The Billionaire's Bride

And she still hadn’t answered his question.

“Tell me who you are and why you’re here, and I’ll consider doing my best imitation of the Crocodile Hunter for you,” he bartered.

She heaved an aggravated sigh that had the thin material of her cotton T-shirt pulling taut across her chest, drawing J.T.’s attention. He tried his best not to think about how long it had been since he’d spent some quality time alone with a woman.

“Fine. I’m Marnie. Marnie LaRue of Chance Harbor, Michigan.”

“The plates on your vehicle say Arizona.”

“My folks live there. I borrowed their car. Satisfied?”

“Hardly. Why are you here?”

Marnie. Was that a real name? he wondered. A pen name? It had a certain exotic quality about it, much like the woman herself.

“Why are you here?” she countered.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Uh-uh-uh. I’ll ask the questions.”

“Control freak,” he thought he heard her mutter before she admitted, “I’m in Mexico for a little R and R.”

“Please. You can lie better than that. Rest and recreation are what they specialize in up the highway from here. Despite its picturesque name and stunning view, La Playa de la Pisada isn’t a mecca for tourists,” he said. And, as if to underscore his point, the creature in the bathroom thumped against the door again.

He pointed toward the door and offered a mocking smile. “Exhibit A.”

“I never said I was a tourist.”

He nodded in satisfaction. “Finally we’re getting somewhere.”

“I’m not here for a vacation. I’m here for some…solitude.”

J.T. exhaled sharply in frustration. “A woman who looks like you doesn’t come to a place like this for solitude or anything else.”

“Where would a woman who looks like me go?” she asked and he got the impression she was trying to figure out if he meant the description as a compliment or an insult.

He pointed to her luggage. It was as bright red as newly spilled blood and about the size of a small car.

“I’ll bet there’s not one pair of sensible shoes or jeans in there. Hell, I’ll bet there’s nothing practical in there, period.”

“Care to put money on that wager?”

“Why not?” J.T. shot back, amused.

He pulled out his wallet and then immediately regretted his impulsiveness when her eyes widened at the thick wad of American bills he carried. He tugged out a twenty and tucked the wallet away.

Motioning with his chin, he said, “Open it.”

She unzipped the overstuffed bag with an aggressive yank of her arm and tossed back the lid. As she rummaged around inside its contents, colorful swatches of silk and satin caught J.T.’s attention. Lingerie model, he thought again. She damn well could be with all the mouthwatering unmentionables she had stowed in her bag. But he reminded himself that the frothy contents only confirmed his suspicions. No one who looked like Marnie came to this tiny little backwater in Mexico with a suitcase full of soft, frilly, feminine things to rent a shack of a house and seek solitude.

She had another motive, and he’d bet his last buck it wasn’t so pure. He’d had his fill of inquisitive women, whether they were reporters seeking an exclusive interview or job applicants eager to skip his company’s personnel department and dazzle him directly with their resumes.

Worst of all, though, were the marriage-minded mercenaries who had hunted him relentlessly since his divorce became final two years earlier. None of them had ever managed to find him here, though. He’d been careful, very careful, to cover his tracks.

Still, J.T. wasn’t sure which category Marnie fit into. She didn’t seem to be trying to impress him with her charm, wit and appealing ass…um…assets.

Maybe she wasn’t a gold digger. A reporter? He’d never met one who hadn’t skewered him with a dozen questions before offering a business card. As for a job applicant, she didn’t seem the sort to dabble in software design. Okay, maybe he was stereotyping here, but not many of the women who worked at Tracker Operating Systems looked like something that stepped out of one of those glossy fashion magazines that sported more advertisements than editorial content.

As he mulled the possibilities, Marnie extracted something from her bag with an exaggerated flourish.

“Tell me this isn’t practical,” she challenged, holding up the item with one hand as she settled the other one on her hip.

J.T. tried to keep a straight face. Really, he tried. He was known for his cool demeanor and unreadable expression, after all. But how could he be expected to maintain a serious facade when faced with this? Sure, the flashlight she’d produced had practical written all over it. Problem was it also had a skimpy little swatch of black lace snagged on its switch.

