“What was left to say?” she asked with what she hoped was quiet dignity.
“Hmm, let me think. Maybe your reasons for leaving me?”
She got to her feet. “You want the truth? I couldn’t take it. I was so in love with you, it hurt all the time. You were all that mattered to me. My dolphins were far too tame for you—and far too unimportant. Our agreement that we’d spend time dedicated to my pursuits didn’t mean a thing—not if a sunken ship turned up or a shark-research expedition was formed. Then it came to the point when I said you were welcome to go off even when you were supposed to be helping me—and you went. And then that became a way of life. There’s the story in a nutshell. You were gone long before I sent those papers. And sometime in there, I got over you. I love working with dolphins. No, it isn’t like finding a Spanish galleon, or even locating a yacht that went down ten years ago, maybe. But I love it. What you apparently needed, or wanted, was a different kind of wife. Either a pretty airhead who would follow you endlessly, or…someone as fanatic about treasure as you are. So go to your room and put some clothes on, or take a stroll over to the Tiki Hut and give someone else a thrill.”
She started inside, hoping he would stop her. Not because she wanted to be near him, but because he knew about the body.
Her back to him, she suddenly wondered how he knew. The question left her with a very uneasy feeling.
“Alexandra, whatever anger you’re feeling toward me, whatever I did or didn’t do, I swear, I’m just trying to help you now.”
She spun around. “How do you know about the body, anyway? Jay gave me very direct orders not to mention it to anyone.”
He cocked his head slightly. “Jay’s assistant talks.”
“What did you do? Flirt with Len, too?”
He arched an eyebrow, curiously, slowly. She wished she could take back the comment. It made it appear as if…as if jealousy had been the driving factor in her quest for freedom. And it hadn’t been.
Thankfully, David didn’t follow up on her comment. “I don’t think Len could contain himself. He tried to be smooth and cool, but I guess he feels he knows me and that I’m intelligent enough not to repeat what he said. He told me you’d all gone off in search of a body, and then it turned out to be gone. I overheard Jay tell him that part.”
She stood very still, watching him for a long moment. “You know, I came back here to be alone.”
“So talk to me, then I’ll leave you alone.”
“You know, this is very strange. Most people would scoff at the idea immediately. Bodies don’t turn up on a daily basis. And yet…it sounds as if you think that there…should have been a body.”
“No,” he corrected. “I didn’t say I thought there should be a body.”
Alex pressed her fingers to her temples. “I can’t do this,” she said.
She was startled when he suddenly moved close to her. “Alex, please. If there was a body, and you saw it—you could be in danger.”
She sighed. “Not if no one knows about the body.”
“But I know, so others could, as well.”
“You said Len only told you about it because he trusts you.”
“Others might have overheard.”
“Just what do you want?”
He was no more than an inch from her. He still carried the scent of salt and the sea, and it was a compelling mixture. She looked away.
“I don’t want anything. I’m deeply concerned. Alex, don’t you understand? You could be in danger!” His hands fell on her shoulders then. It was suddenly like old times. “You have to listen to me.”
She’d heard the words before. Felt his hands before. Memories of being crushed against that chest stirred within her. She didn’t want to believe that she had once been so in love with him just because he was so distinctively male and sensual. There had been times when they were together when his smile had been so quick, and then so lazy, when just a finger trailing across her bare arm or shoulder had…
“David, let go of me,” she said, stepping back.
His eyes were narrowed, hard. She’d seen them that way before, when he was intent on getting to the bottom of something.
“Talk to me, Alex.”
“All right. Yes, Jay acted like an asshole. Yes, I’m convinced I saw a body. A woman. A blonde. Other than that…I couldn’t see her face. The angle of her body was wrong, and she was tangled in seaweed. When we went back, she was gone. Even Laurie, who saw the body first, wasn’t sure we’d seen it anymore. She didn’t actually go near the body even when it was there. Anyway, there was no corpse. So, are you happy?”
He didn’t look happy. Actually, for a moment, he appeared ashen. She wanted to touch his face, but he was still David. Solid as rock.
“Please, will you leave me alone?” she asked him.
His voice was strange, scratchy, when he spoke. “I can’t leave you alone. Not now,” he said. And yet, contrary to his words, he turned and left her porch, disappearing along the back trail that led, in a roundabout way, to the other cottages and the lodge.
She stared after him, suddenly feeling the overwhelming urge to burst into tears. “Damn it, I got over you,” she grated out. “And here you are again, driving me crazy, making me doubt myself…and not doubt myself,” she finished softly.
She realized suddenly that twilight was coming.
And that she was afraid.
David had almost made her forget. No matter what anyone said, she’d seen a body on the beach. That was shattering in itself, but then the body had disappeared.
She slipped back inside, locking the sliding-glass door behind her. Then she looked outside and saw the shadows of dusk stretching out across the landscape.
She drew the curtains, uneasily checked her front door, and at last—after opening and finishing a new wine cooler—she managed to convince herself to take a shower.
David sat at a table at the Tiki Hut, watching Alex. Not happily. He had been sitting with Jay Galway, who hadn’t mentioned Alex’s discovery, naturally. There might be a major exodus from the lodge if word got out that a mysterious body had been found, then disappeared, and Galway would never stand for that.
During their conversation, David had asked Jay casually about recent guests, and any news in the world of salvage or the sea, and Jay had been just as cool, shrugging, and saying that, with summer in full swing, most of their guests were tourists, eager to swim with the dolphins, or snorkel or dive on the Florida reef. Naturally—that was what they were set up to do.
David had showered, changed and made a few phone calls in the time since he’d left Alex. He’d still arrived before her.
If she’d seen him at the table, she’d given him no notice, heading straight for the table where John Seymore was sitting with Hank Adamson. They were chatting now, and he had the feeling that part of Alex’s bubbling enthusiasm and the little intimate touches she was giving Seymore were strictly for his benefit, her message clear: Leave me the hell alone, hands off, I’ve moved on.
How far would it go?
All right, one way or the other, he would have been jealous, but now he was really concerned.
A woman’s body had been found on the beach, and he had not heard back from Alicia Farr—who was a blonde.
David couldn’t stop the reel playing through his head.