Iguana Bay

The thought struck her like a blow. Standing there, looking at him, she realized she was falling for Dylan Davis-a criminal, a felon, a dreamer. She didn't say anything, just kept staring at him, feeling buffeted by the confused emotions running through her. "Hey..." He reached out and touched her chin, turning her face up to his. "You okay? I knew we shouldn't have stayed out that long. You're not used to the sun." He ran a finger down her arm, checking for sunburn. "Go take a cool shower." Suddenly she wanted to tell him the truth. Tell him who she was. The words formed in her head, but then, for some reason, she stopped. With a prickle that was part fear, part excitement, she realized that she didn't want to tell him because she was afraid he might take her back. And she didn’t want to leave. Not yet. The trial was two days away. There was plenty of time. Tomorrow. She would explain it all tomorrow.

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Dear Reader, This month we're bringing you an absolutely stellar lineup of books. In fact, I hardly know where to begin. First up is Runaway, by Emilie Richards. She delivers exactly the kind of knockout emotional punch she's come to be known for. This is the first of two novels about sisters separated by deception and distance, and it's a book with a very different sort of subject: teen runaways, the dangers they face and the lengths they sometimes have to go in order to survive. Next month's The Way Back Home completes the circle. I truly believe these two books will live in your memory for a long, long time. Theresa Weir has written for Silhouette Romance until now, and has also tried her hand at mainstream romance adventure. In Iguana Bay she makes her debut appearance in Silhouette Intimate Moments, and what a stunner this book is! The hero is anything but ordinary, as you'll discover the minute you meet him, and his meeting with the heroine is no less noteworthy. And lest you think that's all we have in store, the month is rounded out by two veterans of the bestseller lists and the award rosters: Heather Graham Pozzessere and Marilyn Pappano. Later in the year, the excitement will continue with new books from favorites such as Linda Howard, Kathleen Korbel and Linda Shaw, to name only a few. The moments are never dull at Silhouette Intimate Moments, so join us for all of them. Yours, Leslie J. Wainger Senior Editor and Editorial Coordinator

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Books by Theresa Weir Silhouette Romance The Forever Man #576 Loving Jenny #650 Silhouette Intimate Moments Iguana Bay #337

THERESA WEIR

lives on an apple, cattle and sheep farm in Illinois, not far from the Mississippi River. She was a 1988 Romance Writers of America Golden Medallion finalist for her first book, The Forever Man, a Silhouette Romance. She is also the winner of the 1988 Romantic Times New Romantic Adventure Writer Award for her nonseries contemporary, Amazon Lily.

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This book is dedicated to four very special people : Connie Rinehold of Liaisons; Ann Milenovich of The Book Rack, Denver, Colorado; Amy Mitchell, writer; A. E. Ferguson of Alberta’s Romande Reader Service. Thank you.

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Chapter 1 Awareness crept in like the slowly rising tide, seeping into the dark corners of Dylan Davis's mind. Sounds followed: waves breaking over the sand; and beyond, so constant that his subconscious tuned it out, the roar of the ocean. From above came the cries of wheeling gulls. Nearby, at ground level, he could hear the soft conversation of pigeons. Smells saturated his awakening senses, familiar smells of salt water and mildewed palm trees, of seaweed and sunwarmed driftwood. Dylan gradually became conscious of small, nagging discomforts: the sensation of sand under his itchy, unshaven jaw, a tropical sun baking his shoulders and the backs of his legs, and the even more unpleasant sensation of a throbbing head –a just penance for last night's overindulgences. Trade winds, cooled from traveling miles across the Florida Straits, licked the surface of his overheated skin. The breeze teased and lifted a tuft of straight brown hair, hair so deep in color that people often called it black. Decked out as he was in nothing but a pair of ragged cutoffs, Dylan felt like some character out of a stranded-on-a-desert-island comic. He opened his eyes a crack and lifted his head enough to get his bearings. What he saw was reassuringly familiar. About thirty feet away, under the shade of several banana palms, were his pigeons, milling back and forth in their wire cages. Dylan's gaze panned to the right as he made a quick inventory of the hammock, the two-story beach house and-damn-his beached boat. High tide wouldn't touch it. He squeezed his eyes shut and let his forehead drop to rest on his arms. Last night seemed like a bad dream. It had started out innocently enough. One beer. Of course, one beer just naturally called for another. Three beers made a person reflective, four, sentimental. The fifth tasted like water, so it only followed he had to go for something with more of a kick. Dylan had a vague recollection of taking his Cruise-craft out into the Gulf of Mexico, cutting the engine, then lying back to do a little stargazing. There's no better place to watch stars than the middle of the ocean. He was just damn lucky the Gulf Stream hadn't carried him halfway to Corpus Christi. As it was, he could barely remember cruising back to his island, but that didn't surprise him. There had been a time-years ago, when he'd been a naive kid, foolishly and embarrassingly eager to embrace life-when he had learned to navigate by the stars. It had certainly paid off, because now, night or day, drunk or sober, he could always find his way home to Iguana Bay. He groaned and rolled to his back, one hand falling across the hard, bunched muscles of his stomach, the beach sand burning hot against his flesh, and red-orange sun rays penetrating the skin of his eyelids. Red sky at morning, Dylan take warning.

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That bit of lunatic thought was quickly followed by another: if Aunt Pearl could only see me now, wouldn't she be proud. The sun pouring down on his upturned face gave him a stable fix on where he lay in relation to the ground beneath him and the sky above. He was almost asleep again when a shadow fell across him. Reluctantly and with some irritation, he opened one eye, then the other. He found himself staring directly into an eclipse, caused by what appeared to be Skeeter Bradley's head. At first Dylan thought he must be hallucinating. It wasn't like Skeeter to just show up on Iguana Bay. Skeeter's feelings toward large bodies of water were similar to a cat's. Dylan's pupils were having a hard time responding to the contrast of glare and shadow. He blinked, and the picture before him sharpened. "Skeet," he croaked, his throat feeling stiff and raw and salt-rubbed, his voice sounding like a stranger's. His eyes continued to adjust, and now he could make out his friend's features clearly enough to see that Skeeter was frowning, wavy red-blond hair falling over hazel eyes, eyes that managed to look concerned, worried and exasperated all at the same time. "That's a fairly good imitation of Aunt Pearl," Dylan rasped out. Now he could see that Skeeter was wearing an orange regulation life jacket, securely zipped and buckled from waist to chin. No chances taken here. "Must have been some party." Skeeter's voice had always seemed too deep for his all-American face, a face that still carried a hint of adolescence even though he was pushing thirty-five and had three kids. "I see you overshot the dock again." "Purely intentional. Barnacles need scraping." "Yeah. Right. And my great-grandmother rides a Harley." Hands on hips, Skeeter looked in the direction of the sleek boat. "Well, between the two of us, maybe we can shove it back into the water." Dylan still couldn't get over the fact that Skeeter had come all the way out here. He must have hugged the coastline as far as possible. "What's a landlubber like you doing here? Did Anne make you come out to check on me?" Dylan was relieved to note that his vocal chords were beginning to limber up. "If so, then you can tell your good wife I'm busy cleansing my mind and spirit with predawn meditations, and my body with clear liquids." "Which clear liquid? Tequila? Vodka? Gin?" Dylan grinned, then winced at the pain the movement caused. "All of the above." There had been a time when Skeeter would have laughed. Now his eyes only registered concern. "Yesterday was the day you were supposed to release my homing pigeons. Jason and I waited all afternoon."

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Oh, hell. Dylan sat up, letting his arms dangle over his bent knees. He felt like a jerk. How could he have disappointed a nice kid like Jason? "I'm sorry, man." "We thought maybe something happened. It's not like you-you've never forgotten to release the pigeons." "Let's make it next Saturday." Skeeter shook his head. "Jason has a soccer game in Palm Beach." "Okay. A week from Saturday." An uncomfortable feeling crept over Dylan, a feeling suspiciously like shame, reminding him of the way he'd felt as a kid the few times when his dad had caught him ditching school. Now he raked long, suntanned fingers through his tangled mane of salt water cured, wind-whipped hair, vaguely disconcerted to find that his hand trembled slightly. Skeeter was his friend; they'd been through a lot of tight spots togethersome life and death. Partners. Brothers in arms. And in the wake of Dylan's newly recognized shame, it occurred to him that he didn't like Skeeter finding him this way. There was nothing admirable about a hung over thirty-threeyear-old. "You haven't been by the house for weeks," Skeeter said. "The kids have been bugging me about you, asking if you're tired of being a beach bum yet." Dylan sighed. So that was it. Now he knew what Skeeter was really driving at, why he'd come. "Don't start that again. I'm not coming back to the force, so just forget it." He laughed-a harsh, grating sound, his disillusionment with the Federal Justice System helping to instill the bitterness. "Bounty hunting suits me just fine." "Yeah, I can see that. Must be nice to pick your own hours. Get loaded whenever you feel like it. And if you run out of cash, you just go haul in another bail-jumping pimp." Skeeter's sarcasm wasn't lost on Dylan. He just chose to ignore it. "Yeah, an ideal life," he said. "T-shirt detective." Skeeter shot him an odd glance, then started unbuckling his vest, seeming to give it more attention than it actually merited. It dawned on Dylan that Skeeter was acting a little strange, a little uncomfortable. They had been friends for twenty-five years, and Dylan was long familiar with Skeeter's body language. The message he was sending now was the very one he used to send in grade school, whenever he had to get up in front of the whole class and give a report. Skeeter cleared his throat. "Anne swears you have some kind of death wish." Now he looked Dylan in the eye. "I told her that was crazy." He waited. Dylan knew he was waiting for him to argue or laugh it off, but suddenly he didn't feel like doing either one. "Maybe it isn't so crazy, eh?" Skeeter asked. "Have you taken a good look

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at yourself lately?" Dylan tried to make his voice light. "Come on, Skeet. I've always been a slob." "There are slobs and then there's what I'm looking at. Your hair is almost to your shoulders. The circles under your bloodshot eyes would scare my kids. When are you gonna get your act together?" The throbbing in Dylan's head was getting worse. He needed aspirin. He needed a drink. He needed Skeeter to shut up. This lecturing business wasn't like his friend. Skeeter didn't usually sweat the little things. Anyway, wasn't it some kind of unspoken code that guys didn't have heart-to-hearts with one another the way women did? Dylan's hangover was making him more irritable, less patient, than usual. "What the hell's gotten into you, Bradley?" Dylan rubbed his temples, trying to smooth away the pain. "If you came to lecture me, I'm not interested. You may as well hop in your rental boat and puttputt back to the mainland." Dylan knew he wasn't being fair, knew Skeeter was only here because he was concerned. But Dylan hadn't asked for and didn't want that kind of attention. There had been a time in his life when Dylan had thought that right would win out, that good conquered evil. But Dylan didn't think that way anymore. He knew better. Skeeter bent down and picked up a shell, examined it, then stuck it into his pocket. Dylan figured he planned to give it to his daughter, Mandy, when he got home. "You know," Skeeter said, eyes on the ocean, "I used to think your problem was that you cared too much. But now I'm beginning to wonder if you care at all." Not true, Dylan wanted to protest. There were things he cared about. He cared about Skeeter and Anne and their kids. He cared about his dad and his sisters. Hadn't it just about killed him when he had to finally break down and put his dad in a nursing home? Some of Dylan's remorse must have shown on his face, because Skeeter's next words came quietly. "It's been six months, Dylan." Dylan winced, his thoughts unwillingly returning to the very catalyst that had triggered his most recent bout of self-destruction. "Six months ago yesterday, to be precise." Like the grooves of a 45 played too many times, the memory of that night was so deeply embedded in Dylan's brain that it could never fade, never be forgotten. His girlfriend, Melissa, was dead because of him. Dead, from a bullet meant for him. "Life goes on, buddy," Skeeter said. "Life goes on?" A familiar ache tightened Dylan's throat, then moved to settle in his chest. Not for everyone.

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He stared out at the ocean, focusing on the incoming waves, on the hypnotic way the water crawled across the sand. Over and over. But he felt no peace. Dylan got to his feet. "I'm gonna do a couple laps," he announced, walking across the cool, water-packed sand toward the bay. He paused and looked over one shoulder. "Coming?" "Go to hell, Davis," Skeeter said, his voice mild. Skeeter couldn't swim. Dylan laughed and walked away, leaving his friend standing on the beach. The half mile long island was kidney shaped, creating a large bay within its crook. Back and forth within these calmer waters Dylan swam, long tortuous strokes, trying to drive the pounding headache from his brain, work the poison from his bloodstream. Trying to forget. Fifteen minutes later, salt water stinging his eyes and running in rivulets down the hard contours of his body, he sloshed his way back to the beach. The swim hadn't done a thing for his head. If possible, he felt worse. But if he was lucky, the swim would have given Skeeter time to get over the mother-hen phase he was going through. At least, Dylan hoped it was a phase. With both hands, Dylan reached up and raked his hair back from his forehead, vaguely surprised to find that Skeeter had been right about its length. Wet, his hair actually did touch his shoulders. He'd always had a tendency toward the darker side of life, so he could imagine the sight he presented now. Skeeter was sitting on the porch in a cane chair, life jacket removed, sneakered feet on the railing, Dylan's cat, Scag, on his lap. And damned if Skeeter wasn't wearing one of Dylan's shirts. Dylan looked but didn't comment. For years they had both helped themselves to each other's belongings, and in all that time, neither had ever commented on their petty thefts. Water trickling from the frayed edges of his cutoffs, Dylan crossed the hot sand and joined Skeeter on the porch. He sank into a rattan chair and propped his bare feet on the railing, crossing them at the ankles. "What's in the box?" That should be a safe subject, keep Skeet off the salvation bandwagon. Skeeter let his feet drop to the floor and leaned forward. "Care package from Anne." He shifted the contents around. "Powdered milk... granola... peanut butter... macaroons." He held up a rolled bunch of newspapers. "And here's some reading material." He tossed the bundle at Dylan, who caught it with both hands. "Thanks." "Just in case you're curious about what's been going on in the rest of the world." Skeeter dumped the cat from his lap and tugged a package of cheese curls from the box. He opened the package, gave a cheese curl to Scag, then settled back in his chair. As he munched, he kept an eye on Dylan.

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"Gotta admit," Dylan said with an exaggerated sigh, "it's been tough getting through each day without my horoscope." His glasses were inside, but it didn't matter. This was all for show, anyway. He snapped open the top paper and looked down. Suddenly all of his senses tunneled toward the headlines: Millionaire Murder Suspect Adrian Sebastian Released On Bail. Sebastian. Dylan's blood froze; his heart stopped. Sebastian was the man responsible for Melissa's death. The man who had walked away from first-degree murder. Dylan shifted his gaze to the photo directly under the headlines, studying it intently. It was of Sebastian and his current ... lady. He read the caption. Her name was Elise Ramsey, and she was to be the star defense witness in Sebastian's upcoming murder trial. Not Melissa's murder. No, this time Sebastian was going up for the murder of Harry Zevon. Dylan was familiar with Harry-a sleazy lowlife who'd made a living producing porno flicks. As far as Dylan was concerned, his death was no great loss. Dylan scanned the story. It seemed this Elise Ramsey was Sebastian's alibi. She claimed to have been with him the night of the murder, while another person claimed to have seen Sebastian leaving the scene of the crime. From the picture, Dylan could see that Sebastian hadn't changed-he still looked like one of those pretty boys in a fashion magazine. But the man had avoided looking directly into the camera. If he had, his eyes would have given him away. There was a deadness to them, an opaqueness that told of the blackness on the other side. Sebastian was a man with no conscience. A sadist who took pleasure in other people's pain. During Dylan's undercover detective work with the Miami police department, he'd been assigned to Sebastian's case. It had taken months to work his way into the man's confidence, but he'd finally become a part of Sebastian's exclusive circle of hoods, getting close enough to suspect that Sebastian was not only running a black market for military weapons, but he was also making porn movies on the side. Porn with a murderous twist. Snuff movies. Dylan had wanted to get him, take him down all the way. Finally, through a carefully orchestrated sting operation, Dylan had sprung a trap, catching Sebastian in the act of selling stolen U.S. military firearms. But when the day of the trial arrived, the direct evidence-a warehouse full of antiaircraft weapons-had vanished. Sebastian had walked out of the courthouse a free man, pausing just long enough to look at Dylan, inclining his head as if to say, We're not through. "Maybe next time," Dylan had said. Sebastian had looked at him and laughed. At the time, Dylan had misunderstood that laugh. He'd taken it to mean Sebastian thought he'd never be caught. But that hadn't been it at all.... Now, eyes riveted to the paper in his hands, Dylan forgot about Skeeter,

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forgot about his hangover. He was lost in the memory of that night, the night Melissa had died.... He came home late, after midnight. When he unlocked the door to his floor-level apartment he found, Melissa still up. She was sitting on the couch wearing a black, thin-strapped dress, her silk-clad feet tucked under her, an ashtray full of cigarette butts on the coffee table. Dylan groped through his fatigue, trying to remember what her plans for the evening had been and if they'd included him. Then it came to him. Dinner. She had planned for them to go out to dinner, then to a showing she'd helped sponsor for some up-and-coming artist. Somebody named Frank ... or Frankie... Dylan sank into a chair. "I couldn't get away any earlier. You know what a mess this Sebastian case has been." He tugged off his tie and leaned his head back. Melissa shrugged, her pale straight hair falling forward across a bare shoulder. "It doesn't matter. Franklin picked me up. It was probably all for the best." Dylan knew she was alluding to the last art show he'd gone to where she'd expected him to ooh and ah over some unrecognizable object-something she and her friends loosely referred to as art. He'd stood there with his hands shoved into the pockets of his tux, looking up at the dangling metal monstrosity. Then, in a voice that had echoed sacrilegiously off the black marble walls, he'd said, "What the hell's that supposed to be?" Now, sitting across from him in their apartment, Melissa blew out a cloud of smoke and fidgeted with her cigarette lighter. Sure signs of an impending storm. "Let's face it, Dylan. We have almost nothing in common. I have no appreciation of criminal elements, and you have no appreciation of art." "I appreciate art-if it doesn't have to be explained to me." She looked up and gave him a tolerant smile, apparently forgiving him at last for his social gaff of a month ago. "It's too bad you're so damn sexy," she said. "Too bad you're so good in bed. And too bad sex is the only thing we have in common." He made a sound, ready to argue, but she held up a hand. Once Melissa got warmed up, it was hard to sidetrack her. Sometimes it was best just to let the storm run its course. She unfolded her legs and came to stand behind him. He could smell the subtle, expensive scent she wore. With the fingers of both hands, she combed his thick hair back from his temples, caressing it all the way to the ends. "I remember the first time I saw you," she said reflectively, a hint of a smile in her voice. "The first thing I thought was how rough you looked." Her hands

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went to his shoulders. "Then I found myself wondering if you'd be rough in bed." Dylan laughed, then reached up and pulled her down so she was lying across his lap. She looked up at him. "You know, when you're not here, I make perfectly sane plans to leave you. I have my speech all rehearsed. But then you come home, and all my well-thought-out plans turn to dust." "You don't mean that. You just want to see me grovel, don't you?" She smiled and shook her head. "Dylan Davis doesn't grovel. No, someday you're going to meet someone you can really love, and I don't want to be around when that happens. I don't want to have to come in second." "You're talking nonsense." He lowered one black strap and bent his head to press his lips to her shoulder. "I'm talking sense." He looked up at her. "I'm sorry I couldn't make it tonight." "Dylan, I know you. You do what you want. For her you would have made it." "Melissa, there is no her. You are her." "No. No, I'm not. Someday you'll see." He shook his head. "There's only you. And me. That's all." With one hand, she reached up and touched his bottom lip, softly tracing it. Desire hazed her eyes. "Yes. It's too bad you're so damn sexy," she whispered. "Dylan...?" He reached behind her and unzipped her dress. "Mmm?" "Be rough," she whispered breathlessly, desperately. Later Melissa left Dylan's side and moved through the darkness to the bathroom. Lying on his back in bed, Dylan listened to the sound of running water, knowing she was taking a sleeping pill-another thing they argued about. He locked the fingers of both hands behind his head and stared into the darkness. It was always the same. A fight, then sex. Surely they could From the bathroom came the sound of splintering glass, followed immediately by a dull thud. Dylan knew at once what he'd heard, though his brain denied it even as the cop in him reacted. With a reflex action, he quickly drew his loaded 44 Magnum from the bedside dresser. Not risking a light, he made his way through the darkness to the bathroom. "Melissa, " he whispered hoarsely. The silence told him what logic wouldn't. "Melissa. " His searching fingers found her sprawled in front of the sink. They touched her warm blood, her still pulse-points. "Oh, God, no." Later Skeeter found him sitting on the bathroom floor, Melissa cradled to him. The next day the word on the street was that Sebastian had put out a contract on Dylan and the hit man had shot Melissa by mistake.

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Dead. She was dead because of him. But there was no evidence, nothing to legally link Sebastian to the crime. After that, Dylan lost it, went a little crazy for a while. Instead of reporting for work, he spent days in the Everglades boning up on his sniper skills, planning Sebastian's death. He ended up being sent to a hospital for burned-out cops. Once there, he spent a routine two months on psychotherapy before being released. Instead of going back to the force, he took up bounty hunting, at the same time keeping an eye on his back, waiting for one of Sebastian's hit men to waste him. As time went by and no attempt was made on his life, Dylan decided no one was coming. Sebastian's ultimate revenge seemed to be in letting him live, always listening for footsteps behind him, always knowing he was alive when Melissa was dead. That was how Sebastian functioned. He got off on slow torture. Even though months had passed since her death, little things still gnawed at him. Things that had seemed unimportant at the time. Like the scene he'd made at the art showing. At the time, he had thought it amusing in a juvenile sort of way. Now he felt as guilty as hell about it. As if by trivializing what was important to Melissa he'd trivialized her. She'd been right. Oh, he'd cared for her. But he hadn't loved her in the way she'd wanted to be loved. Not with fireworks and bells and flowers. And now there was this incredible emptiness in him. "You gonna read that paper or strangle it?" Skeeter's voice seemed to come from a long way off, mingling with Dylan's black thoughts, bringing him back to the present. He checked the date of the newspaper. It was over a week old. His eyes flew back to the article, quickly picking out the trial date. Fifteen days left. He still had time, time to do his part in helping the justice system along, even if it meant breaking the law. He looked at the photo again, memorizing the woman's dark, straight hair, full mouth, model's cheekbones. Elise Ramsey. Dylan smiled grimly to himself. His bounty hunting skills were about to be put to good use.

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Chapter 2 Elise Ramsey couldn't concentrate on the book she was reading. Knowing she wasn't doing the author justice, she closed the novel and tossed it down beside her on the hotel bed. The Bastion. Quite a name for a hotel. Just this past year, bastion had been one of her seventh-grade reading class's vocabulary words. Fortress. Well, the hotel was a fortress, all right. But instead of keeping people out, it was keeping her in. Elise got up, walked to the TV and flicked it on. She immediately recognized the scene from a slapstick sci-fi cult classic. No, thanks. She wasn't in the absurd frame of mind required to watch such a movie. For the past week one of the local stations had been featuring black-andwhite horror films. Elise was generally a big fan of old horror films, but lately the word horror had taken on a totally new meaning. She flipped the dial through several commercials, summer reruns and music videos, then shut off the set and paced to the window. Her room was on the twenty-third floor. If she looked to the east, through the cluster of buildings, she could see the blackness where the ocean lay free and unencumbered beneath the night sky. There were no stars. Directly below the hotel cars were moving up and down the four-lane boulevard, their headlights reflecting off glass-fronted buildings, people coming and going as they pleased. Neon lights flashed and blinked in gaudy cheerfulness, seeming to taunt her. Stir-crazy. She was going stir-crazy. Grandma Max would have called it cabin fever. They'd both gotten it whenever the Mississippi River was too frozen to take the skiff from their island to the Wisconsin shore, but not yet solid enough to safely walk on. Thinking of her grandmother brought a slow, sad smile to Elise's lips. Thirteen months had passed since her death, and the overwhelming stab of loss wasn't as sharp now. Oh, the pain was still there, but the edges had dulled. She leaned her forehead against the cool window glass, the blast from the air conditioner blowing her dark bangs from her forehead. With one hand she reached up and combed her fingers through her fine hair, momentarily surprised when she came to the blunt ends that stopped at her shoulders. She kept forgetting that before leaving home she'd gotten her hair cut into what she'd hoped was a more sophisticated, worldly style. She hadn't wanted to arrive in Florida with her hair and clothes proclaiming her a dowdy hick from the boonies. Mistake. She would have been better off having remained herself; then maybe

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Adrian Sebastian wouldn't have shown any interest in her. Actually she shouldn't have come south in the first place, but when fellow schoolteacher Cindy Hastings had told her she was driving down during summer vacation and needed someone to go along to split expenses, Elise hadn't been able to pass up the chance. She'd always wanted to see Florida. They'd been in Miami two days when blond, vivacious Cindy had somehow gotten an invitation to a glitzy Miami Beach society party and had begged Elise to come along. At first Elise had declined, but Cindy was persistent. And it had been so tempting. Once there, Elise had been swept up in the whole exotic atmosphere. It had seemed like something from a movie, with the huge pool and underwater lighting, the palm trees and damp, humid air. The glamorous people. Cindy had ended up leaving the party with the guy who'd invited her, and Adrian Sebastian had offered to give Elise a ride to her motel. He'd been so good-looking, like someone from a magazine. And she wasn't used to men like him paying attention to her. She'd been flattered. And she'd had too much to drink, so she'd accepted his offer. Never take a ride from a stranger. How many times had she told her students that very thing? And then what had she done? Taken a ride from a stranger. And now here she was, being guarded like the Crown Jewels. But who would believe she was virtually a prisoner when her prison was one of the most exclusive hotels in Miami? When her tab was being picked up by the hotel owner, none other than Adrian Sebastian himself? She could go anywhere she pleased-as long as she took the limo and Claude, the bodyguard Adrian Sebastian had left at her disposal. She dropped onto the bed, face-up, hands under her head. If anybody ever asked, she could tell them that there were 198 squares on the ceiling. She could also tell them that the grain in the wood of the bathroom door was actually a profile of W. C. Fields. A rapid knock sounded, interrupting Elise's study of her surroundings. She answered the door and found Adrian Sebastian standing in the plush hall, hands jammed into the pockets of his baggy silk suit. His dark hair was combed back, as slick and wet as a seal's, his face clean-shaven. The heavy scent he always wore stung her sinuses. Funny how your perception of someone's looks could change after you got to know him. At first Elise had thought Adrian Sebastian one of the most handsome men she'd ever seen. Now he didn't seem handsome at all. She particularly disliked his eyes. They were pale. Expressionless. Snake eyes, her grandmother would have called them. Elise caught a glimpse of Claude before Adrian stepped into the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. "I stopped to see if you were comfortable, if you needed anything."

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His voice was low, smooth, his lips dark, so dark that Elise wondered if the color was natural. "I don't like being treated like a prisoner." He looked surprised, hurt. "No one's keeping you here. Didn't you agree to stay? To accept my protection and hospitality?" It was true. When he'd first suggested that she stay at his hotel, it had seemed like a good idea, since Cindy had driven back to Wisconsin, unable to afford to remain in Florida until the trial. And Elise hadn't been able to afford to keep a motel room by herself. And, after all, she was in this mess because of Adrian Sebastian. But she certainly hadn't expected to be put under guard. "You don't have to keep watch over me. I won't leave until I've testified." He walked over to the window and looked out. "That's not what I'm worried about. This is Miami, not Wisconsin. I have enemies." He turned to face her. "There are people out there who would kill you to get to me." She didn't believe him. His every movement seemed to be staged, for effect. He was afraid she would skip town and he would lose his alibi. It was that simple. "If I'm in danger, why wasn't I given police protection?" He laughed, an ugly sound. "They might have offered it-if you were a witness for-the prosecution. Anyway, the Miami police are a joke. You're safer with me, with my men. And you're free to come and go as you please as long as Claude is with you-for protection." He opened his jacket and pulled out a leather billfold. With his well-kept hands, he slid out a charge card and extended it toward Elise. "Here. Take Claude with you and go shopping. It will do you good." Did he think he could buy her loyalty? She ignored his outstretched hand. "I don't want your money." He shrugged and tucked the card back into his billfold, pocketing them both. "I've never known a woman who was so hard to please." Elise read sexual awareness in his voice, beneath his words. Queasiness rose in her. He reached out and touched her cheek. Elise drew back. His eyes narrowed, and she wondered if he was thinking about the night he'd given her a ride from the party. He'd touched her then, tried to slip a hand under her skirt while he kissed her. She'd fought him off, pushed him away. He hadn't touched her since. She was sure it was no sudden sense of propriety. No, he just didn't dare do anything that might influence her testimony. "I'll be gone tonight," he told her, his features once more under control. "We won't be able to have dinner together. Maybe tomorrow?" "Maybe." She would plead a headache, as she had the last two nights. After he left Elise went to the walk-in closet and pulled out her white linen suit. She had to get away, had to get out for a while.

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She slipped on the suit, tucked the room key into her purse and walked out the door, practically bumping into Claude. His eyelids closed slowly, then opened just as slowly as he took in her suit and high heels. He looked like a bodyguard. He had a pair of linebacker's shoulders that sloped upward to meet a thick neck. His jacket was too small for his massive frame. It stretched across his barrel chest and telephone-pole biceps, not quite able to hide the gun strapped to his side near his armpit. He followed her into the elevator and pushed the button. The door closed, and the elevator took them to ground level. "Will you be wanting a table in the dining room, Miss Ramsey?" he asked as the doors silently opened to the plush, carpeted lobby. "No, thank you. I'm going out." To the left of the elevator was the house phone. Claude reached for it. "I'll call the limo." Freedom. "That won't be necessary. I'm walking. And I'm going by myself." She didn't have enough nerve to wait for his reaction. Instead, heart pounding, she turned and headed for the double doors of one-half-inch-thick milky glass. As quick as a cat, Claude was there before her, blocking her way. Over the past two weeks Claude's stiff formality toward her had relaxed a little. Elise could swear she'd even seen him almost break into a smile a couple of times. A few days ago, in her desperation for something to do, she'd actually contemplated having the limo brought around so she could see some of the sights. Maybe swim in the ocean. But then she'd thought about the stone-faced Claude following two steps behind her and so had died another bad idea. "I don't want George to bring the limo around. I need some exercise. I need some fresh air." "Then I'll come with you." Staring up at him, she found it hard to imagine that this hulking giant had ever been a tiny baby, that some woman somewhere had actually given birth to this man, maybe even sung lullabies to him. "I want to go by myself." She sounded like a child, and she certainly felt like one, confronted as she was by Claude's towering height. "I can't let you leave. It isn't safe. Mr. Sebastian gave me orders." She looked past his bulk to the cars cruising past, to the city lights. Freedom calling. She could see that he was becoming a little anxious, sensed that he didn't want to have to get tough, and she felt guilty. "I won't run off." She hoped there wasn't a whine in her voice. She hated whiners. "I swear." "I'd be in big trouble if I let you go." Her guilt doubled. She knew it wasn't rational to like a thug, but she liked Claude. She didn't want to get him into trouble. "I just want to go for a little walk. That's all. I'll come back," she promised.

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Claude looked behind him, through the glass door; then, to her surprise, he moved to open it for her. "Have a good evening, Miss Ramsey." She flashed him a grateful smile. Even thugs had hearts. "Thank you." She stepped outside, warm humid night air and the smell of car exhaust hitting her full in the face. Under any other circumstances she would have felt suffocated by the towering buildings, overpowered by the traffic and cement, choked by the exhaust fumes. But right now the life and feel of the city sang to her, beckoned. Right now her surroundings were as precious as a field of the sweetest flowers. Free at last. Then she spotted George. He was sitting behind the wheel of the limo, wearing his little blue chauffeur's cap. He maneuvered the car through the traffic and pulled up to the curb. Disappointment washed over her, weighting her down. George got out, slammed the door and came around to open the passenger side, waiting expectantly. She looked behind her. Claude had followed her outside. He was waiting for her to get into the limo, ready to come along. Elise stood there on the sidewalk, days upon days of frustrated boredom fermenting in her. Building, building, building, ready to explode. She was sick of this. Sick of this trapped feeling, sick of her every move being watched. She was mad at Claude, mad at herself, mad at George, mad at Adrian Sebastian, mad at the world. She'd put up with so much lately. Well, nobody was going to ruin her evening. She wouldn't allow it. Borrowing a gesture often used by one of her more unruly students, she thumbed her nose at the waiting chauffeur, thumbed her nose at Claude, then spun on one high heel and marched belligerently down the wide sidewalk, the words in her head keeping time with the click, click of her shoes. Free-dom. Free-dom. At the corner, the pedestrian light changed from WALK to DON'T WALK. Pausing, Elise glanced back the way she'd come, and her heart sank even more. George was easing the limo along the street while Claude followed on foot from what he would probably describe as a discreet distance. The light changed to WALK. Flowing toward her en masse was a mixed group of boisterous teenagers decked out for the evening. Feeling like a salmon fighting its way upstream, Elise launched herself into the oncoming wave. From snatches of conversation, she gathered that they were on their way to a concert. City sounds drifted along beside her. Horns honked, rock music blared and faded as cars roared past. She finally conquered the opposite curb. Coming up on her side of the street was a narrow red door with a green awning that stretched to the street, the words The Red Door lettered on the side. Formally attired people were stepping from a white Cadillac while a uniformed parking attendant hustled

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around the front bumper to the driver's side. Elise chanced another look over her shoulder. George was caught at the traffic light behind a silver sports car. Claude was weaving his way through the throng of kids, a frantic expression on his usually placid face. And he wasn't looking in her direction. Moving quickly, Elise tried to blend in with the group of people, following them inside the restaurant, falling in behind as the hostess led them to a table. They passed a dim hallway marked EXIT, and she ducked down the passageway, her shoes silent as she hurried across the plush carpeting. At the end of the hall she cast a quick glance over one shoulder. No one had noticed her. She slipped out the side door. Light from distant streets made a feeble attempt to penetrate the deep shadows of the alley. Puddles left from the afternoon rain now looked greasy, and her nose told her that the garbage was long overdue for pickup. Her heart pounding-in excitement or fear, she didn't know which-she hurried away, the sound of her clicking heels echoing eerily off the chipped stucco walls. She heard a scuttling behind her and turned. Nothing. Not a movement or a shadow. Not a whisper of a windblown candy wrapper making its way to join the trash that had collected where the building walls met the asphalt. A cat, she told herself. Must have been a cat. Or maybe a mouse. Or maybe a rat. She shivered at the thought, then started walking again, the hair on her scalp tingling. She had gone perhaps a block farther when she heard it again, closer this time. She stopped. Turned. And the blood froze in her veins. Before she could gasp for enough air to scream, a hand clamped over her mouth, bringing with it cloth tape and the smell of adhesive. It was pressed to her skin, extending well past the corners of her mouth. Her back was jerked up against a hard chest. Through the thin layers of her blouse and suit she could feel the ungiving outline of a holster pressed between her back and the man's chest. Terror caught at her throat, squeezing her vocal chords, smothering her, paralyzing her. Claude. Where was Claude? Where was. George? Like a single image caught by a flash of lightning, Elise was left with the vision of her assailant's intense, hostile eyes and wild dark hair. Eyes that were cold, cruel, chilling. Predator's eyes. Oh, God. Sebastian had been telling the truth. For the first time since coming to Florida, Elise feared for her life. For the first time since coming to Florida she wished for the protection of Claude and

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George, for the safety of The Bastion. Her arms were pinned behind her, her wrists deftly wrapped with what felt like the same thick heavy tape that had been used on her mouth. A burst of strength borne from raw terror shot through her, forcing her taut, frozen muscles into action. She struggled, frantically swinging a foot, trying to twist her body free of her captor's steel grip. She felt a firm, steady pressure against the sensitive tendons at the back of her legs, forcing her to her knees. In less than a second, her ankles were taped. Panic welled. A trembling whimper began somewhere in her diaphragm, turning into sound when it reached her throat-frightened animal cries she vaguely perceived to be her own. "Quiet." The single rasped word carried the weight of the most deadly of threats. Her assailant leaned closer. "You shouldn't have been playing hide-and-seek with your baby-sitters," he whispered, his breath warm against her neck, his voice strangely sensual, yet as hard and unrelenting as his hands and body. "Now there's nobody to protect you."

