What the Waves Bring Read online

The release of her body’s tension was a tangible thing, spreading from her extremities through her arms and legs then inward. As the germs of a glow broke through her pallor, April slowly raised her arms to his shoulders, broad and beckoning, then wound them around his neck and pulled herself into the cradle he offered, savoring his life-giving warmth as he lifted her tenderly and resumed the trek. Heath had no need to question her silent weeping. For her tears were of happiness and he shared them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Heath’s narrative began as his pace leveled off on the dirt road. “If you were trying to get home, darlin’, you nearly made it. I left you almost a mile from here; you came within five minutes’ walk of the house!”

  “It was so dark …”

  “I know, darlin’. I know.” As he hugged her more tightly, it was as though he tried to compensate for the memory of that darkness.

  “The car … ?”

  “I’ll pick it up later. It’s down the road a bit. Quite a bit.” She heard the smile in his voice and wondered at his total relaxation.

  The fog had lifted. Even now, the sun’s rays fought to burn the last of it into oblivion. April kept her eyes closed against the glare, savoring the warmth and strength offered by Heath’s body. Nothing mattered to her but that he loved her; all else would be explained in time. He didn’t seem to expect conversation from her, was content to keep her occupied with small tidbits of information here and there. “Here’s the house now. Hold on.” Taking the front steps in a stride, he flung open the front door and surged forward without missing a beat.

  “It’s all right,” he said above her head. “She’ll be fine. You can call the others in.”

  Confused, April lifted her head to see the inside of her old familiar home, so warm and welcoming, now strangely peopled with guests. Men. Two or three. Dressed incongruously in business suits. “Who … ?”

  But Heath had turned the corner into the bedroom and the strangers fell from sight. “Friends, darlin’. No need to worry. I’ll introduce them and explain it all over a nice, hot rum toddy—”

  “I haven’t any rum …” She saw the walls of her bedroom yield to the more intimate confines of the bath.

  Heath lowered her carefully to her feet, leaning her against the sink. “That’s all right. I’ll find some way to warm you.” The statement was a naughty one, yet there was not a trace of seductiveness in the eyes that appraised her clinically, the hands that began to quickly work at her clothes.

  “What are you—”

  “You need a shower, darlin’. Hot and long. Damn it.” He peeled off the Windbreaker. “I’ve got to have a large tub installed. Every woman needs a bathtub. Why haven’t you got one? No, forget I asked.” His hands drew the sweater easily over her head. “Can you stand … in the shower, I mean?”

  Shivering as her skin was exposed to the air, she chided him gently. “Of course, I can stand. And I can undress myself, too!” Nonetheless, her fingers clung to his shoulders as he concentrated on stripping the wet clothes from her body. Slacks and pantyhose followed the sweater; then, at last, her bra and panties. Heath gave not the slightest hint of appreciation of her nakedness before he leaned across to turn the shower on full blast.

  “Are you always this … detached … when you strip ladies of their clothes?”

  The look he sent her over his shoulder was anything but detached. It held a very intimate form of humor. “Weren’t you, ah, detached, when you undressed me after you found me on the beach?” His eyes were so black, so deep, yet soft and smooth as velvet, as they stroked her face delightfully.

  April grinned then, recalling that very first day. “Oh, very … at the beginning …”

  “Then I’ll leave things open for later,” he crooned deceptively, straightening and all but bodily placing her into the shower, beneath the brunt of the hot spray. For an instant, before she had recovered from the suddenness of it all, April sputtered. Then the warmth and invigoration seeped through her chill and she turned toward the force to welcome it.

  It was truly a moment to relish—Heath just beyond the curtain, waiting for her, the warmth of the shower, beating gently down, relaxing her. Pure heaven. Soap and shampoo were the first order of business. Then it was all pleasure. On impulse, and, in truth, submitting to the weakness of her legs, she sat down, right in the middle of the shower’s spray, and offered her body to it—until the warmth began to fade. But it was Heath who reached in to turn the knob.

