Now You See Him(18)

"Then what's the problem?" It was a reasonable enough question, one that required a reasonable answer.

"The only bathing suits they sell on St. Anne are French," she said flatly.

He was sharp; she had to admit it. He didn't ask for an explanation. He simply said, "Oh."

"Oh," she echoed.

He leaned back, taking off his sunglasses and letting them swing lazily in one hand. The sickly pallor of his skin had faded somewhat during his days under the bright sun, and she'd even noticed a dusting of freckles across his strong nose. "I tell you what," he said. "You don't look at my skinny, white, scarred body in baggy drawers, and I won't look at you in your skimpy bikini."

"You've got yourself a deal." She believed him, of course. He'd never done anything to give her the impression that he was as aware of her as she was of him. He probably had a wife and five kids tucked away back in Somerset.

Except that she knew he didn't. He hadn't told her much about his personal life, except to say he'd never been married, though he'd come close a number of times. He figured he was married to his job. And he certainly had enough fathering to do, with the hordes of schoolboys who passed through his care at Willingborough. Everything normal, upper middle class Brit, including his two years in military service when he was younger. He hadn't been stationed in Ireland—she'd made sure of that.

She knew he was thirty-seven, that the car accident hadn't been his fault, that he was expected back in England sometime soon to pick up the pieces of his safe, comfortable life. If he knew what she'd gone through, he would draw back in well-bred horror.

But he didn't know, and there was no reason why he should. As far as he was concerned, she was a motherly, friendly American with few responsibilities and ties, someone spending a few idle months in the Caribbean. And she preferred to leave it that way. Her attraction to him was an aberration, a brief moment of madness in reaction to her earlier foolishness in believing in Patrick Dugan. Michael Dowd was the antithesis of Patrick, safe and sane and harmless. It was no wonder she was drawn to him.

And that attraction would safely wither and disappear the moment he left for home. In the meantime, it did her no harm to let her mind drift into vague, erotic fantasies. Knowing she had absolutely no intention of following up on them.

She smiled at Michael, reaching out and putting her hand over his in a friendly gesture. His skin was cool, smooth beneath her innocent touch, and if she felt prickles of awareness between their flesh, his expression was completely bland and unmoved.

Harmless, sweet and definitely undersexed, she thought with dismay and relief. She couldn't be safer.



"You slept with her yet?" Ross Cardiff demanded. He had a high-pitched, nasally whine of a voice, with a trace of Northern England thrown in. Michael was originally from the North himself, and he'd always liked the sound of Yorkshire in a man's voice. But not since he'd been working with Ross Cardiff.

"None of your bloody business."

"The hell it's not. You talked me into this, against my better judgment. We need to keep on Daniel Travers's good side, and we need to move very carefully in this issue. Patrick Dugan wasn't the only one involved in the attack on the Queen. There's no guarantee that he was the head of the Cadre…"

"I thought we'd already agreed that he wasn't," Michael said sharply, glancing through the smoked glass of the phone booth to Francey. She was sitting back in the white mesh chair, staring out at the sea, waiting while he put in a call to his dear old Mum. His mother had been dead in a drunken car accident since the early sixties, and no great shakes as a mother anyway. He smiled sourly, turning away from her.

"You decided," Ross corrected. "I'm not convinced. However, there's no denying that the Cadre's been active recently. Gearing up for something. Any more attempts?"

"Not as far as we can tell. Cecil's been clinging like a burr, and I upgraded the security system while she was sleeping. James Bond couldn't get through it."

"I rather thought you fancied you were James Bond," Ross said nastily.

"Hell, no, Ross," he said pleasantly. "You're the one with fantasies."

The dead silence that greeted that remark reminded Michael that there was a limit as to how far he could push Ross. Cardiff's sexual proclivities were not a topic of conversation, even if Michael's were.

"How long are you going to be there?" Cardiff demanded finally. "Why don't you just boff her, find out what she knows and get the hell out of there?"

"Not that simple. She seems fairly traumatized by her run-in with Dugan."

"And you believe that? You're getting soft."