Tess groaned in dismay as Jeopard stretched languidly, every muscle taut and inviting. He stared at himself in the mirror, nodded again, then slapped both hands on his chest as if to say. Good stuff. He had obviously concluded that his appearance was acceptable.
She more than agreed. And she had to get off the Irresistible before she went overboard, she thought raggedly.
Tess leaped to her feet. Just as she did, she saw his head snap up sharply toward the windows. Ice water poured into her veins. Had he seen her?
She tiptoed along the side deck and heard his cabin door bang open.
Stepping onto the dock, Tess halted. A dull, leaden feeling filled her stomach, while her face burned.
He could now be heard running across the bow deck.
She turned around slowly, her chin tucked, and gazed up sheepishly. He came to a stop at the edge of the bow. Her mouth dropped open, and she gasped.
Had this man ever smiled at her? Impossible. This man had nothing lighthearted inside him.
He was carrying a small cannon of a handgun, and the fact that he held it pointed in her direction didn’t help her feelings. But he’d put on a robe, thank heavens—at least she wouldn’t have to deal with his other weapons.
Tess backed across the dock another couple of feet, clasping her hands protectively over her chest. Jeopard Surprise stared down at her, and a deep frown formed between his brows.
“It was only me,” she called in a high, unnatural voice. Please don’t blast little old harmless me, captain. I swear I’ll never peek at you again.
After he scrutinized her for several seconds, the deadly look began to fade from his eyes. He blinked. His stance wavered, then relaxed, and he quickly lowered the gun.
“You? What the hell were you doing?”
She stared at the gun. “Fearing for my life.”
He glanced at the frightening piece of artillery in his hand. A weary, self-rebuking expression crossed his face. “I apologize. Don’t worry. I rarely shoot anyone I’ve sent flowers to.”
“I’m very glad.”
He remained still, studying the gun as if lost in thought. Tess watched with growing fascination as she realized that he was still rebuking himself for his reaction. Though frightened and puzzled, she felt drawn to him in an entirely new way.
Royce had often commented, with approval, that she loved to tease the limits of safety. It was evident in the way she drove a car, he said, and in the fact that she had married a jewel thief.
She hadn’t believed Royce until that moment. Now she admitted that she liked a hint of danger, and the complex man above her offered not only that, but mystery.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I, umm, I came over to thank you for the flowers, and I … heard my boat’s alarm system buzzing, so I had to hurry.… ” She paused, frowning.
She was no good at such ridiculous lies. Tess lifted her chin and said defiantly, “Oh, hell, captain, I was coming to tell you where to shove your flowers. I accidentally looked into your bedroom window. After I enjoyed the show for a few seconds I decided to leave before you realized that you were being ogled. My only problem was that I decided too late. I do apologize, but you should buy thicker curtains.”
With that she turned and marched back to the Lady.
Jeopard stared after her while his senses slowly returned to a lower level of alertness. Ogling him, she’d said. Enjoying the show.
He began to smile sincerely, and it was such a foreign thing that he didn’t even notice.
TESS LAY ON her stomach in the middle of her queen-size bed, crying without a sound, the antler amulet clasped in one hand. Dove Gallatin’s medallion clasped in the other, a book open in front of her.
When the bow alarm buzzed, she brushed at her eyes hurriedly and said a small thanks for the fact that she didn’t wear any makeup and therefore wasn’t smearing any across her face.
A warm California night had descended, and the dock was a sultry place of shadows and pools of light from regularly spaced lamps along the water’s edge. The other side of the dock abutted a thick concrete wall, and past it was a grassy lawn dotted with tall palms, beyond which was the marina parking lot.
Tess climbed the stairs from her cabin and found Jeopard Surprise standing on the bow, framed by a background of palms and suggestively shadowed by the dock lamps.
She halted at the top of the steps, her heart kicking into overdrive. He stood with one leg angled out, his hands shoved casually into the pockets of camel-colored trousers. He wore Docksiders and a white polo shirt.
