The Virgin and the Vengeful Groom Read online

  Attuned to the slightest sound, he listened to her slow, even breathing. Clouds had covered the moon, but he didn’t need to see her to know that her hair would be spread, a dark tangle on the pillow, and that she would be sleeping on her stomach with one arm dangling off the bed, the other fist against her chin. He had pictured her that way too many times. Imagined himself waking her from a bad dream, offering comfort….

  It hadn’t been Lily he’d heard. Which meant that someone—or something—had been messing around his house. Whatever it was, it was gone now. At least that itchy feeling was gone. His body might have taken a beating, but there was nothing wrong with his senses, and at the moment they were registering only the familiar grit of sand under his bare feet, the damp chill of night air on his body and the presence of another body in the vicinity.

  Lily. Even sleeping, she was a big blip on his radar screen.

  But because he was awake and still keyed up, he quietly let himself outside and checked out the area. Screens all secure, both outside doors locked. There were enough empty cottages, even early in September, so that a house that was obviously inhabited wouldn’t be particularly attractive to someone looking for an easy mark. Prime targets were surfboards and fishing gear left underneath cottages or inside vehicles.

  Probably a raccoon, he concluded, laying the 9 mm on a kitchen counter while he removed the milk carton from the refrigerator. No point in going back to bed, it would soon be morning.

  The air was almost cool for a change. Judging from the frequent flashes of lightning out over the ocean, any possibility of rain had passed them by. Still, he liked the predawn hours. Best time in the world for sorting things out in his mind, and God knows, he had plenty to sort through. The list grew longer each day. Whether or not to make his retirement official. And if he did, what kind of job to look for. He knew demolition. He knew men. Thanks to the Navy, he had a degree, and the job market was wide open. Money was no problem. He’d invested well, relying on hunches rather than expert advice. Holed up here on the island he could live modestly well on interest and dividends until he decided on his next move.

  Lily was a problem. The one thing he hadn’t figured on was a woman.

  Thank God she was strictly temporary.

  Leaving his gun behind, he moved outside, lowered himself stiffly onto the front porch rocker, savoring the cool dampness on his almost-bare backside. He’d taken the time to pull on a pair of briefs, but that was all. He was still there a few minutes later, watching lightning flicker out over the ocean, when he sensed a presence behind him.

  “Am I intruding?” Lily asked softly.

  “Yeah, you are, not that that’ll stop you.”

  “You know me pretty well.”

  “Better than I want to.” But not as well as he’d like to in a strictly carnal sense.

  She was wearing a pair of men’s pajamas, long-legged, long-sleeved, buttoned up to her chin. How the devil could a woman look seductive in a pair of striped pj’s? “Might as well pull up a chair,” he growled softly. The two porch chairs were close enough that he could smell the sleep on her. There was no perfume in all the world as arousing as the scent of a woman still warm from her bed.

  “I saw your gun in the kitchen,” she remarked casually.

  “So?” As a conversational gambit, that one was going nowhere.

  “Are you a cop?”

  “Do I look like a cop?”

  “You look like a man with a bad back, some nasty scars—a man who wears black drawers and has the sweet disposition of a junkyard dog.”

  “I’d say that about covers it.”

  Neither of them spoke for the next few minutes. Curt could have kicked himself for leaving his gun out in plain sight. He knew better than that.

  “Going somewhere?” He was staring pointedly at the car keys fisted in her hand.

  “I thought I heard something.”

  “Thunder.”

  “I know what thunder sounds like. It’s not sneaky.”

  “Sneaky?”

  “Like someone trying to break in.”

  In the lavender, predawn light, he studied her profile. How could a woman be beautiful without being pretty? Was it because Hollywood defined prettiness? “So you were going to tackle some hothead with a set of car keys?”

  “I don’t own a gun. As you discovered when you searched my tote bag.”

  She still hadn’t forgiven him for that. He couldn’t much blame her. “Tell me something—how many of those ladies’ self-defense courses have you taken?”

