Caught by Surprise

  “Don’t touch it.”

  “Mind your own business.”

  “You’re under arrest!”

  Cursing, he slung the phone down and started toward her, popping his knuckles. “Back off, you goofy little broad.”

  “I warned you.” Her fist flashed out.

  Boxer-face grabbed his midsection and took two uncertain steps back, while pain drew the color out of his face. “Unbelievable.” He gasped. Then he turned and half-ran, half-shuffled toward an alley.

  Millie looked around desperately and spotted an older couple who’d just stepped out of a parking garage. It occurred to her suddenly that she was only a few blocks from the scene of another confrontation, the one in which she’d defended John Franken Hepswood the Fifth. She ignored the fear that history was repeating itself.

  “Miss, are you all right?” the elderly man asked.

  Millie pointed toward the alley. “Call the police. There’s about to be a fight.”

  Then she followed boxer-face.

  Brig headed for the pulsing lights of police cars and ambulances. Please, not Melly, he prayed silently as he shoved through a crowd around the alleyway.

  But it was. She lay on a stretcher, her face ashen, her expression so relaxed that he knew she was unconscious. A paramedic was gingerly examining the side of her head.

  “Melisande.” Brig groaned her name. He fell on his knees beside the stretcher and grabbed her shoulders.

  “Get back, pal.” A hand latched onto Brig’s collar. “Police business. You a friend of the lady’s?”

  He didn’t care about the question. “How bad is she hurt?”

  Brig was dimly aware that the paramedic recognized him and spoke his name to the police officer. “Mr. McKay, is she a friend of yours?” the officer repeated.

  “How bad is she!” Brig yelled.

  “She’s got a head injury,” the paramedic answered. “She’s out cold.”

  The world was nothing but fear and pain and anger. Brig knew that he was trembling violently, but he didn’t care. He looked up at the police officer and asked between gritted teeth, “What bastard did this to her?”

  “Over there.” A second paramedic hovered around a stocky man who sat limply with his back against one of the alley’s brick walls. “I don’t know what she did to him before he hit her, but she did a good job.”

  Blind fury raged through Brig, and he leaped to his feet.

  “B-Brig?” The soft, unsteady sound of her voice riveted his attention. Brig quickly knelt beside the stretcher again. Millie’s eyes fluttered open, and she gazed at him with woozy adoration.

  The breath shattered in his throat. “Melisande,” he whispered.

  “I think he w-works for H-halford. I s-saw him …”

  “Sssh, love, sssh.”

  “Don’t let him go. He was in your dressing r-room.”

  “He’s not going anywhere.” His voice broke. “Why did you do this, Melly? You promised.”

  She winced. “Love. I love …” Her eyes closed.

  “Melisande?” Brig said in a tormented whisper. No answer. “Melisande.”

  “She’s out again,” the paramedic told him. “Probably a concussion. But we think she’ll be okay.”

  Seconds later they carried her to the ambulance. Brig climbed inside and sat with his head bowed over hers, tears sliding down his face. Despite every precaution he had taken, she had been hurt. He had never felt so bitter or so defeated.

  Millie woke the next morning to find Dinah and Rucker in her hospital room. Her head pounding, she twisted it slowly and looked around. Dinah noticed her and came to the edge of the bed. Rucker followed.

  “Where’s Brig?” Millie asked worriedly.

  “We sent him down to get some breakfast,” Rucker soothed. “He didn’t sleep at all last night, and he’s too stubborn to go back to the hotel.”

  Millie shut her eyes and tried to remember the past eight hours. Brig hadn’t spoken to her very much, but everything she recalled filled her with devotion. “He kept waking me up and making me count his fingers.” She forced a smile. “I think I finally tried to bite him.”

  “What he did is standard procedure when someone has a mild concussion,” Dinah noted. “The doctor told him to do it.”

  “I know.” She moved tentatively. “Not too sore.” Millie lifted one arm and gazed at the elastic bandage around the wrist. “Just a sprain.” She tucked her chin and peered at her flimsy hospital gown. “Scram, Rucker. I’m getting dressed and getting out of here.”

