Dangerous (27 page)

“Yes, well, she’s not mad at you, is she? My stepmother calls her a little blond chain saw.”

Mrs. Sanders burst out laughing. “What a description!”

“Sometimes it’s very accurate.”

She hesitated. Her dark eyes gave him a curious appraisal. “I’m throwing a party for some local friends Wednesday night. If you and the chain saw aren’t otherwise occupied, you might come over.”

“Thanks, but I don’t drink,” he said.

She gaped at him. “You don’t? Now you have to come. I’ve never met a man who didn’t drink. My husband can go through a fifth of whiskey in one sitting!” She laughed.

“Well, if we’re free, we might come over for a few minutes. Thanks,” he said, trying to sound reluctant.

“I’ll make sure you have something nonalcoholic. And I’ve got a world-class chef preparing the buffet. You don’t want to miss that.”

He smiled. “Sounds nice.”

“Never turn down free food,” she told him in a conspiratorial tone. “I grew up very poor in Oklahoma. I got a job as a small-town newspaper reporter because I learned that if you went to cover events where food was served, you got fed for free.”

He chuckled. She looked wicked when she smiled like that. “I see your point.”

She tossed the towel over her shoulder and pulled down her sunglasses. “We’ll start about six,” she said. “But it’s not on the clock. You can show up anytime before midnight.”

“All right. Thanks again.”

She shrugged. “I get tired of the same faces day after day.” The way she said it, Kilraven wondered if she might be talking about the senator’s latest flame. But he wasn’t about to ask.

“See you,” he said, and turned, walking slowly down the beach the way he’d come.

K
ILRAVEN WALKED IN
the back door, hesitating. He really needed Winnie to go to that party with him. He had to convince her without letting her know how important it was. If he had to apologize for what had happened on his knees it would be worth it. He’d never felt closer to solving his daughter’s murder.

Winnie was curled up in a chair with a book. She jumped when she heard him come into the room.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi. Guess who I just ran into on the beach?” he asked with pursed lips and twinkling eyes.

“I’ll bite. Who?”

“Senator Will Sanders’s wife,” he told her. He put his hands deep in the pockets of his Bermuda shorts, pulling them tight against the strong muscles of his thighs. “She’s invited us to a party Wednesday night.”

She was just looking at him, drinking in the impact of that powerful, virile body that hers knew so intimately now. It made her tingle. “I guess you want to go, huh?”

“Why did we come down here, Winnie?” he asked bluntly.

Well, that was blunt enough, she told herself. She flushed a little. “Sorry. Wasn’t thinking.”

He drew in an angry breath. “Look, I did a stupid thing this afternoon. I didn’t mean to, and I’m sorry.”

How nice, to reduce a feverish interlude of breathless passion into a traffic citation, she thought wickedly.

She shrugged. “No problem. We all get parking tickets now and again.”

He blinked. “Are we having the same conversation?”

She smiled faintly. “Sorry, I don’t know where my mind was. Okay, I’ll go with you.” She put the book down. “She didn’t suspect anything?”

“She did until I mentioned that we were recently married,” he replied and smiled because the subterfuge had worked as well as he’d thought it would.

“So your hunch paid off.”

“You might say that.”

“Good for you.”

He frowned. She didn’t sound pleasant at all. His eyes narrowed as he saw the disappointment in her dark eyes. “Okay, let’s get it out in the open. You think because we enjoyed each other that I’m going to want to keep you. That it?”

She went scarlet.

He smiled coolly. “I’m your first man,” he said bluntly. “You’re wrapped up in pink daydreams because I know my way around a woman’s body without a road map. It was just sex, Winnie. I’ve abstained for seven years and we’re married. Simple as that. I went in over my head because…”

“No need to explain,” she interrupted him, standing up, but she didn’t meet his eyes. “I’ll admit I got off track for a while. Don’t worry about it. I may build a few daydreams, but I know exactly where reality begins. I won’t try to lock you in a closet and keep you for a sex slave. Honest.” She crossed her heart.

He looked as if someone had hit him in the face with a pie.

