Her Passionate Protector

It was a moment before she connected. Then a cold shiver attacked her spine. James Drummond had been indirectly responsible for the death of Granger and Rogan’s father.

“Damn.” Granger’s voice held unusual force. “And damn the judge who let him stay out of jail until the trial. Now there may not be one.”

“He threatened to kill Camille and Rogan!” He’d been prepared to stop at nothing to get at the Maiden’s Prayer and her treasure before the Brodericks. Even murder.

“Yes,” Granger agreed grimly. “Though I don’t suppose they’re in any danger now that there’s nothing he can get from them. He’s probably only concerned with saving his own skin. He’ll be lying low somewhere. Maybe out of the country.”

In a way Sienna hoped so. “Didn’t he have to hand over his passport?”

“As the police said when they opposed bail, he has contacts in the shipping industry from illegally exporting prohibited heritage items out of New Zealand. Let’s hope Rogue and Camille don’t find out about this until their honeymoon’s over. It could put a damper on it.”

He refolded the paper and handed her a card, saying, “Call me if you need any more information about the job, and I do hope you’re going to join us. Camille would be pleased.”

A few days after Sienna’s return to the dig with her students, the team unearthed a cache of carved Maori weapons that might date back as far as pre-European times, and she invited Aidan to visit and give his advice.

After agreeing with her assessment and helping secure the site, Aidan offered to treat the team to a drink in celebration, and at the conclusion of a couple of hours in a pub she found that her car wouldn’t start. “My own fault,” she admitted ruefully to the young men who fruitlessly opened up the engine and peered at the interior, jiggling wires. “It’s been iffy lately but I was just too busy to get it checked.”

Rain began to fall, it was dark and she didn’t fancy sitting around waiting for help. “I’ll get a taxi,” she said, “and call the AA in the morning.”

“I’ll run you home,” Aidan offered, having already piled several students into his car. One of them got out and insisted on her having the front seat.

Aidan dropped off the students first at their hostel, and then in silence drove her to the small house she rented in the center of the city.

Drawing up outside, he sat frowning through the wind-screen as she unfastened her seat belt. “I’m sorry,” he said, “if I’ve not been good company tonight.”

“You’re always good company, Aidan,” she assured him, pausing as she fumbled for the door handle.

He gave a strained laugh. “Tell that to my wife,” he muttered. “She thinks I’m a bore—I don’t know what kind of life she expected with an archaeology lecturer, but it’s not lively enough for her. And my salary won’t stretch to the sort of lifestyle she’d like.”

Sharon Rutherford always gave an impression of being restless and bored at any university function she attended, and it was fairly obvious she didn’t want to be there.

“I’m sorry,” Sienna murmured uncomfortably. Her fingers closed about the handle.

“Don’t go yet.” He turned to her with a pleading expression.

“Won’t your wife be wondering where you are?”

“I phoned her, said good night to Pixie and promised to give her a kiss if she’s still awake when I get home.” His daughter’s name was Priscilla, but he called her Pixie.

“Give Pixie a hug for me,” Sienna said, beginning to open the door.

“That’s very sweet of you.” As she turned away he said her name in a desperate undertone. “Sienna, I—” He grabbed at her free hand, holding tightly, then pulled the other one into an equally fierce grip and lunged toward her.

Sienna sharply turned her head to the side. Dragging herself away, she said firmly, “Good night, Aidan. Thanks for the lift.”

As she hurried to her front door, he restarted the engine and roared away with an uncharacteristic screech of tires.

Her heart was pounding, and she felt a shivery dismay.

Aidan was close to the ideal man she had quite consciously set up in her mind, a man she could respect and admire. Who seemed to respect and like her. But although they worked closely together, at times she’d almost forgotten that he was male.

It crossed her mind that Brodie Stanner would never have allowed her to forget that important fact. When she was with him she hadn’t been able to put it out of her mind for a minute. He’d simply exuded masculinity and hadn’t bothered to hide his interest in her. Not that she supposed it was exclusive. There’d been that blonde at the wedding reception, and no doubt if nothing had come of that he’d found another woman to take his fancy by now. Perhaps more than one…

Impatiently she dragged herself back to the immediate problem.

She couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow Aidan to endanger his marriage and embroil her in the resultant mess. The thought of following in her father’s footsteps made her feel sick.

She’d been fifteen when her parents’ marriage had been torn apart by his affair with a woman he’d worked with. Two families had been shattered by the inability of two people to stand by their vows.

No way was she going to be the cause of another man making the same mistake. Why couldn’t he have maintained the comfortable working partnership of the past two years?

She went to bed torn between pity for Aidan and a muted anger that he’d clumsily tipped the neutral balance of their relationship. Once that balance had shifted, they could never regain their previous equilibrium. And the tension would spill into her work.

Next morning she phoned Granger Broderick and said, “I’m interested in that job with your company.”

Sienna allowed the university authorities to believe that her health was the main reason for her requesting indefinite leave of absence from the end of the semester. Her normal appetite hadn’t returned and she was aware that her colleagues worried about her. The professor emeritus who had filled in while she was hospitalized was happy to return for the next semester. But when she confessed to Aidan that she was going to work on a marine archaeology project he was taken aback, even shocked. Sitting opposite her at his desk, he dropped the pencil he’d been idly playing with and stared as though he didn’t believe what he was hearing. “This is connected to those artifacts your friend from the history department brought to you that were stolen?” Surprising her with his vehemence, he said, “Sienna, I’d advise you to have nothing more to do with that!”

“I know some archaeologists feel that working with treasure hunters compromises their integrity, but—”

“You don’t realize what you’re getting into!” He leaned across the desk, his expression full of tension, his pale skin seeming even more so. “The field is full of thugs and thieves. Haven’t you had enough trouble already?”

“What do you mean?”

“The burglary, and…well, isn’t that enough? Suppose you’d been here when they broke in? Heaven knows what they might have done to you.”

He could have a point. Needing to keep her private assignment separate and secret, she had worked on the pieces in her own time, at all kinds of odd hours, so she might well have been in the lab alone when the burglars made their move. “It’s kind of you to be so concerned,” she said, touched despite herself, “but you said yourself that the break-in probably had no connection to those particular pieces, and more likely someone heard the students talking about the Maori jade ornaments and carvings we’d recovered from the dig. They were just lucky that the treasure hoard was here too.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” Aidan conceded. “Unscrupulous collectors will pay handsomely for ancient Pacific art, and of course the export restrictions only make it more desirable and raise the prices. But I still don’t like this idea of yours. Won’t you reconsider? I hate to lose you, Sienna.” He looked bothered, his brown eyes pleading.

Hardening her heart and sternly reminding herself why she’d decided to leave, Sienna shook her head. “I’m sorry, I’ve made up my mind.”

By the time she arrived in the north and drove along the winding coast road to the little port at Mokohina, then checked in at the Imperial, dusk was sneaking down from the hillside that half circled the town and lights were going on in the venerable villas and newer homes that populated its slopes.

She freshened up and ate early, while the dining room was less than half filled. Through the windows she could see the lights of anchored yachts and powerboats reflecting jaggedly in the water. After eating she was drawn across the road to admire the starry night and the moving gleam and glitter of the sea, and enjoy the cool, salty night air.

She began to stroll along the waterfront, in a surprisingly short time drawing near the old wharves.

Camille had joined her husband on the Sea-Rogue several days previously, and there had been a note at the hotel inviting Sienna to call when she arrived if she wasn’t too tired.

She had no trouble identifying the old wooden ketch with its distinctive cabin structure, featuring a door instead of a lift-up hatch, even before checking the lettering freshly painted on the bow.

A light glowed in the main cabin, and the deck was an easy step across. She noticed a sticker on the bulkhead advising that the boat was burglar-alarmed, but although a sturdy padlock hung on the catch, the narrow door was open and her tentative call brought Camille up the short, steep companionway to greet her with a hug.

“Come on down,” Camille said. “We’re just finishing dinner. Have you eaten?”

“Yes, and I don’t want to interrupt your meal,” Sienna protested.

But Camille urged her down the companionway. “You can have some dessert with us. I bet you didn’t have one at the hotel.” And when they reached the saloon, “You remember Brodie?”

