Power of muscle and sinew, certainly, but, more potently, power of command, coupled with an almost unholy force of personality.
Here was a man who didn’t understand fear and would never bow before it, but he was not dangerous or violent. Madeleine knew these things at once—partly because he didn’t so much as flinch at the sight of a large, bristling dog charging up to him, and partly because, after a suitable sniffing of his ankles, Peg Leg signified her approval by allowing him to scratch behind her ears.
Andy wasn’t so easily won over. ‘Nice morning,’ he said, civilly enough, but the hand resting on the holster at his hip was anything but friendly.
Still not the least bit intimidated, the stranger merely nodded. ‘Very,’ he agreed, his gaze flicking briefly, dismissively, over Andy before returning to Madeleine with curious intensity.
Still helpless to look away, Madeleine gazed back, her heart stalling and racing erratically.
Beside her, Andy let out an irritable ‘Ahem!’ and planted one boot on the top step. ‘Great day for fishing,’ he observed. ‘Anything biting?’
The stranger shrugged. ‘Search me.’
Andy sounded as if he’d like nothing better. ‘You’re not here to fish, then?’
Sparkling with amusement, the blue eyes swivelled from Madeleine to encompass Andy’s stony features. ‘No. Are you?’ the stranger taunted.
A faint flush ran along Andy’s cheekbones. ‘Perhaps. I’m Officer Latham, Edgewater Police Department.’
‘Congratulations,’ the man replied insolently, his amusement speeding to the corners of a mouth that looked as if it was having a hard time not openly laughing.
Andy turned quite red at that. ‘I didn’t catch your name.’
‘Probably because I didn’t throw it out. Since you appear to be so interested, however, it’s Hamilton. Nick Hamilton.’
‘If you’re not here to fish, why are you here?’
Nick Hamilton’s raised eyebrows suggested it was none of Andy’s business, but he chose not to voice the opinion. Instead, tapped at the camera slung around his neck. ‘Photography. I’m a bird-watcher.’
‘You’re not local.’
It was as much an accusation as a statement, a fact which prompted Nick Hamilton to restore his attention to Madeleine. Once again, that amused insolence baited a man who was truly one of Edgewater’s finest. ‘No,’ Nick Hamilton agreed, bathing Madeleine in a conspiratorial smile. ‘Is that against the law, Officer?’
‘Not necessarily,’ Andy snapped, stepping protectively closer to Madeleine.
Nick Hamilton didn’t miss the move. His gaze narrowed. ‘Ah, I see,’ he murmured ambiguously. ‘I’m trespassing on someone else’s property and in danger of being arrested if I don’t move on?’
‘No.’ Andy seethed in frustration.
‘In that case…’ Smiling broadly, Nick Hamilton shrugged his formidable shoulders and strolled away across the fractured paving-stones of the lower terrace. Raising his camera, he focused the lens on a flock of seagulls circling and squawking a few yards out to sea.
But Madeleine continued to stare at him, fascinated. He had the voice of a late-night disc jockey—smoky, sexy, alluring. And devastating bedroom eyes—also smoky, sexy and alluring. A thatch of dark, unruly hair. A mouth that had her swallowing to ease the persistent dryness in her own throat. A smile so potent that she almost melted in its warmth.
Andy would probably arrest her if he knew what she was thinking!
‘He seems harmless enough,’ she muttered in a cracked voice. ‘I think you can leave me with an easy mind, Andy.’
‘I don’t.’ Andy glared at the stranger with cold suspicion. ‘I’d bet my last dollar that that guy’s no more a bird-watcher than I am.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Gut instinct, Madeleine. And I’ve been on the force long enough to trust my instincts—plus the fact that no bona fide bird-watcher would waste time or film on common seagulls when there are colonies of bald eagles and blue herons not half a mile away.’ He sighed and touched her elbow. ‘I don’t suppose I can convince you to stay away from the beach until I’ve had a chance to check him out?’
‘You suppose right,’ Madeleine said, at last recovering something of her poise, ‘but, if it’ll make you feel better, I promise I’ll call you at the station when I get home.’
‘Make sure you do. I’ll be waiting to hear from you. And don’t forget we have a date tomorrow night.’
Madeleine sighed, mildly irritated that, like too many other people around town, Andy insisted on acting as if she needed a keeper—as if, because she’d been fooled once by a man, her perceptions were permanently impaired. Would she never be allowed to forget one bad judgement call?
‘Quite the knight in navy armor,’ a voice at her shoulder remarked drily, as Andy strode back the way he’d come. ‘Does he have a white horse waiting to transport him back to duty?’
Madeleine realized that, far from concentrating on his bird photography, Nick Hamilton had witnessed the entire exchange between her and Andy, although she couldn’t be sure he’d been able to hear what had been said over the rush of the surf. ‘About two hundred horses, actually, contained under the hood of a car painted dark blue to match his uniform,’ she replied, loyalty to Andy compelling her to hand back to the stranger a taste of his own sardonic medicine. ‘He’s a very capable police officer, and you were unkind to tease him like that.’
‘I suppose I was.’ But the admission didn’t wring forth any indication of remorse. Indeed, the little smile tilting the corners of Nick Hamilton’s mouth suggested that he was quite pleased with himself. He bent down to fondle Peg Leg’s soft ears, then straightened up and subjected Madeleine to another thorough examination. ‘You live around here?’ he asked, squinting against the sun.
‘About a quarter of a mile down the beach.’ She pointed. ‘You can just see the chimneys sticking up above the dunes.’
‘By yourself?’
She hesitated, torn between truth and evasion. ‘Not quite.’
He saw through that little subterfuge in a flash. ‘Just you and your dog, you mean?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted, and tried deflecting his curiosity by firing a question of her own. ‘What about you? I think we’ve already established that you’re not local, so where are you from?’
His glance slid away, over the sea to the horizon, where a cluster of small islands floated in the morning mist. ‘Down south,’ he said vaguely, and from that she assumed that he meant that he was American, not Canadian.
‘How did you find this spot? It’s not on any of the maps.’
‘You’re beginning to sound like your blue-uniformed friend,’ he chided her softly. ‘Will it help ease your mind to know that
