Diamond Bay (12 page)

Rachel felt the icy power of his rage and shivered inside,
thankful that she wasn't the one who had crossed him. The look in his eyes was
in direct contrast to the touch of his fingertips on her hip. How could his
touch remain so gentle, while the wrath of hell glittered in his eyes?

"What are you going to do?"

His fingers trailed down her hip to her thigh and rubbed across
the hem of her shorts, then gently glided beneath it. "Recuperate. I can't
do a damned thing right now, including dress myself. The problem is that I'm
putting you in danger just by being here."

She couldn't control her breathing, or her pulse rate. Heat was
building inside her, destroying her ability to think and leaving her to operate
purely on her senses.
She knew she should move his hand, but the rasp of his rough fingertips
on her thigh was so pleasurable that all she could do was sit there, quivering
slightly like a leaf in a soft spring
breeze.
Did he normally treat women as if they were his to touch as he
wished, or had he picked up on her uncontrollable responses to him? She thought
she had disguised them well, kept them to herself, but perhaps his job had made
his senses and intuitions more acute. Desperately she made herself move,
putting her hand on top of his to prevent it from moving any higher.

"You didn't put me in danger," she said, her voice a
little hoarse. "I made the decision without your help."

Despite her controlling hand, his fingers moved higher and found
the edge of her panties. "I have a question that's been driving me
crazy," he admitted in a low voice. He moved his hand again, delving
beneath the elastic leg of her panties and curving his fingers over the cool
bareness of her buttock.

A whimper escaped her before she bit her lip, controlling the wild
little sound. How could he do this to her with just his touch?
"Stop," she whispered. "You have to stop."

"Have we been sleeping together?"

Her breasts had tightened painfully, begging for that touch to be
transferred to them, for him to claim them as he had before. His question
destroyed what little concentration she had left. "This… there's only this
one bed. I don't have a couch, only the love seats – "

"So we've been in the same bed for four days," he
interrupted, stopping a flow of words that she had felt edging toward
incoherency. His eyes were glittering again, but this time with a different
fire, and she couldn't look away. "You've been taking care of me."

She drew a deep, shuddering breath. "Yes."

"All alone?"

"Yes."

"You've been feeding me."

"Yes."

"Bathing me."

"Yes. Your fever – I had to sponge you with cool water to
keep it down."

"You did everything that had to be done, took care of me like
a baby."

She didn't know what to say, what to do. His hand was still on
her, his palm warm and hard against the softness of her flesh.

"You touched me," he said. "All over."

She swallowed. "It was necessary."

"I remember your hands on me. I liked it, but when I woke up
this morning I thought it was a dream."

"You did dream," she said.

"Have I seen you naked?"

"No!"

"Then how do I know what your breasts look like? How they
feel in my hands? It wasn't all a dream, Rachel. Was it?"

A hot, wild blush colored her face, giving him an answer even
before she spoke. Her voice was stifled, and she looked away from him, her
embarrassment at last freeing her from his gaze. "Twice, when you woke up,
you… uh…grabbed me."

"Helped myself to the goodies?"

"Something like that."

"And I saw you?"

She made a helpless gesture toward her neck. "My nightgown
drooped when I bent over you. The neckline was hanging open…."

"Was I rough?"

"No," she whispered.

"Did you like it?"

This had to stop, right now,
though she had a feeling that it was already too late, that she should never
have sat down
on the bed.
"Move your hand," she said, trying desperately to put
some strength into her voice. "Let me go."

He obeyed without hesitation, triumph stamped on his hard, dark
face. She shot up from the bed, her face on fire. What an utter fool she had
made of herself! He probably wouldn't be able to sleep for laughing at her. She
was at the door before he spoke, his voice momentarily freezing her to the
spot.

"Rachel."

She didn't want to turn, didn't want to look at him, but the way
he said her name was a command that pulled at her like a magnet. Lying down
didn't diminish his power; being wounded didn't diminish it. He was a man born
to dominate, and he did it effortlessly, with the sheer strength of his will.

"If I could, I'd come after you. You wouldn't get away."

Her voice was as quiet as his, rising only slightly above the whir
of the ceiling fan in the cool, dim room. "I might," she said, and
closed the door gently behind her as she left the room.

She wanted to cry, but she didn't, because crying never solved
anything. She hurt inside, and she felt restless. Lust.
She had identified it almost
immediately, had properly labeled the source of her undeniable and, evidently,
uncontrollable attraction to him.
She could have
handled it if it had remained merely lust, for lust was a human appetite, the
perfectly normal reaction of one sex to another. She could have acknowledged
it, then ignored it. What she couldn't ignore was the growing emotional impact
he had on her. She had sat there on the bed and let him fondle her, not because
she was physically attracted to him, though God knew that was the truth, but
because he had rapidly become far too important to her.

Rachel's refuge was work; it had saved her when B.B. died, and she
sought it instinctively now. Her study was small and cluttered with both her
work and memorabilia: books, magazines, clipped articles and family photographs
crowded together on every available space. It was comfortable for her; it was
here that she immersed herself in her interests, and despite the clutter she
knew where everything was. It wasn't until her eyes fell on her favorite
picture of B.B. that she realized she wasn't going to find the comfort she
sought in this room. There couldn't be any hiding from herself; she had to face
it, and face it now.

