by Alice Orr
BENNETT HAD NEVER BEEN able to sleep in someone else’s arms. She couldn’t do so tonight, but not for the usual reasons. With other men, she had always been uncomfortably aware of their touch invading her rest. She had none of those feelings with Memphis. His touch on her skin seemed so familiar, his arms around her so comforting that she might have drifted off into dreams as he had, if it weren’t for the questions troubling her heart. She cared too much for him already, and that frightened her. She had known him only a short time and under terrible circumstances. The tenderness she felt for him now was anything but wise.
She should have thought about that before she brought him here, before she seduced him and herself into what had happened between them. Remembering their lovemaking turned her nearly to jelly inside. She had never experienced anything like it before. She suspected nothing and no one would ever make her feel so much again, not unless it was Memphis. She had been more free and open with him than she had ever felt safe enough to be with any man. Yet, he was her captor, or at least he had been. He was wanted for murder. And he could hardly have been a less suitable man for a St. Simon woman to find herself on the verge of falling in love with. She didn’t want to think that mattered, but in her heart of hearts she knew it might, if there was ever to be a long-term future between them.
But how could there be?
The frustration of being assaulted by so many unanswerables, when all she wanted to do was luxuriate with her lover, caused Bennett to stir restlessly. That must have disturbed Memphis, because he stretched beneath her for a moment. His magnificent body arched into hers, and her arms went out to him.
“Can’t you sleep?” he asked sleepily.
“No, I can’t.”
“Grab my jeans and I’ll give you a penny for your thoughts.”
The night curtains had been left open on either side of the bed, and morning shone in. It struck Bennett that this was the first time she had seen him in the daylight. He looked as gorgeous and as perfect to her as he had at night. His body was lean and muscular, tanned from his days at sea. The dark hair on his chest glistened in the morning sun, and in the bright light she could see the calluses on his palms from long hours of hauling lines. She recalled those hands as smooth on her body, but she could see now that they were rough from hard work. She couldn’t help wondering if other things about last night had also been an illusion.
“What’s bothering you, Bennett?” He was obviously much more awake now, propping himself up on one elbow while still holding her loosely but close. “You can tell me anything.”
Bennett wished she believed that as sincerely as she was almost certain he meant it. Meanwhile, she had to come up with an answer. There was no sense in trying to convince him she wasn’t troubled. He was too perceptive for that.
“I’ve been thinking about what I found out last night at the DownTown Lounge,” she said.
“What about it?”
Memphis was watching her curiously and with great attentiveness. She could easily understand why. After the way they had made love just hours ago, she should have been nestled in his arms instead of rolling around filled with restless thoughts. She’d have to make this cover story a good one.
“That woman, Liddy, said something that made me think you might be involved in something illegal,” she said, “whether you know it or not,”
“What did she tell you?”
His tone had lost some of its softness toward her. The harder edge to his words cut her like a knife.
“She said Pearlanne had intimated there could be some smuggling going on aboard that boat you’ve been crewing.”
“She did, did she.”
The sudden chill in his voice blew across Bennett like an arctic wind, making her wish she had never started this conversation in the first place.
“Pearlanne claimed she was about to come into some money, apparently from this smuggling deal her friend Stitch was a part of,” Bennett stumbled on. “At least that was Liddy’s impression.”
“Well, if I had a cut of that kind of action it just might give me a motive for bumping off old Pearlanne.”
He had pulled completely away from her now so that they were no longer touching at all.
“I’m not accusing you,” she said. She didn’t know why she’d gotten into this, except that it had seemed a much less painful topic than what was truly bothering her—whether she had any business being involved with him at all. “I only wondered if you had noticed anything suspicious about these voyages you’ve been making.”
Memphis was sitting up now, propped against the headboard of the four-poster and looking down at her as if from a great height. “Not a thing,” he said. “Maybe something could be going on, but I doubt it. It’s none of my business anyway. My job’s to get the Fiddlehead to her port of call, that’s all.”
“What did you say?” Bennett could hardly believe her ears.
“I said I run the Fiddlehead crew, and that’s the end of it.”
Bennett didn’t answer. Her thoughts were whirling about too fast for her to come up with anything to say.
“Do you have a problem believing that?” he asked.
“A problem?” Bennett couldn’t help sounding bewildered. “No. No problem.” Suddenly that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
She slid off the bed.
“Time for you to leave?” he asked coldly.
“I’m just going into the bathroom,” she said, though she knew that wasn’t entirely true.
He nodded but said nothing. She could feel his eyes on her as she walked naked to the bathroom door. If her oversize shirt had been nearby, she would have covered herself with it. She hadn’t felt at all self-conscious about being naked with him before. Right now, however, she was too shaken to feel very much at ease about anything. She had all she could manage to stop herself from running out of the room.
Bennett would have liked to plunge herself into a cold shower, but there was only a marble tub. She couldn’t do that now. He would hear her and maybe come in to join her. That must not happen. She had to be alone. She turned on the water in the sink. She needed the noise of the splashing in case she should burst into the tears that pressed so close and hot behind her eyes. He must not hear that, either. He especially must not hear that.
