The Virgin and the Vengeful Groom (6 page)

After three aspirin, washed down with last night's stale coffee, she stood in front of her closet and pondered what to wear. One of the skills she was working on was how to dress appropriately for the occasion. Things had been easier back when she'd worn whatever she could swipe from other people's clotheslines. Now she fought a constant battle between her personal desire for anonymity and her publisher's insistence on exposure. They'd even given her a Web page, for gosh sake, and she wasn't even online. Lily the writer wore silks and strappy high heels. The real Lily dressed down. Way down.

She opted for baggy slacks, a man's shirts, and a pair
of sneakers—the discount store variety, not the name brand. This was a working trip, not a publicity tour.

“You trying to prove something, Lily?” she asked, all innocence.

“Damn right I am!” she growled back at the mirror.

And that was another thing—she'd have to try to remember not to talk to herself while she was at Powers Point. At least not out loud. And definitely not to talk to Bess.

He was early. Her doorbell rang at one minute to ten. Armor firmly in place, Lily opened the door, silently daring him to comment on her baggy eyes, her baggy slacks or any other bags he happened to notice.

“Rough night?” He noticed, all right.

“Caffeine,” she snapped.

“Right. Any more gifts?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

He lifted his brows in a silent challenge, which she chose to ignore. “It's your choice. Did you tell anyone where you were going?”

“Well, sure I did. I called the president, and he said he'd have the FBI and the CIA keep an eye on my underwear drawer.” She wished she'd taken the time to camouflage the shadows under her eyes. Knowing she looked like hell gave him the advantage. “Could we just get this show on the road?”

Something about the way he was looking at her made her regret her attitude. If she didn't know better, she might even believe he cared. Another thing she wasn't very good at was apologies, but she felt compelled to give it a shot. “I'm not at my best early in the morning, okay?”

He glanced pointedly at his watch. It was one of those ugly ones with all the bells and whistles that did everything
but tie your shoelaces for you. She'd had one once, but she'd never been able to figure out how to set it.

They were standing there by a ton of stuff that was going to have to be dragged downstairs and loaded into her car. Sleep deprived or not, if they didn't get moving she was going to lose her nerve, and then she'd be right back where she started—stuck with all the flakes, weirdos and other vermin. Her stress level registered at least a 6.8 on whatever scale such things were measured by. No wonder he was looking at her as if he didn't know whether to run or throw a hammerlock on her. She could have told him that he himself was a large part of the problem.

Trouble was, he was also a part of the solution—at least on a temporary basis.

He smelled of shaving cream. Not cologne, but plain old, drugstore shave cream. Gold watches, tasseled loafers, heavy cologne and Italian suits she could have handled easily. Clean, rumpled khakis, faded black knit shirts, ancient deck shoes on a plain, unadorned male might be a little harder to deal with.

“Look, are we going or not? I have to be back by the end of the week to start on a new proposal.”

He shrugged as if to say it was her call. Which it was. And then he reached for the box on the top of the stack, winced and set it down again.

“I've got a handcart there beside the sofa.”

“I wondered how you managed to get this stuff up here.”

“I'm not exactly stupid,” she told him. He looked as if he might argue the point, but instead, he slid the top box off onto the handcart, then reached for the next one.

Lily took one last look around inside, thought of all the reasons to go and all the reasons not to. It was the promise to Bess that tipped the scales.

Sure it was. A promise to a woman who's been dead for at least a century. And you think you're sane? Forget it, Lily, your last marble just rolled down the storm drain.

They took the elevator. Lily preferred the stairs, having an aversion to small, enclosed spaces, but she could hardly ask the man to hump the heavy cart down three flights, then return for the rest of the boxes. They'd left four of them outside her door, along with her suitcase. She had her laptop and her canvas tote with her. The tote was never out of sight. It was her survival kit.

“Stand guard over this one while I get the rest.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again. “This is a very safe neighborhood,” she replied, and he just looked at her. No words needed.

“Safer than most, anyway,” she called after him as he disappeared inside the old brick apartment house. Something was definitely wrong with his leg. Or maybe his back. He didn't like elevators any better than she did; didn't much care for stairs, either, but he wasn't about to let on. Self-confidence was one thing. Pigheadedness was another. She wasn't yet sure into which category Powers fell, but she had a feeling she'd soon find out.

“You do have juice, don't you?” she asked when the rest of the load had been relayed outside to the parking area.

“Juice?”

“You know, electricity?”

