Lethal Affair

“What do you call him, Brenna, if not a watchdog? Guy seems real interested in us. He belong to you?”

“That’s Julio, and all he’s doing is passing the time waiting for me. He works for Marcus, who asked him to drive me around the island so I could paint the scenes he wants when his resort is finished. He’s not a watchdog.”

Brenna’s attention had been fixed on Julio and the car. When she turned back to face Casey, she found him standing close to her. So close she could feel the heat of his hard body.

She lifted her chin, meaning to ask him to back off. Mistake. He was looking down at her, his probing eyes meeting her own gaze with such intensity that she caught her breath.

Green eyes. He had green eyes capable of registering a range of moods—humor, softness and, when they narrowed, a kind of tough, cold anger that could be dangerous. Could make a woman shiver. She had always been able to read those moods. But that had been then. Now she wasn’t at all sure.

And something else. Casey’s right eyelid drooped a little. A sexy, bedroom kind of thing that never failed to fascinate women.

Managing to breathe again, she asked him curtly, “What?”

He didn’t answer her. He simply kept staring.

“Casey, go away, will you? This commission is much too important to me to risk you screwing it up by your hanging around me like this.”

He didn’t move.

Voice shaky now, his presence unnerving her, she pleaded softly, “Please, just leave.”

To her relief, he backed away from her silently. Only when he was a safe distance away did he speak.

“If you should get into any trouble, Brenna, and need me, I’ll be here for you.”

How was she supposed to reply to that? She didn’t know, not with that sober tone in his voice, the equally sober look now on his face. He waited for a few seconds, but when she had no response for him, he turned and started to walk away.

Brenna found herself seized by a sudden, unexpected guilt. The same guilt she had suffered two years ago. Until now, she’d been able to convince herself she’d overcome that guilt, successfully put it behind her. Apparently not.

She couldn’t prevent herself from calling after him. “Casey, wait.”

He turned back, his dark eyebrows raised questioningly.

Even though she had expressed it at the time, she felt the need to tell him again. “I—I’m sorry I hurt you when I broke our engagement,” she told him quietly. “But I hurt, too, Casey. I hurt, too.”

“I know,” he said, his voice deep, husky.

And that was all. His hand lifting in parting, he turned again and moved back up the beach the way he had come. He left her with the forlorn, unwanted memories of what they had once shared. The love he had lavished on her both physically and emotionally, and what it had cost her to sacrifice them.

She went on gazing after his striking figure, damning him for reawakening all those potent feelings. Angry with herself, too, for her weakness, for still finding herself attracted to him.

Enough of this.

Facing her easel again, she considered the painting on it. It seemed to look back at her, demanding her renewed attention. Brenna complied, picking up a brush and her palette, prepared to attack the canvas. This time with a fierceness determined to shut out the image of Casey McBride.

* * *

The sprawling villa, Moorish in style, was perched on an elevated point of land overlooking the sea on one side. Stretched below on the other side were the winking lights of Georgetown, St. Sebastian’s capital and only city.

Brenna thought how different the setting here was by day. The stuccoed white walls of the villa glared with pride in the tropic sun. But now, at night, those same walls, with their arches and plastered domes, were subdued into something that resembled a soft, shadowy gray.

She was looking at the lamplit boats bobbing in the harbor that fronted Georgetown when Marcus spoke to her.

“How was your day?” he asked her in that gentle voice that had what she felt was a hypnotic quality to it. “Pleasant, I hope.”

They were having a late dinner on the open terrace. The perfect meal consisted, among other dishes, of pepper pot soup, an island favorite, and freshly caught, baked grouper.

“It was,” she said, meeting his gaze across the candles that glowed in their hurricane globes on the table.

His hair gleamed in that same light. Pure silver hair, without a touch of any other color in it, framed his patrician face. Brenna supposed most people would describe that face as distinguished. It certainly reflected the breeding of an impressive ancestry. And even in his late fifties as he was, with some noticeable lines, Marcus Bradley could be called handsome.

