Take It Down

The painting was the one and only possession of her grandmother’s that she’d had, but it was also so much more. The skill of the painter was evident in the layering of color, the shadow and light. The way he’d captured the hint of daring in the sparkle of her grandmother’s eyes. That image had been evidence to a struggling teenage girl that the world didn’t revolve solely around strict rules and unbreakable laws. It had been proof that there was a world outside her father’s house, one she’d someday get to experience, just as her grandmother had.

Nana had been the only female influence in Elle’s life after her mother had died when she was very young. She’d also been the only one to understand Elle’s reckless artistic bent and had encouraged her to explore her talents. She wished Nana could see the success she’d found in the past few years—the sale of her paintings finally supporting her.

Nana had understood her. And for Elle, the painting represented that bond of understanding, as well.

She’d been heartbroken when, disgruntled over the fact that she’d kicked his sorry, mooching, jobless ass to the curb, Mac had ransacked her place, taking anything in her apartment worth more than a dime. Her computer, TV, DVD player…everything.

Although, all she’d cared about was the painting. It was the only thing that couldn’t be replaced.

Mac had disappeared along with all of her stuff. She’d filed a police report, but she had enough cops in her family to realize her possessions had vanished right along with him. She’d wanted to protest as the officer who’d taken her statement had written down miscellaneous wall art when she’d listed her Nana’s painting.

She’d cried herself to sleep that night, knowing it was gone forever.

But then eight weeks ago, she’d opened Worldwide Travel and seen the glossy picture of a resort and the painting of her seminude grandmother against the backdrop of lush green walls and sparkling ocean. She’d known she needed to get it back.

Her father and brothers had told her the foreign location of the resort made recovery next to impossible. The lawyer she’d consulted had said the same thing. Foreign courts were complicated enough, but she couldn’t even prove the painting was hers. It had been gifted to her grandmother, who’d gifted it to her. There was no paper trail. She could prove that the painting was of her grandmother, but that didn’t mean she’d ever owned it.

She’d thought to reason with the owner of the island. If he’d bothered to return any of her letters, emails or phone calls, she might not have had to resort to treachery in order to recover what was rightfully hers.

She had to assume that the owner knew the piece was stolen and had no intention of returning it to her.

That freed up her moral obligations to the commandment about stealing rather nicely. While Sister Mary Theresa wouldn’t approve, Elle’s conscience was clean.

A picture slammed onto the surface of the rickety table before her, pulling her from her self-righteous anger and making her jump. The handcuffs rattled again, only this time it wasn’t for effect and the jarring sensation jolted up her arms and into her shoulders, making her want to double over—if she’d had the freedom of movement to do so.

It took her a moment to focus her attention on just what was sitting in front of her. Her eyes squinted at the grainy black-and-white image as a coil of unease began to tighten in her chest.

“I do have the right to hold you, considering this photo proves that you were the source of a false fire alarm. The same one you claimed made you disoriented and unable to find your own room.”

Yeah. This was not good.

Elle fought the urge to open her mouth and let words start spilling out. She had no doubt the hard-ass who’d delighted in clamping her to this chair wouldn’t understand why she was here or believe her without the proof her lawyer had pointed out she didn’t have.

He rounded the table to stare across the scored and dirty surface and placed his palms flat onto the center, leaning forward into her space. Her only thought was damn, the man is tall. He was big, too, with broad shoulders and the kind of muscles that clothes couldn’t disguise. Any other time, she’d have enjoyed staring at him.

At this precise moment, not so much.

“Feel free to call your lawyer. You won’t get a damn thing.”

His eyes bored into her and, for the first time since she’d come to the island, she began to squirm. They were a mix of green and gold and gray that shouldn’t have been mesmerizing but somehow was. The expression in them was hard, disconnected almost. She’d seen that expression before, in her dad’s eyes on the nights he’d come home late after working a particularly horrendous murder.

She licked her lips, fighting the urge to reach out to him in the same way she’d always tried to bring the light back into her dad’s face. But this wasn’t the time. And he wasn’t her problem.