Slowly her fingers traced B.B.'s smiling face. He had been best
friend, husband and lover, a man whose cheerful manner had hidden a strong
character and firm sense of responsibility. They had had so much fun together!
There were still times when she missed him so much that she thought she would
never get over the sense of loss, even though she knew that wasn't what B.B.
would have wanted. He would have wanted her to enjoy her life, to love again
with all the passion she was capable of, to have children, to pursue her
career, to have everything. She wanted that, too, but somehow she had never
been able to imagine having it without B.B. and he was gone.

They had both known and accepted the risks of their jobs. They had
even talked about them, holding hands in the night and discussing the danger
they faced, as if by bringing it out in the open they could hold it at bay. Her
job as an investigative reporter had made it inevitable that she would step on
toes, and Rachel was very good at anything she chose to do.
B.B.'s job with the Drug
Enforcement Administration was inherently dangerous.

Perhaps B.B. had had a premonition.
His hand strong around hers in the
darkness, he had once said, "Honey, if anything ever happens to me,
remember that I know the
possibilities and I'm willing to
take the risks.
I think it's a job worth doing, and
I'm going to do my best at it, the same way you won't back down from a story
that's getting too hot for comfort. Accidents happen to people who never take
any risks at all. Playing it safe isn't a guarantee. Who knows? With the noses
you put out of joint, your job may turn out to be more dangerous than
mine."

Prophetic words. Within the year B.B. was dead. An investigation
Rachel was making into a politician's background had turned up a connection
with illegal drugs. She didn't have any proof, but her questions must have been
making the politician itchy. One morning she had been late to catch a flight to
Jacksonville and her car had been low on gas. B.B. had tossed her the keys to
his. "Drive mine," he'd said. "I have plenty of time to get gas
on the way to work. See you tonight, honey."

But he hadn't. Ten minutes after her flight left the ground B.B.
started her car and a bomb wired to the ignition killed him instantly.

Haunted by grief, she had finished
the investigation, and now the politician was serving a life sentence without
parole for both his drug dealings and his part in B.B.'s death.
Then she had given up investigative reporting and returned to
Diamond Bay to try to find again some sense of life for herself. Peace, hard
won but finally hers, had let her find pleasure in work again, and in the quiet
tenor of life here on the bay. She had contentment, peace and pleasure, but
hadn't come close to loving again; she hadn't even been tempted. She hadn't
wanted to date, hadn't wanted a man's kiss, or touch, or company.

Until now.
Her forefinger
gently touched the glass that covered B.B.'s crooked grin. It was incredibly
painful and difficult to fall in love. What an apt phrase it was! "Falling
in love."
She
was definitely falling, unable to stop her
whirling, headlong plunge, even though she wasn't certain she was ready
for it.
She felt like a fool. After all, what
did she know about Kell Sabin? Enough for her emotions to go wildly out of
control, that was for certain! She had somehow started loving him from the
first, her intuition sensing that he would be important to her. Why else had
she fought so desperately to hide him, to protect him? Would she have taken the
risk of caring for any other stranger? It would be romantic of her to assume
that it was predestination; another explanation was an ancient one, that a life
belonged to the one who saved it. Was it a primitive predilection, a sort of
bonding forged by danger?

At that point in her thoughts Rachel gave a wry laugh at herself.
What difference did it make? She could sit there all night thinking of
plausible and implausible explanations, but they wouldn't change a thing. She
was, regardless of will and logic, already half in love with the man, and it
was getting worse.

He was trying to seduce her. Oh, he wasn't in any physical shape
for it, but given his superb conditioning and strength he would probably recover
much faster than an ordinary person. Part of her shivered in excitement at the
thought of making love with him, but another part, more cautious, warned her
not to let herself become that involved with him. To do so would be to take an
even larger risk than hiding him and nursing him back to health had been. She
wasn't afraid of the physical risk, but the emotional price she might have to
pay for loving such a man could be crippling.

She took a deep breath. She couldn't limit her emotions and
responses to carefully measured dollops, like following a recipe. Her nature
wasn't that controlled and unemotional. All she could do was accept the fact
that she loved him, or was growing to love him, and deal with it from there.

B.B.'s photographed gaze looked back at her. It wasn't a betrayal
to love someone else; he would want her to love again.

It was wrenching to accept the idea; Rachel didn't love lightly.
When she gave herself it was with all the passion of her emotions, which wasn't
an easy or casual way to love.
The man in her bed wouldn't welcome her devotion; it didn't take a
crystal ball to tell that he was one of those men who combined icy
unemotionalism with fiery sensuality.
He lived
for the danger of his job, and it was a job that didn't encourage emotional
ties. He could take her with raw, hungry passion, then calmly walk away and
return to the life he had chosen.

Wryly she looked around the study; she wasn't going to be able to
work, after all. Her emotions were too turbulent to allow her to sink into
either planning her class or working on her manuscript. She had gotten her hero
into a sticky situation, but could it be any stickier than the one she found
herself in? Actually, she could use some practical advice. A smile suddenly lit
her face. She had an expert in her bedroom; why not use his knowledge while he
was there? If nothing else, it would help occupy his time. To occupy her time,
she could finish weeding the garden now that it was late afternoon and the
sun's ferocious heat had abated somewhat. She might as well do something
practical.

The twilight was rapidly fading and she had almost finished her
chore, when she heard the simultaneous creak of the screen door at the back
steps and Joe's explosive, furious spring from his position at the end of the
row where she was working. Rachel screamed Joe's name as she jumped to her
feet, knowing that she'd never be able to reach the dog in time to stop him.