Except for his eyes, his expression remained unchanged. Lily could almost swear it was amusement she saw lurking in the dark-blue depths. Lord help her if the man had a sense of humor. She could resist almost anything but that.

“I've got juice.” He swung the first box up into the back of his pickup, grimaced and reached for the next one. She said, “We could fit all six boxes in my car if we put
two in the trunk, three in the back seat and one in the passenger seat.” She'd insisted on driving her own car. He hadn't argued.

“What, you don't trust me?”

“The last man I trusted was Santa Claus. I pretty much lost faith when Santa got stoned and forgot what day of the year it was.” Clamping her lips shut, she thought, why didn't I use that duct tape on my mouth instead of the boxes?

“We'll haul 'em in my truck.”

Lily took one last look at the old brick building, the first place she had ever truly thought of as home. For months she had practically camped out here, refusing to buy anything but the bare necessities in case her luck changed and she had to go back to scrounging to make ends meet. A writer's income, she'd quickly learned, came in spurts, if at all.

But her luck had not only held, it had continued to improve. Gradually she had dropped her guard and settled in. First she had bought plants. Next she'd furnished her office. Then she'd bought a faded, but beautiful, old fake Oriental rug, had bookshelves built and quickly filled them. Other touches—chairs and tables—had been added each time she finished a book. The antique doll, a few small, inexpensive paintings, each one representing another small triumph. Until recently it had been her haven, her reward, her favorite place in the world.

“Ready to ride?”

She lifted her chin and tilted her head slightly, the way the photographer had showed her the last time she'd had publicity shots done. It was supposed to imply self-confidence imbued with a hint of mystery. The real mystery was why she was doing this. As for self-confidence…

“Ready to ride,” she said.

C
urt handed her a map in case they got separated in traffic. “Just follow the course I've marked, watch for the turnoff onto Highway 12 to Hatteras, and keep going until you come to the bridge. I'll wait there for you.”

“Follow the yellow-marked road? Is that a bit of whimsy? I'd never have suspected it.” If her tone sounded mocking, it was sheer bravado.

Ignoring the remark, Curt watched her slide on a pair of dark glasses, the kind that marked her immediately as someone to notice, and wondered if he'd have been smarter to write off his losses and forget the whole thing. Was thirty-six old enough for a midlife crisis? Senility?

Granted, he'd hung on longer than most men in his line of work, but he could have sworn his brain had still been functioning. Evidently it had been deep-sixed right along with his diving career.

Headed south on Highway 168, Curt dealt with a num
ber of second thoughts. The Powers papers were now in his possession. They were rightfully his. He could lose Ms. Fancy-Pants on the way south, cut her out of the deal entirely, possession being nine-tenths of the law.

No, he couldn't. He could be a real bastard when he had to, but his integrity had never been called into question. So he would deal with the situation, share what he felt like sharing and ignore the fact that the lady got under his skin quicker than a whole herd of chiggers.

By now she was probably having a few second thoughts of her own. She hadn't struck him as the kind of woman who would follow a strange man home, but then, what did he know about women? He'd proved his lack of expertise. He was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, considering the situation she was in. Under heavy stress, common sense was often the first casualty. For all he knew she might be after something besides what was in those boxes. It wouldn't be the first time a woman had come on to him sexually when they'd learned what he was. Being a SEAL was a turn-on for a certain type of woman.

It would have been funny if it weren't so damned pathetic. Any man less dangerous would be hard to find. If that's what Lady Lily had in mind, then she was in for a disappointment. A quick one-night stand was out of the question.
Anything
quick was out of the question.

As for anything more protracted, experience had taught him that a man who suddenly drops out of sight for months at a time with no notice is a poor risk when it comes to intimate personal relationships.

 

Lily, following the tailgate of that monstrous silver pickup truck, wondered if menopause could set in at the age of twenty-eight. She'd put it down to an overload of
stress, but it could be hormonal. “It's only a business trip,” she reassured herself. “It's even tax deductible.”

She had a feeling there might be more involved, but this was no time for second thoughts. If she'd been layering a plot, she'd have limited herself on the complications. But she wasn't, and she couldn't, and so she settled for justifying—for rationalizing.

Getting out of town was a good idea. She'd be seeing a different area, and as a writer, it couldn't hurt to broaden her horizon. But the most compelling reason of all was that she would be sleeping in the same house—maybe even the same room—where Bess had once slept. If she opened herself up to the experience, and she was good at doing that, she could not only tell Bess's story, she might even be able to generate enough material that she could try her hand at writing historical suspense.

