The Seductive Impostor (6 page)

Kee knew Rachel Foster was thirty-one years old, the elder daughter of Frank and Marian Foster, and a licensed architect who now worked in a library. He also knew that Rachel Foster knew Sub Rosa better than any other living person.

Guessing the reason for Kee's cautious approach, Duncan chuckled under his breath. “Peter tried to find out if someone was home waiting for her. She wouldn't answer him,” he told Kee, his own eyes scanning the area.

Kee shot him a hard look at the reminder that his men had let the woman slip through their hands. “Which means she probably lives alone,” Kee said. “Women get in the habit of not advertising that fact.” He gave Duncan a grin. “It's past time I properly introduced myself to Rachel Foster, wouldn't you say?”

“Dammit, Kee. It's two in the morning. This can wait until tomorrow,” Duncan said.

Kee stepped onto the lawn. “No. We do it tonight. I want to know what the lady was doing at Sub Rosa.”

Kee didn't wait for Duncan to respond. He crossed the lawn and headed for the house, guided by the soft yellow glow of the porch light.

The first thing both men noticed as they approached was that the screen door was shut, but the inside door was not. The second thing they realized was that they could hear soft sobs coming from the dark interior of the house.

Without making a sound, Duncan slipped around to the other side of the house as Kee quietly mounted the porch stairs, both of them drawing guns from the backs of their belts.

Kee silently approached the door. He slowly pulled the screen door open and used his foot to push the interior door wider. He listened for a full minute for any other sounds coming from deeper within the house. When he decided there was no one else there, he eased his way inside, felt for a switch, and flipped it, flooding the room with light. A panicked gasp rose from the floor, and Kee found himself pointing his gun at the woman he'd met in his library less than an hour ago.

She was sitting on the floor of the kitchen, her scared hazel-green eyes the size of dinner plates. Her braid had completely unraveled, and her waist-length brown hair was a wild tangle of curls. There were mud stains on both of her knees and most of her sweater, and pine needles and dirt made a trail across the floor to where she sat.

In one hand she held her cane up as a puny defense, and in the other one she held a small brown bottle that looked as if it came from a pharmacy. Kee lowered his gun just as Duncan stepped into the kitchen behind him.

“Go away,” the woman hoarsely croaked, waving her cane threateningly. “Get out of my house.”

Kee slipped his gun into the back of his belt, stepped forward, and pulled the cane out of her hand. She gasped in surprise and tried to scoot farther away, but she stopped and cried out. She grabbed her right knee, dropping her bottle of pills on the floor.

Kee hunched down and picked up the bottle, turning the label to read it. She'd been after some pretty powerful pain pills. The bottle was covered with dirt and looked as if Rachel Foster had spent the last half hour trying to open it.

“Get her a glass of water,” he said to Duncan as he twisted the cap and poured not one pill, as the directions suggested, but two pills into his hand.

Duncan opened several cupboards before he finally found a glass. He filled it with water and hunkered down on the other side of the woman. Kee took one of her slightly trembling hands and put the pills in it.

Without saying a word, she quickly popped the pills into her mouth and reached for the glass. Duncan didn't let it go, but held it to her lips.

“Thank you,” she whispered when she finished drinking, looking down at her lap.

“Tell me what's wrong,” Kee softly ordered, turning his gaze to her legs, seeing that the right knee she was holding looked larger than the left.

“I'll be okay in a minute,” she said, not looking at him, her voice barely audible. “I've hurt my knee again.”

Kee looked at Duncan, only to be surprised by his expression. Duncan Ross, the most lethal, battle-hardened mercenary he knew, was looking at Rachel Foster with all the sympathy of a child watching a wounded pet.

Kee reached over and covered Rachel's hand on her knee with his own. “Why don't you let us have a look at it?” he asked, gently tugging her hand away.

She pushed him away.

“Then let us take you to the hospital,” he offered, withdrawing only enough to grab her chin and lift her face.

