by Anne Stuart
Too long. It would be solid months before he was back to his normal weight, back to full strength. Francey Neeley's part in tracking down Patrick Dugan's confederates would be long over by then. He would never see her again, and she'd remember him as a skinny, frail, slightly effete British schoolmaster. Mr. Chips meets James Bond.
Maybe he'd better cut back on the slightly effete part. There were times when the only amusing aspect of a grim job was his playacting, but he had the feeling that Francey's clear brown eyes would see through anything less than subtle. He'd been able to convince people he was gay when it was a necessary part of his cover, but somehow he didn't think he would be able to convince Francey.
Perhaps it was because of his inexplicable reaction to her. She hadn't been at all what he'd expected. He'd seen the photographs—clandestine photos of her and Dugan, family snapshots provided by Travers. She'd looked rather ordinary. Shoulder-length brownish hair, plain brown eyes, large mouth, small nose, heart-shaped face. In reality she was more. So much more that he was having a hard time forgetting that he'd been forcibly celibate for months. Which must be a record, since he'd lost his virginity at the tender age of thirteen. It must simply be a monumental case of horniness.
Still, he'd come to St. Anne ready to distrust her, ready to pin her down and get what he wanted from her through fair means or foul.
He still didn't trust her. But he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. There was stark, empty pain in her eyes. Pain that might simply have come from her lover's death. Or a pain that had come from a betrayal far deeper than that.
Those eyes saw too much, though. It was a good thing he'd thought to borrow one of Travers's suits. His own were slightly baggy, but this oversize one had made him look like a scarecrow. Enough to soothe even the most nervous female's anxieties.
Though Francey didn't strike him as a nervous female. She drove like a bootlegger, all right. Or an IRA driver. He didn't trust how good she was; it didn't fit.
Still, someone had definitely been trying to kill at least one of the passengers in the Jeep. Which immediately put her on the side of the hunted.
At least he'd been able to fool her for now. She had a frail schoolteacher in her adjoining bedroom, one barely able to walk on his own two feet. That much was true, he thought in disgust. But he was able to hold his own a hell of a lot better than she suspected, including pushing that damnably heavy Jeep out of the water.
Tomorrow he would begin to work on her. Slide under her unsuspecting guard and see exactly how much she knew about Patrick Dugan and his confederates. And then he would decide what to do with her.
Chapter 3
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At the moment there was only one question troubling Francey: Exactly what was going on with the man sleeping in the room next to hers? Something didn't ring true about him, about his arrival, and yet she had nothing to go on but her instincts. Instincts that had failed her badly in the past few months.
She shoved the pillows behind her back and stared out into the dark night. The noises from the room next to her had stopped, and she could only assume Michael had finally managed to drift off to sleep. If only she could be so lucky.
She'd heard him climb out of bed. She'd lain very still, listening to the quiet thuds, the faint groans and wheezes, from the room beyond, and it had been all she could do not to run in and check on him. It had sounded as if he were having one of his spasms, and for all she knew she would find him dead the next morning.
But something kept her tied to the uncomfortable bed, something she couldn't begin to understand. She wasn't going to leave this small bastion of safety to check on her housemate unless he called for help.
And he wouldn't do that unless he had to. She'd seen his self-contempt, his hatred of his weakness, and she knew he hated other people's efforts even more than he hated his own. For all his charm, his wonderful smile and easy ways, he wouldn't take kindly to intrusions and maternal caring. She'd almost kissed him on the forehead when she tucked him in, then wisely resisted the impulse. He wasn't a sick little boy. He was a man, and he was probably already feeling emasculated.
There was one thing troubling her, one tiny niggling little problem. When Daniel had called and told her about Michael during one of the infrequent phone conversations the terrible phone service allowed them, she had accepted everything he'd told her without question. The man asleep in the room next to her was simply an ailing boys' schoolteacher from England, a harmless, weak soul.