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Chapter 3 The tumbledown marina where Dylan's boat lay docked was still a good hour away. He checked the rearview mirror. Behind him, Highway 1 stretched out long and dark and deserted. Ahead was a single set of red taillights. The car he was driving was a rental. He'd decided on a rental because it would be harder to trace. The cramped interior had obviously been designed by someone much shorter than he was and it smelled of plastic and other manmade materials. But the trunk was adequate. The trunk was the important part. Dylan slowed to sixty miles per hour in order to let the car in front of him ease away. To his left, in the eastern sky, thunder rumbled and lightning flashed, outlining the bank of cumulus clouds that had been forming above the coastal waters since late afternoon. It had rained earlier, but it had been only a typical Florida afternoon shower. This looked as if it could turn into a real boat swamper. A feeling he'd been trying to ignore was fighting for attention again. Earlier he'd recognized it as guilt and tried to push it aside. Now it was back, nagging him. He had done this kind of thing a hundred times. The time-honored method of capture he'd used on Elise Ramsey was standard practice among bounty hunters. If a bail jumper doesn't cooperate, doesn't come along willingly, you truss them up like a turkey and toss them into your trunk. That was the way it was done in this business. But the guilt Dylan was feeling was new. But then, it wasn't really his style to manhandle a woman. When he'd planned the abduction, Elise Ramsey had been a nonentity to him, simply a means to an end. A way of getting Sebastian. He hadn't really thought of her as a living, breathing person. A scared person. But he couldn't have handled things any other way. He couldn't have let her scream, couldn't have taken a chance on one of Sebastian's muscle heads catching sight of her. For a second back there, even though it wasn't the time or the place, he'd almost given in to the unprofessional urge to reassure her in some way. That weakness had made him mad at himself, so he'd ended up scaring her even more, doubling his guilt, a guilt that continued to nag him. She's Sebastian's woman, he reasoned. That meant she knew all about the ugly side of life. It meant she approved of Sebastian and the things he did. Hell, Dylan decided, she probably manacled herself just for fun. But regardless of what he told himself, he couldn't keep from straining to detect any small sound from the trunk. All he could hear was the hum of tires on pavement. The car in front of him had disappeared. The highway was a black river

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stretching into infinity. He checked the rearview mirror. Darkness. He took his foot off the gas pedal and slowed, watching for a side road. When he spotted one, he turned and followed it for approximately half a mile before gunning the little six cylinder up a narrow levee road. This part of the Everglades was uninhabited, at least by people, but - it was only a matter of time. Little by little, more and more of the swampland was being drained for housing. When he'd gone far enough that the car couldn't be seen from either the highway or the side road, Dylan pulled to a stop and cut the engine, the world falling to silence except for the occasional rumble of thunder. He shoved open the door, hurried to the back and popped open the trunk. Within the dark recess was total silence. He leaned closer, barely able to make out Elise Ramsey's dark shape. She didn't move. Like a blind man depending completely on his sense of touch, he reached for her. As soon as his hand made contact with the warmth of her body, he knew he was touching her hip. In Miami, when he'd watched her walking down the street, he'd been aware of her long, slim legs. And now he remembered the way the fabric of her skirt had slid against her skin. He moved his hand higher, brushing across her shoulder to her face and finally to her taped mouth. He quickly pulled the tape free. She didn't make a sound. Now his guilt was giving way to worry. He laid an open palm against the fullness of her lips and felt the reassuring stir of her soft breath. She must have passed out. He reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out his knife. He unfolded the dullest blade and felt for her bound wrists. Then, careful that the blade didn't touch her skin, he cut the tape in one easy motion. With the same precision he removed the tape from her ankles. Using one hand he folded the blade closed against his thigh and pocketed the knife. Then he grasped her by the upper arms and levered her from the trunk, hefting her dead weight over one shoulder. With his unconscious burden, he headed toward the passenger door, wondering what the hell he was going to do withDylan's world exploded in pain. He groaned, let the woman slip from his hands and fell to the ground in a red fog, totally giving in to the waves of debilitating pain, to the agony of the moment. Curled on his side, he drew up his knees, moaning and clutching himself where a well-aimed blow had caught him between the legs, "rendering him harmless," as the self-defense classes were wont to call it. After what seemed like hours but in all likelihood had probably been but a matter of a minute or two, Dylan looked up and saw that Elise Ramsey was

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gone. Then, from the direction of the low marshy swamp ground, came sloshing. Elise Ramsey, sounding like a damn bull moose. To an alligator, the sound of splashing water was like ringing a dinner bell. She was probably attracting every gator in Florida. Dumb broad. The pain between his legs had dulled to a throbbing ache. Dylan rolled to his knees, then pushed himself to his feet. Dylan hated alligators. He'd seen a man eaten by one once. Not a pretty sight. Certainly not the way he wanted to go when he took the big trip. For a second he actually considered not going after her. But then, automatically, his hand went to his gun, checking, making sure it was where it should be. Then he sprinted toward the noise.

Elise's foot caught on a tangle of long grass, and she sprawled facedown in the marshy Slough. Water trickled in around her, filling up the indentation made by her body. She'd lost one shoe, and now she kicked off the other. She had a stitch in her side, and her lungs felt raw. Her legs tingled with needles from lying cramped in the trunk for so long. Stinging trails ran from her hips to her ankles. For a moment the impossible horror of the situation almost overwhelmed her, but her will to survive was strong, and she managed to push her terror to the back of her mind and concentrate on moving, on getting away. She brought one knee forward, then the other, finally pushing herself to her feet, staggering on. She had to get away from the man with the hard, piercing eyes, the man who was going to kill her. Thunder rumbled, and lightning flashed, illuminating the dark churning clouds with a strange orange light, casting a hazy, surrealistic glow over the seemingly endless stretch of flat marshland, land unrelieved except by an occasional clump of broken, stunted trees that reached their jagged fingers to the heavens. As Elise ran, rain started falling. The water above the spongy grass was getting deeper, covering her ankles now, making sucking sounds as she pulled her feet out. She had to head for higher ground. But there was no higher ground. The rain picked up its tempo, gusts of wind propelling it along, making it sting her face and wrists and legs. But behind the deafening noise of the storm, her ears detected a sound that failed to blend in with the rhythm of the elements. Splashing. For a second she hesitated, then stopped, turned. Lightning flashed again, casting its eerie glow on the man who was moving toward her through the

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storm. His eyes were in shadow-black empty sockets. For a heartbeat she felt like a trapped deer, frozen by a beam of light. Then the flash faded and the man was gone, once more becoming a part of the darkness. A sob escaped her, the sound strange and too human in this alien landscape. Trembling, she turned and staggered on, her legs getting heavier with every step. Run, run, little gingerbread man, or the fox will catch you if he can. She could feel the man's presence behind her, sensed that no matter how fast she moved, he was going to close in on her, going to catch her. Once she thought she heard a shout from close behind. Her heart and legs pumped harder, faster, her bare feet smacking the water, making it spray out around her. Then the inevitable happened-that which she had fatalistically known would happen. She was tackled and knocked to the ground, the air crushed from her lungs. She could feel the man's heavy weight upon her. She struggled for oxygen, sucking in air with a wheezing gasp. She could feel his warm, heaving chest against her shoulder blades, feel the hard muscles of his legs against the backs of her thighs. And even though he'd only touched her twice before, the feel of him was already familiar. Confusion clouded her mind. Even his hands, as he turned her over, even his hips as he straddled her, were strangely familiar. She needed to be reassured, needed to know that he was human and not something supernatural. She needed to hear his voice, a voice she remembered as being deep and slow and sensuous. A voice that was hard, yet hadn't quite seemed to fit the savagery in his eyes. Lightning lit the sky, illuminating their wild marshy backdrop. Her vision was blurry. She blinked the water from her eyes. Looking up at him, she could see the way his hair was plastered to his neck and forehead, looking blacker than the blackest night. His eyes, his predator's eyes, glowed amber-the color of a wild animal's. Rain was running in rivulets down his face, dripping off his chin onto her throat. His dark T-shirt was molded to his body, the leather holster strap stretched across his rounded pectorals. His chest rose and fell as his lungs fought for air just as her own lungs did. And even though his hands held her fast, she felt captured by something more than his physical presence. Maybe she was the unwitting victim of some sort of sorcery or enchantment, bewitched by the unknown, mesmerized by the wildness of the night, the wildness of his eyes. She felt spellbound by something dark and forbidding, sensual. Darkness engulfed them again. She was left with an image of strange amber eyes and dripping black hair. She was left with the feel of a man's wet thighs pressed against her sides. Of firm hands on her shoulders. Panic. Her heart knocked erratically in her chest.

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"Please. Don't kill me." She hadn't been aware of forming the pitiful plea, but there it was, hanging between them. The voice that came from the darkness above her was heavy with disgust. "That's a good one. Nobody has to kill you. You're suicidal." As if driving home his point, lightning crashed again. The man hunched his shoulders and glanced skyward, then back down. "You picked a damn poor place to attempt a getaway." His voice seemed to hold impatience and exasperation, but no real anger. And that confused her even more. Earlier, when she'd been crammed in the trunk, barely able to breathe or move, heart hammering in terror, Sebastian's words had come back to her. There are a lot of people out there who would kill you to get to me. Oh, God. A sob escaped her, the sound swirling up to join that of the storm. "This is about Sebastian, isn't it? That's why you're doing this." "Yes." She hadn't expected such a blunt answer, such a chilling answer. She hadn't expected him to answer at all. "Listen, I swear if you let me go-" She swallowed, formulating the lie in her mind. "If you don't hurt me... I'll change my statement ... I'll say I was mixed up, my watch was wrong. I'll say he made me lie, anything, just don't hurt me!" Terror rose in her throat, making her choke on the last word. She felt his firm fingers on her shoulders. He gave her a small shake. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said, his voice an intense whisper. She could feel the heat of him as he straddled her, his body pressing intimately into hers. "I'm not going to hurt you," he repeated. But her hysteria wound higher. "Why would I believe you?" Her voice rose and fell on a half sob. "Why on earth would I believe you?" He heaved a sigh and shoved himself to his feet, pulling her up after him. "I'd love to stay and discuss this, but I have this aversion to becoming alligator bait or getting struck by lightning." "Alligator bait?" Oh, God. "Yeah. Right now we're standing smack-dab in the middle of their dining room." He dropped her arm and moved away, his dark shape fading, the edges bleeding into the night. Suddenly Elise no longer wanted to run from him. She wanted to follow, but her feet wouldn't budge. She wanted to shout, ask him to wait, but her vocal chords wouldn't comply. The man's voice came back to her out of the darkness, through the pouring rain. "Are you coming or not?"

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She had been thinking about something she'd read on the front page of a grocery store tabloid. The bold-print headline had shouted something about a woman in Utah giving birth to an alien. But directly under that story had been another about an eighty-year-old alligator that had been killed. Inside its belly they'd found all sorts of things ranging from a child's leather strap shoe to a man's diving watch. Now, with the article fresh in her mind, Elise's legs threatened to buckle. In fact, it almost seemed that she had no legs at all. They had simply vanished. And her head seemed to be floating away from her body. Strong fingers closed over her arm; then she was pulled forward, her legs moving stiffly, like a child who hadn't been walking very long. "Come on," the man shouted over the deafening noise of the rainstorm. "You may get a kick out of alligators, but they scare the absolute hell out of me." How very strange, she thought distantly, trudging along after him. How strange that somebody like him would be scared of anything. And stranger yet that he'd admit it. Earlier, when the man had opened the trunk, Elise had figured it was the end, figured he was going to kill her. But obviously that wasn't the case, because this would be the perfect spot for such a crime, a place where alligators would take care of the evidence. Now the idea of his having a gun didn't bother her as much, either. If an alligator came up to them, he could shoot it, couldn't he? Or were alligators small-brained creatures that were hard to kill? Would a gunshot simply make it angry? Attract all of its friends? She didn't know. Right now she didn't know anything. She felt as if she'd lost her identity, left it at the hotel, or maybe even Wisconsin. She didn't feel like Elise Ramsey, a river rat from the midlands, anymore. As they trudged back toward the car, Elise became aware of something weird going on in the space around them. It was like they'd stepped into a force field. The hair on her scalp tingled. The hair on her arms stood straight up, prickly and kind of wavy. She had just opened her mouth to mention the peculiar phenomenon when the man suddenly turned and lunged, propelling her to the ground. "Get down!" She had no choice. The next thing she knew the air was being knocked from her lungs for the second time in a matter of minutes. With the man's arms wrapped tightly around her, they logrolled over and over. A deafening crash-like a bomb exploding-came from what seemed to be the very spot where they had been standing, the sound cracking the sky. Wood splintered, and sparks showered down around them, mixing with the rain. Elise was dimly aware of an annoying whong, whong inside her head, as if her brain were throbbing against her skull. White and red lights danced behind

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her eyes. She was tingling and shaking all over. Not on the outside, but the inside. Her tongue felt thick. Her fingertips and toes felt numb. She hadn't realized her eyes were closed until she opened them. Everything looked like a negative. She felt as if she'd been staring at the sun. -How very, very strange... . Gradually she became aware of hands on her, hitting her. Why, the man was slapping her! "Stop," she muttered thickly, trying to push the annoying hands away. "That hurts." Her voice sounded funny to herself, as if her ears had water in them. "You said you wouldn't hurt me." "I was trying to keep you from getting burned." He quit slapping her and made an exasperated sound. "Your clothes were on fire." "Oh." "Sparks from the tree." That explained a lot. She felt his fingertips brush across her forehead, lifting a lank strand of hair from her eyes and she raised her head to survey the damage done to her suit. The suit that used to be white. The suit that had cost her a hundred dollars. It was torn and twisted and sopping wet, smudged with mud and grass stains. There were charred holes scattered liberally over the entire outfit. She felt a hysterical giggle start and swallowed, trying to control it. Looking at the suit, a ridiculous thought came to her: that's what I get for trying to be somebody I'm not. She pushed herself up on one elbow and looked around. In a circle surrounding the lightning-struck tree lay scattered chunks of glowing wood, sizzling in the rain that had slowed to a drizzle. Beside her the man was crouched on his heels, his dangling hands draped over his bent knees., watching her with his wild eyes. But they didn't seem so wild anymore. His expression was curious, almost thoughtful. Elise wondered what his name was. Then she heard herself asking him. He started, seeming surprised. "Dylan." "Like Bob Dylan?" She'd always liked his songs. "Like Dylan Thomas." "You're a poet?" "Nooo." She couldn't see his mouth. It was in shadow, but she thought she detected a smile in his voice. "But there are other similarities," he added wryly. "You’re Welsh," she decided, tracing his ancestry back to dark moors and wild-maned, brooding men who looked like Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff. "I drink too much." Her brief attempt at romanticizing him into some brooding hero dissolved. "I see," she said doubtfully. The lightning must have short-circuited her brain. She couldn't believe she was lying here, holding a casual conversation with the man who had attacked

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her, who had wrapped her with tape and tossed her into a trunk. The man with the wild eyes. She had to pull herself together. But it seemed too much of an effort. Just didn't seem worth the trouble anymore. She yawned broadly and made a halfhearted attempt to cover her mouth. "You know," she said, suddenly feeling incredibly sleepy, "I used to know a man who claimed to have been hit by lightning three times. But he always exaggerated everything, so I never really believed him." Dylan stood. "We might be going for two if we don't get out of here." With his help she got to her feet and stood there on weak, wobbly legs. Her eyes were drawn to the shattered, burning tree, where scattered bits of stillsmoldering debris lay spread out around it, like a fairy circle. She could smell wood smoke and something else, something that made her think of burnt wiring. "Death's door," she whispered in awe, trying to take it all in, unable to. The man-Dylan-reached out and grabbed her, pulling her after him. As they sloshed along his muttered words floated back to her. "Son of a bitch, what a night."

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Chapter 4 Elise sat in the car, her chest rising and falling as she struggled to catch her breath. What air she managed to pull into her lungs was heavy and wet. Click. Cold metal handcuffs locked around her wrist. The sound, magnified within the dark, claustrophobic confines of the small vehicle, rang with chilling finality. She'd gotten away from him once. She could do it again. She just had to bide her time, wait for her drained energy to recharge. Click. The other handcuff locked around the hinge of the car's bucket seat. "Just in case you get the notion to go for another stroll," Dylan said, his words slightly choppy as he, too, fought to regain his breath. For a time there in the sloughs, Elise had sensed a brief camaraderie between herself and this man she knew only as Dylan. They had been two people against the elements. Now they were back to two people against each other. Outside, the rain had dwindled to a few occasional large, heavy drops that struck at irregular intervals against the car. Fear churned in Elise's stomach, and with it came queasiness. She trembled, and the handcuffs rattled like dry bones. Dylan reached back between the bucket seats. "Here. Cover up with this." Something soft and heavy landed on her lap. A sweatshirt. She pulled it over her as much as she could, tucking her free arm beneath it, drawing the fabric to her chin, more grateful for the cover it afforded than the warmth. "W-what-" Her mouth was so dry she could barely form the words. Whatever happened, she wouldn't grovel. She swallowed, ran her tongue over her lips and started over. "What do you plan to do with me?" At first she didn't think he was going to answer, but finally he spoke. "I'm not going to hurt you." She wanted to believe him. Oh, how she wanted to believe him. But it was obvious he was a dangerous man. His voice was hard; his eyes were hard; his body was hard. How on earth could she trust someone like him? "It's not you I want. It's Sebastian." The way he spoke Sebastian's name sent a chill down her spine. Two hours ago she'd despised Adrian Sebastian, but now she actually found herself pitying the man. "I want to see Sebastian behind bars. And you're going to help me put him there."

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The hatred and menace in his voice were undeniable. That kind of hatred didn't just happen. It was cultivated, earned. Even though Elise wasn't a willing player, it looked as if she'd been caught in the middle of a revenge game. She'd stumbled into the clutches of a man who appeared to be intent on carrying out some personal vendetta. She didn't know what Adrian Sebastian had done to incur such hatred. She didn't want to know. She just wanted out. "You're Sebastian's only alibi for murder," Dylan said. "And I want to make sure you don't show up at his trial to testify on his behalf." Was that what this was all about? He believed Sebastian had murdered that man? Maybe, if she tried to explain ... "I swear he's innocent. He was with me the night of the murder." "Something I wouldn't brag about." She couldn't see Dylan's face, but there was no way she could miss the sneer in his voice, the contempt that suggested that he, too, thought she and Sebastian had slept together. "Listen, I don't care if he did it or not. That sleaze Zevon probably deserved what he got. I just want Sebastian convicted for it." Heaven help her. His voice had taken on a cold edge that made her shiver. Once again he was the dangerous stranger in a dark alley, and she couldn't keep her mind from dwelling on her original fear. Fear for her life. She struggled to remain calm, to reassure herself. She had to keep a level head, be careful to say the right thing from now on. Another chance to get away would come; she only had to wait. Until then, she had to remain calm. Calm, calm, calm. But an uncontrollable sob tore from somewhere deep inside her. Dylan leaned over and grasped her shoulders in a gentle but firm grip. "Listen. Nobody's going to hurt you, okay?" How many times had he told her that? But she wanted to hear it again and again. Maybe if he said it enough she'd believe it. Maybe if he said it enough he would believe it. "I'm just going to keep you hidden for a few days. That's all." Now that he was no longer talking about Sebastian, the roughness was gone from his voice. He was speaking to her like someone might speak to an upset child. But what he was telling her made no sense. If she didn't show up, wouldn't the trial simply be postponed? But if she were dead ... They wouldn't wait for a dead person. "Think of it as a vacation," he said. A vacation? Was he mad? Possibly. Very possibly. Heaven help her, that was what was so terrifying.

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Her stomach felt queasy, her head ached and her thoughts sped frantically along, one after the other, like a tape played at high speed. If only she hadn't come to Florida... If only she hadn't let Cindy talk her into going to that party. If only she'd never accepted Sebastian's offer of a ride. She didn't realize she was crying until Dylan gave her a small shake. "Hey, come on. Get a grip, will you?" He sounded anxious, worried. He could change so swiftly. One second he seemed so cold, all darkness and no light; the next second he was... different. Almost compassionate. Earlier, in the swamps, she'd sensed a wry amusement in him, and now this. She couldn't figure out who he was, what he was. But, she argued with herself, she couldn't let down her guard. She couldn't allow the concern she thought she detected in his gruff voice to sway her. It meant nothing coming from someone like him. Someone who had come out of the darkness the way he had. He was dangerous. He could change to suit the situation, change in order to get what he wanted. And right now he wanted her to relax and not cause any more trouble. "Did you hear me?" He shook her again. She swallowed a sob and nodded, desperately wanting to believe him. But he had abducted her. That was a felony. The nausea she'd been fighting rose in her again, settling in the back of her throat. Maybe it was because she'd been stuffed into a trunk that smelled of tires and adhesive. Maybe it was because she was scared to death, but suddenly Elise realized she was about to be sick. She pushed the sweatshirt aside. With her right hand she groped for the door handle, found it and shoved. The door swung open. She lunged, only to be pulled up short by the handcuff. "Sick," she managed to moan, trying to tug away, metal biting into the delicate flesh of her wrist. A one-syllable oath erupted from beside her. Keys jingled. The tension on her arm slackened, and she tumbled from the car in time to take four steps, double over and throw up. A few moments later she became aware of hands on her waist, steadying her. Like her grandmother had done when she was a child. "Better?" Dylan asked, rubbing her back. Confused, she could only nod and slip away from him, out of his grasp. On trembling legs, she took four wobbly steps back to the car and collapsed in the passenger seat. Gum. She needed gum, or a mint. Something to get rid of the bitter taste in her mouth. "My purse," she mumbled, feeling around the carpeted floor. She stopped, remembering that earlier her purse had been tossed into the trunk along with her body.

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Elise took a deep breath, closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the headrest. The passenger door was firmly closed. Then she heard Dylan moving around outside, toward the back of the car. The trunk opened, closed. Then he was settling himself into the driver's seat beside her. She heard a small click and opened her eyes in time to be blinded by the glare of the dome light. The windows were covered with steam, making the interior of the car seem totally isolated from the rest of the world. She looked down at herself. Her suit was a wrinkled, burned, smudged mess. Her shoes were gone, out there somewhere with the alligators, and her nylons clung to her legs in tatters. There were mud smears on the backs of her hands. She rubbed at them, then chanced a glance at the man beside her. Of all the-he was digging through her purse! She couldn't stand anyone going through her purse. Casually, he pulled out a rat-tail comb. "Just in case you've taken any selfdefense seminars." He tossed the comb on the dash. "I happen to value my eyesight." He shoved his hand back inside the bag. "Not that I make a habit of going through women's purses. I want to make sure you don't have a gun or a can of mace or anything." "I don't carry a gun!" How absurd. The pile on the dash grew. Pens, scraps of paper, receipts, a brush, a notebook, wadded-up Kleenex, lipstick. More pens, pencils, half a candy bar... Purses were private. He had no right. "I assure you, there's no need. There's nothing-" He pulled out a pink plastic, tube-like container, opened it and took note of the paper-wrapped tampon inside. Good Lord. Even though women's personal products were advertised on TV all the time, Elise was embarrassed to have this tough, dangerous-looking man examining her most intimate, personal... things. Without a blink, he shut the container and tossed it on the dash with the rest of the mess. He found her billfold and began thumbing through it. "Credit card, blood donor card, Red Cross lifesaving card." He pulled out her driver's license. "Wisconsin? You're from Wisconsin? Quite a ways from home. If you came here looking for action, I'd say you found it." He examined the license thoroughly. "Five-seven ... Hundred and fifteen pounds ... Age, twenty-four." He snapped the billfold shut and continued his rummaging. Next came a brown plastic bottle. He opened it and shook some pills into his palm, inspecting them closely. "Pretty heavy drugs." "They're prescription."

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"That doesn't necessarily mean you got them legally." Great. Now he thought she was a drug addict. Well, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of explaining that the pills were for cramps. He'd already delved into enough of her personal life. And it was none of his business. "Who'd you get them from? Dr. Sebastian?" "Very funny." He palmed the tablets back into the bottle, replaced the lid, tossed the container on the dash and continued foraging. The next thing he found were her birth control pills. They'd been prescribed to lessen her cramps, too. By now Elise wished she'd never mentioned her purse. By now she'd practically forgotten why she'd wanted it in the first place. As he continued to dig, wave after wave of fatigue washed over her. It was hard to believe that the energy she'd accumulated over her seemingly endless days of counting ceiling tiles was now totally depleted. But it was. She was wiped out. He tossed a pack of gum at her. She stared at it. It was a double pack, completely full of empty wrappers. It figured. She let out a sigh and was about to close her tired burning eyes when a rustling sound drew her attention. She looked over in time to see Dylan pull out a small bundle of foil packets bearing the interlocking Greek symbols for man and woman. Oh, no. She'd completely forgotten about the gag gift from Tracy. Looking ludicrously like a proud father showing off prized pictures of his children, Dylan lifted his hand high. Holding the bundle between his thumb and index finger, he let the perforated packets unfold to reach his lap. "You're really prepared. I admire that in a woman." Heat rose in Elise's cheeks. "Those aren't mine." "They were in your purse." "What I mean is, I didn't buy them." "Another gift from Daddy Sebastian?" "No!" She tried to grab them, but he pulled his hand back, just out of reach. "A regular traveling pharmacy, aren't you?" She thought about the bon voyage party some of her fellow teachers had thrown. Tracy, ever the prankster, had even christened Cindy's Toyota with a bottle of cheap champagne, adding another dent to its fender. Dylan carefully fanfolded the packets together again. Elise wished he would turn off the dome light, wished she'd never mentioned her purse. That was when she realized what she was doing. She was acting as if she were the guilty one here. What had gotten into her? What did it matter what he thought? And even if she did try to explain, even if she did tell him the packets had been a gag gift given to her because she was the most unlikely person to

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carry such things, Dylan wouldn't believe her. It was a good thing Tracy wasn't here right now. If she was, Elise would have been sorely tempted to wrap her fingers around the woman's throat. She'd felt like strangling her the day she'd presented her with the gift in front of male and female teachers alike. Tracy had howled. Tracy was always the first to laugh at her own jokes, oftentimes the only one to laugh at them. Elise had turned bright red and jammed the packets into her purse, her only thought being to get them out of sight as quickly as possible. And once something was condemned to her purse, it might never be seen again. Later Tracy had teased her, calling her a prude, but then, Tracy was one of those females who didn't feel complete unless she had a man by her side, and in her bed, at all times. She'd already been through two husbands and countless boyfriends. On the other hand, Elise didn't have much experience where men were concerned. The ones she'd liked, she hadn't liked in that way. And it never failed to irritate her that most of the guys she'd dated would pay for a meal or a movie, or both, then expect payment in return. Payment she didn't give, so she wasn't asked out again. Tracy had told her that was the way it was. Guys dropped you if you didn't "put out." Elise had decided she'd rather be single than get mixed up with someone whose reason for living dwelt somewhere beneath his belt. Life would probably be easier, less complicated, without men. At least without boyfriends. "Don't sweat it," Dylan said, sticking the packets into her purse. "I'm putting them back where I found them." He gave the bag a pat. "Never know when they might come in handy." What did he mean by that? Fear jumped in her again, and her heart knocked against her rib cage. "You said you wouldn't hurt me." He held the, open purse next to the dash, raked her belongings back inside, then dropped it behind his seat. With one arm draped over the steering wheel, he faced her, his strange gold-brown eyes reflecting the light. "Listen, honey, let's get this straight. I don't know what you're used to with Sebastian-he probably gets off on being rough, slapping women around, but I don't. And I'm sure as hell no rapist." What would Tracy have to say about that? Elise wondered. Dylan thought she was Sebastian's sex toy. The idea was so ridiculous, so far from the truth, that she was tempted to laugh. But her flash of humor quickly died when she saw how rigidly stern Dylan's features had become. A chameleon. Suddenly she could feel the darkness in him, the danger, and a strange, underlying... pull. A coaxing, drawing ... pull. Looking at him, it came to her with sudden shock that the man beside her oozed sexuality. His wet hair was lying against his neck, his damp black T-

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shirt stretched tight, molded to his broad chest, his biceps and triceps, the dome light casting shadows beneath his amber eyes, along his unshaven jaw. He was scary in a breathless, intimidating, hypnotic way. She thought about how hard his body had felt lying on top of hers, thought about his hands on her, thought about his wild eyes. A strange, heavy heat ran through her. That was when Elise became aware of a new, totally different kind of fear. Fear of attraction. Of being drawn against her will to someone totally unsuitable, someone unsavory. A felon. "And another thing." He latched the handcuff around her wrist, then reached up and switched off the dome light. "I'd never touch a woman Sebastian had touched." Indignation rose in her, but she fought it, arguing with herself. She shouldn't be irritated; she should count herself lucky. As long as Dylan thought she was Sebastian's girlfriend, she was safe from his advances. "Then I don't have anything to worry about, do I?" she asked coolly, mentally patting herself on the back for the steadiness of her voice, for having the nerve to claim Adrian Sebastian as her lover. "Not a damn thing." He turned the key in the ignition, and the engine rumbled to life. "That's what I've been trying to tell you." After executing a tight U-turn, he drove down the levee toward the highway, toward the ocean.

The night wind lashed at Dylan's hair, and ocean spray stung his face. Occasionally the powerboat's hull broke contact with the water and rose, then slapped back down with a shuddering crash. The storm had blown away; the stars were out. The boat's mounted spotlight cut a southern path through the darkness beyond the boat's bow, the light stretching out, reflecting off the water's choppy surface like some holy walkway to the Great Beyond. There was nothing Dylan liked better than cruising the ocean at night. Well, almost nothing. But tonight it failed to work its magic, failed to soothe him. Behind him, Elise Ramsey sat on the bench seat, handcuffed to the side rail. He felt bad about the cuffs, but he wasn't taking any chances. Not after the trick she'd pulled back there on the levee. This time she just might get the notion to go for a little moonlight swim, to dive off the side and head for the mainland-and get herself drowned in the process. He let out a heavy sigh and raked his fingers through his wind-tangled hair. This wasn't going the way he'd imagined. He was coming off as the bad guy, and he didn't like it. Not one bit. What was messing everything up was Elise Ramsey. She wasn't the tough, thick-skinned showgirl he'd expected. He had to

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give Sebastian credit. The man had better taste than Dylan would have thought. How the hell had someone like her gotten mixed up with a kinko scum-bag like Sebastian? It didn't add up. And Dylan couldn't quite picture the two of them together. In fact, his mind shunned the thought, made hint feel slightly ill. For a while back there he'd even begun to think that he must have picked up the wrong woman. But he hadn't. She'd admitted to being Sebastian's alibi, admitted to being Sebastian's lover. Dylan tried to shake off the dark thoughts that were tugging at his brain. It wasn't his concern, wasn't his business who Elise Ramsey chose to sleep with. He had to remind himself that people were almost never what they appeared to be. You thought you saw them clearly, thought you had them all figured out, but you didn't. From far away things might look together, cohesive, solid. But get up close and all the cracks showed. Dylan shook his head, letting the sea wind slap against his face. What he needed was about four hours of sleep. There was a buzzing in his head; his eyes felt as if they'd been sandblasted, and-every joint in his body ached. Worse than that, he'd gone past the-point of tired and had entered that realm of weird thoughts. He always got philosophical when he'd gone over, forty-eight hours without closing his eyes. Only problem was that all the earth-shattering revelations that came to him when his mind was wired with fatigue made absolutely no sense after a night's sleep. He glanced over his shoulder. The running lights cast a glow, enough for him to see that Elise's eyes were still open. She was wearing his gray hooded sweatshirt and one of the orange life vests he kept on hand for Skeeter and his wife and kids. Dylan had made Elise put it on before they left the mainland. At first she'd refused. But when he'd threatened to put it on for her, she'd quickly relented, slipping it on herself. Her head began to loll. She caught herself, jerking upright, bleary eyes forced wide open. She was fighting sleep like a kid at Christmas. No way was she going to chance falling asleep. Not with big bag Dylan around. She was scared, and who could blame her? But what could he do about it? Tell her, Hey, I'm a good guy who just happens to look and act like a bad guy? Sure. Or tell her he was a cop, or at least that he used to be a cop. Then she'd ask why he wasn't a cop anymore, and he'd have to tell her that he'd gone nuts, that was why. Hardly the stuff reassurance was made of. Her eyes closed, then opened unnaturally wide. "Go to sleep. We won't be there for another hour." She shook her head and straightened her spine even more. He shrugged. "Suit yourself." He turned his attention back to the ocean and the sky, making certain that

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the forestay on the bow lined up with the right star. And still guilt edged its way into the perimeter of his thoughts. If it wasn't for the girl, he wouldn't give a rip. But he didn't like getting rough with women. Especially one as vulnerable looking as Elise Ramsey. And again he found himself wondering how somebody like her had ever gotten mixed up with Adrian Sebastian. An hour later he cut the motor and steered the small boat toward the dock. Behind him, Elise Ramsey had lost the battle she'd been waging with herself and was now asleep, lying curled on the bench seat. At least, she appeared to be asleep. But he wasn't taking any chances. She might be playing possum, and he sure as hell didn't want to get kicked again. He tied off the boat. Then, keeping as much distance between him and Elise as possible, he unlocked the handcuffs from her wrist and the railing, pocketing both keys and cuffs. Then he gave her shoulder a shake. "Wake up." She blinked, then sat up slowly. "We're-" He stopped. He'd almost said, We're home, but that might seem a little ominous to her, like some hillbilly who'd come down from the hills just long enough to find himself a woman. "We're here," he said instead, extending a hand to her, ready to help her off the boat. She ignored his hand. So quickly that he wasn't sure it had even happened, he thought he noticed her eyes flit to the control console of the boat. He turned. The keys. They were still in the ignition, the gentle rocking of the boat making them blink in the moonlight. Dylan pulled them out and stuffed them deep into the front pocket of his rain-damp Levi's. He turned back to Elise. She had pushed herself to her feet and was now shrugging out of the life jacket. Then, avoiding both his outstretched hand and eye contact, she crossed the shifting floor like a seasoned sailor and jumped from the boat to the dock. She stood there waiting, arms crossed tightly at her waist, hugging the sweatshirt to her. "Where is here?" Sleep was still evident in her voice, making it slightly husky. She looked like an orphan standing there, the sleeves of his sweatshirt hanging over her hands, her skirt, the one he'd admired in Miami, dirty and rumpled, her long shapely legs and feet all but bare except for the torn stockings. "Iguana Bay," he said. Her eyes scanned the beach and the two-story beach house. This time there was no mistaking the furtive, hopeful glance she cast over one shoulder. She was considering making another run for it. "You already know I can run faster than you," he told her, jumping from the boat to the dock. "And it won't do you much good to scream because we're

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all alone here." "It's just you." He smiled. "And me."

