Dangerous (28 page)

He was frowning slightly. “You really like people,” he said, surprised.

“Yes, I do,” she replied. She sipped her drink, noting that Kilraven was nursing a glass of ginger ale. Winnie was talking to a socialite she knew from her childhood, next to the drinks table. “Your wife is still mad at you,” she said with twinkling eyes.

He grimaced. “She’s not sure she wants a live-in sex slave, but she’s debating my future.” He realized what he’d said and actually flushed. “Sorry!”

But she was almost bent over double laughing. “That is not the Winnie Sinclair I know,” she told him. “What are you doing to her?”

“Classified. Sorry.” He grinned.

Winnie, noting the camaraderie her new husband was sharing with their hostess, excused herself and went to join him.

“You’re talking about me, aren’t you?” she asked Kilraven. “And just what are you telling Pat?” she added. They’d hardly spoken two words to each other all day, and here he was flirting like crazy with another woman. It infuriated her.

“Nothing compromising,” Pat promised her. “Just that you treat him like a live-in sex slave.”

Winnie gasped out loud and hit his shoulder as hard as she could.

“Spousal abuse,” Kilraven muttered, holding his arm. “Stop that or I’ll find a cop.”

“There’s one right over there, in fact,” Pat said gleefully, indicating a very dark Bahamian man in a spotless white uniform with blue-and-red trim and a cap. “I invited him in case anybody got drunk and disorderly.”

“I don’t drink,” Kilraven reminded her.

“I do,” Winnie said brightly, sipping her highball. “Let’s start a fight.”

He took the glass away from her, disapproving. “No more for you.”

“Gads!” Winnie exclaimed. “The drinks police!”

“I am not the drinks police,” he muttered. “I’m your husband.”

“Not for long,” she said icily, and her dark eyes punctuated the brag.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Kilraven said firmly. “You’re over your limit.”

Winnie gave him a saucy smile. “Am I? And what are you going to do about it?”

He shrugged, glancing toward Pat. “Nice party. Thanks for inviting us. Sorry, but we have to go, now.”

“I’m not going anywhere, and you can’t make me,” Winnie said pertly.

He pursed his lips and his silver eyes twinkled. “You think so?”

He swung her up in his arms with a grin in Pat’s direction and carried her right out the door.

“I will never forgive you for this!” Winnie railed at him as he walked up the steps of the beach house and onto the porch. There was thunder and lightning in the distance, and a whipping wind right off the ocean.

“I don’t give a damn,” he said through his teeth. He put her down and unlocked the door. “You damned near gave away everything!”

“I did not!”

He picked her up again, kicked the door shut and carried her down the hall to her bedroom. He dumped her on the cover and stood over her, smoldering, with his hands on his hips.

She looked up at him through a mental haze. He was very attractive, but her body was telling her graphically that she wasn’t ready for any more bedroom gymnastics. She was extremely sore.

His eyes narrowed. “In case you’re wondering, I’m not in the mood,” he said shortly.

“Good thing,” she replied enthusiastically, “because I’ve misplaced my handcuffs and my whip!”

“You’ve misplaced…” he began, puzzled. Then he got it. His lips compressed. “You’re not handcuffing me!”

“Spoilsport,” she muttered. “Okay, then, you can go watch television. I’ll just read a book or something.”

“What the hell’s gotten into you?” he burst out.

She lay back on the bedspread, stretching out her arms and legs. “I’m a sacrificial victim,” she said theatrically, “waiting for the volcano to go off.”

“Winnie…”

She turned her head and looked at him through a rosy haze. She even smiled. “You are just dynamite in bed,” she murmured. Her eyes closed, missing the surprised look on his face. “If we got divorced tomorrow, I could live on that night for the rest of my life. It was…just…incredible…” She was asleep.

Incredible. He smiled in spite of himself. He rummaged through the chest of drawers and pulled out a silky yellow nightgown with lace for cups. He held it up and appraised it with sheer masculine appreciation. His eyes cut around to Winnie. It would serve her right if she woke up in it and didn’t know how she’d managed to get it on. And he would enjoy the process.

