Mesmerizing Stranger Read online

  None of them appeared guilty of anything. He’d found a few unpaid parking tickets. Years before, Arthur was guilty of a personal indiscretion when he’d been briefly separated from his wife. Yale and Purdue had smoked a few funny cigarettes in their college years. Purdue’s father had kicked his son around, causing a divorce and likely some scars on Purdue’s soul.

  But there wasn’t one thing to indicate all three men weren’t bright, decent men who’d primarily been honest most of their lives. Certainly there was nothing pointing to guilt-much less guilt of the dangerous, reckless crimes going on.

  Harm hated intrusively prying into their lives, and by the time he went below, he was damp-cold and his head was buzzing from exhaustion and stress. He hadn’t slept, really slept, since before his uncle died, or that’s how it felt. His neck was stiffer than dried rope, his eyes gritty.

  His intent was to crash, long and hard-but not until he’d checked on Cate. She’d been on his mind nonstop, above, beyond and below anything else going on. Still, first he needed to stop at his cabin. Just hiking around the boat had given him a cold dose of wet sea, so he figured he’d drop off his wet jacket and shoes in his cabin before knocking on hers.

  He unlocked his door, and before even stepping in, sensed immediately that something was odd.

  He closed the door, stood still. No sound intruded in the silence. The Alaskan eternal twilight should have provided more ambient light, even this late, but the gloomy rain clouds had darkened the skies. His cabin was a muzzy charcoal, wasn’t going to get better until his eyes adjusted.

  Quietly, he peeled off his wet jacket and heeled off his deck shoes, every sense still on red alert, trying to identify the “something” that was off. The instinct of danger overwhelmed his senses, hitched his breathing. After everything that had happened, he was prepared for anything. Or he told himself he was.

  But it seemed…his gaze narrowed as his vision finally adjusted to the darkness…it seemed that his accelerated heart rate was responding to an entirely different kind of danger than any he could have anticipated. The “odd” thing, he identified, was the lump in his bed. The small, long lump under the blankets.

  Slowly, he reached for his belt, unlatched it.

  “If that’s Goldilocks,” he said lowly, “I’m not sure if you’re in the right bed.” The pants followed the belt to the floor; then he yanked the pullover over his head. “Were you looking for the big bear, the medium bear or the just right bear?”

  “It is Goldilocks, and I’m only interested in the big bear.” The voice was as small as the body.

  “Well, damn. You’ve got the right one then.”

  But he wasn’t totally up for joking, even as he lifted the first layer of sheet and blanket and slid in. She shrieked, not the most seductive sound he’d ever heard. Possibly his skin struck her as ice-cold, at least compared to her nice, warm body. But he wasn’t actually trying to lay hands on her, only to tuck her in tight around the neck, make sure there were no air leaks.

  “Listen, Ms. Trouble. I want you here. I want you sleeping here, because it’s a better bed, and I know you’re safe, and I want you next to me. But that’s it. You were not only hurt, you put out another 500 percent day. You need rest. And you’re going to get it.”

  She edged up on an elbow, undoing all that meticulous tucking and safekeeping he’d done. “Yeah, right,” she murmured, and then pounced.

  He was going to mention that he’d never met a woman he couldn’t seduce. He was going to also add that even his ex-wives never had a complaint about his lovemaking. That he’d always taken the lead, because he was damned good at taking charge-and taking charge of giving a woman pleasure was one of his favorite skills. Furthermore, women liked it slow. Which he knew. And catered to.

  But my God. He couldn’t get anything said. Hell. He couldn’t even get a thought to stick in his head long enough to consider saying it.

  She swarmed him-took him over, took him under-with warm, liquid kisses. With hands that kneaded and teased and took. Her hands seemed intent on learning any and everything that could conceivably rile him beyond sanity.

  Brazen fingers strayed over his chest, then down, past his abdomen, finally closing over him as if she owned him, which at that moment, she did, lock stock and barrel. She squeezed tight, then stroked and explored some more. Above ground zero, a brazen tongue discovered his Adam’s apple, his earlobe, his mouth, after which she took her kisses lower. Those lips of hers snaked down at the same speed as her hands.

