For the Taking Read online

  “Hurt the—!” She shook her head and swallowed, outraged.

  Maybe he’d gone too far. He wanted to push her into talking about what she believed and why she was so scared, but this wasn’t the way. She wasn’t like Kevin Cartwright, who rose to the bait of a direct attack. She was a woman—a mer woman, if she could accept that—and therefore very different.

  He was about to apologize, but she hadn’t stopped speaking. “Why are you doing this? I won’t tolerate it. Leave my property, please!”

  She turned in the direction of the house, ignoring him as he followed her. When she reached the veranda, she clumsily levered off her elastic-sided riding boots and socks, and tossed them into a basket beside the door. Retrieving a pair of flimsy, high-heeled cream sandals from the same basket, she slipped them onto her feet and tottered inside.

  Still he followed her. Still she ignored him. It would get to be a habit between them, soon. Almost immediately, as if hardly noticing what she’d done, she kicked the sandals off again and frowned down at her pink manicured toes.

  Did she have a love-hate relationship with her footwear? Or with her feet?

  She tipped her head to one side thoughtfully and said, “Is it enough to tell you that I’m busy this morning? Or should I phone the police?”

  “Thalassa—”

  “My name is Lass. Or Letitia Susan Morgan, if you want the full, legal version.”

  “Cyria did change your name, then.”

  “Who? Oh, you mean Aunt Catherine?”

  “Do I?” His gaze held hers for a moment, and it was a toss-up whose was the most stubborn. He changed tack. “You have a fabulous view of the ocean, Lass.”

  “I prefer the view in the other direction. To the mountains.”

  “No, you don’t,” he told her softly. “It’s not the mountains you watch. It’s not the mountains that call you. You couldn’t stay away, could you? You couldn’t when you bought this place, and you still can’t.”

  She lifted her chin, and he appreciated the stubborn yet delicate line of her jaw. “I go for weeks, sometimes, without setting foot on the beach.”

  He laughed. “You sound like a gambler, talking about visits to the track. You do without it for weeks, but you think about it every day. Are you really going to call the police?”

  “Yes! And I really don’t have time to talk! The tearoom opens at ten, and there’s a ton of stuff to do to prepare. My staff will be here any minute.”

  “I have something for you from your sisters, Lass.”

  Loucan didn’t wait for another defensive answer, another threat to throw him off the property. He just reached into the breast pocket of his conservative and anonymous navy T-shirt and pulled out a paper packet.

  “Wedding pictures,” he said, and took the sheaf of prints out of the packet to show her. He knew exactly what effect it would have. It was his one asset in all this, and he was counting on it.

  Watching her reaction, he saw that he wasn’t wrong.

  Lass gasped and clamped a fist to her heart. Pictures? Of Phoebe and Kai? She had long ago shut off any hope of finding them, had often wondered if they were even still alive. She had thought of trying to trace them somehow, but it had seemed like such a hopeless quest. She didn’t even know to which part of the world or with whom her father had sent them. Didn’t know if they were together or apart.

  She hadn’t seen them since they were two years old. They’d been the light of her life, back then—the beings she’d loved most in the world. She still remembered the soft, plump feel of their little cheeks pressed against hers for a “Tiss, Lassie. I want a tiss!” She remembered the exuberant embrace of their little arms, the innocent joyousness of their laughter and the equal intensity of their tears. And now they were grown women, old enough to be married.

  She wanted to hear about her sisters.

  Set against this longing, all her bravado toward Loucan was fake. For the sake of her sisters, she would make herself believe what he said—that he hadn’t been part of the violence. Because of her sisters, she wouldn’t turn him off her property.

  And he knew it, too. Oh, he knew it.

  He’d brought those pictures with him on purpose, and he’d mentioned them at exactly the right moment. Now he was cradling them closely in his hand. On the surface, it was a casual gesture, but she knew he was doing it with deliberate intent. She wasn’t going to get to touch those pictures until he chose to let her, and since they were so precious to her, she didn’t dare try and grab them from him by force.

