Her Tycoon Lover: On the Tycoon's Terms / Her Tycoon Protector / One Night with the Tycoon

He could invite her to San Francisco.

Sure, he jeered. You’re really into rejection, Luke MacRae. She’d laugh in your face. And if by any chance she did agree, she’d turn your life upside down, you can be sure of that. Is that what you want?

No. Definitely not. His life was fine as it was.

The torte was moist with chocolate, the strawberries slightly tart. Luke began to eat, trying simultaneously to make some sense out of the latest financial predictions; but when he left the tearoom twenty minutes later, after a serious overdose of chocolate, he realized he was in a foul mood. Oh, he’d been all very clever the last couple of hours. Chief Detective MacRae in action, ferreting out the truth about the marital status of a waitress in a little fishing village in Manitoba. But what good did his new knowledge do him?

Katrin Sigurdson spelled danger. And what was a sensible tactic when face-to-face with danger? Avoid it. He wasn’t a reckless eighteen-year-old anymore, he had no bent toward self-destruction; and he’d proved himself often enough in the past, he didn’t need to do so again. Not with a blue-eyed blonde who could tear apart everything he’d so carefully constructed.

Stay away from her. That was all he needed to do.

It was so simple.

CHAPTER FIVE

FOR twenty-four hours Luke did stay away from Katrin. He got back to the lodge that afternoon late for a panel discussion, which did nothing to improve his state of mind. He then set up a private consultation with the Peruvian delegates in his suite, ordering room service for dinner. Afterward, he worked far into the night, fell into an exhausted sleep, and was also late for breakfast because he’d forgotten to set his alarm.

At least he hadn’t dreamed about her. He’d been spared that.

When he took his seat in the dining room, he soon discovered it was Katrin’s day off; a young man called Stan waited on them. Again Luke drove himself hard all day. But by four-thirty he’d done everything that needed to be done, and he was in no mood to drift to the bar and exchange small talk. He decided to go for a run instead.

He jogged for the better part of an hour, watching distant purple-edged clouds move closer and closer, until they merged into a dark mass that spread all the way to the horizon. When he passed the wharf below the resort, he noticed with an edge of unease that the daysailer was gone from its mooring.

The wind had come up in the last few minutes. A south wind, he realized, his unease growing. Hadn’t Katrin said that was the most dangerous wind on the lake?

It was her day off. Wasn’t it all too likely that she’d gone sailing?

What had she said? It kept her sanity?

When he needed a break from the pressures of work, he jogged, played tennis and skied. It was the same principle.

A sudden gust whipped through his hair. Fear lending wings to his feet, Luke ran back to the lodge, changed in his room into jeans and a T-shirt, and raced for his car. First he checked the resort wharf again, but there was still no daysailer. Then he drove fast to the village wharf. Again, no slim white boat with a furled scarlet sail. By now, waves were lashing the wharf, the spray driven against the thick boards.

An old man was climbing the metal ladder from his boat to the dock. Luke strode over to him, raising his voice over the gusts of wind. “I’m looking for Katrin Sigurdson—she uses a small boat with a red sail. Do you know if she’s out on the lake?”

The old man had red-veined cheeks and bleary blue eyes. “Katrin? That’s my niece…I’m Erik Sigurdson.”

“Luke MacRae,” Luke said, shaking hands. How it must have amused Katrin to posit her disreputable uncle as her husband. He repeated urgently, “I’m worried about her, surely she wouldn’t stay out in weather like this?”

“Katrin?” The old man gave an uncouth cackle. “Too smart for that. Although she likes pushing herself, I must say. I’ve said to her more than once, you’ll go too far one day, my girl, and then what’ll—”

“Then where is she?”

“You’re in a right state, young feller,” Erik said, spitting with careless accuracy into the churning water.

Luke said tightly, “Yes, I am. So why don’t you answer the question?”

“She ain’t interested in guys from the resort. Here today and gone tomorrow, that’s what she says.”

Each word dropping like a chip of ice, Luke said, “I may be staying at the resort, but even I can tell there’s a storm brewing on the lake. No one, but no one, should be out there in this kind of wind, especially in a skimpy little daysailer. So will you for God’s sake tell me if you know where she is?”

