, soothing and settling. As he turned his back to the water and the setting sun and followed her retreating steps, his long shadow fell over her, chilling her as he said, “The gulf is deceptive.”
“People are, too,” she said, grabbing the back of Tommy Lee’s drooping swimsuit. “Let go, Mr. Gaines.”
“No ‘thank you’?” He released her and stepped forward, the toes of his boots nudging her sandals.
Taunting, teasing, his green eyes watched her, and, freed, she felt more captive than ever.
Deliberately, he tapped her bare toe. “For services rendered?” The scrape of boot against her skin sent shivers down her spine even in the sultry heat. “I already said thank-you. But I appreciate your help. Believe me, I do,” she said, wanting to spin away and run, yet afraid to turn deer to the hunter she glimpsed behind the smile. This was a man whose interest she didn’t want to stir. “I have to go.”
“You’re welcome, Tommy Lee’s mom.” He stepped beside her, keeping an easy stride with her short, quick walk. He paused and then, his voice rippling over her nerve endings, he added, “How did you lose track of your baby SEAL?”
She took a shallow breath and made herself slow down as they neared a group of shell seekers, their heads down, their gazes fixed on the shining sand. “I didn’t lose track. He slipped away before I could catch up with him.” She’d warned Tommy Lee before about wandering off. She’d have to sit him down and impress the need for staying close again. She’d grown careless after all these quiet months. She tightened her mouth. Disaster had brushed by her on fluttering wings. She shuddered. “Only a minute,” she murmured, angry with herself. “Sixty seconds.”
“He’s fast,” the green-eyed stranger agreed, and touched her elbow, guiding her around a pile of seaweed clogged with glass shards worn smooth by tide and sand. Stooping, his palm cupping her elbow, the man, Royal Gaines, plucked the glass free of the seaweed and handed the pieces to Tommy Lee. “Here, tiger. A souvenir of your first dive.”
Tommy Lee’s hand swooped out, and she swung him away. “No, Tommy.” The sparkling green bits fell to the white sand.
“It’s only glass. Not candy.” With a quick move, Gaines gathered the glass bits and stuffed them into his shirt pocket.
She sensed that he was mocking her fears, playing games with her, yet she couldn’t think fast enough to erase the gleam from eyes as green as the glass with which he tempted her son.
“I’m not going to kidnap him, you know.” His face had turned still, watchful.
“I don’t know that. I don’t know you. You could be anybody. You’re a stranger.” Her feet were skittering over the sand like tiny crabs as she neared the pavilion.
“I’m not a parent, but I can imagine what that would be like. Waking up and finding your child gone. A vicious trick. Brutal. Might make a person desperate, ready to do anything, I’d reckon.”
Once again, that odd note in his voice sent shivers over her, as if there were a subtext to his question, a meaning she couldn’t understand, didn’t want to understand. “Yes.” She lifted her palm to the top of her hat, anchoring it in an errant breeze. “The cruelest hand fate can deal. Unbearable, I think.”
“But it happens, doesn’t it?” Sibilant, blending with the sigh of the withdrawing tide, his voice whispered around her, disturbing her once again.
“Yes. But still, I don’t think I could bear it. It would destroy me.” The words slipped out, and as his glance sharpened on her with a quick interest, increasing her misgivings, she swallowed. She didn’t want this man’s attention, not in any sense, and especially not sharpened by curiosity. The urge to bolt was so strong that, nerves twanging, she stammered her thanks. Gathering her manners around her like armor and lifting her chin, she added politely, “I’m in your debt, Mr. Gaines.”
“I’ll remember,” he replied, his drawl as polite as hers, its ironic tone unnerving. He studied her for a moment as if he were undecided about something before he said, “Look, I just happened to be at the right place at the right time.” He looked down at the sand, drew a circle with the toe of his boot. “Anyone would have done the same.”
“Of course.” She walked quickly toward the pavilion, Royal Gaines trailing close behind.
As they neared the outdoor-shower pole, Tommy Lee tugged at her hand. “I’m thirsty, Mommy.” Tommy Lee pulled at her hand again and let himself drop to the sand, bending her forward. “I want a drink.”
Distracted, she stooped to confront the insistent face of her stubborn, damned - if - he’d - give - an - inch son. “All right, Tommy.” She shoved the sagging brim of her hat back from her face. She knew when a battle was unwinnable. “We’ll get a lemonade.”
As she lifted Tommy and spun away, taking a deep, relieved breath, feeling as though she’d narrowly escaped ⦠something, Royal Gaines’s hard palm clasped her shoulder, stopping her. “I’m sorry. I’m scaring you, aren’t I?”
“Of course not.” Lying, she stretched her mouth in a smile as he turned her to face him.
