The Seduction of Goody Two-Shoes

Chapter 4

Ellie was caught, as her mom might have said, between a rock and a hard place. The man deserved an explanation, he really did. But how much could she tell him?

What did she really know about him, after all?

As far as she could tell he was just some kind of expatriate American beach bum who scratched out a living selling dreadful paintings to gullible tourists. A beach bum who, for some reason, kept showing up just in time to bail her out of trouble. Three times, now. Three.

That made her think of something she’d read once, she couldn’t recall where. Something like…once is happenstance, twice is coincidence and the third time is enemy action.

Though, unpleasant as he tried to be, he seemed like anything but an enemy. Could he possibly be another undercover agent? One of General Reyes’s men, perhaps? He was certainly fluent enough in Spanish.

She blurted out before she could stop herself. “Who are you?”

Her rescuer seemed startled by the question at first, then more like…uncomfortable with it. “Just a guy,” he growled, shifting his shoulders against the back of the seat as if they itched. “A guy trying to mind his own business. And make a living-” he jabbed a finger angrily in her direction “-which you aren’t making easy to do, sister.”

Ellie sat back with an exhalation, suddenly feeling deflated, flattened by the weight of guilt. “I’m sorry about the paintings,” she said, her eyes on the beach, crowded at this hour with sunbathers. “I really am. I-I’ll pay you for them.” Well, the government would, probably. But she would feel better knowing they had. “It’s the least-”

“No. That’s not the least, sister, not by a long shot. The least you can do is tell me what the hell’s-”

But at that point Ellie jerked straight up in her seat, her brain belatedly registering what she’d been staring at. “Is this-” she croaked, “-is this beach topless?”

The man beside her turned his head to glare wickedly at her, lips stretched in a mirthless grin around the cigarette clamped between his teeth. “Yeah, it is-why?” Before she could answer he gave a bark of laughter and tossed the cigarette out the window in a gesture of pure frustration. “Lady, I can’t figure you out, I really can’t. One minute there you are, involved in business transactions with thugs in a slum dive I wouldn’t take my worst enemy-or my ex-wife-to, and the next you’re doing this little Miss-Goody-Two-Shoes-from-Iowa number and expecting me to buy it.”

“I’m not expecting you to buy anything,” she shot back, both stung and embarrassed. It had been a long time since she’d felt like such a little hick. “It’s just that-I thought-well, isn’t it illegal here?”

Staring straight ahead, he lifted an indifferent shoulder. “Technically, I suppose. This is a pretty laid-back town. Who’s going to file a complaint?” He shot her a glance that was half challenge, half contempt. “You?”

“Of course not.” Ooh, she was really starting to dislike this guy-rescuer or not. Temper simmered, then exploded. “Oh wait-I get it. You brought me here on purpose, didn’t you? Just to make me uncomfortable. To get me to talk, I suppose. What-I’m supposed to get so flustered I’ll spill all my dirty little secrets?”

He let his gaze drop slowly, appraisingly to her chest. Inexplicably and in spite of her anger, she felt her nipples contract. Then he looked away again, with that shrug of indifference that to Ellie was more incendiary than a slap. “Never occurred to me. Frankly, my dear, I didn’t even think about it. It was just a good place to park.”

“Well, it’s not going to work,” Ellie snapped, ignoring that. “I grew up on a farm. I’ve lived on fishing boats and in tents. You think I’m going to go all wimpy at the sight of a few bare boobs? Listen, I’ve probably seen more stuff than you have, buster.”

He was looking at her again, this time with eyebrows raised and blue eyes glinting in what appeared, unbelievably, to be amusement. A fan of laugh lines had deepened at their corners. Something about those eyes made Ellie’s anger evaporate as quickly as it had come, like the rain puddles back home on a hot summer’s day.

“Besides,” she said on a grudging exhalation, settling back in her seat, “it wouldn’t have been necessary. I was going to explain.”

“So…explain,” he said softly.

So…explain. But it came back to the same question: How much could she say? How far could she trust him? She couldn’t possibly tell him everything. Where should she begin?

It was getting warm in the car. She pulled off her sun visor and laid it carefully in her lap, lifted her arms and raked her fingers through her hair, then rolled down her window and closed her eyes as a damp ocean breeze stirred the hair on her temples. She could feel it tightening into corkscrew curls. When she opened her eyes again, she saw that the man-beach bum, artist, rescuer, whoever he was-was gazing in fascination at her hair, at those very same curls.

