Lethal Lover

* * *

THE PERSISTENCE of the breakers pounding the rocks below the balcony restaurant had nothing on the unrelenting memories pummeling Reed McKenna as he sat transfixed, watching Tess Elliot where she sat at her table across the room.

She was even more beautiful than the indelible image he carried in his memory. If she had changed at all, it was only for the better. She was still startlingly attractive. Her smile was still a cover girl’s. Her hair still long, thick and glossy brown. Even from this distance, he could tell that her olive skin still glowed with good health, as though she’d just stepped off one of her beloved Colorado mountain trails.

When she’d walked in, wearing the gauzy yellow sundress, he couldn’t help noticing that her long legs were still slim and well toned, and that she still moved like a thoroughbred.

When she’d laughed, the sound had floated to him on a breeze and sparked what few memories hadn’t already been stirred to life by the sudden sight of her. Tess, his mind whispered, what kind of fool would ever let you go?

“Can I get you another beer, sir?” the bartender asked, interrupting Reed’s musings.

He nodded, resisting the temptation to ask the bartender to bring him a pack of Camels.

Out of the corner of his eye, Reed saw the waiter deliver a message to Selena Elliot. When she stood up and walked out of the dining room, Reed hoped that Tess wouldn’t follow.

Selena left the dining room alone, and Reed decided with grim satisfaction that perhaps this wasn’t going to be as difficult as he’d first thought. Maybe he wouldn’t have to inflict himself on Tess after all.

That was the way he wanted it, wasn’t it? Of course, he reminded himself. The memories he’d harbored, the fantasies he’d spun about his young love, were just that: fantasies and nothing more.

But despite that blunt realization, before he left the bar, he couldn’t resist a last look over his shoulder at the woman who’d once held his young heart, before it had turned cold. And captured his imagination, before it had become so jaded.

Her eyes met his for barely a second and he foolishly held his breath, wondering if she recognized him. When it appeared she hadn’t, a strange mix of disappointment and relief settled heavily in his chest.

* * *

WHEN THE SHIMMERING crystal bowl of chilled shrimp arrived, Tess began to wonder what was keeping Selena. After five minutes more, she beckoned their waiter. “Excuse me, but could you direct me to the phone where my cousin took her phone call?”

“Of course,” the young man agreed. “Right this way.”

The bar was beginning to fill and the waiter and Tess had to weave their way past a group gathered around a table where a lively game of dominoes was in progress.

Once in the lobby, the young man pointed to a bank of courtesy phones on the wall. From where she stood, Tess could already see that Selena was not in the lobby.

“Perhaps she had the call transferred to our room,” Tess suggested. “I think I’ll go check. If she comes back before I do, will you tell her where I’ve gone?”

The waiter smiled and nodded.

Crossing the lobby quickly, Tess emerged onto the sidewalk outside the main building that led to the individual guest rooms. A profusion of tropical plants, bay vines and spider lilies, lined the meandering walk that led to three separate buildings. The music and laughter coming from the beach faded as she made her way up the open stairway to the fourth floor of the first building.

At their room, Tess unlocked the door and stepped inside. The large, airy room was empty and Tess saw no obvious sign to suggest that Selena had returned since the two of them had gone down to the dining room for dinner.

With a nagging and growing sense of anxiety, Tess walked back to the lobby, crossed the dining room and sat down at their table alone. She beckoned to the first waiter that passed, but when the young man turned around, she realized he wasn’t the same waiter who’d helped them earlier. “Excuse me, but did the other lady who was sitting here return while I was gone?”

The young man’s expression was blank. “I haven’t seen anyone, ma’am, not since I came on duty a few minutes ago. Can I bring you something to drink, or a menu?”

Tess shook her head. “No thanks,” she muttered distractedly, looking past him, searching the room for Selena. After picking unenthusiastically at the shrimp and sipping the lukewarm punch for ten long minutes, Tess decided to check the lobby again.

Still, there was no sign of Selena. The ladies’ room was Tess’s next stop, but her cousin was not to be found there, either.

