Heart of Gold

SIX

“WE’RE ONE STEP closer,” Shane said into the phone, wishing he had more to report to his boss. He took a long drag on his cigarette and leaned back in the squeaky desk chair, his gaze idly wandering around Faith’s little office. “The letters have all been postmarked in nearby towns. The call we managed to trace came from a phone booth in Ukiah. We know he’s in the immediate area.”

“The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is: Where?” Banks asked in his typical sardonic tone.

“I don’t know,” Shane admitted, narrowing his eyes as he stared at the neatly typed, utterly nasty missive lying on the walnut desk before him. It was the third Faith had received in a week. Tension coiled in his gut. He didn’t like playing a waiting game. He was a hunter by nature. But in this scenario he was relegated to the role of fisherman-waiting for their boy to take the bait so he could reel him in.

“How’s our witness holding up?”

Shane thought of Faith. She had an inner strength that never failed to amaze him. The constant tension was taking a toll on her, but every time he expected her to give in or give up she reached deep down inside for a little more grit. “She’s a remarkable lady.”

“Yes, she is. Give her my regards… and my condolences for having to put up with you day in and day out.”

A wry smile quirked up one corner of Shane’s mouth as he tossed out a rather lewd suggestion about what his superior could do with the rest of his day.

“Hang tight, pal,” Banks advised, chuckling at Callan’s characteristic disregard for authority figures. “Gerrard’s request for a later court date has been denied. He’ll be sweating bullets soon if he doesn’t hear word of Faith backing out on testifying. They’ll make a move soon.”

“I’ll be here when they do,” Shane promised. He could almost taste the vengeance. Damn, that wasn’t like him. An agent couldn’t take cases personally and hold together for long. Pushing the thought from his mind, he changed the subject. “Any word on Strauss?”

“Interpol says he was spotted in Argentina.”

“I don’t think so,” Shane said slowly, that knot of tension tightening in his belly as he called to mind the image of his archnemesis from the Silvanus organization. During his three years on the case he had come to know the man as well as he knew himself. Adam Strauss may have had Argentina in mind as a new base of operations, but Shane knew with a cold certainty he wouldn’t be there yet. “That’s not his style.”

“Meaning he’d kill you first before retiring to a tropical paradise?”

“He swore he would. As incongruous as it sounds, Adam Strauss is a man of his word.”

“Can’t happen, my friend. There’s no way he can find you.”

After Shane ended the conversation and hung up the phone, he sat back. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, he thought with an odd kind of detachment. But Adam Strauss wasn’t his immediate concern.

Stubbing out his cigarette, he forced his mind back to the matter at hand. His gaze devoured the letter Faith had received the day before. There simply wasn’t anything about it that pointed in any one direction. The only thing they could discern from it was that the perpetrator had a violent imagination and a solid command of grammar.

“Damn,” he muttered, shaking another cigarette out of the rapidly depleting pack. He dangled it from his lip and momentarily forgot about it.

He was getting itchy. Patience was the name of the game on a case like this one, but his was wearing thin around the edges. He wanted a suspect, and they didn’t have one. He didn’t like Faith’s caretaker, Mr. Fitz, but so far the only thing he could accuse the man of was being ill-tempered and malodorous.

Maybe, Shane mused, the real reason he was getting edgy was because there was something he wanted more than a suspect-Faith. Nearly a week had passed since their encounter in his bedroom. She hadn’t taken him up on his offer of a physical relationship, but that wasn’t because she wasn’t interested. It was obvious she was very aware of him as a man. She was skittish around him, a kind of nervousness that sprang from sexual tension.

Lying in bed every night, knowing she was just across the hall, was an experience Shane considered on a level with Chinese water torture. He couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman the way he wanted her. He was a relatively young, healthy male with strong sexual appetites, but this transcended mere physical need. Want of her seemed to have invaded every level of his being. The idea made him uncomfortable, but he couldn’t escape it. If he didn’t get her into bed soon and slake this need, it was going to drive him right over the edge.

All he had to do was push her a little. Faith was too inexperienced to resist a skilled seduction. But he couldn’t do that and live with himself afterward. As unappealing as the idea was, he was just going to have to bide his time.

“Good Lord!” Faith choked as she opened the door. Blinking rapidly as she entered the office, she waved an arm in front of her as if she were cutting her way through a jungle with a machete. “What are you trying to do, give yourself lung cancer in one sitting?”

Shane frowned but couldn’t quite stop himself from snatching the unlit cigarette from his lip. Faith’s voice had that innate motherly quality that could make even a grown man feel contrite. “We’ll have the place fumigated for you after we leave.”

