Beyond Reach

She blinked. ‘No. But some time today I’ll have to get my suitcase.’

‘Use the Jeep,’ he said impatiently.

It was by now blindingly obvious to Lucy that Troy didn’t like her at all and wouldn’t have hired her if he’d had any other options. In fact, he thought so little of her that he considered her unmarried state a boon to the male sex. So she might as well confirm him in his dislike; it would beat going to the police. She said in a small voice, ‘I need to borrow you as well as the Jeep.’

He frowned. ‘Surely you haven’t got that many clothes? Storage space is limited on a boat, as you should know.’

Lucy said rapidly, ‘I arrived in Tortola this morning, planning to work for a family with a villa in the hills. But when I got to the villa it very soon became plain that the family wasn’t about to materialize and that the man of the house and I had radically different ideas about the terms of my employment.’

‘He put the make on you?’

She grimaced. ‘Yes. So I left with more haste than grace via the nearest window, and my suitcase is still there.’ Her shoulders slumped. ‘I’m scared to go back there alone,’ she confessed. ‘But I could go to the police if you don’t want to go with me, Troy. It’s nothing to do with you, I do see that.’

‘I’ll go,’ Troy said with a ferocious smile. ‘This has been the week from hell, and I don’t see much chance of it improving—I could do with a little action. Why don’t we go there first?’

Lucy took a step backwards and said with absolute truth, ‘I’m not so sure that you don’t frighten me more than Raymond Blogden.’

‘I almost hope he resists,’ Troy said, flexing both fists.

The muscles of his forearms moved smoothly and powerfully under his tanned skin and there was such pent up energy behind his words that Lucy backed off another step, until the teak edge of the bench was hard against the backs of her knees. ‘I know nothing whatsoever about you,’ she muttered, ‘and yet I’ve agreed to live on a fifty-foot boat with you for a month. Maybe I should be asking you for references.’

‘You can always check with my bank manager and my physician,’ he said with another fiendish smile. ‘Anyway, if nothing you’ve done since you were fifteen has impressed you as much as sailing a Laser, you might benefit from throwing caution to the wind. Let’s go.’

It was, Lucy thought, not bad advice.

And throwing caution to the winds had brought her to Tortola in the first place, hadn’t it?

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_70b829cf-a133-58a3-be1d-2ffe4538f9ff)

LUCY hurried below, changed back into her skirt, and five minutes later was driving west out of Road Town. Troy drove the Jeep as competently as he drove a boat; she couldn’t help noticing that the muscles in his thighs were every bit as impressive as those in his arms, and forcibly reminded herself of her vow. Fortunately, in her opinion, to be truly sexy a man had to be able to laugh…

They braked for a herd of goats trotting along the road, and then for a speed bump. ‘The turnoff’s not far from here,’ Lucy said, her pulses quickening.

The driveway to the villa wound up the hill in a series of hairpin turns; all too clearly she remembered running down them, glancing back over her shoulder in fear of pursuit. It seemed like another lifetime, another woman, so much had happened since then. And then the Spanishstyle stucco villa came in sight and her heart gave an uneasy lurch. It looked very peaceful, the bougainvillaea hanging in fuchsia clouds over the stone wall, the blinds drawn against the glare of the sun.

Troy drew up in front of the door and pocketed his keys. ‘Why don’t you stay here?’

She had an obscure need to confront Raymond Blogden again. ‘I know where the case is,’ she murmured, and slid to the ground.

Troy pushed the doorbell.

The chimes rang deep in the house. A bee buzzed past Lucy’s ear, and from the breadfruit trees behind the house a dove cooed monotonously. Troy leaned hard on the bell, and from inside a man’s voice said irritably, ‘Hold on, I’m on my way.’

Lucy recognized the voice all too well, and unconsciously moved a little closer to Troy. The door swung open, Troy stepped inside without being asked and Lucy,

perforce, followed. ‘What the? Who are you?’

Raymond Blogden blustered. ‘Get out of my—’ And

then he caught sight of Lucy. His recovery was instant. ‘Well, well… I’m glad you came back, Miss Barnes,’ he sneered. ‘I was about to call the police. Breach of contract and destruction of personal property should cover it, don’t you think?’

He was a big man, his black hair slicked back in the heat, his expensive white linen suit dealing as best it could with a figure whose musculature had long ago been subsumed by fat. Rings flashed on his fingers. Lucy remembered how they had dug into her arm and shivered.

Troy said with icy precision, ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mr Blogden—you should be thankful Miss Barnes isn’t at the police station charging you with assault… Go get your case, Lucy. You’re quite safe this time.’

The house was shaded and cool and very quiet. Lucy scurried down the hall to the bedroom that was to have been hers, finding her blue duffel bag exactly where she had left it on the tiled floor. She picked it up and ran back to the foyer. Raymond Blogden’s complexion was several shades redder than when she had left. ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me your name, young man?’ he was saying, and to her horror Lucy saw his right hand inching toward his pocket.

‘Troy, he’s got a weapon!’ she cried.

In a blur of movement Troy went on the offensive. Three seconds later Raymond Blogden’s arm was twisted behind his back and Troy was saying calmly, ‘Search his pocket, would you, Lucy?’

As gingerly as if a tarantula inhabited Raymond Blogden’s pocket, Lucy inserted her fingers and came up with a pearl-handled knife that was disconcertingly heavy. ‘We’ll take that,’ Troy said cheerfully. ‘And since I’m rather fussy about those with whom I associate, Mr Blogden, I think I’ll keep my name to myself.’

‘She’s nothing but a hooker,’ Raymond Blogden spat. ‘She dresses it up with fancy words, but that’s all she is.’

‘Shut up,’ Troy said, very softly, ‘or I’ll have your hide for a car seat… Ready, Lucy?’

She was more than ready. She opened the door and heard Troy say, in a voice all the more effective for its lack of emphasis, ‘If I ever see you within fifty feet of Miss Barnes again, I’ll wipe the floor with that pretty white suit of yours… Goodbye, Mr Blogden.’

The sunlight almost blinded Lucy. Troy gunned the motor and surged down the driveway. He was whistling between his teeth and looked extremely pleased with himself. ‘You enjoyed that,’ Lucy said shakily.

‘Damn right I did.’ With casual skill he took the first of the turns. ‘What in heaven’s name made you think you could work for a man like that?’

‘I never met him,’ she said defensively. ‘The interview was in Toronto, with his personnel adviser.’

‘And what do you do that led him to call you a prostitute?’

‘I’m a massage therapist,’ she said. ‘There are certain people who seem to think that massage has everything to do with sex and nothing to do with healing—I get so tired of all the innuendoes and off-color jokes.’

‘It’s a very useful profession,’ Troy said mildly.

She shot him a suspicious glance. ‘Do you really mean that?’

‘Kindly don’t equate me with the likes of that creep up in the villa!’

Only wanting to change the subject, Lucy looked distastefully at the knife in her lap. ‘What am I going to do with this?’

‘Keep it. In case you’re ever silly enough to work for someone like him again. Naivete doesn’t pay in any job, but particularly not in yours, I would have thought.’

Troy had spoken with a casual contempt that cut Lucy to the quick. I won’t cry, she thought, I won’t. If I didn’t cry when it happened, why would I cry now?

But the hibiscus blooms that bordered the driveway were running together in big red blobs, as red as Raymond Blogden’s face. She stared fiercely out of the side window of the Jeep and felt Troy slow to a halt as they reached the highway. Then his hand touched her bare elbow. ‘Don’t!’ she muttered, and yanked it away.

‘Look at me, Lucy.’

‘No!’

‘Lucy…’ His fingers closed on her shoulder.