and shrubs, huge stone urns of colorful flowers and life-size statues of elephants and water buffalo.
“As a matter of fact, it’s thanks to Jonathan that I’m in Thailand,” he said at last.
“Did he vacation here, and then entice you with tales of his travels?”
“Not exactly.”
She waited, assuming he would tell her more.
He did.
“I don’t know the whole story,” Simon began. “I don’t think anyone does, with the exception of Jonathan, and he’s real closemouthed about it. All I heard is that his old nemesis finally caught up with him in a back alley here in Bangkok several years ago. Jonathan was fished out of the khlongs the next morning by a friendly local, and spent a month in the hospital recuperating from his dip in the canals.”
Sunday was stunned. “Someone beat him up?”
“Somebody beat him to a bloody pulp.” Simon paused and stared off into the distance. There was something implacable about the way he stood there, something unnerving in his eyes and in the square set of his jaw. She wouldn’t want to be this man’s enemy. She wouldn’t want to be Jonathan Hazard’s old nemesis, if Simon ever caught up with him. “Not literally to a bloody pulp,” he said finally. “There wasn’t a visible scratch on him. All his injuries were internal.”
She tried to swallow and found it impossible. “He must have been badly hurt.”
“He was half-dead.” Simon shook his head from side to side. “Make that closer to three-quarters.”
“Is Jonathan all right now?”
“Good as gold. Right as rain. Has been for ages.”
She was relieved.
“Anyway, what impressed him about Thailand was the warmth and hospitality of its people. He wasn’t used to that in his line of work.”
Sunday’s hand fluttered to her breast. “Is Jonathan—” she lowered her voice to a whisper “—a spy?”
“Was.” Simon walked on. “At least, that’s the rumor.”
“He’s your nephew and you don’t know for certain.”
“I never asked. He never said.”
“Men!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Even if she tried to explain it, he would never understand. Sunday threw up her hands. “Men!”
* * *
Simon wasn’t sure when he first became aware that they were being followed. It had started with a slight niggling sensation at the back of his neck, a mere pinprick of awareness.
Instinct.
The men in his family had an instinct for trouble. It was a kind of sixth sense, an inexplicable talent for spotting a disaster before it happened. Maybe it was the reason so many of them had made danger their business.
By the time they’d left the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, Simon was certain.
Three paces behind them.
Small wiry man.
Thai.
Dressed in dark trousers, white shirt, brown sandals.
Black hair. Black eyes. Nondescript features. Nevertheless, Simon had seen him somewhere before.
The Celestial Palace.
“Damn!” he swore, making a production of removing his hat, taking a linen handkerchief from his back pocket and mopping the perspiration from his forehead.
“It’s hot, isn’t it?” Sunday remarked, retrieving a tissue from her handbag and blotting her upper lip.
“Yes. Let’s grab some shade,” he suggested, reaching for her hand and urging her toward a stone bench beneath a copse of trees. He wanted to see what the man shadowing them would do next.
“I thought I knew everything there was to know about what heat and humidity can do to a woman’s disposition, but I was wrong,” Sunday said, taking a silk fan from her handbag.
She waved the fan back and forth in front of her. It created a slight breeze that carried her scent to his nostrils.
Simon breathed in deeply. Sunday Harrington smelled of exotic incense, tropical heat, warm silk and...roses, of all things. It took a great deal of self-control—more than he thought he had, for a minute—not to bend over and nuzzle her neck, or to bury his face in the inviting cleavage between her breasts.
Son-of-a-gun! Maybe he’d been gone from home too long. Maybe his vow of celibacy, however temporary or sensible under the circumstances—he was living like a Buddhist Monk—was backfiring after more than a year. One thing was certain: he’d better get a grip on himself.
“I promise it will be cooler up in the mountains,” Simon said, clearing his throat.
“I hope so.”
He was aware that she sat there quietly, calmly, observing everything around her. She had the ability to sit utterly still, to simply be. It wasn’t a trait he often saw in Westerners.
He was also aware of their shadow. The man had paused some twenty feet away and was making a pretense of studying the rock garden.
“It’s very peaceful here,” Sunday finally said.
“Beneath the noise, the pollution, the traffic of Bangkok, there is a sense of serenity. Most people believe it’s the calming influence of Buddhism.” Simon removed his cap again and ran his fingers through his hair. “However, appearances can sometimes be deceiving.”
“Everything isn’t always what it seems to be.”
“Or everyone,” he suggested.
“You mean like the man who’s been tailing us since we left the Celestial Palace?”
He was taken aback. “How did you know?”
“For our own safety, we women have had to develop a sixth sense about that kind of thing,” she said. “I must say, he looks harmless enough. I wonder what he wants.”
“Probably your handbag.”
“I can’t imagine why. It doesn’t match his outfit,” she teased, flashing him a smile.
“Here he comes. I’ll do the talking. You keep an eye on your purse,” Simon warned.
“I hardly think a purse snatcher would try to strike up a conversation first,” she said.
The man halted several feet from them. He bowed politely and said to Simon in excellent English, “If you were guests in my humble home, I would
