Passion Key (A Romance & Suspense Series) (4 page)

10.

At the three-mile mark, according to the running app on her phone, Justine had turned around and started the run back toward the resort. Now, she was less than an eighth of a mile from home.  She smiled at the thought of her calling the resort home. But it was her home now, and she was happy about that.

She slowed to a walk, her chest heaving with the exertion, her body covered with sweat.  Justine stopped for a second and slipped off her shoes and socks, and veered into the water.

That’s what she loved about Florida.  Everything was made to live cleanly. The water was beautiful and cool on her legs and feet.  The sand felt great on her toes.

Justine walked, letting the salt water massage her legs as her heartbeat gradually slowed and her breathing returned to normal. She reached down, scooped up some water and rubbed the sweat from her face, loving the taste of salt on her lips.

When she got back she would–

Something stabbed her in the thigh and she screamed, then lunged toward the shore as she simultaneously felt something slimy slide off her leg. She heaved out of the water and stood on the beach, pain burning her right thigh.

Jellyfish.

Of course! She’d heard of the damned things and how much they hurt.  And boy, did this hurt!

She looked down at her leg and saw red marks around her thigh.  They were already swelling and a couple of them were dripping blood. She felt chills as she saw the wounds and knew she had to get back to the resort as quickly as possible.

Justine tried to block out the pain as she raced up the beach, along the boardwalk and back to the resort’s office where she thought she had seen a first aid kit in one of the desk drawers. She slammed the door open, almost in tears.

And came face to face with Archer Thorpe.

“What’s wrong?” he said, setting down a screwdriver and a rag.  He looked at her leg.

“I think–”

Justine suddenly felt stronger chills run up and down her body. She was lightheaded.

“Whoa,” he said, and caught her as she sagged against the wall. 

“Easy,” Archer said as he scooped her into his arms.  He carried her into the office area and set her on the couch.

He must have seen the wound on her leg because he said, “Looks like a jellyfish sting.  Ouch.”

“It really hurts,” she said, hating how weak she sounded.

“I think there’s a first-aid kit in the desk,” she added.

There was a small kitchen off the office, and Archer went in there.

She couldn’t believe how the sting was affecting her.  She wasn’t allergic to anything, she had been stung by bees two summers ago and nothing had happened.

Justine looked down at her leg and saw that the marks were red and angry.  She heard rummaging in cupboards in the kitchen and then there was the sound of a faucet running.

Archer returned with a couple of bottles and a bowl.

“Had to wash my hands real quick,” he explained.

He used a clean rag and held it up against the first bottle, which Justine could smell, was vinegar.  He dabbed the vinegar on her thigh and although it stung a little, and immediately afterward it felt numb, which was a major improvement.

Next, he dumped some baking soda into the bowl that already had some water in it, and he stirred it into a paste, then dabbed that on her stings.

She was surprised at how tender his touch was.  He put a clean dish towel under her leg, went to the kitchen and returned with some Tylenol.

“Here take these, they’ll help.”

Justine took the pills and leaned her head back.

“I’m sorry about this,” she said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work.”

“Who said I was working?” he said and then laughed.

The moment of humor took her mind off the pain and she smiled.

“You’re not going to charge me for medical services are you?” she asked.

“No, I would rather you owed me one.”

His eyes seemed to dance in front of her and she wasn’t sure it was a hallucination from the stings.  But she saw compassion in his eyes, too.  And that something she definitely wasn’t used to from a man.

“The same thing happened to me last year up in the Panhandle,” he said. “Jellyfish stings are not any fun.”

He must have noticed the goose bumps on her arms because he grabbed a blanket from the end of the couch and draped it over her.

“Is there someone I can call?” he asked. “A husband? A boyfriend?”

She shook her head.  “No.”

Already, she felt the chills begin to subside as the Tylenol kicked in.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Thank you for helping me.”  She looked at him. “How is the project going?”

The attempt at strength sounded hollow to her, but she had been a victim too long.  She was determined to be tough at all times.

He straightened up and she knew that he caught the tone of her voice.

“Pretty much done.  Do you want me to call someone?”

There was an awkward silence.

“No, I’ll be okay.  Thank you very much, though.  I’m just going to rest for a few minutes and then I’ll be fine.”

“The baking soda will harden.  You should try not to move for awhile.  Eventually you can clean it off and then if it starts to hurt again just reapply a fresh batch of the stuff.  It works wonders.”

She nodded.

“Just give me a shout if you need something, I’ll keep an ear out,” he said.

He left her there and she watched him walk out, and remembered the feeling of his hands on her body.

A girl could get used to that
, she thought.

11.

Archer Thorpe was more than a little embarrassed.

What kind of man was he?
A woman is in distress, stung by a jellyfish, and he’s getting aroused when he’s applying baking soda to her wounds?

What a creep!

But aroused he had been, no doubt about that.  The moment he touched Justine, when he scooped her up into his arms, an electric current shot through his body, probably with the same amount of force the jellyfish had used on its victim.

