Aquamarine (6 page)

“It’s one of Beelzebub’s treasures. He dragged it in the house a couple months back. I probably should have tossed it out, but the color reminded me of your eyes, Miss Kirsten.” Glory seemed nervous, staring everywhere but at the crystal. Perhaps she was worried that she’d broken one of her mother’s rules or maybe she was just embarrassed at her own temerity in speaking up.

“Who’s Beelzebub?” Shea asked. If Teague had mentioned that name, she’d have remembered.

“Mikey’s black Lab,” Kevin explained. “The canine pack rat.”

Teague picked up the crystal cluster to examine it more closely.

Shea stared at the stone, afraid to touch it a second time but unable to look away. The carnival Gypsy’s words seemed to echo in her ears.
The secret’s in the stone
.

What secret? she wondered. Something to do with the way the crystal’s many facets reflected her face over and over again? If she were a fanciful woman, she might almost think there was another Shea trapped inside the crystal, looking out.

“Kirsten?” Teague touched her shoulder.

“What?” She tore her gaze away from the myriad reflections of her own frightened expression to focus on his face.

Worry wrinkled his brow. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Fine.” She forced a smile. “A little tired,” she said, though “a little scared” was closer to the truth. She didn’t like the way memories kept surfacing. It wasn’t natural. How could she remember things she’d never known in the first place?

Shea looked depressed, despite the fact that her visit with the Raineys had gone like clockwork. “Problem?” Teague asked as they pulled away from the island.

She frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me you and Kirsten had eloped?”

“I was afraid you’d start seeing ulterior motives in everything I said or did, and besides, it’s not something I’m especially proud of.”

“Why? You didn’t marry her for her money, did you?”

“No.” He was silent for a moment. “It’s a long story, Shea. Sure you want to hear it?”

“Under the circumstances, I think it would be best,” she said dryly.

Best for whom? Teague wondered. Not him. It was a subject he tried not to dwell on, though right after Kirsten’s disappearance, he hadn’t been able to think of anything else. For a while his only refuge from the pain of those memories had been at the bottom of a beer bottle.
He hadn’t gotten his life back on track for almost a year. And without Jack Rainey’s help, he might never have made it at all. He owed Jack. And if baring his soul to Shea would help pay that debt, then so be it.

“Kirsten’s mother died when she was a baby. And until she was eleven—that’s when Jack married Cynthia—she had her father to herself. He adored her and pretty much gave her whatever she wanted. Don’t get me wrong. Kirsten adored her father too, but she wasn’t above using his love for her to get her own way.”

“Spoiled and headstrong,” Shea translated.

Teague nodded. “But also charming and lovable. I think when her father refused to sanction her marriage to me, it must have been the first time he’d ever told her no.”

“But she didn’t take no for an answer?”

He shook his head. “She
never
took no for an answer. Kirsten knew her father’s pride was his greatest weakness, and she used it against him. She knew if she eloped, he would agree to the big wedding she wanted as a face-saving measure.”

“And you went along with the plan to manipulate her father?”

“I didn’t realize what she was planning. All I knew was that I wanted to marry Kirsten, and eloping seemed to be the only option.”

Shea looked puzzled. “But if her father was that opposed to the match, then why did he give in? So you eloped. Big deal. Why not arrange an annulment or a quiet divorce?”

Teague stared back at the green hump of Massacre Island. “His pride wouldn’t allow that, not once she told him she was pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” She choked on the word. “Is that what Jack wanted to talk to me about?”

“Probably.” He clenched his hand on the rudder. “That baby was Kirsten’s ace in the hole. In the end, it’s what forced him to cave in to her demand for a big wedding. She knew her father so well, knew that from Jack’s perspective a bastard grandchild was a thousand times worse than a fortune-hunting son-in-law.”

“You weren’t really a fortune hunter, though.”

“No, I was crazy in love with her.” He laughed sourly. “Or maybe just crazy. I’d never met anyone like Kirsten before. She was intelligent, wealthy, and beautiful. Most women like that are so impressed with their own perfection, they set themselves apart from lesser mortals. Kirsten was different. She loved life, loved people. She’d run errands for housebound senior citizens, tutor kids with reading disabilities, volunteer to baby-sit a colicky baby, or sit with an AIDS patient. And anyone who was special to her earned a pet nickname.”

