Lethal Lover Part 3

Tess was flabbergasted by his actions and inflamed by his arrogance.

"Excuse me, but just what the h.e.l.l are you doing?" she demanded, coming up behind him with her hands on her hips. He was giving the bathroom such intense scrutiny that she figured if the shower curtain had been drawn he'd have pushed it open to search the tub as well.

He turned away from the bathroom and glanced at the two queen-size beds separated by a standard hotel nightstand.

"Nice room."

"You said that before."

His gaze wandered back to her and a bemused grin tugged at his mouth, aking her feel suddenly exposed in the sundress that had seemed perfectly appropriate until now.

"You always were the direct one, weren't you, Tessa?"

She started at the sound of the pet name no one had cfilled her in almost ten years.

"You're still impossible."

"And you're still ngry."

"Angry?" she muttered, detesting the way his mere presence had topplei.

her emotional equilibrium. "Now, what would give you that impression, McKenna? Let's see" -- Desperate for distance, she turned her back to him and stalked to the other side of the room.

"Someone I haven't laid eyes on in, what? Almost five years" -- When she turned around to face him again, he had dropped down into the wicker chair that sat beside the sliding gla.s.s doors.

"Four and a half years, at the airport in Denver," he supplied.

"You were on your way to see a sick relative."

"Am I supposed to be impressed that you remembered?"

He shrugged, but his expression told her he knew she was secretly pleased.

Inside she seethed, hating him for knowing her so well and despising the fact that he could still read her emotions so effortlessly.

"Where was IT' she said.

"Ah, yes, we were trying to-figure out why I should be angry with you for waltz' rag in without an iota of an explanation. And let's not forget the part about the wedding you Conveniently forgot to attend.

When was that, Reed, since you're the one who's so good at remembering?"

His smile had disappeared and his mouth was set in a tight line as he studied her.

"I see you can't rexaember. Well, let me refresh your memory. It was eight years ago, Reed. June 15th to be exact. Three days before" Her voice broke and she lowered her eyes to avoid looking at the face that would, if she stared at it long enough, eventually undo - her.

He stood and stared out at the beach.

"I was sorry to hear about your parents, Tess."

"I lost my sister, as well," she reminded him pointedly. Although she was dry-eyed, her heart ached.

"I know," he said quietly.

"And I'm sorry. Meredith was a good kid."

Tess felt her heart harden at the sound of her sister's name coming from his lips. How dare he? And how foolish was she to stand here jousting with the man who'd single-handedly destroyed her girlhood innocence and shattered her dreams?

Crossing the room purposefully, she jerked open the door and stood with one hand planted on each hip. "Angry? No, Rel, I'm not angry.

But I am a lot wiser than that- fawning nineteen-year-old you left standing at he alt3r." Her diatribe left her breathless and the flood of heat that rose to her cheeks left her feeling weak.

"I don't know why you're here, Reed, but I'm vacationing, and I know I'll enjoy myself a whole lot more if I just throw you out and pretend this little meeting never occurred. Now, if you'll excuse me," she finished with a flourish, "I'd appreciate it if you got the h.e.l.l out of my room and stayed the h.e.l.l out of the rest 'of my life!"

He stood staring at her for a long tense moment before he started toward the door. Tess held her breath, hardly daring to believe that he'd actually leave without a fight. The old Reed would never have backed down so easily. ' And neither would the new Reed, it seemed, for when he was directly in front of her, he surprised her by taking her hand and pulling her out of the doorway, before pus.h.i.+ng the door closed and leaning against it with his arms crossed over his broad chest.

"Where's Setena?" he asked, all pretense of word games abruptly ended.

"Selena?" Tess asked, unable to conceal her shock.

He nodded.

"You asked me what I was looking for: Well, I was looking for your cousin, Selena Elliot."

Tess blinked. To her knowledge her cousin and her ex-fiance had never met.

When Selena was growing up, she and her parents had lived in Denver, while Tess and Reed had grown up in the small mountain town of Evergreen some thirty miles west. She'd become involved with Reed McKenna her senior year and she had been working the year before starting college when he'd broken their engagement by suddenly, and without telling her, enlisting in the army.

It was only later, when she'd inadvertently discovered his betrayal, that Tess had finally learned the real reason Reed had left town.

"Where is she?" he asked, jolting Tess back to the present.

"Why do you want to know?" she shot back defensively. "What connection do you have to Se-lena?"

"I don't have any connection, not personally, anyway. I'm only here to take her back to the States. If you care about your cousin, you'll tell me where she is and stay out of the way so I can do my job."

"Your job?" Tess realized she was staring at him like an idiot, but the things he'd just said made no sense.

"Then you are a cop."

He didn't answer.

"And you're here to arrest Selena? This is unbelievable! What has she done, what's this all about?" If Selena was in some kind of trouble, wouldn't she have mentioned it? Or at least canceled this trip?

Reed didn't answer any of her questions, but his dark-eyed stare continued to bore through her.