W
INNIE SAT UP IN BED
with her head throbbing. She couldn’t remember how much she’d had to drink, but it must have been excessive. She vaguely recalled having a very public argument with Kilraven, and then being forcibly carried back here. She looked down at herself with surprise. But she certainly didn’t recall putting on this nightgown. Well, there was probably a lot she didn’t remember. She had no head for alcohol. But she’d just been heartsick at the way Kilraven had been behaving the past few days. Par for the course for him, she thought coldly. Then she recalled what he’d said about abstinence. Maybe he couldn’t help himself. But that didn’t excuse what he’d done. Damn him, she thought furiously. He never should have touched her in the first place. Now things were complicated.

When she got up and looked for her packet of birth control pills, things got much more complicated. It seemed that in the confusion and haste of their trip, she’d left the pills behind in Kilraven’s apartment. That meant that she’d missed two of them. She recalled the instructions vividly. Her hand went to her belly and she swallowed, hard. It was exactly two weeks between periods, the worst and most dangerous time to be intimate, because her periods were regular.

She had to keep her cool. It was unlikely that she’d conceive after just one time. Well, more like three times, she corrected, and blushed. Amazing, that a man could do that. She’d read that they were only good for one time. Maybe Kilraven didn’t read books about sex. She recalled some of the things that he’d done to her then, and she decided that he must have read a lot.

Well, it couldn’t be helped now. She’d just have to hope that there wouldn’t be consequences from her negligence. Kilraven would kill her. He’d have to, at that, because if she turned up pregnant, no way was she having a termination, no matter what.

S
HE HAD AN UNEXPECTED
phone call later in the morning.

“Hi, it’s Pat,” came the cheery reply when she answered the phone. “Want to go shopping with me down on Bay Street?”

Winnie laughed self-consciously. “Are you sure you want to be seen in public with me after last night?”

“Anybody can get tipsy, dear. I do it all the time. Head hurt?”

“Not so much. I have aspirin.”

She laughed. “Come on. I’ll pick you up at your front door. What do you say?”

“Okay,” Winnie said, trying to sound reluctant. “I guess Kilraven can live without me for a few hours.”

“You still call him by his last name?” Pat asked, incredulous.

“He doesn’t like people using his first name, and I’ve heard that he actually threw something at his own brother when he used the nickname for it,” Winnie replied. “I’m covering my butt.”

There was a pregnant pause. “Really?”

“Oh, stop that.” Winnie laughed.

“Come shopping. Girls’ morning out.”

“I’ll be out front in five minutes. I’m not dressing up.”

“Neither am I, pet. Come as you are.” She hung up.

Winnie threw on a pretty yellow-patterned white sundress and strappy white sandals, ran a comb through her long hair, grabbed her purse and started down the hall. She was wearing the skimpiest thing she’d brought with her, and she hoped it made him howling mad with desire.

Kilraven was standing at the end of the hall, his hands in the pockets of his Bermuda shorts, which he was wearing with an open white shirt that showed off his broad, muscular, hair-roughened chest.

“Where are you going?” he asked coolly.

She moved closer. “Off to meet men!” she exclaimed with big eyes. “Since we’re getting divorced soon, I’m in the market for a new sex slave! First I’m going to a bar, then I’m going to sit on the piano with my skirt hiked up…”

“Winnie,” he growled.

She made a face. “Pat and I are going shopping.”

“Nice work,” he said with a lift of his eyebrow.

“Not mine,” she replied coolly. “She invited me.”

His eyes slid over her with a new sense of possession. He knew that slender young body as no other man ever had. She belonged to him.

She saw that look, and it irritated her. He was never getting near her again.

“Ask her about her brother-in-law, if you can do it without making her suspicious,” he said. “We’re too close to blow it now.”

We. That was almost funny. There was no “we,” there was only Kilraven’s obsession with finding his family’s murderer. She thought about that and calmed down. She was losing her perspective, and that would never do. They weren’t a happy couple on honeymoon. They were investigators. She had to keep that in mind. The future was her job and his, not a house with a picket fence.

“I can do what I need to do,” she said solemnly. “I won’t blow it.”

She made him feel guilty. He was throwing her in headfirst, all in an attempt to avenge two murders. He didn’t think she could end up on the firing line, but he couldn’t guarantee it. “If anything feels wrong, back off,” he said curtly. “Don’t put yourself in the middle of anything.”

“Pat isn’t going to get me killed,” she said.

His face tautened. “Not intentionally.”

“Thanks,” she murmured. She started toward the door.

