The Honeymoon Assignment Page 3

  “So am I supposed to sit around like some kind of Barbie doll, being decorative while you solve the case?” she asked.

  “You can do whatever you like. Hell, it’s a nice spot. Relax. Take the week off. Enjoy yourself.”

  “It’s funny—Wiley didn’t mention anything to me about taking the week off. He seemed to expect me to earn my paycheck as usual.”

  “You will be. You’ll be providing cover for me.”

  “While you do all the work.”

  “That’s right.”

  Kelley lifted her hands in the air. “Well, thanks, Sam. You do wonders for my professional self-esteem.”

  His eyes flashed dangerously at her, a sudden beam of light out of a dark sky. “I’m not interested in your self-esteem, sweetheart.” His voice grated over the words. “I want you out of the way, that’s all.”

  Kelley closed her eyes and reminded herself of all the overtime hours she’d put in over the past three years, studying every aspect of the investigator’s trade. She was searching for the right words to remind Sam of that fact when she heard a soft knock at the living room door.

  She turned quickly and saw a thickly built man with a curly head of red hair peering through the screen. “Sorry to bother you folks,” he said. “Maintenance sent me around to install that phone you wanted. But I can come back if—”

  “It’s fine. Come on in.” Kelley moved to open the door, shooting Sam a pointed look as she walked past him.

  He glared back at her, and Kelley felt the little click of connection between them that had always meant they were thinking the same thing. She’d almost forgotten how perfectly they’d sometimes seen into each other’s minds.

  In this case, the thoughts they were sharing weren’t happy ones. Not only had they been caught arguing, but they’d been snuck up on. The redheaded handyman had gotten to within a dozen feet of them, and Kelley had been so busy reminding herself of her own competence, and Sam so bent on convincing her that he could handle things on his own, that neither one of them had heard a damn thing.

  It wasn’t the most promising beginning to what was clearly going to be a very difficult week.

  Chapter 2

  “Sam—”

  It was hard work keeping up with Sam’s long strides as they crossed the beach. Kelley found herself half jogging, and finally tugged at the sleeve of his blue shirt to slow him down.

  “Sam, listen to me.”

  They were on their way to Harold and Helen Price’s house, one of several big vacation homes that lined the sheltered side of the point. The Windspray Community’s handyman, who’d introduced himself cordially as Steve Cormier, had mentioned that Harold and Helen were keeping an eye out for Sam and Kelley’s arrival.

  “They seemed concerned about you,” he added. “Anxious that you get your phone installed and all that. They’re like that with everybody here—real hospitable folks.”

  Jittery clients was more like it, Kelley thought. She’d seen it before: people waited until the last possible moment to call in an investigator and then they wanted instant results.

  The handyman’s words had seemed to deepen Sam’s funk. He was digging into the soft sand with every step now, as though the beach itself was getting in his way.

  He stopped at the touch of Kelley’s hand on his sleeve, and frowned down at her. “We’ve already gotten off to a bad start,” he said. “I’m just trying to get things on track again.”

  “By making it look as though we can’t stand to be anywhere near each other?” Kelley gestured toward the Windspray cottages to their right. “I know there aren’t going to be people in most of these places until the weekend rolls around, but the few who are here could very well be looking out and wondering about us. We’re new here, so we’re bound to be a curiosity.”

  “Damn.” The steady sea breeze tugged Sam’s dark brown hair into chaos again. He pushed it impatiently out of his eyes as he glanced from the cottages to Kelley’s face.

  “You know I’m right,” she persisted.

  “Don’t rub it in.” He adjusted his stance in the fine shifting sand and moved his hand to massage the back of his neck, as though it felt stiff. “When this case is done, I’m going to shellac Wiley’s hide for getting me into it in the first place.”

  “Getting us into it, you mean,” she reminded him. “I’m not a whole lot happier than you about having to put on a public display of affection.”

  Her words seemed to surprise him. “I suppose that’s what it amounts to,” he said slowly. “A public display…”

  “Well, if we do it in private, it hardly counts, does it?” She was starting to be exasperated with him, and that was good. Out of all the things Sam Cotter was capable of making her feel, irritation was probably the easiest to cope with.

  “You’re right.” He looked toward the cottages, hesitating before he spoke again. “You got any ideas about how to make this work?” he asked finally.

  So that I’m-in-charge act was partly a charade, Kelley thought. She wasn’t sure if it was reassuring or unsettling to know that.

  “Well, we could hold hands, for starters.” She reached for his free hand before he could argue about it.

  At first they stood stiffly, like teenagers on a first date. The breeze off the Gulf whipped steadily around them, singing through the tufts of beach grass at their feet and making it hard to stand still. Kelley had braided her hair before leaving her apartment this morning, but the wind kept tugging the fine strands loose. She had a feeling her appearance was as disordered as her thoughts by this time.

  She was about to suggest that they start walking again when Sam’s grip changed. His palm had been awkward and reluctant against her hand when she’d first touched him, but now, slowly, he threaded his fingers through hers, lacing them together with the strength and certainty she remembered so well.