He was seated at the built-in table, his alert blue gaze giving Sienna a minor jolt when he turned to give her a nod of recognition, taking in the brand-new scoop-necked, fitted scarlet top and hip-hugging jeans she wore.

Camille said, “Move over, Brodie, and make room for Sienna.”

“I didn’t know you had a guest,” Sienna said when Rogan waved her onto the seat next to Brodie. “I’m sorry—”

“Stop apologizing,” Camille scolded, and Rogan added lazily, “Brodie’s not a guest anyway. He’s a worker.”

Camille said, “And if it wasn’t for him I guess I’d be the one having to climb the masts with a paintbrush or screwdriver and get down into the bilge to fix cables.”

Rogan grinned at her. “Of course,” he said. “What do you think I married you for?”

Camille laughed. “I’m dishing up apricot mousse, Sienna. Do you want cream or ice cream with it?”

Even as Sienna said, “Just the mousse,” Brodie cut in with, “Give her both.”

Camille planted a scoop of ice cream and a dollop of whipped cream into the dish before handing it to Sienna with a slight, apologetic smile. “You don’t have to eat it all if it’s too much.”

Evidently marriage had turned Camille into the kind of woman who automatically obeyed male commands. Sienna dug her spoon into the mousse.

The dessert was melt-in-the-mouth delicious, and the short walk must have woken her appetite, because she finished the mousse and even ate some ice cream before pushing aside her dish.

She declined more, but Brodie enthusiastically accepted another helping before Rogan suggested coffee on deck.

They sat on cushioned seats in the cockpit at the stern, Rogan with his arm about Camille’s shoulders and Brodie and Sienna side by side opposite their hosts.

Brodie lounged back in the seat they shared, a foot away with his arm resting along the coaming behind her, and although he didn’t touch her, she found his proximity unsettling, her nerves sending tiny electrical pulsations up both her arms.

Camille asked, “Did you find someone to look after your cat?”

“One of my students is house-sitting. She’ll spoil him.” Sienna paused. “Granger mentioned you thought you could find somewhere for me to store my car?”

“Brodie’s offered half of his garage to you while we’re at sea.”

Sienna turned to Brodie. “Thank you. I’ll pay you a rental—”

“You won’t. No problem.” His look dared her to argue.

“Well, thank you,” she repeated.

Camille said, “How’s your brother, Sienna? You stayed with him on the way up?”

“He’s fine. But my car was broken into in the night while it was parked outside his place, and my luggage got stolen. Including my scuba gear.”

Camille looked shocked, and both men stiffened, scowling. Brodie’s eyes searched Sienna’s face, his mouth going hard.

Rogan asked, “You reported it to the police?”

“Yes, but I had the impression they have more important things to worry about. They said if it was any consolation the thief was good at his job—he picked the lock without damaging the car. I filled in an insurance claim though I doubt they’ll pay out the full amount of the stuff that was taken.”

Brodie said, “I’ll fix you up with scuba gear, on credit if you like. Come and see me at the dive shop.”

“What a horrible thing to happen,” Camille sympathized. “Are you okay for clothes and stuff?”

“I bought some in Hamilton. Basics, and I won’t need much more on the boat. Fortunately I’d taken my laptop out of the car. I left it with my brother, since you said I can use the on-board computers.”

Rogan asked, “It doesn’t have information on it about our artifacts?”

“No, I’ve never kept that on the hard disk. I carry a password-protected disk in my bag that’s always with me.” Laptop computers were a prime target for theft, and Camille had impressed upon her how important it was to keep her notes confidential.

Even Aidan had no idea what was in them. When asking his permission to use the laboratory facilities, she’d told him she couldn’t talk about the work and had kept the artifacts in her own padlocked steel locker, only taking them out when she was alone after hours. But the burglar had made short work of the lock.

“I think,” she said, “after breaking into my car the thief tried to get into the house, but my brother heard something and scared him off. We didn’t realize the car had been tampered with until the morning.”

She’d been upset, of course, but thankful nothing irreplaceable had been taken. “I’ve sent Granger copies of my notes. I presume he’s keeping them in a safe place?”

