Strangers In Paradise

"Him who was spying on us."

"Oh." Alexi shrugged. She was beginning to think that either Rex or she was crazy--or perhaps they were both imagining things. He was a mystery writer. Maybe--after a certain amount of time--that type of work played havoc with the brain. So there had been someone in the hallway. So what? Probably a hundred people walked down the hallway during the day.

"Rex--" She paused as she discovered that the honey-garlic beef was really delicious. "This is wonderful." "Thank you."

"Rex, I don't think it's anything to worry about. Maybe it was another fan--"

“Yeah. And that was a fan running downstairs at Gene's the minute the lights went," he said.

Alexi set her fork down. Rex was eating with the chopsticks; she had decided not to make a fool out of herself with the effort. And now, on top of everything else, she was trembling.

"I thought you didn't believe me," she murmured.

"I never said that."

"You implied--"

"I implied nothing. You might have been reading me wrong."

She shook her head. "No. You didn't believe me. But I think you do now. Why? What changed your mind?"

"Nothing. Really. All right--I am worried about you. Nothing has happened out on the peninsula in all the time that I've been there, and you show up and it's a three-ring circus. Footsteps on the road, footsteps in the house, snakes, etcetera. And it's not as if the girl next door or Mary Pop-pins moved in. You're Alexi Jordan."

"Not Mary Poppins," Alexi agreed sardonically.

"I didn't say you were Jezebel--just not Mary Poppins. Alexi, do you have any enemies?"

She lowered her head over her chicken and shook her head. Did she? No, not real enemies. She had never stepped over anyone to get anywhere. The only enemy she could possibly have was--

"Alexi, what about your ex? Was he mad enough at you to come here and try to scare you? Make you a little crazy?"

John? She shook her head again. She trembled. John could be violent--but she couldn't see him being stealthy. When he had decided to accost her, he hadn't played any games. He had come straight to the apartment--and straight to the point.

"I--I don't think so."

Rex sighed softly. "Well, maybe we are imagining things, huh?"

She nodded woodenly.

"You're not eating."

"Oh. It's wonderful. It really is, Rex. I'm sorry."

Alexi was startled when he touched her very gently. With his knuckle he raised her chin. For the longest time his dark eyes gazed into hers; for the longest time he seemed to question what he saw there and to muse tenderly upon her.

Then he moved, lowering his face toward hers. His lips touched hers. She knew her mouth was sweet with the taste of plum wine and honey. His lips hovered just above hers, tasting them.

She felt his hand caressing her cheek. Then she felt the movement of his tongue within her mouth, hot and supple and sensual. She trembled, neither protesting the movement nor joining it, but feeling the rise of excitement inside of her, a longing, a sexual tension that knotted in the pit of her belly and seemed to flare throughout her.

His hand still at her nape, he moved back. His dark eyes surveyed hers again. She didn't know what he sought or what he saw.

Or what he felt. Perhaps he was thinking that it was all a loss. That she didn't even know how to return a kiss decently.

Her mouth went dry. She drew her eyes from his to look down at her hands. A tiny glass of plum wine sat before her; aware that he was watching her, she drank it quickly, not sure of what to say or do.

"Maybe you should leave the peninsula," he said. She shook her head.

"Footsteps in the dark. Maybe something frightening is happening."

"I--I don't want to leave."

"Mmm. But you won't protest if I sleep on your sofa again, huh?"

Alexi stiffened. "You're being obnoxious again. I won't ever let you sleep on my sofa again. I promise."

"Damned right. If I sleep there again, Alexi, it won't be on the sofa."

She raised her head, staring at him, a brow arched challengingly. She was still trembling, but she hoped that he didn't know it. Why not? She was certainly of legal age, and she wanted him. She ached for him. His lightest touch had been magic.

Why not? Because she trembled too easily, because she was very afraid that she couldn't go through with it, that she would make an absolute fool of herself. She hadn't even been able to return his kiss.

She smiled, sweetly, seductively. Fever was alive in her veins, racing rampantly through her blood. "You're right, Mr. Morrow. If you ever sleep in my house again, it will be in my bed."

Startled, he drew back, a slow, entirely wicked smile curling the corner of his mouth.

"Do you mean that, Ms. Jordan?"

"I do."

"Then let's go."

He was up abruptly, a strong, bronzed hand reaching out to help her rise. Panic surged inside her; she stared at his hand for several seconds, completely at a loss.

Then she placed her own hand within it. His fingers curled around hers and she was standing beside him. For the longest time they looked at each other, standing together in that rice paper-screened section of the Chinese restaurant. She could hear his heart, and she could see his eyes, and she could see the hunger there, and the longing.

He wanted her. Badly.

And she wanted him.

He didn't say anything else. He turned, his fingers still wound around hers, leading her toward the hall. At the entryway he offered the hostess his credit card. Alexi escaped him to study a display of swords encased in a glass cabinet. She pressed her palm against her breast and felt her own heart surging. She must have been mad. He had teased her, but he'd never pressed her. And she had just all but whistled out an invitation to make love....

He caught her hand again. He smiled when she darted a quick, scared look his way. He wound his fingers around hers again as he led her out into the parking lot and to his car.

It was a beautiful night. Stars abounded in the heavens. Alexi sat stiffly in the Maserati, staring straight ahead. Rex talked casually as he gunned the motor. He pointed out a few of the constellations in the heavens. "Not a bit of fog tonight,'' he murmured.

"Not a trace of it," Alexi agreed. Oh, he was so casual! So comfortable. But then, he was good at this, Alexi reminded herself, while she was only playing at it. She didn't really know the first thing about having a casual affair. She was deathly afraid that when he touched her she was going to scream.

No. She would not. It was all in her mind. She liked him so much, and she ached for him, feeling that sense of sexual arousal when he merely whispered her name. Like a coil inside of her, winding, sweet and heightened, yearning, when he was near. If she could not lie down beside him, she would never know what it was to make love again. "Where?"

"Pardon?" She had to glance his way. And with a whole new sense of panic she realized that they were just about on the road leading out to the peninsula. "Your place or mine?" "Er...er..."

"Mine," he decided softly. "Fine. Except--"

"Except what?"

"Isn't Emily there?"

Against the shadow and glow of the lights, she saw him shake his head ruefully. "Emily has gone home. She usually only works for me two days a week. She stayed longer this week because of you, but now she's gone home. The whole place is ours."

"Oh."

They were on the road out to their houses. Alexi closed her eyes and wondered what it had been like more than a century before. When Pierre had taken his Eugenia here, a bride, alone. Surely it had been completely barren then. It must have seemed as if the world were theirs, as if they owned paradise. The pines would have been the same, and the palms. The moon, rising clear and beautiful against the sky, must have been the same, too. And the stars... diamonds glittering against a panoply of black velvet.

The Maserati stopped. They were in front of the Brandywine house. Rex was smiling at her gently and was twisted slightly toward her. His fingers played idly in her hair.

"I'll walk you to your door."

"What?" She swallowed.

"You're all talk and no action, kid. You didn't mean it. Come on, I'll walk you to your door."

Startled, Alexi crossed her arms over her chest and sat grimly. Rex opened his door and came around for her. He opened her door. Alexi didn't move; she stared straight ahead.

He had just offered her an out. She couldn't take it. It was her chance to run, offered in tenderness.

"You're the one who is all talk, Mr. Morrow," Alexi murmured.

She heard him inhale sharply. "Last chance, Ms. Jordan. I'm a pretty nice guy, nine times out of ten. But if you don't get out of this car right now, I won't answer for the consequences."

Alexi didn't move. "Promises, promises, Morrow. Her door slammed sharply. A second later, his did the same after he sank back into the bucket seat beside her. She felt his eyes on her, but she couldn't turn.

"Well, you know you're committed now, huh, Alexi.' She felt the anger that edged his words. "Is that what you want? Or is that what you need? 'Push the guy so far that there is no backing down'? Make sure it's what you want Alexi. I'll be damned if I understand you. Make sure." "Drive, would you, Rex?"

He shook his head. She felt herself pulled into his arms, pulled hard. His mouth came down hard on hers. Her lips parted; she felt the demand of his, forceful, hungry and entirely persuasive.

And it was good. Deliciously, wonderfully good. He tasted of the honeyed chicken and the plum wine and, beyond that, completely, tantalizingly male. This time she could respond. She trembled when his tongue thrust into the crevices of her mouth, filling her, arousing her. She grew bold and she herself explored, running the tip of her tongue along his lower lip and then his upper lip, against his teeth, against his tongue, in a sleek, sensual persuasion of her own. It was really wonderful. The scent of him filled her, as male as the taste of him, unique. Her fingertips played against the hair at his nape, over the strong structure of his cheek, to the fascinating breadth of his shoulders. And all the while she felt his kiss. Against her lip, against her throat, against the beat of her pulse there. She felt his fingers, feather-light, against her flesh; his knuckles, stroking her shoulder, drawing a line lightly over her collarbone. She nearly cried, the kiss alone was so very good....

She had never known this type of arousal. Aching in all parts of her, longing to touch and be touched... every where.

He had her in his arms, on his lap. She was barely aware of moving, of being moved. The sense of being drugged with the pleasure of it was an encompassing one, overpowering all else, giving her the wonderful feel of perfect fantasy. This was it, the way of dreams. The need and the desire, the feeling that she would simply die if she could not have him. All of him.

It remained with her, all the magic, while he held her. While his lips touched hers again and again. Even when his eyes met hers, as dark and mysterious as the night, as probing, as curious, and still as seductive. She felt the palm of his hand flat against her breast; she felt his fingers curl around its weight, and his thumb as he sought her nipple through the knit of her dress and the lace of her bra. She buried her face against his neck, warmed by the intimacy, unable to meet his eyes yet instinctively grazing her teeth against his throat in response. It was a dream; it was magic. She was alive and explosive and soaring with desire and relief.

But then she felt his hand again. Against her stocking. A touch that made her shiver, a touch that wound the core of her tightly, tightly. She wanted him. She wanted his touch, an intimate touch, so badly. But even as his fingers roamed along her nyloned thigh, she felt the overwhelming panic begin to seize her. She couldn't move at first.

She just felt his hand...his fingers. Higher, higher along her thigh. Fingers rimming the elastic of her panties. Light against her flesh again--bare flesh--as he slowly, seductively drew the nylons from her. She couldn't move. She could only feel the panic welling, growing, sweeping through her....

For God's sake, they were still in the car, she registered dimly. They were still merely playing. Playing very, very intimately. The darkness seemed to surround her.

She stiffened and drew away from him abruptly.

"Alexi!"

He caught her hands. She stared into his eyes. At that very moment, she wanted the earth to open up and swallow her. She groaned.

"Alexi, shh--"

She couldn't understand that he meant to soothe her; she knew only that she had led him where he had gone and that she had then pulled away from him.

She tore at the door handle and wrenched it open. She was so awkward, caught upon his lap in the small bucket seat.

"Alexi!"

Sobbing, she stumbled over him. Her shoes were lost; her nylons were a tangle. She yanked them off and set out upon the sand, running. The night was dark, with only the moon and the stars to guide her, but it didn't matter; she didn't know where she was running to, only that she had to escape.

Pine and sand were beneath her feet. Bare feet. The beach was out there, through a trail of pines that both sheltered and mysteriously darkened. Ahead, she could hear the waves, so soft and gentle here. Waves of the mighty Atlantic.

She reached the beach, the sand soft and cool now beneath her feet. She looked up and saw the stars and the crescent of the moon, and she inhaled raggedly, desperately.

She gasped, startled, as arms swept around her. Rex's arms.

"Oh, don't!" she pleaded. She couldn't look at him. He turned her around anyway, pulling her to his chest, running his fingers down the length of her hair.

"Please, don't. I'm so sorry. I--" she said brokenly.

"Alexi, stop. Listen to me. Stop."

She tried; she couldn't. She felt as if she sobbed raggedly for the longest time, yet she couldn't pull away from him; he held her firm. Then she tried again to tell him how embarrassed she was and how sorry, and he comforted her again. At last she inhaled a long, ragged breath and exhaled it and stood still.

Rex pulled off his shoes and socks and took her elbow. "Let's sit in the surf. And you can tell me about it." "No!"

"Yes. I deserve that much."

"No, no, just forget about me, please. Believe that I didn't mean to do what I did--"

"Come on, Alexi."

She had little choice. Before she knew it she was sitting in the surf beside him and the waves were rippling over their feet and he was as unconcerned about his dress trousers as she was about the hem of her knit. He didn't make her talk at first; he just held her against him, her head against his chest, his arms around her waist, his chin resting upon the top of her hair.

"John Vinto?" he asked.

She shuddered.

"What in God's name did he do to you?" Rex exploded.

She didn't want to start crying again--and she knew he wasn't going to let her go. When she started to talk, she discovered that she could do it almost impersonally, as if it had happened to someone else, as if it were history, long gone.

"I, uh, I knew a lot of what he was doing. Granted, it took me a while. The spouse is always the last to know it all. And I was so desperate to make my marriage work, you know. I had more or less run away from a great home to make it on my own. My parents hadn't wanted me to marry John. Gene didn't even approve of him. It was simply so hard to admit I'd made a mistake...."

Her voice trailed away for a moment, and then she shrugged. “I became ill during a makeup session one day and came home. John was in bed with another of his models. I think it was then that I realized he probably fell a little bit in love with every woman he photographed. It hurt, though. A lot. I didn't make any threats or accusations or anything. I just turned away. I tried to call for a cab. By then the girl was running out of the house only half-dressed, and John was slamming down the receiver. He said that we had to talk. I said there was nothing to talk about; nothing would change my mind. I wanted a divorce. He became irate. He kept telling me that I didn't want a divorce. I tried to call a cab again, and he told me that I couldn't live without him, I couldn't survive without him, that I wanted him--and that he'd prove it to me." She stopped speaking, staring out at the ocean, wincing. It seemed so horrible even to say aloud. So humiliating. So degrading.

Rex didn't say anything. He tightened his arms around her. She wasn't even aware that she was speaking again.

"It was an awful fight. I realized what he meant, and I threw the phone at him and ran. He caught me and dragged me through half the house. He kept telling me that I was still his wife." She lowered her head. "And, of course, I was his wife, and just the night before, I'd loved him. I just can't describe the terror of being powerless. Of having no control over being forced..."

"My God," Rex whispered. Like quicksilver, he moved his fingers gently over her cheek. “To think that I accosted you like that on your first night at the house. Alexi, I'm so sorry. So, so sorry." He was silent for a moment. She felt his kiss, tender and light, over her brow. She felt his arms around her, and she wasn't afraid; she felt secure.

"You kept working with him!" Rex said incredulously. "You should have taken the bastard to court."

She shook her head. "Do you know how hard it is to prove spousal assault? I would probably have lost--and the publicity would have marked me for the rest of my life." She sighed softly. "John didn't want the divorce. I did threaten to take him to court. That was the only reason he agreed to the divorce--no-fault and quick. I agreed to finish out the Helen of Troy campaign as long as he swore never to touch me or come near me again."

"Alexi, Alexi..."

She felt the soft brush of his kiss again; she felt the strength of his arms. The night was cool with the breeze, but the water was" warm as it washed over her feet.

"I'll kill him!" Rex swore suddenly, savagely. He was tense, as taut as piano wire. "I swear, I'll damned well kill him!"

Alexi twisted, startled by the vehemence, by the passion, by the caring in his tone. He was her willing champion, a fury in the night. Touched, she stroked his cheek, somewhat amazed that he could show such fierce concern.

He caught her fingers and kissed them, and she met the dark fires of his eyes. She inhaled sharply, feeling everything within her quicken. She wanted him so badly! So very badly. And she was so frightened that she would pull away again. He wouldn't want her. He was fierce against brutality and injustice, but he could not want her again. A neurotic who teased.

But he was smiling, and smiling so gently, while the starfire blazed in the depths of his night-dark eyes. He kissed her fingers again, reverently, then dropped them, and to her amazement he was up beside her, struggling out of his jacket and vest and then his shirt as she stared up at him, incredulous of his strange, abrupt behavior.

"Ever been skinny-dipping?" he demanded.

She flushed, staring at the ocean while he stripped. "Rex, you saw what just happened!"

His trousers landed in her lap, then his briefs. In the darkness she saw the bright flash of his muscled buttocks as he raced past her, splashing seawater all over her knit. In seconds he had swum out into the surf. "Come on!" "Didn't you ever watch Jaws?" she retorted. "I promise you--no great white is in water this hot!" "How about a small shark?"

"Minutely possible, but highly implausible. Come on! I dare you. I double-dare you."

"Rex..."

"Alexi! Come on! The least you owe me is a bit of good ogling."

She bit her lower lip, then recklessly stood. What else could happen? He knew the truth now. Her worst nightmare had already happened. Rex knew that she was basically asexual. And that she couldn't really help it--and why.

He'd sworn he'd kill John. She trembled suddenly, remembering his vehemence. It had just been a turn of phrase, she told herself. Rex didn't even know John. "Come on!" Rex called to her.

She hesitated only a second longer. She pulled her knit over her shoulders, then hastened out of her lacy undergarments. Even in the darkness, she could see the rich grin that slashed across Rex's features where his head bobbed along with the waves.

This was crazy. It was so dark. But she plunged into the water anyway. It was cool with her whole body immersed. Alexi had never been skinny-dipping. It felt divine. She dived and swam, shivering as she broke the surface again. She looked around. She couldn't see Rex anymore. His head wasn't above the water.

Then she felt him. Below her. Far below her. He tugged on her foot, and she gasped, laughing as her face almost slipped beneath the waves. But he didn't pull her down.

He explored her.

She felt his hands all along her legs. Felt his touch as he cradled her buttocks, felt his mouth grazing her belly, felt his kiss against her thighs....

She gasped, alive, electric, kinetic against the warmth of the Atlantic and the sheen of the moon. He had to breathe; surely the man had to breathe. He couldn't stay down forever. ...

But he could stay down a long time. A long, long time. Long enough to part her legs. Long enough to dive between them. To touch, to stroke, to glide...

He broke the surface, pulling her against him. She could barely stand against the sand and the water, the coil of sweetness was so tight within her.

"I'm going to drown," she warned him.

"No," he told her.

She barely knew the feel of his chest; she discovered it then: thick, dark hair a rich wet mat upon it. He let her touch him, then he swept his arms around her, and his kiss on her lips was demanding and thirsting and merciless, sweeping her away. She couldn't breathe; she couldn't protest. He broke from her, lifting her, and his mouth encircled her breast, drawing it in. She arched back, gasping, moaning.

"Rex..." she pleaded. "You know...I can't."

He slid her wet, sleek length against his own so that their bodies rubbed together provocatively. He waited until their eyes met, and he smiled triumphantly. "Oh, but you can."

He lifted her again, carrying her against the waves until they had just reached the shore. He laid her there and quickly stretched atop her, burrowing his weight between her thighs, kissing her hastily again, stealing breath and strength and protest from her. Kissing her so quickly, again and again. Her lips, her throat, her breast, her belly, her thighs, the very core of her, deeply, so deeply...

"Alexi."

He- was above her, his eyes on her.

"Watch," he whispered. "You can. We can."

He touched her so erotically. And she watched. And she gasped again, crying out with the sheer pleasure of it, and he slowly, completely, insolently, possessively...electrically sank his body deep within hers.

Chapter 8

Me and thee and a jug of wine."

There was the most wonderful, laconic smile on his face. He was still stark naked and not a bit bothered by it. Flat on his back, Rex lifted his hands to the heavens and sighed with contentment.

Alexi had no choice but to smile, too, curling on her side to watch him. The moon was high overhead and the stars were shimmering over the sand and the water, and she had never imagined that night could be so beautiful. She leaned on an elbow and drew a tender line down the length of Rex's cheek.

"We haven't any wine," she reminded him.

