Don't Tempt Me (36 page)

"I'm afraid it may take more than that at this point." Regret enveloped her as she thought of her dreams for a brighter future. "We'll need to sever things completely. I'll cancel the cruises as discreetly as possible."

"How, when they're selling better than ever?"

"I don't know, but I think it's best for y'all."

There was silence on the other end.

"Adrian? Are you still there?"

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"I don't see any choice. I'm not going to take you and your family down with me. I love all of you too much."

"And if you cancel the cruises, what are you going to do for a living, since you weren't exactly making it before that?"

"I don't know." She sighed. "Move back to the Caribbean. Rename my ship. Try again."

"Just like that. You'd run away."

"Do I have a choice?'

"Hell yes, you have a choice. Quit being a whipped dog and fight back!"

"How?" she demanded. "Call up the press and say 'I'm innocent. I'm innocent'? I'm sure that would go over real well."

His voice turned steely. "I'm not going to let you dump me over this."

"Adrian," she sighed. "Please don't make this harder than it is already. Please. We need to do what's best for everyone."

He fell silent again.

"Adrian?"

"Look, I think we need to end this conversation right now, because if we don't, I'm going to say things I know I'll regret"

"Like what?"

"Like
You're a goddamned coward without enough backbone to stand up for yourself
!"

"Excuse me!" she sputtered, ready to argue, until she realized the line was dead. She stared at the phone in shock. "He hung up on me!"

Chapter 26

Shaking with fury, Adrian paced his living room. He couldn't believe Jackie would break up with him over this. And yet he could. She had to be the most stubborn, self-reliant ... self-sacrificing person he'd ever met! And she'd lectured him about the need to put his own needs first? Well, he wasn't going to give in without a fight

Pulling on his running shoes, he jogged down the trail toward Carl's bungalow. At least she didn't know the network people were pushing him to break off the engagement due to all the crap in the news.

Carl's bungalow came into view, and he trotted up the steps, intending to demand they step up efforts to find the powder horn. Angry voices came from inside. He pounded on the screen door anyway, making it rattle. Carl opened the main door, looking flustered.

"Did you see the news?" Adrian asked through the screen.

"I did." Carl sighed. "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for? You're not the one accusing Jackie of all this horseshit."

"I just wish I could have done more to defend her. Getting to know her these last months, I realize how much she's been through, and how little she deserves the hand life dealt her."

"That's why you have to find the powder horn. No matter what it takes."

"That's what I've been telling him," a feminine voice said from the cool, shadowy interior.

"Aunt Viv?" Adrian looked past Carl and found his aunt standing in the middle of the front room. "What are you doing here?"

"Telling this idiot that he can forget about ever seeing me again if he goes through with his plans."

Sighing in defeat, Carl opened the screen door.

"Plans?" Adrian stepped inside, looking from his aunt to Carl and back again. "What plans?"

"He's calling off the search." Vivian crossed her arms.

"What?"
Adrian turned to Carl. "You can't do that."

"I told all of you weeks ago this was coming. The powder horn wasn't in the defined search area, which was the aft portion of the ship and the path she traveled while sinking. To continue searching would mean establishing another search area, but in which direction do we go? And what if the horn isn't there? Do we define another section, and another? Continuing the search at this point is completely impractical."

"But the horn is out there," Adrian insisted. "I know it. I can feel it."

"But out there where?" Carl gestured in frustration. "We can't search the whole cove. If the item were metal, we might have a shot at stumbling over it with metal detectors. But Scott's research indicates it was made completely of horn and leather. The only way to find it is through systematic dredging. I'm sorry. Truly. But the funds we have left for this project need to go toward preserving the items we've already brought up and creating the museum exhibit."

"What if we continue searching on our own?" Adrian asked.

"If you want to waste your time and money, be my guest. Just remember that if you find it, it belongs to the state."

"This isn't about possession of the powder horn." Adrian wanted to shake the man. "It's about saving Jackie's reputation."

"I realize that," Carl said with genuine remorse. "And I'm sorry."

"God!" Adrian turned away, feeling the rage of helplessness. He looked at Vivian over his shoulder. "Talk to him, will you?"

"I'll try. Unfortunately, the man is as movable as a granite boulder."

"Not in all things, apparently." Carl blushed as the two of them looked at each other.

"True," Vivian said, a secret smile curving her lips.

"Jesus." Adrian shook his head. The last thing he wanted to watch was two lovers making eyes at each other while his world was crumbling. "I need to go."

He slammed out the door and headed down the path toward the beach, needing time and space to think. This late in the day, the area was completely empty. He walked to the end of the pier and stared out at the cove. The sun hung low in the sky, casting shimmering light across the water.

Well, Jack, we failed. We failed you and Marguerite. And we failed Jackie.

A gust of wind blew up off the water, sending a chill through him. Suddenly exhausted, he sat on one of the storage bins and braced his elbows on his knees with his head in his hands. There had to be an answer. Beneath the pier, the waves rushed in and out, but nothing came to him.

As dusk gathered, footsteps sounded on the wooden planks. He looked up to find Scott heading toward him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked sourly, remembering Scott's wish for him to suffer.

"Allison and I have been up at the house waiting for you to join the celebration."

"Celebration?" He frowned when Scott held one of two champagne flutes out to him. "What in the world could you possibly find to be happy about on a day like this?"

