Moonshine For Three Read Free

to anyone he didn't trust to take it to the grave.
    He doesn't say a word and neither do I. Don't know what he's thinking, but all I'm thinking is how I can get out of this situation. And what Alice did to turn Robert into a marrying man. What'd she give him that no one else did?
    " You know I ain't the kind to stick around long, " was the last thing he ever said to me before tonight.
    Yeah? What's changed, Robbie?
    She comes back a few minutes later with ropes coiled on her slender arm.
    Robert takes the ropes from her and holds out his gun, butt first. "Keep an eye on him. He moves, you know what to do."
    "Got it." Alice points the pistol at me. She ain't one of those delicate broads who can't handle a gun, I can tell. The way she's holding it with two hands and keeping her feet apart and shoulders set, this is one girl who knows what kind of noise a gun can make. She ain't afraid of it, and she ain't afraid of me.
    Robert slams the chair down against the bulkhead along one side of the cramped room. "Sit."
    I don't move.
    "He told you to sit," Alice says.
    I sit. Robert ties my hands behind my back. Then he coils the rope around my ankle and the leg of the chair. My other foot is still free, and I've got visions of connecting it with his jaw, but that wife of his will have my brains splattered on the bulkhead if I do.
    "Now. Paul." Robert stands, dusting off his hands on his expensive trousers. "How's about you tell the lady and me the real reason you're on our boat?"
    "I ain't talking," I say with my jaw tight. "You keep me down here all night like an animal, your boat will be crawling with men looking for me tomorrow morning."
    He laughs dryly. "Cops can't do a thing out here. You know that."
    "Not legally." I glare up at him. "But if one of their own is missing, I'd like to see you, or the law, keep them from finding me."
    His laughter stops. Eyes narrow, he says, "Then talk, and I'll decide if you can go."
    "Not while you've got me tied. I came here to talk as men, not as your damned prisoner."
    "All right, then." Robert shrugs. He takes the gun from Alice with a murmured, "Thank you, darling," and points it at me. "Let the men come, and if they find you, it'll be with a cinder block tied to your feet and seawater in your gullet."
    I stare him down and he stares right back at me. No one's moving. No one's speaking. My guns are at Robert and Alice's feet. He's got a pistol pointed at me. My hands and ankles are bound.
    And Alice is standing behind him, arms folded beneath her ample, barely-covered chest, eyes flicking back and forth between her husband and me. Something's going on in that head of hers, but I haven't got a clue what it might be.
    Then she says, "He really is that Paul, ain't he?"
    Robert bristles. His eyes slide toward her, then me, then away from us both. He says nothing.
    Alice grins. She looks at me, and her first step in my direction makes my heart skip. Another step, and I gulp. She's going to get us both killed. I'm tied up in a room with a man who's got a gun and a jealous side the size of California, and his wife's coming at me like a gambler to a table.
    "You know, Robbie," she says. "I can see why you've never forgotten him."
    Robert stands straighter. The corner of his mouth twitches. "What are you talking about?"
    She flashes a coquettish smile and inches closer to me. As she slides her arm around my shoulders, she says, "I always wondered how a lady killer like you ever went near a man." She raises my chin with a single gloved finger and makes me look straight into her kohl-lined eyes. "Now I know, don't I?"
    "Get away from him, Alice," Robert growls.
    "Robbie." She's looking at me but talking to him. "He's not gonna hurt me. He's all tied up, you see?"
    "Alice…"
    "Oh, lighten up," she says, and there's an edge to the singsong tone of her voice. "After everything you told me about him, I'm curious, that's all."
    Before Robert can tell her not to, and before I can suggest she not screw around