Passion's Mistral (19 page)

Her lover’s eyes had narrowed dangerously. “Why? So you can look at naked men all day?” He shook

his head. “I think not.”

“So I could be near you?” she countered.

He thought about that then cocked one shoulder. “Flirt with even one helper, sweetness, and I’ll have his

balls on a tray to feed to my pet piranhas.”

She blinked. “You have pet piranhas?”

“No flirting,” was all he would say.

She now saw him walking toward her from the far end of the deck and smiled.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said as he reached her. “I’m going to have them go through with building our

house.”

Silkie groaned. “Patrick, come on! I’m not going to—”

“I can’t have my mother visiting me at the resort,” he said. “I can’t leave here and I would very much like

to spend holidays with her.” He leaned against the rail. “When I spoke with her this morning, she said

there was no reason she couldn’t come for Christmas and Thanksgiving, Easter, the Fourth of July.”

“Yours and her birthdays,” Silkie said quietly.

“That, too,” he agreed with an emphatic nod. “The yacht is acceptable but I’d like to have a porch to sit

on, just looking out to sea, talking.”

“If that’s what you want, then that’s what we’ll have.”

“And a nice place for you and me to say our vows,” he added.

Silkie’s mouth dropped open. “W-what?”

Before she could react, he lowered one knee to the deck and reached for her hand. “Silkeen Marie

Trevor, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” he asked.

“Don’t you ever call me Silkeen again,” she insisted, her eyes flashing. “How did you find out—?”

“Silkie Marie Trevor,” he interrupted, “would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

In the last twenty-four hours, she had come to realize she had fallen for this passionate man. She wanted

nothing more than to spend her life with him. While she appeared to be thinking over the offer, he

reached into his pocket and pulled out an engagement ring.

“It’s only two carats,” he explained as he paused with the ring just touching the nail of the third finger of

her left hand. “If you want something larger, I—”

“No,” she was quick to say. Ostentation had never appealed to her and diamonds larger than three

carats had always seemed vulgar to her. Two carats was just right. “It’s perfect.”

He arched a thick dark brow.

“Yes,” she said, tears glistening. “Oh, yes!”

He slid the ring onto her finger then helped her to her feet, folding her into his arms and sealing their

bargain with a kiss that made the toes in her sandals curl. She was only marginally aware of a strange

sound above them as the man she loved pulled back from her.

Overhead, the sleek black helicopter from the Cay was flying parallel to The Connemara and the owner

of Mistral Cay looked up. The chopper pilot gave his employer a thumb’s up then banked the expensive

machine away from the ship.

“My mother should be here in a moment or two,” Patrick O’Reilly said over the thump-thump-thump of

the helicopter’s blades. He turned so Silkie’s back was to him, her body pressed closely to his.

Off to the starboard side of The Connemara, the yacht that had brought Silkie to the Cay sailed toward

them.

She wrapped her arms over his, feeling the tremor in his body.

They stood like that until the other yacht was riding at anchor beside them. A mile or so out to sea, the

helicopter patrolled the air, making slow, lazy circuits. On the water, four runabouts carrying armed men

secured the waves. Onboard The Connemara, the crew was armed to the teeth.

“I’ll not take any chances with you or my mother,” Silkie’s lover had pronounced.

That he feared trouble from Celeste was evident in the way his eyes kept scanning the horizon.

“There she is,” he whispered.

An older woman was being helped into the yacht’s lifeboat. Beside her, a man looked across at them and

waved. Turning to the woman as he joined her in the lifeboat, he pointed to where Patrick and Silkie

stood.

“She’s beautiful,” Silkie said softly.

“Yes,” Patrick agreed.

It seemed an eternity before Fay Lynden and her husband Bradford were brought onboard The

Connemara. When at last she stepped onto the deck of her son’s yacht, she seemed unable to go any

further. She stood there with her husband’s arm wrapped securely around her shoulder.

Realizing the man she loved did not seem able to move either, Silkie eased his arms from her and walked

to the Lyndens. She put out a hand. “I’m Silkie Trevor, Mrs. Lynden.”

