mouth.
Taking a step back, she gained the space she needed desperately. To breathe. To gather her scattered wits. To calm her jangled nerves. A shaking hand clenched at her side as she struggled for the dignity to play the gracious hostess. Slowly, one long breath at a time, she found the grace. “I believe I would like a glass of wine, to celebrate an unbroken window.” Her smile was genial, a little mischievous, and only she knew it was complete bravado. “Would you join me?”
He wanted to reach for her, to clasp her wrists and bring her back to him, but he dared not. It was too soon, and something had disturbed her. Just when she’d begun to relax, a strange look flickered in her eyes, her wonderful changeable eyes, and she had drawn away.
She wasn’t going to be easy. But nothing about Nicole had ever been.
Jeb flexed a tired shoulder, and only then realized how tense he was. Tony Callison was nowhere around, and still he was as taut and grim as death. Was it any wonder she was disturbed? “I’d like very much to join you, Nicole.” He returned her smile ruefully. “Maybe a glass of wine is what we both need.”
She showed him to a small table that looked out at the courtyard, before folding back the screen that concealed a minuscule kitchen alcove. With nervous moves she collected a decanter and slender goblets, setting them on a tray with a plate of benne seed wafers. The day had been a roller coaster, with one sensation after another tearing at her. When she sat across from him, sipping wine the taste and color of peaches, she was still skittish. Vulnerable.
Vulnerable enough to make thoughtless mistakes, to tell the truth when she meant to lie.
“So tell me, why were you so surprised to see me today?” Jeb turned his glass on the table, his fingers spinning the delicate stem as he watched the undulations of the rosy liquid against crystal. Lifting his head, he met her gaze. “Didn’t you know I would come?”
Rain drummed on the roof and dripped from the eaves. Blooms flanking the garden wall bowed drenched heads to the ground. Lightning flashed, turning the courtyard neon bright, and the low lament of thunder faded before she answered. “I wasn’t sure you would want to, not when you had time for second thoughts.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Jeb took her glass from her, folding her hand into his.
“Have you forgotten what an awful pest I was? You could hardly turn around without tripping over me.”
“Was that you?” Jeb grimaced in mock surprise. “I thought it was my shadow.”
“Sure, with wild, shaggy hair, and glasses perched eternally on the end of her nose. Its nose.”
Jeb reached across the table to slide a finger beneath a lock of her hair, tucking it behind her ear as he’d seen her do. He remembered when he used to ruffle it to a tousled mass. Now it was sleek, smooth, silky to his touch. “Nothing this beautiful could ever have been ugly.”
“I refuse to show you the photographs that would prove you wrong.”
Ignoring her disclaimer, he tapped her nose. “I have to admit I never knew what a shame it was to hide this under those heavy glasses. And your eyes? You can’t expect me to believe I’m the first man to tell you how wonderful they are.”
“Contacts.”
“No, Nicky, not the contacts. Your eyes. You.”
Nicole muttered a derisive non sequitur and tried to take back her hand. He refused, holding her fast as he leaned back in his chair, looking at her as a man would look at a beautiful woman. As she’d always wanted him to look at her.
His thumb stroked the rushing pulse at her wrist. There was tenderness in his eyes, and in his smile.
“Friends?” he asked softly.
The rain slowed, then stopped. It was so quiet she could almost believe there was only this. A quiet little world, no fears, no demons. One woman. One man.
Jeb.
Over their linked fingers she smiled back at him, her eyes never leaving his. As softly as he, she murmured, “Yes.”
Then she laughed, a happy sound. Perhaps it was because he called her Nicky. Or the outrageous compliments. Or that he’d been kind.
Or even that for no reason at all, she simply wanted to laugh.
Three
Live oaks whispered in the wind. Somewhere across the bay a halyard rapped against an aluminum mast. Ships creaked with the tide, straining against their mooring. The marina had bedded down, the most dedicated reveler long in his bunk. Beneath the familiar clatter a profound stillness gathered in the hours that belonged to the night.
Jeb sat in the darkness, head back, eyes closed, listening to the distant crash of the surf. Below deck Mitch Ryan groused softly to himself as he finished an unexpected chore.
He would have helped with the chore, even welcomed mind-numbing labor. But Mitch had cast an appraising look over him, then said no. And Jeb was left to his thoughts.
Damnable thoughts he couldn’t escape.
“Done!” Mitch stepped onto the deck, scrubbing his hands with a cloth reeking of oil. “Good as new.” Dragging a match over a brad on his jeans, he stared at its flaring, charring head then dropped it down the globe of a hurricane lamp. In a second he was sprawled in a chair with a groan that welcomed the easing of cramped muscles.
Neither of them spoke as fire hissed and coughed, flickered, then caught the wick in a spurt of yellow flame. The light was a feeble pinpoint beneath a lightless canopy, yet enough that Jeb saw fatigue etched on the younger man’s haggard features. The utter weariness his nonchalance couldn’t mask.
This little difficulty with the engine hadn’t taken long. Not for Mitch. Never for Mitch, who knew engines—cars, boats, any sort—as well as he knew people. The problem was timing, that it had come at the close of a twenty hour day. Jeb suspected there had been and would be more such days.
“Have you slept?” he asked almost to himself, more thoughtful observation than question. “Do you ever sleep, Mitchell Ryan?”
Mitch looked up, his auburn hair stained by sweat. Eyes like sherry, strained and irritated by engine fumes, locked with gray. “Do you, Cap?” His question, as Jeb’s, was little more than a thought spoken aloud. “Have you?”
Jeb settled deeper into his chair. After a while he sighed and shrugged. He hadn’t slept. He wondered when he would again.
He’d returned from Charleston, then spent the evening searching through Nicole’s dossier looking for something he might have missed. Anything that would explain her.
An hour past midnight Simon had called, and his last hope for sleep was gone. Tony Callison had killed again.
A little girl. Thirteen, pretty, quiet. A dedicated student, a long-distance runner training for varsity track. A child much loved, with a lot to live for. Julie, who was never late. Julie, the paradigm of dependability. Julie, too kindhearted to worry her disabled father. He reported her missing at eight o’clock in the evening, two hours after she should