And when he had put her on the couch and gone into the kitchen, he’d taken a moment to gather himself, to even splash a little cold water on his face while he was making the baking soda paste, and he was still reveling in the contact.

He shook his head as he packed up his tools and carried them out to his SUV.

The job was done, but he needed to check on his patient.

So he went back inside and poked his head into the office.  Justine was on the couch with her eyes closed. She had pulled the blanket up, and he could see that the paste had managed to stay together.

Archer wasn’t sure what to do. 

On a table near the door was a small notepad with a Passion Key Resort pen.  He scratched out a quick note and set it on the couch next to Justine.

He looked at her face and was positively transfixed.  She had a perfect jawline, a cute little nose and luscious lips.  He so wanted to kiss her right then.

Instead, he backed out of the room, chastising himself for being such a typical male.  The poor thing was going to wake up to a really sore leg and all he could think about was how hot she looked.

He got into his vehicle and drove to the shop, unloaded his gear, peeled off his clothes and slipped on a pair of swimming trunks. He grabbed the carbon fiber paddle hanging near the back door and slid a life vest onto his arm.  At the back of the property was a sit-on kayak, fastened to a kayak rack with a security cable and padlock.  He set down the paddle and life vest, dialed the combination for the padlock, opened it, and slid the security cable out from underneath the kayak.  Then Archer hoisted the kayak onto his shoulder and carried it down to the dock.  He set it on the dock, went back and retrieved his paddle, life vest and a fishing rod from the rod box underneath the rack.

Next, he set everything into the kayak, set it into the water, and then lowered himself onto it as waves pushed it back and forth beneath him.

He pushed himself away from the dock, turned directly into the wind, and dug into the paddling, setting his teeth on edge and paddling with strength, precision, and a blazing speed that he knew he could only keep up for a short time.

When he’d first come here, he’d done every kind of water sport.  Fishing, jet skiing, power boating, sailing, kite boarding, and he loved all of them.  But the kayak had become one of his most treasured companions.

As the water spit over the front of the vessel, he tasted the salt water on his lips, and relished the feel of the wind on his face.  This is what Passion Key was all about.

Archer continued to push the kayak directly out to the sea.  The swells became bigger and it always felt to him like you were riding a bucking horse that was going in slow motion.  The rhythm was comforting to him, and he loved tearing into the water with the paddle, felt the burning of his arms, chest and shoulders, even his core as he ripped the kayak along.

Oh, he worked out frequently in traditional ways with weights, a treadmill or elliptical and jogging.  But when it was combined in a way that let you do something you love, well, he could kayak every day, all day.

When he was at least a mile from shore, he made an abrupt turn, strapped the paddle into the nylon holder that pinned it lengthwise against the hull and freed his fishing pole from the rubber clips that held it in place.

He had on a deep diving lure that he essentially used to troll as he paddled as fast as he could.  That way, he combined exercise, kayaking and fishing all into one.  It was his favorite way to multitask.

He cast the lure out as far as it would go, put the butt of the fishing rod into the built-in rod holder, picked up his paddle, and started back toward Passion Key at an angle so he could draw out the trip a little longer.  He also had a theory that baitfish rarely swam straight to and from shore.

With the sprint from shore now over, and his breathing back to somewhat normal levels, he pondered why he suddenly threw the kayak into the water and took off.  It wasn’t uncommon for him. 

But why today?

He knew the answer to that, too.  He now freely admitted that he’d been surprised by how powerful his attraction was to Justine Beaudry.  Frankly, he’d been hot and bothered and wanted to blow off the steam somehow and going for a quick kayak trip seemed a lot more enjoyable than a cold shower.

What was it about this woman?  It wasn’t just her beauty.  Beautiful women were a dime a dozen in the Keys.  No, it was her honesty.  Her honesty, combined with something that seemed either flawed or hidden.

He thought back to his sudden urge to kiss her.

Where had that come from?

Well, there was no doubt he had to keep that in check. Besides, he didn’t know diddly squat about the woman. She had just come down here, no one seemed to know much about her and everyone had been just as surprised as he had that the Passion Key Resort had a new owner nobody had even seen looking at the place.

The fact was, Passion Key was a small town.  Just about everyone knew everyone.  But still, it was Florida.  And a lot of people who lived in Florida weren’t originally from the state, so there was always an influx of new people.

Perhaps that was simply what it was all about.

Justine Beaudry was gorgeous and mysterious.

Maybe that was why he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Just then, his fishing pole bent in half and he heard the line start to fly off the reel with incredible speed.

He slid his paddle onto the kayak, grabbed the rod and set the hook.

As he felt the fish struggle against the sudden feeling of being hooked, he smiled.

I know the feeling, buddy.

12.

The morning sun woke Justine slowly as it poured into the room via windows whose blinds she had forgotten to close.

Justine wasn’t about to blame herself, though.  She’d taken more over the counter medicine for the effects of the jellyfish sting, along with a hot shower followed by icepacks for the swelling.