  His voice was somber. “I wouldn’t do that, Millie. You’re in-hot water with Brig as it is.”

  Now that sleep had faded from her senses, she realized that Rucker and Dinah looked pensive. The dull anxiety that she’d tried to ignore demanded attention. “I upset him,” she acknowledged. “But I had to—”

  “He knows why you did it,” Dinah assured her. “The guy you caught has admitted that he works for Halford. Brig thinks this incident will clench the FBI’s investigation.” She paused. “But Millie, you scared Brig, and he thinks you were reckless.”

  Millie nodded wearily. “I should never have promised to behave.”

  “That’s right,” Brig said from the doorway. His voice was grim. “You gave your word, and now I know that it’s not worth a damn.”

  Millie winced inwardly. Concern washed over her as she gazed at him. His face was haggard and heavy beard stubble covered his jaw. Someone had brought him a change of clothes. Gone was the handsome tuxedo, and now he wore boots, jeans, and a wrinkled plaid shirt. She had never seen his blue eyes look so cold.

  “I tried not to get into trouble,” she protested softly.

  “Like hell you tried.”

  “Come on, Dee,” Rucker said diplomatically. “Let’s leave these folks to talk. Miss Hunstomper, you’re a celebrity.” He pointed to a stack of newspapers beside the bed.

  “Well come back later,” Dinah told her.

  Newspapers. As they left the room, Millie fought a sensation of sick dread. Now she understood one reason why Brig was so angry. She’d made a spectacle of herself, and he was humiliated.

  His face was a mask of controlled anger as he walked to her bed. He stopped, looking down at her without any sign of softening.

  Millie wanted to cry in apology and hold out her arms to him, but that would only show how weak she was. She’d been taught at an early age to accept responsibility for her actions without asking for leniency. So she pulled herself upright in bed, folded her hands in her lap to hide their trembling, and looked at him stoically.

  “I’d do it again, if I had to,” she noted.

  “I’ll never be able to trust you, will I.” It wasn’t a question.

  She nodded. “I can’t be trusted when your safety is at stake. I learned that last night.”

  He cursed viciously, rammed a hand through his hair, and went to the window, where he stood with his back to her, like a fierce statue.

  “You didn’t care how what you did affected me,” he rasped. “Your damned military pride and your independence are more important than keeping your word to me.”

  “No,” she protested in a broken tone. “But I wanted to protect the man I love. Every woman feels that way.”

  “Every woman doesn’t have to prove it the ridiculous way you do.”

  His words tore at her deepest fear. She was different, and not even he could accept her, even though he’d tried. After several seconds of determined struggling, she got her voice under control. “You knew all along that I wasn’t traditional. I warned you.”

  “Dammit! I don’t care if you’re untraditional! I do care if I can’t trust you.”

  She stiffened as if he’d hit her. Her voice was barely audible. “Last night I tried so hard to be what you wanted.” Millie looked wretchedly at the pile of newspapers on a chair by the bed. She reached over, picked one up, and scanned the front page. Under the “Inside Stories” column a headline read, singers date blitzes int
ruder at concert. The Smaller type beneath it added, Petite Blond Girlfriend of Brig McKay is Raucous Ex-Marine.

  Ex-marine? They hadn’t even gotten her background straight. She sounded like a joke. Worse than that, Brig sounded like a joke. Millie threw the paper on the floor and covered her face with both hands.

  “I have to fly to Nashville this afternoon,” Brig said bluntly. He turned around and leaned against the window jamb, crossing his arms over his chest. He assessed her without any warmth. “The feds who’re workin’ the Halford case have ordered me to meet with them.”

  Millie lowered her hands and nodded. “I’ll be all right.”

  He laughed tonelessly. “That’s grand. Just grand.” His voice sardonic, he told her, “I know you’ll be all right. I don’t have to ask. I won’t try to take care of you, because it doesn’t do any good. You don’t listen, and you don’t need my help.”

  Tears filled her eyes and slipped out unheeded. She was dying inside. He was wrong, very wrong. But she’d angered and humiliated him so much that there was no point in arguing. Once he’d been proud of her independent spirit. Now it was obvious that he’d changed his mind.

