Jule McBride - The Protector

“I’ll look forward to hearing from you then,” she murmured.

“It’s always interesting,” he agreed, then added, “Happy sailing.”

She quirked a brow.

“On Seduction Island,” he reminded her.

“It’s work,” she said, looking as if she was starting to have difficulty keeping her cool. “Not a vacation.”

He wasn’t sure, but as she turned to leave, he could swear Judith Hunt added a softly whispered, “Dammit, Steele.”

That brought a smile to his lips. He watched her go then—his jaw setting, his groin tightening, his eyes sliding down the length of her. She was almost too thin, he decided. As willowy as a tall, thin reed, with small, high, firm breasts and slender, flat, boyish hips.

She was economical in her movements, yet possessed a curious lanky grace that would make her look good in things she’d never wear—feather boas draping across her bare back, floor-length black sheaths slit to her thigh, necklines cut down to her naval, tempting a man to glide a hand inside and push away fabric. Something timeless in her features made it impossible to guess her age. Twenty-five? Thirty? Suddenly, Sully had to know, not that he figured he ever would.

Realizing she was long gone, he mustered a long-suffering sigh, then shrugged out of the oppressive jacket he’d put on for her benefit. Loosening his tie, he muttered, “Can this day get any worse?”

“Probably, Cap.” His right-hand man, Nat McFee, stopped in front of him. “While Lips was here, we got a homicide on Bank Street, a three-car pile-up on Seventh Avenue, and Tim Nudel hauled in a suspect from that news kiosk holdup last week. You want to talk to him?”

Sully shook his head as he backed inside his office. “Nudel can question him. I need a minute.” Maybe longer. He needed time to get Judith out of his system, and to mull over the string of bad luck hitting his family lately. “I haven’t had a chance to breathe since I heard Pop disappeared.”

“Why not take a walk?” McFee suggested. Before shutting the door behind him, he added, “Why don’t you duck in someplace where the air-conditioning works?”

Maybe he would. Sully draped his jacket around the chair back, sat down at the desk and thoughtfully unbuttoned and rolled up his sleeves. Pop’s disappeared. Sully could barely believe it. And he meant what he’d told Judith: he was sure his father had stumbled onto wrongdoing. Wherever he was, he’d return with the money as soon as he could.

Lately, Sully reminded himself, the Steeles had had some good luck, too. As if to reassure himself, he opened a desk drawer and pulled out a letter he’d written about a month ago.

“Only a month ago?” he murmured.

An eternity had passed since the day Sheila Steele had announced she’d won fifteen million dollars in the New York Lottery. That day, she’d made the even more astonishing announcement that she wasn’t telling her husband, Augustus, about the winnings. Unless their sons married within the next three months, she’d sworn, she was going to donate the money to preserve natural habitats for wildlife in the Galapagos Islands. Furthermore, she’d stipulated that Sully, Rex and Truman couldn’t tell their prospective mates about the money while wooing them.

“The Galapagos Islands?” Sully had muttered in disbelief when he and his brothers had retired to his childhood bedroom to discuss the matter.

“Don’t get me wrong,” his youngest brother, Truman, had said. “I’ve got nothing against sea turtles.”

Sully had laughed. “Me, neither. It’s the marine iguanas that get on my nerves.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” their middle brother, Rex, had joked, “penguins are such a pain.”

Marriage had seemed so unlikely for all of them, and it really did seem as though wild animals might benefit from the win. But now their little brother had proposed to Trudy Busey, a reporter from the New York News. Even more amazing, Truman, the brother most anxious to get the money, had vowed to give his share to the Galapagos Islands, anyway, so Trudy wouldn’t think he was marrying her for anything other than love.

Sully sighed. Of course, all the brothers had to marry in three months or the deal was off, which meant the Galapagos animals would be the recipients. With Augustus’s disappearance, everything had changed. Rex, who had no girlfriend, was heading to Seduction Island, and Sully…

He glanced at the letter in his hand. He’d written it the day he’d heard his mother had won, and while he was usually more cynical, the letter was like the ships he used to build in bottles—uncharacteristically romantic. It began: “Dear Lady of my Dreams…”

Sully’s eyes dropped to the text.

Who are you? Where do you live? Why haven’t I met you yet? If only I knew where to find you, sweet lady—which city blocks to wander, which cafés to visit. If only I knew what your face looks like…a face I’ll hold between my palms and see resting on a pillow if you really turn out to be the lady of my dreams.

Are you out there? Maybe I’m too confused about what I want. Maybe I’ve passed you a thousand times without recognizing you. If I saw you, would I even know you? My last relationship lasted a long time, and she was in a helping profession, as I am. We had so much in common; we wanted stability and a reasonable lifestyle, to share our tight-knit families and have kids of our own.

But it wasn’t enough. There was no passion. I don’t mean sex, if that’s what you’re thinking. I mean…passion. There’s no other word. I want my heart to race, my palms to sweat, my knees to weaken. Being able to remember love like that gets you through the hard times, and life being what it is, there are always hard times.

I’m a man who needs sparks and fire. Desire that compels. A person complicated enough to hold my attention. Are you out there, lady?

It was signed simply, “Yours.”

The letter had been in the drawer for a while, but now, on closer inspection, Sully realized what he should do with it. At the bottom, he wrote, “I can be reached here,” and left the address of an untraceable post office box, one he used in police work and for confidential personal correspondence. It was the address he’d given the lottery board, and just yesterday, they’d sent a questionnaire for him to fill out, apprising him of tax matters. Apparently, they were assuming Sheila Steele was going to turn her winnings over to her sons. The lottery board had no idea what Sheila Steele was up to—or had been before her husband disappeared.

Well, he was right to use the P.O. box, Sully decided. He was a realist and too suspicious to offer his home address. If he really sent this, it was hard to predict who might get hold of it and respond.

But he was going to send it. With a faint curl of a smile, he stood, circled the desk, went to a bookshelf and lifted an intriguing bottle he’d found in a junk shop during one of his lunchtime strolls through Greenwich Village.

“A genie bottle,” Sully had pronounced, taking in the pale amber glass, round design and squat neck. He’d been thinking, as he often did, that he should start building ships again, and that this bottle would be perfect.

“Old,” the shopkeeper had said, stopping to talk. “But not as uncommon as you might be guessing. I usually have one or two around the shop.”

When he blew off a layer of dust, Sully imagined a trail of smoke rising from the bottle, as it might from a genie’s lamp. Chuckling softly, he imagined the dust materializing into a woman. “Maybe it will,” he murmured.

Rolling the letter, he inserted it and tightly stoppered the bottle with its cork. Returning to the desk, he lifted his jacket from the chair back, then headed for the door.