“No holds barred?”

“I’ve heard all about you over the years. They say you’re one of the brightest young hostesses in politics. I might have recognized you in one of those designer gowns you wear. Insiders say you’re the brains and drive behind your brother. But you don’t look so tough to me.”

“Pneumonia will make the toughest of us mellow, just briefly,” Nikki said, inclining her head. “So it’s war, is it?”

“That’s how I fight,” Kane returned, ramming his hands deep into his pockets.

“Fair enough. But there’s one condition. No mudslinging.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You know better.”

She felt her face color with bad temper and her own hands clenched together. “No mudslinging about what we did together,” she said, forcing the words out.

He wanted to hit her where it hurt most. She’d made a fool of him.

“We had a one-night stand,” he said. “And I’m not running for public office. If I were, you might actually worry me.”

Nikki had once been warned, Men love in the darkness and are indifferent in the dawn. Now that phrase came back to her with vivid force….

“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be.”

—Affaire de Coeur

Diana Palmer
After Midnight

Dear Reader,

After Midnight was first published in 1993 under my own name, Susan Kyle. I am delighted to see it back in print again. For those of you who have read it previously, this reprint is from my original manuscript. Many scenes that were deleted, particularly those dealing with Cortez and Phoebe, have been reinstated. In other words, this is not the book you read before, although the research and the time period—1993—remain intact. I have not updated the political atmosphere, or anything else, having preferred to leave the book in its time period, before the tragic events of September 11, 2001, which changed us all forever. If you bought After Midnight ten years ago, I hope you will enjoy revisiting these characters and this less stressful period of our history, with the extra scenes. If you have never read it, I hope you enjoy it.

I wish all of you happiness.

I am your fan,

(alias Susan Kyle)

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter One

Seabrook had been the Seymour family’s vacation spot for twenty years. It was a beautiful small community island offering a marina, golf course, a private club and a welcome break from the hectic pace of the resorts.

This particular stretch of it was connected with some of the wealthiest Charleston families. Nicole Seymour didn’t have a million dollars, but the Seymour name granted her entry into the wealthiest circles of society as only the oldest South Carolinian names could. This beach property had originally been purchased by her father on speculation. But when the planned community started taking shape in 1992, he held on to his acreage and built a cottage on it for family vacations. At his death, it had gone to Nicole and her brother, Republican Congressman Clayton Myers Seymour, Representative of the First Congressional District of South Carolina.

The Seymours of Charleston were one of the most respected families in the state and it wasn’t surprising that when Nikki’s brother had first announced his candidacy for the House of Representatives seat from his district three years ago, he was immediately supported by the local Republican vanguard. He was elected without even a runoff in the general election two years ago, to Clayton’s surprise and Nikki’s delight.

Nikki’s social standing made her the perfect hostess for Clayton. During his three years in Washington, D.C., her brother had done a good job. So had Nikki, helping to curry favor for him, because she had a knack for presenting unpopular points of view. She was in the process of organizing dinner parties and reelection fund-raising galas for Clayton. He’d just announced his candidacy for reelection, and it promised to be a tough race. Clayton not only had Republican opposition from his own party, but the field of Democratic candidates included Sam Hewett, a well-known and liked businessman who had a virtual empire behind him, not to mention the clout of a very dangerous tabloid paper out of New York. In fact, Sam’s campaign administrative assistant was one of the sons of the tabloid owner.

Nikki had just put the finishing touches on the organization of another gala for Clayton in Washington, D.C., in September, after the general primary election. She hoped with all her heart that it would also serve as a celebration of Clayton’s hoped-for victory in the primary. Those preparations, coupled with her participation in the world-famous Spoleto Festival in Charleston had exhausted her. She was weak from a bout of pneumonia that she’d just recovered from. Now that the festival was almost over, Nikki was recuperating at the family retreat. Clayton wouldn’t need her for a few days and she relished the peace and quiet of the beach house. This particular section of the island was fairly isolated, dotted with only a few houses, most of which were very old and belonged to families with old money. The two surrounding the Seymour cottage were owned by families from other areas of the state, and were usually unoccupied until late June.

She stretched as the sun beat down on the deck where she was comfortably sprawled on a padded lounger. She was tall and slender, perfectly proportioned. Her body was as sensual as her slanted pure green eyes and the bow curve of her pretty mouth. She sparkled when she was happy, an enchanted columnist had said by way of description—and despite her height, she had the mischievous disposition of a pixie. With her thick black hair cut in a wedge around her soft oval face, she even had the look of one. But behind the beauty was a quick mind and an impeccable reputation. If others thought her a bit too wary and cautious, Nikki knew these qualities had helped thwart political enemies when they laid traps for her brother.

Her small breasts lifted and fell slowly as she lay breathing in the delicious sea air. It was early June, and unseasonably cool. A lot of renovation had been done since Hurricane Hugo passed through Charleston and the coastal areas in September of 1989, and Nikki and Clayton’s beach house had been one of the ones damaged by high winds. Although they had made the most necessary repairs, many decorative accents had yet to be restored. Unlike many of their neighbors, the Seymours didn’t have unlimited funds from which to renovate. Nikki and Clayton were working on a five-year plan to restore the beach house to its former glory.

The sound of a float-plane caught her attention. She shaded her eyes and watched its silvery glitter as it landed not far from her house. This area had no shortage of tycoons. In fact, Kane Lombard had recently bought the old Settles place a few houses down the beach from Nikki and Clayton’s, not far from where the plane had landed. Lombard was a Houston oilman who headed a conglomerate which included Charleston’s newest automobile manufacturing company. Nikki had heard that personal tragedy seemed to follow the man, culminating months ago in the violent death of his wife and son in Lebanon during a business trip.

Three weeks ago, he’d moved into the beach house property and his yacht had a slip at the marina. Nikki had seen a photograph of it in the Charleston paper’s society section.

Nikki had never met him, and there were no full-face or close-up photos of him in newspapers, except for one that Nikki had seen in Forbes Magazine. Even the tabloids couldn’t catch him on film. Of course, his family did own one of the biggest tabloids in the country. The Lombards of Houston, like the Seymours of Charleston, came from old money. The difference was, the Lombards still had their money. They lived in New York now, not Texas, where they maintained their exclusive tabloid.

The sound of the plane faded and Nikki stretched again. She felt restless. She knew all the right people and she had a comfortable income from the sculptures she did for local galleries. But she was empty inside. Sometimes it bothered her that she was so completely alone except for her brother.

She had been married, briefly; a marriage that destroyed all her illusions and made her question her own sexuality. Her father needed a favor from a U.S. senator by the name of Mosby Torrance, a South Carolinian. Mosby had been under siege because of, among other things, his long-standing bachelor standing. Mosby had agreed to the favor, which would save Nikki’s father from certain bankruptcy, but only in return for Nikki’s hand in marriage.

Nikki shivered, remembering her delight. Mosby was fourteen years her senior, an Adonis of a man, with blond hair and blue eyes and a trim, athletic figure. She’d been swept off her feet, and nothing would have stopped her from agreeing to the union. She’d only been eighteen years old. Naive. Innocent. Stupid.

Her father might have suspected, but he never really knew about Mosby until it was much too late. Nikki had emerged from the marriage six months later, so shaken that the divorce was final before she was completely rational again.

She never could admit what she’d endured to her father or brother, but afterward, Clayton was especially kind to her. They grew very close, and when their father died, she and her brother continued to share the huge Charleston house near the Battery. As he entered politics, Nikki was his greatest support. She learned to organize, to be a hostess, to charm and coax money from prospective supporters. She did whatever Clayton needed her to do to help him, both at his Charleston office and in Washington, D.C., where she had gained some repute as a hostess. She always created just the right mix of people at banquets and cocktail parties, with motifs and themes that radiated excitement and interest. She was very successful at her endeavors. But the old fears and lack of self-confidence kept her free of relationships of any sort. She couldn’t trust her judgment ever again. She could live without a man in her life, she’d decided. But she was twenty-five and lonely. So lonely.

The sun was getting too warm. She stood up and slipped a silky blue caftan over her green-and-gold bathing suit, loving the feel of it against her soft, tanned skin. A movement on the beach caught her eye and she went to the railing to look out over the ocean. Something black was there, bobbing, in the surf. She frowned and leaned over to get a better look, shading her eyes from the sunlight. A head! It was a person!

Without even thinking, she darted down the steps and ran across the beach, stumbling as the thick sand made her path unwieldy. Her heart raced madly as she began to think of the possibilities. Suppose it was a body washing up on the beach? What if she found herself in the wake of a murder? Or worse, what if it were a drowning victim? She had no lifesaving training, a stupid thing to admit to when she had a holiday home on the beach! She made a mental note even in her panic to sign up for lifesaving courses at the Red Cross.

As she reached the surf, she realized that the body in the water was a man’s. It was muscular and husky and very tall-looking with darkly tanned skin and dark hair. She knelt quickly beside it and felt for a pulse. She found it. Her breath sighed out and she realized only then that she’d been holding it.

She managed to roll the man over onto his belly, just out of the surf. Turning his face to one side, she began to push in the center of his back, a maneuver she’d seen on one of the real-life rescue series on TV. The man began to cough and retch, and she kept pumping. Seconds later, he jerked away from her and sat up, holding his forehead. He was a big man for all his leanness. Thank God, she wasn’t going to have to try and drag him any farther out of the surf!

“Are you all right?” she asked worriedly.

“My head…hurts,” he choked, still coughing.

She hesitated for a second before she began to look through his thick wet hair. She found a gash just above his temple. The blood had congealed and it didn’t look very deep, but he’d been unconscious.

“I think I’d better call an ambulance,” she began. “You could have a concussion.”

“I don’t need an ambulance,” he said firmly. He coughed again. “I fell off a Jet Ski and hit my head. I remember that.” He scowled. “Funny. I can’t remember anything else!”

Nikki sat very still. The hem of her caftan was soaked from the rising surf. She gnawed on her lower lip, a habit from childhood, while she struggled with the question of what to do next.

“Would you like to come up to my beach house and rest for a bit?” she asked in her softly accented voice.

He lifted his head and looked at her, and she felt a shock all the way through her. He seemed very familiar. She couldn’t quite place him, but he looked like someone she knew. Could she have met him at the Spoleto Festival?

“I must be visiting someone around here,” he began slowly. “I couldn’t have come far.”

“You’re disoriented,” she said. “When you’ve rested, perhaps you’ll remember who you are. I believe amnesia of this kind is very temporary.”

“Are you a nurse?”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Why not a doctor?” she asked.

“Why not a nurse?” he asked, his eyes and his tone challenging.

She threw up her hands. “You’re going to be one of those sharp, difficult people, I can tell. Here, let’s see if we can get you underway. Oh, for a wheelbarrow…” She eyed him. “Make that a front-end loader.”

“If you’re trying out for stand-up comedy,” he murmured, “don’t give up your day job.”

His deep voice was unaccented. If anything it sounded midwestern. He was wearing a waterproof Rolex watch and the swimming trunks he had on were designer marked. He was no transient. And he was much too old to be a college student on summer vacation, she thought wickedly as she noted the streaks of gray at his temples. He had to be almost forty. Certainly he was older than her brother.

