by Diana Palmer
She closed her eyes against the guilt. “You’ll manage,” she told him quietly. “You’ll manage because you have to, and you won’t let it break you. You’ll go on, one day at a time, and you’ll cope.”
He stared in the direction her voice had come from. “Stay with me.”
She swallowed. “I will. I’ll be here…as long as you need me,” she said softly.
“It came back to me today, Kate,” he said heavily. “I remembered.”
A nagging, uneasy suspicion began to form in her mind. “Remembered?” she asked faintly, gripping the smooth, wooden arms of her chair.
“How this happened,” he said, touching his forehead. He scowled, and the look on his face was frightening. “That damned girl,” he said heatedly. “I never knew her name, or where she came from but she liked to get reckless in boats and speed. I called her down once, but it didn’t stop her. I was out swimming,” he recalled, his jaw tightening, “and the last thing I remember is turning to see her at the helm of a speedboat coming straight for me. She didn’t even stop, the little maniac! She didn’t even come back to see if she’d killed me.”
Kate sat there like a statue, her face frozen and white, her heart beating her to death. She’d been terrified of this moment, and here it was. He knew. He knew!
Six
“That’s going to be my number one priority,” he said quietly, “when I finish this book and go back to the States. I’m going to find that girl if it takes me the rest of my life. And when I do, I’ll crucify her.”
He didn’t raise his voice, but that made the statement all the more terrifying.
“How will you start?” she asked in what she hoped was a calm voice.
“By hiring a private detective,” he replied calmly. “I know she was staying on the lake. It shouldn’t be too hard to locate her. I’ll have Pattie get on it today. I don’t want to lose her trail, not now. That little blonde assassin!” he growled. “If it takes the rest of my life, I’ll get even with her for what she did to me!”
Kate’s eyes closed momentarily. So that had been part of what was eating him all the way from Georgia. He’d remembered. And from now on it was going to be like walking on eggshells to live with him, wondering what minute she was going to slip up and give something away.
What if he started remembering that his assailant had been blonde, and so was Kate—that she’d been living on the lake when he hired her—mightn’t he remember and recognize her husky voice, even if he’d only heard it briefly before?
She trembled at just the thought of discovery. There’d be no explaining away what she’d done. He’d never believe that it had been an accident. Not when he remembered how she’d defied him when he ran her off the lake, off his property. He’d be sure she’d hit him deliberately with the speedboat. Anyone, she admitted bitterly, would believe that, given the circumstances.
Tears gathered in her eyes. She’d gotten used to him—to his moods, his deep, quiet voice in the night while he dictated, the sound of his heavy footsteps, the smell of his cigarette smoke in the darkness. It would be hard to leave him. She hadn’t realized that before, and it came as something of a shock.
“You’re very quiet, Kate,” he said, scowling. “Can you blame me for being bitter, for wanting revenge? My God, I may go through the rest of my life like this, and all because of a child’s deliberate attempt at revenge!”
“You sound as though…you think she meant to hit you.”
“Of course she meant to!” he growled savagely. He caught a deep breath, wrapping his big hands around his coffee cup. “I’d run her off the lake once already when I caught her speeding. To make matters worse, I found her sitting by the lake on my property, and I ran her off again.” His lips compressed. “Sassy little brat, she didn’t like that. I wanted to pick her up and shake her. Instead, I let her go. It wasn’t two hours later that she ran the boat over me, and left me there bleeding after I’d managed to drag myself out of the lake,” he recalled gruffly.
“Maybe…maybe she was afraid,” Kate suggested casually.
“I hope to God she was,” he agreed. “Terrified. I hope she still is. If I can believe that, I’ll have something to live for!”
“Being bitter, hating won’t help,” she said gently.
“How do you know it won’t?” he demanded.
She drew a deep breath. “Because I’ve learned it the hard way,” she said in a subdued tone.
“The meat packer’s son, Kate?” he asked. His heavy brows drew together as he stared blankly in front of him. “He hurt you pretty badly, didn’t he?”
She sighed. “I suppose he did. It hardly seems important anymore. I thought I loved him, but I’m not sure now that I even know what love is—or that I want to know.”
“I’ll tell you what it is, little girl,” he said softly. “It’s the sweetest madness this side of hell. When it finally happens for you, you won’t have to ask what it’s all about. You’ll know.”
Did he, she wondered? Was it the mysterious woman who’d deserted him that he was thinking about? And had it been remembering the accident that really upset him—or remembering the only woman he’d ever loved?
He finished his coffee. “Go with Yama. I’ve been on your back ever since we landed. You could do with a break from my temper. He’s going to pick up some material for us at the hotel. You can enjoy the beach and see something of the tourist trade while you’re there.”
She swallowed down a little of her apprehension. Maybe his private detective would strike out, anyway. After all, Maude was presumably still in Paris, and the boat was safely locked away. She smiled.
“That’s a first,” she murmured as she pushed back her chair and stood up. “Admitting you’ve been like a bear with a sore head.”
“I know my own shortcomings,” he told her. A wisp of a smile touched his hard mouth. “You’re not still afraid of me, are you?”
“I think I am, a little,” she admitted softly.