What was the matter with the man, she wondered? With all those naked bodies out there, right in front of him, he was looking at her…at her hair, yet? A moment ago he’d been gazing at her breasts, erect nipples and all, with complete boredom. Just now, the look in his eyes had been that of a starving man at a banquet-hall window.

It suddenly struck her how small the car was…how close to him she was sitting. She felt much too warm. Claustrophobic. Her heart was beating much too fast-faster even than in the cantina, facing those three smugglers.

She half turned in her seat and pulled up a knee, making a little more space between them. “First,” she said, clearing her throat, “I just want to remind you that I did not ask you to show up in that cantina today.” She narrowed her eyes and fired the question, much like a cat pouncing. “Why did you, by the way?” He didn’t answer immediately, just shifted his gaze slightly to meet hers. Uncomfortable again, she mumbled, “Not that I’m sorry you did, you understand. I’d just like to know what you were doing there. It is kind of odd…”

He waved that off with a grimmace. “Coincidence. Heard you talking to the taxi driver.” And now it was he who seemed uncomfortable.

“And you just…decided to follow me?”

He muttered defensively under his breath, shifting in that irritable way he had. “Well, hell, I thought I’d better. You were heading for a dangerous part of town.” He halted to stare fixedly through the windshield, eyes narrowed in an angry squint.

But for some reason Ellie found herself remembering how blue those eyes were…how clear and clean. Remembering a look she’d caught in them once or twice. Now she wondered if the look could possibly have been…compassion.

What a strange man he is, she thought. So rude and cranky, determined to seem crude and cynical, and yet…

“Do you really have a husband?” he asked suddenly, turning his head to look at her.

It seemed two could play the cat-and-mouse game. Caught by surprise, she answered quickly, “Yes, of course.” Too quickly. Too breathlessly. She could feel the heat of the lie in her cheeks, and looked away, fighting for composure. “He…he was supposed to go with me, you see-yesterday evening, too. We both thought it was just a stomach upset-you know, the turista thing? But then last night they had to fly him to Florida for emergency surgery. Appendicitis.”

“So, you decided you’d go it alone.” He spoke very quietly, staring straight ahead again, only his staccato fingers on the steering wheel betraying inner turmoil. “Jeez. Must have been some important business.”

Ellie nodded eagerly. “Oh, it was. We’d been working for months to set up a meeting. That’s why I couldn’t just let it all be for nothing.”

“Uh-huh.” He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a battered pack of cigarettes, tapped one out, put it in his mouth and lit it. When he had everything stored away in his pocket again, he settled back, blew smoke carefully out the window and said in a gravelly voice, “So tell me-what was it you were buying with that wad of cash?”

“I told you-it’s not drugs,” Ellie said stiffly.

“Not drugs?”

“That I promise you.” But he held her eyes, refusing to let it go at that, and after a tense few moments more she folded. “Animals,” she said on a gust of released breath.

“Animals?” He repeated the word as if he’d never heard it before.

She nodded. “Birds…reptiles…you know. Some of them are very rare, and worth a lot of money. A lot.” She paused, and when he continued to stare at her in frowning incomprehension, added lamely, “I told you last night, remember? We own a pet shop. In Portland, Oregon.”

“Rare…” he said slowly, as if he hadn’t heard that. “As in…endangered?”

“Well, some maybe, but-”

“As in…illegal?”

She could feel the warmth in her cheeks again. “Oh, I wouldn’t know about that,” she hurriedly said. “The important thing is that these animals are being shipped regardless-”

“Smuggled, you mean.”

“-and most of them die en route. Because the people who do the…shipping…don’t know anything about animals, you see? My husband and I do know about animals. So, we thought, if we could go directly to the source-”

“The source.”

She really wished he’d stop repeating everything she said. “That’s right-the man in charge of shipping-”

“The head smuggler, you mean.”

Ellie just looked at him, fighting hard to hold on to her temper. “That envelope he gave you back there in the cantina,” she said, speaking slowly and carefully. “It should have the instructions-directions, I mean-for the meeting. Maybe a map. If we’re supposed to be at the meeting place by day after tomorrow… By the way, can I see it, please?”

Her rescuer parked his cigarette between his teeth and pulled the envelope from his shirt pocket. “You mean this one?” But instead of handing it over he just went on holding the envelope and looking at her, an odd, wary look in his eyes.

Almost as if he was waiting for something.

She held out her hand. “Yes-can I see it? We have to-” And that was when it hit her.

“Oh…no…” she whispered. She felt herself go cold.