He caught her shoulder as she passed him and looked down into her quiet, solemn young face. He didn’t like what he saw. He’d pushed her into this trip against her better judgment. Now he was trying to put the blame for that torrid interlude on her. It wasn’t fair.

“No. Thank you,” he said gently. “You didn’t want to come down here. I browbeat you into it. Now I’m blaming you for things that aren’t your fault.” He sighed. “I’m sorry for what happened when we got here. I just…lost it.”

Well, that was better than nothing, she supposed. “I lost it, too,” she replied. “No problem.”

“You’re sure you’re on the pill?”

Her face flamed. She averted her eyes. “Of course I am!”

The car pulling up out front stopped the conversation.

“I’ll be back,” she said, moving away.

“If you need me, I’ll have my cell with me.”

She shrugged. “If there’s a crisis about picking out a blouse, I’ll be sure to call you.”

“Thank you so much,” he muttered.

She turned and curtsied. “We aim to please. You can always bake some cookies or tidy up the room if you run out of things to do,” she added cheekily.

“My stepmother was right. You are a little blond chain saw!” he called after her, irritated beyond discretion.

“Sticks and stones…” she sang back.

Muttered curses followed her down the steps.

Patricia had both car windows down and she was laughing when Winnie climbed into the passenger seat of the sleek beige Mercedes. “What was that all about?” she asked.

“He doesn’t think it’s safe for me to go shopping without him,” Winnie muttered. “I suppose he thinks I’ll trip over my high heels and fall into the bay and get eaten by seagulls!”

Patricia pursed her lips and turned her attention back to the steering wheel. “Shortest marriage in Comanche Wells history, huh? I’m just beginning to think that may be right!”

B
ACK AT THE BEACH HOUSE
, Kilraven was brooding. There had been something in the way that Winnie averted her eyes when he’d asked her about being on the pill. He walked into her bedroom and proceeded to do what he was best at. By the time he finished, he was certain that she hadn’t brought anything with her to prevent a child. Not unless she was carrying the pills on her person. And that, as soon as she came back, was his priority. He was going to find out.

15

Winnie was animated while they walked down Bay Street, through crowds of tourists carrying bags and chattering. Nearby was Prince George Wharf, with cruise ships in port. This was one of the most sophisticated cities in the hemisphere, but at the same time it was like a small fishing village. There were big splashy hotels mingled with little cottages set back off the road in groves of palm trees. Winnie loved everything about it.

“Isn’t it amazing that the old British Colonial is still here?” Winnie asked. “Otherwise, Nassau is changing so much that I can’t keep up.”

“It is amazing,” Pat said, smiling. “The grand old lady of the Bahamas. What a history.”

“I used to love staying there. Then Daddy decided that we needed our own place.”

“I love your house.”

“Thanks. Me, too.”

Patricia was watching her curiously. She moved through an arcade to a little nook with bougainvillea climbing the walls, where an open-air shop sold conch soup and mixed drinks. “Let’s have something to drink,” she said.

“Fruit punch for me,” Winnie said with a groan. “I’m still not over my headache.”

“Poor thing. You really shouldn’t drink.”

“I know.”

Patricia gave in the order and carried the drinks to a little stone table with benches. She handed one to Winnie. “I shouldn’t drink, either,” she said, and the happy persona fell away. She put her sunglasses aside with a sigh. “But it’s the only thing that keeps me from becoming a suicide.”

“Pat!”

“Don’t worry, I’m not really the type. It’s just…” She sipped her drink and sighed. She looked at Winnie. “I’m not an idiot, you know.”

“What?”

“First a homicide detective opens that old Kilraven murder file and my husband jumps in to put pressure on the police commissioner to get it closed again. That’s after a murder in Jacobsville that raised eyebrows even up in Austin at the state crime bureau. Then a young woman dies who works for Senator Fowler. That’s followed by assaults on both detectives working the Kilraven case after Senator Fowler had it reopened again.” She looked at Winnie evenly from black eyes. “Then you and Kilraven himself show up next door to my beach house.”

Winnie was a good actress. She’d been a leading lady in her sophomore year. She gave Patricia a beaming smile. “Great deduction.” She held out her left hand, to display her wedding band and its accompanying diamond. “So I got married to Kilraven just to come down here and ask you questions about a murder…” She frowned. “What has any of that got to do with you?”