Sail Away (17 page)

“Right. Henderson.” He swallowed again, his eyes shifting to the window and the dark night beyond. “Well, Henderson’s not as much help as I’d hoped he’d be.” He told her about his meeting with the man at Ilwaco, purposely omitting Henderson’s hunch about a woman, wanting to wait a few minutes before he dropped that particular bomb.

“He thinks Fred Ainger took the money?” Marnie shook her head. “No way. The man’s too loyal.”

“But to whom? Victor or Bernice?”

“I don’t believe it.” She drained her mug.

“You don’t believe anyone at Montgomery Inns would steal,” he said, then amended, “except maybe for me.”

“No,” she said slowly, running a finger over the still-warm rim of her empty cup, “I don’t think you took the cash.”

“Well, someone did.”

“I know” She sighed, hating to think about it, wishing the money could just be found—discovered to be only misplaced—and they could all get on with their lives.

She glanced up at him sharply and caught him examining her with such absorbed concentration that her skin prickled. She looked quickly away.

Adam paid the bill and they walked outside, along the wet docks into the deep purple night. The wind teased her hair, and along with the odor of the sea, it carried the very real and masculine scent of Adam Drake.

When he stopped before they reached the car and his fingers laced with hers, her heart began to pump more wildly than she ever thought possible. Beneath the hazy glow of a street lamp, with the vapor swirling around them, he caught her around the waist, lowered his head and kissed her, hard and fast, his lips seeking hers with such hunger that she felt dizzy.

Lord, why was it always this way with him? What was it about him that literally took her breath away? She felt the fog clinging to her hair and skin, tasted the coffee and whiskey still clinging to his lips, heard the thunder of blood rushing through her ears.

“Come home with me, Marnie,” he whispered against her ear.

She trembled, trying to find the strength to say no. “I don’t think I can.”

“Sure you can.”

“This is dangerous, Adam.”

“Why?”

She gathered all her courage and tried to break free of his restraining embrace. “I—I can’t be involved with a man just for sex. There has to be more.”

“Moonlight and roses? Champagne and promises?” he asked, his eyes darkening with the night. “Diamonds and gold bands?”

“Trust and love,” she said, her voice quavering. “That’s hard to have when your entire relationship—excuse me,
non
-relationship—is centered around one person using another,” she said, disentangling herself so that she could breathe, so that she could think.

His jaw grew hard and she could see from his expression that he was fighting an inner battle. “You know I care about you. Damn it, it wasn’t what I wanted, what I’d planned, but I
do
care.” He jammed both hands into his pockets. “I can’t tell you what you want to hear. I can’t make you promises, Marnie. And I can’t pretend to be something I’m not. You just have to accept me for what I am.”

“And what’s that?” she asked.

His lips twitched. “A man who can’t seem to keep his hands off you.”

Her heart melted and she wanted to fling herself back into his arms, but she resisted, knowing that loving him would only cause more heartache. All of a sudden loving him seemed so easy. Or was it a lie—was she confusing love with sexual desire? She’d thought she had once loved Kent, but that had been a fantasy and her feelings for Kent hadn’t scratched the surface of her emotions for this man. As for Adam, at least he wasn’t pretending to feel undying passion and love for her. But was his brutal honesty about his very reserved feelings any better?

She sucked in her breath and gathered her courage before she poured out her heart. “I’m too old-fashioned for quick affairs or one-night stands or any of the above,” she said, smiling faintly at this ridiculous maidenly retreat after their nights of passion. But she couldn’t lie.

“You want me to marry you?”

The question echoed off the bay and through her heart. “No!”

His dark brow arched insolently, silently accusing her of lying through her teeth.

“I—I just need more of a commitment than that I’ll wake up with you in the morning and then, maybe, never see you again. Call me old-fashioned, but that’s the way I feel.”

He sighed, frustrated. “I don’t think it’s possible to consider you a one-night stand or a quick affair, Marnie. But I’m in no position to promise you a future that just doesn’t exist—and that’s because of your father. I don’t even know what my future will be. I can’t promise you anything. Come on.” Without waiting for a response, he grabbed her hand and pulled her across the street to his rig.

They drove in tense silence back to her apartment. He flicked the radio on, and tunes from the “fabulous fifties, sensational sixties and spectacular seventies” filtered through the interior between blasts of some inane radio announcer trying to be a comedian. Marnie was in no mood for jokes.

She was in no mood for arguing with Adam.

She rested her head against the passenger window and caught a glimpse of Adam, his features drawn, his mouth tight as he drove. To avoid an issue that had no answers, she changed the course of the conversation. “Tell me more about Henderson.”

Adam’s expression changed as he switched mental gears. “Henderson. Boy there’s one nervous guy. He really couldn’t confirm that Fred Ainger was part of the setup.”

She turned to face him. “I thought you were convinced that he was the man.”

“Just one suspect. But there may be others.” He down-shifted, rounded a corner and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Henderson overheard an argument, well, from the sounds of it, more like a dressing down, right after the embezzling. Simms was really telling someone off, but Henderson, who had just come out of the accounting-room vault and was on the other side of the partition, couldn’t see who it was.”

“He doesn’t have an idea?”

“He thinks it might be a woman.”

“A woman? Why?” Marnie asked, her mind spinning with the names of a dozen women who worked at the hotel and had access to the accounting records. “Linda Kirk?” she said, thinking of the petite middle-aged woman with a quick smile and sharp mind. “I don’t believe it!”

“Neither does Henderson. Linda was out sick that week.” Adam told her about Henderson’s hunch and the perfume.

“That’s not much to go on,” she said when Adam finished. “Just because Kent was arguing with someone in the accounting department isn’t any big news. At least I don’t think it’s enough to indict anyone.”

