Front Page Affair

That was different from Trevor. He’d been chained to his desk and his idea of physical exercise was taking the stairs. “Wow.”

“That surprises you?”

“It’s just...”

He angled his head, green eyes curious and prowling. “You think engineers are boring?”

“No...” He definitely wasn’t boring her right now.

“You’ve banned all engineers, is that it?” His flirtatious grin muddled her senses further.

“No...I...” She struggled with what to say. Engineers reminded her of Trevor. It didn’t matter what type of engineer, or how different they were, for some reason just the association hit a raw nerve. Except with him. Right now.

She had to stop all this focus on her. “Why are you so curious? Do you want to date me or something?”

Now he was the one speechless.

“No? Too soon after your divorce?”

“I don’t want to date you.” He was a rigid wall again.

His divorce had affected him profoundly; a man who’d loved his wife only to discover she didn’t love him back. Or was it only that? She sensed something deeper at work.

“What happened? If you don’t mind me asking...”

He averted his gaze to the front of the plane. “I wasn’t what she expected.”

Did all men answer questions so vaguely or were there only a few? The injured ones. “Did she cheat on you?”

“No. It had more to do with my title, or lack thereof.”

What was wrong with engineer?

“Her parents are rich. She has a trust fund. She’ll never have to work a day in her life. When she met me, I think in her mind she was giving me a chance. And when she realized I’d never advance to executive management, she served me and left.”

He said it so simply. All that emotional baggage wrapped up in a few sentences. Discovering his wife’s lack of caring had to have been difficult on him. How could some women be so shallow? Did they have no consideration for the men they married? They thought they loved them at one point. Of course there were always exceptions, but didn’t the past they shared mean anything? To Arizona, that was like erasing a relationship as though it had never happened. What a waste. She planned to cherish every second she was alive. There was no such thing as mistakes. Everything happened for a reason. Good or bad. The mistakes were just things that happened to correct the course of life. The catalysts of fated change.

“She wasn’t what you expected, either,” she said quietly.

They shared a long look.

“Was Trevor what you expected?”

“I think he would have been.” She stared over the top of the seat in front of her, falling into what-ifs. What if they’d gone to Paris instead of the Caribbean? What if they’d stayed in the hotel room all day? What if...

“Did he die?”

Braden’s question brought her back to him. “Yes.” Odd, how it didn’t bother her to tell him this time. “He was kidnapped in St. Thomas. His captors demanded money. My father gave it to them, but...”

“Were his killers caught?”

She shook her head, angry all over again.

“Lincoln never told me.”

“We tried very hard to keep it out of the press.” Her entire family had. For her. She wouldn’t have survived Trevor’s death otherwise. “We succeeded somewhat.”

“Private family matter?”

His meaning drove straight through her. She’d experienced what too much press could do to a person during a time of grief. Could she inflict that on Braden?

“I said we succeeded somewhat,” she said.

But could she go against his wishes? If his sister turned up dead like her fiancé, would she be able to do it?

She wouldn’t have to.

The news would leak out. One way or another. She’d been approached by reporters once Trevor’s kidnapping and murder had gotten out. The same would happen to Braden. Wouldn’t he rather it be her than a stranger?

She’d convince him he would. And not by giving in to her attraction. Getting mixed up with a man on the rebound was a risk she wasn’t willing to take. Like his ex, her parents were rich. Like his ex, Arizona didn’t have to work for a living. And if that wasn’t enough, Braden was an engineer with a six-year-old son. No way.

* * *

Braden went into the bar for a drink. It was off the only restaurant in their hotel, a historic fort remodeled in the early sixties. There was little they could do until morning when they planned to go to the police, and it was too early to go to sleep. He wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, wondering where Tatum was and whether she was all right. Was she frightened? Hurt?

Just the thought made him curl his fist. “I’m here, Tatum,” he murmured. “I’m coming to get you.” And whoever had taken her would pay.

He just hoped Arizona wouldn’t make that harder than it already would be. And not just while he was making bad people pay. More and more he thought he’d have to keep her out of his heart, too.

