Joyce Lamb

CHAPTER ONE EXCERPT

 

     Meg Grant powered down the Escape’s window, unable to tame the smile of satisfaction that curved her lips. It was January. Seventy-five degrees. Not a cloud in the dazzling blue sky. Life was good. Damn good.

     In twenty minutes, she would be at the airport to pick up Dayle, her first visitor since Meg had moved to Florida. Meg was looking forward to sharing with her closest friend the excitement of a new city. She had lived in Fort Myers a month and was just learning the courthouse beat at the newspaper. Although it was all very new and thrilling, she missed home. Not the cold, of course. Christmas had seemed odd without snow, but that hadn’t been the only strangeness this year—it had been her first Christmas since her parents had died.

     With a slight shake of her head, Meg cranked the volume on the stereo. Nothing like a John Legend tune to steer her mind away from depressing thoughts.

     She made it to the airport with minutes to spare and marveled at how convenient it was to zoom into a parking space just yards from the terminal. No parking garages, no confusing signs, no impatient drivers and rude hand gestures. Fort Myers was blessedly laidback compared with the harried pace of Chicago. She had yet to regret the move, had yet to miss the biting wind and sub-zero temperatures.

     In the terminal, Meg boarded the escalator, grinning at the three papier-mâché manatees suspended from the ceiling. At the second level, she checked the overhead monitors. Dayle’s flight would arrive at any moment.

     Meg hurried to the gate, imagining her friend on the plane, juggling her phone and cramming her laptop into her computer bag. Even though this was supposed to be her vacation, no way had Dayle left her work at home. Meg couldn’t blame her. She was the same, dragging a laptop with her pretty much wherever she went. You never knew when a Pulitzer Prize-winning news story would break right in front of you.

     Pausing near the entrance to airport security, Meg watched just-arrived fliers greet loved ones or hustle on their way to baggage claim. When a tearful and laughing young woman flew into the arms of an older man and woman, obviously a family reunion, Meg swallowed the lump in her throat and shifted to stand closer to the massive windows that let sunshine pour into the terminal. Outside, a black limousine glided to a stop on the tarmac, and she watched curiously as the back door opened and a man stepped out. A very rich man, by the cut of his suit. He wore sunglasses and shoes as shiny black as the car.

     He looked like a model in an advertisement for men’s cologne, from the tangles of dark hair blowing across his forehead to the broad shoulders and lean waist that spoke of regular workouts and skipped desserts. His jaw, angular and clenched, had a very appealing cleft.

     He definitely had the “I’m a great-smelling guy” look. All he needed was a blond, too-thin goddess in a form-fitting red dress clinging to his arm.

     He removed his sunglasses, and Meg realized with a jolt that he was looking right at her. The blazing Florida sun made his eyes narrow, and she resisted the urge to shift, or look away. She never would have held his gaze so brazenly if they hadn’t been separated by thick glass and several yards of tarmac. The moment stretched, her heart beginning a faster thrum in her ears, and the stare-down became a dare to see who would glance away first.

     A reflection in the window caught her eye, and Meg pivoted, grinning at the woman she’d known since they were both gangly, looking-for-trouble kids living on the same block. Instantly, the man and his limo were forgotten.

     Dayle dropped her carry-on, and they hugged.

     “It’s so great to see you,” Meg said.

     Dayle, a small woman with blond hair, brown eyes and a shrewd gaze, drew back to look her friend up and down. “Wow, Meg, you’re even more stunning than usual. What is that? A tan?”

     Meg’s smile grew at the compliment. She knew she looked okay, but stunning? Not quite. She had a compact, athletic body rather than being either the preferred stick thin or curvy. Her dark brown hair—auburn-streaked now that she spent time in the sun—was long, curly and in her face if she didn’t tie it back into a loose ponytail. A former lover had said her green eyes reminded him of the ocean off the shores of Jamaica, a more-green-than-blue shade that hid the undercurrents of emotions too well. He had always been a good storyteller.

     She wore simple clothes by necessity—slacks and flat, comfortable shoes—because chasing after defense attorneys and prosecutors for quotes wasn’t practical or comfortable in a fancy dress and heels. Dayle had once kept a tally of her male lawyer acquaintances, who, knowing the women were friends, had pumped her for information about Meg. Although Meg assumed that Dayle exaggerated, the compliments gave her confidence a boost.

     “Yes, believe it or not, I have a tan line,” Meg said. “First one since high school. But then, I live on the Gulf. What’s a girl to do in her free time but hang out at the beach?”

     “Yeah, right. I can see you lounging on a towel, laptop planted on your lap.” Dayle glanced around. “Is there somewhere to eat? I’m starving.”

     Meg laughed as she scooped up Dayle’s carry-on. “You’re always starving. First, your luggage. Follow me.”

     They took their time walking to the baggage claim, discussing Dayle’s flight and the frigid Chicago air she had left behind.

     “I wish you could have made it home for the holidays,” Dayle said. “Mom and Dad have been asking about you.”

     “Someone had to stick around here and cover the news.”

     “I just didn’t like that you spent Christmas by yourself.”

     “I was too busy to notice.”

     Dayle took the cue that Meg wasn’t ready to talk about her first Christmas since she’d lost her parents almost six months ago. “Well, the Midwest isn’t the same without you,” Dayle said.

     “Still cold, though, I presume?”

     Dayle grinned. “As hell. Good God, what are those?”

     Meg glanced up at the papier-mâché sea cows dangling over the escalator and laughed. “Manatees. They’re endangered.”

     “Uh-huh.”

