A Little Corner Of Paradise

‘Funny you should ask that,’ he replied, his own smile not quite as brilliant in return, ‘because where someone is parked is what brought me out here—though the someone in question doesn’t happen to be you.’ He bent down to pat Peg Leg, who was hopping around on her three good paws begging for affection as usual, and by the time he looked up again his expression had turned sober. ‘You’ve got uninvited company. Someone’s set up camp down on the old Tyler property. I could see fresh tire-tracks on the driveway when I passed by on my way here. Apparently he showed up in town late yesterday, and stopped by Wickman’s Garage to get directions. A man in a four-wheel drive Jeep, towing a big, flashy RV, according to Brent, and definitely no one from around these parts.’

‘Should I be worried?’ Madeleine asked lightly, but Andy continued to look grave. Since he took his work very seriously, however, that in itself wasn’t too surprising.

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘At the very least you should be aware, and take suitable precautions to protect yourself.’

Protect herself? From a camper? ‘Don’t be absurd, Andy. It’s a free country and there aren’t any signs posted on the Tyler land warning against trespassing. He’s probably just some harmless old man looking for a spot to do a little quiet fishing.’

‘He’s not old, and I’m not so sure he’s harmless. He showed too much interest in the area for my peace of mind—found it so fascinating, in fact, that he ended up buying Brent a pint down at the Edgewater Arms after the garage closed for the night.’

Madeleine laughed again, genuinely amused. Brent Wickman was famous for his willingness to gossip with anyone who’d stand still long enough for him to open his mouth. To find a listener willing to treat him to a beer while he indulged in his favorite pastime must have struck him as an abundance of riches far surpassing the usual. ‘That might make the visitor a beggar for punishment, Andy, but it hardly makes him an ax-murderer.’

‘Probably not, but times have changed since your great-granddaddy settled here in the 1900s. This isn’t the safe little backwater it once was, Madeleine, and you’re not a landowner’s wife, living within hailing distance of half a dozen farmhands should you need help. You’re out here alone.’

‘No, I’m not,’ she objected. ‘I’ve got a three-legged Golden Lab who’d give her life to protect me.’

As though to prove the point, Peg Leg continued to circle Madeleine nudging her knee every once in a while and wriggling with ecstasy when Madeleine reached down to pat her.

‘You’re a woman living alone, in virtual isolation from the rest of the community, and you think it’s cute to go out and not lock your doors,’ Andy replied. The decidedly official edge in his voice suggesting that, for once, he was close to losing patience with her. ‘And that, Madeleine, is why I decided to come out in person to warn you, instead of doing what I’m supposed to be doing right now, which is reading over last night’s reports on the misdemeanors of Edgewater’s juvenile offenders.’

‘You could have called instead, and saved yourself the bother,’ Madeleine pointed out reasonably. ‘One convenience Spindrift Island does enjoy that wasn’t an option in my great-granddaddy’s day is telephone communication with the rest of the world.’

‘I didn’t phone because I knew that if I did you’d pretend to listen, agree in all the right places, then hang up and promptly ignore everything I’d said.’ Andy sounded justifiably aggrieved. ‘Instead, I drove all the way out here and, before I drive all the way back again, I intend to find your mysterious neighbor and establish his motives for arriving unannounced on a little-known patch of beach separated from the mainland by a five-mile stretch of causeway. I intend to have his license plates checked out and, if I have any reason at all to suspect he’s not on the level, I’ll haul him in for questioning.’

‘You’re making this sound like the prologue to a murder mystery,’ Madeleine grumbled.

Andy sighed and caught her hand. ‘No, I’m not. I’m trying to make you admit to the wisdom of caution.’

Perhaps he was, but all he’d really done was whet her curiosity. Quite eager to meet the object of such manifest suspicion, she assumed her most docile expression and smiled sweetly. “Then let’s go and check him out together.’

Placated by her apparent surrender, Andy led the way. ‘He’s probably camped down near the lodge,’ he decided. ‘It’s the most sheltered spot at that end of the island and about the only choice he’s got, since there’s no other road that’s passable except for yours.’

Delighted to be taking a different route from the usual, Peg Leg stumped along behind, her rocking gait perfectly adjusted to her having one leg less than Nature had intended.

It was the last week of September. Already the vine maples had turned scarlet, and the chill of autumn lent a snap to the air. The sand on the dunes was soft as flour, quickly covering the flawless polish of Andy’s boots with a powdery bloom, but where the tide had receded the beach was firm and smooth.

No alien footprints, Madeleine noticed as she followed Andy around Tyler Point, a jagged spit which marked the boundary between her property and the resort, and which made for treacherous passage at high-tide. Whoever he was, the visitor clearly had no interest in intruding on her privacy, and would probably resent their sneaking up and disturbing his.

As it happened, however, he was the one to take them by surprise. Half-hidden, by the shade of the arched stone gateway that topped the steps leading from the beach to the lodge, he was waiting for them, and had obviously been tracking their arrival from the minute they’d rounded the point, but neither she nor Andy was aware of him until Peg Leg picked up his scent.

