Protector, Lover...Husband?: In the Dark / Sure Bet / Deadly Exposure

She was traditional. She’d been raised Catholic.

Damn David. He would know her thought process, that she would feel that she shouldn’t be with another man, that it wouldn’t be right, and…

Just how many women had he been with in the last year? What was wrong with her that she couldn’t see how ridiculous it was for her to be concerned over anything he had to say? Why had seeing him again made her uncertain, when she knew that an easy confidence and charm were just a part of his nature?

“I do love my dolphins,” she said, realizing she had been silent for too long after his question. “They are the most incredible animals. What I like most is that they seem to study us just as we study them, and just as we learn their behavior, they learn what our behavior is going to be. Sometimes their affinity for man, especially in the wild, can be dangerous for them, but still, the communication we can share is just amazing.”

“They are incredible,” he agreed. “I’ve seen them used in the navy in the most remarkable ways. Never worked with them myself,” he added quickly. “But I’ve seen what they can do.”

They had reached her porch. Strange, her thoughts had been filled with David’s behavior—she wished she could begin to understand the male of her own species half as well as she understood her dolphins—and then with John’s company, which, she had to admit, she had found all the more intoxicating just because she knew that it disturbed David.

Now, despite the light burning on her back porch, it seemed that the shadows of night were all around her, and she remembered the body on the beach. It wasn’t that she had ever forgotten, but despite her determination, the doubts of others had crept into her mind.

Was she insane, thinking the woman had been dead?

Or was she more insane now, trying to do what Jay had demanded, keep silent about the possibility of a body on the beach?

John had escorted her up the two wooden steps to her little back porch, with its charming, gingerbread railing. They were standing by her back door.

He was probably waiting to be invited in.

And just this morning, she had thought that if this moment came, she would invite him in.

She mentally damned her ex-husband again. Her almost-ex-husband.

She smiled up at John Seymore. His dimple was showing as he offered her a rueful smile.

“You’re really something,” he said.

“So are you,” she murmured. Blond hair, handsome face, shoulders to die for, arms that were wonderfully secure…

She slipped into them. He lowered his mouth to hers, and she allowed herself the kiss, but she couldn’t stop herself from analyzing it. Firm mouth, coercive, not demanding, fingers gently suggestive in her hair, tongue teasing at her lips, slipping into her mouth, warm, very warm, definitely seductive…

On a physical level, he was incredible.

So if she could just forget about David…

She couldn’t. Not when he was here, on the island, so irritatingly in-her-face.

She stepped back, stroking John’s cheek.

“You’re around for a little while longer, right?” she inquired softly, hoping he understood her signals. I’m interested, but it’s been a very long and strange day…

“I can arrange to be around for a very, very long time,” he told her. Then he grinned. “I’d like to come in. But I understand perfectly. Okay, well, not perfectly, and I am disappointed, wishing I could be sleeping with you tonight.”

She felt a flush touch her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to…lead you on, to suggest…”

“You didn’t. You’re just the most fascinating woman I’ve met in aeons, and…hell, good night. I’ll be around.”

“I—well, I know you’ve been talking to David. We are divorced. There’s just some ridiculous technicality.”

“I’m not worried about a technicality,” he told her.

“Neither am I.”

“But I will step back if the technicality isn’t just on paper, if it’s something a lot deeper.”

His words made her like him all the more. He wasn’t about to step into the middle of a triangle, or be secondstring to any other man.

“It’s only a technicality—really.” She meant to sound sincere. She wasn’t sure if she really was or not. And she wasn’t sure what he heard in her denial.

“Well…” he murmured.

He drew her to him, kissed her forehead. Then he walked down the steps, and started back along the foliage-bordered path.

She watched him disappear, realized she hadn’t opened her door, and felt the pressure of the night and the shadows again. She quickly slid her key into the bolt for the glass doors, then stepped inside, feeling a rise of anger. She had never felt afraid here before, ever.

And now…

Though the image had faded for a moment due to skepticism and doubt, she could now vividly recall the corpse on the beach. A corpse that had disappeared.

She locked the door, making certain it was secure; then, still feeling an almost panicky unease, she walked through the little Florida room, kitchen and living room, assuring herself that windows were tightly closed and the front door was locked.

Damn David a million times over for both the trials haunting her tonight. If it hadn’t been for him, John Seymore would be inside with her. Then she wouldn’t be afraid of the shadows, or the memories stirring in her mind.

She slipped through the hallway to the first of the two bedrooms in the cottage, the one she used for an office area. She checked the window there and even opened the closet door.

David’s suggestion that she might be in danger seemed to be invading her every nerve. But the office was empty and secure.

Finally she went to her own room, found it safe, then prepared for bed and slipped under the covers. The night-light she kept on in the bathroom had always provided her with more than enough illumination, but tonight it only added to the shadows.

Usually the sound of the waves and the sea breeze rustling through the trees was soothing, but tonight…

She lay there for several seconds. Waves…breeze…palms. Foliage that seemed to whisper softly in the night, usually so pleasant…

A sudden thumping sound startled her so badly that she nearly screamed aloud. She did jump out of bed.

She’d heard a thump, as if something heavy had just landed on her roof.

She stood dead still, waiting. And waiting…

Nothing, no sound at all. Had she been deceived? The sound might have come from elsewhere…

Or might not have come at all.

She almost let out a loud sigh of pure frustration, but swallowed it back, and slowly, silently, tiptoed from her bedroom.

Into the hall…through to the kitchen. From there she could see both the living room and the little Florida room and the glass doors that led out back. The curtain was partially open. Had she left it that way?