“No. Go away,” she said, staring him full in the face, her gorgeous, tear-soaked hazel-green eyes defiant and determined.

Kee smiled at her as he shook his head. “We're not going away, Miss Foster. Not until you tell me what you were doing in my library earlier.”

She gasped and pulled her chin free. “I wasn't in your library!” she hissed, looking as if he'd just accused her of robbing the local bank. “Now get out of my house before I have you arrested for breaking and entering.”

Kee sat back on his heels and stared at her. He was amazed. He had her dead to rights. She'd been in his house not an hour ago, and she was threatening to have
him
arrested. He grabbed her chin again.

“You dare lie to me?” he asked in disbelief. “You were waiting in the closet until you thought the coast was clear, and then you came sneaking out and attacked me.”

Her eyes rounded, and she tried to pull away, but Kee would not release his hold on her face. She whimpered, paling to the roots of her dirty brown hair as she grabbed at his wrist.

“Kee. Come on, man. Ya're scaring her,” Duncan said, moving to intervene.

Kee turned an incredulous look on Duncan. “She's lying. She was in the library,” he told him. “I want her to admit it.”

Duncan grabbed Kee's arm just below the woman's grip. “It doesn't matter right now,” Duncan softly told him. “Ya can battle it out with her later, when she's a more worthy opponent. Let's just make her comfortable.”

Kee looked from Duncan to Rachel Foster. She was pale enough to pass out, but her eyes were still snapping at him. He couldn't suppress a smile. The lady had grit.

He let go of her face and gently scooped her up in his arms and stood. She gasped again, hard enough to move his hair.

“Put me down!” she snapped, her eyes level with his. “I'm too heavy. You're going to drop me.”

It was Duncan who laughed at that ridiculous statement. “Kee won't drop ya, Miss Foster. Ya're a puny thing,” the man thought to assure her.

She turned her glare on him.

Kee didn't wait for her to protest any further. Undecided about whether he did want to drop her pretty little lying butt on the floor—or kiss her pretty little lying lips—he silently carried her around the kitchen island and into her living room.

“I want you out of my house!” she said again, the color returning to her face.

He stopped in front of her couch. “You do seem a bit heavy,” he lied. He hefted her in his arms. “You're not by any chance weighted down with booty you stole from my house, are you?”

That accusation changed her expression. “I was not in your house tonight. I hate it. I hope it falls into the sea.”

Kee shook his head, smiling at her mutinous glare, which he could see quite clearly now that Duncan had found the living room lights. “Ah, Rachel, is that any attitude for an architect to have?” he asked, laughing out loud when she gasped again.

“You know I'm an architect?”

“You're Frank Foster's daughter. I was told to look you up if I had any questions about Sub Rosa. That there isn't a nook or cranny you don't know about. If I have any problems with the place, I should check with you.”

She closed her eyes. “Then I suggest you burn it down to its foundation,” she whispered.

Kee sobered as he bent over and gently set her down. He braced one hand against the back of the sofa and stared directly into her defiant eyes. “I understand why you'd like to see my home in ruins, Rachel. I know the story of your father and mother and my great-uncle Thaddeus. But that doesn't explain what you were doing there tonight.”

She stared back at him, unblinking.

“How about if I'm just being curious and promise not to press charges? Will you tell me why you were in the library?”

She dropped her gaze to her lap.

Kee straightened and headed back into the kitchen.

“Are ya sure it's her?” Duncan asked, looking over his shoulder at Rachel as he followed Kee.

“It's her. I'm not likely to forget the woman,” he confirmed.

“But how did she get out of the mansion so quickly then?” Duncan asked as he walked to the door and looked toward the cliff path they had used.

Kee also looked toward Sub Rosa. He could barely make out the dark silhouette of the soaring roofline of the mansion. “There must be a tunnel that leads directly out to the cliffs. She'd know about it if there was.”

“What are ya going to do with her?”

Kee looked over at Duncan and grinned. “Since it might be Mickey's fault she hurt her knee again, I thought we might start acting like neighbors. We should probably bring her back to Sub Rosa once those pills take effect, don't you think?”

