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He had to get rid of her. For Lucie’s sake, if not his own.
Trae sat on the other side of the skiff, also thinking about Lucie and how she was going to help her. That Rhys would do his best to stop her efforts, she didn’t doubt for a second. Look at how he’d tried to sail off without her.
Not that she hadn’t anticipated it. Figuring she had maybe five minutes while he moored the yacht, she’d grabbed the first clothes she could find. An unfortunate choice, it turned out, since she could scarcely breathe in Lucie’s short shorts and T-shirt. There had been no time to change into something else, though, not if she hoped to get to the skiff first. Yet despite her rush, Rhys had still managed to get there before her.
Eyeing his house as they approached the shoreline, she felt her first misgivings. Rising up from the beach, the vast white colonial sprawled along the grassy knoll like a sleeping giant. A collection of structures in assorted pastels—each topped with a red–tiled roof—formed a maze around the main dwelling. So much for the simple vacation cottage she’d pictured. “Wow,” she thought aloud. “It sure is…big.”
“Some structures house the staff, but most are sheds and outbuildings.”
Awed by the vastness of the place, Trae saw how it gave him a distinct advantage. It being his house and all, he’d know exactly where to find Lucie.
While Trae hadn’t the slightest clue.
Hazarding a guess, she decided to try the main building. To reach the wraparound porch ahead of him, though, she’d have to take off running the instant they reached the dock. With any luck she should have a step or two while Rhys had to stop and tie off the skiff.
Poised and ready to leap onto the dock, she was caught completely off guard when Rhys sped past the dock to run the boat up onto the beach. Yanking up the motor in a swift fluid motion, he leaped into the water and took off running.
“You just wrecked your five-hundred-dollar shoes,” she called out as she scrambled after him.
Not that he seemed to care. With all his money, he probably had another hundred pairs waiting upstairs in a closet.
Watching Rhys reach the porch steps, she said goodbye to her last hope of outracing him to her friend. All she could do now was stand outside and yell. “Lucie,” she shouted at the house, hoping her friend would hear her. “Lucie, come outside. We need to talk.”
As if in answer, the door burst open, but it wasn’t Lucie who collided with Rhys. A short, dark, middle-aged woman pulled up short, her alert gaze flashing between them. His housekeeper, Trae assumed, because of the black dress and white apron.
“I heard shouting,” the woman said, looking from one to the other of them. “Is something the matter, Mr. Paxton?”
“No.” His curt, clipped denial clearly surprised him as much as his housekeeper. “Everything’s fine, Rosa. I’m just looking for Miss Beckwith. Is she upstairs?”
“She’s not here, Mr. Paxton,” Rosa said, a frown creasing her weathered features. “Didn’t she call you? She left late last night.”
Rhys turned back to glare at Trae, as if somehow this, too, was her fault. Reining in his temper, he addressed his housekeeper again. “Did she say where she was going?”
Rosa shook her head. “All I know is she told my boy Raymond to take her to Miami in that old fishing boat of his.”
“That’s it? She said nothing else?”
Rosa shook her graying head. “Only that she was sorry. And that she left her wedding dress upstairs. She hoped you’d send it back to her mother.”
Watching his shoulders sag, Trae might have felt sympathy had she not been struggling with her own disappointment. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been counting on finding Lucie here, safe and sound.
Inhaling deeply, she approached the porch. “This changes things considerably,” she told Rhys. “We can’t waste time here. We need to hurry back to Miami and see if we can find her at the docks.”
“You’re right, of course,” he said, running a harried hand through his hair. “Only, just so we’re clear, there’s no ‘we’ about this. I’m returning to Miami alone.” Straightening, he started off for the skiff.
She grabbed his arm. “Whoa, wait a minute. You can’t just leave me here.”
“And why not? I’m under no obligation to transport a stowaway. Besides, you don’t have a passport. You can’t expect me to take the chance that I’ll be stopped by the harbor patrol.”
“That’s low, Paxton. Even for you.”
Shrugging, he removed her hand from his arm. “I’ve no doubt you’ll manage to scheme your way off the island before too long. In the meantime, Rosa will make sure you have food and a place to sleep.”
Watching him walk off, Trae felt the heat rise up in her body. “What happened to working together? I thought we had a truce.”
“Actually,” he said over his shoulder, “if you’ll remember, I never agreed to anything.”
