Mackenzie's Promise

Yet for all that she’d put in a sixteen-hour day, and a good part of it spent driving at that, when at last she crawled into bed, she was too restless to sleep. The strange house, its disturbingly attractive owner, the possibility that, before much longer, June might have her baby back—these thoughts kept her mind active long after her body had nested under the goose down quilt and snuggled into luxurious relaxation.

Finally, after long minutes of tossing and turning, she flung aside the covers, switched on the lamp again and, desperate for something to divert her, pulled open the drawer in the bedside table. Surely he kept a paperback handy for those nights when insomnia struck?

In fact, she found two: one a science fiction novel, which definitely was not to her taste, and the other a law enforcement manual of some sort which looked equally uninteresting. But tucked between them were several sheets of single-spaced manuscript whose headers indicated plainly enough that they were part of the book Melissa had told her he was writing.

Of course, she had no business reading them. No business foraging through his drawers to begin with, come to that. But the paper leaped into her hands as if she had magnets attached to the tips of her fingers, and for all that she tried to resist, the words swam into focus before her eyes, horrifying and compelling.

Immediately drawn into a world inhabited by people whose capacity for evil so far exceeded anything she could imagine, she paid no attention to the peripheral sound of him moving around on the floor above her, and so remained quite unaware that he was coming down the stairs until his shadow, grotesquely elongated in the lamplight, swam across the ceiling. Then, in a flurry of agitation, she tried to cover up her actions.

It was not to be. Although she managed to stuff the papers back where she’d found them, the spine of the manual became wedged as she went to slide the drawer shut, thereby preventing it from closing. Desperate, she grasped the book by the cover and attempted to pull it loose, praying it wouldn’t tear.

It did not. It flew free and in doing so, dislodged an open packet whose contents, individually wrapped in shiny foil, spilled into her lap like so many priceless gold coins.

Appalled, she clapped a hand to her mouth and stared at them, willing them to disappear and take her with them. “Oh, my stars!” she mouthed, under her breath.

“No, my dear, they’re condoms,” Mac Sullivan said, leaning on the head rail and letting his voice drift over her in waves of irony. “They’re used for contraception—preventing babies, to innocents like you who probably think contraception’s a dirty word. And in case you don’t know how they work, men wear them over their—”

“I know what they are and how they’re used!” she squeaked, practically delirious with embarrassment. “I’m a virgin, not an illiterate nincompoop!”

“You’re all that and then some,” he advised her, abandoning his vantage point and coming around the bed to confront her. “Tell me, cookie, were you planning to sneak up on me while I slept, and try one on me for size?”

“Certainly not!” she said, sounding more like a deranged mouse with every syllable she uttered.

“Then what were you doing?”

The question held none of his earlier banter, any more than his eyes, fixed on her with laserlike intent, held so much as a glint of humor. Dearly though she would have liked to look away, she found her gaze imprisoned by his. “I couldn’t sleep,” she confessed. “I was looking for something to read.”

He reached into the still-open drawer to where the manuscript pages lay in conspicuous disarray. “‘Something’ being this?”

She didn’t have to admit to the sin. Guilt painting her face a flaming red spoke for itself.

“Do you listen in on phone calls, as well?” he inquired coldly. “Intercept incoming e-mail? Steal? Should I keep everything under lock and key while you’re a guest in my house? Sleep with a gun under my pillow?”

“No,” she said in a shaken voice, pulling the quilt up to her chin as if it could protect her from the chill of his displeasure. “Stop blowing everything out of proportion. I’m not a criminal.”

“How do I know that? How do I know you didn’t make up this whole story about a missing baby, just to get past my front door and snoop through things which are none of your business?”

“Oh, please! Stop being so paranoid! All I did was pick up a few typewritten pages. I didn’t even have time to read any of them before you caught me, for heaven’s sake, and I won’t touch them again.”

“No, you won’t,” he said, tucking them under his arm. “I’ll make sure of that.”

That he was furious yet remained utterly in control was enough for her to glimpse the steely sense of purpose from which he drew much of his strength. This was how he must have been during his detective days, she thought with an inward shiver. Merciless. Relentless.

She would far rather have him on her side, than against her.

But recognizing that didn’t stop her from putting to him a question she surely had the right to ask. “Why did you come down here to begin with? Were you spying on me?”

“Now who’s being paranoid?” he shot back. “I heard you messing around in the drawer and figured the moonlight was keeping you awake and you were looking for the remote control, which operates the electronic blinds. So, like the good host I’m trying hard to be, I came down to give you a hand.”

“I didn’t notice any remote control doohickey in the drawer.”

“Naturally not. You were too busy playing with my condoms and reading material not meant for your eyes.” He yanked the drawer more fully open and withdrew the gadget in question. “This,” he said, slapping it down on the nightstand, “you may play with to your heart’s content. Kindly keep your cotton-picking chicken pluckers off everything else!”

He stamped off, leaving her too cowed to ask if he had a book she could borrow. Better to lie there wide-awake for the rest of the night, than risk ticking him off any more than she already had. And yet, there was something very comforting and solid about his presence. Not much escaped him, nor did he tolerate fools easily. And although they were qualities which she found disconcerting when directed at her, instinct told her they’d prove very useful in the search for June’s baby.

Surprisingly she fell asleep soon after, and didn’t stir until the bright light of morning glinting off the sea speared her eyelids just after seven the next day.

There was no sound from above. Moving quietly so as not to disturb him, she brushed her teeth and washed her face, ran a brush through her hair and dressed in a blue fleece jogging suit. Then, carrying her running shoes, she crept up the stairs, intending to slip out of the house and go for a walk along the beach until he was up and about.