Her companion took a long drag from his cigarette and said mildly, “Just who in the hell is this we, Kemo Sabe? You and your husband?” His lips had a sardonic tilt, but the glint in his eyes was anything but amused. “Ah-that’s right.” He snapped his fingers. “According to you, he’s in a hospital somewhere in Florida. Man, I hope he heals fast. But then…”

He’d been wondering when it was going to occur to her.

She’d clamped a hand over her mouth. Now she peeled it away, leaving a white, pinched look around her lips and the imprint of fingers on her flaming cheeks. Her voice was uneven, hushed with dismay. “As far as those guys are concerned, you’re my husband.”

“Uh-uh,” said McCall flatly, shaking his head. “Don’t even think about it, sister.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again without saying anything. Just went on looking at him. Looked at him for so long those golden eyes of hers seemed to shimmer. It struck him suddenly that begging and pleading weren’t in this woman’s repertoire. That asking for-even needing-help would never be easy for her.

It also struck him that the fact she’d had to accept his help, not once but three times, meant that he was probably never going to make it on to her top ten list of favorite people. He didn’t know why he minded that, but he did.

“What are you looking for?”

She’d dragged her handbag onto her lap and was rummaging around in it like a hungry dog digging for a bone.

“Chocolate,” she said shortly, without looking up. “I don’t suppose…ah!” She fished a small plastic bag with several foil-wrapped lumps in it out of the depths of the purse and held it up with an air of triumph that reminded him of himself, out of smokes and discovering a lost pack with a couple of bent and crumpled cigarettes still left in it.

He watched with a kind of revolted fascination as she unwrapped one of the lumps.

“Damn-melted…” She made a face at the brown goo that had oozed out of the foil, but managed to suck the mess into her mouth-most of it, anyway. She carefully licked her fingers, then her lips, and crumpled the foil into a tiny ball before diving back into the bag for another lump. She repeated the whole process for the second chocolate, then a third, each time returning the foil wrapper to the plastic bag after it had been licked clean of chocolate. Then she briefly closed her eyes, took a deep breath and paused, before finally dropping the plastic bag back into her purse.

“So? Some people smoke,” she said pointedly when she looked over and saw him staring at her. “I eat chocolate-so what?”

“Hey,” he said with a shrug, “whatever works.” But he hoped she hadn’t noticed the way he kept swallowing. He for sure hoped she never guessed how the sight of those ripe-cherry lips of hers drenched in melted chocolate was making his mouth water.

He had his hand on the ignition key when she said quietly, “I’d pay you. Very well. There’s a lot at stake…”

“A lot of money, you mean.”

She jerked her head to give him a sharp, almost guilty look. “Of course, what did you think I meant? Yes, there’s a lot of money involved. I-my husband and I-would be willing to split it with you-” she paused, and he could see her thinking it over “-three ways.”

McCall shook his head, but he couldn’t keep from smiling as he turned the key. “Sorry,” he said, as the Beetle’s ignition, for the first time in memory, fired on the first try.

“Fifty-fifty,” she said breathlessly. He put his hand on the gearshift. She reached over and placed her hand on his. “Please-think about it. That’s a lot of money. I don’t think you realize-”

“I have all the money I need,” he growled, shaking his head. Not looking at her. Wishing she’d take her hand off his. Hoping she’d leave it there.

She made a little sound of frustration as she took her hand from his, finally, and gestured with it toward the jumble of canvasses in the back seat. “Business must be very good.” Hard to miss the sarcasm.

In spite of it, he kept his face and tone serene. “My needs are simple.” He tossed away his cigarette and waited for a bus full of tourists returning from a visit to the ruins to go by, then pulled out into its exhaust wake.

He thought about lighting up another cigarette, but for some reason didn’t. Beside him, Cinnamon sat in silence, staring as intently as he at the road ahead. After a while she said in a voice that was even scratchier than usual: “What if I said to name your price?”

He didn’t know why that got to him, but it did. He smacked the steering wheel hard with his open palm. “Damn it, woman, it’s not about money.”

Again that breathlessness. “I said price. It doesn’t have to be money.”

He shot her a look. Surely she hadn’t meant that the way she could have meant it. Not this woman-Miss Goody Two-Shoes from Iowa with her cinnamon freckles and Nikes, smuggler of illegal animals, wholesome as molasses cookies… Ah, hell.

