Captive Kisses (Sweetly Contemporary Collection) (17 page)

“He didn’t say much about it,” she said. “I suppose it’s a
big place?”

“I should say so. Back when his dad was alive and involved
up at Baton Rouge, they had their own railroad spur and post office.”

Kelly felt a rising excitement. She was close to something
important; she could sense it. George was garrulous enough, it seemed, as long
as he thought she had been told more than she had.

“Charles’s father —” she began.

“There you are, Kelly. I’ve been wondering when you were
going to get up so I could have breakfast.”

She turned her head sharply to see Charles lounging at the
end of the catwalk. As much for the benefit of the guard as for Charles, she
gave him an offhand good morning.

“Come along and stop distracting George. He’s hopeless
enough with a fishing rod without someone like you at his elbow.”

“Aw, Mr. Duralde,” the guard protested.

Charles’s dark gaze did not waver as he smiled at Kelly. For
all the humor and the implied compliment in his words, it was a command.

“You shouldn’t have waited for me,” she said.

“And eat alone when I could have your charming company?
Unthinkable. Besides, you are better at frying bacon.”

Keep it light. That seemed to be Charles’s attitude toward
her this morning. It had certain advantages, even Kelly could see that; and if
it would get them over the hump of their first meeting after the fiasco of the
night before, then that was all to the good.

“Duralde,” she said with an effort at airiness as she walked
beside him back toward the house. “At least I know your last name now.”

“Does that help?” He slanted her a quick look from the
corner of his eye.

“I think it does.”

“That’s good then.”

“I still don’t know why you didn’t want to tell me.” She had
a good idea but it might be best to affect innocence.

“I thought you might be the type to read post-office wanted
posters, but apparently not.”

Was he attempting to disarm her by making a joke of the
truth? She would not put it past him, and yet, the more she tried to picture
Charles Duralde as a killer, the more fantastic it seemed. “I — I’ll have to
mend my ways.”

He made no answer as he held the screen door for her, then
followed her into the house. They went straight to the kitchen. Kelly took out
the bacon and began to peel the strips apart, placing them in the electric
skillet. Charles got out the makings for toast. It was as if they were a couple
long married with a set routine, Kelly told herself. The only difference was
her acute awareness of him as he moved about the homey task with a kitchen
towel tucked into the top of his jeans. He handled himself in the kitchen with
brisk, masculine efficiency, as if cooking were a neutral task neither male-
nor female-oriented, one that had to be done and therefore should be completed
with the greatest dispatch. It was doubtless because he was single, used to
doing his own cooking, and because he knew that she would refuse if ordered to
perform such menial chores alone, that he pitched in so willingly. If he ever
married, he would probably sit back like most other men and expect his wife to
do everything.

Perhaps she was assuming too much? Maybe he was already
married? Just because he had taken her in his arms, because he had not refuted
any of the bachelor pursuits she had suggested as his interests, did not mean
that he had no wife. There was no ring on his strong brown hand but some men
did not wear them.

It didn’t matter, naturally, but she was curious. Her mother
used to say that if she wanted to know something the best way to find out was
to ask, and if the man who was keeping her prisoner gained the impression that
she was becoming personally intrigued with him, wasn’t that what she wanted?

“Tell me something, Mr. Duralde —”

“My name is Charles.”

“Charles then. Is there a Mrs. Duralde? Someone with whom
you usually share these little domestic duties?”

He gave her a swift glance as he slipped the toast pan into
the oven and turned to the refrigerator to take out a can of frozen orange
juice concentrate. “You mean my mother?”

“You know very well I don’t!”

“Then you want to know if I’m married. I wonder why?”

“No reason,” she said with a slight shrug.

“How disappointing. The answer is no.”

Kelly realized belatedly that she should have been more
provocative about her reasons, should have smiled at him, lifted a brow,
anything except retreat into sullenness. Or would that kind of behavior, coming
so soon after the night before, have made him suspicious? The art of seduction
was something she knew little about. It was going to require some careful
thought.

