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Devin gave a vigorous nod of agreement. “If he’s not smart enough to hide the evidence, then he deserves to get caught.”
“What do you think you’ll find?”
“I have no idea.”
“Looks like we’ve got company.” Lexi nodded to the beach in front of their houses.
“Not Lucas.” Despite her bold words, Devin wasn’t anywhere near ready to put her plan into action. She certainly wasn’t ready to face him yet.
After their kiss last night, she’d escaped directly from the library to her room. Then she’d deliberately waited until his sports car pulled out of the driveway this morning before venturing down from the nursery to feed Amelia breakfast. They’d made a clean break. And, if she was lucky, it would last until tomorrow morning.
“It’s Steve,” said Lexi, adjusting the angle of the catamaran so that it pointed directly at the beach.
As they approached the shore, Devin prepared to jump off. She settled Amelia firmly against one hip, then she turned her body, feet dangling just above the water line.
She jumped and hit the sandy bottom. It slipped away beneath her heels, but she maintained her balance, trotting the last few feet alongside the boat.
She grasped the bow line with one hand, holding Amelia fast with the other. She needn’t have worried. Lexi had put the boat expertly up on the beach and quickly jumped off herself.
Steve stood at the water’s edge, and he stepped forward and smoothly relieved Devin of Amelia.
“Looked like fun out there,” he commented. He held Amelia aloft for a minute, grinning at her and babbling nonsense.
The baby smiled back, cooing a few sounds of her own and reaching for his nose. Steve propped her, bulky life jacket and all, against his shoulder, and Devin couldn’t help contrasting his easy manner with the baby against Lucas’s awkwardness.
Lexi stripped off her life jacket and started work on the ropes.
“I thought you might need some help,” Steve explained to Devin.
Devin stripped off her own life jacket then took Amelia from Steve’s arms and unzipped hers. “Help with what?”
“I assumed you were picking up a few more things from the house. For the baby. Maybe for you.”
“How did you know I was here?” It was disconcerting to have him show up out of nowhere.
“He pumped the staff for information,” came Lucas’s unexpected voice.
Devin looked up in surprise to see Lucas striding across the beach, his shoes off, slacks rolled up a few turns and his suit jacket slung over his arm. “He’s been spying on you,” Lucas told Devin.
“What about you?” Steve challenged.
“They’re my staff,” Lucas returned.
“Did you two come together?” asked Devin. She wasn’t crazy about having any of the Demarco family invading her home turf. It wouldn’t be much of a sanctuary if her problems kept following her out here.
“No,” they both answered simultaneously.
“Well, I don’t need help moving,” she said, finishing the exchange with Steve.
Then she turned on Lucas. “And you. There’s no reason for you to be here, either.”
“I wanted to make sure you were coming back.” There was a wealth of awareness in his flat, frank stare. He knew the kiss had disconcerted her. And he’d obviously guessed that’s why she had fled.
Well, he was in for a surprise now. She was over the kiss, and she was going to ignore any lingering attraction she might have for him. From now on, he was the target of her investigation, nothing more.
“Of course I’m coming back,” she told him breezily, switching her attention on Amelia, fixing her little sun cap and smoothing her wispy hair.
Despite her concentration, she could feel Lucas’s gaze. But she assured herself that he didn’t know what was going on inside her head. As far as he was concerned, their kiss had meant nothing.
“You should have told me where you were going.” There was a rebuke in his voice.
“I’m a prisoner now?” she couldn’t help but ask. “You’re under a court order.”
She turned to peer at his expression, an unsettling thought taking hold. Would he somehow use this against her? Had he reported her for taking Amelia out of the Demarco mansion?
She advanced on him, voice going low. “What did you do?”
“Damn it!” Lexi shouted from behind her, and Lucas instantly sprang to action.
Devin whirled to see him drop his suit jacket and race into the lake after the catamaran. The wind had picked up, and the craft had slipped from the sand. The breeze caught the mainsail, and the boat was heading out into the middle of the water.
Lexi was chasing it, too, but Lucas was faster. As the water reached his waist, he dove in, swimming powerfully across the waves, only just managing to grab a stern line and hang on tight.
Lexi was chest deep in the water. Steve was still on shore.
And all three of them held their breath while Lucas made his way, hand over hand, along the rope. He grasped a handle on the pontoon and hauled himself, dripping wet, onto the accelerating boat.
“I can’t believe he caught it,” Lexi breathed. “That was just plain stupid,” she cursed herself, her expression telling Devin she’d been needlessly distracted.
“Must have been a sudden gust,” Devin offered in consolation, shading her eyes to watch as Lucas took control of the catamaran, ducking under the boom while he tacked to turn.
“Does he know how to sail?” Lexi asked Steve.
Steve nodded, but his lips were drawn in a grim line. There was a chill in his brown eyes that Devin hadn’t seen before.
She shifted Amelia and focused on Lucas as he maneuvered in a big arc against the setting sun. Once turned, he lined up, pointing the craft toward them, coming in at a fast clip as he ran the boat back up on the soft sand. Lexi quickly grabbed one of the pontoons. Lucas hopped off and grabbed the other. Together they dragged it a safe distance onto the beach.
Lexi immediately started taking down the sail.
“Thanks,” she called to Lucas while she worked.
Lucas glanced down at his dripping clothes, then over to the jacket that was halfway in the water, its fabric being ground against the sand by the lapping waves.
It occurred to Devin that she probably should have thought to pick it up for him. Whoops.
He paced over to retrieve it. “I cannot keep a suit clean around you people.”
She couldn’t tell if he was angry or joking.
