Hours to Cherish (27 page)

Clay chuckled, planting a nipping kiss on her shoulder as he propelled her up the ladder. “I don’t think anyone will notice,” he said, his voice a husky velvet. “Sam will be keeping an eye out while Ariel and Peter dive. We found the treasure chambers, they’ll be ready to find and bring up the gold and silver ingots.”

“Oh!” Cat exclaimed, pausing halfway up. “Oh, Clay, I forgot! Don’t you want to be there to find the gold?”

“No.” Cat was stunned as he planted a hand on her derriere and pushed her over the edge into
Sea Witch II
. Before she could protest or pick herself up from the decking, he had come behind her and swept her dripping form into his equally dripping but marvelously strong and heated arms. “I came searching for a treasure, my love, but all the treasure that I sought is here, here in my arms.” Whimsically he kissed her eyes. “Emeralds far more dazzling than those of the Aztec jewels, and”—he began a delightful patter of moist, feathered kisses along her shoulder to the sensitive flesh of her throat and added huskily—“here I have a found a gold more beautiful and volatile than that even of the sun.”

Cat circled her arms around his neck. “Do go on,” she murmured, every bit as aware as he that, indeed, they had both truly found treasure.

Clay smiled and began to stride with her in his arms across the deck. “My love,” he murmured, “I intend to do just that.”

I
N THE HEAT OF
the night he was running, running.

A low-lying ground fog shielded him, putting him on another plane of reality, as if he were racing on a treadmill through endless clouds. He could hear the sound of his breathing. It was a good sound, as was the feel of his run, long legs stretching, muscles released, each slap of his feet carrying him onward over the coolness of damp sand.

He ran for the joy of running, for the delicious feel of the air filling his lungs, the energy and vitality that soared throughout his body. And because ahead of him, he could see her. …

An ethereal figure in the mist, she was clothed in a cloak of deepest sable hair; it draped her slender, figure like velvet, drifted in a fan of silk, framed the fine features of her face … a slow-curving, enticing smile … emerald eyes that lured with challenge and promise. …

He knew her, he knew the smile, he knew the eyes that glittered their beguilement. Oh, so well he knew the stunning sea witch who haunted his dreams day and night.

She laughed, a sound that was melody on air, the delightful tinkle of water, breathy and light. And she turned to run, that cloak of luxurious hair spinning behind her, long lean legs agile as she padded swiftly across the sand.

He increased his own pace. Laughter filled his own chest, and the sound was good. It, too, was breathy and light.

He reached out for her. And his fingers tangled into that cloak of richest night velvet.

Her laughter became a tiny exclamation, and then they were no longer running. They were tumbling to the sand, laughing as they rolled along its delectable dampness. His hands were touching silk, that of her hair, that of her sleek, golden flesh.

He leaned over her, smiling as his fingers curled gently over her shoulders. Her emerald eyes met his, brilliant with love and laughter. …

He awoke in a cold sweat, and it took him several seconds to assimilate his surroundings. Then a smile curved his lips. Dawn was breaking, yet the remainder of their nighttime fire still flickered in the sand. He reached a hand beside him, then his smile became a frown as he touched nothing but sand.

He looked up, toward the shore, and his smile tenderly returned as he lifted a brow in appreciative query. She was coming to him, from the sea, golden skin damp and shimmering, her lips ever so slightly parted, her eyes a glistening seduction of the enigmatic sea itself. She moved to him slowly, her walk steady and lithe, her slender form at radiant perfection with the gentle sway of her bare hips.

Her smile deepened as she stood before him; a smile of deepest beguilement and sweetest ultimate promise.

He reached out to touch her. His hands encountered silk and velvet, vibrant and alive, pulsing with warmth and heat.

She was in his arms and they were rolling in the sand … emerald and jet eyes meeting in a dazzling flame to challenge that of the crimson burst of the morning sun.

He reached for her, and she was there.

It was summer again.

The season of the sea witch.

And he was home.

Heather Graham (b. 1953) is one of the country’s most prominent authors of romance, suspense, and historical fiction. She has been writing bestselling books for nearly three decades, publishing more than 150 novels and selling more than seventy-five million copies worldwide.

Born in Florida to an Irish mother and a Scottish father, Graham attended college at the University of South Florida, where she majored in theater arts. She spent a few years making a living onstage as a back-up vocalist and dinner theater actor, but after the birth of her third child decided to seek work that would allow her to spend more time with her family.

After early efforts writing romance and horror stories, Graham sold her first novel,
When Next We Love
(1982). She went on to write nearly two dozen contemporary romance novels.

In 1989 Graham published
Sweet Savage Eden
, which initiated the Cameron family saga, an epic six-book series that sets romantic drama amid turbulent periods of American history, such as the Civil War. She revisited the nineteenth century in
Runaway
(1994), a story of passion, deception, and murder in Florida, which spawned five sequels of its own.

In the past decade, Graham has written romantic suspense novels such as
Tall, Dark, and Deadly
(1999),
Long, Lean, and Lethal
(2000), and
Dying to Have Her
(2001), as well as supernatural fiction. In 2003’s
Haunted
she created the Harrison Investigation service, a paranormal detective organization that she spun off into four Krewe of Hunters novels in 2011.

Graham lives in Florida, where she writes, scuba dives, and spends time with her husband and five children.

Graham (left) with her sister.

Graham with her family in New Orleans. Pictured left to right: Dennis Pozzessere; Zhenia Yeretskaya Pozzessere; Derek, Shayne, and Chynna Pozzessere; Heather Graham; Jason and Bryee-Annon Pozzessere; and Jeremy Gonzalez.

Graham at a photo shoot in Key West for the promotion of the Flynn Brothers trilogy.

Graham at the haunted Myrtles plantation, Francisville, Louisiana.

Graham and the Slushpile Band playing the Memnoch the Devil Ball at the Undead Con in New Orleans, 2010.

Graham with dear friend, actor Doug Jones.

Graham (third from left) with F. Paul Wilson, R. L. Stine, Jon Land, and other friends at the seventh annual ThrillerFest, held in New York City, 2011. The authors participated in the “Be Book Smart” campaign organized by Reading Is Fundamental, the nation’s oldest and largest children’s literacy organization.