Moonlight Lady Read online

  Sam O’Shaughnessy, the man she liked, the man who made her feel all kinds of excitingly wonderful things when he kissed her, had only been pretending. He hadn’t cared about her. Every kiss, every touch had been make-believe because he thought she was mixed up with a murderer, that she was a part of the filth that dealt in drugs.

  She wanted to hit him, wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt her. She struggled against him, and when he shoved her down on the bed and pinned her arms, she bit him. He yelped, let her go and, without thinking, drew his hand back.

  Her eyes went wide. She held her hands up over her face, shrinking down, cowering in terror.

  “Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me!” she cried, her voice pitched little-girl high. “Please, please, please. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

  “Lisa? My God! Lisa...” Sam reached out for her and she tried to scoot away. “It’s all right, honey,” he said. “I won’t hurt you, Lisa. I’d never hurt you.”

  She shrank away from him, terrified, trembling. He put his arms around her and, though she struggled, drew her closer into his embrace.

  “Shh,” he whispered against her hair. “Calm down, baby. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Take it easy, Lisa.”

  He held her close and felt the frantic beat of her heart against his chest.

  “Let—let...” She could barely speak. “Let me...g-go.”

  “In a minute, sweetheart. Let me hold you like this.” He lay back down, bringing her with him, and cradled her in his arms. He whispered soothing words and little by little the terrible shaking stopped. But her breathing came in painful gasps and her hands were as cold as ice.

  When at last she stopped fighting, she lay stiff and still in his arms. He held her as gently as though she were a child. He rubbed her back, he kissed her forehead and eventually she relaxed against him. Finally her breathing evened out and he knew she was sleeping.

  But still he held her, there in the dimly lit room, held her and soothed her and brushed soft kisses across her forehead.

  Sam knew now that what he had suspected was true. Someone had hurt her, and the thought of it, of someone laying a hand on her as a child or as a woman, sickened him.

  She was a small woman. How tiny, how defenseless she must have been as a child.

  Had it been Philip who’d abused her, or a parent? Someday he would ask. But not now. Now it was enough to hold her.

  Her hand lay on his chest. He picked it up and gently kissed her fingertips. “Sleep,” he said. “I’m here, little Lisa. Nothing’s going to harm you now.”

  Chapter 8

  It had been one hell of a day. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. Montoya had been within grabbing distance, but he’d gotten away, and the thought of it was like ground glass in Sam’s stomach.

  He wasn’t sure what he would have done if he’d caught up with Montoya tonight. He had the Beretta on him. The .44 Magnum, along with enough ammunition to sink a ship, was safely tucked away in the saddlebag. But a couple of guns weren’t enough to take Montoya and Reitman. He had to have a plan; he couldn’t go charging in on a bike, especially with Lisa along.

  In retrospect, it was just as well they’d taken the spill. It gave him time to sort things out, make a plan. He didn’t want to put Lisa in danger. Had to get her somewhere safe. On the other hand, if he let the trail get cold, he might never catch up with Montoya.

  It was a hell of a fix. He didn’t want her along, but would it be safe to leave her behind? If he took off after Montoya and Reitman, missed them, and they doubled back and found her... He swore under his breath because, as dangerous as it was, Lisa would probably be safer with him.

  He was sure now that she wasn’t involved with the drug operation. He almost wished she had been. In a screwy kind of way that would have been easier to deal with than trying to sort out how he felt about her.

  How he felt was all mixed up in a cockamamy jumble of irritation that she had to be here, attraction, desire, and most of all an overwhelming need to protect her. When he’d seen the fear in her eyes tonight, when she’d spoken in that scared, little-girl voice, he’d felt sick in the pit of his stomach because he knew he’d caused it.

  It wasn’t just a suspicion now, it was a certainty that somebody had physically hurt her. Somebody... She stirred in her sleep, murmured something unintelligible and nuzzled her head against his shoulder.

  He could feel the warmth of her body through the god-awful Mother Hubbard. Made sleeping hard... No, skip that word. Don’t think hard, think difficult. Made sleeping difficult.