She felt uncomfortable with the close physical contact that was necessary now, but she forced herself to yield to the situation. He couldn’t very well stay down here on the beach all day.

She eased under his arm and slid her hand around his back. His skin was olive tan and silky, rippling with muscle. He was fit for a man of his age, she thought, her eyes dropping involuntarily to the broad chest with an incredibly thick mass of curling black hair that ran in a wedge from his collarbone all the way down into the low-slung swimming trunks around his lean hips. Most men, since her marriage, repelled Nikki. This man, strangely, didn’t. She already felt comfortable with him, as if the sight of his almost nude body was familiar to her.

Of course, he had the kind of body that even a disinterested woman couldn’t help but admire right down to long, tanned, powerful legs with just enough hair to be masculine and not offensive. She drew his arm over her shoulder, holding it by the hand. He had nice hands, too, she thought. Very lean and big, with oval nails immaculately kept. No jewelry at all. She wondered if that was deliberate. Where his watch had shifted, there was no white line, so his tan must be of the year-round variety.

“Easy does it,” she said gently. The feel of all the muscle so close was really disturbing. She hadn’t been so close to a man since her tragic marriage. He attracted her and she immediately forced her mind to stop thinking in that direction. He needed her. That was all she must consider now.

“I can walk by myself,” he said gruffly, and then stumbled as he tried to prove it.

Nikki managed not to smile. “One step at a time,” she repeated. “You’re injured, that’s all. It’s bound to affect your balance.”

“Are you sure you first name isn’t Florence?” he muttered. “Maybe it’s Polyanna.”

“You’re very offensive for a man the ocean spit out,” she remarked. “Obviously you left a bad taste in its mouth.”

He didn’t smile, but his chest tightened a little. Nikki guessed he was repressing a laugh. “Maybe so.”

“Do you feel sleepy or nauseous?” she persisted.

“No. Dizzy, though.”

She nodded, her mind running quickly through possibilities. She needed to get a look at his eyes to tell if the pupils were equal or overly dilated, but that could wait.

“Are you a nurse?” he asked again.

“Not really. I’ve had some first-aid training, and,” she added with a mischievous glance upward, “a little experience with beached whales. Speaking of which…”

“Stop right there while you’re ahead,” he advised. “God, what a headache!” His big hand went to his head and he groaned.

Nikki was getting more nervous by the minute. Head injuries could be quickly fatal. She didn’t have the expertise to deal with something this serious, and she had no telephone. What if he died?

He glanced sideways and saw the troubled look on her face. He glowered even more. “I’m not going to drop dead on the beach,” he said irritably. “Are you always this transparent?”

“In fact, I’ve been told I have a poker face,” she said without thinking. She looked up into his dark eyes and found herself staring into them with something approaching recognition. How frightening, she thought dimly, to be like that with a stranger, and especially such an unfriendly one!

“You have green eyes, “Florence Nightingale,”’ he said. “Green like a cat’s.”

“I scratch like one, too, so watch out,” she murmured with far more bravado than courage.

“Point taken.” He eased the pressure of his arm around her and went the last few steps up to the deck under his own power. He stopped, holding his head and breathing deliberately, for a few seconds.

“I could do with a cup of coffee,” he said after a minute.

“So could I.” She eased him through the sliding glass doors and into the kitchen, watching him lower his huge frame into a chair at the kitchen table. “Are you going to be all right?”

“I’m sure that I’m tough as nails normally.” He rested his elbows on the clean surface of the oak table and held his head in his hands. “Do you often find strange men washed up on your beach?”

“You’re my first,” she replied. “But considering the size of you, I’m hoping for an ocean liner tomorrow.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her as she busied herself filling the drip coffeemaker.

“Have you lived here long?” he asked, making conversation.

“We’ve had the place a few years.”

“We?”

“The, um…man who lives here and I,” she replied noncommittally. It wouldn’t do to tell him she was single and on her own. “He normally drives down on Friday evenings,” she lied.

He didn’t seem to register the information. Perhaps he didn’t know what day it was.

“Today is Friday,” she said, just in case. “My friend is very nice, you’ll like him.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Any nausea yet? Drowsiness?”

“I haven’t got concussion,” he replied tersely. “I’m not sure how I know that I’d recognize the symptoms. Perhaps I’ve had it before.”

“Perhaps you haven’t.” She picked up the telephone and dialed.

“What are you doing?” he asked curtly.

“Phoning a friend. He’s a doctor. I want to…Hello, Chad?” she said when the person answered. “I’ve just rescued a swimmer who was suffering from a bang on the head. He’s conscious and very lucid,” she added with a meaningful glare at her houseguest. “But he won’t let me call an ambulance. Could you stop by here when you get back from the golf course and just reassure me that he isn’t going to drop dead on my floor.”

Chad Holman laughed. “Sure. No sweat. Let me ask you a couple of questions.”

He did and she fielded them to her guest, who replied reluctantly.

“I think he’ll do until I get there,” Chad reassured her. “But if he drops off and you can’t wake him or if he has any violent vomiting, call the ambulance anyway.”

“Will do. Thanks.”

“Any time.”

She hung up, feeling relieved now that she had a professional opinion on her guest’s condition. “Well, I don’t want any dead bodies in my living room, especially not one I can’t even drag!” she informed him mischievously.

He scowled at her. “Dead bodies. Dead…” He shook his head irritably. “I keep getting flashes, but I can’t grasp anything! Damn it!”

“The coffee’s almost ready. Maybe a jolt of caffeine will start your brain working again,” she suggested.

She perched on a stool at the counter, her long bare legs drawing his eyes. She glared at him.

“Don’t get any ideas about why you’re here, if you please,” she said, her voice soft but vaguely menacing just the same.

“Don’t worry. I’m absolutely sure that I don’t like green-eyed women,” he returned shortly. He sat back in the chair with a rough sigh and shifted, one big hand idly rubbing the thick hair on his chest. He made her very self-conscious and nervous. He looked aggressively masculine, whether he was or not. She fidgeted.

“I can find you something to put on, if you like,” she said after a minute.

“That would be nice. Your male friend leaves things here, I suppose? To remind you that you cohabit with him?”

She didn’t like the sarcasm, but she didn’t rise to it. She slipped easily off the stool. “The shirt may be a bit tight, but he’s got some baggy shorts with an elastic waist that probably will fit you. I won’t be a minute.”

She darted into Clayton’s bedroom and borrowed the biggest oversize shirt he owned, a three-colored one, and a pair of big tan shorts. They hung on her brother, but they were probably going to be a tight fit on the giant she’d found washed up on the beach.

She carried the clothes back in to him. “The bathroom is through there,” she said, nodding down the hall. “Third door on the right. You’ll find a razor and soap and towels if you’d like to clean up. Are you hungry?”

“I think I could eat,” he said.

“I’ll make an omelet and toast.”

He got to his feet very slowly, the clothes in one large hand. He hesitated as he turned to leave the room, looking very big and threatening to Nikki. “I don’t remember anything. But I’m not a cruel man, if it helps. I do know that.”

“It helps.” She managed a smile.

“I’m not used to accepting help from strangers,” he added.

“Good thing. I’m not used to offering it to strangers. Of course, there’s a first time…”

“…for everything,” he finished for her. “Thanks.”

He left the room and Nikki got out eggs and condiments, proceeding to make an omelet.

He showered and shaved before he changed into the dry clothes and joined her in the kitchen. He was still barefoot, but the shorts did fit. The shirt showed off muscles that had obviously not been obtained by any lengthy inactivity. He was fit and rippled, very athletic. Nikki had to remind herself not to look at him too hard.

“What do you like in your coffee?” she asked as she poured it into thick white mugs and set them on the spotless green-and-white checked tablecloth.

He frowned as he sat down. “I think I like cream.”

“I’d have thought you were a man who never added anything to his coffee,” she murmured with amusement.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. You seem oddly familiar to me, as if I know you. But I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen you before,” she said quietly.

He shrugged. “Maybe I have that kind of face.”

Her eyebrows arched. “You?”

He smiled, just faintly. “Thanks.” He sipped his coffee and pursed his lips. “Very nice. Just strong enough.”

“I make good coffee. It’s my only real accomplishment, except for omelets. I’m much too busy to learn how to cook.”

“What does your poor friend eat?” he asked.

“He lives on fast food and restaurant chow, but he isn’t home much.”

“What does he do?”

She studied him. “He’s in energy,” she said, which was the truth. He sat on the Energy and Commerce Committee that dealt with it.

“Oh. He works for a power plant?”

“That’s pretty close,” she agreed, hiding the amusement in her eyes as she thought about the power that particular committee wielded nationally.

“And what do you do?”

“Moi?” she laughed. “Oh, I sculpt.”

“What?”

“People.”

He looked around at the furniture, but the only artwork of any kind that was visible were some prints she’d purchased.

“I sell my work in galleries,” she told him.

He decided to reserve judgment on that reply. The house was a dump, and she had to know it. She obviously had little money and lived with a man who had even less. He knew that he couldn’t afford to trust her. He wished he knew why he was certain of that. “Do you have any of your work here?”

“A bust or two,” she said. “I’ll show you later, if you like.”

He sampled the omelet. “You’re good.”

“Thanks.” She studied his face. It was pale, and he seemed to be having a hard time keeping his eyes open. “You’re drowsy.”

“Yes. I don’t know how I know it, but I’m pretty sure that I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”

“Woman trouble?” she asked with a knowing smile.

He frowned. “I’m not sure. Perhaps.” He looked up. “I can’t possibly stay here…”

“Where would you go?” she asked reasonably. “You can’t wander up and down the beach here, the police will pick you up for vagrancy. Do you remember where you live?”

“I don’t even know my name,” he confessed heavily. “You can’t imagine how intimidating that is.”

“You’re right.” She searched his tanned face, his dark eyes. He looked incredibly tired. “Why don’t you have an early night? I’ll send Chad in to check you out when he swings by. He’s a friend,” she added. “He’ll do it as a favor, so you don’t have to worry about his fee. Things will look so much better in the morning. You might remember who you are.”

“God, I hope so,” he said gruffly. “The man…who lives here. You said he’d be here later?”

She nodded, her eyes as steady as if she’d been telling the truth, and he was fooled.

“Then it will be all right, I suppose. I appreciate your trust. I could be anybody.”

“So could I,” she said in a menacing tone, grinning.

He got the point. When she showed him to the guest bedroom, he fell on the bed without bothering to turn back the covers. Within seconds, he was sound asleep.

He was still sleeping when Chad stopped by to check him. Nikki waited in the living room until the doctor came out, bag in hand, gently closing the door.

“He’s all right,” he assured her with a grin, his blond good looks fairly intimidating to her because he still reminded her a little of her ex-husband. “A little disorientation, but that will pass quickly. There’s been no real damage. By morning he should remember his name and after he gets past the very terrible headache he’s going to have, he should be all right. I’m leaving some tablets for him when he wakes up groaning.” He produced them from his bag and handed them to Nikki. “Otherwise, you know what to look for. If you get in trouble all you have to do is call me. Okay?”