Fay took the young woman’s hand then pulled her into a very strong embrace. “Thank you,” she said

forcefully. “Thank you so much for finding my son.”

“Yes,” Bradford said, patting Silkie’s arm. “We appreciate all you’ve done.”

Fay released Silkie but still seemed unsure of herself. She was facing her son, both smiling at the other,

even though neither seemed able to traverse the distance between them.

“What would you say to a nice tall glass of Tom Collins, Mr. Lynden?” Silkie asked, threading her arm

through his.

“I’d say lead the way!” Bradford chuckled.

Silkie kept up a quiet conversation with Bradford as they made their way into the interior of the yacht,

passing Henri whom she introduced.

Alone on the deck, mother and son took a hesitant step toward another, stopped almost in unison then

laughed together at their nervousness.

Fay opened her arms.

Her son hurried to her.

He enveloped her in a hug that could have crushed her had she been of less stalwart stock. Her tears

mingling with his as she brought his face to hers to kiss him lightly on the lips, she heard his low whimper

of hurt.

“It’s all right now, Paddy,” she said, bringing his head to her shoulder though he towered over her

five-foot three-inch height. “Mama’s here, baby.”

His body was shaking with the force of his sobs. He wanted to drop to his knees and hold onto her,

press his cheek to her belly, lower his head to her lap. He wanted to feel the gentle stroke of her hand on

his hair and hear her crooning to him as the faceless woman of his memories had for as long as he could

remember.

“I thought she’d wear a hole in the floor of the ship,” Bradford said after taking a long sip of his frosty

Tom Collins.

“Him, too,” Silkie laughed.

“He was as nervous as a long-tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs,” Henri put in.

“Everything’s gonna be okay now,” Bradford predicted with a sigh.

“Let’s hope so,” Henri said, casting Silkie a quick look.

“She’s not in the best of health,” Bradford told them, “but I think seeing him is the best medicine she

could get.”

As the two men talked, Silkie left the bar and with drink in hand walked to the open doorway. She saw

Fay leading her son to a brace of deckchairs. They sat down on the chairs, facing one another, holding

hands.

It seemed too intimate a moment upon which to be spying but Silkie felt protective of this man even

though she was relieved things were going as she had hoped.

“Were they good to you?” Fay asked and her hand tightened on her son’s.

“I had the best of everything,” Patrick answered. “The best clothes, the best school. I never lacked for

anything money could buy.”

Vividly aware her son had not answered her question, Fay looked out across the waves. The

conversation she’d had the day before with Greg Strickland was still fresh in her mind.

“He’s wanted in Louisiana for murder and the police are pretty sure he hired a man to kill his uncle Sir

Clive Bellington. So far, they haven’t been able to prove it but there’s a detective on the case who won’t

stop until St. John is brought to justice.”

“Do you love her?” Fay asked, returning her gaze to her son.

“With all my heart,” Patrick answered.

“Does she love you?”

“Yes, ma’am. She’s agreed to marry me,” he said with pride shining in his tearful eyes.

“How wonderful! Congratulations! Then I see no reason why you would need to ever leave your island,”

she said.

Patrick swiped at a tear. “Mama, I can’t leave. I—”

“He was a son-of-a-bitch,” Fay said, breaking off his words. “I thought I loved him but he’d beat me in

places where the bruises wouldn’t show. If your grandfather and uncles had ever seen me bruised, I think

they would have saved me the trouble of putting a slug between his eyes.” She held her son’s stare. “I

have no doubt he’d have wound up killing me one day. Some men just plain deserve killing.” She

squeezed his hands. “Don’t you think so, Paddy?”

He understood what she meant and nodded. “You know about my past,” he said.

“I know it doesn’t matter. Sometimes we do what we have to in order to survive, Paddy. Sometimes we

do it to protect others and sometimes to protect ourselves.”

“Even if we’ve done things that are unforgivable?”