Duncan shot Kee a grin in answer, then sobered. “She'd been sitting on the floor for almost an hour, in a lot of pain. Why didn't she call for an ambulance?” he asked.

Kee waved his hand at the mud on the kitchen floor. “My guess is she didn't want to explain the condition she was in, especially if she thought I had called the police. Being dressed like a burglar at two in the morning and being covered with mud and torn up by rose thorns would be a little hard to explain.”

Duncan nodded as he opened the freezer and began rummaging around for some ice. Kee walked to the sink, found a towel, and ran it under the water until it was soaked warm. “Here,” he said, tossing another towel to Duncan. “Wrap the ice in that and bring it into the living room.” He shot Duncan a grin. “While I try to talk a spitting polecat out of her pants.”

He whistled as he walked back into the living room and laughed when he saw that Rachel Foster had succumbed to her late-night adventure and powerful narcotics.

It would definitely be neighborly of him to bring her back to Sub Rosa and give her a chance to finish what she'd started tonight.

T
here was an elephant sitting
on her knee. There was no other explanation for the heavy, dull, throbbing pain that made Rachel keep her eyes closed as she groaned in agony.

Why did she hurt so much? And not just her knee. Her right elbow burned, her hands hurt, and her left wrist was stiff and aching.

Rachel groaned again when she remembered what had happened last night: her nearly disastrous attempt to return the stolen art, several men with deep voices and laughing eyes, and a very large, scary dog.

And an even larger, even scarier Keenan Oakes.

He had silently entered her home with the stealth of a ghost. One minute she'd been trying to get the damned childproof cap off her pain pills, and the next minute she'd been looking down the wrong end of a gun that had a barrel big enough for a squirrel to hide in.

But that miniature cannon hadn't looked anywhere near as lethal as the man holding it.

The picture in the
Island Gazette
hadn't come close to capturing the real Keenan Oakes. She'd stood nose to chest with the man in his darkened library, and Rachel had known immediately that Thadd's great-nephew was far more dangerous than even Willow had thought.

He hadn't listened to her demands to leave any better than his band of bullies had. Rachel groaned to herself again. He'd come into her house and taken over, popping pills into her and carrying her to the couch before abandoning her there once he realized she wasn't going to admit to anything.

Dammit, he knew she had been in his library.

And he wanted to know why.

Well, she was sticking to her story. Never in a million years would she admit to kneeing the man in his groin. She may be foolish on occasion, but she was not suicidal.

Rachel tentatively moved her shoulders to see what other parts of her body were going to protest. Her groan of agony turned into a startled scream when a rock-solid arm came under her back and lifted her into a sitting position.

She snapped her eyes open and found herself staring into the face of the devil himself. Laughing Atlantic-blue eyes stared back at her.

“Take these. They'll help.”

“You!”

His eyes crinkled at the corners, amusement lighting them. Along with something else. Something very male. Keenan Oakes seemed quite pleased with her reaction.

Rachel ignored the pills he was holding up to her lips and opened her mouth to tell him—yet again—to get out of her house. Then she realized she wasn't on the couch in her living room. She was at Sub Rosa!

She turned back to ask him what she was doing there, but he shoved the pills into her mouth before she could speak. His hand quickly returned with a glass of water, which he all but poured down her throat.

“Don't worry,” he assured her, chuckling at her alarm. “It's just aspirin this time. Those pills of yours could bring down a horse, and I'm wanting you to stay awake this time.”

He still didn't let her go. He wrapped his other arm around her shoulders and held her up while he used his free hand to arrange the pillows behind her back. He carefully eased her into a sitting position, then straightened.

Not once did he take his gaze off hers. Rachel felt like a doe trapped in the lights of an oncoming disaster.

Panic welled up inside her. She couldn't be here. Not in Sub Rosa. And not at his mercy. She was the daughter of the man who had murdered his great-uncle. She was also the woman who had literally brought him to his knees last night.