“Okay. Thanks, Chad.”

He shrugged. “What are friends for?” he asked with a big grin. He left, closing the door gently behind him.

Later, when Nikki went back to check on her houseguest, he was lying on his back, completely nude in the soft glow from the night-light on the wall.

Nikki stood and just stared at him helplessly, feeling her body tingle and burn with old familiar longings that she desperately tried to bank down. This man attracted her as even Mosby hadn’t—in the beginning. She looked at the long, muscular lines of his tanned body with aching need.

He must sunbathe nude, she thought idly. He was magnificent. Even that part of him that was most male didn’t offend or repel her. She was surprised at her own lack of inhibitions as she stared at him, feeling vaguely like a Peeping Tom. He did look vaguely familiar as well. That bothered her. Not as much, of course, as his body did in stark nudity.

Oddly, she found men revolting for the most part. This one was special. She loved the way his big body looked without clothes. She wondered how that hand, almost the size of a plate, would feel smoothing over her soft skin in the darkness.

The thought pulled her up short. She turned and went out of the bedroom, closing the door gently behind her.

Chapter Two

Nicole slept fitfully that night, haunted by images of her houseguest sprawled in magnificent abandon on the bed in the guest room. She woke up earlier than usual. She slipped into a neat blue patterned sundress before she went to the kitchen, barefoot, to make breakfast. It was a good thing that she had plenty of provisions, she thought. Judging by his size and build, the man in the guest room was a man with a more than ample appetite.

She’d just dished up scrambled eggs to go with the sweet rolls and sausages when the man came into the living room from Clayton’s bedroom. He was wearing the shorts she’d found for him, an old pair that Clay had worn, with the shirt whose edges didn’t quite meet in front. He looked out of sorts, and vaguely confused.

“Are you all right?” she asked immediately.

He glowered at her. “I feel like an overdrawn account. Otherwise, I suppose I’ll do.” He spoke without any particular accent, although there was a faint residual drawl there. His was not a Charleston accent, though, she mused; and she ought to know, because her own was fairly thick.

“I do have some aspirin, if you need them,” she said.

“I could use a couple, thanks.”

She went to get them while he sat down at the table and poured coffee into his cup and hers. He shook out a couple of aspirin tablets into his big hand and swallowed them with coffee.

“You’ve remembered, haven’t you?” she persisted.

“I’ve remembered a few things,” he confessed. “Not a lot.” He felt for his watch and frowned. Hadn’t he had one when he went into the water? A diver’s watch?

“Oh, I almost forgot!” She jumped up and reached onto the counter by the stove, producing the missing wristwatch. “Here. This was still on your wrist and almost unfastened when I found you. I stuck it in my robe pocket and didn’t notice it until this morning when I started to put the robe in the laundry. Good thing I didn’t wash it,” she laughed. “However do you tell time with something so complicated?”

She didn’t recognize a diver’s watch. Did that mean she didn’t realize how expensive it was?

He took it from her. “Thanks,” he said slowly.

“It still works, doesn’t it?” she asked idly as she ate her eggs. “I didn’t know they made waterproof watches.”

“It’s a diver’s watch,” he informed her, and then waited for her reaction.

“I see. Do you skin-dive?” she asked brightly.

He did, occasionally, when he wasn’t sailing his yacht. He didn’t want to mention that. “Sometimes,” he said.

“I wanted to learn, but I’m too afraid of water,” she told him. “I can’t even swim properly.”

“Then why have a beach house?” he asked curiously. “Or isn’t it yours?”

She saw the way he was looking at her and interpreted it correctly. That watch wasn’t cheap, and he’d apparently remembered more than he wanted her to know. So he thought she was a gold digger, did he? She was going to enjoy this.

“Well, no, it belongs to…” She stopped suddenly, not wanting to give too much away. His face was all too familiar, more so this morning. “It belongs to the man who owns this place. He lets me stay here when I like.”

He glanced around and his expression spoke volumes.

“The hurricane got it,” she said quickly. “He hasn’t had time to do many repairs.” That, at least, was true. But it didn’t sound that way to her guest. In fact, he looked even more suspicious.

He didn’t say anything else. He concentrated on the meal Nikki had prepared. His dark eyes slid over her pretty face and narrowed.

“What’s your name?” he asked curiously.

“Nikki,” she replied. Even if he knew of her family, he wouldn’t know of the nickname, which was used only by family and very close friends. “Do you remember yours?”

He studied her thoughtfully while he wavered between the truth and a lie. She was obviously a transient here, in her boyfriend’s house. He was new to the area. It was highly unlikely that she’d even know who he was if he introduced himself honestly. He kept a low profile. In his income bracket, it paid to do that.

He laughed at his own caution. This woman probably didn’t even know what the CEO of a corporation was. “It’s McKane,” he said offhandedly. “But I’m usually called Kane.”

Fortunately, Nikki had her eyes on her coffee cup. She didn’t show it, but inside she panicked. The familiar face she couldn’t place before now leaped into her consciousness vividly. She knew that name all too well, and now she remembered where she’d seen the face, in a business magazine of Clayton’s. Kane Lombard was reclusive to the point of being a hermit, and the photograph of him had been a rarity for such a successful businessman.

Her brother had just had a very disturbing run-in with Kane Lombard over an environmental issue in Charleston. Lombard, she knew, was backing the leading Democratic contender for Clayton’s House seat.

Her mind worked rapidly. She didn’t dare let Lombard know who she was, now. They’d spent the night together, albeit innocently. Wouldn’t that tidbit do Clayton a lot of good in a national election? In some parts of the country, especially this one, morality was still enough to make or break a politician; even his sister’s morality. And Lombard was helping the opposition.

Her fingers closed around her coffee cup and she lifted her eyes with a schooled expression on her face. Everything would be all right. All she had to do was ease him out of here without letting on that she knew him. Since he didn’t travel in the same circles as Clayton and herself, chances were good that she’d never see him up close again anyway.

“It’s a nice name. I like it.” She smiled as if she genuinely didn’t recognize him.

He relaxed visibly. His firm mouth tugged into a smile. “Thanks for taking care of me,” he added. “It’s been a long time since anyone had to do that.”

“Nobody’s invulnerable,” she reminded him. “But next time, you might check that there aren’t any rocks around when you decide to use the Jet Ski.”

“I’ll do that.”

He finished his coffee and reluctantly, she thought, got to his feet. “I’ll return your friend’s clothes. Thanks for the loan.”

“I can run you home, if you like,” she offered, knowing full well that he wouldn’t risk letting her see where he lived. He thought she was an opportunist. She could have laughed out loud at the very idea.

“No, thanks,” he said quickly, smiling to soften the rejection. “I need the exercise. You’ve been very kind.” His eyes were shrewd. “I hope I can repay you one day.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” she assured him as she stood. “Don’t we all have a moral duty to help each other out when we’re in need?” She looked at her slender, well-kept hands. “I’m sure you’d do the same for me.”

That last bit was meant to rattle him, but it didn’t work. She looked up, impishly, and he was just watching her with a lifted eyebrow and a faintly indulgent smile.

“Of course I would,” he assured her. But he was wary again, looking for traps, even while his eyes were quietly bold on her soft curves.

“It was nice meeting you,” she added.

“Same here.” He gave her a last wistful appraisal and went with long, determined strides toward the front door. He walked as if he’d go right over anything in his path, and Nikki envied him that self-confidence. She had it, to a degree, but in a standing fight, he was going to be a hard man to beat. She’d have to remember and warn Clayton not to underestimate Lombard; and do it without revealing that the source of her information was the man himself.

The rambling beach house where Kane lived was in the same immaculate shape he’d left it. His housekeeper had been in, apparently unconcerned that he was missing. That shouldn’t surprise him. Unless he paid people, no one seemed to notice if he lived or died.

He chided himself for that cynical thought. Women did agonize over him from time to time. He had a mistress who pretended to care in return for the expensive presents he gave her with careless affection. But no one cared as much as his son had. He closed his eyes and tried not to remember the horror of his last sight of the young boy.

There was a portrait of his son with his late wife on the side table. He looked at that, instead, remembering David as a bright young man with his mother’s light hair and eyes and her smile. Although he and Evelyn had grown apart over their years together, David had been loved and cherished by both of them. See what you get for sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong, he thought. Just a routine business trip, you said, and they could go with you. Then all hell broke loose the day they arrived, and he and his family were caught innocently in the cross fire.

He’d blamed himself bitterly for all of it, but time was taking away some of the sting. He had to go on, after all.

The new automotive plant in an industrial Charleston suburb had certainly been a step in the right direction. Planned long before the death of his family, it had just begun operation about the time they were buried. Now it was the lynchpin of his sanity.

He changed into a knit shirt and shorts, idly placing his borrowed clothing to be washed before he returned it. Nikki’s sparkling green eyes came to mind and made him smile. She was so young, he mused, and probably a madcap when she set her mind to it. For a moment he allowed himself to envy her lover. She had a pretty body, slender and winsome. But he had Chris when he needed a woman desperately, and there was no place for a permanent woman in his life. He made sure that Chris knew it, so that she wouldn’t expect too much. Marriage was out.

He picked up the telephone and dialed the offices of the Charleston plant. What he needed, he told himself, was something to occupy his mind again.

“Get Will Jurkins on the line,” he replied to his secretary’s polite greeting.

“Yes, sir,” she said at once.

A minute later, a slow voice came on the line. “How’s the vacation going, Mr. Lombard?”

“So far, so good,” Kane said carelessly. “I want to know why you’ve terminated that contract with the Coastal Waste Company?”

There was a pause. Jurkins should have realized that his superior would fax that information up to Kane Lombard. Sick or not, Ed Nelson was on the ball, as many plant managers were not. “Well…uh, I had to.”

“Why?”

The word almost struck him. Jurkins wiped his sweaty brow, glancing around from his desk to the warehouse facility where dangerous materials were kept before they were picked up by waste disposal companies. It was considered less expensive to hire that done rather than provide trucks and men to do it. The city could handle toxic substances at its landfill, but Lombard International had contracted CWC to do it since its opening.

“I believe I mentioned to you, Mr. Lombard, that I noticed discrepancies in their invoices.”

“I don’t remember any such conversation.”

Jurkins kept his head, barely. “Listen, Mr. Lombard,” he began in a conciliatory tone, “you’re a busy man. You can’t keep up with all the little details of a plant this size. You sit on the board of directors of three other corporations and the board of trustees of two colleges, you belong to business organizations where you hold office. I mean, how would you have the time to sift through all the day-to-day stuff here?”

Kane took a breath to stem his rush of temper. The man was new, after all, as chief of the waste disposal unit. And he made sense. “That’s true. I haven’t time to oversee every facet of every operation. Normally, this would be Ed Nelson’s problem.”

“I know that. Yes, I do, sir. But Mr. Nelson’s had kidney stones and he had to have surgery for them last week. He’s sort of low. Not that he doesn’t keep up with things,” he added quickly. “He’s still on top of the situation here.” That wasn’t quite true, but the wording gave Lombard the impression that Nelson had agreed with Jurkins’s decision to replace CWC.

