Dark Paradise (54 page)

maybe."

"Maybe, nothing," Bryce declared. "You ought to hop a plane and go to

him. I can make a couple of phone calls if you like-"

And get me out of Montana. "Thanks anyway, but I don't think this is the

right time for me to jump into anything."

"Opportunities don't happen along every day."

"No, well, I don't have friends killed every day either. I'd like a

little time to recover."

He gave her his patronizing fatherly look, tipping his small chin down

almost to the puff of chest hair billowing out the open placket of his

white oxford shirt.

"You're loyal to a fault, sweetheart. Lucy's probably looking down at

you, snickering. She would have pounced on a plum like this. Lucy was

never one to miss a chance to get ahead - was she, Drew?"

Their gazes locked for an instant. Marilee watched them, a fist of

tension clenching in her chest. Drew rose gracefully from the piano

bench and took Samantha by the arm.

"Samantha luv, may I have a word?"

Samantha's eyes went wide. "I'm off tonight, Mr. Van Dellen."

"Yes, darling, I'm well aware," he countered smoothly, drawing her away

from Bryce and toward the side exit to the veranda.

Bryce let her go without a hint of objection. He dropped down on the

bench in the spot Drew had vacated and took a long pull on his

Pellegrino. His Adam's apple bobbed like a cork in his throat. Pressing

his lips together and blotting the residual moisture with the heel of

his hand, he adjusted his position a quarter turn toward Marilee and

pretended to be gravely concerned.

"How are you doing, Marilee?
 
We heard you had a run-in with a burglar

the other night."

"Yeah, or something." She shrugged it off. "Lucky for me he hit me in

the head. My head is generally considered hard to the point of being

impenetrable."

"Not a laughing matter, angel," he said with a frown. "You could have been

killed."

"Could I?"

"It happens." It was his turn to shrug, as if to say violent death was

just one of those things, an unforseen inconvenience on any tourist's

itinerary. "So when are you going to come out and spend a day at Xanadu?

With all that's happened, you could probably use an afternoon by the

pool with nothing to worry about."

With nothing to worry about except which of the snakes in Bryce's pit

might be a murderer. What a relaxing scene - stretched out in a chaise

with a daiquiri in one hand, scanning the suspects through the dark

lenses of a pair of Wayfarers. Bryce and his court of vipers: the

coke-snorting judge Townsend, the shark lawyer Lucas.

Maybe Bryce could fly in the sharpshooting Dr. Sheffield just to make

things really interesting. Then Del Rafferty could climb up in the

turret of Bryce's rustic palace and pick them all off one by one with an

assault rifle. What a swell day that would be.

"I'll let you know," she said, brushing the wrinkles out of her jeans as

she stood. "Break's over. Time to entertain the troops."

"Knock 'em dead, sweetheart."

He beamed a smile at her. Ever the benevolent monarch. He made his way

toward his regular table, the high heels of his cowboy boots tilting his

slim hips to an angle that encouraged swaggering. Waiting for him were

Lucas, the actress Uma Kimball clinging to him like a limpet. There was

no sign of Townsend. At the, far end of the table, the bimbob was amusing

himself by working his pecs behind a blue muscle shirt that

looked like body paint. Sharon Russell was in her right-hand-man seat,

wearing a black leather halter top with a neckline that plunged below

table level and a scowl that would have done Joan Crawford proud.

Marilee grimaced as she shrugged her guitar strap over her shoulder.

"Careful, baby," she muttered ' "Didn't your mother ever tell you your

face could stay that way?
 
Guess not."

Samantha came in the side exit looking on the verge of tears. Bryce

intercepted her and steered her back out the door. Drew stalked past the

piano, through the crowd, and out the door that led to his office.

Stepping up to the microphone, Marilee strummed a chord and sang the

opening line of a Mary-Chapin Carpenter tune, thinking that life around

New Eden was getting curiouser and curiouser.

J.D. heard her voice before he set foot in the lounge. It grabbed his

heart like a fist and squeezed.
 
Smoky and low, strong with

emotion - pain, confusion, longing for something beyond her reach. He

edged inside the door and stood in the shadows.

She sat on a stool in front of a small band, a soft spotlight gilding

her silver-blond hair in an aura of gold.

Propped on her knee was the old guitar that seemed almost a part of her

when she played it. Her fingers moved over the strings, plucking out a

slow, melancholy tune.

She sang of a relationship growing cold, a man slipping away behind a

wall of silence and indifference; painful words left unspoken and

hanging in the air, their invisible weight oppressive. A woman helpless

to stop an inevitable loss. Regret for what might have been, but never

would be.

He thought he might have heard the song before, but he'd never heard it

like this - with the ache of loss an almost palpable thing. He tried to

shut out the words, tried to detach himself from the dull throb of guilt

that reverberated in his chest with each low note on the guitar. He

tried to tell himself he had no reason to feel guilty. He hadn't taken

more than she had offered. Hell, he hadn't taken that much. With that

thought came not vindication, but regret, and he shoved that aside as

quickly and ruthlessly as the rest.

