More Than a Man

Chapter Three

Noah cursed under his breath, and Olivia thought she heard him mumble, “Not again.”

At the same time, he thrust her behind himself, putting his body squarely between her and the gunman.

“Move,” the attacker said. “Both of you.”

“Leave the lady out of this,” Noah replied, his voice low and even.

In the part of her mind that still functioned rationally, she marveled at his calm. She had to stiffen her legs to keep from falling over.

“I’m giving the orders,” the gunman said. “Hands up. Move to your right.”

Somehow, she did what he demanded, but as she raised her hands, she was thinking there must be guards out here and security cameras. If guards came running, though, would they just get her and Noah shot?

“Take it easy,” Noah said.

He was talking to the gunman, but his calm, even voice helped steady her as she moved to her right, into a rectangular space formed by a hedge and a wall that enclosed one of the luxury villas for the high rollers.

Noah tried to keep his body between her and the gunman as they stood facing each other in the little courtyard, but the man maneuvered them so that she was terribly exposed.

She glanced sideways at Noah. He wasn’t even breaking a sweat. The other man was breathing heavily. Maybe he’d have a heart attack and drop the gun so they could escape.

“If you do anything to hurt this woman, you will be very sorry,” Noah said, punching out the words.

“Her bad luck that she was with a scum like you.”

She saw Noah clench the fists held above his head. He looked like he wanted to lunge at the gunman, and to hell with the consequences. Maybe he would have if he’d been alone. Instead, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Are you after my winnings?” he asked.

The man gave a harsh, nervous laugh that scared her as much as the gun. This guy was on the edge of doing something very foolish.

“You wish. You’re going to pay a lot more than any winnings. You’re going to pay for what you did to my brother,” the attacker bit out.

“Who is your brother?”

“You damn well know.”

“Just tell me,” Noah said, sounding weary.

“Eddie Carlson.”

Noah sighed. “I’m sorry for what happened.”

The man snorted. “Oh sure. You killed him.”

“No.”

“Then why is he dead and you’re alive?”

Noah’s jaw tightened, and she waited for him to say something devastating to the man. Something that would let him know for all time that his brother’s death had been his own fault.

As she watched, Noah’s expression changed. When he began to speak, his tone was regretful. “There’s always risk with an experimental venture. It was damn bad luck that the sub got stuck in that crevice. I’ve had a lot of deep-sea training and I’ve done a lot of exercises that make me able to survive on much less oxygen than normal. It’s the same kind of technique that a magician relies on when he’s locked in a box underwater. The rest of the crew didn’t have that training.”

Apparently Carlson still wasn’t convinced. “So you say. But if you’re not guilty of anything, why did you give each of the widows a million bucks? That’s three million dollars you gave away.”

Olivia goggled. Three million dollars?

Noah spread his raised hands. “I didn’t have to give them the money. But I felt a moral obligation because I funded the expedition and I felt responsible for the safety of the men who went down in the sub with me. Now you have your own moral obligation—to Eddie’s children. Their father was taken from them in a tragic accident. You have to be the father he would have been. You have to do that, because he can’t. And if you end up in jail for murder, what will happen to them?”

Long, tense seconds passed, then Carlson’s expression changed, softened. Moments ago, the guy had been roaring mad, ready to avenge his brother’s death. Now, apparently something Noah had said got to him.

When he lowered the gun, Olivia let out the breath she’d been holding.

“Thank you,” Noah said.

Carlson answered with a tight nod.

Lowering his hands, Noah said, “Give me the gun.”

Carlson hesitated, then handed over the weapon.

Noah took it and shoved it into his pocket. “I know you’re grieving, and a grieving man sometimes does things he might regret later.”

Carlson nodded again.

“I’m truly sorry. When I was asked to finance the expedition, I thought it was a good idea. I guess I should have planned better.”

Carlson looked down at his hands. “I feel like a jerk coming after you. It won’t bring Eddie back.”

“I understand. You’re hurting and you wanted to lash out at me because I’m still alive. I’m curious, how did you find me?” Noah asked.