“Well, Peeping Tess,” he said solemnly, “the least you can do is walk over to the Zanzi Bar with me and have a nightcap.”
She laughed, then applauded. “Bravo to your diplomacy and sense of humor.”
He nodded, his attitude quiet and thoughtful. “I understand this place, the Zanzi Bar, is an up-scale hangout for the boating crowd around here.”
“Yes.” Tess tilted her head to one side and studied him curiously. “You seem different. Subdued. Did my ridiculous antics unnerve you?”
He chuckled ruefully. “I haven’t met many women who’d have admitted what they were up to. It’s unfair. My standard approach won’t work on a woman as honest as you. I’ll just have to be myself and hope for the best.”
“Marvelous! I knew there was a likable, no-nonsense person behind that frivolous facade.”
“Honesty,” he grumbled. “I love it.”
“I’m too honest, and it gets me in trouble sometimes. But I do like your new attitude.”
“Good. Then let’s make friends. Come along, Cherokee princess.”
She gestured toward her shorts. “Give me time to change.”
“Should I alert the cavalry?”
She arched a brow. “After seeing you in action, I don’t think you need help.”
“In the bedroom, or chasing trespassers?”
Tess chuckled, felt her stomach drop languidly, and stifled a desire to answer, “Either.” She pointed over her shoulder. “You may wait at my patio table, captain. I promise to hurry.”
“I promise to wait.”
She kept her word, and came back above deck to meet him less than ten minutes later. He sat at the table, slowly folding and unfolding a gum wrapper she’d left there, his head bowed in an attitude of deep thought.
Ah, yes, this side of Jeopard Surprise was more intriguing by the minute.
“I’m ready, Sundance. Stop thinking so hard.”
He looked up, stood gracefully, and swept a slow gaze over her softly draped sundress of earth-tone shades. His assessment was bold enough to make her breasts tingle but debonair enough to avoid offense.
“Sundance?” he repeated.
“Surely people have told you that you could be Robert Redford’s younger brother.”
“Hmmm. I don’t feel like a younger anything.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight.”
She hadn’t yet gotten a close look at his face. During the events of the past two days he’d either been a few yards away from her, or wearing sunglasses, or camouflaged by his bedroom curtains.
Even now the light was dim, making it difficult to study him. On impulse Tess reached for his hand and tugged. “Step forward, pops, and let me have a look at your wizened old face.”
He smiled a little and did as she asked.
When she stood less than a foot from him in a soft beam of light from the dock lamps, she could only stare up at him blankly, mesmerized. It was a distressful thing to have her mind go on vacation simply because his somber blue eyes were studying her back intently.
Tess murmured something without knowing what she said.
“Thank you,” he answered. “I feel so much better.”
She broke the spell by laughing softly and stepping back. But he wasn’t through stunning her, and he stepped forward.
“If I put on some Ella Fitzgerald and we do this repeatedly, we’ll be dancing,” she quipped.
/> “I like your taste in singers. Okay, where did you get those silver-blue eyes?”
“Daddy married a Swedish girl and took her off to his teepee. Pardon me, his wigwam. Cherokees didn’t live in teepees.” Tess gazed up at him in silence, trembling inside, her eyes riveted to his. “Yours are a darker shade of blue.”
They were beautiful, intelligent eyes, she thought, and yet there was something shadowed about them, a coldness deep beneath the surface. But since the coldness wasn’t directed toward her, she wouldn’t worry about it yet.
He brushed a fingertip along the soft underside of her left eye, then her right.
Tess didn’t know whether the boat was rocking or her equilibrium had just faltered. He’d touched her with incredible gentleness, using the same fingertip that had curled so expertly around the trigger of a deadly gun. The thought somehow reassured her that she had no reason to fear him, though others undoubtedly did.
She took a slow, reviving breath.
“Yes, my mother was Swedish. How’s that for intriguing? A Swedish mother and a Cherokee father—I don’t know whether to say Yah? or Row?”