“Of course I am. And I am sorry,” he said, almost as if to himself. “Terrifying women and little children. Hell.” Dropping his hands, he shoved them into the back pockets of his sun-faded jeans. He shifted uncomfortably, his boot heels sinking with his weight into sand wet from the shower runoff as she leaned away and Tommy Lee slid down her leg,
landing in a heap at her feet.
Releasing her, Royal Gaines made it difficult for her to walk away. Fumbling for words, she frowned, curiously reluctant to hurt him. “You saved my son. I’m grateful to you. But it’s late. Tommy’s tired. I’m tired. I’m in a hurry. And youâ” she surveyed the grubby length of him “âyou must have your own plans, too.”
“Nope.” He shook his head, and the fading sunset lingered, trapped in its dark gold red strands. “Not a single, solitary plan, truth to tell.” He looked out over the gulf to the dying flash of red sun. “Nothing.”
“I’m sorry.” She shrugged. She didn’t necessarily believe him. Royal Gaines seemed to say one thing and mean another. He was a man whose easygoing manner was deceptive. Like the gulf with its hidden depths and bright, clear surface, Royal Gaines could drown the unwary. But the unexpected melancholy on his lean profile made her hesitate. If he’d joked, turned the moment into flirtation, she would never have hesitated. But she did. Even knowing better, she lingered that crucial second and reached out to him, the loneliness she sensed in him echoing her own.
But at the last instant, as her hand fluttered over his arm, she let hers drop to her side. Twisting her fingers in the light cotton of her dress, she repeated, “I don’t know what to say.”
“I get ice cream at my preschool, mister,” Tommy Lee volunteered, bouncing into her side and grabbing her hand. “And cookies.” He pulled his legs up and swung from her arm, his solid weight forcing her to hold on with both hands. “Sunshine Center Preschool.”
Royal watched the woman’s face tighten as she went very, very still. Her mouth thinned, the soft plum turning white as she looked down at her son. Her reaction seemed more frightened than guilty, but he ignored it, seizing the opening her son had offered.
“Yeah?” Hunkering in front of Tommy, Royal nodded. “I’ll bet you know my friend Alicia, then, don’t you?”
Tommy nodded. “Yep. And Miz Maggie and Lala and lots of people,” he summed up with a last, lunging swing from his mother’s arm.
“Oh?”
“Tommy, come on. We have to go.” Desperation skimmed over the woman’s words as she hoisted her wriggling child into her slender arms and settled him on her hip, the sundress riding up with Tommy Lee’s movements. A length of pale thigh shone in the dusk.
“Tell you what, Tommy’s mom. Next time you take this water boy to the center, check with Alicia or Maggie. They know me. They’ll tell you I’m harmless.”
“Maybe,” she said, throwing him a quick glance over her shoulder as she hurried toward the lights and crowd. “Maybe.”
Later that night, phone receiver in hand, tumbler of bourbon in front of him, Royal thought once more about the wary, fragile woman calling herself Elly Malloy. He scratched his chin with the receiver and smoothed out the scrap of paper with Scanlon’s phone number.
That quicksilver woman hiding under the sun hat wasn’t what he’d expected. She wasn’t the woman Scanlon had described. Spoiled? Selfish? Not Elly Malloy. Royal scowled at the amber brown of the bourbon as he took a long swallow. Every cop instinct remaining in him supported that reading of her character. A runaway? Possibly.
And Scanlon wanted her back. To the tune of three hundred thousand dollars. Her and the kid. Interesting. That much money could make a person suspicious.
Hell of a lot of money.
He punched out the first digit.
A man might do anything for three hundred thousand dollars.
If he cared.
*
Chapter 2
« ^ »
July 3
Downstairs, a floorboard creaked.
“What?” Elly frowned and stared uneasily at the empty hallway. In the middle of squirting glass cleaner onto the shower doors of the empty rental unit, she paused. Cleaning liquid dripped onto the shower floor, down her wrist and arm as she listened.
But she didn’t call out.
She listened, every nerve in her body straining toward that faint sound she’d heard. A trick of wind? A cat landing on the deck outside? A foot shifting on the uncarpeted floor?
Stale, hot air and the sound of quiet plops of cleaning fluid landing on the shower floor. Sweat pooled against the waistband of her shorts.
Nothing.
She walked to the smoky glass window of the bathroom and stood to one side, checking the street below. Heat shimmered and danced along the concrete sidewalks, radiated from the asphalt street surface. Parked in the driveway of the unit, her beater was the only car on the block.
The rapid tattoo of her heart left her breathless, waiting. Waiting for something.
Ever since the encounter at the beach three days earlier with Royal Gaines, she’d had the feeling she was being watched. Her nerves jumping like grease in a skillet, she flinched at any chance movement.