Kane relaxed. Jurkins was a native of Charleston. He’d know the ins and outs of sanitation, and surely he’d already have a handle on the proper people to do a good job. “All right,” he said. “Who have you contracted with to replace CWC?”

“I found a very reputable company, Mr. Lombard,” he assured his boss. “Very reputable, indeed. In fact, two of the local automotive parts companies use them. It’s Burke’s.”

“Burke’s?”

“They’re not as well-known as CWC, sir,” Jurkins said. “They’re a young company, but very energetic. They don’t cost an arm and a leg, either.”

Kane’s head was hurting. He didn’t have time for this infernal runaround. He’d ask Nelson when he got back to the office the following week.

“All right, Jurkins. Go ahead and make the switch. I’ll approve it, if there’s any flak,” he said. “Just make sure they do what they’re supposed to. Put Jenny back on the line.”

“Yes, sir! Have a good vacation, sir, and don’t you worry, everything’s going along just fine!”

Kane made a grunting sound and waited for his secretary to come back on the line. When she did, he began shooting orders at her, for faxes to be sent up to his machine, for contract estimates, for correspondence. He hadn’t a secretary here and he hesitated to ask for Jenny to join him, because she had a huge crush on him which he didn’t want to encourage. He could scribble notes on the letters for answers and fax them back to her. Yes, that would work.

While Kane was debating his next move, a relieved Will Jurkins pushed back his sweaty red hair and breathed a long sigh, grinning cagily at the man standing beside him.

“That was a close one,” he told the man. “Lombard wanted to know why I made the switch.”

“You’re getting enough out of this deal to make it worth the risk,” came the laconic reply. “And you’re in too deep to back out.”

“Don’t I know it,” Jurkins said uneasily. “Are you sure about this? I don’t want to go to jail.”

“Will you stop worrying? I know what I’m doing.” He slipped the man a wad of large bills, careful not to let himself be seen.

Jurkins grimaced as he counted the money and quickly slipped it into his pocket. He had a child with leukemia and his medical insurance had run out. He was out of choices and this cigar-smoking magician had offered him a small fortune just to switch sanitation firms. On the surface, there was nothing wrong with it. But he was uneasy, because Burke’s sanitation outfit had already been in trouble with the environmental people for some illegal dumping.

“Burke’s is not very reliable,” he began, trying again. “And I already made one major mistake here, letting that raw sewage get dumped accidentally into the river. If they catch Burke putting anything toxic in a bad place, it will look pretty bad for Lombard International.”

“Burke’s needs the business,” the raspy-voiced man said. “Trust me. It’s just to help him out. There’s no way it will be traced back to you. You need the money don’t you?” When Jurkins nodded, the man patted him on the shoulder and smiled, waving the cigar around. “Nobody will know. And I was never here. Right?”

“Right.”

Jurkins watched the man leave by the side door. He went into the parking lot and climbed into a sedate gray BMW. A car like that would cost Jurkins a year’s salary. He wondered what his benefactor did for a living.

Clayton Seymour had gone down the roster of Republican representatives over a new bill which affected cable television rates. He and his legislative committee—not to mention part of his personal staff—were helping his friend, the minority whip, gather enough representatives together for a decisive vote on the issue. But he was going blind in the process. He looked out his window at the distant Washington, D.C., skyline and wished he was back home in Charleston and going fishing. He maintained only two district offices, whereas most of the other House members had anywhere from two to eight.

Each of those offices back home in South Carolina had full-time and part-time staffers who could handle requests from constituents. In addition, he’d appointed a constituent staff at his Washington office, along with his legislative, institutional, and personal staff. It sounded like a lot of people on the payroll, but there were actually only a handful involved and they were eminently qualified. Most had master’s degrees. His district director had a Ph.D. and his executive legislative counsel was a Harvard graduate.

He was ultimately satisfied with the job he’d done. During his term in office, he’d remained within his budget. It was one of many feathers in his political cap. In addition, he had seats on the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Ways and Means Committee, among others. He worked from twelve to fourteen hours a day and occasionally took offense at remarks that members of Congress were overpaid layabouts. He didn’t have time to layabout. In the next congress, over eleven thousand new pieces of legislation were predicted for introduction. If he was reelected—when he was reelected—he was going to have to work even harder.

His executive administrative assistant in charge of his personal and constituent staff, Derrie Keller, knocked on the door and opened it all in the same motion. She was tall and pretty, with light blond hair and green eyes and a nice smile. Everybody was kind to her because she had such a sweet nature. But she also had a bachelor’s degree in political science, and was keen-minded, efficient, and tough when the situation called for it. She headed the personal staff, and when she went to Charleston with Clayton, that position also applied to whichever of the two district offices she visited.

“Ah, Derrie,” he said on a long-suffering sigh. “Are you going to bury me in paperwork again?”

She grinned. “Want to lie down, first, so we can do it properly?”

“If I lie down, three senators and a newspaperman will come in and stand on me,” he assured her. He sat upright in his chair. He was good-looking—tall, dark-haired and blue-eyed, with a charismatic personality and a perfect smile.

Women loved him, Derrie thought; particularly a highly paid Washington lobbyist who practiced law named Bett Watts. The woman was forever in and out of the office, tossing out orders to anyone stupid enough to take them. Derrie wasn’t. She was simply biding her time until her tunnel-visioned boss eventually noticed that she was a ripe fruit hanging low on the limb, waiting for him to reach up and…

“Are you going to stand there all day?” he prompted impatiently.

“Sorry.” She put the letters on his desk. “Want coffee?”

“You can’t bring me coffee,” he said absently. “You’re an overpaid public official with administrative duties. If you bring me coffee, secretarial unions will storm the office and sacrifice me on the White House lawn.”

She knew this speech by heart. She just smiled. “Cream and sugar?”

“Yes, please,” he replied with a grin.

She went out to get it, laughing at his irrepressible overreaction. He always made her laugh. She couldn’t resist going with him to political rallies where he was scheduled to speak, because she enjoyed him so much. He was in constant demand as an after-dinner speaker.

“Here you go,” she said a minute later, reappearing with two steaming cups. She put hers down and sat in the chair beside his desk with her pad and pen in hand.

“Thanks.” He was studying another piece of legislation on which a vote would shortly be taken. “New stuff on the agenda today, Derrie. I’ll need you to direct one of the interns to do some legwork for me.”

“Is that the lumbering bill?” she asked, eyeing the paper in his lean hands.

“Yes,” he said, mildly surprised. “Why?”

“You’re not going to vote for it, are you?”

He scowled as he lifted his cup of coffee, fixed with cream just as he liked it, and looked at her while he sipped it gingerly. “Yes, I am,” he replied slowly.

She glared at him. “It will set the environment back ten years.”

“It will open up jobs for people who can’t get any work.”

“It’s an old forest,” she persisted. “One of the oldest untouched forests in the world.”

“We can’t afford to leave it in its pristine condition,” he said, exasperated. “Listen, why don’t you meet with all those lobbyists who represent the starving mothers and children of lumbermen out west? Maybe you can explain your position to them better than I could. Hungry kids really get to me.”

“How do you know they were really starving and not just short a hot lunch?”

“You cynic!” he exclaimed. He sat forward in his chair. “Hasn’t anybody ever explained basic economics to you? Ecology is wonderful, I’m all for it. In fact, I have a very enviable record in South Carolina for my stand against toxic waste dumps and industrial polluters. However, this is another issue entirely. People are asking us to set aside thousands of acres of viable timber to save an owl, when people are jobless and homeless and facing the prospect of going on the welfare rolls—which is, by the way, going to impact taxpayers all the way from Oregon to D.C.”

“I know all that,” she grumbled. “But we’re cutting down all the trees we have and we’re not replacing them fast enough. In fact, how can you replace something that old?”

“You can’t replace it,” he agreed. “You can’t replace people, either, Derrie.”

“There are things you’re overlooking,” she persisted. “Have you read all the background literature on that bill?”

“When I have time?” he exploded. “My God, you of all people should know how fast they throw legislation at me! If I read every word of every bill…”

“I can read it for you. If you’ll listen I’ll tell you why the bill is a bad idea.”

“I have legislative counsel to advise me,” he said tersely, glaring at her. “My executive legislative counsel is a Harvard graduate.”

Derrie knew that. She also liked Mary Tanner, an elegant African American woman whose Harvard law degree often surprised people who mistook her for a model. Mary was beautiful.

“And Mary is very good,” she agreed. “But you don’t always listen to your advisors.”

“The people elected me, not my staff,” he reminded her with a cold stare.

She almost challenged that look. But he’d been under a lot of pressure, and she had a little time left before the vote to work on him. She backed down. “All right. I’ll work my fingers to the bone for you, but I won’t quit harping on the lumber bill,” she warned. “I don’t believe in profit at the expense of the environment.”

“Then you aren’t living in the real world.”

She gave him a killing glare and walked out of the room. It was to her credit that she didn’t slam the door behind her.

Clayton watched her retreat with mixed emotions. Usually, Derrie agreed with him on issues. This time, she was fighting tooth and nail. It amused him, to see his little homebody of an assistant ready to scratch and claw.

The telephone rang and a minute later, Derrie’s arctic voice informed him that Ms. Watts was on the line.

“Hello, Bett,” he told the caller. “How are you?”

“Worn,” came the mocking reply. “I can’t see you tonight. I’ve got a board meeting, followed by a cocktail party, followed by a brief meeting with one of the senior senators, all of which I really must get through.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of lobbying and long for something different?” he probed.

“Something like giving fancy parties and placating political adversaries?” Bett asked sarcastically.

Clayton felt himself going tense. “I know you don’t like my sister,” he said curtly. “But a remark like that is catty and frankly intolerable. Call me back when you feel like rejoining the human race.”

He put the phone down and buzzed Derrie. “If Ms. Watts calls back, tell her I’m indisposed indefinitely!” he said icily.

“Does she like virgin forests, too?”

He slammed the phone down and took the receiver off the hook.

Clayton phoned Nikki that evening. He didn’t mention Bett’s nasty remark or his fight with Derrie, which had resulted in her giving him an icy good-night and leaving him alone with cold coffee and hot bills. He had to depend on his district director for coffee, and Stan couldn’t make it strong enough.

“I’m not going to be able to turn loose for at least two weeks,” he said sadly. “I’d love to spend some time with you before we get our feet good and wet in this campaign, but I’ve got too much on my plate.”

“Take some time off. Congress won’t be in session much longer.”

“I know that. I am a U.S. Representative,” he reminded her dryly. “Which is all the more reason for me to push these so-and-so’s into getting down here to vote when our bill comes up. I can’t leave.”

“In that case, don’t expect me to wail for you.”

“Would I? Anyway, you need the rest more than I do,” he said on a laugh. “How’s everything going?”

“Fine,” she said. “Nothing exciting. A big fish washed up on the beach…”

“I hope you didn’t try to save it,” he muttered. “You’re hell to take on a fishing trip, with your overstimulated protective instincts.”

“I let this one go,” she said, feeling vaguely guilty that she was keeping a secret from him. It was the first time, too. “It wasn’t hurt very badly. It swam away and I’ll never see it again.” That much was probably true.

