Shadow's Lady (A Pajaro Bay Cozy Mystery + Sweet Romance) (6 page)

She was asleep. Matt watched her for a while, watched the steady, relaxed breathing as she sat upright against the lighthouse tower's outer wall, her head resting forward on her chest. If she had started the day wearing makeup it had long since washed away, and her face looked eerily pale in the dimness. Oddly enough, his dog had abandoned him and was now curled up next to her. Ungrateful beast.

He leaned back against the iron railing and tried to gather his strength. It was still dark, but that meant nothing. The storm still raged outside, so it was impossible to tell if it was day or night. He could have been unconscious for a minute, or for hours. He rubbed his stiff neck. More likely hours.

Every once in a while the lightning flashed through the windows at the top of the tower. When it did, the little space where they sat was suddenly bright, and he saw the wooden floor of the landing gleaming in its old varnish, the heavy whitewashed block walls around them looming, massive enough to keep out the worst the storm could throw at the island.

And then his eyes would go back, inevitably, to the girl. Every time the lightning flashed, she was lit up again, like he'd first imagined her in his confused brain, a magical being, not of this world. Her shoulder-length blonde hair shimmered in the brief flares like waves of gold, a stream of radiant metal flowing around her face. Unforgettable, new, and yet somehow known to him. But now he realized why she seemed so familiar.

She looked exactly like Ms. Zelda. Not the elderly town matron who unofficially ruled Pajaro Bay through a combination of razor wit and sheer willpower. But the Zelda Potter immortalized on the silver screen many decades ago. The infamous and impossibly charismatic femme fatale who had strutted through detective flicks and epic romances and historical sagas, yet always seemed to be playing herself. The scene-stealing, smart-talking, tough-as-nails heroine with the blonde hair and the slinky figure. Lori looked eerily like her. And the similarity was apparently not just skin deep.

She was too much like Ms. Zelda, from the little he'd seen. Zelda Potter was stubborn, smart, and always got the last word. All the reports he'd read on Lorelei York said she was sheltered, innocent, and meek.

Meek. Hah. Apparently those doing the reporting had never been on the receiving end of her right hook. The girl could pack a punch. He was the first to admit he'd deserved it.

But she didn't deserve him. The last thing he remembered hearing before he passed out had been her anguished cry asking him why he'd done it.

It still seemed to echo in the empty shaft. Far below them the marine radio lay shattered and useless. Now she was trapped here with a monster, alone and helpless.

He put one hand on his stomach, still sore from where she'd slugged him. Not so helpless. But still, she was unarmed and completely unaware of how much danger she was in.

Why couldn't she have the radio? Because he couldn't let her call. He couldn't let her tell her story of finding a wounded man on the island. Not over an open radio channel, where anyone could hear. Where whomever had shot him might hear.

Even without the radio, there was still danger. Logically, the shooter would search for him. And logically, the lighthouse island would be the place to look. There was nowhere else to search. If he hadn't made it to shore, he would be on the island, or dead somewhere out in the open sea. The killer would realize that, and would come here, as soon as the storm let up enough for a boat to get here. The storm might hold them at bay for a while, but it would pass eventually, and the danger would come, and they'd be helpless against it.

He had to get himself and the girl off the island before that happened.

He tried to stand up, then bit back the groan as the pain shot from his ankle to his hip. He sat back down and stretched the leg out gingerly, trying to keep the raw wound from touching the floor. Somewhere along the way he'd lost the improvised bandage Lori had made. And now he finally had a chance to get a look at the leg. In the semi-darkness he could make out the gouge the bullet had carved in his flesh as it had passed from his ankle up to his knee. Missed the knee completely. Just grazed through flesh without hitting any bones at all, from the feel of it. He had been incredibly lucky. And it had probably done it good to soak it in salt water for a while. Looked pretty clean, considering everything. He'd have a scar, but he could just add it to his collection.