"Ah, true. Me and thee, then. In Eden. This is heaven." He drew her on top of him, lulled and sated to an exquisite point where he could pause now and savor and appreciate each little nuance of her, of the things that passed between them. He could feel the sand, gritty against his back, cool, fascinating. He could feel the sand she brought with her, those tiny pebbles against the endless silken smoothness of her flesh. She leaned against his chest, slightly flushed. Her eyes were as brilliant as gems, more wondrous than all the stars in the heavens; her beautiful lips were curled into the most awkward little smile. Her hair was still soaked, a tangled mane swept clean from her flesh now, yet it showed off the elegant lines of her delicate, exquisite features. He leaned on his elbows, laughing as she went off balance and then pouncing on her as she lay on her back in the sand, touching her cheek because he had to and studying the length of her in the moonlight because he had to do that, too.

"Helen of Troy," he murmured softly, "the face that beyond a doubt launched a thousand ships. Face and form..." Softly, tenderly, with an awed fascination, Rex explored her length with his fingertips as well as with his eyes. Breasts this lovely had never graced the pages of a fold-out magazine, he thought, then corrected himself. Well, all right, maybe they had once in a long while, but not often. Long, lean torso, slim waist, the most feminine flare of hips and buttocks...

Even her kneecaps were glorious.

"Sweetheart." He grinned at her. And then he groaned softly in mock agony. "Had they seen her body, too, they could have launched a million ships."

"Rex, stop!" Alexi protested, but he had her laughing and she couldn't help it. She laughed until his head dipped over her and his face brushed her nipple. Then he took it into his mouth, sliding his teeth, and then his tongue, gently around it. She felt a sharp sizzle of desire strike her anew just from that action, and her breath caught as she threaded her fingers through the deadly-dark wings of his hair, trying to draw him to her.

His eyes, darker than the sea at night, far darker than the midnight sky above them, met hers.

"I'm not, you know," she murmured. "I'm not anything like a real Helen of Troy at all. I'm..."

Quite ordinary. Those were the words she was looking for. She never had a chance to find them.

"No, you're not Helen of Troy. And you're not fantasy."

Rex smiled as he leisurely stroked his fingertip over her lower lip. She was really so beautiful that night. And maybe it was part fantasy. They were on the beach, and there was nothing on the horizon, nothing at all. They might have been the last man and woman on earth, or the very first. The breeze was gentle and balmy and the water was warm and the earth seemed to cradle them and blanket them in some welcoming, tender embrace. And she really didn't look like the Helen of Troy image at all; she was all natural. All...divinely natural, from wet hair and face to her gloriously naked body. Her eyes, her expression, the beauty in her features... were all innocence. The curve of her body was wanton and lush. The combination was nothing less than magical.

Rex dipped his head to kiss her mouth. He raised himself just a breath away from her.

"No, you're not Helen. You're Alexi Jordan, and I--"

He broke off abruptly.

And I love you very much.

Those had been the words he had been about to say, he realized. They stunned him; they shocked him. He'd known he'd wanted her. Any male over the age of twelve who lived and breathed would have wanted her. He'd known that he could enjoy her company, that she could be fun and feisty and proud and temperamental, and even soft at times.

He just hadn't known that he was falling in love with her. Nor was it a particularly bright thing to have done. She was Helen of Troy, right? A woman who would be returning to a certain world. A woman who probably needed that world, had to have a certain amount of adoration in her life. She'd stay awhile, and then she'd go, and then he'd...

He'd spend the rest of his life missing her.

"Rex?"

Something in her tone was very soft and vulnerable. He'd forgotten. She'd come to him after a bad finale to a bad marriage, and she was as delicate as the fine marble she so resembled. He had to fall out of love with her. But not now. Not tonight.

"Alexi Jordan," he whispered, "is far more beautiful than Helen of Troy could have ever been."

"Flatterer," she said accusingly.

"Mmm-hmm," he agreed. His one leg lay cast over her. The prickly hairs of his chest tickled the soft flesh of her breasts mercilessly. He casually cupped her cheek and murmured huskily, "Think you want to go again?"

His were bedroom eyes if she'd ever seen them, and this dusky velvet patch of earth and water was the most erotic bedroom she had ever known. She smiled, wondering at the infinite tenderness in the man. He'd known exactly what to say, and when. And he'd known exactly what to do, and when. She'd never known a man more the epitome of the male, and she'd never begun to imagine that such a man could show so much sensitivity.

"Think you can?" he asked.

She gazed into his eyes and stroked her fingers over his cheek, savoring the shaven flesh. "Piece of cake," she told him, and she set both palms against his face, bringing him down to her. She reached for his mouth first with the tip of her tongue, rimming his lips with that delicate touch before she molded her mouth to his. She felt the great rush of his breath and the fascinating hardening of his body, muscles tensing and stretching and tautening with his growing sexual excitement.

Earth, wind...and fire. It was Eden.

She felt his touch against her, her breasts, her hips, the curve of her buttocks, the soft flesh of her inner thigh. His kiss seared her, and when his lips left her flesh, the breeze came to kiss it afresh. He whispered words that meant nothing and everything, and she knew that she whispered in return, like a breath of the sea, like the cry of the waves. Each cry, each whisper, was fuel to the fire, and each fire was a lapping flame creating sensation anew, a heightened tension. She dared anything. She touched him intimately; she exulted in the swell and pulse of him. She soared to the heat and thunder of his rhythm, and she felt the tiny little piece of death that blacked out the world with the wondrous force of the climax that he brought to her upon the beach just as the very first touch of dawn burst upon it to bathe their Eden in beauteous magenta.

Floating as if she were indeed adrift upon the waves, Alexi returned slowly to the earth beneath her, feeling again the fine grit of the sand and the coolness of the ocean at her feet. His arms went around her, and she rested on them. Only then did she shiver, watching the sky as the first tiny arc of the sun peeked out over the horizon like a shy young maiden.

"It's morning," Rex murmured.

"It certainly is," Alexi agreed. She shifted up onto her elbows. Rex stood and walked into the water, hunching down to splash water against his face, then standing again to stare out at the rising sun.

Alexi smiled, biting her lower lip. The sun was beautiful--but not nearly so magnificent as the man who stood before it, a tall, strong silhouette against that golden arc. She liked the whole of him very much, she decided, from the breadth of his shoulders to the muscles of his buttocks and thighs. She wondered if there was any more wonderful way to meet a lover than to come to him in this Eden, as he termed it.

He turned back to her. At her expression, he arched a brow.

"I'm deciding," she told him.

"Oh?"

"Mmm." She hesitated just a moment longer. "Can't decide. I like the frontside as much as the backside," she told him at last.

His dark brow arched higher. "Saucy wench, aren't you?"

"I tell it like it is."

He laughed and reached a hand down to her. She took it and stood and slid her arms around his neck and enjoyed kissing him in the light bath of sunlight. She loved feeling their naked, sandy flesh brush together.

He loved the feel of her breasts and hips against him, the feel of his sex against hers....

No, no, no, no, no, he thought. He could fairly well guarantee the privacy of his Eden by night, but not by daylight. God alone knew when the meter reader might decide to show up.

He broke away from her, found her dress and slipped it quickly over her head, then hurriedly searched for his trousers.

"All that talk and time to get my clothes off!" Alexi complained. "Now you're shoving me back into them!"

"I'm the jealous type," he told her, stumbling into his briefs. Alexi, still searching for her panties but comfortably clad in her dress, had to laugh as she watched him. He cast her an indignant glare that offered a definite threat once he was capable of standing straight.

Alexi held out a hand in a defensive gesture but kept laughing. "Don't be offended. I was watching you before, and you were just wonderful. Primal man--Atlas in the flesh. You really were just beautiful against the rising sun."

"Thanks," Rex muttered. He glanced up at her as he zippered his fly; then he started to laugh. "What?" Alexi demanded. "Green hair." "What?"

"You have a lump of seaweed there. Left side--ah, you've got it."

She stared at him reproachfully, then started to smile. He stretched out his hand again and said, "I could stay here forever. But I'm afraid we might have some company."

Alexi nodded happily, curling her fingers around his. "Breakfast, Mr. Morrow? My place?"

"Sounds good. Let's pick up Samson first, though, huh? Emily went home yesterday, so he's been locked up all night."

Alexi nodded, lacing her fingers through his. She smiled as they started walking barefoot over the carpet of pine that led to the beach. "My purse and shoes are in the car. It's morning and you can't hear a thing but the breeze and the seabirds. I really do love it here."

Rex shot her a quick glance. Alexi, staring at the sky, didn't notice the penetrating quality of his gaze.

"Do you?" he said.

"Hmm?"

"No city lights."

"Well, everyone likes the city now and then. But, Rex--'' She paused, looking at him with a very slight but honest, open smile. "This is like Eden. Don't you imagine that Pierre Brandywine must have thought the very thing when he first built the house for Eugenia?"

"You're a romantic," he told her.

"So are you," she said challengingly.

Was he? he wondered. Surely not.

They had reached his house. Samson came bounding out when Rex whistled. Rex asked her to hang on a minute while he got some clothes. "I'm really into sand when we're playing in it," he told her with a grimace, "and salt and all the rest. But I think I need a shower now, huh?"

"And where are you taking that shower?"

"With you."

"Presumptuous," she said with a sigh. But when they started out again, she had to stop. It was broad daylight now, with the bright, bright morning sun climbing higher in the sky. She stood in front of him, and she only hesitated for the fraction of a second. "Thank you, Rex. Thank you so very much. I--"

She hesitated again. Only the fraction of a second again, but the wheels of her heart and mind spun.

"I love you.

The words almost spilled from her. Were they such easy words, then? she taunted herself. No, a heartbeat told her that they were not. She did love him. His smile, his dark eyes, the way he had looked, primitive and exciting and male, in the broad arc of the brimming sun. But that wasn't it. She loved him because he had been there. Hostile at first. Audacious at best. But he had been there for her in every sense of the words, sensitive, caring. Gentle and tender.

But he was good at that, she reminded herself. He was an accomplished lover. A good man, a practiced lover. Be his friend! she warned herself. Don't expect much; it will hurt too much if you let your feelings get out of hand.

Too late; her feelings were out of hand. She just had to take care not to let it show.

"You're very special," she finished quickly, feeling the probing of his ebony eyes. She smiled and stood on her toes to kiss him quickly. "Very special."

"Hey, I'm an obliging fellow," he said lightly. "Come on--the kittens must need an outing as badly as Samson."

"And the cellar will need a cleaning," Alexi moaned.

Rex didn't argue the point. When they reached the Brandywine house, Alexi retrieved her things from the car while Rex opened the house. By the time she reached the door, she practically tripped over the kittens to enter. Rex had let them up first thing, it seemed. Alexi quickly scooped the pair of them into her arms.

'Hi, sweeties. Did you think that you had been deserted? I'm sorry!"

Samson came running out of the kitchen and slid down the hallway, barking enthusiastically. The kittens squirmed in Alexi's arms, and she set them down to bat away at Samson. Samson tried to make a hasty retreat, but it was too late. The kittens tumbled after him.

"You asked for it this time, Samson!" Alexi laughed.

She started off for the kitchen herself, smiling as she inhaled the aroma of the coffee. Rex had gotten it going quickly.

She liked the way he looked in the kitchen, too. She paused in the doorway, watching as he moved from the cupboards to the refrigerator, barefoot and bare chested -- and wearing his dress trousers.

Alexi went swiftly to the refrigerator herself and took out a carton of eggs and some cheese and bacon. Rex let mug of coffee.

"I'm probably the better cook," he warned her.

"Good. You can prove it tomorrow," she told him. Then she quickly lowered her head,- letting her drying hair hide her features. What was she doing? She'd just come to the mature acceptance that he was a free agent, and here she was, assuming they'd be together for breakfast tomorrow.

"I will," he promised her smugly.

She breathed a little more easily and asked him to hand her the grater for the cheese. He did, then told her that she was only cooking so that he would have to go down to the cellar to see what kind of mess the kittens had made.

She watched him when he started down the stairs. She thought about the burnt brown hue of his shoulders and the weathered tan of his features and knew the color had come from endless hours in the sun he loved so much. Then she realized that she was daydreaming and about to burn something, so she turned her attention back to the stove. But as she did so she frowned, noting that the tea and sugar canisters were out of place, and she could have sworn that she had left the kitchen spotless the night before.

Alexi grated cheese over the eggs, then shook her head. Something about the kitchen didn't feel right. She couldn't explain it--after all, Rex had entered the kitchen before she had; maybe he had moved things.

She scooped the eggs off the frying pan and onto plates and quickly turned several pieces of bacon that were starting to burn. She should have started the bacon first, she told herself reproachfully. Rex probably was the better cook.

She heard a slight noise behind her and turned around. Rex had come up the stairway from the cellar and was watching her; on his lips was a curiously tender smile that brought a tug to her heart. He swung away from the doorframe, sauntered over to her, took her into his arms and met her eyes with his smile intact.

"Your hair looks like hell."

"I'm ever so sorry. I've just come from the most incredible night of my life."

"Thank you, ma'am."

She laughed and grew breathless and he started to kiss her, but they both smelled the bacon starting to burn. Alexi quickly retrieved it and popped bread into the toaster while Rex poured juice and more coffee.

While they ate, Alexi told him some of the things she wanted to do with the place. Rex listened and asked questions, and she grew more and more excited, trying to describe what she envisioned in the end. "I love this house. I always have. There's something about knowing that it belonged to my great-great-great-grandparents that just fascinates me."

"It is nice," Rex agreed. He caught her fingers across the table. “Were you going to start today, though?'' "I was."

"Is that negotiable?" "Very."

They'd eaten every scrap of food. Alexi decided that being in love created enormous appetites. They'd barely picked up the dishes before they were both calmly and breathlessly discussing the need for a shower, and then they were in the shower--together, of course. Rex couldn't begin to make up his mind whether he preferred making love to her on the beach or against the steamy spray of the shower or in the bed she had chosen for her own with the fresh-smelling sheets and the sweet scent of shampoo and cologne dusting her flesh.

It didn't matter, he was certain. They were both drugged with it, and in the end it was about noon when they fell asleep, exhausted and content, and nearly dark again when he awoke.

Alexi was still sleeping. Her hair, dry and fragrant now, lay in tousled waves upon his shoulders and hers. He brought a lock of it to his lips, then silently held his breath while he admired the way it fell over her breasts as she slept.

He crawled from the bed, stared out at the dusk, then pulled on his clean pair of jeans and started down the stairs. He rummaged in the refrigerator and found some frozen steaks. He set them on the counter, shoved a few potatoes in the oven and made a fresh pot of coffee. That completed, he decided to grab some paper and make a family chart so that he could determine just which one of his characters was actually the murderer of all the others.

Alexi awoke first with the most marvelous sense of peace and warmth and contentment and security. Naturally, she reached out to touch him. Then her eyes flew open and she was not quite so warm and content, for she realized that he was gone.

She bolted out of bed and rushed to the window and saw that it was already dark, and ruefully admitted that maybe she hadn't slept all that much after all, since she had been up all night and all morning. Her heart began to beat, a little painfully, as she hoped that Rex had not left her. She wasn't afraid tonight; she just wanted to be with him.

She slipped quickly into a terry robe, ran her brush through her hair with a lick and a promise and started for the stairway. At the top landing she paused, gripping the banister and breathing with a sigh of relief and pleasure. He was still there. She could hear him. He was talking to someone, but who--?

She frowned, instinctively clutching her robe to her throat and silently coming down the stairs. She could hear him clearly. But who on earth was he talking to? His voice was rising and falling, rising and falling.

He was in the parlor. Alexi crossed the downstairs hallway quickly to go there, and then she paused, amused but determined not to laugh until he saw her.

Rex, scratching his head, paper and pencil in hand, was pacing from one side of the room to the other.

“No, no, no, no, no. That leaves just the butler. And the butler can't do it. I mean, the damn butler just can't do it!"

"Oooh, but he can! He can! Give the poor man a break!" Alexi cried.

Startled, Rex swung around to her. First he wore a very severe expression; then he swore softly at her--and then he laughed. "Caught in the act, huh?"

"Do you always talk to yourself?"

"You talk to paintings."

"Okay, okay--we're even," she promised. She stepped into the room and curled up on the steam-cleaned sofa in perfect comfort. She hugged her knees and asked him wistfully, "Tell me about it. Why can't the butler do it? Maybe I can help."

Rex looked at her doubtfully for a moment, then shrugged, smiled and joined her. He explained that having the butler do it would really be a cliché--unless it could be entirely justified. Of course, he might want it to be a cliche, if the book was to be a spoof. This wasn't going to be a spoof, though, so he had to be very careful that people didn't laugh at what was not intended to be funny.

Alexi listened while he went through his plot. To her amazement, his people quickly became as real to her as they were to him, and she could tell him why a certain character would or wouldn't behave in a certain way. She was excited to see that Rex was listening to her, and she was really pleased when he snapped his fingers, kissed her, picked up his paper and pencil and started back to work. "You've got something?" she asked. "I've got something." He paused, looking up at her. "The potatoes are already baking. The steaks are on the counter. Put them in and toss up a salad, and I promise I'll be ready to come and eat when you're ready."

Alexi smiled and nodded. She gave him a kiss on the top of the head, but she wasn't sure that he noticed. She asked if he didn't need to get the information down on his computer, but he absently assured her he was just writing notes and would transfer his work in the morning. Still smiling, Alexi went out to heat up the broiler for the steaks. Samson and the kittens were in the kitchen. The big shepherd was stretched out on the floor; the little puffballs were audaciously curled right beneath his powerful jaws. Alexi shook her head and started to work again.

She put together a salad, then paused, perplexed, as she went through the cabinets again. She'd left them so organized. She'd spent yesterday really knowing what she had done with everything. It just didn't seem right that so many things had been moved.

When she went down to the cellar to find another bottle of wine, she had the same feeling. She didn't know what exactly was out of place, only that it was. The kittens had been down there, she reminded herself. And Rex had been down there, too--to let the kittens out, then to clean up after them. But she couldn't imagine the strange little chills running down her spine being caused by Rex's having been there. It was stupid--or perhaps it was instinct or a sixth sense. She was certain that someone else had been there.

She had just slipped the steaks into the oven when a pair of strong brown arms encircled her waist.

"What's the matter?" he asked her.

"Rex! Did you finish with your notes already?"

"I did...thanks to that wonderfully conniving little mind of yours. What an asset--beyond the obvious, of course."

"Do I know you, sir?" Alexi retorted.

"If you don't now, honey, you're going to," he replied in a wonderful imitation of Gary Grant, swinging her around in his arms. But his smile faded to a frown as he met her eyes.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing! Really."

"No. Something is wrong."

"You can read me that well, huh?" Alexi murmured, a little uneasily, her lashes sweeping over her eyes. She smiled at him, telling him he'd better get out of the way so she could turn the steaks. He obliged, but when she brought the broiling pan out and put the meat on the plates, be pressed the point.

Alexi picked up the platter with the two potatoes and the salad bowl and set them at the table. She handed Rex the bottle of wine to open and a pair of chilled glasses, then sat down. Rex arched a brow in silence, opened the wine and poured it, then sat across from her. "Well?" "Well, you never believe me," she murmured. His mouth tightened. "I have never not believed you, Alexi. But what are you talking about now?"

She sighed and sprinkled too much salt on her steak. "I don't know. This time it really does sound silly. Rex, don't you dare laugh at me. I have a feeling that someone else has been in the house."

He chewed a piece of meat, his eyes on her. “Why?'' "Things have--moved." "Like what?"

"The sugar and tea canisters."

He glanced across the kitchen. "Maybe I moved them when I was fixing the coffee."

She nodded. "Maybe." She shrugged. "I know, I know--I'm being ridiculous."

"Maybe not." His fingers curled around hers on the table. Her heart seemed to stop when she gazed into his eyes. He wasn't laughing at her--he wasn't even smiling. In fact, the glitter of suspicion in his eyes was far more frightening than amusing.

"Alexi, you're forgetting that I was with you in the restaurant. Someone was very definitely spying on us."

She swallowed and nodded.