She hadn’t seen him again, but she hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind, either. Even in that frantic moment, she’d recognized the man’s aura of wildness, the dangerous sexuality that shimmered like heat waves around him.
Later, annoyed, she’d decided that it was the reckless, don’t-give-a-damn glitter in his brilliant green eyes that had drawn her.
Or maybe not, He was so damned physical.
He made her feel anxious and itchy, and she’d wanted to step right up to him and see if his skin burned as hot as his glittering eyes.
Stunned, she’d stepped back, frightened by the other danger he represented. The danger to her and Thomas. Tommy.
Fretfully, she rubbed the scar along her forehead as she stared at the empty street. She’d been careless. She’d relaxed into the lazy rhythms of Palmaflora’s small-town friendliness. She’d messed up.
But how? Royal Gaines had saved her son. Appearance aside, the man hadn’t threatened her. He couldn’t know anything about her. He was a man who’d fortunately been on the scene when Tommy needed someone. Nothing else was involved. She was foolish, seeing plots and conspiracies in ordinary events. Sometimes, a cigar was a cigar, and not a symbol.
Butâ
Royal Gaines was an enigma. One way or another, he was a threat to her.
She pressed her face to the edge of the glass and forced herself to breathe slowly, slowly.
If she didn’t get herself under control, Tommy would start having night terrors again. One finger lingering on the thin white line that disappeared into her bangs, she waited a moment longer, enveloped by the heavy heat of an empty house.
She heard only the normal sounds of a house settling, the creaks and sighs of a closed-up house.
She was alone.
A line of perspiration dripped down her spine, settled into her waistband. Lifting her blouse, she dried the sweat and, shaking, covered her damp face with the tail end of her blouse. That creaking floorboard had terrified her more than she’d realized.
Returning to her job, she squirted purple cleaner on the glass again, hurriedly scraping at a stubborn soap deposit before wiping paper towels over both sides of the shower doors. “C’mon, c’mon,” she muttered to the spot of soap scum. “No big deal. Keep moving. Don’t let your imagination take over. It’s broad daylight, for pete’s sake.” She scraped the soap spot with her thumbnail. “Stupid spot.”
She hated working the vacant rental houses. In occupied homes, whether the owner was there or not, she didn’t feel quite soâvulnerable. But the rental units paid more, and she needed every nickel she could find.
Cleaning houses was honest work, it paid well and she didn’t have to answer many questions. Show up. Do the work. Take the money.
Elly prided herself on giving value for the dollar. Like now, with this confounded spot she couldn’t walk away from. She groaned with relief and stood up, giving a final swipe to the frosted glass as the clot finally floated down the drain.
“Five more minutes. C’mon, Elly, move.” Her voice was intrusive in the silence, but she needed sound. She squirted a mixture of lemon juice, peroxide and cola against t
he rust around the faucet handle and scrubbed. “Good enough. Almost done,” she encouraged herself. “Then, out of here. Pick up Tommy. Home. Iced tea.” Squatting down beside the toilet, she sprayed disinfectant and wiped, her movements jerky and rushed.
Throwing her cleaning supplies into the compartmentalized tote, she surveyed the bland, furnished rooms as she quick-stepped through the hall. “Hallelujah. Another day. Another dollar.” Running her finger over the hall table, she checked for dust. “Okay, Mrs. Doone, you get your rent money this week.” The upright vac was in the car, she’d completed everything on the cleaning list and she was out of here. She’d done a good job. She’d be paid.
Hurriedly pulling the front door behind her, she saw the clump of drying dirt on the walkway by the door first. Washed by the afternoon downpour, the walkway had been clean when she’d started work. In the flowerpot, the brown stub of a cigarette poked up from the gray-white dirt.
Once upon a time, in a better world, she wouldn’t have noticed that brown stub.
Now, though, she noticed.
The tote trembled in Elly’s hand as she stood there, her other hand on the door, and then, not even thinking, she slammed the door shut and ran for her car, her fingers scrambling in her shorts pocket for keys that kept slipping through her frantic fingers. Running, eyes darting left, right, she couldn’t hear anything except the pounding of blood in her ears. Holding the bucket of cleaning supplies like a shield, like a weapon in front of her, she finally jabbed the key into the lock and opened the car door, collapsing inside as bottles of disinfectant and cans of furniture polish tumbled around her feet.
Locked inside the oven of her car, she sorted out the supplies with shaking hands and started the engine, backing carefully out the driveway as she scrutinized the road in front and in back of her. “Okay. Okay. Get a grip, Elly,” she muttered in a monotone. “All right. Imagination didn’t leave that dirt. It’s real. Someone was there. Watching.” She shuddered.
RENEGADE'S REDEMPTION Page 3
