The Virgin And The Vengeful Groom

“I said, you have something that belongs to me,” he repeated, never breaking eye contact. Her fingers tightened on her Montblanc pen, the one she had treated herself to after her first book went to number two on the bestseller list and stayed there for three weeks. As a weapon it was slightly better than car keys. As a reminder of who she was and how much she’d accomplished, how far she had come from the skinny kid who had scrounged for food from restaurant garbage, worn clothes snagged from backyard clotheslines because she didn’t dare risk getting caught shoplifting, it served well enough.

She opened her mouth to beg his pardon again, snapped it shut and looked around for mall security—for anyone bigger and tougher than the man towering over her.

“If you’d like to buy a book, I’ll be—”

“I’ll pay you whatever you laid out for them.” Unblinking. She’d heard of unblinking eyes—probably used the phrase herself a time or two. This was the first time she had actually been confronted by a pair of deep-set, intensely blue, unblinking eyes.

How the dickens could a man make her feel threatened and dithery at the same time? She’d been threatened by experts. The crank caller who insisted on telling her in detail what he’d like to do to her made her want to kick him where it would do the most damage. The creep who had actually invaded her home, leaving disgusting things in her underwear drawer!

But dithery? The last time she could remember feeling dithery was when she’d been offered her first three-book contract after her first book had gone back to press five times. Getting a grip on herself, she said in her best Masterpiece Theater voice, “I’m sorry, but you’ve obviously mistaken me for someone else.”

He glanced at the nameplate: Lily O’Malley, Bestselling Author. His unblinking eyes shifted to the newspaper clipping mounted on a poster along with one of her publicity stills. He said, “I don’t think so. Look, you’ll be finished here at two? Why don’t I come back later, and we can settle things then?”

Totally confused, Lily watched him turn and walk away in that odd, gliding way he had of moving. In a woman it would have been called graceful. He could have balanced a book on his head. In a man it was something else altogether. Subtle? Scary? How would she describe it as a writer?

She knew very well how she would describe it as a woman. In a word, sexy. He might not be the weirdo she had first taken him for, but any dealings with a man like that could definitely be classified as a walk on the wild side, and what woman hadn’t been tempted at some time in her life to walk on the wild side?

Not Lily, though. Thank you very much. She’d been there, done that.

Turning her attention to the woman who was examining one of her books, she eased into her famous-author mode. “What do you think of the cover?”

“Well, it’s real pretty, but I’d rather see who the story’s about,” the woman replied with a faint frown.

They discussed covers. They discussed her last two novels. By that time a line was forming, and Lily tucked the dangerous-looking man into a compartment of her mind and shut the door. It was another of her talents—compartmentalizing—that had stood her in good stead over the years. Some doors had not been unlocked in years.

A few never would be.

So that was Lily O’Malley, Curt mused as he sought out the food court and ordered a pastrami on rye with horseradish. She didn’t add up. Classy didn’t quite say it all. Neither did sexy. Yet she was both of those and more. Intriguing was a word that came to mind. He reminded himself that he wasn’t here to be intrigued, he was here to get back what she had stolen from him, legally or not, and get the hell back to the island, where he could take his own sweet time going through it.

The more he thought about it, the more important it became, now that he was the Powers in residence at Powers Point, even if only on a temporary basis. As far as he knew, he was the last of the lot, and while the concept of family had never meant much to him personally, the least he could do for those responsible for his existence was to hang on to what they’d left behind. For a professional rolling stone, it was a pretty heavy responsibility, but what the hell—he’d shouldered heavier loads. He could do that much before he moved on again.

Lily signed a respectable number of books. She’d done better, but she had also done a lot worse. She accepted a number of compliments—graciously, she hoped—and one or two criticisms: there wasn’t enough sex; there was too much sex; did the guy in her last book, or did he not, ever pay for that apple? She hadn’t said.

She answered each critic seriously and wished the stint would end. Fourteen minutes to go. After that, a few more minutes spent thanking the staff, and she’d be free to leave.

Idly she wondered about the dark-eyed stranger with the sexy way of walking. He’d claimed she had something of his—which was absurd, of course. She’d heard just about every pickup line in the books. Some people said the most outrageous things in an effort to grab her attention.

A few went even further.

Ten minutes and counting. “I’m so glad you liked it. It was one of my favorites. Shall I sign it for you? Adella…that’s a lovely name.”

Seven minutes to go. No one in sight. Lily reached for her purse, capped her pen and felt around with her feet for her shoes.