The man sighed. “The Light Street Detective Agency. They’re in Baltimore, my hometown. I couldn’t find where you lived, but they saw that you’d registered at this hotel.” Carlson swallowed hard. “Eddie always was reckless. Did he do something…that got you in trouble down there?”

Noah answered quickly. “No.”

From the way he voiced the word, Olivia thought he was probably lying.

Carlson stepped back. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“Go back home to Baltimore and stay out of trouble.”

“I will. Thanks for keeping me from doing something really stupid.” Carlson turned and hurried off, leaving Olivia trembling.

“What just happened?” she asked.

“A man was upset, and I made him realize that if he hurt me, he’d be going against his fundamental values.” Noah put a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry you had to get involved in that. Are you okay?”

“I…” She couldn’t hold her voice steady.

“Come here.” When he pulled her against his body and wrapped his arms around her, she leaned into him as he stroked his hands up and down her bare arms, feeling the goose bumps that had sprung up on her skin. “You’re shaking.”

“I’ll be okay.” She was thinking that she’d just witnessed something extraordinary—with an extraordinary man, she silently added, as she closed her eyes and nestled against him.

Twenty minutes ago she’d barely known Noah Fielding, but they’d just been through the fire together and that was a shortcut to intimacy.

She was still trying to work her way through the terrifying experience. “He was mad as hell, but you talked him down. You’ve got a knack for reading people.”

“Like I said, he was grieving. He just needed someone to point out that he has responsibilities back home.”

“But you didn’t say that the accident in the sub was his brother’s fault.”

Noah stiffened. “What makes you think it was?”

“I saw the way you reacted. You were itching to tell him what really happened, but you didn’t.”

He sighed. “What Eddie Carlson did isn’t important now. The fundamental point is that I provided the money that got three guys killed.”

“You were taking your chances underwater with them.”

His hand on her arm tightened. “I really did have an advantage over them.”

“So it was true—about that special training.”

“Why do you think it wasn’t?”

“Something…”

He looked around, as though he’d just realized they were standing in a public space, embracing and discussing a very private incident from his life.

After a few seconds’ hesitation, he said, “Here’s an interesting choice. Do you want to come to my room—or get as far away from me as you can get?”

“Why would I do that?”

“This is the second time somebody’s attacked me in the past few days.”

She caught her breath. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish I were.”

“Do you attract trouble?”

He answered with a harsh laugh. “Not usually with such alarming regularity. I hope the planets aren’t in some horrible alignment.”

“You believe in astrology?”

“I’ve studied it. It’s interesting. A way for men—” He stopped and shook his head. “A way for people to make some sense of their lives before modern science offered better explanations.”

“A lot of times, modern science wars with superstition. I still cringe when I break a mirror.”

He laughed. “You and most other people. Because we’re still tied to our roots—to the prehistoric cave dwellers huddled around their fires, warding off the monsters in the darkness.”

“Are you an anthropologist?”

“No, it’s just another one of my hobbies.”

She nodded, fascinated with him and at the same time thinking that walking away from him would be the smart thing to do. But she knew she wasn’t going to be smart. Not tonight.

Instead, she walked with him to his room.

It was actually a luxury suite with a plush living room, a well-stocked bar and a bedroom beyond.

When he closed the door, she saw him let out a deep sigh, and she was pretty sure he was more shaken by his encounter with Mr. Carlson than he’d let on. As she looked at him, she wanted to make the hurt go away.

Reaching around him, she snapped the security lock and set down her purse on the long table beside the door. The purse contained a cell phone she was supposed to use to call Pearson just by pressing a button. However, if she didn’t use it, he wouldn’t even know where she was.

Yet her nerves were still jumping.

Noah Fielding had held her just a few minutes earlier, but that had been outside after the attack. This was in his private suite, where everything was different. Intimate.

Or had the feeling of intimacy come from the shared danger?

He must have understood that she needed a little time to sort out her emotions because he walked to the entertainment unit at the side of the room, put the gun in a drawer and turned on an audio channel of soft, slow music.

