Czytaj książkę: «Taken Beyond Temptation»

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AS HER CAR HIT THE OIL slick and went into a spin, Jillian kept her foot steady on the brake and gripped the steering wheel for dear life. It badly wanted to jerk out of her hands, but she fought it just as one of her ex-boyfriends had taught her.

The hairpin curve she’d been negotiating had blocked the oil slick from view until she was nearly on it. Still, she might have sailed through it without incident if only the SUV hadn’t appeared out of nowhere….

Sounds assaulted her ears—the squeal of tires, the whir and rat-a-tat-tat of gravel as it struck the car. Her heart thundered like a freight train speeding its way through a tunnel.

In a distant part of her mind, she waited for her life to flash before her eyes.

Nada.

All she saw was a rotation of freeze-framed images—the ditch at the side of the turn, the tall tower of Haworth House shooting into a cloudless blue sky, a row of tall pines, followed by the large vehicle blocking the road ahead. And all the while the pavement beneath her screamed.

With one final shudder, her car stopped spinning and the noises stopped. She drew in a deep breath, felt it burn her lungs, and then finally focused on the view through her windshield. Only then did her heart shoot to her throat. Even through a haze of dust, she could see the front of the large, silver-toned SUV only inches away.

Inches.

She pried her hands from the steering wheel and noted they were trembling. Beyond them she saw a figure unfold himself from the driver’s seat of the SUV and move toward her.

Because of the glare of the sun on her windshield and the fact that her sunglasses had flown off while she was in ditch-and-tree-avoidance mode, she got only a dim impression of a tall, lanky figure. A man?

“Are you all right?” Definitely a man. The deep voice clinched it.

“I’m fine.” She glanced down at herself just to make sure. But she had to be fine. There was no time for Jillian Brightman to be otherwise. To emphasize the point, she scrambled out from behind the wheel of her Beetle. Her knees only threatened to buckle. Good news. “How about you? ”

“I’m okay, but I didn’t just bring my car out of a tailspin that racecar fans would have applauded. Nice driving.”

“I didn’t expect that oil slick, and I was in a big hurry. I usually am.” It seemed she hadn’t had time to breathe in the fourteen months since she and her sisters had bought Haworth House and begun work on opening their hotel.

When she used her hand to brush the dust off her jacket, she saw that it was no longer trembling. Good.

“It was a close call.”

“Yeah.” When she glanced up, a wide, solid-looking chest filled her vision. She hadn’t heard his approach. Now they stood toe to toe, only inches separating them.

Move back. The warning flashed into her mind as awareness rippled through her and her heart gave a little thud.

He was big. At five foot two, she was used to men being taller. But as she tilted her head way back, she figured he had to be six-three or-four. Since he hadn’t lost his sunglasses, she couldn’t see his eyes but she noted the shaggy straw-colored hair, the very male face with a slash of cheekbones, the trace of stubble on his jawline. When her gaze lingered on his mouth, her heart gave another thud.

This time when the warning flashed, she drew back and slammed into the side of her car.

He grabbed her arms to steady her. One of his feet had moved between her legs and for a moment, she felt the long hard length of his thigh pressed against hers. Heat arrowed out from the contact point and pooled in her center. A mist settled over her brain, and her throat went dry.

“Are you all right?”

She was still coming down from the adrenaline rush of nearly hitting him. That had to be it. Her senses were still in overdrive. That was why she felt the pressure of each one of his fingers on her arms. That was why she was having trouble finding her voice.

“I’m fine,” she lied. She was going to start to tremble any second.

One of them moved. Jillian wasn’t sure which one, but suddenly he was even closer. She felt the warmth of his breath on her mouth. She could almost taste it, and what shocked her was that she wanted more. Then there was nothing but the torrid, liquid heat of that one concentrated desire.

For a moment, she was incredibly tempted to go on impulse—to rise up on her toes and close that last little distance between them.

No. This was not a time in her life when she could afford to throw caution to the winds. This man was a stranger. And she had … business … Business that had slipped right out of her mind the instant this man had touched her.

She wasn’t sure how she found the strength to raise a hand and press it firmly against his chest. “I have to go.”

He dropped his hands and stepped away. But he didn’t return to his car. Instead, he circled hers. His movements were slow so she had plenty of time to take in the broad shoulders, narrow waist and long legs in tight, tattered jeans. In spite of the distraction, most of her brain cells clicked back on. And by the time he finished his little tour, she could even stand without the support of her car.

He wasn’t local. She’d met almost everyone who was, and she wouldn’t have forgotten him.

Because he was definitely a hunk.

Get a grip, Jillian. Hunks were her particular weakness. And acting too quickly on her attraction to them was something she’d paid the price for again and again.

Mr. Racecar Driver had only been the most recent. It was the main reason she’d vowed to abstain from starting up any new relationships, at least until she met the next goal on her two-year business plan.