“Well, stay out of trouble, can’t you?”

“Clay, I’ll do my very best,” she promised.

“Get some rest. You’ll need it when autumn comes and the campaigning begins in earnest.”

“Don’t I know it,” she chuckled. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

She hung up the phone and went to lounge on the deck, watching the whitecaps curl rhythmically in to the white beach. The moon shone on them and as she sipped white wine, she thought that she’d never felt quite so alone. She wondered what Mr. Lombard was doing.

Chapter Three

Kane Lombard was sitting on his own deck with a highball, thinking about Nikki. It had been a productive day. Most days were, because the job was everything to him. But now, as he contemplated the moonlight sparkle on the ocean, he felt unfulfilled.

He was thirty-eight years old. He’d had a wife, and a son. There had been a twelve-year marriage which, while not perfect, at least gave him a sense of security. At least he’d been in love when he married, even if things had gone sour a few years later. Now he was among the ranks of the single men again, but without the youth and idealism that made marriage a viable prospect. He was jaded and somewhere along the way, he’d lost all his illusions about people. About life. He was like those waves, he thought, being aimlessly thrown onto the beach and then forgotten. When he died, there would be nothing to leave behind, nothing to show that Kane Lombard had lived on this planet.

That wasn’t totally true, he chided himself as he swallowed a sip of the stinging highball. He had the company to leave behind. The name would probably be changed somewhere down the line, though. Names didn’t last long.

He leaned back on the chaise lounge and closed his eyes. Nikki. Her name was Nikki, and she had black hair and green eyes and the face of an angel. He liked the way she looked, the way she laughed, as if life still had wonderful things to offer. He knew better, but she made him optimistic. He needed someone like that.

Not permanently, of course, he told himself. He needed an affair. Just an affair. Would she be willing? She seemed to find him attractive enough. If he took her out and bided his time, would she be receptive? He sloshed the liquid in the glass, listening to the soft chink of the ice cubes against the watery roar of the ocean. Perhaps she was lonely, too. God knew, there was no monopoly on loneliness. Like the air itself, it permeated everything. His eyelids felt heavy. He closed them, just for a minute…

It was dawn when he woke, still lying on the chaise lounge, with the chill morning air in his face. The glass, long since forgotten, had fallen gently to the deck and was dry now, the ice and whiskey melted and evaporated on the wood floor. He got up, stretching with faint soreness. His head was much better, but there were still vestiges of a headache. He stared out over the ocean, and was jarred from his thoughts when the telephone rang.

His housekeeper was apparently in residence, because the ringing stopped, to be replaced by her loud, stringent voice.

“Telephone, Mr. Lombard!” she called.

“I’ll take it out here,” he returned gruffly.

She handed him the phone and he nodded curtly as he took it, waving her away. “Yes?” he asked.

“I’m Todd Lawson, Mr. Lombard,” a deep voice replied. “I work for your father and brothers in New York at the Weekly Voice,” he prompted when there was a long pause on the other end of the line.

Kane recognized the name. Lawson was his father’s star reporter, if a man who was better at creating news than gathering it could be called a journalist.

“Yes, I know you,” Kane said. “What do you want?”

“Your father sent me to Charleston to do a little prospecting. He wants me to see what I can find on the Republican U.S. Representative incumbent, Seymour. I’ve just checked into a hotel here. Any ideas about a good place to start looking for skeletons?”

“I can’t help you. I haven’t lived in Charleston long enough to know many people. I only know Seymour through the mails and the telephone,” he added curtly. “If I put a step wrong, he’ll be over me like tarpaper, I know that. We had a sewage leak a couple of weeks ago, accidental, and he’s been after my neck ever since. He went on television to point fingers at me as a perfect example of a money-hungry anticonservationist.” He shook his head. “He’s gungho on this industrial pollution issue. It’s his number one priority, they say.”

“Interesting that he’s fighting for the lumber bill out west,” Lawson murmured, tongue in cheek.

“The habitat of an owl out west apparently doesn’t do him as much political good as digging out industrial polluters on his doorstep.”

“You said it.”

“Keep me posted, will you?”

“You bet.”

He put down the receiver. Seymour was an odd bird, he thought. The man had little material wealth, but his old Charleston heritage had helped put him in office. The backing of Senator Mosby Torrance hadn’t hurt, either. The junior U.S. senator from South Carolina was a personable man with an equally impeccable reputation, even if he had a failed marriage behind him. Mosby’s marriage had been very brief, Kane understood, and rather secretive, but that had been because of his bride’s tender age, his sources told him. He couldn’t quite remember, but it seemed that there had been some connection with the Seymours before that. He’d have to remember and tell Lawson. It wasn’t important enough to try to reach the reporter, even if he knew where to look. No matter. Lawson would call back.

In the campaign headquarters of Sam Hewett, candidate for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. House of Representatives for the district that included Charleston, South Carolina, a heated discussion was taking place between Hewett and his advisers.

“You can’t risk a personal attack on Seymour at this point,” Norman Lombard muttered through a cloud of cigar smoke. His dark eyes lanced the candidate, who was tall and thin and rather nervous. “Let us take care of anything in that line. My father owns the biggest tabloid in America and my brothers and I are solidly behind you, financially and every other way. You just shake hands and make friends. For now, worry about nothing more than the Democratic nomination. When the time comes, we’ll have enough to slide you past Seymour at the polls.”

“What if I can’t gather enough support?” Hewett asked uneasily. “I’m not that well-known. I don’t have the background that Seymour does!”

“You’ll have the name identification when we get through with you,” Norman said, chuckling. “My dad knows how to get the publicity. You’ll get the votes. We guarantee it.”

“You won’t do anything illegal?” the candidate asked.

The question seemed to be perennial in Hewett’s mind. Lombard sighed angrily and puffed on his cigar. “We won’t have to,” he assured the other man for the tenth time. “A little mud here, a little doubt there, and we’ll have the seat in our grasp. Just relax, Sam. You’re a shoo-in. Enjoy the ride.”

“I want to win honestly.”

“The last person who won honestly was George Washington,” Lombard joked cynically. “But never mind, we’ll do our best to keep your conscience quiet. Now, get out there and campaign, Sam. And stop worrying, will you? I promise you, it will all work out for the best.”

Hewett wasn’t as certain as his advisor appeared, but he was a newcomer to politics. He was learning more than he wanted to about the election process every day. He’d been idealistic and enthusiastic at the outset. Now, he was losing his illusions by the minute. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was what the founding fathers had in mind when they outlined the electoral process. It seemed a real shame that qualifications meant nothing at all in the race; it was a contest of personalities and high-tech advertising and money, not issues. But on that foundation, the election rested. He did want to win, he told himself. But for the first time, he wasn’t sure why.

It had thrilled him when the Lombards backed him as a candidate. It had been Kane Lombard’s idea initially. Kane liked Sam because they were both yachtsmen, and because Sam supported tax cuts and other incentives that would help his fledgling automobile manufacturing industry in Charleston. Mainly, Sam thought, it was because Clayton Seymour had taken an instant dislike to Kane and had done everything possible to put obstacles in his path when the auto manufacturing firm first located in Charleston. The antagonism had been mutual. Now, with Kane’s latest bad luck in having a sewage spill into the river, Seymour had attacked him from every angle.

Sam didn’t like dirty politics. He wanted to win the election, but not if it meant stooping to the sort of tactics Seymour and his mentor Mosby Torrance were using against Kane. The double-dealing at city hall had been shocking to Sam, with both politicians using unfair influence to delay building permits and regulatory requirements.

Privately, Sam thought a lot of their resentment was due to the national reputation of the tabloid Kane’s father and brothers owned in New York. It was increasingly focusing on politics and it had done some nasty exposes on pet projects of Senator Torrance. It had also made some veiled threats about going on a witch-hunt to drag out scandals in Congress, beginning with southern senators and representatives. That had been about the time Kane announced the building of his plant. It had also coincided with Seymour’s bid for reelection.

Having Kane so close to home was making Seymour and Torrance nervous. Sam began to wonder what they had to hide.

Nicole had driven her small used red sports car into the village market near the medical center to get milk and bread—the eternal necessities—and fresh fruit. She’d just walked onto her porch when she heard the sound of a car pulling to a stop behind her.

She turned, and found Kane Lombard climbing out of a ramshackle old Jeep. She wondered just for an instant where he’d borrowed such a dilapidated vehicle before the sight of him in jeans and a white knit shirt made her heart start beating faster.

He smiled at the picture she made in cutoff denim shorts and a pink tank top. That dark tan gave her an almost continental look.

“You tan well,” he remarked.

“Our ancestors were French Huguenots, who came to Charleston early in the seventeenth century to escape religious persecution in Europe,” she told him. “I’m told that our olive complexion comes from them.”

“I brought back the things you loaned me.” He handed her a bundle. “Washed and pressed,” he added.

“With your own two hands?” she teased.

He liked the way her eyes sparkled when she smiled. She made him feel young again. “Not quite.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and studied her closely, with pursed lips. “Come for a ride.”

Her heart skipped. She couldn’t really afford to get mixed up with her brother’s enemy, she told herself firmly. Really she couldn’t.

“Just let me put these things away,” she said.

He followed her inside and wandered around the living room while she put the perishable things into the refrigerator and the bread in the bread box.

“I should change…” she began.

“Why?” He turned, smiling at her. “You look fine to me.”

“In that case, I’m ready.”

She locked the door, grateful that she hadn’t any photographs setting around that might clue him in to her relationship with Clayton. Nor was there anything expensive or antique in the beach house. She and Clayton didn’t keep valuables here, and the beach house remained in the name of their cousin who also had access to it. That kept nosey parkers from finding Clayton when he was up here on holiday. Records on land ownership were not hard to obtain, especially for someone like Kane Lombard.

He unlocked the passenger door and helped her inside. “It’s not very neat in here,” he said, apologizing. “I use this old rattletrap for fishing trips, mostly. I like to angle for bass down on the Santee-Cooper River.”

“You don’t look like a fisherman,” she remarked. She clipped her seat belt into place, idly watching his hard, dark face and wondering at the lines in it, the silvery hair at his temples. He was older than she’d first thought.

“I hate fishing, as a rule,” he replied. He started the Jeep and reversed it neatly, wheeling around before he sped off down the beach highway. The sun was shining. It was a glorious morning, with seagulls and pelicans scrounging for fish in the surf while a handful of residents walked in the surf and watched the ocean.

“Then, why do it?” she asked absently.

“My father loves it. He and I have very little in common, otherwise. I go fishing with him because it gives me an excuse to see him occasionally—and my younger brothers.”

“How many do you have?”

“Two. No sisters. There are just the three of us. We drove my mother crazy when we were kids.” He glanced at her. “Do you have family?”

“Not many, not anymore,” she said, her voice very quiet and distant.

“I’m sorry. It must be lonely for you.”

“It’s not bad,” she replied. “I have friends.”

“Like the one who lets you share the beach house with him?” he asked pointedly.

She smiled at him, unconcerned. “Yes. Like him.”

