Her Private Treasure. Wendy Etherington
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Uncle Clinton had departed his life respected, rich and bitterly alone. He’d coldly extracted every penny from every case he’d taken on. He’d corrupted idealistic law school graduates with promises of wealth and power. Few, other than the descendants who inherited his money, had mourned him.
As Carr had watched heaps of fertile earth drop onto his uncle’s casket, he knew he was destined for the same end. And he knew he had to find another path.
That had been two years ago, and while he didn’t regret finding his roots again and settling on quiet Palmer’s Island, the sparks of need for excitement came more frequently these days.
Dear heaven, did he have to fade into tedium? Was that his penance? “Hel-lo, gorgeous.”
Certain he wasn’t being addressed, Carr nevertheless glanced at Jimmy, The Heron’s weekday bartender, and noted his gaze locked on the door behind Carr. “What hot blonde are you fixated on tonight?”
“Brunette,” he returned, his eyes following the subject in question.
Carr didn’t bother to turn. Being barely twenty-one, Jimmy’s taste inevitably skewed young. At thirty-five, Carr wasn’t even remotely swimming in the same pool.
Instead, he stared at his whiskey.
“What are you doing here?” a familiar voice asked seconds later.
Raising his head, Carr blinked, but Special Agent Malina Blair was still sliding onto the bar stool next to him, changing his evening from watchful boredom to stimulating possibility in a matter of seconds.
“Drinking.” He raised his glass as he absorbed her lovely features. “Join me?”
Her exotic turquoise gaze slid from his face to his glass and back again. “Why the hell not?”
He only had to lift his finger to get Jimmy assembling her drink. “I like you a lot better when you’re speaking your mind instead of spouting Bureau platitudes.” Not that he hadn’t liked her then as well. His fingers tingled with the urge to pull her silky-looking dark hair from the restraining ponytail secured at the base of her neck. “How’s the investigation progressing?”
“I would like you a lot better if you’d stay out of my case,” she said as Jimmy set the drink before her.
“So now it’s a case?”
She rolled her shoulders. “It is.”
He’d had faith in her sense of justice, but he was relieved to have the instinct confirmed. Sam had been right in that she was the agent for the job.
Did his good deed erase one of the black marks next to his name?
He wasn’t sure—especially since his greatest desire was to seduce her into compromising her professional code of ethics and sleeping with him.
She sipped her drink, never wincing.
Though he considered his brand of imported whiskey smooth, he knew plenty of people who found it too bracing. Women mostly. But then Malina Blair was tougher than the exotic island beauty she appeared to be.
“You like whiskey?” he asked her, fascinated by the way her pillowy lips cupped the crystal.
“Not especially.” She rattled the ice in her glass. “This is nice, though. Stop me if I lose my senses and have the urge to shoot somebody.”
“I’m here to serve. Lousy day?”
“Lousy month.”
“I imagine so. But do you define yourself completely by your job?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
That path led nowhere, as Carr well knew. She’d be so much happier if she fell into bed with him. He wondered how long it would take him to manage it.
Certainly the key to this lady’s heart wouldn’t be found in candy, flowers and suggestive compliments. “So I assume you’ve spent the last thirty-six hours pursuing the case. What have you learned?”
“That boat captains on small islands like to gossip, and your friend Jack Rafton is well liked, even if he has been coming and going at odd hours lately.”
“Which you already knew by talking to me.”
She shrugged. “Corroboration was necessary.”
He was dying to watch that cool nonchalance fall away with the right touch. Because beneath the frustrated heat under her staid, navy-blue suit, the fire of a passionate woman lurked.
With effort, he managed to focus on their conversation. “If you need more details, you might talk to the harbormaster, Albert Duffy. He knows everything about everyone. Though you’d do better to charm him than flash your badge.”
She looked at him, then glanced at her watch with a sigh. “I have a meeting with Albert Duffy in twenty minutes.”
Carr tracked his gaze slowly down her body. “Not that I don’t think you look amazing—and I believe Jimmy is impressed as well—you’d do better showing Al a little leg.”
She bared her teeth. “I could always show him the wrong side of a federal interrogation room.”
He leaned toward her, lowering his voice several pitches. “Subtlety often works better than force.”
Her gaze moved to his and held. Desire lingered in the depth of her eyes, clear as the tropical water they mimicked. Her beautiful lips parted, and for a moment, her gaze dropped to his mouth, and he thought she was going to give in to the need so obviously pulsing between them.
Tedium had vanished the moment she’d appeared, and the sensation was heady.
“Who’s Jimmy?” she asked, leaning back and breaking the spell.
“The bartender.” Carr inclined his head toward the young man pouring vodka in a glass for another customer. “Wave. I think he has a crush on you.”
She never looked in Jimmy’s direction but said, “He’s too young. What are you doing here anyway?”
“Drinking, as I said earlier. But also volunteering to be your assistant, guarding your virtue, so to speak, as well as helping break the ice with Al. I’m one of the few people he actually likes.”
“I thought I told you to stay out of this case.”
“It’s my bar.”
“Literally?”
“Yes, plus I live across the street.”
Admiration sparked in her eyes. “The house on the point.”
“How did you know?”
She drained the rest of her drink. “It’s you.”
“You’re hedging. You’ve certainly run a deep search on me by now. You know my address, my background, my professional history and financial status. I bet you even know what grade I received on my contract law midterm my junior year of college and whether I prefer boxers or briefs. Before you walked through the door, you knew I owned this place. Why the subterfuge? Why pretend surprise at finding me here?”
“I live for subterfuge,” she scoffed.
“Stop,” he said quietly but firmly. The sarcasm was a defense mechanism that she obviously used to keep people from probing too deeply. A way of maintaining distance. “It wouldn’t kill you to accept my help.”
“No, but it might compromise my case. Plus…”
When she stopped, he prompted, “Plus?”
“I don’t understand your motives. Why are you going to all this trouble? Why do you want to get involved in this investigation? What’s in it for you?”
She didn’t trust him. Not surprising, since he didn’t trust himself. The bribery attempt,