Burn (Page 68)

She jerked on the cuff. "So uncuff me now, and I’ll go to bed."

She had to be both uncomfortable and tired, but he didn’t feel guilty; this was his job, and he’d damn well do whatever needed to be done. That said, he understood why he might not be her favorite person on the planet, which was good. He didn’t want her feeling friendly toward him.

On the other hand, he didn’t want to completely alienate her, either. There wasn’t much he could actually tell her, but he could offer her some reassurance. "Look, I’m doing my best to make this as easy for you as possible, but you keep getting in my face. Your friend is fine, she’ll continue to be fine as long as things go okay, and when you get back to San Diego you’ll" – he lifted his hand in a dismissive gesture – "go out to lunch, pick out some new diamonds, get your nails done – whatever it is you do to recover from a slightly upsetting experience."

"Slightly upsetting?" Her voice wasn’t exactly a shriek, but it definitely came close.

"Yes, slightly." Now there was an edge to his tone. This job was a walk in the park, even for her. She hadn’t been hurt, she had good food, she slept in a real bed at night. She didn’t know what rough conditions really were.

She glared at him, with a strength in her gaze, a pure force of will, that he was always surprised to see in her eyes. They were nice eyes, hazel green, smart and sharp. He tried to imagine going through this experience with any of the many other women he’d met on this cruise, but it didn’t work. An ordinary woman would probably be too scared to function, and would cry. A lot. Like most men, crying women drove him nuts. Jenner didn’t cry. And when she got scared, she got mad. That might not be the most comfortable reaction for him to deal with, but he sure as hell didn’t get bored.

Pain in the ass that she was, he’d take Jenner Redwine over any of the other possibilities, any day.

He left her there in the bedroom, handcuffed and pissed, and walked into the parlor. He dialed a number he knew by memory, and when his contact answered, Cael said, "Hilo."

Chapter Twenty-one

THEY WERE SITTING AT A TABLE BY THE POOL. JENNER was so glad to be out of the suite that she had been behaving herself, even when Cael put his arm around her shoulder as they walked from the elevator out to the pool. She stayed close, as he’d instructed, and didn’t do anything to draw attention their way – other than the little bit of attention he wanted. Not that she didn’t enjoy giving him a hard time every chance she had, but that was in private. Maybe, after last night, he’d get the idea she wasn’t going to give them up to Larkin, or anyone else. She had her doubts Syd was in any real danger, but she didn’t know, so she’d play it safe. If Syd wasn’t in the equation … who knows? Maybe, maybe not.

She still didn’t know who was who in the good guy/bad guy field, but Cael’s "slimy" comment had given her a solid hint. Could bad guys feel morally superior to good guys? They might feel smarter, tougher, etc., but would the moral aspect even occur to a bad guy?

Then again, she’d heard that the murderers, thieves, and con men in prison really hated the child molesters, so did that mean anything other than that child molesters were the lowest of the low? Could she say that gave a murderer a sense of moral superiority? Again – maybe, maybe not.

What she was certain of was that she didn’t care for Frank Larkin, and that was a purely personal instinct. Something about him set her Jerry-radar pinging like crazy. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was about him, exactly but one of the first life lessons she’d learned was to listen when her radar sounded the alarm. Maybe she’d caught some tiny flicker of expression that reminded her of dear old dad when he was about to fleece someone out of something, maybe it was that association and nothing else, but as far as she was concerned she’d been officially warned about Larkin.

They sat at the table for a while, watching the sunbathers, the sardines in the pool, and the others who, like them, had opted to sit at one of the umbrellaed tables. A handsome young deckhand with curly blond hair brought them iced tea and towels. His name tag said his name was Matt. As he leaned over to set the glasses of tea on the table, there was something about the way he and Cael looked at each other – a brief glance that nevertheless seemed loaded with meaning – that made Jenner wonder if Matt might be another one of them.

Then again, maybe Matt was gay, and like a lot of other people at the pool he was admiring the available views. A swim-trunk-clad Cael was definitely worth looking at. His olive-toned skin was smoothly tanned, and, hell, was a six-pack ever not worth gazing at? The view was the same one she saw at night when they went to bed, and it still made her heart gallop.

After Matt left, Jenner took a sip of her iced tea and said, "Does he work for you?"

"Who?" Cael asked, reaching to the top of his head and sliding his sunglasses down into place as he squinted at the pool.

"Matt," she said, without explaining who "Matt" was. If a detail like that had slipped by Cael Traylor, then she was a monkey’s uncle.

A slow grin spread across his face. "You’re paranoid, aren’t you?" They were keeping their voices low, but the noise around the pool area was such that they could have used normal speaking voices without worrying about being overheard. A live band was blasting Jimmy Buffett music at the sunbathers, people were shrieking, laughing, chattering. Cael had selected a table as far from the music as he could get, but the noise level was still high.

"I’ll take that as a yes," she said, and looked away because his grin was making her stomach do flip-flops. How many days left until they got back to San Diego? They hadn’t even made it to Hawaii yet. She didn’t know if she could bear up under the pressure of being so close to him, because already she felt as if she were about to jump out of her skin.