Led into Temptation

Tess tucked the leather folder containing his bill into her pocket. “We’ve never had a priest stay here before.”

He and Ian had prepared for that question when Dane had chosen to masquerade as a man of the cloth. “My bishop is interested in finding locations for spiritual retreats.”

“Oh, Haworth House has a lot of spaces to retreat to. You should talk to our manager, Mr. Cooper.”

He smiled at her. “I’ll do that, Tess.” More importantly, he intended to talk to Naomi Brightman about it. It would be his initial reason for meeting with her.

“I’m going off the clock until tomorrow morning. Will I see you then?” Tess asked.

“You bet.” He’d be here until he got his hands on the elusive Michael Davenport. According to his FBI informant, Naomi Brightman had been quite candid with both the police and the FBI. Davenport had told her that he would be in touch. And every instinct that

Dane had told him the swindling con man would keep his word.

Part of Davenport’s method of operation was to use women as either partners or patsies in his schemes. During the last con he’d worked in Kansas City he’d stashed his ill-gotten gains with a woman partner until the heat was off. In the end, he’d gotten away with the money. His partner had ended up dead.

Davenport had stashed something with Naomi this time. Dane was sure of it. Because of her squeaky clean record, he figured her for a patsy, not a partner. But that didn’t mean she was in any less danger. What he knew for sure was that Davenport hadn’t left the Boston area. In the past fourteen days, he’d been spotted three times. There was only one reason for Michael Davenport to take the risk of hanging around. He didn’t have access yet to the one hundred million plus he’d embezzled.

Dane had a three-year-old score to settle with Davenport. This time, nothing would stop him from getting his man.

“See you tomorrow, then, Father.” With a salute, Tess whirled and hurried back into the hotel. The bubbly and talkative waitress had provided some background information, but thanks to Ian’s meticulous research, there was little that Dane didn’t already know about Naomi Brightman and Haworth House.

When his cell phone rang, Dane checked the caller ID and then grinned. Speak of the devil. “What’s up?”

“Just checking in,” Ian said. “How’s the priest thing going?”

“So far, so good.”

As an investigator, Dane often assumed different personas. During his early years when he’d been in foster homes or on the street, he’d discovered and honed a chameleon-like talent for becoming whatever was needed to get him out of a jam. The decision in this instance for him to pose as a priest had been influenced by Ian’s insight into Naomi Brightman’s very Catholic background.

Technically, Ian was his half brother. He’d been nine and Ian seven when their mother had died and they’d been split up by social services. They had two other half siblings—a girl and a boy. Somewhere.

“I’ve got the waitress completely fooled,” Dane said.

Ian gave an appreciative laugh.

Thanks to the family that had adopted him, Ian had become an expert on all things Catholic. And he maintained that Catholic women had an instant trust in priests. They confided in them. Ian swore his adoptive mother had been “best buds” with a whole string of parish priests. Dane’s only experience with women and their relationships with priests was the second season of The Sopranos, when Tony’s wife had been really chummy with one.

“I have yet to put this little masquerade to the test. I haven’t seen her since I arrived, and I still have to wangle an introduction.”

“It’s going to work like a charm. You’ll see.”

Dane was banking on it. He’d gone along with Ian because he needed a cover that would allow him to win Naomi Brightman’s trust in a short amount of time. The sooner he figured out just how she fit into Davenport’s scheme, the better. And he needed to be close by when Davenport contacted her.

Plus, posing as a priest might also help him with his other problem. He’d felt a connection to Naomi Brightman even before he’d seen her in person. That wasn’t like him at all. Long ago, he’d learned to keep an emotional distance between himself and any case he was working.

He’d decided that the reason for his reaction to her was because they’d both experienced the responsibility of being the oldest sibling. Of course, their stories were vastly different. She’d never been separated from her sisters, and he’d lost everyone.

He shifted his eyes to the balcony outside her bedroom. But when he’d first seen her in the flesh, his reaction had gone far beyond empathy. A raw sexual awareness had shot through him like a lance. It was a purely visceral response that he couldn’t seem to control. And the experience had repeated itself in one way or another each time he’d seen her since.

At first he’d tried to prevent it, then he’d tried to analyze it. Finally he’d settled for trying to get used to it.

And that wasn’t going very smoothly. He’d very nearly reached out to touch her when he’d talked to her on the ferry. The urge to lay a hand on her arm or on the side of her face had been so strong. As a priest, he’d have to keep that impulse in check.

“You still there, Dane?”

“Yeah.” Annoyed with himself, he dragged his eyes away from Naomi’s balcony.

“For a moment there, I thought I’d lost you. I take it you haven’t seen our other friend, either?”