She moved closer and patted him on the chest. “Now, I know you’re disappointed, but I can assure you that there are plenty of women in the world who keep handcuffs and own closets. So you just keep those spirits up until you run into one of them.” She yawned deliberately. “Gosh, I’m sleepy. I think I’ll have a nap. Watch TV if you like.” She waved a hand over her shoulder as she walked toward the bedroom where her things were. “Won’t bother me.”

She went into the room and closed the door behind her. Then she let the tears roll down her cheeks. But not until then. She was finally learning how to stand up to him. Brute force didn’t work, but humor seemed to. If she could just keep her heart from breaking, she might manage to get through the next few days. The trick, she considered, was not to let him see her cry.

K
ILRAVEN WAS STUNNED
. Had he really heard her say that? He went and sat down on the sofa with a hard breath. That was not what he’d expected. He was sure that he had little Winnie Sinclair figured out and pigeonholed. Then she came out with the sex slave quip and he was back to first base. He turned on the news. But then he grinned.

W
INNIE KEPT HIM AT A
distance with airy smiles and tours of the island, and never let him close enough to touch her. It seemed to irritate him at first. Then, like the quips she came out with, it amused him into relaxing. They spent three days sunning on the beach and walking around Bay Street.

She did very well by pretending that he was her brother. From time to time, she had to hide a fit of the giggles, because he was devastating in swim trunks and when they went in the ocean together and he held her up and grinned at her, she almost lost her poise. But she kept telling herself they were related and they couldn’t do more than hold hands.

Amazingly, he did hold hands with her as they walked down the rows of shops. He was more relaxed than she’d ever seen him.

“You’re different, here,” she said as they paused to look in a shop window at some natty tourist T-shirts.

“No real pressure right now,” he said simply, smiling down at her. “I live from adrenaline rush to adrenaline rush. I have for years. It’s addictive. In between, I’m just waiting for the next one to come along.”

“It’s so much stress,” she said.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, you wouldn’t know about that,” he said sarcastically.

She laughed. Her job was one of the most stress-filled ones around. “Yes, but I don’t really like pressure. Or stress. Or dangerous things.” She sighed as she looked blindly at the T-shirts and realized how dull her life was going to be when all this was over and he was gone again. “I don’t think far ahead. I just go day by day.”

He turned to her, really interested. “Why?”

She stared down at her sandaled feet. “When I was in my second year of college, I got pneumonia. I had a good friend, Hilda, who lived in the dorm with me.” Her eyes were sad. “She was killed in a car wreck. She’d stayed up all night with me when I was running a fever. She was on her way to the pharmacy to get some cough syrup my doctor had called in. And she died. Just like that.” She moved restively. “It scared me. I realized how uncertain life was, and how short it could be. I didn’t really like economics. It was my major and I’d sort of eased into it without thinking. I realized I didn’t like big cities like Dallas, either. So I had Boone and Clark come get me and take me home.”

“Tough break,” he commented.

“About Hilda, yes. But I was happy after I’d been home a while.” She smiled. “My best friend Keely was around to listen to me and go places with me. I didn’t have the stress of exams or studying a subject I hated, and I felt I was where I belonged. In the place I loved most.” She looked up at him. “Some people go their whole lives moving from city to city, job to job, never belonging to anything or anyone,” she said seriously. “And that’s fine, for them. But I wasn’t like that, and I didn’t know it until I had a crisis in my life.”

He avoided her eyes. That was how he lived. He was happy with his life. He didn’t want to change it. He didn’t want ties, stability, a family…

Her hand on his arm brought him out of his thoughts. “I didn’t mean you,” she said gently. “I guess it sounded that way.”

He searched her dark eyes. “I have nightmares,” he said softly. “I see my daughter, screaming for me to help her, and I’m tied down and I can’t. I wake up in a cold sweat. It’s been that way for seven years.”

“And you run from the pain and the memories and the nightmares,” she said gently. “But you don’t escape anything by running from it.” She smiled sadly. “You see, I was running from my father, from his dislike, from his constant criticism. That’s why I agreed to go to college in the first place. But in the end, I was more miserable away than I was at home.”

“Facing the pain.”