  And she was swept into the familiar feel of him before she could even think of resisting it. She looked up at him quickly, startled by the dark fire in his blue eyes.

  “If we’re going to do this, we might as well make it look real.”

  His voice was even rougher than usual, half-lost in the whistling of the ocean breeze. Kelley didn’t answer right away. She was feeling lost, too, caught up in the shock of the way his skin felt against hers. He’d touched her exactly this way in the days when he’d loved her. Surely—

  Surely the turbulent look in his eyes meant that he was disconcerted, as she was. Surely she wasn’t the only one fighting off old memories, old desires.

  “If you’re as professional as you say you are, then none of this should affect you, right?” he was saying. “If I kissed you, for example, it wouldn’t bother you.”

  His words were as blunt and uncompromising as ever. But the ragged sound at the back of them made Kelley hesitate before answering. “I’m not sure we need to take it that far,” she hedged.

  “Why not?”

  His blue glare was challenging her, probing past the calm expression she was trying so hard to hold on to. Could he feel the accelerating pulse rate in the palm of her hand, see the badly mixed feelings in her eyes? Damn it, she’d thought she was ready for this, but maybe she’d been wrong.

  She’d forgotten how overbearing Sam could be. He was pushing her now, not giving her room to think. He was doing it on purpose, she knew. Whenever anything threatened to touch him too deeply, his first reaction was to bully his way out of it.

  Whenever anything touched him… The thought steadied her a little. Deep down, Sam must be as shaken by this as she was, if he was reacting this way.

  And the best defense against his bullying had always been to meet him halfway. She lifted her chin and said, “You’re right. After all, this is just a job, right?”

  “Right. And since you’re so sure we’ve got an attentive audience out there—”

  He didn’t finish the sentence. And Kelley didn’t have time to react before he’d dragged her against his chest, surrounding her with his arms
and covering her mouth with his own.

  He didn’t just kiss her, he overran her. He crowded into every part of her, as big and rough and sexy as ever. His familiar deep growl resonated low in her body. She could feel his fingers splayed out against her back, digging into the light fabric of her white shirt, crushing the two of them together.

  She gasped at the taut slickness of his tongue alongside hers as the kiss tangled them up. He raised one hand, threading his fingers into her hair, ravaging what was left of the careful braid she’d labored over this morning.

  She’d wanted to appear poised, collected, in control of herself and the situation, putting the past firmly behind her, where it belonged.

  And in under thirty seconds Sam Cotter had managed to rip all of that away, and to arouse her as suddenly, as completely, as devastatingly as he ever had.

  She didn’t want to let herself remember how hungry Sam could make her, or the way he’d always made her wilder than she’d thought possible. But it was all racing back in on her now as he demolished the self-control she’d built up so slowly.

  She raised her hands to his shoulders without meaning to. She touched his strong neck, his high cheekbones, that satiny dark brown hair that refused to get the message about staying combed back.

  It was falling forward again now. The feel of it between her fingertips shot through her like pure adrenaline.

  She met his kisses hungrily, aching for more, suddenly aware that she’d been starving for this man for what felt like forever. There was nothing gentle in the way either of them was moving. Sam held her as though she was a captive who’d threatened to escape him. His thighs were rock solid against hers, his mouth possessive, demanding.

  And Kelley was turning to liquid in his arms. For the first few confused seconds, she’d had some idea of resisting him, of letting him know he was pushing her too hard, too fast. She’d been envisioning a polite peck on the cheek, for heaven’s sake, not full-scale plunder.

  But her own longings were undoing her. Sam had always been able to sear the core of her with a single touch. He called up responses from Kelley that she hadn’t known she had in her until the first time they’d made love. And once that erotic secret had come out in the open, it had been impossible to hide it away again.

  So she met every suggestive thrust of his tongue with an answering caress of her own, letting herself ease into his embrace until her whole body fit along the length of his— soft curve meeting solid muscle.

  They’d always fit together this way, she thought, in a rush of remembered sensation. As though the gentle slope of her hip had been made to slide into the hard angle of his thigh. As though the sinewy strength of his arms belonged around her, clamped tight to the subtle bend of her waist.

  It was impossible to hide her own pleasure, impossible to miss the shudder that ran through Sam’s long body when she moved against the ridge under the zipper of his jeans. He was as aroused as she was, and the thought made her light-headed and reckless. And the whole time, in the midst of her crazily tumbling emotions, she could hear a voice saying, I want this to go on, and on, and on…

  It didn’t. Sam broke away abruptly, with a harsh exclamation that sounded half angry, half astonished. They were both breathing hard, and Kelley wondered if her own eyes looked as dark and wild as Sam’s.

  Then he glanced down, toward her belly, and Kelley was rocked by something just as strong as the passion that still gripped her. Sam’s eyes hadn’t lingered, but even that quick look was enough to tell her what he was thinking. It was something she was amazed she could have forgotten herself.

  The last time they’d let their feelings for each other distract them from their work, they’d lost the future they’d longed for. Their love. Their trust. And the brand-new life of their child.

  They’d been together now for under four hours and already they seemed to be in danger of letting the same thing happen all over again. It was enough to slow Kelley’s breathing, if not quite enough to calm the ache she felt when she met Sam’s still-roiling eyes.

