The Bliss Factor (19 page)

“I don’t know,” Kemp groaned out. “Harry is the only one who talks to the boss.”

Conn mulled that for a moment. “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”

“I think Harry is the brains of the outfit,” Rae said. She ambled over to Kemp, prodding him with her foot on his thigh, dangerously close to familiar territory. “How did you find us?”

“OnStar,” Kemp said, his voice almost back down to a normal octave. “We saw you take off in the old guy’s Caddy. Harry has some contacts and he managed to keep tabs on you. We stayed far enough back so you wouldn’t spot the Honda, and here we are.”

“That’s probably all we’re going to get out of him,” Rae said to Conn.

Conn pointed to the back of the boat. “Go sit back there,” he instructed Kemp, “and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll take the return trip.”

“Sure,” Kemp said, “but it won’t do you any good. Harry isn’t going to give up until he does what he has to do.” He looked at Rae. His expression could best be described as avid. “And I’m going to enjoy helping him.”

CONN AND RAE MADE THE REST OF THE FERRY
ride on the top deck, snuggled together to conserve body heat. Kemp was huddled alone in the front of the boat, sitting on the deck with his back against the railing. Where he could keep an eye on Rae’s feet.

When they docked at Mackinac Island, Rae and Conn disembarked. Kemp was still on board when it left for the mainland again, and since there wouldn’t be another ferry that night, Rae relaxed for the first time in three days. It didn’t last long.

As they walked away from the dock, Conn slung an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his side.

“For warmth,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” Rae said back, but she didn’t shove him off. Because she
was
cold.

And Conn was just trying to help. That’s why he was holding her so closely. If his attitude had changed, if he was . . . a little overly protective since he’d seen Kemp threatening her, it was just her imagination. He’d always been solicitous, after all.

Not that she was complaining—well, her conscience was kicking up a bit of a fuss, and that annoying little voice of caution was yammering at her. But she’d decided to ignore both, and just bask. It had been a long time since she’d been in a relationship, let alone one that grew close enough for this kind of intimacy, and she didn’t mean sex. It was amazing to spend time with someone and not feel a need to talk, to just . . . be. And sure it had only been three days, but she was never again going to scoff at one of those movie heroines for getting involved with a man too fast. There was something about danger that made you stop worrying and overthinking, that allowed you to just be in the moment. And in this moment, she was enjoying herself and damn the consequences.

Conn wasn’t as sanguine about the future, at least the immediate future, which was as far ahead as he thought. “They’ll be waiting for us when we get back,” he said.

“They know we’ll be prepared for them today. Tomorrow is another story.”

“Tomorrow we can take the ferry to St. Ignace. It’s over there.” Rae pointed northwest, in the general direction of the other city that serviced the island. “The Upper Peninsula.”

Conn shrugged off the matter of geography, but it was a tight, edgy imitation of his usual brush-off. “They can split their forces.”

“I’m not sure Harry will let the other two out of his sight for that long. Although Kemp does follow instructions pretty well.”

That earned her a slight smile, a little squeeze going along with it. “He’s no match for you.”

Rae smiled back, but she wasn’t all that confident. “Next time he won’t get that close.” Heck, next time he’d probably bring a weapon. But she’d worry about that next time.

“Necessities,” she said when they came out onto the main street. She looked left and right, found what she wanted, and set off in that direction, Conn following along. “It’s an ATM, Automated Teller.”

“We had those at the faire,” he said, standing aside while she fed her card in and punched buttons. “Why do you need so much money?”

“Tipping, ferry tickets, in case you get hungry.” She took out the maximum, and retrieved the receipt and her card.

She’d be broke in no time if this kept up. Especially if she lost her job. And she wasn’t thinking about that either, Rae decided. There was nothing she could do about it, so driving herself crazy was foolish.