  “Ap … ril … ?” he began, stunned when he didn’t see her at first, then amused at her low pose. “April!” He lent an arm to help her up. “What were you doing?” The towel in his hand had already begun to dry her.

  “I was sitting in the shower. It felt so good.”

  “See! You really do need a bath! Why doesn’t this house have one? I always thought baths came before showers?”

  April laughed, part in response to the tickle that terry-sheathed fingers induced drying her middle. “I’m sure there was a tub at one point. The owners probably felt they were modernizing the place by installing this shower. It’s really fine.”

  “Hmph,” he growled good-naturedly, standing to hand her dry clothes. Not only had he brought them from the other room while she’d showered, but he’d managed to change as well. Now he watched as she dressed. With satisfaction, she noted his enjoyment of the view. She had pulled on dry jeans but was still only in her bra when she felt the sudden and driving need.

  “Tell me again, Heath,” she whispered, leaning against him, putting her hands tentatively at his shoulders. “Please, tell me again.”

  His hands slid around her waist, thumbs caressing the flesh just above the denim line. “I love you, sweet April,” he murmured as softly, knowing her needs better than she did. His head lowered and he kissed her, with the care and feeling that she craved. April’s senses swam from the headiness of him alone. It was all so unreal, and so wonderful.

  “I love you, too, Heath …” She paused, then frowned. “But it’s Evan, isn’t it?”

  His hands touched her arms, her neck, her face, then wound through her hair to her back, igniting her flesh at every point. “Yes, darlin’. It is Evan. But … Evan or Heath, I do love you.”

  April tasted the tang of his skin as she kissed his jaw and chin enroute to his lips, which closed over hers with mind-numbing finality. Here was a man who brooked no compromise. He may be a diplomat, she mused, but he will settle for nothing less than my everything! Everything was what she wanted to give; everything was what she would demand in return.

  “Heath—Evan—it will take me a while.” She blushed, pulling away to finish dressing. “I want to know what’s happened. I don’t understand any of this. Where is Jane? What is she up to—?”

  A large finger stilled her words. “Shhh. First, get dressed and come out to the kitchen. I’m going to fix you something to drink.”

  “Not coffee?” she asked on impulse, knowing, or feeling, something odd about that last cup she’d drunk.

  Heath grinned, his thoughts running on a similar vein. “Not coffee. Now hurry!”

  She did. Within minutes of his departure, she had brushed through her wet but clean hair, straightened her collar just so on the crew neck of her sweater, tied her sneakers tightly over her thick wool socks, and made for the kitchen, purposefully ignoring the presence of the men in her living room. Heath would explain them. Heath—Evan—would explain everything!

  He was waiting for her, standing by the sink, stirring a concoction she didn’t dare ask about. It was hot and mildly spiked; she needed to know no more. Slowly, she sipped its contents as Heath joined her and began to answer, one by one, the questions that had plagued her so cruelly.

  “First of all,” he began, “let me tell you about myself.” He was calm, filled with the confidence of a man who felt pride in himself and his work. April was content with that pride, yet she listened closely as he outlined his career. “Everything Jane said about me was true—to a point. You know about
my educational background, my work with the State Department, my position at Georgetown.” April nodded. “Well, unfortunately, she stopped before the truly pertinent data popped up. Your friend Paul was correctly informed. I am on a leave of absence—to serve as a consultant to the government—”

  “Consultant?”

  “Uh-huh. We have been working to develop the negotiation strategies for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. I had taken several months off to work secretly and exclusively on fine-tuning those developments.” At April’s frown, he explained. “Our government has certain goals, certain bare minimums of defense below which we simply cannot yield. The negotiating process is a complex one, involving many, many smaller and lesser bargaining points, all of which contribute to the whole. Most people think it is simply a question of granting permission for each country to maintain such-and-such number of nuclear warheads. But there’s much more to it than that!”

  “And that’s where you come in?” she asked, fascinated.