Lexi had offered to lend Lucas a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt left at her house by her oldest son. So, he stood in Devin’s tiny shower rinsing off the lake water and sand, the plastic curtain brushing up against his skin every time he moved, while he struggled to keep his shins from hitting the steep sides of the narrow antique tub. The water temperature was erratic, the pressure pathetic, the taps whistled and a wire soap dish stuck out at a dangerous angle from the worn, tiled wall.
How did Devin put up with this every day of her life?
Rinsed clean, he cranked off the creaky taps and drew back the plastic curtain, scraping it noisily against the curved metal rod as he stepped from the deep tub onto a turquoise mat. The towels were small, with a pink floral pattern and a fringe at either end. He caught a glimpse of himself drying his hair in the steamy mirror, and he couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of roses topping his head.
He supposed a shave was out of the question. It was probably just as well. Given the lilac-scented soap he’d just used to wash, he needed the macho factor provided by a five-o’clock shadow. Fortunately, the sweatpants were black and the T-shirt was steel-gray.
It proved tricky getting dressed in the compact room. He knocked over a bottle of hand lotion with his elbow and banged his head on a low-lying lamp while he struggled into the slightly tight T-shirt. Then, having learned his lesson about waking up Amelia last time he was here, he carefully opened the aging bathroom door and padded silently out into the hall.
The house was quiet, but Devin’s footfalls could be heard outside on the deck. As he rounded the corner into the living room, his nose picked up the scents of charcoal and grilling burgers through the screen of the patio door.
The sun had set while he showered. The lake was black now, except for the light from the few houses along the shoreline. A three-quarter moon hung low in the sky, while plastic patio lanterns glowed red, blue and green where they were strung on a wire around the perimeter of the deck.
Lucas started to smile at the classic backyard scene, but then he spotted Devin and instantly sobered. She stood at the barbecue, spatula in hand, watching the flames sear the burgers in front of her. Her feet were bare, legs long and tanned, and she wore a pair of lemon-yellow shorts paired with a white tank top that showed off her smooth golden shoulders.
She was in profile. Her hair was wispy short, waving softly over her ears and along the nape of her neck. She was delicately beautiful in any setting, and his mind jumped swiftly back to those moments when he’d held her tight in his arms and kissed her luscious lips.
He didn’t know why he’d let it happen. It was reckless and self-indulgent. But from that moment he’d brushed her shoulder in the dining room, kissing her had been all he could think about. Kissing her was still all he could think about.
She turned and spotted him standing there.
“All dry?” she called.
He moved to the screen door before answering, keeping his voice low, assuming Amelia must be asleep. “All dry,” he confirmed.
She looked him up and down. “Who needs a six-thousand-dollar suit, anyway?”
He jokingly spread his arms. “Is it me?”
“It’s you.” She paused. “Surprisingly.”
“Hey, I can hobnob with the common folk.” Not that he could remember having done it recently. In fact, his last hamburger was probably at summer camp when he was in grade school. He was more a rib-eye kind of guy.
“Sure.” She nodded sarcastically. “I bet you hobnob all the time.”
He didn’t answer, and instead slid open the screen door to join her.
“Would you like some wine?” she asked. “Sounds great.”
She pointed with the spatula. “On the counter next to the fridge. Bring me a glass, would you?”
“You got it,” he answered easily, liking this laid-back side of Devin.
In the kitchen, after a few minutes of hunting for a bottle, Lucas realized she’d been referring to the cardboard box with the plastic spigot, sitting there on the kitchen counter. Wine in a box. Now that was a first.
He located a couple of stemmed glasses, then figured out how the spigot worked and filled them up.
He sniffed the bouquet, swirled it to check the legs and finally took an experimental sip of the deep burgundy liquid identified on the box as “Red Wine.” It was a bit sharp, but not horribly objectionable. Probably not a lot of time for the tannins to mellow prior to the boxing process.
He gave a shrug as he lifted both glasses and headed back to the deck. When in Rome.
He set the wineglasses down on Devin’s round table. It had a glass top and was surrounded by four thickly padded chairs.
“Can you grab the condiments?” she asked without turning from the grill.
“Sure.”
“I’m toasting the buns,” she called from behind him. “They were frozen. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” he assured her. “Anything else you need from the kitchen? “
“Not that I can think of.”
Lucas returned to the small kitchen and located mustard, ketchup and relish in the refrigerator.
He balanced them in his hands and ambled back to the deck once more, finding Devin setting toasted buns and burger patties on plastic plates on the round table.
“We’ll need a knife,” she told him.
He shot her a look of impatience. Had he not just asked if there was anything else?
“What?” she challenged.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“How did you expect to spread it on your bun? Oh, and grab the mayo, will you? “
He gave his head a shake.
“What’s the matter, Lucas. You miss the serving staff?”
He kind of did. But he wasn’t about to answer that. So instead, he retrieved a couple of knives and a jar of mayonnaise.
When he got back, Devin was folding her body into one of the padded chairs.
The wind had died down, leaving the air crystal clear above the water, accenting the view across the darkened lake.
“Thanks,” she told him briskly, snagging one of the knives and starting to prepare her bun.
Lucas checked out the array of condiments and decided… what the heck? He loaded up his bun, adding a slice of cheese to boot.
The burger patty itself looked a little crisp on the outside, blackened in spots and shriveled rather small in comparison to the bun.
Devin took a big bite. “Mmm,” she murmured in appreciation. “I’m starving.”
“Busy day?” he asked. He’d followed Steve’s LoJack beacon out here the minute he’d realized where the man was going. He had no intention of giving him time alone with Devin to indoctrinate her into the Steve Foster view of Pacific Robotics.
“Long time since lunch,” she responded.