He looked around the kitchen. "It's just that...why would anyone want to come in here and move things around?''

"An antique buff?"

"Was anything taken?"

"No...I don't think so."

Rex was silent for a minute. She felt his fingers moving lightly, pensively over hers.

"Alexi--would your ex-husband be jealous or spiteful enough to want to follow you?"

She inhaled sharply and stared down at her plate. She remembered holding her breath on her first day in Fernandina Beach, thinking that she had seen his handsome blond head in a crowd.

Cruel? Yes--that could be said of John. Opportunistic, callous, ruthless--determined. But this...this stealth? This senselessness?

She shook her head. "I don't think so, Rex. I really don't."

His voice seemed tight and very low. "After what you've told me about the man, Alexi..."

"I know, Rex, I know," she murmured uneasily. She met his eyes at last. She'd never felt so vulnerable, and she knew his temper, too, but she was entirely unprepared for the heat of the emotion that burned so deeply into her.

"Rex...I... John was certainly no gentleman, but the only time he really hurt me, he'd been drinking and he was in a fit. A lot of it was ego; I rejected him. It never occurred to John that his behavior was unacceptable. He wanted to hurt me for the fact that I could walk away."

"He did hurt you. Badly."

"But not like--this." Her steak was cold. She'd lost her appetite anyway. In fact, a tremendous pall seemed to be falling upon a day that had been the most magical in her life. She smiled, trying not to shiver. “I probably am imagining things."

"Well," he murmured, sitting back, and his obsidian lashes hid his immediate thoughts. When he looked at her again he, too, was smiling. His fingers covered hers once again. "No one can be around now, huh? Samson would sound an alarm as loud as a siren."

Of course. She had forgotten Samson. No one could be anywhere near them. It was a nice thought. Very relieving.

"You haven't eaten a thing," Rex reminded her. He poured more wine into her glass.

Alexi sipped it and grimaced. "I'm really not very hungry." She stood and smiled again, determined to recapture the laughter that they had shared. "I know exactly what to do with it!"

"Oh?"

"Samson? Come here, you great dog, you!"

Barking excitedly and wagging his tail a mile a minute, Samson came bounding toward her, the kittens not far behind. Alexi gave the kittens tiny pieces of the meat and the rest to Samson.

"You have a friend for life," Rex assured her.

She laughed and picked up the rest of the dishes. She and Rex decided to take a short walk, but when they had gone only a few steps, Alexi gave him a playful pinch, commenting on the fit of his jeans. He laughed and cast her over his shoulder, commenting on the lack of fit of her attire and on everything that was beneath.

They laughed all the way into the house, up the stairs and into the bedroom, and there the laughter faded to urgent whispers of passion and need.

And Alexi did forget about being nervous. This night, like the one before it, was magic.

Chapter 9

One week later, the carpenters were just finishing up with Alexi's first project, the window seat in the kitchen.

Alexi, in a blue flowered sundress, stood by the butcher-block table, admiring the work and her own design. Her hair was drawn back in a ponytail, and she was wearing very little makeup. Joe's boy had brought out several pizzas, and Alexi had passed out wine coolers. Rex, coming in from the parlor, surveyed the little area of the house and admitted she had quite a talent for design. The window seat was perfect for the house; the upholstery and drapes were in a colonial pattern, and the seat added something to the entire atmosphere and warmth of the kitchen. It hadn't been there in the past, of course, but it looked like something that could have been.

Enthused, Alexi swung around to demand, "Well?" "It is wonderful and perfect," he told her, slipping an arm around her. With a satisfied sigh, she leaned against him. Skip Henderson, the elder of the two Henderson carpenters, chewed a piece of onion-and-pepperoni pizza, swallowed and told Alexi, "It's a wonderful design. It's great. I might try something like it in my own place." "Yeah?" Alexi asked him.

He was a nice-looking man with muscled shoulders-- like Rex's, bare in the heat--and a toothsome grin. He offered Alexi a grave nod then, though, but grinned again when he looked over the top of her head to Rex to say, "Smart, too, huh?" "As a whip," Rex agreed pleasantly. Alexi kicked him. "Hey! What was that for?"

"I'd kick Skip, too, except that I don't know him that well," Alexi retorted. "There was that nice assumption that blondes only come in 'dumb'!"

Rex wrapped his arms around her and drew her tightly against him, laughing. "I've never dared make any assumptions about you, Alexi."

"You'd be welcome to kick me if you wanted to get to know me a little better, too," offered Terry, Skip's partner and younger brother.

"No deal," Rex warned him with a mock growl, Alexi flushed slightly. She liked the note of jealousy in his voice as much as she liked the ease of the teasing repartee. Were she and Rex really becoming a couple? The thought was so pleasant that it was frightening. They'd been a couple, of course. Very much a couple. They'd barely been apart since the night on the beach. She couldn't count the times that they had made love, and that part of it was very thrilling and exciting...but there seemed to be so much more. She liked times like these almost as much. She loved the way that she could set about a project and, if she wanted his opinion, ask for it. He would take the time to answer her--unless he was behind a closed door, and then she knew that he needed his concentration. But they'd been together--living together--all these days, and they didn't seem to encroach upon each other's space. Sometimes she was so afraid that she held her breath a bit. Then she was wondering when he would decide that Eden had been fun for a spell but a woman as more than a lover was like a brick around his neck. He wasn't a cruel or cold man--he was the opposite in every way. But Alexi knew how the scars of the past could eat into a soul. The longer she and Rex stayed together, the more domestic she came to feel.

Would he run from domesticity if it became too confining?

"Finish your pizza," Skip told his brother. "I think we're overstaying our welcome here."

Alexi laughed. "Don't be silly. You're welcome as long as you want to stay. I'm going to run down to the cellar, though, and feed the creatures. I'll be right back. You all sit and enjoy yourselves."

She spun out of Rex's arms, thinking that it was nice, too, that their neighbors--Rex's friends and acquaintances from the mainland--all appeared to think it natural and romantic that the two of them were together.

Only Emily disapproved. Well, she didn't disapprove, but she seemed unhappy. Rex had told Alexi once that Emily didn't dislike her--Emily thought that she was simply too nice a girl for him. Alexi was amused--and touched. Few people would assume that she was too nice for anyone. She had made the front pages of too many gossip magazines.

The phone started to ring as soon as she reached the bottom step. She could hear Rex, Skip and Terry discussing the chances of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the coming season.

"Rex! Get that, will you?" She needed an answering machine for the house, she decided. Rex seldom thought to answer a phone just because it was ringing.

"Rex!"

The phone kept ringing. Alexi dropped the fifty-pound bag of Samson's dog food with an oath. Samson barked at her; his tail thumped the floor, and he stared at her with huge, reproachful eyes.

She patted him on the head. "I'll be right back, big guy.

I promise."

She almost stepped on a kitten as she started up. "I'll be back--I promise," she said again.

Skip and Terry were at the table. Skip pointed toward the hallway. Alexi nodded her thanks and hurried toward the parlor.

Rex was saying something. He looked up and noticed that Alexi had come into the room. "Hold on, will you? She's right here." He covered the mouthpiece and handed the phone to Alexi. "Your agent."

"Oh."

Alexi took the phone and greeted George Beattie with affection. George was great; five-three, stout, a very proper British chap with a heart of gold. Alexi didn't think that she'd have made it through the past year without him.

Rex knew he probably should have left the room, but he didn't. Alexi didn't really say much of anything; she listened mainly. She glanced at him, a little apologetically, and asked for a piece of paper and a pencil. She thanked him with a glance when he supplied them.

"September first... I don't know, George. I still don't know." She paused to listen. "I'll let you know by next week. Is that enough time?''

Rex knew he must have agreed. Alexi thanked him, asked after his wife and kids, told him to take care and hung up. She fingered the paper, then noted him standing there, watching her, his arms crossed over his chest. "They want you back?" he asked. There was no emotion in his tone. Alexi shrugged.

'Oh, it was an offer from one of the clothing manufacturers. A new campaign."

Rex took the paper from her and looked at the dates-- and the sums. "That's the money involved?"

She nodded.

"Who is the photographer on the shoot? Not Vinto."

“No, no. Once the Helen of Troy finished, George knew to make sure that such a thing couldn't happen again."

"Well," he breathed softly. "You'd be a fool not to take it, wouldn't you?"

He handed the paper back, smiled stiffly and walked back to the kitchen. Alexi watched the set of his shoulders and felt as if her heart sank a little.

He didn't care. She was falling into domestic bliss, and he was definitely finding it all to be a brief affair--cut short conveniently by her work schedule.

She'd known; she had only herself to blame. He'd never made any promises, and she wasn't really entitled to any complaints. No man could have given her more.

She stood there, watching his broad back as he disappeared through the door to the kitchen. What was the matter with her? They were hardly strangers. All she had to do was waltz right after him and demand to know what he had meant by that. She could be frank. She could take her chances. Gene had always said that you were a loser from the beginning if you didn't even try.

She trembled suddenly, thinking how much it meant to her. This little bit of time here--these hours they had shared in his "Eden"--they meant so much to her. They were everything she had always wanted, everything she had always searched for. She'd had to defy her family at first-- she'd been young. But she'd always been looking for this... this very special relationship. This quiet, far from the crowds. This life...with Rex.

She couldn't go in and accost him emotionally. Not when he and Skip and Terry were discussing football. They would all stare at her as if she had lost her senses.

Alexi exhaled a little sigh and sank back onto the sofa. She remembered that she hadn't finished feeding the animals, but decided that she didn't really have the energy to do so. Maybe if she stayed away from the kitchen for a minute, Skip and Terry would go home.

As she sat there, her chin in her hands, the phone started to ring again. Alexi idly reached over to answer it. "Hello?"

She waited, not alarmed at first.

"Hello?" she said more impatiently.

She could hear breathing in the background. Harsh and heavy.

"Hello, dammit! Say something."

She was just about to hang up when a voice said something at last.

"Hello, Alexi."

She was startled by the power that voice still held over her. She had seen him almost daily for almost a year after it had all happened, and she had dragged up a facade of cool and cordial indifference--and she'd even managed to believe it herself. But now time had passed, and she was hearing his voice. It touched her spine and raked along it-- and she was afraid.

"Alexi?"

She almost hung up. But it seemed smarter to talk, to find out what he wanted.

"John. What do you want? How did you find me?"

"Oh, you were easy to find, sweets. And I just want to talk to you."

"Why?"

"Don't sound so hostile, babe."

"I am hostile."

"Alexi, come on! Think of the good times."

"I'm sorry. I can't remember any."

"I've got to see you."

"I don't ever want to see you again."

"Alexi--"

"Where are you, John?"

"Close, babe, real close."

How close? she wondered. She felt the tremors rake along her spine again. Her tongue and throat felt dry; her palms were damp.

"Well, John, forget it. I--"

She was startled when the receiver was wrenched from her hand. She gasped slightly and looked up to see that Rex was back. She hadn't heard him come into the room. Nor had he ever looked at her quite like that. His eyes were burning coals. His features were taut and strained, and he seemed a very hard man at that moment, striking, but cold as ice.

"What do you want, Vinto?"

"Who the hell are you?"

Even Alexi heard John's reply. She bit her lip, listening to the harsh tone of Rex's answer. He told John exactly who he was and exactly where he could be found. And then he told John to leave Alexi alone--or else.

Then he slammed down the receiver.

Alexi sat motionless for several long moments. She felt drained, and found that curious, for Rex seemed to be a mass of tension and knots, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides as he watched her.

"I didn't tread on any toes, did I?" he said.

"What?" She looked up at him at last.

"Did you want to see him?"

"No! Of course not. You know that! I--I'd like to feel that I could have handled it myself, but--"

"Sorry."

He turned around again and was gone. Miserable, Alexi continued to sit there. She got up at last and followed Rex across the hall.

Skip and Terry had gone. Rex was sitting there by himself at the butcher-block table, staring at the window seat that had so recently given them both such pleasure.

Alexi came and sat down next to him. He glanced her way. A brief smile touched his lips and then was gone. He squeezed her fingers and rose. "I'm going out for a few hours." He started for the kitchen door.

Alexi rose, too. "Rex?"

"It's all right," he assured her. "I'm just going out for a few hours."

The kitchen door swung. She heard Rex's footsteps on the stairway, going up. Then, seconds later, she heard them coming down again. He hesitated, as if he was going to walk straight to the front door but then decided not to.

He came back into the kitchen. He'd donned a striped tailored shirt and moccasins and was busy tucking the shirt into his jeans. He came around behind Alexi. With his fingers he lightly stroked her upper arms.

"I'll be back," he promised her.

There was so much she wanted to say. She didn't seem able to say any of it. She nodded, and he kissed the top of her head.

"Alexi, I..."

"What?"

"I, uh, I'll try not to be gone too long."

She looked up at him curiously. He smiled and kissed her distractedly on the forehead again. A moment later, the kitchen door was swinging in his wake, but then he caught it again to say, "Come on out and lock the door."

Samson started barking. He raced up from the cellar stairs and brushed past Alexi and jumped on Rex.

"Get down, you monster."

"He doesn't want to be left behind," Alexi murmured.

"All right, all right, you can come for a ride," Rex told the dog impatiently. ''Alexi, make sure you lock the door." "I will, dammit, Rex. I know how to do it now." He didn't answer her. Alexi heard him yell at Samson to get into the car; then she heard the Maserati rev. She locked the door and leaned against it and felt like crying.

She muttered fervently to herself about the absurdity of such a thing and went back into the kitchen. She threw away the pizza boxes and the empty beer bottles and swore softly as she washed down the table and the counters. She curled up on her new window seat, but she couldn't seem to take any pleasure in it. Then she heard a mewling and remembered that she still hadn't fed any of the animals-- his or hers.

"Okay, my loves. I'm coming." Alexi uncurled herself and started down the cellar stairs. The kittens played around her feet. “Samson went out without any dinner. Serves him right, don't you think? Men. They're all alike, and they deserve what they get, huh?"

Alexi glanced through the shelves of food. "Chicken, tuna or liver, guys?"

She shrugged and decided on cans of chicken. She picked up the bowls to wash them in the big, ancient sink and bit her lip against the temptation to cry again.

Rex had been in such a hurry to get out, to get away from her. He'd been counting the damn days, she thought spitefully. He wanted her to go back to work.

And then he'd grabbed the phone away from her. He hadn't thought her capable of dealing with John. But then, really, just what did he think of her, and what could she really expect? They'd met because she'd broken in--because she hadn't been able to get that stupid old key to work. Then she'd heard the footsteps of someone chasing her in the sand. And she'd been convinced that someone was in the house that night the lights had gone out. And then again, when they'd come back after their night out on the beach, she'd been so sure...

He thought she was neurotic, surely. He'd run out tonight because he just had to have a break from a neurotic woman who was perhaps becoming just a little bit too much like a clinging vine.

Alexi ruefully turned the water off, thinking that the kittens would surely have the cleanest bowls in the state. Then she paused, startled, her heart soaring with hope as she thought she heard the door open and close.

She dropped the bowls into the sink and hurried back to the bottom of the stairs. "Rex?"

She didn't hear anything, but she could have sworn that the front door had opened. Alexi started up the stairs and entered the kitchen. There was no one there. She hurried out into the hallway and saw that it was growing dark. The stairs to the second floor and the landing above them loomed before her like a giant, empty cavern, waiting to swallow her whole.

"You are neurotic!" she charged herself aloud. In a businesslike manner she turned on the hallway light, and she felt better. She moved on into the parlor and turned on the globe lamp behind the Victorian sofa.

"A little light shed on the matter," she murmured. Then she paused uneasily again, shivering. It felt as if someone was near. She couldn't really describe why--it just felt that way.

John.

Ice seemed to course through her veins. He had said that he was near, hadn't he? Had he been here all along, stalking her? Running after her on the sand the second night she was there, somehow slipping into the house once she had run into Rex, escaping when she had screamed...

No. It just couldn't be John. What could he want with her?

He said that he wanted to talk to her....

The shadow in the Chinese restaurant, watching them through the screen...could that have been John?

Who else? She gave herself a shake, then stood very still. She hadn't heard a thing. She was just nervous because Rex was gone and she was so accustomed to being with him now.

Alexi cut across the hall. She meant to go into the kitchen, but paused and walked into the ballroom instead. She turned on the lights and walked down to stand beneath the portraits of Pierre and Eugenia.

"You were really so beautiful!" she told them both softly. And she smiled, wondering if they had ever loved each other on the beach, watching as the sun came up in an arc of beauty. Had they laughed in the waves, played in the surf?

They had been great lovers, she knew, according to family legend and some documented fact. Eugenia's father had been a rich Baltimore merchant, but she had defied him to marry Pierre Brandywine, a Southern sea captain. They had eloped and run away to Jamaica to honeymoon, even as the conflicts between the states had simmered and exploded. In 1859, Pierre had brought Eugenia to the Brandywine house on the peninsula and carried her over the threshold of his creation.

Alexi studied her great-great-great-grandfather's handsome features and deep blue eyes. He seemed to be looking at her with grave concentration. Alexi smiled. "I don't believe you haunt this place, Pierre. And truly, if you did, you would surely never hurt me! Flesh and blood and all that, Pierre!"

She looked over at the picture of Eugenia. She loved that picture. She must have been such a sweet and gentle woman, so lovely, so fragile--and so very strong. She had been here alone with one maid and an infant through much of the war.

"I suppose I can deal with a night's solitude," Alexi told the portraits dryly. She turned around, squaring her shoulders, and left the ballroom. The poor kittens. She really had to forget her problems and her fears and feed the little things.

To her annoyance, she paused in the kitchen again. Now she could have sworn that she had heard a board creak on the staircase in the hallway. She hesitated a long moment, swearing silently that she was a fool; then she rushed back out to the hallway again. There was no one there.

She went into the kitchen and didn't hesitate for a second. She went straight to the cellar doorway, threw it open and started down the stairs.

She was about five steps from the cellar floor when the room was suddenly pitched into total darkness.

And even as she stood there, fear rushing upon her as cold and icy as a winter's storm, she heard a sound on the steps behind her. A definite sound. She wasn't imagining things, nor was it a ghostly tread. Someone was in the room with her. She turned, a scream upon her lips, determined to defend herself. But she never had a chance. Something crashed against her nape, hard and sure. Stars appeared before her momentarily in the darkness; then she pitched forward, falling the last few steps to land upon the cold stone floor below.

Rex kept the gas pedal close to the floor. He was going way too fast in the Maserati, he knew, but tonight it felt good. He'd felt so hot in the house, so hot and tense, and had been winding tighter and tighter, until he felt he might explode.

What the hell was the matter with him? He'd known she didn't really belong on the peninsula. He'd known she'd come to the place looking for a safe harbor, a place to lick her wounds, a place to stand up on her own two feet. He'd helped her to do that. Yeah. He'd helped her. And it was nothing to feel bitter about; he was glad.

He had to be. He loved her.

He just hadn't realized, not really, that she would be leaving. That she came from another world. A busy world of schedules, of ten-hour days. Hell, she had the face that could launch a thousand ships, right? She enjoyed her work, all right--she'd run from John Vinto, not the work. She was beautiful; the world had a right to her.

"Wrong, Samson, wrong," Rex sighed.

Samson, his nose out the window, barked.

He didn't want to share her. Ever again. Maybe that was selfish. He wanted her forever and forever. On the peninsula with him. With her hair down and barefoot and no makeup and--hell, yes!--barefoot and pregnant and together with him in their little Eden. He hadn't thought that he'd ever want to marry again. To take that chance, make that commitment. But nothing from the past mattered. It was all unimportant. Because he loved Alexi.

She didn't intend to stay. He'd known that. He'd known it, but it was a painful blow....

And that was nowhere near the worst of it, Rex reminded himself. He glanced at the road sign and saw that he was south of Jacksonville; and he'd been gone about thirty minutes. He was making good time.

John Vinto.

