That caught her attention. „What on earth do you mean?“
„I think that, left to your own devices, you’ll convince yourself that Lowell really is in trouble. You’ll start poking around, perhaps asking questions. There’s no telling what small waves you might set in motion that could ripple back to Lowell.“
Sara studied him, stricken. „You’re serious, aren’t you? I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize my uncle.“
„I know you wouldn’t do anything deliberately, but how could you even begin to guess what might or might not have an effect?“
„Oh, come off it, Adrian, I’m hardly in a position to do anything dramatic one way or the other,“ she protested.
„No?“ He pushed aside his plate and leaned forward, his arms folded on the table in front of him. „What if you go back to talk to that neighbor of his? What if you decide to do a little investigating on your own? Find out if anyone noticed someone hanging around your uncle’s cottage recently, for example. And what if someone notices you and takes exception to your involvement? I can see you doing all sorts of little things that could blow up in Lowell’s face. Or worse yet, your own face.“
„That's ridiculous and you know it. Now you’re the one whose imagination is running wild,“ she scoffed. But deep down she felt a prickle of guilt. It had occurred to her only a few minutes earlier that it might be interesting to talk to her uncle’s neighbors. A vague plan to talk to some of them had been formulating in the back of her mind. She knew her flushed cheeks betrayed her.
Adrian gave her a very deliberate look. „Going to deny you were making a few plans?“
„Well, no, but I certainly don’t think…“ She trailed off, flustered.
„Umm. I think my little assignment is going to be the tough one,“ Adrian groaned. „I have a hunch Lowell knew exactly what he was doing when he asked me to keep an eye on you. If you’re finished playing with your food, let’s head back to the rooms. It’s getting late.“ He stood up without bothering to wait for her agreement. The waiter hurried over with the check.
Disgruntled at the abrupt termination of the meal and the conversation, Sara got to her feet more slowly and allowed Adrian to walk her out of the small restaurant. Her head was spinning with worry, speculation and half-formed plans. In fact, her attention was focused so completely on her thoughts that she didn’t notice where Adrian was guiding her until she suddenly became aware of flagstone under her strappy little sandals. He was leading her along a path that wound around the motel.
„A little late for a walk, isn’t it?“ she asked, glancing into the shadows of darkened stands of trees. Behind them the lights of the motel flared in the night.
„I thought a walk before turning in might calm you down a bit.“ Adrian took a firmer grip on her arm as she stumbled lightly on a cluster of pebbles. „Watch your step.“
„That’s tough to do since I don’t see well in the dark,“ she complained.
„I’ll guide you.“
„You can see in the dark?“ she asked very politely.
„Umm. I’ve always had good night vision.“
„That must come in handy for this sort of thing,“ she allowed still more politely.
„What sort of thing?“
„Enforced midnight marches with unsuspecting females,“ she drawled.
„It’s only nine-thirty and believe it or not I can’t even remember the last time I went for an evening walk with a female, unsuspecting or otherwise.“ He hesitated, mulling that over. „It’s very pleasant.“
„Even though I’m having trouble walking in a straight line?“
„That’s the best part.“
„Oh.“ Her brief amusement vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, and Sara went back to thinking about her missing uncle.
„It won’t do you any good, you know,“ Adrian said after a moment.
„What won’t do any good?“
„Worrying.“
„But I’m so good at it.“ She sighed.
„What you need is something to take your mind off your problems.“ Adrian came to an unexpected halt, catching hold of her with both hands as she stumbled into him. „And I think I need the same thing,“ he added almost under his breath as he stood very close in the darkness and ran his palms down her arms.
Sara felt the strength in his hands as he pulled her close. She looked up, aware of a fierce surge of sudden awareness as she realized he was going to kiss her. For an instant she tried to read his shadowed gaze, seeking answers to questions she couldn’t formulate. But in the almost nonexistent light his eyes were colorless and infinitely unintelligible. She was enthralled by her own reaction to that gaze. It lured her, promising something she wasn’t sure she wanted. Before she could fathom the strange sensation, Sara felt herself pressed against him, and in the next moment Adrian’s mouth was on hers.
What startled her most about his kiss was the urgency in it. It seemed to wash over her, a combination of male curiosity, hunger and carefully restrained desire. The first kiss from a man was usually tentative, polite and as practiced as he could make it. This was something else again. There was nothing tentative or polite about it. Nor was there any element of practiced seduction in the damp heat of his kiss.
Sara was tinglingly aware that it was the most honest kiss she had ever received. She wasn’t sure how she knew that with such certainty but there was absolutely no doubt in her mind. It was like finding gold after years of sorting through scrap metal. The vivid realization brought forth a response from her that she’d had no intention of indulging until it flared into life. Then it could hardly be denied.
Slowly, savoring the moment of unexpected awareness, she slid her arms around his neck and found the dark pelt of his hair with questing fingertips. She was thirty years old, she thought, and not given to such episodes of instant attraction. This was something unique and she was wise enough to know it.