His blue eyes, however, had the clarity of a much younger man’s. Observant eyes that, at the moment, were watching her with a sharpness that made her slightly uncomfortable. Made her turn the direction of the conversation to a subject that would distract him from what she was beginning to suspect was an interest in her that was more personal than just her art.

“So how was your day?” she inquired brightly. “You were going to spend it at the resort’s building site, weren’t you?”

“I was and did. It’s coming along, although like most large building projects, it has its problems.”

“Oh? What are they?”

“Nothing that you’d find particularly interesting, I’m afraid.”

She knew how invested he was in his resort, both financially and emotionally, and she wanted to keep him discussing it now. “I’d love to see the place, Marcus.”

“I’ll have to take you there sometime, but right now it’s in a pretty rough state for any touring. Let’s get back to your own day. How is the painting coming?”

Her effort had failed. “I think you’ll like the scene I’m working on when it’s finished. It’s still in a rough state, too. Traditional, of course, but that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“Yes. A seascape, I believe?”

“Basically. On location from one of the beaches.”

“I see.”

The blue eyes continued to search her as she briefly described the scene for him. This was growing awkward. She had the distinct feeling he knew she was withholding something from him, and that he also knew what that something was.

Marcus nodded slowly when she was finished. Then, stabbing a forkful of fish, he said smoothly, casually, “I hear you had a visitor on the beach.”

Casey. He’d learned about Casey. There could only be one source of information for that. Julio had reported it to him. Brenna had insisted the driver was not a watchdog when Casey implied he was just that. But now she wasn’t so certain that Julio’s employer hadn’t planted him to specifically spy on her.

“Just a tourist wandering by and stopping to look at what I was painting,” she said with what she hoped was a believable, innocent explanation. “I’m used to it. It’s a common occurrence when artists are painting on location.”

Brenna regretted the necessity of her lie, but she was afraid that Marcus wouldn’t appreciate learning the FBI agent she’d once been engaged to had turned up on the island. To her relief, he seemed to accept her explanation.

Placing his fork on his plate, he leaned toward her. “You mustn’t mind your driver looking out for you,” he said mildly. “I’m afraid there’s no shortage of crime on islands like St. Sebastian where there’s so much poverty.”

“I understand.” She found another, safer topic. “If you keep on feeding me like this, Marcus, I’m not going to fit into any of my clothes when I get back to Chicago.”

“Gilda is a marvelous cook,” he conceded.

Gilda, she knew, was his housekeeper here, as well as Julio’s wife.

“Are you ready for coffee yet?”

“If you don’t mind,” Brenna told her host after dinner, “I’m going to call it an early night.”

“Not a bad idea. I’m ready to turn in myself. We’ve both had a long day.”

“I’ll leave you here then,” she said, rising from the table.

“Why don’t I walk you back to the guesthouse before you leave?”

“That isn’t necessary, Marcus.”

“I insist,” he said, rounding the table to join her.

The guesthouse was behind the villa and the paved walkway to it was well lit. There was no reason for him to escort her. Brenna felt like she was being guarded, maybe a bit too closely, and she didn’t like the idea. But she didn’t feel she could afford to object, either to his company on the walk or his good-night kiss on her cheek when he left her at her door.

He’s paying you a lot of money for those paintings. What are you going to do? Risk offending him?

There was more to it than that, she reminded herself after letting herself into her quarters. How could she forget all he’d done for her back in Chicago? Not only buying two of her pictures when they met at the art gallery that held her first showing but broadcasting her talent to his wealthy friends, making possible the success she was now enjoying.

A lot to be grateful for.

Except Marcus Bradley wasn’t the first individual to admire her work. Casey was responsible for that.

Much as she might have wanted to, Brenna was unable to prevent herself from remembering their first meeting as she went around turning on the lights in the elegantly furnished suite she was occupying.

She’d been working in an art supply store at the time. Casey had strolled into the place to buy a set of paints and brushes for his nephew’s birthday. That first sight of him—hard body, tousled, dark brown hair—had been like experiencing heat lightning.