“You’re ruining my perception of you as an engineer.”

He twisted to see the object of his thoughts standing behind him, holding a bottle of beer. “Mine of you is still intact.”

She humphed at his witty response and sat on the barstool next to him, a grin tugging her kissable lips. “You drink?”

“Not every day. You?”

“Not every day.” Laughter lit her stunning blue eyes, clear and light. Mysterious. “Couldn’t sleep, huh?”

“It’s early.”

“You stay up late, too?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t engineers need their sleep?”

He leaned close. “Depends on what’s keeping them awake.”

She held her forefinger up. “Stop that.”

“Breaking your stereotype?”

“I’m afraid it’s already obliterated.” She didn’t seem happy about that. And then, she did.

If she was warming to him, he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “How long has it been since your fiancé died?”

“Four years.”

Plenty of time for her heart to heal after someone she loved died. He surveyed her flawless skin, glowing a healthy tone, free of lines. Soft. “How old were you?”

“Twenty-one.”

Did anyone know what they wanted in a spouse at that age? He sure as hell hadn’t. “Young.”

“You say that as though it was too young.”

“I was twenty-one when I first got married. Divorced a year later.”

His divorce record left her silent for a while. “Does that make this your second divorce?”

“Marriage must not be for me.”

“I can see how two divorces would make you cynical.”

Bitter. Resentful. Giving up on love. Yeah. Her apparent understanding threw him off, though. “You’ve been divorced?”

“No. Everyone chooses the one they marry. And in some cases, we have to choose more than once.”

In other words, he chose badly. It wasn’t far off what he thought himself. “Thanks.”

“I don’t mean it as an insult. I don’t believe in mistakes, that’s all.”

Divorces weren’t the result of mistaken choices. Interesting take. Simple. And guilt free. He liked it.

“You married young and it didn’t work out. It wasn’t meant to. Your second marriage ended, but you have a son. Where’s the mistake in that?”

For someone who didn’t like kids, she sure had a soft spot for them. He fought the warmth swelling in him. “Is that how you feel about your fiancé’s death?”

She turned away, sipping her beer.

She didn’t believe in mistakes, yet she avoided men who reminded her of her fiancé as though she meant to prevent one.

“He never should have been killed,” she finally said.

Nobody should have to die like that. True. “But it must not have been meant to be.”

Her head whipped toward him.

“You marrying him, I mean.”

“I would have if he hadn’t been killed.”

He said nothing, just let her fill in her own blanks. It was her philosophy. There was no such thing as mistakes. Everything happened for a reason. Change happened for a reason.

Seeing how much she resisted what he’d forced her to think about, he decided he regretted making her feel that way.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.” He flagged over the bartender and ordered two waters and charged their drinks to his room.

He needed a distraction. Anything to stop imagining Tatum being held against her will. If she were still alive. He couldn’t even bring himself to go there. She had to be alive. She just had to be.

All he had to do was get by until morning. What better way to do that than get a taste of the adventurer in Arizona?

* * *

Braden wouldn’t tell her where he was taking her, but Arizona suspected he was only doing this to pass time. They couldn’t talk to the police until morning. She needed this, too. Searching for Tatum brought back a lot of painful feelings. If they failed and Tatum wound up dead, she’d relive the agony of losing Trevor all over again. Success was a necessary ingredient each time she had an opportunity to help someone in need.

She walked with Braden toward the beach. When they reached it, she removed her sandals. A small group of people gathered near a building, lights from two posts shining on them. Down at the dock, a boat was ready to motor out to sea. Night diving.

She smiled big. “I haven’t done this in years.”

Braden went to the building where three people were being fitted with gear.

“How did you know there was a trip tonight?”

“I called when I got to the hotel. I thought it would take my mind off Tatum.”

Just as she’d thought. But instead he’d opted for a drink. “It’s more fun with a partner.”

Now he was the one who smiled. A sexy grin that gave her an unvarnished glimpse of his thirst for adventure. She loved it because she could so relate.