Faith almost flinched at the words. After he left. The thought caused an alarming amount of pain. Forcing herself past the sensation, she said, “Alaina and Jayne are both gone for the day. I gave them time off for good behavior above and beyond the call of duty. I’m going to take Lindy down to the beach for the afternoon. I thought you’d want to know.”

“Fine.” Shane pushed himself to his feet with the lazy, deceptive grace of a big cat. “I’ll go with you.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say no, but Faith bit the automatic response back. In the first place it wouldn’t do any good. Mules had nothing on Shane Callan when it came to being stubborn. In the second place, it wasn’t what she really wanted. The thought of spending the day on the beach with him held the appeal of forbidden fruit. It may not have been wise, but she allowed herself to yield to the temptation.

“All right. We’ll be ready as soon as I pack the picnic basket.”

Beauty was something Shane had had little room for in his life in recent years. Now it surrounded him. He felt it wash over him like the golden sunlight pouring down out of the clear blue sky. He could feel it warming him and healing him-not just the wound in his shoulder, but the scars that lacerated his soul as well. He could feel it seeping inside him and filling up all the dark corners.

Beauty was the fresh, cool salt air, the temporary absence of tension, Lindy’s laughter as bubbling little waves chased her up the beach.

Natural beauty was obvious all around. They had set up their little picnic site on a secluded strip of soft, silvery sand. Shane lay stretched out on a blue plaid blanket, propped up on his right elbow, his gaze automatically sweeping the area. A hundred feet or so above them, at the top of a rugged cliff, stood the inn, its assortment of roof peaks zigzagging across the azure sky. Before them stretched the Pacific, shining like a jewel in the setting of a perfect day. Fishing boats dotted the far horizon, and gulls swooped and called overhead.

Also coming under the heading of natural beauty was Faith. She walked along the water’s edge, helping her daughter hunt for seashells. Somewhere during the last week Shane had lost his mental image of her as William Gerrard’s wife, the polished society lady. That wasn’t Faith. Faith was scrubbed-fresh skin and unruly curls, faded jeans and canvas sneakers. She was a sweet smile and an intricately wrought golden heart. She was beauty-outwardly and inwardly.

Her kind of beauty was something a man could grow used to in a hurry and live with a long time.

“What are you thinking?” Faith asked with a guileless smile as she plopped down on the blanket to sit cross-legged beside him.

Through the dark lenses of his sunglasses Shane studied her for a moment before answering. She shoved up the sleeves of her baggy navy sweatshirt and snagged back a handful of wind-tossed hair. The sun had raised soft color in her cheeks and teased out a smattering of freckles on her nose.

“That you’re beautiful,” he said simply, his statement carrying almost none of the emotion that was struggling to come to life inside him.

Faith was stunned to absolute silence. Her heart did a swan dive into her stomach. The last thing she had expected from a man like Shane was pretty words. For a long moment she sat staring at him like a doe caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

Even in this setting he looked tough and dangerous. He had donned jeans and a black sweatshirt for their outing, leaving his shoulder holster behind, but not his pistol. The gun had been his contribution to the picnic basket.

A man who packed guns in picnic baskets had told her she was beautiful, had stated it as if it were a plain, irrefutable fact. A smart woman wouldn’t have gone marshmallow soft inside over that. Faith decided her brain shouldn’t enter into the debate. It didn’t seem to function well at all when it came to this man.

A frown tugged at the corners of Shane’s mouth. “You act as if you’ve never had a man tell you that.”

“I haven’t,” she admitted. “Not someone who really meant it.”

“Then your ex-husband is blind as well as stupid.”

She sighed as she absently drew patterns in the sand with her finger. “Disinterested is probably the more accurate word.”

“A fool.”

“Let’s not talk about him, okay?” she said, flashing Shane a brittle smile. “Let’s just enjoy this beautiful day.”

She brought her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. Turning her face to the sun, she closed her eyes and concentrated on absorbing the warmth. The whole point of coming to the beach had been to get away from her problems. Shane himself was a reminder, but Faith had decided simply to pretend he wasn’t a government agent. For this afternoon he was just a man, they were just ordinary people enjoying the beach and the sun.

She didn’t have time to do more than register the shadow that suddenly blocked the warm rays from her face. Before she could even open her eyes to see what was happening, Shane’s mouth had settled against hers, and she was enveloped by warmth of another kind.

This was an inner heat that blazed whenever he touched her. Faith let it sweep through her. She didn’t try to fight the feelings that engulfed her. She’d been fighting them for too long. For this one kiss logic and reality could just butt out. She’d had enough reality to last her. This was escape, a wonderful fantasy, and she welcomed it.