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Chapter 5 A vague, uncomfortable feeling hovered at the edges of Elise’s dream. Wake up. The nagging words had to do with something she should be doing, but she couldn’t remember what that was. But that didn’t bother her. It would come to her later. Besides, she didn’t want to wake up. She was tired and felt safe within the confines of her dream. She wasn’t ready for it to end. So she let herself drift deeper into the languid embrace of sleep, the comforting warmth of a dream that was more memory than anything conjured by unconsciousness… It was the first day of summer vacation. To an eleven-year-old, three months seemed like forever, and the next school year dwelled somewhere in the remote future, nothing but a mild, unreal threat. The present –that was real. Now. On that first day of freedom a hint of pink crept across the dark, predawn sky. Inside the screened-in porch of the river cabin, the child Elise could smell the damp earth, smell the green of leaves that were covered with a fine mist that came with the night. From far off a dog barked, and the sound echoed the way sounds have a way of echoing at night –as if there weren’t enough people outside to absorb them. Summer and all its wonders were out there, just waiting for her. Days of endless blue skies, of swimming, of walks in cool woods, of Saturday matinees at the Rivoli. And the nights… the nights would be full of cricket songs and lightning bugs and, in July, fireworks. “Leesie! Hurry up!” Her grandmother’s voice carried from across the levee. “The fish are waiting!” Elise, her small bare feet soft and tender from a long winter of shoes, flew down the wooden plankway to the dock, where her grandmother waited in the jonboat. At the end of the dock Elise stopped and took a deep breath, her fingers curled tightly around the cork handle of her fishing pole. Yes, the air held the promise of the most wonderful day, the most wonderful summer. Time shifted… drifted… They were anchored in one of her grandmother’s favorite fishing spots, a small cove where the water was shallow and the bullheads were fat and lazy. Elise lay on her back, the locked fingers of both hands cradling her head, staring up at the clouds and listening to her grandmother’s low, soothing voice, lulled by the warmth of the sun on her face, the gentle lapping of water against the boat’s hull. Time and the dream shifted again… Years moved in and out, intertwining like special golden threads woven in

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a multicolored tapestry. Meshing thoughts… the meshing of time… And in all her memories, all her dreams, Grandma Max was there. “Men are selfish,” her grandmother told her. “They’re just after one thing. When it comes to men, you’ve got to look out for yourself. Think with your head, not with your heart. Look what happened to your mother. A girl’s got to be careful, keep both eyes open. You remember that Leesie.” “I will, Grandma.” Time shifted… “Don’t go out too far. The current!” Grandma Max shouted from the porch. A teenage Elise stood on the dock. She was on the brink of womanhood, brimming with independence, with the thoughtlessness of youth. She knew that her grandmother was afraid for her, and that knowledge made Elise feel irritated, impatient. Couldn’t Grandma Max see that she was no longer a child? Even though Elise knew she was dreaming, it saddened her to see the way she as treating her grandmother. She loved Grandma Max. She didn’t deserve to be treated badly. But in the dream Elise didn’t listen. “Grandma, I know how to swim. I’ve been swimming for years and years.” “The Mississippi doesn’t care how good a swimmer you are. Remember what happened to your mother.” Yes. She remembered. She remembered the lifeless body being pulled from the river. Long, flowing black hair… Whispers of suicide… Wake up. “Wake up, Leesie. Don’t be lazy. Don’t be a slugabed.” Grandma Max. Safety. Security. Home. Elise realized she should wake up. She had something important to do, but what? School? Shopping? Was someone coming over? Wake up. Her grandmother was close. Elise could hear her slow, even breathing. Elise knew she was dreaming, because Grandma Max was dead. Yet Elise didn’t want to let go. She wanted to hang on to her grandmother for as long as possible. In the dream she was with Elise again. So real. Her smile, her voice, the way she smelled –like camphor and soap and wood smoke… For some strange reason she became aware that the breathing she heard was coming from outside her dream. The knowledge jarred her, brought her back to a sense of hazy wakefulness, the nostalgic mood of her dream lying heavily in her mind, leaving her with a warm feeling of comfort, of home, of Grandma Max. In the gray semidarkness Elise could feel the softness of a mattress beneath her. She shifted her weight and felt a tugging on her wrist. Reality hit her with a jolt. Elise was no longer a child. And Grandma Max, sweet, sweet Grandma Max, had been gone for over a year.

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And Elise was lying in bed, handcuffed to a man named Dylan. Oh, God. She squeezed her eyes shut while an overwhelming flood of homesickness washed over her. The dream had brought her grandmother so close, the way dreams do, leaving Elise with a bittersweet pain. She allowed herself to remember the dream, to wish for the safety of it, to feel its comfort, its familiarity. And for a second Elise wished she were a child again, living with Grandma Max again in their cabin on the river. Be careful, Leesie. Elise opened her eyes. Yes. That was it. The important thing she had to do : get away. Earlier, after going inside the bungalow, Dylan had offered her a glass of ice water, even offered to fix her something to eat, but she’d declined. He’d allowed her to use the bathroom by herself. Once there, she’d managed to wash most of the mud from her face and arms. When she’d come out Dylan had slapped the handcuffs on them both and dragged her to his bed, explaining that he didn’t want to have to worry about being knifed, shot or knocked over the head while his eyes were closed. A most gracious host. Then, to Elise’s enormous relief, he’d fallen asleep almost immediately. She’d promised herself that she would try to get away as soon as he was asleep, but her own eyelids had drooped, and she’d given in to the overwhelming urge to close her eyes, swearing that she would only rest a few minutes. Just a few minutes… Now, judging from the shadows in the room, it would soon be light. Time was running out. And she had one major problem to overcome. To get away, she needed the keys to the handcuffs and the keys to the boat. And Dylan had them both. She could only pray that he was a deep sleeper. Elise rolled to her side, careful not to jar the bed, very careful not to touch the man beside her. In the gray predawn she could make out his dark shape well enough to know that he was sprawled on his back. She put out her hand, reaching for him, then stopped, her fingers curling, nails jabbing into the palm of her hand. She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t touch him, couldn’t risk waking him. But she had to. This might be her only chance to get away. There was nothing to do but scoot closer so that his right hip was practically cupped by her thighs. Their handcuffed hands, her left, his right, lay between them. No more than an inch separated their bodies. She could feel the heat of him. She could smell the ocean in his hair and on his skin, hear his steady breathing. She could sense his dormant strength.

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She steeled herself for what she had to do and reached for him. With her right hand she searched for his pocket. Her fingers brushed across a flat copper rivet, then a curved seam. She moved her hand lower, running her fingers lightly across denim, feeling the vague outline of keys beneath the soft, worn fabric. Now to get them without waking him up… He groaned. Her hand stilled; her breath caught. She strained her ears. Above the mad thudding of her heart she could just make out the sound of Dylan’s rhythmic breathing. It took all her willpower to keep from thrusting her hand into his pocket and just grabbing the keys. Slowly, ever so slowly, she forced herself to slip her fingers partway inside. She hesitated, the muscles in her arm twitching. Perspiration broke out on her brow, and she could feel a dewy dampness on her upper lip. A bead of sweat trickled down one side of her face. Slow. Easy. Don’t wake up. Please don’t wake up. She wriggled her fingers past a fold, working her hand deeper, feeling his hipbone just beneath her fingertips. Come on. Come on. She clamped her jaw together and felt deeper… Don’t wake up, don’t wake up… Her fingers made contact with the keys, warm from his body. Okay. Gently now. Slow-ly… Slip them out… Almost home. We’re almost home. Hard fingers clamped down over her wrist. Before her paralyzed brain could begin functioning once more, Dylan mumbled something unintelligible, released her wrist and brought his free hand up to cup her breast. She froze. Almost sleepily, his hand began a gentle, massaging motion. Every sense Elise had was riveted on his touch. She could feel every fingertip, feel her nipple pressing against his slowly rotating palm. Elise’s body flushed with heat, and a strange sensation that seemed half pleasure, half ache pulsed through her. Then he was nuzzling his face against her neck, his breath warm against her skin, his unshaven jaw abrasive against her overheated flesh. She thought her heart had been racing before, but now, now, it was one loud roar between her ears, like the way her voice used to sound as a kid whenever she’d lie down and hum in front of a fan. The Dylan’s lips pressed against the place just below her ear –the place where her pulse was jumping so erratically. The kiss was as languid and lazy as his hand, an openmouthed kiss, sensual

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and warm and erotic. It drove any remaining breath clean away. Then, just as suddenly as the storm had begun, it stopped. His lips and hand reluctantly left her body. “Go back to sleep, Melissa.” He released a heavy, bone-weary sigh. “I’m beat, sweetheart.” He readjusted his position, the bed rocking as he turned his back to her. She could only lie there, stunned, melting in a river of sexual sensations, shocked and horrified by her behavior. Logic slowly filtered its way into her consciousness, eventually drowning out the confused heat left by Dylan’s sexy kiss, his sexy caresses. He was still asleep. He was asleep, and in his sleep he had thought she was someone else. That was good. That was wonderful, she told herself. Then she became aware of a jabbing pain in her palm. The keys. The keys were in her hand. She took a deep, stabilizing breath. Okay. She had the keys. Dylan was asleep. That meant she could still get away. With her free hand she ran her index finger across the keys, feeling their rough, serrated edges. There were three in all, two large, one small. With trembling fingers she separated the small key from the others. She found the lock on her handcuff, stuck in the small key and gave it a twist. The mechanism clicked, and the hinges sprang open. Elise winced, waiting, listening. But Dylan didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. She slipped her hand free. Every instinct was screaming at her, telling her to jump to her feet and run, run, run. But she had one thing left to do. She backed off the bed, careful not to jar Dylan. Then, on feet encased in tattered stockings, she moved silently around to his side. And looking at him in the gathering light, she suddenly felt an odd sense of something very much like regret. She must be going crazy. Why should she feel saddened by this? He was the one who had scared her half to death, the one who had attacked her in a dark alley, thrown her in a trunk, kidnapped her. She was the victim, not Dylan. And yet… She leaned closer. Asleep, he was far less intimidating, seemed far less dangerous. Oh, he still looked rough and wild, with his unshaven, shadowed jaw, and shaggy, tousled hair. But the dark quality he had about him was tempered by the innocence of sleep. He looked rebellious in a youthful, strangely touching sort of way. His black T-shirt was molded to his chest, outlining his pectoral muscles, his sinewy arm lying straight, wrist exposed. And on that wrist was the handcuff.

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Elise reached down and clamped the other end to the metal framework of the bed. Turnabout was fair play. He had done this to her, she told herself. Yet she was being made to go against her nature, being forced to do something cruel to another human being. But it wasn’t as though she was leaving him here for good. The bed frame wasn’t all that sturdy. He would be able to work a joint loose enough to get free. And as soon as she got back to the coast, to people, she would tell the police what had happened and someone could come for him. And still she hesitated, finding it hard to turn and make herself walk away. Instead, she stood and watched him. His muscled chest rose and fell. His breath came out a disturbed sigh through parted lips. She thought of the way his mouth had felt against her skin, the way his hand had felt on her body. Briefly, since it wasn’t like her to have such cravings, she wondered if he’d cast a spell over her. Be careful, Leesie. Yes. She must be very careful. Before she could change her mind, before he could wake up and pierce her with his hypnotic eyes, she turned, and with the keys clutched tightly in the palm of her hand, she hurried away through the shadowed beach house, hurried away from Dylan and the confused feelings he stirred in her.

From far away came a sound as irritating to Dylan as fingernails scraping across a chalkboard. The sound penetrated the thick fog of dreamless sleep to journey down his nerve endings. A grinding starter. Somebody was attempting –unsuccessfully– to start an engine. Dylan groaned and rolled over, intent on wrapping the pillow around his head, covering his ears to drown out the noise, but a tug on his arm stopped him. There was something around his wrist. A handcuff. He came fully awake, three thoughts hitting him at the same time: Elise Ramsey was no longer with him; someone was trying to make off with his boat; and last but certainly not least, he was handcuffed to his own damn bed. The fact that the thief had to be Elise Ramsey annoyed Dylan more than it worried him. He felt pretty safe in assuming that she’d been born with the typical incompetence most females possessed when faced with a gas engine. Women just weren’t mechanically inclined. It wasn’t in their genes. And judging from the repetitious noise still coming from outside, she hadn’t discovered the switch that had to be flipped in order for the fuel to feed the engine. And she probably never would.

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He’d never known Melissa to attempt to operate anything unless it was clearly marked: On, Off, Drive and Park. When he was in high school he’d tried to teach his sister Peggy to drive a stick shift, only to wind up with an auto body repair bill and his neck in a brace. Mumbling some half-formed thoughts that had to do with women in general, he struggled out of bed. Then bracing himself, he dragged the entire bed frame across the floor to the dresser where he kept his spare set of handcuff keys. With his free hand he rummaged through a litter of bullets, casings, knives, chunks of driftwood and seashells, and his loaded shoulder pistol. Lucky for him she hadn’t taken the notion to put a bullet through his brain before hightailing it. He finally located the key. He had it in the handcuff lock when he heard a most surprising sound –that of an engine turning over. Damn. Elise Ramsey was turning out to be more trouble than all his bounty hunting jobs put together. Nobody drove his boat. Nobody. Especially a woman. The cuffs sprang open. Dylan spun around and sprinted for the door. As he raced toward the dock the sun was just beginning to make an appearance, climbing out of the Atlantic –normally one of his favorite sights, but not this morning. He was almost to the boat when Elise straightened and threw a glance over one shoulder. Then she turned and rammed the throttle home. Dylan made a lunge for the boat, fully expecting to get a dunking, surprised when he just managed to clear the gunwale and fall to the deck. The sleek craft roared toward open water, the bow jutting skyward, a rooster tail gushing behind. His boat, wasn’t your regular Sunday afternoon job. It was modified, because Dylan liked to go fast. In the hands of a novice that extra power could be dangerous. On the pounding, uneven floor Dylan struggled for a foothold, slipping, hands flailing at the air. “Throttle down!” he shouted –uselessly, because the wind caught his words and whipped them behind him. Then she did something experienced drivers never did when cruising wide open. She gave the wheel a sharp tug to the right. For the second time Dylan’s feet left the deck. Wind whooshed past his ears, and a jet-engine roar deafened him as he tumbled backward, smacking into the remarkably painful waters of the Atlantic.

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Chapter 6 One second the boat had been going straight, the next the wheel had jerked from Elise's hands, pulling hard to the right. Dylan was knocked off balance, falling into the water. Now, legs and arms trembling, Elise gripped the wheel tightly in her left hand while throttling down with her right. The motor slowed, and the hull settled back into the water. No matter who he was, no matter what he had done to her, she had to go back, had to make sure he wasn't hurt. She put the boat into a smooth, wide turn, rhythmic waves striking the port side as she maneuvered back around. At first she could see no sign of Dylan, and she felt a stab of fear. She knew how water, like the desert, had a way of distorting a person's perception of place and distance, and she was afraid that maybe she'd come too far, turned too wide and lost track of where she was in relation to where Dylan had fallen overboard. But then, seconds later, she spotted his dark hair. She had no time to wonder at the relief that surged through her as she guided the boat toward him, stopping a safe distance from where he was effortlessly treading water. A strong tropical wind whistled past her ears, tugging at her tangled hair, whipping strands of it across her cheek. Now that she had stopped, the boat rolled and pitched, following the rippling surface of the water. She could smell the salt in the air. Standing at the wheel, Elise braced her legs and curled her toes into the stiff carpet. When she saw that Dylan was swimming toward her, intent on boarding, she pushed the throttle forward slightly, enough to keep out of his reach. He went back to treading water. The rising sun sparkled off the waves and shimmered off his black hair as it lay wet and slick against his head. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he shouted. He sounded a little out of breath, but not too much. "Stop and let me on my own damn boat!" Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "Nobody drives my boat!" Now that he was no longer swimming toward her, Elise let the boat idle. "You look strong and healthy." Her gaze went from him to the island. She could see it lying out there not too far away. She looked back at Dylan. "And you can swim." She shrugged. No need to spell it out for him. Comprehension dawned on his face. "My God!" he shouted at her, his voice full of outraged disbelief. "You're a heartless little bitch, aren't you? And you've been nothing but a royal pain in the butt since we met."

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"Met? We never met!" He apparently chose to ignore that fact. "First you kick me in the crotch, then I almost end up as gator bait. I just miss getting fried by lightning, and then-" He held one hand high enough for her to see the handcuff dangling from it. "Then you handcuff me to my own bed! And now this-ripping off my boat and leaving me here to drown!" They were drifting farther apart, and Elise almost had to shriek in order to be heard, but she felt like shrieking, she probably would have shrieked if a mere foot separated them. "I mistreated you? You're crazy, you know that? I would be a fool to let you on this boat. I've got you where I want you-where you can't manhandle me. Where you can't put cuffs on me, or toss me in a trunk, or threaten to shoot me!" "I never threatened to shoot you!" She inhaled deeply, drawing enough air into her lungs to continue. "I came back to make sure you were okay, but now I wonder why I bothered." Elise turned her back on him and reached for the throttle, steeling herself against any urge to take one final look. From behind her came a shout. "Ramsey! Hey, Ramsey!" She couldn't help herself. She looked. "Why don't you stick around? You might enjoy the show." She fingered the throttle. "What do you mean?" "Ever see Jaws?" She wasn't a complete idiot. She knew he was playing for sympathy. "Of course I have." She smiled. "And I loved every minute of it." "Have you caught any of those specials on TV?" he shouted, his words coming a little more rapidly. "These are shark-infested waters." Don't listen, she told herself. Get away. Leave. But something uncomfortable tugged at her memory. She recalled a program she'd seen on TV during those long days and nights of incarceration at The Bastion. Something to do with sharks ... about how there were large packs of them somewhere off the coast of... where? She couldn't remember. "Sharks are amazing," he told her now that he could see he'd gotten her attention. "Did you know that they can smell blood from over a quarter of a mile away?" "No. I didn't know that." He's just doing this to get on the boat, she told herself. "Too bad you're not bleeding," she told Dylan. "But I am. I cut my foot when I fell off the boat. Look." He backfloated and held a bare foot up for her inspection. The sunlight glared off the water, almost blinding her. And he wasn't exactly what she'd call close. No, he was at least thirty feet away.

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And yet ... she thought that maybe ... just maybe she could see a streak of red on the bottom of his foot. She leaned forward and squinted her eyes, trying to look harder. He quickly stuck his foot back in the water. Too quickly. Sneaky quickly. "I don't believe you," she said, not feeling as sure of herself as she sounded. "I didn't see anything." The words were barely out of her mouth when suddenly Dylan cried out in a yelp that was half surprise, half fear. Then, before her horrified gaze, his whole body jerked and he vanished beneath the churning water. The next few seconds seemed like years. Elise forced herself to move, to do something. Mechanically she throttled forward, bringing the boat to the approximate place where Dylan had vanished. Then, jamming the boat into neutral, she hurried to the side and looked down, her eyes frantically trying to penetrate the depths of the turquoise water. Nothing. Not a bubble, not a shadow of movement. Nothing. He'd been there, and now he was simply gone. She vacillated between cursing him and praying for his safety. Moving around the perimeter of the boat, she checked along the waterline, making sure he wasn't hiding. "What a horrible, horrible trick, a cruel trick," she muttered under her breath, hoping that was all it was-a trick-half expecting to see him surface any second. She promised herself that he'd surface any second. But she waited and waited, straining her eyes and ears for some sight, some sound, however slight. Nothing. Don't be dead. Please don't be dead. How long had he been down there? It seemed like hours, but she guessed it had been no more than a couple of minutes at the most. She'd been telling the truth when she said she'd seen Jaws. But she'd been lying when she'd said she enjoyed it. Confused and conflicting emotions churned inside her. Fear. Guilt. She felt so helpless, so alone, so exhausted. She'd been through so much in the past twelve hours, and now she could feel what little self-control she'd somehow managed to cling to slipping. She wished she could think of what she should do, but she couldn't. Leave? Should she leave? Go find someone, tell someone? Not yet. Maybe later, but not yet. She could feel the hysteria building in her, and she fought it with the little willpower and strength she had left. With white-knuckled hands, she gripped the gunwale, staring into the water, her eyes trying to probe its dark depths. Her vision blurred, and she

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dashed the tears away with the back of one hand. Her dream came back to her with terrifying clarity. Horrible memories of a body being pulled from the Mississippi. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the memory. Failing. Her mother's body. Elise had been five years old when her mother had drowned. She'd never been sure whether or not she'd actually witnessed the discovery of the body or if her overactive imagination had made it seem as if she'd been there. r Suddenly a sound came from behind her and the boat gave a terrific lurch. She gasped and spun around in time to see Dylan heaving himself over the port side and onto the deck. He was alive! She watched in fascinated horror as he staggered, then collapsed on his hands and knees. Water poured from his clothes, forming a puddle around him. His head hung forward as he sucked in huge, rasping lungfuls of air. Under his soaked black T-shirt, his rib cage rose and fell, but she didn't see any sign of blood. She wished he'd look up so she could see his face; then she'd know if he was okay. As if reading her thoughts, he slowly, almost painfully, pushed himself to his feet, bracing his legs against the rolling pitch of the deck. The handcuffs jingled as he reached up with both hands and raked his soaked hair back from his face before letting his hands drop back to his sides. Water sluiced down the tan, muscled tendons of his neck, disappearing into the water-stretched neck band of his T-shirt. Elise was standing a few feet away, her hand still pressed to her heart, to the place it had flown when he'd lunged onto the boat. Now she slowly lowered her hand to her side. This was the first time she'd ever seen him close up in full light, she realized. And looking at him, seeing him wet the way he was, his jeans hugging his muscled thighs, his T-shirt plastered to his broad chest, she once again felt the strange, scary, fascinated pull she'd felt last night. As her gaze trailed slowly upward, she was both surprised and oddly pleased to see that his eyes were really and truly the unusual amber color she'd thought had only been a trick of the night. An the eyelashes that surrounded them were black and long and spiked with water. And looking into those eyes, her heart began to beat harder, faster, seeming to keep time with the deep, rhythmic pulsing of the idling, waiting motor. And even now, in the light, she could sense a restrained wildness about him, a darkness that had nothing to do with his tangled mane of hair. No, it had to do with his eyes. Not the color, but something inside them, something inside him. As she watched, his dark, slashing eyebrows drew together in an intimidating frown. Then he took a step forward, a step she could only interpret

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as threatening. He stood there, both hands splayed firmly on his hips. No more than twelve inches separated their bodies. That was when it came to her. "You were never hurt," she said accusingly. One side of his mouth turned up in a half smile. He had the gall to look quite pleased with himself. "Nope." If she hadn't been on such an emotional roller coaster, if she hadn't been so worried, she would have caught on sooner. There hadn't been any shark down there trying to chomp on his leg. The whole thing had been a trick. A sick, sick trick. And now, recalling how he'd scared her half to death, remembering what he'd just put her through, her anger surfaced. "You tricked me." His smile broadened. The sight of it stole the air from her lungs, but she quickly rallied herself. She was out of breath because of what she'd just been through. "You scared me half to death, and you tricked me." "I don't know what you're griping about. I'm the one who was going to be left for shark bait. I think I've been fairly nice to you, considering." He held up the wrist with the handcuff as evidence. Nice? Lord. Somebody give the man a dictionary. "What a bunch of garbage! Is that what you call what you've done to me? Being nice?" She blew out an angry breath. "What do you do when you really like a girl? Stick bamboo shoots under her fingernails?" Before she could judge his reaction, he turned away, bringing up one hand to rub the side of his face. For a second she thought he had turned to hide a smile. Impossible. When he swung back, his face was bland, but there was a light-almost a gleam-in his eyes that made her squirm. "Bamboo shoots?" He rubbed his chin in exaggerated thoughtfulness. "Nooo...." She definitely didn't like the way he was looking at her. It made her think of a cat that had just spotted a sparrow with an injured wing. She tried to step back but only succeeded in bumping into the gunwale. The boat lurched, and she reached for the side at the same time Dylan's hands reached out to steady her. Through the fabric of her light jacket she could feel the strength in his fingers as they wrapped around her upper arms. Then he eased her toward him, his eyes no longer focused on her face, but her chest. She looked down. Her jacket was hanging open; her blouse was wet from the sea spray. And her blouse wasn't the only thing that had gotten wet. The bra she was wearing was thin, and in the glaring brilliance of the sun a round shadow was clearly

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visible at the center of each breast. "Know what I do when I really like a girl?" It was a sexually loaded question. "Tie her to a railroad track?" she asked, heart pounding, words coming fast, one on top of the other. "Use the old Chinese torture method and drip water on her forehead?" "No. When I really like a girl..." He paused. She froze, watching, hypnotized as his hand came up, and through the two layers of wet fabric she felt his finger slowly trace the outline of first one nipple, then the other. "When- I really like a girl, I take off her clothes." Her breath caught in her throat, her thoughts exploding in a million different directions, none of them logical, none of them focused. Her eyes wandered from his hand to his face. His eyelids looked heavy. Drowsy. His mouth, reddened by salt water, was turned up slightly at the corners in a lazy, sexy smile. Sex appeal. He oozed it. "I don't think we should ... you should-" She stopped, and her breath caught again. She completely forgot what she'd been about to say. Her thoughts flew to the hand that cupped her entire breast, the thumb that circled the pliant nipple. Something stirred inside her. She felt a deep yearning, a need. Warmth traveled through her veins, making her legs go weak. "Then," he whispered, his hand leaving her breast, moving to her shoulder, her back, pulling her closer. "After her clothes are off, I take mine off, too." "Oh." She felt herself tumbling backward and grabbed both, his shoulders. She felt the muscles bunch and shift under the wet cotton as he lowered her to the deck. "Then I lie down on top of her-like this." She felt the entire weight and length of him pressing down on her, felt his hands on her hipbones. Involuntarily, her eyelids fluttered closed. Part of her mind was chanting that this wasn't really happening. Another part was goading her, telling her to give in and experience what her friends had been telling her she'd been missing all the years of her celibate life. The boat rolled, and Dylan's body rolled with it. Salt water from his dripping clothes penetrated hers, going all the way to her skin. Through her clinging skirt and the cotton fabric of his wet jeans, she could feel the hardness of his arousal. Then she felt his hand begin at her knee, one long, slow stroke that eventually moved up her leg, up her skirt, his open palm warm against skin that was barely covered by her torn pantyhose. She was distantly aware of the sun, warm on her face, creating an orange

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haze behind her eyelids. Then the warm haze seemed to slip down inside her. The boat dipped again, and Elise felt his hardness just where it should be. Pressing ... "Feels good, doesn't it?" he asked in a low, incredibly husky voice. "The ocean swells. That up-" he paused, waiting "-and down ... motion." He moved with the waves, was a part of the waves. Something tight was building inside her. A fire. A storm. The ocean ... She parted her lips, and a moan escaped them. Then his mouth pressed hard against hers in a wet, open-mouthed kiss that tasted like salt water. She felt the rough-smooth surface of his tongue stroking hers. Slowly. In and out, like the waves. And the fire roared higher, the storm raged... . When his mouth left hers, she forced her heavy eyes open to regard him with bemusement. Why had he stopped? Dylan shifted his upper body to one side, keeping his hips nestled to hers. His hand moved to her blouse, and she felt his knuckles brush across her skin as he slipped the buttons, one at a time, through the buttonholes. "A boat's one of the most erotic places to make love, don't you think?" He tugged her blouse free of her skirt. She shook her head. "I-I really wouldn't know." "No? Come on." He spread open her blouse and leaned closer, beads of water that clung to the ends of his hair dripping onto her warm, bare skin. "As much as you've been around?" Like an avalanche, his blunt words brought her fantasy crashing down around her. Had she lost her mind? One minute she was trying to get away from him, the next she was wanting him to make love to her. Insane! For a few minutes she'd forgotten who he was, who she was, and what he thought she was. A kept woman. Sebastian's woman. Then she remembered what he'd said about not touching her because of Sebastian. Had he forgotten, too? "There was this one time..." she managed in a loud, hoarse whisper. The hand on her bare stomach stilled. Like a cross held up to Dracula, she drew forth the name. "With Adrian Sebastian." That was all it took. She felt him tense, saw his jaw go rigid, and she couldn't help but wonder if he, too, had been swept away and was just now fully recalling who she was and what this was all about. The drowsy warmth vanished from his eyes, replaced by a remote coldness that she felt sure reflected the hardened criminal within. And his voice, when he finally spoke, was as distant as the far horizon. "That's what I'd do if I liked you. It's a good thing I don't like you, isn't it?"

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She swallowed, forcing herself to resist the urge to look away, to resist the urge to cower and clutch the edges of her blouse together. Instead she looked defiantly up at him and answered his rhetorical question. "Yes." Even though her hands were still on his shoulders, even though her body still pulsed from his touch, she said it again, as if the vehemence of her voice made it so. "Yes." With his face set in an expression of self-loathing, he shoved himself away from her and dropped into the driver's seat. He sat there in silence while Elise rebuttoned her blouse with stiff, shaky fingers. "Get up here and sit down so we can go." He didn't look at her, but kept his eyes focused blankly on the expanse of water in front of them. She was sick of his hypocritical attitude. Even if she had been Adrian Sebastian's girlfriend, who was Dylan to pass judgment on her life-style and treat her as if she were contaminated? Not bothering to tuck in her blouse, she pushed herself to her feet; then, gripping the siderail, she made her way to the front, collapsing in the passenger seat. Elise half expected him to gun the boat, but he didn't. He turned, then took off at a sedate pace, the metal tie-off on the bow pointing toward the island. Elise stared straight ahead, exhaustion washing over her. She couldn't remember when she'd ever been so tired. And when she was extremely tired, her brain malfunctioned. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't seem to think logically. She said and did goofy things. That explained what had just happened back there, she told herself sternly. If she could just get some sleep, she could figure this out. She began plucking at her torn hose, watching curiously as another run shot down her leg. "This vacation's been grand so far," she said. "Just grand." She knew she was getting punchy, but she couldn't seem to help herself. It was either that or tears. She pinched another bit of nylon, stretching it away from her leg. Another run zipped along, stopping when it came to a hole below her shin. "What's next on the agenda? Golf, followed by drinks on the veranda?" She stretched her toes and lifted her hair off her neck. "How about horseback riding? Do you have horseback riding here at your resort?" "Shut up." He must have some sort of conscience after all, she decided, since her sarcasm seemed to bother him. A guilt complex, that was it. She found that she enjoyed goading him, twisting the knife a little deeper. She inspected her nails. They were chipped and caked with dirt. "Billiards, perhaps?" "Shut up." "How about charades?" She tossed her head, her lank, tangled hair slapping against her neck. "I love charades, don't you?" She looked over at him. He was

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glaring at her, his brows furrowed. "What the hell's the matter with you?" he demanded. "Matter?" she asked, her voice heavy with sarcasm. "Why, what could be the matter? I'm exhausted and hungry, I have to go to the bathroom, I'm filthy, and I've been mauled. What could possibly be the matter?" "Mauled?" A burst of mocking laughter escaped him. "That's a good one. That's probably what Delilah said to Samson." How absurd. Outrageous. She should be mad, but she was suddenly too tired. Anger took an enormous amount of energy, energy that her earlier outburst had depleted. She closed her eyes, taking a tiny bit of comfort in the fact that he'd obviously had some sort of religious up-bringing. Minutes later, through a haze of fatigue, she heard Dylan cut the engine and felt the boat drift, then bump against the dock. She was distantly aware of his movements as he tied off, the boat rocking as he jumped from it. "Come on." Her eyelids weighed a ton. She struggled to open them, only to have them fall shut again. "Come on," he repeated from the vicinity of the dock. She opened her eyes and this time managed to keep them open. She pushed herself to her feet, every muscle in her body protesting. Her head was throbbing, sharp pains settling in her temples. But no matter how exhausted she was, no matter how heavy and tired her legs were, she still refused to take Dylan's extended hand as she stepped from the boat. So he grabbed her by the upper arm and pulled her up beside him. Once there, she simply stood, arms at her sides. "You okay?" His voice seemed to come from light years away, through a hazy tunnel. She tilted her head back and squinted her eyes so she could see him. "What?" "Are you okay?" "Okay?" She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger. "Peachy. Just peachy." Then, with an airy motion, she shoved one hand against his damp chest, pushing him back so she could step past him. As she walked toward the beach house, a black depression fell over her. She felt lost, bereft. As if someone very close to her had died. And as Dylan watched her walk away, he once again felt the same strange, aching need he'd felt on the boat. And this time she wasn't touching him. This time she wasn't even looking at him. He watched her go. Sebastian's woman.