“I’m glad.” Something odd flashed in those sightless green eyes, puzzling her.
“Sir?” she murmured.
“Remind me to tell you about it someday,” he said. He leaned back in his chair. “Yama! Ready to go?” he called.
Yama appeared at Cambridge’s side from the kitchen. “Yes, boss!” he grinned. “I take good care of Miss Kate, not to worry.”
“You’d damned well better,” Cambridge grinned. “I’d never find anyone else who’d put up with me this long.”
“Pattie last good,” Yama reminded him.
“Pattie,” he replied, “has nerves of steel and a mind like a bear trap. And,” he added, “she works by long distance, which she says is the only way she can get along with me.”
“I’d like to meet her someday,” Kate laughed. “She sounds like a girl after my own heart.”
“Insult me,” Cambridge warned, “and you may find yourself typing this book after 2 a.m. every day.”
“Sadist!”
He only grinned. “Go away, little girl. I need my rest.”
“Naturally,” Kate agreed impishly. “What with your advanced age and all, you have to keep up your strength.”
His eyes narrowed. “Kate….” he warned softly.
“Would you like an iron tablet before I go?” she persisted, exchanging an amused grin with Yama.
“Damn it…!” Cambridge growled.
“We’ll get you a shawl before we go, so you won’t catch a chill in this night air,” she went on.
“Out!” he exploded, rising from the chair with his face as hard as stone.
“Yes, sir!” Kate agreed, and took to her heels with Yama only a step behind, laughing all the way to the car in the driveway.
The beach by moonlight was everything Cambridge had promised it would be. Kate stood on the silvered sand, watching the moonlight play on the dark water, the glowing whitecaps rolling in against the shore, and wondered if she’d ever seen anything so narcotically lovely.
She stuck her hands deep in the pockets of her blue denim skirt and sighed, leaning back against one of the curving palms that ran the line of the shore. So beautiful, so lonely…. Even the tourists down the beach enjoying the sight from the comfort of lounge chairs didn’t compensate for the terrible sense of loneliness that moonlit seascape fostered.
Suddenly, Kate remembered a night on the lake, a big, warm body drawing hers close against it, and a sweet, breathless shudder went through her. Why should she think of Cambridge when she was lonely? That didn’t even bear thinking about! Especially now, with his memory back, when any minute he might regain his sight or recognize Kate as his “blonde assassin” by her voice….
“Worried expressions don’t go with moonlight on a tropical beach, wood nymph,” a pleasantly deep voice murmured behind her.
She whirled, surprised to find a tall young man in a pair of cutoff denims watching her. It was too dark to make out his facial features very well, except for a flash of white teeth.
“I’m Bart Lindsey,” he persisted.
“Kate,” she replied, taking the thin hand that was offered just briefly.
“Kate what?”
“Just Kate,” she said cautiously.
“Mysterious woman! Are you, by any chance, a beautiful Russian spy?” he asked in a loud whisper.
“I don’t think so,” Kate told him, warming to his personality. “Although, I suppose I could have amnesia or something. What do you do?”
“I sell sea shells by the sea shore,” he replied matter of factly.
“Do you have a sister Sue who does the same thing?”
“How did you ever guess?” He grinned.
“And do you have a white jacket with sleeves that tie in the back?” she wanted to know.
“I have one for casual wear, and one for dress occasions,” he admitted. “How about having a drink with me? I’ll even wear something decent for the occasion, although I’ll have to admit that I prefer what I have on.”
“Thanks anyway,” she said. “But I have a demanding boss who only lets me out for minutes at a time under guard. I’m due back any minute.”
“What does this tyrant do for a living?”
“He owns the hotel, among other things.”
“Oh.” He sighed. “So much for moonlight seduction. Okay, how about a rain check on the drink, in broad daylight next time? Even your boss couldn’t make much out of that.”
He wouldn’t care at all, she started to say, and realized with a feeling of panic that it hurt.
“Maybe,” she agreed.
“Tomorrow?”
She grimaced. “I’ll be up to my neck in work tomorrow.”
“If I give you my phone number, you could call me when you’re free,” he prodded. “I’m here for three weeks.”
“Well….”
“Be a sport. Say, yes, Bart.”
“Yes, Bart,” she said agreeably.
“Good girl.” He drew her along with him back to the hotel. “I’ll get the number for you and write it down. Too bad I don’t carry my pad around with me on the beach; I guess I ought to in case I meet any pretty girls,” he teased.
“You really carry a pad around with you?” she asked, noticing as they moved into the well-lit hotel property that his face had sharp features and his eyes were a playful green—as different a green from Garet Cambridge’s deep set eyes as night from day.
“I’m a reporter,” he replied, taking in her expression with a grin. “Don’t panic, I don’t do news. Just feature material, travel stuff. Right now, I’m doing a piece on the island. Fascinating place, part French, part Dutch, part paradise, and you can see the Atlantic on one side of it, and the Caribbean on the other.”
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
“Today. You?”
She laughed, tossing her mane of blonde hair. “Same here.”
“Something in common already,” he teased. “Sure you won’t have that drink?”
