Captive Kisses (Sweetly Contemporary Collection) (8 page)

His praise was oddly satisfying. “I’ve never traveled much
in south Louisiana, never met many true French-speaking people from that
region, but I’ve read a great deal about it.” Before the words had left her
mouth, she recalled one important fact. New Orleans was the center for one of
the best-organized, best-known Mafia families in the nation. A cold feeling
moved over her, and she suppressed a shiver that left gooseflesh along her
arms.

“I thought you said you were from this state,” he said, his
voice sharpening, “a friend of the judge’s daughter?”

“I am, but I’ve never had the money to travel. As for Mary,
she lives above here, in north Louisiana. There’s a world of difference.”

“You’re right, of course,” he said smoothly. “You are
Scotch-Irish, I imagine, staunchly Baptist, and sternly disapproving of the
hard-playing, hard-drinking, but deeply religious Catholics in my part of the
state.”

“Not at all. I wouldn’t be so stupidly prejudiced.”

“Then why do you look at me with so much dislike in your
eyes?”

“I — surely I don’t have to tell you that?”

He leaned back, his long brown fingers toying with his
coffee cup. “If your feelings are for me personally, perhaps they can be
changed.”

“I doubt it,” she told him, her voice flat.

“Is that a challenge?”

Her head came up and she stared at him. She did not like the
way he was watching her, nor the lazy smile that lurked in the depths of his
dark eyes. “Certainly not!”

“Too bad. I might have enjoyed making you reconsider.”

“It would have been a waste of time.”

“But what else is there to spend it on?”

She crumpled the paper towel she was using as a napkin and
dropped it into her plate. Gathering her silverware and empty coffee cup, she
set these on top of the napkin, pushing plate and all away from her. When she
glanced up again, the gaze of the man across the table was still upon her. She
looked out the window, then clasped her fingers together, staring down at them.
When she lifted her lashes once more, his attention was fastened on her wrists,
traveling slowly along her arms to her shoulders, brushing her mouth and small
straight nose, finally clashing with the expression in her gray eyes.

“I wish,” she said distinctly, “that you wouldn’t do that.”

“Do what?” he asked innocently.

“Watch me like that.”

“Like what?”

She would give anything now if she had never spoken. “You
know very well what I mean! As if you meant to make me self-conscious.”

“Do I?”

“Why not,” she cried, “since I don’t know what you’re
thinking, what you mean to do next!”

He leaned forward, catching her hands in his warm grasp,
speaking her name with a soft, musical inflection it had never had before. “Don’t
do this, don’t tear yourself apart in this way. If you would just accept —”

He stopped abruptly, turning her wrists upward on the table,
his gaze fastening on the purple bruises that marred the blue-veined fragility
of her skin. Kelly tried to pull her hands away, but he would not allow it.

“Did I do that?” he asked, his voice low.

“Who else?” Kelly let her breath out slowly as she gave up
the uneven struggle. “I suppose you are going to say that’s something else I
brought on myself?”

He shook his head. With his thumbs, he massaged her bruised
flesh with a movement curiously gentle and soothing. “I’m sorry that it had to
be this way.”

“If you were really sorry, you would let me go,” she said
tentatively.

“I can’t do that.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” Her voice was bitter as she read the
finality of his tone.

He released her, coming to his feet, kicking back his chair.
The shadow of irony overlaying the grimness in his dark eyes, he said, “Both.”

Kelly sat where she was for some time after he strode from
the room, heading down the hall. She spread her hands flat on the wood-grain
surface of the round oak table, pressing them down to still their shaking. Her
thought processes were anything but concise. She went over the same ground
again and again, trying to make sense of a smile, a word, a gesture. What was
the purpose behind his offer of a truce? Had it been meant to lull her into a sense
of security? He was a persuasive man, was Charles. It had not been easy holding
out against his soft phrases and the look of concern in his eyes. But should
she have held out, that was the question. What was there to be gained by
keeping to her animosity? Her straight-forward defiance kept him on his guard,
whereas, if she should abide by his truce, he might become so complacent that
he would cease to keep such careful watch.