“Which is intended as the turn-on?” he couldn’t resist asking.

The room was relatively gloomy, illuminated by only one small lamp and the last remnants of evening light that streamed in from the small window that faced the ocean. And yet when she glanced at the flashlight and caught sight of the flirty little thong dangling from it, he swore she blushed scarlet.

His amusement was cut short however. Barely a heartbeat later, lightning flashed outside, followed swiftly by a deafening clap of thunder. The room’s lone lamp sizzled briefly before sputtering out, leaving them in virtual darkness.

Marnie flipped on the flashlight, all but blinding J.T. with its penetrating beam.

“Practical,” she said succinctly. And held out one hand. “Now pay up.”

A couple of hours later, J.T. stretched out on the plush mattress of his king-size bed, but he couldn’t get comfortable. His thoughts had strayed to Marnie LaRue and stayed there.

He’d rousted the harmless lizard from the shack’s bathroom and then had left her in darkness. He still felt guilty about it and as if his mother would pop out of the woodwork at any moment and berate him for his lack of chivalry. But until he knew who Marnie was and what she was after, he planned to keep her at arm’s length.

From the outside, his home looked barely more habitable than the one Marnie was renting. J.T. intended it that way. No one would guess a billionaire vacationed there when he really needed to get away. And he really needed to get away right now, what with the government threatening an antitrust lawsuit.

He heaved a sigh and reached for the remote on the nightstand. With a click of a button, Smokey Robinson was singing about the tears of a clown. Despite the home’s rough exterior, the inside was another story. The furnishings of its six rooms were state-of-the-art, from the stainless steel six-burner oven and wine cooler in the kitchen, to the plush leather upholstery in the living room and the elaborate computer setup in the den.

When he’d returned that evening, he’d booted up his computer—thanks to a backup generator, he never lost power. And thanks to the onward march of technology, even in this small outpost, he had access to the Internet. A Google search had turned up nothing on Ms. LaRue. Chance Harbor, Michigan, had scored a few hits, but nothing that really told J.T. anything useful except that she had at least given him the name of a real city, tiny though it was.

And that only turned up more questions. She said she’d come here for quiet and isolation. Couldn’t she get that without leaving home? Chance Harbor was located about as far north as one could go in Michigan without taking a dip in Lake Superior. And the population of that bustling metropolis: 793.

Something didn’t add up. J.T. wasn’t deterred. His company’s logo was a bloodhound—specifically, Tracker, the beloved dog he’d had as a boy. J.T. would figure it out. He was determined to rework the numbers until they did add up.

Marnie spied the lights at the house just up the beach, the place where she assumed J.T. now sat enjoying his evening. Was he renting it, too? If so, he’d gotten the better deal. It didn’t appear to be much larger than the one she was paying for, and it hardly looked more habitable, but it had electricity at this point, whereas she had nothing but a fire in the primitive hearth to roast hot dogs over.

God, she hated hot dogs. But she’d brought them with her in the small cooler she’d packed because they were easy. The perfect multipurpose food. No one knew better than the mother of a finicky four-year-old how quickly boiling water, a bon fire or a gas grill could turn pressed meat into a meal. And Noah loved them.

Truth be told, she wasn’t much of a cook. Never had been. In fact, Hal had prepared most of the meals during their marriage, for which she was eternally grateful. Still, surviving on her own cooking did have one nice side benefit. At least she never had to watch her weight.

She pulled the blackened dog from the fire and sighed. Nope. No calories to worry about here.

Marnie tossed her dinner into the fire, stood up and stretched. She really wasn’t that hungry anyway. Without bothering to locate the flashlight, she stumbled to the home’s only bedroom and felt her way along in the dark until her knee rapped smartly against the bed’s wooden footboard.

With a sigh of exhaustion, she flopped onto the lumpy, unmade mattress still wearing her clothes, too tired to bother to hunt up her toothbrush or take out her gritty-feeling contact lenses.

Sleep. When she didn’t have any of the disruptions or responsibilities of motherhood to intrude, Marnie Striker LaRue was remarkably good at it.