  Heath nodded, smiling his encouragement. “That’s where I come in. All of those smaller points have to be intricately worked out. It’s like a … symphony … where, unless every note is in tune, the end is a farce.”

  “Do you enjoy symphony?” The detour was on impulse and was rewarded instantly.

  “I have season’s tickets …”

  April beamed, nothing further needing to be said on that score. With an apologetic smirk, she redirected him. “And Jane? What is her role in all this?”

  Heath sighed, and straightened. “Jane is—was—a colleague of mine, as she told us. Unfortunately, she was too ambitious. Though my role in the secret strategy negotiations has been kept under wraps, she must have had some inside source—”

  “That man—?”

  “Very probably. Either him, or someone else of his kind. Superpatriots, they call themselves,” he mused with a sneer, “but it’s doubtful that they’ll do any country much good!”

  “But what did they want with you?”

  “My mind. They wanted to learn the negotiation strategy. What they would do with it, once they had it, is still a mystery. Jane was, I think, simply a pawn. That fellow with her was her fellow.”

  “Then, you weren’t … involved with her?”

  Heath shook his head with a poignant smile. “Never in any romantic way, April. But there is involvement when a woman reaches a professional level and is thrown into close and frequent contact with men. The relationship is purely professional, yet it is close. Jane saw herself as my … my … protege, for lack of a better word. I’m afraid she hoped to get more out of the relationship regarding certain confidences than she actually got.” He paused. “She’s in custody now. She and her friend. I have to say that I feel very little satisfaction at having seen someone that bright come as far as she did in her career only to blow it like that!”

  April shook her head, incredulous. “After what she would have done to you—”

  “You only know the half! My boat? You were right! It was sabotaged! The motor and instruments were rigged to malfunction. Their idea was to pick me up and whisk me away, letting the world assume that the storm had simply swallowed me up!”

  “But why were you out on the ocean in the first place?”

  Understanding her puzzlement, he reached a hand out to cover hers, holding it reassuringly. “Jane was half-truthful about that. I did sail out of Gloucester to round the Cape bound for Long Island Sound. It was a pleasure trip, plus I also had to get the boat to its winter mooring. Jane had managed to stay close enough to squirrel my plans from me and I, fool that I was, trusted her. Then one of her team manipulated the weather reports that were radioed to me. I knew there was a storm coming but was told it was farther away than in fact it was. I thought I could easily beat it to the Sound. None of us counted on Ivan’s picking up speed … or my being shipwrecked and washing up on your shore.”

  “Thank God for that!” April lifted his hand and kissed it, holding it against her cheek, breathing deeply of its scent. “How did she find you so quickly?”

  “She and her buddies were the only ones who knew I was out. They tracked me the whole way. Needless to say, they didn’t report the fact that I was out in that mess. Even the government didn’t know I was missing until Watson called the State Department. My family, friends, all thought I was just on a new jaunt.” He grinned smugly. “I do like to take off like that.”

  April’s mind jumped further ahead. “But why didn’t they simply grab you when they first discovered you were here in Nantucket?”

  “I was with you.” He eyed her directly. Then, sensing her lack of comprehension, he explained. “Their problem was getting me without anyone else knowing. That was what was so beautiful about my love for sailing. I was alone on the boat. Once I was in your clutches though, I was no longer alone. Jane wasn’t terribly pleased to find you here. And when you even stood up to her …” Tipping his head back he laughed heartily, a deep sound coming from his soul that pleased April enough for her to set aside her impulse to defend her actions. Indeed, she found herself joining his laughter.

  “She must have wanted to sabotage me!”

  “Oh, no! Not once she found out who you were!” He sobered. “A Wilde was not one to fool with. Even poor Jane knew that!” With a smile of skepticism, April waited quietly for him to continue. “Those phone calls? All day yesterday? She was quickly informed by whoever her superiors were that your family was quite powerful and that to fool with you would be to risk even greater trouble. It seems, darlin’”—his voice lowered dramatically—“that you were my lucky charm!”

