Eyes of Fire Read online

Yes, she did.

  She thought that her father might have been diving near them the day he had disappeared. He had been talking about them with so much excitement right before they had parted that day. He had been drawn to the damned Steps, almost as if both he and the Steps had been controlled by some strange magnetic force. Hank, too, had found them fascinating.

  “The Steps sound cool,” Brad said.

  “I’d really love to see them, Sam,” Darlene told her earnestly.

  “I…well, sure. We’ll dive the Steps tomorrow, then,” Sam said.

  “Not tomorrow,” Yancy told her. “Not if the weathermen are right. They say it’s going to rain all day.”

  “Well, then, we’ll all sleep in tomorrow and dive the Seafire Isle Steps on Thursday.”

  “No diving tomorrow?” Brad said, disappointed.

  “We’ll just have to sleep late,” Joey Emerson said to his wife. He spoke with such passion in his voice that Sam felt as if she was intruding on their privacy just by having heard him.

  “A morning to sleep in,” Sukee murmured.

  “Then the Steps. Great!” Jim Santino applauded as he swished his long hair out of his face.

  “Skol!” Liam Hinnerman said, lifting the Scotch he had just refreshened in a toast to the rest of them. “Know where that expression came from, young Mr. Walker? It’s believed that the Vikings drank to victory from the skulls of their slain enemies, then raised those skulls in salute to one another.”

  “Oh, that is disgusting!” Darlene said.

  “Neat, it’s neat!” her brother insisted.

  “Really, Mr. Hinnerman,” Judy Walker admonished.

  “Nothing he couldn’t learn right in his own school, and not half as bad as the news these days,” Hinnerman said.

  Jerry North, at his side, was silent. She was staring at Sam, her lips taut. She appeared anxious. Unhappy, perhaps.

  Suddenly Sam wondered why Jerry never went diving with them. Sam had never even asked her if she was certified, or if she wanted to take lessons on the island.

  “Jerry, are you certified?” she asked.

  “Certified? She’s got certifications up the kazoo!” Liam said.

  Sam arched a brow to Jerry, who nodded.

  “Not just open water,” Liam said. “She’s an advanced diver. An expert with nitrox.”

  Nitrox allowed a diver to stay deeper for longer periods of time.

  “Good for you. How come you haven’t come diving with us?” Sam asked.

  Jerry shrugged. “I lost my taste for the sea.”

  “She nearly drowned a few years ago,” Liam said casually.

  “Pretty serious,” Adam said sympathetically.

  Jerry offered him a broad smile of thanks.

  “She’s all right,” Liam asserted.

  “She doesn’t have to dive if she doesn’t want to,” Sam said firmly.

  Sam continued to watch Jerry, but she turned away quickly when she felt a little trickle of warmth along her spine. Adam’s eyes, she thought. She looked toward him. She’d been right. He was studying her.

  And he was smiling. Just slightly.

  Adam had indeed come to Seafire Isle for something. And he was going to get what he wanted. In fact, he was already on the way to doing so, she realized.

  Because Adam was just as eager as everyone else to dive the Seafire Isle Steps.

  Why?

  The question burned inside her.

  5

  “A h, here comes Jem to lead us in to dinner!” Yancy exclaimed.

  For another several seconds, Sam continued to stare at Adam. What was he up to?

  And which one of her guests was dangerous? Who had been in her bathroom? Oddly enough, she realized, all of her male guests were of a similar height. Tall. Six-one, six-two. All about the same build.

  She glanced quickly from Adam to Jim, then to Liam, before moving on to Joey Emerson and Lew Walker. Even Avery Smith stood a good six-one.

  She looked at Adam. He was still watching her. Reading her thoughts. She turned quickly away from him, telling herself that she had a busy evening ahead. And in fact, for the next several hours she was so busy that she didn’t dare take time to think.