Adam flinched at her sarcasm.

“Sorry. Sore subject,” she said.

“You have any idea who would be involved with Simms?”

“Besides me?” she said smartly, then sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. She thought about Dolores Tate. And Stephanie Bond. And Lila Montague, all women whom Kent had dated. “I’m afraid the list is miles long.”

“Good thing I’m so patient,” he replied, smothering a cynical smile, and Marnie almost laughed.

“Right.”

“Just think about it.”

“I will,” she promised as he stopped at a red light.

When the light changed, he stepped hard on the throttle, sped through the intersection and turned into the small drive leading to her apartment building.

He pulled into a vacant space, threw the rig into park, clicked off the headlights and turned off the ignition before turning all his attention in her direction. The cab of the truck seemed suddenly intimate. Mist drizzled down the windshield and the warmth of their bodies was beginning to cloud the glass. Adam’s presence seemed to fill the interior, and she knew that she had to escape before she made the same mistake with him that she had in the past.

Her voice was scarcely a whisper. “Thanks for dinner. I—”

“I want to come up.”

Her throat went dry. “You never give up, do you? You just keep pushing and pushing and never stop.”

“When something’s important, I go for it.”

She knew he wasn’t speaking of her, couldn’t be. He’d made that perfectly clear. “And when something’s dangerous, I leave it alone,” she said. “You know the old saying ‘once burned, twice shy’?”

“You don’t have to be shy with me.” He touched her hand, and she felt a shiver of delight. “As for that business about the danger, I don’t believe it.”

“Well, you’re wrong!” she argued, as his fingers wrapped over hers and she felt the pads of his fingertips, warm and enticing against the underside of her arm.
Think, Marnie, think!
But she didn’t pull her arm away. “Look, Adam, I don’t mountain climb, or play with rattlesnakes, or run into burning buildings.”

“But you do sail a boat in the middle of a storm, you do stand up to one of the most intimidating men in the state—”

“Meaning you?”

“Meaning your father. And you are willing to take a few risks, if you feel strongly about something.”

She blushed in the deep interior and reached for the door handle, pulling up on the lever and getting nowhere. Adam had electronically locked the door by means of some sort of child-protection device and she was trapped inside the rig with him.

“You barely knew me and you stood up to your father, as well as the board, in my defense.” With his left hand, he withdrew the keys from the ignition, and the only sound inside the four-wheel-drive vehicle was the soft jangle of metal. “You were willing to take a risk then.”

“That was before I knew that you’d use me or anyone else to get what you want.”

“All I want is the truth.”

The keys clinked softly—like wind chimes disturbed by a stealthy breeze. “I don’t see how I can help you,” she said, suddenly aware of a knot in her throat and the restless energy that seemed to radiate from him.

“It’s simple really. You’ve been hired by your father’s company, right? As a free-lance publicist.”

“Yes, but how did you find out?”

“I still have a few friends at Montgomery Inns.”

“Spies, you mean,” she said, flabbergasted. Hadn’t her father always been suspicious of disloyal people within the tight fabric of Montgomery Inns? Marnie had always thought that Victor was jumping at shadows, that his paranoia over the embezzlement was playing tricks in his mind. Apparently she had been wrong.

“No one ‘spies’ for me.” But the look he sent her caused her to shiver.

“Yet.” Cold certainly settled in the pit of her stomach.

“Yet.”

Oh, God!
“But now you’re hoping that I’ll do your dirty work for you,” she guessed, sickened.

“Of course not.”

“I won’t betray my own father!”

He tugged at her arm, so swiftly she didn’t see him move. Dragging her close so that his nose was touching hers, he growled, “Let’s get a couple of things straight, Marnie. I’m not asking you to betray anyone or spy on anyone. And I’m not going to put either your personal career or your physical well-being in jeopardy. That’s not the way I work. Whether you believe me or not, I don’t expect you to plunder the company files, or sabotage the computer system, or be involved in any other corporate espionage b.s.”

She gulped, but managed to meet his gaze with her own. “Then what is it you want from me?”

“Nothing,” he ground out, then swore loudly and violently. “Or everything. I can’t decide which.” His gaze burned like molten gold as he glared down at her. “Damn it, Marnie, you’ve got me so messed up, sometimes I don’t know up from sideways. But I do know this much. I have never,
never
wanted a woman the way I want you!”

“And it frightens you,” she surmised with sudden clarity.

“It scares the living hell out of me!”

His fingers tangled in the pale strands of her hair, and his lips descended upon hers skillfully. He groaned as he felt her yield and give herself to him. She wound her arms around his neck and, lifting her face from his, managed a tremulous smile. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. If not more. “What’re we gonna do about this?” she wondered aloud, breathless.

“Give me twenty minutes, and I’ll show you,” he vowed, reaching behind him and unlocking the doors.

“That quick?”

His grin turned wicked. “Or two hours. Your choice, Miss Montgomery. Your every wish is my command.”

Once inside, he carried her into the bedroom and laid her gently on the bed. Marnie quivered as he kissed her, removing clothing and brushing his lips intimately against her skin.

She was on fire. All the emotions of the last few weeks running rampant through her willing body. Her skin aflame, her breasts aching for his touch, her lips anxious as they melded to his.

He took his time with her, touching her and running his hands and mouth against her skin, teasing her and waiting until she was ready, until she took his hand and pressed it to her breast, until she felt as if the hot, aching vortex within her would be forever empty.

Stripping him of his clothes, she closed her mind to all doubts, opened her eyes and watched as slowly his hard body found hers. She gasped at his entrance, and words of love sprouted to her lips, only to be lost as he began to move and she could no longer control her tongue or voice.