Thinking back, she realized he’d changed the subject by asking her to help drop the anchor. “Why, you…”
“Goodbye, Trae.” He kept going, his long, steady strides getting him into the skiff well before she could reach the shore. Watching him motor off, she wanted to scream. She wanted to stomp and shake her fist in the air, but none of these things would help her one iota. “I thought you were a gentleman,” she called out, anyway. “You didn’t even leave me a change of clothing.”
“Here.” In answer, he tossed Lucie’s suitcase in the water. “Only this time, try to find something that fits.”
She could have told him that she was well aware of how ridiculous her outfit was. She could also flip him the gesture her brothers seemed so fond of, but knew she had better retrieve the suitcase before it sank.
“That man is the devil incarnate,” she muttered under her breath as she dragged the bags to the porch.
“Oh, no, ma’am.” Coming up behind her to take the suitcase, Rosa gently shook her head. “Here on the island, we consider Mr. Paxton a saint.”
Inviting Trae inside while she made coffee, Rosa continued extolling the man’s virtues. Her family would be homeless, she claimed, had Mr. Paxton not helped them after last year’s hurricane. Not only had he provided them with cash, he’d come down there and helped rebuild their homes with his own bare hands.
Trae let her go on for a while because Rosa seemed sweet and it was only natural she’d feel compelled to defend her employer. Besides, Trae needed that second cup of coffee.
However, after fifteen minutes of listening to the woman drone on, not even the lure of caffeine could keep Trae in her chair. Actions spoke louder than words, after all, and that so-called saint had just stranded her on this island. Asking to use the phone, Trae decided it was high time she made her own plans to go after Lucie.
Upstairs, gazing at the huge four-poster bed, Trae realized she should have had the third cup of coffee, after all. Refusing to give in to the temptation to lie down, she made her calls.
Her first was to Quinn, who proved sympathetic after hearing about the night’s events. Technically, a passport was required to get off the island, she said, but fishing boats made the trip from the Bahamas to the States every day. Her advice was to try to charter one and, if worse came to worst, to call her immediately. She had a connection in customs who owed her a favor.
Hanging up, wishing for the hundredth time that she still had her cell phone, Trae decided to check to see if Lucie had tried to call her.
She had four messages. The first had come in late last night—Quinn, demanding to know what was happening. Next was Alana, wishing her luck. Then her mother, reminding her not to miss next Sunday’s family dinner. Rolling her eyes, she wondered how she could ever forget when the woman called twice each week with the same reminder.
On the fourth, she heard Lucie’s soft, breathy voice. Clutching the phone as she tried to decipher the garbled message, Trae felt the first, faint stirring of hope. Surely it was a good thing that Lucie wasn’t heading back to Rhys with her tail between her legs. That she was setting off on her own, determined to find a man she could madly, deliriously, head-over-heels love. The fact that said man wasn’t Rhys, that Lucie was still running away from him, reinforced Trae’s decision to help her.
When she replayed the message, though, her euphoria faded. What did Lucie mean, going back to where she had taken her first wrong turn? When had her life seemed less complicated?
And then with a sudden, sinking feeling, Trae knew Lucie was referring to her college days. And more specifically, to Bobby Boudreaux.
The ultimate bad boy, with his blond, surfer looks and slow, sexy drawl, Bobby was a far cry from the staid and proper Rhys Paxton. To a parent, Bobby might represent the ultimate nightmare, but for a young, sheltered coed like Lucie Beckwith, he’d been walking, talking excitement. For all Trae knew, Lucie might have stayed with him forever, if not for their brief stint in the Mexican jail.
Rhys had meant to leave Bobby there, Trae later learned. It wasn’t until Lucie had promised never to see him again that Rhys secured his release. Lucie had kept their agreement, insisting Rhys knew what was best for her, but she’d never stopped regretting it. She’d been asking herself what if? ever since.
Faced with the prospect of Lucie’s hooking up with Bobby Boudreaux again, Trae raced down the stairs two at a time. She had to get off this island immediately. Alone, vulnerable and naturally impetuous, her poor friend could land herself in a real fix this time.
Trae had to find Lucie before it was too late.
Chapter Three
Rhys glanced at his watch, then up at the gate sign, as if the departure time would miraculously change. Flight Delayed, it continued to flash, the same as the last hundred times he’d checked it. Apparently, they had gate hold at JFK again. Thunderstorms, the scourge of summer travel.
He counted slowly to ten, trying to control his frustration. This, after wasting two-and-a-half days in Miami searching—no, combing—the area near the docks and finding no sign of Lucie. Nor was she registered at any hotel, staying with friends, or, to his relief, making an unscheduled stop at any local hospital. She might as well have vanished off the face of the earth.
