Innocent as Sin

36

Royal Palms

Saturday

Fragrant steam swirled around Kayla’s head, making her feel even more like she’d been cut loose from reality and was spinning off into an alternate universe.

Nice try. Doesn’t fly. There’s only one reality, and I’m stuck up to my lips in it.

Bertone, dirty money, knives, and all the rest.

She nudged the controls. The jets shut off. The water slowly stilled. Fragrant steam still rose around Kayla’s head.

Okay, some of my reality isn’t bad.

Without meaning to, her thoughts went straight to Rand. When she’d looked up from her televised pity party, he’d been watching her with feral green eyes. The muscles on Faroe’s arms had been rigid, as was Rand’s fist in the other man’s grip. After a few moments Rand had jerked himself free, gone to Kayla, and pulled her into his arms.

Normally she would have resented a man’s protective hug, but not that time. She’d hung on to him like the safety line he was.

A very polite safety line.

He’d brought her to the luxurious two-suite bungalow, pointed out the Jacuzzi, and closed the door separating her suite from the shared living area. The door had made a soft, final click as it shut.

Followed by the sound of him going out the front door of the shared area and locking it behind him.

A gentleman.

Both of them knew her defenses were gone. If he’d wanted to make a pass, she’d have jumped to catch it. She was scared, ashamed, wrung out, and in need of comfort.

Well, the Jacuzzi is pretty damned comforting. And it doesn’t need to be complimented on its performance.

So she lay there with relaxed muscles and her mind racing like a squirrel on speed.

Screw this. Any more hot water and they’ll have to iron me before they put me on camera again.

She fiddled the stopper out with her foot, stood, and wrapped herself in a cushy robe that fell to the top of her toes and fingertips. The living area that separated the two suites was empty.

Kayla told herself she wasn’t disappointed.

She went to the built-in bar and decided that whoever had researched her background was thorough-a bottle of Grand Marnier awaited her.

“Now I’m scared. Or I ought to be.”

Mostly she was grateful.

She took a few cubes of ice from the bucket, dumped them in a squat whiskey glass, added a little water, and poured a splash of liqueur in on top. Sipping it, she fought the need to pace, to think.

To scream.

None of that will do me any good.

Take Rand’s advice.

Relax, damn it!

She turned off the lights, closed the door of her suite behind her, and went to the bungalow’s private, walled-in patio, which opened off the shared area. The flagstones underfoot were heated. The air was cool shading into cold. The water dancing in the triple fountains shut out other noises. As her eyes adjusted to darkness, she enjoyed the subtle flash and shift of moonlight over the fountains placed at intervals along the walls.

The front door opened, but the lights stayed off. Her heart hammered, then settled when she recognized Rand’s wide-shouldered silhouette walking across the shared living area. She waited for him to knock on her suite door. Instead he bent and started to slide an envelope under the door.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He straightened and spun toward her so quickly that she flinched. She didn’t feel any better when moonlight flashed off the gun in his hand. Before she could blink, he holstered the gun at the small of his back and walked toward the patio.

“You scared the crap out of me,” he said.

“Same here. Anyone ever mention that you have fast hands?”

“Once or twice.” His smile gleamed. “What are you doing out here in the dark?”

“Trying to relax.”

“How’s that working for you?”

“Lousy.” Ice clinked as she lifted the whiskey glass to her lips.

“I see you found the Grand Marnier.”

She saluted him with the glass. “Who do I thank for it?”

“Grace, probably. She’s the one who made sure you had the suite with the Jacuzzi.” And the fountains turned on hard enough to thwart eavesdroppers. But still…

“I’ll share.”

“The Jacuzzi?” he asked, startled and intrigued.

“That, too. But I meant the liqueur.” She took another sip. “What’s in the envelope?”

“Walking-around money.”

She blinked slowly. “Excuse me?”

“Come inside, where we can talk.”

Reluctantly she went back inside and slid the patio door shut behind her.

Rand checked the electronic device Faroe had fastened to the door, saw the green status light, locked the door, and went to Kayla.

“Take it,” he said, holding out the envelope. “So you don’t have to use your credit cards or bank account.”

She took the envelope, surprised by its thickness. “Thanks.”

“All part of the St. Kilda service. You’d better count it. There should be five grand.”

“Five thousand dollars? Are you kidding?”

“No.” He reached for the whiskey glass she was waving around. “I’ll get you some more.”

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Drink it.”

“The money,” she shot back. “Five thousand dollars!”

“It’s the standard St. Kilda Consulting advance for an agent in the field. You run out before next week, you have to submit a requisition detailing why you need extra cash.”

Usually for bribes, but I don’t think she wants to hear about that right now.

“Room and board comes out of this?” Kayla asked.

“Not if you stay here.” He headed for the bar.

She hefted the envelope in her hand. “First Bertone buys my land for too much money. Now St. Kilda is giving me a five-thousand-dollar gift, with more to come next week. Gee, I’m beginning to feel…”

“Special?”

“Hunted.”

“I always knew you were smart.” Ice clinked, followed by the soft splash of liqueur. “It’s not a bribe, Kayla. Money is a tool. St. Kilda doesn’t want an agent to screw up because he or she didn’t have the cash for a plane ticket on the run.”