CHAPTER TWO

BRIGHT beams of light stretched through the unadorned window the following morning, rousing Marnie from sleep. She ignored them, or tried to, rolling over and reaching for the covers only to discover the small bed had none.

“So much for sleeping in,” she muttered.

Her eyelids fluttered opened, dried up contacts making her blink rapidly to clear the film over her vision, and then she glanced around the small, sparsely furnished room, perplexed. She had just two thoughts.

Where was she?

And, was there any coffee?

She stumbled to the window and smiled as her memory returned. Just yards away, the ocean rose up in gentle swells before spilling itself on the beach.

La Playa de la Pisada.

She supposed she should find a pay phone. Her cell didn’t work here. She needed to call her folks, check on her son. She knew he was in good care. Actually, she thought with a smile, it was her parents she worried about. Noah could be quite a handful when he wanted to get his own way, which tended to be all of the time.

Her stomach growled loudly, reminding her of the need for food and the fact that she had not eaten dinner the night before. But more than anything, she wanted a hot shower and that first glorious jolt of caffeine.

It was just her rotten luck, Marnie decided, that the electricity was still off and the water coming out of the faucet in the bathroom was a rusty brown color and cold to boot.

Well, no sense complaining about it, especially since she was alone and doing so wouldn’t accomplish anything. She settled for a glass of lukewarm juice and a slice of buttered bread. Then she pulled on the swimsuit she’d brought to Arizona for her parents’ pool and slathered on sunscreen.

As she passed the car parked just outside, she flipped on its stereo, sliding in a CD of Aretha Franklin’s greatest hits before heading down to the beach. A quick dip would clear the cobwebs, especially since the water was bound to be cool. But she’d grown up on Lake Superior, which was hypothermia-inducing even in August. She was no stranger to cold water, but that really wasn’t the main attraction anyway. Give her a beach, a towel and a block of free time, and she could sunbathe with the best of them. She figured she’d earned a couple hours of lazing around before she went into town. It had been ages since she’d last stretched out on sand with nothing more pressing to do than flip over every so often to keep her tan even.

Besides, hadn’t her own mother said she needed a vacation? Marnie planned to make the most of her break from responsibility.

The morning air was cool on her exposed skin, but the sun’s warmth was already promising. She was just spreading her towel out when J.T. startled her by saying, “If you’re planning to go in, I hope you’re a good swimmer. There can be a nasty undertow around here, and I’m not going to jump in and save you.”

As if she would accept his help anyway, she thought sourly, but when she turned to tell him so, the words died on her lips. Forget the sexy, wind-tossed blond hair, stubble of sandy beard and well-muscled arms. What really had her mouth watering was what he held in his hand.

“Is that coffee?”

He drank deeply before replying, apparently having noted the reverence in her tone.

“Yes it is.”

“Black? No sugar or flavored creamer or anything?”

“Why mess with a good thing?” he replied, and she agreed completely.

“You wouldn’t happen to have more of it?”

“An entire pot. Just made it before I came out for my morning walk.” He sipped it again and she swore her mouth began to water. “Ground the beans myself. Starbucks, French roast.”

She couldn’t help it. A soft moan escaped her lips. He raised his eyebrows when he heard it, but he made no comment.

“I don’t suppose you’re feeling…neighborly?”

He smiled, and Marnie told herself it was only the promise of caffeine that had her pulse shooting off like a bottle rocket. Certainly, it wasn’t the more than six feet of gorgeous man standing five yards in front of her, wearing tan cargo shorts and a wrinkled white T-shirt that appeared to be on inside out, as if it had been pulled on hastily.

“Is that a yes?” She tipped her head to one side and offered a slow, sensual smile in return. Two could play his game, she decided.

His gaze lingered on her lips before dipping lower, lower. She almost felt caressed by his thorough, frank appraisal. And she figured she had him.

Marnie didn’t believe in false modesty, so she would be the first to say she looked damned good in this swimsuit, great even. It hid the small tummy she’d gained since Noah, the little pouch that no amount of sit-ups seemed to eradicate. She’d come to grips with that and had decided to work around it. Accentuate the positive, as the saying went. And so she did. The neckline scooped low to show off her full breasts, and the bottom was cut high at the hip to reveal every inch of her long and slender—if a bit pale at this point—legs.