  Against a man like Loucan, she would have no hope of success. His strength had been apparent to her from the beginning. It wasn’t just about his powerful size or his almost intimidating good looks. There was an unusual force of will displayed in those incredible blue eyes. This man knew what he wanted.

  His thick, dark hair was pulled into a short, tight braid that lay against the back of his neck, making him look like an English sailor from two hundred years ago. The style revealed the regal height and breadth of his forehead and emphasized his square jaw and very masculine bone structure.

  He’d frightened her on the beach the other night, from the moment his strong, deep voice had uttered her name. Her full, real name. No one had used it since Cyria died.

  Thalassa.

  It meant “one who comes from the sea.”

  She shivered a little, and wished she was wearing something more substantial than this snug top this morning. She felt vulnerable, physically and emotionally, but wasn’t going to let it show if she could possibly help it.

  “Show me the photos!” she demanded.

  In his hand she caught the tiniest glimpse of a gorgeous couple dressed in wedding finery, and her heart did a flip against her rib cage. Was that lovely woman with the honey-colored hair Phoebe? Or was it Kai? Oh lord, she should know! A woman should be able to recognize her own sisters!

  The phone rang—so perfectly timed that she almost suspected Loucan of engineering the call somehow.

  She was tempted to let it ring, except that when you ran a small business essentially on your own, you couldn’t afford to do that. All her calls were potentially important. In any case, Loucan had taken advantage of the moment and had hidden the photos back in their packet.

  “Take the call,” he said. “This can wait.”

  She was already running to the phone that was fixed to the kitchen wall. It was her decision to take the call, not his! She refused to respond to his arrogant orders, and she wasn’t going to let him underestimate her.

  “Lass?” The voice on the other end of the line was shaky, but she recognized it right away.

  “Susie? What’s up?”

  “We’ve just had an accident. Rob was driving, but it wasn’t his fault….”

  “Oh, Lord, Susie, are you all okay?”

  Susie and her sister Megan helped in the tearoom kitchen every day, while Susie’s husband, Rob, came part-time to keep the garden in shape and handle maintenance. Susie and Rob were in their late twenties, hoping to start a family soon, and Lass was close to them.

  Well, as close as she ever let herself get to anybody.

  “We’re fine.” Susie burst into tears.

  They were obviously not fine. In a rambling account, Lass heard the details. Susie had lacerations on her face, Megan was being assessed for a head injury and Rob had probably broken something, but they weren’t yet sure what. They were at the emergency department of the local hospital.

  “I’ll try to get out to you as soon as I can,” Susie promised, “but they want to put dressings on the cuts, and—”

  “Susie, you’re not coming in today, okay? None of you. Or tomorrow. Not till you’re ready. It should be quiet. I’ll—”

  “Quiet? It’s the middle of school summer break!”

  “I’ll manage. We can still get quiet days sometimes. You just look after yourself and Megan and Rob.”

  The fact that Susie stopped arguing at once was proof that neither she, her si
ster nor Rob were fit to come in. Lass put down the phone, and faced the knowledge that “managing” wouldn’t be nearly as easy as she’d claimed. She opened in less than an hour, and still had the salads and sandwich ingredients to set out, the quiche fillings to prepare, the coffee machine to start, the scones to make, the cream to whip….

  And she didn’t care.

  “Show me the photos, Loucan.”

  Coming through the doorway from the kitchen, her bare feet cool on the polished hardwood floor, she found him standing in front of one of the two sets of French doors that opened onto the veranda, in the direction of the sea.

  He was watching the sparkling blue ocean, just the way she always did. Silent, still and totally absorbed. Hungry for it. Listening to its call.

  But he couldn’t hate the power of that call, the way she did.

  He turned at her words, and he wasn’t holding the photos anymore. Where had he hidden them? She couldn’t tell. Not in the T-shirt pocket.

  “I heard your conversation,” he said. “Your help can’t make it today?”