She had to get out of there. Now. Even if it meant dragging herself home through the fires of pain.

“Don't even think it,” he said softly, his eyes sparkling with challenge.

Rachel realized he'd read her panic and her need to escape. She broke off her stare and looked down at the blankets. “You can't keep me here,” she said, her voice sounding firm to her, now that she wasn't looking at him.

“Who's going to stop me?”

She snapped her head back up. He was standing with his feet spread and his arms crossed over his chest and a lazy, indolent look on his face. The man was no more worried about kidnapping her than he was about the sun falling out of the sky.

Rachel stared at him, seeing him clearly for the first time in full light, without drugs fogging her brain. Holy Mother Mary. Keenan Oakes could be a marauding Viking who conquered all he could see, for all his modern-day trappings. He had to stand six-foot-three if he stood an inch. His black hair was just as unruly up close as it had been in his picture. His face hadn't seen a razor in several days, and still the soft dark stubble did nothing to ease the sharp planes of his face.

He wore a tattered gray sweatshirt that pulled against his massive chest and well-worn jeans that hugged a trim waist and muscled thighs. Rachel wondered dizzily if Keenan Oakes had to turn sideways to walk through most doorways.

She lifted her chin. “I'm going to call the sheriff if you don't let me go,” she told him, squaring her shoulders and trying to puff herself up to whatever threatening size she could.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “The phones aren't working. They won't be on until Friday.”

Rachel glared at him. It was Tuesday. Or was it Wednesday?

“Then you can just have one of your brutes take me home,” she countered, keeping her chin high, stiffening it so it wouldn't quiver.

He slowly shook his head as he unfolded his arms and stepped back to the bed. Rachel pressed herself against the pillows. But she couldn't avoid him when he reached out and took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him.

“Tell me what you were doing in my library, and I'll take you home,” he said, his voice a whisper of determination.

“I…I wasn't in your library,” she said hoarsely.

He tightened his grip, ever so slightly. “I'll forget what happened if you just tell me what you were doing there.”

Rachel barely stifled a snort. “No man ever forgets something like that,” she foolishly blurted out without thinking.

His eyes narrowed.

“I'm not saying I attacked you,” she rushed to clarify, pulling her chin free and lifting it again. “But if I had, then you're not likely to just forget it.”

He smiled. “What sort of transgression are we talking about, Miss Foster? I don't remember mentioning the nature of your assault.”

Dammit. He had told her, hadn't he?

“I-I'm assuming it was nasty,” she whispered, trying to sink back into the pillows as he moved even closer. “Since you're so big, and I'm just a woman, and I…”

Her voice trailed off the moment his lips touched hers.

And just like her words, her ability to think vanished at the contact.

Oh, God. Oh, God. The man's mouth was not the least bit hard. His lips were soft, unbelievably warm, and so damn sensual, Rachel felt a tingle all the way down to her toes.

He used his tongue to trace her lips while he claimed them, and moved his hand to the back of her head, cupping her gently but firmly, not allowing her to escape.

Dangerous. Lethal. Overwhelming.

Those words kept bouncing around in Rachel's brain, trying to urge her into action. She had to do something. She could not let this guy take such liberties with her mouth.

Rachel pushed at his chest and immediately cried out.

He pulled back and looked down. “Your left wrist is bruised,” he said, carefully taking her hand and holding it, his voice utterly calm, as if that kiss had never happened.

Rachel took a bit longer to gather her wits. Yes, she could see the bandage covering her left wrist and most of her fingers. His hand dwarfed hers. It was huge and powerful-looking and so utterly male, it was all she could do not to shiver.

“What were you after, Miss Foster?”

“I wasn't in your library last night,” she repeated, this time by rote, still focused on the size of her hand in his.

He sighed, the feel of him wafting over her face, reminding her of his kiss. Her cheeks heated.

“You…intrigue me, Rachel Foster.”

“Wh-what?” she whispered, snapping her gaze to his. She didn't need to be a rocket scientist to know what he meant. Not after that kiss.