“If she’s not home and the boat’s gone, she likely docked on the far side of the island. In the lee.”

“How do I get there?”

Erik took a square of tobacco from one pocket of his flannel shirt, a jackknife from the other, and with its viciously sharp blade cut off a chunk of tobacco. “You got designs on my niece, Mr. Luke MacRae?”

“No. But I sure don’t want her drowning while you and I stand here passing the time of day!”

“Okay, okay, no need to get antsy. Get in your car, turn right, take the next left and keep going to the end of the road. And I’ll bet my entire supply of ‘baccy that she’s there.”

“I hope you’re right,” Luke snarled, and ran for his car. In a screech of tires he turned right. The first drop of rain plopped on his windshield. The limbs of the birches were tossing in the wind; clouds skudded across the lurid sky. Then he was suddenly enveloped in a downpour as a flash of lightning split the horizon in two.

Strong winds and lightning were deadly enemies of sailors. Fear knotting his muscles, Luke drove as fast as he dared through the rain and the gathering gloom. He should have asked how far before he turned left, he thought, furious with himself for the oversight. But he’d been so desperate to get away from Erik Sigurdson, he’d overlooked that all-important question.

She had to be at the dock. She had to be.

He shoved his foot on the brake, then backed up ten feet. He’d almost missed the turnoff, a narrow road flanked by spruce and poplar, rain pelting its gravel surface and running in rivulets into the ditches. He turned onto the road beneath shadowed trees. Slowing down, flicking the wipers to high speed, Luke drove on. Rocks rattled under his wheels.

As suddenly as it had begun, the road opened into a clearing, then snaked down a short, steep hill toward the water. Almost miraculously, the wind had dropped: the broad bay that he’d glimpsed from the top of the hill was in the lee. Lightning ripped the sky apart, followed by a clap of thunder that made him wince. He took the slope as fast as he dared, then parked beside a tangle of boat cradles and overgrown shrubbery. His was the only car in sight.

Thrusting his door open, Luke got out. Earth and rocks had been heaped to make an artificial barrier from the lake, barring his view. He ran down the last of the slope, rounded the corner and saw in front of him a dark stretch of water, pebbled with raindrops, and a small wooden jetty.

A daysailer was moored at the jetty. Katrin was kneeling on the wet boards, searching for something in her duffel bag. Her back was toward him.

She was safe.

For a moment Luke stood still, all his pent-up breath whooshing from his lungs. She wasn’t out on the lake. She hadn’t drowned. She was right here in front of him. Safe.

She was also quite alone, and without any visible means of transportation.

Slowly he walked toward her, his hair already plastered to his skull, his T-shirt clinging to his chest. Another spectacular jag of lightning lit up the whole scene; her shirt was pink, her cap a fluorescent green. Like a drumroll, thunder ushered him onto the wharf.

Enter the hero, Luke thought. Although Katrin would more likely categorize him as the villain; and she had clearly no need of rescue, which is what heroes were supposed to do. As he stepped across the first couple of planks, the vibrations of his steps must have alerted her. She lifted her head sharply, gazing right at him; for a moment he saw the exhilaration still on her face, her wide smile and dancing eyes.

The terror that had kept his foot hard on the accelerator all the way across the island fled, replaced by a tumultuous rage. He grated, “Why are you looking so damned pleased with yourself?”

The laughter vanished from her face. She pushed herself upright, swinging her bag in one hand. “If you really want to know,” she said coldly, “I was congratulating myself on how well I handled the boat once the wind came up.”

“You were a fool to be out in this weather!”

“Thank you for that resounding vote of confidence.”

He stepped closer, water gurgling beneath the boards. “A south wind and a lightning storm—are you crazy? Or just plain suicidal?”

“Neither one,” she flared. “Why don’t you go back to the resort where you belong, Luke MacRae? Where, in theory at least, you know what you’re talking about.”

He took her by the arm, rain sluicing his face. “It so happens that right now I do know what I’m talking about—if you’d gotten in trouble out there, someone would have had to rescue you. You’d have been risking the lives of other people just so you could get some cheap thrills. I used the wrong word—that’s not crazy. It’s totally irresponsible.”