Wandering back into the lobby, Tess began to feel stronger stirrings of concern. A noisy group of tourists jostled off a tour bus, into the lobby and crowded around the front desk. Tess tried in vain to pick out her cousin’s face among the group.

A tall, sandy-haired man in a brightly printed floral shirt and baggy white shorts caught Tess’s eye when she realized he was staring at her. But when she made eye contact, he looked away. An uneasy feeling lifted the hair at the nape of her neck, but she dismissed the strange reaction and searched the lobby again for Selena.

Where could she have gone? Tess wondered, walking back to the entrance to the dining room to stand helplessly staring across the room at their empty balcony table as gnawing apprehension bloomed into genuine concern.

“May I help you, miss?” A cocktail waitress in a short, floral wrap skirt and yellow halter top greeted Tess when she stepped into the crowded bar.

“I’m looking for someone....” Tess murmured distractedly, her eyes scanning the crowd. “A woman, about my height, in a pink sundress and a big hat. Have you seen her?”

The young woman attendant’s eyes followed Tess’s around the room. “No, I don’t remember seeing anyone like that. But then, the place has been filling up fast since the last group of dive boats came in,” she explained in perfect, West Indies English. “If I see her, I will be sure to tell her that you’re looking for her.”

Tess thanked the young woman and moved back into the lobby, completely at a loss as to what to do next, or how to explain her cousin’s strange disappearance. As she wandered toward the main door and the circle drive in front of the hotel, a limousine slid to a stop outside and reminded her of the problem with the rental car.

Heartened to have a course of action, Tess walked briskly to the nearest courtesy phone and dialed the number for the rental-car company.

After a short and disjointed explanation to the clerk on the other end of the line, Tess gave up, thanked the woman for her help—which had, in fact, been no help at all—and hung up, feeling even more exasperated. If the call that had pulled Selena away from their table had come from the rental-car company, the person to whom Tess had spoken knew nothing about the matter.

When Tess glanced at the large clock on the wall behind the registration desk, she saw that it was nearly four-thirty. Selena had left their table almost forty-five minutes ago. Where was she?

Feeling someone’s eyes on her, Tess spun around, hoping to see Selena, only to find the man in the gaudy shirt staring at her again. She glared at the tourist and the man actually smiled, causing Tess to feel even more peevish as she pushed her way to the front desk.

After leaving a message for Selena, Tess left the lobby quickly with the eerie feeling that gaudy-shirt-man’s eyes were still on her back.

Once inside their room again, Tess set her mind to the task of unpacking and tried to tell herself that any moment Selena would come bursting through the door, smiling and apologetic with a breathless explanation for her strange disappearance. But soon another fifteen minutes had ticked by, and Selena hadn’t returned.

After her things were put away, Tess paced out onto the balcony and scanned the beach and squinted to see as far as she could in each direction.

Tess figured Selena’s bright pink dress and big floppy hat would have been easy to spot if she had been among the people wandering along the beach. But there was no pink dress. No floppy hat. No Selena. Something was dreadfully wrong, she was nearly certain.

When the phone finally rang, it startled her. Her heart pounded and she banged her knee on the nightstand hurrying back inside. The receiver was halfway to her ear when someone knocked on the door. “Just a minute,” she called out.

“Hello,” she answered hopefully into the receiver. “Hold on!” she shouted to the persistent knocker on the other side of the door. “Hello!” she said again into the phone.

“Miss Elliot, this is Guy from Premium Car Rental. I understand you’re having a problem with your car?”

“No, no, there’s nothing wrong with the car!” Tess felt her heart sink. “Yes, I did call earlier, but—” The knocking grew louder.

“Hang on a minute,” she told the car-rental clerk, dropping the phone on the bed and hurrying across the room to open the door.

Reaching for the door, Tess just knew it would be Selena’s pretty face she’d see on the other side.

She jerked the door open and every teasing word she’d prepared to fling at her cousin for losing her keys or forgetting the time or whatever froze on Tess’s lips as she stood staring and speechless at Reed McKenna, as tall, dark and startlingly handsome as ever, standing in her doorway.

With just one look, Tess knew her life was about to change forever.

Chapter Three

There were no words to express her shock; only his name emerged. “Reed?” It came out a whisper.