And then, there he was. Those same slashing eyebrows, several shades darker than his streaky tan hair. She hadn’t imagined the intensity of those eyes, nor that odd, sexy way he had of walking, as though his legs moved independently from his torso.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“I beg your—”

“You’ve already begged it. If you’re about finished here, why don’t we go someplace where we can talk?”

“Look, Mr….”

“Powers,” he supplied. “The name ring any bells?”

Powers. The voice might not have rung any bells, but the name surely did. What have we got here, Bess?

“If this has something to do with those old papers I bought at the auction—”

“I figured it might come back to you.”

“There’s nothing to discuss. It was a legitimate business deal. The things were up for sale—I bought them, ergo, I’m the—”

“Ergo?”

“What is your problem?” she demanded, rising to her full height, which was almost five feet eight inches, now that she had her shoes on again.

The store manager appeared, a questioning look on her round face. The man who claimed his name was Powers towered over both of them. “Just trying to decide on where to go for a late lunch,” he explained with hard-edged geniality.

Ignoring eyes that sliced through her like a welder’s torch, Lily forced a smile. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to wash the ink from my hands.”

There wasn’t a single smudge on her hands. She’d visited the washroom less than an hour ago, but if there was one lesson she had learned early in life, it was how to avoid trouble. She might look like a sheltered hothouse flower—it was an image she had deliberately cultivated, in keeping with her name—but she was far more like the kudzu vine that thrived in the most barren places, surviving droughts, floods, sweltering heat and withering frost. If there was one thing Lily prided herself on, it was being tough. If there was one thing she was good at, it was avoiding direct confrontation.

Emerging a few minutes later, she saw Powers talking to the manager. He was obviously the type who enjoyed impressing women, and Mrs. Saunders was visibly impressed.

Lily was not. At least not enough to impair her sense of self-preservation. Head down, she crammed her small purse in the large canvas tote she was never without and slipped behind the reference section, then out into the mall to merge with the crowd.

Early in life she’d been forced to become a chameleon, able to blend in with her surroundings, to disappear—to do whatever it took to avoid trouble or to keep from being sent back to whatever authorities she had managed to elude. During those years between the ages of eleven and fifteen, after she’d run away from a drug-addicted mother and her mother’s series of abusive men, she had managed, against overwhelming odds, to keep herself safe in an extremely hostile environment. Desperation was the mother of invention, she reminded herself as she unlocked her car, slung her tote inside and sat behind the wheel, unmindful of the dark-clad figure who watched from the shadow of an enormous evergreen outside the main entrance.

Lily had been a mean, homely kid. She’d been told that too many times not to believe it. As a woman she was mean and plain. The miracle was that she had never quite lost the ability to dream. In the end it was that very ability to escape into a world of her own invention that had led to where she was today.

She had stolen her first book before she could even read, shaping stories in her head to match the pictures. Once she discovered public libraries, she’d spent hours browsing, puzzling out words, afraid to ask for help, afraid of being chased out into the cold. Not until years later had she realized that the kind librarians probably knew why she was there, if not who she was. No matter how many hours she spent in that magic kingdom, they had left her in peace. Often they even “found” an extra sandwich that needed to be disposed of.

It was there that Lily had discovered kindness. Discovered a world—a whole universe—she had never dreamed existed. Once the doors closed behind her and she emerged into the real world again, she had carried that dream in her heart like a talisman.

Her writing career had been a fluke from the start. She’d been working at a car wash by day and cleaning offices at night when she had impulsively bought herself a package of cheap ballpoint pens and a spiral notebook. Writing had quickly become addictive—embellishing the harsh reality she knew with the fragile budding dreams she had somehow managed to keep safe inside her all through the years.

Next she’d bought a used, manual, portable typewriter from Goodwill. A year later she had stoked up her courage, marched into a publisher’s office where she’d cornered a startled editor, shoved a manuscript at her and growled, “Here, read this!”

It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, especially not when the editor she’d approached worked for a company that published technical books. By all rights she should have been kicked out on her skinny behind. She’d been terrified, which always came out as belligerence. But evidently something in her attitude had captured the woman’s sympathy. She had glanced at the first page, then the second and then reached for the phone.

Hot target! Take it out! The words rang in his ears.

But that was then, Curt reminded himself, and this was now. The lady might be hot—his internal sensors had registered that right away—but he had no intention of taking her out, in either sense of the word.

He waited until just before dark. Timing was vital. Go in too soon and she’d still be on guard. Wait too long and the evidence could disappear.

How the devil had she managed to handle those heavy boxes, anyway? A couple of them probably weighed more than she did.