The sophisticated arrangement appealed to her. So did the man. When he turned, she gave him a small smile, then walked back into his arms.

They were almost the same height, which made him the perfect dance partner for her.

For just a moment, that made her sad. She would never dance again professionally because her leg no longer had the stamina. But she could dance for fun and she would get through her trouble and make her life over again.

He didn’t pull her tightly against his body as he led her around the room in time to the music. His rhythm was flawless. He must be a natural dancer, she thought.

They didn’t speak. She just let herself enjoy being with him. Enjoy his subtle scent. His firm touch. His masculinity.

And enjoy the dancing. She hadn’t done it in a long time and she knew she’d have trouble with a complicated routine—even in ballroom dancing. But this was relaxed.

By degrees, both of them moved closer together until finally he held her tightly against his body, pressing her breasts against his chest.

Until then she’d felt a slow buildup of sensations. Now they gathered into a jolt of arousal.

She hadn’t expected it. No, that was a lie. Noah Fielding was a very sexy man. She would have been surprised if she hadn’t reacted so strongly.

With one of his large hands, he pushed back her hair and stroked his lips against her cheek, waiting for her to make the next move. All she had to do was turn her head and her lips would meet his.

It was her choice.

If she kissed him, nothing in her life would ever be the same. But how could that be? She didn’t even know if she would see him again after tonight.

Still, something real had flared between them. Something more than sexual.

She sensed that he held his breath, silently waiting for her to make a decision about the two of them. She stayed where she was, her lips slightly parted.

Finally, because it was what she wanted, she turned her face, cupped the back of his head and brought his lips to hers.

The first mouth-to-mouth contact was undemanding, yet it was electric and rich with promise.

She heard herself make a small needy sound. Accepting her invitation, he increased the pressure of his lips on hers, then tipped his head first one way and then the other, changing the angle, changing the pressure and charging the moment with his powerful sexuality.

As the heat of the kiss flared hotter, he slid one hand down her body, pulling her hips against his erection.

The potency she sensed made her moan. When she found it impossible to hold still, she moved against him.

It had been a long time since she’d been with a man this way. A man who turned on every one of her senses. Long before her accident, actually. When she’d first come to Vegas, she’d enjoyed the attention men gave a woman they’d seen up on stage. Then she’d realized it was nothing personal. They wanted to seduce one of the glittering women who were hired for their looks and talent.

The woman would stay in Vegas, and they’d come home feeling like a conquering hero.

This was different. This man didn’t see her as a trophy. His focus on her was very personal. She knew it from the delicate way his hands stroked her hips and from the way his mouth moved over hers.

As her insides turned liquid, she pictured the two of them naked on the bed in the next room. Him on top of her, their bodies intimately joined in the age-old dance of love.

The explicit image shocked her. She had met this man less than an hour earlier, yet she was ready to make love with him.

Breaking the kiss, she looked at him, seeing the dazed look in his eyes, and knowing he was affected as deeply as she was herself.

The knowledge should have been reassuring. Instead, to her utter horror, she burst into tears.

Olivia felt Noah stiffen. Leaning back, he stared down at her.

“Sorry. I’m so sorry,” she managed to get out between sobs.

She wasn’t any kind of delicate little doll a man could easily pick up, but he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the sofa, where he sat down, still cradling her against him.

“I thought…”

“My fault,” she said between sobs.

Cradling her tenderly in his arms, he let her cry.

JARRED Bainbridge had learned to trust his hunches. Still, the first report on Noah Fielding startled him.

As far as he could tell, the man didn’t exist.

Well, he’d been on that experimental sub. A whole bunch of people had seen him, interacted with him. He’d financed the expedition, and he’d been staying at a bed-and-breakfast in George Town.

But within hours of being pulled from the sub, he’d left the island on a small, private jet. The plane had refueled in Chicago, then gone on to L.A. And that was the last anyone knew of Noah Fielding.

He’d vanished into thin air.