“You’re lucky,” the hunk drawled. “Not a scratch. Want to check my car out? ”

She glanced at her watch. No time. She’d wasted all her time checking him out. And he was coming closer again. “Look, I have an appointment in Belle Bay in five minutes. I really have to dash. Lawyers hate to be kept waiting. How about I take your word?” Reaching into her car, she grabbed her purse and fished out a business card. “I’m Jillian Brightman, and if there’s any kind of a problem, you can reach me at Haworth House.”

He took the card, studied it for a minute.

She barely kept from tapping her foot. “Are we good here?”

He nodded. “You’ll be the first to know if we’re not.”

“Great.” She slipped back into her car and started the engine. After first backing up and then edging her way carefully around the SUV, she pressed her foot on the gas pedal. It took three straight minutes of driving for her heartbeat to steady.

IAN MACFARLAND WALKED as far as the sharp curve where he’d nearly met his maker and watched Jillian’s car race down the twisting road to the village of Belle Bay. His heart was still hammering. And he didn’t think he could blame that all on the near miss he’d just had.

Although when he’d rounded the curve and seen the car nearly upon him, he thought he’d bought it. The oil slick had taken her into a spin and if she hadn’t been able to handle it, neither of them would have cheated the grim reaper.

The lady sure could drive.

But part of the reason his heart had kicked into overdrive could be laid at the door of Jillian Brightman herself. He wasn’t a man who normally went with impulse. In the five years he’d worked as an analyst for the CIA, he’d learned the value of taking his time, figuring the angles, not jumping to conclusions.

But from the moment he’d stepped out of his SUV, he’d felt the damnedest pull. Walking over to her car to see if she was all right—that he could understand. What confounded him was the almost irresistible temptation he’d had to touch her, to kiss her. For an instant while the soft curves of her body had been pressed against him, the desire to taste her had become so urgent, so overwhelming that he hadn’t thought of anything else.

Certainly not the possible repercussions.

The question was why? He’d researched the Brightman sisters, so why hadn’t he been more prepared for the impact Jillian would have on his senses? Perhaps because the image on her Web site, one that he’d returned to study more than once, didn’t even begin to do justice to the woman. Oh, it had done a fair job of replicating the large blue eyes, the tumble of gold curls and the pixielike features that could have belonged to Peter Pan’s Tinker Bell. But it hadn’t even begun to capture the energy the woman radiated in person. Jillian Brightman in the flesh had been more than he’d anticipated.

She moved as fast as she drove. He recalled how quickly she’d gotten out of and back into the car. Then there’d been that moment when she’d looked right into his eyes. He hadn’t expected the little punch he’d felt right in his gut. Nor had he expected the almost instantaneous emptying of his mind.

She’d surprised him in more ways than one. Ian’s lips curved into a smile. She wasn’t even supposed to be on the island for another week. And the fact that she was might complicate the job he’d come to do. Avery Cooper, the hotel manager who’d contacted him, had stressed that the investigation he’d been hired for had to be done incognito.

Ian recalled Avery’s initial phone call. The first thing out of the man’s mouth had been, “This is Avery Cooper. You may know who I am?”

“I do,” Ian had said.

“Are you as good an investigator as your brother?”

“Hopefully. I don’t have as much field experience as Dane does.” It was something that Ian dearly wished to rectify. “What do you need?”

“First, I need to know that you’ll keep what I tell you in strictest confidence. Not a word—even to your brother. I don’t want to interrupt his holiday with Naomi, and I don’t want the Brightman sisters unnecessarily worried. Not until I know that I’m not just being paranoid.”

“If I think I need to tell my brother, I will. I can ask him to keep it from the sisters. But I can’t guarantee anything until I know what you’re going to tell me.”

There’d been a brief pause on the other end of the line. Then Avery had told him of the incidents plaguing Haworth House in the few weeks since Ian’s brother Dane had captured swindler Michael Davenport on the premises and the story of Haworth House’s resident ghost had received extensive coverage on the twenty-four-hour news channels.

First there’d been a breakdown in the air-conditioning system. Avery had chalked that up to bad luck and the cost of doing business.

Then there’d been the poisonous mushrooms that had nearly made it into the veal marsala, the restaurant’s signature dish. It was a young chef Reese had hired who’d recognized them and saved the day. Avery had had the mushrooms tested in a private lab. The good news was they wouldn’t have proven fatal. The bad news was that whoever had eaten them would have wished they had.

Then there’d been an incident when a guest had taken a tumble on the large stairway leading from the second floor to the lobby. Thankfully, the woman had only fallen down a few steps and suffered no more than a good scare.

But when Avery had discovered the remains of a thin wire he suspected someone had strung across the top step, he’d decided to call Ian.

After hearing Avery’s story, Ian had agreed with the hotel manager on three points. He was right to be concerned, it was too soon to tell if the incidents were related and, therefore, too soon to worry the sisters.

