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  Wet lines. The whole damned island was drowning.

  Little Miss Muffet was probably in there snoring her head off. Dammit, if she weren’t here to complicate things, he could have at least had himself a busman’s holiday. He currently owned two coastal resorts, one recently renovated and reopened, the other in process of being evaluated. He owned a three-boat charter fleet. A day or two of scoping out the local facilities and the whole trip would be a tax write-off.

  Not that he begrudged the cost, but he hated like the devil being made to feel like a fool. And now, whichever way he went, it would be wrong. He could hang around for a day or so and find out what needed doing about the woman Stu had married. Or he could take Molly Muffet at her word and leave her to look after those blasphemous birds, trusting to luck that Stu hadn’t made the mistake of his life.

  Either way, he was pinned down for the time being, and being pinned down wasn’t something he bore up under gracefully.

  Four

  Rafe served Molly, then helped himself to a filet of trout that had been broiled to perfection. The small refrigerator was filled with turkey leftovers. At this rate he’d have to open up a soup kitchen. Until last night his cooking had consisted of the occasional intimate dinner for two, followed by an equally intimate breakfast. This was neither.

  “I don’t remember seeing you in any of the wedding pictures.” It was a harmless observation, but Molly sensed both irritation and frustration.

  She glanced up from her plate. “Hmm? Oh, I was somewhere around. I was the one in blue.” Navy blue. Because dark colors were slenderizing. She had hoped to be able to fit into something more festive in time for Annamarie’s wedding, but thanks to another unpleasant surprise visit from her ex, she had nibbled herself out of that possibility.

  One of three Stevens sisters growing up back in West Virginia, Molly had been called the plump one to distinguish her from the gorgeous one and the brainy one. The brainy one was now an assistant research chemist in St. Louis, and the beauty was currently in Jamestown, exploring the excavations with her new husband.

  “How’s the fish?”

  “Delicious.” At least broiled fish was something she could enjoy with a clear conscience. She’d even eaten half a baked potato with salt and pepper only.

  “Getting it fresh makes the difference. Squirt on the lemon juice, pour on the melted butter and bingo! You’ve got yourself a real treat.”

  “Butter?”

  “Don’t even think about using margarine.” Rafe helped himself to the other half of her baked potato and ladled on the sour cream.

  She sighed. “All right, I won’t.”

  He looked at her, a frown shadowing his eyes. “Hey, you’re not worried about a little butter, are you? Dairy foods are one of the major food groups.”

  Shag, the cat, shoved his head against her leg, reminding her that he, too, enjoyed seafood, with or without condiments. “Look, it’s not a problem, all right? You go on cooking the things you like to cook, and I’ll go on eating the things I want to eat. Better yet, you move out and I’ll manage on my own.”

  “Not an option. Unfortunately.”

  “Unfortunately,” she echoed under her breath.

  “You don’t eat enough,” he said, still with that look of fake concern on his winter-tanned face. And that was another thing Molly hated about men. Hypocrisy. Kenny had been so worried about her when she’d had the flu. Worried about her losing her day job and falling behind on her home bookkeeping business.

  Molly carefully folded her napkin and shoved her chair back. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go clean cages. Put away the food and I’ll take care of the dishes.” The cottage didn’t run to a dishwasher, which had been just fine when all she’d had to clean up after were her own simple meals. With Rafe the Wonder Chef doing the honors, it was something else again.

  “I made double chocolate parfait for dessert.” He gave her a sly look that made her want to grind his baked potato, sour cream and all, into his crooked grin.

  Closing her eyes, she prayed for patience, or at least a metabolism that wasn’t so laid-back she could gain weight from reading a recipe. “Did you have to do that?” she asked plaintively.

  “I could’ve made key lime pie,” he said, all innocence, “but I didn’t have the ingredients. I only know three desserts.”

  And so it went for the next few days while the low hung on, bringing gale force winds and torrential rains. For reasons Molly couldn’t begin to fathom, Rafe tried to win her over with calories, while she tried her best to resist. To resist both his irresistible kitchen skills and his unmistakable charm.

