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The lights were actually bug repellents. There was no escaping the fact that when you had foliage like this, you had bugs. But the glow they gave everything, especially Alex, was almost hypnotic.
David turned to Jay. “Sure you haven’t heard about anything?” he asked him.
“Me?” Galway laughed. “Hell, I’m a hanger-on. The big excitement in my life is when I get a taste of something because of the big-timers—like you.”
“Well, I’m looking at the moment,” David told him. “So, if you do get wind of anything, anything at all, I’d like to know.”
“You’d be the first one I’d go to,” Jay assured him solemnly.
“Interesting that you’d say so—with Seth Granger here and ready to pay.” And in the Tiki Hut at that moment, David realized. Granger was a big man and in excellent shape for his sixty-odd years. He was speaking with Ally Conroy, mother of Zach, at the bar. She was at least twenty years his junior, but he’d gathered from their bits of conversation before the swim that she was a widow, worried about rearing her son alone. Seth wasn’t all that well-liked by many people, yet Ally seemed to be giving him the admiration he craved. Maybe they were a perfect fit.
“Seth…well, you know. He’s always looking for something to bug his way into. Hell, why not? He’s rich, and he loves the sea, and he’d like to make a name for himself in his retirement years. Don’t you love it? Tons of money, no real knowledge, yet he wants to be right in the thick of things. Executive turned explorer.”
“Why not?” David said with a shrug. “Most expeditions need financial backing.”
“Yeah, why not? It’s what I’d love to do myself. I’ve got a great job here, mind you—but I sure wish I had his resources. Or your reputation. Every major corporation out there with a water-related product to sell is willing to finance you—even on a total wild-goose chase.”
“You know me—game for anything that has to do with the water,” David murmured absently.
Alex was leaning very close to John Seymore now. In a moment she’d be spilling out of her dress.
“Excuse me,” he said to Jay, rising, then went up to the couple on the floor. Alex wouldn’t be happy, but if John Seymore was really such an all-right kind of guy—or even pretending to be one—he would show him the courtesy of allowing him to cut in.
A tap on Seymore’s shoulder assured him that he had correctly assessed the situation. The other man, his eyes full of confident good humor, stepped back.
Alex gave David a look of sheer venom. But she wasn’t going to cause a scene in the Tiki Hut. She slipped into his arms.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“Dancing.”
“You know I don’t want to dance with you.”
He ignored her and said, “I guess you haven’t had a chance to talk with Seymore yet.”
“John and I have done lots of talking.”
“Well, I happened to mention to him one of the reasons I’m here.”
“And it has something to do with me?”
“Definitely.”
She arched a delicate eyebrow. “I guess you’re going to tell me—whether I want to know or not.”
“We’re not divorced.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said sharply. “I filed papers, you signed them.”
“I don’t quite get it myself, but apparently there was some little legal flaw. I must not have signed on all the dotted lines. The documents were never properly filed, and therefore the decision was declared null and void. I know what a busy woman you are, but I need to ask you when would be a good time to get together with my lawyer and rectify the situation.”
She wasn’t even pretending to dance anymore. She just stood on the floor, staring at him. His arms were still around her, tendrils of silky soft, newly washed blond hair slipping over his hands, teasing in their sensuality. He knew he needed to move away, but he didn’t.
“That’s impossible!” she exclaimed.
“Sorry.”
She stared at him, still amazed. “I don’t…I…can’t…”
“Look, Alex, I know how eager you are to be completely rid of me. I’m sorry. But as of this moment, we are still married.”
He wondered if lightning would come out of the sky to strike him dead.
It didn’t.
God must have understood his situation.
“It’s…it’s impossible,” she repeated.
He shrugged, as if in complete understanding of her dismay. “I’m sorry.”
Something hardened in the depths of her ever-changing, sea-green eyes. “I’ll make time to see your attorney.”
“Great. We’ll set it up. Well, lover boy is waiting, so I’ll let you go in a sec. But first I need you to listen to me. Alex, I’m begging you, listen to me. You’ve got to be careful.”
She pulled back, searching his eyes, then shaking her head. “David, I understand why you’re here, and frankly, I’m surprised you took the time to actually ask me what would be convenient for me. But I don’t quite get this sudden interest. Where’s Bebe whats-her-name? Or the thin-but-oh-so-stacked Alicia Farr, the Harvard scholar?”
Her question sent an eerie chill up his spine. I think she’s your disappearing body.
“Alex, I’m afraid you’re in danger.” His words, he realized, sounded stiff and cold.
She shook her head. “No one else believes I discovered a corpse. Why should you?”
He hesitated for a minute. “I know you,” he told her. “You’re not a fool. You would have looked closely enough to know.”
“Well, thanks for the compliment. I wish Nigel Thompson felt that way. I couldn’t get through to him that though it’s improbable that a body was really there and somehow moved, it’s not impossible. So if you’ll let me off the dance floor…?”
He released her. But as she started to step past him, he caught her arm. She looked up, and for a moment, her eyes were vulnerable. Her scent seemed to wrap around him, caress him.