But when he’d offered to come and investigate further, he had to wonder if that hadn’t been related to his own desire to finally become a serious operative in the field. If he was going to be a true partner to Dane, he had to contribute more than tech support. And lately, research work could become a bit tedious and he’d begun to envy his brother’s more active side of the investigative business.

But keeping his investigation under wraps was going to be a challenge now that Jillian Brightman was on the island.

Good thing he loved surprises. And challenges.

As Jillian’s car disappeared from view, Ian returned to his SUV and started it up the hill to Haworth House. Thanks to the last case he and his brother Dane had worked on, he’d done some research on all three of the Brightman sisters.

Oddly enough, the women’s backstory had certain parallels with his and Dane’s. The Brightmans had lost their parents when they were very young and they’d been raised by nuns in a convent boarding school in the south of France. Dane and he had been nine and seven, their other brother four and their sister two when their mother’s sudden death from a brain aneurysm had brought social services down on them with a vengeance. Ian hadn’t seen any of his family after that until a year and a half ago when Dane had tracked him down at his analyst job with the CIA.

Since then, he and his brother had not only begun to appreciate the fact that they were related, but they’d also discovered that their talents meshed. He was the intellectual, Dane the man of action. Ian had left the CIA to go into the security and investigation business with his big brother.

The breakup of their family had been hardest on Dane. He’d been stuck in the foster care system. And although his older brother had been stingy with the details, Ian knew that he’d spent some time on the streets and that the reason Dane had turned to investigative work was because he’d vowed to eventually find and reunite his family.

Compared with Dane’s, his own experiences after he’d lost everyone had been a fairy tale. Within a year, he’d been adopted by a Catholic family who’d wanted to take in a third child after being blessed with two of their own. One of their sons was a year older, the other a year younger, and there’d been adjustments to be made on both sides. JoAnn, his mother, had never made him feel as if he was different or not really hers. But his adoptive father had been another story. Even at seven, it hadn’t taken Ian long to figure out the “rules.” He quickly learned to stay on the sidelines and not to compete or outshine either of his brothers. And he’d still managed to get into MIT and find a career path that he enjoyed. All in all, he couldn’t complain.

Now he had Dane back, and he shared his brother’s goal to find the rest of their family.

The Brightmans had been luckier in a way. They’d never been separated. And just recently Naomi, the oldest, and Dane had found each other. They’d met right here at Haworth House while Dane was on the trail of a world-class swindler, Michael Davenport. The instant Dane had seen Naomi, he’d taken a direct hit from cupid’s arrow, and ever since, Ian had seen little hearts circling his older brother’s head. Currently, Dane and Naomi were on holiday in France.

Good for Dane. It was about time. But a permanent relationship just wasn’t in the cards for Ian MacFarland. He knew from experience that building relationships required time and constant attention. He had enough on his plate. Getting reacquainted with his brother and figuring out how to be the right kind of partner in MacFarland Investigations required all of his focus.

As Ian turned his car into the driveway of Haworth House, he felt a little skip of excitement. He’d seen it on the Internet, taken the virtual tour provided by the Web site, but the place with its gray stone turrets and the tower that rose into the sunny blue sky was something to behold. To the right of the main entrance, he could see the terraced gardens and the maze that bordered them.

After alighting from his car and turning his keys over to a valet, Ian shouldered his duffel and entered the lobby. He spotted Avery Cooper behind the front desk. The tall, handsome man with the chocolate-colored skin had been Jillian’s college roommate, and the sisters had hired him to run Haworth House. It had been a wise decision in Ian’s opinion. In the years since he’d shared living quarters with Jillian, Avery had earned himself an MBA from Harvard Business School. And if the press was to be believed, business at Haworth House was booming.

Of course, the whole media blitz surrounding the arrest of Michael Davenport along with the rumors that the spirit of silent-film star Hattie Haworth had assisted in the swindler’s apprehension had helped.

The instant Avery spotted him, he shot Ian a smile; then he turned the man he was talking to over to an assistant and signaled Ian to follow him.

Avery waited until he’d ushered Ian into the private suite above his office before he spoke. “We’re in deep shit. Jillian arrived unexpectedly this morning.”

“Yes,” Ian said as he dropped his duffel. “I nearly ran into her on the road up here. We spoke briefly.”

Avery’s eyes narrowed on him. “You talked to her? She knows you’re here?”

“She knows I’m here. She doesn’t know who I am. The cars weren’t damaged—thanks to some pretty fancy maneuvering on her part. And she was in a great rush to get to Belle Bay, so we didn’t get to the exchanging names and insurance companies part. No need. We were fine. The cars were undamaged.”

Avery drew in a deep breath. “Please sit down. Would you like something to drink? Water, beer, wine? I usually know how to greet guests better than this.”

And that told Ian more than each of their previous conversations just how concerned Avery was about the series of unsettling incidents that had recently plagued Haworth House.

“Water would be great.”

He followed Avery into the kitchen of the suite and accepted the bottle of water the man retrieved from the refrigerator.