Kane made a mental note to find out who owned that beach house. He wanted to know the name of the man with whom Nikki was involved. It didn’t occur to him then that his very curiosity betrayed his growing involvement with her.

All along the beach, people were beginning to set up lawn chairs and spread towels in the sun. It was a warm spring day, with nothing but a sprinkling of clouds overhead.

“I love the ocean,” Nikki said softly, smiling as her wide green eyes took in her surroundings. “I could never live inland. Even the freighters and fishing boats fascinate me.”

“I know what you mean,” he agreed. “I’ve lived in port cities all my life. You get addicted to the sight and sound of big ships.”

He must mean Houston, but she couldn’t admit that she knew where he was from. “Do you live here?” she asked.

“I’m on holiday,” he said, which was true enough. “Do you stay here, all the time?”

“No,” she confessed. “I live farther down the coast.”

“In Charleston?” he probed.

“Sort of.”

“What does sort of mean?”

“I live on the beach itself.” She did. She lived in one of the graceful old homes on the Battery, which was listed in the National Register of Historic Places and which was open to tourists two weeks a year.

He could imagine in what kind of house she normally lived. He hadn’t seen her in anything so far that didn’t look as if she’d found it in a yard sale. He felt vaguely sorry for her. She had no one of her own except her indifferent lover, and her material possessions were obviously very few. He’d noticed that she drove a very dilapidated red MG Midget, the model that was popular back in the 60s.

“Feel like a cup of coffee?” he asked, nodding toward a small fast-food joint near the beach, with tables outside covered by faded yellow umbrellas.

“Yes, I do, thanks,” she told him.

He parked the jeep and they got out. Nikki strolled to the beachside table and sat down while Kane ordered coffee. He hadn’t needed to be told how Nikki took hers. He brought it with cream and sugar, smiling mischievously at her surprise.

“I have a more or less photographic memory,” he told her as he slid onto the seat across from her.

“I’ll remember that,” she said with a grin.

He lifted his head and closed his eyes, letting the sea breeze drift over his darkly tanned face. It had a faintly leonine look, broad and definite, with a straight nose that was just short of oversized, a jutting brow with thick eyebrows, and a wide, thin-lipped mouth that managed to be sexy and masculine all at once. His eyes were large and brown, his pupils edged in black. They were staring at her with faint amusement.

“You look Spanish,” she blurted out, embarrassed at having been caught looking at him.

He frowned slightly, smiling. “My great-grandmother was a highborn Spanish lady,” he replied. “She was visiting relatives near San Antonio, where my great-grandfather was a ranch foreman. As the story goes, they were married five days after they met, leaving a raging scandal behind them when they moved to Houston to prospect for oil.”

“How interesting! And did they find any?”

“My great-grandfather was prospecting up around Beaumont when Spindletop blew its stack in 1901,” he told her. “He made and lost a fortune in two months’ time.” He didn’t add that his great-grandfather had quickly recouped his losses and went on to found an oil company.

“Poor man.” She looked up from the coffee she was sipping. “His wife didn’t leave him because he lost everything, did she?”

“She wasn’t the type. She stuck by him, all the way.”

“That doesn’t happen very often anymore, does it? Women sticking by men, I mean,” she added wistfully. “Now, marriages are expendable. Nobody does it for keeps.”

He scowled. “You’re very cynical for someone so young.”

“I’m twenty-five,” she told him. “Not young at all for this day and age.” She studied her brightly polished fingernails, curled around the foam cup. “For the rest, it’s a cynical world. Profit even takes precedence over human life. I’m told that in the Amazon jungles, they kill the natives without compunction to get them off land the government wants to let big international corporations develop.”

He stared at her. “Do you really think that with all the people this planet has to support, we can afford to allow primitive cultures to sit on that much arable land?”

Her green eyes began to glitter. “I think that if we develop all the arable land, we’re going to have to eat concrete and steel a few years down the line.”

He was delighted. Absolutely delighted. For all her beauty, there was a brain under that black hair. He moved his coffee cup around on the scarred surface of the table and smiled at her. “Progress costs,” he countered.

“It’s going to cost us the planet at the rate we’re destroying our natural resources,” she said sweetly. “Or aren’t you aware that about one percent of us is feeding the other ninety-nine percent? You have to have flat, rich land to plant on. Unfortunately the same sort of land that is best suited to agriculture is also best suited to building sites.”

“On the other hand,” he pointed out, “without jobs, people won’t be able to afford seed to plant. A new business means new jobs, a better standard of living for the people in the community. Better nutrition for nursing mothers, for young children.”

“That’s all true,” she agreed, leaning forward earnestly. “But what about the price people pay for that better standard of living? When farm mechanization came along, farmers had to grow more food in order to afford the equipment to make planting and harvesting less time-consuming. That raised the price of food. The pesticides and fertilizers they had to use, to increase production, caused the toxic byproducts to leach into the ground, and pollute the water table. We produced more food, surely, but the more food you raise, the more the population grows. That increases the amount of food you have to raise to feed the increasing numbers of people! It’s a vicious circle.”

“My God, you talk like an economist,” he said.

“Why not? I studied it in college.”

“Well, well.” He grinned at her. “What did you take your degree in?”

“I didn’t finish,” she said sadly. “I dropped out after three and a half years, totally burned out. I’ll go back and finish one day, though. I only lack two semesters having enough units to graduate, with a major in history and a minor in sociology.”

“God help the world when you get out,” he murmured. “You could go into politics with a brain like yours.”

She was flattered and amused, but she didn’t let him see the latter. He mustn’t know how wrapped up she already was in politics.

“You’re not bad yourself.”

“I took my degree in business administration,” he said. “I did a double minor in economics and marketing.”

“Do you work in business?” she asked with deliberate innocence.

“You might say so,” he said carelessly. “I’m in marketing.”

“It must be exciting.”

“Sometimes,” he dodged. He finished his coffee. “Do you like to walk on the beach?” he asked. “I enjoy it early in the morning and late in the afternoon. It helps me clear my mind so that I can think.”

“Me, too,” she said.

“Kindred spirits,” he said almost to himself, and she smiled.

He put the garbage in the receptacle and impulsively slid his hand into Nikki’s.

It was the first deliberate physical contact between them, and sparks flew as his big, strong fingers linked sensuously between her slender ones. She felt their warm touch and tingles worked all the way down her body. She hadn’t felt that way in years. Not since Mosby…

She caught her breath and looked up at him with something like panic in her green eyes.

“What is it, Nikki?” he asked gently.

His deep voice stirred her even more than the touch of his hand. She felt him, as if they were standing locked together. Her eyes looked into his and she could almost taste him.

“Nothing,” she choked after a minute. She pulled her fingers from his grasp firmly, but hesitantly. “Shall we go?”

He watched her move off ahead of him, her hands suddenly in her pockets, the small fanny pack around her waist drooping over one rounded hip. She looked frightened. That was an odd sort of behavior from a woman who’d let him share her home for a night, he thought idly. She hadn’t been afraid of him then.

She paused when he caught up with her, feeling guilty and not quite herself. She looked up at him with a rueful, embarrassed smile.

“I don’t trust men, as a rule,” she confessed. “Most of them have one major objective when they start paying attention to a woman. I’ve never been accused of misleading anyone. That’s why I’m going to tell you right now, and up front, that I don’t sleep around, ever.”

“At least you’re honest,” he said as they continued to walk toward the beach.

“Always,” she assured him. “I find it’s the best policy.”

“Do you sleep with the man who owns the beach house?”

“What I do with him is none of your business,” she said simply.

“Fair enough.” He put his hands in his pockets and looked down at her while they strolled along the white sand. Whitecaps rolled, foaming onto the nearby shore, and above head the seagulls danced on the wind with black-tipped white wings spread to the sun.

“You’re very big,” she remarked.

He chuckled. “Tall. Not big.”

“You are,” she argued. “I’m five foot five and you tower over me.”

“I’m barely six foot two,” he told her. “You’re a shrimp, that’s why I seem big to you.”

“Watch your mouth, buster, I’m not through growing yet,” she said pertly, cutting her sparkling eyes up at him.

He chuckled. “Smart mouth.”

“Smart, period, thank you so much.”

“Now that we both know you won’t sleep with me, can we hold hands? Mine are cold.”

“I might have suspected there would be an ulterior motive,” she mentioned. But all the same, she took her left hand out of her pocket and let him fold it under his warm fingers.

“You aren’t cold,” she protested.

“Sure I am. You just can’t tell.” His fingers tightened, and he smiled at the faint flush on her cheeks as the exercise began to tell on her. “You ninety-seven-pound-weakling,” he chided. “Can’t you keep up with me?”

“Normally I could run rings around you,” she said heavily. “But I’m getting over a bout of pneumonia.”

He stopped abruptly, scowling. “Idiot! You don’t need to be out in this early morning chill! Why didn’t you say something?”

His concern made her heart lift. “It’s been a week since I got out of bed,” she assured him. “And I haven’t been sitting home idle all that time.”

“You haven’t done much exercising, either, have you?”

“Not really,” she admitted. The help she’d given with the Spoleto Festival had involved a lot of telephone calls and assistance that she could give sitting down. Her strength was still lagging behind her will.

“What a waif and stray it is, and it hasn’t much of a mind at times, either,” he murmured softly.

She started to take offense when he moved suddenly and swept her into his warm, strong arms. He turned and started walking back the way they’d come.

Nikki was totally breathless with surprised delight. It was the first time in her life that she’d experienced a man’s strength in this way. She wasn’t sure she liked the feeling of vulnerability it gave her, and that doubt was in her eyes when they met his at close range.

“I can see the words right there on the tip of your tongue,” he said softly, his deep voice faintly accented and very tender as he smiled at her. “But don’t say them. Put your arms around me and lie close to my chest while I carry you.”

Shades of a romantic movie, she thought wildly. But the odd thing was that she obeyed him without question, without hesitation. There was a breathy little sigh escaping from her. She dropped her eyes to his throat, where thick hair showed in the opening, and she felt a sweet swelling in her body as he drew her relentlessly closer. Her face ended up in the hot curve of his throat, her arms close around his neck.

“Nikki,” he said in a rough, husky voice, and his arms suddenly contracted, crushing her soft breasts against the wall of his chest as he turned toward the car.

It was no longer a teasing or tender embrace. Her nails were biting into his shoulders as he walked, and she felt the closeness in every single pore of her body. Her breasts had gone hard-tipped, her heart was throbbing. Low in her stomach, she felt a heat and hunger that was totally without precedent.

“Oh, baby,” he whispered suddenly, and she felt his open mouth quite suddenly on the softness of her throat where her tank top left it bare to her collarbone.

She closed her eyes with a shaky gasp. The wind blew her hair around her face and cooled the heat in her cheeks. He was warm and strong and he smelled of spices. She wanted him to strip her out of her clothes and put his warm, hard mouth on her breasts and her belly and the inside of her thighs. She wanted him to put her down on the beach and make love to her under the sky.

With a total disregard for safety and sanity, her hand tangled in the thick, wavy hair at the back of his head and she pulled his mouth down to the soft curve under her collarbone.