Lily drove confidently and well, and occasionally too fast, but not today. She had too much on her mind to risk getting pulled over. In scrambling out of harm's way, she had knowingly, deliberately put herself in the way of a different kind of harm. For her, that was a first.

Under the hypnotic spell of the road, she let her mind wander. What did he think of her? Just because she wrote about man-woman relationships, men occasionally got the idea that she was easy. She wasn't easy. What she was, was impossible. If Curt Powers tried anything, he would discover that, while she might not look it, she could easily handle a man who moved as if every bone in his body had been broken and mended with masking tape.

No matter how sexually attractive he was.

And he was that, all right. Funny, how quickly he'd sneaked in under her guard. As a rule the first thing she did when she found a man attractive was to remind herself of what could happen when a woman let a man get too
close. Case in point, her own mother. Once, after another unsuccessful attempt to get herself straightened out, her mother had told her that she'd run away from home at the age of fourteen, ended up on the streets, pregnant, hooked on drugs and scared out of her gourd. “Don't go that road, baby. Don't ever let a man use you, no matter what he promises in return. You're better than that. You're the only decent thing in my life.”

It hadn't lasted long, her mother's attempt to get off the stuff. The experts said it was never too late, but for some people, at some point, it was. Lily had managed to escape the trap. She'd done a lot of things she wasn't proud of, but she'd survived and managed to climb out of the hole, up to where the air was clean and fresh and sweet smelling. She didn't do drugs, she didn't smoke, she didn't drink. Even a glass of wine was off-limits. As for men, while she might fantasize—might even poke a toe in the waters, enjoying the occasional dinner date with a man who didn't attract her physically—this was the first time she had ever knowingly, deliberately, exposed herself to a man who affected her not only physically but mentally.

“Bess, you'd damn well better stick with me. I have a feeling this time I might need help.”

 

He was waiting at the Oregon Inlet Bridge. When she'd asked for a street address in case they got separated, he'd told her there was no street, much less a house number. “Cross the inlet, head south until you come to a village. Keep on going until there's nothing in sight but water, dunes and some scrubby vegetation. When you come to an unpainted house with a cemetery on one side and a few ramshackle outbuildings in the back, that's Powers Point. On second thought, just meet me at Oregon Inlet and I'll lead you there.”

While he waited, Curt was wondering if he had picked up his socks off the living room floor. Or taken the garbage out before he left. He wondered belatedly about the condition of his guest quarters. The last thing he'd expected when he'd headed north was that he'd be bringing someone home with him. He wasn't what you might call a people person. Never had been. Hell, he even went out of his way to buy groceries in the middle of the night, when there were fewer people around. He collected his mail when he happened to think of it. Most of it was junk mail, which didn't make it worth any extra effort. Which, come to think of it, was what had gotten him in trouble in the first place.

So okay—the house was no showplace. So he might have left a few unwashed dishes. No big deal. If Ms. O'Malley turned up her elegant nose at him, his house, and his lifestyle, it was no big deal. Hell, he didn't even have a lifestyle.

At least he had a life. For a while it had been touch and go. Style could wait until he figured out what he was going to do with the rest of it. Stay in or get out.

Three days, tops, he promised himself as he watched her signal a right turn and pull off the road. He would give her three days to go through his stuff, take whatever notes she wanted to take, and leave. He waited until she got out of her car to ease himself out of the high cab. He should've been walking around, working the kinks out while he waited. He should've worn his back brace, too, but then he didn't always do what was good for him. So he sauntered over to meet her—at least he tried to think of walking carefully so as not to jar anything loose as sauntering. “If you need to use the head, there's one here at the marina. Another one a few miles down the road at Pea Island.”

“Is that the wildlife sanctuary? I read about it in last
Sunday's paper. I'd rather stop there if you don't mind. I hope you haven't been waiting long.”

“Not at all,” he assured her. He might be a physical wreck, but even wrecks had their pride. Waiting for her to look her fill around the busy marina, he couldn't help but admire the way the sun highlighted her cheekbones and the long line of her throat. She wasn't precisely pretty. Forehead too high, nose too proud, cheekbones too pronounced. Patrician was a word that came to mind. He kind of thought it might apply here, and wondered for the first time about her background.

Whatever it was, it had to be a hell of a lot more impressive than his own.