Instinctively her hands came up to steady herself. She wound her arms around Shane’s neck as he parted her willing lips and deepened the kiss. Masterfully he explored her mouth, tasting and claiming territory that had lain fallow for too long. Desire awakened inside her and came to life like a seed in the spring.

Slowly he eased her down to the blanket, never breaking the kiss. His left hand stole under the hem of her sweatshirt, and his fingers teased the silky flesh of her belly. She sucked in a breath as he dragged his lips across her cheek and jaw and slid his hand up to claim one aching breast.

“Shane,” she managed to whisper, forcing her eyes open. “What are you doing?”

His eyes were the color of storm clouds when he lifted his head and looked down at her. He rubbed his thumb over the pebble-hard nub of her nipple and smiled with satisfaction as she gasped. His voice was like warm silk when he spoke. “I’m enjoying this beautiful afternoon.”

A perfectly reasonable answer, Faith thought as her eyes drifted shut and her concentration focused on the incredible sensation of his hand on her breast. His long, elegant musician’s fingers stroked and kneaded the soft globe of flesh. His thumb continually massaged the sensitive center. Tingling waves of sensation radiated from that point, shooting directly to the pit of her belly where they swirled in an ever tightening whirlpool.

Lord, she’d never known a man’s touch could incite her senses to riot. This was incredible. This was something she had never experienced. She suddenly felt cheated. She’d been a wife and had never known this kind of physical pleasure. She was a grown woman with a child…

“Lindy-” she said, abruptly trying to sit up and finding it a futile task with Shane half-sprawled on top of her.

“She can’t see us.” He raised up just enough to peer over the wicker food hamper that shielded their activities from Lindy’s view. Faith’s daughter sat playing in the sand a good thirty feet away. “She’s completely absorbed in counting her seashells.”

“That won’t take long,” Faith said on a breathless laugh. “She can only make it to ten.”

“Lindy!” Shane called.

“I’m real busy!” she called back, not even lifting her head from her task.

“Okay. You give a holler when you’re not busy anymore.”

“Okie-dokie!”

Shane turned his attention from daughter to mother. Faith’s heart-shaped face was flushed, her lips were love-swollen and glistened from his kiss. Possessive desire pounded through him in waves.

“I don’t think this is a very good idea,” Faith said weakly, thrills rippling through her at the hungry look on his face.

“Really?” One black brow quirked upward as Shane began to lower his head. “Then you’re going to hate this.”

He kissed her again, slowly, deeply, as if they had years for just this one kiss. Faith wished they did. She wished they had forever. Surely the love she’d stored up in her heart would last that long and then some. But they didn’t have forever. They had only the present. Shane would be with her only a few weeks at the most.

Would the heartache be any less when he left if she said no to a physical relationship with him? Or would it be even more painful with the addition of regret for not taking as much as he was willing to give her?

Shane felt his heart twist when he raised his head and looked down into sable eyes swimming with tears of confusion. He cursed himself for complicating her already complicated situation. He had no business wanting Faith Kincaid in the first place. What the hell did he think he was doing pushing her this way? Not more than a few hours ago he’d told himself he wouldn’t pressure her into anything.

Gently he brushed a crystal drop of moisture from the corner of her eye with his thumb. “No tears,” he whispered, his expression more tender than he would have believed possible. “Today is too perfect for tears.”

He was right, Faith thought, her heart aching with love for him as she traced her fingertips over the angular planes of his aristocratic face. There would be time enough for tears later.

“I want you, Faith,” he said, his smoky voice a caress to her already-aroused senses. “But I won’t push you. It has to be your choice.”

Lindy’s voice floated to them on the breeze. “I’m all done being busy now!”

A rare smile lit Shane’s face as he sat up and put his sunglasses back on. “I think that’s our call to duty.”

“Duty?” Faith questioned, slowly gathering her scattered wits. She took Shane’s hand and let him help her up from the blanket.

“Construction crew. I promised Lindy I’d help her build a sand castle.”

“You’re a talented man, Mr. Callan.”

He slid an arm around her shoulders as they headed up the beach. “I told you before, I’m full of surprises.”

Faith leaned against him, silent, wondering if she dared hope one of the surprises inside him would be love.

He watched from the deck of the cabin cruiser, one eye pressed to the eyepiece of a state-of-the-art telescope. His blood heated as he watched them kiss and embrace. “Ah, yes,” he murmured, “love is a many-splendored thing.”

Sitting back in the comfortable helm seat on the navigation bridge, he propped his legs up on the railing and lazily polished the dull blue barrel of a semiautomatic pistol. “Love and death. How poetic. Soon Mrs. Gerrard, Agent Callan. Soon.”