Philosophy by Larkin
. She slid a glance at Conn, but the grim amusement she felt was for herself. Her mother had been trying Rae’s entire life to get her to adopt a more relaxed outlook. Conn had accomplished it in three days. Rae would have gotten a good laugh about it if she didn’t know it was exactly what her mother had been hoping when she’d saddled her with him.

In any other small town she’d have visited the Chamber of Commerce next, but since the day she’d settled in Michigan, she’d heard about the Grand Hotel. She’d always wanted to stay there, and it offered the added bonus of limiting access to those with reservations. Not that she thought private grounds and a dress code would keep Harry and company out if they really wanted to get in; the place probably wasn’t run like Fort Knox. But it would be more difficult, at least.

She made a phone call and secured a reservation at the Grand, not difficult considering the thinness of the tourist crowds and the rates, which ranged in price from a couple hundred dollars per person per night for an interior room with no windows, to a four-bedroom cottage that started at fifty-eight thousand dollars a month. But at least there were perks.

“Good news,” for Conn anyway, “the reservation includes dinner and breakfast.”

His stomach growled right on cue. “What are we waiting for?”

“The proper wardrobe, and the only place to get it without knowing the town is up there.” She pointed to the hotel.

The Grand Hotel occupied a high bluff overlooking the Straits of Mackinac, with the commercial section of town stretched out down the hill to the east, and the hotel’s nine-hole golf course filling the vee between the two.

The hotel had hosted five U.S. Presidents, two movie crews, and countless celebrities and other persons of note in its three hundred eighty-five rooms, no two of which were decorated alike.

They walked up the hill to the point where the road was blocked off, and waited until their reservation was verified and they were politely reminded of the evening dress code in force for all areas of the hotel. Rae followed Conn up the steps to the front porch, stretching six hundred and sixty feet along the front of the hotel behind columns that soared three stories to the overhanging top floor. Planters ran the entire length of the porch, filled with geraniums fading with the season.

They didn’t take the time to enjoy the flowers or the porch, or the view out over the Straits of Mackinac. Clothes were the first order of business, and only because they needed the clothes to get warm and fed, and, at least on Rae’s part, to find an escape from the mental exhaustion. She was tired of being chased by bad guys, and she hated what it was doing to her. Even if Kemp had deserved what he’d gotten.

They hit the gift shop, or maybe it would be more accurate to say the gift shop hit her, right in the credit card. She had to take several deep breaths when she sneaked a peek at the price tags, but seeing Conn in dress slacks and shirt, a jacket and tie, was worth it, especially when they arrived at the doorway of the dining room. All eyes in the room, men and women, were glued to him. He had a presence that was undeniable. Too bad he was a loon, and she wasn’t just talking about the amnesia. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t turn out to be a gypsy like her parents, but spies were another kind of gypsy entirely, and not the harmless kind, so she had even less chance of a future with him..

And she was getting so far ahead of herself Einstein would want to study her.

“Why are you smiling?” he asked her.

“I may be paying this off for the next year, but it’s almost worth it.”

Conn leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I can take the almost out of that statement.”

“That’s some ego you’ve got there, Robin Hood.”

“I’ve never had any complaints.”

“That’s either a sign of your memory coming back, or just the typical male delusion that you’re all gods between the sheets.”

He frowned. “It’s not my memory.”

“Then you might have had complaints,” she teased.

“Perhaps, but that was the past. What counts is now.”

Great, he was probably a womanizer, too—a world-traveling spy with a God complex where women were concerned and a need to prove it continually.
That might be ungracious, but he’d kissed her when she’d been a complete stranger. And he hadn’t touched her since, at least not with that kind of intent. “I think I’m safe,” she said.

“Do you?”

She met his eyes again and felt like she’d caught on fire. She was on the verge of asking him how hungry he was when the hostess showed up and planted herself in front of Conn.

“The dining room is crowded tonight,” she said to him.

Rae tipped her head to look around the doorway. Maybe five tables were occupied in a room that held at least thirty.

“Maybe you’d prefer room service,” the hostess said, dropping her voice, and her eyes. The only thing that could’ve made it more suggestive would be if she’d handed him a room key and offered to bring the food herself.