His mouth quirked up in delight. He seemed surprised that he found her so entertaining. After another second, he tilted his head back and laughed richly. Tess bit her lip and gazed at him with concern. If he kept this more mature charm going, she was in trouble.
“Damn, I haven’t laughed like that—” He caught himself, smiled pensively at her, then frowned. He took her chin between his fingers and turned her face to one side and then the other, letting light fall directly on it. “Have you been crying?”
It was hard to remember what she’d been doing. “I was reading an account of the Trail of Tears. You know—when the U.S. government forced the Cherokees to leave the southeast and go to Oklahoma. It happened in 1838. Thousands of people died.” She hesitated, then added softly, “My people.”
He removed his hand slowly, his fingers almost caressing her as he did, and she had to concentrate to keep from leaning after them.
“I don’t know a great deal about Cherokee history,” he admitted.
“You probably know more than I do. I’m ashamed to say I don’t know much about my heritage.”
“Oh?”
“Come on, Sundance. I’ll explain while we walk to the bar.” She pointed to the medallion that lay between her breasts on a long gold chain. “I’ll tell you about my family history,”
“Hold my hand. I’m trembling from suspense.”
Tess eyed his outstretched hand drolly. “White man speak with forked tongue
“If you want to know about my tongue I can—”
“I’ll hold your hand.”
As she led him from the Lady she began explaining about Gold Ridge, Georgia, her remarkable cousins, and Dove Gallatin’s mysterious intervention ih their lives.
“SO. THAT WAS my first foray into my Cherokee heritage,” Tess finished, curving her hands around a tumbler of Scotch as she sat at a small table with Jeopard at the Zanzi Bar. “And I’m afraid that it’s hooked me. I’ve been raising my consciousness lately.”
And raising something of mine that I can’t name that politely, Jeopard thought.
“You think I’m whimsical, Sundance?”
“No. I admire your dedication. I haven’t run across much dedication lately. Tell me more about yourself.”
“I was born in Sweden. My mother died in a skiing accident when I was two. My father was an entirely wonderful man, and he loved me, but his work didn’t permit him to raise a child alone. I grew up with my mother’s parents, in Sweden, then went to boarding school in England. But I visited my father often, here in California.” She paused, smiling at the memories. “The Swedish Lady was his boat. He left it to me.” Her smile faded. “He died of a heart attack—oh, let’s see-seven years ago. When I was nineteen.”
“What kind of work did he do?”
The smile came back. “Have you ever heard of Sam Daggett?”
Jeopard chuckled. “He’s second in my heart only to John McDonald’s Travis McGee character. The Daggett books are classics.”
“I’m glad your think so! My father wrote them!”
He looked at her incredulously. “Your father was J. H. Gant?”
“Uh-uh. Hank Gallatin. J. H. Gant was his pen name. And he lived quite a few of the stories he wrote about, I guarantee it. When he wasn’t J. H. Gant, author, he was truly Sam Daggett, wanderer and adventurer. That’s why I couldn’t stay with him. He was always running off to exotic places to help some crony or other get out of trouble.”
Jeopard stared at her with new fascination. Her father didn’t sound like the mercenary who’d been described in the report.
Hell, this case became more disturbing by the second. Sam Daggett, along with Travis McGee, had inspired his earliest—and most idealistic—dreams of adventure. Those dreams had culminated in a career” in Navy Intelligence and eventually in private security work for driven, dedicated T.S. Audubon. His youthful fantasies were the only thing he still cherished about the world’s intrigues.
“You look as if I just handed you a Christmas present,” she murmured.
“You did.”
She took a sip of her drink. “Captain Sundance, I’ve been babbling about myself and I have yet to learn anything about you.”
Professional wariness closed around him like an invisible cloak. “You know a lot. I’m a terrible sailor, I have a bedroom with, ahem, a full-length mirror, and I pack a large pistol for chasing women.”
“We’re talking about the Magnum .44, you mean,” she teased.