So why didn't she trust him? Why did she have the sudden unnerving suspicion that he might really be one of Patrick or Caitlin's friends, sent to wreak justice or revenge or whatever?
It hadn't been her fault that Patrick had died. It had been his, and his alone, his mind clouded with dreams and a cause that went beyond idealism into murder, and she would have been a ready sacrifice. Would he have killed her? She would never know.
She didn't even know whether Caitlin had lived or died. For that matter, she didn't care. That night of horror had begun to fade into a bloody blur, and the weeks and months preceding it were simply part of a nightmare. Every time she thought of Patrick's hands on her, his mouth on her, teasing, taunting, arousing, all the time knowing he was using her, laughing at her, going to Caitlin and telling her all about the foolish, besotted American, her stomach began to churn. And Caitlin, Patrick's willing accomplice, had lost any claim to what Francey had thought was her boundless compassion.
She climbed out of bed very slowly, the cotton sheets sliding against her skin as she moved silently to the balcony window. She slid it open a crack, but everything at Belle Reste worked so well that not the slightest noise penetrated the thick cocoon of the night. Only the soothing rush of the ocean beyond broke the stillness.
Tired as she was, she wasn't going to sleep. She should go back downstairs and find her unfinished glass of whiskey. She should go in search of the pills the doctors had prescribed for her. But she already knew that sleeping pills and tranquilizers and Scotch whiskey couldn't keep the demons away. And they were hovering close around her tonight, so close she could feel the flutter of their black wings.
She discounted her immediate worry. Michael Dowd couldn't be IRA. If he were, he would have killed her already—there was no reason to delay. He wouldn't have been a fellow potential victim in the sabotaged car. He had to be an innocent, one who nearly lost his life because he'd happened to get in the way of people who wanted Francey dead.
She would try to call Daniel tomorrow, see if he could get Michael safely away. Maybe she would go, too. Tonight had been a revelation on several fronts. She'd discovered that she didn't want to die. And she'd discovered that all her hormones hadn't shriveled up and vanished. Michael Dowd might be a frail semi-invalid, but he had the most erotic hands she'd ever seen. And the feel of his arm through the loose jacket against the side of her breast had jump-started something that she'd thought had died.
Leaning her forehead against the glass, she stared out into the inky darkness. The moon had set by then, and the stars were bright overhead. Everything was still and peaceful.
Everything but the ominous shadow of a huge, hulking figure she saw prowling along the side of the house.
Those sadists at the hospital who called themselves nurses woke him up at six every morning, whether he'd had a good night or a bad one. Michael's body had gotten used to it, and it was going to take a concerted effort on his part to change back to his usual slothful ways. He had every intention of making that effort, but not right now. For now he needed the extra time in the morning to prowl around. He had exceptionally good hearing, and he could make out the regular breathing of the woman in the bedroom next to his. She wouldn't be awake for a good long while.
It was no wonder. He'd listened to her move around after he'd gone to bed, even caught the hurried movements of a momentary panic. He'd taken a glance out the window, noting that Cecil had been fool enough to get himself noticed, and waited for Francey to come sc
reaming into his room.
She didn't.
She didn't place any phone calls or go out to confront her intruder herself, thank God. She had the sense to stay put. At least, this time it showed good sense. If the person prowling the beaches of Belle Reste had been the one who'd severed her brake line, then she might have been signing her own death warrant by staying in her bedroom.
God, he hated innocents! He'd been hoping she would be some cold-blooded harpy, a worthy opponent. He hadn't been counting on someone with the wounded eyes of a fawn and the body of a…
He'd better stop thinking about her body. He wasn't in any shape to be doing anything about it anyway, so why torment himself? He'd better stop thinking about her doelike eyes, too. He'd seen eyes just that vulnerable on a woman who was about to kill him. They hadn't looked any different after she'd died.
Francey probably thought she hadn't made a sound last night when she got out of bed and walked over to the sliding glass door of the balcony. She hadn't counted on his hearing. He could move far more silently than she could, and she didn't stir when he pushed her door open at a few minutes past six in the morning.
