Lethal Lover Part 10

Reed says I'll make a wonderful mother. I'm so lucky to have him to talk to.

I can tell him things I can't even tell you, dear diary. I wonder if I'll get horribly fat? Will I really wear those ugly tops when the time comes?

It sounds crazy, I know, but in a way I couldn't be happier. It is crazy, isn't it, dear diary, to believe that a sixteen-year-old can really become a woman just because she's having a baby. But last night Reed said I'm already the bravest woman he knows. I love him, diary. I guess I always have!

Later, Meredith Three days before the crash that claimed her family's lives, Reed McKenna had walked out on Tess. A month after her sister's death, Tess read diary. And eight years later, Tess was stall trying 'to forget what she'd read. But today, with Reed's ne tic presence so tangibly tempting, and last nigh' she'd lain in the darkness with the memory of his still tingling on her lips, she'd forced herself to remember. I'm so lucky to have him, Meredith written. Lucky, Tess thought bitterly, when she'd felt the same way just being in love with Reed McKenna.

She stared at him now where he sat with his back to her on the balcony.

and she forced Meredith's words to play over and over in her mind like an incantation that would protect her from him and from her own weak will.

"I'm going for a walk," she said-suddenly, grabbing her purse, which still contained Selena's journal.

Reed was beside her before she reached the door. "Alone," she said over her shoulder.

"No way."

When she spun around to face him, an almost electric awareness of him sliced through her, further tuning her already humming senses.

"Look, I need some air. I'm only going down to the beach."

"Fine. I love the beach." His mouth curved into a wry smile, shoving those d.a.m.ned appealing dimples into his cheeks again.

"You know, I think you're actually enjoying this."

"Yeah, well, you know how it is. Some guys just love their work."

She refused to look back at him as he followed her into the hall and closed the door behind them. A few moments later on the beach, Tess felt like an invisible," observer, as far removed from the carefree tourists lounging and playing in the late afternoon sun as an alien stranded on a strange and unfamiliar planet. But at least out here among strangers, the tension of being locked in a hotel room with her former lover seemed to have subsided.

Tess walked purposefully away from a cl.u.s.ter of tourists relaxing on beach chairs. When Reed ducked under the thatched roof of a poolside bar, she slipped her purse strap over her shoulder, clutched her bag protectively against her and kept walking.

He caught up to her in a few minutes and she was fully aware of his presence beside her, but she resisted looking at him or acknowledging him except to shake her head at the bottle of beer he held out to her.

She saw him tip his own bottle up and take a long swig. When he stopped to take off his shoes she didn't slow down and when out of the corner of her eye she saw him strip off his shirt, she quickened her pace.

In a moment he'd caught up to her again and was' matching her stride as they moved together along sh.o.r.eline.

"Must you keep following me?" she snapped.

"I told you I wasn't letting I meant it."

She glanced at him and, despite herself, she lowed her gaze to linger a moment on his torso, on the stomach that 'was as flat and firm had been 'in high school. She scolded herself for membering so much and for feeling so much.

"Surely I'm in no danger walking along beach in broad daylight," she insisted.

"Probably not in that getup." She. looked down at the loose-fitting T-shirt she wore Knotted at the waist and the long cotton skirt that swirled around her ankles.

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"Nothing. I just don't remember you being such a prude. You used to love the sun and, as I recall, no matter how little you wore, you never burned."

His unexpected reference to their past took her by surprise, but she recovered quickly.

"You know, Reed, for a man who forgot his own wedding day, you seem to remember quite a bit of useless information about our past."

A spark of amus.e.m.e.nt danced in his dark' eyes and his laugh was a low, cynical chuckle.

"Touche, Tessa. But you know, now that you mention it, I think you're right.

I do remember some things better than others. For example, I remember how great you used to look in a bikini. Let's see ... the one I remember most vividly was a little black number, hardly more than a couple of strings that barely covered your'" She stopped short and whirled around to glare at him, warning him away from completing his sent tence.

His smile was knowing when he lifted his hand and let one finger skim the neckline of her T-shirt in a slow enticing manner that set off an unexpected shower of sparks inside her.

"Have you stopped wearing bikinis, Tessa?"

Although his seductive teasing had turned Tess's insides to jelly, she wasn't about to let him know it, "No, McKenna, I haven't stopped wearing bikini.. a matter of fact, I still favor the skimpy black ones." She tipped her chin and gave him an. icy stare.

"I have, however, stopped letting overheated adolescents help me out of them."

He arched one dark brow, his mouth curling into a deliciously wicked smile before he started to laugh. Unbidden, Tess felt a smile tugging at her own mouth, Despite her best resolve, she laughed with him.

"Sit down, Tessa," he said, smiling as he took her hand and pulled her down to sit beside him in the sand.

Tess sighed and hitched her skirt up to her knees, kicked off her shoes and buried her feet in the warm, wet sand. When he offered the beer again, she took and drank deeply.

Without a word, they seemed to have agreed temporary truce and Tess welcomed the respite from the tension of the last day and a half.

As they sat side by side in the sand, staring out over the water, they fell into gentle niscing. Whether they liked it or not, they past. A past that hadn't been all pain and regret.

She loved the sound of his laughter when she minded him of the Halloween night he and Stan etti had dragged an old outhouse into the Main Street.

"I thought the veins on Sheriff per's neck would explode, he was so angry," she recalled, giggling.

She felt transported in time When he recalled how the whole town had gathered at the Elks' Lodge that Christmas when a blizzard had cut them off from the rest of the world for three days.

"Sean was seven that year," Reed remembered.

"He loved all the nome and confusion and having the other kids to play with."