She swallowed hard to keep the sobs from rising and wondered at herself for being so far out of control. She never let herself get this way. But then, there had been lots of “nevers” violated since she first met Memphis Modine not yet twenty-four hours ago. Most significantly, she had never been so sexually abandoned with a man before.
“Abandoned” was the way to describe it, too. She had abandoned reason, abandoned modesty, abandoned caution. That last was the never she really never allowed herself to commit. Bennett was nothing if not cautious. Her Mexico escapade in her teenage years was the one exception to that rule of her careful life, and look how that had turned out. She had every reason to believe she was now on a collision course with personal disaster yet again.
When she had begun seducing Memphis the night before, she had thought of it as a fantasy rendezvous with a near stranger. Despite all they had been through in their few hours together, that is what they were—near strangers to each other. The distance between them had seemed like a safety zone to her. She had not anticipated how quickly that distance would evaporate in the heat of their extraordinary encounter.
Thinking herself safe, she had opened up like never before. She had told herself she was free to be as exotic and erotic as was possible for her. She had long wondered what the limits of that possibility might be. Now she knew. There were no limits, at least not when she was with the right man. Against all odds, regardless of differences in background and situation, Memphis had turned out to be that right man for her. Under other circumstances, that discovery might have made her ecstatic. Instead, she was miserable. The name of his sailboat had made certain of that.
She grabbed the white telephone on the bath
room wall. She left the sink tap running to cover the sound of her voice. She didn’t know the number of the New York Yacht Club by heart so she had to dial 411 for Information. When she had the club on the line, mention of the St. Simon name got her directly to someone who could tell her about yacht registry.
“No,” the commodore said. “There are not two vessels named Fiddlehead registered.”
“Then, the boat called Fiddlehead, which has been docked at South Street Seaport is the same one that is registered out of your club?”
“That is right, Ms. St. Simon. But wait one moment.”
The sudden silence on the other end of the line sounded like a reprieve to Bennett. He was going to come back on the phone and tell her there had been a mistake after all. The Fiddlehead Memphis crewed on was not the same yacht she knew.
“Yes, Ms. St. Simon,” the commodore said. “I thought I saw a message about the Fiddlehead this morning. That vessel has been moved from the Seaport to Twenty-third Street Marina.”
Bennett’s hoped-for relief was gone. She had probably known there would be no reprieve all along, only a momentary delusion of it. She might as well ask the question she most dreaded to have answered.
“Do you know if Quinton Leslie is aboard the Fiddlehead?”
“I am sorry, Ms. St. Simon. I have no way of determining that.”
“But you are sure this is definitely the same Fiddlehead that Mr. Leslie partly owns?” She was still grabbing for straws, and she knew it.
“One and the same.”
“I see,” she said. She was so confused she almost forgot to thank the commodore before hanging up.
“Anytime I may be of help, Ms. St. Simon, please do not hesitate to contact me,” he said.
She wished, with more desperation than she had ever experienced in her life, that the commodore could provide the kind of help she needed now.
Chapter Nineteen
Bennett did take a shower in the marble cabinet in the corner of the spacious bathroom. She turned the pulsing massage jets up high, hoping they would pound some sense into this situation or throb her to alertness. Maybe then she could come up with some solutions to the problems that plagued her. No such answers came, but she did wash a good deal of the inexpensive dye from her hair. The resulting color was a shade of darkish auburn that she actually liked, especially after she had blown it into soft fullness with the dryer the hotel provided.
That was the wonderful thing about the Plaza. They anticipated your needs and did their best to satisfy them in advance. You could lose yourself in this rarefied world if you wanted. Bennett would have liked to do that now, but she knew she mustn’t. Something had to be done, and she had to do it. She only wished she knew for sure what that something should be.
First of all, she had to get some clothes. Neither her thrift box outfit nor what was left of last night’s cocktail dress would do for a trip to Twenty-third Street Marina. She had already planned to call Bergdorf’s, which was just across the corner from the hotel. She had shopped there often enough that they had her sizes on file. They could quickly put together a simple day ensemble with a few instructions from her. Then someone could bring the parcels to her hotel room. Again the St. Simon name would get her the service she required in a time of need. She seemed to be depending on her name to do that for her a lot lately. She didn’t like having to do it, but she was grateful that she could.
Memphis hadn’t joined her in the shower. Part of her couldn’t help regretting that, no matter how unwise it would have been to repeat their passion of the night before. She guessed that he must be sleeping. She was glad he could rest from his ordeal of chasing all over Manhattan last evening. She should try to rest herself, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to settle down enough for sleep. The secrets she was hiding from Memphis would be enough to keep her awake on her own, and she had a good deal more to worry about, as well.
Bennett didn’t want to think about those secrets, because she knew that when she walked out into the bedroom and saw his chiseled profile against the pillow, his magnificent body outlined beneath the sheet, she would want to tell him everything. She couldn’t do that, not yet anyway, perhaps not ever—if, in fact, there even could be an ever after for them. That possibility seemed to grow slimmer by the hour.
