Captive Kisses (Sweetly Contemporary Collection) (9 page)

Her hands came up automatically to rest on his arms as she
steadied herself. For a long instant, their eyes met, then he released her and
stepped back. Bending, he inspected his handiwork.

His nearness, the impersonal touch of his hands, affected
Kelly with a feeling of unwilling agitation. Sternly she resisted the wayward
impulse to touch the dark, crisp waves of his hair. It was strictly a physical
reaction to his strength and the power he exercised over her at this moment in
time; she knew that. There had been a great deal written in the last few years
of the strange relationships that could spring up between captor and captive.
Still, it was frightening, not the least reason being that it made it necessary
for her to be wary of herself, and her own emotions.

When she had fetched her sandals and slipped into them, they
left the house. They turned in the direction of the open stretch of the lake by
mutual accord, Charles matching his pace to her progress.

As the morning advanced, it was growing hotter; it was
already past the stage that could be called warm. The dew had already
evaporated from the grass, and where the long, uncut lawn had been crushed
underfoot, the warm sun brought out a smell like the scent of a hay meadow.
Their footsteps flushed crickets and grasshoppers from their path that
scattered with tiny, clicking noises in the silence. Everything was still; not
a leaf or a strand of gray moss moved. The lake glittered with a dazzling
brilliance, reflecting the blue of the sky overhead in its brown-green waters.
At its verge was a crisp green edging of tender marsh plants covered with tiny
white blooms. In the sun-struck shallows, clear enough to see the sand on the
bottom, minnows darted. A black water bug skated away over the surface. In the
shadows of the nearby cypress trees was the mossy snag of a downed tree trunk,
barely rising above the water. Upon it sat a row of turtles that slipped off
one by one with gentle plopping sounds as Charles and Kelly drew near. Their
approach also disturbed a white crane from its perch in the top of a dead tree,
and it lifted off with a great flapping of wings. From somewhere close, hidden
among the leaves of a moss-hung white oak, came the monotonous croaking of a
tree frog, a sound the judge had always insisted told of coming rain.

Kelly knelt at the water’s edge. From the debris washed up
by the waves — the dried grass, strings of blackened water-weeds, and bits of
rotted leaves and wood — she plucked a cypress ball, straightening with it in
her hand. Small, not much larger than a marble, colored a pale celadon green,
it had the look of carved jade.

To break the silence between her companion and herself Kelly
said, “Mary and I used to string these things for necklaces.”

“Mary Kavanaugh?”

She bit back a sharp retort, settling instead for a nod. “We
had a lot of fun in those days, Mary, Peter, Mark, and I. The boys built a
diving platform out there in the trees, beyond the swimming raft in the deeper
water on the other side of the catwalk. You had to be careful how you jumped
off it, though, because of the stumps underwater. The first time Peter dived,
he had to have seven stitches in the top of his head. I was so scared I was
nearly sick when he came up covered with blood, mainly because I had a crush on
him at the time.”

“One of the judges’ sons?” he said, a rough note in his
voice.

“I thought you knew the judge,” she said, unable to keep the
suspicion from her tone.

“I never said so. I only said he lent me the house.”

“Isn’t that a little odd?”

His face was expressionless as he said, “We — have mutual
friends.”

What possible connection could there between Judge Kavanaugh
and this man? By no stretch of the imagination could Kelly conceive of so fine
and upstanding a man as the judge having anything to do with criminals or the
families that made up the Mafia. It was an angle she had not stopped to
consider before. Perhaps the explanation was that the mutual friend was the man
they called the senator. Could he have accepted the loan of the lake house only
to find himself a prisoner there? How conveniently that would have worked out
for Charles and his friend the guard.

Unconsciously, Kelly turned to look at the guest cottage.
There was a better view of it from here than from the main house. The same was
true of the wood-and-metal boathouse in its covering of trees off to their
left. “I saw the other man leave a little while ago in the speedboat,” she
said, her tone casual. “I suppose that’s the way you and the others came to the
house?”

“A brilliant deduction,” he told her, his manner openly
mocking.

“I don’t see the point, not if you are posing as residents.”

“Boats leave no tracks, and are harder to trace than
automobiles.”

“I thought they had to be registered.”

“Oh, yes, and marked with a registration number — put on
with nice stick-on lettering that is easily changed.”

Kelly glanced at the guest house again, “It’s none of my
business, but didn’t the departure of your accomplice leave you in something of
a bind?”

“In what way?”

“There’s only one of you to watch two of us.” Her attention
was caught by the faint sound of a radio coming from the cottage, or was it a
television? There was an antenna at the back, poking up among the trees.

“Your concern for your fellow prisoner is touching. Are you
afraid he will get away and you won’t?”

She turned a cold look on him. “Hardly. If there was any
danger of that, you wouldn’t be so nonchalant about it. What troubles me is
what you may have done to him to give you such peace of mind.”

He did not move, did not speak, and yet she sensed the force
of the anger that surged through him. He reached out to cup her elbow, and it
was as though an electric current had touched her. His voice soft, he said, “Would
you believe me if I told you he was up there being mesmerized by game shows and
soap operas he never had the chance to watch before?”

“What keeps him from just — leaving?”

“He has no car, the boathouse is locked, his heart isn’t
good — no walking you see? Besides, it may be he likes the utter relaxation of
letting someone else do the thinking, make the decisions, while he is saved
from the need to see and be seen.”

“No,” she said, “I don’t believe it.”

“Shall we go and visit with him then?” His fingers tightened
on her arm.