The silence stretched between them, broken only by the loud bang of the door as it slammed into the wall.

“Zane, what are you doing?”

His mouth pinched before his focus switched to the man who’d just entered.

“Questioning a thief.”

“That’s not what Marcy said. According to her, this woman didn’t take a damn thing and we have no right to hold her.”

“She pulled the fire alarm.”

“I don’t care if she put on a rabbit suit and paraded up and down the halls, pretending she was the Easter bunny. Let her go.”

Elle craned her head around until she could see her would-be savior.

He wasn’t what she’d expected. While the man’s words had certainly been stern enough, his posture was anything but. He lounged against the open doorway, one hand lodged in a pocket at his hip and the other dangling loosely at his side. His shorts were slack around his hips. He had on a Hawaiian shirt, a dark cord of some kind wrapped around his tanned throat.

The man was the picture of laid-back island life. Elle thought it was a lie. A core of steel lurked somewhere deep inside. There was certainly no question he had some level of authority over Hard-Ass. She hoped he was about to use it to her advantage.

“Now, be a good boy and unlock those handcuffs before she calls her lawyer.”

“She’s already threatened to do that.”

She watched as a grimace crossed his face. “I’m sure there’s no reason for that. I apologize for Zane’s behavior. He’s ex-CIA.”

He made the statement as if it explained absolutely everything there was to know about the other man. And dragging her gaze back over to him, she thought it just might.

Hard-Ass’s…no, Zane’s jaw tightened even more as he pulled a key from his pocket. His eyes stared down at it as if he wished for the ability to bend it and render it useless so he’d have a legitimate reason to keep her here against orders.

With heavy, reluctant steps, he walked behind her. Even though she couldn’t see him, she knew that he towered above her. His long shadow dropped over the table, the curve of his head obscuring the single light from above.

His fingers wrapped around her elbow, smoothing down the inside curve of her arm until they slipped over the sensitive sweep of her wrist. A shiver of unwanted awareness spiked up her arm and into her body. She sucked in a breath at the unexpected reaction to the contact.

She was so unnerved that it took her several seconds to register her freedom when the tension that had bound her wrists together finally disappeared. Elle shot from the chair, almost knocking over the table in her haste to get away from his intimidating presence behind her. She spun to face both of the men.

The contrast between them was astonishing. One had sun-kissed cheeks and a genuine smile, the other’s face was tight with a frown of disapproval.

“There. That’s better. Ms. Monroe, my manager has arranged for you to be upgraded to a suite. Your luggage will be moved shortly. If you need anything else during your stay, be sure to let Marcy know. Zane, behave.”

Pushing up from his permanent perch at the door, the man offered his hand, which she reflexively took. He was gone before she realized she had no idea who he actually was.

Turning to the scowling man, she asked, “Who was that?”

“Your guardian angel apparently.”

With the open door and the promise of no retribution for her stunt, Elle was feeling a bit cocky…cocky enough to do something she probably shouldn’t have.

Turning her focus fully to the man left behind, she said, “My guess is he definitely has a higher security clearance than you.”

Zane’s jaw tightened and he took a menacing step toward her. Her bravado disappeared rather quickly when he entered her personal space. The cells in her body seemed to react, standing at attention simply because he was nearer to her. It was galling.

His huge hand wrapped around her arm once again, pulling her close enough to his body that she could feel the heat of him radiating into her own skin. His scent, dark, spicy and all male, filled her lungs despite the fact that she tried not to breathe.

“I am the highest security clearance in this place.” His head dipped down toward hers and her lips parted automatically. His mouth brushed against the sensitive outer shell of her ear as he whispered, “And I’m going to be watching you. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I’m going to be watching.”

A shiver of awareness, anger and anticipation racked her body even as she jerked her arm from his grasp. He easily let her go.

Elle schooled her features and looked up into his face. “Then it’s going to be a boring week for you.”

