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A sudden urgency came upon Stormy, telling her that she must not tempt providence, forget the odds, or defy the danger green-eyed Tyler Mangus represented.
Tyler strolled downthe shell-paved drive and rounded a wild array of unkempt shrubby palmetto palms. He had parked his car a half-block away, on the sandy verge of Route A1A, so as not to alert his quarry.
The damp March wind played havoc with his hair, tugged at his windbreaker, and whipped his tie over his shoulder, but he was too deep in thought to care.
Though he was loath to admit it, the Maxwell woman impressed him. She had been wary, and with good reason, but not coy. He found her saucy, articulate, and intelligent. She was prison pale, but that in no way detracted from her willowy good looks.
His first instinct had been to believe her every word.
Luckily, he had caught himself. Women were the most complicated creatures on the face of the earth. He had discovered early on that feminine psychology was nearly impenetrable to the male mind. They lied through their teeth, telling a man everything he wanted to hear. But start to rely on what they said and—wham—you were up to your neck in their crazy, contradictory emotional storms. No way—not for him ever again. Up front and no-strings-attached was the only way to go.
Of course, that wasthesedays.
There once had been a time when he was married. There once had been a time when he was the father of a daughter, owned a lovely home in Tallahassee, and held a career as a forensic accountant. But that was another life, so distant now that all he recalled was the pain and loss. Especially the loss.
“Sweet Priss,” he murmured, and he wondered if he’d ever get beyond just marking emotional time. Stormy’s daughter, with her waist-length brown hair and soulful eyes, reminded him of his own precious daughter, Priscilla.
The familiar pain sliced through his gut as the vision of his daughter floating face-down in the swimming pool veered across his mind’s eye. He’d come home from work, changed into his swim trunks, and found her. His wife had been in a lounge chair, texting instead of watching Priscilla. His anger came later, as well as the dissolution of his marriage. He blinked to erase the agonizing scene, to bring himself back to the present.
He slid into the SUV and turned the key in the ignition. Chilly air blew out of the vents, puncturing his mood.
So what that there was a kid involved. The main thing was not to let it affect him.
It didn’t matter one whit that a thief was a mother, that she was personable and attractive.
On second thought, it did matter. He was as susceptible as the next guy to the opposite sex. Especially a woman as attractive as Stormy Maxwell. Okay. He’d keep his guard up. He’d keep his edge. He’d keep his wits about him.
In his mind, he reviewed her every gesture, weighed her every word. Instinct told him she was hiding something.
Somewhere, somehow, Stormy Maxwell was bound to reveal her secrets—and the location of the money. It was his job to be there when she did.
As he made a U-turn to head back into St. Augustine proper, Tyler glanced out at the gray-weathered beach house and sent a mental warning to the woman he meant to outmaneuver.
Better keep a low profile, sugar, and stay on the straight and narrow. One misstep—that’s all it’ll take. Then I’ll have you.
2
Stormy sat in the dark, sipping hot chocolate.
The dim light from the overhead-stove vent in the kitchen didn’t penetrate the breakfast alcove.
The alcove was windowed on three sides, revealing the eerily white dunes and suggesting the ebb and flow of the mighty Atlantic. Now and again, the clouds shifted, allowing a scant moon to skim the waves with a glimmer of lacy whitecaps.
After months of bunking in an inmate dormitory with eighty other restless women, Stormy could not get used to the quiet of the house at night.
She had been home four days and nights and, so far, the longed-for freedom produced not exhilaration but feelings of anxiety, confusion, perhaps even depression and fear. She exhaled her disgust with herself. She was free. She could make a life for herself and Liane once again.
She had been mortified when she was sentenced to prison. Even more ashamed and panicked at how powerless she found herself in that rigidly controlled environment. The Department of Corrections had issued her a number. She became that number, nothing more. And eventually, she discovered that if she remained nothing, no one could truly hurt her. Ultimately, only her body had been present in prison; she was not.
Emotionally she had been dead, coming alive only during the weekly, ten-minute phone call she was allowed. She had used those precious minutes to try to relate to Liane, to try to keep up with what was happening on the outside, to maintain a thread of sanity.
Upon her release, the weight of humiliation had fallen away, leaving her feeling physically lighter and temporarily exultant. But here she was, days later, all her ebullience draining away with no cosmic explanation.
She was an outsider—a member of her family, but somehow not. She was tainted, she guessed. And she knew in her heart that even when she and her sister, Nina, made up, things would never be the same again.
She stirred the melting marshmallows into the hot chocolate, took another sip, and savored the taste.
It was the first hot chocolate she’d had in over a year.