Rogan said, “My big brother’s office is in an old bank building and he’s got a strong room with a steel door a foot thick where he stores sensitive records.” Perhaps to make some kind of amends for even vaguely querying her discretion, he asked, “You have an older brother too?”

“Younger. It’s thanks to him I learned to scuba dive. We were on holiday in the Bay of Islands when he was twelve and I was fifteen, and he was mad keen to learn, but my parents would only let him if I agreed to keep an eye on him.” Their last holiday with both parents—perhaps that was why she remembered it so vividly, every moment seemingly clear in her mind.

“You didn’t want to dive?” Brodie queried, disconcertingly closer to her than she’d expected as she turned to him.

“I wasn’t against the idea, just not crazy for it the way he was.” She’d been more interested in collecting shells and occasional bits of flotsam, wondering if some of the pieces of wood she picked up that had obviously been shaped by tools had come from shipwrecks or drifted from the shores of other lands. And how long they’d been floating on the wide Pacific.

There had been no hint that dreamy, untroubled summer of the cataclysm that was about to descend on their lives. Yet only a few weeks after their return, her father had announced that he was leaving to live with another woman who was expecting his child. Her mother too had seemed stunned, apparently having had no more clue than Sienna or her brother about their father’s secret life.

“If you’re planning to dive on this expedition,” Brodie said, “you’ll need a certificate of fitness.”

A little nettled—as if that were any of his business—she said, “I sent Granger a letter from my own GP, but he told me Rogan wants me to see a dive doctor here. I’ll do it tomorrow,” she assured the other man. It seemed Rogan preferred all the crew members to go to a doctor he knew and trusted. “I won’t need to buy an air tank, will I? Granger said they’d be supplied.”

“Yep—on the salvage barge there’ll be air and gases for scuba, as well as a surface-supply system for the helmet divers on the bottom and a decompression chamber.”

It sounded like a well-equipped expedition. Obviously some thought had gone into preparations to ensure efficiency and safety.

Not much later Sienna got up to leave, pleading tiredness.

Brodie said, “I’ll walk you back to the hotel.”

“I’m sure it’s perfectly safe.”

He said flatly, “Rogue’s dad got jumped not far from here.”

Surely that was different—she’d gathered that Barney Broderick had been carrying some clue to the treasure ship he’d found, so it had been no random mugging. But obviously Brodie wasn’t going to be put off by her protest, and Rogan and even Camille were looking approving. It seemed politic to give in rather than start a pointless argument.

Brodie leaped onto the wharf, now slightly above the deck level, and extended a hand that she couldn’t refuse without an obvious snub.

His fingers were warm and hard, closing firmly about hers before he hauled her effortlessly onto the old, cracked boards, steadying her with a hand on her arm.

“Thank you,” she said politely.

“It’s a pleasure.”

Sienna thought she detected ironic amusement in his voice, but it was dark now and she couldn’t see his expression. She began to walk and Brodie fell in beside her, hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans, his ambling stride tempered to her pace. Yet he seemed oddly alert, peering down a darkened alleyway as they passed and occasionally glancing behind them.

“Are you looking for someone?” she asked.

His gaze returned to her. “No.”

Moments later he said, “You don’t think it’s a bit odd that your lab was burgled and then your car?”

Jolted, she stared at him. “Theft isn’t that uncommon, especially from unattended cars left on the road, according to the police. And it was miles away from the burglary.”

“Hmm.” They walked around a curve and into an area that was better lit, where cafés were still open, a few hardy souls sitting outside although it was autumn. Brodie appeared to relax a bit. “Why did you take the job after all?” he asked.

“Well, because I…” She floundered, not about to tell him the real reason. “Because it sounds interesting. And as you said,” she added, “if I want to be sure the site is properly surveyed and not damaged, the best way is to be on the spot myself.”

“Rogan won’t go roaring in like a bull in a china shop. And with you and Camille both on board I’m sure you’ll make your views clear.”

Sienna muttered, “Camille seems to have sold out.”

“How do you mean? She’s the one who insisted on asking you to join the team.”

“I’m not insulting her,” Sienna assured him. “I just mean that…well, marriage has changed her.”

