Beachcomber (36 page)

Dirty and disheveled as she was, she made his heart skip a beat.

“Honey, you couldn’t lose me if you tried,” he said, gruff because what was happening to him was so not a good thing. Christy went over to a big pink begonia in a clay pot, dug around in the dirt and produced the key. As he followed her into the cottage, he realized Gary was watching, which didn’t exactly do much for his comfort level, but the alternative—which was taking her with him to his cottage—was so fraught with peril that it wasn’t really an alternative at all. All she had to do was open the door to the third bedroom and the shit would hit the fan. Just thinking about it made Luke wince.

Ignoring Gary, Luke did a quick search of the cottage for Christy’s benefit, then followed her into the master bedroom. And shut the door.

And thanked God that he hadn’t thought it necessary to plant a camera in the bedrooms.

An hour later, fresh from the long, hot shower he’d shared with Christy, Luke padded through the bedroom with a towel hitched around his waist, on his way to transfer his clothes from the washer, where hopefully they had finished their cycle, to the dryer. Christy,
likewise wrapped in a towel, was standing in front of the bathroom mirror carefully blow-drying her hair. She’d shampooed it at least three times that he knew of. Along with leaves and pine needles and other debris, she’d found a couple of dead insects caught in the tangled strands, and her horrified reaction had made it clear: she was not a fan of bugs.

Luke smiled faintly at the memory as he left the bedroom. He hadn’t gone more than two steps along the hall when the door to the second bathroom opened without warning. Every muscle in his body tensed. He stopped short, shifting instantly into kick-ass warrior mode. Who the hell—?

“Christy?” a female voice asked, and a girl of about twenty stepped into the hall just a few paces in front of him. She was a flaming redhead, a real looker, with big hair, big eyes, big boobs, and a tanned, toned body stuffed into an orange bikini the size of a postage stamp.

She stopped dead in turn. Her eyes widened and swept over him, then returned to his face.

“Yo,” she said, sounding both surprised and interested. “Did you come with the cottage?”

26

A
FTER THE SHOWER CAME FOOD
, and then as soon as she could she was going to collapse somewhere. With that agenda in mind, Christy headed toward the kitchen, only to stop dead in her tracks the instant she left the bedroom for the hall.

The bikini-clad redhead ogling Luke looked past him and spotted her.

“Christy?” She sounded doubtful.

“Angie!” All else was forgotten in a burst of welcome. Beaming, Christy rushed past Luke to hug her youngest sister, who returned her hug fiercely.

After a moment, Angie pulled back to look at her. “Oh my God, what have you done to your hair?”

Christy fingered it self-consciously. “I got it cut. I went blonde. It’s a long story. Does it look awful?”

Angie grimaced. “Not
awful.
”

“Yeah, I thought so,” Christy said, resigned, reading between the lines with no difficulty whatsoever. The thing about sisters was, they could pretty much be counted on to tell you the truth whether you wanted to hear it or not. No big deal. After all this was over she’d
go back to her natural color and let her hair grow out. If she lived long enough, of course.

“Actually, it’s kind of sexy,” Angie said thoughtfully, surveying her from head to toe. “Just not you.”

“Are you saying I’m not sexy?” Christy planted her fists on her hips and narrowed her eyes at her sister.

Angie grinned at her. The truth was, Angie, with her teased-up hair, heavily applied makeup and wardrobe that ran to spandex shorts, miniskirts and skimpy tops with necklines down to there, was the only one of them who truly qualified as sexy; Nicole, now in frazzled mommy mode, was a has-been; and Christy, with her normally unexciting blunt cut and lawyer clothes, was pretty much the conservative never-was of the bunch. They all knew it, and were content in their various roles, even if from time to time each of them had been known to try to make a sister over in her own image.

“You’re smart,” Angie said loyally. “That’s better.”

Christy recollected how unlikely it was that Angie should be standing there in front of her. “What are you
doing
here?”