He scowled thinking of the name. His fingers tightened fiercely around the steering wheel, and the world was covered in a sudden shade of red. He'd like to take his hands and wind them around the guy's neck and squeeze and squeeze....

"You won't touch her again, Vinto--I swear it!" he muttered aloud. Samson turned around, panting and whining, trying to get his big haunches into the little bucket seat. He licked Rex's hand.

"I sound like a lunatic, huh?" Rex asked the dog. He inhaled and exhaled slowly, reminded himself that he'd never met the guy; he'd never even seen him, except on the covers of the gossip rags. Still, the guy had problems. Anyone who behaved the way he had with Alexi had problems. Were those problems severe enough for him to be playing a game of nerves with her now?

He glanced at the sign he was passing. St. Augustine was just ahead. Rex drove on by the main road, heading south. At last he came to the turnoff he wanted and slowed considerably, watching for the small lettering that would warn him he was coming closer and closer to the Pines.

He pulled beneath an arcade. A handsomely uniformed young man came to take the car, greeting Rex by name. Rex returned the salute, asking how Mr. Brandywine had been doing.

"Spry as an old fox, if you ask me!" the valet told Rex. "You just watch, Mr. Morrow--he'll outlive the lot of us!" Rex laughed and asked the valet if he'd mind giving Samson a run, then entered the elegant lobby of the Pines home. It didn't appear in the least like a nursing home-- more like a very elegant hotel. Rex went to the front desk and asked for Gene, and the pretty young receptionist called his room. A moment later she told him that Mr. Brandy-wine was delighted to hear that he was there. "Go on up, Mr. Morrow. You know the way."

Gene's place was on the eighteenth floor. He had one of the most glorious views of the beaches and the Atlantic that Rex had ever seen. The balcony was a site of contemporary beauty, with a built-in wet bar and steel mesh chairs. Rex found Gene there.

"Rex! Glad to see you, boy. Didn't know you were coming!"

Rex embraced Gene Brandywine. He was a head taller and pounds heavier than the slim, elderly man, but Gene would have expected no less. With real pleasure he patted Rex on the back, then stood away, looking him over.

"I've missed you, Rex." He winked, taking a seat after he'd made them both a Scotch and water. "But I've been hoping that you've still been keeping an eye on that ornery great-granddaughter of mine."

Rex lowered his head, sipping quietly at his drink. "Uh...yeah, I've been keeping an eye on her."

"A good eye, I take it?"

Something about his tone of voice caused Rex to raise his head. Gene hadn't lost a hair on his old head, Rex thought affectionately. It was whiter than snow, but it was all there. And his face was crinkled like used tissue at Christmas, but he was still one hell of a good-looking old man, with his sharp, bright, all-seeing, all-knowing blue eyes.

"Why, you old coot!" Rex charged him. "Seems to me you planned it that way, didn't you?"

Gene waved a hand in the air. “Planned? Now, how can any man do that, boy? You tell me. I kind of hoped that the two of you might hit it off. You didn't know what a good woman was anymore, Morrow. And she needed real bad to know that there was still some strength and character... and tenderness...in the world. You're going to marry her, I take it?"

Rex choked on his Scotch, coughing to clear his throat as Gene patted him on the back.

"Gene...we've only known each other a few weeks."

"Don't take much, boy. Why, I knew my Molly just a day before I knew she was the one and only woman in the world for me. We Brandywines are like that. We know real quick where the heart lies."

Rex straightened, twirling his glass idly in his hands. "Gene, I'm out here because I'm kind of worried about her. A couple of strange things have happened."

"Strange?"

"Nothing serious. Alexi has thought that she's heard footsteps now and then. And we were watched one night at a restaurant. Then tonight..."

"Tonight what? Don't do this to me, Rex. Spit it all out, boy!"

"John Vinto called her. He said he wanted to see her."

"And?"

"And I snatched the phone out of her hand. I talked to him myself. I said that he should leave her alone, and that if he didn't he'd have to deal with me."

Gene didn't say anything for a long time. He studied the ice floating in his glass. "Good!" he said at last.

Rex watched him, perplexed. "Gene?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think that this guy could be really dangerous?"

Gene inhaled and exhaled slowly. "I don't know. I wanted her down here badly when this stuff first hit. I don't know exactly what happened--" He paused, giving Rex a shrewd assessment. "Her mother didn't even know, but I'm willing to bet you're in on more than we were. Still, I know Alexi pretty good. She's always been kind of my favorite-- an old man's prerogative. I know he hurt her. I know he scared her, and I was glad in a way that she stood up to him to finish off that campaign. But I never did like Vinto. Smart, handsome, slick--and cruel. There's not a hell of a lot that I would put past the man."

Rex looked down at his hands. His knuckles were taut and white. He forced himself to loosen his grip on the glass.

He stood and set it down on an elegant little coffee table. "I'm going to get back to her, Gene."

"You do that, Rex. I think you should."

"When are you coming out for a visit?"

"Soon. Real soon. I was trying to give Alexi a chance to finish something she wanted to get done."

"The window seat in the kitchen," Rex said. "The carpenters were there today. It's all finished up."

"Then I'll be by soon," Gene promised. He shook Rex's hand. "Thanks for coming out. And thanks for being there. I love that girl. I'd be the cavalier for her myself, but I'm just a bit old for the job." He shook his head. "Strange things, huh? You make sure that you stay right with her."

Rex nodded. He hesitated at the doorway. "Gene, you don't think there's any other reason that strange things could be happening out there, do you?"

"What do you mean by that?"

Rex considered, then shrugged. "I don't know. I've been there years myself--and I've never had anything happen before."

"Pierre isn't haunting the place, if that's what you mean," Gene assured him. Rex thought his eyes looked a little rheumy as he reminisced. "Eugenia always said he was the most gallant gentleman she ever did know. She outlived him for fifty years, and never did look at another man. No, Pierre Brandywine just isn't the type to be haunting his own great-great-great-granddaughter."

Rex smiled. "I didn't really think that Pierre could be haunting the house. I was just wondering..."

"There's nothing strange about that house. I lived there for years and years!" Gene insisted.

"I was thinking about Pierre's 'treasure.'"

"Confederate bills. Worthless."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right." Rex offered Gene his hand. They shook, old friends.

"See you soon."

"It's a promise," Gene agreed. Rex stepped out. "It's a good thing I know you're living with her!" Gene called to Rex. "This is an old heart, you know! Not real good with surprises."

Rex paused, then smiled slowly and waved.

Downstairs he picked up his car, thanked the valet, whistled for Samson--and, as he headed back northward, felt ten times lighter in spirit. So Gene had planned it all, that old fox.

Whatever "it" was. All Rex knew was that he wasn't going to give it all up quite so easily. Not only that, but she needed him, and he sure as hell intended to be there for her.

He drove even faster going back. It should have taken at least two hours, but he made it in less than an hour and a half, whistling as he drove onto the peninsula and approached the house.

His whistle faded on the breeze as he pulled in front of the Brandywine house. Samson panted and whined unhappily. Rex stared, freezing as a whisper of fear snaked its way down his spine.

The house was in total darkness.

Interlude

July 3, 1863 Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

He wasn't even supposed to be there.

As a lieutenant general in the cavalry, Pierre served under Jeb Stuart. But, returning from his leave of absence, he'd been assigned to Longstreet's division, under Lee. They'd been heading up farther north--toward Harris-burg--but one of the bigwigs had seen in the paper that there were shoes to be had in Gettysburg, and before long the Yanks were coming in from one side and the rebs were pouring in from the other. The first day had gone okay-- if one could consider thousands of bodies okay--as a stalemate. Even the second day. But here it was July 3, and the Old Man--Lee--was saying that they were desperate, and desperate times called for some bold and desperate actions.

Pierre, unmounted, was commanding a small force under a temperamental young general called Picket. A. P. Hill was complaining loudly; Longstreet--with more respect for Lee--was taking the situation quietly.

It was suicide. Pierre knew it before they ever started the charge down into the enemy lines. Pure, raw suicide.

But he was an officer and a Southern gentleman. Hell, Jeb had said time and time again that they were the last of the cavaliers.

And so, when the charge was sounded, Pierre raised his sword high. The powder was already thick and black; enemy cannon fire cut them down where they stood, where they moved, and still they pressed onward. He smelled the smoke. He smelled the charred flesh and heard the screams of his fellows, along with the deadly pulse of the drums and the sweet music of the piper.

He could no longer see where he was going. The air was black around him. It burned when he inhaled.

"Onward, boys! Onward! There's been no retreat called!" he ordered.

He led them--to their deaths. His eyes filled with tears that had nothing to do with the black powder. He knew he was going to die.

Fernandina Beach, Florida

Eugenia screamed.

Mary, startled from her task of stirring the boiling lye for soap, dropped her huge wooden spoon and streaked out to the lawn, where Eugenia had been hanging fresh-washed sheets beneath the summer sun. She was doubled over then, hands clasped to her belly, in some ungodly pain.

"Miz Eugenia!" Mary put her arms around her mistress, desperately anxious. Maybe it was the baby, coming long before its time. And here they were, so far from anywhere, when they would need help.

"Miz Eugenia, let me get you to the porch. Water, I'll fetch some water, ma'am, and be right back--"

Eugenia straightened. She stared out toward the ocean seeing nothing. She shook her head. "I'm all right, Mar

"The baby--"

"The baby is fine."

"Then--"

"He's dead, Mary."

"Miz Eugenia--"

Eugenia shook off Mary's touch. "He's dead, Mary, I tell you."

"Come to the porch, ma'am. That sun's gettin' to you, girl!"

Eugenia shook her head again. "Watch Gene for me, please."

"But where--?"

Eugenia did not look back. She walked to the trail of pines where she had last seen her love when he had come to her. She came to the shore of the beach he had so loved. Where he had first brought her. Where they had first made love upon the sand and he had teased her so fiercely about her Northern inhibitions. She remembered his face when he had laughed, and she remembered the sapphire-blue intensity and beauty of his eyes when he had risen above her in passion.

She sank to the sand and wept.

Grapeshot.

It caught him in the gut, and it was not clean, nor neat, nor merciful.

He opened his eyes, and he could see a Yank surgeon looking down at him, and he knew from the man's eyes and he knew because he'd been living with it night and day for years that death had come for him and there was no denying it.

"Water, General?"

Pierre nodded. It didn't seem necessary to tell the Yank that he was a Lieutenant General. Not much of anything seemed necessary now.

"I'm dying," he said flatly.

The young Yankee surgeon looked at him unhappily. He knew when you could lie to a man and when you couldn't.

"Yes, sir."

Pierre closed his eyes. They must have given him some morphine. The Yanks still had the stuff. He didn't see powder anymore, and he didn't see black. The world was in fog, but it was a beautiful fog. A swirling place of mist and splendor. He could see Eugenia. He could see the long trail that led from the beach along the pines.

She was running to him. He could see the fine and fragile lines of her beautiful face, and he could see her lips, curled in a smile of welcome. He lifted his hand to wave, and he ran....

She was coming closer and closer to him. Soon he would reach out and touch the silk of her skin. He would wrap his arms around her and feel her woman's warmth as she kissed him....

"General."

Eugenia vanished into the mist. Pain slashed through his consciousness.

He opened his eyes. The surgeon was gone. He had moved on to those who had a chance to live, Pierre knew. A young bugler stood before him. "Sir, is there any--?"

Pierre could barely see; blood clouded his vision. He reached out to grab the boy's hand.

"I need paper. Please."

"Sir, I don't know that I can--"

"Please. Please."

The boy brought paper and a stub of lead. Pierre nearly screamed aloud when he tried to sit. Then the pain eased. His life was ebbing away.

Eugenia, my love, my life,

I cannot be with you, but I will always be with you. Love, for the children, do not forget the gold that is buried in the house. Use it to raise them well, love. And teach them that ours was once a glorious cause of dreamers, if an ill-fated and doomed one, too. Ever yours, Eugenia, in life and in death.

Pierre

He fell back. "Take this for me, boy, will you? Please. See that it gets to Eugenia Brandywine, Brandywine House, Fernandina Beach, Florida. Will you do it for me, boy?"

"Yes, sir!" The young boy saluted promptly.

Pierre fell back and closed his eyes. He prayed for the dream to come again. For the mist to come.

And it did. He saw her. He saw her smile. He saw her on the beach, and he saw her running to him. Running, running, running...

Three days later, an officer was sent out from Jacksonville to tell Eugenia Brandywine of her husband's death on the field of valor. The words meant nothing to her. Her expression was blank as she listened; her tears were gone. She had already cried until her heart was dry. She had already buried her love tenderly beneath the sands of time. When his body reached her, weeks later, it was nothing more than a formality to inter him in the cemetery on the mainland.

Pierre's second child, a girl, was born in October. By then the South was already strangling, dying a death as slow and painful and merciless as Pierre's. Eugenia's father sent for her, and with two small mouths to feed and little spirit for life, she decided to return home. Her mother would love her children and care for them when she had so little heart left for life.

One more time she went to the beach. One more time she allowed herself to smile wistfully and lose herself in memory and in dreams. She would always remember him as he had been that day. Her dashing, handsome, beautiful cavalier. Her ever-gallant lover.

She would never come back. She knew it. But she would tell the children about their inheritance. And they would come here. And then their children's children could come. And they could savor the sea breeze and the warmth of the water by night and the crystal beauty of the stars. In a better time, a better world.

Eugenia left in January of 1863. By the time the war ended and the young bugler--a certain Robert W. Matheson--reached Fernandina Beach in November of 1865, there was no one there except a testy maid who assured him that the lady of the house--Mrs. P. T. Brandywine-- had gone north long ago and would never return.

"Well, can you see that she gets this, then? It's very important. It's from her husband. He entrusted it to me when he died."

"Yes, young man. Yes. Now, go along with you." Sergeant Matheson, his quest complete, went on. The maid--hired by Eugenia's father and very aware that he didn't want his daughter reminded of the death--tossed the note into the cupboard, where it lay unopened for decade upon decade upon decade.

Chapter 10

Rex ran up to the house, Samson barking at his heels. "Alexi!" he called, but all that greeted him was silence. In rising panic he shouted her name again, trying the door only to discover that it was locked. He dug for his own key, carefully twisted it in the lock and shoved the door open. Samson kept barking excitedly. His tail thumped the floor in such a way that Rex knew damn well there were no strangers around now. Rex was certain that if there had been a stranger about the place, Samson would be tearing after him--or her.

"Alexi!" He switched on the hall light. There was no sign of anything being wrong. Nothing seemed to be out of place. "Alexi!" He pushed open the door to the parlor and switched on the light. She wasn't there. He hurried on to the library, the ballroom, the powder room, and then up the stairs. "Alexi!" She wasn't in any of the bedrooms, he discovered as he swept through the place, turning on every light he passed.

He should never have left her. Something was wrong; he could feel it.

Maybe nothing was wrong. Nothing at all. Maybe she had just decided that it was time to call it quits with the small-town stuff, with the spooky old creepy house and the eccentric horror writer who seemed to come with it. Maybe she felt that Vinto was a threat and that she needed far more protection than she could ever find here.

Maybe, maybe--damn!

She hadn't gone anywhere. Not on purpose. She would have left him a note...something. She wouldn't have left him to run through the house like a madman, tearing out his hair.

He stormed down the stairs and burst into the kitchen. She wasn't there. Rex pulled out a chair and sank into it, debating his next movement. The police. He had to call the police. He never should have left her. Never. Or--oh, God, he groaned inwardly. At the very least, he should have left Samson with her. He'd blown the whole thing, all the way around. He'd gone out and gotten her a pair of kittens-- kittens!--when he should have come back around with a Doberman. Or a pit bull. Yeah...with Vinto, it would have to be a pit bull.

"Where the hell is she?" he whispered aloud, desperately.

Samson, at his feet, thumped his tail against the floor and whined. Rex gazed absently at his dog and patted him on the head. Samson barked again loudly.

Rex jumped up.

"Where is she, boy? Where's Alexi?"

Samson started barking wildly again. Rex decided he was an idiot to be talking to the dog that way. Samson was a good old dog--but he wasn't exactly Lassie. But then Samson barked again and ran over to the cellar door, whining. He came back and jumped on Rex, practically knocking him over. Then he ran back to the cellar door.

"And I said that you weren't Lassie!" Rex muttered. The cellar. Of course.

But he felt as if his heart were in his throat. He hadn't believed her. Not when she had told him that someone had chased her from the car. Not when she had been convinced that someone had been in the house. He had barely given her the benefit of the doubt when she had been certain that the snakes had been brought in.

And it was highly likely that John Vinto knew that she was terrified of snakes. He had left her tonight.

And now he knew that she was in the cellar. But the cellar was pitch-dark, and he was in mortal terror of how he would find her.

"Alexi!" he screamed, and ripped open the door and nearly tumbled down the steps. Samson went racing down as Rex fumbled for the light switch. The room was flooded with bright illumination. And Rex found Alexi at last.

She was at the foot of the stairs, on her back, her elbow cast over her eyes, almost as if she were sleeping, one of her knees slightly bent over the other. The kittens, like little sentinels, sat on either side of her, meowing away now that he was there.

"Alexi!" This time, he whispered in fear. Then he found motion and ran down the steps to drop by her side. She was so white. Pasty white. How long had she been lying there? Swallowing frantically, he reached for her wrist, forcing himself to be calm. She had a pulse. A strong pulse.

"Oh, God," he breathed. "Oh, God. Thank you."

What had happened? He glanced quickly up the stairs, wondering if she had tripped and fallen. That didn't seem right. Why would she turn off every light in the house to come down to the cellar?

“Alexi... ?" He touched her carefully, trying to ascertain whether she had broken any bones. She moaned softly, and he paused, inhaling sharply. She blinked and stared up at him in a daze, groaning as the light hit her eyes. "Rex?"

"Alexi...stay still. I think I should call for an ambulance--''

"No! No!" Alexi sat up a little shakily, gripping her head between her hands and groaning again. "Alexi!"

"I'm all right, really I am. I think." She stretched out her arms and legs and tried to smile at him, proving that nothing was broken. But he didn't like her color, and he was worried about a head injury that had left her unconscious.

She gasped suddenly, her eyes going very wide as she stared at him. "Did you see him, Rex?" "Who?"

"Someone was here. Really, Rex, I swear it." "Alexi, maybe you just fell--"

"I didn't! I heard someone in the house after you left. I kept trying to assume that I was imagining things, too. But there was someone here, Rex. Behind me on the stairs. I came down to feed the kittens, and when I tried to turn...I was struck on the head."

"You're... sure?"

"Damn you, Rex!" She tried to stand, to swear down at him. But the effort was too dizzying, and before she could get any further, she felt herself falling.

She didn't fall. He caught her and lifted her into his arms. "I'm...all right," she tried to tell him. "No, you're not," he told her bluntly, starting up the stairs. She laced her fingers around his neck as he carried her that the snakes had her and studied his face as he emitted a soft oath at Samson to get out of his way so that he wouldn't trip.

"There's no one here now?" she asked.

"There's definitely no one here now. But I am going to call the police."

A silence fell for a moment as he reached the top of the stairs and closed the cellar door behind him. Alexi, cradled in his arms, kept staring at the contours of his face. She reached up to brush his cheek lightly with her knuckles.

"Were you angry, Rex? Or did you just need to escape?"

"I was angry," he told her. He carried her on through the kitchen and out to the parlor, laying her down carefully on the sofa. He told her to hold still, and ran his fingers over her skull, wincing when he found the lump at her nape.

"Police first, then the hospital."

"Rex--"

He ignored her and picked up the phone. Alexi closed her eyes for a moment. Maybe he was right. She still felt the most awful pain throbbing in her head.

But, curiously, she felt like smiling. He had come back-- all somber and gruff and very worried--but back nonetheless. And he hadn't been running away from her--he had left because he had been angry, and for him, walking away had probably been the best way to deal with it.

He set the phone down and came back to her.

"With me?" she asked him.

"What?"

"Were you angry with me?"