„Sara?“
Slowly, reluctantly, Adrian lifted his mouth from hers. He raised one hand to tangle in her hair while with the other he stroked the length of her back. She could feel the intensity in him as he urged her soft thighs against the hard planes of his lower body.
„I believe you said this was supposed to give me something else to think about?“ she murmured gently.
„I don’t know about you, but I may have given myself a little too much to think about tonight. Forgive me, honey, but I’ve been wondering what you would taste like for a long time.“ Once again he lowered his mouth to hers.
Sara felt her lips being parted and then he was deep in her unresisting mouth exploring her with such intimacy that she trembled. For countless moments time stood still for her there on the narrow path. She gave herself up to the intriguing, captivating touch of a man who qualified as a near-stranger and wondered why he seemed so right to all her senses.
She offered no resistance as Adrian drew her deeper and deeper into the embrace. When his palms slipped down to cup the contours of her derriere, she stood on tiptoe, nestling closer. His leaping desire made itself felt through the fabric of his jeans and her own body struggled to answer the ancient call. Sara had never known such driving urgency. When Adrian freed her mouth to seek out the sensitive place behind her ear, she heard herself murmur a throaty response. His breath was exciting and warm in her hair.
Then, slowly at first but with gathering strength the night breeze began to make itself felt. Sara became vaguely aware of the gathering chill as it swirled and eddied around her. The warmth of Adrian’s body warded off some of it but not all. He seemed to realize what was happening at about the same moment and slowly lifted his head.
„I think it’s time to go back,“ he said huskily.
„Yes.“ She didn’t argue. He was right. It was time to go safely back to her own bed. But she felt unexpectedly weak and she found herself holding on to his arm.
For a moment longer Adrian’s palms framed her upturned face. She sensed the hesitation in him and was warmed b
y it. He was reluctant to break the spell and that pleased her. She didn’t want to be the only one caught up in the magic, Sara realized.
„If it weren’t so cold out here and if you’d had a little more time to get used to the idea…“ Adrian let the rest of the sentence trail off as he took her hand and started back toward the lights of the motel.
„Get used to what idea?“
„Never mind,“ he told her laconically. „My imagination is proving to be as vivid as yours, although it seems to be running along different lines.“
Sara smiled serenely to herself in the shadows, knowing exactly what was going through his head. He wanted her, and the knowledge sent a primitive thrill through her veins. Adrian wouldn’t do anything about it tonight, of course. It was much too soon. They barely knew each other and there were a great many factors that might get in the way of a relationship between them. Still, tonight she would go to sleep with a sense of anticipation that was entirely new to her.
But an hour later as she lay in bed in the room next to Adrian’s Sara realized that, anticipation or not, sleep was not going to come easily that night. Adrian had succeeded in distracting her for a while, she decided ruefully, but now that she was alone again, too many jumbled thoughts were swirling in her head. Her mind skipped around from worries about her uncle and his „unfinished business“ to memories of Adrian’s urgent kiss. She needed something to relax her.
„like a good book,“ she decided aloud, pushing back the covers. And she knew just where to get one.
Padding barefoot across the carpet, her long cotton nightgown trailing behind her, Sara went to the suitcase in the corner. Opening it, she reached inside and removed the manuscript of Phantom that she had picked up off her uncle’s desk. For a moment her gaze rested thoughtfully on the sketch of the wolf in the upper corner, and then she told herself to ignore it. She was after relaxation, not added worry.
A deep curiosity filled her as she climbed back into bed and started Phantom. Silently she admitted to herself that it was the desire to learn something more about the man she had spent the day with rather than a wish to see how the story ended that prompted the feeling. How much could you tell about a man by his writing, she wondered.
On the surface, Phantom was high adventure. It involved the perilous race to retrieve a cache of gold that had been smuggled out of South Vietnam during the last, chaotic days of the war. The treasure had been hidden near the Cambodian border and had been inaccessible for years because it was simply too dangerous to go after it. Only a handful of men knew the location.
As the story opened, it was learned that more than a treasure had been hidden. Secret documents that could destroy the career of a powerful government official had been buried along with the gold. Suddenly any risk was worth taking to retrieve the cache.
The action was well plotted and moved with the swiftness of an avalanche, but what held Sara’s attention until nearly two in the morning was the inner conflict of the protagonist, the man called Phantom.
He was portrayed as a man who had clearly reached the limits of his emotional and physical endurance. Too many years of tension and violence had taken a savage toll. Now he had been assigned one last job by the government agency for which he worked. He was told to retrieve the gold and the documents hidden with it. At any price.
In the end the man called Phantom did the job he had been assigned to do, but it had nearly destroyed him. Then he had accidentally discovered that the incriminating documents buried with the gold constituted a shattering indictment of the man who ran the very agency for which he himself worked. The secret papers pointed at treason at the highest levels. Phantom had learned far too much. He had not been expected to survive his mission, but now that he had, his life was in jeopardy.
By the time Sara finished the harrowing and emotionally gripping tale, she felt exhausted but not at all relaxed. The writing had been lean and stark, which didn’t surprise her. Adrian Saville struck her as the kind of man who wouldn’t use one more word than necessary to tell his story. But she was left with the same question she’d had when she’d begun reading. How much insight could you gain into a man by reading his fiction?