“I meant,” he said between clenched teeth, “that money isn’t everything. Maybe you’re not old enough to have found that out yet, but it’s true. Some things are more important than money-like my life, for instance. I mean, my lifestyle. I like my life. I live simply, quietly, no hassles. Live and let live. I don’t bother anybody and nobody bothers me. Zero stress-you get it? That’s the way I want it. And one thing I’ve found out, sister, is that the more money you have, the more stress. Let me tell you, I’ve had it and I don’t want it anymore. You can keep your money.”

“You could give it away. There must be something you care about.” Her voice sounded shaken; he could feel her eyes on him, so intense he felt their heat. Like sitting in the sun.

He stuck his lip out, pretending to think about it, then shook his head. “Nope,” he said, “can’t think of a thing. Just numero uno…”

“So,” she said tightly, suddenly angry, “you’ve dropped out of the world, is that it? Now you just…sit here with your head in the sand and let somebody else take responsibility for what happens to this planet and the creatures that live on it.”

He gave a hoot of astounded laughter. “Listen to you, Miss Goody Two-Shoes! Don’t tell me you care about this earth’s poor creatures.”

“Of course I care,” she shouted, and to his astonishment her voice cracked, as if she were only a good breath away from crying. “I own a pet shop, remember? Do you know what it’s like to see those animals, the way they ship them? Those parrots you paint-can you imagine one of those beautiful creatures crammed into a cardboard tube designed to hold tennis balls? They even stuff them into the wheelwells of cars. To cross deserts! They arrived cooked.” She paused, breathing hard. “I’m just trying to put a stop to it,” she said, and after a moment finished in a whisper, “That’s all.”

Well, damn. She sure sounded as if she meant that. Damned if he didn’t almost believe her. Which was more than he could say for some of the things she’d told him. That way she had of blushing, sometimes, while she was telling him something ordinary. He had to wonder about that blush.

He drove in silence, thinking about it as he threaded his way along the main tourist street, pastel tourist hotels on one side, palm trees and beach and aquamarine water on the other, para-sailers gliding through the afternoon sky like butterflies darting and dipping above the lazy surf. Familiar sights to him, after so many years.

I like my life…it’s the way I want it. No hassles…

He pulled into the taxi zone closest to the pier and parked, putting the VW in neutral but keeping the motor putt-putting away.

His passenger had her door open almost before he’d stopped, but then, instead of getting out, she turned to him and in that oddly prim little way she had, all stiffened up with pride, said once again, “Thank you.” Then she let out a breath and smiled-wryly, but a smile nonetheless. He realized it had been a long time since he’d seen it. “For saving me-again. I’m not sure what you saved me from, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have been pleasant. So…thank you. I mean it. Mister-it’s McCall, right?”

“No mister. Just McCall.” He took the hand she offered. It was unbelievably small, almost childlike. He found himself suddenly remembering her kiss, and the feel of her body tucked up against him. Nothing childlike about that. No sir.

“And you’re…Ellie.” Yeah, he remembered it now. Such a gentle name for a cinnamon girl. “Ellie…what?” He asked her that belatedly, remembering that she had a husband. Asking himself what did it matter what her name was, in that case. He was many things, but a seducer of other men’s wives wasn’t one of them.

“Ellie’s enough.” But she gave him her smile-the real one, briefly-before she got out of the car. Then she leaned down and said through the open window, “It’s short for Rose Ellen Lanagan. My dad’s Mike Lanagan.” She straightened and walked away quickly, toward the pier.

McCall stared after her. Mike Lanagan. Was that supposed to mean something? Why did that sound so familiar to him? Something from his former life… He shook his head once, hard, forcing the memory back into the dusty attic of his past.

More germane to the present, if that was her dad’s name-Lanagan-why had she given him her maiden instead of her married name?

And something else. Why didn’t she seem worried about having told him all this? Hadn’t it even occurred to her that he might go straight to the police?

And what about that, McCall? What are you going to do? Live and let live?

He was chewing on that when he noticed something that turned him cold all over. The envelope, the one the cigar-smoking boss-thug had given him. The one containing directions to a meeting with smugglers of illegal animals. Smugglers who, according to Miss Ellie, didn’t seem to care how many of their cargo lived or died. People, therefore, with little or no regard for life, animal or human.

She had that envelope in her hand.

He shut off the motor and got out of the VW and called to her over the roof. She paused and turned to look back at him. “What are you going to do?” he asked her, nodding toward the envelope.

She glanced down as if surprised to see it there, then lifted it, gazed at it, turned it over once. Shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, and started walking again.

Live and let live. It seemed a fading memory to him now.

