“Yes, before I left Moorea this morning.” She wasn’t fluffy enough to play it sweet; more brown sugar than candy floss, she stuck to being pleasant, just a woman enjoying a holiday in the South Pacific.
“Open it for me, please?”
It was stupid, but her first reaction was relief that she’d packed all her undies in the pocket. Darn stupid, to worry more about watching his hands slide through her silk thongs than what she knew he would find.
Her glance spun around the Customs hall as fast as her fingertips twirled the numbers of the lock. Pleased to find Kel wasn’t there to witness her humiliation, when she’d done dialing in the codes she turned the clasps toward the customs officer, leaving him to open the case.
As he worked, her mind listed every souvenir she’d bought, dismissing them all as trash alongside what she carried.
There could be only one thing he was after.
As her eyes lifted she caught the inquisitive stare of the elegant French woman she’d been seated beside during the flight and felt herself color. She’d envied the other woman’s cool panache on the plane, knowing she’d never achieve its like in a million years. Such things were bred in the bone, and each of her hodgepodge of ancestors was still fighting for top billing, unable to decide if she was Native American, Maori or Scots.
Her ears picked out the rustle of bubble wrap, drawing her gaze to the officer’s hands. He’d gotten down to the layer where she’d packed her black do bok. She didn’t know why she’d brought it except for the security it represented. Heart jumping to her throat, she watched him untie the black belt with its gold insignia proclaiming her status as a hapkido master.
“Stop!” The command left her lips before she could prevent it, earning her a scowl from the guy with his fingers through the loops of her belt and a muffled curse from the guy on the monitor who’d knocked his papers to the floor.
“If you’re carrying illegal goods into the country, too late. You should have worried about it before you entered New Zealand.”
“It’s not that. I don’t mind you searching. I’d just prefer you did it somewhere private.” Her chest heaved as she took a deep breath and held it, waiting for a reply to her request.
Without answering or permitting a crack to soften his stony features, he signaled another officer, one in a supervisory position stationed close to the exit. A quiet word in the other guy’s ear and her case was refastened. “Follow Team Leader Bennett. He’ll take you to a private room. Do you wish to be accompanied by a female officer?”
Visions of a body search made her feel she’d lost everything from the knees down, but she brazened it out. “That won’t be necessary. I can explain everything.”
He didn’t say he’d heard it all before, but she’d bet anything the T-shirt under his uniform had that written across the chest, probably in capital letters. Without another word she followed the guy carrying her chintzy-looking suitcase out of the Customs hall.
The first time she’d seen it, with its stupid good-luck symbol, she’d known its luck had been meant for someone else. That the owners of the Blue Grasshopper hadn’t meant for her to win their contest for the trip to the South Pacific, or the luggage they’d thrown in with the prize.
Kel had wedged himself in a corner with a good view of the customs area while he spoke on his cell phone. “Where to now?”
The answer made him straighten, banging his elbow against the wall. “The Hilton? Are you sure? She doesn’t look the type.”
It wasn’t that he minded going upmarket, but it didn’t make sense. Most couriers he’d taken out were more concerned with blending into the woodwork. The heat invading his bloodstream confirmed the only place Ngaire would blend was an X-rated movie. His mind distracted by lust, he almost missed the rest of his instructions. “Tell me you’re joking?”
But his contact wasn’t.
They’d booked him on a guided tour of New Zealand. Seven days with his every move up for inspection by a busload of tourists. What was the cartel up to, transporting their courier that way?
There could be only one solution, kiss-and-tell was to be dropped off at some tourist destination. And if he didn’t stick like glue to Ngaire Two Feathers McKay, she’d be making the drop down some dark cave with glowworms as the only witnesses.
His gut tightened. He’d known that woman for trouble the first time he saw her, and he’d been right. How the hell was he to stay up close and personal and still keep his hands off her?
From the moment Team Leader Bennett flung open the door on the wrong side of the glass screens shielding the arrivals area, all Ngaire’s bodily apertures began displaying withdrawal symptoms. Hardly surprising since the first person she saw was a female officer who looked as if she enjoyed her work. One hint of snapping latex and Ngaire would be outta there.
Heck, she could handle all of them, no problem, including the big guy sitting behind the desk. But she had a feeling some countries got a mite upset with visitors who threw their officials against the walls, even walls that were as bare and gray as a prison cell.
“This lady’d prefer her things searched in private,” said Bennett. From his expression as he thumped her case onto the desk, he thought she was acting just too precious for words.
It sat there unopened while the handsome, copper-skinned officer with Manu Pomare on his name tag flipped through her passport. A quick read, since this was her first time out of the States. Hope sparked at the sight of his Maori name; surely he would understand that her reasons for leaving her precious cargo off her declaration form weren’t simply to avoid paying duty.
Finished, Pomare looked up and asked her, “What brings you Down Under, Ms. McKay?”
“I won a quiz show sponsored by a local nightspot. I’m a trivia nut and…” Ngaire could see her excuse didn’t cut any ice with the guy in charge, and her explanation stumbled on her lips. “First prize was a trip to the South Pacific, Australia and Singapore.”
A quick glance showed the prize impressed no one. Pomare flicked a finger and thumb at her suitcase. The sound of his fingernail hitting the lock filled the lumbering silence left by her boast. “And what are you carrying that needs to be hidden from the general public?”
“Open the case and I’ll show you.”
It took only a couple of seconds to remove her black do bok, the bubble wrap with its brown sticky tape would take slightly longer. She loosened one corner and pulled off a strip. Five more to go. Hesitation stilled her hands as her heartbeat gave a hiccup. Had the warm pulsing sensation she’d experienced when wrapping the parcel been more than just her imagination?
And had the startled yelp from the guy in Tahiti as he dropped her case come from pain rather than fear?
“Here,” Pomare said, offering her a letter opener.
“No, thanks. I can’t use anything that might damage it.”
The final layer under the bubble wrap was a white silk scarf more than fifty years old, yet more than two hundred years younger than the treasure hiding in its folds. This very scarf had been wrapped lovingly by her grandmother before she set out on her sea journey to the States. A silken cocoon to protect the only physical piece of her heritage she’d taken with her.
Ngaire pulled the scarf aside, the backs of her shaking knuckles skimming fifteen inches of paddle-shaped jade, careful of its cutting edge. She’d always known her inheritance was special. Magic. She’d been a child when her grandfather had spoken of the way the jade had darkened in the days before and after the deaths of her father and grandmother, and how the mottled spots had turned red as if flushed with blood.
She’d seen the phenomenon herself, seen the changes in the mere before her mother died. But, no warnings for her mother to please be careful had made any difference or