“Like Skeeter,” she said.

He nodded. “Despite the age difference, Kevin and Kirsten were very close. Closer than many blood siblings.”

“I wouldn’t know about that. I’m an only child.”

“Me too,” he said as he maneuvered the boat into its berth in the boathouse at Strawberry Point.

“The Raineys own this boathouse too?”

Teague nodded. “The Griffins live in the apartment above the one on the island. I live here. Want to take a look around before I drive you back to the lodge?” The real Kirsten would have made herself at home, conned him into fixing her dinner, then seduced him over dessert.

Shea’s gaze locked with his. Her color rose as if she’d read his mind. Then she shook her head, breaking off eye contact. “Give me a raincheck.”

“Sure.” Her blush proved she wasn’t completely indifferent to him. Good news, since he was far from indifferent to her.

And it wasn’t, he told himself, as they drove back along the lake to Liberty, just because she looked like Kirsten. After spending a week in Shea’s company, he recognized the differences between the two. Both were bright and stubborn as hell, but Kirsten had been manipulative where Shea was not.

Shea was more independent too. Kirsten had had no interest in furthering her education or doing anything beyond charity work. Shea, on the other hand, had worked her way through college and built a career in the corporate world. In
Ohio
, he reminded himself. And she wasn’t the type to abandon all her hard-earned junior-executive perks to follow a man, either. Especially not a man who was still struggling to get his own fledgling business off the ground. Teague sighed.

There were other differences too. Kirsten had been a born flirt. She’d known all the courtship rituals by heart and practiced them religiously. By contrast, Shea didn’t play any games at all.

And though he could tell she was attracted to him, she wasn’t the type of woman to accept a man at face value. Kirsten had been as open and trusting as a puppy, but Shea hadn’t made up her mind about him yet. Teague understood, even approved of, her wariness. Trust didn’t come easily for him, either.

He pulled into the parking lot of the Liberty Lodge, removed his sunglasses, and tucked them above the visor.
“I know the big reunion was hard on you, but seeing his ‘daughter’ again did Jack a world of good. When I spoke to him after lunch, he seemed better than he has been in weeks.”

“That’s good,” she said to the dashboard.

“Shea?”

She looked at him. Her expression was neutral, but she was as aware of him as he was of her. Little things gave her away—the faint flush along her cheekbones, the increase in her respiration rate, the way she twisted her purse strap between her fingers. A strand of hair had worked loose from the ponytail at the nape of her neck. He was tempted to hook it back behind her ear. Any excuse to touch her. But he didn’t. He smiled instead.

Shea’s color rose and she broke off eye contact. “Cynthia asked me to come back in the morning. She thought going through old pictures might help to restore the gaps in my memory.”

“You don’t have to go back if you don’t want to. Jack’s seen you now. His mind’s at rest. I can fob her off with some story. I’ll be out there tomorrow anyway. My crew and I are scheduled to start work on a new project.”

“No, I …” She flushed. “Cynthia’s expecting me.” She met his gaze. “Tell me about your project. It’s a landscaping job, I take it?”

“There’s an old gazebo on the promontory, used to be Kirsten’s favorite spot on the island, but the trees and shrubs have grown so tall, they’ve blocked the view. Jack got it in his head that he had to restore the spot to its former glory. He hired us to clear out brush, add some plantings, put in a brick path.”

“So you’ll be on Massacre Island all day?”

“Most of it. I can take you over in the morning if you
want. Or, better yet, why don’t I show you how to run an outboard? Then you can take yourself across whenever you feel like it.”

“That makes sense.”

A freckle-faced girl with carroty hair scooted past on a skateboard. When Shea turned to watch, Teague studied her profile: perfect nose, full lower lip, stubborn chin. He wanted to touch her. Hell, he wanted to drag her into his arms and kiss her until she was breathless and panting his name, but he didn’t have the right. She wasn’t really Kirsten. She wasn’t really his at all.

Shea turned back to him. “When can you show me how to run the boat motor?”