  When she didn’t respond to his accusations, he kicked a chair across the room. Breathing harshly, he walked to the door and paused, his face taut with control. “Say it. Just admit that you hate the idea of any man taking care of you, me included.”

  Millie could see how anxious he was to get away from her. She wanted to curl up in misery and never move again. “Is that so wrong?” she whispered hoarsely.

  Brig pounded the door with one fist. He struggled to speak and finally shouted, “This is one fight I can’t win.”

  He walked out and slammed the door shut behind him.

  Jeopard Surprise, dressed in a sleek black suit, was the last person Brig expected to see crossing the lobby of the Nashville office building. Millie’s older brother left a trail of mesmerized women behind, their rapt scrutiny of him almost comical. He never noticed.

  Jeopard raised one hand in greeting as Brig stepped out of the lobby elevator.

  “You got my message about Melisande,” Brig noted. “I didn’t know if the navy could track you or Kyle down.”

  “She’s all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t look too happy.”

  Brig shrugged. That was an understatement. “Come on, mate, I’ll buy you a drink.” He frowned, puzzled. “How did you know where to find me today?”

  Jeopard’s expression was carefully guarded, but a slight smile edged his mouth. “I heard that you had a meeting with the feds.”

  “Helluva grapevine you navy boys have.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Brig and Jeopard traded a slow look. “Whoever you and your brother work for, I’d wager that it’s not the navy.”

  Respect filtered into Jeopard’s eyes, but he only said, “That’s a wager you might win.”

  Millie closed her small suitcase and looked around the hotel room, blinking back tears. It was difficult to believe that she and Brig had shared so much love here just three days ago.

  “I’m ready to leave,” she told Rucker and Dinah.

  Rucker took the suitcase, but his scowl continued to indicate how much he disapproved. “It’s not right. It’s just not right. It’s just not.”

  “Sssh, honey,” Dinah warned. “You sound like Mammy in Gone With the Wind.”

  Millie held out her hands in supplication. “I left a message at the desk. When Brig calls, they’ll tell him I’ve gone home.” Dinah and Rucker were driving to Florida for a short vacation, and she’d hitched a ride.

  “He doesn’t want you to go home,” Rucker insisted.

  Millie closed her eyes, wishing that it were true. “If he wanted me to wait here or come to Nashville, he would have called and told me so.”

  “But he did call us,” Dinah reminded her. “Just to ask how you were doing. He’s coming back here tomorrow. He’s still angry. Give him time.”

  “Let us put you on a plane to Nashville,” Rucker urged.

  “If I run after him and beg for forgiveness, hell feel trapped. I have to show him that I’m strong enough to accept his anger.”

  Dinah looked at her in amazement. “When you love someone, it’s all right to be dependent. He’s dependent on you, isn’t he?”

  Millie gazed back miserably. “It’s different for a man. When a man admits that he’s vulnerable, it shows how sensitive he is. But when a woman acts vulnerable, a man is likely to think that she’s weak. I want Brig to realize that I need him because I’m not weak.”

  “I’m confused,” Rucker said sardonically.

  Millie sighed. “Me too. Let’s go.”

  Brig gave Natty a kiss on the cheek and held the limo door for her. She looked at Millie’s cottage and the surrounding forest with a slow, wistful appraisal. “Brig honey, I’m going to miss this place. It’s about the most romantic spot in the world.”

  When she saw the stricken look on his face, she patted his arm and added hurriedly, “I’m so sorry you missed seeing Millie. I swear she left with y’all’s friends not more than an hour before you got here. It was a quick decision, you know—she got here, looked around, and just said. ‘I see Brig everywhere I look,’ so they told her to come with them to their house in Key West.”

  “I’m all right, Natty. Get in the car, or you’ll miss your flight.”

  “Bye, honey. Go on down to the coast and drag that girl back.”

  “She doesn’t want to come back.”

  Natty exhaled in exasperation. “Mercy, men are so dense! Women like to be pursued, don’t you know that!”

  “Not Millie. She’s different.”

  Natty settled in the limousine and smiled smuggly. “Don’t bet on it.”