He wished he knew who had shot him. He tried to remember the sounds, the sights, anything that had happened before the bullet had come at him out of the darkness. But there was nothing. It had been cloudy. The moon had still been out but was almost completely obscured by the approaching storm.

He leaned his head back against the railing. Nothing. Shadowfax had been sitting in his usual spot in the front seat of the kayak, and he'd been in back paddling. The dog had been relaxed. There couldn't have been a boat nearby. Even if he hadn't noticed anything, Shadowfax would have barked or growled, or at least reacted in some way to an approaching boat. This bore all the signs of a high-powered rifle shot from some distance, probably with a thermal scope. Which made it a planned attack. By an expert. Not just anyone could have hit him in a bobbing kayak through the fog from possibly a hundred yards away.

It wasn't like he was surprised to have people gunning for him. He'd made plenty of enemies. But he hadn't expected to be shot here, in Pajaro Bay. Not now. Not when he was supposedly out of reach of his enemies in the Mexican cartel. Being shot didn't fit with the carefully conceived plan they'd concocted.

Something had gone terribly wrong. And now he was out of touch with his colleagues at the Project. By now they'd be looking for him. But they couldn't tip their hand, since they had no idea who could be trusted. So they couldn't send the Coast Guard for him. Calling out the troops would imply that they had connections in the government, and that was the last thing they wanted. Matteo DiPietro was the leader of a band of criminals the government was trying to catch. That myth had to be maintained at all costs. At the cost of his life, if necessary. That was the whole point of this exercise. Find out who in the U.S. was working with Moreno. Someone had to be feeding him info on their movements. They needed to lure Moreno out of hiding, and they also needed to catch the accomplice who lurked somewhere close enough to follow their movements—possibly within the Project itself.

And Matteo DiPietro, the "Shadow," the evil gangster who had worked with Moreno and then deliberately and very publicly betrayed him, was the bait at the center of this high-stakes game of hide and seek.

If all had gone according to plan, Matt would have come out to the lighthouse, met Lori, and convinced her to come back to shore with him—either by befriending her, or, failing that, by pulling his evil gangster act and scaring her into leaving.

Getting shot had ruined the whole plan.

If he knew where they'd gone wrong, he'd know from which direction the danger came. As it was, he couldn't trust anyone, and couldn't let her trust anyone. Not until he could contact his people. Not until he could figure out a way out of this.

•••

"Why'd you do it?"

He was still sitting where he'd landed when she punched him. But he was awake, his eyes glittering at her in the semi-darkness.

She made a fist and got a handful of fur. She looked down to see the giant black dog curled up next to her, his big, bony head resting against her thigh.

She pulled her hand away. "Get off me!"

The dog looked at her mournfully and sighed.

"He's not dangerous. He's a very nice old dog," the man said.

"Sure. Okay." She sidled away from it, then wrapped her arms around her knees in a protective gesture. "So why did you wreck the radio?"

He took a deep breath. "Did I?" he asked innocently. "What radio?"

She frowned, trying to figure out whether he was lying or not. "You must remember...?"

He looked around. "This is the lighthouse, right?"

She nodded. The dog leaned over to put his head on her again. "Stop!" she said with as much authority as she could muster. The dog ignored her.

"He understands hand signals," the man said gently. "Look." He raised his hand, palm up, and the dog sat up straight.

"Okay, what's the hand signal for get away from me?"

The man gestured toward himself and the dog got up and went over to sit down next to him. The dog punctuated this with another big sigh.

"Does he always make so much noise?"

"He's probably tired. He had to swim here." He paused. "Didn't he?"

"I guess so." She looked at the man across the landing from her in the darkness. Another streak of lightning lit the room, and she could see how pale he was, and how his hands shook when he petted the dog. He was still wearing the ripped wetsuit, which was probably pretty uncomfortable. Overall, he looked lousy. Handsome, but lousy. It was probably mean of her to doubt his honesty after all he'd been through.