  “None of your—three. And you don’t have to sound so damned condescending, they’re good courses. And by the way,” she added smugly, “that’s one more secret you owe me.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that an armed thug doesn’t care if you have a pink-plaid belt in chop suey, he’s got the edge because he doesn’t give a damn if he kills you or not?”

  During the thirty seconds of silence that followed, he wanted to believe she was taking his words seriously. “Think about it, Lily. The bad guys don’t play by your rules.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that? Believe me, I know how to fight dirty. I know enough to run and hide if there’s a chance of running or hiding, but when there’s not, I’ll use whatever I can lay my hands on as a weapon. You’d be amazed how much damage you can do with a can of roach spray.”

  “I doubt if roach spray would stop even a rabid raccoon before he inflicted some serious damage.”

  “Is that what you think it was? The noise that woke me up?”

  He thought about lying to her. Decided to try evasion, instead. “What you heard was me checking the windows. When I heard the thunder I wanted to be sure it hadn’t rained in before I woke up.”

  Calm as anything, she uttered a word not usually heard in polite circles. “I heard you prowling around out there, but before that, someone was messing around, testing the screens. If you hadn’t got up when you did, he’d have cut one and come inside.”

  Pale-gold sunlight limned a three-quarter cameo of her face as he stared at her. “You were asleep.”

  “I was playing possum. I knew whatever it was, you’d take care of it. That is, if your back didn’t freeze up on you. Wanna go look for footprints, now that it’s light enough not to trample the evidence? Or have you already stomped all over it?”

  He held up a hand while his mind raced to catch up. “Whoa, wait a minute. First you say you were awake when I went into your bedroom, then you say—”

  “You didn’t come inside, you just stood at the door and listened. I’m good, aren’t I? At breath control? I knew this guy who was studying opera, but he got killed in a drive-by.”

  Slowly Curt shook his head. “Just who the hell are you, Lily O’Malley?” he asked softly. Then, indignantly, he demanded, “And what the hell do you mean, if my back didn’t freeze up on me?”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your pride, but let’s face it, you could have needed some help if things had turned out differently. I was ready, you know. If there’d been trouble, I’d have been right there beside you.”

  “Will you just listen to yourself? God, I can’t believe…” He shut his eyes and then opened them again. “Look, bad back notwithstanding, I think I could have handled some punk kid.” He scowled, setting the rocker into agitated motion. “Aren’t you about finished up here? You’ve probably got stuff to do back in Norfolk, so don’t let me keep you. In fact, if you want to take Bess’s books, you’re welcome to the lot. Something called The Virgin and the Vengeful Groom rates pretty far down on my reading list.”

  “You’re too generous.” Her smile was about as sincere as a politician’s promise. Roughly translated it meant, Up yours, buster.

  “Yeah, I am.” His own grim smile wasn’t much better. It said, Bug off, lady, before I do something we’ll both regret. He knew for a fact that it wasn’t necessary to like a woman, or even to know her as a person, to get all hot and bothered. If that had been the case, the X-ra
ted industries would collapse overnight. Besides which, any man who thought he knew a woman deserved what he got. Which was usually the shaft.

  Against the background drone of mosquitoes seeking warm blood and the thump of rockers on a sandy, uneven porch floor, they sparred silently. Tested for weaknesses. Curt figured it was pretty much a draw. In spite of his needling, Lily sat there looking as calm as that painting by whatsisname—the Mona Lisa. No man with half a brain would turn his back on either of that pair—Mona or Lily.

  “What do you think they were after?”

  “Raccoons? Garbage, probably.”

  “It wasn’t an animal, and you know it.”

  “Look, any house this isolated occasionally gets hit. Fact is, it was pretty well cleaned out before I even moved in. Anything of value that could be lugged off was gone by the time I came on the scene. I bought a new mattress, but that’s it.”

  “It’s sort of nice, though. Uncluttered, the way a beach cottage should look. I like it the way it is.”

  He barked a laugh. “What, no rugs, no curtains and damn little furniture?”

  “Bare wood has a certain charm, even when it’s worn down to the grain. And too much furniture can be…well, too much.” She yawned.