"Oooh, I don't know." Scott sat beside him, stretching his legs out and crossing his ankles. "Life in general. And me being the luckiest son of a bitch who ever lived."

Adrian looked at him.

Scott grinned from ear to ear. "Allison's pregnant."

"What?" Adrian's heart lifted.

"We've known for a while, but she wanted to get past the first trimester before she told anyone. Today, though, we went in for the sonogram and ..."

"And ..."

Scott's smile got even broader."Twins."

"You're kidding?" Adrian wanted to laugh. "Twins? God, that's ... perfect. Really perfect. Alli must be beside herself."

"She's so happy, she's been laughing and crying since we found out."

"How are you holding up?"

Scott chuckled. "I'll let you know as soon as the shock wears off, but for now, I feel pretty damn good. Twins. Yeah." He shook his head, looking dazed. "So, what's up with you? Are you out here fuming over that news report?"

Adrian's good mood evaporated. "That, and Jackie wants to call off the engagement. She's convinced she's going down and taking all of us with her."

"I have to say, I don't envy her at all. Having people hang your whole life out for public inspection is enough to get my stomach going."

"Really?" Adrian said straight-faced, since he knew how Scott felt on the subject. "And here I thought you liked being interviewed."

"Nearly as much as having a root canal. It occurs to me, though, that you and Jackie are going about this all wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"Rather than avoiding the press, why not do the opposite?"

"Actually, I've been trying to tell Jackie exactly that. She won't listen. She wants to keep her name out of the news."

"Too late for that," Scott said. "At this point, what does she have to lose? All her secrets are out. Why not go on the offensive? Hire a press agent. Face the world as the happily engaged couple to balance the negative reports. One thing about public opinion, you can turn it in an instant with the right illusion."

"Telling the world I'm in love with Jackie Taylor, and that she's a decent, honest person, would hardly be an illusion."

"All the more reason to do it."

"A press agent, huh?" He mulled it over, then shook his head. "She'll never go for it."

"Maybe you're just not trying hard enough to convince her." Scott arched a brow. "Now, come up to the house and congratulate your sister."

"I'll be there in a minute." When Scott left, Adrian turned back to stare over the water. The sun had finally dropped below the horizon and the first stars had come out. He remembered the night he and Jackie had stood on the balcony, gazing at the sky. The memory was so clear, he swore he could feel her presence there beside him. Was she looking up at the same stars? Making a wish? Did she even know how?

If he could make one wish, it would be to have her with him now. If only he could talk to her in person and convince her to believe in all the possibilities and promise their future held.

~ ~ ~

Jackie stood on the quarterdeck, staring up at the sky and aching as if a part of her were dying. She knew she was doing the right thing, but she missed Adrian desperately, yearned for him with everything inside her.

Don't,
she warned herself.
Don't want. Don't hope. Don't dream. You'll only get hurt in the end.

And yet, these last months, she'd let herself hope for so much, she didn't know how to stop. A part of her heart she'd held in check all her life yearned with a vastness that felt as wide and deep as the Gulf. She focused on the brightest star in the sky and pictured Adrian in her mind.

I wish you were here.

The only answer was the whispering of the breeze and the lapping of the water. Turning away, she headed for her cabin, then lay awake for hours, before finally drifting to sleep.

Sometime in the night, she heard a noise, like the scuffling of boots out on the main deck. Since no one was on board but her, the sound jolted her to full wakefulness. She forced herself to lie still, listening. The footsteps moved to the lounge, heading straight toward her door. In one fluid move, she grabbed the gun off the shelf above her head, sat up in the middle of the bed, and bracing the pistol in both hands, pointed at the door.

The door opened, revealing the silhouette of a man backlit by the moonlight coming through the aft hatch.

"Freeze! Or I'll blow a hole through your chest the size of Barbados!"

"Shit!" The intruder stepped back so fast, he hit the door and moonlight fell on his face.

"Adrian!" She lowered the gun, her heart in her throat. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to talk to you."

"It's the middle of the night. How'd you get on board?"

"I climbed over the gate."

"Couldn't you have called?"

"Oh yeah, talking on the phone has been so effective the past few days, why didn't I think of that? Now, do you think you could put that cannon away?"

She turned and put the gun back on the shelf. "What time is it?"

"Around two A.M., I think." He came forward and climbed onto the bed on all fours. "Scoot over."

"What are you doing?" She moved back against the wall to give him room.

"Lying down." He flopped onto his back and draped an arm over his eyes. "I've had a bitch of a day, then spent five hours on a motorcycle getting here, and now I have the headache from hell. You got any aspirin?"

She stared at his big body stretched out on her bed, stunned by his presence, then climbed over him and went to the medicine cabinet in the head. Still reeling from the thought that he'd cared enough to come after her, she returned with the aspirin and a glass of water. "Here you go."

"Thanks." He sat up and took them from her, then frowned at what she was wearing. "Is that my shirt?"

She tugged at the tail of the white dress shirt that she'd started sleeping in as a way to be close to him. "You, um, left it here that first night."

"Oh yeah. I forgot." He swallowed the aspirin, then set the glass on the shelf. "Okay, here's the deal. You are not breaking up with me."

"Says who?" Her amazement vanished as she planted her hands on her hips.

"Says me. I'm the guy who doesn't take no for an answer, remember?"