A few minutes later, she turned to the dish cabinet for a
platter for the bacon just as Charles was reaching for juice glasses. She
brushed against him for a brief instant. This time, before stepping back, Kelly
remembered to allow her lips to curve upward momentarily. The effect was
worthwhile. For a long instant he stood still, a suspended look in his dark
eyes as they rested on her face.

Abruptly he moved aside. “After you.”

She was not certain whether to be elated or disappointed
that he held himself away from her, well beyond the range of touch, accidental
or otherwise.

Over the breakfast table, Kelly racked her brains for
something to talk about. She could come up with little other than the most
trite of commonplaces. It would not do, she thought, to mention the things
George had told her. It was likely to bring about a crisis, causing Charles’s
wrath to descend on the man’s head, which would, in turn, prevent her from
learning more from the guard. More than that, it would give him the impression
that she had been snooping, a direct contradiction of the picture of fatalistic
resignation she wanted to create.

That did not prevent her from thinking about what she had
learned. What in the world had George meant by saying that Charles took care of
the whole shooting match? He had made it sound like some kind of giant farming
operation or business conglomerate. What had that to do with a Mafia operation?
It made no sense.

Duralde. The name plagued her. It could be she had heard it
mentioned along with those of some of the other figures in the state who
operated outside the law, men reputed to be crime bosses of high standing. If
so, she could not pinpoint when or how.

Kelly washed the dishes, and Charles dried them and put them
away. Afterward, she went along to her room to put it right. There she rinsed
the coffee stain from her dress that she found soaking in her bathtub. Looking
at it brought the night before more vividly to mind than was comfortable. Her
gray eyes were shadowed as she hung the sundress on a hanger to drip dry.

When there was nothing else to be done in the house, she
picked up her book and wandered out onto the veranda. She had not been in her
place in the porch swing for long before Charles emerged from the house with a
news magazine in his hand. He pulled a lounge away from the wall and stretched
out in it, but did not open his magazine immediately. Leaving it on his lap, he
locked his fingers behind his head, his gaze moving to rest on her absorbed
face.

“Is reading all you do in the way of recreation?”

She glanced up to shake her head, allowing herself a smile
with a hint of warmth as she met his gaze. “I play tennis now and then with one
of the girls at the office, and sometimes I swim.”

“I suppose you live in one of those huge apartment buildings
for singles, complete with tennis courts and saunas?”

“As a matter of fact, I live in a Thirties Modern house with
a nice old lady who turned her home into a duplex in order to have the extra
income.”

“You help her listen for prowlers, and she mothers you?”

“I walk her spaniel, she cooks dinner for me on Sunday, and
the dog listens for prowlers for both of us!”

“A charming picture. What did she think of you coming down
here alone for your vacation?”

“If she knew about it, she would be properly horrified, but
she doesn’t. She’s spending the month with her son in the Ozarks.” There was no
point in not telling him the truth. If she had intended to claim the protection
of her landlady, she would have mentioned her special interest long before now,
when he had first asked about her friends and relatives.

“Is she the one who keeps all the young men away?”

“Which young men are they?”

“All those who should have swept you off your feet and down
the aisle before now.”

“Oh, those young men. She doesn’t encourage them to come
around. If that’s what you mean. She waits up for me when I go out, too, and
bangs on the wall if they play the stereo too loud when they come inside.”

“A paragon. I wish I could meet her.”

“She would make short work of you,” Kelly told him,
shielding her expression with her lashes as she considered the implications of
his last remark. Was he suggesting in a subtle way that he would like to see
her when this thing was over, if it was ever over?

“That remains to be seen; I’m at my best with older women,”
he informed her.

“That explains it, then!”

He sent her a quelling loot. “I refuse to pursue that
remark, since I left myself wide open for it. I’ll ask instead how your foot is
healing?”