He gazed back at her, as if a bit lost. "You're the girl with the chocolate cookies?" It was a question. Gee, she had really made an impression on him.

She nodded. "So you went surfing and got thrown into the water?"

He nodded sort-of tentatively. "Kayaking. We had gone for our pre-dawn run across the bay, and then...?" He trailed off. "I... remember being in the water, without him." One hand petted the dog. "I'm not sure."

The constant patter of the rain against the windows above them continued. The thunder boomed an echo each time the light flashed. The storm was not moving away, but apparently had parked itself right over their heads. Sitting in a lighthouse tower during a thunderstorm—the highest point for many miles around—probably wasn't a great idea. Yet here she was, doing all kinds of stupid things she couldn't have imagined just a month ago.

And if this man was a crazy person and she died out here because of his idiocy? How long would it take for someone to come look for her?

Her thoughts must have shown on her face.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

She rubbed her leg where he'd last gripped her with that killer hand of his. "You already did."

"I did?" He looked really stricken. "Why did I do that?"

"I have no idea why you do anything. Why'd you come out right before a bad storm? Why'd you destroy the radio?"

"You keep saying that. Why would I do that?"

"I'm asking you."

He put his head in his hands. He seemed to be almost consciously willing himself to get better. He rested his head on his knees as if the weight of it was just too much to bear.

The dog set his long nose on the man's arm. In the dimness, the black dog's muzzle showed flecks of white. He'd called it a "nice old dog." Did dogs get gray hair when they aged? She knew so little about them. Maybe it wasn't as scary as she'd assumed. It seemed more sad than anything, and kept looking at its master as if worried about him. Funny. She hadn't expected a dog to have an actual personality of its own. She was struck again by how little she knew of the world outside the shelter of her family.

The thunder finally grew more distant as they sat silently in the cold tower. It was hard to believe she was here, alone on an island with a stranger across from her, so far from everything she'd ever known. The tick of the light overhead continued endlessly, almost silently, as it had for a century. The foghorn was off, so the storm must be letting up at least a bit.

They were alone in the world, surrounded by ocean and rain and wind. But the foot-thick stone walls felt solid against her back, and while the wind whistled outside, they were safe in here, out of the storm.

Lori got to her feet. She went over and knelt down in front of the man. With one hand she felt his wrist, and with the other on his forehead she felt how cold and damp his skin was. He was in terrible shape. The pulse under her fingers was all jumbled and erratic.

"Come on," she said. "We've got to get you warmed up and put you to bed."

Without a word he got up and started down.

She and the dog were behind him, and they had to take one step and then pause to give him time to catch his breath and hop down to the next one.

The dog clung to her side, no matter how much she glared at it. By the time they'd made it all the way down the stairs she'd gotten used to it and didn't flinch when the big furry beast bumped into her. He was actually kind of sweet the way he gallumphed down each stair, patiently waiting for his master to continue. Every once in a while the dog would glance up at her with a big toothy grin as if to say, "he's kind of slow, but I like him."

In the hallway he hesitated. She was going to put him in her bedroom, but he headed back toward the kitchen and she was too tired to argue, so she just followed him.

Once there, he just lay down in front of the stove, and that was that. The dog curled up next to him with another one of its huge sighs.

The man still wore the wetsuit, but didn't seem interested in changing clothes, and she didn't really have anything suitable for him to put on. So she just grabbed the blanket she'd dropped by the Aga and laid it over him. He was already asleep, so she let him lie there and sat down in a wicker rocking chair in the corner of the kitchen to wait.

For what, she didn't know.

He must have slept for hours. When he awoke, at first he thought he was back in his childhood bedroom at Wharf Flats, in the hard little bed with the race car sheets and the sound of the sea nearby.

But he knew that wasn't right. He put a hand up to his forehead and realized he was wearing his wetsuit. That was odd.