She was sound asleep, wearing an oversize white T-shirt that was pulled up to show a flat, tanned stomach above her plain white cotton panties. Not a woman with a taste for exotic underwear, he thought. Which told him one of two things. Either she was shy, retiring. Or she was here to do a job.
He shut the door silently behind him as he padded downstairs. She'd switched on the security system he knew the place came with, and he just as easily switched it off, signaling to Cecil as he patrolled the beach.
The ease with which Cecil jogged up to the front of the house didn't help Michael's feelings of charity.
"She saw you last night," he said without preamble.
"Hey, mon, I do my best."
"Hey, mon," Michael mocked him. "You grew up in Stepney, not Jamaica. You can drop the accent when you're around me."
"Better never to break cover," Cecil said innocently. "You know that, mon."
Michael ignored the provocation. "What about the Jeep?"
"Very professional job. Brake line was severed, and for good measure the fuel line was fiddled with. Gas was spraying all over the engine, and it would have ignited if you hadn't driven into the water."
"I wasn't driving. She was. She seems to have hidden talents."
"You sure she's what she says she is?" Cecil asked.
"I'm not sure of anything, including my own mother. I'm taking a wait-and-see attitude. Got any leads on who might have done it?"
"Any number of people. The people we placed here when she first arrived have narrowed it down to five or so, and we'll wade through them as best we can. I don't want to ask too many questions, get people too excited. This is a peaceful island, one that's not big on secrets. People are already talking about the Jeep going into the water. They all know and like the girl—they can't believe it was carelessness on her part. If I can keep the local police at bay without confiding in them, we'll be in better shape."
"They're going to try again," Michael said flatly. "They haven't tried anything before, so my arrival must have tipped their hand. Now that they've made their move, they're going to keep on until they get it right."
"Of course they are, mon. We just aim to keep them from succeeding."
"You need to try a little harder. Did you bring the luggage?"
"Out on the front porch. Including the hardware we brought in. It's your usual stuff. Can't imagine why you like a Beretta, mon. There's better stuff out nowadays."
"Newer, not better," Michael said. "You'll be back with a full report later? With a reasonable excuse?"
"Sure, mon." Cecil was better at vanishing than he was at maintaining a discreet surveillance. In a moment he was gone, leaving Michael in the empty doorway, staring out into the bright early-morning sunlight. He waited just long enough, and then turned, favoring his leg just a bit more than necessary, to face the woman who was standing a few feet away from the stairs.
"Good morning," he said easily, using his automatic charm. "I hope I didn't wake you. I don't sleep very well these days."
She was wearing a terry robe; her brown hair was rumpled, and her face was creased with sleep. "What did he want?"
Not the warmest greeting, but he'd already known she wasn't as gullible as he'd hoped. "Cecil? He brought my bags from the airport."
She took a couple of steps toward him, pushing a hand through her hair, and he could see the distrust at the back of her eyes. He wanted to wipe that away—for purely practical reasons, he told himself. "Did he?" Her voice was skeptical.
"He's quite a character, our Cecil," he said, leaning against the open doorway. "He got the Jeep towed to his cousin's repair shop last night, then he took off for the airport to bring the bags. He says he was wandering around here half the night, looking for a way in, but the place was locked up tight." He shook his head, a wry smile on his face. "Are most people around here so devoted to duty?"
"He was here last night?" she asked carefully.
You know bloody well he was, Michael thought. "I'd asked him to pick up my luggage, but I assumed he'd wait until morning. I didn't expect him to be wandering around on the beach during the small hours of the night." It had actually been before midnight, but he wasn't supposed to know that.
Francey considered for a moment, and he could see her thin, tense shoulders start to relax beneath the robe. She shoved her hands into her pockets, and he wondered if they were shaking. "You know, I thought I saw someone out there last night," she said ingenuously.