“Let's move on,” she said. Stretching her arms out behind her, she flexed her shoulders. “I'm eager to get to Bess's house, to see if I can pick up anything from the ambience.”

“If it's vibes you're looking for, you might have to put up with some interference. The house is still pretty much the same, or so I've been told, but a lot's changed on the island since the early days. Tourists, for one thing. The bridge, the highway—surfers and wall-to-wall fishermen.” He nodded toward the nearby inlet, where sportsmen of all types, both in and out of boats, vied for space. “Hell, they even moved the lighthouse.”

She nodded. He could almost see her taking mental notes. He led the way, pulling into the state-sanctioned rest stop at Pea Island, with its state-sanctioned gift shop and nature trail. He hoped she didn't plan on doing any bird-watching. As usual he planned to get the job done and get out. Or in this case, open the boxes, take what he wanted and let her have the rest.

One thing he definitely looked forward to was being under his own roof, in his own bed, with all the doors and
windows wide open. A couple of nights in an airless motel was about all he could take. The food had been pretty good, but then, one of the things he'd been intending to do was to learn how to cook something besides bacon and eggs. His mother had been a lousy cook. Made a botch of her first marriage, too. Evidently, he'd inherited his lack of domestic genes from her side of the family.

While he waited for Lily to emerge, he considered the irony of going this far for a bunch of family records. For a guy who'd been a rolling stone ever since he'd graduated from high school, it was a switch. Suddenly he was a home owner. It sounded a little too much like having an anchor slung around his neck. Still, for the time being, he had nothing better to do than to explore his so-called legacy. Leaning against the hot metal side of the truck, absorbing the sun and salt air, he told himself that if he didn't watch it, he'd be soon planting flowers and hanging curtains at the windows.

He was still there when Lily emerged. Breathing deeply—or as deeply as he dared—of the clean salt air, he watched a pair of white herons lift off, admiring their graceful lines. Reluctantly he admired Lily's lines, too. He liked the way she moved, as if she knew precisely where she was going. With the wind pressing her loose shirt and slacks against her body, she managed to look fragile, feminine and resilient at the same time.

Hell of a thing. The woman could tick him off, turn him on and mess up his mind without even trying. And here he was, taking her home with him. The medics just might have been right when they'd warned him about discharging himself from the hospital too soon. Evidently, a few parts of his body were recovering faster than others.

Just don't start anything you can't finish, Powers.

They headed south. Curt was scowling when they left
Pea Island, grimacing with pain by the time they pulled into what passed for his driveway. He parked over in the sand, leaving the narrow stretch of marl to her. That toy car of hers wasn't cut out for sand driving. Pausing a moment before easing himself out of the high cab, he took in the now-familiar surroundings. House, outbuildings, tombstones and what was left of an ancient wharf down on the marshy edge of the Pamlico Sound.

Stark was the word that came to mind here. If the weathered frame house that had obviously been added onto at random had ever boasted a lick of paint, there was no sign of it now. The whole thing sloped slightly to the northeast. There were a few sections of picket fence still standing, one on the ground. A few rusty strands of barbed wire curled uselessly around some freestanding posts.

Well, hell, he hadn't promised her a rose garden.

“This looks…interesting.”

She'd come up behind him and caught him off guard, one more indication that he'd lost his edge. Whether or not he decided to take early retirement, he would do well not to forget his training.

“I'll carry your gear inside,” he said gruffly. “The boxes can wait until after I open up.”

The inside was no better than the outside. He didn't even know if the bed in the other room was dry. When he'd first moved in, everything inside had felt damp, smelled of mice and mildew, which wasn't too surprising in a house that had been boarded up for a couple of years. The key he'd been given wouldn't work, and rather than break in he'd driven down to Avon, the nearest village to the south, and made a few inquiries.

He'd located an old friend of his father's who had told him he'd boarded up the windows and put on new padlocks after the house had been broken into a few times.

“There weren't much left to steal. I reckon kids took whatever they could haul off. I'm real sorry about that. Me and your daddy sort of lost touch.”

You and me, both, Curt had wanted to say but hadn't. He'd opened up the place and let the wind blow through while a local carpenter made basic repairs. Once it was habitable, he'd moved in.

Marginally habitable, he amended now, watching the woman who looked as out of place as a pig at a tea party. Elegant, sexy and windblown, she was trying hard not to show her dismay.

“There's a pretty decent motel not too far from here. I can call and see if they have a vacancy,” he offered hopefully.