The store had permitted her to display a few of her paintings. She was wrapping Casey’s purchase when he called out, “Hey, who did this?”

She looked up to find him, thumbs hooked into the pockets of his jeans, gazing at her painting of the Chicago skyline with storm clouds gathering behind it.

“I did,” she answered.

“And these others?”

“I’m guilty of those, too.”

“They’re good. Damn good.”

His compliment had lit a warm glow inside her. As compelling as the man himself. And that’s how it had begun for them. With that stormy painting.

Speaking of which—

She crossed the sitting room to check on today’s painting where it rested on the easel in the corner, making sure it was drying properly.

She was getting ready for bed when her cell phone chimed, startling her. Who on earth—

It needed only the few seconds she took to pluck the phone out of her bag to guess who it was.

She answered the call with an irritated “Casey, how did you get this number?”

“From Will, of course, before I left home. I needed to be sure I could contact you down here. He said you had a GSM cell. Me, too.”

Brenna knew that, overseas like this, they would not have been able to connect otherwise.

“You’ll need to take down my own number.”

“Why?”

“To reach me if you need me. Why else?”

“Casey, I’m not going to need you.”

“Just do it, will you?”

It was easier not to argue with him. “Fine,” she sighed, finding paper and pencil on the desk where her bag lay. “What is it?”

He relayed the number to her.

“Happy now?” she asked him after jotting the number down.

“Reasonably so. How are you doing? Okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Just wanted to check.”

“Don’t.” What was it with these two guys, Marcus and now Casey, determined to watch over her? “Look, I’m going to hang up now. I was just headed for bed when you called.”

They exchanged good-nights. Minutes later, after turning off all the lights in the suite, Brenna crawled into bed. She expected to be asleep within seconds of laying her head on the pillow. It didn’t work that way.

Casey kept her awake. She couldn’t seem to rid herself of the image of him that rose in the dark and stayed there.

It was as if that strong, forceful body was actually in the room with her, standing over her, wearing the same wounded look on his face he had worn the day she’d given his ring back to him.

But she didn’t want to go there again. Hadn’t she already suffered enough torment for weeks after? She had, yes, and in the end managed to survive it, too.

She didn’t deserve to fight that battle all over, spend a sleepless night being haunted by Casey McBride. And she didn’t. She finally willed herself into a deep, uninterrupted sleep.

Uninterrupted, that is, until what must have been hours later when she came awake with a restless inability to understand why. It took her a few minutes to realize she could no longer hear the peaceful hum of the air conditioner.

Brenna had learned that, in the deep hours of the night, the tropical heat of the day, even a steamy heat, was known to cool down to a degree that was downright chilly. Had to be the reason why the thermostat had shut down the air conditioner. It was no longer needed.

The temperature of the bedroom was comfortable enough without it, but the air in here felt stuffy now. She had to open a window.

She didn’t bother turning on a lamp. It wasn’t necessary. The security lights outside that bathed the property provided enough illumination through the blinds to guide her from the bed to the nearest window. Lifting the sash, she knelt on the carpet to breathe in the fresh air.

A breeze off the land not only cooled her face, it carried with it the wonderful scents of the spices that were grown on the island. Then, suddenly, she caught a whiff of something less pleasant. The odor of a cigarette. It had to be close by for her to smell it like this.

Peering through the slats of the blind she hadn’t bothered to raise, Brenna was able to immediately detect the source of the smoke. Julio was out there, a burning cigarette in hand as he paced along the path that circled the guesthouse.

This was no casual, midnight walk. His gait was too purposeful, too deliberate for that. Marcus must have ordered him to patrol her quarters. There was something else. He’d paused to crush his cigarette on the ground. Even in the shadows, the glow from the security light mounted overhead was sufficient enough for her to read his face.

There was no other word to describe his expression. Sinister.

She didn’t like it. Didn’t like that look on his face. Didn’t like Julio being out there. Didn’t like his keeping watch on her, because that’s what it was.