Restlessly she restacked the manuscript pages and climbed back out of bed. She put Phantom back in the suitcase and turned to eye the rumpled sheets. She really didn’t feel like climbing back into bed just yet. The book had left her far too keyed up and strangely tense.
On impulse she walked over to the sliding-glass door that opened onto the balcony and unlocked it. Taking a deep breath of the chilled mountain air, she stepped outside.
„You should have been asleep hours ago.“
Sara jumped at the sound of Adrian’s voice. Whirling, she saw him lounging against the railing of the balcony next to hers. He had one foot propped on the lowest rung and his elbows planted on the top one. The shadows bid the expression on his face, but she was aware of a strange tension in the atmosphere between them.
„I couldn’t sleep,“ Sara whispered. „I’ve been reading.“
„Phantom?“
„Yes.“
„Learn anything?“ he inquired sardonically.
Sara half smiled. „Only that I think you’re going to have a very successful career as a writer of suspense novels. I couldn’t put it down, Adrian.“
„But did you learn anything?“ he pressed softly.
She wished she could see his face. „You know I started it out of curiosity, don’t you?“
„Umm.“
„Well, I finished it because it was a very gripping tale. But I don’t think I learned much about you in the process.“ She paused, thinking. „No, that’s not true. I guess I did pick up a few things along the way.“
„Such as?“
„You have a set of rather fundamental values, don’t you? You believe in integrity and justice. Things like honor and loyalty are important to you. If they weren’t you wouldn’t have been able to portray the hero’s emotional turmoil so well. You tore that poor man apart, Adrian. Halfway through the book I almost hated the writer for doing that to his protagonist. And then in the end, even though you pull together all the strands of the story and see that justice is done, you leave us wondering a little whether or not Phantom will survive emotionally.“
Even as she spoke Sara realized the truth of her own words. She had learned something about Adrian Saville by reading his manuscript, and what she had teamed was disturbing on some levels. This was not a man who would ever understand games, let alone a lighthearted approach to life. On other levels Sara was aware of a strong feeling of respect. There were so few men who knew what it meant to have a personal code of honor and integrity. Adrian must know or he would never have been able to create Phantom. On still another level of awareness Sara experienced a sensation of compassion. Adrian must have known what it felt like to hold yourself together by sheer willpower. She wondered what he’d gone through in order to comprehend the depths of that kind of struggle.
„You wanted a miracle cure?“ Adrian turned his head to look out toward the night-shrouded forest.
„I like happy endings,“ Sara admitted with a soft smile.
„I’m not sure there are any.“
Sara leaned sideways against the rail, the chilly breeze whipping the hem of her nightgown around her ankles. „Adrian, I swear, if you turn into one of those cynical New York-style writers I won’t read your next book.“
He looked at her then and she saw the flash of a genuine grin. „Maybe the trick is not to write endings. Just cut the story off after the main issues have been resolved and let everyone go their own way. Readers like you can assume it all ends happily.“
„You won’t be able to fool me,“ she warned. „I know a real happy ending when I see one.“
„I’ll work on it,“ he promised so quietly she could barely hear him.
„Adrian?“
„What is it, Sara?“
„About the basic story line of Phantom…“
„What about it?“
„Where did you get the idea of the gold being hidden during the last days of the Vietnam war? It was very ingenious. And you made all the action so realistic.“
„I got the idea from your uncle. He told me the tale of the gold.“
„Really? If s a true story?“
„It’s just a legend, of course. There are always a lot of tales and legends that come out of a situation like the last days of South Vietnam. Lowell told me the story one night about a year ago. Supposedly the gold was used by U.S. intelligence to buy information and finance certain clandestine operations. Your uncle told me privately that it’s far more likely the gold was a payoff from some big drug deals that were going on in the south. Vietnam was a hotbed for that kind of thing toward the end of the war. At any rate the last man to actually see the gold was a U.S. agent. He arrived at his rendezvous point minus the treasure. No one really knows what happened.“ Adrian shrugged. „And thus are legends born.“
„You added the bit about the secret incriminating documents?“ Sara hazarded.
„It’s called literary license. I needed an extra fillip to make the tale more than just a treasure hunt.“
„You certainly accomplished that.“ Sara shuddered. „I really empathized with your hero. I think I fell a little in love with him.“
There was a moment of silence from the other balcony and then Adrian said very calmly, „I’d much rather you fell in love with me.“
Chapter Four
Perhaps it was the knowledge that she was concealed in the shadows of her balcony and that Adrian was isolated, in turn, on his own little island that made Sara feel safe enough to indulge the dangerous curiosity. Or perhaps she was still wondering just how much she had learned about him from reading his book. Then again, it might have been simply a woman’s endless need to probe a man’s words, searching for the real meaning. Whatever the cause, she couldn’t resist asking the question.
„Why?“
„Because I think it might be very pleasant to have you fall in love with me.“