Jeopard smiled wickedly. “That too.” He couldn’t help enjoying her. The fact that she had recognized the gun impressed him. Of course, J. H. Gant’s daughter would know about such things.
She laughed in a way that was girlish without being the least bit shy. Her blue eyes held too much authority for that. “What do you do for a living that allows you to buy large pistols and cumbersome boats?”
He fed her his standard story about Surprise Import/Export in Fort Lauderdale. Her smile tightened, and she searched his eyes intently. Damn, he thought, she knew he was hiding something. Her intuition surprised him, made him feel oddly proud of her but also vulnerable.
“Jeopard, whatever you really do for a living, I hope it’s not dishonorable.”
He was glad that his control kept her from knowing how much she’d just shaken him.
“You say that because of the way I charged after you with a gun today?”
“Exactly. If your import/export business has anything to do with drugs, you can keep away from me. The farther, the better.”
Inside he breathed a sigh of relief. Jeopard laughed with just the right amount of sincerity. “I’m clean, legal, and legit. I’ll give you a business card tomorrow, and you can check me out.”
She shook her head, smiled, and relaxed visibly.
He held up his right hand so that she could see the heavy gold insignia ring on it. “Naval Academy—Annapolis. The navy was my career until a few years ago. I was a SEAL. Do you know what that means?”
She nodded. “Special forces. Very elite. Also very tough.”
“So you see where I get my gun-toting, Clint Eastwood habits?”
“All right.” She nodded, satisfied, but after a moment of thought added wryly, “I guess SEALs don’t learn how to handle yachts.”
He chuckled. “It’s not part of military training, no.”
“So, importer/exporter, what are you doing so far from Florida?”
“I exported myself here for a two-week vacation.”
“You had an, ahem, more experienced captain export your yacht, I hope.”
“It’s leased. I boarded it off the coast at Laguna Beach.”
“Thank heavens you didn’t have far to navigate before you rammed my poor Lady. The seafaring world wasn’t threatened too badly.”
“You’re hurting my feelings.”
“I suspect that few th
ings hurt your feelings. However, I do apologize for maligning you.”
He grasped his chest theatrically. “You’ll have to do better than an apology. You’ll have to have lunch with me tomorrow.”
She clasped her hands on the table and looked at him formally, much like a schoolteacher addressing an errant boy, he thought.
“Captain Sundance, tell me the truth. Are you married?”
“Would anyone marry such a rotten docker? No.”
“Ever?”
“No.” He watched her try delicately to hide her curiosity. “Never fear, Tess, I have no desire to do your hair or redecorate your boat.”
She gave him a rebuking look, but chuckled, “I wasn’t asking for personal reasons.”
“Oh? Are you a reporter for the Marina Enquirer?”
Her soft laughter crept into his bones and refused to leave.
“You silly lout. I can assume, then, that you’re just another carefree playboy?”
“Playman,” he corrected. “I passed ‘boy’ way back.”
She laughed again. Jeopard took a slow swallow from his drink and wished like hell that she’d stop. It was not only the most seductive sound he’d ever heard; it was the sweetest. Instinct, observation, and cold, hard facts began to give way to pure affection.
“I believe I will have lunch with you. Jeopard.” She gazed at him happily.
Jeopard nodded, forcing himself to look pleased. He was too seasoned, too cynical, and too wise to let a job get to him. She was just a job, after all. If she had the Kara diamond, he’d get it from her. And when she realized his deception, she wouldn’t have anything to laugh about for a long time.
CHAPTER 3
SHE COULDN’T WAIT to tell her grandparents about Jeopard Surprise.
At seven the next morning—bleary-eyed because she and Jeopard had sat at the Zanzi Bar talking until four—she parked the Jaguar in front of Viktoria and Karl Kellgren’s Spanish-style duplex. The old, exclusive section of Long Beach where they lived was quiet and pretty: small homes and duplexes marched up the street beside tiny front yards exploding with colorful flowers and shrubs.