“For your sake, I hope so.”

2

ZANE WATCHED AS THE WOMAN walked away. The taunting swing of her hips and the way she tossed her red hair behind her as she threw a knowing half smile over her shoulder made his fists clench.

He stomped down the hall after her. Not to bring her back, but to give Simon a piece of his mind. He was pissed, and someone was going to get the brunt of his anger.

His knock on the suite door was perfunctory to say the least. He didn’t bother waiting for Simon to acknowledge him before he pushed into the other man’s domain.

The living area before him was immaculate, not a single thing out of place. Of course, that had absolutely nothing to do with Simon and everything to do with his efficient director. He and Simon had shared an apartment during college, so he had firsthand knowledge of the man’s messy gene. Not that he’d cared much back then. They’d both focused on women, partying and studying, in that order. There’d been little energy left over for domestic things such as scrubbing toilets or washing dishes.

Luckily Simon had an entire staff to do those things for him now.

Zane strode into the lion’s den. That’s what everyone liked to call it behind Simon’s back.

Very few people ever saw the inside of his sanctuary. Simon liked his privacy, and Zane understood why. However, at the moment, the last thing Zane was worried about was protecting the sanctity of Simon’s hidey-hole.

“Simon!” Zane bellowed walking into the center of the room.

“Took you longer to get here than I expected.”

Simon’s slow drawl came from behind. Zane spun in surprise and immediately felt his body falling into a fighting stance. He was going soft, if Simon could startle him.

“What the hell are you doing? She started a false fire alarm. She might not have stolen anything—yet—but she did break into several guest rooms. And you’re rewarding her with an upgrade? I can’t do my job if you countermand every decision I try to make.”

Simon walked across the smooth wooden floor to a bar set into the far wall. Leaning over and reaching behind it, he pulled out two glasses and a bottle of brandy. “Want some?”

“No, I do not want a drink!”

He shook his head, frowning and said, “You really should relax more, Zane. You’re going to have a heart attack before you’re forty.”

The dark amber liquid splashed into the bulb of the glass. “As we speak, her bags are being transferred to the Crow’s Nest, where you can look through them before sending them to her new room. And I’m surprised you haven’t realized that the room I upgraded her to happens to be located in a corner and covered by two more cameras than her previous location.”

Simon looked up at him, narrowing his eyes over the edge of the glass as he took a sip. “You’re welcome. Hey, look, I managed to play the good cop to your bad cop. Without any training, too.”

Great. He’d gone from working for the CIA to playing cops and robbers with a man who had a Peter Pan complex. Never mind that Simon had made a smart move. One Zane should have thought of. He really was getting soft.

Simon clapped his hand on to Zane’s shoulder. “Give it a rest, man. Didn’t your mom ever tell you not to frown? Your face could stick that way.”

“I’m not frowning.”

“The hell you say. I’ve known you for how long?”

“Too long,” Zane mumbled.

“Exactly. I can tell the minute you start castigating yourself. You get this really ugly furrow in the center of your forehead. Used to get the same thing when I went after some girl you liked at the bar.”

Zane growled deep in the back of his throat. A warning they both knew Simon would ignore. Their relationship had always been complicated. They annoyed the hell out of each other, had always been competitors for everything and each would take a bullet for the other without a second thought. Neither of them had siblings, and Zane often thought they filled that role for each other.

Simon pulled no punches, and Zane trusted him to tell the truth…whether he wanted to hear it or not.

Zane turned to leave. He was halfway out before Simon’s voice stopped him.

“Let me know if you find any red lace panties. I could use a little distraction right now. That woman is quite a firecracker, and I wouldn’t mind getting a little singed.”

Zane’s hands wrapped into fists as he spun on his heel. Simon lounged against the bar, a taunting half smile and a twinkle in his eye. Zane relaxed his body again.

“Bastard.”

The man had always known which buttons to push.