He jammed his keys into his pocket and set out after her at a jog trot. Which was more exercise than he was used to on a hot muggy afternoon, which, he told himself, was why he was out of breath and his heart beating hard when he caught up with her.

“Come on, Ellie,” he panted, shortening his customary lazy stride to match her short quick one. “Can’t you just let it go? For now, at least? Hey, at least until your husband’s back on his feet?”

She stopped walking and looked up at him, rosy from the sun and the heat and the exertion. He had a sudden and thoroughly shameful urge to take her in his arms and kiss her, husband or no.

“First of all,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, “these people are incredibly paranoid. Do you know how hard it’s been to win their trust, even this much? Any kind of delay, any glitches, and I’m afraid they’ll call the whole thing off. But besides that…aren’t you forgetting something?” She looked at him for a long time, but he waited for her to say it. She did at last, in a voice soft and scratchy as wool. “What happens if we happen to run into those three who were there today? As we surely would. As far as they’re concerned, you are my husband.” Her lips tilted wryly. “And let me tell you, McCall, you look nothing at all like my p-like Ken. How do I account for the fact that I’m now married to somebody completely different?”

McCall didn’t have much of an answer for that, so after a while he said, through a grimace of helplessness and a tightness in his belly, “You’re going to go through with this, aren’t you? On your own?”

She shrugged and turned to walk on. “I don’t know. Maybe. If I have to.”

He caught her arm and held on to it when she would have jerked away. “I can’t let you do that.”

She gave a small, incensed gasp. “You mean you think you can stop me?”

“No,” McCall said with a weary sigh, “I mean I’m going with you.”

He didn’t know what he’d expected her response to be-a little Snoopy-dance, maybe; a small “Yippee,” or at the very least a restrained, “Okay, cool.”

What she did was look at him for a long time without saying a word, a long enough time for him to begin to get good and uncomfortable with what he’d done. Way long enough for him to start to have second-and third-thoughts.

Then she put her palms flat against his chest, stood up on her tippy toes, and kissed him.

On the cheek. Nothing at all like last time-the Hello-Hubby kiss. And the effect it had on him was a whole lot different, too, though both had left him dazed and confused, and aching in places he hadn’t felt much of anything in for a long, long time.

For one thing, he suddenly remembered what that scent of hers was and where he knew it from. Orange blossoms, that’s what it was. It made him think of when he was a kid, and the road between his dad’s garage on the outskirts of Bakersfield, California, and his school in town was still lined with groves instead of subdivisions, and sometimes when the trees were in bloom the air would smell so sweet he’d roll down his window and suck it in with all his might, just trying to drink that air…

That and the kiss-sweet, impulsive, genuine-left him with an ache in his throat and a rough, cranky feeling that was like hearing certain old songs on top of too much tequila.

“Thank you,” she said. Nothing prissy about it this time, just soft and real, and sweet, like the kiss.

“I’ll need to see that envelope,” he said gruffly. “See where it is they want us to go. See if there’s a map, at least.” He held out his hand.

She held on to the envelope, enfolding it in both hands against her chest, eyes going wary again. “You really do mean it? You’ll come with me to the meeting? Pretend to be my husband?”

“I said I would.” McCall waggled his fingers impatiently. “Come on, hand it over-before I change my mind.”

“How do I know you aren’t just trying to get the directions away from me?” she demanded, flushed and breathless again. “To keep me from going?”

He gave an exasperated snort-though in his heart he rather admired her for thinking of that. And wished he’d thought of it first. “Come on,” he growled, “if I’m going to be your husband, don’t you think you should start trusting me?”

Trust you? A beach-bum-slash-artist I don’t know from Adam? Ellie wanted to say it, but didn’t. “We’ll both look at it-together,” she said firmly, then paused, chewing on her lip. “Is there someplace we can go? Not the ship,” she hurriedly added, before he could suggest it. “They know my husband there. They already think I’m a terrible wife for not going to the hospital with him-God knows what they’d think if I showed up with you. No-what about a restaurant? We can have lunch while we’re at it.” She was starving, actually; she’d been too nervous to eat before the meeting. Except for the Hershey’s Kisses, she’d had nothing to eat since breakfast.

McCall glanced at his watch. “Best thing would probably be if we just go to my place.”

“Your place?” Mamas warn their little girls about guys like this. And yet, try as she would, Ellie couldn’t find anything sinister or even suggestive in the invitation. Not the way he’d said it. Just business. She wondered if the funny little twinge she felt could possibly be disappointment.