“I got laid off, and Mom was worried about you being down here all alone. She thought you might be in a funk or something about breaking up with Michael. So she said I should come down here and keep you company. I said, good idea. So here I am.”

Angie’s gaze flicked past Christy to Luke, who was standing in the background watching them with a slightly bemused expression. His arms were crossed over his chest, which, Christy realized, was bare, like
most of the rest of him. Only then did she recall that, like herself, he was clad only in a towel.

Christy felt her cheeks start to grow warm.

Angie grinned wickedly at her. “I guess Mom was wrong. I guess you’re not in a funk over Michael, after all.”

“This is Luke,” Christy said, feeling absurdly self-conscious. “Luke, this is my sister Angie.”

“We met,” Luke said, a little dryly.

Angie looked at him again and her grin broadened. “I thought he might have come with the cottage, but he said he didn’t.”

“He’s staying next door,” Christy said in a dampening tone.

Angie cut her a droll look. “It’s nice to know the neighbors are friendly.”

A shriek of laughter from the direction of the living room caused Christy’s head to swivel in that direction.

“Uh, I brought a couple of friends with me,” Angie said. “I thought we could make sort of a party out of it. We let ourselves in with the key Mom gave me. You were taking a shower when we got here.” Her gaze flicked to Luke again and she grinned. “Or something.”

“Okay,” Luke said. “I’ll just go see if I can’t scare up some clothes. Nice to meet you, Angie.”

“You too.”

He retreated toward the bedroom and closed the door. Angie’s grin turned on Christy.

“I think I scared him off,” she said.

“Angie …” Christy didn’t know whether to laugh or groan. One thing was sure, Angie and her friends
couldn’t stay. And she couldn’t tell her sister the truth about why not, either. Or at least, not the whole truth.

“Look, I’m sorry if I’m raining on your parade by showing up like this. How was I supposed to know you were down here shacked up with some guy?”

“I’m not down here shacked up with some guy.”

“Oh yeah? He looked like a guy to me. Hey, you don’t have to be embarrassed. I don’t blame you one bit. He’s a total hottie.”

“Angie—”

“Is it really all over between you and Michael?”

“Yeah,” Christy said, there being no confusion at all on that point. “It is.”

“Glad I didn’t get around to buying the bridesmaid’s dress, then. But Nicole did. She’s gonna be pissed if it’s off for real.”

Christy sighed. “I’ll pay her back.” Then she gathered herself together. “Look, you and your friends can’t stay.”

“Angie, come here! You gotta see this!” a girl shrieked, and Christy realized that, rather than coming from the living room, Angie’s friends were on the patio.

“Be right there,” Angie called back. Then she looked at Christy again. “Hey, you can screw anybody you want to. I don’t care. Amber and Maxine don’t care either. All we want to do is soak up some sun and have a good time.”

“You’re gonna miss it!” the same girl warned from the patio. Christy assumed that it was either Amber or Maxine.

“Yeah, okay, I’m coming,” Angie called. She looked at Christy. “We’ll stay out of your way, okay? And I’ll tell
everybody hands off Mr. Studly Neighbor. And I won’t say a word about him to Mom.”

“Angie, no.” But her sister was already heading toward the patio, and Christy was left to talk to her waggling butt. Which, except for a tangerine-colored string around her waist, was bare. True to type, Angie was wearing a thong.

Christy rolled her eyes skyward.

Okay, Angie and company had to be gotten rid of before her sister could get caught up in this, too. Christy was going to get dressed, then go out there and tell them all about the serial killer.

If that didn’t do the trick, nothing would.

She headed for her bedroom.

“Your sister’s cute.” Luke was standing at the foot of the bed hitching a pair of sweatpants up around his waist. Christy did a double take. She knew those sweatpants. They were baggy and gray and she usually wore them when she did the laundry. On Luke, they looked like leggings. High-water leggings. Kind of ridiculous, except they did a nice job of outlining his package. And, she saw as she walked past him, his tush.

