Lucas sighed at the trace of bitterness he heard in her voice. “I love you, Soph.”
“Ditto, bro. Enjoy.”
As soon as Sophie ended the call, Lucas took out his own cell phone and pressed the number that would get him through to Tracker.
“What’s up, boss?”
“Sophie tricked you.”
“I followed her myself until she got on your private plane.” There was a slight pause, and then he continued. “The raincoats. When she and Dr. Lloyd came out of her shop, they both had their hoods up and their umbrellas open…and I followed the blonde, just as she wanted me to. Damn! Let me check with the man I had tailing Dr. Lloyd.”
“I can tell you where Sophie says she is—the Serenity Spa in Serenity, North Carolina. They don’t allow men on the premises. She claimed she was calling me from the Charlotte airport. She says she wants some time alone, but I want you to make sure she’s there.”
“I’ll check the flight manifests right after I check with Dr. Lloyd’s tail. Am I right in assuming that the good doctor is with you?”
“Yeah. Sophie says she has a problem, so I may have another job for you.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
SOPHIE ENDED her conversation with her brother, then crossed her fingers in the hope that Lucas had bought her story. Of course, he’d check out every detail. She knew from experience just how thorough he was.
However, she’d been thorough too. She glanced at her watch. The first thing Lucas would do would be to check out the flight manifests and see if an S. Wainright had indeed flown from National Airport to Charlotte that day. He would find that she had. Hopefully, he wouldn’t find it too suspicious that an M. Lloyd had also made the same flight. She was banking on the fact that he would relax once he found that Sophie Wainright had checked into the Serenity Spa. Hannah Parker, the out-of-work actress she’d hired to do just that, should be arriving at the spa any minute, and once that final crucial step had been taken and Lucas had verified it, she should be free.
For the next week, she wasn’t going to be Sophie Wainright. Instead, she would be MacKenzie Lloyd, a burned-out research biologist who was taking a little break from her lab.
She’d begun to formulate the plan when she and Mac had talked in the tree house on Sunday, but the details hadn’t all fallen into place until Mac had finally agreed to trade places with her. Of course, she hadn’t told Mac everything.
She knew her best friend too well to believe that she could lie to Lucas for an entire week. So she hadn’t admitted to her that she’d switched purses on purpose. Nor had she confided to Mac that she never intended to go to the Serenity Spa.
Stifling the impulse to get up and pace, Sophie leaned back in her chair and scanned the occupants of the airport lounge. At nearly two in the afternoon, the lunch crowd had thinned to a few businessmen at the bar who were nursing beers as they talked nonstop into their cell phones. They’d been there when she’d entered, so she didn’t think they were following her. And she doubted that the couple with four kids at a nearby table were being paid to keep tabs on her.
For a second, her gaze locked with one of the men at the bar. She was quick to glance away, then let out the breath she was holding when she saw him slide off his stool and leave in the direction of the departing flights.
Paranoia—that’s what it was, pure and simple. If she wasn’t careful, she’d turn into Lucas, forever afraid that everyone he met was trying to threaten Wainright Enterprises.
She couldn’t, she wouldn’t live her life that way.
Forcing herself to relax, Sophie took a sip of bottled water. Not that she hadn’t borrowed a page from her brother’s paranoia handbook. In making her plans for switching identities with Mac, she’d followed Lucas’s number-one rule: Never underestimate the enemy.
Even after they’d each hailed their separate taxis in front of her shop, she’d made herself assume that she still had a tail. Though she couldn’t think of a single reason why Lucas would be having Mac followed, she wasn’t ever going to underestimate him again. That was why she’d waited to switch identities with Hannah Parker until they’d both entered the first available ladies’ room at the airport in Charlotte.
It had been almost too simple to walk into adjoining stalls and then pass her poncho and a bag containing her identification, sunglasses and a duplicate of the red wig she was wearing to Hannah. Just in case Lucas had assigned someone to follow Mac, Hannah couldn’t turn into the blond Sophie Wainright until she was safely in the van to the Serenity Spa.