  She could see him hauling in a slow, deep breath as he reached his hand for hers again. She took it reluctantly, suddenly resenting whatever curious eyes might be watching them across this windswept beach. What had just happened between her and Sam had been so intense, so private, that she hated the idea of being seen by anyone else.

  Sam’s caustic words seemed to echo her thoughts. “If that was playacting, you should have headed for Hollywood instead of Austin, lady,” he said. “You still sure you’re not in any danger of losing your head this time around?”

  She wanted to ask him exactly the same question, but she wasn’t at all confident her voice would work if she tried it.

  “Four units sold out of fourteen, and we’re going to have to lower the price another notch if things don’t start moving soon.” Harold Price extended the pitcher of margaritas toward Sam, who shook his head to decline a second drink. “The very last thing we need down here at this point is a scandal. I hope you people are as discreet as I hear you are.”

  Sam had been taking notes during the conversation, jotting things down in the angular scribble that Kelley had always insisted looked more like crabs’ tracks than written words. He glanced up now, carefully avoiding Kelley’s eyes and trying like hell not to think of the way their kiss had nearly shaken loose any notion that he was supposed to be working on a case.

  “Cotter Investigations is as discreet as they come,” he assured Harold Price.

  “I’m sure you are,” Helen Price put in. “The firm came very highly recommended.”

  Helen was clearly the peacemaker of the pair. Sam had already pegged Harold as “old Texan”—gracious, affable, but with a telltale gleam in his crackling blue eyes that meant he would shoot you down in a second if he thought you were in his way.

  Helen was his opposite, a gentle, sixtyish woman with soft brown hair and a thoughtful, slightly distracted expression. The two of them clearly knew each other inside out, and Sam had found himself wondering, as he’d listened to them talk about the Windspray development, what it must be like to spend forty or so years loving and trusting the same person.

  It wasn’t something he was ever likely to find out for himself. He shelved the question and concentrated instead on the inquiry. Wiley’s briefing had been thorough, as always, but Sam liked to take his own notes, as well. He’d spent too many years alone to really trust anyone else’s judgments, even his own brother’s.

  “The first counterfeit bill showed up in the Windspray deposit after Labor Day, is that right?” Kelley was asking.

  Harold nodded assertively, the way he did everything. “The bank manager flagged the account, and when the second bill showed up at the end of last week, he called me in. A week’s grace was all I could squeeze out of him.”

  “You were lucky to get a week,” Sam said. “The Treasury Department isn’t too pleased to have counterfeit bills going unreported.”

  “Most of the businesses around here—including the local bank—are hoping for Windspray to succeed,” Harold said. “Cairo’s like a damn ghost town, in case you hadn’t noticed that already. Not like it was when I was a boy.”

  “Harold’s family has owned property here for generations,” Helen put in.

  “We have a stake in the area,” Harold added. “That’s why I want this handled quickly and discreetly. I don’t just want it solved, I want it buried. I don’t want anybody to know a thing about it. I just want you two to uncover the counterfeiter and hand him—or her—over to the feds on a platter.”

  “Is there a reason you say ‘her’?”

  Kelley had asked the question a split second before Sam had picked up the comment. Always go after anything a witness tacks on to a comment was one of the rules Sam had taught her when she’d first come to work for Cotter Investigations. And her gentle voice made the question sound more natural than Sam’s blunter manner would have.

  But that didn’t change the fact that he’d
told her in no uncertain terms to let him handle this case. It was hard enough just being around each other. If they tried to work together, too—

  He glared at her from across the room, wondering how the hell she managed to look so dazzling in a pair of plain blue jeans and that loose white shirt. Was it her coloring, fair as the white beach they’d just crossed, smooth as the breeze that had whirled her hair into a honey blond halo around her face? Or was it the serenity she seemed to gather around herself like a cloak, the elegance that had always driven him half-crazy?

  She met his eyes briefly, but that calm, sea blue gaze of hers told him nothing before she turned it toward Harold Price, waiting for the answer to her question.

  “Wiley Cotter asked me to get together the names of all the people who were at Windspray when both bad bills showed up,” Harold said. “There were a couple of women on the list—one guest and one of the health club staff. That’s all.”

  Sam already had a copy of the list, and enough information to narrow down his first avenue of inquiry. He got to his feet, closing the small notebook he always carried in the back pocket of his jeans.

  “We’ll get started on this right away,” he said, using the term we only because it was easier that way. “We’ll report as soon as we have anything to tell you.”

  Harold and Helen got up, too, and followed Sam to the door that led out of the big screened porch at the front of the old house. “Actually, we’d like to hear from you at least once a day, whether you’ve got anything to report or not,” Harold said.

  This was the part of his job Sam liked least. He was about to tell Harold Price that no investigator worth his fee had spare time for holding his clients’ hands, but once again Kelley got in ahead of him.

  “Of course we’ll check in every day,” she was saying, as though there was no question of doing it any other way. “And our phone is being hooked up down at the cottage right now, so you can call us if you think of anything we should know, or if you have questions.”