Wendy Etherington - Her Private Treasure

Different didn’t even begin to describe the hunger pulsing through her. She’d anticipated a spark with their kiss and gotten an inferno.

Malina pressed her lips to his throat and buried her hand in the inky locks of his hair that indeed felt like silk. “You’re part of my case. I shouldn’t—”

He silenced her with another kiss. Her protests died in the wake of the raw emotions consuming her. She craved his touch, knowing instinctively he could drive away the loneliness and satisfy both her body and her mind.

She wanted his skin pressed against hers. She wanted to let loose the fire behind his dark eyes.

His hand slid up her stomach, and her breasts tingled in anticipation. But before he could reach his goal, his thumb brushed her shoulder holster….

Dear Reader,

My hero in this story, Carr Hamilton, was inspired by, well, a car. The Triumph Spitfire was a British two-seater sports car manufactured from the late sixties to late seventies, and I drove one—painted British Racing Green—as a teenager. (If I can find a picture, I’ll be sure to share it on my Web site.) It was the coolest thing on four wheels, and I just couldn’t resist giving it to Carr to tool around Palmer’s Island.

I also had to give my charming hero a heroine to challenge and confound him. Malina Blair is the extreme of me—tough, fearless and always ready with a comeback. (In real life, I admit avoiding confrontation whenever possible, have a ridiculous, irrational, frustrating fear of heights, and the only kind of gun I can fire with any skill uses water instead of bullets.)

Come to think of it, I’m probably not like Malina at all. But then this is the world of romance, and we can all escape for a while and be anybody we want to be.

Hope you enjoy!

Wendy Etherington

P.S. Additional apologies to the hardworking folks at the FBI Field Office in Columbia, SC. I moved their office to Charleston for the purposes of my story.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Wendy Etherington was born and raised in the deep South—and she has the fried chicken recipes and NASCAR ticket stubs to prove it. The author of more than twenty books, she writes full-time from her home in South Carolina, where she lives with her husband, two daughters and an energetic shih tzu named Cody. She can be reached via her Web site, www.wendyetherington.com.

To my best buds, Jacquie D’Alessandro and Jenni Grizzle, whose love, support and interventions of champagne and chocolate keep me sane.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

CARR HAMILTON YANKED the rope around the dock post, then stepped off his thirty-seven-foot cabin cruiser, The Litigator. As rippling waves of the Intracoastal Waterway lapped against the dock, the moon hung above the marina, a glowing orb casting a cool and mysterious light. The air smelled of sea life and salt.

The gloomy night and deserted dock, plus yet another solitary cruise, had put him in a rare melancholy mood. After securing his boat, he zipped his jacket against the cool March wind and headed across the creaky wooden slats, intending to circumvent the marina bar, where he’d find friends and conversation.

“…coffee is ready for distribution, so don’t get jumpy now.”

Carr stopped at the familiar voice, delivered in an angry and demanding tone. Coffee distribution? Jack Rafton was an insurance agent. Auto, home, life, et cetera. Mundane stuff really. But a nice guy and good business neighbor.

“This whole thing is getting dicey,” another, but unknown, voice whispered harshly.

“Relax, and keep your voices down,” said yet a third man.

Carr’s low mood vanished. His pulse jumped. He leaped sideways and ducked behind a large storage locker at the dock’s edge, realizing he probably hadn’t moved so swiftly or stealthily since his days on the Yale fencing team.

“It’s late.” Jack’s voice again. “Locals are all deep into their whiskey and beer by now.”

“Let’s just make the exchange and get out of here.” The second unknown voice.

“You’re just pissed I raised my prices,” Jack said.

“Whatever,” the first unknown man said, his voice deep and raspy. A smoker maybe. “That’s between you and the boss. Just give us the stuff.”

Carr heard footsteps on the wooden slats, then the creak of a rope tethering a boat.

He risked a glance from behind the post and saw Jack carrying a wooden crate and walking slow, balanced steps on the deck of a ski boat. By the blue and red stripes on the hull, it appeared to be Jack’s boat, but it was too dark to make out the name scripted on the side and be certain.

The crate was handed over to one of the two unidentified men, then something was shoved into Jack’s hand. All the characters stood in shadow, like the old black-and-white film noirs Carr enjoyed. He half expected to see Humphrey Bogart’s strong-jawed profile flash before him.

No hat-and-raincoat-clad detectives appeared, so Carr concentrated on what he could see. The two unknown men scurried away from Jack and the boat. He tried to estimate their height and weight, but knew both were wild guesses based on a comparison of Jack’s vital statistics.

Jack transferred the object he’d been given—an envelope maybe?—to his other hand, then, suddenly, he turned in Carr’s direction. Fairly certain the angle and the width of the post kept him hidden, Carr didn’t move. He barely breathed. Whatever the meeting with the two men meant, Carr knew it wasn’t something Jack wanted known by a business acquaintance. The timing as well as the conversation itself spoke to that certainty.