He spoke to the man in charge, who nodded and set them up along with the others. She and Braden needed all of the gear. Dressed in a warm-water wetsuit, she boarded the boat after Braden and put on her gear. Now she understood why he’d asked the bartender for water. They’d each only had one drink but hydration was important when scuba diving.

Sitting next to him on a stern bench seat, she watched the three other passengers, a trio of men in their late thirties talking excitedly and paying them no attention. Two crewmen manned the dive.

“When did you learn to night dive?” Braden asked.

“I started by going to my parents’ house in California. I swam in their indoor pool with the lights out. How did you learn?”

“In the ocean. Now it’s one of my favorite things to do.” He tipped his handsome face up to the moonlit sky. “It’s pretty dark now.” He looked back at her. “But if you dive at sunset you can see creatures getting ready for the night, some settling in, some preparing to feed. Sunrise is even better.”

She fell into the images he created. “Seeing everything wake up. The sunlight brightening the water.” She sighed. “Yes, it’s beautiful.”

She looked over at him and met his eyes, as lost as hers in the wonder. And then the wonder changed to something else. A connection, deeper than the physical chemistry they shared the first moment she saw him. A real connection. And then that fizzled when the reason they’d come here came back to her.

She shouldn’t be enjoying this so much. While Tatum either suffered or was already dead, they were living it up on an excursion. A glance at Braden made her think he felt the same.

But there was nothing they could do until morning. They needed to talk to the police first.

The boat slowed. One of the crewmen dropped anchor, and the other began instructing them on how to proceed with the dive. When it was their turn, Arizona dropped off before Braden. She turned on her headlamp and swam down, taking note of the anchor line to make the return easier. He caught up to her and they descended together, slowly. A crewman swam ahead of the group. Light from every diver’s lamp helped with navigation. Light from the moon illuminated the surface just enough.

The sea bottom came into view. Colorful fish scattered and regathered. The reef inhabitants swayed with the ocean current. Lobsters crawled along the bottom. Waving her hand, she saw phosphorescent plankton lighting up the darkness.

Arizona looked at Braden and wondered if he could see her smiling. His eyes creased as though he were, too.

Kicking her feet, she navigated along the reef, checking out the flourishing life. There were signs stuck into the ocean floor that said Do Not Touch!

She wished she had a camera.

Feeling Braden take hold of her ankles, she stopped kicking while he swam up her body and pointed.

Looking ahead, she saw a big, long shark swim by, barely visible in the sphere of light. Ghostlike. Exotic. Her heart beat faster with a flash of apprehension. But the shark passed the group of divers, probably having already fed at sunset.

Arizona rolled to swim on her back, facing Braden to convey her excitement. With his hands on her hips, eyes smiling, no words were necessary, especially when his gaze lowered to the way the straps of her vest plumped her breasts. She breathed deeper through her mouthpiece.

His green eyes glowed in their headlamps, excitement flaring to passion. She didn’t mistake that. He felt it, too.

Then a crewman poked him on the arm, jarring them both back to attention. He jabbed his thumb upward. Time to surface.

Braden released her, and she surfaced with him, finding the anchor line in the moonlit sea. When her head broke into the night air, Braden surfaced in front of her. He removed his mouth pieces and then moved his mask down and slid it around to the back of his neck. Why he’d done that gleamed in his eyes. He was impassioned enough to kiss her. She hoped he did. Removing her mask, she slid it to the back of her neck as he had done. Braden’s eyes smoldered hotter.

The others surfaced on the other side of the boat, talking excitedly about the shark. Their reason for coming to this island dropped away.

Braden reached up to hold on to a ladder. His intensity hadn’t abated since touching her underwater. Hers hadn’t, either.

Angling his head, he kissed her. Wet mouths melded. The way his strong arm held her, the way his other held them both above water, heated her already swirling senses. The exhilaration of the dive only added to her desire, spontaneity and a dash of danger with a man who had fallen under the same spell.

Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she gave everything she had into the kiss.

“All right, you two, it’s time to head to shore,” one of the crewmen said. A chorus of chuckles passed across the boat.