She’d planned to carry this suit and dozens of other flattering ones in her mail-order business in what she now thought of as her other life. And even though she’d purchased it three years ago, this was the first time she’d actually worn it outside the confines of a fitting room or in her bedroom, where she’d taken pleasure in modeling it for her husband just a month before the accident.

J.T.’s voice snapped her back to the present.

“Sorry, I’m not in a generous mood today.”

He didn’t bother to hide his smile after he took another satisfying gulp.

She scowled at him. All that flirting wasted.

“Just today? I got the feeling that was a permanent state for you,” she snapped.

“Why are you here?”

“Again with the questions,” she groused, sliding her feet out of her sandals and dumping her sunglasses onto the towel.

“I haven’t liked any of the answers so far,” he shot back.

“Your problem.”

The breeze tugged at her hair when she turned away from him and started toward the water.

“I meant it about the undertow,” he called after her.

She was hip deep in the chilly water before she replied, “Yes, but did you mean the part about not coming in to save me?”

J.T. watched her dive under the next wave. Her dark head emerged a few feet away and then went under again. He scanned the surf between large rock formations, anxious for a glimpse of her, but spotted nothing.

“Damn!” he muttered, setting his coffee down on one of the rocks and tugging the shirt he wore over his head.

He was in the water, swimming frantically toward the spot where he’d last spied her, when he heard laughter. Treading water, he turned and saw her standing on the beach.

Holding his coffee cup.

She raised it in mock salute before bringing it to her smiling lips. Afterward, she called, “You make a mean cup of joe, J.T.”

She was still laughing as he swam to shore. By the time he reached her towel, where she sat reclining on her elbows, wet skin glistening in the morning sun, his coffee cup had been drained and J.T. had worked his way past irritated to the upper end of irate.

“That stunt was incredibly low, not to mention stupid. If there had been an undertow, I could have drowned trying to save your sorry butt.”

“I beg to differ.”

“About the undertow?”

“No, about my butt. It is anything but sorry,” she said.

He opened his mouth, then snapped it back shut. He wanted to argue with her. Really, he wanted to. But she had a point. In fact, he’d spent several hours the night before lying in his bed thinking about the very butt in question as well as the rest of the package that, when put together, made up one mouthwatering woman.

Still, he wasn’t letting her off the hook, no matter how fine he found that derriere.

“I’d like an apology.”

She tipped down her sunglasses and regarded him over the top of the dark lenses. Even without a hint of makeup, she had the most incredible eyes. They made him think of molasses. They were that dark and rich, and when she blinked she did so slowly, as if it were an effort to close the lids.

“I’ll admit to being ruthless when it comes to my morning coffee, but you will recall that I asked you very nicely to share before resorting to trickery.”

“Trickery? Try thievery.”

She shrugged as if to concede the point. “Call the cops.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” he demanded.

“No. That’s not all.” She glanced at the hem of his soaking wet shorts. “You’re dripping on my towel.”

She had the audacity to slide the sunglasses up the bridge of her nose and lay back on the towel.

J.T.’s control was the stuff of legends. He never lost his cool, not during the most heated of board meetings, not even during his divorce settlement, when Terri’s team of lawyers had hovered like vultures over his self-made fortune and tried to pick off what they could.

But looking down at the smug raven-haired woman, he lost something. He didn’t think. He didn’t consider the consequences—something his attorney would ream him for were Richard Danton present. No, J.T. acted. Bending down, he scooped Marnie up from her towel and headed toward the ocean, intent on dumping her into the churning surf.

That’ll teach her to mess with me, he thought.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she cried.

Oh, he had her plenty surprised. She squirmed in arms, cool wet flesh sliding against cool wet flesh until the friction generated heat.

Lots and lots of heat.

And now she wasn’t the only one surprised. Beneath his anger, he felt it, that low tug of something he didn’t want to feel at all. But there it was, and there was no denying its existence.

Marnie wasn’t a small woman. Tall, long-limbed, nicely curved in all of the areas that counted. She filled up his arms almost as well as she filled out her bathing suit.