He frowned, as if he wasn't at all sure what she was talking about. "I'm going to get a cold cloth for your temple. That might make you feel a little better." He started out of the room.

"Rex!"

"What!"

"Where did you go?"

He held in the doorway and arched a dark brow, smiling slowly as he looked at her. "I beg your pardon?" She flushed and repeated herself softly. He hesitated, still smiling. "Inquisitive, aren't you?"

"Not usually."

"Well, that rather remains to be seen, doesn't it?" he asked her huskily. Then he said, "I went out to see Gene."

"Gene?" She sat up abruptly, then moaned and slid down again. "Gene? He's my great-grandparent."

"Yeah, but he's my very good friend. I saw him every day, you know. I lived here. You were off in New York."

There was a strange sound to his voice as he said that; Alexi didn't have time to ponder it, because he went on to say, "I'm sorry. Maybe I had no right. I went out to ask him if he thought John Vinto could be behind all these strange occurrences."

Alexi watched him, then offered up a soft smile that Rex knew was not for him. "How is he?" she asked. "Gene?"

"Of course Gene." "He's fine. He'll be out soon. He wanted to give you time to surprise him."

She was still smiling when he left the room. By the time he came back with a cloth for her head, they could hear the sound of a siren as the sheriffs car headed for the house. Alexi closed her eyes as Rex placed the cold cloth on her head.

"Mark's here," he told her, listening as the sound came closer and closer. "Mark?"

"Mark Eliot. A friend of mine." He saw the deep smile that touched her lips. "You have a lot of friends around here, Mr. Morrow--an awful lot of friends for a recluse."

"It's a friendly place," he said lightly. He squeezed her hand and went on to answer the door.

Mark Eliot was a tall man with sandy-blond hair and a drooping mustache. Rex shook hands with him at the door and was glad to see that Mark seemed to be taking it all very seriously--not with the humor he had shown when Rex had suggested that the snakes might have been set loose in the house purposely.

"Was anything taken?" Mark asked as they came into the parlor.

"Not that we know of," Rex said. He frowned as they came in, noting that Alexi had chosen to sit up. She still seemed very pale.

"Alexi, Mark Eliot, with the sheriff's office. Mark, Alexi--"

"Alexi Jordan." Mark took her hand. He didn't let it go. "Anything, ma'am. Anything at all that we can do for you, you just let us know."

"Mark--we're trying to report a break and enter and assault."

"Oh, yeah. Yeah."

He sat down beside Alexi. Rex crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall and watched and waited. Mark did manage to get through the proper routine of questions. He even scribbled notes on a piece of paper, and when he was done, Rex had to admit that even tripping over his own tongue, Mark was all right at his job.

"There is no sign of forced entry. Nothing was taken. Rex, when you came back, the house was still locked tight as a drum. Miss Jordan..." He hesitated.

"I didn't imagine a knock to my own head," Alexi said indignantly.

"Well, no..." Mark murmured. He looked to Rex for assistance. Rex didn't intend to give him any. "You did fall down the stairs," Mark said. "After I was struck," Alexi insisted quietly. "Well, then..." He stood up, smiling down at her. "I can call out the print boys. May I use the phone?" "Of course. Please."

Mark Eliot called his office. Rex offered to make coffee. In very little time, the fingerprint experts were out and the house was dusted. Alexi insisted on coming into the kitchen with the men. While the house was dusted, Mark excitedly told Rex about the book he was working on, and Rex gave him a few suggestions. Alexi put in a few, too, and was somewhat surprised when they both paid attention to her. It was late when the men from the sheriffs department left. Alexi started picking up the coffee cups that littered the kitchen. Rex caught her hand. "Come on." "Where?" "Hospital."

"Rex, I'm fine--" she protested. "You're not." "I don't--" "You will."

She set her jaw stubbornly. "Rex, dammit--" "Alexi, dammit." "I'm not going anywhere. It's been hours now, and I feel just fine."

Rex leaned back and thought about it for a minute. Independent. She was accustomed to being independent. She really didn't like to be told what to do. Women were like that these days--independent--and they meant it. If he forced her hand, it could stand against him.

But she really needed to go to a hospital. Just as a precautionary measure. She'd be mad at him, but...

"Rex...?"

Alexi didn't like the way he was looking at her as he came toward her. "Rex!" She screamed out her protest when he scooped her up into his arms. "Rex, damn you, I said--''

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard you." "You can't do this!" "Apparently I can."

He stopped by the kitchen table to slip his pinky around the strap of her purse. He hurried through the house, yelling at Samson to get back when the shepherd tried to follow him. Alexi struggled against him, but he didn't give her much leverage. A moment later he deposited her in the car and locked the door. He slid into the driver's seat and revved the car into motion before she could think about hopping out.

She didn't say anything to him. She stared straight ahead, rubbing her wrist where he had gripped it.

Rex put the car into gear and glanced her way. "Alexi, your face is pale gray!"

She didn't say anything. She just kept staring ahead, watching as they left the peninsula behind and sped on to the highway.

"Gray, mind you--ashen."

She cast him a rebellious stare, her blue eyes sizzling. "Sickly, ash gray."

She sighed and sank into the seat. “You could have at least let me get my toothbrush!"

Rex laughed and turned his attention back to the road. She would, he felt sure, forgive him for this one.

"Maybe they'll say that you're fine and that you can go right home."

She smiled at that. But when they reached the hospital, the doctor determined that she did have a minor concussion and that she should stay at least overnight for observation.

Alexi cast Rex a definitely malignant stare, but he ignored her--and promised to run down to the gift shop and buy her a toothbrush.

He had no intention of leaving her. From the coffee shop, Rex called Gene and very carefully chose the words to tell him what had happened. Gene was in good health, but Rex was wary, never forgetting that the man was in his nineties and didn't need any shocks in his life.

Rex told Gene that he was wondering if there wasn't a way to get her out of the house. Gene shrewdly warned him that if the danger was directed at Alexi, it wouldn't help to get her out of the house.

Rex asked him harshly, “Then you think that it is John Vinto?"

"I didn't say that," Gene protested. He paused a moment. "I don't know what to think."

“Just for the weekend, then,'' Rex murmured.

"What? What, boy? Speak up there. I can't hear you!"

"Oh. I said just for the weekend. I've got the sloop in berth in town. Maybe we'll take her out for a sail. Just to have a few days without anything else happening. I'll leave Samson at the house to guard it, and Emily can come over to feed him and the kittens."

Gene was very silent. Rex barely noticed, he was so busy taking flight with his plans in his imagination.

"I'll be there to see you off," Gene said. "We'll have lunch."

"I haven't even mentioned it to Alexi yet," Rex cautioned Gene.

"You'll figure something out," Gene said. "I'm a man of boundless faith."

Rex stayed at Alexi's side, watching her as she slept, and as the night passed he felt as if more and more of her stole into his soul. It seemed to him that she remained too pale, and yet there was an ethereal quality about her that was beautiful. He was afraid to touch; she was so very fine. Small and fine boned and delicate to look at--golden, like exquisite porcelain or china. But she wasn't really so delicate, he knew. Despite the battles she had waged and lost in life, she was still fighting, a golden girl, a glittering, shimmering beauty.

He was in love, he realized as he watched the swell of her chest while she breathed. He folded his hands prayer-fashion and tapped his fingers against his chin and wondered how it had happened. He could remember loving Shelley. Vaguely. It had been a different feeling. They had been growing apart, and he hadn't even known it. She'd whispered at night that she had loved him, too.

And then she had been gone.

Alexi was different. Very different. She didn't bother with the lies. She'd never whispered that she loved him, and he'd been careful to guard his own heart. All good things came to an end. He was a fool if he thought that she would stay. Hers was perhaps the face of the century. He couldn't make her stay. He couldn't make her love him.

But, he decided grimly, he could make her get on his boat for a few days. A little time for dreams and the imagination, time enough to savor all the could-havebeens.

When dawn came he stroked a length of her hair and smoothed the golden tendril over her shoulder. A smile curved her lips. He leaned over to kiss her lightly, then stood and tiptoed out of the room, telling the nurse he'd be back soon.

He drove quickly back to the Brandywine house. Samson nearly attacked him. Rex patted the dog absently and hurried upstairs to the bedroom. He found his duffel bag in the closet and hastily chose a few things for himself, then paused, wondering what Alexi would want for a few days on a boat.

Underwear, of course. He looked through her drawers, then paused again, fascinated by the beautiful collection of slips and panties and bras. Then he smiled--and chose his favorites.

Another few minutes and he had found a few short sets, a bathing suit, sneakers, shirts and jeans. Samson barked when he tried to leave the house. Rex paused, knowing that he was seeing Samson's hungry look.

"Okay, boy. Come on. I'll feed you."

He had just finished feeding Samson and the kittens when he heard the phone ringing. He reached the parlor to answer it--only to hear a breath, then have it go dead.

He swore at the empty line. When it began to ring again, Rex almost chose not to answer it. But when he picked it up that time, Emily's concerned voice came over the phone.

"Oh, Rex! I've been calling and calling. I tried all night. Is everything all right?"

"Emily! Good, good." He'd needed to talk to her to see that the animals were fed, he remembered. He told her quickly what had happened--and he admitted that he suspected Alexi's ex-husband. Emily was very upset but thought that Rex was right--getting away for a few days might be best for the both of them.

"Samson will be in the house, Emily. I don't think anyone would dare try anything with him around. Think you'd mind coming by to feed him and the kittens? If you're in the least nervous, I'm sure that Mark Eliot will come out with you."

Emily told him that she wasn't nervous at all when Samson was around and promised to come and feed the dog and the kittens and let them out for exercise and their daily "constitutionals." Rex thanked her, then hurried on out, anxious to return before Alexi could awaken.

Alexi wasn't at all fond of the idea. "Leave? Rex, I don't think that's a good idea at all." A frown puckered her brow. "It's like giving up."

"It's not giving up. It's taking a breather."

"Or," Alexi murmured skeptically, "it's like a rest home for a neurotic."

Rex swore impatiently and walked over to the window, shoving his hands in his pockets. He spun around to her. “Alexi, I believe you--I believe you a thousand times over. I don't think you're a neurotic--I think you were married to a very dangerous man. I need the break if you don't."

"A break from what? We live in Eden, remember."

Rex decided to change his tactics. "I'm asking you to do it, Alexi. Just for me."

"What?"

"You're going back soon, right? Summer ends. Beach bunnies go back to their Northern retreats. Helen has to go launch a few more ships. Let's do it for us."

Alexi looked down quickly, allowing a fall of her hair to shield her face. She braced herself, then looked up again.

"Sure. Why not? A last fling, more or less."

They stood there staring at each other for a long moment. Rex wondered how they could be planning any kind of a "fling" when hostility seemed to be raking the air about them with bolts of electric tension.

A crisp-coated doctor stuck his head in to smile and tell Alexi that her release papers were all ready. She was chagrined to be forced to leave in a wheelchair, and Rex tightened his lips with a certain grim satisfaction--someone else had told her what to do that time.

Rex drove his Maserati up to the door to collect her downstairs. She exhaled with a great deal of pleasure when she was out of the wheelchair. Rex turned the car out of the drive, noting that it was going to be a beautiful--but deadly hot--day. There wasn't a sign of a cloud.

"Where are we going now?"

"To the club at the dock." “What if I were to tell you that I get seasick?'' "I wouldn't believe you."

She hesitated, looking down at her hands. "I really don't think that this is such a good idea, Rex. I mean, I was even thinking that I should go home... and that you should go to your own house."

He had never known that words could cut so deeply. The wheel jerked in his hands, and it took everything within him to straighten out the car and keep his eyes on the road ahead.

"I kind of thought you liked me around," he said. She remained silent.

"I can't leave you alone right now, Alexi. You could be dead next time."

"I can't keep sleeping with you because I'm afraid to be alone in my own house, either."

This time he did drive the car off the road. The gearshift made a horrible grinding sound as the engine died, and Rex wound his fingers around the steering wheel like steel.

'What?'' he demanded in a breath of fury unlike anything she had ever heard. "I--I--"

She didn't mean it. Not that way, of course. But the words were out and she didn't really know how to undo them. She was, at that moment, more afraid of Rex than of any mysterious entity in her house. His temper was afire, while the way he stared at her was ice; he looked as if he hated her.

"For one thing, Ms. Jordan, you haven't the God-given sense to be afraid!"

"You know I didn't mean it that way!" Alexi cried desperately.

He didn't look at her again. He shoved the car back in gear in such a manner that she wondered about the Maserati's life span, and then her own. He took to the road in a flash. She sat back, biting her lower lip so that she wouldn't cry out. She wanted it--she wanted a "last fling." But something bitter inside her--maybe common sense-warned her that she was becoming too involved--falling too deeply in love. She was spending too much time fantasizing about a forever-and-ever kind of love. It would be a good idea to end it all now, and maybe that was just what she was going to get. Rex wasn't mad--he was lethally furious. When she glanced his way, his face might have been carved in stone: eyes black as pitch; mouth grim.

Alexi gripped the leather seat, wondering if he wouldn't just head back for the peninsula. She shivered, remembering the feeling of being stalked yesterday. Yes! Yes, she did have the sense to be afraid. But she couldn't keep running away. She had come here to get away from New York and John and all her fears there. She couldn't run from here, too.

But she wasn't suicidal, either. She had to be intelligent about it all. A good security system could be installed. And she could get a wonderful big shepherd like Samson to go along with the kittens. But no other shepherd would be Samson....

Just as no other man would be his master.

But Rex Morrow didn't want to be tied down. He'd been burned once, and he was determined not to trust again. She should understand. She'd been hurt.

But he'd taught her that the world could be beautiful, too. He'd taught her to love and to laugh....

Couldn't she teach him the same things?

The car jerked violently. She didn't even know where they were. Her heart beat violently. Did he still intend for them to go away? She cleared her throat.

"Er, where are we?"

"The marina," he said curtly. "If you would deign to come into the dining room, someone wants to meet you."

He got out of the car, slamming the door. Ignoring her, he started toward a building with a painted sign that boasted of the yacht club's famous Florida lobster thermidor.

Alexi followed him slowly. She felt so numb. What had she done? The best thing in her life, and she was letting it all slip through her fingers. Losing it all, because she didn't know how to hang on.

She got out of the car and followed Rex. He had waited for her at the restaurant door and was holding it open for her.

Curious, she stepped inside. The place was bright, pretty and air-conditioned but open to the sun, with wall-length plate-glass windows on all sides. The tables were made out of varnished woods and heavy ropes, and the scent of fine seafood was unmistakable. A hostess in navy shorts and a red-white-and-blue sailor top was just coming toward them when Rex waved toward the back of the restaurant.

Alexi followed his gaze, then gave a glad little cry as she saw Gene standing there, waiting for them to join him.

She hugged him fiercely, receiving his tight hug in return. He talked in fragments, and she did, too. Then she smiled brilliantly, kissed his cheek and told him she was very glad to see him.

Rex came to the table, and they were all seated. Alexi realized after a moment that Gene was studying her as surreptitiously as she was studying him. He lifted her chin with his thumb and forefinger, openly looking her over with a thorough scrutiny.

"Still pale," he commented. "I'm fine! The doctor let me go." "Hmmm. Well, it's good you're going out to sea for a few days. Sea air has always been the best thing in the world."

Alexi stared at him blankly, wondering just what Rex had told him. It wasn't that she wasn't old enough to indulge in an affair; it was just that it seemed very strange to be quite so open with him.

The waitress came. Alexi quickly ordered some wine and the lobster thermidor. She sipped her wine after it was poured, not daring to look at Rex at all and nervously aware that Gene was still watching her, a good deal of humor in his deep and wonderful blue eyes now.

After a few moments, Alexi realized that Gene and Rex were going on almost as if she wasn't there. They were discussing different security systems for the place, the possibility of a big dog--all the things she had been thinking about herself.

"Hey, I'm here, you know," she reminded them. They both stared at her. She wished for a moment that she could tell Rex to go jump in a lake, that she could take care of herself. But she couldn't really do that--not then. Although Gene had turned the Brandywine place over to her to reconstruct and refurbish as she saw fit, the property belonged to him, not her.

She sipped more wine, then smiled, a little spitefully, and sat back. "Well, I am here, but please, don't let me bother you. You two just go right ahead without me."

They glanced at her again, arched their brows at each other, then thanked the waitress as she delivered their lunches. Then Rex went on to tell Gene that he thought maybe Alexi needed to have some sort of peace warrant sworn out against John Vinto

Alexi decided to ignore them then. Her lobster was delicious, and the wine was dry and good.

Toward the end of the meal, Rex excused himself to get the check. Alexi looked down at her plate, unable to think of a thing to say to Gene. She felt a blush rising to her cheeks; she knew he was watching her.

"You're not surprised that we're together," she said.

"I'm overjoyed."

"Oh?" Alexi stared straight at him, but she quickly lowered her lashes again. Gene, it seemed, had amassed all the wisdom of the ages. She had always felt that he was incredibly wise. That his gnarled and leathered face and fantastic eyes held all the wisdom of the ages. He could read her mind--and he could read her heart.

"Let me just say this. I like you both very much."

"But, Gene!" Alexi protested softly, loving him. "Liking us both doesn't make us right for each other!"

"Haven't you been?"

She didn't answer him, and he went on. "I've lived a long time, Alexi. A long, long time. I remember the turn of the century; I remember Teddy Roosevelt and the Roughriders, and I even remember what clothes were being worn when World War I broke out. I've known thousands of people, Alexi. Thousands. And out of that, only a handful could I really call friends, could I really admire. I learned to know people from the soul, Alexi. Appearances mean little; even words can mean little. What's in a man's heart and what's in his soul, those are the important things. Rex--he just doesn't like crowds. But then, well, I'm not so fond of fuss and confusion myself."

"He has an awful temper," Alexi supplied. "And he has a way of being horrendously overbearing." "Does he now?" "Yes."

"Well, you have a way with you yourself, Alexi. You can't listen to good sense if you've got your mind set. Oh, here comes Rex now."

Alexi glanced up. Rex, so dark and arresting that even in his jeans and polo shirt he was drawing fascinated glances, was coming back toward them, a thoughtful expression knit into his features. He scowled, though, as he saw Alexi's eyes on him. She felt a little chill run down her spine. He was still ready to kill. She might have added to Gene that he didn't seem to be a bit forgiving. But then, of course, maybe she deserved his anger for what she had said. Even for a male ego that wasn't particularly fragile, that might have been a low blow.

I just want you to love me! she thought, watching him Love me forever, believe in me, trust in me...

A pretty brunette in very short captain's shorts suddenly jumped up from a table, barring Rex's way. She had one of his books in her hands--a hardcover text. Rex paused, gave her a devastating smile and signed the book.

Alexi looked down at her plate again. She wasn't the jealous type. Things like that would never bother her-- normally. But she couldn't help wondering what Rex was thinking as he looked at the young woman. Was she someone that he would want to call once Alexi had returned to New York?

"Before I forget," Gene was saying, "I thought you might enjoy this."

"Pardon? I'm sorry."

Alexi returned her attention to Gene. He was handing her a small, very old and fragile-looking book that had been carefully and tenderly wrapped in a plastic sheath.

"What is it?"

"Eugenia Brandy wine's diary. She left it to me--I was always such a pesky kid. Interested in war and life before Mr. Edison came along with his electric lights. I thought you might enjoy it. She made entries after the war, but an awful lot is about Pierre, meeting him, running away with him. Very...romantic."

"Oh, Gene!"

Alexi stared down at the little book. She would enjoy it; she would treasure it, just as she treasured the old house and the very special history Gene had always given her.

She looked up at him again. "I can't take this. It's a family treasure--''

"Alexi, you are my family." He patted her hand. "Eugenia's family. Keep the book. Take good care of it."

"I will!" Alexi promised. She leaned over to kiss his cheek. "Thank you so much."

He smiled at her, covering the softness of her hand again with the weathered calluses of his own. “No, Alexi, thank you." He stood then, abruptly, an amazingly handsome man of immense dignity. "I've got to go."