“Um,” was all she said.

Rand appeared in front of her, holding out the cut-crystal glass. It was half full.

“If I drink all that, I’ll crash,” she said, eyeing the glass.

“I’ll help you.”

“Crash?”

“Drink.”

“Good idea.” She took a healthy sip, cleared her throat twice, and looked at him from beneath dark eyelashes. “Whew. I usually add water.”

“Ice melts. Same thing.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?”

He took the glass from her fingers, sipped, and said, “Sweet. With a bite.”

“Better than beer-sour with a bite.”

He laughed softly and told himself to turn around and go to his suite and stop thinking about what he shouldn’t be thinking about.

Kayla, naked.

“How do you feel about single malt?” he asked.

“Scotch?”

“Yeah.”

“Smells better than it tastes.”

He laughed. “I had a buddy once who said he wanted to die of Glenmorangie.”

“Did he?”

“Still working on it, last I heard.”

“You sound like you envy him,” Kayla said.

When Rand didn’t answer immediately, she realized that he was watching her. Or to be precise, watching the triangle of skin revealed by the robe. Heat that had nothing to do with her recent bath flushed her skin. She shrugged the robe more closely around her.

“I might have envied him, once,” Rand said. “I’m older now.” A lot older. Too old to be thinking with my dick.

But there it was, ready, willing, and begging to think for him.

He turned and headed back to the bar.

“Now what?” she asked, settling into a chair.

“I want more bite.”

She was about to offer her teeth on his skin when she heard him crack the seal on a whiskey bottle and pour it into the glass. No ice followed.

Knowing St. Kilda, she bet the brand was single malt, Glenmorangie.

“No ice?” she said. “No water?”

“Neat.”

The pungent scent of the single malt rose to her nostrils as he settled in a chair near her.

Rand raised his glass, then looked at her. “What shall we drink to?”

“After today, let’s drink to innocence. The few shreds of it left in the world ought to be celebrated.”

“To innocence,” he said, clinking his glass lightly against hers. “Honored in the absence.”

“How did you lose yours?” she asked, sipping.

“The usual way. Backseat of a car.”

She choked, let him whack her on the back, and then waved him off. “I wasn’t talking about sexual innocence,” she said.

“I’m not sure I ever was that innocent. I was raised by a half-Tlingit grandmother whose own mother had been stolen as a slave. My father was a commercial salmon fisherman in the San Juans and in Alaska. He was gone half the year. My mother was an artist from Seattle who was gone as much as she was home. From what I saw, it was an open marriage. That’s what they’re calling it now, right? Not infidelity, or adultery, or cheating, just mutual understanding of needs and being sure not to bring anything home but memories.”

The coolness in his voice made Kayla flinch. “That’s a fair load of sophistication, or something, for a kid to be exposed to.”

“It was home.” And Reed was always there, ready to laugh or fight or hide, whatever was needed.

Rand sipped his whiskey, letting the smoky fire spread across his tongue. Every nerve in his body was on alert. Every sense honed to a fighting edge. Or fucking. He’d take either right now. Anything to push back the intimacy stealing over him, the scent of the woman next to him, her voice soft in the darkness, her skin pale, inviting.

“Any sibs?” she asked.

“Younger brother. By twelve minutes.”

“Identical?”

“Like peas in a pod. Reed always said he was better looking. People always said I was smarter.” They were wrong.

He let the hot, snarling kiss of scotch spread over his tongue, swallowed, sipped some more. He knew it wouldn’t stop the memories, but it might just blunt the sharpest edges.

“Identical twins,” Kayla said, grinning. “That must be great.”

“It was.” Rand let more whiskey bite his tongue, spread fire.

“You don’t get along?”

“He’s dead.”

The fountains laughed liquidly in the silence.

“I’m sorry,” Kayla said. “I can’t imagine-”

“You don’t want to.”

She closed her eyes. The neutrality of his voice told her more than any words; his twin’s loss was still an open wound on his soul.

Silently Rand watched a feral cat slide from shadow to shadow, hunting rodents in the exclusive resort’s carefully tended gardens.

Good hunting, buddy. The world needs less rats.

Kayla knew she should let the subject go. And she knew she wouldn’t. Rand interested her in too many ways, on too many levels.

“When?” she asked simply.

“Five years ago. In Africa.”

She remembered scraps of information that Faroe had given her. Goose bumps rose along her arms. “The man in the bwana suit?”

“Yeah. Only we knew him as the Siberian. I was the photographer. Reed was the rifle. One of us gave away our position. The Siberian shot Reed, then sent the army after us. I survived. Reed didn’t.”

He sipped the drink again and was surprised to find it half gone. Slow down, fool. He set the drink on a small glass end table and shifted his shoulders. At least the knots were looser. A little.

“That’s how St. Kilda got to you,” Kayla said. “They dangled a chance to get Bertone.”

“Pretty much.”

“So St. Kilda hires assassins?”

“No. They want Bertone alive. Dead broke, but not dead.”

“What about you?”

“Dead. Period.”