Luckily, she had found a spray can of lidocaine in the first aid kit, which also helped.  Now, she woke and looked at her leg.

The area was still red, and only one wound from a stinger still stood out.  Justine wasn’t about to let this slow her down, though.  The jellyfish that had bitten her must have been small or young because when she had searched for home remedies for jellyfish stings on the Internet, she had seen some incredibly painful looking stings, nothing like hers.

So, she swung out of bed, took another shower, rubbed calamine lotion on the area, and got dressed.

A fresh cup of coffee, an egg white omelet and while she didn’t feel all together one hundred percent, she felt a whole lot better.

Justine put her dishes in the dishwasher, left her condo and walked up to the office.

Justine went to the windows that Archer had worked on, tested them and saw that they all operated smoothly.  Plus, she hadn’t been awakened by any loud banging sounds. Justine made a mental note to check with her guests and make sure they hadn’t heard anything, either.

She was surprised to see that there was no sign that Archer had even been there working.  She’d had some contractors work before in the house in Chicago and they tended to leave a mess after they left. Justine remembered complaining to a plumber.  His response had been pretty clear.

“I make holes, I don’t fix ‘em,” he’d said.

That certainly wasn’t the case with Archer Thorpe.  If anything, the places where he’d worked were cleaner than when he’d begun.

She went back to the office, then checked out the pool area to see how her guests were doing, but there was no one there.

However, parked near the turn off from the main road into her driveway, she saw a black sedan with tinted windows.  Justine wasn’t sure why it caught her eye, but it seemed out of place.

For a moment, she felt a tinge of panic.

Could it be her ex-husband?

No, no way. There would be no way for him to find her, plus, if he did, she highly doubted he would park just outside where she lived and watch her.  No, he would probably come right in and–

She did
not
want to think about that.

Besides, most cars in the Keys had tinted windows, and if it was anybody watching her, it would probably be the FBI.

Justine decided to ignore the car, and went into the office where she found a beautiful, brown-skinned young woman with startling green eyes waiting for her.

“Hello,” Justine said.

“Hi, are you Ms. Beaudry?” the girl said, with a lovely, lilting accent that struck Justine immediately as quite lovely.

“Yes,” she said. “You must be Taye?”

The Feds had told Justine they’d hired a girl to work full-time in the office.

“I am,” she said.

“I’ve been expecting you,” Justine said.

They chatted for the better part of a half-hour and Justine learned that Taye had just moved to Passion Key a month ago and had answered a classified ad for the job of receptionist.  She had been hired over the phone, contingent only upon a quick meeting with Ms. Beaudry.

“You’re hired,” Justine said.  She knew that the Bureau had already done an extensive background check on the girl.

“How about you start tomorrow?” Justine said.

“That would be great,” Taye answered. 

She left and Justine checked the answering machine for any messages or complaints from the guests but there weren’t any.

Justine smiled.  Well, having the Federal government working for you didn’t hurt, either.  Agent Herring had told her that there was a specific division that “supported” businesses being used and/or run by people in “the program.”  Free advertising was the best kind, Justine figured.

She went back to her condo and let herself in.

It smelled strongly of lidocaine.

She fired up her laptop and checked her email.  There were no messages from the FBI. So she assumed no news was good news.

However, she couldn’t help herself so she Googled her husband’s name and only found a short article about a prison escape in rural Pennsylvania.

So either the Feds had him stashed in a medium security type prison which posed little threat to the outside community, or they were actively squashing any stories about the escape to save face.

Justine guessed it was probably both.

Well, she had no intention of sitting around alone waiting to see what would happen, so she showered again, changed into a cute outfit of turquoise colored Capri pants, a light cotton blouse, her favorite flip flops and her Ray-bans.

It was going to be her daily style of clothing.  She could get used to it.

She locked up her condo and walked up to the village.

It was just past midday by now and most of the lunch places were still going strong, with people sitting outside, albeit in the shade, having salads and more than a fair share of beer and wine.

That was one of the great things about the Keys. Every hour was happy hour.

For today’s lunch she chose a more upscale restaurant called Ramona’s, not because she wanted an expensive meal, but more because she wanted to linger and the place had a nice outdoor seating area that surrounded a garden with a manmade waterfall and fountain.

She ordered a light salad of mixed greens with a glass of chardonnay.

Her leg felt a little better, probably from the walking.

She dined alone and enjoyed the peace and quiet, and her food was delicious.  People passing by the restaurant provided a steady stream of people-watching opportunities.

Justine paid her bill, and then strolled around to a few of the shops. She spent some time looking around and realized she was awfully close to Archer Thorpe’s place.

There was a hole-in-the-wall liquor store that prominently featured fine wines so she went inside and selected a reasonable but well-reviewed white and red, purchased them, then walked over to Archer’s shop.

She stood in front, for some reason feeling her heart beating more quickly than usual.  Even her palms were a little sweaty.

Come on, Justine, you’re not a teenager anymore.

Steadying herself, she rang the bell.

Here goes nothing, she thought.