Could Casey be right? Was she making herself vulnerable to some unknown, potential danger just by being here at the villa?

* * *

Casey couldn’t sleep. He was concerned about Brenna, convinced that Marcus Bradley was an unpredictable presence in her life. This was why he was here on the deck, listening to the waves crashing on the beach, instead of in his bed.

He could tell the tide was coming in. There was no moon, but he could see a luminescence like foxfire on the crests of the waves, marking their position.

He had to be honest with himself. There was something more than just Bradley troubling him.

It was the memories of Brenna and him and why their affair had gone wrong. He had no business revisiting those memories, but he couldn’t help himself. Couldn’t stop himself from placing the blame for their breakup where it belonged. With himself.

And there it is, McBride. The self-accusation you deserve.

Because hadn’t he known from the beginning that persuading her to marry him was a mistake? Brenna had made no secret of her fear for his safety. She’d been raised on it by a mother who’d lost her husband, a Chicago fireman who’d died in a warehouse blaze.

“It devastated her, Casey,” Brenna had confided to him. “It killed her in the end. Mom just seemed to fade away on Will and me.”

Casey had sympathized with their loss, but he hadn’t seriously listened to Brenna’s argument that his work as an FBI agent was every bit as dangerous, perhaps even more so than that of a fireman. She had made repeated efforts during the course of their engagement to talk him into leaving the field and taking a safe desk job at the bureau.

But he knew that wasn’t for him. He craved the adventure out there.

It might have turned out all right if, on assignment in the Mideast to rescue an officer from the American embassy captured by terrorists, he hadn’t been caught and held himself. The FBI was unable to tell Brenna during those long, nightmare weeks whether he was alive or dead.

In the end, a release for both the officer and Casey had been negotiated, but it was too late for Brenna and him.

“I can’t take it anymore, Casey. I love you, but I can’t live with the fear of losing a husband. I just can’t. It’s easier to live with the heartache of letting you go.”

That’s when Brenna had returned his ring to him. When his bitterness had followed. In time he had overcome that bitterness, but he’d never been able to forget her or what they had shared.

And now here they were, thrown together again.

Oh, hell, was this going to turn out to be another bad mistake?

He looked up at the stars overhead, brilliant in the night sky, and realized he had no answer for himself.

Chapter 2

The first thing Brenna did when she emerged from the guesthouse the next morning, besides noting that it was going to be another clear, beautiful day, was to deliberately seek out Julio. Providing, that is, he wasn’t asleep in his bed after patrolling her quarters all night.

She found him near the garage, where he was washing the Jaguar in the driveway. He looked much too alert to have spent the entire night without sleep. She decided he’d either deserted his post at some point or been replaced by another member of the staff at the villa. For all she knew, Marcus had a whole army of them working in shifts to guard her around the clock.

Or maybe, thanks to Casey’s paranoia on the subject of Marcus, she was simply letting her imagination run wild.

As it must have last night, she thought, when she had sworn the expression on Julio’s face was a grim, sinister one. His was nothing remotely like that this morning. He was all harmless smiles, greeting her with a cheerful, “Good morning, miss. I will have the car ready for you after breakfast.”

She returned the greeting, adding a careless “Thank you, Julio, but I won’t need you to drive me anywhere.”

“You are not doing the painting today?”

“Not today, no. I’m planning on walking down to town, where I’ll probably spend most of the day scouting subjects for possible paintings at some other time. There are a lot of interesting colonial buildings in the city, as well as some fascinating stuff along the harbor, don’t you think?”

He looked alarmed at her intention. “There are certain quarters in Georgetown that are not safe, miss.”

“Well, I won’t be going anywhere near those.”

“But you will let me go with you.”

And have her feel all day like she was a prisoner, like she did last night? Not a chance.

“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary. I’ll be fine on my own,” she insisted. “It isn’t far to town, and with its being downhill all the way, it should be a pleasant stroll.”

