Beachcomber (12 page)

“It’s not that bad.” His voice was still soft and reassuring even though his eyes were not. “You probably could use a couple of stitches, though. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Christy shook her head. Now that the danger was past she was losing it, she realized with some chagrin. Her teeth were clenched so tightly that her jaws ached; if she unclenched them they would only chatter again. She was shivering, her breathing came shallow and fast, and she felt oddly boneless, like the jellyfish she
had seen rolling in on the tide earlier. The memory made her stomach clench.

“You sure?”

He was looking her over carefully from stem to stern. It was only then that she remembered what she was wearing, or, rather, not wearing. Basically, she didn’t have on much in the way of clothes. Bikini panties and a T-shirt were her customary sleeping attire. Tonight the panties were silky pink nylon. The T-shirt was a skimpy, thin-ribbed cotton tank, once neon green but now, thanks to numerous trips through the wash cycle, more of a squashed caterpillar shade. It molded itself to her breasts so that not the tiniest detail—like the reaction of her nipples to cold and shock—was left to the imagination. The sexiness of the non-outfit was mitigated by the fact that at the moment the garments, like the rest of her, were liberally adorned with blood.

“What happened?”

“I told you—he tried to kill me. He got in while I was asleep. He had a hatchet—” She broke off, unable to continue. Just as she feared, her teeth chattered, making embarrassing little clicking sounds.

“Is that what happened to your shoulder? He attacked you with a hatchet?”

“He tried to chop through the door.” She shuddered, then gathered her strength again to burst out with: “It was the man on the beach. The one who—killed that woman. He came after me.” Another shudder racked her. “He would have killed me. If you hadn’t come—”

“But I did come. He’s gone and you’re safe.” He picked up another towel, folded it, and replaced the first towel
with it. She automatically held the fresh towel in place, and he got to his feet. “You can tell me the rest on the way to the emergency room. Can you stand up?”

Christy gritted her teeth, nodded, and tried. But even with his hands gripping her elbows for support, she couldn’t quite manage it under her own power. Her muscles simply would not cooperate. He ended up practically lifting her to her feet, and then she sagged against him as her knees gave way. She would have crumpled if his arms hadn’t shot around her for support. He was warm and solid and smelled like suntan lotion and fabric softener, a scent that she remembered from before. She figured the source was probably his shirt. It was the same one he’d had on earlier, or at least she thought it was the same. Only now it was wrong side out, with no more than two of the buttons fastened and those in the wrong holes. His trunks were knee-length and faded blue, and she thought they were the same ones he’d been wearing earlier, too. From all appearances he had heard her screams, jumped out of bed, grabbed up the clothes he had discarded, and come running to her assistance.

One thing puzzled her: How could he have heard her screams through the thick cottage walls and over the ocean’s constant background noise? If he’d been in his cottage asleep …

She frowned. “How did you know I was in trouble?”

His eyes flickered.

“Honey, you have a scream like a train whistle,” he said, and scooped her up in his arms. Caught off guard, almost as surprised as she was embarrassed, Christy
kept silent as he started walking toward the door with her. For all his surfer-dude looks, the guy was strong. The arms holding her were hard with muscle, and his chest was wide and firm. The faintest suggestion of five o’clock stubble darkened his jaw. The blond curls were misleading, Christy decided, resting her head against an impressively broad shoulder. They might be feminine, but the rest of him was definitely all man.

“I can walk,” she protested feebly in an effort to keep herself from feeling like a total wuss, although even as she said it she realized she probably couldn’t. She was shivering, light-headed, nauseated. Losing her cookies was not beyond the realm of possibility. If God was on the job, though, it would not be all over Luke.

He cut her a glance. “Get real.”

Okay, he had a point. There was nothing for her to do but curl herself around the solid warmth of his body and concentrate on keeping her teeth from chattering as he carried her with no seeming effort into the now-well-lit bedroom.

“He got away, out the front door. At least, he couldn’t have gone out the back or we would have—”

The strange voice made her start. Luke tightened his arms around her as a nerdy-looking guy with glasses stuck his head through the still partly blocked bedroom door. He broke off as his eyes fastened on Christy. From his expression she suddenly became all too conscious of how she looked: blood-soaked, barely decent, one arm looped awkwardly around Luke’s neck and her long bare legs dangling over his arm.