“I’d love to,” she said, “but here comes my boss’s butler now,” she added as she saw Yama coming out of the entrance to the hotel. “I’ll just come down if I can tomorrow instead of calling, how about that?”
“Suits me,” he said with a ready smile.
“If you’re really sure….”
His eyes traveled over her appreciatively. “Boy, am I sure. I shall sit alone in my room and not move until I hear from you, even though I may starve and thirst to death.”
She shook her head. “How do I get involved with people like you?”
“You have rare good luck,” he told her. “Good night.”
“Good night,” she called over her shoulder, and ran to meet Yama.
“You must not tell boss you meet strange man,” Yama cautioned as they sped toward the villa on the hill. “He funny about things sometimes and I not like to see you get in way of his temper more than you already have.”
“You’re nice, Yama,” she said genuinely. “I seem to set him off by breathing lately. It’s his eyes, of course. He just can’t adjust to being blind, even if it’s only temporary. Maybe…” she chewed her lip, “maybe his sight will come back.”
“Maybe whales fly,” Yama said sadly. “Who man you meet on beach?”
“A reporter.”
“Hai? Oh, no!” Yama burst out. “Boss kill us both!”
“Not that kind of reporter,” she replied calmly. “He only does features about tourist meccas like this one. He was careful to make sure I understood that,” she added absently, and wondered dazedly why he’d been so careful about that point. “Anyway,” she went on, “he doesn’t know who I am or who I work for.”
“He know by morning, you bet,” Yama said. “He ask questions until he finds answers. If he find out who Mr. Cambridge is, we both out of job, Miss Kate. Nothing boss hate more than press, and now that eyes no good….”
“He won’t do anything about Mr. Cambridge,” Kate said doggedly, “I’ll see to that. Yama, I…I like him, and I need some company.”
Yama smiled. “You nice lady, Miss Kate. Boss not sweet to you, but it hurt him all same if you leave. He think much of you.”
She blushed like a schoolgirl. “He hides it well,” she said with a little of her old audacity.
“He hides much. He lonely man, Miss Kate. Fiancée hurt him when she leave, and not first time. When they first become engaged, year ago, he catch her out with some other man. He take her back against much good advice. She not worth his little finger, but it hard to tell man in love that his woman no good. Now maybe he begin to understand what she really like.”
“Was she very beautiful, Yama?” Kate asked.
“Only on outside. Inside, she ugliest woman I ever see. Hard and calculating. She like boss’s money very much,” Yama said coldly. “And he give her plenty. Only time I ever see him let woman get so close. Better he stay like he used to be, hard as nails.”
She only nodded, remembering the side of him she’d seen that was ice cold, before she came to work for him. She shuddered in spite of the heat.
Seven
“Well, what did you think of it, Kate?” Cambridge asked when Yama had left the flat envelope from the hotel on the desk and retired to his room.
“The beach, you mean,” she muttered. “It was beautiful.”
“I’m glad you could see it,” he said deliberately, turning away to light a cigarette.
“I wish you wouldn’t be so bitter,” she said timidly.
“Do you?” There was a low, threatening note in his deep voice. He blew out a cloud of smoke and shifted the cigarette in his hand. “I don’t give a damn what you wish, Kate.”
She closed her eyes. “No, sir, I never imagined that you would.”
“Don’t humor me, damn it!” he growled, whirling toward the sound of her voice. “I’ve had just about enough of that kowtowing manner of yours, Miss Priss!”
She bit her lip. “I’d like to go to bed….”
“No doubt you would!” He
blew out another cloud of smoke. “But we ‘old men’ have to be humored, didn’t you know?”
Her eyes widened and she stared at him. Surely that mild teasing before she and Yama left hadn’t pricked his hot temper…or had it?
“Mr. Cambridge, I was only teasing,” she said gently.
“Well, for future reference, I don’t like that kind of ‘teasing’!” he said roughly. He turned away and eased himself over to the open French windows, letting the breeze lift his dark hair. “I’m perfectly aware of my age.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, feeling a little like a whipped pup.
“Are you?” he asked harshly. “You sound watery, Kate. Are you going to cry? Scolded children usually do.”
She felt the tears, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing her shed them.
“If you’re quite through,” she said with quiet dignity, “I’m going to bed—Sir.”
“Yes, I’m through,” he said coldly. “I’d tell you to get out of my sight, but that would be a joke, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, please don’t…!”
“Get out.” He said it with such cold contempt that she felt chill bumps rising on her arms, and she’d have given anything to take back those teasing words.
She turned. “Good night, Garet.”
But he didn’t even answer.
All night, she’d dreaded this morning. It came relentlessly, and far too soon, and she felt every muscle in her body tense with reaction when she sat down at the breakfast table. Cambridge’s mood hadn’t improved. If anything, she thought, shooting a glance at him, it had deteriorated even more.
His white sports shirt was open down the front over the broad, bronzed chest with its wedge-shaped sprinkling of thick black hair, and she suppressed a sudden, shocking urge to reach out and touch it. Her eyes wandered up to the firm, chiseled mouth, and she remembered without wanting to how it felt against hers that night in his room…. What was happening to her?!
“Still sulking?” he asked shortly as he sipped his coffee.