ELLE RUMMAGED FRANTICALLY through her luggage, looking for the picture she’d torn from the magazine. She’d been staring at it every night for the past two months and now that she couldn’t find it, panic began to rise in her chest. She needed that picture. It held the only clues she had to finding her grandmother’s painting.

She tore into her suitcase, flinging clothing every which way, hoping that she’d simply missed it the first time.

She never should have let them touch her things!

A warm wave of relief flooded through her. There, placed neatly at the very bottom of her suitcase sat what she was looking for. Picking it up, Elle ran the pad of her thumb across the glossy image. How had she missed it the first time?

The picture was fairly large, taking up most of the space on the page.

She had to admit, the ad had done its job. She’d wanted to come to Escape even before she’d noticed the painting hanging on the wall in the background.

The vista the camera lens let the audience into was just as breathtaking as the lush tropical surroundings that stood outside the walls. The angle the photographer had chosen accentuated the perspective, elongating the lines of the comfortable living room, through what she assumed was a bedroom and out the floor-to-ceiling windows to the ocean beyond.

All of the furniture was heavy wood, looking as if the pieces had stood there through years of love and use. Tranquil blues and greens decorated the walls and dotted every surface. And in between two towering bookshelves hung the painting of her grandmother, somehow even more lavish surrounded by the tropical beauty outside.

The artist in Elle could appreciate the composition and structure of the photograph. The way the photographer had staged the shot to convey a feeling of lush peace and beauty. The little girl she’d never really got to be wanted the only memento of her grandmother back so desperately her lungs tightened with the need to run screaming through the place, ripping doors open until she found what she’d come for.

But that would just land her back inside the dank, cramped space with Officer Zane standing over her, asking questions she really didn’t want to answer.

Instead, she concentrated on trying to find some clue within the picture. A clue she hadn’t found the hundreds of times she’d stared at it before.

The entire resort had a sort of lived-in feel, as if you were vacationing with a long-lost aunt who just happened to be a billionaire. Each of the guest rooms that occupied the French plantation house was decorated differently…which should have made her search easier, but so far hadn’t. Yes, she’d been able to glance into each of the rooms she’d seen and know whether or not it was the one. But there were so many of them and she had no way to narrow down her search. Not to mention that once she had searched the rooms inside, she had to cover all of the bungalows reserved exclusively for couples, the common areas and the restricted spaces.

She hadn’t gotten into nearly enough rooms today. And to make matters worse, she had no doubt that Zane had been telling the truth and would be watching her every move now.

Elle sighed, mentally rearranging her schedule in her head. She had a couple of commissioned paintings she should be working on, but both clients could be put off for a little while. An Atlanta gallery had expressed interest in a showing. But that was months away. Really, there were worse places on the planet to be stuck than an exotic Caribbean island.

The place was stunning. And her upgraded room had a killer view.

Unfortunately, it didn’t contain her grandmother’s painting, either. That would have made her life too easy.

Flopping back onto the bed, she let her body sink into the luxurious comforter. She stared up at the beautiful crown molding that ringed the ceiling and, for the first time, admitted she hadn’t exactly planned. She could hear her dad’s voice in her head now. “You went off half-cocked again, didn’t you, girl?” Even in her own brain, the stern voice couldn’t disguise the indulgent humor beneath.

So, she was guilty of rushing into things, of responding passionately to a situation before she’d fully thought out the consequences. There were certainly worse ways to interact with the world. She could have a stick up her ass like Officer Zane. She’d bet he thought out every angle for absolutely every decision before he took a single step.

Mind-blowing.

A vision of him standing over her flitted through her mind. Unwanted warmth snaked through her body to pool between her thighs. So he was…ruggedly handsome. That didn’t give him the right to push her around the way he had. Well, okay, maybe he did have the right, but she wasn’t about to admit that out loud. She forced the image of his towering body and tight jaw out of her mind. She didn’t have time to indulge in pointless yearnings.

What she needed was a plan.

And in the absence of one, a margarita. Or five. The answer would come to her. It always did.

“YOU SHOULD TAKE A break.”

