Clay Read Free Page B

him go. Or what’s worse, if he manages to get loose on his own hook.”
    A shiver ran over her, bone-deep and completely involuntary. Then she lifted her chin. “He won’t find it easy to get away from me. And when he’s finally free and in shape to get back at anyone, then I’ll be far away from here.”
    “You’d better pray you’re right,” the old man said, his voice dour.
    She did that, and fervently.

2
    C lay awoke in ragged snatches, like hacking a path through the thick jungle of his mind. He lay still with his eyes closed while he assessed the situation. His head hurt like hell, the back of his skull felt as if it had been thumped against the floor, the inside of his mouth was like a desert and he couldn’t feel his hands. He also had a strong sense of being watched.
    It wasn’t the best start to a morning he’d ever had. Still, he was sure it was daylight for he could see its brightness through his eyelids.
    The last thing he remembered was late afternoon of the day before, and stopping to visit a few minutes with Denise’s friend who had borrowed the old fishing camp. His cousin, who had escaped Turn-Coupe for the delights of New Orleans, had asked him to look in on Janna Kerr. It was likely he’d have stopped by anyway, of course, since the camp was his great-granddad’s old place, and he and his two brothers shared ownership with Denise. Janna had turned out to be an Amazon almost as tall as he was with a plait of silver-blond hair as thick as his arm hanging down her back. She had stepped out to greet him as he pulled up at the rickety dock. They’d talked a fewminutes, and then she’d invited him inside for a cup of coffee.
    It had been terrible stuff, he remembered that clearly. He’d swallowed most of it while it was still hot because he felt it would gag a mule when it cooled, but also because he’d been brought up to be polite. In any case, he’d been too intrigued by Janna Kerr, by her dark brows and lashes in striking contrast to her pale hair and dove-gray eyes, and her calm self-possession while living in such isolation, to give it more than surface attention.
    Big mistake.
    God, but who’d have thought that a woman who looked like a Greek goddess come to life would slip him a Mickey? He might have been on his guard in some New Orleans dive, but not out here in the back reaches of the lake where it met the swamp. He could remember, barely, the hope and horror in the woman’s face as he’d passed out at her feet. Now she had him trussed up like a Christmas turkey, or at least he assumed the restraints were her idea. The crazy thing was, he didn’t know whether to kick and curse—or lie back and enjoy it.
    A soft sigh feathered over his face, coming from only inches away. Clay prided himself on excellent self-control, but his eyelids snapped open; there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
    The face so close to his was beautiful, with a delicate oval shape surrounded by soft blond curls, smooth, fine-grained skin, rosebud mouth and silky lashes of ridiculous length surrounding the clearest,most intense blue eyes nature ever made. It also belonged to a child, a girl maybe seven years old, eight at the outside.
    “You’re awake,” she said, a smile breaking across her face in sunny brilliance. “I’m Lainey. Who are you?”
    “Lainey,” he repeated. His voice sounded husky from disuse, even in his own ears. He could feel his heartbeat slowing again, and was wryly aware that its fast pace had been because he’d expected to find a very different female beside him in the bed.
    “Where did you come from? You weren’t here when I went to sleep.”
    Clay did his best to focus on the questions and other details of his surroundings, but it wasn’t easy with his head pounding like a jackhammer and a small nose mere inches from his own. “I came by boat,” he answered, even as he dredged his mind for the scant details Denise had given him about her tenant. “You