  Because charming he was, even discounting the attraction of his mismatched features. Molly could have sworn she was immune to all forms of masculine charm, but she’d never been exposed to Rafe Webber. Jeffy the jerk had been obvious once she’d come to her senses. At first she’d been flattered, and then she’d thought, where was the harm in a little friendly flirting? Wasn’t a flirtation supposed to be included in any dream vacation package?

  But once the novelty wore off, she hadn’t liked what she’d seen. An unfaithful husband who whined. So far as she knew, Kenny had never been truly unfaithful to her, for all his other faults. Probably because he loved himself far more than he could ever love any woman. But his whining had been the last of a whole haystack full of last straws.

  And now, just when she was beginning to regain her self-confidence, she found herself weathered in with a stealth charmer like Rafe Webber. That thick, sun-streaked hair and the sheer physical presence were striking, but the crooked nose, the crooked smile and the juggernaut jaw should have minimized the effect. Instead, it did just the opposite. Either she was allergic or he was addictive. Now she knew how it felt to be a scrap of iron, with a powerful magnet close by.

  Not again, no thank you, no way! She’d traveled that route before. Once her sisters were launched and on the way to paying off the last of the loans, she had reached into life’s grab bag for something of her own and come up with a handsome, charming scoundrel. The fact that she’d actually married him just went to show that where men were concerned, she hadn’t a clue.

  Maybe she should try wearing blinders, like the brick maker’s pug mill mule back in Grover’s Hollow. She had a feeling, though, that blinders wouldn’t help with a man like Rafe Webber. She could cover her head with a pillowcase and still know if he was anywhere near.

  “What do you do for entertainment?” he asked as he poured two cups of coffee and handed her one.

  “If this rain doesn’t end, I might take up boating, only I don’t have a boat.”

  “How about shipbuilding? We might need an ark if it gets much deeper. Did you say this was your first trip to the beach, or did I only imagine it?”

  “I probably said it.” She said all sorts of things when she was ill at ease, as if running her mouth could forestall facing up to whatever trouble she’d blundered into. “I’ve got all sorts of plans for when the rain stops and the water goes down.”

  “Surfing? Kayaking?”

  “Um…there’s a museum.”

  “Wreck diving? Sunbathing?” He raised one eyebrow in a way that put her instantly on the defensive.

  “I don’t know how to dive. I don’t even know how to swim. As for sunbathing, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s cold, windy and raining.” As if she would bare her body in public, on even the sunniest day. After Kenny’s first cutting remarks about her figure, she’d cried herself sick and then demolished three-quarters of a coconut cream pie.

  “I’m going to make a supply run. Want to go with me, or—”

  “I’d better cut up more vegetables for the birds.”

  She watched him through the window, hatless, but wearing a waterproof slicker. With any luck he’d grow tired of waiting and go back to Florida’s high-rent district, where he’d picked up that devastating suntan and the kind of casual sophistication Kenny had tried so hard to imitate. She didn’t know which was
worse—the imitation or the real thing.

  Yes, she did. Imitations were like cheap toys—showy, but quickly broken.

  She was beginning to believe the real thing could tempt her in ways she could barely imagine.

  “Hey, bitch, wanna grape?”

  “Hush up, you foul-mouthed creature,” she muttered, viciously chopping carrots into manageable slivers. Raw vegetables didn’t tempt her at all. Unfortunately.

  After that she marched into the living room and carefully pulled the tray out from the bottom of the cage. Food, feathers and droppings clumped together in the orange litter. “Messy birds,” she scolded. They had to be male. Her sisters had been well trained to look after themselves, but she had never known a man, including her own father, who didn’t expect a woman to clean up after them.

  “Shaddup, shaddup, shaddup!”