"Go?" Alexi echoed hollowly.

"Good heavens, yes. I have a chess match with Charles Holloway in less than half an hour, and I'll be damned if I'll let that youngster catch me napping."

"Youngster?"

"A mere eighty-eight," Gene told her. "Kiss me again, Alexi. It's an old man's last great pleasure."

She kissed his cheek. By then, Rex had finished with his fan and reached the table. He shook hands with Gene.

"Have a good sail, now," Gene said.

A streak of stubbornness flashed through Alexi. If Rex had been over at the other table, planning his future dates, then he should already be asking one of them out on the boat.

"I don't think I'm going, Gene." They both stared at her. She certainly had their attention. She smiled serenely. "Maybe I'll scout some nearby kennels for a good German shepherd."

"Alexi, you know that you are making me insane," Rex said softly.

"Really? Then I'm quite sorry."

"Alexi, you're going on the boat."

"Rex, I am not."

He looked as if he wanted to explode. At the moment, it was nice. He couldn't possibly make a move against her.

They were in a public restaurant, and Gene was standing right beside him.

Rex looked at Gene. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

Gene shook his head. "Women. They're very independent these days."

"Yes, but is a man supposed to let one get herself killed?"

"That's up to the man, I suppose," Gene mused.

Alexi, who had been watching the interplay between them, suddenly gasped. Rex caught her arm and dragged her out of the chair and threw her over his shoulder.

"You can't do this!" Alexi wailed. "We're in a public restaurant! Gene...?"

The world was tilting on her. Rex was walking quickly past tables and waitresses and startled customers.

"Have a good time, Alexi!" Gene called.

"Rex, damn you, you can't--"

"Alexi, most obviously," he promised her, "I can."

And, most obviously, he could. They were already out in the bright sunlight again, and Rex was hurrying down the dock toward a beautiful red-white-and-black sloop with the name Tatiana scripted in bold black letters across her bow.

Chapter 11

Alexi was dizzy. He was walking so quickly that her chin banged against his back and the ground waved beneath her feet. She spat out his name, then swore soundly. But he didn't seem to hear a thing--he didn't even seem to notice that she was ineffectually struggling to rise against his sure motion. "Rex--"

He swung sharply--and made a little leap that seemed to Alexi like a split-second death plunge on a roller coaster.

"Rex!"

They were on the boat. He still didn't stop. Alexi had a blurred vision of a chart desk and a radio and a neat little galley with pine cabinets. They quickly passed a dining booth and a plaid-covered bunk and a little door marked Head. Then Rex barged through a slatted door and dumped her down on something soft. For such a tiny cabin, it was a big bed, built right into the shape of the boat and full of little brown throw pillows to go with the very masculine brown-and-beige quilt that covered the bed.

"This is absurd," she told him, curling her feet beneath her and trying to rise to a dignified position. She got high enough to crack her head on the storage shelves that stretched over the bed.

"Small space," he warned her. "And you're absurd. Yes, no, yes, no--dammit, use some common sense and don't act like a school kid."

"Me?"

"You!"

"You have the nerve to say something like that to me when you're acting like a Neanderthal?"

"It's better than behaving like a jealous child."

"What?"

"This one all started because I gave out a lousy autograph."

"Oh, you know, Morrow, you really do overestimate your charms. I just don't want to be here."

He touched her face with his palm. "Don't worry, sweetie. There's nothing to be afraid of out here. You won't need to sleep with me. You can have the cabin all to yourself."

"I_"

Her rejoinder froze on her lips because--despite his bitter denunciation--he was slipping his shirt over his head. Still staring at her in a cold fury, he kicked off his shoes, then started to slide out of his jeans.

"What--what are you doing?" Alexi gasped out, pained.

"Oh, don't get excited," he tossed back irritably. Naked except for his briefs, he turned from her, bronzed and supple and so pleasantly muscled. He opened a drawer, pulled out a pair of worn denim cutoffs and climbed into them, smiling at her sudden speechlessness. "Eat your heart out, Ms. Jordan," he told her. And then he was gone, slamming the slatted door in his wake.

Alexi, numb, stared after him for several seconds. A moment later, she heard the rev of a motor and felt movement.

The cabin was lined with little windows. Alexi bolted to the left to look out and saw that the dock was fast slipping away from them.

"Why, that...SOB!" she muttered. They were passing the channel markers to the right and left and heading for the open sea. She was off with him for the duration--with or without her agreement.

She threw a pillow across the room in a sudden spate of raw fury. He couldn't do this. He really couldn't--she had said no. But he was doing it anyway. He deserved to be boiled in oil. Someone needed to tell him quickly that this was the modern world. That he couldn't do things like this.

It wouldn't matter, she decided grudgingly. Rex would do what he wanted to do anyway.

After a moment, Alexi realized that the hum of the motor had stopped. She could hear footsteps above her.

And she could hear Rex swearing.

She smiled after a moment, realizing that he had turned off the motor to catch the wind with the sails. And he was having a few problems. She kicked off her shoes and lay back on the bunk, smiling. He'd planned on her giving him a hand with the sails, she realized. And now, of course, he was presuming that she wouldn't move a muscle on his behalf.

"Right on, Mr. Morrow," she murmured.

But then her smile faded, because she was remembering how cute he had looked, stripping out of his jeans to don his cutoffs--then indignantly denying her suppositions about him. Maybe "cute" wasn't the right word. Not for Rex. He was too deadly dark, too striking, too mature, too dynamic.

No... at that moment, 'cute'' had been exactly the right word.

Maybe she had been acting like a schoolgirl, and, at the end, maybe she had balked and refused the trip because of pure and simple jealousy. No--there was definitely nothing pure and simple about it. Painful and complex. She didn't know where she stood with him. And she was afraid to make any attempt to find out.

Something dropped with a bang. She could clearly hear Rex muttering out a few choice swear words.

Alexi sat up and smiled slowly and wistfully. They were far from shore; they were together, and alone with the elements. Maybe she wouldn't exactly offer a white flag, but...

Alexi hopped off the bed and hurried through the door. The boat pitched to the right, and she had to grab the wall to keep from falling. "I hope I don't get seasick," she muttered to herself. She steadied herself and hurried down the hallway, past the head, past the neat-as-a-pin little dining room and living room and on through the galley to the short flight of ladder steps that led to the topside deck.

"Watch it!" Rex snapped, annoyed, as her head appeared.

Standing on the top step of the little ladder, she ducked as the boom of the mainsail went sweeping past her. “Grab the damn thing. Help out here!" Rex called to her.

He was at the tiller, leaning left, trying to control the wayward sail at the same time.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Trim the sail."

"What?"

"The sail!"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He paused. The wind ripped around them, pulling his hair from his forehead, then casting it back down again. "Come on, Alexi--"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I've never been out on a sailboat in my life." "You were born a rich kid!"

"And I play tennis and golf, and I've even been on a polo field or two, but I've never been on a sailboat!"

Rex stared at her for a long moment. "Damn!" he murmured. Then he ordered curtly, "Come over here." She shook her head. "I don't know how to steer, either." "Just keep both your hands on her and don't move!" he bellowed. "Alexi--"

There was something so dangerous about the way he growled her name that she decided to comply. She slid next to him on the hollowed-out seat and set her hands on the long tiller. "Don't move it!" he warned her.

He jumped up, leaving her to watch as he nimbly maneuvered around the boat. Barefoot, in cutoffs, he seemed every inch the bronzed seaman. He quickly brought the sail under control. Red-white-and-black canvas filled with wind. Alexi had to admit that it was beautiful. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun and stared out at the horizon. It seemed endless. If she looked to her right, though, she could see the coast, not so very far away.

Rex jumped down beside her. He slipped his brown hands over hers. "Thank you," he said curtly.

"Aye, aye, sir!" she said mockingly. She stood, glad she'd left her sandals below so that she could present a facsimile of coordination when she climbed forward, holding on to the mainmast, to look out at the day. With her fingers tightly clenched around the mast, she closed her eyes and inhaled and decided that the air was wonderful. The wind, alive and brisk, felt so good against her face. If only she weren't at such odds with the captain at the moment.

She decided that for the time being, no action was her best action. She went back below, and for almost an hour she immersed herself in Eugenia's diary. She was amazed to discover that Eugenia's plight could actually make her forget her own.

But she hadn't really forgotten. She set the book down pensively. She would finish it later, maybe that night. Rex hadn't tried to talk to her. Alexi realized ruefully that she was more concerned with her own life than Eugenia's.

Alexi went back topside. She pretended to ignore Rex and sat on the fiberglass decking and leaned her head against the mast. The sun beat down upon her while the breeze, salty and fresh, swept around her. Talk to me, Rex, she thought. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the warmth.

She must have dozed there, for when she opened her eyes again, the sails were down and the boat was still except for a slight rocking motion. Twisting around, she could see that the anchor had been thrown and that they were just about twenty or thirty feet off a little tree-shrouded island.

Rex was sitting at the bow, a can of beer in his hand, wearing mirrored sunglasses, his skin and hair wet from an apparent dive into the sea.

Alexi stood and stretched and hopped down to the scooped-out tiller area and then down to the ladder. She was sure he heard her, but he didn't turn. She went on into the galley and opened the pint-sized refrigerator to find a can of beer. She smiled, popped the top and crawled up the ladder again.

Perching just a few feet behind Rex, she watched his back. He turned around, arching a brow to her, but she couldn't begin to read his thoughts in the reflections of herself mirrored in his sunglasses.

She smiled sweetly and raised her beer can to him. "Cheers."

"Cheers." Solemnly he lifted his own. He looked out to sea again, then stood and took a long swallow of the beer. Alexi set her can down and rose, too, slowly coming up behind him. She pressed her lips against the flesh at his nape, then followed along his spine... slowly. She slipped her arms around his waist and grazed her teeth against his shoulders. He tasted of salt and sun and everything wonderfully male.

"I thought you were angry," he said gruffly. "I am. Furious." She got up on tiptoe to catch his ear-lobe between her teeth. "Alexi--"

"You had no right to drag me out here. None at all." "I had every right! You don't use your common sense. You're a little fool. You need protection now, and I'm it." "I am not a fool!" She nipped his shoulder lightly, then laved the spot with her tongue. "Alexi--"

"Will you please shut up?"

"Alexi--" He tried to turn and take her into his arms. Alexi pushed away from him, smiling.

She reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head, then neatly shimmied out of her shorts. "Want to go skinny-dipping?" she asked him, casually slipping from her bra and panties. She offered him one sweet smile, then posed for a fraction of a second and dived into the sea.

She swam with long, clean strokes toward the island, then paused, panting slightly and treading water as she looked back toward the Tatiana. Rex was nowhere in sight.

She gasped, nearly slipping beneath the surface, when she felt a tug upon her foot. Then he was with her, sliding up from beneath the surface, his body--all of it--rubbing against hers. Next to the chill of the sea, he was vibrant warmth, his arms coming around her, his legs twining with hers, his desire hot and potent and arousingly full against her thighs. She saw his eyes then for a moment, dark and glittering with the reflections of the sun. Then she saw them no more. His mouth came to hers, sealing them together in a deep, erotic kiss that sent them sinking far below, into the depths. So wonderfully hot...his tongue raked her mouth with that fire while his fingers moved over her in the exotic world of the sea. She would die... in seconds she would smother. But his touch in the watery world was already a taste of heaven.

Rex gave a powerful kick, sending them both shooting back toward the surface, still entwined. As they broke the surface, Alexi cast her head back, gasping for breath and laughing. She had barely inhaled when his lips were there again, against hers. He alternately rimmed her lips with his tongues, then whispered things to her. She and Rex did not sink, for he held her tight against him, treading water. She swallowed, weak and dizzied, as he moved his hands in concord with the warning of his whispers, teasing her breasts, working along her lower abdomen, stroking her thighs, taunting her implicitly.

"Oh..." she whispered.

"Alexi."

She leaned her head against him, closing her eyes, unable to reason against the sensations. She would sink again. Sink forever in the swirling realm of bliss where she floundered now.

"We've got to get back to the boat."

"Yes."

"Alexi."

"Yes."

"Now," he laughed, "or I won't have the strength left to do us justice."

"Oh!" Lost in the sensations of his loving, she realized that he had been doing all this while keeping them both afloat. "Oh!" she repeated, slightly embarrassed. She kicked away from him, hard, and began to swim. He caught her at the rope ladder by the motor at the back of the Tatiana. He raised her to the deck, then curled his leg around the ladder himself for balance. Alexi tried to rise. He stopped her, caught her foot and stroked the arch while he kissed her ankle.

"Rex!"

"What?" Tenderly he moved his mouth up along her calf.

"The sun is out and shining. We're in broad daylight. There's nothing to shield us--"

"And there isn't another boat around for miles," he assured her. Her kneecap received his ministrations next.

She thought that she had died. Where he did not touch her, the breeze moved erotically over her wet body. And there, in pagan splendor beneath the captivating rays of the sun, he made very thorough love to her. He treated the length of each leg with the same exotic care as he did the juncture between them, with incredible, exotic savoir faire--so sweetly that she was nearly numbed, consumed again by tiny explosions of delight. She could scarcely move...but then agility came to her and she reached for him, eager--desperate--to love him as he had loved her.

He came up beside her; they stood, damp and sleek, their fingers entwined. And she pulled him close to her and kissed him, consuming his lips again and again, savoring just that touch to the fullest, like a fine delicacy. She brushed her breasts against his chest as she tiptoed up to him, then slid against him, tasting the salt on his shoulder, all that lingered on his chest, falling to her knees and returning each subtle nuance. She moved on to his feet, his ankles...then up the length of his legs to the pulse of him. He whispered frantically--urges, cries. She obeyed them all and gloried sweetly in her power, in the absolute intimacy. She had never loved like this; she knew that she never would again.

They sank together upon the deck at last in an inferno of mutual desires and hungers, with a need deeper than any words they could ever whisper. To Alexi the earth seemed to tremble, to shake, to explode in a blinding brilliance. The sun was the brilliance, she knew, riding high above her, very real in the sky. But it seemed to live inside her, too, a life-giving warmth, given to her...by him.

Rex turned to her at last, stroking her breast, then her cheek, a curious twist to his lips.

"Am I supposed to apologize now for dragging you out here against your will?"

"An apology would be nice."

"All right!" he said, pressing her down on the deck. "I'm sorry I dragged you. Now you can apologize."

"I beg your pardon? I was the abused party. But not only did I take incarceration in stride, I went way beyond the call of duty."

"That you did," Rex admitted with a broad smile. Then his smiled faded and he sat up, wrapping his arms around his legs.

"Rex--"

"Why did you say that to me, Alexi!"

"What?" she asked, at a loss.

"That bit about sleeping with me because you were afraid." He twisted around to stare at her, harsh and accusing.

"You knew it wasn't true!" she cried. Please, please, she thought. Don't ruin this. This is ideal. This is the type of day that one remembers for a lifetime.

He shook his head. "No, I didn't," he said lightly. "Tell me what is and isn't true, Alexi."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He touched her lower lip with the tip of his thumb, studying her face. "Tell me what you've felt--what you've wanted."

"I have told you," she gasped out, herself turning. She didn't want him to see her eyes. To read any of the secrets within them. Love made one so vulnerable. She wished she were dressed.

She shivered. "Rex, do you have robes aboard this boat? It's getting so chilly--"

He pulled her into the curve of his arm. "I'll keep you warm," he promised her.

"I told you," she murmured, her eyes downcast, "that you were very special."

"The Easter Bunny is special," he told her.

“I have been with you every time because I wanted desperately to be with you. Is that what you want?"

"No." He lifted her chin to force her eyes to his, holding her close against his chest. "I want more, Alexi."

Her heart seemed to thunder and stop, then race again and soar. Her lips were dry, and she moistened them with her tongue, "I hear that you're the one with a girl in every port."

"A gross exaggeration. And reasonable." He smiled ruefully. Smiled at her, deep into her soul, and she instinctively stroked his face, musing again about how she loved it. Dark and macabre... To think that she had once thought he must be that way, when he smiled at her now so openly, so ruefully, so tenderly.

"I've been scared. I've been running. And I'm still very, very scared."

"Of me?" she whispered.

He nodded. "Alexi?"

"Yes?"

“Do you have to go back? Do you have to do that commercial or whatever it is?"

"Er, no."

He hesitated. He gave her a crooked smile, dark lashes covering his eyes. He released her and stood, hands on hips, beautifully naked, staring out to the sea.

"That wasn't the right question," he said at last. "Do you want to go back?"

She had thought that she was safe; his back was to her. But he spun around swiftly, and she felt that she was seared through by the probing intensity of his eyes, by the demand within them. She felt herself blush--all of her, from head to toe--and she felt painfully, terrifyingly bare and vulnerable.

"I don't know."

It wasn't the right answer, she knew. Or she had hesitated too long. She saw the disappointment that darkened his eyes before he turned away. "Of course you want to go back," he muttered.

"Rex!" She jumped to her feet, coming to his back as she had earlier, pressing against him and groaning softly. "Rex! I'm frightened, too."

He remained tense. "You should be frightened. I keep telling you that."

She shook her head vehemently. "I don't mean that. I'm not talking about whatever is going on at the house." "Then exactly what are you talking about?" "You. Me." Alexi groped for an answer. "Rex, I'm afraid of you."

"Afraid of me!" The narrowing of his eyes, the glint within him, warned her that he had misunderstood.

"No, no--not that you would ever hurt me. Not that way. Let's face it. We've both been burned. In different ways, perhaps. I ran; you put up high walls around you and learned to play rough."

"I don't know--"

"Yes, you do," Alexi said softly, lowering her eyes. "I overheard you talking to Emily that morning, remember? You like the chase, Rex."

He made an impatient sound. "Alexi, dammit. So this whole thing was over the girl back in the restaurant--"

She shook her head furiously. "No! All right, I did feel a twinge of jealousy--''

"That was childish! I had to watch the pizza delivery boy practically trip over his tongue when he was near you!"

The way he said it, she had to laugh, her eyes meeting his. But then her laughter faded, as did the wry smile that had touched his lips. "Rex! Don't you see? It isn't like me to be like that. I enjoy you, I enjoy your success. I just..." Her voice trailed off.

He came closer and lifted her chin. "You just what?" His eyes probed hers deeply, searching. He was so close again. She wanted to lay her head against his chest and forget everything. He didn't intend to let her. "Alexi...?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe I want to believe in magic and forever and I'm just a little too world-weary to really take the chance."

His touch, his voice, grew tense. “You just said that you knew I would never hurt you."

"But you don't trust me, either!"

He released her, his eyes narrowing. "What are you talking about?"

"You're not honest with me. At least, if--if you care you're not."

"Meaning?"

"You said that I should go. That I should go back to New York. You made me feel as if what we had was nothing more than a brief affair between consenting adults. Either you want me to go--or you don't want me to go."

Rex laced his fingers around his knees and stared out at the water. Then he swung around to her, heatedly intense again. "All right. I don't want you to go. Is that going to change anything? I can't really do that, Alexi. If I ask you not to go--and you don't do it because of me--you'll resent me for it in the long run."

"But I don't know if I even want to go back!" Rex inhaled and exhaled slowly. He touched her cheek softly. "You just said it, Alexi. You don't know. I can't hold you back--"

"You could come with me."

"If something can't be solved about all these things that keep happening," Rex said harshly, "you can bet I'll come along." "What?" "I said--"

Alexi didn't let him finish. She laughed and caught his cheeks between her hands and kissed him. "You'd do it? You'd really do it? You'd leave all your privacy behind and come with me?"

He caught her hands and held them tight between his. "I'd do it because I'm afraid for you," he told her sternly. "I haven't changed my mind. I like the peninsula. I like the peace, and I like the privacy."

She still smiled. "But you'd leave it for a while." "Alexi--"

"You started this! You gave out the ultimatums."