Chapter Four

Kane’s head was spinning, but when Nikki coaxed his mouth down, he came to his senses with a jolt. It was a public beach, for God’s sake, and he was a man who didn’t need this sort of complication!

He jerked his face up and put her down abruptly. He stepped back, trying not to show how shaken he was. It had been a long time since he’d felt anything so powerful. He looked into her dazed, misty, half-closed green eyes.

She was shaken, too, and unable to hide it. His lips had almost been touching her bare skin when he’d withdrawn them. She felt as if she’d been left in limbo, but she had to keep her head.

“Thank you,” she said. “I knew that you could save me from myself,” she managed with irrepressible spirit.

He smiled in spite of himself. “I suppose I did. But I’d never have believed it of myself. I’m not one to throw away opportunities, and you have a mouth like a ripe apple.”

“I’m thrilled that you think so.”

He burst out laughing, absolutely delighted. “In that case, don’t you want to come with me to a quiet, deserted place?”

“Of course I do.” She pushed back her disheveled hair. “But we’ve already agreed that it wouldn’t be sensible.”

“You agreed. I didn’t.”

She was having trouble with her legs. They didn’t want to move. And the throbbing need in her body was getting worse, not better. How ironic of her to suddenly explode with passion for a man after all this time, and the man had to be her brother’s worst enemy in the world!

“Stop tempting me to do sordid things,” she told him firmly. She pushed back her disheveled hair. “I’ll have you know that I’m a virtuous woman.”

“That may not last if you spend much time around me. How about going sailing with me?”

Her hand poised above her hair. “Sailing?”

“Your eyes lit up. Do you like sailing?” he asked.

“I love it!”

He chuckled. “I’ll pick you up early tomorrow.” He paused. “If you’re free?”

She knew what he was asking. He meant, would her “live-in lover” mind?

“He isn’t jealous,” she said with a slow smile.

“Isn’t he?”

His dark eyes sketched her face and he began to worry. He knew he was losing his grasp on reality, to take this sort of chance. She appealed to him physically. That was all. There was an added threat. What if she found out who he was?

His own apprehension amused him. What if she did, for God’s sake? What could she do, blackmail him because they’d spend an innocent night together?

“The man I live with and I…we have an…open relationship,” she assured him.

“I hope you aren’t entertaining ideas that I might be willing to take his place,” he said slowly. “I enjoy your company, and I find you very attractive. But I’m not in the market for a lover. I already have one.”

Why should that shock her? She shifted a little and averted her eyes to the beach. She wasn’t shopping for a lover, either. Not with her past. So wasn’t it just as well that he didn’t want one?

“That suits me,” she replied absently. “I don’t care for purely physical relationships. I wouldn’t mind a friend, though,” she added suddenly, her green eyes linking with his as she smiled. “I have very few of those.”

“I doubt if anyone can boast more than one true friend,” he said cynically. “Okay. Friends it is.”

“And no funny stuff on the sailboat,” she said, returning to her former mood with mercurial rapidity. “You can’t lash me to the mast and ravish me, or strip me naked and use me to troll for sharks. You have to promise.”

He grinned. “Fair enough.”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I don’t think we can avoid it,” he agreed. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

That evening, sitting alone on the deck, her conscience nagged at her. It didn’t help that Clayton telephoned to tell her about the progress he was making.

“I’ve won over a new ally,” he told her, and mentioned the congressman’s name. “How’s that for a day’s work?!”

“Great!” she said, laughing. “Uh, how’s the owl controversy?”

“It’s a real hoot,” he muttered. “Derrie and I aren’t speaking because of it. Here I am a conservation candidate, voting against a little owl and a bunch of old trees just because it will mean new jobs and economic prosperity. She thinks I’m a lunatic.”

“Was the moon full?”

“Cut it out. You’re my sister. Blood is thicker than water.”

“Probably it is, but what does that have to do with anything?”

He scowled. “I can’t think of a single thing. How are you? Getting some rest?”

“Enough.” She hesitated. “I…met someone.”

“Someone? A man? A real, honest to God man?”

“He looks like one. He’s taking me sailing.”

“Nikki, I’m delighted! Who is he?”

She crossed her fingers on her lap. “Just an ordinary man,” she lied. “He’s into…cars.”

“Oh. A mechanic? Well, there’s nothing wrong with being a mechanic, I guess. Can he sail well enough not to drown you?”

“I think he could do anything he set his mind to,” she murmured dreamily.

“Is this really you?” he teased. “You were off men for life, the last time we spoke.”

“Oh, I am,” she agreed readily. “It’s just that this one is so different.” She added, “I haven’t ever met anyone quite like him.”

“Is he a ladies’ man?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps.”

“Nikki,” he began, hesitating. She’d had a rough experience at an early age. She was vulnerable. “Listen, suppose I come up for a few days?”

“No!” She cleared her throat and lowered her voice. “I mean, there’s no need to do that.”

“You’re worrying me,” he said.

“You can’t protect me from the world, you know. I have to stand on my own two feet sometime.”

“I guess you do,” he said, sounding resigned and not too happy. “Okay, sis. Have it your way. But I’m as close as the telephone if you need me. Will you remember that?”

“You can bet on it.”

“Then I’ll speak to you soon.”

When he hung up, Nikki let out the breath she’d been holding. That was all she needed now, to have Clayton come wandering up to the house and run head-on into his worst enemy. Things were getting complicated and she was certain that she needed to cut off the impossible relationship before it began. But she couldn’t quite manage it. Already, Kane had gotten close to her heart. She hoped that it wouldn’t break completely in the end.

She wondered how Kane was going to keep her in the dark about his wealth. If he took her sailing in a yacht, even a moron would notice that it meant he had money.

The next day he solved the problem adroitly by mentioning that he couldn’t rent the sailboat he’d planned to take her out in, so they were going riding in a motorboat instead. It was a very nice motorboat, but nothing like the yacht he usually took onto the ocean.

Nikki smiled to herself and accepted the change of conveyance without noticeable effect.

“I know I said I’d take you out on a sailboat,” he explained as he helped her into the boat, “but they’re not very safe in high winds. It’s pretty windy today.”

It was, but she hardly thought a yacht would be very much affected. On the other hand, it wouldn’t do for her “ordinary” houseguest to turn up in a million-dollar-plus sailing ship, and he must have realized that.

“Oh, I like motorboats,” she said honestly, her eyes lighting up with excitement as Kane eased into the driver’s seat and turned the key. The motor started right up and ran like a purring cat.

He glanced at her with a wry smile. “Are you a good sailor?”

“I guess we’ll find out together,” she returned.

He chuckled and pulled away from the pier.

The boat had a smooth glide on the water’s surface, and the engine wasn’t overly loud. Nikki put up a hand to her windblown hair, laughing as the faint spray of water teased her nose.

“Aren’t you ever gloomy?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

“Oh, why bother being pessimistic?” she replied. “Life is so short. It’s a crime to waste it, when every day is like Christmas, bringing something new.”

She loved life. He’d forgotten how. His dark eyes turned toward the distant horizon and he tried not to think about how short life really was, or how tragically he’d learned the lesson.

“Where are we going?” Nikki asked.

“No place in particular,” he said. He glanced at her with faint amusement. “Unless,” he added, “you like to fish.”

“I don’t mind it. But you hate it!” she laughed.

“Of course I do. But I have to keep my hand in,” he added. “So that I don’t disgrace the rest of my family. The gear and tackle are under that tarp. I thought we’d ease up the river a bit and settle in a likely spot. I brought an ice chest and lunch.”

“You really are full of surprises,” she commented.

His dark eyes twinkled. “You don’t know the half of it,” he murmured, turning his concentration back to navigation.

He found a leafy glade and tied the boat up next to shore. He and Nikki sat lazily on the bank and watched their corks rise and fall and occasionally bob. They ate cold cut sandwiches and potato chips and sipped soft drinks, and Nikki marveled at the tycoon who was a great fishing companion. Not since her childhood, when she’d gone fishing with her late grandfather, had she enjoyed anything so much. She’d forgotten how much fun it was to sit on the river with a fishing pole.

“Do you do this often?” she wanted to know.

“With my brothers and my father. Not ever with a woman.” His broad shoulders lifted and fell. “Most of them that I know don’t care for worms and hooks,” he mused. “You’re not squeamish, are you?”

“Not really. About some things, maybe,” she added quietly. “But unless you’re shooting the fish in a barrel, they have a sporting chance. And I do love fried bass!”

“Can you clean a fish?”

“You bet!”

He chuckled with delight. “In that case, if we catch anything, I’m inviting myself to supper.” His eyes narrowed. “If you have no other plans.”

“Not for two weeks, I haven’t,” she said.

He seemed to relax. His powerful legs stretched out in front of him and he tugged on the fishing pole to test the hook. “Nothing’s striking at my bait,” he grumbled. “I haven’t had a bite yet. We’ll give it ten more minutes and then we’re moving to a better spot.”

“The minute we move, a hundred big fish will feel safe to vacation here,” she pointed out.

“You’re probably right. Some days aren’t good ones to fish.”

“That depends on what you’re fishing for,” she said, concentrating on the sudden bob of her cork. “Watch this…!”

She pulled suddenly on the pole, snaring something at the end of the line, and scrambled to her feet. Whatever she’d hooked was giving her a run for her money. She pulled and released, pulled and released, worked the pole, moved up the bank, muttered and clicked her tongue until finally her prey began to tire. She watched Kane watching her and laughed at his dismal expression.

“You’re hoping I’ll drop him, aren’t you?” she challenged. “Well, I won’t. Supper, here you come!”

She gave a hard jerk on the line and the fish, a large bass, flipped up onto the bank. While Kane dealt with it, she baited her hook again. “I’ve got mine,” she told him. “I don’t know what you’ll eat, of course.”

He sat down beside her and picked up his own pole. “We’ll just see about that,” he returned.

Two hours later, they had three large bass. Nikki had caught two of them. Kane lifted the garbage and then the cooler with the fish into the boat. Nikki forgave herself for feeling vaguely superior, just for a few minutes.

Kane had forgotten his tragedies, his business dealings, his worries in the carefree morning he was sharing with Nikki. Her company had liberated his one-track mind from the rigors that plagued men of his echelon. He was used to being by himself, to letting business occupy every waking hour. Since the death of his family, he’d substituted making money for everything else. Food tasted like cardboard to him. Sleep was infrequent and an irritating necessity. He hadn’t taken a vacation or even a day off since the trip he’d taken with his wife and son that had ended so tragically.

Perhaps that very weariness had made him careless and caused his head injury. But looking at Nikki, so relaxed and happy beside him, he couldn’t be sorry about it. She was an experience he knew he’d never forget. But, like all the others, he’d taste her delights and put her aside. And in two weeks after he left her, he wouldn’t be able to recall her name. The thought made him restless.

Nikki noticed his unease. She wondered if he was as attracted to her emotionally as he seemed to be physically. It had worried her when he’d admitted that he had a lover. Of course, he thought she did, too, and it couldn’t have been further from the truth. But it could be, she was forced to admit, remembering the feel of his big arms around her. He could be her lover. She trembled inside at the size and power of his body. Mosby had never been able to bring himself to make love to her at all. He’d only been able to touch her lightly and without passion. She hadn’t known what it was to be kissed breathless, to be a slave to her body’s needs, until this stranger had come along. There were many reasons that would keep her from becoming intimate with him. And the first was the faceless lover who clung to him in the darkness. She didn’t know how to compete with another woman, because she’d never had to.