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Chapter 7 After getting back from her bungled escape attempt, Elise walked straight through the living room to the bedroom, shutting the door behind her. She half expected Dylan to follow, but thankfully he didn't. Exhaustion overtaking her, she threw herself facedown on the bed that was now jammed against the dresser. As she lay there, she tried not to think about what had almost happened out there, about what she would be doing right now if she hadn't come to her senses. Making love. She immediately blocked out the mental image that flashed into her brain. She was incredibly lucky that Dylan had such a low opinion of her. That was the only thing that had saved her from his lovemaking. Above all, she must make sure he kept that low opinion intact. From the other side of the door came Dylan's voice. "You want anything to eat?" "No!" Eating would have taken effort. Eating would probably have taken place in the same room as Dylan, and she didn't want to be near him. And she was too exhausted to guard her words. In her present state she was afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing, of giving herself away. Five minutes later, Dylan barged into the room. She quickly closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep. Watching through her eyelashes, her face partially hidden in the crook of one arm, she forced herself to breathe evenly and shallowly. He moved across the starkly furnished room, lifting the shoulder holster from the bedpost and looping it over one arm. She tensed, then relaxed as he ignored her and moved past. He opened the top dresser drawer, taking out a revolver and tucking it into the waistband of his jeans. Something small and cylindrical fell and rolled across the floor. He cursed under his breath, then threw an armload of stuff back into the drawer. He ended up pulling out two drawers and carrying them both from the room, kicking the door shut behind him. Two minutes later he was back. He picked up the extra pillow beside her and left. Just before falling asleep, in that strange, subconscious, half-dreaming state, Elise was once again on the boat with Dylan, but this time she didn't mention Sebastian's name. At first Elise thought she was home in her own bed. But then she opened her eyes and saw the sunlight streaming in through the single, curtainless window and remembered where she was. And who she was. And who Dylan

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thought she was-someone she had to continue to be. The clock on the dresser read 7:30. Even though she must have slept most of the day, her head still ached, and she still felt exhausted. She sat up and rubbed her temples, her bleary gaze falling on a stack of clothes at the foot of the bed. She reached for them, finding a man's chambray work shirt, a pair of men's well-worn gray jogging pants, white socks and a pair of faded jeans-the jeans were the only thing that looked as if they might come close to fitting her. In the bathroom, Elise discovered everything she needed, including shampoo and a toothbrush. But what surprised her even more was the hot water. All the comforts of home, she noted wryly. After showering, she found that the jeans fit almost perfectly except for being a little too loose at the waist. Because of what had passed this morning, not only the kissing, but the handcuffs and her stealing Dylan's boat, she wasn't thrilled at the thought of another encounter with him, but she was hungry. Starving. With her wet hair soaking through the shoulders of the blue shirt, she moved barefoot across the room, expecting to find herself locked in. Under her hand, the knob turned and the door swung open. Earlier, when she'd sneaked away, the living room had been dark. Now the shadows were gone, chased away by the sunshine. The room would have appeared stark if not for the huge curtainless windows that opened to the turquoise bay, seeming to invite the sun and ocean indoors. She hadn't expected a room so open, so light and airy-not of Dylan. Day one of her captivity was almost over. Low evening sunlight spilled in across the varnished wood floor. The ocean breeze rushed through welcoming windows, bringing with it the balmy smell of sand and sun and salt water. Fresh air flowed across the surface of her skin where she'd rolled up the sleeves of the oversize shirt. She could hear the ceaseless rumble of the Atlantic, lying out there like a slumbering giant. And through the window, framed in the same picture as the sun and sea, was Dylan. He was sitting on the porch, bare feet propped on a bamboo table, his gaze turned away toward the ocean, a gray tabby cat on his lap. The picture he presented was one of false serenity-especially with the cat, which was totally incongruous with his dark, criminal persona. He'd changed clothes. His jeans were dry, his black T-shirt exchanged for a navy-blue one. His hair was dry, too. Now she could see that it wasn't black, as she had first thought, but a dark, rich brown. Thick, incredibly thick, and slightly wavy. Apparently he'd been waiting for her. Even though she'd hardly made a sound, he must have heard her, because he lifted the cat from his lap, got up and came inside, the screen door slamming behind him. His eyes flitted briefly over her, and in that millisecond she knew

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he'd taken note of her clothes and wet hair. "Those jeans were left here by a buddy's son. I thought they might fit you." His attitude was casual, but slightly remote. Good. She certainly didn't want him getting chummy again. "Sit down and I'll fix you a sandwich." He waved a hand in the direction of a table and four chairs. The table had a Formica top that probably had been red at one time, but was now pink. It was edged with a strip of screwed-on metal. Grandma Max had kept a table like that on her porch. Elise could even swear the red plastic chair pads were cracked in the same places. Dylan disappeared through a narrow doorway. She could hear a refrigerator open and close, hear jars rattling. Instead of sitting down, she wandered around the room. There wasn't much to reveal anything about its owner, the very absence of personal items seeming to tell a story all its own. And anyway, she reminded herself, there couldn't possibly be a thing about Dylan she would be interested in knowing-except maybe where his weaknesses lay. Even so, she found herself moving to the wall opposite the bay. On shelves constructed of unfinished pine there were a few hardback books. To her surprise she saw that nearly all of them had to do with astronomy. He was interested in stars. So what? But it just didn't add up. Dreamers were interested in stars. Maybe the books weren't his. The rest of the shelf space contained what to her unprofessional eye appeared to be genuine artifacts from sunken ships. Big rusty chunks of metal, some coins that looked as if they'd melted together, a cylindrical piece of metal that could have been the barrel of a gun. Was Dylan a diver? Had he found these things himself? That would certainly explain how he'd managed to stay underwater for so long. To the right of the bookshelf were steep curved steps leading to the second story. Judging from the undisturbed dust on the steps, it had been a long time since anyone had been up there. Near the steps was a large framed poster that she almost dismissed, thinking it was something that had been .left over from the hippie era. But on closer inspection she saw that it wasn't a poster but a collage of photographs, some black-and-white, some color. They were juxtaposed with pen-and-ink sketches and brightly painted designs, giving the entire composition the feel of an album cover from the sixties. From the kitchen came Dylan's voice. "What do you want on your sandwich? Mayonnaise and mustard, or ketchup and pickle?" She was surprised that he'd bothered to ask. "Just mayonnaise," she answered, continuing to study the collage. One of the pictures, a black-and-white, was of a man and a proud-looking boy-father and son, she assumed. They were showing off their catch, a huge

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sailfish hanging from a dock scale. The boy, wearing cuffed jeans and a striped T-shirt, looked to be around twelve. Another was of a baby boy grabbing a fistful of birthday cake; others were of a boy in a baseball uniform, a boy hanging upside down from a tree limb. There were a lot of pictures of the same dark-haired woman. The boy's mother? Several were of the same two girls. Sisters? It was then she realized the collage was an artistic account of Dylan's past. There were more pictures, lots more pictures. In one Elise was able to recognize a teenaged Dylan. He was standing next to a freckle-faced boy who looked about the same age. Both of them were leaning against a red Chevy Impala, arms crossed in front of white T-shirts, eyes squinted against the smoke from the cigarettes dangling from the corners of their stern mouths. Another picture, obviously taken the same day, had both youths flexing their muscles for the camera. A couple of real hoods. The corners of Elise's mouth threatened to turn up, and she forced herself to suppress the urge to smile. Some of the pictures were more recent. In one Dylan looked pretty much the same as he did now, except that his hair was shorter and neater. He was wearing a tuxedo, standing next to a sophisticated-looking woman, sophisticated in a way Elise could never be. The woman had pale blond hair, a flawless complexion and full, pouty lips. Dylan's girlfriend? Wife? The mysterious Melissa? Elise felt a strange sensation, as if a heavy stone had plummeted to the pit of her stomach. She hadn't thought of Dylan as someone with a normal past. Someone with a family. Friends. A girlfriend. Maybe even a wife ... How strange.... Dylan had turned into a criminal. Elise, on the other hand, had what some people termed a rather odd upbringing, never knowing her father and .losing her mother at an early age, so early that she hardly remembered her. She noticed a signature in the lower right-hand corner and leaned closer. To Dylan, with all my love. Melissa. Melissa. The composition had been lovingly put together by Melissa. The name Dylan had whispered this morning. The name he'd spoken with part exasperation, part tenderness. Elise's eyes flew back to the picture of the woman standing next to Dylan. She was still staring at it when Dylan came in carrying a bowed white paper plate and a glass of milk. He set them on the table. Apparently he'd already eaten, because instead of sitting down he sprawled out on the couch, locking the fingers of both hands behind his head. He propped his bare feet up on the armrest, crossing them at the ankles. From her vantage point, she could see the soles of both feet. Neither had a cut.

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She took a bite of her sandwich. He just lay there, watching her, eyes never wavering. The expression on his face was one of curiosity, as if he couldn't quite figure her out. And she didn't want him to. "Where'd you learn to drive a boat?" She didn't want to share any of her life with him, didn't want to risk saying the wrong thing. She shrugged. "I've driven boats since I was little." "In Wisconsin?" "I grew up on the Mississippi." He nodded, as if that explained everything. "Never fished the muddy Mississippi. Always wanted to take a trip all the way to its source." It was blatantly obvious he was trying to make conversation, but she wouldn't allow herself to be drawn in, not even small talk. She didn't want to encourage him or make him think she approved of what he was doing. She took another bite of the sandwich. He continued to stare. She was tempted to grab her plate and retreat to the bedroom, but she didn't want him to know that -he intimidated her. And he didn't. No, sir. Not in the least. She twisted slightly away from him, the plastic seat squeaking. Facing nothing but blank wall, she continued eating. "Want another sandwich?" he asked before she'd even finished swallowing the last bite. She shook her head, chewed, swallowed, wiped her mouth, then swung around to face him. Whatever you do, don't beg, she told herself. Never beg. Don't let him see a weakness. "How long do you plan to keep me here?" He shifted his hips slightly, readjusting his weight, getting more comfortable. "As long as it takes." "But you will ... let me go?" What did she want from him? she asked herself. A promise? A promise from a criminal meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. That would be like taking the word of the devil. "I'll take you back when the trial is over." As soon as he let her go, she would report him. Surely he must know that. Which was another reason not to believe him, not to trust him. She was in this by herself and had to take care of it herself. She would make him think that she was resigned to the situation. He would relax his guard, and she would get away. For good this time. At least now she felt reasonably safe in assuming that he didn't plan to physically harm her-otherwise he would have done so already. "Has it occurred to you that the trial might be postponed when I don't show up?" she asked. "I don't think that'll happen. Too many people want to get Sebastian. This might be the only opportunity to see justice done."

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"Justice! How on earth can justice be done if Adrian Sebastian is convicted when he's innocent? Don't you care? You'll be sending an innocent man to jailpossibly death row! Doesn't that mean anything to you?" He swung his feet to the floor and sat up. "I care. That's what this is all about." His casual attitude was gone, and Elise suddenly wished she'd left well enough alone. "Sebastian may or may not have killed Harry Zevon. But one thing I do know is that Sebastian isn't innocent." He spoke with such chilling certainty that Elise found herself once again shutting her mind to the possible reasons Dylan might have for hating Adrian Sebastian. She had to give honest testimony, no matter what the man's previous crimes. More than that, she didn't want to know because it might be too frightening. She didn't want to know what people like Dylan and Sebastian were involved in. She would rather their dealings remain shadowy, half-formed ideas. "You know what I can't figure out?" Dylan said, watching her through the twilight that had suddenly filled the room. "I can't figure out how you can let a bastard like Sebastian touch you." This was where she could blow it. This involved sex, something of which she knew very little. She managed to execute an easy shrug before getting to her feet, fear and a strange excitement rushing through her. She casually stretched, suddenly wanting to flaunt her fictional affair with Sebastian in Dylan's face. To taunt him. "It's really not so hard to figure out, not for a woman, anyway." She focused on her open palm, tracing a finger along her lifeline. It was long and well-defined. "Sebastian is the best I ever had." Now she made herself look directly at Dylan. "He knows how to please a woman." With that statement complete, she glided to the bedroom, head high. Dylan watched her go, watched the bedroom door close, his jaw rigid, fists clenched. Damn. He was mad, but that wasn't all. No, what he felt was frustration, an urge to shake some sense into her, make her see what a waste she was making of her life. What a mistake she was making allowing herself to become so deeply involved with somebody like Sebastian. But then he caught himself, realizing what he was, doing. What business was it of his what she did with her life? And he sure wasn't anybody to preach. It wasn't as if his own life had followed the straight and narrow. It wasn't as if his own life wasn't screwed up. And getting more screwed up all the time.

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He shoved himself to his feet, strode to the kitchen, jerked open the refrigerator and took out a beer. She'd almost pulled it off this morning. He admired her for that. But he had to keep reminding himself that she'd spent a lot of time around Sebastian. Some of him had to have rubbed off on her. One thing for sure, she knew how to make a guy crazy. Out there in the boat, she'd fogged his brain. She'd used her body to try to weaken him. They'd almost had sex. Afterward, she would have clung to him, sweetly begging him to take her back. And the scary thing was, it probably would have worked if Sebastian's name hadn't slipped out. He folded back the tab on the beer, took a long drink, then went outside to the porch and dropped into one of the wicker chairs, slouching down, his legs stretched out in front of him. He took another drink and stared out toward the ocean and darkening sky, not really seeing them. Instead he was visualizing Sebastian's hands moving over Elise's body, touching her, kissing her, just as Dylan himself had done only hours ago. Pale skin ... so unbelievably soft. . . Touched by Sebastian's hands. He took another drink, then slammed the can down on the table. He got up and strode purposely back inside, to the bedroom. He shoved the door open so hard it crashed against the wall. Elise sat up in bed, a hand to her heart, eyes huge. "How can you let someone touch you who has blood on his hands?" Dylan demanded. In three quick strides he was across the room. He grasped her by the shoulders, one knee dipping onto the mattress, his eyes probing hers. Her eyes. Her driver's license had called them blue. An understatement if ever there was one. They were a color Dylan had never seen before. Right now, in the gathering darkness, they appeared almost navy... and scared. "Leave me alone." He was doing it again. He'd tell himself that he was going to be nice, and then he'd just kind of lose it and scare her again. Oh, her voice was steady enough, but there was no denying the fear lurking in the depths of those blue eyes. He moved his hands up and down her arms-a warming motion, the kind you used when somebody was cold. But she was warm. Warm and soft ... "I just hate to see you mixed up with a guy like Sebastian, that's all." She gave a forced laugh. "What about you? Are you saying you're any better? And what difference does it make what I do?" she demanded. "It's none of your business." She was right. It wasn't. He'd been down this road before. He should know

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better. Years ago, there had been kids he'd tried to help, but no matter what he did, most of them ended up back on the street. Now he found himself wanting to help Elise. And she might even let him. He could help her get a decent job, help her break her connection with Sebastian. From experience, he knew that it might work for a while. But she wasn't a kid; she wouldn't be as susceptible to change. Pretty soon she'd get bored and go back to her old way of life, a more exciting way of life. No, from experience he'd learned it was better to mind your own business. Getting involved meant getting hurt. "You're right. It doesn't make any difference to me." He let go of her arms and moved off the bed and across the room, pausing at the door. He looked back at her, thinking that her hair was really something. He didn't know if he'd ever seen anybody with her combination of dark hair and that color eyes. It was striking. In fact, it just about took his breath away. "By the way," he told her, "in case you're plotting another breakout, you might as well know that I've hidden den the boat and handcuff keys and locked up all the weapons. So why don't you just concentrate on getting a good night's sleep?" He turned and shut the door after him, the memory of her blue eyes vivid in his mind. Much later, when Elise finally got to sleep, her dreams were full of a man who wore a long black cape and walked alone across dark moors. But instead of running, she did the strangest thing; she called out to him. And when he turned to look at her, his eyes were accusing, but behind the accusation she saw hurt and pain, pain as deep as the ocean. Then, instead of being afraid, she went to him. In the dream he smiled and wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in his cloak. His smile was soft and full of love and such sweetness that it made her heart ache, made her cry in her sleep, made her awaken to the sound of her own soft weeping. The rest of the night passed fitfully. Elise developed a headache, which seemed to intensify with the passing of hours. Now the rhythmic pounding of the surf reverberated in her skull, and the briny scent of the ocean that she had quickly come to love-a smell that had once delighted her-now pulsed through her sinuses like a knife blade. A little later she discovered the reason for at least some of her misery. She'd started her period. What else could possibly happen?

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Chapter 8 Dylan lay sprawled on the couch, hands behind his head, watching the uppermost curve of the sun break over the horizon. He'd dozed off and on through the night, sleeping lightly, listening for any sound of movement from the bedroom. He'd felt pretty safe in assuming Elise wouldn't try anything violent. She'd had her chance, but had handcuffed him to the bed instead. A pretty passive thing to do, considering the circumstances. He swung his bare feet to the floor and reached for his cutoffs. They were stiff from salt water, but they'd soften up. He slipped them on, stretched, rubbed a hand across his bare chest, then headed for Elise's room. Not bothering to knock, he pushed open the bedroom door, his eyes going to the curled up lump under the blanket. "Come on out and I'll fix you some breakfast." No answer. "If you aren't hungry, go ahead and swim or lie around on the beachwhatever you want." The blanket shifted, but she still didn't answer. She was probably used to sleeping till noon. He stood in the doorway, his thoughts once again flowing to how good she'd felt under him, how her nipples had hardened, her legs opened for him. A half-formed oath escaped him. He was doing it again. A swim. A swim was in order. For him. On the way to the beach he stopped long enough to pour some cat food into a plastic bowl. Scag heard the sound and came bounding up the porch, tail high. He took a couple of suspicious nibbles, then looked up at Dylan with an expression that seemed to say, Hey, what gives? "So what if it's chicken flavor instead of ocean fish?" Dylan said. "Big deal." Scag meowed, humped his back and rubbed against Dylan's leg. "Don't be so damn picky. I'm beginning to think I should have left you at the animal shelter." Dylan bent to pet the cat, then moved down the porch steps to the pigeon cage. Scag followed, eyeing the pigeons hungrily. "Amscray. You had your chance to eat." Dylan put clean water in the long cage. "If these birds were loose, they'd whip your scrawny hide." When he was done tending to the pigeons, he headed for the dock, the wood rough and uneven beneath his bare feet. Once there, he dived into the water, salt stinging his eyes and skin. Swimming was one thing Dylan hadn't lost interest in. It cleared his head, perked up his brain cells. He swam the width of the bay, then back again.

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Afterward he changed into a pair of dry jeans and a clean T-shirt, then checked to see if his guest was up yet. With one hand resting on his hip, he lowered his head and listened for any sounds from, the other side of the door. Nothing. He decided to knock this time. He raised a hand and rapped his knuckles against the wood. The bed creaked. "You want some breakfast?" "Leave me alone!" The words came out slightly muffled. 'He shrugged. It didn't make any difference to him. Let her pout. "Suit yourself." But by noon she still hadn't come out. Against his better judgment, Dylan found himself at the door again. He knocked. "Hungry yet?" "No." He decided to try some reverse psychology. "It's no skin off my back if you go on a hunger strike." "I'm not on a hunger strike. I just want to be left alone!" "Go ahead. Be stubborn. Think I give a rip? Well, I don't. It doesn't make any difference to me. You're not hurting anyone but yourself." Jeez. He was sounding like his old man. His dad used to use that same line whenever Dylan got in any kind of trouble-which had been fairly often. "I'd rather be in here alone than out there with you." This was nuts. Patience was second nature to him. He'd learned to sit for days, weeks, on stakeouts, fighting boredom and heat and sleep. But waiting for Elise Ramsey was getting on his nerves. With the flat of his hand, he shoved the door open wide. He'd expected to find her angrily pacing the floor, or sitting stiffly in a chair, arms crossed at her waist, staring out the window. What he hadn't expected was to find her still in bed, curled up on her side, the beige cotton blanket pulled up over her shoulder, face buried against the covers. The only part of her he could see was the top of her head. What the... ? He took a couple of steps, then stopped, suspicion overcoming his initial worry. A trick. This was a trick. By now he was familiar with her tricks. When he got close enough, she'd kick him, or hit him with something. He couldn't deny that he'd felt a reluctant admiration for her guts and persistence. Problem was, she just didn't know when to give up. "I hate to tell you, but this kind of thing doesn't usually work twice," he said with tolerant amusement. "You may as well know that right now. I'm not going to fall for that playing possum routine again."

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The curved bump under the blanket didn't move. "Leave ... me ... alone." Her words came- out in a broken, rasping whisper. Dylan frowned and approached the bed, his suspicions vanishing. "Hey. You sick?" "No." Even though she'd spoken but one syllable, that single word carried with it a message, and that message was pain. If she was faking, then she was in the wrong profession. A seasoned actress couldn't carry out a performance like hers. No, he didn't think she could fake that note of pain in her voice. "You're silk." "I'm sick of you." Her stubborn pride truly amazed him. He crouched beside the bed and tried to pull the blanket back, but she had the edge clasped in a death grip, her knuckles showing white. Instead he pulled her hand down in order to see her face. "Go away." The words were forced through dry, unmoving lips. Her eyes were tightly closed, as if trying to shut out everything. There were lines between her eyebrows, fur-rowed lines across her forehead. Under his palm, her brow felt warm and clammy. "Elise-" She shoved his hand away, opened her eyes and turned to face him. Shock ran through him. There were dark, bruised circles under her painglazed eyes. Her hair seemed to have dulled overnight. It was lying in limp tendrils on either side of her face. "You think you know me," she whispered hoarsely, "but you don't. You don't know anything about me. Nothing. And I'm glad." Her words reached his ears, but they didn't really soak in. It was the pain in her voice, her face, every line of her body, that was his main concern. "Elise, tell me-where do you hurt?" he coaxed. "Everywhere." She closed her eyes and brought her knees up higher. "I hurt ... everywhere." Panic washed over him. He pried the blanket from her clenched fingers, then pulled the cover back. She was wearing his shirt and jogging pants. With her other hand she hugged the pillow to her stomach. This wasn't normal. What in God's name was wrong with her? Appendicitis? Food poisoning? "Why are you bothering with me? I'm nothing to you. Just a pawn in your little revenge game." Everything he'd done to her, everything he'd put her through from the first attack in the alley, came crashing down on his conscience. Twice within a matter of days he'd been accused of not caring. First by Skeeter, now by Elise.

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Maybe it was true. All along he'd figured she was hard, used to more rough stuff than he could dish out in a lifetime. But she wasn't as tough as she pretended. He was beginning to suspect that she wasn't tough at all. His head was full of horror stories. Just last year a writer living in the Keys had had an appendicitis attack and died because he hadn't reached the hospital in time. What if that happened to Elise? He bent to pick her up, sliding a hand under her bent knees, his right arm around her slight shoulders. He could feel the tightness of her body, as if all her muscles were contracted. She cried out, and he froze. "Don't touch me!" "I'm taking you to a hospital." "It hurts to move. Don't make me move!" Her words only increased his worry. All along she'd been fighting to get away from him, and now, when he wanted to take her back ... "I'm sorry. There's no other way." He lifted her from the bed. She let out a single, sobbing gasp and clutched at the front of his shirt. "Dylan ... please..." He felt scared, helpless. "You need a doctor." "I'm not sick." "The hell you aren't." With a pathetic fist, she pounded weakly at his chest, but her words, when they came, seemed pulled from her with great reluctance. "Cramps." Pound, pound. "I've got ... cramps, you ... you idiot."

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Chapter 9 Dylan was holding her as if she might break. Quite a switch from the first time he'd held her in his arms. If Elise hadn't been in so much pain, she would have laughed. But beneath the pain, on a far subtler level, she was aware of the strength of Dylan's arms, the hardness of his chest ... the fresh ocean scent that seemed a part of him. He carried her back and carefully settled her on the bed. Once there, she turned on her side, hugging the pillow to her stomach while curling into a ball. She shut her eyes, as if in so doing she could block out the pain, block out Dylan. She didn't know why it should matter-it shouldn't matter, in fact-but she didn't like him seeing her like this. Didn't like the vulnerability of her position. It had been bad enough before, but now, when she was virtually trapped by her pain ... She felt him tug the sheet free from under her bare feet, then pull it up to her shoulder, the simple gesture surprising her as much as his earlier concern had. Still, she wanted him to go away. But he didn't. Even with her eyes tightly closed, she could sense his presence. "Leave me alone," she finally said. "Those pills I found in your purse-they're for cramps, aren't they?" His voice sounded odd, maybe a little contrite. Good. She found it reassuring to know that he had some feelings, that he wasn't as hard as he seemed. "They are, aren't they?" She nodded, eyes still closed, wishing he would just leave the room. She wanted to suffer alone and in peace. "Have you taken any?" She'd thought about it. In fact, last night she'd poured two into her palm. But the pills were fairly strong pain-killers that also had a tranquilizing effectvery potent stuff. Practically guaranteed to knock her out for several hours. And she couldn't afford to be knocked out. Not here. Not now. Even if she managed to remain awake, she would be confused, and she didn't want to be confused around Dylan. No, she needed to remain totally alert. "You obviously haven't," Dylan said. She opened her eyes. He was crouched beside the bed, his face at almost the same level as hers. It was like subliminal persuasion. When she looked at him, she could almost forget the pain.

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He was near enough for her to see that he needed to shave. His hair was a little damp, and he smelled like the ocean. And his mouth ... his mouth ... "My grandmother warned me about guys like you," she said, surprised that she'd vocalized her thoughts. Why had she said such an absurd thing? His eyebrows lifted, and a faint smile played around the lips she'd been so openly staring at. "I have to keep my wits about me, you know," she told him soberly. "Elise. . .this is crazy. You don't have to lie here in pain because of me." Her gaze was drawn from his mouth to his eyes, his wolf eyes. Amber... shot with black. Dark hair, dark eyes. Dark soul? "I won't hurt you. I swear." He seemed so sincere. And she realized that there was more to this than whether or not she decided to take the pills. It was a question of trust. To take them would be the same as saying she trusted him. "The pills... I-I don't like to take them. They mess up my head ... knock me out." "I know how strong codeine is." His deep voice gentled, became coaxing, intimate. "I won't let anything happen to you, Elise. I swear." She felt a pain that had nothing to do with physical discomfort. Where had that feeling come from? Oh, Lord. Why did he have such an effect on her? It made no sense. None at all. Her grandmother's words came back to her. Think with your head not with your heart. She suddenly felt unaccountably weepy. But then, she always got weepy at this time of the month. "Elise ... ? How about it? You can't lie here and suffer." Trust. She wanted to trust this man, believe this man. But he was bad. Why did that knowledge hurt so much? "Elise... ?" He was waiting. She swallowed, then nodded. Dylan disappeared, then reappeared a minute later with a glass of water. She ended up taking two pills, a full dose. Might as well jump in with both feet. Ten minutes later the pain had already begun to lessen. She started feeling groggy. Her eyelids grew heavy and finally drifted shut. She was almost asleep when she forced her eyes open one last time. At first she thought Dylan had left the room, but then she saw him standing to the left of the bed, staring out the window. His hands were jammed into the front pockets of his jeans, the light from the window reflecting in his eyes, giving them a distant stare. Sad. He looked sad... and alone. Very alone. Dylan... It occurred to her that she still didn't know his last name, so she asked.

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He turned, obviously surprised to find that she was still awake. "Davis," he said. "Davis." Her tongue was feeling a little thick, her words coming a little slower. "Dylan Davis. An alliteration.... I like that. Does your middle name begin with a D, too?" She was getting punchy. She knew she was, but suddenly it didn't matter. That was the way of it when you got punchy. Nothing mattered. He smiled.. And she thought, Why do you have to have such a nice smile? "Yeah. My mother thought it was cute." He rolled his eyes. "What's your middle name? Wait. Don't tell me. Let me guess. Let's see.... How about Damien?" "No." "Drew?" "No." "Dean?" "No, it's Daniel." "Daniel." She liked that. "A biblical name." A strong name. For some odd reason, she could almost see Dylan in a lion's den, his back to the wall. "Do you fight lions, Dylan Daniel Davis?" She could tell that her question took him by surprise. Then his expression grew reflective. "Yeah," he said, as if his answer surprised himself. "Yeah, sometimes I do." She wanted to ask him more about the lions, but she couldn't stay awake any longer. The drug beckoned, dragging her down, coaxing her eyelids shut. Quietly, Dylan turned the knob, then pushed the bedroom door open to look in on Elise. She'd been right about the pills. They'd knocked her out. It had been four hours since she'd taken them, and she was still asleep. Her face was devoid of color except under her eyes, where the shadowed skin was blue tinged, almost transparent. He felt a tug deep in his gut. He couldn't explain the flood of relief he'd felt when he'd finally understood what was wrong with her. She'd almost seemed embarrassed to tell him, but that was crazy. Someone with her background wouldn't be embarrassed about that kind of thing. But lying there asleep, she looked so innocent, so untouched.... How could she look that way? How could she seem so untainted by Sebastian and all he stood for? It wasn't like Dylan to be confused, but he was. And it sure as hell wasn't like him to admit that he'd done something wrong, but he'd screwed up by involving Elise Ramsey in this; he could see that now. Revenge game. That was what she'd called it. More doubts seeped in. He tried to shove them aside, but he couldn't. It wasn't revenge, he argued with

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himself. It was justice. Justice. It had seemed so simple at the time. The perfect solution. But he should have learned by now that nothing in life was ever simple. Or perfect. Maybe he should take her back. No, he quickly decided, it was too late. The damage had been done. And the truth was, he was finding it harder and harder to stomach the thought of returning her to Sebastian, harder to stomach the thought of Sebastian touching her, making love to her... It shouldn't have mattered, but it did. In her sleep, Elise shifted and sighed, flinging one arm out, the fingers of her hand relaxed, open. And on the delicate white skin of her wrist was a bruise. A bruise from the handcuffs. He stared at it for a long time, unable to tear his eyes away. Earlier he'd promised he wouldn't hurt her. But he already had. Self-loathing washed over him, and the reality of what he'd done, what he was still doing, hit him full force. He was no better than Sebastian. The next day Elise cut back on the pain pills so that she was able to stay awake, although she was still something of a zombie. Earlier, when she'd gone into the bathroom to take a shower, she'd found a box of tampons that had mysteriously appeared on a shelf. Dylan hadn't said anything about them, and she was thankful that he'd at least saved her that embarrassment. Yet she couldn't help but wonder where they'd come from. As far as she knew, Dylan hadn't left the island. Did they belong to Melissa? Dylan checked on her several times throughout the day, trying to tempt her into eating, but the thought of food just made her stomach do somersaults. "You don't have to bring me anything. I can get up. It's not as if I'm recovering from open-heart surgery." But secretly-and to her horror-she found that she liked the attention he was lavishing on her. On the other hand, she was also embarrassed. She wasn't used to a man knowing her body's most intimate secrets. For her, trips to the gynecologist had always been trips to hell. It took her days to get over the embarrassment. And now, here was Dylan.... It was almost as if they shared something personal and private. She found it unnerving. Later, she was thinking about sitting on the porch when Dylan rapped on the door, then strolled into her room. He was wearing faded jeans, a white Tshirt and glasses. Reading glasses. His face was clean-shaven, and he was smiling a smile that was relaxed, almost teasing. Self-consciously, her hand went to her wet hair. She didn't need a mirror to tell her how awful she looked. This time of the, month, her eyes were always puffy and looked as if someone had given her a couple of shiners. To top it off, her clothes were anything but elegant. She was wearing the borrowed jeans, but instead of

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Dylan's oxford shirt, she had on one of his black T-shirts. It was too big for her, faded to gray in some places, and incredibly soft from untold washings. Best of all, it smelled like the ocean. "I don't have billiards, so how about One Thousand Questions?" With a flourish, he presented a maroon gamebox. He sidestepped the foot of the bed, gave the covers a halfhearted tug, then plopped down on the mattress, one leg under him, the other stretched out long and straight, foot to the floor. "What color do you want?" he asked, head bent, concentrating on setting up the board. This was happening too fast. Elise didn't even know if she wanted to play. He hadn't even asked her. And anyway, he was her captor, she had to remind herself. She was his captive. You weren't supposed to play One Thousand Questions with the guy who kidnapped you. "I'll make it easy. You be yellow, I'll be black." He began sorting out the game pieces, and as he did so, she watched his long, nimble fingers as they moved across the board. "So, tell me," he said without looking up. "Are your periods always so bad?" It was hard enough for her to talk about such things with her physician, but to have Dylan asking such questions... When she didn't answer, he persisted. "Are they?" It seemed as if the only way to satisfy his curiosity was to give him a, straight answer. She swallowed. "Yes... usually." He looked directly at her, and she noticed that his eyes were almost the same shade as his light amber eyeglass frames. "Has your doctor tried anything to help you? I mean, besides the pills?" "He, ah-" She couldn't tell him that. It was too personal. She hadn't told anybody about the procedure her doctor had performed so that technically she was still a virgin, but physically... Well, it would be impossible to prove her untouched status. When the procedure had failed to lessen the severity of her cramps, Dr. Todd had proposed an active sex life. She'd glared at him and he'd gone on to suggest that she have a baby. Or a hysterectomy. Unsatisfactory answers all. Not that she wouldn't like to have children someday... Dylan was looking at her, waiting for an answer. "He said that as I got older, the cramps would lessen." "Have they?" She picked up her yellow gamepiece and pretended to study it. "Listen, if you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about this." She could feel the heat in her face, her neck.

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He was quiet for a minute. She didn't look up, but she knew he was watching her. She could almost feel his curiosity. She wondered what he must think. Sebastian's girlfriend, embarrassed about such a silly thing. "Do me a favor. After this is over, after I take you back, find another doctor." She shifted uncomfortably. She'd considered it herself. But she hated the idea of having to start all over with a new doctor. All those personal tests. All those personal questions ... And anyway, why should Dylan care? A half hour later, the game was tied. They both needed one more correctly answered question to win. Elise was surprised to find that Dylan knew so much about science. He, on the other hand, seemed surprised to find that she knew so much about literature: She'd almost blurted out that literature was what she taught in junior high school, but caught herself just in time. Sebastian's girlfriend probably wouldn't be a school-teacher. Now it was Dylan's turn to ask a question. He'd gotten even more comfortable and was now sprawled across the bed, supporting himself with one elbow. He adjusted his glasses, careful to keep the card curled in the palm of his hand, the answers hidden, as if he expected her to try to cheat. Rather a case of the pot calling the kettle black. But then again, he might have been doing it because she had done the very same thing to him. "How many moons does Saturn have?" All Elise needed to win was the science card. But science wasn't her strong point. Why couldn't it have been a true or false question, or something silly, like whether or not the moon was made of green cheese? She groped, afraid she was going to end up saying something stupid. She'd never really liked this game. It made you look so dumb. At least he hadn't said this was an easy one. She hated when people said that. The trick was not to let them know you were guessing, to give the answer with confidence. Then, if by some chance it was right, you could come out looking fairly intelligent. "Three," she said with confidence. He shook his head. "Way off. Seventeen." He stuck the card back into the box, tamping it in with one finger. "You don't know much about astronomy, do you?" "About as much as you know about literature." "Hey, I'll have you know I had a well-rounded education. Grew up on Captain Miracle and Spaceman Bob." He rolled the die; then, head bent, lips moving, he silently counted out the squares.

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It was the glasses, Elise decided. They were such a contrast to his wild, shaggy hair. Such a contrast to the wild, shaggy Dylan. He didn't look nearly as rough. The glasses softened his features. Made him look more approachable, almost ... endearing. He glanced up and caught her staring at him. Then, with a movement that seemed almost self-conscious, he combed his fingers through his dark tangled mane. "I need a haircut, I know. I have a tendency to forget about stuff like that living here." Actually Elise was getting rather used to his hair. She kind of liked it. "You live here all the time?" For some reason she'd thought the island was probably a place he visited only occasionally-whenever he kidnapped somebody. "Yeah." So this was his home. She thought about how empty it was, how there weren't a lot of personal things around. How it seemed almost monasticperplexing for a guy who oozed sexuality. Was he hiding? And if so, from what, or whom? The law? "I used to just come out here on the weekends, but for the past six months it's been permanent." A little of the distance was back in his voice. And suddenly Elise was aware of something else, something she hadn't picked up on before, maybe because she hadn't been around him long enough, but now she could see that it wasn't just distance, but a hint of bleakness. She thought about last night, about the way he'd looked as he stared out the window. Alone. And she thought about him telling her that he sometimes fought lions. Who were the lions he fought? Suddenly she felt an urge to soothe, to make it all better. Suddenly she felt a need to reassure him in some way. "I'll cut it for you." "What?" "Your hair. If you really want it cut, I'll do it." "You're offering to give me a haircut?" Behind the glasses, his amber eyes were suspicious. Then he smiled. And the smile was slow and sweet, like in her dream. "I'll just bet you would." "I would. I'm not kidding." It was a dare. Like when he'd talked her into taking the pills. More than a dare ... More than a challenge. It was a question of trust.

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Chapter 10 Dylan ended up losing the game... How was he supposed to have remembered that Ben Franklin had written Poor Richard's Almanac? He had more important things on his mind. Like whether or not Elise Ramsey was going to slit his throat. They had moved from the bedroom to the front porch, and now he was sitting on a wobbly bamboo chair, facing the bay, an ocean-cooled wind teasing his wet hair, skimming across his bare, damp chest. She was standing behind him, scissors in hand. And he was having serious second thoughts. Not to mention third thoughts. He couldn't believe he'd let her talk him into giving him a haircut. One minute he'd been thinking, no way was she getting near him with a pair of scissors; then, next thing he knew, he was jumping up to find a pair. She's wrapping me around her little finger. Directly behind him, near his right ear, he heard the ominous sound of stainless-steel blades sliding together. They were good quality scissors. Nice and sharp. He couldn't stand it any longer. He reached up behind him and grabbed her wrist, lightly, remembering the bruise. He couldn't forget the bruise. He'd been carrying the image around in his mind for the last twenty-four hours. "You know anything about cutting hair?" he asked, stalling. "Enough to give you a trim." He kept hold of her wrist, wondering how he'd gotten himself into this, wondering how he could get himself out of it. "You've done it before?" he asked, stalling some more. "You don't think I'd offer to cut your hair if I'd never done it before, do you?" Under the circumstances, yes. She tried to pull away. Rather than exert pressure on her wrist, he let her go, let her hand slip through his fingers. "A trim," he reminded her. "Nothing weird. I don't want one of the short, hot dog jobs." "Don't worry." There was laughter in her voice. She was getting a real kick out of this, which annoyed him. She stepped closer-moving in for the kill. He felt something touch his scalp and jumped, then relaxed when he realized it was only the comb. He could feel its stiff plastic teeth sliding across his scalp, through his wet hair. Flecks of water fell on his chest and shoulders, trickling down his back to the waistband of his cutoffs. The comb hit a snag. "Youch!"

