His grasp had a definite biting quality. He was strong, or, at least, stronger than she was.
Cindy had been right. She shouldn’t have come here. Alone. At night.
Alone at any time, she thought.
She wanted to remain calm and rational; she also wanted to scream and jerk away from him. She tried to remember all the movies she had seen, all the programs she had watched about dealing with dangerous situations. Don’t show fear? Or scream like blue blazes, push away with all her strength and run like the wind?
She didn’t have to make a decision. She heard the slamming of a car door and a man’s voice. “Hey, what’s going on there?”
Latham’s hand fell from her shoulder. They both recognized the voice. Latham shook his head with disgust, his eyes moving from the newcomer back to Kelsey once again. “There he is, the big military man, ready to knock my lights out,” he said. “I wasn’t about to hurt you, little girl. And you want to know where Sheila is? Ask her good buddy, the half-breed coming up the walk.”
She’d known from hearing him, without turning, that Dane Whitelaw had arrived. She’d been relieved.
But Latham’s words gave her a chill.
She turned, Latham’s words echoing in her mind. “You want to know where Sheila is? Ask her good buddy, the half-breed coming up the walk.”
Dane was coming up the path. He wasn’t looking at Kelsey; he was staring at Latham.
His hair was combed back, freshly washed, a little long at the collar, but off his face now. He was in khakis and a short-sleeved blue tailored shirt. Dane wasn’t exactly a half-breed. His grandfather had been a Miccosukee Indian who had married a Swedish tourist. The two had set up shop in the Keys, died together in an automobile accident and left his father with ownership of Hurricane Bay. His dad had made a career out of the military, retired, turned to fishing off his peaceful property for an extra income, and then married Mary Smith, a woman who could claim ancestors all the way back to the Mayflower. Kelsey could just barely remember Dane’s mother. She had welcomed every kid in the world into their house. She had been quick to laugh, to entertain, to love children. She had wanted twenty, she had told them once. At least a dozen little sisters and brothers for Dane. But both she and Dane’s father had married late in life, and complications had set in when she’d finally gotten pregnant again just before Dane’s tenth birthday. She had died months before the baby was due. Dane’s father had never remarried. He had always been a wonderful man when the kids were around, but he had seldom left his own little island, except to sell his catch.
Dane Whitelaw seemed to have inherited the best to be had from his background. He had dark eyes, a chiseled face with slightly broad cheekbones, dark-wheat-colored hair that was always sun-bleached to a lighter shade, and the height and stance of a Viking. She had adored him growing up. He’d been her brother’s best friend. But then Joe had been killed, and their little world had changed for everyone.
Dane reached the open doorway, still staring pointedly at Andy Latham. His dark gaze had never wavered once.
“What the hell are you doing here, Whitelaw?” Latham asked.
“I was in the neighborhood,” Dane said, an obvious lie. There was nothing in the immediate neighborhood that could have drawn him.
“You’re trespassing on my property.”
“Don’t worry. I’m getting off it.” He stared at Kelsey.
She was tempted to stay just because she didn’t want Dane helping her, not when he was top on her list of…well, not suspects, but highly suspicious people. And not when he had been such an ass that afternoon. Maybe she had approached him badly. But he should have cared. He should at least have frowned with worry and tried to say something good about Sheila.
Then again, maybe she just disliked Dane because of what had happened after Joe had died.
“Kelsey, were you staying?” Dane asked when she didn’t move.
“No, I have a dinner engagement,” she said.
She turned to walk down the overgrown path, certain this time that creepy things were touching her flesh when the overgrown brush swept over her legs.
She reached her own car. Dane was right behind her, Andy Latham still standing at his door. Dane waited until she had gotten in the driver’s seat, closed her door and started the engine.
Then he walked to his own car, a Jeep with oversize tires. Necessary, she knew, for living out on Hurricane Bay. The road to the little island was private, not state or county. Dane’s grandfather had built it; his father had improved it. Now Dane kept it up. It still wasn’t much of a road. During a heavy rain season or after a storm, it was often underwater, sometimes so deep that the only way on or off the island was by boat.
Dane started up his car but didn’t start moving until she did. She drove away with Dane just a short distance behind her.
In the rearview mirror, she could see that Latham was still standing in his doorway. Watching.
Andy Latham muttered as he watched the cars go. Then he walked back into his house, cursing his stepdaughter and her friends. In the kitchen, he reached into the refrigerator for another beer. There was a big fat palmetto bug, a winged cockroach, sitting right next to his beer, waving his antennae.
He cursed the cockroach and reached for the can, then splatted it down on the roach before the filthy creature had a chance to move.
He thought about cleaning the carcass out of the refrigerator, but it seemed like too much of a project for the moment. He hadn’t really wanted another beer; he’d wanted to get going. He liked nightlife. No, he loved nightlife. Nightlife took him away from his hell of an existence and made him feel like a man. He’d been ready to go when Sheila’s little buddy had shown up. Kelsey.
Drinking his beer, he decided to make a pit stop. In the mirror over the sink, he surveyed his features. Good. He was still looking pretty good. He really wasn’t old at all; those kids just didn’t realize it, because he had made the mistake of marrying an older woman.
Well, she’d had some money. A virtue. She’d had her faults, as well. A hell of a lot of them. Who would have thought that she considered herself a match for any man?
And worse, who would have thought she’d leave the money tied up in a trust that could only be accessed little by little, and then only by him and Sheila at the same time.
He picked up the comb sitting on the sink and ran it through his hair. The face that greeted him in the mirror pleased him. He had good features and fine eyes. His skin was tanned and creased, but women seemed to like the weathered look. He was built just fine. Not muscle-bound, but tight as piano wire. Sleek, hard-toned. He was in good physical shape. The whole package was still just fine.
Funny. Once upon a time he’d had a thing for older women.
Now he liked them younger.
Yep, that Kelsey was looking darned good. Too bad he’d been saddled with Sheila. The girl had poisoned everyone against him. Hell, if it hadn’t been for Sheila, he might not have known Kelsey at all as a kid. Who knows? She might have let him buy