“Whoa,” the newcomer said, sounding taken aback.

Christy frowned. Some of the shock of the attack must be wearing off, she realized, because she was starting to feel uncomfortable about having strange men ogle her while she was wearing just a few scraps of cloth more than a tan and a smile.

“You look around outside?” Luke asked.

The newcomer nodded, his eyes still on Christy. Luke’s brows twitched together, and he added in the wryest of tones: “Gary, meet Christy. Christy, Gary Freeman.”

Gary’s eyes jerked up to meet Luke’s, and a couple of seconds of palpable nonverbal communication passed between them. Then Gary grimaced, jerked his head in acknowledgment of the introduction, and gave Christy another quick glance that went no lower than the towel on her shoulder.

“So what’s with all the blood?” Gary asked, elaborately casual now.

“Bastard attacked her with a hatchet.”

“Yowzers.”

“Yeah,” Luke said. “Coming through.”

Gary quickly stepped inside the bedroom, leaving the passage clear into the hall, and frowned questioningly at the dresser sitting all cockeyed behind the door. He was wearing navy pajamas that looked like they were brand new, Christy saw as they passed him. His bare feet were thrust into shiny cordovan loafers complete with tassels.

“Is this thing here for a reason?” he asked, referring to the dresser, as Luke maneuvered her out the door and into the hall.

Admitting that she’d been too afraid to go to sleep
without barricading herself in was embarrassing. But what else could she do?

“I blocked the door with it.” If there was the tiniest note of defensiveness to that, it was because she couldn’t help it.

“Did you?” Luke slanted a glance down at her. “Before you went to bed?”

“Hey, it probably saved my life. If he could have gotten into the bedroom without my hearing him, I would be dead.” At the thought she started shivering again. “Did you lock the doors?” she added anxiously to Gary, who was following them down the hall. “He could come back. I don’t think he has a gun, but—”

“He won’t come back.” Luke sounded so positive that Christy was comforted despite the fact that she knew he couldn’t possibly
know
that. “What he was after was a woman alone. Believe me, now that he knows you’ve got company he’s long gone.”

“Anyway, I locked the front door,” Gary said. “The patio door … well …”

“We had to break it to get in,” Luke finished for him, and as they emerged from the hall into the lamp-lit living room Christy saw what he meant. The curtains covering the patio door were open, revealing the sickly yellow bug light that lit the patio and the opaqueness of the night beyond it. One of the doors was ajar, and the edge of a sheer fluttered wildly as the breeze from the ocean rushed in. Only jagged shards remained to cling to the edges of the door’s silver frame. Long slivers of glass gleamed on the beige carpet. Luke walked by them into the kitchen area.

“Car keys?” Luke glanced down at her.

“By the phone.” She nodded at her keys. The sight of the phone jogged her thought processes, which were still operating at approximately turtle speed. “I should call the police.”

“Already did,” Gary said. “They’re on their way. Your phone’s not working, by the way. I had to use my cell phone.”

“He probably cut the wire.” Luke scooped up her car keys and headed toward the garage door. He paused in front of it to look back at Gary. “Tell them that they can talk to her at the twenty-four-hour clinic on Front Street if they need to know something before she gets back. Yo, can you get the door?”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Gary hurried to assist.

“Wait,” Christy said, her level of awareness just now catching up with the action. “I can’t go anywhere like this. I need clothes, a robe, something. And my purse. My insurance card’s in my purse.”

Frowning, Luke met her gaze, then gave her a quick once-over, after which he seemed to see the force of her objection because he didn’t argue.

“Where’s your robe?”

“In the master bedroom closet.”

“Okay.” He glanced at Gary.

“Got it covered.” Gary hurried away.

“Purse?”

“On that chair.” Fighting the persistent lightheadedness that made her feel like she was going to pass out, Christy nodded at one of the four wrought-iron chairs that surrounded the small, glass-topped table in
the middle of the kitchen. Her black leather purse hung from the back. Luke managed to snag the strap with his fingers. Then Gary was back with her robe.