He watched her, then slowly shook his head, drawing her to him, ruffling her hair, speaking very softly. "Ultimatums don't work, Alexi. That's what I'm saying. I can't force you to live my way; I couldn't promise to stay in New York. We're on dangerous ground, you know."

Alexi felt his fingers against her hair. She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of him and felt the warmth of his body next to hers. "I thought you wanted me to leave. You'd have your whole peninsula back."

His arms tightened around her. "I've decided that I like you there."

"Sometimes I think you've decided that I'm insane."

"Why do you say that?"

"I know you think I imagined footsteps the night I ran into you on the sand, and I know you think I imagined noises in the house when we came in from the beach. I wonder if you even believe I was hit on the head yesterday--the police, I know, think I fell down the stairs and invented the intruder."

"You're wrong. I might have doubted you once, but I believe you now."

"Because you think that John is out to--to do something." "Yes."

"I might not be a very good deal, you know," Alexi warned him. "I could very well be neurotic myself, and I seem to come with a half-crazy ex-husband." "I'm not worried." "Oh?"

"No. I'm a big boy. I can handle it." “But do you want to handle it?'' "Yes." "Rex?" "Alexi?"

"I think I'm falling in love with you." His arms tightened around her so much that for a moment she couldn't breathe. Then she discovered that she was falling in his arms to lie against the deck and he was over her, his eyes afire, a smile on his lips.

"Let's hear that again." His hold was fierce; his words were full of a harsh command. She twisted against the force of his arms.

“Rex, damn you--'' "Alexi, please!"

"I said..." She paused, watching the blaze in his eyes, watching that small smile that curved his lips. "You're just terrible!" she said accusingly. "Every time you want something, you just decide that if you sit on me--''

"Not every time," he protested. But he was straddled over her and she inhaled sharply, feeling all her senses begin to swim again beneath the dazzling command of his eyes and the easy feeling of him against her--his hands upon her, his chest, muscles rippling in the golden heat of the sun, his thighs tight around her own. "Alexi!" He lowered himself against her until his lips hovered just above hers.

"I'm falling in love with you, too, you know. And you're right. It's very, very frightening," he said.

"We're both afraid of the future," she whispered in return.

"Yes," he told her, kissing her lips.

“What do we do about it?'' She opened her eyes to him, very wide, very blue, trusting and innocent. She curled her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his.

"Maybe we could take a chance," he murmured, moving slightly to the side to stroke the length of her. The sun was gloriously hot upon their bodies.

"Maybe," she murmured.

"Let the feelings grow."

"For now, at least."

He tensed, staring down at her. "Sure. For now," he murmured bitterly. He rose over her again, lifting his arms to the sky. "For now. We've got the sun and the sea and a warm Atlantic breeze. What else could we possibly want?"

"We could pretend," Alexi told him. She placed her fingers on his shoulders, then let them run over the rippling muscles of his chest. She drew them lower, so that he sucked in his breath as he watched their progress. "We could pretend that this is never going to end. That there is no future, no worry over it. We could spend these few days forgetting to argue or wonder what can and can't be. We could just talk about the water and the day and the night and the sun and the moon. And laugh and relax and--"

He caught her cheeks between his palms and tenderly massaged them with the callused tips of his thumbs. He cut off her speech with a slow, deep kiss, cradling her breasts, stroking the nipples to high peaks with his fingertips.

"Make love?" he suggested.

"It's a wonderful way to explore one's feelings," she offered solemnly.

He stretched out carefully atop her, distributing his weight along her legs, moving against her hard and erotically.

"A wonderful way to explore," he repeated. He caught her lower lip between his teeth, then kissed her deeply, exploring her mouth with a sweep of his tongue and the intimate recesses of her body with his fingers.

She gasped his name, amazed at the molten fire spreading throughout her, tantalized...

"Sweetheart," he murmured, staring into her eyes, "I do think that I love you." He thrust himself deep inside her, shuddering at the feeling of the velvet encasement of her love. She wrapped her limbs around him, and he whispered all the things about her that he loved.

The sun started to fall, but neither of them felt the chill as the warmth left the sky. Beautiful pinks and mauves stretched out over the horizon as twilight made a gentle descent.

Alexi saw stars streaking the heavens in a splendid outburst. She whispered to Rex that she had seen them bursting out all around her.

He laughed and told her that it was night. They rose lazily at last and made spaghetti and salad for dinner in the galley, then sat out beneath the stars. They talked about the sky and the sea, and he tried to tell her exactly where they were, pointing out the islands and the coast, which were alive at night with a glow of light.

They didn't challenge each other anymore. They had made an agreement. They were going to take a chance.

But Rex couldn't stop worrying. Eventually, they were going to have to go back. And nothing could ever be right between them--Until he found out what was really going on at the Brandywine house.

Chapter 12

By the time they came back in, three days later, Alexi had grown fairly adept with the Tatiana. The sails were furled when they approached the dock, though; the motor was softly humming to bring them in at a slow, safe speed.

Alexi--ready to jump onto the dock and tie the Tatiana up in its berth--started, openmouthed, when she saw that Gene was waiting for them farther down the dock.

"Alexi!" Rex yelled.

"What?"

"Now! Hop off and secure her."

She obeyed him mechanically. She slipped the little nooses over the brackets just as he had shown her. When he leaped off himself to check her work and tighten the ropes, Alexi pointed down the dock. "Gene's here. Did you plan this?"

His quick look assured her that he had not. "Run and see if there's a problem while I rinse her down," Rex said. Then he abruptly changed his mind. “No. Wait. Start making sure that the boat's all in order, and I'll go tell Gene we'll be with him as soon as we rinse her off."

Hurrying off, he didn't give Alexi much of a chance to protest. She muttered something under her breath, then paused, smiling. He was darker than ever now. Striding down the dock, barefoot and in cutoffs, he was agile and smooth and dark and sleek and muscled, and, being in love with him, Alexi had to take a moment to admire him and determine that he was a perfectly beautiful male. Then she muttered beneath her breath again and hopped back onto the Tatiana to crawl below. She thought she'd start in the galley, making sure that the pots and pans and dishes were secured.

Approaching Gene, Rex looked back to assure himself that Alexi wasn't trailing right behind him. She was gone from the deck; below, he hoped.

"Gene!" Rex caught the old man's hand, instantly worried about the way he was standing there in the heat. “How long have you been out here? What's wrong?"

"Not that long out here in the heat," Gene said. "I've been here all morning, though. Long enough for breakfast, Bloody Marys and lunch. I knew you planned on coming back in today, and I didn't want to miss you." "What's up?"

"John Vinto is what," Gene said worriedly. He gazed at Rex keenly. "I'm glad you came up to me alone, Rex. Vinto has called her mother, her cousin, and me--three times. He insists he has to see Alexi. He's determined to make an appointment to talk to her." He looked down the dock and lowered his voice, even though Alexi was still nowhere in sight. "I think he's going to show up at the Brandy wine house. He knows she's there."

"I think he's already shown up at the Brandywine house a few times," Rex muttered.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Amy--that's Alexi's mother—is certain she saw him nosing around Alexi's apartment in New York just last week."

"One can come and go easily these days," Rex insisted, "let transportation. And between here and New York there are nights just about every hour."

"I don't know," Gene said. "I just don't know. And since I don't know quite what happened between them, I didn't know how worried I should be."

"I'll be there with her," Rex said grimly. "And Samson will be there, too." He didn't want to say any more to Gene. He wasn't sure whether John Vinto was a dangerous man or had just been dangerous to Alexi because she hadn't been as physically strong as he.

He thought of how she had screamed that night in the car in front of the house and what a trauma it had been for her to tell him what had happened. John Vinto had hurt her in many ways. She had stood up to him after that--but then she had run away. Rex wasn't sure Alexi should see him again.

"I'm going to take her to my house," Rex said. "I'll leave her there with Samson, and I'll meet John Vinto, see just what it is he wants from her."

"Good," Gene said,- indicating with a nod something slightly past Rex's shoulder. "She's on her way over to us."

"Alexi!" Gene stepped past Rex and threw his arms out for a big hug. Alexi returned the hug and kissed his cheek.

She was in white shorts and a red-white-and-blue halter top, with her hair pulled up into a high ponytail. She had on very little makeup, and her cheeks were tinged from the sun. Rex thought that she seemed exceptionally appealing, fresh and young and innocent and stunning all at once.

And delicate, slim--and vulnerable.

He tensed, thinking again that he did love her, thinking of the things he'd said to her and the things that she'd whispered to him. He was falling in love--hard. Like a rock. And he could even begin to believe in a future for them.

He couldn't let her face Vinto again. Not without him there. Because if Vinto so much as touched her...

"Gene, what are you doing here?" Alexi asked him, smiling, and quickly added, "not that I'm not glad to see you, but it's so awfully hot out here!"

"I, uh--lunch! I knew you were coming in, and I thought I'd meet the two of you for lunch again."

Alexi cocked her head, watching him suspiciously. "What's up?"

"Nothing." Rex, safe behind Alexi's back, arched a brow as Gene flatly lied to her. "Well," Gene hedged, "I was just hoping that you weren't mad at me, after the way you left and all. I mean, Rex there was acting just like a caveman and I didn't do anything to help you."

"You both have atrocious manners, and neither of you seems to be aware that women did earn the vote," Alexi told him sternly. She was smiling, though, and Rex breathed a little sigh of relief. She had fallen for it. Rex knew Gene. He wasn't a bit sorry for letting Rex stride out with her over his shoulder. Gene had decided that the two of them were good for each other. When he made a decision, that was it. Good or bad, he never regretted it. "Can't go back," he always told Rex. "That leaves you with forward, boy. No other way to go."

"Why don't you two go ahead and have lunch?" Rex suggested. Alexi swung around, ready to insist that they all have lunch together. Rex caught her shoulders, dazzled by her smile, and shook his head regretfully. "Seriously. You're both dressed, and I'm a mess and I want to hose down the Tatiana."

"But, Rex--"

"Please, Alexi." He lowered his lips to whisper in her ear. "It's too hot for Gene to stand around out here. Go on in with him! I'll join you a little later."

"Oh!" she murmured quickly. She turned around and slipped her arm through Gene's. "Let's have lunch, then. How are their Bloody Marys?"

"Wonderful. Tall and cool and wonderful." "Oh, Gene!" Alexi told him, full of bright-eyed enthusiasm. "I've been reading Eugenia's diary. Oh, it's so sad, the way she would wait for Pierre, wait and wait and watch the beach! It's been wonderful, Gene. I feel like I know her--and Pierre through her. She loved him so much!"

Rex waited until they had disappeared into the yacht club restaurant; then he hurried down to the pay phone by the ice and soda machines and put a quick call through to Mark Eliot. Mark came on the line and started a long dissertation about the latest mystery he had read. Rex tried to listen politely, but he had to cut Mark off.

"Mark, great, we'll get together soon and talk. Right now I need some help."

Mark told him he'd be happy to do anything he could. Rex explained that he wanted to know anything that Mark could find out about John Vinto. Was he in town? Had he been in town? Anything Mark could get.

Mark whistled. "That's a tall order, but I'll see what I can do. Where are you now?"

Mark told him he was at the public phone at the dock and that he'd be around there for at least a half an hour. "Then I'll be in the club, then back out at my house." Rex thought grimly that it made good sense to keep Alexi away from the Brandy wine house until he'd had a chance to see Vinto. He thanked Mark for his help then and hung up.

He hurried back down the deck and got a hose to start rinsing down the Tatiana. He'd barely started, though, when he heard the public phone he'd used ringing down at the other end of the deck. He dropped the hose, ran toward it and answered it.

"Rex?" Mark said.

"That was quick."

"I didn't have to go that far. I checked the airlines. Your friend Vinto is around here somewhere. He flew into Jacksonville yesterday morning."

"I see," Rex murmured. "Thanks, Mark."

"I'm still checking on the rest of his activities."

"Thanks. I really appreciate it."

"I'll call you tonight, at your house."

"Great."

Rex hung up. Vinto was very near--he could feel it. And he didn't want the guy anywhere near Alexi. He was growing more certain that Vinto had been in the Brandywine house. Rex didn't know what the man's motives were, but he was sure Vinto had stalked her--had even struck her down.

And none of it was going to happen again.

He hurried down the dock and hastily finished rinsing down the boat. Then he went down into the cabin, changed into street clothes and joined Gene and Alexi in the restaurant.

He gave Alexi a kiss on the cheek and slid into the chair beside her, smiled broadly and asked them what they'd eaten.

Rex studied the menu quickly, noting that Alexi was watching him, then smiled at her and ordered.

He was acting very strange even for Rex, Alexi decided, and she couldn't quite put her finger on the problem. He was being very sweet and charming--he just seemed tense.

"So," Gene said to her, "it's all starting to look really good, huh, young lady?"

Alexi nodded eagerly. "I do love that house, Gene. And the window seat came out perfectly. Why don't you come out with us now and see it?" Alexi suggested.

"What?" Gene murmured uneasily.

"He can't!" Rex told Alexi quickly.

"Oh?" Alexi leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. "Why can't he?"

"Chess championships," Rex supplied. Alexi gazed at him skeptically. He'd already drunk half of his Bloody Mary, and he was merely picking at his food. She looked over at Gene. "Do you really have chess championships today?"

"Oh, yes, yes."

"You're a liar. You're lying because Rex wants you to lie. What I want to know is why."

Rex made a sound of impatience. "He doesn't want to come out now, Alexi, all right?''

"No, it isn't all right--"

"Dammit!" He threw his napkin down on the table. "Do we have to make a major production out of everything?''

Alexi went dead still, staring at him in sudden fury. Gene cleared his throat, then looked at his watch. "Wow. I'm going to miss those chess championships if I don't go back. Now."

Alexi stood up. "We'll drive you--"

"No, no. I have a driver waiting," Gene assured her. He kissed her cheek, waved to them both and left. Alexi stared at Rex. He wasn't looking at her; he was glaring down at his plate. Ignoring her, he raised his hand to ask for the bill. They maintained a tense silence while he signed it. Walking out of the restaurant, Alexi jumped when he slipped a hand around her waist. She drew back from his touch and hurried ahead.

In the car, he bounced angrily into the seat beside her. As they drove along, neither of them spoke for at least ten minutes. Then Alexi burst out with a demand to know what was wrong with him.

"Nothing," he insisted, but he didn't look her way, and he didn't have another thing to say as they headed along the peninsula. She didn't know what to think or what to feel; she was simply baffled and hurt. Hadn't he said that he was falling in love, too? Hadn't they admitted the same fears and then agreed to let things blossom and grow as they naturally would?

Maybe she had closed the doors against him; maybe he had never really opened them as far as she had thought. For all that the days had been between them, they were as distant now as the sun and moon, and she couldn't begin to understand what had caused his fit of temper.

"Drop me at my house," she told him, and added softly, "then go home yourself. I think we need some time apart." "You must be crazy!" he thundered out to her. "No! I'm not crazy!" she retorted after several seconds of incredulous silence. "You're yelling at me, and I don't feel like being yelled at! Let me off--and go home!"

He cast her a murderous stare. The type that reminded her that she had once thought he might have a dark and wicked soul. "You were conked on the head not too long ago--being in that house by yourself. Have you forgotten that?"

She looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. "I--no. And I do have the good sense to be afraid of--to be afraid. Maybe it is John--and maybe it isn't. Maybe something else is going on--" "Like what?"

"I don't know! It doesn't matter. I'll be all right; I'm not stupid. Samson is there, and you know as well as I do that no stranger could ever get past Samson." "You'll come home with me." "There you go again!"

"There I go again what?"

"Cracking the whip, laying down the law, whatever! Will you please quit telling me what to do? Now, Samson is in that house. And I appreciate that, Rex, I really do--''

"You can't borrow my dog, Alexi."

"Rex! What--"

They drove right past the Brandywine house and kept going. Alexi gritted her teeth. She really wanted to land a hard punch right to his jaw. "Rex, I swear, this time you really can't do this! I want to go to my house, and so help me, I will!"

He ignored her. The car jerked to a halt before his house. Alexi turned to her door, ready to storm out. Rex's hand fell upon her arm. She started to wrench it away from him.

"Alexi!"

He turned her to him. He caught her lips in a long, burning kiss. She tried to push away from him; she couldn't. And despite her anger, or perhaps because of her anger, the heat of him took flight and seared into her. When he drew away from her, she was breathless. Furious, but breathless...

"Marry me," he said.

"What?"

Rex wasn't at all sure what had made him say that. He wanted her; he wanted her forever. And he wanted to keep her here, far from the Brandywine house. But marriage...

He really didn't know where the words had come from, but once they were out, he knew it was what he wanted. It was exactly what he wanted. She was beautiful, she was sweet, she was fire, she was a tranquil pool where he found peace.

"Marry me."

"Rex--you're crazy."

He stepped from the car and came around to her side, jerking the door open. None too gently, he caught her hands and pulled her up and into his arms and kissed her slowly and heatedly, holding her tightly to him. He lifted his lips a bare half inch from hers.

"Marry me."

"You're a temperamental bastard," she whispered in return. "You think you're some he-man. You think you can tell me what to do all of the time. I still don't believe you trust me--"

"I want your property," he told her, smiling.

"I don't even own it."

"Close enough."

He picked her up and smiled at her as he started for the house. She curled her arms around his neck, but she still watched him skeptically. "Rex, I'm going home."

"Later."

"Rex--"

"Please, Alexi. Please. I want you.... I need you."

"You're hardly deprived at the moment," she murmured. "We've been off together alone--playing--for three days now."

His arms tightened around her. She felt the keen burning flames in his eyes, glitter against ebony. It was crazy; it was mad--but she felt the touch of his eyes and the heat of his arms, and it was something that came to her, that built in her, and it was as if they had been apart for days, for months, for years. She felt the rapidly spreading wings of desire take flight, deep inside her, at her very core.

As he opened the door and brought them into the house, she was caught by the flare in his eyes, and was held by it as he headed for the bedroom. The shades were drawn and it was dark and cool, and when he put her down she couldn't remember why it had been imperative that she leave; now leaving was the last thing on her mind. He set her down upon the spread, and she was still, watching in silent fascination as he quickly stripped. She shivered in a whirlwind of anticipation and sensation then as he lay down beside her and removed her clothing with the same careless, nearly desperate abandon with which he had shed his own. She melded quickly with him in that same fierce, desperate heat. The urgency remained with them.... In moments, the culmination of something so fiercely desired burst upon them, sweet and exciting and exhausting. Alexi curled up at his side.

"Marry me," he repeated softly after a moment.

Yes! she wanted to shout. But she didn't know whether or not it was right; she knew he feared the commitment, and the question had been so sudden. And she still couldn't begin to figure out what made him tick--she had no idea why he had been so angry at the restaurant or why he had been determined to keep her away from the Brandywine house.

"I do love you," she whispered.

He turned to her, fierce, protective and somehow frightening in the shadows. "I love you, Alexi." He said it slowly, as if professing the words without qualification was difficult. "I do. I love you."

He kissed her again, running his fingers sensually over her lower abdomen and curling his naked feet around hers. Instantly she felt little flaming licks of desire light along her spine. She pulled away from him and threw her legs over the side of the bed to sit up. She and Rex should rise, she thought.

Softly, throatily, he whispered her name. He rose on his knees behind her, and she felt his lips against her shoulders. He turned her in his arms... and she was lost. This time he was very, very slow, making love like an artist. They'd been so hurried before, but now he took his time. He touched her....

And touched her. Stroking the soles of her feet, finding a fascination with the curve of her hip, laving her breasts with endless kisses that each sent waves of sensation flooding through her. He said the words to her again and again.

"I love you__"

She didn't know quite what it was about those three simple words. When the climax exploded upon her that time, it was as if a nova had burst across the heavens.

Three little words--difficult for him to say, but whispered with a joyous sureness. Difficult for him to say, and so incredibly special because of that. She whispered them in return. Sweetly and slowly and savoringly, she whispered them against his flesh. Then she curled against him and slept.