  But the word didn’t help the ache in his groin. He wanted her, wanted to ease himself up over her, into her before she knew what had happened. She’d responded to him before. Just because she’d pulled away didn’t mean she didn’t want him. He could... No, he couldn’t, not now when she was scared and vulnerable, not when she was emotionally and physically exhausted.

  She lay with her head on his shoulder and, though she was asleep, every now and then her body quivered and jerked with remembered fear. “Shh,” he said then. “It’s okay, honey. You’re safe. Nothing’s going to hurt you.”

  He held her gently, and at last, warmed by her, strangely at peace with her beside him, he, too, slept.

  * * *

  Half-asleep, Lisa stretched. She felt the warmth of a leg against hers, the line of hip, the solidness of a shoulder against her cheek. She sighed and tightened her arm around the naked waist. Waist? Her eyes flew open.

  “‘Morning,” Sam said.

  “What are you...?” She gasped. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waking up.” He stretched, arms reaching above his head, and yawned. She averted her gaze, but not before she caught a glimpse of flexed shoulder muscles and broad chest with a V-shaped patch of hair that ran straight down in a narrowing line and disappeared below the sheet.

  He was bare from the waist up. Was he from the waist down? She scooted away from him, confused, disoriented, frantically trying to sort things out.

  He saw her confusion, briefly wondered what she’d do if he said, “Was it good for you?” but didn’t because he was afraid if he did she’d jump out of bed and head for the hills. Instead he asked, “Did you sleep well?” And without giving her a chance to answer, he added, “I’ve gotta go check on the motorcycle.”

  The bedspread had slipped down over his body. He reached down to wrap it around himself again, and when he’d more or less succeeded, threw the sheet back. “Rest for a while if you want to,” he told her. “I’m going to try to find a mechanic.”

  “Very well.” She sounded as prim and proper as if she were at a lady’s tea instead of in bed with a half-naked man.

  He stood and, holding the bedspread around him, said, “I’m going out to get my clothes.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  With her hair tousled and her cheeks pinked by sleep, she was so damn appealing it was all he could do not to jump back into the sack with her. And because the thought of how it would be made his teeth ache, he headed for the door.

  Lisa lay back in the bed and tried to reconstruct everything that had happened the night before: the discovery that Howard knew Montoya, that Montoya was here in Jamaica and that Howard was working with him. She wasn’t sure what they would have done to her if Sam hadn’t arrived. But he had arrived, racing in on his motorcycle instead of on a white charger.

  They’d ridden at breakneck speed after the big black car, zooming around the hairpin mountain curves in the dark, racing along until the black figure of an animal had loomed in front of them and she’d gone spinning through the air.

  She wondered if Philip, because he knew Reitman, was connected in some way to the drug business. She’d fallen out of love with him a long time ago, but he had been her husband. She hoped he hadn’t anything to do with all of this.

  With a sigh, Lisa sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. That’s when she remembered her sudden bout of hysteria, her fear when Sam had pulle
d back his arm as though to strike her. How she hated having him, having anyone, see her like that. Would the fear she had known as a child ever go away or would she always be plagued by the memory of the way it had been?

  After her marriage to Philip she had been tempted to go back to Ohio, back to the farm. She had thought that if she faced her father as an adult she might be able to put the past behind her. But when she’d suggested it to Philip, without telling him why she wanted to go back, he’d said, “Good Lord, Lisa. Why would you want to go there?” He emphasized there as though Tipp City and the farm were at the other end of the world, a world he wanted no part of.

  Because she didn’t have the courage to go alone, she put the idea of returning out of her mind. But she knew now that she had to go back. It was time to put the past behind her; she could only do that if she faced her fear. Facing her fear meant facing her father, and that, though she hated to admit it, still frightened her.

  When she opened the door of the bedroom, she smelled coffee and suddenly realized how hungry she was. She followed her nose to the kitchen and found Rebecca Adams standing at the wood-burning black stove.

  “Good morning,” Lisa said.

