Odd, though, that with so much going on inside him, the kiss was such a gentle thing.

It seemed almost as if she’d expected it. There was no gasp of surprise, no initial resistance, but no overwhelming response, either. Neither advancing nor retreating, she simply accepted, with a faint, almost inaudible sigh, asking of him no more than he wanted to give her. Her lips were warm and compliant, denying him nothing, and yet he sensed she held most of her self, her passions and feelings, in reserve. He drew away from her, finally, feeling vaguely frustrated and emotionally battered.

She whispered, “Did you do that to distract me?”

His first reaction was to mutter epithets under his breath, and he remembered how she’d laughed at him the last time he’d tried to put a move on her. He also remembered the elbow to the solar plexis that had dropped that Campbell guy in his tracks, and he thought that she sure did have a way of catching a man off guard and with his defenses down.

Then he realized, belatedly, that she’d thrown him a lifeline.

He reached for it with a grateful laugh and asked, “Is it working?”

She considered in silence for a moment. “Hmm. Apparently. I’m not upchucking all down your front, anyway.”

“Don’t know when I’ve had a more enthusiastic testimonial,” said Hawk cheerfully. And after a pause, “Want to do it again?”

She gave the smallest of shrugs and said, “Sure.”

So it was on that basis that he was able to put aside the emotional baggage, finally, and just enjoy her on a purely physical level. By deluding himself, and her, too, into believing, for the moment, at least, that it was only an exercise in psychology, a recreational diversion. The thing he was best at-a game.

As games went, it was engrossing, to say the least. One hell of a diversion, recreational or otherwise. Having given himself permission to indulge in lust he made the most of it, and was gratified to discover that she was no slouch at this particular game herself. In fact, when he finally did come up for air, he figured he’d pretty much have to call it a draw.

“How’re we doin’?” he inquired in a thick mumble. leaning his forehead against hers and stroking her shoulders in a solicitous sort of way. For his part, the answer to that would be, not great; his tongue was something fat and furry, and his heart was beating way too fast.

“Still okay, I think.” But her voice wasn’t steady.

She tilted her face up and he ducked his head to meet her mouth once more, this time like a thirsty man going for his cup. She gave a little sigh and her arms came around him. His slipped into place around her, and her body eased in against him like a perfect, sweet meshing of well-oiled gears.

He felt a tremor run through her…the right kind of tremor. And before he could do a thing to stop it or control it, a violent shudder caught him and rocked him to his toes. He felt a rolling shock wave of heat and pressure, heard the thunder of his own blood in his ears. Nothing to do then but go with it…

A low growl vibrated through his chest as he shifted his arms and caught her hard against him, making her feel all the heat and strength and power in his body, making her know, on the most primitive of levels, his maleness and her own femininity.

She gave a strange little cry; her head fell back and her mouth opened still more under his, both a surrender and an invitation. He took advantage of it with a single, fierce thrust, found the deepest and most perfect melding, the mating of mouths that is unmistakably symbolic of, and almost always a prelude to, the joining of bodies.

Of course, that kind of kiss has only two possible conclusions: complete satisfaction, or total frustration. Hawk knew that going in. He also knew, given the circumstances, that there wasn’t much doubt which way this one was going to wind up. So all he could do, finally, was peel himself away from her, feeling tense and creaky as an overwound watch, mentally kicking himself and swearing under his breath.

He listened to the sounds of their breathing, like storm surf lashing against rock. and waited for her to say something. He could have bet money it wouldn’t be anything expected. And it wasn’t.

“Well,” she said after a careful clearing of her throat, “I suppose this is private enough. But I don’t imagine it’s quite what you had in mind, is it?”

He was still so jangled he wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. He even laughed a little before he realized he didn’t have any idea what she was talking about. Still chuckling uncertainly, he staid. “I beg your pardon?”

“This morning. You said. when you kissed me, you wanted it to be private enough…I think you said. for what comes after. But I don’t think this is what you meant.”

He had no idea how to answer her.

“Of course,” she went on, her voice shaken and raspy, but gentle in the darkness, a reminder to him both of the kind of woman she was and of the shameful way he’d just used her, “I know you didn’t mean it, then-about kissing me. I know you were just trying to find a way to stay close to me-or to the painting, rather. Funny, isn’t it, how things work out sometimes?”

His stomach was roiling and coiling-the watch spring coming unwound. He snapped, “For God’s sake, Jen.” And stopped, shock freezing his insides.

He couldn’t have done that. Couldn’t have said what he thought he’d said. Could he? Even with the echoes reverberating through his entire being, he didn’t believe it. Had she noticed? What would she think? He waited, paralyzed by a wholly uncharacteristic panic, for her to say something. Anything. It seemed like forever.

In fact, it was only a second or two. And it had just entered his head that he’d never mentioned Jen’s name to her at all, and that she’d probably only think, at worst, that he’d gotten hers wrong, when there was a loud, echoing clang outside the truck, only a foot or two from where they were standing. Hawk’s favorite all-purpose epithet was drowned out by an ear-shredding screech, and then the door of the van was rolled violently back, letting in the cold fresh smell of the sea and the rosy pink light of sunset.

And a voice belonging to a large man wearing dark green coveralls and carrying a crowbar, a cracking, high-pitched Southern voice, tense with fear, suspicion and surprise: “Hey! What the hell’s goin’ on here?”

Chapter 10

“What nice guys,” Jane said as she paused to wave at the moving van lumbering off in the direction of the harbor.