After a few moments, he heard Jack’s footsteps receding down the dock. He counted slowly to a hundred before moving and then only to take a quick look. Noting the dock was empty, he shifted from his position.

Puzzling over the discussion he’d heard, he checked his boat to be sure he’d locked the cabin door and secured the rope properly. The exchange had to be a payoff of some kind. The two men had clearly bought something from Jack. But coffee? Why would three men need to meet in the dead of night to buy and sell coffee?

He walked down the dock, stopping as he reached the boat Jack had retrieved the crate from. American Dream was clearly scripted on the hull in bright red letters. Jack’s boat, then.

Stooping, Carr glided his hand over the dock’s rough wooden planks. Something gritty caressed the tips of his fingers. He brought his hand to his face, inhaling the scent. Coffee.

With the scent, he recalled one significant reason coffee grounds might be placed in a crate, then traded for cash in the dead of night. Drugs.

Two weeks later

FBI SPECIAL AGENT Malina Blair glared at the stack of case files on her desk and thought seriously about pulling her pistol from its ever-present side holster and firing at will.

Two computer hacking cases, one suspected drug smuggling and six complaints from helpful citizens who thought they spotted someone from the Most Wanted list hiding out behind the fake designer bags in the straw market.

How far the mighty had fallen.

She recalled fondly the business executive son’s kidnapping case she’d closed three years ago. She supposed the son and his loved ones didn’t remember the ordeal in a positive light, but the family still sent her a Christmas card every year, thanking her for her sharpshooting skills.

And barely six months ago, she’d led a team in solving a six-year-old bank robbery, taking down the ring of suspects as they attempted to break into the main branch vault of the Bank of America in downtown Washington, D.C.

Good times. Career-making moments.

Formally interviewing Senator Phillip Grammer’s son on suspicion of securities and bank fraud hadn’t gone quite so well. The powerful politician had stormed into the interview and claimed his son had fallen in with the wrong crowd briefly and that he and the SEC were working out a special process of restitution.

Phil junior was special all right. He’d ratted on three other people—who Malina considered minor players in the deal—and got away scot-free.

While a lovely city, Charleston, South Carolina, wasn’t exactly the FBI’s hotbed of excitement. Getting back to headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, was imperative, especially since screwing up again was likely to land her reassigned in the desert-to-nowhere field office. Interrogating cacti.

With a sigh, she pulled out the folder about the smuggling case. Her boss had actually dropped this one on her desk that morning. At first, she’d hoped she’d been forgiven for her career-crushing mistake and assigned to the elite team that worked the harbor. With the Port of Charleston being the country’s fourth busiest, illicit goods and terrorist threats were a serious possibility.

Unfortunately, the case she’d been assigned was a vague suspicion of drug smuggling based on a two-minute overheard conversation that took place on nearby—and boringly tiny—Palmer’s Island. The single witness was an attorney and friend of her boss.

It seemed she had another day of tedium ahead of her.

Scooping up the documents, she headed out of her cubicle and toward the elevator.

“Hey, Malina,” Donald, one of her colleagues, called out as she passed his cube. “Gonna work another dog-napping case today?”

She never slowed her brisk stride as she called back, “I’ll see if I can fit it in after kicking your ass in combat training this afternoon.”

“Again,” several others called out helpfully from behind their own cubicle walls.

She lifted her lips in what some people might consider a sneer, but those who knew her recognized it as her version of a smile. She’d only been in the Charleston field office three weeks, and while everyone knew of her setback, most had at least come to respect her skills and determination. Hers was a cautionary tale none of them wanted coming true in their own lives.

Alone in the elevator, she allowed herself the weakness of closing her eyes as frustration overcame her. She should be in a corner office with a view. She should be solving important cases. She should be compiling letters of commendation.

She was good at her job—a few she’d worked with had even called her the best. If only she had tact as steady as her hands and as sure as her roundhouse kick, she’d rise to the top.

Donald hadn’t exaggerated. Her first case since arriving at the office had been a literal dog-napping.

The mayor’s prize Maltese had gone missing, and a ransom demand had been made. It had taken her all of two minutes in an interview with the dog walker to crack him and the master plot.

The mayor’s kids had hugged her; her coworkers had laughed their asses off.

Minutes later, while she drove her government-issue sedan over the bridge to Palmer’s Island, she cast a glance at the sun’s rays bouncing off the rippling Atlantic waves in the distance. Ahead was Patriot’s Point, where the decommissioned aircraft carrier the USS Yorktown had been permanently docked, awaiting the daily flood of tourists eager to explore her proud and massive decks.