She nodded. “He was very sick, the last few weeks of his life. I nursed him. I think we were closer then than we’d ever been. He said,” she recalled, “that he’d made some stupid mistakes in his life and it was too late. He said I should never let anger decide which way I stepped in a crossroads.” She blinked. “I wonder if he found out about Matt, before he died.”

“It’s possible.” He touched her face tenderly. “You came up on my blind side,” he said enigmatically. “I never wanted to get involved with you.”

“I know,” she said, glowering up at him. “You’re an old lobo wolf and I’m just a kid.”

He pursed his lips. “I have some looooong red scratches down my back,” he said under his breath.

She went scarlet, stepped too quickly and almost fell. He caught her, laughing like a devil.

“You’ll never be a kid again, after that,” he whispered in her ear.

She flushed, and then laughed when he tugged her close and hugged her. After a minute, he let her go, took her into the shop and bought her a T-shirt with a shark wearing a bib and holding a fork that said “Fight hunger. Send more tourists!”

T
HEY GOT ALONG VERY
well for a day or two, but then Kilraven’s long abstinence and her trim, pert figure in skimpy outfits got the best of him and pricked his hot temper.

“Why the hell can’t you cover yourself up?” he asked angrily when she came into the living room in a sundress that left her back bare.

She gasped. “What?”

He got up from the sofa and glared at her. “You can prance around naked for all I care, but I’m not staying married to you when we close this case!”

She raised both eyebrows. “Well, I like that,” she said haughtily. “I guess I’ll just have to go out and find myself another big, dishy sex slave!”

He wasn’t in the mood for humor. He let out a filthy curse, turned on his heel and stormed out the door, down the beach.

Winnie wouldn’t have admitted for worlds how much he intimidated her when he had those black moods. She was a little afraid of him, like she was with Boone in the same temper. She knew neither of them would ever hurt her, but they could be scary.

At least she wasn’t backing down now. That had to mean she was growing as a person. It did hurt, to hear him say things like that. It hurt so much that it provoked her own temper. When he came back in, she pleaded a headache and went to bed, leaving him to go out to supper alone. He offered to bring her something back, but she swore she couldn’t eat. Next morning, she went out early and alone to breakfast, starving. She spent the day in town walking the streets, just so she wouldn’t have to fight with him.

But at night it was hard to lie in bed and hear him tossing and turning in the other bedroom, to see him red-eyed from lack of sleep, and know that the memories were tormenting him.

“You don’t sleep,” she said.

He glared at her. “You could do something about that, if you wanted to.”

Her dark eyes were sad. “We’ve already talked about that.”

He laughed coldly. “You think I can’t walk away, don’t you, Winnie?” he asked in a soft, menacing tone. “You think I liked it so much that I’d even stay married to you to get it again.”

“I’m not that stupid,” she replied. “What was to like, anyway? I don’t even know what to do with a man, I’m so green.” She turned away, missing his sudden wince. “I might as well be living in the Victorian age.” She ground her teeth together. “The sooner this is all over, the better! I just want to go home!”

She did. It was wearing her nerves thin to be so close to him and not touch him. That day they’d walked around town, he’d been affectionate, relaxed, tender. But ever since, he’d been like a sunburned snake, irritable and disagreeable. It would be painful, but she could hardly wait to go back to her job. Even if it meant having to get over Kilraven all over again.

T
HE PARTY
W
EDNESDAY
night was attended by a duke’s mixture of people, all races and all classes. There were diplomats, a motion picture star, a country-Western singer, a musician, a chef and at least two beachboys.

Patricia Sanders noted Kilraven’s surprise at her guest list and grinned. “I don’t restrict my list of friends to people with money and influence,” she whispered. “See the country star over there?” she indicated a handsome young blond man, and Kilraven nodded. “His mother was a maid at a motel, and his father worked for a sheet metal plant. He could buy and sell my husband with what he pulls down annually.”

“Not bad,” he commented.

“One of the beachboys was a billionaire import-export business executive,” she added, indicating a tall, handsome man with the physique of a wrestler with wavy black hair just a little silvery over the ears. “His family died in a suicide bombing while he was working a deal in the Middle East. He tossed it all and moved down here. He’s living on annuities. Not likely to starve, even in this economy.”