As his brother pointed out, Rhys was accomplishing nothing in Miami. He might as well return home to take care of business. Lucie was bound to run out of cash sooner or later, and she’d eventually call for help. Just like she always did.
Jack had carefully omitted all mention of the looming crisis at their Dallas subsidiary, another encouragement to race home. Rhys might have panicked, but, having had the foresight to ship his laptop to Miami, he was able to detect and correct the problem quickly by remote. He’d been working on his laptop while waiting for his flight, but due to his recent lack of sleep, his eyes were now dry and scratchy. Rubbing them briskly, he nearly missed the blur of dark-red hair dashing past.
He blinked hard, certain his weary eyes had to be deceiving him.
But no, it was Trae. Her hips were now adequately covered by a snug pair of black jeans, with a sedate green silk blouse draping her upper torso. She nonetheless managed to exude a sultry sexiness as she raced to the gate across the way.
Sitting up straight, Rhys checked the board for her destination. New Orleans. Departing at ten-fifty-five. Alert now, he watched Trae thrust a boarding pass at the waiting attendant, who ushered her into the tunnel before promptly shutting the door behind her.
Determined not to let her get the advantage, he jumped up and raced to the counter. Too late to get on that flight, but he meant to be on the next plane to New Orleans.
“Bobby? Nah, he ain’t here.”
Stifling a groan, Trae stared at Bobby’s cousin, Beau Boudreaux. From his greasy brown hair and unshaven face, to the questionable stains on his jeans and gray sleeveless sweatshirt, he could be the poster child for Skid Row International. At two in the morning, she found it no easy task to decipher his soft, slurred speech from six feet away—the minimum distance required to prevent his pawing her. “Okay,” she tried again. “Are you expecting him back any time soon?”
Swaying slightly, Beau stared blankly, as if her words couldn’t quite penetrate his fog. “Who?”
“Bobby. Remember, I asked if I could see him?”
“Yeah. Yeah, right. Nah, you can’t.”
“What do you mean, I can’t?”
“I mean he ain’t here. And he ain’t coming home for a while. Went off to Hollywood. Back in May. No, April. May. Yeah, May.” He scratched his head, obviously continuing to debate, in his thoughts, the actual month of Bobby’s departure.
“Bobby’s in California?”
“Yeah, making movies.” He grinned, blatantly happy to move on to a new topic. “Ain’t that a hoot and a half? With his looks and all, most folk hereabouts always thought he’d be starring in pictures one day. Nobody guessed he’d be making them instead.”
He leaned forward, as if to impart an important secret. Trae instinctively took a step backward.
“Film production, that’s his thing now. My little cousin has himself a backer, some guy with more money than he knows what to do with, willing to bank money on his genius. Out there on the coast, that’s where y’all find Bobby. Living the good life, mooching off some rich dude up in Beverly Hills.”
“I don’t suppose you have an address?”
“Matter of fact, I sure do.” Reaching behind his apartment door, Beau grinned as he pulled a ragged piece of paper from a drawer. “Wrote it down to give to Aunt Livie. Says she wants to mail Bobby a birthday present, but ’tween you and me, I’m betting she’s out to snoop. You know Aunt Livie.”
Trae didn’t, but saw no reason to prolong their conversation. Snatching the paper from Beau’s none-too-steady hand, she stuffed it in her pocket. “I don’t suppose he took anyone with him?” she asked, to distract him from noticing that she’d taken his paper.
Beau shook his head, the grin sliding into a leer. “Plenty of chicks wanted to go, though. Especially that blond that came looking for him a day or so back. Pretty little thing. Man, wouldn’t I love to get a…”
“You said blond?”
With visible effort, Beau did his best to focus. “You… her…hey, y’all used to hang around with Bobby years ago. I remember you.”
His leer deepened. Trae edged back another few steps.
“Hey, where ya going? Got a six-pack I’m willing to share. We can, uh, hash over old times.”
“It’s been a blast seeing you again, Beau, but I’ve got to run. Places to go, people to see. Flight to catch.” This last was uttered over her shoulder as she hurried down the street. Behind her, she could hear Beau calling, first pleading then turning increasingly nasty as she rounded the corner and ducked out of sight.
Did he honestly think she’d step one foot inside that dive he and Bobby called an apartment? Hadn’t her quest to find Lucie already been enough of an ordeal?