Later, she vaguely heard the phone ring. She even knew, because the warmth was gone, that he had left her. But she was so very drained and tired. She just kept sleeping.

He hadn't meant to sleep. He'd planned on Alexi doing so, but he hadn't counted on winding up quite so exhausted himself. But certain things just had a way of leading to certain other things.

The phone woke him. At first he didn't even recognize the ringing sound. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and ran his fingers through his hair, dimly aware that the machine in his office would pick it up. He heard Mark Eliot's voice, though, and leaped to his feet, anxious to catch the bedroom extension before Mark could hang up.

"Mark!"

"Rex. You know the guy you're so worried about, this Vinto character?"

"Yeah, what have you got?"

"He's out there somewhere. On the peninsula. I got a make on a rental car--a blue Mazda--and Harry Reese just told me he saw a blue Mazda turn down the road for the peninsula about half an hour ago."

"I'll be damned," Rex murmured. "Mark--thanks a lot.

I'm going to get over there now--before Alexi can find out anything about him being here."

"Oh," Mark said. "Oh! That's the John Vinto on the pictures of the magazines! The photographer. The ex-husband!"

"Yes!" Rex said. "I'm going to run, Mark. Thanks again. I'll talk to you soon."

He hung up and glanced over at Alexi. She murmured something, curling deeper into her pillow. Her hair was a spill of gold over his sheets; her form, half draped beneath covers and half bare, was both evocative and sweet. Emotions unlike anything he had ever known rose and swirled in a tumult inside him. Rex pulled the covers up around her and kissed her on the forehead.

He'd be damned if he'd let John Vinto anywhere near her again. Ever.

Rex dressed quickly in dark jeans and a pullover, grabbed a flashlight from his drawer and glanced at Alexi one more time. She was still sleeping. He hurried out of the house. Deciding not to take the car, he began a slow jog down the path. It was windy, he noticed, and the air had grown cool. Looking up at the sky as it grew dark with the coming of night, Rex noticed black patches against the gray. There was a storm brewing. A big one. He started running faster.

The porch and hallway lights had been left on at the Brandywine house; Emily had been taking care of the animals, and it seemed reasonable that she would leave lights on. Rex thought absently that he should have called Emily to tell her that he was back.

He saw the blue Mazda, sitting right before the path to the house. Then, right behind it, he noticed Emily's little red Toyota.

His heart began to beat too quickly. Emily. What if John Vinto was dangerous?

"Emily!" he called and charged up the path to the house. He swore, aware that he had forgotten his key. It didn't matter; the door was open. He pushed it inward.

"Emily! Samson! Vinto!" With a sense of deja vu, Rex tore up the stairs. There was no one in any of the bedrooms. What really worried him the most was that Samson didn't answer his calls.

He searched the downstairs, absently noticing that the wall beneath Pierre's portrait had been torn apart. Something must have started to fall, he thought, and Emily had called in help. What the hell difference did it make now? Vinto might well be a psychopath, and he was missing, along with Emily, one massive shepherd and two kittens.

Where the hell could they be?

Rex tore out of the house and raced toward the beach, trying to search through the trees. He traveled all the way through the trail of pines until the waves of the Atlantic crashed before him. He turned back. They had to be the other way.

His gaze fell on his own house. The lights were all on upstairs.

A streak of lightning suddenly lit up the sky; a crack of thunder boomed immediately after. Through the pines, Rex saw a jagged flare of fire catch, sizzle...and fade.

And then the lights in both houses went out. "Alexi!" he screamed. The rain began to fall as he raced back toward his house. He threw open the front door. "Alexi! Alexi! Alexi!"

There was no answer but the sure and ceaseless patter of the rain. He'd known she was gone. She was somewhere within the darkened Brandywine house.

"Alexi!" He started to run.

The bed was still warm beside her when Alexi awoke. She smiled. He was up, but he had to be nearby.

It had grown dark. She reached over to switch on the bedside lamp. "Rex?"

He didn't answer her. Alexi crawled out of bed and scrambled into her clothing. "Rex!" she called, zipping up her shorts. She started down the stairs and headed for his office. He wasn't there, and some sixth sense told her that he was nowhere in the house. She noticed that his answering machine was blinking. Curious, she went over and pressed the playback button, hoping that a message might give her a clue to his whereabouts. Maybe Gene had called. Maybe Rex had gone to meet him at the house.

Rex seemed to have a dozen messages. She sat through six business calls, two friends saying "hi" and then a call from Mark Eliot--a call that made her start in surprise. Rex's answers had been recorded, along with Mark's information.

Listening to the exchange, Alexi felt a numbness of fear sweep over her. John was there, on the peninsula. Why? Had he been there all along, watching her, spying on her, stalking her?

She gasped aloud, suddenly more afraid of the sound of Rex's voice. He meant to meet John. And God only knew what he meant to do. "No, oh, no!" She hurried toward the door. She didn't know what to do; she was too frightened to really think. John was her problem, though. Rex shouldn't be dealing with him. And she was afraid to think about just how Rex might be dealing with the man.

She ran, barefoot, toward the Brandywine house. Against the darkness of night, it seemed ablaze.

She hadn't noticed the coming storm. She screamed out, startled and cringing, as a bolt of lightning lit up the sky. Thunder cracked immediately, and then she saw a flash of fire. The fire sizzled out--and the world was pitched into an ebony darkness.

Rain started to fall against the earth in great, heavy plops.

Alexi swore softly and raced on toward the house. In a flash of lightning she saw an unfamiliar blue car and Emily's red Toyota. She kept going up the path. The front door was ajar; Alexi pushed it inward.

"Rex! Emily? Samson!" She swallowed, straining to see in the darkness. "John...?"

Alexi stumbled into the kitchen. She groped around the cabinets, reaching to the top to find a candle, then swore vociferously in her efforts to find matches. At last she came across a book of them and managed to light one with her chilled, dripping fingers. She cajoled the wick into catching, then raised the candle high. The kitchen seemed eerie in the darkness.

Something drifted over her bare foot. Alexi screamed and nearly dropped the candle, and for one instant she was convinced that her ancestral home was haunted--and that a ghost had wafted over her. Then she heard a soft, plaintive mewling.

"A kitten!" she whispered, stooping to find the little pile of fluff that had rubbed against her. She picked it up and smiled at the brilliant, scared eyes that met hers. "Silver. Where's your cohort? And where in heck is Samson? Hey, you're all wet...."

Alexi frowned and raised the candle higher. She gasped then, realizing that the back door was open. She stepped toward it and the porch beyond it, her frown deepening as she noticed a large, huddled form there. Her heart quickened with fear.

"Rex?"

She kept going. She wanted to scream, and she wanted to stop--and she could not. She set the kitten down in the kitchen and stepped out onto the back porch.

The huddled form was a body. She began to shake, terrified. She had to touch it.... Someone was hurt; someone needed help.

She went down on her knees, and her eyes widened. She saw a patch of blond hair.

"John!" She gasped. She touched his shoulder nervously. "John?" She pulled her hand away and began to shake in earnest. There was blood all over her hand.

"Oh, my God!" she breathed. She heard the front door slam. Then she heard footsteps racing through the house. A scream of terror rose to her throat.

Rex. Rex had come here, and Rex had killed John. It was her fault. John was dead. She'd hated him; she'd feared him--but, oh God, she'd never expected this....

She screamed as a figure burst out upon her.

"Alexi!"

It was Rex. He raced over to her and paused, staring at her, then at the body. He dropped to his knees beside the body and pressed a finger against John's throat. He looked at Alexi again.

"This is Vinto?" His voice had a harsh, strangling sound. Alexi gazed at him blankly. He knew this was John. He had done this thing to him.

"You...you..."

"We've got to get help out here right away," he muttered.

"Oh, Rex! Oh, God!"

"Alexi, you're going to have to tell the police everything that happened between you. Everything. From before."

"What?"

"I love you, Alexi. Whatever happens, I'll be by your side."

"What?" she repeated, amazed and ready to burst into tears. She'd fallen so in love with him. She should have known it was too good to be true. This morning they'd sailed a turquoise sea under a golden sun, and now they were sitting here, drenched and ashen, staring at each other over the body of a man....

"Samson!" he said suddenly. "I hear Samson."

She looked up. He was right. The shepherd was racing toward them, skidding across the kitchen floor so fast that he nearly flew into Rex's arms once he'd left the doorframe behind. He barked excitedly, jumping over John's body to crash into Alexi. She burst into tears, hugging the shepherd. It was too much. “Alexi--'' Rex began.

"There you are!"

Rex turned to the doorframe and distractedly noticed Emily standing there in her trench coat. “Emily, thank God you're all right," he said. He reached out for Alexi. She winced, jerking from his touch. "Alexi, it's going to be all right!"

"Rex!" Emily said in a strangled voice. She'd seen the body, Rex thought.

"Emily--" He began to turn.

"Oh, my God!" Alexi shrieked. "Rex--she's got a gun."

But somehow that fact didn't quite penetrate Rex's mind. "Emily, what in God's name are you doing?" He started to walk toward her. She raised the barrel so it was even with his chest. "Stop where you are, Rex."

He knew from her tone that she meant it. "Emily--"

"Back up, Rex--now. I mean it. I--I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt either of you. I've got to figure this out now. You'll all have to be found together. A love triangle. I don't know. Maybe you found the two of them together, Rex. Then shot yourself."

Fingers were touching him. Reaching for his arm. It was Alexi. Numb, Rex encircled her with an arm, drawing her tightly to him.

"Why?" Alexi whispered. Emily looked at her and spoke as if she was trying to explain things to a half-witted child.

"Why, the treasure, child, of course. I finally found it. Today."

"It's worthless, Emily!" Rex thundered. "It's worthless paper! It's not--"

"It's not paper at all, Rex Morrow!" Emily corrected him. She sniffed. "No one knew Pierre Brandy wine--not even his beloved Eugenia! It was gold he left her. Gold bars! A fortune. A real treasure. And it's been in this house all these years because some foolish little maid didn't bother to forward a letter." Emily smiled. "I found it, you see. I was cleaning up in the old kitchen before Gene had them put the new stuff in. I found Pierre's letter. Telling Eugenia he left her gold. Only Eugenia knew where it was hidden. I didn't. I had to search and search."

Alexi's fingers were a vise around Rex's arm. He could feel her trembling, but she was determinedly standing there--buying time.

“You tried to scare me out, right, Emily?'' she said shakily.

"I tried."

Alexi kept stalling. In the terrible dark of the night, against the endless monotony of the rain, she was desperately stalling for time.

"You had no reason to ever be afraid of Samson. Samson was your best friend. You could search and search-- and he wouldn't bark."

"It was easy before you came," Emily agreed. "I went through the house at my leisure. I looked and looked and couldn't find it, but I knew that gold was here somewhere. I followed you when you first came. You ran right into Rex. I slipped into the house. I thought you might believe in ghosts. I had to knock you out the other night. And now this man found me. I had to shoot him. It's your fault-- you just wouldn't leave. And Rex... I am so sorry. Really."

He was going to have to jump her, Rex decided. Throw himself against her to at least give Alexi a chance to run. Alexi's fingers tightened around his arm again. She was thinking the same thing!

"Oh!" Emily let out a startled little scream. The gun raised for a split second. "Oh, you damned dog!" Samson had nudged her with a cold nose. Maybe he wasn't her best friend after all.

"Get down!" Rex shouted to Alexi. She dived for the porch just as he threw himself at Emily and knocked her down, sending the gun skidding away along the old wood of the porch. Emily screamed then, striking out at Rex with her nails. "Stop!" Rex commanded her. Alexi was there then, drawing her belt from her shorts, then slipping it around Emily's wrists. Rex caught hold of it and tied it securely.

Lights suddenly appeared, blinding them at first. A car stopped; they could hear the doors slamming. "Alexi! Rex!" It was Gene.

"Rex? Miss Jordan?"

"We're here, in the back!" Rex called out. "Mark Eliot," he told Alexi. She smiled.

"If you can give that nice boy any bit of help, you do it," Alexi said.

"I will," Rex promised. He glanced over at John's body. "He might still make it."

"He's alive?" Alexi demanded.

"Just barely." He smiled at her ruefully. "I thought you had tried to kill him."

"And I thought you had!"

"He hurt you so badly."

"You once said that you would kill him," she reminded him.

Rex groaned. "Alexi! That was a term of speech!"

"Well..." she murmured.

Emily was swearing viciously, but by that time, Gene and Mark had reached the porch. They both stared at John and then at Emily. It seemed to Alexi that everyone was talking at once. Gene looked so white that she quickly put her arms around him, anxious to assure him that she was fine. Rex was trying to explain the situation to Mark Eliot. Mark took one look at John Vinto's body and hurried to the car, calling for an ambulance. Then he returned and checked the body. "There's still a pulse--just barely," he said grimly, staring at Emily.

"Come on, Mrs. Rider. Let's go to the car." Mark exchanged the belt around her wrists for handcuffs. By then they could hear the ambulance's siren. A moment later, two paramedics were carefully working on John Vinto. Alexi stared at her ex-husband's features. She was shivering, but her fear of him was completely gone. She prayed that he would live. Rex slipped his arms around her as they took John away. "I wonder what he did want," she murmured.

"I don't know," Rex said.

"Why on earth did she shoot him?" Gene murmured.

“He just happened to come upon her when she had discovered her stash of gold at last," Rex wearily told Gene.

"Gold!"

Rex smiled ruefully. "Pierre really did leave a 'treasure,' Gene. No Confederate bills. Gold. Could I have your flashlight for a minute, Mark?"

"Take this, Rex," Mark said. "I've got to take my prisoner on in. I'll need you all in the morning. Mr. Brandy-wine, now, you take care."

"Thank you, Mr. Eliot," Gene said. Rex and Alexi echoed his words, waving until he was gone.

Rex led the way, and they followed him to the ballroom. The bricks around the lower mantel under the portraits had been pulled out. An ancient, rusting trunk lay amid the rubble on the floor.

"It's your trunk," Rex told Gene.

Gene stepped forward, lowered himself to his knees and flipped the lid on the old trunk. Bars and bars of gold sparkled before them in the glare of the flashlight.

"I'll be darned," Gene said, flashing his head. "All these years..."

"He meant it to go to his heirs," Rex murmured. "You're his grandson, Gene."

Gene smiled at Rex a little wearily. "Poor man. He worried so much, and his wife and his children were a lot stronger than he gave them credit for." He flashed a quick smile at Alexi. "A lot stronger, girl."

Rex slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against him. "Very strong," he said softly. "What are you going to do with it all?" he asked Gene.

Gene scratched his head for a minute. "A museum. Yes, I think a museum. We'll put Eugenia's diary in it, and the clothes from up in the attic--Pierre's old sword and the like. He'd approve, don't you think?"

"That I do, sir. That I do," Rex agreed.

"Well, well," Gene murmured. "It's a bit too much excitement for me for one night. Pierre's treasure almost cost me something he would have prized far, far more." He touched Alexi's cheek. "I think I'll go on up to bed here. Do you mind, dear?"

"Gene! It's your house."

"Yes. But of course you'll have a chaperone now." He cleared his throat. "Rex Morrow--just what are your intentions regarding my great-granddaughter?"

Rex laughed. "The very best, sir."

"Well?"

"I intend to marry her. As soon as possible."

"He's only after your land!" Alexi warned Gene.

"Does she ever shut up?" Rex asked Gene.

Gene smiled wickedly. "Sure she does, boy. You've got the knack, I'm quite sure."

"Do I?" Rex said, smiling down at Alexi.

"Do you?" She slipped her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoe. He kissed her. He meant just to brush her lips, but there was just something about her....

The kiss went long and deep, very long and deep, until Gene cleared his throat. Rex broke from her. His eyes were glittering ebony as he challenged her, his voice gruff with tenderness, "Will you, Alexi? Will you marry me?"

She smiled. Rex knew that treasure had never lain in gold, nor in silver--nor in any other such tangible thing. Treasure was something that any man could find on earth, if he could trust in himself enough to reach for it.

"Yes, Rex. Yes!" Alexi told him.

He stared into her eyes, dazzled. "I love you, sweetheart."

"Well, then, if it's all settled, go ahead and kiss her again," Gene said. "But excuse me. I'm an old man."

"An old fox!" Rex whispered.

"I heard that!" Gene said.

Alexi and Rex laughed and waved good-night. They heard a door close above them.

"Well, my love?" Rex whispered.

"You heard him," Alexi murmured. "Go ahead. Kiss me again. Hmm...Morrow...Alexi Morrow."

"I'll come with you to New York."

"No, we'll live here."

"But you don't have to give up your career--"

"I really don't care."

"You don't have to give it up!"

"Don't tell me what to do!"

"I'm not! I'm trying--" He broke off suddenly, staring up at the picture of Pierre. He shook his head. "Maybe there is only one way to do it."

"To do what--" Alexi began.

She never finished. He had decided to kiss her again.

Epilogue

June 2, Two Years Later Fernandina Beach, Florida

"Here he is, Alexi. Down on the beach."

Alexi stared out through the long trail of pines to the beach, where Gene's call directed her. She rose, a smile curving her lips, her heart, as always, taking flight.

Rex was alighting from one of their new acquisitions, a silver raft. The waves of the beach pounded against his bare, muscled calves as he splashed through the water. From a distance, he was beautiful and perfect.

"Rex!"

Upon the porch of the old house, Alexi called his name. He couldn't hear her, of course. He was too far away. She was certain, though, that his eyes had met her own, and that the love they shared between them sang and soared likewise in his soul.

He had seen her. He waved. He started to run. To run down the sand path carpeted in pine and shadowed by those same branches. Sun and shadow, shadow and sun; she could see his face clearly no longer.

"Gene? Take the baby for a minute?"

"With the greatest pleasure."

Carefully--he was a very old man--Gene slipped his hands beneath the squirming body of his very first great-great-grandson. Alexi smiled at him briefly, then leaped down the steps, waving to Rex.

"I'll take him inside!" Gene called to Alexi. "It's getting a little bit hot out here. And don't you two worry--I can rock the boy to sleep just as well as the next person."

Alexi turned in time to give Gene an appreciative thumbs-up sign. Then she started to run, running to meet her husband, running to meet her man.

Run...run, run, run. Sunlight continued to glitter through the trees, golden as it fell upon her love. She felt the padding of her feet against the carpet of sand and pine, and the great rush of her breath. Closer. Closer. She could see the love he bore her, the need to touch.

Her breath, ragged, in and out, in and out. Down that long, long trail of sand and pine.

"Rex!"

"Alexi!"

Laughing, she flew the last few steps; those steps that brought her into his arms. He lifted her high; he swirled her beneath the sun. He stared into her eyes, his smile soft as he cherished her and the life they had created between them.

"The baby?"

"He's with Gene."

"They're okay?"

"They're perfect."

Rex smiled and laced his fingers through his wife's. They started to walk toward the beach again. At the shore, where the warm, gentle water just rushed over their bare feet, Rex slipped his arms around Alexi's waist. Time had been good to them; life had been good to them. For one, John Vinto had lived. Rex had been worried when Alexi had insisted on visiting him in the hospital, but in the end he had been glad. John had wanted to see her just to apologize; he had thought there might be some way to hang on to his marriage. He'd met a new girl, but somehow he'd needed Alexi's forgiveness before he could start out in a new life. Alexi had promised her forgiveness with all her heart--if he would promise to get some counseling. It hadn't been easy for Rex, standing there. Vinto was a handsome man, beach tan and white blond, successful-- and earnest. But trust had been the ingredient he needed to instill in his heart, and when he had seen Alexi's eyes fall on him again, he had known that she loved him. She didn't need to make any comparisons between men--she loved Rex, and that was that. He had sworn to himself in a silent vow that he would give her that same unqualified love all his life.

Gene had used the gold to open a small Confederate museum. It gave him a new passion in life--the hunt for artifacts. Alexi and Rex had grown fascinated with the search themselves, and the three of them frequently traveled throughout the States to various shows to see what else they could acquire.