  She shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m worried about them, not me. It seems as if none of them is seriously hurt, fortunately. Please show me the photos of Phoebe and Kai. And—and Saegar, too.” The brother and playmate she’d loved. “Do you have pictures of him?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I don’t.”

  “News about him, then? You told me the other day you were in touch with him.”

  “You didn’t believe me.”

  “I do now. Tell me. Show me.”

  “Not yet. Tell me what’s in it for me, first, Thalassa.” His blue eyes burned with a cool fire, an assessing look she didn’t trust. “Meet me halfway. If I give you what you want, will you listen to me? Will you give me—?”

  “No!” she cried, pressing her palms to her ears. “How can you talk about giving? Your father and his supporters took from me something that can never be replaced. They took my mother’s life with unspeakable violence, and without warning.” She drew a shuddery breath and had to struggle to keep going. “I’m giving you nothing, Loucan!”

  As always, when she thought about her mother’s death, she couldn’t fight the secret, nightmare memory. Cyria—she’d only ever called her guardian Aunt Catherine in public—was the only other person who knew what Lass had witnessed as an eight-year-old child, and now Cyria was dead, too. That death, at least, had been peaceful.

  Her mother’s, Wailele’s, wasn’t.

  Oh, dear God, must I see it in my memory for the rest of my life?

  Still, after twenty-five years, the sight of blood in the water panicked and terrified her, and she had told Cyria time and again that she would never go back to Pacifica, where such violence might happen once more.

  “Then I guess the photos aren’t needed today,” Loucan said, cutting across her relentless unfolding of memory. He still seemed cool and totally in control.

  “How do I even know they’re genuine?” she argued. “I haven’t seen Phoebe or Kai in so long, those couples could be anyone.” She didn’t really believe that. She knew in her heart that they were Phoebe and Kai, and their new husbands. All the same… “I don’t trust you, Loucan!”

  “That’s obvious,” he said. “And I can understand it.”

  “I hope so!”

  “What I can’t understand is that you’d deny yourself the chance to connect with your brother and your sisters purely because you don’t want to have anything to do with me.”

  “Not so surprising, if you’d think about it a little more.” Deliberately, she kept her voice hard. “You’re apparently willing to blackmail me by keeping me in ignorance of the only family I have left. What that says about your character doesn’t inspire me to get to know you any better. But you’ve given me some facts about Phoebe and Kai and Saegar. Where they’re living. The names they use. I’ll be patient.”

  “You’re saying—”

  “Yes. I’ll track them down myself, or I’ll employ someone to do it. I don’t need you, Loucan. Your blackmail attempt has failed. And now I need to open up the tearoom. You can let yourself out.”

  She slipped her feet into her sandals, pulled a bunch of keys from her pocket and opened the door, quaking inside. What would he do? Would he call her bluff? Could she bear it if he gave up and left, without telling her more about her siblings and without showing her the photos? Would the facts she now had be enough to trace her family on her own, as she’d suggested?

  The heels of her silly, impractical shoes rapped like gunshots on the stone flagging of the veranda. Why did she buy these things? She had a dozen pairs and they killed her feet all day. Her clientele wouldn’t raise their eyebrows if she wore flats. Half the time she kicked her shoes off behind the counter and didn’t even notice.

  She felt her breasts bounce as she clicked along to the end of the veranda, and was self-conscious again, aware of her own body in a way that was unusual. She didn’t like to think about where Loucan’s gaze might be focused.

  He was a powerful man. Powerful in his position at the center of the chaotic situation that apparently still existed in Pacifica. Powerful in the aura of determination and ruthlessness that he exuded. He hadn’t given up. He would call her bluff; she was sure of it. Was he watching? Why didn’t he say something?

  Loucan didn’t find his voice until Lass had reached the end of the veranda. He couldn’t understand his own reluctance to speak. She wouldn’t carry through on her threat, he was sure.

  And yet he heard himself saying, with a husky note in his strong voice, “Wait!”

  “Yes?” She turned, and he saw that he’d been right. She wasn’t remotely cool about this. He saw her hands shaking and her eyes glittering with hot tears.