  “‘Morning.” Rebecca turned and smiled. “You like a cup of coffee and something to eat?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “No trouble. Sit you down. Your husband already be eating.” She poured Lisa a cup of Blue Mountain coffee and said, “I be fixing you some eggs and breadfruit. Got some fried plantains left over from yesterday, too.”

  “That’ll be wonderful.” Lisa took a sip of her coffee and after a moment’s hesitation asked, “What are duppies?”

  “Duppies?” Rebecca frowned. “Who be telling you ‘bout duppies?”

  “The lady two doors down. We almost hit a cow last night and when Sam, Mr. O’Shaughnessy, told her husband about it, she said something about a calf with balls of fire for eyes. Then she said something about duppies.”

  Rebecca rolled her eyes. “That be Matilda. She shouldn’t be telling you ‘bout duppies. Just because she be a’scared of everything that moves don’t mean she should be scaring you.” She put a plate with two fried eggs in front of Lisa and sat across from her. “She be right ‘bout duppies, though.”

  Lisa paused, fork halfway to her mouth.

  Rebecca leaned closer. “Duppies be ghosts that walk at night and bring evil.” She looked around, as though afraid someone might overhear, and lowering her voice, went on. “The way it is, every man has two spirits, one from God and one not from God. When a man or a woman die, the good spirit fly up to a tree, then right on to heaven. But the evil spirit, it stay on earth and become a duppie.”

  A bite of egg stuck in Lisa’s throat and she took a sip of coffee to wash it down.

  “Sometime the bad spirit live in the silk-cotton tree, sometime in the almond tree. But most often he be in the grave during the day and come night he gets up and wanders around. The way it works, if somebody don’t like somebody, he go to the grave at midnight, scoop a small hollow in the ground and put in some rice. He sprinkle that with sugar water and whisper the name of his enemy.” Rebecca shook her head. “I tell you, missus, it take a strong obeahman to make the spell go ‘way.”

  Half-afraid to ask, Lisa said, “What’s an obeahman?”

  “Voodoo man with strong magic.” Rebcca leaned closer and whispered, “Matilda be right ‘bout one thing. Worse kind of duppie be a rolling calf. What scared her was hearing how you and the mister almost hit it.”

  The rolling calf with fireball eyes? Duppies and obeahman? Nonsense, Lisa told herself. But somehow that didn’t stop the shiver from running down her spine.

  * * *

  The village didn’t look much better in the daylight than it had last night in the rain. There was an open market, a small, old-fashioned general store and a one-pump gas station.

  Because it had taken the spill in soft, rain-soaked mud, the Harley seemed to have come through the accident more or less intact. The man at the gas station Sam took it to washed the mud off, checked it out, revved the engine and said it was good as new.

  “Is there a phone in the village?” Sam asked.

  “No, sir. Won’t find no phone for maybe ten, eleven miles.”

  That was bad. He needed to talk to Hargreaves, tell him where he was and let him know he’d spotted Montoya and was going after him. He could go back down to Ocho Rios, probably should because of Lisa, but if he did the trail would be cold.

  “Where does the road out of the village lead?” he asked.

  “Up to the mountains, sir. Up to the Cockpit Country. Be bad place, sir. There be giant forests where you be lost, big swamps where men go and no return. You better go back the way you came. Go down to Ocho Rios, to Kingston, Montego Bay or Port Antonio. All be nice places, sir. Big hotels and fancy tourist ladies looking for gentleman dude like you. You have fun there.”

  Sam shook his head and, with a grin, said, “Last thing this gentleman dude wants is another tourist lady.” He pointed to the Harley. “Gas me up. I’ve got to get going.” He took a pound note out of his pocket. “Are there other gas stations along the way to Cockpit Country?”

  “No stations, sir. But there be places where you can get gas. If you be determined to go.”

  “I be determined,” Sam said.

  He rode the Harley back to Rebecca Adams’s home. When he knocked, Rebecca let him in. “Your wife be in the bedroom,” she said.