And, she had one hell of a right hook he realized too late.

It connected solidly with his jaw, staggered him so that they both wound up sprawled in the sand. A wave came up, cool water drenching the pair of them, but this was hardly like the scene in From Here to Eternity. Neither of the actors in that movie had taken one on the chin before going down.

“What was that for?”

“As if you need to ask,” she spat, disengaging her legs from his and then rolling to her feet.

She glared down at him, an angry Amazon. God, he’d never seen any woman look half as sexy. And that thought made him more determined to ignore his traitorous libido.

He didn’t have time for this distraction in his life right now. He had enough on his plate with the Justice Department breathing down his neck, interviewing disgruntled former employees of Tracker Operating Systems and subpoenaing records and assorted other company paperwork. That’s why he’d come to Mexico—to get away, to think, to plan. And then Marnie LaRue had sashayed into his life, listening to the same Motown music he preferred and muddling up his brain with her mile-long legs and lush sweep of lashes.

He’d be damned if he could get a bead on her. She was after something, had to be. But he still couldn’t figure out what. A job? An interview? A ring?

Still, he’d give her this: she certainly had a different approach than the others.

He rubbed his sore jaw and, though he berated himself for it, admired the view as she stalked away.

They steered clear of each other for the better part of the day, which was easy to do since Marnie spent most of it in town. She called her parents and talked to her son, who, as she’d suspected, had already renegotiated his bedtime and met his candy quota for the month.

The man from whom Marnie had rented the house apologized for the lack of electricity, but confirmed what she had suspected: it might well stay out for the remainder of her visit. So she purchased bottled water, some wine and more ice for the small cooler she’d brought with her from her parents’ house, determined to make the best of her brief holiday.

This time the man’s niece, who worked at a resort in Los Cabos, was in town to do the translating. She spoke English easily, with the side benefit of a lovely accent that lent a lyrical quality to even the most mundane words.

“My uncle wants to know if you’ve met the other American?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve met J.T.”

A few young women sitting at one of the tables in the café giggled at the mention of his name.

“Ignore them,” Marisa suggested. “All of the women around here have a little—how do you say?—crush on J.T.”

“He’s something, all right. I met him in here first, as a matter of fact, and we’ve run in to each other a couple of times since then. He still has electricity,” Marnie said. “Why is that?”

“Generator,” Marisa replied.

Her curiosity got the better of her. “Does he live here? Year-round, I mean.”

“Not year-round, no. He’s American, like you. He just comes for visits.”

“But does he own that place?”

“Yes. He has been coming to La Playa de la Pisada for a couple of years. Very mysterious.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Some say he is crazy.”

“I can vouch for that,” Marnie muttered.

“Others say he is a drug dealer.”

“Drug dealer?”

Marnie couldn’t picture that. The guy was a royal pain in the fanny, but he didn’t seem like some sort of sleazy lawbreaker despite that wad of bills he carried. He was as suspicious as all get out, but would a drug dealer wade into the ocean intent on saving the life of someone he didn’t even like?

“Si. Me, I do not believe it. I think he is a booty hunter.”

“A wh-what?” Marnie sputtered.

“Booty hunter,” Marisa replied sincerely.

“Lot’s of men are,” Marnie said on a laugh. “But I’m thinking you mean bounty hunter.”

“Ah, that is the word. Si.”

“What makes people think he’s a bounty hunter?” Marnie asked, intrigued.

The other woman shrugged, but leaned in closer.

“He seems to do a lot of watching and driving. And a friend of my cousin has been inside his house. He hires her from time to time to come in and clean. She says he has all sorts of impressive equipment and computers. And last week, just after he arrived, she was there freshening up the sheets when she heard him on the telephone talking to somebody about justice and being a tracker.”

Bounty hunter? Marnie thought it seemed farfetched. But he fit the image she’d always had in her head when it came to the people who went after bail jumpers: Big, brawny, a little on the rogue side. And might that explain why he was so curious about who sent her? Did he think she was up to no good? Or, did he think she was out to collar some criminal before he did?