She forced her wandering mind back to the fishing. This had been one of the most carefree days of her life. She was sad to see it end. Kane had agreed to come to supper, but she was losing him now to other concerns. His mind wasn’t on the fish, or her. She wondered what errant thought had made him so preoccupied.

“I have to make a telephone call, or I’d help you clean the fish,” he said when he left her at the front door of her beach house with the cooler.

“Business?” she asked.

His face showed nothing. “You might call it that.” He didn’t say anything else. He smiled at her distractedly and left with a careless wave of his hand.

Nikki went in to clean the fish, disturbed by his sudden remoteness. What kind of business could he have meant?

Kane listened patiently while the angry voice at the other end of the telephone ranted and railed at him.

“You promised that we could go to the Waltons’ party tonight!” Chris fumed. “How can you do this to me? What sort of deal are you working on that demands a whole evening of your time?”

“That’s hardly your concern,” he said in a very quiet voice. Her rudeness and lack of compassion were beginning to irritate him. She was a competent psychologist, and he couldn’t fault her intellect. But their mutual need for safe intimacy had been their only common bond. Chris wanted a man she could lead around by the nose in any emotional relationship. Kane wasn’t the type to let anyone, man or woman, dictate to him. He’d tired of Chris. Tonight, she was an absolute nuisance.

“When will you phone me, then?” she asked stiffly.

“When I have time. It might be as well if we don’t see as much of each other in the future.”

There was a hesitation, then a stiff, “Perhaps you’re right. You’re a wonderful lover, Kane, but I always have the feeling that you’re going over cost overruns even when we’re together.”

“I’m a businessman,” he reminded her.

“You’re a business,” she retorted. “A walking, talking industry, and I still say you should be in therapy. You haven’t been the same since…”

He didn’t want to hear any more. “I’ll phone you. Good night.”

He put the receiver down before she could say anything else. He’d had quite enough of her psychoanalysis. She did it all the time, even when she was in bed with him; especially when she was in bed with him, he amended. If he was aggressive, she labeled him a repressed masochist. If he was tender, he was pandering to her because he felt superior. Lately, she inhibited him so much that he lost interest very quickly when he was in bed with her, to the point of not being able to consummate lovemaking. That really infuriated her. She decided that his real problem was impotence.

If her barbs hadn’t been so painful, they might have been amusing. He’d never been impotent in his life with anyone except Chris. Certainly he was more capable than ever when he just looked at Nikki. But, then, Nikki apparently didn’t have any reason to hate and despise men. She was very feminine along with her intelligence, and she didn’t tease viciously.

He got up and changed from jeans and jersey into dress slacks and a comfortable yellow knit shirt. Fried fish with Nikki was suddenly much more enticing than a prime rib and cocktails with Chris.

He selected a bottle of wine from the supply he’d imported and carried it along with him. He wondered if Nikki knew anything about fine white wine. She was an intelligent girl, but she hadn’t the advantages of wealth. Probably she wouldn’t know a Chardonnay from a Johannisberg Riesling. That was something he could teach her. He didn’t dare think about tutoring her in anything else just yet. She could become even more addicting than alcohol if he let her. Chris was all the trouble he needed for the present.

Nikki had cleaned and fried the fish and was making a fruit salad and a poppyseed dressing to go with it when Kane knocked briefly and let himself into the cottage.

She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at him. “Come on in,” she invited. She was wearing a frilly floral sundress that left most of her pretty, tanned back bare while it discreetly covered her breasts in front. She was barefoot at the kitchen table and Kane felt his body surge at the picture of feminine beauty she presented. How long had it been, he tried to recall, since he’d seen a woman in his own circle of friends wearing anything less masculine than a pin-striped business suit? Nikki dressed the way he liked to see a woman dress, not flaunting her curves but not denying it, either. She dressed as if she had enough confidence in her intellect not to have to hide her womanhood behind it.

“I’ve just finished the salad and dressing. Want to set the table?” she asked brightly.

He hesitated. He couldn’t remember ever doing that in his life. Even as a child, there had always been maids who worked in the kitchen.

“The plates are there,” she nodded toward a cupboard with her head. “You’ll find utensils in the second drawer. Place mats and napkins are in the third drawer.” She noticed his expression and his hesitation with faint amusement. “You do know how to set a table?”

“Not really,” he admitted.

“Then it’s high time you learned,” she said. “Someday you may get married, and think how much more desirable you’ll be if you know your way around a kitchen.”

He didn’t react to the teasing with a smile. He stared at her with a curious remoteness and she remembered belatedly the dead wife she wasn’t supposed to know about.

“I don’t want to marry anyone,” he said unexpectedly. “Especially a woman I’ve only just met,” he added without being unkind.

“Well, certainly you don’t want to marry me right now,” she agreed. “After all, you don’t even know me. Sadly, once you discover my worthy traits and my earthy longings, you’ll be clamoring to put a ring on my finger. But I’ll have to turn you down, you know. I already have a commitment.”

His face went hard and his eyes glittered. He turned away from her and began searching in drawers. “Some commitment,” he muttered. “The man doesn’t even come to check on you. What if a hurricane hit? What if some criminal forced his way in here and raped you, or worse?”

“He phones occasionally,” she said demurely.

“What a hell of a concession,” he returned. “How do you stand all that attention?”

“I really don’t need your approval.”

“Good thing. You won’t get it. Not that I have any plans other than supper,” he added forcefully, glaring at her as he began to put things on the table in strange and mysterious order.

She didn’t bother to answer the gibe. “You really should take lessons in how to do a place setting,” she remarked, noting that he had the forks in the middle of the plate and the knives lumped together.

“I don’t want to make a career of it.”

“Suit yourself,” she told him. “Just don’t blame me if you’re never able to get a job as a busboy in one of the better hotels. Heaven knows, I tried to teach you the basics.”

He chuckled faintly. She turned and began to put the food on the table. Afterward, she rearranged the place settings until they were as they should be.

“Show-off,” he accused.

She curtsied, grinning at him. “Do sit down.”

He held the chair out for her, watching when she hesitated. “I am prepared to stand here until winter,” he observed.

With a long sigh, she allowed him to seat her. “Archaic custom.”

“Courtesy is not archaic, and I have no plans to abandon it.” He sat down across from her. “I also say grace before meals—another custom which I have no plans to abandon.”

She obediently bowed her head. She liked him. He wasn’t shy about standing up for what he believed in.

Halfway through the meal, they wound up in a discussion of politics and she didn’t pull her punches.

“I think it’s criminal to kill an old forest to save the timbering subsidy,” she announced.

His thick eyebrows lifted. “So you should. It is criminal,” he added.

She put down her fork. “You’re a conservationist?”

“Not exclusively, but I do believe in preservation of natural resources. Why are you surprised?” he added suspiciously.

That was an answer she had to avoid at all costs. She forced a bright, innocent smile to her face. “Most men are in favor of progress.”

He studied her very intently for a moment, before he let the idea pass. “I do favor it, but not above conservation, and it depends on what’s being threatened. Some species are going to become extinct despite all our best efforts, you do realize that?”

“Yes,” she said. “But it seems to me that we’re paving everything these days. It’s a travesty!”

“I’ve heard of development projects that were stopped because of the right sort of intervention by concerned parties. But it isn’t a frequent occurrence,” he remarked.

“I hate a world that equates might with right.”

“Nevertheless, that’s how the system works. The people with the most money and power make the rules. It’s always been that way, Nikki. Since the beginning of civilization, one class leads and other classes serve.”

“At the turn of the century, industrialists used to trot out Scientific Darwinism to excuse the injustices they practiced to further their interests,” she observed.

“Scientific Darwinism,” he said, surprised. “Yes, the theory of survival of the fittest extended from nature to business.” He shook his head. “Incredible.”

“It’s still done,” she pointed out. “Big fish eat little fish, companies which can’t compete go under…”

“And now we can quote Adam Smith and a few tasty morsels from The Wealth of Nations, complete with all the dangers of interfering in business. Let the sinking sink. No government intervention.”

She stared at him curiously. “Are you by any chance a closet history minor?” she queried with a smile.

“I took a few courses, back in the dark ages,” he confessed. “History fascinates me. So does archaeology.”

“Me, too,” she enthused. “But I know so little about it.”

“You could go back to school for those last two semesters,” he suggested. “Or, failing that, you could take some extension courses.”

She hesitated. “That would be nice.”

But she didn’t have the means. She didn’t have to say it. He knew already. She’d ducked her head as she spoke, and she looked faintly embarrassed.

She had to stop spouting off, she told herself firmly. Her tongue would run too far one day and betray her brother to this man. She hadn’t lied about college, though. Part of the terms of her settlement with Mosby Torrance at their divorce was that he would pay for her college education. And he had. She’d worked very hard for her degree. The pain she’d felt at her bad experience had spurred her to great heights, but she hadn’t been able to finish. She’d had to drop out just after her junior year to help Clayton campaign. Kane didn’t know that.

“What do you do for a living?” he asked suddenly.

She couldn’t decide how to answer him. She couldn’t very well say that she hostessed for her brother. On the other hand, she did keep house for him.

“I’m a housekeeper,” she said brightly, and smiled.

He’d hoped she might have some secret skill that she hadn’t shared with him. She seemed intelligent enough. But apparently she had no ambition past being her boyfriend’s kept woman. That disappointed him. He liked ambitious, capable women. He was strong himself and he disliked women whom he could dominate too easily or overwhelm.

“I see,” he said quietly.

He looked disappointed. Nikki didn’t add anything to what she’d said. It was just as well that he lost interest in her before things got complicated, she told herself. After all, she could hardly tell him who she really was.

Chapter Five

Nikki put the dishes away while Kane wandered around the living room, looking at the meager stock of books in the shelves. She sounded like she was well-read, but the only books he noted were rather weathered ones on law.

“They were my father’s,” she told him. “He wanted to be a lawyer, but he couldn’t afford the time.”

Or the money, Kane thought silently. He glanced at her. “Don’t you have books of your own?”

“Plenty. They’re not here, though. The house tends to flood during storms and squalls, so we…I—” she caught herself “—don’t leave anything really valuable here.”

As if she probably had anything valuable. His dark eyes slid over her body quietly, enjoying its soft curves but without sending blatant sexual messages her way.

“You don’t look at me as other men do,” she said hesitantly. His eyebrows arched and she laughed self-consciously. “I mean,” she amended, “that you don’t make me feel inferior or cheap. Women are rather defensive when men wolf whistle and make catcalls. Perhaps they don’t realize how threatening it can be to a woman when she’s by herself. Or perhaps they do.”

“You’re very attractive. I suppose a man who lacks verbal skills uses the only weapons he has.”

“Weapons.” She tasted the word and made a face. “They are, aren’t they? Weapons to demean and humiliate.”

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