  She disappeared under the covers.

  Not a good sign.

  Harm was beyond worried-about his good men, about his one rotten apple. About her. About trouble he’d brought on this boat. About Fiske. About failing his uncle and his uncle’s legacy.

  But for the first time in hours, in days-possibly in his entire life-he could allow some of that responsibility to slip.

  Conceivably, he didn’t really have a choice.

  She took him in. Some way, somehow, for him she kept turning into the eternal woman. He knew that was idiotic thinking, but that was the whole range of emotions she invoked in him. Everything was about her and her boundless capacity for giving, for feeling, for being.

  Like now. She teased him with her mouth, her tongue, her fingertips. Then twisted around before he could retaliate, and rubbed against him, with her breasts, her pelvis. She laughed with her low throaty whisper…then tickled a fingernail down his ribs…then slicked up his torso with her whole body like a cuddling cat…then sat on him, straddling his hips, weaving side to side, feeling the heavy hard shape of him, but not just joining. Just offering an engraved invitation. Over and over.

  Until he’d had it.

  She knew how to get a man in a rage, that was for damn sure.

  By the time he scooped her beneath him, he didn’t know or care what his own name was, didn’t care if he lost everything he owned, didn’t care if he never had another thing. As long as he could have her. Then. Right then.

  Yet he impaled her with a tender, slow slide, wanting both of them to feel the possession, the possibilities. The soar from there clutched them both…then set them free.

  She called his name on a long, soft sigh, both of them holding tight long before the spasms of pleasure had eased. Finally, he sank back, pulling her on top of him. Her skin was as slick as his, her breathing as ragged as his.

  He smiled, even in the darkness. And kissed her until she dropped off into a deep sleep.

  In the middle of the night, he found her curled around him like a scarf, draped every which way, tucked up everywhere she could touch. Yet she suddenly reared up on her elbows, and said out of nowhere, “No.”

  “No what?” Apparently, he’d been stroking her back, just a light caress, nothing that was meant to wake or trouble her.

  “No, you’re not going to have insomnia tonight. You think I wasted all that energy and effort seducing you just so you could spend another night worrying? How are you going to think if you don’t get some rest? Now that’s it. Go to sleep.”

  “I think it’s possible,” he marveled, “that the only bossier person than you…happens to be me.”

  Her cheek nuzzled back against his shoulder. “Don’t divert the issue. Suck it up and go to sleep.”

  “You think you seduced me, huh?”

  “I know I did.” Her voice was very sleepy, very smug.

  He tried to understand it-how he could conceivably have fallen in love with such an impossible, contrary woman. She was full of herself and irrepressible and listened to no one. She was a hopelessly free spirit.

  He was completely the opposite.

  It was easy to recognize their differences. It was impossibly hard to believe he’d never see her again, once they landed in Juneau.

  Murder and mayhem were cupcake-size problems by comparison.

  Being with Cate was a problem he had to solve-before it was too late.

  Cate slipped out of bed while Harm was still sleeping. Sh
e tiptoed from the room, carrying her clothes, determined not to wake him. She knew how exhausted he had to be. After a fast shower, she headed top deck.

  She could see Hans had already pulled anchor, was installed in the pilothouse, sailing full bore toward Juneau. She popped open the door. “You need coffee?”

  “I’d die for a cup,” he said. “How’s the head and bruises?”

  “Colorful. And I confess I’m creaking a little this morning.” She was stiff, so darned if she could imagine why her mood was sky-high. “Do we know how Ivan is?”

  “Mad as a hornet. I don’t know what got to him. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he took an emetic. He looked a shade paler than death this morning, but he’s alive. Tried to get up. Couldn’t. I do think he’ll be all right, but don’t think we’ll see him for a while yet.”