“You are my son, my child. If you have done things that were necessary to keep yourself safe, there is

nothing to forgive.” She took his hand and brought it to her cheek, turned her face and kissed his palm. “I

never stopped looking for you and not once have I ever stopped loving you, Paddy.”

Her gentle words and loving eyes were his undoing. He broke down sobbing like a child. His shoulders

shaking, he bent over in his pain, his arms wrapped around his chest.

Fay slipped to her knees beside him and drew his head to her shoulder. She encircled him in a tight

embrace then began humming the Connemara Cradle Song, rocking him in her arms as he released the

years of hurt and sorrow that had been his life.

Silkie wiped at a tear and turned away. Henri was standing a few feet behind her.

“May I have a word with you in private, Miss Trevor?” he asked in his thick French accent.

“Of course, Mr. Bouvier, but please call me Silkie,” she replied.

Henri nodded. “Only if you call me Henri,” he responded.

They walked to the stateroom that was Henri’s own quarters aboard The Connemara. After asking his

guest to be seated, he closed and locked the door.

“This is one of the few places onboard that has not been bugged,” Henri explained. “We can talk freely

here.”

Silkie arched a graceful brow. “Is there something you don’t want Patrick to know about?”

Henri waved a hand. “Patrick. Anthony. Julian. Sean…” He sighed. “I know he wants to be called

Patrick from now on but Julian is the man I know and Julian is how I will always think of him.”

“You and he are very close, aren’t you?”

A wide smile stretched Henri’s rugged face. “Did he tell you I saved his life?”

“Not once but twice,” she answered.

“And that I am the best administrative assistant he has ever had?”

“I believe he said you were the only administrative assistant he has ever had,” Silkie laughed.

“Did he tell you that I am madly, deeply in love with him?” Henri asked in a droll voice.

“No, I don’t believe he did.”

“Well, I am,” Henri said and his smile slipped slowly away. He held Silkie’s gaze and when she didn’t so

much as bat an eye at his admission, he relaxed. “I really am, you know,” he finished quietly.

Silkie merely smiled. She knew there was nothing she could say that would be of any help to the man

seated in the chair opposite her.

“I am happy for him that he has found you,” Henri said. He crossed his right ankle over his left knee and

tugged at the pant cuff. “He deserves good things in this life.”

“After such a terrible childhood?” Silkie asked, letting Henri know—if he didn’t already—that Patrick

had confided in her.

“When I opened that crate,” Henri said, “as soon as he opened his eyes I knew.” He sighed. “I knew

because I recognized the signs of abuse in that helpless, hopeless gaze.”

“Yet you took him to a woman who would abuse him in a different way,” Silkie accused before she

could stop herself. When she started to apologize, Henri held his hand up.

“Celeste was raped when she was nine years old,” he confided to Silkie. “She too knew what had

happened to this poor, starving child. She sent me for the physician who saw to her workers and while I

was fetching him, she bathed Ju—” He shook his head. “He was Anthony back then. She sat up all night

with him, holding him in her arms, crooning to him. I was across the room on a pallet should I be needed

and the doctor was in the next room. We took turns feeding that little boy small amounts of water and

broth, wiping away the sweat from a fever we were sure would claim him before the night was through.

By morning, he was sleeping deeply but he was a long way from being out of danger.”

“How old were you?” Silkie asked.

Henri’s brow furrowed. “Nineteen, I believe. I had been in America four years.” He shrugged. “I, too,

had been a stowaway when the ship’s cook found me.” He looked away. “I more than paid for my

passage to America on that devil ship, believe me.”

“You had been molested, too,” she said quietly. “On the ship?”

“Oh, long before that, petite.” Henri shrugged. “Over and over before I was barely old enough to smell

my own pee, as the saying goes.” He grinned. “To you Midwesterners that’s the Southern way of saying

puberty.”

Silkie smiled at him. “I figured as much.” She cocked her head to one side in sympathy. “Who abused

you, Henri?”

“Who didn’t?” he asked, laughing. “My father, his cronies, several boys at school.” He threw out a hand.

“I was a skinny kid, unable to protect myself. I was ripe for the picking, as they say. It didn’t help I had a