“Believe me, the feeling’s mutual. She thinks you’re a total hottie.” Christy opened the closet door and rummaged through the clothes she had left.

“What can I say? Except she’s got good taste.”

Pulling a pair of jeans and a white eyelet-trimmed sleeveless blouse out of the closet, Christy turned and gave him a you-are-so-not-funny look. He grinned at her. Bleary-eyed and sporting a nice collection of random scratches, bruises and bites, he was still hunky enough to
stop a susceptible woman’s breath, she acknowledged. His shoulders were wide, his chest and arms were impressively muscled, and the wedge of dark brown hair in the middle of his chest was just thick enough to be masculine without going the full gorilla. His drying hair waved back from his face to end in a tangle of ringlets around his neck. His deep blue eyes were gorgeous even when they weren’t all crinkled around the edges and smiling at her, as they were just at that moment. He was buff and bronzed and blond, and in her opinion that beat tall, dark, and handsome hands down any day.

“I can’t believe she’s here,” Christy said, opening the dresser drawer in search of undies. “I’m not going to let her stay.”

“She looks like she’s got a mind of her own to me.”

“I’m going to tell her about the serial killer. But not about the rest of it. I can’t let her get caught up in this.” Having found what she needed, she closed the drawer and turned. “I wish I hadn’t gotten you caught up in this.”

“Honey, believe me, I can take care of myself.” He walked toward her, half smiling, and cupped her face in his hands. He looked down at her for a moment, his expression inscrutable. “And by the way, just for the record, I think you’re sexy as hell.”

Then he kissed her, a slow, deep kiss that sent heat shooting clear down to her toes. Christy closed her eyes, dropped her clothes, clutched at his forearms and kissed him back. She was so tired, she was groggy and so empty she could eat grass, and terrified and injured and achy all over to boot, and he could still make her want him. Bad.

This guy could rock my world.

The thought surprised her. It rattled her. She wasn’t sure she liked the implications. Unlike Angie, who went through boyfriends the way a person with allergies goes through tissues, she’d always been the faithful type. Michael had been her most serious relationship. She’d been in love with Michael—at least, with the man she’d thought he was. She had been going to marry Michael.

But Michael had never made her feel like this.

The thought made her eyes pop open.

Luke must have felt her stiffen, because he lifted his head.

“Something wrong?” he asked, frowning down at her.

“No,” she said, feeling a little spurt of panic in case he should somehow be able to read her thoughts in her eyes. “Nothing’s wrong.” Then she recovered a small measure of her composure, along with her sense of humor. “Unless you count being attacked with a hatchet, run off the road, knocked out by a stun gun, stuffed in a trunk, forced to run for my life and knowing the guy who did it is still out there wanting to kill me as something wrong.”

“No,” Luke said gravely. “I don’t count that.”

Christy laughed.

Luke didn’t. Instead he smiled a little and watched her with an odd expression in his eyes, then ran his thumb over her cheek.

“You should laugh more,” he said. “Shows your dimples.”

An explosion of loud cheers sounded from outside. He glanced at the door, then back at her.

“Never a dull moment,” he said, and his hands dropped away from her face.

Christy grimaced. “You know, I used to think that was a good thing.”

Luke grinned, then watched with his arms crossed over his chest as she bent to gather up her clothes.

“I’m going to run next door and get some clothes and do a few things, and then I’ll be back,” he said when she straightened. “One advantage to having your sister and her friends here is that I don’t think you have to worry about anybody trying to break in while I’m gone.”

That was true. Actually, having Angie and her friends around would be comforting if she hadn’t been so worried about somebody going after them as well as, or instead of, herself.

“You okay with that?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

“That sounds like my line.” Then his brow creased as something appeared to occur to him. “Oh, and you probably want to hold off on calling the sheriff till I get back. It’d be easier if we talked to him together.”