  “Go to bed,” he ordered gruffly.

  “I couldn’t sleep, even if I did. If I were home, I’d go to work.”

  “So go to work.” He wanted to say, Go home, lady. Get the hell back where you came from and leave me alone, but somewhere in his gene pool there must have been a few decent genes. Just his luck they would kick in when he neither needed nor wanted them.

  “Know what I wish? I keep wishing I could get inside Bess’s head. She has so many stories to tell, Curt, I just know she does. It sounds crazy, but I keep thinking I was brought here for a purpose. Do you believe in…” She sighed, and he could picture her shoulders lifting and falling, the thin striped cotton of her pajamas sliding over her breasts. “No, of course you don’t. Neither do I, not really.”

  “Glad we cleared that up.” There was a hint of amusement in his voice. Just a hint. Not even to himself was he willing to admit how right it felt to share the dawn with her, even under these circumstances. To sit here and talk, or not talk, and watch the sky turn pale as shafts of gold heralded the approach of another day.

  Reluctantly he rose and headed down the steps. After half a beat, she followed. “Are we looking for evidence?”

  “We’re looking for whatever’s out here. If we’re lucky whatever it is will have four feet.”

  “Or hooves. It could’ve been a deer. I found deer tracks out near the cemetery the other day.”

  Neither of them expected to find animal tracks. They found what they were expecting. Footprints. Lug soles, a couple of sizes smaller than his, a couple of sizes larger than hers.

  “Now what?” she asked. With the sun behind her, her hair looked like a dark halo. She had rolled her pajama legs up to keep them from trailing through the dew-damp sand. She should have looked absurd. Instead, she looked sexy as hell and about fifteen years old.

  “Now nothing. If he comes back tonight, I’ll be ready.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the law or something?”

  “And report what—footprints?”

  “I reported my stalker,” she said self-righteously.

  “There was no forced entry here, either. No fancy panties tucked in with my briefs. Nothing was taken, and as for trespassing, the place is not posted. Both our vehicles are still there, and I don’t have a surfboard or any fishing tackle to steal. If he’d been after a car, he could’ve hot-wired either one of ’em. He didn’t. I doubt if he’ll be back.”

  Curt wasn’t quite as sanguine as he tried to appear. All it would take was one boozed-up beach bum to create a situation. When and if it happened he’d just as soon not have the responsibility of bodyguarding a celebrity author.

  She looked as if she might argue for a minute, but all she said was, “Is there any of that raisin-nut cereal left, do you think?”

  After showering and dressing, they met in the kitchen for breakfast. It was still only a few minutes past six, but there was no point in trying to sleep. Finding ants in the cereal, Lily nibbled on a slice of peanut-buttered bread and told Curt to make a list of whatever else he needed. “I’ll drive down to the supermarket. I’d like to get away for a little while to sort of put this thing in perspective. Take notes, you know, while it’s still fresh in my mind? You might as well know that sooner or later I use just about everything that happens in my books.”

  “Even swimming lessons?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “What about this scenario—bad guy tries to drown heroine so he won’t have to share secret papers with her?”

  “Way too obvious. And for your information, I don’t have to share anything.”

  “No? What do you bet the law would side with me? You forfeited your rights when you skipped out on your rent payments.”

  “When I what? Woman, you are unbelievable. Did anyone ever call you pigheaded?”

  “Sure. I took it as a compliment.”

  He started to walk away, changed his mind and turned back. He wasn’t about to let her have the last word. “Maybe we both need a change of scenery,” he growled.

  “Fine. I’ll wait in the car.”

  “Wait in the truck, I’m driving.”

  “How about we both drive?” she countered.

  “Lily, don’t push me, I’m mean when I don’t get enough sleep.”

  “Oh? What about the other times? What’s your excuse then?” She was all round-eyed innocence.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Mean, chauvinistic, stubborn, suspicious—have I left anything out?”

  “Check my personnel file, it’s all there.”