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"Sorry. The ends are tangled. I don't think a swim in the salty ocean was the best way to get your hair wet. And the cut pieces are going to stick to you." "I'll just jump back into the water when you're done." If I'm not bleeding from any major artery. The comb slid through his hair over and over until the tangles were gone. Then he felt her fingers on his scalp, separating a section of hair. Her body shifted as she moved to stand near his elbow, her breast brushing against his shoulder. Maybe this hadn't been such a bad idea after all. "Now hold still." Clip, clip. "Your hair is so thick." Clip, clip. "I'm just taking off about an inch and a half. Is that okay?" "Fine." He hadn't slept much the past several nights, and suddenly a warm, languid drowsiness washed over him. His eyes drifted closed. This was kind of nice. Homey. Ma and Pa Kettle visit the Keys. Dylan had never thought he'd want a woman disrupting the solitude of his island. Melissa had been here a couple of times, and she'd hated it-which had secretly been fine with him. To him, the island was like an addict's fix. Whenever his job at the police force had become too much, when other people's tragedies pressed down on him, he'd needed the island. But it was too rustic for Melissa, too far from lights and noise and people. She had never understood. She'd been jealous of an island, of sand and sky and ocean. More often than not he would get back to their apartment and Melissa would be waiting. And usually their apartment would be full of people he didn't know. Her impromptu parties had ended one night when he'd found a naked couple in his bed, smoking dope. He'd shoved his badge under their noses and they'd scrambled, leaving a trail of clothes all the way to their car. Dylan had stood in the doorway, observing their departure. "You all come back now, you hear?" he'd shouted after them. Melissa had cried and raged that he was scaring all of her friends away. He'd pointed out that those kinds of friends she could do without. She'd threatened to leave, the way she always threatened to leave. But she'd stayed, the way she always stayed. She should have left. Behind his eyelids, Elise's shadow shifted as she moved to stand directly in front of him, bringing him back to the present, to the smell of the ocean, the feel of the sun, the sweet scent of Elise, the feel of her hands in his hair. "I'll just kind of layer the top and sides."

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He sensed that she was moving closer; then he felt a slight pressure against his leg. He kept his eyes closed, trying to guess which body part was touching him. A thigh? Yes. Definitely a thigh. He opened his eyes and found himself staring at the front of his black Tshirt. The wind was making small ripples in it, gently molding the worn, thin fabric around the soft swell of her breasts. "That happens to be my favorite shirt you're wearing." She paused and looked down, hands poised above his head. "It's comfortable." He didn't have to think very hard to remember how her breasts had felt under his hands, how they had filled his palms. He shifted, and the chair creaked under him. "Sit still. I'm almost done. I just have to check to make sure it's even." He could feel her fiddling around with his hair, lifting this strand and that, checking. A mental image popped into his head. He couldn't seem to help it. He pictured her hands moving over hiss body, feeling, testing, checking... To top off the wonderful torture, her hands actually did start moving over his body, tracing feather-light trails across his damp skin,, brushing hair from his shoulders ... his back ... his chest ... He just sat there enjoying it, forcing himself to breathe lightly so she wouldn't know just how much he was enjoying it. If he'd known how sexually stimulating a hair-cut could be, his hair would never have had the chance to get long. Suddenly she stopped. Her hand stilled, then drew away. He opened his eyes and looked up at her inquiringly. In her face he read sexual awareness mixed with confusion and uncertainty-and that strange innocence. "All done?" "Yes...." He reached up to feel his hair. "You didn't take off very much:" "No... I kind of like it...." Her words trailed off, as if she'd suddenly realized she shouldn't like anything about him. He stood, and she backed up a step. He took the scissors and comb from her and laid them on the table. Then he grasped her by the shoulders and turned her around so that her back was to the ocean. He made a careful study of her eyes; then his gaze shifted to the ocean and back. "No, not the same," he decided. "Your eyes are bluer. Clearer." She was looking at him with a slightly baffled, bemused expression. Yes, this had turned into a real mess. So what was new? It wasn't all that many months ago that he'd gone through what he now termed as his unsure phase. It had happened after the psychiatrist had

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determined him to be unpredictable and, therefore, unstable. After that, Dylan would sometimes catch himself wondering if maybe he wasn't a little off center. But he'd gotten over that paranoia. Anyway, this was different. When he'd kidnapped Elise, he'd known it was wrong, known it was against the law-there hadn't been a shred of doubt in his mind. It was simply something he had to do. He just hadn't expected to like her, and now everything had changed. Hell of a note. He was falling for Elise Ramsey, Sebastian's woman. Somebody he could never have. Somebody he shouldn't even think of having. But regardless of what he told himself, he couldn't stop wondering if, when all this was over-despite what he'd put her through-she would even have anything to do with him. She was still looking up at him, her eyes wide and curious. "Want to go swimming?" he asked. She shook her head. "Tomorrow?" "Maybe." "Thanks for the ...haircut," he said, emphasizing the word haircut, a word that had taken on a whole new meaning for him. Then he smiled and brushed past her, heading for the ocean and cool, cool water: Maybe the swim would clear his head. Maybe then he'd be able to figure out what to do about Elise. Elise stood on the porch, watching Dylan swim. He was a good swimmer, a strong swimmer. His strokes were steady, rhythmic, effortless. Every time he brought up his right arm, the sunlight caught the curve of a glistening shoulder muscle. Yes, he was a good swimmer.... Somehow, things between them had changed. Eyes bluer than the ocean… She'd thought she was safe, but now she knew differently. There was still Sebastian, still his name to hold in front of Dylan as a reminder of who she was. But now, recalling how he'd just looked at her, she felt a strange sense of excitement. She had the feeling that it had gone past Sebastian, that his name would no longer stop Dylan. And what both alarmed and frightened her was that she wasn't sure she would want to stop him. She had trusted him enough to take the pills, and he had trusted her enough to let her cut his hair. Whatever was between them could be more, if she let it. In spite of everything. In spite of whatever Sebastian had done. While cutting Dylan's hair she'd heard birds cooing, the sound reminding her of the big gray pigeons that made their roosts in church towers and abandoned buildings. Now she went to investigate and found, tucked in a shady area beneath a cluster of small palms, several cages.

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When she got close enough she could see that they contained pigeons, each one with a colored band around its leg. Homing pigeons? They looked so out of place here on a tropical island. Pigeons were city dwellers. They belonged where it was frigid in the winter and stiflingly hot in the summer. With the milling birds and the roar of the ocean to cover his approach, she didn't hear Dylan come up beside her. Suddenly he was simply there. But then, she knew how silently he could move. Faded cutoffs; damp and slung low across a flat, hard stomach, were all he wore. Droplets of water clung to the ends of his hair, sparkling in the sun. A few dropped free and trickled down his chest. She knew how that skin felt under her fingers. Warm and satiny smooth ... He leaned over and opened one of the cages. A bird sidestepped onto his finger and he lifted it out. "This here's Blue. Blue, meet Elise." She smiled. "Nice to meet you." He ran a knuckle gently down the bird's feathered back, then returned it to the cage. "And this is Josie." He pointed. "That one with the black head is Sheila." The bird pecked at his finger and he jerked away. "As you can see, Sheila's a cranky bitch. She has her reasons, though. Pigeons mate for life. Sheila's guy, Bermuda Jack, got caught in a storm last year. Never made it home. When he was around, Sheila was one of my gentlest birds." "How sad." Elise suddenly felt embarrassingly close to tears. "Yeah, I felt bad about it and tried to introduce her to other gentlemen, but she wouldn't have anything to do with them." He shrugged and shut the cage. "The other three aren't mine. They belong to a friend, Skeeter, and his kid Jason. They bring them out here and I set them loose." "They bring them here?" "Yeah. Homing pigeons only fly one direction-home." "I thought they flew both ways." "Nope. Lots of people think so, but they don't." "Do you use them for messages?" "Just as a hobby. We see how long it takes them to get home from certain points. Blue here is my fastest. With a prevailing wind, he can make it home from the main-land in under two hours." He showed her how to put a message in a tiny capsule and slip it on the band that went around the bird's leg. And in the process he showed-her how gentle his hands could be, how gentle he could be. When he was relaxed like this, when the darkness fell away, she knew she was seeing a younger Dylan. The Dylan he had been before something had happened to change him...

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Chapter 11 The next few days passed surprisingly peacefully. There was no mention of Sebastian or the upcoming trial. In fact, not a word was spoken about why Elise was on Iguana Bay. As Dylan had promised that first day, her stay became a vacation. She was taken on a tour of the island, went beachcombing, and five days after she had walked out of Sebastian's hotel, Dylan took her fishing. They had anchored above a coral reef where the water was sparklingly clear and schools of neon-striped fish darted. Dylan was leaning back in the pilot's swivel chair, bare feet propped against the siderail. The fishing pole was attached to a metal brace, so his hands were free, and he had locked them behind his head. A white fishing cap advertising Vaca Key Marina was pulled down to meet dark sunglasses, his long, Jean-clad legs crossed at the ankles. Today, instead of the usual dark T-shirt, he was wearing a white one. Before leaving Iguana Bay he'd taken the scissors and refashioned the jeans Elise had been wearing, promising that he'd buy Skeeter's son a new pair, assuring her that Jason had long outgrown them anyway. Then he'd cut the sleeves out of a light blue T-shirt that had the words Dark Sky across the front. She'd asked him what it meant, and he'd told her Dark Sky was an association that was fighting light pollution, explaining that it was getting harder and harder to see the stars because of all the lights in the world. And so she'd come to know that the astronomy books were his. Apparently Dylan was a dreamer. Or had been. Since her skin was pale, Dylan had insisted she use sunblock. Then he'd slapped a fishing cap like his on her head-so she wouldn't get sunstroke, he'd told her. She'd put on the cutoffs and the Dark Sky T-shirt, tucked her hair under the cap and grabbed a pole. No phone ringing, no television, no newspaper. A dream vacation. People saved their whole lives to take a vacation like this. The whole situation was crazy, but she was beginning to love it. The warmth of the sun on her face and the repetitious sound of the waves were seductive, stupor inducing. Her eyes drifted shut. With her eyes closed, her other senses were heightened. She could feel the warm tropical air move across her skin, intermittently relieved by gusts of ocean-cooled air. And the sounds... She hadn't realized how much the ocean sounded like a train, so constant, so ceaseless... The wind whistled past her ears, sounding like someone blowing lightly across the round glass lip of a soda bottle. Later she roused herself enough to say, "When I was little, my grandmother used to take me fishing all the time. But I've never fished in the

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ocean." "My dad used to take me," Dylan said. "Now he's in a nursing home, so I take him fishing every other Sunday." There was a hint of sadness in his voice. She thought about the photo in the collage. Dylan and his father. "Is your grandmother still around?" he asked, reeling in his line. "No. She died last year." "That's too bad. How about your parents?" he asked as he cast the line out again. "Where do they live?" It didn't bother Elise to be asked about her parents, but it made other people feel ill at ease. From experience she'd found that it was best to just spit it out. State the facts. "My mother drowned when I was little, and I never knew my dad." He was quiet for a moment-thoughtfully quiet. "That must have been tough." "Oh, I had my Grandma Max. We were really close. I was lucky." "My mother died when I was twelve, but I still had my dad and two sisters." "I always wanted a sister," she said, not quite able to keep a wistful tone from creeping into her voice. "I don't see them as often as I'd like. They're both married. Peggy lives in Hawaii, Linda in California." "Do you get together for Christmas?" She was trying to picture Dylan in a traditional family setting and finding the idea fascinating. "We usually go to Linda's." He lifted his cap from his head, then repositioned it. And it occurred to her that something had changed. She sensed an undercurrent, sensed that he was suddenly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. "This last Christmas I didn't go anywhere," he said. "I was a little... busy." The way he said it made her wonder if he could possibly have been in jail. They ended up catching three fish weighing around two pounds each. They'd almost gotten four, but one of Elise's got away. She'd hadn't wanted to stop, but Dylan called it quits. "You've had enough sun," he told her. When they got back to the island she was glad to see it. It seemed a little like coming home, a thought she quickly pushed away. "Why do they call it Iguana Bay?" she asked as they walked across the sand to the beach house. "Are there iguanas here?" "Not that I know of." He bent down and scooped up a shell, examined it, then handed it to Elise. It was a conch, bright pink and pale beige. His chest was bare, his T-shirt dangling from the waistband of his faded jeans, his cap rolled and jammed into a back pocket, the fishing poles resting on one shoulder.

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And that was when it hit her like a blow. Standing there looking at him, three fish dangling from a stringer in her hand, she realized that she was falling for Dylan Davis. A criminal. A felon. A dreamer. "It went by that name when I bought the place. I've seen log books dating back to the 1840s, and it was called Iguana Bay then. One theory is that Darwin may have come here after visiting the Galapagos and brought some marine iguanas with him that didn't survive." He shrugged. "Then again, maybe somebody just wanted to name an island Iguana Bay..." She didn't say anything. She just stood there, staring at him, feeling buffeted by the confused emotions running through her. "Hey..." He reached out and touched her chin, slanting her face up to his. "You okay?" His eyebrows drew together. "I knew we shouldn't have stayed out that long. You're not used to the sun." He ran a finger down her arm, checking for sunburn. She gripped the shell tighter, the little points jabbing into her palm, bringing her around. "I'm okay. Just a little headache." He took the fish, from her. "Go take a cool shower while I clean these." She managed a weak smile. "The iguana thing-it's a great story, even if it might not be true." Suddenly she wanted to tell him the truth. Tell him who she was. The words formed in her head, getting themselves in order. Then, she stopped. Suddenly, she realized that she didn't want to tell him because she was afraid he might take her back. And she didn't want to leave. Not yet. The trial was two days away. There was plenty of time. Tomorrow. She would explain it all tomorrow... That night Elise helped Dylan with the dishes. He washed and she dried. The kitchen was cramped; it looked as if it had been added on to the beach house as an afterthought. The cabinets were made of rough, unfinished pine, the countertops of cream-colored Formica. "Just stuff it in anyplace," Dylan said when he saw she was looking for a place to put the pan she'd just finished drying. She opened a low cupboard, but it was full, taken up with a box of junk that appeared to have come from someone's desk. It was crammed full of files and file holders, pencil holders and wooden plaques. On top of everything was a policeman's badge. Looking closer, Elise saw that the badge had Dylan's name on it. She reached into the box and picked it up. She held it in her hand and stared at it. "Did you find-" Dylan's voice broke off. Elise slowly straightened, badge in hand. Confused, she looked up at Dylan. His eyes went from her to the badge, then back to her.

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For Elise, nothing connected, nothing made sense. "You're a cop.. . ?" Wariness flashed across his dark features; then the mask came down. "I used to be an undercover detective." He wiped his hands on his faded jeans, leaving two dark streaks across his thighs. A detective. She was having a hard time grasping it. Her mind struggled to shift gears. All along she'd been thinking of him as a criminal, someone who'd taken a wrong turn in life, who worked on the other side of the law. She could feel the metal edges of the badge. The pin pricked her palm. She extended her arm toward him, the badge cradled in her open hand. "I don't understand." "I'm what is commonly referred to as a burnout." He crossed his arms, white T-shirt pulling tightly across his chest and biceps. "It happens to cops. They hit the wall, reach a point when they can't function as a cop anymore. They lose the edge." "You had to quit?" "I was told to take a leave of absence. A long one. They sent me to a psychiatric hospital for cops who've gone off the deep end." His words were spoken in a neutral, emotionless voice that somehow seemed worse than if he'd shown anger. "I was supposed to bare my soul to this three-piece-suit guy, a guy who'd grown up with punctual brunches and teas, bedtime promptly at 10:30 every night, somebody who'd never seen as much as a flea get wasted. He had no idea where I was coming from." "How long were you there?" "Two months." He raked his hands through his hair. He was hurt. Angry. Maybe a little ashamed. "Listen..." He paused, swallowed. "I don't want to talk about this." Her very words to him only days ago. But this was different. This involved much more than simple embarrassment. She looked back down at the badge, running a finger across the raised letters and the emblem. "I'm sorry. It's none of my business, anyway." She turned and put the badge back in the box. As she did so, she saw the top plaque, moldy and dusty from neglect. An award for valor, for saving a fellow officer's life. Her throat became tight. Her eyes stung. She was still staring at the plaque when she felt Dylan put her gently but firmly aside. He bent down and pulled out the box. "I forgot this stuff was even here. Otherwise I would have pitched it a long time ago." He straightened, and, with the box in his arms, he went out the kitchen door. Through the screen, she could see him striding purposefully toward the rusty trash, barrel. Was that what he'd done with everything? Was that why there weren't any

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possessions littering his home, no clues to his past? Had he thrown them all away? "Dylan!" Suddenly she was moving. She shoved open the door and tore after him, her bare heels digging into the sand, her feet slipping, unable to get a good hold. "Dylan! No! Don't throw it away!" But she was too late. He was already dumping the entire contents into the rusty barrel. He shook the box, making sure it was empty, then tossed it in, too. By the time Elise reached him, he had a matchbook in his hand, ready to strike a match. With a slap, she knocked the matches to the ground. She caught a glimpse of his startled face before she turned and pulled the empty box from the barrel, dropping it near her feet. The next thing was one of the plaques. With her hand, she wiped off the ashes, then put the plaque in the box. She pulled out another one and wiped it off. "You can't just throw this stuff away," she said despite a raw throat and tear-blurred eyes. "It's part of your life, part of you." She pulled out the last plaque-there were five in all, all for heroic deeds. She still hadn't found the badge, and she panicked. With the fingers of both hands, she began clawing at the rubble. "What the hell's the matter with you?" Dylan grasped her by the shoulders and urged her back. "Come away from there. You're going to cut yourself." She was crying. She knew she was crying, because everything was one big blur. That was why she couldn't find the damn badge. With sooty fingers she impatiently dashed at her tears, then tried to shake off his hands. "Elise, come on, before you hurt yourself." "I have to find your badge." "I'll find it for you." She sniffled and looked up at him. "I'll find it," he repeated.. She nodded and stepped back, crossing her arms tightly in front of her, hugging them to her. "Let me see your hands first. Come on." She held them out to him, dirty palms up. He took both of them in his firm clasp and examined them. Apparently satisfied that she hadn't cut herself, he let go and turned to the barrel. A couple of seconds later he pulled out the badge and held it up for her to see, then tossed it into the box with the other things she'd rescued. "Is that everything?" she asked. "Everything important?" "Yes." "Swear?" With one finger, he drew an imaginary X on his chest. "Cross my heart."

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He smiled, and his smile was a little boyish, a little wistful. Then he grasped her by both arms, his face becoming serious. "It was just some old junk." "No, it wasn't." "You have to let go of the past or it drags you down." She knew her face was smudged with soot, but she didn't care. She looked up into his amber eyes, feeling a tearing sadness deep in her soul. "There are some things you have to hang on to. You can't throw away a part of yourself...." Her lips trembled, and she pressed them together to make them stop. Suddenly he pulled her to him, pressing her cheek against his chest, against his heart. His hand stroked her hair. She hurt. She hurt for him. "This is really something." He laughed, and the mocking sound rumbled under her ear. "I can't even be a good kidnapper." "Not true." She sniffled and mumbled into his chest, "You're a wonderful kidnapper." His arms tightened around her, and he laughed again, but this time the laugh was real. He rocked her against him. "What am I going to do about you?" “Hold me.” Instead he set her an arm's length away. Then he crossed his arms in front of him, grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and peeled it over his head. With his face intent and serious, he used the shirt, warm from his body, to smooth the smudges from her cheeks. "Not your shirt..." "Doesn't matter." He finished her face. "Now give me your hands." She held them out to him. Head bent, he cleaned the smudges from them. "Why tears? There've been at least half a dozen times in the past few days when most women would have bawled their eyes out, but you didn't as much as whimper. Why are you crying now?" He'd been a cop. He'd saved people's lives. A broken hero... "I-I'm crying ... because of you." He grew very still. Then, in an old-fashioned gesture that wrenched her heart, he bent at the waist, carried her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips gently, oh, so gently, to the tender skin of her inner wrist where the bruise from the handcuff had turned an ugly yellow. When he looked back up at her, his eyes were full of compassion and regret and sadness. And it was the sadness that hurt the most. "You, more than anyone, should know that I'm not worth a single one of your tears." She couldn't help it. Her eyes swam with them. She blinked and felt a tear catch in her bottom lashes, then escape to trail slowly down her cheek: He dropped the shirt to the ground and tenderly cupped her face in his hands. She could feel the pads of his palms and fingertips on each side of her

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face. With his thumbs, he wiped the tears from her cheeks. His gaze roamed to her eyes, her parted lips. Then his head came down very, very slowly. His lips, when they finally touched hers, were soft and slow, and as sad as his eyes had been. Her own hands moved across the smooth rippling muscles of his arms, the hard curve of his shoulders. His kiss deepened. His tongue moved across her lips, gently nudging them open, and when it slid over hers, she could taste the saltiness of her own tears. Her senses were full of him. The way he smelled, like the wild ocean wind. The way he felt, so hard, so smooth, so warm and strong. The way he tasted, of sadness and darkness. There was a roaring in her head, as if shells-those harbors of the ocean's secrets-were being held to her ears. One of his hands moved down her spine to splay across her lower back, pressing her thighs into him. The fingers of his other hand threaded through her hair to cup the back of her head. And the kiss deepened. His wet, warm tongue slid across hers, slowly, erotically, teasing, coaxing. Elise felt a heaviness somewhere deep within her, and her knees would have buckled if he hadn't been holding her. But then the kiss slowed until he brushed his lips lightly across hers, until he stopped kissing her completely and buried his face in her hair. She felt the shuddering sigh that coursed through him as he held her. Before she knew what was happening, before her bemused brain could even begin to function normally again, he set her away from him, hands on her shoulders. Stunned. That was the only way to describe his expression. Then it changed, replaced by the gentle-sad quality she'd seen in his face earlier. Finally, as if he'd only just realized he was still holding her, he loosened his hold completely. "Dylan ..." She didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do. She dragged her eyes from his and frantically searched the yard. She spotted the box and took a step toward it. Dylan reached out and stopped her. "I'll get it." Her heart was still thundering in her chest, in her head, her senses full of him. He reached out and touched her cheek, where her tears had been. "Don't ever cry for me. I'm not worth a single one of your tears." Not true. "When I was little, my grandmother used to tell me a fairy tale about a girl who had special tears. Everywhere a tear fell, a flower would grow." She frowned up at him. "Maybe you've heard this story." He shook his head.

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"Well, when the king's young son died, the girl picked one of her tear flowers and placed it on the prince's chest, and he came back to life." "That's a nice story," Dylan told her with a sad smile. "But it's too late for me. My heart's been cold for too long."

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Chapter 12 The sun was barely up when Dylan climbed the curved, narrow flight of stairs that led to the second story of the beach house. He hadn't slept at all last night… He hadn't slept because he'd been doing something he usually tried to avoid: soul-searching. He'd learned a long time ago that it was safer to look outward rather than inward, but last night he'd looked inward and come to a decision. He was taking her back. She had cried-for him. For the guy who had jumped her in a dark alley, who had wrapped her in tape and tossed her into a trunk. God, how could anybody be that forgiving? Angels weren't that forgiving. The guilt he felt was overwhelming. Guilt and something else, something he couldn't identify, or maybe didn't want to identify. But one thing he did know was that taking her back was going to be one of the hardest things he'd ever done. He reached the top of the stairs and stopped. It had been months since he'd been up here, but the big, open room looked pretty much the same. It still smelled of paint thinner, varnish and sawdust. In the center of the room was the skeletal hull of the sailboat he'd started a couple of years ago. His high-powered telescope was in the far corner, covered with a fine layer of dust. He moved across the room and cranked open two of the metal frame green enameled windows that covered the entire west wall. Morning air rushed in, stirring up the sawdust. From where he stood, Dylan could see the backyard, which amounted to little more than some sand dunes, a wooden picnic table and chairs, and the patch of garden where he'd attempted to grow a few vegetables. Where the tomatoes had withered on the vine. Where the beans and cucumbers had gotten two leaves on them before they'd taken the big trip. The rest of the stuff hadn't even bothered to come up at all. Yesterday morning Elise had taken one look at his garden and burst out laughing. He had to admit, it was a pretty pathetic sight. Maybe he'd needed more fertilizer? Less fertilizer? A rudimentary knowledge of gardening? To the left of the disaster area was the trash barrel-which brought with it thoughts of last night. Why should she care about his plaques and badge? They shouldn't have meant anything to her. But they had. That made him feel good. And it made him feel bad. And now that the decision to take her back had been made, and even

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though he knew with complete certainty that he was doing the right thing, he felt a deep sense of loss. Even though he'd only known her a week, he was going to miss her. Miss her like hell. He'd gotten used to having her around, liked showing her the island, taking her fishing. . . Holding her. Wanting her... Imagining how it could be with them ... Ironic. He was going to miss Sebastian's-his mind closed over the rest of the sentence. He couldn't finish it. He wasn't the one to judge her. He couldn't understand why she was involved with somebody like Sebastian, but it was said that everyone had some good in them. Maybe Elise had found some shred of it in him. Taking her back would mean Sebastian would get off and Melissa would go unavenged. It would mean that Dylan would have to start over. But, strangely enough, he really didn't care anymore. Revenge didn't burn in him the way it had before. Before he'd met Elise. And he couldn't stop the glimmer of hope that was growing in him-hope that she might want to come back: after all this was over. To be safe, he would take her to the mainland tonight. Darkness would be their cover. He didn't want anybody associating her with him, didn't want Sebastian to know that she'd ever heard of a bounty hunter named Dylan Davis. But for now, he had today to get through. He ran his hand across the boat's struts, testing the smoothness of the wood. He called it a boat. He'd called it a boat before he'd ever put a saw to the first piece of wood, called it a boat when it had been nothing but a roll of blueprints. And even though this wasn't the time to be thinking about tomorrow or the next day, he couldn't help but picture the boat finished. Sleek and long, the foremast touching the sky, a tiller in the ocean. He could feel how smoothly it would cut through the water.... For years he'd had the same dream. But before he'd always been the only one in the boat. Not anymore... But now wasn't the time to think about the future. It wasn't the time to think at all. He picked up a sanding block, curling his fingers around the wood. He tore off a rectangular piece of sandpaper and wrapped it around the block. Then, with long, even strokes, he began sanding. He lost track of time. He didn't know how much later it was when he felt Elise's presence. He looked up to see her standing in the doorway, and he felt a strange sensation in his chest. "Let me guess," she said. "A boat." "Yep." She frowned and looked around the room. "How will you get it out when

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you're finished?" He jerked his head in the direction of the windows. "Those all come out. I'll just lever the boat down on skids and pulleys." "Oh..." She had that fascinated, genuinely interested look on. her face again, like the one she'd had when he'd shown her how to send messages by pigeon. "The wood's from a South American tree. Never suppose to rot or warp. It should last as long as fiberglass." He tore off a square of sandpaper and wrapped it around another wood block. "Here." He held it out to her. "Give it a try." She didn't hesitate. She came over and took the wrapped block from him. "You don't want to press too hard," he told her. "Just a smooth, steady stroke. Like this." She watched, then tried it herself. Her straight hair fell forward, and she reached up and tucked a smooth, shiny strand behind her ear. "You've got it. You're a natural."She smiled at him, and for a second his heart seemed to stop. He had it bad, real bad. As bad as some sappy high-school kid. So bad that he was beginning to imagine things. For a second her expression had reminded him of the way Anne and Skeeter looked at each other when they thought nobody else was watching, or when their kids surprised them by doing something gushy and sentimental. But Dylan sure as hell hadn't done anything gushy and sentimental. He hadn't done anything at all. It was nuts to think that Elise would be looking at him that way. For a second he'd even had the same feeling he'd had yesterday when they'd gone fishing. He couldn't quite put a finger on it, but he knew it had something to do with a quiet sense of companionship. But more than that, it had to do with a ... rightness. You're thinking again, Dylan. That can only get you in trouble. And anyway, you're wrong, wrong, wrong. He willed his mind to go blank. The rhythmic sound of sanding worked as a balm, pacifying him. Almost. "Dylan ... we need to talk." His hand stilled. "Okay." "About Sebastian's trial." He felt her hesitation, sensed that she was groping for words. "Dylan ... you know if I don't testify, and if Adrian Sebastian goes to death row, I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life." His thoughts exactly. He couldn't do that to her. Not to Elise. He looked into her vivid blue eyes. He noticed that they seemed to reflect more light than most eyes. "I know." She stopped sanding. "You've got to take me back. Can't you see that?" she said desperately, words suddenly pouring out. "How do you think I'm going to feel, knowing that I'm to blame for someone's imprisonment-or, worse, someone's death?" She made an imploring gesture with both hands. "Tell me,

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how am I supposed to handle that? Can you imagine what that will do to me? Can you understand? I don't think I'd be able to live with myself." He knew how it felt. He knew very well how it felt. He dragged his eyes from hers and turned away, moving slowly, like an old man. When he reached the window he gripped the molding in both hands and stared out with unseeing eyes. Her words brought it all back to him. The pain, the despair, the guilt. Once again he heard the sound of shattering glass. Once again he was kneeling on the cold bathroom floor, cradling Melissa's lifeless body in his arms, dazed, in shock. He hadn't wanted to believe it, hadn't wanted to let her go. Somebody-one of the cops-had phoned Skeeter. And Skeeter had come and talked Dylan into letting her go, letting the ambulance attendants take her. After that everything had gotten hazy. Black. Bleak. "Dylan ... ?" Elise. Like a lifeline, her voice reached out to him. "Dylan ... ?" Her concern penetrated the painful memories. He felt her hand on his arm. Warm. Real. By force of will, he pulled himself together. The haze faded, and he saw Elise standing beside him, her brow creased with worry. He had the urge to pull her into his arms and hold her tightly, to bury his face in her soft hair. Instead he took a deep shuddering breath and pulled his gaze back to the window, trying to stabilize himself. He could see Scag down below, sunning himself on a lawn chair. "I'm taking you back," he said quietly. "What?" "I'm taking you back," he repeated. "Tonight." Silence. "That's what you want, isn't it?" "I just hadn't expected... It's so sudden.... I-I'm surprised, that's all." He turned to her. "I never should have involved you in this. I'm sorry." "Dylan..." He read concern on her face, and it warmed him. "What did Sebastian do to make you hate him so much?" she asked. She looked so innocent, so untouched. He wanted to protect her from the evils in the world, protect her from Sebastian. "You don't need to know." "I think I have a right." "It would be better if you didn't know, Elise. For your own good, for your own peace of mind. Believe me." Her hair shone in the sunlight. He reached out and stroked it. "Go back to Miami. Give your testimony. Tell the truth. Tell what really happened. That's what it's all about. That's what's right. You have

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to do what's right." She suddenly looked ready to cry, and he felt a pain deep inside. Where had all these emotions sprung from? He didn't understand.. "Yes," she whispered. "I have to do what's right." Elise sat on the end of the dock, her back against the piling, arms locked around her knees, hugging them to her chest. She'd felt on the verge of tears all day, and it had nothing to do with the time of the month. Anyway, that was all over and done with. No, it had to do with leaving Iguana Bay. More than that, it had to do with leaving Dylan. The brisk salt breeze tugged her hair back from her face. She stared out at the ocean, where the water met the sky. So vast, so blue... Such a long, long way from Wisconsin. And the distance was more than geographical. Much more ... "You're going to get sunburned With a hand shading her eyes, Elise squinted up at Dylan. Her vision was hazy orange from the sun. "You're awfully good at that." "What?" "Sneaking up on people." He shrugged and settled down beside her. "When you're a bounty hunter, you learn to move quietly." A bounty hunter. From detective to bounty hunter? "Maybe you should go in and try to get some sleep. You won't get much of a chance tonight." She shook her head. "It would be useless. And anyway, I want to enjoy the last few hours of my vacation." They sat in silence until Dylan finally got to his feet, squinted his eyes and made a study of the sun. "Three o'clock. You just missed the shuttlebus island tour." "That's okay. I didn't feel like being jostled by all those people anyway." He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans and nodded. "Yeah, I hate crowds." She glanced around, her gaze taking in the deserted beach, the sky, the vast ocean. "So I noticed." When she'd gone upstairs this morning, she'd been prepared to tell him who she really was. But then he'd surprised and shocked her with his abrupt plans and she'd forgotten about everything else. What would his reaction be? Would he be angry that she hadn't told him earlier? She decided she would tell him later, when they got to the mainland. She didn't want to take a chance on spoiling these last few hours. That night Elise spread Dylan's Dark Sky T-shirt out on the bed and carefully folded it. When she was done, she placed it on the foot of the bed, so the lettering faced up. Earlier she'd thought about trying to wear her suit, but had quickly given

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up on that idea. It was beyond repair. So she was going back to the mainland barefoot, wearing cutoffs and Dylan's black T-shirt. The ticking of the clock filled the room, marking the final minutes. Elise didn't want to leave. How had it happened? When had it happened? Not right away, certainly not right away. But it had started long before she'd found the badge. It had been gradual, so gradual that she hadn't seen it coming. A rapid knock, then the door opened and Dylan stuck his head in. "Ready?" She looked at the clock. It was only 11:30. He'd said after midnight. He saw the direction of her gaze and explained. "I thought we might as well leave earlier." "Okay." She understood. Now that he'd decided to take her back, he was anxious to get it over with. Dylan's gaze flicked to the shirt on the bed. "You could have kept that." "That's okay." She'd wanted to keep it because it was a part of him. By that same token, she hadn't wanted to take it because she felt he needed those things that were a part of him so he wouldn't lose track of who he was. Now her main concern was getting through the next few hours. She picked up her purse, slung it over her shoulder and followed Dylan out of the beach house, through the night to the dock. And this time she let him help her into the boat. She took her place in the passenger seat and waited, hands clasped tightly in her lap. Above them, it seemed that every star in the sky was .shining. Elise had never seen such a clear night. She'd never known the sky was so big. Below, the ocean was black, laced with dancing silver reflections. Dylan deftly untied the boat from its moorings, then started the motor. Then he eased the throttle open and they headed out toward open water. Do something, say something, she told herself. What? What was there to say? Small talk? Large talk? Something like, Dylan, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think I love you? It did sound crazy. Even to her it sounded crazy. People would think she'd been brainwashed. A half hour later the motor faded to silence and the boat's hull sank into the water. Dylan moved aft and opened a compartment. "Just thought we'd stop for a minute," he said, tossing the anchor over the side. "That okay with you?" "Fine." More than fine. Better than fine. She wanted this time to last. She was secretly surprised and pleased to find that he wasn't as anxious to be rid of her

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as she'd thought. He settled back beside her, resting his bare feet on the siderail, hands behind his head, turning his attention to the sky. The wind was cool and damp on her skin, but Elise wasn't cold. There was an unreality-or maybe more like something magic-about being out here in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of the night, the stars like a blanket above them, Dylan beside her. "Really something, isn't it?" he asked, head tilted back. "I've never seen so many stars." It wasn't an exaggeration. She'd never even seen so much sky at one time. "I think this is where one of us is supposed to say that it makes a person feel small and insignificant." "Or blessed..." As soon as she'd said it, she felt self-conscious. It wasn't like her to spill her emotions or get melodramatic. "Yeah." His voice was thoughtful. "Maybe that's it." Then, "See the Milky Way?" She looked in the direction he pointed to the cloudy mist of fine glitter. "From here, the Milky Way looks flat, but we're actually part of a spiral galaxy. See that cluster of different colored stars?" She searched, but they all looked the same to her. "No..." "Come here." He stood. Her hand automatically went to his, and he pulled her up beside him. "Look at the Milky Way again." Her eyes shifted… "Now look at the southern section of it. See that group of different colored stars?" "No ..." He bent his knees and brought his face closer to hers, to check her perspective. She felt his fingers on her chin, gently turning, her face a fraction of an inch. "How about now?" "Yes!" They were different colors! "That's what's called the Jewel Box of the Milky Way," he explained. "It's about eight thousand light years from us. Now, see those four bright stars beside it?" She nodded. "That's the Southern Cross." Yes! She could see that, too! The bottom star was practically touching the ocean. "The Southern Cross can't be seen unless you're at latitude twenty-five degrees north, which leaves out all the continental United States."