  She chatted with Hans a little longer, but then aimed below. Both Hans and Arthur were her early coffee cravers, and once the urn was set to brew, she started on breakfast. Scotch eggs this morning, she thought. Something easy.

  At least easy on her terms. Before six, her galley had turned into a production line. The sausage, onion and fresh sage were in one bowl. The stuffing crumbs in another. The flour set up to dip the peeled hard-boiled eggs into. She was humming some silly blues tune when she suddenly whipped around and saw Harm in the doorway.

  His blond head was still damp from a shower, his sweatshirt almost-almost-as frayed and old as her own. He was leaning against the doorjamb as if he’d been watching her for some time, his mouth tilted in a lazy smile.

  “Hey,” he murmured.

  “Hey right back.” Something clutched in her stomach, something tight and sharp and unexpected. She’d say it was fear; she hadn’t felt fear-real fear-since the fire when she was a kid. Still, this was that same sensation of watching her life spin out of control, risking the loss of everything, unable to stop it.

  She wanted to be there for Harm. To see that light in his eyes every morning.

  It was the scariest thing she could remember. And then he started talking.

  “I have a favor to ask you.”

  “Shoot.” She pulled out two frying pans, measured the oil.

  “I need your help. So I want you to come home with me.” Before she could answer, he said, “Now don’t say no without hearing me out.”

  “I’m listening. But only for two seconds. No more.”

  He started talking, his tone all lazy and easy-on the surface. “When we get back home, the mystery’s still waiting, nothing solved, nothing right. Every bit of information seems to lead to more dead ends. I need your eyes, your perspective, your ears. I’ll be completely alone when I go back to Cambridge-I’ve got a team of lawyers, a firm of private investigators. But I only moved there a few weeks back, so there’s no one who’s close to me. No one I can trust.”

  “You’re getting that tone in your voice. That I-can-seduce-you tone. Forget it. I have to earn a living, remember? I can’t just go off gallivanting anytime and anywhere I want.”

  “I thought you could. And did.”

  She frowned, started slicing tomatoes for a garnish, almost nipped her finger. “Well, actually, I do. But I still have to earn a-”

  “Yeah, I heard you. But do you have an immediate chef job lined up after this?”

  “Not immediate, no. I’ve got the next gig lined up, but I have to have a space of time between to pay my bills, regroup, plan ahead. The Internet’s my office, how I find and set up jobs, initially. And if I hit a dry spell…which usually happens a couple weeks in a year…then I hit on one of my chef friends I know from New Orleans, hang out in their kitchens. It might sound a little…well, braggy. But a good chef can always pull down good money. Even for short-term gigs.”

  “That would only sound braggy to someone who hasn’t tasted your cooking.”

  Her eyes narrowed again. “Don’t you start with that tone again. I don’t do sweet-talking.”

  “I know, Cookie. You’re tough. But the question is whether you’re pinned down for the next couple weeks.”

  “Not exactly,” she said firmly.

  “In other words, no. So here’s the deal. I’ll pay your flight, your expenses, a wage.” He named a figure that made her choke. In fact, she had to lean forward, while he helpfully thumped her on the back to get her over it.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she gasped.

  “I need help. Your help. I’m willing to pay for it.”

  “Look, hotshot. I can be bought. It’s easy. But that’s an insane amount of money. Period.”

  “Everyone’s in a hurry to get home, Cate. There has to be a reason. Something’s there, in the lab, something the one guilty party is worried about. Something the investigators haven’t caught, that I haven’t caught, that the whole team working together after my uncle died couldn’t see. I need a fresh set of eyes. More relevant, I need your eyes. Because I trust you, and because you’ve already shown me that you are perceptive about people and situations.”

  She could feel herself start to relent, which was crazy. She was smarter than that. “What I know about science wouldn’t fill a thimble.”

  “Join the club. The core of this mystery, I’ve become convinced, isn’t about knowledge. They all had the same knowledge. It’s about something that doesn’t belong. Something that’s been hidden. Something that needs to strike one of us as out of place.”