And then she took a step back and started to babble, her eyes going wide. Rae took one look at Conn’s face and nearly took a step back herself.

“If you are offering an apology,” he said to the hostess, “it should not be to me.”

She turned to Rae, her mouth dropping open. “Oh, my gosh, I didn’t even see you there. I’m so sorry.”

“Never mind,” Rae said, “it’s understandable.”

“Thank you,” the hostess said, careful to keep her eyes off Conn as she led them to a table. “I really am sorry,” she added before she left them. “I’d tell you it’s because I’ve been stuck on this island all summer with the same handful of eligible bachelors, but honey, you don’t have to be stuck on an island to appreciate him.”

No, but being stuck with him made the island seem a whole lot smaller.

It was a good thing the meal plan was included because Conn ate everything in sight, including most of Rae’s meal when she pushed it aside, too tied up in knots to do more than pick at it.

“Something ails you?” he asked her.

“Just nerves, I guess.”

“Harry?”

Conn
, she thought, even as she nodded because his assumption was easier than the truth, and then she blurted out, “I only got one room,” before she could stop herself, hoist on her own petard because of that damned honesty her parents had drummed into her.

Conn smiled, slow and easy. And suggestively. “Don’t get the wrong idea,” she said. “I don’t have . . . designs on you.”

Although if it felt this warm in the dining room when he was only smiling at her, she could imagine what it would be like in a room with a bed—and not because of his mouth, or his hands, or his body. Well, not only because of those things. It was Conn, who he was inside, calm and centered. Even when they were in danger there was a quietness about him, a confidence that made her feel secure, while she second-guessed everything, every decision . . .

“I can get another room—”

“No. It would be a mistake for us to separate.”

“That’s what I expected you to say, but I think—”

“You think too much,” he said, so completely in synch with her thought process it scared the hell out of her.

How did you fight someone who seemed to be inside your own mind? “What I’m thinking about right now is taking a walk on the beach,” she said, because what she needed most at the moment was distance, and if she couldn’t get that, she’d settle for a distraction.

“It’s cold out there,” Conn reminded her.

“Exactly.”

Even if Conn would have let her walk on a wide-open, unprotected beach, the closest thing the island boasted was a rocky shoreline, and that was quite a hike from the hotel. He was okay with a visit to the wide front porch. It didn’t help. Neither did watching television, or reading, or taking a shower. And Conn wouldn’t let her get another room. Harry was getting desperate, he said, and even though there was almost no chance Harry swam to shore or managed to find an alternate way to get to the island after dark, Conn wasn’t letting her out of his sight. Considering the fact that neither of them had gotten a wink of sleep so far, let alone closed their eyes, he was as good as his word.

Rae stood at the window, gazing out over the water. No big-city light pollution stained the night sky, and since the clouds had blown out when the cold front came in, it seemed like the entire Milky Way was visible.

Conn came to stand at the other side of the window, and she blinked because for a moment he was washed in that silver light. The whole knight-in-shining-armor thing flashed across her mind and she didn’t roll her eyes. She didn’t feel like an idiot for not rolling her eyes, either. Considering the upheaval inside her there wasn’t a whole lot of room left over for feeling like an idiot. But she was pretty sure that wouldn’t last long.

Conn hadn’t said a word, he hadn’t even looked at her. But she wanted him to. She wanted him to do more than look. She wanted him to touch her, and to know what it did to her when he put his hands on her. She wanted to touch him back, with more than just her hands, to feel him against her, bare skin to bare skin, to lose her breath and let her mind blur and her bones melt. She wanted his arms around her and his mouth on hers, she wanted him inside her, to be as close to him as she could get, for as long as she could have him.

It wasn’t the cautious choice, or the wise one. It wasn’t even a choice, she realized. It was a chance. The only one she was going to get. They didn’t have a future. All they had was now, and now was only going to last until he got his memory back.