He glanced at his watch. “I have a few errands, but I can swing back by to pick you up about seven. That would give us a couple hours of daylight to mess with the boat.”

“Sure.”

She didn’t look sure, but she didn’t turn him down, either, which, he figured, qualified as a step in the right direction. His direction.

With mixed feelings, Shea watched Teague’s pickup drive off. The man was tall, dark, and growing more dangerous by the minute. He smiled and her brain shorted out. He touched and her hormones went berserk. What had she let herself in for?

Inside the lodge’s rustic lobby, the desk clerk handed over her key, then placed an envelope on the counter in front of her. “This came for you.”

Shea took the letter, then turned it over to study the typewritten address. Despite the fact that no one back
home knew where she was, the letter was addressed to Ms. Shea McKenzie in care of the lodge. She frowned. Who could be sending her letters?

The return address was conspicuous by its absence. She checked the postmark. It had been mailed locally, which told her—what?

“Thanks,” she told the desk clerk, stuffing the envelope into her purse. She left by a side door and took the path along the lake.

Most of the guests were out on the water or enjoying the lodge’s recreational facilities. The grounds were almost deserted. She met no one on the way to her room except for a family of quail, mama and babies, marching down the shredded-bark path in a straggling line.

The phone was ringing as she let herself into her room. She tossed her jacket on the bed and grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

There was no response at first, though she could hear someone breathing.
Oh, great. A crank call. Just what I need
.

“Hello?” she tried again, louder this time.

“Go back to where you came from.” The voice on the other end was as dry and whispery as dead leaves rustling in the wind.

“Who is this?”

“A friend. Did you get your mail?”

“Who
is
this?”

No answer. The line was dead.

She hung up the phone with trembling fingers, then dug in her purse for the letter the desk clerk had given her. She ripped it open to find a yellowed newspaper clipping and a single page of white bond.

The clipping was a brief account of Kirsten’s disappearance.
The accompanying note was typed. Its author hadn’t believed in wasting words. Its message was short, if not sweet:

Shea huddled in a wingback chair, toying with her locket. The whispering voice on the phone had claimed to be a friend, though he—or she—hadn’t sounded particularly friendly. She fingered the clipping. According to the article, Kirsten Rainey had disappeared without a trace, and the FBI reported no new leads. Nothing there she hadn’t already known. Which brought her to the note itself.
History has a way of repeating itself.
Warning or threat? That’s what she couldn’t decide.

Dammit, she needed to talk to her mom. Only she couldn’t. Her parents weren’t due home for another three weeks. And it wasn’t as if they were on a group tour with a planned itinerary. Shea knew they intended to spend some time in Scotland trying to trace her stepdad’s ancestors. And she also knew her mom was determined to visit Pompeii. But as to when they’d be where, she had no clue. They probably didn’t know themselves.

Shea jumped nervously at a tap on the door. Teague already? She glanced at her watch, surprised to discover that it had been forty minutes since he’d dropped her off.

She frowned, debating with herself whether or not to tell him about the unsettling crank call and anonymous note. Too risky, she decided. What if he insisted on calling off the charade? She wasn’t ready to leave Liberty yet, not until she had the answers to a few questions of her own.

Stuffing the note and the news clipping in her purse, she got up to let him in.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as soon as he saw her face.

“Nothing. I’m just hungry. I was too nervous to eat much at lunch.”

He glanced at his watch. “Want to go grab something before class?”

“Class?”

“You remember. Boating 101.”

She forced a smile. “I vote for class first, then food.”

Teague looked puzzled. “But a second ago you said you were hungry.”

“Let’s just say I’m a big proponent of delayed gratification. You know, the longer you wait, the more you appreciate it.” Which might be mistaken for sexual innuendo, though she hadn’t meant it that way. Shea’s cheeks grew warm. “Shall we go?”

Teague raised an eyebrow. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Not bad.” Teague nodded approval. “Just remember not to come roaring up to the dock full throttle. You don’t want to skin up the boat. Or the dock, either.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze when she brought the little Seaswirl gliding in next to the mooring. “Yeah, I think you’re getting the hang of it.”