  “Really, I can’t.”

  “It wouldn’t be for long. I figure we’ll be in Cambridge no later than three days from now. Late Friday night’d be the soonest, if we can book flights and arrangements all work out. If we’ve got a chance of finding something, I believe it’s got to be this weekend-before everyone shows up on Monday, and the culprit has another chance to cover his tracks.”

  “Really, Harm. I can’t.” In the dining room, she heard sounds…probably Arthur, pouring his first cup of joe. And then Purdue. Both of them started talking, then went up on deck.

  Harm picked up the argument the instant they were out of earshot. “The police have been all over the place, found nothing. And there’ll be a funeral I’ll need to attend, for Fiske. My absence will be another occasion for the culprit to hide his tracks. So we’ve only got a short time where there’s a shot at getting to the bottom of this. And you’re the only one who can help me.”

  “Harm, are you deaf? I can’t!”

  “I’d worry if you said yes easily,” he admitted. “You’ve already been hurt. The last thing I want is to risk putting you in any more danger. The problem, though, is that our guilty guy could think you know something, which is likely why he pushed you off the deck to begin with. And if he’s smart enough to pull off everything else he has, from theft to hiding something so massive and protected, to possibly murder and definitely hurting you-then he’ll sure as hell be smart enough to track you down, wherever you are. So, I think you’re safer with me than alone. That we’ll both be safer if we stick together until this is resolved.”

  For the first time since early yesterday, her head screamed like a banshee. “You’re so slick. You think you can talk anybody into anything,” she said disgustedly.

  “Only for my girl.”

  “I’m not your girl. And just for the record, I’m not falling in love with you!” She whirled around, just in time to see Arthur and Yale standing patiently at the end of the doorway.

  “We were just going to ask about breakfast,” Yale said guilelessly.

  “Out! All of you! Out!”

  Yale shot out of sight. Then Arthur. Harm turned around, too, carrying the two dishes she handed him to put on the table-but he still didn’t leave until he’d dropped a kiss on top of her head.

  “Last night,” he said, “you took my heart.”

  Then he left. After doing that same thing that roiled up her stomach and igniting the same miserable fight-flight instinct again.

  Chapter 10

  When the jet bounced down onto the tarmac at Logan Airport, Harm was buzz-t
ired. Making sudden travel arrangements meant all of them had been on different flights, different times, and never, for damn sure, conveniently. He’d managed to keep Cate with him all the way, but they’d still been traveling for two nonstop days, with meals on the run, and layovers in airports that all looked alike.

  He’d never been able to sleep on planes, partly because he was prone to insomnia and primarily because the seats were made for midgets. Cate, by contrast, had zoned out each time an engine started and slept like the dead, mostly sprawled on him. Now, she galloped down the aisle, all perky and bossy.

  She started out with, “You and I are going to have a serious talk. About what I’m really doing here.”

  “You know why you’re here.”

  “Humph.”

  She went along with those humphs until right before the baggage claim escalators, where she stopped all passenger flow by stopping dead and wagging a finger in his face. “I’ll help you if I can. That’s not even an issue. But you and I both know what’s really going on here. You want to be with me. I want to be with you. We’re having temporary delusions that we’ve something mystical and fantastic and rare and extraordinary going on together.”

  “And this is criminal how?” he asked carefully.

  She didn’t answer that. Someone bumped her, and she charged off toward baggage claim again. “This is just not planned out well. I don’t have any clothes, for one thing. For Pete’s sake, all I carried with me were the clothes I needed for a boat trip in Alaska.”

  “Doesn’t seem that hard to use a credit card in a store, does it?”

  “I hate shopping,” she informed him.

  “I knew you would,” he said mildly. Somehow, even with no rest, his eyes gritty from dryness, and Armageddon waiting for him at the lab, he felt as relaxed as a sleepy lion. It was Cate. Everything she’d said was true. Everything about his feelings for her were suspect and not to be trusted and, well, odd. Odd for him, anyway.