  Jacques summoned her to the kitchen, along with Yancy and Jem. She poured spoonfuls of the delicate white wine sauce on the dinner plates in an assembly line just before Jem slipped servings of the perfectly baked snapper Jacques had prepared atop them. Yancy served.

  When it was actually time for her to sit down and eat, she found herself beside Jim Santino. As she ate, she couldn’t help but notice that Sukee had maneuvered into position beside Adam.

  The evening wound down slowly. The Walkers—all four of them—were the first to retire for the evening. Jerry seemed more interested in staying at the main house than in the concept of a return to her cottage—with Liam. Liam, however, seemed tired, irritable and ready to go, so Jerry went along.

  The others slowly followed suit; Sukee, Jim and Adam holding out the longest. Sukee and Adam seemed to be getting along quite well.

  Sam finally gave out herself, wondering if Adam would make an attempt to follow her.

  Surely he’d feel compelled to keep her safe.

  “Good night, all,” she said, suppressing a yawn. “Don’t forget, we all get to sleep in tomorrow. But for those who want to see the Steps on Thursday, remember that breakfast is from six-thirty to nine, and the dive boat leaves at nine-thirty sharp.”

  “I’ll be there,” Sukee promised. They were in the bar at that point, and she had a brandy snifter in her hand. She swirled the liquid in her snifter as she leaned close to Adam. Jim leaned closer, as well.

  Pretty soon, Sam thought, the three of them would crash into each other and knock each other down.

  The hell with them.

  “Well, then…good night.”

  “G’night, Sam. Thanks for another great day,” Jim told her, winking.

  He tossed his hair back. She was sure that he saw it as some kind of a strange compliment to her.

  She nodded.

  “Good night, Miss Carlyle,” Adam said. He, too, had a brandy. He lifted his glass to her.

  She lifted a hand and exited the bar by the porch, muttering to herself as she started across the lawn toward her cottage.

  “That rat bastard supposedly saves my life—years after destroying my heart and any belief I might have had in my own sex appeal—then drinks brandy with Sukee all night. Is this fair? Why is he back in my life? Dear God, is this necessary?”

  She thought she heard a rustling in the hibiscus bush at her side. She spun around, staring into the shadows created by the blaze of night-lights on the paths around her.

  She felt the whisper of the night breeze. Nothing more.

  She started walking again, drawing her key from the slim pocket in her knit dress. When she reached her door, she opened it quickly, stepped inside, closed it, locked it, then leaned against it.

  She walked through the living room, the kitchen, growing more nervous as she did so. She needed a weapon, she told herself. Just in case Ski Mask came back.

  She opened the huge old secretary that stood beneath her father’s treasure map. The secretary had once graced a captain’s cabin on a ship; it had been one of her father’s favorite pieces of furniture.

  She found his Revolutionary War flintlock musket. No ammunition, of course—should she know how to manage the antique flintlock to begin with. Still, she could use it as a bludgeon to protect herself if necessary.

  It would be better than nothing.

  She opened closet doors. She went into her bedroom—then her bath.

  Every window was still closed and locked. Her cottage, she was convinced, was empty.

  She started turning off lights, then froze as she began to close the living room shutters.

  There was a figure standing on the path that led to her cottage. Tall and dark. Watching her cottage.

  Watching her.

  She inhaled, ex
haled. Then she lightly bit her lower lip. The figure was walking calmly down the path, making no secret of the fact that he was coming to the cottage.

  Adam, she thought.

  She half-smiled, leaning against the wall. She’d been right—he’d had to come back.

  He had to protect her. He had come to her island. After someone or something, true, but he had managed to come into her cottage at just the right time.

  And now he was coming back.

  To protect her. He would insist, of course, that he couldn’t leave her alone. That she had to be protected, and that there was no one who could protect her the way he could.

  He would want to move in.

  Well, she would tell him what was what. She would get him this time. He wasn’t coming anywhere near her.

  The knock she’d expected sounded on her door.

  She threw it open.

  And gaped.

  It was Jem.

  Tall, dark and handsome, all right.