Between verses he moved up along the wall and slid into a vacant chair

at the far side of the stage area. Like warm blue magnets, her eyes

found his unerringly in the gloom. He thought her voice thickened a bit,

but her fingers never faltered on the strings. As she plucked out the

final notes, she dropped her head down near the body of the old guitar,

her unruly mane tumbling forward to hide her face. She sat motionless

while the crowd applauded, then set the guitar aside, walked off the

stage, and out the side door.

The trio struck up a jazz number. J.D. rose and cut in front of them to

exit through the door Marilee had taken.

"What's with you, Rafferty?" she asked as he stepped out onto the

veranda.

She stood with her butt against the railing, arms crossed in front of

her. A slice of amber light from the last of the sunset cut across her,

turning her half-gold, half-shadow. She wore tight faded jeans with a

rip in the knee, a white T-shirt, and a dark pinstripe vest. Not

glamorous by any means, but appealing in a way he couldn't quite

understand. He thought of what she had said about him not really seeing

her and some dubious feeling shifted in his chest.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You ruined my morning. You ruined my

afternoon. You won't be happy until you ruin my evening too?"

"I tried to catch you at the ranch, but you'd gone already."

"So now you can ruin my evening in front of a hundred witnesses. That

should make your day."

J.D. took the verbal jabs without complaint. He supposed he deserved

them. It was better this way, anyhow, that she stay mad at him, that she

would rather strike out at him than get close. He would rather be a

bastard now than broken later by some emotion that served no useful

purpose. Or so he told himself.

"I don't have to take it, you know," she said, her voice hoarse, the

muscles of her face tightening. Blinking furiously, she shoved herself

away from the railing and started past him.

J.D. caught her by the arm and pulled her in alongside him. "I never set

out to hurt you, Marilee. In fact, I came here to see that you don't get

hurt."

Marilee glared up at him and jerked her arm from his grasp. "That boat

sailed a while ago, skipper." She started away from him again, not sure

of where she was going, knowing only that she didn't want to see

Rafferty when she got there. But his next words stopped her cold.

"Miller Daggrepont is dead."

Shock struck like a fist to the solar plexus, forcing half the air out

of her lungs. She turned back to face him, a little unsteady on her

feet. "What?
 
What did you say?"

"Miller Daggrepont is dead. I found him out on Little Snake Creek this

afternoon. Quinn thinks he had a heart attack."

"And what do you think?"

"Looks to me like someone choked him."

Automatically, Marilee's hand went to the base of her throat. She

walked past J.D. to the spot along the rail she had vacated and leaned

against it, staring out into the gathering gloom of twilight. But she

didn't see the mountains turning purple or the orange of the sky or the

parade of ranch trucks heading to the hell and Gone. She saw Lucy's

lawyer, his weird eyes rolling behind the slabs of glass in his

spectacles as some faceless killer strangled the life from him. The

image made her shudder.

J.D. stepped in behind her, cupped a big hand on her shoulder, and ran

it down her arm. No more than an inch of air separated their bodies. All

she had to do was lean back a little and she would be enveloped by his

warmth, his strength. He took the decision away from her, closing the

distance, resting his cheek against her hair.

The action was both foreign to him and automatic, natural. He wasn't the

kind of man who offered comfort easily. But she looked so small, so

lost. And despite every warning he had given himself, despite every

rotten thing he had said to her, the sense of possession was still

there, primal, basic, answering some invisible call from her. She was

vulnerable; he wanted to be her strength. She was frightened; he wanted

to be her courage.

It was foolish. it was dangerous. He thought. She thought.

Marilee had no doubt that in the end he would push her away for getting

too close. But in the meantime . . . In the meantime, she could close

her eyes for a moment and imagine . . . pretend . . . wish . . . hope .

. . all those futile, naive practices. She could imagine he loved her,

pretend he cared, wish that he were not so distant or so hard, hope that

her love could change him.

God, you're such a fool, Marilee . . . stayed with a man you don't love,

love a man you can never have . . .

He had made it clear where she stood with him. Any tenderness he showed

her now was only token or worse, a means to an end. She was so tired of

feeling used and abused. And yet she still wanted . . . and wished . . .

and hoped . . .

She curled her fingers tight around the railing and held on.

"Quinn's sending the body up to Bozeman to be posted," he said.

"Why are you telling me?"

"He was Lucy's lawyer."

"So?
 
You think Lucy's death was an accident - not that you'd give a damn

either way."

"That's not true."

She laughed and twisted her head around to look at him. "Yes, it is. You

don't care about anyone, remember, J.D.?
 
You're the lone wolf

protecting his territory. The land that's all you care about."

A denial was as bad as an admission that he felt something special for

her. Something that quivered and shimmered in his chest like mercury,

slippery and dangerous.

The kind of thing that had killed his father because it could never be

trusted. She had him neatly trapped. Just like a woman, he thought, his

jaw working against the frustration.