  After Natty’s departure, Brig walked into the cottage and stood with his hands on his hips. The silence was unnerving. The loneliness inside him accentuated it.

  “You little fighter,” he muttered. “You’re just tiyin’ to make me more miserable than I already am.”

  But in his heart he knew that wasn’t the reason she hadn’t waited in Birmingham. Brig sat down on her couch and wearily rubbed his temples. He wanted to kick himself every time he replayed the things he’d said to her at the hospital. They might have been true, but he shouldn’t have taken his grief out on her when she lay in bed looking battered and helpless.

  He’d made her feel like some sort of freak. He had seen the humiliation in her eyes. Despite all the times he’d insisted that he loved her just the way she was, he had raged at her. In a sense, they had both broken promises.

  Whether she needed him or not, whether she’d gone against her word or not, he loved her and was proud of her heroics in Birmingham. His love and pride had been buried under layers of shock, he realized now, and he’d been furious that she’d scared him so badly. In revenge, he’d accomplished what no other man in the world could—he’d sent her into full retreat.

  The fragrance of jasmine came to him suddenly. Brig knew there were jasmine vines outside the cottage, but he also remembered that Melisande St. Serpris had written that she always wore jasmine, her favorite perfume. He chuckled dryly. “Well, Melisande, glad you came to visit me. What should I do about your great-great-great-granddaughter?”

  Her photocopied diary lay on the coffee table. Brig picked it up and thumbed idly through the pages. “ ‘Jacques finally understood that I could give him strength, pride and a spirit to equal his own,’ ” Brig read. “ ‘Those very qualities, which caused us such annoyance with each other, eventually became the things we shared most. We spent the early days of our courtship, if one could call those seafaring adventures by such a civilized name, struggling to learn which of us held the most power. To our great relief, we finally agreed that it was unimportant. He had kidnapped me, but I had captured him.’ ”

  Still reading the diary, Brig walked outside. “Strewth!” he said suddenly, and slapped the manuscript closed. ??
?I’ve got it!” He started back to the house. His attention was diverted by the delicate greenery of a jasmine plant growing by the edge of the porch.

  Brig walked over and studied it carefully. It bore no flowers, and when he inhaled, he smelled nothing but hot summer air.

  “How about that, Granny Melisande,” he said softly. “Thanks for the help.”

  Millie rested her arms on the porch railing and watched sunlight shimmer on the ocean. Key West, land of Hemingway and aging hippies, was a windswept paradise for castaways. She felt morosely at home.

  Dinah walked out onto the porch and settled into a rocking chair. “The Coast Guard could use you,” Dinah noted. “To replace surveillance ships and radar.”

  Smiling pensively, Millie leaned back in her chair and sighed. “I guess I’ve spent a lot of time sitting here during the past two days.”

  “Hmmm. Rucker says if he put a lantern in your hand he’d turn you into a lighthouse.”

  “A very short lighthouse.”

  “Why don’t you go for a walk on the beach?”

  Millie nodded, then stood up and stretched. “Want to come along?”

  “No, Rucker’s taking a nap, and I might join him.”

  Millie immediately sensed that her absence would be welcomed. The house was charming, but the floors creaked with every footstep and the walls might as well have been made of paper. “I’ll take a long walk,” she offered.

  Dinah smiled. “Smart girl.”

  Millie slipped her hands into the oversized pockets of her blue-striped sundress and started to walk to Key West’s only real beach, a man-made one. When she finally reached the brownish sand strip, she walked down to the surf and let the cool, foamy water rush up to her ankles.

  What was Brig doing now, and what did he think of her decision to avoid him? She wanted to give him an easy way out. No regrets, no long good-byes, just a clean break. Men liked things that way.

  She had thought that this way would be less painful for her too. But she was wrong. Neither her pride nor her noble resolutions could quiet the tormenting inner voice that said she’d never find another man like Brig.

  Sometimes the urge to see him was almost more than she could bear. She wanted to swear to him that she could change, that she would change. She’d become a shorter version of Natty Brannigan—Natty was tough and shrewd, but she hid those qualities under a beguiling facade of helplessness.