"Listen, Reed, whatever you want with my cous'm, I know you can't force her to go anywhere without some kind of warrant or subpoena."

"I'm not here to arrest her," he admitted.

Well, at least he'd given her that much. But Teas wasn't satisfied.

All her instincts warned that Reed was concealing far more than he'd revealed.

"All right, so you don't have a warrant, then why are you looking for her and why should she go anywhere with you?"

His eyes flashed his irritation at being questioned. "Because the U.S.

government has requested the honor of her presence at a trial."

"A trial," she repeated numbly, feeling slightly light-headed.

"What kind of trial? Whose trial? I--I don't uunderstand. What's going on and what has my cous'm got to do with it?"

"It's a long story," he said as he walks! across the room to the balcony again. She followed him and watched as his eyes scanned the beach below.

Finally he returned his attention to Tess's question. "You really don't know anything about all this, do you? She hasn't told you?"

"Told me what?" Tess demanded, her patience stretched almost to snapping.

"what don't I know?"

He stood for another long moment without answering, without even looking at her. Exasperated, she reached for his arm, but the minute her fingers made contact with the warm, tanned flesh her heart jtunped, and she knew she'd made a mistake. Immediately she pulled her hand back, feeling inexpll. cably singed.

"Reed, please. Tell me what this is all about. If my cousin is in some kind of trouble, I have a right to know." And if this is just a bad dream, Tess told herself, she wished to h.e.l.l someone would wake her!

"Selena is in trouble," he conceded finally, taking her elbow and ushering her inside the room with him. "She works for a man who's been indicted on federal charges."

Tess sat d6wn woodenly on the edge of the bed. "What kind of charges?"

"Racketeering, money laundering and murder, just to name a few."

Tess felt exactly as she had as a child the time she'd fallen from the monkey bars on the playground and had the wind knocked out of her.

"I don't believe it," she gasped.

"Believe it," he said and pulled the bow-shaped wicker chair around to face her before he sat down. "Selena worked as a bookkeeper for Edward Morrell.

She was a key figure in his organization."

Tess could only sit and stare at him, her mind whiffing as she tried to make sense of something that made no sense at all. ' "Look, I can see how hearing all of this has shocked you, and it's obvious to me that you know nothing about your cousin's involvement."

He rose and put the chair back in its place before he added, "I'd like to help you put it all together, but I haven't got time to explain.

And I'm not sure it's wise to tell you any more than I already have. But I need to know where she is, Tess," he said, coming back to the bed to stand over her.

"I need to find her and get her out of Grand Cayman tonight." The unthinkable occurred to Tess in a flash of frightening insight and she rose quickly, oblivious to the precious s.p.a.ce that she'd closed between them and the fact that she'd planted her hands on his chest.

"Reed, are you trying to tell me that Selena might be in some kind of danger?"

He glanced down at her hands resting on his chest, before his eyes met hers again.

"Just tell me where she is, Tess, if you know."

His dark eyes grew even darker and suddenly every protective instinct went off in a series of screaming alarms inside Tess's mind. She nearly stumbled, sidestepping away from him.

"I won't tell you anything until you tell me what this is all about."

"Where is she, Tess?" he demanded, his voice hard-edged and impatient.

"I don't know," she insisted.

"And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. Did you seriously imagine I'd blindly turn my cousin over to you without talking to her first?"

"I'd hoped you would be reasonable."

"Reasonable or gullible?"

She watched a muscle clench at his jaw and for an uneasy moment she wondered if Selena might be running from him.

"You always were too d.a.m.n stubborn for your own good," he muttered as he turned and headed for the door.

She was on his heels.

"And just when did what's good for me ever interest you, McKenna?"

His eyes blazed and Tess felt the fire of his anger, but she refused to be cowed, despite his seething temper and his obvious strength advantage--an advantage that by the looks of his lean, hard body was considerable.

"All right," he relented finally, breaking their staring match. Tess felt a long-overdue twinge of satisfaction. "I guess you have a right to know the circ.u.mstances. But when I've finished telling you, your stay in Grand Cayman will be over. You'll have to pack your bags and fly back to the States on the next available flight."

She rankled at his direct order.

"But" -- "No argument," he said sharply.

"From now on you do as I say, Tessa, as though your life depended on it."

And from the grim expression on his face, Tess be-lie red that it just might.

ONE FLOOR BELOW Tess F! liot's room, a naked toddler sitting in a tub of warm water squealed with delight at the spray of water she raised every time she slapped a small, pink, plastic elephant and sent it bobbing.

"Doggy, doggy, doggy," she chanted and giggled and splashed.

The middle-aged woman bent over the tub and laughed and pulled her saturated cotton blouse away from her skin.

"Whatever you say, Sweetie."

"Doggy!" the child responded gleefully, her small pink mouth curled into a delighted grin that revealed four small, s.h.i.+ning, front teeth--two on top, two on the bottom.

"Are you trying to drown the kid, Gettie?" a male voice teased from the bathroom door.