Then he saw her. She sat curled up in a faded wicker chair in the corner of the kitchen, blonde hair over her face, knees tucked up to her chin.

Then her head came up and he realized she was awake. "At last," she said.

"At last?"

"You slept for hours."

It all came back then. He was surprised she hadn't thrown him out after he destroyed her radio. So nobody had found them yet. "How long?"

She shrugged. "I slept, too. At least ten hours."

His shock must have shown, because she added, "we both had a rough time, so I guess we needed it." She hesitated, then uncurled her body and padded over to him, "In fact...," she said as her hand reached down for his forehead. "You still look pretty pale. I think you're suffering from exposure."

The small hand brushed his head. It felt hot. She frowned down at him. Hypothermia would explain his inability to pull himself together. But he couldn't just lie here on the floor.

He started to get up but she held him down with one hand. The fact that she could do that told him how bad off he really was. "Okay," he said, "I give in, you brute." It was clear he couldn't go anywhere at the moment. But he had to come up with a plan. He lay back and closed his eyes, trying to figure out what to do.

She cleared her throat and he opened his eyes. She was standing, arms crossed, watching him. He tried a faint smile.

"So...," she said. Again that hesitation, but he was beginning to see that though she was shy, there was a deep intelligence at work behind those innocent eyes. And that was dangerous, for her and for him.

"My name's Lori—Lori York. But I guess you already know that?" It was a question. He'd evaded it once before, could he make it two for two?

"Somebody in town mentioned it...?" he said, putting just a touch of confusion in his expression, in preparation for the inevitable follow-up question. He felt a sense of relief as his instincts clicked into place and he settled into the familiar analytical pattern. Be a Shadow. Observe the target, see what she wants you to be, and become that person while always aiming toward your own goal. Worked every time. He waited for the question.

"And you're from Pajaro Bay." It wasn't a question, so no response was required. Good. He kept the slightly confused, I'm-just-a-harmless-lost-sailor expression on his face and waited.

"So what's your name?"

His name.

Now was not the time to turn her into his enemy. Just a few more hours in this warm, quiet sanctuary and he'd be fine. The storm would pass, and then he'd get them both out of here, and he could get back to his life, such as it was.

And she could get back to her life, somewhere far away from here.

He just had to stall for a little longer before he could pull himself together. She'd be none the wiser.

Matt closed his eyes, covering his thoughts with the expression of someone too tired to answer a difficult question like what his name was.

She gave him a gentle pat on his shoulder. "You need to rest here some more."

Then she asked, "How about the dog?"

He looked over and saw Shadowfax was lying on an old-fashioned braided rug next to the wicker chair, presumably covering it in globs of fur.

She rubbed the dog on the head. Apparently she was over her fear of him. "Has he got a name?"

Matt said nothing, simply watching through half-closed eyelids as she felt around the dog's neck until she found his collar.

"Shadowfax?" she read from the tag. He wondered if she knew where the name came from. It was possible. She'd named her cat after a Shakespearean character, so she wasn't the type to be intimidated by a thick book. He wished he could talk to her, about literature, and philosophy, and life out here in the cradle of the sea—and about how she got that one blonde curl to fall down over her forehead so adorably.

But he could see the questions in her eyes—who was he? what was he doing out here?—so he closed his eyes again.

He sank into the warmth of the nest by the stove—and the warmth of the gentle woman humming to herself as she bustled around looking for a pan to heat a can of soup for him. The fuzzy blanket, the fluffy cat glaring at him with its rhinestone collar twinkling every time it moved, the scent of flowers still wafting from some soap she'd washed with—if he closed his eyes he could imagine this was his house, and the woman with the blonde curls was his woman, someone who actually knew him but loved him anyway—not "fell for him," or "was seduced by him," but loved him, the real him.

He sighed. There was no real him. He wasn't home. He was working, and he'd made a mess of this job. Now he had to get back on his feet and see if the damage could be repaired so he could get back in control of the situation.

