“You’re around for a little while longer, right?” she inquired softly, hoping he understood her signals. I’m interested, but it’s been a very long and strange day….
“I can arrange to be around for a very, very long time,” he told her. Then he grinned. “I’d like to come in. But I understand perfectly. Okay, well, not perfectly, and I am disappointed, wishing I could be sleeping with you tonight.”
She felt a flush touch her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to…lead you on, to suggest…”
“You didn’t. You’re just the most fascinating woman I’ve met in aeons, and…hell, good night. I’ll be around.”
“I—well, I know you’ve been talking to David. We are divorced. There’s just some ridiculous technicality.”
“I’m not worried about a technicality,” he told her.
“Neither am I.”
“But I will step back if the technicality isn’t just on paper, if it’s something a lot deeper.”
His words made her like him all the more. He wasn’t about to step into the middle of a triangle, or be second-string to any other man.
“It’s only a technicality—really.” She meant to sound sincere. She wasn’t sure if she really was or not. And she wasn’t sure what he heard in her denial.
“Well…” he murmured.
He drew her to him, kissed her forehead. Then he walked down the steps, and started back along the foliage-bordered path.
She watched him disappear, realized she hadn’t opened her door, and felt the pressure of the night and the shadows again. She quickly slid her key into the bolt for the glass doors, then stepped inside, feeling a rise of anger. She had never felt afraid here before, ever.
And now…
Though the image had faded for a moment due to skepticism and doubt, she could now vividly recall the corpse on the beach. A corpse that had disappeared.
She locked the door, making certain it was secure; then, still feeling an almost panicky unease, she walked through the little Florida room, kitchen and living room, assuring herself that windows were tightly closed and the front door was locked.
Damn David a million times over for both the trials haunting her tonight. If it hadn’t been for him, John Seymore would be inside with her. Then she wouldn’t be afraid of the shadows, or the memories stirring in her mind.
She slipped through the hallway to the first of the two bedrooms in the cottage, the one she used for an office area. She checked the window there and even opened the closet door.
David’s suggestion that she might be in danger seemed to be invading her every nerve. But the office was empty and secure.
Finally she went to her own room, found it safe, then prepared for bed and slipped under the covers. The night-light she kept on in the bathroom had always provided her with more than enough illumination, but tonight it only added to the shadows.
Usually the sound of the waves and the sea breeze rustling through the trees was soothing, but tonight…
She lay there for several seconds. Waves…breeze…palms. Foliage that seemed to whisper softly in the night, usually so pleasant…
A sudden thumping sound startled her so badly that she nearly screamed aloud. She did jump out of bed.
She’d heard a thump, as if something heavy had just landed on her roof.
She stood dead still, waiting. And waiting….
Nothing, no sound at all. Had she been deceived? The sound might have come from elsewhere….
Or might not have come at all.
She almost let out a loud sigh of pure frustration, but swallowed it back, and slowly, silently, tiptoed from her bedroom.
Into the hall…through to the kitchen. From there she could see both the living room and the little Florida room and the glass doors that led out back. The curtain was partially open. Had she left it that way?
The noise had come from the roof. There was a fireplace in the living area of each of the cottages. Despite the fact that this was sunny Florida, in the winter, during the few days that dipped into the forties or even the thirties, a fire was incredibly nice. But the chimney was far too small for a man to slip through.
So she was safe. There was nothing.
She was letting the simple sounds of nature slip into her psyche and scare her because she was still so unnerved by the happenings of the day.
A coconut had probably fallen off a palm. Still, just to be sure…
She walked to the back, trying to stay behind the curtain, then peeked out the glass. She pulled the drape back just a little more….
And screamed.
Chapter 4
Everyone was gone, Laurie thought. First Alex and John, then David. There were people around, but the Tiki Hut seemed empty. The band had reverted to calypso, very pleasant but also, in her current state of mind, sleep inducing.
Alex was crazy. She’d been married to David Denham and divorced him.
Alex had never been to Date Tournament. Had she realized what was out there, she would undoubtedly still be married.