There was another possibility that had occurred to her. Why
couldn’t she make some use of this physical attraction he seemed to feel for
her? If he thought she was falling victim to his charms, he might be even less
likely to keep her under his eyes every minute of the day and night.

She would have to be careful. It would not do to capitulate
too quickly. After her uncompromising stand, nothing would be more likely to
arouse his suspicions. She would have to be subtle in her role as smitten
female. He was not the kind of man to take lightly being used in such a way.
More than that, if she should proceed too quickly and convincingly, she might
well find herself with a more positive physical reaction from him than she was
prepared to handle. It was not part of her plans to share his bed voluntarily,
sacrificing self-respect and honor for the sake of her neck. If it should come
to that, she would have the satisfaction of fighting him tooth and nail, of
leaving him more to remember her by than a split lip and a nail burn down his
neck.

Because she had nothing else to do, Kelly cleared away the
dishes, returning the gold-and-brown kitchen to its former state of shining
cleanliness. While she was at the sink, she heard Charles go out. A short time
later, she heard the rumble of a motor as it was kicked into life. Moving out
onto the veranda, she was in time to see a man in a boat leaving the clump of
trees further along the shoreline, the sleek white craft making a wide are as
it headed out across the lake. It must have been the burly guard from the guest
cottage, for Charles could be seen coming along the shore, making his way from
the spot from which the boat had left.

The boathouse was just there, Kelly remembered. The judge
had built it nearer to the guest cottage than the main house since he did not
want it blocking his view of the lake. But though the low-lying wooden
structure protected an ancient aluminum fishing boat that she and the Kavanaugh
brood had paddled everywhere, and also a fiberglass bass boat fitted up with
high-powered outboard motor, trolling motor, depth finder, and every other
gadget for ferreting out sport fish, the judge had never owned such a fast and
expensive rig as was disappearing in the distance.

Where was the guard going in such a hurry? How long would he
be away? And while he was gone who was going to guard the elderly man Charles
had called “the senator”? Did Charles expect to be able to handle both him and
herself, or was the older man lying bound and gagged, or perhaps drugged, alone
in the guest cottage?

Kelly swung away from the door, a sick sensation in the pit
of her stomach. She did not feel like facing Charles just now. With such
thoughts preying on her mind, she was afraid she could not be civil to him,
much less conciliatory.

In her room, Kelly busied herself making up the bed,
straightening and putting things away. It was only as she had her suitcase half
unpacked and its contents put away in the closet and dresser drawers that she
realized how far she had come toward accepting the situation, rather than just
pretending. She hesitated a moment, then decided with a shrug to finish the
job. She might as well be thorough since she would not put it past Charles to
inspect her room at any time.

She could not stop thinking about the senator. Though she
combed her memory, she could not put a name to his face. He was definitely not
one of the congressmen currently representing the state in Washington. The year
before had been an election year, and the names and faces of the men who had
achieved such high office had been plastered all over billboards, advertising posters,
fliers, and calling cards, to say nothing of television. Nor did she think that
the old gentleman was one of those defeated in the hard-fought campaign. The
men elected to conduct business in the senate chambers at the state capital in
Baton Rouge were just as well known. Politics had never been of much interest
to her, but she felt that even she could recognize anyone as widely known as
that.

Where did that leave her? Could he possibly be from out of
state, a congressman from Texas or Mississippi, or even farther afield? She had
no idea, but it seemed as good a guess as any.

But if it were true, what could the Louisiana Mafia possibly
want with him? Was he a wealthy man, the head of a corporation? Was he, that
genial, quiet-looking little man, the head of another Mafia family?

It was wild, incredible. The Mafia was something you read
about in the paper, something that was spoken of in grim voices on the evening
news. It had nothing to do with people like her, ordinary, everyday people.
Kidnapping was a crime of terrorists, something that happened in Europe or
South America, not in a quiet, backwater fishing camp in the heart of central
Louisiana. She was wrong, she must be. And yet, what other explanation was
there?

