A Perfect Storm
Page 107

He glanced back.
Only a few feet away, Chris grinned at him. “Break it up, you two. This is a public area.”
Spencer bit off a groan. Beyond Chris was Jackson. Alani, floating on a raft, had joined them, as well.
Dare was climbing the ladder up the dock, where Molly waited for him.
“We’re going for a ride,” Priss announced from the boat. “Will you guys join us?”
He wanted to refuse, but Arizona whispered, “Finally we can get out of this stupid water.”
He had no real choice but to nod. “Sure, why not?” As he slogged through the water to the rock retaining wall, he whispered to Arizona, “But only if you wrap up in a towel or something.”
“All the women are in swimsuits,” she pointed out.
Spencer glanced around. True enough, and while the women were all physically different, they were each attractive—but they weren’t Arizona. They could have been buck naked, and still they wouldn’t affect him the way she did.
“Somehow, that doesn’t seem to matter.” Spencer snatched up a towel and bundled it around her. Chris mocked him with a grin, but Jackson gave him a salute as he did the same with Alani.
Dare and Trace ignored them as they helped their wives into the boat.
Soon, Spencer thought. Soon he’d get her back to his place, and then he’d show her just how different she was. And after that…he didn’t know.
Luckily he still had time to figure it out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
PARTICULAR IN HOW he did things, he worked late to ensure he had everything prepared.
Curtains at the front windows hid the empty interior; Clever Candy wouldn’t know that “Harry’s Hocks” was abandoned until it was too late. She wouldn’t realize that it would be her temporary holding place, a place for her to adjust to her new circumstances.
He checked the restraints he’d fastened to a grommet screwed into the floor in the back room. With both feet planted, he tugged, pulled.
It held secure.
“Good. Very good.” He repositioned the mattress. She’d be able to recline comfortably even with her hands restrained. “Put clean bedding on that mattress.”
Quin did as told, tucking the soft white sheet around the flat, twin-size cot mattress.
“Pillow and blanket, too. All the comforts of home.” He laughed. “I know she likes whiskey. But what else?”
Quin shrugged tiredly. “Water? Cola?”
“We’ll get both. Keep them in a cooler with ice.”
“All right.”
“Go back outside now. Wait at the bench.” He paced the floor, peered out the window cautiously. “She is a very clever girl. Very clever.”
“You think she will come early?”
“To check us out? Definitely. The question is when.” He turned to Quin. “But you will play your part, and you will do nothing to alarm her.”
“Yes.”
“Talk to no one else. No one.”
“No.”
“Christ, your parroting is getting on my nerves. Go, then. Sleep out there if you want. I don’t care. But wait there until she comes.”
Quin looked toward the door. “It is dangerous?”
His eyes narrowed. “More dangerous if you mess this up. Do you understand me?”
“I understand.” And with that, Quin shuffled out, his feet dragging, his shoulders slumped.
Yes, it had been a long day filled with preparations. But he was far too excited to sleep. The men he’d hired would show up first thing in the morning, just in case she caused any problems.
In case she didn’t at first understand her good fortune.
After that…she’d be his. And nothing, no one, else would matter.
* * *
IT WAS NEARING MIDNIGHT by the time they got home. Arizona had been too subdued, almost as if something had happened.
But what?
After the dip in the lake, she’d seemed to genuinely enjoy herself, especially during the boat ride. Like the ultimate free spirit, she’d turned her face into the wind, closed her eyes and relaxed.
Later she’d laughed as Jackson rode on a tube behind the boat, getting bounced over the wake and waves. And Chris had impressed them both with his slalom skills, cutting sharply over the wake as if born in the water.
Afterward, there’d been quiet conversation around a bonfire, with the night insects buzzing and the occasional splash of a fish in the water. A million stars had filled the sky, making the night magical.
During the visit, Arizona had insisted on taking several photos with her new camera. Before they left, she’d hugged each of the dogs, the cats, and then suffered through the human affection, too.
Jackson, especially, had held her overlong, talking quietly to her until Spencer wanted to flatten him.
Only when Chris had given him a laughing shove had he realized how he’d glared at them. Arizona, with her sullen silence, had given nothing away, so he could only guess what Jackson had discussed with her in such depth.
Something about her goodbyes bothered him. They had seemed too permanent, as if she didn’t plan to see any of them for a long time. In the normal course of things, she was not a huggy type of woman. Most times, she shrugged off emotion as if it made her uncomfortable.
On the ride home, they listened to the radio, both of them mellow from all the sun and fresh air. At times, he’d thought Arizona dozed. But then she’d sigh, or yawn, or stretch, and he knew she was lost in thought.