“No.” Zane didn’t even bother turning around to look at Marcy. His eyes were glued to the screen in front of him and the woman who currently filled it.

She’d been sitting at the bar for the past two hours. Alone. Sipping on several frothy drinks and ignoring the several men who had tried to pick her up.

“She isn’t going anywhere, Zane. The last ferry has run for the day.”

“I promised I’d be watching her and I intend to do just that.”

“Who’d you promise? We both know Simon didn’t ask you to do this. Leave the poor woman alone.”

Poor woman, his left nut. The screen might have washed everything to varying shades of gray and white, but his mind remembered the vivid color of her hair and the unsettling combination of her gray eyes. They were so pale. So piercing. And they hid a secret he was determined to figure out.

“Don’t make me put you on administrative leave for the next forty-eight hours.”

His head whipped around to look at the compact fireball of a woman standing behind him. No doubt about it, Marcy was small but she packed a hell of a punch. And they both knew she didn’t bluff worth a damn. If she said it, she meant it.

Zane thought about threatening her with Simon, but decided not to. Technically Simon might own the place, but everyone knew that Marcy ran it. He had no desire to get on her bad side by throwing his friendship with their boss in her face. Besides, he wasn’t entirely certain that Simon would choose him over Marcy. After all, he could find another head of security tomorrow, but Marcy…she’d be damn hard to replace.

He was curious, though. “Why would you do that?”

“So that my week doesn’t go to hell because you’re bored and can’t admit that you miss your old life.”

“I do not miss my old life.” Rather, there were things about his old life that he didn’t miss, such as seeing murdered bodies or chasing terrorists and drug dealers and rapists. And knowing that for every bad guy they caught, another was ready to step up and take his place.

The guilt of knowing he’d failed Felicity, his fiancée, had been the last straw. Her death was entirely his fault and there was nothing he could do to change it.

“It does not escape my notice that you didn’t protest being bored. I’m sending Tom in here in five minutes. If I don’t see you walking through this doorway, heading to your own cottage five minutes after that, then consider yourself benched.”

Zane fought the urge to grumble as Marcy disappeared and he waited for Tom to arrive. Now that he’d been booted, he could admit that his eyes were starting to sting from watching the grainy screen for hours.

He scanned all six of the monitors, taking in the normal vista of swaying palm trees, necking couples, and water lapping against sand. Until his gaze returned to the picture of Giselle Monroe. As he watched, yet another guy drunk with rum-soaked bravado sat on the bar stool beside her. Zane could see the man’s mouth moving.

Giselle flicked her gaze to the guy for no more than half a breath before dismissing him again. She didn’t even bother wasting words, simply shook her head in response to whatever the young buck had asked her.

Zane almost felt sorry for the guy as he stood from the bar and walked back to the cluster of his friends, to be razed for the rest of the night, Zane had no doubt.

She’d been doing that all evening. What kind of woman came to a singles resort specifically designed to facilitate vacation flings and then turned down every man who made a pass at her?

One who wasn’t here for a hookup, obviously. So what was she here for? The question he desperately wanted an answer to burned inside his chest.

The lock clicked behind him, signaling that Tom had arrived to relieve him from the Nest.

Zane quickly made a decision. What could it hurt if he stopped at the bar himself just to check on things? After all, it was his job to make sure all ran smoothly.

DAMN, SHE WAS TIRED OF fending off drunk men. If one more guy came up to her with some lame pickup line and an offer to “fulfill all her fantasies” she was going to knock someone’s block off.

All around her, desperate women in skintight clothing, inch-thick makeup and sky-high heels giggled and hair tossed. Pathetic.

She could feel the presence of another male as he slid onto the empty stool beside her. It had been vacant most of the night. And that’s how she preferred it.

Without turning around, she said, “Don’t bother. I’m not interested. Try the blonde at the other end of the bar.”

That one was definitely looking for a quick lay…probably with more than one man. Possibly at one time.

“Does that mean you won’t accept my apology drink?”