  “I’m not going to blackmail you.” He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness that he couldn’t remember ever using before in his life. “And I was wrong to imply that I would. I want your alliance and your trust, not this.”

  “Sure you do, Loucan.” She pivoted and stepped from the veranda onto the paved path that led to the tearoom.

  “Lass, listen to me—”

  “No!”

  He followed her, faster than she was in those frivolous, kittenish heels. Hearing him gaining on her, she kicked them off once more, and abandoned them in the grass at the side of the path. He caught up to her anyway, grasped her shoulder and spun her around. He pinned her to the spot with the sheer force of his will.

  “This is how wars start,” he said urgently. “This is where violence comes from. When people can’t find a way to talk.”

  She lifted that strong, stubborn chin. “Is that what happened in Pacifica, all those years ago? Not as far as I’m concerned!”

  “You were too young to understand. If you’d listen to me, I could tell you. My father had nothing to do with your mother’s death.”

  “Oh, he didn’t?”

  “No. He was horrified that one of his supporters had taken a speech of his and interpreted it in that way. The man was acting totally alone.”

  He heard the smallest tremor of doubt in his own voice, and wondered if Lass had picked up on it. He still wasn’t sure of the whole truth himself. There was a tiny thread of evidence—the report of one witness—that suggested Joran, one of Okeana’s own supporters, had incited the fanatical assassin to murder Okeana’s wife in order to further the unrest that Joran sought.

  For the moment, however, Loucan ignored the possibility. It was a detail that didn’t affect his own innocence. He had been three thousand miles from Pacifica when Wailele died.

  He pressed on.

  “Listen to me, Lass. Trust me at least long enough for us to talk about Phoebe and Kai and Saegar, and for me to tell you why I’m here. I’m not just looking for your belief in my version of the past. There’s more than that. I’ve spent years searching for you. Give me some time. Let me help you in the tearoom today, and we’ll—”

  She laughed. “You? The self-styled rightful king of
Pacifica, Loucan the Triumphant, or whatever you’ve decided to call yourself, cutting tomatoes and stacking the dishwasher? What could your royal majesty possibly know about my kitchen?”

  He grinned, seeing the chance to soften her with humor, and grabbing it.

  “I admit I’m more experienced at tending bar than pouring coffee,” he said, still smiling as he invited her to share his amusement. “But I’ve worked in the galley of a commercial fishing boat, cooking a hot breakfast for twelve hungry men after we’ve been up all night hauling nets. I know which side of a teapot to hold, and which to pour from.”

  “Big deal!”

  “I bussed tables once for a few months, a long time ago, when I was around seventeen. You should see how fast I can flick a wet cloth around, when it’s needed. You need help today, and I’m offering. For less than minimum wage. Couldn’t we start from there?”

  His smile was as hot as summer sunlight and as powerful as the sea itself. It pulled at Lass’s emotions, the way the ocean did in all its moods.

  Loucan knew all about that. He was a creature of the ocean himself. Even so, she would have forced herself to stay immune to his smile if he hadn’t pulled the packet of photos from the tight back pocket of his jeans, and added casually, “Tell me what to do to start setting up, and you can look at these while I work.”

  “All right. Okay. Uh…I’m not— This isn’t a capitulation, Loucan,” she insisted. “All it is…it’s for Saegar and my sisters.”

  “I know that,” he said quietly. “I understand. By the end of the day, I hope your reasons will change, but for now it’s good enough.”

  “Okay,” she said again. The word hardly had meaning. “Good.”

  Unlocking the door that opened directly into the gallery, she led the way past blue-green seascapes, glazed ceramics and trays of delicate jewelry, feeling as if she was walking with Loucan into a new future she hadn’t even imagined three days ago. She was terrified of everything about it.

  Chapter Two

  Cyria was the one who had taught her to be afraid, and to set herself apart.

  Time and again, she had held Lass close to her and whispered, “No one should have to see what you’ve seen. We’ll never go back. Not unless your father himself comes to claim you and tells us that Pacifica is safe for us again. Promise me that.”