“Here,” Gary said, proffering the garment. It was deep red silk with quilted satin lapels and a sash, a Victoria’s Secret special that she had always felt upped her sexiness quotient a couple of notches every time she put it on. If she’d been more herself, she would have felt self-conscious about having two strange men handle it. On the plus side, though, it probably wouldn’t show bloodstains.

Keeping a careful grip on her, Luke set her on her feet and helped her get the robe up her good arm. Before she could even try to ease her injured arm into the sleeve, he bundled the rest of it around her, pulled the sash tight around her waist, slid her purse over his arm and picked her up again.

“Good to go now?”

Christy nodded. A few minutes later she was ensconced in the front passenger seat of her own white Toyota Camry being driven through the predawn darkness toward town, a little faster than she would have liked given the driving conditions. Besides being dark as pitch, it was raining again, a thunderous cloudburst of the sort that had cleared the beach earlier. Raindrops beat a brisk rat-a-tat on the roof, and the windshield wipers were on in full force. The smell of damp was strong even inside the car. A patrol car raced past them as they pulled out onto Silver Lake Road, its lights flashing but its siren off, as a nod no doubt to the peacefully sleeping citizenry. Probably headed toward
her house, Christy surmised, unless there was a secondary crime wave going on in the vicinity.

“You doing okay?” Luke asked, looking over at her. They hadn’t spoken since he’d put her into the car. The halogen lights ringing the marina glimmered softly in the distance, Christy saw as she turned her head toward him. Closer at hand, the establishments dotting the waterfront were dark. Besides the rhythmic swish of the windshield wipers, the only sounds were the hum of the defrost and the whoosh of the tires as they sped over wet pavement.

“I’m fine.” What she actually felt was—cold. Woozy. In pain. And scared. Very, very scared. None of which she saw any reason to share with him. “You know, I think you probably saved my life tonight. Thank you.”

“Just call me Johnny-on-the-spot.”

She smiled a little at that, then frowned. “I wonder why my other neighbor, Mrs. Castellano, didn’t hear me screaming or the patio door shattering and call the police?”

“Who knows? Maybe she’s a heavy sleeper,” Luke said.

“Maybe.” Christy shivered.

“Did Marvin ever get home?”

A beat passed.

“Yeah, he got home before I did.” He glanced her way and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “Hey, do you always stir up this much excitement everywhere you go?”

Christy grimaced and shook her head. “Ordinarily I live a very quiet, calm life. I’m a lawyer too, by the way.”

His brows lifted. “You don’t say? Now that I never would have guessed. You don’t look like a lawyer.”

“Neither do you.” Her gaze slid over him. He really had a very nice profile, she decided, and the curls were growing on her. As was he. “Are you here on vacation?”

A glance glimmered her way. “Yeah. I drove down from Atlanta. You?”

“Yes.” She looked out the windshield as he stopped at an intersection, then turned onto the main road that led into Ocracoke Village.

“You just got in today, didn’t you?” The car picked up speed again. “You expecting anybody to join you? Husband? Boyfriend? Significant other?”

“No.” No need to tell him that, having just dumped her fiancé for good and compelling reasons, there was no longer a man in her life. This guy might actually be very nice, but surviving was her focus at the moment. Hooking up was not.

“Taking some ‘you’ time, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“Bad luck that you just happened to go for a midnight stroll on the beach tonight of all nights.”

“Yeah.”
Oh yeah.

“About this guy who broke into your house—you said you think he’s the same guy you saw on the beach?”

“Yes. I’m positive.”

“What makes you so sure?”

Christy wet her lips. “They just—felt the same. Evil.” There was no other word to describe the vibrations she’d gotten. Despite her robe, and the fact that
he had the defroster on heat, she was suddenly shivering again. “And besides, they were about the same height and build and he knew my name and—and what are the chances that there could be two murderous lunatics out stalking the same small stretch of beach on the same night?”

“He knew your name?” Luke’s voice sharpened, and he sent a glance sliding her way. “Are you saying he called you by name? In the house tonight?”

Just remembering made her feel dizzy. She nodded. “Yes.”