  And then Pete tuned up with his favorite litany of four-letter words, which Molly did her best to ignore. Once both cages were cleaned and all cups washed and refilled, she stared out the window at the rain and sighed. What now? Wash the dishes, make her bed and then settle down with a boring murder-mystery? One thing she wasn’t about to do was stay here alone, with the refrigerator crammed full of temptation. She’d given her powers of resistance a workout these past few days.

  Besides, she’d promised Annamarie to check the mailbox every few days to clear out the junk mail. That meant a walk to the post office, as there was no house delivery on the island.

  She bundled up in her tan raincoat and pulled a matching hat on her head. Both items had long since lost most of their protective qualities, but an umbrella, even if she’d brought one with her, wouldn’t stand a chance in this wind. What she needed was one of those cheap plastic raincoats. Something in a bold color, maybe orange or yellow or neon green.

  The roads were flooded. Cars got through by driving slowly and throwing up a big wake. Molly didn’t even want to think about what might be lurking under all that murky water. She’d borrowed a pair of Stu’s rubber boots, which were several inches too long for her feet but high enough to protect her from whatever yucky creatures swam in the floodwaters. If she’d had a grain of common sense, she would have taken Rafe up on his offer, but she couldn’t afford any more of his brand of temptation.

  Imagine waffles for breakfast. Served with butter and homemade fig preserves. She could hardly decline without hurting his feelings after he’d gone to so much trouble, but she was going to have to slog three times around the island in knee-deep water to work off all the calories.

  From now on, she vowed, her rare indulgences would not include food. A woman needed to feel good about herself, and to do that she had to know she looked her best. Straining side seams and hollow-less cheeks weren’t going to help. A sagging, wet tan raincoat might describe the way she looked on the outside, but not the way she felt on the inside. A bright orange raincoat was more what she needed. Orange had attitude. It worked for highway workers. It worked for the Coast Guard. Maybe if she got herself a bright orange slicker it would work for her.

  Hey, wake up, world! Here’s Molly, in all her glory!

  Rafe might think she was dull as ditch water— Kenny had considered her only as a convenient meal ticket and a shoulder to cry on until something better came along, but Molly knew who she was. It might not show on the outside, but the real Molly was bold and imaginative.

  Well…maybe sensible and capable was a better description. And maybe a pretty shade of blue would be better. She would never be as smart as Mary Etta, whose SAT scores had been highest in the state the year she’d graduated from high school, or as beautiful as Annamarie, who’d been queen of the Apple Festival and voted the prettiest girl at GHHS.

  Still, it was Molly who had held the family together after the folks had been killed. Long before that she’d been working and squirreling away her earnings to go off to college. Instead, she had seen that her two sisters, seven and nine years younger, respectively, had a shot at the gold ring. Mary Etta had gone to college on a scholarship but even so, Molly’s help had been needed. Now that both sisters were secure and on their own, it was her turn. Without Kenny there was no limit to what she could do.

  Rain dripped from her limp hat and trickled down the back of her neck. The last time she’d seen her ex-husband, he had tried to appeal to her better nature, claiming that without her steadying influence, which Molly wisely interpreted to mean her steady income, he would never be able to realize his potential.

  “You reached your potential when you were seven years old,” she’d told him that day after he’d tracked her down at her office in Morganton to ask if he could move in with her just until he got back on his feet. When she’d refused, he’d sulked until she threatened to call security.

  That same night he’d turned up on her doorstep. He’d been drinking, and when she refused to let him inside he’d started crying. So of course she’d had to let him in, and then he’d got sick and ruined the new slipcover she’d bought for her thrift-shop sofa.

  Poor Kenny. He was a miserable excuse for a man, but she had done her best and it hadn’t helped. What was that old Chinese thing about saving a man’s life and being responsible for him from then on?

  Evidently it was a universal thing.

  It was shortly after that that she’d moved to North Carolina, changing jobs and addresses. She hadn’t heard from him since then. With any luck she wouldn’t. Because, heaven help her, she thought as she turned off onto Fig Tree Lane, she really did feel sorry for the poor wretch for being such a loser. Nobody, given a choice, would choose to be such a bona fide jerk.

