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“Get me someone who can speak English. Oh, God! Uh, ¿Comprende Ud.? Do you understand? There was a man, a damned Peeping Tom or worse, on my veranda! ¿Habla Ud. inglés? I need help!”
The lock on the hallway door rattled. Nikki dropped the phone. Heart thudding, she reached for the bedside lamp—a weak weapon, but all she had—and watched in horror as the door swung open and Trent, his hair wet and plastered to his head, the shoulders of his leather jacket soaked, entered. She nearly collapsed against the wall and her fingers let go of the base of the lamp. “Thank God,” she whispered.
Trent took one look at her face and his eyes slitted in concern. “What happened?” he demanded, crossing the room. “Nikki, are you okay?”
She nodded, though she couldn’t find her tongue, and when he wrapped his arms around her, she sagged against him like a silly woman who couldn’t take care of herself. Relieved, she clung to him, trying not to embarrass herself by breaking into tears. He smelled of the outdoors—rainwater, leather and salt air—and though she wanted to crumple into his arms like a lovesick fool, to trust him with all of her heart, to quit torturing herself with worries about him, she stiffened her spine and gently stepped out of his embrace.
“What’s wrong?”
“I saw someone on the veranda.”
“Who?”
She shook her head, trying to conjure up the man’s image. “I don’t know. Some man. It was too dark to recognize him, but he was built like you, had on a dark jacket…bare head…” She noticed Trent’s dripping hair again and his flushed face. He seemed to be breathing hard, but there was no reason for him to spy on her. No reason on earth. Not when he had a key to the room. Her sick mind was playing games with her again.
Trent threw open the drapes and French doors. Rain and wind blew into the room as he dashed outside just as someone began banging on the hotel door. “¡Señora McKenzie!”
In three swift strides, leveling a staying finger at Nikki, Trent was across the room. “Who is it?”
“¡Policía!”
Trent yanked open the door, and two hotel security guards, weapons drawn, burst into the room.
“It’s all right,” Trent assured them, and one of the men, the beefier of the two, walked to the night table, picked up the phone, muttered Spanish into the receiver and hung up.
Nikki wrapped her arms around her middle and sat on a corner of the bed as Trent acted as interpreter. She told him of the man on the deck, and he, in Spanish, repeated it to the two guards. The questions about the man’s identity and description were rapid, and Nikki had to admit that the figure she’d seen was dark and blurry through the rainwashed window.
“We have no idea who it was,” Trent said as the security guards were finishing their interrogation. “At least, I don’t. Nikki?”
She shook her head. Who would spy on her? “I can’t imagine.”
The guards talked between themselves and with Trent, even sharing a joke that Nikki couldn’t begin to understand. They eventually left, apologizing to Nikki for her fright and promising to look for any suspicious characters.
“They assume it was just another burglary attempt,” he said after he’d closed the door behind them. “There have been quite a few in the major hotels around here. A ring of thieves after rich tourists’ money or jewelry.”
“They wouldn’t have found much here,” she said, unconvinced. Her eyebrows drew down over her eyes. “Besides, I’m not sure that it had anything to do with a robbery.”
“Why not?” He threw both dead bolts before sitting on the foot of the bed and nudging off his boots.
“Because I’ve had this feeling that I’ve been followed.”
He cast an interested glance over his shoulder, but didn’t say anything.
“Earlier. When I was riding the horse, I felt it, and then you showed up, so I just assumed you were the reason I felt as if I’d been watched. But now…I’m not so sure.” She tucked her feet up close to her bottom and hugged her knees.
“So you think the man on the veranda might have been following you?”
“Yes. But I don’t know why!” Sighing in frustration, she decided to gamble a little. “I think it might have something to do with Senator Crowley.”
Was it her imagination or did the cords in the back of his neck tighten a little?
“Crowley? What’s he got to do with anything?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but I talked to Connie at the paper and later my dad called. They both brought up our illustrious senator. Connie seems to think I was hoping to do a story on him, uncover some sort of political dirt, I suppose, and Dad…Dad was even stranger. He acted as if he and I had fought before I left for Salvaje, and that the argument had something to do with Crowley.” Stretching, she fluffed her still-damp hair with fingers that shook a little. “The thing of it is, I don’t even know what the man looks like. I could barely remember his name.”
“James,” Trent supplied as he kicked his boots into the closet. “Diamond Jim Crowley. Attorney-at-law, private businessman and senator. A Republican who hails from Tacoma.” He pulled off his jacket and hung it over the back of the vanity chair before stretching out on the bed beside her. “Connie’s right. You were interested in him. You thought he might be involved in something shady.”
“What’s that got to do with Salvaje?”