     “They’re so ugly they’re cute. You can buy license plates with a manatee on them, and the extra money goes to a wildlife fund. You can even swim with them.”

     After the escalator deposited them on the first level, Dayle made her way to a baggage carousel that had yet to start. Meg hovered at the edge of the crowd of newly arrived vacationers and took the moment to set down Dayle’s bag and check her e-mail on her phone.

     She had just lowered it to see how Dayle was doing when a hand grasped her upper arm. “We have to talk,” a man said near her ear.

     Startled as she was, Meg felt no real fear. People sometimes mistook her for someone they knew—she had one of those faces. But when she turned toward him, recognition stole the words from her lips. He was even more gorgeous up close, taller than she had guessed, and he did indeed smell good, like soap and wind. His jaw was set, muscles bunching into knots at his temples. His sunglasses were perched on his head, giving her a full-on view of amazing smoky-gray eyes.

     His fingers dug into her arm as he herded her toward a short hallway that branched off the baggage claim area.

     She resisted the pull of his hand. “Um, you have me mixed up with someone else.”

     “Shut up and come on.”

     His rudeness shocked her, and she tried unsuccessfully to jerk out of his grasp. “Let go.”

     His fingers tightened on her arm. “Knock it off.”

     He all but dragged her into the hallway, forcing her to keep up with his fast strides or risk falling. But, then, realizing the hall was deserted and that he was isolating her from the crowd, she planted her feet and whacked at his forearm with her phone. “Let me go.”

     His grip loosened, then retightened as he jerked her closer to him. “You’re making a scene.”

     “No shit. Let go.” She whacked him again. When he failed to release her, she twisted in the direction they’d just come and yelled, “Hey! Anybody? I need help!”

     The clatter of a baggage carousel starting up swallowed her shout. Catching her other wrist, he yanked her toward him and rotated her arm behind her back, forcing her farther down the hall. Any effort to jerk away increased the pressure he put on her arm and the growing certainty that he would not hesitate to break it.

     “Hey! Help!” She screamed over her shoulder this time, urgent and panicked.

     “Save your breath and walk,” he snarled.

     They were halfway down the hall when Meg reared back and rammed the back of her head into his jaw. Stars burst before her eyes, and she heard him grunt and then she was free. She whirled toward him and threw a wild, fear-fueled punch that snapped his head back, sending his sunglasses flying and pain singing up her arm.

     Before she could take two steps toward safety, he recovered and shoved her back against the wall. She opened her mouth to scream, but his hand muffled the sound. She pushed at his chest until he pinned one of her arms between their bodies and her free hand against the wall beside her head. She struggled desperately against him, alarmed to discover how intimately his body trapped her. A stark, breath-stealing fear shuddered through her as she realized she was at his mercy unless someone else entered the hallway. Even then, with him pressed so tightly against her, they would look like reunited lovers stealing a passionate embrace.

     She finally stilled, realizing she had no choice.

     “You won’t scream?” he asked.

     She gave her head a small shake, all she could manage against his superior strength. He eased his hand away from her mouth and shifted his body, grabbing the wrist he’d caught between them and angling it until he could pin it to the wall like its twin.

     Meg took in several gasping breaths, shocked that this was happening, right here in a busy airport. He didn’t look like a man who would have to assault a woman to get what he wanted. He was wearing a fancy business suit, for God’s sake. She tried again to reason with him.

     “You obviously think I’m someone else.” She twisted her hands in his grasp.

     “Stop fighting. You’re only going to end up with more bruises.”

     Meg almost laughed at how absurd that sounded. He was worried about more bruises?

     His grip loosened some. “All I want is to talk. But not here.”

     “Yeah, okay. Just let me go, and I’ll follow you right to your limo.” She jerked her hands just to see if he was still on guard. He was.

     “Are you finished?” he asked, as if she was a misbehaving toddler.

     “I’m not going to stand here quietly while you attack me.”

     “If you would stop struggling—”

     “Sorry. I have a thing about self-preservation.”

     He yanked her forward until their noses nearly touched. “Just shut up and talk to me,” he growled.

     The contradiction of what he’d said seemed lost on him, but the look in his eyes—rage tinged with desperation—reined her in. If he was telling the truth, and he wanted only to talk, then all she had to was ride out the moment. An airport full of people was just beyond the wall at her back. Yeah, so they couldn’t hear her yell for help with the baggage carousel clattering away, but it was still unlikely that he’d cause her significant harm right here in an airport hallway. And it was obvious he was not going to let go until she complied. “Fine. Talk.”

     “Tell me what happened three months ago.”

     Meg’s mind raced. October. She’d been living in Arlington Heights, working night and day to avoid dealing with the aftermath of a late-night car accident that had claimed the lives of her parents a few months before. She couldn’t imagine that that was what this man wanted to know about.

     When she hesitated, he shook her by the wrists. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”

     “But I don’t. What—”

     “Don’t lie to me, lady.”

     “I’m not lying,” she said.

     “Beau is dead, and you were there. I want to know what happened.”

     “Who’s Beau?” Her voice rose with fear. “I don’t know anyone named Beau.”

     “He was my brother.”

     “I don’t know him.” She winced as he leaned into her, her ribs protesting under his weight. “You’re hurting me.”

     “Meg!” In an instant, Dayle was beside them, shoving him away from Meg. “Hey, back off, asshole!”

     He released her and stepped back, his eyes drilling into hers. “This isn’t over.”

     “Do you know this guy?” Dayle asked.

     Meg couldn’t respond, watching as he turned and strode quickly away. He shot one last glance over his shoulder that sent a shiver racing up her spine.