  His wife. The words gave him a nervous tic. The day his divorce from Margaret had been finalized he’d taken an oath that he’d never go through the pain of another marriage again, at least not for another forty or fifty years. The words wife and marriage weren’t in his vocabulary. They never would be.

  He knocked. Lisa opened the door. She’d put the white pantsuit back on, but after last night’s roll in the mud it would never be the same again. He looked her up and down and said, “You’d better go buy yourself a pair of shorts.”

  “I’ve got shorts back at the hotel.”

  “We’re not going to the hotel.”

  She looked at him, surprised. Before she could ask why, he said, “I can’t waste time taking you back. We’re going after Montoya.”

  “We?”

  “That’s right.” He sounded impatient. “There’s a store in the village. Go buy yourself a pair of shorts and a shirt. If they don’t have shorts, get jeans.”

  “I’m not going with you.”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  “Yes, I do. There has to be a bus that comes through here.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “Then I’ll walk back to the main road and hitch a ride to Ocho Rios.”

  “No, you won’t.” Sam took some money out of his pocket. “I’m going after Montoya,” he said. “Unfortunately, I don’t have any other choice except to take you with me.”

  “Well, I have a choice.” Hands on her hips, Lisa faced him. “I’m not going with you and that’s final.”

  “And what if Montoya and Reitman decide to double back? What if they come looking for you?” He shook his head. “Whether you like it or not, you’re in this now. I don’t want you with me any more than you want to be, but it’s the only way. I’ll do my best to keep you out of danger and I promise you that as soon as I can get you to some place where I’m sure you’ll be safe, I’ll let you go. Until then you stay with me.”

  She didn’t want to go with him. If she absolutely refused, there’d be very little he could do about it except tie her up and throw her over the back of the Harley. She didn’t think he’d do that, but she didn’t want to take the chance. Besides, the thought of being taken by Montoya or Reitman scared her a lot more than the thought of being with Sam.

  She took the money. When he said, “Hurry it up,” she gave him a dirty look and marched out of the room.

  There wasn’t much of a selection in the way of clothes in the general store. She found a pair of b
oys’ cutoff jeans, a T-shirt and a jeans jacket. When she left the store, she started back to Rebecca’s house, then hesitated and walked down to the open market, where she bought some bananas and mangoes, a bag of hard rolls and a round of cheese.

  Buying food before setting out on a motor trip was something she started doing as soon as she left home. In case she was ever marooned, by flood, fire or snowstorm, she wanted to be prepared. So whenever she started out, whether for a two-hour trip to Palm Beach or a longer trip to Atlanta, she always had something along in the car—a few apples, a package of crackers. Something.

  Sam was waiting on the porch steps when she returned to Rebecca’s home. “Hurry up and change,” he said, playing the tough guy again.

  But when she came out fifteen minutes later, his tough-guy facade faded. In the cutoffs and T-shirt she was a knockout. He remembered how it had been last night in bed with her, the feel of her body so close to his. His pulse raced; his palms felt sweaty. He said, “C’mon, we gotta get going,” and turned away from her.

  Rebecca came out and handed Lisa a brown paper bag. “Sugar yams,” she said. “‘Case you be hungry.”

  “I’m always hungry.” Lisa smiled and hugged Rebecca. “Thank you for everything,” she said, and handed the bag of yams to Sam, along with the things she’d bought in the market.

  He wheeled the cycle around and headed it toward the road out of the village that led up into the mountains.

  “You be going to Cockpit Country?” Rebecca’s face wrinkled into a frown. “You be taking the missus up there?”

  Sam nodded. To Lisa he said, “Time to get rolling.”

  “Wait.” Rebecca turned and ran back into the house. Lisa raised her eyebrows in question, but didn’t say anything. Five minutes later, the woman returned. “You take this with you.” She pressed a smooth round stone into Lisa’s hand. “Obeahman give it to me. It be warding off the duppies.”

  “Rebecca, I—”

  The Jamaican woman folded Lisa’s fingers around the stone. “Keep it,” she said.