It had taken her over two days to get here from Rhys’s estate. She’d been forced to wait for Rosa’s grandson, Raymond, to return with his boat. Convincing him to turn around and go back to Florida had taken considerable patience and tact, not to mention a serious depletion of her funds. And then, once she got to Miami, she’d spent the rest of the time in bureaucratic hell while Quinn and her government contact straightened out the mess of her missing passport.
And now she had to grab a flight to California.
Hailing a cab, Trae fought off a growing uneasiness. Her funds—even with Quinn and Alana’s supplement—were rapidly dwindling. She eyed the backpack she’d stuffed with Lucie’s loosest clothes and necessary toiletries, and the three hundred dollars she’d found jammed in a pocket. She’d brought it along, figuring her friend would need the cash, but unless she found Lucie soon, Trae might have to use the money herself.
It would be a loan, used only in an emergency, but it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared. Bad enough to imagine Lucie in New Orleans, a place they knew from their days at Tulane, but the prospect of her friend wandering around the streets of Hollywood was even worse.
And what about once she did find Lucie? Back when she’d started this search, Trae hadn’t thought past the moment they would connect. How there would be two mouths to feed, two bodies needing shelter, two fares for the long journey home…
Then again, Rhys had been in the picture, she realized as the taxi sped to the airport. Rhys, who always took care of everything.
Entering the airport and walking to the gate, she found herself thinking about him, wondering where he was, what he was doing. Probably still spinning his wheels back in Miami, she thought with a grin. His stubbornness would never allow him to admit defeat. She wondered if he’d figured out yet what a mistake it had been to leave her behind, to underestimate her abilities. He would eventually, when she was the first to reach Lucie.
See how you like it then, Paxton, she thought. Not fun, is it, being left in the dust?
Watching her from the other side of the concourse, Rhys felt anything but dusty. On the contrary, he felt at the top of his game. All things considered, he could be pleased with his progress. Okay, maybe it had been sheer luck, spotting Trae on Bourbon Street last night, but the difference between success and failure lay in how a man played out his hand. With skill and decisiveness, he’d tailed her. Undetected, he might add, to the dingy apartment on Esplanade that somehow seemed familiar.
Granted, he’d heard little while she’d grilled the drunk at the door, but he’d been in the perfect position to overhear her instructions to the cab driver when she left. From there, it had been a snap to follow her to the airport, where he’d found her flopped in a seat, waiting on standby for a flight to Los Angeles.
Which still wouldn’t take off for at least another hour. A full hour in which he could be working, he thought in frustration. Hoping to maintain a low profile, knowing even a carry-on would slow him down, he’d opted to check his laptop with his luggage. All he had left was his BlackBerry. And the Times Picayune, which he held up to shield his face.
Peering over the top of the newspaper, he had to marvel at Trae’s stamina. Most women he knew would have given up long ago, or gotten someone else to do the job for them. But there Trae sat, in her tired green blouse and rumpled black jeans, her posture betraying her exhaustion as she continued to gut it out.
He was suddenly reminded of Mexico, when he’d escorted Lucie and her friends back to college. Refusing to be anywhere near him, Trae had sat across the concourse then, too. She’d claimed she didn’t want any more lectures, but he suspected it had had more to do with her pride. She’d hated that she couldn’t afford to pay the fine, that she had to rely on Rhys instead—as evidenced by the check he received five months later. Certainly Lucie had never repaid him, or that bum of a boyfriend, either.
And all at once, Rhys remembered how he knew the Esplanade address, having paid a small fortune to get Boudreaux out of jail.
Sitting up straight, he began to put it together. This changed everything. Clearly, Trae knew Lucie’s whereabouts.
The question was, what to do next?
It wasn’t as if he could become her stowaway. Most likely, he couldn’t even follow Trae. With all the freeways branching out from LAX, all she had to do was hop in a cab. And there would go his only link to Lucie.
Not good.
Rhys resettled himself in the chair, thinking hard. Managing his father’s company had taught him that the key to success often lay in an ability to recognize change, to adapt to it. When you hit a snag, sometimes you had to forge new partnerships. Not permanent ones, necessarily. Make it a brief alliance, make it last only long enough to get what you wanted. And what he wanted—no, needed—was to find Lucie and make sure she was okay.
Eyeing her over the paper, he decided that he and Trae would have a little chat.
Hours later, Trae shifted in her aisle seat, stirred from the strangest dream. She’d been in the jungle, with a bare-chested Rhys Paxton carrying her over a wide, swollen stream. It had been hot, August-in-Miami hot, a nd not just from the humidity. A considerable amount of the heat had been generated between them.