At about the same time he stepped forward into full sunlight, and the first thought that struck Madeleine was that Brent Wickman had been right on at least one score: the visitor was not old. Probably somewhere between thirty-five and forty, she surmised hazily, feeling almost struck senseless by a bolt from the blue of his eyes.

His gaze homed in on her and wouldn’t let go, and the insane thought occurred to her, Make a clean break now, before it’s too late. Or was it the other way around? Was she the one anxious not to sever the connection? Because, ridiculous though it undoubtedly was, no matter how hard she tried, her eyes fastened on him with the determination of a compass needle swinging to the magnetic north.

Nor was that the end of it. She might have run a mile uphill from the tight constriction in her chest. And then, when it finally eased, she felt a sort of soft implosion, as if her heart had suddenly clenched in on itself in order to release an abundance of sweet-flowing warmth into her veins.

Shaken by so turbulent a reaction, she clasped her hands tightly, but it wasn’t enough to still the jerking of her nerve-ends. They were live wires, sparking electricity despite her best efforts to subdue them.

Every cliché in the book, and then some! she decided disdainfully, but how else could she begin to describe the sheer physical impact of the man standing in front of her?

Although he stood a full six feet tall, Andy appeared almost short beside him. Nor was it just the stranger’s height that was impressive. Power oozed out of every pore to swarm around him, invisible yet almost tangible. Power of muscle and sinew, certainly, but, more potently, power of command, coupled with an almost unholy force of personality.

Here was a man who didn’t understand fear and would never bow before it, but he was not dangerous or violent. Madeleine knew these things at once—partly because he didn’t so much as flinch at the sight of a large, bristling dog charging up to him, and partly because, after a suitable sniffing of his ankles, Peg Leg signified her approval by allowing him to scratch behind her ears.

Andy wasn’t so easily won over. ‘Nice morning,’ he said, civilly enough, but the hand resting on the holster at his hip was anything but friendly.

Still not the least bit intimidated, the stranger merely nodded. ‘Very,’ he agreed, his gaze flicking briefly, dismissively, over Andy before returning to Madeleine with curious intensity.

Still helpless to look away, Madeleine gazed back, her heart stalling and racing erratically.

Beside her, Andy let out an irritable ‘Ahem!’ and planted one boot on the top step. ‘Great day for fishing,’ he observed. ‘Anything biting?’

The stranger shrugged. ‘Search me.’

Andy sounded as if he’d like nothing better. ‘You’re not here to fish, then?’

Sparkling with amusement, the blue eyes swivelled from Madeleine to encompass Andy’s stony features. ‘No. Are you?’ the stranger taunted.

A faint flush ran along Andy’s cheekbones. ‘Perhaps. I’m Officer Latham, Edgewater Police Department.’

‘Congratulations,’ the man replied insolently, his amusement speeding to the corners of a mouth that looked as if it was having a hard time not openly laughing.

Andy turned quite red at that. ‘I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Probably because I didn’t throw it out. Since you appear to be so interested, however, it’s Hamilton. Nick Hamilton.’

‘If you’re not here to fish, why are you here?’

Nick Hamilton’s raised eyebrows suggested it was none of Andy’s business, but he chose not to voice the opinion. Instead, tapped at the camera slung around his neck. ‘Photography. I’m a bird-watcher.’

‘You’re not local.’

It was as much an accusation as a statement, a fact which prompted Nick Hamilton to restore his attention to Madeleine. Once again, that amused insolence baited a man who was truly one of Edgewater’s finest. ‘No,’ Nick Hamilton agreed, bathing Madeleine in a conspiratorial smile. ‘Is that against the law, Officer?’

‘Not necessarily,’ Andy snapped, stepping protectively closer to Madeleine.

Nick Hamilton didn’t miss the move. His gaze narrowed. ‘Ah, I see,’ he murmured ambiguously. ‘I’m trespassing on someone else’s property and in danger of being arrested if I don’t move on?’

‘No.’ Andy seethed in frustration.

‘In that case…’ Smiling broadly, Nick Hamilton shrugged his formidable shoulders and strolled away across the fractured paving-stones of the lower terrace. Raising his camera, he focused the lens on a flock of seagulls circling and squawking a few yards out to sea.

But Madeleine continued to stare at him, fascinated. He had the voice of a late-night disc jockey—smoky, sexy, alluring. And devastating bedroom eyes—also smoky, sexy and alluring. A thatch of dark, unruly hair. A mouth that had her swallowing to ease the persistent dryness in her own throat. A smile so potent that she almost melted in its warmth.

Andy would probably arrest her if he knew what she was thinking!

‘He seems harmless enough,’ she muttered in a cracked voice. ‘I think you can leave me with an easy mind, Andy.’

‘I don’t.’ Andy glared at the stranger with cold suspicion. ‘I’d bet my last dollar that that guy’s no more a bird-watcher than I am.’