Her shoulder bag still lay on the bedside table. Picking it
up, she carried it to the dresser where she began to unload her lip gloss and
mascara, her sunscreen and tanning lotion and moisturizing lotion, the few
items she felt were necessary for a few days of simple living. With those things
removed, placed in a neat line on me dresser, the bag felt oddly light.

Kelly opened the bag wide, then in disbelief, turned the
contents out onto the surface of the dresser. Sunglasses, breath mints, a
mirrored compact, a packet of tissue, a few receipts, a notepad and pencil, a
small hairbrush, and a handful of coins clattered into a pile, but there was no
sign of her billfold.

She had been robbed. With the exception of a few cents in
change, all the money she had was gone, and all her identification taken.

Flinging down the empty bag, Kelly stormed from the room,
limping down the hall. She found Charles in the kitchen, pouring himself a
glass of ice water from the pitcher kept in the refrigerator. She came to a
stop, slivers of ice glinting in her gray eyes and her breath coming quickly
with her agitation.

“Where,” she demanded, “is my money?”

He turned to look at her, one eyebrow lifted. Before he
answered, he replaced the pitcher, shut the refrigerator door, drank his water,
and put the glass in the sink. Turning back he said, “Are you accusing me of
stealing?”

The steely displeasure in his voice did not deter her. “My
money is gone, and you are the only other person in this house.”

“Very true, but do you actually think I would want your
money?”

His meaning penetrated the haze of anger that gripped her.
Her lips compressed. “You may not have wanted or needed the little I had, but
it’s gone, and no one except you could have taken it.”

“Now why would I do that?”

“I expect it was to keep me from using it to get away from
here!”

“Then you concede that I may not be a thief. That’s progress
of a sort.”

She distrusted his smile and the easy manner that he had
assumed. “That may be, but it doesn’t tell me what you did with my billfold.”

“It doesn’t, does it?” he agreed, unperturbed. “Don’t be
alarmed; you’ll get it back — eventually.”

Here it was, her first opportunity to carry through with her
plan. She forced herself to meet his dark gaze. “I — I suppose it is, progress,
I mean.”

“Truce?” he queried softly, his head tilted to one side.

She lowered her lashes. “Truce.”

“I think I’ll hold you to it, even if the word did nearly
choke you.”

She flashed him a look of purest dislike.

“That’s better,” he murmured. “If you get too meek and quiet
on me, I may have to start wondering if you are up to something.”

“You make it sound as if you don’t really want a truce at
all,” she said in frustrated resentment.

A smile moved over his face, lighting his eyes. “You may be
right. Sparring with you hasn’t been all bad.”

“Or all one-sided,” she answered with a meaningful nod from
the bruises on her wrists to the scratch left by her nail on his neck and the
cut on his lip.

He touched his mouth with one knuckle, a rueful look in his
eyes. “You’re right about that.”

It was ridiculous, but his admission had the effect of
soothing her ruffled dignity and sense of injury. “Now that is settled,” she
said, “what are we going to do?”

“That’s up to you.” His dark gaze was fastened on her with a
narrow look of interest.

“If you have been here several days, you must have some idea
of what the choices are.”

He gave a thoughtful nod. “Swimming is out, at least until
your foot heals a little more; incidentally, I’m still going to have a look at
that.”

“If you must,” she said, schooling her voice to
indifference.

He gave her a dark glance before he went on. “We could take
a walk, but there again, you have a handicap.”

“Not if it’s a short walk.”

“True,” he agreed. “That might be arranged then.”

“I’ll get my shoes.”

She allowed herself a sign of irritated impatience as she
correctly interpreted the gaze he directed toward her bare feet. Moving with a
halting step to the dining table, she held to it with one hand while she lifted
her foot and peeled aside the tape. She refused to look at him as he approached.
It was a complete surprise when his hands closed about her waist, and she was
lifted to sit upon the table.