  “Jem!”

  “Who were you expecting?”

  “I, uh…”

  “Adam, right?”

  “Are you coming in or not?” she snapped. Adam, it seemed, was apparently spending the night with Sukee.

  He smiled. “You bet I’m coming in. I’m sleeping on the sofa.”

  “Oh, Jem, that’s not necessary.”

  “It sure as hell is. You were attacked right here, and I didn’t have the least idea.”

  “How could you have? Don’t be silly.”

  “Adam suggested that you shouldn’t be left alone. I agree.”

  “But, Jem…”

  “I’ll be on the sofa, Sam.”

  “Great. Make me feel guilty about you getting a sore back sleeping on my sofa.”

  “I can’t sleep in the bedroom, Sam. Too kinky. It would be like sleeping with my own sister.”

  “Cute.”

  Jem grinned. “Go to bed, Sam. You have the opportunity to sleep in, thanks to the weatherman.”

  “That much will be nice. If I can get to sleep at all.”

  “You’ll sleep. Go to bed.”

  She wouldn’t sleep, though. She would lie there, wondering.

  She smiled suddenly, ready to laugh at herself. Okay, so she’d wanted the chance to turn down Adam O’Connor and she hadn’t gotten it. So what? Jem was just as good as a brother, and it was wonderful to have a friend who cared so much.

  She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll get you a couple of pillows and some blankets.”

  She did so, then retired to bed herself, where she tried to sleep.

  She kept tossing and turning, tossing and turning.

  Adam was back in her life.

  Back in her life….

  And it felt as if he’d never left. As if she knew him still.

  She didn’t know him at all! she reminded herself.

  She jumped at a sudden shrill ringing, then realized stupidly that it was the telephone by her bedside. She lifted the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “You’re all right?”

  Adam.

  She was annoyed to feel a subtle warmth rise to her cheeks. “I was sleeping,” she lied.

  “Jem’s there with you?”

  “Yes. Where are you?”

  “My cottage. I believe it’s the one you call Paradise.”

  “Um.”

  “Want to know about your guests?”

  “Are you…alone?”

  “Checking up on me? Worried about me? Miss me?”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “Were you imagining that I had Sukee here beside me?”

  “It would be completely your own affair if you did, Mr. O’Connor.”

  “Then why did you ask?”

  She made certain that he could hear the depth of her very impatient sigh. “I was attacked this evening. Naturally I want to know as much as I can about who’s where on the island.”

  “Interesting. Since you know so little.”

  “Thank you for that assessment.”

  “Do you want to know about your guests or not?”

  “Do I?” she demanded. “You’re not going to hang up on me if I say yes?”

  He laughed softly. She gnawed on her lower lip. Just the sound of his laughter seemed to brush sensually into her soul.

  And other places.

  “Talk!” she told him.

  Amazingly, he obliged. “Your Mr. Avery Smith isn’t a Mr. Smith at all.”

  “What?”

  “Mr. Smith isn’t Mr. Smith.”

  “Then who is he?”

  “James Jay Astin. Founder and chairman of the board of SeaLink.”

  Then, having made certain that Sam couldn’t possibly sleep all night, Adam clicked off.

  The Walkers had a two-bedroom cottage on the opposite side of the main house from Sam.

  The kids were tucked into bed. Judy was being silent. The kind of silent Lew Walker just hated in his wife. Her lips were pursed. She’d changed into her nightgown, a long silky thing that should have been nice and sexy, just right for an island vacation for a man and his wife. However, as she pulled the covers neatly down on the bed, she kept up her silence—creating a killer chill within the room. Any excitement he might have been feeling withered in his BVDs as he watched her.

  Finally the silence got to him.

  He walked behind her and slipped his arms around her body. She stood very stiffly, not fighting him, just casting that awful chill.

  “Judy—”

  “It’s not right,” she said. “What we’re doing—it’s just not right.”

  “Judy, we need the money,” he said.

  “There are other ways to make money.”