Mrs. Slok.u.m, they decided, was the most despised math teacher, and English teacher Ms. Perry had been everyone's favorite. Hank Vonn had brought the house down when he'd m.u.f.fed his lines in the middle of the senior cla.s.s play and Rudy Jones, Josh Kilmer and Patty Overfield had been responsible for putting the goat in the pantry in the home ec room.

The tragic train wreck on homecoming night, 1983, had killed three of their friends and the senior cla.s.s sneak that year had been canceled.

And so it went, the conversation flowing between them unforced, the feelings they stirred in each other nostalgic and warm, like going home.

When Tess finally glanced down at her watch, she realized they'd been talking for over an hour and that during that time they'd talked about everything and everyone but each other. A silence descended between them as they both focused on a riotous orange sunset in full progress. The noise from the crowd at the open-air b drifted between them and the smell of garlic and roast pork floated on the evening air, a subtle reminder of where they were and why they were together.

Tess sighed and allowed herself a final glimpse into her reverie.

"I knew those people back home better than I knew my own cousin."

"But you lived with Selena's family for a while, didn't you?"

She nodded as she pulled her hair over her shoulder and idly braided it.

"Yes. But Selena and I were never close. This trip was supposed to have been a new beginning."

He reached for her hand and squeezed it.

"I'm sorry, Tessa." His tone was gentle, unguarded, almost sad, and Tess felt a sharp twinge of longing for, the young man who used to confide his most dreams in just such a wistful tone.

"I'd hoped to confront Selena the day I arrived in Grand Cayman," he said.

"If things had gone cording to plan you wouldn't have been involved i any of this. I might never have seen you again, She drew her knees up and wrapped her around them to suppress a deep inner shiver.

"Hey, let's get out of here," he blurted, suddenly and pulling her to her feet beside him. almost eight and I want to scope out The Dive your ten o'clock appointment."

Their brief sojourn into the past had distracted Tess from the seriousness of their tion, but now all her apprehenaions and back, redoubled in their intensity.

"What if the kidnappers are watching? The caller insisted that I follow his instructions to the letter. If we go snooping around The Dive, we could be putting Selena's life in jeopardy. Besides, he may call the room again."

"They've made their contact for today," Reed said as they walked together back to the hotel.

"And if they call, let them wonder. As long as we have that journal, we have a bargaining chip. They aren't about to throw that away."

Tess wasn't so easily convinced.

"I think we should stay here," she argued when they reached the room.

"" I have no intention of walking into another setup, Tess," he informed her.

"I want to see that place before you go in. Now, go change into jeans or shorts. And grab a jacket."

When she made no move to comply with his order, he frowned, his dark eyes sparking and reminding her again that he was a man unaccustomed to having his judgment questioned.

Well, too bad, McKenna, she thought, because I'm not a woman who follows orders blindly.

As if he'd read her mind, he said, "If you fight me every time I make a suggestion, we're going to have a h.e.l.l of a time trying to accomplish anything, Tess."

"A suggestion? You call that order you issued just now a suggestion?"

His eyes narrowed.

"No. I guess I don't. All right, have it your way.

I'm an insensitive pig. Now, go change. We can continue this power struggle after we've saved Selena's life."

His blunt statement of what should have been her only concern hit its intended target dead center grabbed her clothes and stalked into the bathroom with her head held high.

He stood in the middle of the room, watching her go and muttering something about her stubbornness being the death of him, at which she allowed herself a secret smile.

A MOMVr LATER on the third floor landing they ran into the older couple Tess had seen Reed talking to on the beach yesterday. The woman carded the little girl, who twisted around and blurted, "Hi!"

when she l them. She was dressed in a one small, dimpled fist she clutched a big red with swirling white stripes.

"Well, hi there," Tess responded, smiling at adorable little girl.

"I see you've been to the beach to the gift shop."

The child nodded enthusiastically, honey-colored curls bouncing.

"Big fishy out de rev she announced.

"My name's Crissy." Her blue were as clear as the morning sky and as round as saucers when she twisted around in to point a stubby finger toward the beach. she declared.

"She's adorable," Tess said.

"You must be very proud."

The man's eyes flicked nervously to his wife's.

"Yes," the woman interjected, "her grandpa and I think she's pretty special."

"Down!" the child demanded, wriggling out of her grandmother's arms.

The woman's expression was one of concern as she set the child down and'

reached for her hand, only to have the toddler shrug away from her and surprise them all by turning to Reed and holding her arms out to him.

"Up! Up!" she demanded.

"Pick me up."

"Go ahead," Tess prompted when Reed hesitated. "Pick her up, Reed."

Tess couldn't help feeling a twinge of perverse pleasure at his obvious helplessness in the face of this persistent and disarming child.

Finally, he relented, reaching down and lifting her into his arms with a gentleness that set off a barrage of poignant memories inside Tess. One of the qualities that had touched her so deeply all those years ago had been Reed McKenna's unexpected tenderness.

"She likes men," Crissy's grandmother explained as the child wrapped her arms around Reed's neck and pressed her peaches-and-cream cheek against his before offering him a lick of her lollipop.

"Reed smiled--a real smile, this time--without a trace of cynicism or irony.

When he pretended to gobble her sucker a cascade of laughter, like the sound of a wind chime, escaped Crissy's rosebud mouth. Tess felt her heart swell, watching Reed with the toddler. In his eyes she caught a glimpse of the young Reed McKenna who'd once loved her. The real Reed, not the town's bad boy or the hard-edged man he'd become, but the Reed McKenna she'd trusted not only with her heart, but with her first real commitment of love.

"Perhaps she remembers you." Tess saw that simple suggestion trigger an inexplicable look of dark consternation to dart between the man and the woman.

"We'd better be going," the woman prompted curtly, reaching for the little girl.