She was still talking to him while he lay there. He listened while she told him about her life, rambling on to fill the silence in the room.

He closed his eyes again and let her words wash over him as she talked about herself and about her family.

There were gaps there. She wasn't talking about her epilepsy, which he supposed wasn't something she wanted to mention to a stranger.

And she hadn't explained why a pretty young woman with a wealthy family and a successful fiancé would run off to live at a lighthouse thousands of miles from home.

And what about that fiancé: why hadn't she mentioned the dude, who from all reports was rich, good looking and madly in love with her? The guy's driver's license photo had shown a clean-cut man with a kind face, obviously the perfect type for someone like her. Someone exactly the opposite of Matteo DiPietro.

For some reason Matt felt himself hating the jerk, but that was beside the point. Mister Right should have been one of the first things little Lori mentioned to a strange man lying on her kitchen floor.

But that wasn't really important, not to him anyway. He didn't need to know about the woman's personal affairs. He was just here for the soup.

So why did that feel like a lie?

Omissions aside, her chattering had confirmed all the essential information he had on her. Father a successful attorney in Chicago. Old money family. Mansion in Gold Coast neighborhood with all the bells and whistles, from servants to a conservatory. (He'd had to look up what a conservatory was when he read the report. Who knew there were greenhouses that cost more than the average house? Learn something new every day.) Home schooled until high school, then went to a very snooty private school. No hint of scandal. No addictions, no parking tickets, no arrests for nude sunbathing. As clean and innocent as she looked.

And she had no connections here in Pajaro Bay. Except Zelda Potter, of course. She still hadn't mentioned Ms. Zelda, or why a young woman with a life somewhere else would come to stay in a small town where her only relative was an elderly retired movie star.

Or why she'd choose to come to an island lighthouse and be all alone, where any outlaw could just land on her doorstep without warning.

"You don't know anyone around here?" he prompted her at the next lull in the monologue.

"My aunt's president of the lighthouse preservation committee. I found out about the temporary job here from Aunt Zee—that's what I call her. She's my great aunt, actually. I suppose she'd be a bit old to be my aunt. She's Zelda Potter, or, well, she was—or I guess she is again?" She smiled. "Zelda Potter-Smith-Valentine-McCabe-Potter, that is. Do you know her? If you're from around here, I imagine she's hard to miss."

"Ah," he said, as if this were news to him. "Our resident movie star." He relaxed as she confirmed all the info he'd been briefed about. Zelda Potter was her only local connection. It was all perfectly innocent. She'd had a fight with her fiancé or something, and she'd come out to California to cool off, or escape, or take a vacation. It was just his suspicious nature that had made him think she must have some other agenda in coming here to this isolated place at this particular time. "So you've never been to California before?"

"No. Aunt Zee visits the family at holidays, and she and I used to talk a lot when I was a kid. She thinks the rest of my family's a bit too much. So do I," she added, then looked surprised at herself for admitting it.

No reason for surprise. You'll tell me everything before I'm done.

"So, you seem to be feeling better," she said, and he realized he'd gotten smug too soon, and this was her attempt to turn the tables on him. Those wide blue eyes looked him up and down, assessing his condition in a way that was too astute for comfort. "Now that you've had a chance to catch your breath, do you feel like talking a bit?"

About who he was, and how he got here. No, he didn't feel like it. He tried to look tired, which wasn't too difficult to do under the circumstances.

"I don't even know what to call you...," she said. She waited for his response.

He hesitated just a fraction. He could make something up. But the mind behind those big blue eyes was too clever for a flippant lie. He had the disconcerting feeling that those innocent eyes might actually see through him to the truth if she stared long enough.

Besides, the truth was always safer, wherever possible. Lies have to be remembered, they have to be consistent. And she was from the midwest. No connections to town except Zelda Potter, who had easily won the role of official town eccentric against Pajaro Bay's rather stiff competition. That settled it.