“It’s made her happier,” Brodie said bluntly. “Is that a crime?”

“Of course not. I’m happy for her. I suppose it’s inevitable.”

“What is?”

Sienna struggled to explain. “Her first loyalty now is to her husband. Before…well, it was different.” Both she and Camille had nursed their own reasons for being wary of the male worldview. Now Camille was happy and loved, and Sienna felt an irrational desolation. She hadn’t lost her friend, but things would never be quite the same.

“You think she’s gone over to the enemy?” Brodie asked.

“I’m not anti-man.” She knew all men weren’t like her father. Her own fatal weakness prevented her from establishing a relationship with one of them.

“You relieve my mind,” Brodie said. “Rogue’s changed too. I guess marriage does that to people. Alters their perception of life or something.” Thoughtfully he added, “I never thought he was the marrying kind of guy.”

“What kind of guy would that be?” she asked, and he laughed, not bothering to reply.

Not Brodie’s kind, she presumed. Camille had mentioned that Brodie owned his own house in Mokohina as well as the local dive shop and dive school. She’d gathered that Rogan’s friend had settled down, but he didn’t look at all the settled-down type to her. “Have you ever been married?” she asked. There had been no sign of a wife at the wedding.

He laughed again. “Do I look like it? No.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“What—that no woman would have me?”

“I’m sure plenty of women would have you,” she replied, “and probably regret it later.” As her mother must now. Her father too had been a man who naturally attracted female interest. Even as a teenager she’d known that other women envied her mother. Quite possibly the woman he lived with now hadn’t been the first to deflect his attention away from his wife. Perhaps the others had the good luck—or forethought—not to get pregnant.

Brodie grinned down at her, not noticeably insulted. “You could be right. I’m probably not great husband material. Have you ever been married?”

“No.” How had they gotten into this conversation? It was becoming too personal. Reaching the grass verge opposite the hotel, Sienna said hastily, “Thank you for seeing me back.”

She swung away, stepping onto the road as headlights suddenly swept over her, an engine roared and the car she hadn’t seen or heard leaped out of the darkness.

Chapter 3

A hard hand grabbed her arm, hauling her back onto the grass and clamping her against an equally hard male body, and Brodie let fly an explosive word that seared her ears.

The car, which had almost scraped her jeans, accelerated away. Still held against Brodie’s unyielding chest, her face pressed to his cambric shirt, her nose inhaling his warm male scent and the palm of one hand splayed against his hammering heart, Sienna trembled with reaction, her knees watery.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” he demanded roughly.

Sienna straightened shakily away from him. “I just didn’t see the car coming. It was stupid.”

He released her, his gaze critical as she stepped carefully back, making sure she was still on the grass. “If you can’t be more sensible than that, maybe a dive expedition is no place for you after all!”

Her chin jerking up, she said, “I think Rogan is the proper judge of that. I made a mistake—it’s not a habit.”

“I hope not.”

“If it’s any business of yours—”

“It is.” The assertion was uncompromising and surely inappropriate.

She protested, her voice rising. “Even if I were a complete idiot—which I’m not, thank you, he was going way too fast anyway—does it have anything at all to do with you?”

“Of course it bloody does!” He was obviously angry too. “As dive master on this voyage—”

“As—what?” Her voice lifted another octave.

“As dive master,” he repeated with exaggerated clarity. “You didn’t know?”

Slowly Sienna shook her head, stunned. “Nobody told me,” she said. And then, “Don’t you have a business to run here in town?”

“I have well-paid, competent staff,” he said shortly. “I’m a partner in PTS—you didn’t know that either?” He peered at the shocked expression on her face.

Dumbly she shook her head again.

“And dive master,” he reiterated. “I’m the one who approves the dive team and I’m the one who has the say about who goes down, if and when, once we’re on the site.”

“I’m sorry.” She’d thought he was being overbearing and meddlesome and annoyingly male, but apparently he’d been at least partially justified. “I didn’t realize you were involved.”

“Up to my neck,” he said. After a small pause he conceded, “You gave me a fright. I guess you’re tired after your long drive, and that driver was gunning the engine.”