Braden lifted his head, green eyes shadowed and hungry. She shook herself back to the present and turned. He pushed her rear as she climbed into the boat, making her laugh.

Sitting on the bench seat, watching them approach the shore, her levity faded as the weight of what had just happened came down on her. He was recently divorced. He had a child. And he was an engineer, even though she couldn’t think of him that way anymore. She couldn’t remember if it had ever felt this way with a man before. This quickly. It had never felt scary, that was for sure. She’d always cut it off before it got to that point. This felt scary.

Sneaking a glimpse over at him, she saw him staring off to his right, not smiling. Tense. Regretting, like her.

“It was just the dive,” she said. It had served its purpose. It had taken their minds off Tatum and passed time.

But a little too well. They were here to find his sister, not have a steamy affair. His sister needed them. There was no time for anything else.

Chapter 3

Braden walked slightly behind Arizona, unable to stop looking at the seesawing sway of her butt as she moved. Those khaki shorts didn’t help. They conformed to her shape, sloping up over slender hips to give way to a floral cotton tank that followed her curves to her plump, round breasts. Last night had been as unexpected as it had been memorable. He still couldn’t get his mind past the enchantment.

It was just the dive.

She’d said it as an excuse. Like what she really felt was that it was a lot more. He was afraid he felt the same.

Braden reached the police station doors and opened one, standing aside as Arizona entered. Kissing her had been a big mistake.

Arizona didn’t believe in mistakes.

Not what he intended, then. Diving had served to take his mind off his worry over his sister, but now every minute couldn’t be wasted. Once they talked to the police, he’d take the investigation into his own hands. He couldn’t afford the distraction of sexual attraction to interfere.

Inside, Arizona asked to speak to someone about Tatum McCrae.

The dark-skinned woman in a black uniform appeared confused. “Who?”

Braden stepped forward. “We’re here from the United States to find a missing person. Tatum McCrae.” He pulled out a picture of her. “Her last known whereabouts were in Frenchman’s Cay.”

The woman looked at the picture and then back at Braden. “Sorry. Never seen her before.”

“May we speak with Monty Crawford?” That was the officer his parents had spoken with.

“Have a seat.” The woman went to find the man. It was a small police station.

Braden watched her cross the open room of four desks and stop before a tall, thin man with a big nose and a severely receding hairline standing just outside an office beside another, heavier man with a less dramatic hairline. The woman spoke to the big-nosed man, whose gaze shifted over her shoulder toward the front of the building. He responded with something and then turned to the heavier man, who nodded once and left to go sit at one of the desks in the open area while the woman retraced her steps back toward the front desk.

“You can go on back,” she said.

Braden led Arizona through a swinging half door and approached the officer, the sound of fingers tapping on keyboards accompanying them.

The officer wore a grim face as he waited in front of an office.

Braden stopped before him. “Officer Crawford?”

The man nodded, extending his hand. “You’re Tatum McCrae’s brother?”

“Yes.” He introduced himself and Arizona, who stood beside him. “I was told you were the one looking into my sister’s disappearance. ”

Crawford nodded a few times, still grim. “I’ve spoken with your parents. Anytime a tourist goes missing, we take it very seriously.”

“Have you received any more leads?” No matter how small.

“I’m afraid not. She was seen getting into a taxi. That’s the best we’ve got so far.”

Which wasn’t much.

“Are you sure she didn’t mention anyone she might be meeting down here?” Crawford asked.

Braden shook his head.

“Do you think she might have met someone?” Arizona asked.

“She got into the taxi willingly. That suggests she at least went somewhere on her own. What happened after that is a mystery. The driver was killed, and none of the others we spoke with could tell us anything. There wasn’t even a record of him picking her up.”

“What do you know about his murder?”

“He was shot late that night. Hours after your sister was seen getting into his cab, and nowhere near Frenchman’s Cay.”

“Any leads on his killer? Any witnesses?”

Crawford shook his head. “None that help. He stopped at a coffee shop about an hour before that, but didn’t say anything to connect his murder to your sister’s disappearance.”