"Matt," he said, hesitating about whether to be Matt Smith or Matt Jones, and then realized that wouldn't work if he ran into 'Aunt Zee' in town. "Matt DiPietro."

"Nice to meet you, Matt DiPietro," she said. Her smile took his breath away, and he had to remind himself not to care how sweet and kissable she looked with her gold hair all rumpled and her eyes sparkling like that.

He spoke quickly, covering his thoughts: "I never did thank you for rescuing me. I had taken Shadowfax out kayaking and we got knocked into the water when the storm hit." There. That ought to fill in all the blanks for her.

She looked appalled. "You could've gotten killed."

No kidding. He put on a contrite expression, and added in his best surfer-dude voice: "The waves are sick in this weather—I couldn't resist the chance to ride some big ones." Or the chance to come see her....

"You could've bled to death."

Getting grazed by a bullet will do that. "Yup. I was dumb. I promise I won't do it again." He smiled winsomely at her. "Is the soup ready?"

•••

By nightfall Lori was convinced her patient was almost as good as new. After they had both rested for a while, she managed to help him down the hall to the bedroom. He lay on his back on her brass bed, a situation saved from sexy overtones only by the sight of his injured leg resting on a stack of pillows, with the swollen but healthily pink toes sticking out from the end of the bandage.

There were dark circles under his eyes, but Matt—now at last she knew what to call him—finished the entire bowl of chicken soup she brought him, along with one-and-a-half toasted bagels. The remaining bagel half went to Shadowfax, who added doggy drool and bagel crumbs to the ocean of black hair he was happily spreading on Aunt Zee's white chenille bedspread.

"You get some sleep, pup," she said, hesitantly patting the dog on the head.

"And you too, Matt," she added softly to the man dozing with one arm resting protectively across the dog's body.

Some memory tickled at the edge of her consciousness. "Matt DiPietro. Why is that name familiar?"

Matt's body tensed up as he jerked to alertness, and she instantly felt sorry for speaking and pulling him back to consciousness when he had been almost asleep. The leg must be really bothering him, but he was being macho again and trying not to admit that he was in pain.

"DiPietro?" The name rolled off her tongue as she tried to say it with the soft Italian-flavored lilt his voice had when he pronounced it.

He said nothing, but his eyes were wide open now.

"Where have I heard that name?" she asked again. "Your family's from Pajaro Bay, isn't it?"

He nodded. He was trying to look nonchalant, but he was so tense. She adjusted the pillow under his leg, hoping that would ease the pain.

Finally it came to her. "I remember! Matteo's Oceanside Pizzeria. On the Wharf. Aunt Zee took me there.
Best Pizza in Town
—"

"—
Only Pizza in Town
," he finished the phrase, quoting the saying etched on the front door.

"So the restaurant was named after you?"

Again that tenseness. "My grandfather," he said. "The restaurant and I were both named after him."

"He must be proud."

"He's dead."

"Oh."

"It's okay. A land mine in World War II. Not exactly recent history." It did seem to bother him, though. But he brushed it off, and instead asked: "So what did you have for dinner?"

"Abalone pasta. With those soft breadsticks—to die for. I thought abalone always tasted like rubber, but this was...," she paused, trying to describe it. "It melted in my mouth. You're lucky; you must have had great dinners at home when you were growing up."

Matt smiled that devastating grin at her, the tenseness going out of his shoulders as he relaxed back against the pillows. Whatever part of his battered body had been hurting him, the pain had passed. "Yeah. You should try the Anguilla Alla Griglia some time. Now that's to die for." He grinned at her like a mischievous little boy.

"I will," she promised. "What the heck is it?"

"Grilled eels," he said.

She gave him a suitably disgusted look and he laughed, little crinkles forming at the corners of his eyes. What fortune had dropped this man into her life? He was smart, and funny, and considerate, and he was handsome beyond all reason. She almost wished he was staying here for more than a night.