For the space of about fifteen minutes, there had been two fake MacKenzie Lloyds in the Charlotte airport.
Sophie took another quick look around the lounge. No one was paying her the least bit of attention. She drummed her fingers on the table, then jumped when her cell phone rang. Grabbing it, she put it to her ear. “Yes?”
“It’s Hannah. I just wanted to let you know. I’m all checked into the spa. You should see the room.”
“Did everything go all right?”
“Like clockwork. The woman behind the desk told me that my brother had called. She was going to call him back and let him know I’d arrived safely.”
“Have a great week,” Sophie said as she ended the call. Then she lifted her bottled water in a toast to herself. “I’m free at last.”
MAC GRIPPED the windshield of the boat tightly as Lucas let out the throttle and the Adventurer raced over the choppy water. She’d felt a certain kinship with the boat the moment she’d spotted the name. Together, they were racing off into the unknown.
With the wind whipping against her face, she concentrated on enjoying the feel of bright afternoon sun and the occasional salty spray against her cheeks. It wasn’t hard. She would have enjoyed it even more though, if it hadn’t been for the man standing only a few feet away at the helm of the boat.
Even when he wasn’t looking at her or speaking to her, Lucas was a hard man to ignore. He projected…something that went beyond simple good looks. And it was mesmerizing. She’d barely taken her eyes off him as he’d gone about the task of casting off the boat, then steering it quickly and surely away from the marina toward the open sea.
She risked a sideways glance at him. Perhaps it was the mixture of competence and control that had her gawking like a teenager. No, she thought, it was more than that. There was also that hint of danger about Lucas that lurked just below the very civilized surface. She’d seen it in his eyes when he’d first realized that Sophie wasn’t on board the plane—something hot, dangerous and lethal. It fascinated her.
And she was gawking again. Tearing her eyes away, she looked back at the marina that was fast becoming a speck on the shoreline behind them. A small plane lifted and soared out over the water as it climbed steadily into the sky. Jill Roberts was heading back to D.C. Only when it disappeared did she allow herself to look at Lucas again. He stood there, totally impassive, as if he were alone on the boat.
Clearly, he was still annoyed. He’d spoken only two words to her since he’d gotten off the phone with Sophie. Once Jill had disappeared into the plane, Lucas had turned to her, his expression neutral, and said, “This way.”
His tone had been so cool she’d nearly shivered in spite of the hot southern Florida heat. They’d walked down to the small marina where he’d tied his boat. The moment she saw it, anxiety mixed with anticipation. It was her day for firsts, it seemed—her first time sitting in the cockpit of a plane and now her first time on a boat…to be topped off by her first time propositioning a man.
She glanced at him again. He stood completely at ease, his hands on the wheel, his feet planted apart, totally in control of the engine that roared beneath them. There was no sign now of the predator she’d glimpsed earlier. But it was still there, lurking. And it was touching off something in her. She pressed a hand against her stomach. The warm melting sensation that seemed to be centered there had nothing to do with the fact that the boat was beginning to bump more frequently into waves.
“Nervous?” Lucas had to shout the question.
“A little,” she shouted back. “This is my first time on a boat.”
“You’re kidding.”
She shook her head.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
“I can’t imagine it. What did your family do on vacations?”
“They didn’t take me with them.”
“What about later?” Lucas asked. “You live in D.C. and you never went out on the water?”
“Too busy, I guess.” She moved toward him then, carefully maintaining her grip on the side of the boat as she did. “Is it easy to steer?”
“For me it is. I’ve been doing it most of my life.”
Suddenly, the boat struck a wave that lifted her feet right off the deck. The moment they smacked down, she felt them lift again, her stomach with them. The laugh escaped the moment she felt the boat solidly under her again.
The sound of Lucas’s laughter mingling with hers had her turning toward him.
“You have the makings of a good sailor, Doc. Would you like to take a turn behind the wheel?”