Heather Graham - Protector, Lover...Husband?

Alex pressed her fingers to her temples. “I can’t do this,” she said.

She was startled when he suddenly moved close to her. “Alex, please. If there was a body, and you saw it—you could be in danger.”

She sighed. “Not if no one knows about the body.”

“But I know, so others could, as well.”

“You said Len only told you about it because he trusts you.”

“Others might have overheard.”

“Just what do you want?”

He was no more than an inch from her. He still carried the scent of salt and the sea, and it was a compelling mixture. She looked away.

“I don’t want anything. I’m deeply concerned. Alex, don’t you understand? You could be in danger!” His hands fell on her shoulders then. It was suddenly like old times. “You have to listen to me.”

She’d heard the words before. Felt his hands before. Memories of being crushed against that chest stirred within her. She didn’t want to believe that she had once been so in love with him just because he was so distinctively male and sensual. There had been times when they were together when his smile had been so quick, and then so lazy, when just a finger trailing across her bare arm or shoulder had…

“David, let go of me,” she said, stepping back.

His eyes were narrowed, hard. She’d seen them that way before, when he was intent on getting to the bottom of something.

“Talk to me, Alex.”

“All right. Yes, Jay acted like an asshole. Yes, I’m convinced I saw a body. A woman. A blonde. Other than that…I couldn’t see her face. The angle of her body was wrong, and she was tangled in seaweed. When we went back, she was gone. Even Laurie, who saw the body first, wasn’t sure we’d seen it anymore. She didn’t actually go near the body even when it was there. Anyway, there was no corpse. So, are you happy?”

He didn’t look happy. Actually, for a moment, he appeared ashen. She wanted to touch his face, but he was still David. Solid as rock.

“Please, will you leave me alone?” she asked him.

His voice was strange, scratchy, when he spoke. “I can’t leave you alone. Not now,” he said. And yet, contrary to his words, he turned and left her porch, disappearing along the back trail that led, in a roundabout way, to the other cottages and the lodge.

She stared after him, suddenly feeling the overwhelming urge to burst into tears. “Damn it, I got over you,” she grated out. “And here you are again, driving me crazy, making me doubt myself…and not doubt myself,” she finished softly.

She realized suddenly that twilight was coming.

And that she was afraid.

David had almost made her forget. No matter what anyone said, she’d seen a body on the beach. That was shattering in itself, but then the body had disappeared.

She slipped back inside, locking the sliding-glass door behind her. Then she looked outside and saw the shadows of dusk stretching out across the landscape.

She drew the curtains, uneasily checked her front door, and at last—after opening and finishing a new wine cooler—she managed to convince herself to take a shower.

David sat at a table at the Tiki Hut, watching Alex. Not happily. He had been sitting with Jay Galway, who hadn’t mentioned Alex’s discovery, naturally. There might be a major exodus from the lodge if word got out that a mysterious body had been found, then disappeared, and Galway would never stand for that.

During their conversation, David had asked Jay casually about recent guests, and any news in the world of salvage or the sea, and Jay had been just as cool, shrugging, and saying that, with summer in full swing, most of their guests were tourists, eager to swim with the dolphins, or snorkel or dive on the Florida reef. Naturally—that was what they were set up to do.

David had showered, changed and made a few phone calls in the time since he’d left Alex. He’d still arrived before her.

If she’d seen him at the table, she’d given him no notice, heading straight for the table where John Seymore was sitting with Hank Adamson. They were chatting now, and he had the feeling that part of Alex’s bubbling enthusiasm and the little intimate touches she was giving Seymore were strictly for his benefit, her message clear: Leave me the hell alone, hands off, I’ve moved on.

How far would it go?

All right, one way or the other, he would have been jealous, but now he was really concerned.

A woman’s body had been found on the beach, and he had not heard back from Alicia Farr—who was a blonde.

David couldn’t stop the reel playing through his head.

From what he’d overheard, Jay was convinced a trick had been played, or that Alex had assumed a dozing sunbather was a corpse. David didn’t see that as a possibility. Alex was far too intelligent, and she wouldn’t have walked away without assuring herself that the body no longer maintained the least semblance of a vital sign.

A trick? Maybe.

Real corpses didn’t get up and walk away, but they could be moved.

If there had been a real corpse and it had been moved, it had been moved by someone on the island. That meant Alex could be in serious danger. After all, Len had told David what was going on, so who knew who else he might have told?

An ex–navy SEAL, maybe? The perfect blond hero—but was that the truth behind John Seymore being at Moon Bay?

Hopefully he would find out soon enough.

“So?”

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” David said, realizing that Jay had been talking away, but he hadn’t heard a word.

“Well? Is it a photojournalism thing or a salvage dive?”

“What…?”

“Your next excursion,” Jay said.

“Oh…well, I was looking into something, but my source seems to have dried up,” David told Jay. My key source either dried up, or was killed and washed up on your beach, and then disappeared, he thought. Then his attention was caught by Alex again.

The band was playing a rumba. She was up and in John Seymore’s arms. Head cast back, she was laughing at whatever he had to say. Her eyes were like gems. She was beautifully decked out in heels and a soft yellow halter dress that emphasized both her tan and her tall, sinewy length. Her long hair was free and a true golden blond, almost surreal in the light of the torches that burned here by night.

The lights were actually bug repellents. There was no escaping the fact that when you had foliage like this, you had bugs. But the glow they gave everything, especially Alex, was almost hypnotic.

David turned to Jay. “Sure you haven’t heard about anything?” he asked him.

“Me?” Galway laughed. “Hell, I’m a hanger-on. The big excitement in my life is when I get a taste of something because of the big-timers—like you.”

“Well, I’m looking at the moment,” David told him. “So, if you do get wind of anything, anything at all, I’d like to know.”

“You’d be the first one I’d go to,” Jay assured him solemnly.

“Interesting that you’d say so—with Seth Granger here and ready to pay.” And in the Tiki Hut at that moment, David realized. Granger was a big man and in excellent shape for his sixty-odd years. He was speaking with Ally Conroy, mother of Zach, at the bar. She was at least twenty years his junior, but he’d gathered from their bits of conversation before the swim that she was a widow, worried about rearing her son alone. Seth wasn’t all that well-liked by many people, yet Ally seemed to be giving him the admiration he craved. Maybe they were a perfect fit.

“Seth…well, you know. He’s always looking for something to bug his way into. Hell, why not? He’s rich, and he loves the sea, and he’d like to make a name for himself in his retirement years. Don’t you love it? Tons of money, no real knowledge, yet he wants to be right in the thick of things. Executive turned explorer.”