Tom, who was holding the door for her, merely grunted. She cast him one quick glance as she slipped past him into the warmth and bustle of the restaurant, but he was avoiding her eyes.

She sighed inwardly and wondered, as she often did, why things always had to be so difficult between men and women, and why, in her case, at least, she always had to be the one to smooth things out, make things work. I’m just as tired and hungry as he is, she thought resentfully. And I didn’t exactly ask to be mixed up in all this.

She thought it was reasonable enough that Tom had been moody and preoccupied since they’d left the ferry terminal. Jane had emerged from the ladies’ rest room to find him hunched over the pay phone, his face looking like a thundercloud. She’d figured he was probably checking in with his superiors, or headquarters, or whoever it was he answered to, filling them in on the latest developments in the case of the missing…whatever it was. Which couldn’t have been very pleasant for him. In any case, she’d given him a wide berth.

And when he’d finally joined her, she’d tried hard to be cheerful and positive, making light of their situation. laughing about the moments following their discovery in the back of the moving van, barefoot and blinking, breathing hard and clinging to each other like orphaned babes in the woods. And it had been funny, watching the poor man-whose name, they learned, was Isaac-as Tom offered his Interpol ID and an explanation of sorts, watching his expression transform from hostile suspicion to disbelief, then to a sort of good-natured uneasiness. “As if,” she’d said to Tom, “any minute he expected Allen Funt to pop out from behind all those boxes and shout, ‘Smite-you’re on ”Candid Camera“!’”

As for what had happened between them in those minutes just before Isaac had rolled back the door of the van…well, Jane wasn’t any more eager to talk about that than Tom was. At least not then. Not now. She was still too shaken; she knew she’d experienced some sort of trauma-to her body and soul, her emotions, her heart-but it was too soon to tell what the consequences were going to be. For now, she just wanted to guard and protect the wounded parts of herself as best she could.

Meanwhile, she was good, had always been good, at pretending things were normal when they were anything but, at smiling and making friendly conversation and going on as if nothing had happened.

But it had happened. Oh, it had. And she was becoming weary of carrying on the charade all alone.

The restaurant they’d chosen, of the many that lined the only highway on the island, was called Teach’s Pub, a reference, Tom told her, to the notorious pirate Blackbeard, who’d supposedly been killed somewhere near here. A casual, friendly and well-lit place, it was busy on a Saturday night even in the off-season, with people calling out to each other and a basketball game going on a big-screen TV. The smells of good things cooking made Jane feel a little faint.

“Okay?” Tom asked her as they were settled at a table, with menus spread in front of them and a promise of coffee to come.

Already hungrily poring over the menu, Jane wasn’t sure whether he was asking after her own well-being, or for her approval of the table. She looked up, smiling vaguely, and nodded-and found that he was meeting her eyes for the first time since they’d left the back of the moving van. Her heart shuddered and began to pound.

Okay? No, she wanted to say, of course I’m not okay. You idiot. You jerk. You dropped a hand grenade into my life, and I will never be the same.

“I wonder if they have she-crab soup here,” she murmured, diving back into the menu.

They didn’t, of course, so she ordered clam chowder instead.

“Is that all?” Tom asked her while the waitress hovered. “I promised you a seafood dinner.”

“You bet me a seafood dinner,” Jane said with a small smile. “And I was smart enough not to take you up on it. If I had, I guess I’d owe you one, wouldn’t I? Anyway,” she added, with a wider smile for the waitress as she handed back the menu, “I only have room for so much, no matter how empty I am to start with.”

Tom ordered a medium-rare steak and French fries. “I’m not big on seafood,” he explained in response to Jane’s raised eyebrows. “Never have been,”

“Funny,” she said thoughtfully as she watched the waitress walk away with the menus tucked under her arm, “that you live on a boat.”

“I wasn’t after the fishing.” She looked at him, drawn by the growl in his voice, and found that he was staring fiercely out the window now, at the jumble of umbrella tables on the deserted deck. “I was looking for a particular life-style, is all. Simple. Uncomplicated. Uncluttered.”

“Solitary,” murmured Jane.

His eyes flicked at her. He shifted uncomfortably as he reached for his cigarettes, looking around for No Smoking signs. Jane slid the table’s ashtray over to his side, saying nothing. After he’d lit his cigarette and smoked in silence for a few minutes, he transferred that passionate glare to her and said in a cracking voice that might have been blamed on the smoke, “My wife had died.”

Having already guessed as much, she only nodded and said softly, “You wanted to get away from the memories.”

He didn’t reply. The waitress bustled by, dropping a basket of rolls on their table in passing. Jane took one and buttered it, bit into it with a sigh. Tom smoked on in silence. Intensely aware of him, Jane chewed and swallowed, discovering only then that her throat already had a lump in it. Damn him, she thought, furious. Damn him.

She looked away, her eyes pricking with the tears she couldn’t allow herself to shed. She wondered if he’d done it deliberately, picking a time and place for such revelations when emotions could not be allowed to run rampant.

Almost as if he’d heard her thoughts, he broke that charged silence with a cough and said, “About what happened-” Jane made a reflexive motion of protest, which he overrode by increasing the intensity, not the volume, of his voice “-between us, back there…”

“It’s okay,” said Jane faintly. “I understand.” Is it better, she bleakly wondered, or worse, talking about it like this, in a crowded, well-lit place? If we were somewhere in private, would I fall apart? Make a fool of myself? Again?