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The island had captivated her with its lavish landscape and its musical insects whose concert lulled her to sleep every night. At first she’d found the humidity cloying and almost unbearable, but she had actually come to like the feel of it against her skin. With its moss-laden trees that were almost as ancient as the surf, the island was otherworldly, entrancing, and seductive.
And so was Parker Evans. But she shoved that thought aside.
She noticed that the manuscript pages had actually grown damp within her tight grip. Relaxing her fist, she shook her head with chagrin. There was no mystery as to the source of these sensual thoughts. They had taken root in her mind when Parker read that damned passage about slippery kisses and nipples and the pleasurable possibilities available to a man and woman willing to explore them.
She had planned to return to the guest cottage and read these pages for herself, but she changed her mind. They could wait to be read when she was back in New York, under fluorescent lights, in familiar surroundings, behind the safe barricade of her own desk and heavy workload. They could be read when their author wasn’t in the next room entertaining fantasies about her that he could be arrested for.
Before she left the solarium, she borrowed a Mackensie Roone novel from Parker’s library. She had a feeling that falling asleep was going to be difficult. The mystery would be a pleasant diversion. Deck Cayton could keep her company.
* * *
When Parker entered the gin the following morning, he startled a raccoon. “It’s almost daybreak, pal. Better haul ass.” The animal scuttled out between broken boards in the wall.
He liked coming to the cotton gin before the sun came up, when it was still reasonably cool and there was a light breeze coming off the ocean. He liked watching the first light find its way through the cracks in the walls. He fancied the building having a soul, awakening at sunrise in the vain hope that the new day would bring life and vitality back to it.
He fancied it because he could identify with it.
He knew what it was like for people to shut you down, lock you up, and go away sadly shaking their heads and saying that you weren’t going to be worth much to anybody ever again.
Countless mornings he had awakened like that. Before he had time to remember his circumstances, he would experience a flicker of anticipation for what the day would bring. Then pain would bring him fully awake, and with consciousness came the cruel realization that the day would bring nothing except the same desolation and hopelessness as had the day before, and the one before that.
Thank God he had clawed his way free of that self-defeating miasma.
By an act of will, he had given his days purpose. He had set himself a goal. Although it had cost him excruciating physical pain and many times had beaten his persistence almost into surrender, he had clung to it. Now he was mere weeks away from achieving that goal.
A bird sailed into the building from the open doorway, startling Parker out of his reverie. The brown, spotted thing—Mike was the bird-watcher who could probably identify this one from thirty yards—perched on the edge of the loft and, tilting its feathered head, regarded Parker curiously.
“Bet you’re wondering what I’m doing here.”
He wondered what the hell he was doing talking to the animals this morning, but it didn’t worry him overmuch. He had once screamed invectives at a whole battalion of imaginary rats that were scaling his motionless legs, crawling over his groin and belly and up his chest to attack his neck and face with their long, sharp teeth. So he wasn’t too concerned now about rationally addressing something as harmless, and real, as a common bird.
He came here to the emptiness of this ruin to rethink his plot and look for holes in it. He came here to check on his preparedness and to ask himself repeatedly what he could have possibly overlooked. He came to anticipate how sweet it was going to be to have his revenge, to see an end to it, to bring it to closure after fourteen years.
Sometimes he came here simply to escape Mike. Two opinionated bachelors sharing a house had the potential of becoming one opinionated bachelor too many. When tempers sparked, it was always Parker’s fault. Compared to him, Mike had the disposition and patience of a saint.
He couldn’t do without Mike and couldn’t bear to think about the day when he would be forced to. Mike wouldn’t ’fess up to his actual age, but Parker knew he must be past seventy. Thank God he appeared to be in good health and had the energy of a man half his age.
He was really fond of—no, he loved that old man.
But there were days when even the long-suffering Mike Strother grated on him, when he needed complete solitude, when one room didn’t provide him enough space in which to battle his demons.
This morning he’d come here to think specifically about Maris. Within these weathered walls, he had hatched the plan to get her to St. Anne Island, under his roof, and under his influence.
He hadn’t planned on her getting under his skin.
He couldn’t go feeling sorry for her, though. If he was to treat Noah Reed to a taste of hell on earth, utilizing Noah’s wife was necessary. She would get caught in the crossfire that was sure to come, but that was too damn bad. She would get no better than she deserved for marrying the cocksucker. She looked and talked smart, but she couldn’t be very bright.
“I mean, come on, marrying a guy because she fell in love with a character in a book? How stupid can you get?” he asked the sparrow.
No, he couldn’t let himself get mushy over Maris Matherly-Reed. So what if she made him laugh? And gave good dialogue? And looked up at him with woeful, watercolor eyes and felt compassion for his scars? He didn’t want her pity. He didn’t need it. And she damn well wouldn’t be pitying him if she knew what was in store for—
“You son of a bitch!”
Parker spun his chair around barely in time to duck the hardcover book hurled at his head.
Chapter 15
Parker batted the book away a nanosecond before it could connect with his temple. It landed in the dirt beside his chair, sending up a puff of dust. He recognized the cover. It was the first volume of the Deck Cayton series.