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She turned toward him. The brightness of the night provided enough light for her to make out his features. It hadn't been that way at first, but now, looking at his face, she could almost see his past. She could see evidence of suffering and pain. The fine lines at the corners of his eyes told of sensitivity... sensuality. "Thank you," she told him, knowing he would think she was thanking him for showing her the stars. And she was. But she was also thanking him for being who he was, for being him. For playing One Thousand Questions, for building a boat, for raising homing pigeons, for taking her fishing, for saving someone's life. For kidnapping her. For taking her back ... "Don't thank me, Elise. You don't have anything to thank me for." "Yes, I do. I've never seen the Southern Cross." And I'll probably never see it again. And soon, very soon, I'll never see you again. "Ah, Elise..." As if unable to help himself, he pulled her close, threading the fingers of both hands through her hair, all the way to the ends, letting the strands slip through his fingers to slowly fall against her neck. "I've done a lot of crazy things in my life," he said, "but I have a feeling that taking you back is going to be the craziest." He lowered his head, and then his mouth was touching hers, moving over hers. She could taste his warmth, taste the ocean spray on his soft lips. y She wanted him. And she knew he wanted her. But she detected a gentle caution in him. The caution that was always there, in some small degree or another, etched deeply, all the way to his soul. His lips left hers, and he set her away, holding her at arm's length so that he was able to look down at her face. "What I said that day on the boat ... about not wanting you ... It wasn't true." Her breath caught. Her heart jumped. Her head was humming. This was it. Now was the time to put a stop to this if she was going to, if she wanted to. But she didn't want to. She swallowed. "I'm glad. I'm glad you want me." He smiled, slowly, beautifully. Maybe a little wistfully. "You are?" "Yes." And still he hung back, as if waiting for her to make the first move, giving her a chance to turn back. But she didn't want to. He thought she was experienced, thought-she'd done this too many times to count, with more men than she could possibly remember. He thought she was Sebastian's woman. He thought she stood for everything he hated, and yet, in spite of himself, in spite of everything, he still wanted her., She looked up into his questioning eyes, eyes full of dark desire.. She felt a stirring of fear-fear of the unknown-but she tamped it down,

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pushed it away. She slipped her hand under his soft T-shirt, felt him shudder. Beneath her trembling palms, his skin felt hot and satiny smooth. "Pretend this is my first time," she whispered. "Just pretend."

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Chapter 13 Pretend? This was unfamiliar territory for Dylan. Here Elise was, asking him to treat her as if she'd never made love, when they'd both made quite a few trips around the block. And in all that time, over all those years, he'd never had any experience with a virgin. He knew nothing about such things. In fact, the only experience he'd had with virginity was when he'd lost his own at sixteen. And it hadn't even been memorable. Nothing for Dear Diary. Among his peers, it was considered wimpy if a guy was still a virgin at sixteen, but arriving at non-virgin status hadn't been an important goal in Dylan's life, not like it had been with most of his buddies. He hadn't been obsessed with attaining that macho state of studhood. Oh, he'd had the same hormonal urges, but they hadn't been anything a few hundred push-ups couldn't cure. He'd never felt the need to prove himself. So when he had a run-in with Bethany Ann, it just hadn't seemed fair. He'd gone to a party and gotten a little blitzed, so he'd decided to walk home and let the night air clear his head. Next thing he knew, Bethany was pulling up beside him in a convertible purchased by her daddy, asking Dylan if he needed a ride. He'd seen her around, seen her picture in the year-book, noticed her legs that went on forever, her chest that defied gravity. He knew she'd been Prom Queen and Football Queen, but he'd never talked to her. They ran in different circles. Completely different circles. She was Country Club, fancy dresses and high tea; he was pool hall, pinball machines and greasy T-shirts. But that didn't keep him from accepting her offer. Instead of taking him home, she'd taken him parking on a secluded back road. Wham, bam, thank you, sir. Not that he'd fought her off-he hadn't been practicing to be a monk or anything. When opportunity knocks... When he got home, he found out that she'd branded him with a matched set of talon marks across his back and the biggest, most disgusting-looking hickey he'd ever seen. It took three weeks to go away. And since then, that was how it had always been. Women had come to him. Some he'd taken, some he'd passed on. But when he took them, he always kept a part of himself locked away, removed. He never felt a deep need. He never lost his cool, never lost control. But now, looking down at Elise, seeing her face free of makeup, her clean dark hair smooth and unpretentious, seeming so much a contrast to all of the women he'd ever known, he could almost believe she was innocent. And, God,

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how he wanted to forget that Sebastian had ever touched her. Sebastian. It was hard to believe that he and Sebastian could be attracted to the same woman. Sebastian himself couldn't have devised anything more sadistic. "Pretend?" Dylan asked. "It's been a long time since I pretended anything." The moonlight reflected from her heavy-lidded eyes; her soft lips were parted in shy desire. Her small hands were on his sides, stroking his hot bare skin. He could feel every finger, every fingertip, every palm line, and knew that when she took her hands away, permanent impressions would be left on his tingling flesh. "How long? How long has it been since you've pretended anything, Dylan?" His legs were braced against the gently rolling deck; his hands were on her shoulders, poised to hold her back-or pull her close. "Years." "Since Spaceman Bob?" "Yeah." He smiled. How had she remembered a throwaway comment like that? The sounds of the ocean seemed to coax. The waves lapped against the hull. Rhythmic. Hypnotic. Night wind played with both their hair, whipping it around them. Salt water skimmed bare skin. For the past ten years Dylan had lived in a world of deception, where nothing was as it seemed. Where people lied and cheated and killed, where they turned on one another like rats in an overcrowded cage. It hadn’t taken him long to learn to distrust rather than trust. And now here he was, going against everything he’d learned. Here he was, holding Elise Ramsey’s warm sweet body in his arms. The truth was, he was afraid of her-because when he was around her, he lost control. With her, he forgot who he was, what he was. He forgot about the darkness in him. Her hands began to move higher across his heated flesh, making his heart jump, his breath catch in his throat. The fingers of one hand made contact with a flat nipple and proceeded to stroke it. Back and forth … "But you remember how to pretend, don’t you?" He shrugged, the movement at odds with his racing heart, with the blood pumping through his veins. “I don’t know”. He wanted her. God, how he wanted her. Don’t do it, he told himself. She’s Sebastian’s woman. But he knew it was too late. He hadn’t wanted very many things in his life, but he wanted Elise. More than he’d wanted anything, ever. He wanted to touch her everywhere, commit

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her body to memory. Savor every soft sound, every soft touch. He wanted to love her. And he dimly realized, with a logic he found hard to ignore, that the wanting he felt wasn’t just about now, wasn’t about a few moments spent achieving sexual gratification. This was more. Let her go. She belonged to Sebastian. “Dylan…?” There was an unsure tremor in her voice, as if she doubted her appeal, doubted he could want her in any way. Looking at her, listening to her, feeling her tremble beneath his hands, he could almost believe she’d never done this kind of thing before, almost believe she was innocent… He thought about yesterday, when she’d found his badge. She’d cried for him. That meant she cared for him, at least a little. He didn’t know why, or how it had happened, but she cared. If she could love me… His mind closed on that thought. In a very strange, un-Dylan-like flash of insight, he suddenly saw things quite clearly. It didn’t matter that Sebastian had touched her, because this wasn’t about Sebastian. It had nothing to do with Sebastian… This was about Elise and Dylan, nobody else. And in a way, it would be a first-at least for him, anyway. And maybe, just maybe, for her. Because he’d never really made love before. He’d tried to think of it as making love, but it had always been sex. Even with Melissa. Great sex, but sex all the same. But now he had the feeling that with Elise it was going to be different. It would be more than sex. Dylan was going to make love to Elise Ramsey. Long, slow, fiery love. He wanted to make her toes curl, make her moan and call his name. He brought up his hands to gently cup her face. “If this were your first time, you know what I’d do?” he asked, one thumb stroking her jaw. “What?” Her breathless anticipation sent his temperature up another degree. Her hands were stroking his stomach, her knuckles skimming his flesh just above the loose waistband of his jeans, making his muscles tighten. “I’d be careful not to scare you, not to go too fast. I’d be gentle. Slow.” He heard her breath catch, sensed that she held it, waiting. "I'd monitor your pulse rate... make sure we were both traveling at the same speed." He lowered his head and pressed his open mouth to the place below her ear. He tasted her smooth skin, felt her pulse jump under his tongue. She sighed a pleasure sigh and let her head fall back. His senses were heightened. Tonight the stars were brighter, the air fresher, the ocean seeming to hold more secrets....

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And Elise... Her skin was softer than any he'd ever felt, tasted better than any he'd ever tasted. Her body was sweeter, his need of her greater.... Far, far greater. Her small hands were caressing his body. Her breathless voice, her deep sighs, all combined to drive him crazy. He didn't want to let her go, not even for a minute. But he finally did, just long enough to open the bench seat and pull out a blanket. He spread it out on the deck, then reached up and peeled off his shirt, dropping it behind him. Then he was reaching for her again. He slipped the T-shirt up until she raised her arms so that he could lift it over her head. "How slow is slow?" she asked with that newly acquired huskiness that did strange things to his insides. He let the T-shirt fall from his fingers. "Are you familiar with thick molasses?" She laughed softly, deep in her throat. "That's what my whole body feels like right now." "You don't know how glad I am to hear that." "You're not in any hurry?" Looking at her standing there in skimpy cutoffs and a sheer bra, he suddenly felt in very much of a hurry. But he fought it. "We have all sorts of time," he said, reminding himself as much as Elise. "All night." All night. Dylan had been on all-night stakeouts that had seemed to drag on for a lifetime. But he had the feeling that tonight would simply be a flash, a shooting star, gone before it could be fully appreciated, fully savored. But he was going, to try. Lord, how he was going to try. Nature's lights shone down on them. In the soft glow Elise's skin was ivory. "Your skin..." He was used to deeply tanned women, and her pale skin seemed fresh and exotic. Exciting. "My skin?" That nervous doubt was in her voice again. "Is something wrong?" Through the sheerness of her bra, he could see two dark circles straining against the fabric. He brushed a thumb across each confined nipple, making it harden, making Elise catch her breath. He reached behind her and unhooked her bra, then slid the thin straps down her arms, freeing her breasts, baring them to the moonlight and starlight and his gaze. He'd never seen breasts so creamy white, nipples so pink, so innocent. "Your skin-" he took a deep, shuddering breath "-is beautiful. I just wish I could see you even better." "Feel me.... Just feel me...." He brought both hands up to caress her sides, moving up her rib cage. Touching... stroking... fingers barely brushing the sensitive flesh of her breasts,

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lifting them. She let out another sigh, closed her eyes and swayed toward him, her fingers digging into his shoulders. Her back was arched, her breasts lifted toward him, begging to be touched, begging to be tasted. "I've dreamed of doing this, of touching you like this," he whispered hoarsely. His hands slid around soft curves so that he could mold her round fullness to his hands, finally able to feel the taut, velvet-edged nipples against his palms. He began a slow, gentle massaging motion. A tremor ran through her. "Cold?" he whispered. "No." A breath, so light he could barely hear it. "Hot?" "Yes." Her voice, like her body, trembled. Under his hands her breasts swelled, heated. "Me too." His own voice was less than steady. Starting between her breasts, he skimmed his knuckles down her middle, inch by inch, down to the waistband of her jeans. Once there, he slipped his hand inside, fingers spread against her taut abdomen. He moved lower so that he could feel her heat through the silkiness of her panties. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them. Slow. He brought his hand back to the waistband of her jeans. With deft fingers he slipped the flat metal button free of the frayed buttonhole and tugged down the zipper. The boat rolled, and she grasped his shoulders, steadying herself while he slipped the soft denim over the curve of her hips until the cutoffs dropped around her bare feet and she stepped free. The boat pitched again, and she fell against him, the warm apex of her legs colliding with his aching desire. His mouth found hers, and he drove his tongue past her soft lips, deep inside, tasting her hot sweetness, his need growing, growing. He lifted her closer, pressing harder. So much need, so much wanting... He could hear his own rasping breath, feel it tearing at his chest along with his madly pounding heart. He was sweating, shaking.... From a great, foggy distance, his mind was telling him that he shouldn't be out of breath, it was too soon. And he was supposed to be taking it slow. But then the weak grip he had on sanity washed away.... He sank to his knees. He cupped her to him, pressing a wet, openmouthed kiss on her abdomen, feeling the muscles beneath his lips contract, the fingers she'd threaded through his hair clench. He had to touch her, feel her, know every intimate part of her. He slid his fingers inside the elastic band of her satin underpants, then one hand, then both, following the soft contours of her warm body to cup her bottom, pulling her closer to him. Her moan joined that of the ocean. Beneath his hands he felt her tremble;

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beneath his face he felt the heat of her skin, the silkiness of her panties. Under his mouth ... Elise couldn't support herself any longer. She felt herself spinning out of control, surrounded by Dylan. He seemed a part of their surroundings, a part of the sky and the ocean, the night. He had cast a spell over her. She sank to the deck, her knees braced against the pitch of the boat. His hot, wet mouth found her breast and suckled it, his tongue sliding across her skin in slick, erotic circles. His mouth left her breast. One hand slid up her back until it supported her head so that he could press hot kisses on her face, her throat, her neck. "I want you," he rasped, his voice thick with emotion. "Lord, how I want you." "You have me." "No, I-" His words broke off, and he buried his face against her neck, in her hair. "Have you ever wanted something so much..." he said breathlessly, "so much it hurt?" "Yes." "Deep inside? Fathoms deep?" His passion-filled voice, his passion-filled words, were carrying her away... "Yes." "I ache for you," he whispered, "but this ... is going ... too fast." "Fast ... is okay." Better than okay. Earlier she'd been scared. But now, knowing that Dylan was shaking, too, she was no longer scared. "I want this to last. I want to remember this for a long time." If he went any slower she would die! Her breasts were crushed against the satiny slick hardness of his chest. Even though the night was cool, he was sweating. And so was she. She dimly recognized the fact that Dylan, cool, calculated Dylan, was losing control, was coming undone. He needed her help. All lingering inhibitions vanished. She worked her hands between their two heated bodies. With unsteady fingers she slipped the round metal button of his jeans through the buttonhole. Then she grasped the zipper and eased it down, her knuckles skimming a cotton constrained bulge. Dylan shuddered and groaned, then urged her down on the blanket, his hot mouth everywhere. On her eyelids, her lips, her throat, her stomach. Wet, tugging kisses that were creating a tempest inside her. She was so hot she was melting. There was a coiling ache between her thighs, winding ever tighter. She wanted, needed.... Her legs thrashed, her heels dug into the blanket, her hands clawed the cloth at her sides. Then Dylan's hand was slipping inside her panties, his fingers threading

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through her soft curls. Over and over. She moaned and arched her hips, again and again, until he touched her very center, where the sweet ache had begun but was now spiraling out of control. Fire. She was on fire. Faster. Faster. "Dylan," she managed to gasp, letting go of the blanket to clutch at his damp, muscled shoulders. "I don't know about slow." "You will," he promised, his voice just as breathless as hers. "You will." His hand stopped its sweet torture. He let go of her and moved away. Cool air brushed her fevered skin, caressing breasts still damp from his mouth. Beneath the sound of the wind and ocean, she could hear Dylan shedding his clothes. Then he was back. This time he immediately slid both hands inside her panties, open palms against her scalding skin, slipping the fabric down over hips, legs and feet. "Lie very still," he whispered. "Don't move." Hands braced on either side of her head, knees between her legs, he slowly levered himself down, stopping before they touched. An inch of damp night air filled the charged space between their hot, pulsing bodies. He brought his head down, touching his lips to hers, rubbing back and forth. She sighed, and her mouth opened. His tongue plunged. Earlier he'd almost lost control. Now she once again drew his rhythmically stroking tongue deep into her mouth. Hot. Wet. He felt a tightening inside, felt himself harden even more. He lowered his hips and nestled the aching, throbbing stiffness between the soft warmth of her inner thighs. She lifted herself to him, opened her legs wider, but he didn't slip inside. Not yet. She groaned, tugging at his hips. "Dylan..." His lips stopped her half-formed protest, his tongue plunging into her mouth with a long, deep thrust. In and out, in and out, deeper and deeper. She raised her thighs to him, digging her heels into the blanket, trying to urge him inside her. But still he held back. His mouth left hers. He pressed a wet kiss on her forehead, smoothing her damp hair from her brow. "Sshh. Slow. I promised you slow, remember... ?" "We ... we didn't shake on it...." "I'm shaking now...." And so was she. Against the sheen of perspiration that bathed both their bodies, he slid

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lower, filling his hands with her full breasts. "You," she whispered. "Just you..." He understood. He'd never had anyone before her. Not like this. Never like this. He cupped her breast to his mouth, stroking with his tongue, tasting the pliant nipple, drawing it deep into his mouth, the way she had drawn his tongue. She moaned, and her sweet body twisted beneath him. The scent of her skin filled his head. He moved from her breasts to cradle her bottom while traveling lower, tasting her flat stomach, feeling her muscles tighten beneath his mouth and hands. In the back of his mind he was aware of being hurled forward toward a place he'd never been before. He wanted to go there. Needed to go there. With Elise. To a place where the walls crumbled away completely. With Elise ... He shifted himself enough to fold her legs so her bare feet were flat against the blanket. Like a sculptor, he ran his hands up the contours of her calves, across her knees to the soft skin of her inner thighs. He heard her breath catch as he combed his fingers through her silky curls, felt her body grow still in anticipation of his next move. He parted her, sliding the pads of his fingers across her hot dampness. His heart was thundering in his head, his breathing coming in a tight rasp. He'd never known such an all-consuming fire. Losing control. He was losing control, but he didn't care. He wanted it. All of it. "Dylan..." she whimpered, urging him closer, arching against his hand, her fingers digging into his sweat-glazed shoulders. "I want you.... I want you inside me now." Her voice was breathless, urgent, edged with panic. "Dylan, II'm falling!" "I won't let you fall...." "I'm-oh . . ." Her words broke off. Dylan felt a series of shudders course through her body, felt her legs tremble against his arms. He soothed her with breathless words, love words, words that he'd always thought were foreign to his nature. But she'd changed him. Quickly he slid up her body. Her long beautiful legs wrapped around his back, welcoming him. He could feel her heels against his rib cage. When his mouth found hers, she reached between their perspiring bodies, guiding him to her. The touch of her hand sent tremors through him that equaled hers. Never like this. She took him inside her.

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Hot. Wet. Tight. "Better than I dreamed," he swore against her arched throat. "Better than I dreamed..." He slipped deeper. Millimeter by slow, slow, millimeter. "You're so soft ... warm ... so tight. I could almost think ... almost believe..." He'd never felt so surrounded, never felt so complete. He was only halfaware of someone-himself-whispering soft, strange words against her mouth, against her eyes, against her ears. He cupped her bottom, lifting her higher. Closer. The heat was building, their damp bodies moving together. The boat pitched. She arched. He followed the motion of the rolling deck, stroking her deeply, matching the movements of the waves. Again and again. He heard her call out his name, felt her legs tighten around him, felt her soft heat convulse. His every muscle stretched to its limit, squeezing until his body spasmed against hers and once again he whirled away into the night sky. Lost. Hopelessly lost. Dylan came whirling dizzily back to the earth's atmosphere, back to gravity, back to latitude twenty-five degrees north, back to the Florida Straits, back to his boat. Back to Elise. He'd traveled far. Blown by solar winds, he'd hurtled out past neutron stars, pulsars and quasars, out to the end of the galaxy. For a few seconds, he'd lost track of where he was and who he was. Which was odd. Spaceman Bob had never suffered reentry disorientation. But now he was back. He could feel Elise's hands stroking his ribs, trailing down the indentation of his spine. His perspiring body felt as if every muscle in it had melted during reentry. But he forced himself to lift his heavy head so he could look at her. Her eyes were closed, her lips swollen and red. She was the moon, and he was the tide. He could feel her strength, feel her pull. Love for her washed over him and through him. It was bittersweet and painful, and so strong and unexpected that it made his heart thump in panic. She had changed him. A week ago he had managed to convince himself that he didn't even like her. And now... now he was afraid he loved her. No. Damn it, no. He managed to bring a hand up and stroke her damp hair away from her face. As he watched, her eyes fluttered open. In them, he could see the

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reflection of the stars. "There are stars in your eyes," he whispered, wondering where those strange, embarrassingly poetic words had come from. He never said things like that. And through all these new emotions, he was distantly aware of a note in his voice, a note that until now could only be coaxed from him by Skeeter's kids. Tenderness. Dylan both cursed and marveled at it. She smiled sleepily... maybe a little shyly. Elise's senses, her tired, love-sweet senses, were full of him. He was in her, around her. Behind him, she could see the stars. His stars. He'd cast a spell on her, a deep, dark, wonderful spell. For a second, with him looming over her, his face cast in shadow, his dark hair tumbling forward, she was reminded of the first night during the lightning storm. She'd been so afraid, yet so attracted. He hadn't seemed quite real. She wasn't afraid anymore. "Dylan... ?" "Mmm?" "Did you cast a spell on me?" A thoughtful silence. "What if I told you that last night, while you were sleeping, I cut a lock of your hair and entwined it with one of mine?" There was a teasing quality in his deep voice. "I'd have to say it was a very good spell." "Think so?" "Mmm. Definitely." She felt more than heard the laughter that rumbled in him. For one bittersweet moment she was unbearably content. But then reality intruded. Reality always intruded. He rolled away from her and got to his feet, leaving her with an overwhelming feeling of emptiness. Reality. Time to go. Time to be on their way. After all, spells are only spells, and magic can only last so long. She began fumbling for her clothes, horrified at the sudden rush of tears she could feel welling in her eyes. She would not cry. She could not cry. Not now. Tomorrow, maybe. She directed all her attention to her search for her clothes. She found her bra, but not her underpants. She found her cutoffs, but not her T-shirt. Oh, hell. How stupid, she had the T-shirt right in her hand. It was the panties she needed. She clutched the shirt to her while she continued her search, her fingers shaking as she felt around the deck. "Elise..." "I can't find my-" "Elise-"

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"I've lost-" My mind. I've lost my mind. It was then that she felt his hand on her arm. "Elise, come here." He pulled her up beside him, and when she collided with his hard chest, she realized he was still naked. And aroused. A hard, hot roundness was pressing against her abdomen. It was warm, velvety soft, throbbing.... He took a step back and sat down on the bench seat. Holding her hand, he pulled her toward him, urging her closer until they were knee to knee. "Have you forgotten?" he asked. "What?" "That we have all night." He worked his knees between hers and pulled her closer yet, until she was standing with her hands braced on his shoulders, her body straddling his thighs. Her fingers were still clutching the T-shirt in a death grip. He worked it free and dropped it to the deck, then pulled her even closer. "I want to love you like no one has ever loved you before," he whispered against her throat, his voice fierce and rasping, his hands once again awakening passions within her. Love. She knew he meant love in the physical sense, and yet ... His hands, his mouth, his body, were making her dizzy. How on earth could he make love any more passionately? She was drowning ... drifting away.... "So you won't forget me," he said, a hint of desperation behind his words. "I won't forget you," she swore. "I'll never forget you." His head came down. She felt his hair brush her nipple; then his warm breath caressed her skin and he was pulling the tip of her breast into his mouth, sucking, tugging, while his hands kneaded her round bottom. A series of small shudders ran through her. Again and again. One of his hands moved between her parted thighs, a finger once again discovering and stroking her aching dampness. Her most secret, womanly place. "I want to make you forget any other lover you ever had," he swore. Before she could say anything she felt his large hands grasp her hips, his callused thumbs on her hipbones. Then he was lifting her against him. She slid down his sweat-damp chest. Falling, falling, deep shudders trailing through her. She called his name, heard his soft, soothing murmur, and then his iron hardness was slipping into her. Slick. Hot. Deep. Through a haze, she thought she heard him moan. She felt his body tense, the muscles under her clenched hands tightening. Fifteen minutes later they were lying on the deck again. Making love again.

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There was nothing slow about Dylan this time. This time he seemed to lose control, taking her with such wild abandon, such feverish, erotic passion, that he drove Elise's breath from her body, leaving no room for a single coherent thought.

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Chapter 14 Sleep. Soft. Warm. Safe. But gradually the ceaseless roar of the ocean intruded, infiltrating the deep recesses of Elise's semiconscious mind. She became distantly aware of the sound of waves lapping against a hull, gently rocking the boat from side to side. Closer, nearer... directly beneath her ear, came the deep, muffled beat of a heart. Strong. Steady. Comforting. And the warmth ... it was the wonderful feel of skin against skin. Her skin. His skin. Love. Like a snowflake drifting down to slowly melt on a flushed cheek, the single word seeped into the deepest corner of her mind, the deepest corner of her soul. Love. No. Yes. Awareness came slowly, in stages. When it was finally reached, Elise kept her eyes closed, hardly daring to breathe, hardly daring to move. She wanted to absorb the sensation of lying in Dylan's arms, the blanket wrapped around them like a cocoon. She could hear his steady breathing, feel the gentle rise and fall of his chest, smell the scent of his skin, taste the salt tang of it on her lips. She felt surrounded by him, enveloped by him. Changed by him. She didn't move. She wanted to simply hold this moment, savor everything about this moment, commit it to lifelong memory. Elise opened her eyes. It was dark, but not as dark as it had been. Dawn was coming. Even though she'd been lying very still, hardly breathing, the arm around her back tightened, pulling her closer. Was he awake? "I've discovered something better than stargazing." Dylan whispered, his voice a deep rumble beneath her ear. How long had he been lying awake, holding her? "What could be better than watching the stars?" Her voice was hoarse from sleep... or from lovemaking. He shifted her in his arms, enough to look down at her. The movement of

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their two bodies sparked a small, warm glow deep inside her. He bent his head and pressed a light, tender-an oh, so tender-kiss on her forehead. "You." Before she could say anything, before she could swallow the sudden tightness in her throat in order to make her stiff vocal chords work, he kissed her again, this time on her parted lips. Not passionately. No, it was more of a reassuring kiss. More of a hello kiss. He sighed. "We have to go." A goodbye kiss. She'd never thought she would make love to a man, then tell him goodbye. But things changed. Situations changed. People changed. Her grandmother's words came back to her. Be careful, Leesie. Men are only after one thing. But a person can't always remain on the sidelines of life, Elise silently reasoned. You can't spend your life cheering everyone else on, never participating. Sometimes you have to jump in and be a part of what's going on, even if it means getting hurt. And when it's time to go, you don't cry foul. You get up, put yourself back together and go. Like whistling in the dark. The air was damp. Everything, including their clothes, was covered with the fine mist that had fallen from the sky, that had come with the night, swirling around them while they slept. After they were dressed, Dylan draped the cotton blanket around Elise's shoulders, pulling it snugly to her chin. "It's going to be a cold ride," he explained. Then he kissed her again, the way he had before. Quickly. Gently. Softly. Goodbye. He pulled away, his hands still on her arms. Through the blanket, she could feel the imprint of his fingers. She looked up at him-a dark shape against the lightening sky, sea wind tugging and teasing his thick hair. For a moment she saw him as she had that first night when he'd made her pulse race with both fear and a strange excitement. The only thing missing was a billowing black cape and a rugged coastline to frame his wind-tossed hair and wild wolf eyes, eyes that seemed to hold dark, untold secrets-dark, untold pain. What was he thinking? It was impossible to tell. He'd been a cop, a professional. He'd learned to keep his emotions in check, learned to hide all his deep, jagged scars. But last night some of that control had slipped. Last night he'd trembled for her. Last night he'd whispered her name. Words had tumbled from his lips, disjointed phrases breathed in the heat of passion. Night words.

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Her own passion had equaled his, creating a thrumming in her head, a roar that had drowned out his words, had so fogged her mind that there had been no real clarity to the things he had said, nothing she could cling to but the way she had felt when he'd held her. It seemed to Elise that his eyes, his guarded, wary eyes, were no longer quite so guarded. She could almost swear, almost hope, that in their depths lay quiet concern. No, she told herself. It was merely an illusion created by the shifting shadows. And yet... Ah, Dylan. The words were a heavy sigh in her mind, in her heart. I could love you. I could love you so very, very much. And you could break my heart. She felt hot tears gathering behind her eyes and blinked, then swallowed. Control. That was the key word here. She mustn't lose control. She was an adult, solely responsible for her actions-and reactions. She knew better than to expect some declaration of love from Dylan. This wasn't a fairy tale, wasn't a story where people lived happily ever after. This was real life. And now that their shared night was over, it was time to go. If only it didn't hurt so much. "Are you okay?" Dylan asked, voicing the very question she thought she'd detected in his eyes. She nodded, because she couldn't speak. Leave me alone. Don't press me for an answer. Please. "Are you sure?" She managed to dredge up a tremulous smile, followed by another nod. Hold me. But instead of acting on her silent plea, Dylan turned away, his hands busying themselves with the rope as he pulled up the anchor. That was how it was with men. They just pulled up anchor, cast off and never looked back. Grandma Max had been right. Elise took her place in the passenger seat, clasped her hands in her lap while she stared toward the horizon, searching the sky for the Southern Cross. It was gone. The night was over. And then the boat was cutting through the water, Dylan's sure hands guiding it toward the mainland, taking Elise back to her old life, back to the real world, a world where there was no Southern Cross, where there was no one to make her melt inside, no one to make her pulse race, her heart ache. She had to tell him who she really was. And then maybe, when all this was over... What? He might want her? Suddenly Elise was more afraid than she'd ever been in her life, more afraid than she'd been that night in the alley when Dylan had grabbed her,

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when she'd felt the outline of a gun jabbing against her rib cage. That night she'd been afraid of dying. Now she was afraid of losing someone she'd never had. The earth continued its slow rotation. The last of the stars had faded. The sun would soon be up. Time was ticking, ticking away.... They pulled into a broken-down marina, Dylan's small speedboat dwarfed by huge clamming vessels and dry-docked ships, their towering masts silhouetted against the orange-streaked blush of dawn. He cut the engine and guided the silent boat toward the dock, quickly tying it to one of the barnacled pylons. Elise stood and let the blanket slip from her shoulders to the seat. As if from somewhere outside herself, she reached up and felt her tangled, wind-whipped hair. It was hanging around her face in ropelike coils. She must look like some homeless waif. n But her outer appearance was trivial compared to inside. Inside, she was falling apart. But Dylan didn't look any different. Why didn't he look any different? His faded jeans still fit snugly over his lean hips. His T-shirt had been wrinkled before. The additional creases just added to his charm, his rough roguishness. What had she expected? Come on, Elise. This is the real world. For Dylan, last night had been nothing but a pleasant diversion. Just another day at the beach. She had to do something, so she pretended a sudden preoccupation with the rumpled state of her clothing, trying to smooth some of the wrinkles from the black T-shirt, running her hands down its length, over and over. The wrinkles just came back. They wouldn't go away. She wanted them to go away, wanted everything to go back to the way it had been before she'd come to Florida. Didn't she? She'd been content with her life. Satisfied with her quiet, orderly existence. But now Dylan had gone and ruined everything. Now, if-when, she quickly corrected-she went back to her cabin on the river, the joy would be gone. She would no longer feel the pleasure of watching the barges go by, of watching the sun rise over the Mississippi. Her thoughts would be elsewhere. She would be thinking about the ocean smell in Dylan's hair, thinking about all the ways he had touched her. The dark ways, the sad ways, the funny ways. The ways a man touches a woman. Gentle, wonderful ways ... "Elise..." She froze, then looked up. Dylan was standing directly in front of her. Through a haze, a frantic, heart-thumping confused haze, she saw that he held a yellow comb. A comb?

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She frowned, puzzled. "Sit down." He shuffled her sideways, then pressed her shoulders. Her knees bent, and she sat. Using his fingers and the comb, he began working the tangles from her hair. He was being very careful, very gentle. She hadn't known a man could be so careful, so gentle. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to breathe lightly, hoping to God she didn't make a complete fool of herself by falling apart now. Later she could scatter into a million pieces like some gone-to-seed dandelion, but now she must cling desperately to her pride, her self-control. But she was so scared. Scared of never seeing Dylan again. Scared that he wouldn't care. Scared of what he would think, what he would say, when soon, very soon, she gathered enough strength, enough nerve, to tell him the truth, to confess everything. Maybe, just maybe... A fear she'd been evading for the past several days surfaced. Would he even believe her? Wasn't it possible that the person he thought she was would lie in order to be with him? Yes. When Dylan finished with her hair he pulled her to her feet. Then he straightened her shirt and tucked a stray strand of hair behind one ear, his fingers skimming her scalp. Somehow-she would never know how-she'd managed to get through all his careful ministrations without coming undone. Now, if she could just hang on a little longer. Make it through the next five minutes. The next hour... the next day... She took his hand as he helped her from the boat. When they reached the end of the dock Dylan swung her into his arms and carried her across the gravel and broken shells, putting her down beside his car, where her bare feet could rest on smooth blacktop. This wasn't the same car they had arrived in several days ago. She had a vague recollection of parking beside this one, but at the time she'd been too scared to notice very much of anything. Now she saw things with a crystalline clarity. The car was black-obviously one of Dylan's favorite colors. It had round fenders, a long low hood that looked as if it covered a powerful engine. It was streamlined. Something made to go fast. She waited while he dug for the keys in the front pocket of his jeans. She watched as he stuck the key into the lock, and as he did so, she was surprised to see his strong, steady hands tremble. Dylan? Shaking? He unlocked the door and pocketed the keys. He hesitated.

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No. Tell him now. She turned to him. "Dylan, I-" "Elise, I-" They spoke in unison. Dylan smiled. "Go ahead." "I have to tell you something. About Sebastian and me." Something akin to pain flashed from the amber depths of his eyes, then vanished as his face closed. "I don't want to know about you and Sebastian." "But I-" He lowered his voice, his hands gripping her arms, giving her a small shake. "I don't want to know." She started to argue, to press on, but her words caught on her next breath when she saw the unmistakable anguish in his face. Guarded, self-controlled Dylan. And as Dylan looked down into Elise's blue eyes, eyes that seemed to reflect the ocean and all its depths, eyes that seemed somehow to reflect his very soul, he felt the foundation of his life crumbling from under his feet. Suddenly everything that had gone before, everything that he'd ever thought important-his island, the boat he wanted to build, being a cop, the ocean, the stars, even his need to revenge Melissa's death-faded into insignificance. There was only one thing left. Elise. He brought his hands slowly up to her face, once again amazed at the softness of her skin beneath his rough palms, amazed at the blueness of her eyes, at the unguarded innocence he saw there. And, more than that, he was amazed that she could make him feel so alive, make him want to live so damn much. Her brow furrowed as if she were in pain. She squeezed her eyes shut, but before she did he'd glimpsed something he couldn't put a name to, but it was an emotion so strong that it staggered him, drove the air from his lungs. Suddenly it was very important that he share something of what he was feeling with her, at least the part he himself understood. "Elise, I don't care what you've been, or what you've done. That doesn't matter. Everybody makes mistakes in their life, does things they regret. You can't let the past drag you down. It's who you are now that matters." Her eyelids lifted, and he found himself being regarded with solemn eyes. Tears filled them; her lips trembled. Witnessing her tears, he fell apart. "Come on," he begged. "Don't cry." Dylan had never been fazed by Melissa's tears, but Elise's... They were different. They were real. She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Come on. Don't cry. Please."