  “But—the coffee? Or whatever it was that hit me last night? They were still determined to get you …”

  “Yes, they drugged the coffee.” He urged her to sip her warm drink. “By the way, her man was staying at another inn, but that was him we saw in the dining room. He managed to drug the coffee. The plan was to knock both of us out. Then, under the cover of night, they could squirrel me away—they had their own private plane waiting at the airport—and leave you in the hotel. You would wake up and, of course, assume that I’d had some part in tricking you and had run off with Jane—”

  “Of course,” she added, licking her lips smartly.

  “And,” he said, eyes gleaming, “of course, you would have been so heartbroken and humiliated that you would not have said a word to anyone—”

  “Of course,” she repeated again. “But, wait just a minute now.” Her tongue held its share of indignance. “You left me out there, all alone in the cold and darkness. I was sure you had chosen Jane!”

  “For a singularly bright lady,” he teased gallantly, “you are still missing something here. But then, you were drugged; I guess I’ll have to give you the benefit of that doubt.”

  “Heath!” Impatience broke through her flimsy composure. “Why did you leave me out there?”

  “I’ve already told you that, darlin’.” He had enough composure for two. “I didn’t want you to be in the danger I suspected we could both be in. I had already guessed correctly about the coffee, and I knew that I had to get back to the house to call the authorities. I also suspected that I would be having visitors—Jane and friend—and that they might choose not to be particularly pleasant.”

  “But you couldn’t remember the strategies … !”

  “Ah, my amnesia. Jane played that around her little finger, with the story of our engagement. She needed to get me alone; that contrived story was her too!—only it didn’t work. After that, she simply wanted to get me into isolation.” A dark brow arched in soft reproach. “As for my memory, there are ways of making the mind remember. Very sophisticated ways. Sometimes very primitive ways.”

  His words sent a chill down her spine. On impulse she set her cup down and rounded the table to where he sat. With her arms draped lightly over his shoulders as she stood between his thighs looking down at him, she felt a surge of gnawing fear at the thought of his being hurt. “I don’t know what
I’d do if …” she whispered, moments before he pulled her closer.

  “You’ll never have to, darlin’. It’s over. Those men out there”—he cocked his head toward the living room—“were waiting for me, here at the house, when I got back. They’re with Intelligence, sent by the State Department. The Secretary—who happens to be a good friend—had Miller checked out. When he became suspicious, he sent his men.” Pausing, he rested his head against the softness of her breasts; she stroked the rich thickness of his hair. “I wanted to go right out to get you. They convinced me that I had to wait until Jane and company arrived. They sent a man out to look for you—I think they’re still looking for him!” Drawing away once more, he tipped his head back to eye her soberly. “They needed evidence, solid proof of what Jane and her cohorts were trying to do. They needed a relevant conversation on tape. And they got it!”

  “Thank God,” she murmured, settling herself onto his lap and kissing him. His lips held the promise that her own craved. When she was free to breathe once more, she knew that it would always be this way with them—always sweet and heady, a most intimate form of communication. “When did your memory come back completely, Heath?”

  The grin that flashed across his lips seemed somehow at odds with the intensity of the moment. “You were responsible for that, darlin’!”

  “Me?”

  “Yes!” he growled in well-feigned anger. “You were ready to fall asleep on me during that slow, slow ride back here last night. I was frightened to let you sleep—I don’t know, I half-worried you’d never wake up. I felt groggy myself, but I’d only had about a third of that coffee. When the effects on me began to wear off quickly, I knew you’d be all right. But, until they began to wear off, I was in a near panic. I felt that I had to get you home, to get some real coffee into you. At one point there, I don’t know if you remember, you were ready to give up and go to sleep. You taunted me to talk, to keep you awake. I suppose I dug deep enough to penetrate that barrier to my memory. Of course, when it all came back and I understood the extent of the danger we both were in, then I couldn’t ditch you soon enough!”