  “Uh-huh.” Lily was on to him now. He might not admit it, but he was beginning to like her. Considering the way he could manipulate her feelings, it was a good thing. She’d come a long way, reinventing herself again and again. She wasn’t about to back down now on account of a pair of navy-blue eyes and a crooked smile so rare it was on the endangered list.

  She was leaning against the warm metal side of the truck, studying the bleak old house, picturing it surrounded by lush shrubbery, when he came outside and locked the door behind him. “I don’t need you to go with me, you know,” she felt compelled to say. “I’m okay with what happened. It’s no big deal.”

  He sauntered across to where she was standing. “Did I imply otherwise?” he drawled.

  “You don’t have to. You’re mean and suspicious, and your housekeeping is even worse than mine, but evidently you have this protective streak. I just want you to know that I don’t need a caretaker.”

  “Honey, if I decide to take care of you, you’ll know it.”

  The words hung there between them, laden with meaning that neither of them dared explore. She didn’t think it had been a deliberate double entendre, but she couldn’t be sure.

  They drove south in silence. Just north of Little Kinnakeet Lifesaving Station, Curt shoved in a tape. Country western. She should have guessed what type of music he’d like. It could’ve been worse. A lot worse, she thought, remembering the kind of vicious, heavy metal that used to pummel her for hours at a time while her mother and her friends partied in the next room.

  In the supermarket parking lot, Lily pulled a cart from one of the outdoor stands and wheeled it inside. Curt took over, and she let him get away with it. He might think she didn’t know when he was hurting, but she wasn’t blind. When he was in pain he got a squinty-eyed look, walking in that odd, gliding way that always made her think of dancers and slinking jungle animals.

  “Apples, aspirin, ace bandages.”

  “You and your alphabet,” she jeered, wanting to tell him to go outside and wait in the truck, that she’d get whatever they needed. She was just as tough as he was, and she had her own protective streak.

  The man had to be crazy, the way he jogged a
cross the hot sand to the beach every morning. Showing off, no doubt. Proving what a macho hero he was. He probably collapsed in agony the minute he reached his bed. “Okay, you do the cart, I’ll do the picking. Better yet, go sit in the truck and I’ll get what we need and join you in a few minutes. Shall I get ice cream?”

  “You want ice cream, get it.”

  “I only meant are we going to go anywhere else or are we headed directly home?”

  “Your choice. You want to procrastinate, why don’t we leave the shopping until we’re headed north again?”

  “I’m not procrastinating, I only thought we could both do with a break.”

  It occurred to Lily that she’d called it “home.” He hadn’t caught her up on it. All the same, she wouldn’t do it again, because it had sounded too good. And she’d learned the hard way to be wary of anything that sounded too good. Powers Point was his home, not hers. Just because she’d bought some old papers at auction—just because she happened to feel a certain affinity for one of his distant relatives, that didn’t mean she had a stake in any part of his life. He had accepted her presence for the time being, but that didn’t mean he trusted her.

  They drove all the way down through Hatteras village to the ferry docks, stopping for sandwiches and drinks along the way. “Truce?” she asked.

  “Truce,” he agreed grudgingly. And then he flashed that grin that knocked the wind right out of her sails, as Bess might’ve said.

  They climbed the dunes, sank down on the warm sand and ate in silence, watching a fisherman and a lone surfer. Afterward she tucked the wrappers, napkins and cups into the bag and lay back. “If I fall asleep, wake me before the tide comes in, will you?”

  “Don’t count on it, I’ll be sleeping with you.”

  When she twisted her head around to gape at him, he laughed softly. “I only meant we both missed some sleep last night.”

  “Oh.” She let it drop, but after a minute, said drowsily, “Isn’t it funny how far away everything seems. Like everything that’s happened, happened to somebody else?”

  “Hmm?” he murmured without opening his eyes.

  “Like, you know—trying to drown me yesterday because you hate having to share your family secrets. Like last night—that creep prowling around outside. Like back at my place in Norfolk—and contracts and proposals and agents and publicists, and wondering if I’ll make the bestseller lists, and if so, which ones, and how high and how long—and reviews. Out here, it all sort of…fades away.”