“What, you still don’t trust me?” He was scowling at her, an impatient, sideways look. “No worries, sister. You’re probably young enough to be my daughter.” She made a small sound of insulted surprise, which he ignored. “Look, I’m going to have to unload the Beetle anyway, if we’re going to be heading south first thing in the morning. Not to mention one or two things I need to take care of. Believe it or not, I do have a life. Hey, look-suit yourself. Stay here, if you want to. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.” And he was heading back up the pier, sandals slapping and shirttail fluttering, muttering grumpily to himself.

“Wait!” Ellie yelled. Her mind was awhirl. Trust him? In spite of his overwhelmingly generous offer, about as far as she could throw him-which was why she was no way in hell about to let him out of her sight. What if he didn’t come back? She’d have no idea how to find him again. Young enough to be your daughter? What is that?

He paused and looked back at her long enough to bark, “What? Are you coming or not?”

“Coming!” she snapped back. Dammit, there was no way she was young enough to be this man’s daughter-and she was furious with him for making her feel as if she was. With that in mind she took a deep breath and fought down her temper. “Excuse me,” she said with what sounded to her like simpering politeness, “but I have to tell the captain I’m leaving the ship. And I’ll need to get my stuff.”

He took a few steps back toward her, warily, as if approaching a possibly dangerous animal. “Why? I told you-we don’t have to leave until tomorrow.” She didn’t say anything, just looked at him. Realization came to him a moment later, and he halted, teeth bared in a sardonic smile. “Ah. I see. You really don’t trust me, do you?” He ambled toward her, still smiling, arms folded across his chest. “Kind of got you on the horns of a dilemma, hasn’t it, sister? Don’t trust me enough to come home with me, but don’t trust me enough to let me out of your sight, either.” He made a brief, tsking sound. “Must be tough, being so suspicious all the time.”

She held her ground as he came closer, though her heartbeat seemed to accelerate with every step he took. When he came to a stop in front of her, folded arms almost brushing her chest, she felt as if she were standing on a moving boat, as if the pier under her feet were rocking with the force of her own pulse. Her eyes were on a level with his beard-stubbled chin. Gray stubble mixed with reddish brown. Hurriedly, she dropped her gaze-and saw dense, sun-bronzed skin, sun-bleached hair nestled in the deep V of a tropical-print shirt. Were there a few gray hairs mixed in? She caught a quick breath. Oh, good grief…

“I’m going to tell you something,” he said in a soft-rough growl that seemed to resonate in her very bones. “And listen carefully, because I’m only gonna say it once. I don’t like to let it get around too much. I do have a reputation to think about. However. In my own way, I am a man of honor. There are certain rules for living that, for completely selfish reasons, I try never to break. You, sister, are a married woman. I make it a point never to mess around with other men’s wives, for the same reason I make it a point never to cheat at cards. Saves me having to watch my back all the time. See, I’m a live-and-let-live kind of guy. No hassles-that’s my motto.

“Oh-and one other thing. I am also a man of my word. I told you I’d go with you to meet these…guys. We shook hands on it. I don’t go back on my handshake.”

Incomprehensibly rattled, Ellie sucked in a breath and retorted, “Yes, well, unfortunately, I have only your word for that.”

She was even more unnerved when he threw back his head and laughed. So unnerved that her gaze jerked upward and collided with his. And-oh, Lord, why did she keep forgetting how blue his eyes were? How clear and clean and…honest? And right now, bright with amusement.

“I guess you’re right about that,” he said, still softly chuckling.

And Ellie, still in thrall of those eyes, heard herself murmur, “I’m sorry.”

“Hey-if you were my daughter, I’d probably be the first one to tell you not to trust me. I think.” He seemed to think about that, then shrugged it off. “So, what’s it gonna be? Coming or staying?”

“Both,” Ellie said firmly, having just at that very moment made up her mind. “Coming with you and staying with you. But I still have to get my stuff.”

“Where you gonna put it? On the roof? My car’s full up, if you remember. And,” he added darkly, “I’m not sacrificing any more paintings for you, lady. At the rate my stock is being depleted, if I hang around with you much longer I’m going to be out of business. We’ll go and unload first, have some lunch and take a look at those directions. Check out a map. Then I’ll bring you back here so you can check out of your floating hotel. How’s that?”

“Fine,” said Ellie meekly. She was wondering what her parents would think of their nice level-headed daughter if they knew she was about to go home with a beach bum she’d only just met.