She heaved a glum sigh as she pulled on the plush terrycloth robe with the Plaza emblem on it. At least she would have these next few moments with him. She was thinking about how he would look when he first awakened, how beautiful his eyes would be, the disarray of his thick dark hair. She pushed open the bathroom door, almost allowing herself to feel hopeful if only for the moment. As soon as she stepped into the bedroom, all beautiful images and even that glimmer of hope disappeared. The bed was empty. Memphis was gone.
Bennett walked to the four-poster in a daze. She touched the rumpled sheets. They were cold. He had been gone from them for some time. Then she noticed the bedside table. The phone had been moved. She was sure of it. The phone had been on the other side of the lamp. Now it was pulled over next to the bed, as if Memphis had made a call on it—or as if he had listened in on a call being made from the bathroom.
Bennett was suddenly certain this was exactly what had happened. She went over her call to the yacht club in her mind. If Memphis heard that conversation, then he knew she was hiding things from him. One thing, at least—the fact that Quint could be involved in whatever might have been going on aboard the Fiddlehead. He might know this man named Stitch Falcone, too. It was even possible that Quint could be using the Falcone alias himself.
Any of these scenarios would have the potential to clear Memphis’s name, and Bennett had kept them from him. Had she done it to protect her own kind? Had she done it because she still didn’t trust Memphis even though she had given herself so totally to him last night? Both of these were possible. Memphis would have known that if he overheard her conversation with the commodore. Once again, Bennett was convinced Memphis had done exactly that.
RUDY HAD PARKED the sedan in a garage. He hated doing that. He considered it a challenge to find a place on the street in Manhattan and save the extra garage charge.
“It’s like eight bucks,” Nick complained. “You’re such a cheap freak.”
Nick always complained about walking the added distance, even when it was only a couple of blocks. Parking spaces near midtown hardly ever turned out to be in a handy location. Today he was complaining because the garage attendant was taking more than two minutes to get the car.
“I could drive that boat out of here myself,” Nick grumbled. “I don’t need some snot-nosed kid doing it for me.”
“You’d probably wipe out a couple of rows of parked cars in the process,” Rudy said. He wasn’t in too good a mood himself.
“Come on. Come on,” Nick shouted. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
“You’ve just got a mad on because Falcone called your number for once.”
“What are you talking about?”
Nick’s voice had a dangerous edge to it. Any other time, Rudy would have let the subject drop, but not today. Like he said, he wasn’t in any too good a mood himself.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You were five, ten minutes behind those two down in that hellhole on the Lower East Side, and you missed the train anyway.”
“I didn’t miss no train.” The veins in Nick’s forehead stood out angrily beneath his reddening skin. “And you got nothin’ to talk about, Rudy boy. Suppose I was to tell Falcone you wasn’t even down there with me like you should have been. What would happen then, wise guy?”
Rudy was quiet for a minute. Nick had a point, but Rudy wasn’t about to tell him so.
“See what I mean?” Nick sneered. “That shut your face for you, didn’t it?”
“You’re a great one to call anybody a wise guy.” Rudy had meant to keep his mouth shut, but he couldn’t stand it when Nick used that smart-assed tone on him. “Somebody ought to tell Falcone the real reason you w
ere in that dive in the first place. It sure wasn’t because you were doing business.”
“I was taking care of business, all right. I’m always taking care of business.”
Nick was talking so loudly that people walking by looked over at him where he and Rudy were standing just off the street at the top of the garage ramp. For once, Rudy didn’t give a damn whether they made a scene or not.
“Yeah, I know what kind of business you’re always taking care of,” he said, “and it hasn’t got anything to do with Falcone.”
“What are you talking about?” Nick asked again.
“Chasing women. That’s the business you’re in, fella, and it’s a twenty-four-hour-a-day job the way you work it.”
“There ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. I’d rather be a skirt chaser than an uptight jerk like you any day.”
Rudy felt his own face getting red. He might have said something really harsh to Nick, but the dark sedan had just turned the corner at the bottom of the ramp and was climbing toward them. The attendant must have hit the gas hard, the way garage guys love to do, because the big car leapt forward and was at the top of the ramp in seconds flat.
“It’s about time,” Nick growled.
“How’s that, mister?” the garage attendant asked. He looked as though he might be almost as foul-tempered as Nick.
“I said, where’d you park the damned thing? In Jersey?”
The garage attendant curled his lip to reveal a gleaming gold tooth.
Rudy stepped forward, between Nick and the garage guy. He’d just as soon see the big palooka clean Nick’s clock for him, but not today. Falcone had given the two of them an assignment, and it was clear that there’d be big trouble if they screwed up again.
“We don’t want any hassles here,” Rudy said to the attendant and pressed two twenties into his hand. “This is for you.”
The brawny attendant looked down at the bills in his hand then up at Nick. “Check you later,” the attendant said in a menacing tone and turned to hike back down the ramp.