“Don’t trust anyone,” he said.
“I certainly don’t trust you.”
He pulled her back around to face him. “You know what? I’ve about had it with this.”
“Oh, you have, have you?”
“I got a long lecture. You can have one, too. You read a lot into a number of situations that just wasn’t there. You never had the right not to trust me. It was just that, to you, the minute a phone or a radio didn’t work, I had to be doing something. With someone. And you know what, Alex? That kind of thing gets really old, really quick.”
“Sorry, but it’s over anyway, isn’t it? You received the divorce papers and said, ‘Hey, go right ahead.’You were probably thankful you didn’t have to deal with any annoying baggage anymore. And now you’re suddenly going to be my champion, defending me from a danger that doesn’t exist?”
“Alex, you know me. You know what kind of man I am. Hell, hate me ‘til the sun falls from the sky, but trust me right now.”
“There are dozens of people here. I don’t think I’m in any danger in the middle of the Tiki Hut. And trust you?” She sounded angry, then a slow smile curved her lips.
“What?”
“I just find it rather amusing that you’re suddenly so determined to enjoy my company. There were so many times when…well, never mind.”
He stared at her blankly for a moment. “What are you talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.”
“Actually, it’s not,” he said. Again he waited for lightning to strike. Not that it should. He was doing this out of a very real fear for her life.
She waved a hand in the air. “All over but the shouting,” she murmured.
“Maybe that’s what we were lacking—the shouting.”
“Great. We should have had a few more fights?”
It was strange, he thought, but this was almost a conversation, a real one.
And then John Seymore chose that exact moment to return, tapping him on the shoulder. “Since you’re on the dance floor and not actually dancing…?”
“And it’s a salsa,” Alex put in.
“Salsa?” John murmured. “I’m not sure I know what I’m doing, but—”
“I do,” David said quickly, grinning, and catching Alex in his arms once again. “I’ll bring her back for the next number.”
“Since when do you salsa?” Alex demanded as they began to move.
“Since a friend married a dance instructor,” he told her.
She seemed startled, but he really did know what he was doing. He’d never imagined the dance instruction he’d so recently received from a friend’s wife would pay off so quickly. Alex was good, too. She’d probably honed her skills working here, being pleasant to the guests in the Tiki Hut at night.
After a minute, though, he wasn’t quite sure what he had gained. They looked good together on the floor, and he knew it. But the music was fast, so conversation was impossible. At the end of the song he managed to lead her into a perfect dip, so at least he was rewarded by the amazement in her eyes as they met his.
In fact, she stayed in his arms for several extra seconds, staring up at him before realizing that the music had ended and the gathering in the Tiki Hut was applauding them.
He grinned slowly as she straightened, then pushed against his chest. “The dance is over,” she said firmly, then walked quickly away.
“You really are a man of many talents.”
Turning, he saw Alex’s assistant, the pretty young blonde. She was leaning against the edge of the rustic wood bar.
“Thanks.”
“Do you cha-cha?” she asked, smiling.
“Yes, I do,” he said.
“Well, will you ask me? Or are you making me ask you?”
“Laurie, I would love to dance with you,” he said gallantly.
As they moved, she asked him frankly, “Why on earth did you two ever split up?”
“Actually, I don’t really know,” he told her.
“I bet I do,” she told him. “You must be pretty high maintenance.”
“High maintenance? I’m great at taking care of myself. I may not be a gourmet, but I can cook. I know every button on a washing machine. I usually even remember to put down the toilet seat.”
She laughed. “Well, there you go.”
“Excuse me? How is that high maintenance?”
“You don’t need anybody,” she said. “So it’s high maintenance for someone to figure out what they can do for you.”
She wasn’t making any sense, but she was sincere, and she made him smile.
Then the music came to an end, and he regretted that he had been so determined on proving his mettle with Alex, because he found himself being asked to dance by almost every woman in the Tiki Hut.
And somewhere, in the middle of a mambo, he realized that Alex had slipped away—and so had John Seymore.
Somehow, just when things had begun looking a little brighter, David had walked back into her life, and now he was ruining everything.
John’s arm sat casually around her shoulders as they strolled toward her cottage. “Hate to admit it,” he said casually, “but you two looked great out there. Did you spend a lot of time out dancing while you were married?”
“No. We didn’t spend much time together doing anything—other than diving for treasure or facing great whites or experiencing some other thrill.”
“Strange,” he said.
“What?”
“The way you sound. You love the sea so much, too.”
“Actually? I’m not into sharks. I was terrified every time I went into the water with them, but with the crew of hard-core fanatics that always seemed to be around, I didn’t want to look like a coward. I love the sea, yes. But I’m into warm-blooded, friendly creatures, myself.”
“You really love your dolphins, huh?”
She shrugged, liking the way his arm felt around her, but feeling a sense of discomfort, as well.
David. Telling her that they were still married. But they weren’t; they hadn’t been for a year. Not in any way that mattered. All he was talking about was legality. His words shouldn’t mean a thing.
Except that…