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She shook her head and smiled up at him through her tears. "I'm not crying." He laughed at that. He couldn't help himself. And the lightness of the sound surprised him. The lightness he felt inside surprised him. He hadn't felt this way in a long time. Not for years. Maybe never. Sounds filtered through all these strange emotions, emotions that were old and yet completely new, intruding when he was close to grasping and making sense of what he felt. Footsteps. Crunching across broken shells and gravel. The cop in Dylan reacted. He swung around, shielding Elise with his body, one hand on her hip, the other going to where his shoulder holster should be, reaching for a gun that wasn't there. From directly beside him, he caught a flash of movement-sunlight glinting off the butt of a pistol. "No, Claude!" Elise screamed. Then the pistol crashed against the side of Dylan's head. His ears rang. White shafts of pain pierced his skull. Swirling blackness beckoned. Black holes... He was getting a firsthand view of black holes... Elise. He thought he spoke her name, but maybe he just called to her in his mind, or maybe he just moved his lips; he didn't know. His knees buckled. The black hole loomed closer.... Through the spiraling tunnel he heard Elise cry out his name. He fought the blackness, struggled to stay conscious. He could feel her small hands on his ribs, trying to keep him from falling, trying to support him. He wanted to tell her to forget it, that he was too heavy for her, but the words just wouldn't come. Damn poor time to black out. He had to tell her something. Something he'd never told any woman before. He had to tell her that he loved her. "Elise..." His voice was a pathetic croak. He sounded like some delirious guy begging for water. Before he could say more, before he could make an even bigger fool of himself, the black hole swallowed him, taking him to a place where there was no light, no stars. No Elise.

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Chapter 15 Dylan slumped against her. Elise staggered under his weight as she tried to ease his unconscious body to the ground. He was too heavy. The best she could manage was to keep his head from striking the asphalt as he went down.. Claude has seemingly come out of nowhere. Why had he hit Dylan? He hadn't had to hit him. Fear and anger surged through her. She had liked Claude. She'd been nice to him. Now she felt as if he'd betrayed her. Blood. The fingers of her left hand were sticky with it. Oh, God. She had to stay calm. Head wounds bled a lot. It didn't necessarily mean he was hurt very badly. Of course not. She knew Claude wouldn't hurt her, so she shielded Dylan with her body while casting a glance over one shoulder, catching a glimpse of the bodyguard's perplexed, prize fighter's features. "Why'd you hit him?" she demanded, her voice thick with tears and dismay. "You didn't have to hit him! Is that all you men know? Violence?" There was a high note of hysteria edging into her voice. She had to get a grip on herself. She would be no help to Dylan if she came unglued. Claude made an apologetic gesture with one big hand, then shrugged his massive shoulders. "I thought it was better than shooting him." Looking down, she saw that Dylan's face had lost all color, except for the shadow along his unshaven jaw and the crimson stain at his temple. He looked so helpless, so vulnerable. He looked dead. With shaking fingers, she quickly found the pulse in his neck. His heartbeat was steady and strong. She parted his hair-his thick, salt-stiffened hair-until she uncovered an oozing cut about three inches long. A lump was already forming around it. Dylan moaned, his eyes still closed, brow furrowed in pain.. She grabbed her purse and dug through it until she found a small packet of tissues. She pulled out the entire contents and pressed it against the cut on Dylan's head. He muttered and lifted one arm, as if to stop her, then let it flop to the ground. Seeing Dylan so vulnerable unleashed Elise's anger. In a strangely comforting way, it helped atone for the feelings of helplessness, panic and confusion that were roiling within her. "If you wanted me to come with you, why didn't you just walk up and ask? Would that have been so hard?" "But Miss Ramsey-" Claude scratched his head, clearly confused. "Davis kidnapped you, didn't he?" She knew Claude's reasoning made more sense than hers. After all, Dylan had kidnapped her, something she had a tendency to overlook, if not

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completely forget. It seemed insignificant now. "Yes, but he never hurt me," she said stubbornly, feeling like a child trying to defend herself when logic was against her. Dylan's hand came up again. This time his fingers wrapped tightly around her wrist, as if he thought she might be the enemy, the person who had struck him. His eyes opened, and his groggy, pain-filled gaze searched until it settled on her face. "Elise..." His grip immediately relaxed. Relief washed over his features, mirroring her own feelings at his return to consciousness. And the way he said her name, the way he was looking up at her, made her go weak all over, made her heart hammer, made her breath catch. Footsteps sounded from behind. She turned. Adrian Sebastian was casually strolling across the lot toward them. He was dressed in a baggy white linen suit, his black hair greased and shining. "Dylan Davis," Sebastian announced as he approached. "I suspected that you had something to do with Elise's disappearance. You seem to have a knack for not using your head." When Elise looked back at Dylan she was relieved to see that the confusion was gone from his eyes, replaced now by wariness, a quiet watchfulness. "How could you have known it was me?" Dylan asked, releasing his hold on Elise's wrist. He grabbed the folded, blood-soaked tissues, then levered himself to a sitting position. A trickle of blood ran down the side of his face, and he pressed the tissues back against the wound. "It could have been any one of your many admirers." Elise could sense the hate in Dylan, could sense that he was struggling to control it. "Dylan," she warned, trying to draw his gaze to hers, not wanting him to do anything to make Sebastian mad. But Dylan kept his eyes on Sebastian. "That's okay," Sebastian said with a laugh, no trace of anger in his voice. "Dylan always, was excitable." His laugh surprised her. It sounded like a real laugh. As if he and Dylan were friends, or once had been. As if he actually liked Dylan. Even though he hadn't looked in her direction, her plea must have gotten through, because Dylan straightened his shoulders, clenched his jaw and drew a deep breath. "I'd like to stay and chat," he said, his voice amazingly close to normal, one arm over his bent knee, eyes squinted against the morning sun, "but I've got to get your star witness to the Justice Building." He shoved himself to his feet, refusing Elise's help. "You always were quite an actor," Sebastian said in a low, smooth voice. Dylan threw the blood-soaked tissues to the ground. "Never as good as you." "I'm exactly what I appear to be." "What's that? A murderer?"

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Sebastian smiled, and it seemed full of such innate evil that a chill moved down Elise's spine. Once again she wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. "You're referring to Melissa, no doubt," Sebastian said. Beside her, Dylan stiffened. "What a beautiful woman," Sebastian taunted. "It must be hard to live with yourself after what happened to her." Dylan's rising anger was like a charged field around them. Above, gulls wheeled and cried, their shadows flitting across the ground. Sebastian went in for the kill. "It must be tough, knowing she took a bullet that was meant for you. Knowing she's dead because of you. She's dead, and you're alive." There was a huge roaring in Elise's head. The world came tumbling in around her. Melissa was dead? Because of Dylan ... ? Sebastian's words staggered her. All along she'd assumed Melissa was an old girlfriend. Someone Dylan no longer saw. But dead...? She fought the shocked haze that had settled around her. Her vision cleared enough for her to see the stark pain in Dylan's face. Then the pain vanished, changed, was replaced by rage. With no apparent thought for his safety, Dylan lunged at Sebastian. "You killed her, you murdering son of a-" Before Dylan could cover the distance between himself and Sebastian, Claude intercepted, taking Dylan by surprise, punching him in the jaw with one beefy fist. Dylan went down for the second time. Dylan was big, but Claude dwarfed him. Before he could regain his footing, Claude sent another blow to Dylan's stomach. Dylan went crashing backward, into the car. "Claude!" Elise screamed. "Stop it! Stop it!" She started to run, ready to grab Claude from behind, when Sebastian's hand lashed out, his fingers wrapping around her arm, restraining her. "That's enough, Claude," he said, his voice ringing with quiet authority. Claude immediately released his hold on Dylan, who slid to the ground, doubled over, coughing, a hand to his stomach. Sebastian pulled Elise around to face him, his black eyes boring into hers.. "You'll come with me," he said quietly, so no one else could hear. "Otherwise..." His eyes slid toward Claude and Dylan. His meaning was clear. With heart-wrenching clarity, Elise saw what she had to do. For Dylan's sake she had to continue to play the part of Sebastian's girlfriend. She looked up at Sebastian, trying hard to appear calm while, inside, she was dying. She nodded. Behind her, she was sure Dylan was watching. She could feel his eyes on

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her back. She turned, forcing herself to look at him. His back was against the car, blood trickling from one corner of his mouth and down the side of his face, one hand still pressed to his stomach, his chest rising and falling. "Don't go with him, Elise," he gasped. "Dylan, I'm so sorry...." She read the disbelief and denial in his eyes. But then his face hardened, his expression changing to comprehension followed by anger. I'm doing this for you, Dylan. Please understand. "Claude, have George bring the car around," Sebastian ordered. "We have a trial to get to." Tires crunched behind them; then Sebastian's limo pulled up, its powerful engine purring. Claude got out and opened the door, waiting. Sebastian smiled at Dylan. "You must be losing your touch with the ladies." Dylan didn't even try to get up. It was almost as if he'd thought it all through and decided there was nothing here worth fighting for. Instead his icy gaze moved from Sebastian to Elise. And looking into his predatory eyes, she felt as if she'd been dealt a staggering blow. No longer were they the eyes that had looked at her with tenderness. Now they were the eyes of a stranger. No, worse-an enemy. This was a Dylan she didn't know, had never seen. "I haven't lost my touch with the ladies," he said, his voice as cold and unforgiving as his eyes. "Just whores." A gasp escaped Elise; then everything became a blur. She felt Sebastian's hand on her arm, directing her toward the car. Somehow her brain sent a signal to her feet, making them move. Sharp bits of gravel jabbed into her bare soles but she hardly felt them. Mechanically she ducked her head and got into the car, sliding across the expanse of soft leather, Sebastian settling in beside her. George hefted himself into the driver's seat, put the car in gear and pulled away. Elise had no urge to turn and look behind them. She didn't want to risk seeing Dylan's face. But it really didn't matter, because she knew that his expression of loathing was indelibly stamped in her memory. Her throat tightened, and she felt a sob rise from somewhere deep inside her. She pressed a hand to her mouth. "I didn't have his girlfriend killed," Sebastian said. "Dylan was a cop with a lot of enemies. Any number of people could have put out a contract on him." Elise felt sure that Sebastian was lying. She thought about what Dylan had told her when she'd asked him why he hated Sebastian. It's better if you don't know. He'd known she would still tell the truth at the trial. She could never make herself lie under oath. By not telling her, he'd been trying to protect her. When they reached the highway, Sebastian extended a white handkerchief toward her.

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She hesitated, not wanting to take it, not wanting to accept anything from him. He pressed the cloth into her hand. "You have his blood on your face." Dylan watched as the taillights of the black limo disappeared up the sandy lane that led to Highway 1. Damn. He'd been taken in-hook, line and sinker. Gutted, stuffed and mounted. What a fool. How could he have been ... seduced-yeah, seduced-by a pair of tear-filled blue eyes? Damn. She'd used her feminine wiles-wasn't that the corny phrase?-to lure him in, to get him to bring her back to the mainland where Sebastian had been waiting. And it had worked. Man, how it had worked. Melissa's words came back to him. Someday you're going to meet someone you can really love. Well, it had happened. And a hell of a lot of good it had done him. He laughed, the bitter, self-mocking sound tearing at his throat. A deep, slow ache moved through him, a pain that had nothing to do with his head, his bloody lip or his stomach. He'd almost spilled his guts to her, just about told her he loved her. Sebastian's whore. Son of aHe rammed a tightly clenched fist against the hood of his car. The bitch. The deceitful, sneaking bitch! Anger fed anger. It boiled in him, giving him strength. He straightened, the dizziness he'd felt earlier gone. His vision was clear. Clearer than it had been in days. Bitterness ate away at his soul until there was nothing left. Until the old Dylan, the Dylan he'd been a week ago, the cold, heartless Dylan, was back. For three days Elise practically lived in the fourth floor lobby of the Metro Justice Building. She spent most of her time sitting on a vinyl couch thumbing through magazines she didn't see, drinking cold coffee she didn't taste. She'd never been to a trial, never served on a jury, never gotten so much as a traffic ticket. The only exposure she'd had to such things were the few times she'd watched Perry Mason reruns on television. And even then, all the legal jargon had simply flown over her head. It just hadn't interested her. She hadn't realized that witnesses weren't allowed to hear any of the other testimonies or that the prosecution always presented its case first. That meant she had to wait. And wait some more. By late afternoon of the first day the prosecution had finished and court had been dismissed. On the second day the defense presented its case. Now, on

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the third day into the trial, the defense was still presenting its case. And Elise still hadn't testified. She was sitting on the vinyl couch, wearing her tailored navy-blue suit and matching shoes. A far cry from the waif Sebastian had escorted to his hotel three days ago-three days she'd spent worrying about Dylan, wondering if he would try something crazy. Every time she heard footsteps, she looked up, secretly hoping it would be him. But he didn't come. And now she just wanted the trial to be over. After that ... maybe she would go to Iguana Bay to see Dylan. To try to explain ... But it would be hard. She didn't know if she could face him, knowing he loved someone else. Melissa. Now Elise understood what had driven him to such desperate measures. Why he'd kidnapped her. In her somewhat protected life, she had never been exposed to evil people. She'd read about them in the paper, and heard about them on the evening news. But she herself had remained untouched. Until Sebastian. She didn't doubt that he had done what Dylan had accused him of. But even so, there was no way she could make herself lie under oath. She hadn't been brought up that way-to lie before God. He must have loved her very much.... Melissa's death was the reason for Dylan's breakdown, the reason he'd hit the wall, as he'd put it. Her death had created the darkness that surrounded him, the darkness inside him. It had etched caution so deep that he couldn't trust, didn't want to feel again. It had made him give up on life. For as long as she lived, she didn't think she would ever forget the naked pain in his eyes when Sebastian had taunted him with Melissa's death. It had almost killed Elise to see it, had driven a pain through her heart that was still there. And for as long as she lived, she would never forget the expression on Dylan's face when she'd left with Sebastian. First there had been disbelief, then acceptance. The acceptance was what really hurt. He hadn't really been surprised when she'd turned her back on him. It had almost seemed as if he'd expected it. Elise had assured Claude that Dylan hadn't hurt her. That statement was perhaps the biggest deception of all. When she'd seen Dylan's eyes harden, she'd been left with a wound she feared would never heal. Why hadn't he seen that she'd done it for him? "Miss Ramsey... ?" She looked up to find the courtroom bailiff standing beside her. "It's time for your testimony, Miss Ramsey." And so she took the stand. She placed her hand on the leather-bound Bible and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

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That was what it was all about, wasn't it? Adrian Sebastian might be a criminal, might be a murderer, but Elise Ramsey would tell the truth about the night Harry Zevon was murdered. Sitting on the hard oak chair, she gave her testimony as simply and concisely as possible. She told them how she'd gone to the party and Sebastian had offered to give her a ride to her motel. How she'd at first declined, then accepted. Why, oh, why, had she accepted? "What time did you arrive back at your own hotel room, Miss Ramsey?" "Just before midnight." "Are you absolutely certain?" "Yes. I checked my watch to make sure it agreed with the room clock. Then I turned on the television. The public broadcasting channel was just signing off." "Thank you. That will be all." After that she was cross-examined, but her story remained unshakable. And that was it. She was done. It was over. It turned out that she was the last witness before Adrian Sebastian. An hour later Sebastian's fate was in the hands of the jury. Time moved slowly. The defense attorney seemed pleased and hopeful at the amount of time the decision was taking. Three hours later the jury returned and settled into their seats. The courtroom fell silent, waiting for the verdict. The jury foreman unfolded the paper and read, "Not guilty." Elise sat there, ears humming, feeling blank and empty. She heard Sebastian's triumphant laugh, saw his attorney shaking his hand, saw Claude grinning. She had to get out of the courtroom before Sebastian looked in her direction. She didn't want to talk to him ever again. Moving like someone much older than her age, Elise got to her feet and dissolved into the crowd, following the flow of people down the hall to the stainless-steel elevators. The escalators were faster, but she had time. The rest of her life ... When she stepped outside, the bright Florida sunshine mocked her. Hot dog and ice-cream vendors lined the wide walkway, their umbrellas bright and cheery. She longed for one of those gloom-filled midwestern days. Days that were as gray and heavy as her heart. She bought gum from a man in a wheelchair.. She'd done the right thing, hadn't she? She'd told the truth. And she certainly wasn't the only witness for the defense. There had been others. It wasn't as if the entire trial had hinged on her testimony... or had it? From above, the sun's heat beat down on her head; from below, it

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penetrated the soles of her shoes. But she felt cold. As if all the life had been sapped from her. "Miss Ramsey..." The voice was deep. She turned. The man coming toward her wasn't anyone she recognized. She would have remembered that red hair, those freckles.... And yet ... there was something rather familiar about him. His shadow fell across her face. "Congratulations," he told her, stopping a few feet from her at the top of the pink marble steps. "I don't think I should be congratulated for telling the truth." His red eyebrows lifted in something she recognized as mock surprise, but she could sense an underlying anger in him that seemed at odds with his allAmerican face. "I'm not congratulating you for telling the truth. I'm congratulating you for helping set a murderer free." With that he turned and walked away. A reporter. He must be a reporter for one of those tabloid magazines, looking for some tacky story. But then she suddenly knew why he looked familiar. She'd seen his picture on Dylan's wall. He was the red-headed teenager. Dylan's friend. Elise stood there, people jostling her, too dazed to move. She didn't see Sebastian coming until he was right beside her. "Thanks for the defense," he told her. "You really pulled it off." "I told the truth." He laughed. "Yes. Yes, you did. You're a good girl." He shoved his hands into the pockets of his baggy pants, the sun reflecting off his greasy, slickedback hair. "Need a ride?" "No." She took a step back. Taking a ride from Sebastian was what had gotten her into this mess. If she hadn't accepted that ride, she wouldn't have been his alibi. But then, she would never have met Dylan.... "The cops in this town are really stupid. A guy can get away with murder here." What was he saying? That he'd actually murdered Harry Zevon? "Sure you don't need a ride? Your clothes are still at The Bastion. Come on back with me. Stay a while-as long as you like. Enjoy Miami." He rocked on the heels of his alligator shoes. "I can show you a better time than Davis ever could." She didn't bother to answer. She just turned and walked away.

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Chapter 16 Adrian Sebastian stood on the courthouse steps and watched as Elise hailed a cab. He watched as she slid inside; ankles and knees together, watched as her shapely legs disappeared behind the door. In the nearest lane of traffic was Sebastian's limo. George was at the wheel, waiting. As soon as the cab with Elise Ramsey in it edged into the flow of traffic, the limo took its place at the curb. And that was it. She was out of his life. Not that he cared. She'd served her purpose. He smiled to himself. He'd carried it off, just as he knew he would. It had been a cinch. People were so easy to manipulate. What an idiot that Harry Zevon had been. He'd thought he could get away with blackmail. Here the guy made porno flicks, and he'd threatened to rat on Sebastian. Of course, there had been that girl who'd died when the acting had gotten a little too real. But those things happened. He had to have realism in his movies. Elise Ramsey would have been good in one of his movies, he thought with a twinge of regret. But there were a million others like her out there. Women with no ties, no connections. Looking for a fast buck. Looking for fame and fortune. The kind of women who wouldn't be missed if things got rough. A reporter spotted him. Microphones were suddenly shoved in his face; camera shutters clicked. Someone asked how he felt about the jury decision. Claude stepped forward and tried to intervene, but Sebastian held up one hand and calmly answered, "Justice prevails." Someone shook Sebastian's hand. He smiled and grasped it firmly, answering a few more questions. Then he was able to get away, to start moving toward the limo. It was too bad about Dylan Davis. Sebastian had liked him. Less than a year ago, Sebastian had begun to think of him as a close friend. As a child, Sebastian had had a friend. Trent. Trent had been his name. The memory made Sebastian frown. Trent had been disloyal, just like Dylan. Just like Harry. He'd threatened to tell the police about a billfold Sebastian had stolen. That was when Sebastian had discovered how easy it was to kill someone. Afterward there had been a feeling of euphoric release that was better than any artificial high he'd ever experienced. Claude opened the limo door. Sebastian ducked his head and settled himself inside. After Dylan's girlfriend had been killed by that moron hit man, Sebastian had thought it would be fun to torment Dylan by letting him live. It gave Sebastian more pleasure to know Dylan was alive and suffering, wallowing in

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guilt, looking down the road at a life that would be spent watching his back. But he hadn't realized that Davis was still a threat. He'd almost screwed everything up. But, just like Harry, he could be taken care of. The newscaster's voice droned from the small speaker. White puffy clouds drifted overhead. Waves lapped against the boat, occasionally causing the hull to bump the rubber pads that edged the dock of Iguana Bay. Dylan lay sprawled on his back across the two front seats, elbow resting on the steering wheel, bare feet propped on the chrome siderail. He reached down and flicked the key, turning the ignition switch from Auxiliary to Off, silencing the news broadcast in midstory. Didn't matter. He'd heard all he needed to hear. Sebastian was free. No big surprise.. Dylan tilted his head back and finished off the last swallow of whiskey, then tossed the bottle in the corner, scattering empty beer cans. He'd planned on taking the boat for a little spin, but he hadn't made it any farther than the dock. Maybe later. After dark. When the stars were out... He ran a hand over his rough, stubbled chin. The past few days were a blur. How long had it been since he'd slept? Or eaten? Or taken a shower? Days. He knew it had been days. Since Elise had defected, as he so bitterly called it. But if he were honest with himself, if he analyzed the whole thing, Elise hadn't owed him anything. And he'd known who and what she was from the very beginning. So why did he feel like a volcano about to blow? Why did he have this irrepressible urge to do something reckless? A shower. That was what he'd do. He would go in and take a shower. Try to drag himself back to the land of the living. He shoved himself to his feet and somehow managed to negotiate the way from the boat to the dock-not an easy task under the most sober of circumstances. As he climbed the steps to the house the ground seemed to shift underfoot. He reached for the railing, caught it, then lurched forward as a piece of rotten wood came off in his hand. Gonna have to fix that one of these days.... He tossed the wood on the porch floor, fed the cat, then headed for the shower. As he passed the bathroom sink he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Jeez. He looked like somebody whose face should be hanging on the wall of a post office. With one of those strange flashes of insight that often came to him when he'd gone too long without sleep, he saw with complete and total clarity that he was going to kill himself if he kept on at this rate. With arms straight, hands braced against cold porcelain, he leaned over the

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sink. Three days. For three days he'd been tormented with thoughts of Elise and Sebastian. Three days... How was he going to make it through the rest of his life? The afternoon sun beat down, and the ocean wind stung Elise's face as she sat in the passenger seat of the little charter boat, watching the shore of Iguana Bay loom closer. Last time she'd seen Dylan, he had looked at her with loathing, and now she couldn't leave Florida; she couldn't go back home knowing he hated her. She had to try to explain. "Here we are," Enrico announced, guiding the craft to the dock. The teenager jammed the gearshift into neutral and grabbed the stationary ladder nailed to the side of the dock in order to steady the decrepit boat so Elise could disembark. Dylan's boat was tied off on the other side. Gusting wind tugged at her hair, whipping her jacket open, molding her navy-blue skirt to her legs, her blouse to her breasts. Enrico eyed her with appreciation, white teeth flashing in his dark-skinned, handsome face. Elise was too preoccupied to feel annoyance. And anyway, if it hadn't been for the youth, she never would have gotten to Iguana Bay at all. When she'd entered the bait shack to inquire about chartering a boat, the men had laughed at her offer of twenty dollars. She'd discovered that most charter boats charged at least a hundred for a single hour. A twenty was all she had, and no one there took credit cards. The young Enrico had taken pity on her and volunteered the services of his father's fishing boat. Later, while avoiding a couple of his clumsy attempts to get romantic, Elise realized why he'd volunteered. Enrico hoped to be paid in something other than cash. But he'd taken her rejection good-naturedly. Now she handed him the twenty-dollar bill. Enrico ignored it. "I better wait." His dark Cuban eyes went from her to the beach house. "Looks pretty quiet around here. You better check and see if anybody's home." "He's home." She didn't want Enrico to wait. She didn't want to have a way off the island. She wanted Dylan to be forced to face her, to listen to her. She tried to press the money into Enrico's hand, but he smiled and shook his head. Elise wondered how many hearts he'd already broken in his young life. "Keep your money, if you ever need another ride, just ask for Enrico. So long." He waved and roared away, leaving a haze of blue smoke and the smell of

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gas and oil lingering in the air. Elise slung her purse strap over one shoulder and turned, casting a glance around. The beach area was deserted except for the pigeons strutting back and forth in their wire cages. There was no sign of Dylan. She took the opportunity to board his boat, almost tripping when her instep made contact with an empty beer can. There were several of them, she saw, along with an empty whiskey bottle. Careful to keep her back to the beach house, she slipped the boat keys from the ignition and was ready to drop them into her purse when she recalled Dylan's penchant for going through other people's things. She lifted the lid on one of the bench seats and tucked the keys under a life jacket. That accomplished, she stepped from the boat and headed for the beach house. Enrico had been right. There was a sense of abandonment here. Sometime over the past three days a storm must have blown in. Chairs were strewn across the porch, and part of the railing was broken, a piece dangling, ready to drop. Scag's bowl was overturned, and dry cat food littered the porch. Elise thought about the beer cans and the whiskey bottle. And she thought about the strange thing Dylan had said that first night, out there in the rainstorm. Sometimes I drink too much. Maybe Dylan was the storm. With a feeling of trepidation that was steadily mounting, she knocked on the screen door. There was no answer, so she stepped inside. Her high heels clicked across the wooden floor. "Dylan ... ?" Her voice echoed off the bare walls. She had rehearsed this moment, the moment when she would confront him, over and over in her mind. But she had always imagined coming face-to-face with him at the door, or on the dock. She hadn't imagined him not being here. Or, worse yet, she hadn't imagined finding him drunk. Her gaze fell to the table. A pistol. A rifle. She was no weapons expert, but to her inexperienced eye the rifle looked as if it could be military. Scattered around it were long, pointed, brass bullets. Her heart thudded erratically in her chest. What did it mean? What did he need guns for? Was he planning to go after Sebastian? Or could it be, after all that had happened, that he harbored a death wish? Oh, God. Panic welled. "Dylan!" She looked in the bedroom. He wasn't on the bed. She ran to the kitchen. Empty. "Dylan!"

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She hurried up the curved narrow steps that led to the second story. Once upstairs, she could smell sawdust and varnish, mildew and the ocean. In the middle of the room, supported by wooden framework, stood the skeletal hull of the sailboat, Dylan's sailboat, his dream. The room appeared exactly as it had four days ago. And standing here now, Elise wished for the innocence of that day: But it was gone. As a small child, Elise had loved for her grandmother to take her to the zoo. But by the time she reached the age of eight, the joy was gone. Before, she'd been too young to notice how small the cages were. Too young to notice the sadness in the animal's eyes. Even though everything was the same, everything was different. Elise was older and, therefore, wiser. Wise enough to see past the surface, past the innocence, to the pain. Before, when she'd been in this room, she hadn't known about Melissa, she hadn't understood the seriousness of Dylan's connection with Sebastian. She hadn't known he loved someone else. Someone who had died because of him. She turned and hurried down the steps, hands groping along the rough surface of the wooden walls. He had to be here. She would search the entire island until she found him. But there was no need. When she reached the bottom of the steps, she froze. Leaning in the bedroom doorway was Dylan. He was dressed in nothing but faded jeans, arms crossed over his chest. His hair was wet and dripping, water running down his neck onto his arms. He looked as if he'd been swimming, or had just stepped out of the shower. "Dylan." Sunlight poured through the porch windows, illuminating hating one side of his face, casting the other in shadow. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw unshaven. He looked dangerous. More dangerous than she'd ever seen him. Arms still crossed, he shoved himself away from the door frame. "What's the matter?" His voice was cold and distant. Colder and more distant than she'd ever heard it. She knew that to him, she was a whore. The person who had turned her back on him. Used him. And, heaven help her, she was also the person who had helped to set Sebastian free. He dropped his arms and started walking toward her. "Did Sebastian throw you out now that he's done with you? Well, you may as well go back to where you came from, because I don't take Sebastian's leftovers." She stepped back, suddenly wishing she hadn't sent Enrico away. "Dylan, I have to explain." She made an imploring gesture with one hand. There was no time to spend getting her thoughts together. No time to say this right. "Sebastian isn't my lover. He never was."

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"You're good, you know that? Really good. Ever think about taking up acting?" He closed the distance between them. He was close enough that she could smell whiskey on him. Near enough that she could see the lines of exhaustion in his face, the desperation in his eyes. Near enough that she could feel his anger. "Do us both a favor and get the hell out of here, Elise. Just get the hell out of here." "I can't." 'What do you mean, you can't?" "My ride... I sent the boat back...." His eyes narrowed. He turned, strode to the window and looked out, cursing under his breath when he saw she was telling the truth. He swung around, covering the distance between them in a few long strides. "What do you want?" His hand lashed out, and he grabbed her by the arm. "Why are you here?" One thought, and one thought only, had taken up residence in her brain, creating a wound deep inside, hurting like nothing had ever hurt before. It hadn't occurred to her that he would hate her too much to listen. "What do you want, Elise?" "I want to talk to you. To tell you the truth. I'm not who you think I am. I'm a teacher. I live in Wisconsin. I came to Florida on a vaca-" He threw his head back and laughed, a sarcastic sound that cut all the way to her heart. "Couldn't you think of anything better than that? A teacher? That's a good one." She had to admit that, after all that had happened, all that had passed between then, the truth sounded flimsy, even to her ears. But what else could she tell him? "I swear it's the truth!" she cried, her words suddenly rushing out, one on top of the other. "I'm a teacher. I didn't even know Sebastian until I met him at the party here and I only pretended to be his woman so you'd keep your distance. And you want to know what else? Before I met you, I was a virgin. It's true! Those condoms-they were a gag gift. The birth control pills-for cramps!" "No more lies, Elise." He hauled her up against him. "No more lies," he whispered urgently, his face only inches from hers. "I don't want to hear any more of your lies." Water droplets fell from his hair onto her arm. His chest was pressed against her, crushing her breasts. She could feel the dampness of his skin through her blouse. She brought up her hand and grasped his upper arms to steady herself, to ward him off if she had to. She could feel the rip-cord tension in him. Under her palms, she could feel the sinewy muscles covered by smooth skin.

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She caught another whiff of whiskey. Not an unpleasant smell, just different, something she hadn't associated with Dylan. It made him seem even more of a stranger. "You've been drinking." "No kidding. I've been drinking for three days. Ever since your bodyguard worked me over." His eyes... They looked so angry.... "You ever been around anybody who's been drinking for three days?" She blinked. "No? Well they can't be held accountable for their actions." Suddenly his mouth came down on hers. There was nothing tender or sensual about his kiss. It was hard and desperate, brutal. She struggled in his arms, and he tore his mouth away. "Isn't this what you came for?" he rasped. "Dylan, I-" "Isn't it?" She wanted him, but not like this. Not in anger. Not in hate. "I want you," she whispered. A deep, animal sound tore from him. Before she knew what was happening, he forced her to the floor and tumbled her backward. Hard hands shoved her skirt up past her thighs. She heard the harsh rasp of his zipper as he knelt above her and adjusted his clothing without removing it. Then he rolled to his back, dragging her with him, settling her on top of him, her thighs separated by his jean-clad hips, her skirt bunched around her waist. The only thing keeping them from total intimacy were her panties, which he could easily push aside. With dawning horror she realized that he planned to take her like this. With no preliminaries, no... no love. She wanted him to stop. Suddenly she felt like the whore he had accused her of being, the whore he thought she was. She shoved against his shoulders in an attempt to lever herself away. "Wasn't this what you wanted, Elise?" His voice was tight, breathless. She balled her fists against his chest, her arms straight. "No, Dylan, please." A sob was working its way up from her diaphragm, moving toward her throat. "I'm not a whore." The sob she'd been trying to hold back escaped in one choking gasp. She blinked, trying to stop the tears, but instead they squeezed from her eyes to fall somewhere below her, most likely on Dylan's upturned face. Oh, God. It was then that she became aware of Dylan's stillness. "I'm sorry," she said. Sorry for what, she wasn't sure. There were so many things. Maybe for crying on him. Sorry she'd helped to free Sebastian. Sorry Dylan hated her.

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Sorry the woman he loved was dead. Sorry something she'd remembered as beautiful had turned so ugly. Without meeting her eyes, he adjusted both their clothes, then put her gently away from him. Leaving her sitting on the floor, he got up and moved away to stand at the window. Dylan stared out at the bay where the shallow water met the darker, deeper blue, suddenly feeling incredibly sober. More sober than he'd ever felt in his life. He wanted to believe every lie she was telling him. He wanted to believe she was some damn schoolteacher from Wisconsin, here on vacation. Wanted to believe that she hardly knew Sebastian. But he wasn't that big a fool.. He suddenly realized his face was damp-with her tears. He reached up and wiped them away, then looked down at his wet fingers. One hundred percent acid, he tried to tell himself. Eat right through a guy's skin. Burn a hole all the way to his heart ... His hand curled into a tight ball. He'd almost taken her in anger, and the thought sickened him. When he'd heard her painful sob and tasted the salty wetness of her tears, shame and self-loathing had filled him. She was driving him crazy. Driving him to do things that were totally against his nature. Behind him, he heard the floor creak, heard her rummaging around in her purse. Heard her blowing her nose. I'm sorry. Everybody was always looking for an answer. A reason for being alive. There wasn't any reason, Dylan decided. As far as he was concerned, the secret was to simply get through it. Melissa had loved him, but he hadn't loved her. Dylan loved Elise, and she ... well, she was just looking out for herself. Which was the wise thing to do. He wondered if the same two people ever loved each other. Did it ever work that way? "Don't love anybody," he said, keeping his eyes focused on the beach, where the sand met water. "It hurts too damn much." He turned and faced her, made himself look at her. She was standing there in the middle of the living room, her mouth red from his rough kisses, purse slung over her shoulder, hands clasped in front of her. Waiting. Waiting to get away from him. And the hurt inside him deepened. I promised I wouldn't hurt you, but I did hurt you. Her eyes looked huge. Her blue, blue innocent eyes. A guy could drown in those eyes. Get lost in those eyes. Do crazy things because of those eyes. "Remember," he told her. "Don't ever love anybody." "I'll remember that," she whispered. "I'll be sure to remember that." "I'm sorry," he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. "I didn't mean to..."

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Scare you. Or hurt you. Or fall in love with you. "I better take you back." She swallowed and nodded, her eyes brimming with tears.

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Chapter 17 Feeling numb, Elise watched Dylan move toward the door of the beach house. He'd thrown on a wrinkled white shirt, cuffs rolled up, buttons unbuttoned, tails out and hanging to his thighs. He was reaching for the door handle when he stopped, turned, then strode back to the table. He checked both weapons, making sure they were loaded, then jammed the pistol into the waistband of his jeans, scooped up the box of shells and slung the rifle over one shoulder. "Just in case we run into any of your buddies," he explained. After boarding the boat, he untied it from the moorings and pushed off from the dock. But when he reached to turn the ignition key, it was gone. He immediately swung around to Elise, his dark eyebrows drawn together in accusation. Elise had forgotten she'd taken the keys. It seemed so foolish now. What had she hoped to accomplish? Had she hoped that by forcing him to remain on the island, she could force him to care? Yes. She had gotten close to him once. He had begun to open up to her, and she had hoped that if she told him everything, explained it all, then he would understand. But most of all she had needed to erase the memory of the last time she'd seen him, erase the memory of the scorn on his face when she'd left him beaten and bloody to go with Sebastian. But she hadn't taken into account the depth of his love for Melissa. He still loved her, and Elise couldn't begin to compete with a dead person. Don't ever love anybody. The pain in Dylan's voice when he'd spoken those words had cut Elise to the marrow-because she'd known he had been talking about loving someone else. No, it had been foolish of her to come to Iguana Bay. She had only succeeded in widening the gulf between them. Now she edged past Dylan, opened the bench seat and retrieved the missing keys. Without a word he took them from her and turned away. A few minutes later they were underway, heading north, in the direction of the Florida Coast. Elise's hair whipped around her head, stinging her face, but she hardly felt it. She was thinking about the last time she and Dylan had come this way together. She had carried a silent hope deep within her heart. Now she felt incredibly hollow. God, how she wished she'd never come to Florida. How she wished she had stayed in Wisconsin. She could have been busy with summer school right now. So simple. So uncomplicated.