“You’ll be the first to know. He wasn’t on the ferry.” But Dane hadn’t expected him to be. The man was smart. He’d have known that Naomi would come to Haworth House just as Dane had known. In the year since she and her sisters had purchased the hotel, this was the only place Naomi Brightman had escaped to.

It was a matter of time before Davenport showed. The island held a myriad of places for a secret rendezvous.

There was a brief pause, then Ian said, “Things are slow here at the office. I’m bored.”

Dane could picture his brother. He’d be sitting at his desk, feet propped up, wearing cutoff shorts and a T-shirt and shooting wadded-up balls of paper at the wastebasket strategically placed five feet away. When Dane had located Ian a year ago, he’d been seated behind a desk at the CIA wearing a suit, tie and a very serious expression on his face. It was the same face that Dane remembered from his childhood. But in the short time they’d worked together, the formerly uptight Ian had loosened up quite a bit.

“You know field work has its boring days. Don’t forget I’m just off two weeks of shadowing.” There hadn’t been much excitement in keeping Naomi Brightman under surveillance. In spite of the fact that her life had been thrown into major turmoil, she’d stuck as much as she could to a daily routine. She’d bought her latte at the same coffee shop each day. She’d arrived at her office and left at the same time. Except on Tuesdays. That was the day she worked late. Even her wardrobe had a routine to it. Though the colors might vary, she always wore a suit, and in addition to a briefcase, she carried the same enormous tote bag everywhere. She’d even had it with her when he’d talked to her on the ferry.

“Ian.” At the memory, Dane straightened in his chair. “There is something that you can look into for me.”

“I’m all ears.”

“I spoke briefly with Naomi on the ferry just as we were about to disembark. We didn’t exchange names or anything. Just a few casual words between strangers. But she thought she knew me. It shook her up. She asked if I’d been a priest at that boarding school she went to in France. Do you think you can dig up something on that?”

“Is the Pope Catholic? I’ll be in touch. And if things start to heat up on the island, let me know. I’ll gladly provide backup.”

“Will do.” After repocketing his cell phone, Dane stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. There was no one better at digging up information than Ian. With his brother’s help, Dane had no doubt that they would locate their younger sibs very soon. The little ones had been four and two on the day their mother had died and their life as a family had ended.

Dane put his sunglasses on and gazed out at the sea. Sharon MacFarland had been twenty-eight when her life had been snuffed out, a year younger than he was now. He remembered her as a good mother. She’d loved them. The problem was she’d had a dream that one day she’d find her Prince Charming. And Lord knows, she’d looked for him. Persistence had been Sharon MacFarland’s middle name. He and his three other siblings all had different fathers, and none of them had turned out to be the prince his mother was looking for.

A tingle of awareness moved through him. And Dane knew before he raised his eyes to the balcony that Naomi would be there. The moment that he looked at her, the awareness sharpened and he felt an irresistible pull.

Before he was even conscious of the decision, he rose from his chair and moved closer to the edge of the open courtyard to get a clearer view.

She stood at a waist-high railing, looking out at the sea. Though he couldn’t see them, he knew what her legs looked like, and he recalled the strength and athleticism in the way she moved. If he closed his eyes, he could recall every detail of the features that had been captured in her photo on King and Fairchild Web site. Gray-green eyes, pale skin with just a sprinkling of freckles, a straight, narrow nose, strong cheekbones and a chin that hinted at stubbornness.

But there was something different about her today. She had the same serious look on her face that she’d worn for the past two weeks. But he sensed less tension. Her shoulders were more relaxed and her hands rested on the balcony rather than gripping it.

That was when it struck him. Her hair—that was different, too. It fell loose to her shoulders, and the late-afternoon sun haloed it around her head. That had to be why he’d never noted the fiery red highlights before. His eyes narrowed then, focusing on her face. Her lips were moving. Not even a hint of a sound drifted to him. Was she whispering? Praying?

For a moment a vivid image flashed into his mind. She was in his arms, her cheek pressed against his, her breath hot in his ear. She was whispering to him. His blood heated, his pulse raced. He couldn’t make out her words above the pounding of his heart. Then her eyes shifted suddenly to him, and her gaze moved slowly up his body. He hadn’t thought it possible for his body to grow any harder, but it did.

When her eyes finally locked on his, there was a moment—an instant, he would convince himself later—when he couldn’t think of anything, anyone but her. And he barely blocked the urge to walk into the courtyard and climb up the stone wall to her balcony.

The thought was so ridiculous that it cleared his mind immediately. Who did he think he was? A comic book hero? Or Shakespeare’s hormone-driven Romeo?

Still, he wasn’t the one who broke the spell by walking away. It was Naomi Brightman who turned from the railing and disappeared into her room.