It was then that they heard the motorboat. They swung back
at the sound, watching the speeding white launch come toward them like a silver
streak, its wake spreading out in a wide fan as the boat made a great curve,
circling to come into the landing beside the catwalk.

“I would have thought that to be inconspicuous was what you
wanted,” Kelly murmured. “If so, I can’t say much for your choice of
transportation.”

“Sometimes other considerations are more important,” he
answered, but there was a brooding quality in his tone. He was still frowning
when the other man stepped off the near end of catwalk and came toward them.

The guard had removed his gun, donned a gold nylon life vest
and placed an open mesh cap squarely on his head. Regardless, he looked nothing
like a fisherman. Kelly’s eyes widened as she recognized what he held in his
hand.

“Everything checks out,” the guard said, holding out her
denim-covered billfold to Charles. “I placed the transatlantic call, but couldn’t
reach the party you wanted, some mix-up in the itinerary. I left a message. You
should get a cable tonight or tomorrow with the information you wanted, the
time difference being what it is.”

Charles’s narrowed gaze met that of the other man in obvious
understanding. “No problems?”

“No problems.”

“Did you get the sen — our other guest’s ice cream?”

The other man snapped his fingers. “Left it in the boat. I’d
better get it before it melts.”

Charles turned back toward the path that led to the main
house, his grip still fastened on Kelly’s arm. She did not move, holding back. “I
thought we were going to see about the — the old man?”

“There’s no need now. He has company again.”

“Company? That’s isn’t exactly what I would call it.”

“I’m sure, but what’s in a name?”

Kelly paid no attention to his wry question. “You don’t
intend to take me, do you?”

“I’ve changed my mind,” he answered, amusement rising in his
eyes as he took in her pugnacious attitude.

“Why?”

“I told you once that you have an expressive face. It
appears your imagination pictures all kinds of horrors being visited upon a
helpless old gentleman. So long as you are uncertain whether you are right, you
may think twice before you step out of line.”

Rage flared over her, followed by sudden chill of fear.
Under such stimulus, her mind was prodded into action. “On the other hand,” she
said quietly, “I might be forced to conclude that if I had seen him I would no
longer have anything to fear.”

“So you might,” he agreed, a gleam in his eyes that might
have been admiration, but could also have been expectation.

It was diabolical. She could take what he was doing to mean
either that she was perfectly safe or that she stood in the deadliest danger.
The only thing that could give her any hint of which to count on was her own
conception of the kind of man she was facing.

“You abominable, impossible, conniving —”

“Careful,” he warned, tilting his head on one side. “We have
a truce, but if you are the one to break it, I refuse to be responsible for what
I might do!”

Five

Her best defense, Kelly decided, was to pretend there was
nothing unusual going on, to proceed as though she were alone. Toward that end,
she announced her intention of spending the rest of the morning sunbathing.
Charles applauded the idea, falling in with it immediately and with every sign
of good humor. He spread a piece of canvas on the grass where the lawn sloped
to the lake, the only place other than the swimming raft where there was enough
sun away from the traveling shade of the trees.

Dressed in her swimsuit, armed with sunglasses, sunscreen,
tanning lotion, her book, and her beach towel, Kelly settled on the canvas.
Charles, in the brief white suit she remembered vividly from the day before,
positioned himself beside her. They lay unmoving, without speaking, soaking in
the molten sunlight.

Within minutes, they were gilded with a fine sheen of
perspiration. It gathered in rivulets, running into Kelly’s hair, dampening the
tresses at the nape of her neck, gathering between her breasts.

“Your sunscreen and suntan lotion aren’t going to do you
much good in the bottle,” Charles said.

Drugged with heat, it was a moment before Kelly could bring
herself to form an answer. “I probably don’t need it.”

“You’ll be as pink as a parboiled shrimp.”

“I promise I won’t ask you to take me to the hospital.”

She heard the rustle of the canvas as he sat up, but she lay
still. She had almost decided he had let the subject drop when she felt his
hands on her face, smoothing across the bridge of her nose and the high bones
of her cheeks.

Her eyes flew open. She met his dark, smiling gaze as he
leaned over her. Before she could speak, he said, “Sunscreen.”

She could attend to the protection of her skin as he thought
she should, or she could lie where she was and accept his ministrations. It was
the treacherous urge to do the latter that made her sit up and snatch the tube
of sunscreen from his hand.

Satisfied, he lay back down, locking his hands behind his
head as he watched her. His appreciative gaze traveled over her curves,
accented by a modestly revealing, aqua-blue bikini. When she substituted the
tanning lotion for the sunscreen, he followed her movements as she rubbed it
over her arms and shoulders and along the length of her torso and legs.

“Would you like me to do your back?” he asked, his tone
dulcet.

“Thank you, no, I can manage,” she answered, the glance she
sent him edged with distrust. She did, too, though not without difficulty. Her
chore completed, Kelly lay back down. The scent of her lotion hung in the still
and humid air.

“You smell like coconut candy,” he drawled, “good enough to
eat.”

The timbre of his voice seemed to vibrate through her.
Keeping her voice casual with an effort, she said, “You are welcome to use some
of my lotion, if you like.”

“I probably don’t need it,” he answered, a silky note to his
voice.

It crossed her mind to treat him as he had treated her, by
applying a sample of the sunscreen. She was by no means sure that he would
object, as she had, to being anointed with lotion and coconut oil, however. He
might even enjoy it. In any case, as brown as his skin was, he was doubtless
right; he would have little use for it.

The quiet between them lengthened, disturbed only by the
persistent croaking of the tree frog. The sun bore down upon them, bringing a
flush of heat to their skin, running like fever in their blood. And then from
the man beside her came one soft-spoken word. “Chicken.”