He cocked his head as he watched her, seemingly fascinated by her reaction. “I came to that conclusion just as I finished braiding your hair.” He reached up and pulled her braid over her shoulder, watching the end curls slowly wrap around his fingers.

Rachel jerked her head back, grabbing her braid and hiding her treacherous curls in her fist. Their eyes met again, and she became aware of a heat between them so intense, it even singed
his
face with two flags of color.

“You can't…you can't…you braided my hair?” she finished on a squeak.

He nodded. And then he leaned down and kissed her again. But not her mouth this time. He simply, sensually used those remarkable lips to caress her cheek.

Fire shot all the way down to the pit of Rachel's stomach. Oh, Lord. His causing her bodily harm had just become the least of her worries.

He pulled back and stood up. Rachel saw the light of promise in his steady Atlantic-blue eyes. He winked at her, turned on his heel, and headed for the door.

“Wait!”

He stopped, his hand on the doorknob, and looked at her.

“What—what time is it?” she asked, looking at the closed hurricane shutters on the windows. She couldn't tell if it was night or day outside. The only light in the room came from the bedside lamp.

He followed her line of vision, then looked back at her. “Does it really matter, Miss Foster?” he asked, just before he opened the door and walked out.

 

Kee stood in the hall, his head thrown back and his eyes closed, listening for any sound coming from the room he'd just left. But all he could hear was the rush of his own blood raging through his body. Kee knew that if he held out his hand, it would be shaking.

Rachel Foster. She'd done this to him—with her snapping eyes that were more scared than brave, with her indignant expression that hid the heart of a very poor liar, and with her wildly curling hair that drove him into a sexual frenzy whenever he looked at it. Hell. He'd been as hard as a stone the entire time he'd worked on getting the tangles out of it.

The lady may have bruised his manhood last night, but she sure as hell hadn't broken it.

Damn. This was not going to be as easy as he'd thought. Rachel Foster may be temporarily in his clutches, but he was the one who was caught. From the moment she'd stood facing him in the library, every damn hormone in his body had stood at attention.

Just before she'd kneed him into oblivion.

It took a brave person to do what Rachel Foster had done. Kee admired her for that. And then she had lied to his men and to him—and right to their faces, by God.

She was going to stick to her story, Kee knew. Neither threats nor kidnapping nor kisses would make her admit that she had been snooping around Sub Rosa last night.

Kee took a calming breath and rubbed his hands over his face, then pulled them away. He smiled as he started down the hall.

The woman was all but brimming with passion. Kee could see it in her eyes and feel it in her body every time he touched her—a sensuous energy simmering inside her that would be nearly untamable when he finally brought it to the surface.

And he would.

Hopefully in his bed.

Kee had already decided, sometime in the wee hours of the morning, that he wanted Rachel Foster.

She would be reluctant, though. She had heard every one of his flaws from Joan—Rachel knew he was an insensitive jerk, a bastard, and a caveman.

But his biggest obstacle was linked to the history of his new home. Rachel was going to balk at the idea of having an affair with the new lord of Sub Rosa. Daughters tended to shy away from following in their mothers' footsteps, especially when those footsteps had led to tragedy.

Kee didn't care. What had happened between Marian Foster and good old Thaddeus Lakeman was none of his business.

The fact that Frank Foster had shot them both didn't particularly bother Kee, either. That was history. Other than being the catalyst that had brought him here, it didn't really involve him.

He had a tendency to be linearly focused when he was on a hunt. That's what made him so successful in his line of work. He always got his man.

This time, however, his target was female.

Well, so be it. As far as Kee was concerned, the game was officially on. Hell, he'd even been so kind as to warn his opponent this time. What more could the lady ask for?

 

Kee and Jason and Duncan returned to her bedroom four hours later. Kee nudged Mickey away from the door. “Did our guest try to leave?” he asked the wolf, knowing damn well she had, and that she'd discovered Mickey guarding her escape route.