Had he gotten off in Chicago? Or had he gone on to the West Coast? Nobody knew.

Which meant the man had gone to considerable trouble to hide his whereabouts in a day and age when most people’s movements were a matter of record.

If Fielding had his methods, so did Jarred Bainbridge. He picked up the phone and made a call to the security service he used. “I want to know where to find Noah Fielding. And I want to know it now.”

NOAH cradled Olivia in his arms, rocking her gently. He’d been right; she was in some kind of trouble. He could tell she’d been holding herself together by strength of will. But she’d been through too much tonight to maintain her composure. That encounter with Carlson had scared her spitless. And her roiling emotions had sent her crashing into Noah’s arms.

Well, maybe that wasn’t fair. He had felt the powerful attraction between them right from the first, and he’d worried that he was taking advantage of her after the attack. Then he’d let his pleasure of holding her and kissing her take over.

The taste of her had been sweet and heady. So had her response to him. That was the most powerful aphrodisiac of all. He’d thought they were headed for a very stimulating session in the bedroom, until her emotions had taken another wild swing.

He bent to stroke his lips against her beautiful golden hair. He’d been intimate with thousands of women, yet this one stirred him as few of them had.

Once again he thought of how much she reminded him of Ramona, although the two of them looked nothing alike. But there was some innate facet of her personality that was the perfect foil for his own dark view of life. She might be in trouble now, but she would always try to find the good in every situation and every person.

He and Olivia Stapler could mean something important to each other—if he dared to let it happen. And if they did, he would lose her and it would take him years to recover from the loss. That was the risk he faced at this moment.

’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Alfred Lord Tennyson had said that in 1850, in a poem called “In Memoriam.” Noah wasn’t sure it was true. Tennyson had lived a normal life span. How many times had the poet known the pain of lost love?

OLIVIA struggled to conquer the flood of emotions that had swooped down on her without warning. Finally she was able to stifle the tears.

Noah shifted her weight so that he could reach into his pocket and bring out a handkerchief, which he handed to her.

She stared at the folded square of white linen. “What kind of man carries a handkerchief?”

He laughed softly. “It’s an old habit.”

She blew her nose. “I guess chivalry isn’t dead.”

He shook his head. “One man can’t keep it alive.”

“But you try.”

“It’s too much of a responsibility.” The way he said it made her wonder if he wasn’t half serious. Before she could work her way through that, he asked, “Better?”

“Yes. Thanks.”

She tipped her head to the side, studying him. “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“You know it’s good.”

He shrugged. “Few people have the insight to see the impact they make on others.”

She laughed. “I did. When I was working as a dancer. I was talented, but it was pretty obvious men saw me as a sex object.”

“They didn’t look very far. There’s a hell of a lot more to you than a pretty face and a great body.”

“Thanks. But how do you know?”

“I’m a good judge of people. Where did you dance?”

“At one of the big hotels on the Strip.”

“Why did you stop dancing? Did you get caught in the economic downturn?”

“No. I was on the fast track for a big featured role. Then a drunk driver in the parking lot ended my career.”

“Ouch.”

“In more ways than one.”

“Did they catch him?”

She shook her head.

Noah gave her a considering look. “How do you know he was drunk?”

The question took her by surprise. “I just assumed…you know.”

“I’ve learned not to make assumptions,” he said, the words hard-edged.

The way he said it sent a little chill skittering over her skin. Could somebody have hit her on purpose?

But who? And why?

Who would gain from that?

Her brother’s smirking face leaped into her mind. But she simply couldn’t deal with thoughts of him deliberately setting her up. She shook them away and focused on Noah. “I’m finally back on my feet, but I won’t be dancing professionally again. It’s just too much strain for someone who injured a leg.”

“You got workers’ compensation?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Yes. But it’s run out.”

He kept his gaze on her. “Before we were so rudely interrupted in the garden, you were going to tell me what’s bothering you. I guess it was losing your job?”

She heard the question in his voice. And wondered how she was going to answer.

Chapter Four