"You did? Why didn't you call me?" He really wanted to know the answer to that question. Why hadn't she tamed to him for help?
"I didn't want to bother you. You'd been through enough in the past twenty-four hours. Besides, crime is practically nonexistent on St. Anne. Whoever was out there probably didn't mean us any harm. And if they did, this place comes equipped with the latest in security systems. They couldn't have gotten in."
The security system Daniel Travers had installed was already out-of-date and any operative worth his salt could have gotten past it, but he wasn't supposed to know these things. "That's a relief. Not that either of us has any enemies. Do we?"
Once again her face turned pale beneath her tan, and he wondered if she were simply better than he expected, or if she really was that vulnerable. "No enemies," she said in a slightly raspy voice. "Not that I know of."
"Cecil says his cousin will have word on the Jeep by this afternoon. He'll stop back and let us know."
"Can't he call?"
"No phone."
"Of course." She shook her head at her own stupidity. "Coffee or tea?"
Or me, he thought irreverently. "Coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon," he said. "Unless it's tea bags. Then I'll stick with coffee the whole time." He started toward the kitchen, moving slowly. He'd left his cane behind, and he had to do a creditable job struggling along without it. It was more of a prop than a necessity most of the time, but after the rigors of his day of travel and night of grand prix driving, he could have used the support. "I can make it."
"You'll do no such thing," she said, suddenly bustling and maternal once more. "You go out on the veranda while I make a pot of coffee and something to eat. You need to take it easy, build your strength back." She'd already turned away from him, heading back through the butler's pantry into the kitchen, and he watched her go, wryly aware of his own conflict.
By the time he got his bags up to his bedroom, managed a shower and a change into a pair of his old, baggy khakis and a loose white T-shirt, he could smell the coffee wafting upward. He took his cane this time and headed downstairs, moving a little more slowly than he had to. One problem with this hot climate was the skimpy clothing. There was no way he could hide a gun in what he was wearing, and assuming he stripped down to shorts or a bathing suit, he would even have to ditch the knife he had strapped to his calf. He didn't like the idea of be
ing out there at the end of St. Anne without proper protection. But until he knew how far he could trust Frances Neeley, he wasn't going to be anything more than an invalid schoolteacher. One who certainly wouldn't be carrying his efficient-looking Beretta.
"There you are," she said when he limped out onto the veranda. "I was worried about you." She'd managed to change into some flimsy sundress, one that exposed long, tanned legs and arms and the slight swell of her breasts. He usually preferred busty women. Maybe it was time to change his tastes.
She made good coffee; he had to grant her that. She made good bacon and eggs, too, even if he'd let them sit too long. She also made good conversation, and, even more, she knew when to be peacefully quiet. All in all, an estimable woman. If she wasn't an IRA murderer.
She yawned, stretching her bare legs out in front of her, and he found himself watching her feet. He'd never seen a woman with beautiful feet before in his life. Of course, he hadn't spent that much time looking below their knees. Maybe she wasn't that extraordinary.
He was on his second cup of coffee, feeling marginally better than he had in months, when her dreamy voice broke through his abstraction. "I wonder what that boat's doing?" she murmured, snatching the final croissant that he'd been resisting for the past few minutes.
Michael narrowed his eyes to squint into the bright sunlight. The boat looked ordinary enough to him. Large, slightly rusty, equipped with fishing paraphernalia, it looked like a commercial fisherman's boat. "Fishing?" he suggested lazily.
She shook her head. "Not there. Any of the locals know that the currents run too fast by the point. I can't imagine who could be out there."
Michael set his cup down very carefully. It wasn't one of theirs. He knew exactly which boats Cecil and company employed, and none of them was a deceptively rusty trawler like the one lurking just beyond the point. Once he looked closer he could see the telltale signs of sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment, probably the kind that could pick up every word they were saying. Not to mention the name of the damned boat. Irish Fancy. He could imagine just what their fancy was.