  After collecting the mail, Molly considered her options. She could head back to the cottage and settle down with her gory mystery, or wade around the village in the rain, which had slowed to a drizzle. She was still standing outside the post office when the rusty SUV with the bumper bracket full of empty pole holders pulled up. There were countless similar vehicles on the island, but she knew who it was even before Rafe swung open the door. That darned magnetism again.

  “Want a lift?”

  “No thanks.” Without even trying, the man frazzled every cell in her body, up to and including her brain cells. “Just going for a walk.”

  “Hop in, we’ll go to the beach. I need to check up on the Baron anyway.”

  The baron? What was a baron doing on the Ocracoke beach? Another few synapses shorted out as she stood there and tried to think of a good reason to refuse. Wind whipped her hair across her face. A crew cut. That was next on her makeover after the orange raincoat.

  Molly had planned to drive herself to the ocean beach one more time before she left, anyway. Her budget didn’t allow for too many pleasure jaunts, because she still had to get herself back home once Annamarie and Stu got back. They hadn’t asked about her finances, and she hadn’t told them, but right now her bank balance was the skinniest thing about her.

  “Come on. Except for a few diehard fishermen, we should have the beach all to ourselves on a day like this.” He leaned across the seat and offered her a hand up.

  Mentally she added a backbone to her list, right between the raincoat and crew cut. “Thanks,” she muttered, squirming on the rump-sprung seat. The inside of the vehicle was almost as wet as the outside. There were rust holes in the floorboard and the window wouldn’t quite shut all the way.

  “Think of it as another adventure,” Rafe said, his weathered face creasing in an infectious grin.

  “Adventures are a lot more comfortable between the covers of a book.”

  “Hey, it’s no adventure when all you have to do is close the book and walk away.”

  “You want alligators snapping at your heels? Help yourself, but count me out.”

  He chuckled, and somewhat to her surprise, Molly did, too, the sound nearly lost in the noisy roar of a rusted muffler.

  Shortly after they left the village behind, Rafe turned onto a paved road that led to an airstrip nestled against the dune line. “Ocracoke Inter
national,” he announced. “Mind waiting a few minutes? I’ll be right back.”

  Ocracoke International? She’d thought that was the fishing tournament. Or had that been Ocracoke Invitational? Through the intermittent flurries, she counted eight small planes tied down, their cockpits covered with tarps. A flock of low-flying brown pelicans followed the dune line, and Molly marveled that anything could be so ungainly and so beautiful.

  Rafe, his yellow slicker incandescent against a slate-gray sky, jogged out onto the tarmac and circled a white plane with a pale green palm tree against an orange sun painted on the side. She watched as he touched this and tugged at that, occasionally nodding. Molly huddled inside the vehicle. No wonder he hadn’t been interested in catching a ferry.

  “Rain’s easing up,” he said when he joined her a few minutes later.

  “Is that the baron you were referring to?”

  He nodded. “Ready to hit the beach?”

  She peered through the salt-hazed, sand-pitted windshield. “It doesn’t look much like beach weather.”

  “What, you’re afraid of getting wet?” Backing out of the parking space, he shot her a teasing glance that made her acutely aware of her bedraggled appearance. In the yellow slicker he looked more dashing than ever.

  Molly vowed silently to ditch the awful raincoat and hat the minute she got back to the cottage. By then he was on the ramp leading over the dunes. Shifting into neutral, he glanced up and down the windswept beach. Even in the rain it was beautiful. Broad, flat, its white sands a dramatic contrast to the dark, angry water and the steely gray sky. “We’ll head north. The rain’s about to slack off. By late afternoon we might even catch a glimpse of sunshine.” At her look of disbelief, he grinned and said, “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?”

  “Not particularly.” Trust wasn’t that easy for a woman with her track record, but he was right about the rain. By the time he’d driven half a mile or so along the empty shore, it had stopped completely. Molly was too awed by the roiling gray Atlantic to notice until Rafe stopped and pointed it out to her.