“But if you should be tired when you are ready to come back...”

“Then I’ll just grab a taxi,” she assured him brightly, hoping he understood that, behind the brightness, was a stubborn determination that would permit no further opposition.

Brenna could feel him gazing after her unhappily when she left him and headed toward the villa.

Too bad. Because, like it or not, my friend, I mean to be free of you, at least for today and maybe all the other days I’m here on the island. And you can just report that to your employer and see where it gets you.

Breakfast was waiting for her on the terrace. Marcus was not.

Brenna must have looked puzzled by his absence, because the round-faced, plump housekeeper who was clearing his place at the table informed her, “If you are looking for Mr. Bradley, miss, I am sorry to tell you he has already gone to the place of the building of the resort. He is to meet the architect there at an early hour, you understand.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, Gilda. I didn’t need to see him for anything.”

Actually, Brenna was relieved that Marcus wasn’t here. He would have wanted to know what her plans were for the day, and she didn’t want to have to lie to him again. He would learn eventually, anyway, from Julio that she’d insisted on going off on her own.

Well, what of it? She was not going to have any of them trying to control her, and that included Casey.

“What can I get you for the breakfast, miss?”

“I’ll just have coffee and one of the muffins from the basket there. They look delicious, Gilda. And maybe a glass of juice, too. Whatever you have.”

The housekeeper brought her a small pitcher of fresh papaya juice and while Brenna drank it and ate her muffin she consulted the guidebook for St. Sebastian she’d bought for herself the morning of her arrival on the island.

What she ought to be doing today, Brenna thought with a guilty sigh, was going back to the beach to finish yesterday’s work. But that would have meant Julio transporting both her and all her gear, as well as the possibility of running into Casey again.

And what she wanted, and meant to have, were several hours to herself. Not that she was going to ignore her obligation to Marcus. Which was why, when she set off on foot for Georgetown below, she went equipped with a tote bag containing her camera, sketchbook and the guidebook.

Brenna hadn’t lied to Julio when she’d told him she meant to scout out subjects for future paintings. What she’d omitted, however, was her plan to save those interesting colonial buildings for another occasion. This time the camera and the sketchbook were going to record another destination.

There was no shortage of taxis in the busy streets of the city, most of them used American cars that had seen better days. But any one of them was sufficient for her purpose. She had no trouble hailing a cab.

“The airport, please,” she directed the local driver, who flashed her an enormous grin with teeth so white they were blinding. His speed at the wheel was less pleasing, making her immensely grateful the airport was only a few miles from town.

Brenna was vastly relieved when he managed to drop her safely at the front of the terminal before racing off again to find a new fare. Entering the building, she made her way to the desk of St. Sebastian’s only car rental agency.

The young woman behind the counter greeted her with a wide smile and a kindly “Help you, miss?”

“Yes, please. I’d like to rent a car. Whatever you have that would be easy for me to manage.”

The cheerful smile of the attendant vanished, replaced by a regretful shake of her head. “I am much sorry, miss, but there is no car for me to check out, only ones for me to check in. Which,” she added, “is not yet happening this morning.”

“Are you telling me there’s nothing at all available? Not even for the day?”

“Sadly, our fleet of rentals is not a large one, and the last of them was claimed an hour or so ago. But, miss, if you would like to leave me your name and a phone number...”

Brenna decided against that measure. It could mean waiting for who knew how long, wasting her time hoping for a rental car to be returned.

Cabs were plentiful at the airport. It looked like her only disappointing choice was to hail one of them to take her back into town. She’d spend the day doing what she’d told Julio she would do, actually scouting painting subjects in the city. That would teach her to be deceptive.

The sunlight when she exited the terminal had her squinting against its intensity. Juggling her purse and tote with her head lowered, she searched for her sunglasses, found them and slid them into place.

The first sight that met her gaze when she looked up was Casey McBride. He leaned against the side of a silver Toyota, muscular arms locked across his chest and wearing a sly smile that said he was pleased with himself.