  “We have two children. We have to survive.”

  “We have two children. We’re supposed to teach them right from wrong.”

  “We’re not really doing anything wrong.”

  “The hell we’re not.”

  “The way you see it, maybe.”

  “Lew, just don’t touch me right now, all right?”

  He froze himself, then released her. He walked around to his own side of the bed and slid beneath the covers, keeping his back to her.

  Judy turned off the lights. Once she got into bed, she kept her back to him, as well.

  The chill, Lew thought, had turned into a regular ice storm.

  He sighed and tried to sleep.

  The day after tomorrow, the Steps.

  Jerry North sat, legs curled beneath her, in a wicker rocking chair on the small porch that surrounded their bungalow. She looked out at the night. The sky was velvet black, dotted with unbelievably bright stars.

  Beautiful.

  The island was beautiful. Peaceful, elegant, casual. A perfect place to call home.

  How ironic, how sad.

  She felt Liam coming out to stand behind her. “You’re going to have to go diving soon,” he told her.

  She shrugged.

  “I can dive, but it won’t help.”

  “You’re the only one who really knows.”

  “I don’t know anything. I didn’t know what I was doing then, and I surely won’t have the least idea now.”

  “Well, who knows? Anything is worth a try. Adam O’Connor is here. You know damned well he has to be working for someone.”

  “Maybe he’s just after the truth,” she murmured.

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing, really…”

  Liam was silent, thoughtful. “You still haven’t learned anything from Samantha?”

  “Samantha doesn’t know anything.”

  She heard him sigh. He was getting insistent. She bit her lower lip. She could just leave now. Leave Liam. Surely he would let her go….

  And maybe not. Maybe what she did or didn’t know, could or couldn’t remember, mattered to him far more than she imagined. Well, almost everything else she’d ever done in life had been a mistake, why not this, too? Liam wasn’t bad. He never pret
ended he didn’t appreciate other women, nor did he ever pretend to love her. He was blunt, curt, rude, temperamental, aggressive. He could be violent—he was one of those men who believed a man had a right to knock a woman around a bit if she needed it—but never to the extent that he really hurt her.

  And maybe she’d taken so many knocks in life that she’d grown to expect a few now and then.

  Still, Liam had a strange honesty about him, at least where she was concerned, and she felt that if nothing else, at least she was playing the game with a full deck of cards. In that particular sense, she was getting more from him than he was getting from her.

  She shivered suddenly, fiercely. No one could ever know the whole truth. No one. Partly it just hurt too damned badly. She couldn’t bear to have the scar ripped open.

  Not for Liam. Not for anyone.

  “Samantha knows something,” Liam insisted.

  “She knows how to dive, and she knows the ship exists somewhere, and that’s about it,” Jerry insisted.

  “You’re wrong. She lived with her father. She listened to him day in and day out. She knows something.”

  “She doesn’t even like to talk about the Beldona.” Jerry hesitated, then shook her head. “Don’t you understand? She loved her father. He died because of that damn ship.”

  “He disappeared.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t know, I—I just don’t believe he would ever have left his daughter intentionally.”

  Liam leaned over her. “You’re alive,” he said softly.

  She shook her head, moistening her lips. “Justin Carlyle has to be dead. And you can’t blame Sam for not wanting to talk about the ship.”

  “That’s why she needs some gentle encouragement.”

  “Well, I’ve been encouraging her just as gently as I can,” Jerry said. She rose, anxious to get away from him to recover her calm. She left him on the porch and walked on into the cottage. She headed straight for the bath, took off her makeup with petroleum jelly, then washed her face with cold cream. She’d performed the same acts religiously for years and believed with good reason that the very simplicity of her regime had kept her skin young and supple all these years.

  She never told anyone quite how many.

  She slipped into the slinky red nightgown hanging on the door hook. For a moment she studied her face in the mirror and wondered how she’d managed to make such a mess of things. Wondering wouldn’t help. She’d already done it.