This was discouraging. “How do you know he was the driver?”

“We’ve questioned all the others.”

“Are you sure you didn’t miss any?”

“As sure as I can be. We’re still looking into it for that very reason.”

He appeared to be doing everything he could.

“Are you sure she didn’t meet someone she knew and doesn’t want to be found?” Crawford asked.

“She would have called our mother,” Braden insisted. “She knows she would worry.”

The detective nodded again in that same somber way.

Braden pulled out a card and handed it to Crawford. “Will you call me if anything changes?”

Crawford took the card. “Of course.” He pulled out his wallet and removed his own card. “I can understand why you traveled all this way, but I should caution you that this may take some time.”

Braden put the detective’s card in his back pocket. “All I want is my sister back.”

“We’ll find her.”

Dead? Or alive?

* * *

Riding in the back of a taxi with Braden to Frenchman’s Cay, Arizona ignored her building attraction to him. The urgency of finding Tatum superseded everything else. Entering into a relationship with him made her shudder as much as the idea of having kids did. She would concentrate on the task at hand instead.

Located on a twelve-acre peninsula a short drive from Road Town and connected to Tortola by a bridge, Frenchman’s Cay was a sleepy island community. Restaurants and shops in Soper’s Hole were colorful and well maintained. Bougainvillea, poinsettias and hibiscus abounded. White sandy beaches beckoned. And a lucky few called the forested foothills home. On Frenchman’s Point, Braden drove to a stop at the Island Hotel.

Arizona stepped up to the white-painted porch. It wasn’t a large hotel. Twenty rooms, maybe. Inside, the lobby opened to wide expanses of light-colored tile. Custom art hung on the walls.

They approached the stone registration desk.

A young girl looked up from a book. Braden asked to speak with the general manager. The clerk went into an office behind the counter and emerged with a dark-skinned man with cropped white hair.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

Braden showed him a picture of Tatum. “We’re looking for this woman.”

“Oh, yeah. Police came asking about her. Pretty lady. That’s why I remembered her.”

“Did she check in?”

“No.”

The clerk’s gaze shot from Braden to the manager.

Why would she get a taxi here if she hadn’t checked in? Did the clerk find that odd, too?

“Are you sure all you saw was her getting into a taxi?”

The manager nodded once. “I was inside. Standing right here.”

Arizona looked behind her. The doors and windows offered a fairly clear view of the covered passenger drop-off and valet parking area.

“Did anyone else see her?” Braden asked.

“No. Just me.”

When Arizona faced forward again, she saw the girl quickly avert her head away from the manager and then her gaze flitted off Arizona and Braden.

“Did she talk to anyone before she got into the cab?” Braden continued with his questioning, not appearing to notice the girl’s jitteriness.

“Sorry, I saw what I saw. I wish I could help more. Missing.” He shook his head regretfully. “Hope she’s all right.”

Braden took some time before giving up. “Thanks.”

“Good luck finding your sister.” The manager turned and went into the office, shutting the door behind him.

The girl behind the counter kept stealing glances at both her and Braden. Acting on her hunch, Arizona took the picture from Braden’s lowered hand and went to the counter. Showing the picture, she asked, “Do you recognize this woman?”

The clerk’s eyes darted toward the office and back, wariness holding her silent.

“Please,” Arizona coaxed. “We just need to know where she went.”

Still, the girl remained silent.

“If this woman is in trouble, you could help her.” Arizona moved the photo closer.

The girl studied it for a while and then glanced fearfully at the office door again. When she faced forward, she leaned closer and said in a low voice, “I was coming in to work when she was getting into the taxi. I heard her tell the driver to take her to Julian Blake’s house. She gave the driver the address, but everybody knows who lives there.” She gave them a conspiratorial look. “Richest man on the island.”

Everyone knew the man? He had a reputation. A rich reputation.

“Why didn’t you go to the police?” Braden asked.

“I didn’t know she was missing until right now. I took a few days off after that day. The police never questioned me.”