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She looked over to where Dylan stood silhouetted against the late afternoon sun, staring straight ahead, his hands on the wheel, dark hair tangling in the wind. Remote. So remote. She felt a pain that was all too familiar. She'd felt this way once before, not so very long ago-the morning she'd gotten up to find that Grandma Max had died quietly in her sleep. Grief... and an overwhelming sense of loss. Dylan. He never glanced in her direction. He was probably thinking of someone else. Someone with long blond hair and full red lips. Someone beautiful and glamorous. Someone Elise could never be ... So she closed her eyes and tried not to think at all. Dylan heard the helicopter before he saw it. Ordinarily he would have reacted immediately. The instinct to survive was second nature to him. But his mind was too full of Elise, of what had almost happened back there, what he'd almost done to her. He'd been drunk, but being drunk was no excuse for forcing yourself on someone. Right now he was fighting the emotions churning inside him, fighting the overwhelming urge to turn the boat around and take Elise back with him to Iguana Bay. Crazy. She was driving him crazy. How could he still want her? It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. The sound of the helicopter finally registered in his conscious mind. He cast a glance skyward, spotting an aircraft to the northwest, heading their way. He kept an eye on it, watched as it came gradually closer... until it was close enough for him to recognize the unique body style. It was a fancy version of the helicopters used by the Miami police. A deluxe model, made for private industry. There weren't many of them around. In fact, the only person he knew who owned one was Adrian Sebastian. Dylan felt as if someone had kicked him in the stomach. One hand on the wheel, he grabbed Elise's arm with the other to get her attention. When she looked at him, he shouted, the wind tearing his words away, "Does Sebastian know you're with me?" She shook her head. "No!" "Are you sure?" "Yes!" Apparently Sebastian had decided to even old scores and get Dylan out of his hair for good. And Dylan knew with chilling certainty that if Elise got in the way, she would be killed, too.

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Just like Melissa. The helicopter's top speed was roughly 155 knots. He wasn't sure what his boat could do-he'd never topped .it out, but there was no way it could be driven wide open over rough water, not without wiping out or breaking up. He cut back on the throttle and jammed the gearshift into neutral. The drag of the water against the hull caused the boat to slow, then settle into the water. Dylan scrambled to the bench seat, tore open the lid and dug through the life jackets until he pulled out a bulletproof vest. "Put this on!" he shouted over the roar of the wind and the ocean, pressing the jacket in Elise's hands. She stood there, gripping the heavy, metal-lined jacket, staring up at him as if he'd lost his mind. He grabbed the jacket from her and shoved her arms into it, one at a time. Fastening the front, he explained, "The helicopter-it's Sebastian!" The color drained from her face, and her panic-filled eyes shot back to him, taking in his open shirt, his un-protected chest. "What about you?" she cried. "It's you he wants!" "It doesn't matter! If you're in the way, he won't care!" He touched her cheek, suddenly wishing for more time, wishing they hadn't left Iguana Bay, wishing he had believed her, truth or not. But there was no time. "Get down!" He pushed her to the floor, between the instrument panel and passenger seat. "No matter what happens, stay there!" He took the wheel, engaged the gears and rammed the throttle forward, putting the boat in a wide turn so they were heading into the wind, away from the chopper. They didn't have a prayer. He knew they didn't have a prayer, but he sure as hell wasn't going to make it any easier for Sebastian. A moving target was much harder to hit than a stationary one. The boat's speed steadily increased, the bow smacking the surface of the water so hard that the slanted deck shuddered underfoot and water came slamming over the side in huge, breath-stealing sheets. If they could make it to Iguana Bay they might have a chance. Slim, but a chance all the same. Out here, they were sitting ducks. He spared a quick glance behind. The chopper was closing in, narrowing the space between them. Ten minutes. It would take at least ten more minutes to reach Iguana Bay. They didn't have a chance. Just then he heard a sharp crack. At the exact same time the windshield shattered, fragments of glass flying through the air like a fine, razor-sharp spray. Behind him, the bench seats exploded, white stuffing popping in every direction. A damn submachine gun! They were being fired at with a machine gun!

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He steered with his left hand and pulled the Police Special from the waistband of his jeans with his right. With his thumb, he released the safety and pointed the gun over one shoulder in the general direction of the aircraft-a desperate move. No way could he hit anything. It was like trying to pat your head and rub your belly at the same time-while walking a tightrope. He squeezed the trigger. Again and again and again. The windshield of the chopper shattered, and the craft immediately pulled up and away. As he watched, it made a wide circle, ready to come in for a second time. Suddenly Elise was beside him, her hand on his arm, another on the steering wheel. "I'll drive!" she shouted up at him. The wind whipped her words away. "No!" She would be too exposed. "You can't drive and shoot at the same time!" She was right. He would have to let the boat idle. "Get down and stay there!" He could see the stubborn set of her chin, knew she was getting ready to argue. Fear for her raced through him. "Elise, get down!" he half shouted, half pleaded, in frustrated panic. But she didn't move. "For God's sake! I don't want you to die because of me!" He watched her face as his words registered. She looked stunned. Then she nodded and moved back to where she'd been. Dylan picked up the M-16 and hurried aft. He set the rifle so it would empty the twenty-shot magazine in one blast. There would be no second chances. If the boat heaved, if the helicopter veered, if he lost his footing, if he waited too long, if he didn't wait long enough ... So many variables... He watched as the helicopter loomed steadily nearer and nearer. Squinting through the sights, he aimed for the tail rotor, but he couldn't keep on target. He'd been drinking for three days, and his hands trembled. Doubts assaulted him, but he quickly pushed them aside. He took a deep breath, and held it. His hands steadied. Not yet. Let them get closer... . His index finger itched to pull back on the smooth metal lever. Not yet... Sweat broke out on his body, the wind drying the perspiration as fast as it came. One more second... Just one more second. Wait until the tail rotor is steady in the sights. Ready... ready...

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Now! He squeezed the trigger. In the same instant spastic gunfire spattered from the helicopter. Hot pain ripped through his upper thigh, and the recoil from the M-16 slammed into his shoulder like a wrecking ball, its echo shuddering through his chest. The helicopter's tailpiece and stabilizer bar exploded, shattered pieces falling to the ocean like confetti. The machine gun fire stopped abruptly as the damaged craft went into a slow-motion, out-of-control spin before crashing into the ocean. Pain. Red-hot. Agonizing. Nausea washed over him in dizzy, sweaty waves, sucking him down into a whirling blackness. He struggled to maintain his bearings. He couldn't afford to pass out now. Fight it. Fight it. The blackness faded. His vision cleared. His initial instinct was to pull up beside the floundering chopper and, if he wasn't dead already, put a bullet through Sebastian. But he had Elise to think about. He couldn't risk getting that close. She was standing behind him, watching the slowly sinking chopper. Heart pounding, Dylan grabbed her shoulder and swung her around, his eyes raking her trembling body. Her eyes, when she focused on him, were full of shocked horror. I'm sorry. Sorry I ever involved you in this. "You okay?" he asked. She swallowed and nodded. She reached up and touched a spot on his face where the flying glass had nicked him. "You're bleeding." He hoped to hell she didn't look down at his thigh, where he could feel the warm stickiness spreading, soaking into his jeans. He didn't want her scared any more than she already was. He reached up and grasped her hand. "A scratch from the glass," he said, careful to keep his left side away from her. He gently pushed her sideways, back to the passenger seat. After she was settled, he took the helm and gunned the engine, heading the boat toward Iguana Bay. Ten minutes later he spotted the island in the distance. Home. It was going to feel good to be home.... But as he watched, the island became hazy. Black crept into the edges of his vision. He blinked and gripped the wheel tighter, his palms slick with cold sweat. Nausea rose in him. Then the blackness, like a giant tidal wave, swept over him, and he collapsed against the steering wheel. Gradually Dylan became aware that the boat was no longer flying through the water. No, it was gently rocking. Back and forth. Like a cradle. Or a porch swing. Underneath the rocking was a vibration ... a motor. No, a vibrator bed.

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The Hideaway used to have vibrator beds. Put in a quarter... "Dylan!" He struggled through the blackness. But it was thick, incredibly thick. He could feel the humming of an engine, sense light behind his eyelids. "Dylan!" Elise's voice. She sounded scared. He had to let her know he had everything under control. He struggled to open his eyes, but couldn't. Then he felt her hands on his shoulders, pushing him back so that his head was leaning against the headrest. He heard her horrified gasp, but her voice sounded far away, muted. Was he dying? Was that why her voice was so distant? The rifle. He'd fired his M-16 without wearing earplugs. He always went a little deaf for a while after firing his M-16 without earplugs. It was one of the hardest things he'd ever done, but with a superhuman effort he managed to force his eye-lids open. Elise was leaning over him. And she was scared. Scared to death. He reached up to reassure her in some way, just to touch her face, but when he took his hand away, he left a trail of blood on her pale cheek. Oh, hell. He lifted his head just enough to look down at him-self. Not a pretty sight. A damn bloodbath. He felt incredibly weak, incredibly tired. "I think you're gonna have to drive," he mumbled, slightly shocked at how weak his voice sounded. "Why didn't you tell me you'd been shot?" she cried, her voice frantic. He struggled to pull his thoughts together. "Didn't want to be a bother..." He tilted his head back so he could see her better. "An' I didn't want you to look at me the way you're looking at me." Another thought came to him, something stupid that made him wonder if he wasn't getting a little lightheaded. "I didn't want to spoil your vacation...." "Oh, Dylan," she said, sounding as if she were choking back tears. Next thing he knew, she was helping him to the deck. Behind his head, he could hear the empty beer cans rattling around. He looked up at her, but the expression on her face made him forget all about his physical pain. It made him ache in another way. He'd seen that expression before. Where? His dad. His dad had looked at him like that when Dylan's mother had died. Dylan had never gotten her flowers before, but that day he'd bought her some roses because he knew how much she liked them. But when he got to the hospital, his father met him in the hall to tell him that his mother was dead. His face had held the same pain as Elise's.... Tears glistening in her eyes, she reached down and lightly touched his cheek. Her hand was soft, his jaw sandpaper rough.

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Dylan tried to think of something that would cheer her up. He asked, "What grade do you teach?" She smiled at him through her tears, and he thought he would have taken a hundred bullets to see that smile.

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Chapter 18 Seabirds cried. Water slapped rhythmically against the hull of the gently rocking boat. Blood. It was everywhere. Elise had never seen so much blood. The waves that had come crashing over their heads earlier had swamped the boat. Dylan's blood had mixed with the salt water, and now the entire deck was awash with it. His eyes were closed, his face deathly pale against the darkness of his hair, the darkness of his unshaven jaw: Don't you die on me, Elise prayed. Don't you dare die on me, Dylan Davis. With trembling hands, she felt his wrist. As soon as her fingers made contact with his cool skin, his pain-glazed eyes opened and locked with hers. The only knowledge she had about first aid had been gathered at an eighthour Red Cross class that dealt with handling schoolyard accidents. But then, anyone would know that the most important thing to do was stop the bleeding. She shrugged out of the bulletproof vest, then elevated Dylan's leg by propping it up with a couple of seat cushions that had survived the gunfire. She tried to lift his jeans away from the wound, working one finger into the jagged rip in the cloth where the bullet had entered, hoping to be able to tear the denim in order to get to the wound. Dylan lay watching her, and now, brow furrowed in pain, face ashen, he tried to work his hand into the front pocket of his jeans. "Knife," he mumbled by way of explanation. Elise lifted his hand away and replaced it with her own, working her bloodslick fingers around until they made contact with the knife. She pulled it out, but when she tried to open it, her fingers slipped on the steel. She wiped her hands on her skirt and tried again. This time she was able to tug the blade free. She sliced his pant leg open enough to reveal a round, oozing hole in the fleshy part of his upper, inner thigh. It was then she realized that the bullet had gone all the way through and come out the other side. There was a larger exit hole at the back of his leg. The blood oozed out in a steady stream. No spurting, thank God. The bullet had somehow missed a major artery. She scanned the boat for something to use as a bandage. Everything was soaked. She finally found an old green T-shirt with the life jackets. She tore it into strips and wrapped it around his leg, jeans and all. Dylan stiffened and paled even more, sucking air in through his teeth. Elise almost came undone. Oh, God. She couldn't stand this. Couldn't stand hurting him like this. Her hands were shaking so badly that she could hardly tie a knot in the smaller strip she used to secure the makeshift bandage.

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"We have to get you to a hospital," she told him when she had finished. Her voice shook as much as her hands. "But you're going to have to help me-I won't be able to find the way to the coast without your help." Confusion and doubt buffeted her. How much blood would he lose on the rough trip? Would he be able to remain conscious? If they became lost ... Terror gripped her. She'd never been so scared. Not even when the machine gun fire had ripped across the boat. "Iguana Bay," Dylan said, his eyes closed, his face deathly pale. "Go back ... to Iguana Bay." The words were forced through clenched teeth. "For God's sake, Dylan! We have to get you-" "The pigeons." Her fingers were sticky with his blood, and he was worried about some dumb pigeons? He was out of his head. "Send Skeeter ... a message." "Dylan, we can't depend on a bird to-" She'd almost said, save your life, but that would have been the same as admitting that he might not live. Her mind refused to dwell on such a possibility. A world without Dylan was unthinkable. A blood-encrusted hand came up and wrapped around her arm, pulling her close. His eyes, glazed and intense, pierced hers. "There are no choices," he said. "Let's face it. I probably won't be able to keep my head together long enough to get us to the coast." True. But for him to admit it himself sent fresh currents of fear through her. "A message. Send ... a message, Elise. Like... I showed you." She closed her eyes, made her decision, opened them and hurried to take the wheel. The boat had drifted, and now Elise cursed the precious seconds she had to spend retracing their path. She steered a straight course, keeping the speed down so that the ride wouldn't be too rough. Even so, it was impossible to keep from hitting the occasional wave, slamming the boat against the water's surface. She looked over her shoulder to see Dylan's eyes clenched shut, white brackets of pain around his mouth. What seemed like years later, but in reality was probably no more than five minutes, they reached Iguana Bay. She cut the motor and tied off the boat, then hurried to Dylan's side. He was still conscious, but his eyes were glazed and not quite focused. "I'll be right back," she told him. She jumped from the boat to the dock, then scrambled barefoot across the hot sand to the pigeon cage. While she scribbled a message, one part of her brain couldn't believe she was being so foolish; the other was praying it would work.

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Her fingers trembled as she folded the tiny note and stuck it into the capsule; her hands shook as she fumbled to attach the capsule to the tiny leg band of Jason's pigeon. Then, with both hands, she lifted the bird's warm, feathered body and carried it to the open beach. Once there, she tossed it up into the evening sky. The bird immediately headed the wrong way. The idiot bird was going south instead of north! No, wait. It was circling. Then it suddenly turned and made a beeline in the direction of the Florida Coast. Smart bird! Brilliant bird! Now, if Skeeter was only home... She ran back to Dylan, checking to see if the bleeding was any worse. It was hard to tell with the dark fabric, but it seemed to have slowed. If she could just keep him still until help arrived ... And help would arrive, she swore to herself. Dylan lay quietly, his body tense, beads of sweat on his forehead and upper lip. She stroked his damp hair back from his forehead, feeling more helpless than she'd ever felt in her life. Finally, when she thought she couldn't stand it any longer, when she thought she might break down, some of the tension left his body. She felt him relax. At first she thought he'd lapsed into unconsciousness, but then his eyes opened, his wild, secret eyes. Even now, when he'd been brought down by a bullet, his eyes had the power to mesmerize, the power to make her heart stop beating and her breath catch. "What subject do you teach?" he whispered, his voice heavy with exhaustion. He'd believed her. Earlier, when she'd told him she taught seventh grade, he hadn't laughed. He'd believed her. "Don't talk. Save your energy." He shouldn't be talking. Not now. Not when the boat was awash with his blood. No matter how she tried, she couldn't stop the next thought: Not when he might be dying ... "I want to know." "Literature." He gave her a crooked smile. "I should have guessed." He drew in a shaky breath. "I'll bet all the...boys had crushes on you," he said with a strange look in his eyes. "I sure as hell would have," "Dylan, try to be quiet," she pleaded. He waved a hand, as if to say she was sweating the little things. "When I was in seventh grade, I had this teacher..." His brow furrowed in thought. "Miss Reynolds... that was her name. She used to sit on the edge of her desk with her long legs crossed... and dangle her shoe off her toes. Used to almost hypnotize me."

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His eyes became distant, unfocused. She was losing him. "Wonder... what ever happened to her? Wonder if she still dangles that shoe off her foot...." His voice trailed off, fading completely. His eyes closed. With shaking fingers, Elise felt for his pulse. It was thready, his breathing shallow. How much time had passed? It seemed like hours. With shock, she realized that the sun had dipped below the curved horizon. It was almost dark. Fear crept down her throat, crawling into the hollow of her stomach. No one was coming. Oh, God. No one was coming. Had he come this far, had he beaten Sebastian, only to die here on his island? No! It would be completely dark soon. She had to do something. She had to at least try to get him to the mainland.... A sound penetrated the web of her fear, a sound that wasn't surf or wind. A helicopter. Help was coming. Elise scrambled to the helm and turned on the auxiliary switch, flipped on the cruise lights, then pointed the spotlight skyward. The whip, whip of the helicopter blades grew steadily louder until the craft appeared over a grove of palm trees, until it was finally near enough for her to read the lettering on the side: Air Ambulance. Thank God. Landing lights on, the craft hovered, then slowly touched down on the beach, stirring up a whirling storm of water and sand. Two men carrying a stretcher and medical supplies bailed out. With bowed heads, they ran across the beach to the dock, jostling Elise aside as they boarded the boat. Within minutes they'd started a blood transfusion. For one brief, heart-wrenching second, Dylan opened his eyes and looked directly at her. In the next, the men were carrying him away on a stretcher, with Elise following behind. "There's a four passenger limit, miss!" one of the paramedics shouted over the noise of the chopper blades. "Someone will come for you later!" Elise backed away. She couldn't see Dylan anymore. The medics were hovering over him. Then the door closed and the helicopter lifted, sand and salt water stinging her skin, the wind plastering her clothes against her. In the eerie glow cast by the landing lights, Elise stood and watched them go. The night was clear. All the stars were out. And as she watched the

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helicopter carrying Dylan away, toward the stars, his stars, a chill touched her soul. She'd never been one to believe in premonitions, but suddenly she was afraid she would never see him alive again. Dylan opened his eyes just a crack to find his friend Skeeter Bradley looking down at him. There was something familiar about the shirt he was wearing. Damn familiar. "Skeet?" "What, buddy?" "That's my shirt you're wearing." Skeeter looked down, then in a bland voice said, "So it is." Dylan swallowed. His mouth felt as if it were full of cotton. His tongue was thick. "Musta been a hell of a party," he finally managed to croak. "You've been shot in the leg, buddy. You're going into surgery pretty soon." "Shot?" Dylan's brow furrowed as he struggled to focus his thoughts. "Oh, hell yes." "Jason found the message on the pigeon. Let me tell you, he was one excited kid. He was jabbering so fast he had to repeat himself three times before I could figure out what he was talking about." Dylan laughed, then grimaced. "Hurt much?" He shook his head, and the motion made the lights on the ceiling above his head spin. He squeezed his eyes shut. "No wonder I feel dopey." He lifted his hand, and the IV hanger rattled. "I am dopey." "Higher than a kite." "With no tail." Skeeter laughed. "See what happens when I'm not around to watch your back?" Dylan's eyes flew open and he tried to glare at Skeeter. "You lying SOB. I always watched your back." Skeeter laughed, then sobered. "They've sent a team out to look for Sebastian's chopper." "Good." Dylan looked past his friend's shoulder, hoping to see Elise standing there. "Where's Elise?" "Still on the island. There wasn't any room for her in the helicopter." The afternoon replayed in his mind. He could see Elise kneeling over him, her hands and face covered with blood, his blood, her eyes full of terror. The hands that moved so tenderly, so soothingly across his forehead trembled. The boat looked like a scene from a horror movie. And they'd left her out there, alone. Then another thought hit him: there

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was a chance Sebastian was still alive. He lifted his head from the pillow and grabbed Skeeter's arm. "I don't want her left out there by herself." "She won't be. They're sending somebody for her." "Now. I want somebody to get her off that island now." A nurse came in with a needle. Dylan had expected her to wipe his arm with wet cotton. He wasn't aware that she had quietly injected the tranquilizer directly into the IV tube until he felt himself sinking, felt himself falling away. Weakness washed over him, and he let his head drop back on the pillow. He fought the drug that was moving through his veins, but it was too strong. He was too weak. His eyes fell shut. He heard a click, and realized the nurse was putting the metal siderails up on the bed. Had to tell Skeeter... Had to... "Sebastian could ... still be alive," he muttered, his tongue feeling thick. "Gotta get Elise out of there... now.... Swear... you'll make sure she gets out of there...." Skeeter's voice came from a long way off, across a galaxy. "Don't worry. I'll take care of it." Dylan relaxed a little; then the room and Skeeter faded away. Skeeter Bradley met Elise at the boat dock. By the time they arrived at the hospital, Dylan was already out of surgery and in the recovery room. An hour later a nurse came into the waiting room to announce that Dylan had been moved to Intensive Care. Elise jumped to her feet. "May I see him?" She frowned at Elise's rumpled, bloodstained clothes. "Are you immediate family?" The nurse had a stern, no-nonsense attitude, and Elise could tell there would be no rules bent. She thought about lying, but just couldn't make herself do it. Skeeter whipped out his badge and flashed it under the nurse's nose. "Police business. I need to ask him one question. It will only take a minute." At first the nurse looked as if she wasn't going to let him, but she finally gave in, and Skeeter went to Intensive Care while Elise waited. A few minutes later he was back. "He's fine. Groggy, but fine," Skeeter told her. "I'm going home to shower and get a few hours' sleep. Why don't you come along? I'm sure Anne has some clothes that will fit you." She had to see Dylan. There was no way she could leave without seeing him one last time. Without making sure he was truly all right. "Thanks anyway, but I think I'll wait here. Maybe when the shift changes the new nurse will let me in to see him." "I'll have Anne bring you some fresh clothes," Skeeter told her. He was walking away when he stopped. "Oh, by the way, I'm sorry about what I said to

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you at the courthouse. I know it's no excuse, but I was worried about Dylan. We've been partners and friends for a long time." She smiled. "That's okay. I understand." She didn't go on to explain that she might not be around when Skeeter got back. She was afraid he might insist that she stay, and she didn't have the energy to argue. After Skeeter left Elise waited about an hour, then took off her shoes and set them next to her chair. Barefoot, she slipped out of the waiting room, down a hall to the double doors marked Intensive Care. Silently she pushed open the door on the right. Three nurses stood in a huddle in the center of the nurses' station, examining a clipboard. A chart on the wall listed the patients and their room numbers. Dylan was in room number three. No one looked her way as Elise slipped past the desk. Dylan was drifting somewhere between limbo and hell. And hell was winning. He kept dreaming the same thing over and over. Elise was in danger, and he was running after her, trying to get close enough to protect her. But every time she was within his grasp, he fell and she got away. Over and over. Finally the pain in his leg increased until he was fully awake, until his body was covered in a cold sweat. He was just about to give in and call the nurse when the, door opened and she walked in, a hypodermic needle in her hand. His fix. She gave him the shot and took his temperature. There was no need to do more. Everything else was being monitored by computer. Wires everywhere. After checking the screens behind him, the nurse left, and pretty soon the injection began to take effect. Soon he was drifting back to limbo, floating away.... He was just about asleep when, from the edges of reality, came a small sound. He almost didn't bother to open his eyes, but for some reason he did. He must have been dreaming, or hallucinating, because Elise was standing near the foot of his bed. He blinked, but she didn't vanish. Instead she took a step closer and stopped, hands clasped in front of her like a schoolgirl, her eyes huge. She looked ready to cry. He'd witnessed her tears, and panic fluttered his chest. He wanted to hold her, to assure himself that she was real and not a druginduced apparition, but he had these damn needles in one arm, the blood pressure cuff on the other. Wires stuck to his chest... "Elise…" His voice wasn't working all that well, either, but she obviously heard him, because she made a small pathetic gesture that broke his heart. "I just wanted to come and see you," she whispered, her lips trembling, her

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eyes suspiciously shiny. "Make sure you were okay." "Doctor says I'll be waterskiing within a year." She smiled. And the sight of it lifted a weight from his chest, warmed him deep inside. But just when he thought he was home free, they started falling. Big huge tears. Not a sound. Just those huge, wet tears. They made light-reflecting trails down her cheeks. "Come here." She moved closer, but not close enough. He let out a frustrated groan. "I was so scared," she told him. "When they took you away in the helicopter, I ... was so scared." His arms ached for her. "Closer," he coaxed. "Come closer." She stepped into the halo cast by the bedside light. Now he could see the dark hollows under her eyes, the paleness of her skin. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay," she whispered. "I'm okay." Footsteps sounded behind them. His nurse came cruising in. He didn't know why, but she made him think of the figurehead on a hiking ship. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, glaring at Elise. Uncowed, Elise glanced over her shoulder, then back to Dylan. "I'm leaving right now." She bent over and pressed a soft kiss to his bristly cheek. The tenderness of it made his throat tighten. "Goodbye," she whispered. Wait a minute. She meant goodbye as in goodbye. As in we'll never see each other again. He lifted the arm with the blood pressure cuff enough so that his fingers lightly skimmed her arm. But she slipped away, toward the door. The heart monitor behind his head started making weird sounds. Beep, beep, beep. "Elise! Don't go!" he croaked. Beep, beep, beep. "I have to." "You have to leave," the nurse said, eyeing the steadily increasing red digital numbers with alarm. "No," he said, his voice edged with panic. "I mean don't leave-" Me. Don't leave me. "Don't go back home to Wisconsin." Beep, beep, beep. "Dylan, I have to-" Stay. He wanted her to stay. He wanted her in so many ways. Forever.

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Yes. He wanted her forever. "Skeeter said you could stay with him and Anne." He glanced up at all the needles and wires coming from him, frustrated that he couldn't get away from them and go after her, stop her. "You can stay one more day, can't you? Until I'm out of Intensive Care. They said they'd probably move me tomorrow." Beep, beep, beep. He could tell she was thinking about it. Her eyes went from the red flashing numbers to the nurse's alarmed face, then back to Dylan. "Elise… " Beep, beep, beep. "Okay." The flashing digits immediately settled down. Dylan could breathe again. He even managed a smile as the nurse hustled Elise from the room. Now he had to plan his strategy. He had to figure out how he was going to keep Elise from walking away tomorrow.

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Chapter 19 A few hours later Skeeter came back and picked up Elise, giving her a ride to his house, where she caught a few hours of sleep and was able to take a shower. Skeeter's wife, Anne, was kind enough to dig out a pair of Jason's old jeans and a T-shirt that said Rock and Roll across the front. There was no way Elise could have gotten into any of Anne's clothes. Blond and petite, she looked as if she wore about a size one. At noon the police called to say they had found the helicopter and its pilot. The pilot was alive, but they were still looking for Sebastian. Two hours later, they found him, dead. It was over. It was time to go. Dylan had been moved to a regular room, and Elise found herself confronting the prospect of seeing him again, long enough to tell him goodbyefor good. It had been hard enough the first time. She wasn't looking forward to putting herself through it all over again. She shouldn't have promised to stay, but when he'd looked at her the way he had, and when the heart monitor had gone crazy, she'd had no choice. Anne had to pick up her daughter, Mandy, from soft-ball practice, so she offered to drop Elise off at the hospital on the way. During the fifteen-minute ride Anne kept up a steady flow of conversation. "I wish Dylan would rejoin the police department," she told Elise. "When Dylan and Skeeter were partners, I didn't worry about Skeeter as much. I knew Dylan was there. Now..." She heaved a heavy sigh. "Now I worry all the time." "Do you think he'll ever go back?" Elise asked. "I hope so. Not just for Skeeter's sake, but for his own, too. He can't keep on the way he is-blaming himself for a death that wasn't his fault." Anne pulled the station wagon up to the curb in front of the hospital, and Elise got out. "Tell Dylan I'll be up later with the kids," Anne said, craning her neck to see out the passenger window. "I'll tell him." When Elise got to Dylan's room, she stopped in the open doorway, unable to make herself go any farther. He was lying propped up in bed, hands behind his head, watching TV. All the tubes and monitors were gone. His face was pale and clean-shaven, a little drawn. The curtains were open, and the muted afternoon sunlight shone through the south window, playing across the angles of his face, accenting his bone structure with soft shadows. It hurt for her to look at him. He had stirred feelings in her she hadn't known she possessed. It was going to be so hard to tell him goodbye. Maybe the hardest thing she'd ever done.

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She hadn't made a sound, but almost as if he sensed her presence, Dylan looked toward the doorway. And when he saw her, he smiled. A warm, sweet smile. A smile that did funny things to her own heart rate. "Nice shirt." She glanced down at the loud lettering and smiled a little self-consciously. "It's Jason's." He patted the bed near his hip. "Have a seat." He pointed to the TV, not commenting on the fact that she was still standing in the doorway. "This is so fake. No cops would run down the street shooting their guns like that." She smiled at the irritation in his voice. "Maybe they should hire you as a script consultant." "No kidding." He switched off the set. She'd rather he'd left it on. The silence made this all the harder. "Dylan, I have to go. I just wanted to-" "Go? I thought you were going to stick around a while." "I can't." She lifted one hand, making a limp motion toward the open door. "I have to..." This was so awkward after what they'd shared. So painful. "Leave. I have to leave." "Wait." The same note of panic she'd heard yesterday was edging into his voice. Keeping an eye on her, he braced the palms of both hands against the mattress and scooted himself back on the bed, so he was sitting up straighter. "Before you go, could you do me a favor? Would you try to raise the front of this bed? The controls are here, behind me." She could hardly refuse a simple request like that. She stepped into the room and crossed to the bed. She was leaning over, looking for the controls, when she felt cold metal wrap around her wrist and heard an all-too-familiar click. Handcuffs. "What are you doing!" She straightened and took a step back, trying to get away, but she was pulled up short. Dylan smiled sweetly and held up one hand. The other cuff was attached to his wrist. "You didn't need help." Frantically her eyes searched the room for an escape route, hoping to spot the key. "I had Skeeter bring these by. Good idea, huh?" "Why? What do you want?" "Want?" He gave her a speculative look that made her feel hot all over. "A lot of things." He smiled. "But I mainly wanted to keep you from leaving before I could talk to you." "Dylan. Please-"

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"I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry I got you involved in this. I guess I went a little crazy for a while." The cuffs rattled against the metal bed rail. "I'm not into bondage," she mumbled inanely. Dylan laughed. A deep, rich, wonderful sound. "Not any kind?" "No." "How about bonding?" he whispered, pulling her closer, his eyes locked with hers. "As in lying very close?" No answer. "Or savings bonds?" Still no answer. "Short-term bonds?" A reluctant smile. "Long-term bonds?" A real smile. "James Bond?" She laughed. "Matrimonial bonds?" "What?" "How do you feel about matrimonial bonds?" Her heart soared ... and then immediately sank. "What are you talking about?" "About you. About me. Together." Panic, like tiny wings, fluttered in her chest. "But that's impossible." "Why?" "Because... well..." Her gaze flew across the room, from the TV to the window, finally settling on the checked curtains. "Because of Melissa," she said, feeling as if the words had been wrenched from deep within her. "Melissa?" he asked blankly. "Yes, Melissa." Did she have to spell it out? Would he leave her no pride? Was she going to have to bare her soul to him, knowing full well he loved someone else? She forced herself to meet his gaze. He was watching her with quiet curiosity. His next words came slowly, thoughtfully. "I didn't love her." She felt as if she'd just awakened from a bad dream, still unsure about what was real and what wasn't. "I didn't love her, and she knew it. But when she was killed because of me, I felt guilty as hell." She listened, stunned, hardly daring to believe. "Skeeter used to tell me I didn't give a rip about anything anymore. He was right. I didn't care if I lived or died." His eyes, his dark, secret eyes looked so sincere. So hypnotic ...

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"But now I do. Your tears brought me back to life." The air left her lungs. "I think I first started loving you when you handcuffed me to my own bed. And I loved you even when I thought you were Sebastian's woman. Even when I thought you'd double-crossed me." Love? "But you said ... you told me never to love anybody..." "I was talking about you. You were breaking my heart." Distantly she realized he was pulling her closer, pulling her down beside him. "I went with Sebastian because I was afraid if I didn't, he would hurt you even more." "I know that now. But when it happened I went crazy, thinking that the one person I could love had turned her back on me." "I'm sorry." "You probably saved my life." She was pressed to his side, his face just inches from hers. There was something different about him. A lightness, maybe? "Elise ... ?" "Mmm?" "Were you really a virgin?" She felt heat rise in her cheeks. But now wasn't the time to hide. Now was the time to tell the truth. "Yes." Something like regret passed over his features. "I wish I'd known." "It doesn't matter." "Yes it does. I would have been gentler... easier.... I would have used more control. I wouldn't have come all undone." She smiled. "Then I'm glad you didn't know." She could feel his heart beating beneath her palm. His eyes were suddenly dark with desire, with their shared memories of that one special night. She leaned closer and touched her lips to his. Soft. Gentle. "I might be into bondage after all," she whispered. The sun was going down, the uppermost curve sinking into the sparkling waters of the Florida Straits. Elise picked up the last of Dylan's plaques, wiped off the dust and fingerprints, and hung it on the beach house wall with the others. She would have done it sooner, but she'd been busy getting married. She would have been completely satisfied with a courthouse wedding, but Dylan had suggested the nursing home where his father lived, so that was what they'd done. It had been wonderful. They'd hired a band with an accordion player. It had been one of Dylan's father's better days, and he had whirled Elise around the

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room while a contented Dylan stood looking on, crutches under his arms. In that moment, when she spun past her new husband, when he'd flashed a smile that was for her alone, she'd loved him more than she thought humanly possible. But when he told her he was going to rejoin the police force, her heart seemed to overflow. Not a day would go by that she wouldn't fear for him, but she knew he was doing the right thing. It meant he was whole again. Now she stepped onto the porch, letting the screen door close gently behind her. In the distance, pigeons cooed and the ocean rumbled. Dylan was sprawled on his back in the hammock, hands behind his head. His eyes were closed, his thick mane of hair swept back from his brow, tangled by the wind. His face was still a little pale, but every day his strength increased, which he had proven last night, quite literally taking Elise's breath away. He was healing. Inside and out. She thought he was asleep, but he opened his eyes and reached up for her, taking her by the hand and pulling her down beside him. "I've been thinking. While I'm laid up, maybe we could take the boat up the Mississippi. We could stop off at your cabin. I've always wanted to fish the Mississippi." "I'd like that. But if you think I'm homesick, I'm not," she assured him. "I love it here. I love the ocean.... I love you." "What about teaching? Will you miss it?" "If I do, I can probably get a job in Miami." The arms around her tightened. He pressed a soft kiss to her mouth, then pulled his head away enough to be able to see her. "I love you." She smiled and brought a hand up to stroke his jaw. "I know." His eyebrows went up. "Oh, yeah?" "Yeah." She understood that his love was unconditional-the purest kind of love. He'd loved her in spite of Sebastian. He'd loved her in spite of himself. And looking at him, she could see that even though the sun had gone down, there was a light in his eyes that hadn't been there before. She knew that after all these months, Dylan had finally made peace with himself. He'd tamed his lions.

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