Extreme Danger (McClouds & Friends #5)(4)

Pavel stood like a statue, eyes staring. Zhoglo pushed a button on his belt to summon two large thugs. They hustled the man away.

Chapter

2

S kinny-dipping. Skydiving. Crewing on a yacht. Camping under the stars in the Sahara. Backpacking through Europe. Getting a cute tattoo. Having passionate love affairs with untamed guys with lots of rippling muscles. The list went on and on, all the crazy things girls did before they calmed down and found The One. Things that Becca Cattrell had never gotten around to trying.

Aw, face it, already. She’d never had the nerve, let alone the time.

Becca stubbed her big toe in the dark on a board that stuck up out of the wooden walkway. She braced herself for the time it took for pain to flash through her nerves and assault her brain. That interval was significantly slowed by the alcohol in her bloodstream. It got there eventually, though, and oh crap, that hurt.

She lifted the uncorked cabernet to her lips and took another swig. The bottle felt suspiciously light. So did her head.

No matter. She had to loosen up. By brute force, if necessary. She was no longer willing to play her divinely ordained role as a dutiful, dependable, reasonable goody-two-shoes twit. She was going to work her way down that list, and do every one of those silly things.

And enjoy them, too, goddamnit. Just watch her.

However, on isolated Frakes Island, there wasn’t a whole lot of choice in terms of running wild. Getting plastered alone, trespassing on some millionaire’s property, skinny-dipping in his pool without an invitation, hey—it was the best she could do without advance planning.

It did seem like something that Kaia would do. Kaia would probably take it a step further, though, and have exotic six-way sex in the millionaire’s pool. But alas, Frakes Island was deserted in mid-April. There was nobody around for Becca to have aquatic erotic adventures with.

Aw. Poor her. What else was new?

Kaia. Thinking about that girl made every muscle in her body contract. Becca shivered. She was naked beneath Marla’s terry-cloth robe, wearing only flip-flops that slapped against the boards of the walkway. She should have scrounged jeans and a sweater from Marla’s vacation garb. Being naked in the woods at night was unnerving. Too quiet for a city girl like her. The silence felt like a pillow, smothering her.

She didn’t have a stitch of appropriate clothing for this island adventure. She hadn’t had a chance to go home and pack before she dodged the tabloid reporters lying in wait for her in front of the Cardinal Creek Country Club. She’d been forced to sneak out the service entrance, and her boss, Marla, had rushed her straight from there to the ferry dock. Bye, Becca. Don’t hurry back. Don’t get eaten by a bear if you can help it.

Good ol’ Marla. Becca silently thanked her again for the heart-warming support.

She must have looked ridiculous when the taxicat guy had brought her over from the mainland in that cool catamaran. Breasting the waves in a houndstooth power suit. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of cab. She took another swig.

To say nothing of her red, puffy eyes, her paleness, her bluish lips. Just call her the Corpse Bride. Hah. Except that she couldn’t get up the aisle as any sort of bride, corpse or otherwise.

She chased that thought away with a bigger swig of wine. Marla had assured her that she’d left plenty of casual clothes at her boyfriend Jerome’s vacation home. Marla was more or less Becca’s size. A bit less than more, actually. So she’d fast till she fit into Marla’s jeans. The wine diet. She stumbled, reeled, caught herself on a tree. Great.

The walkway that went around the perimeter of Frakes Island was abruptly bisected by another path. She lurched to a stop. So. This was the path that led to the millionaire’s swimming pool. The other direction should take her down to the millionaire’s boat dock.

She hazarded a left turn. It was like going through a narrow, vaulted tunnel, the trees were so thick. Bats and moths swooped and fluttered, darting crazily. The beam of her flashlight seemed so feeble.

So did she. God, what a hopeless wuss she was.

After a couple hundred yards, the big, glassed-in poolhouse loomed before her, skirted by a broad wooden deck.

She tiptoed up the steps, shone the flashlight on the door. Take a dip, Marla had urged. They never lock it. The owner is a nice, nerdy software mogul. He won’t mind. They keep it warm year round. I’ve swum there in November. You deserve it, after what you’ve been through.

Becca fitted the key into the door. It sighed open, letting out the faint scent of pool chemicals. She reached into the darkness, groped and flicked the first switch she found, then gasped in silent wonder.

Wow. A circle of lights lit the water from beneath, creating a jewel pattern of overlapping shadows on the mosaic tiles of the oval pool. The walls of the poolhouse were floor-to-ceiling art deco glasswork.

She walked in, dazzled. She set the wine bottle down, kneeled, scooped up some water. Caressingly warm. Swimming in that would be like swimming inside the heart of a perfectly cut sapphire. Magic.

She let the bathrobe puddle around her feet like a Hollywood diva, took off her glasses and shook her hair loose over her shoulders, letting it tickle her back. Becca stretched luxuriously, savoring the anticipation before she dove.

Ah. The shock of the water on her skin was delicious. She swam slowly across the pool in a lazy sidestroke. The water sloshed and gurgled sensually as she moved through it.

So beautiful and so solitary. Bliss. Just what she needed, after the last few days fending off media vultures. The extremely tense interview she’d had today with the club manager hadn’t helped much—the one about “taking some time away until the fuss dies down.”