“It’s fine, practically well.” She followed his lead without
hesitation, just as happy herself not to be called on to explain her impulsive
comment on his technique with women, something she had called into question
once before. She had good reason now to know there was not a thing to fault.

“No problems after getting it wet yesterday?”

Was it only yesterday? “None.”

“That’s good.”

A silence fell. In the quiet, the buzzing of a fly inside
the screen wire of the veranda was loud and droning.

“I should thank you for taking care of my dress last night.
The coffee came out without any problem.”

He flicked a glance at the flush that was creeping across
her cheekbones, then returned his regard to the fly now hovering in a sunny
spot on the floor. “I could say I was happy to do it, but you would probably
misunderstand.”

“I — don’t believe so,” she told him, then went on, choosing
her words with care. “I’ve been thinking about last night. If there was ever
going to be a time when I wasn’t — safe here, with you, it should have been
then. You left me alone, even after what I tried to do. I’ve come to the
conclusion that, if you are willing to offer it again, I will accept your word,
and try to relax and be at ease during the days left of my vacation here with
you.”

“Extraordinary.”

She looked up, startled. “What?”

The look in his eyes as he studied her was reflective, measuring.
“You say that almost as if you mean it.”

“Don’t you believe me?” With a superhuman effort, she
injected a wry note into her voice.

“I would like to, but past experience doesn’t encourage me
to bring out the champagne, not yet.”

“You are getting old and cynical before your time,” she
accused. Keep it light, at all costs.

“If that’s so, you will have to shoulder a part of the
blame.”

“I couldn’t possibly. I’m much too exhausted from trying to
find a way to get away from you.”

“Now there’s a reason I can believe, especially if you are
half as tired as I am from trying to see that you don’t.”

“When you see how lazy I mean to be you will have no doubts.”

He stared at her a long moment, and it seemed the darkness
of his eyes deepened to a jet blackness. “Be sure, Kelly,” he said softly. “We
called a truce once, and you broke it. Do it again, and the results will be on
your own head.”

The expression on his face sent panic skittering along her
nerves. He might complain of weariness and the strain of watching her, but it
was only words. They meant nothing, any more than her own did in the same vein.
She must not forget that, not for a moment.

They were distracted by a boat on the lake. A dark brown
fiberglass craft built low in the water for the fast speeds of water skiing, it
carried two men past the house and cottage at a pace so slow it threatened to
stall the motor.

“Do you suppose that’s the same one that came by last night?”
Kelly asked, keeping her voice low though there was little danger that the two men
could hear.

“I don’t know,” Charles answered, but his dark gaze followed
the slow-moving craft.

Kelly leaned to see the catwalk. George must have gone back
into the cottage. He was no longer in sight. For no good reason that she could
think of, she was glad.

It was an endless day. The minutes and hours crept by with
funereal slowness. Because of Charles’s presence it was difficult for her to
concentrate on her book, difficult to become involved enough in the story to
grow oblivious of time. Her attention was diverted every time he turned a page
of his magazine, every time he looked up to scan the lake or glanced in her
direction. She was more conscious of him, in fact, than she liked. She would
have given much to be able to ignore him. It would not have advanced her
program one iota, but would have done much to steady her nerves.

Since they had eaten a late breakfast, they had a late lunch
and a light one. Charles helped to clear away the litter of cold cuts and
relishes, then, his manner a little more casual than the occasion seemed to
call for, left the house. Kelly, stifling a sense of pique at being alone that
even she recognized as unreasonable, returned to her book.

She could not concentrate even when Charles was not there.
After almost two hours of trying, she gave it up and tossed the volume to one
side. A frown between her eyes, she stared at the cottage. The urge to break up
the conference going on in there was strong. What were they discussing? The
boat that had passed before lunch? Her new attitude? Or was Charles testing
her, trying to see what she would do if left with time on her bands and no
apparent supervision?