Kidnapped!

Camille banged on the door with her fists, yelling Rogan’s name.

A key scraped in the door. When Rogan’s solid figure appeared in the doorway, instinct took over. She launched herself at him. Her fists thudded into his chest, and he staggered. Then he had both her wrists, holding her away with infuriating ease.

“Settle down!” he said sharply.

“The hell I will!”

She wrenched her gaze up to his face, to the accusing eyes and jutting jaw. His mouth was uncompromising. She could scarcely believe that it had wooed hers last night with tenderness and passion. His chest was bare, and she had to block out the memory of what it had felt like under her hands, against her breasts.

“What the hell,” she demanded, “do you think you’re doing?”

“Saving you.”

Dear Reader,

The year may be coming to a close, but the excitement never flags here at Silhouette Intimate Moments. We’ve got four—yes, four—fabulous miniseries for you this month, starting with Carla Cassidy’s CHEROKEE CORNERS and Trace Evidence, featuring a hero who’s a crime scene investigator and now has to investigate the secrets of his own heart. Kathleen Creighton continues STARRS OF THE WEST with The Top Gun’s Return. Tristan Bauer had been declared dead, but now he was back—and very much alive, as he walked back into true love Jessie Bauer’s life. Maggie Price begins LINE OF DUTY with Sure Bet and a sham marriage between two undercover officers that suddenly starts feeling extremely real. And don’t miss Nowhere To Hide, the first in RaeAnne Thayne’s trilogy THE SEARCHERS. An on-the-run single mom finds love with the FBI agent next door, but there are still secrets to uncover at book’s end.

We’ve also got two terrific stand-alone titles, starting with Laurey Bright’s Dangerous Waters. Treasure hunting and a shared legacy provide the catalyst for the attraction of two opposites in an irresistible South Pacific setting. Finally, Jill Limber reveals Secrets of an Old Flame in a sexy, suspenseful reunion romance.

Enjoy—and look for more excitement next year, right here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

Yours.

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Editor

Dangerous Waters
Laurey Bright

MILLS & BOON

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LAUREY BRIGHT

has held a number of different jobs, but has never wanted to be anything but a writer. She lives in New Zealand, where she creates the stories of contemporary people in love that have won her a following all over the world. Visit her at her Web site, http://www.laureybright.com.

Contents

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

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 1

The woman knew he was watching her—Rogan Broderick was sure of it.

Rogan, perched on a stool with his forearm resting along the beer-stained counter, a whiskey glass in his hand, had seen her the moment she entered.

Dark-lashed ocean-green eyes clashed briefly with his as she looked about with the air of a cat entering a strange place and inspecting it for possibly hostile elements. Two plain gold clasps secured a sleek fall of shining brown hair, revealing a classically feminine face. An intriguing hint of strength about the jawline belied the tender, kissable curves of a luscious mouth.

Her shoulders were bare but for the narrow straps of a light, simple-seeming dress the same deep, mysterious green as her eyes. The thin fabric hung in symmetrically draped folds over nicely rounded breasts, skimmed her waist and hips, and moved tantalizingly about her thighs. A perfect beauty—and a city girl, he’d guess. She didn’t seem to belong in the public bar of an old hotel on New Zealand’s Northland coast.

A fish out of water. Or a mermaid.

No, not a mermaid. She had legs—the kind of legs other women would have killed for. Long, creamy and smooth, their fabulous shape emphasized by high-heeled sandals almost the exact color of the dress.

Giving her a friendly grin, he saw a slight widening of her eyes before the aloof green gaze roamed past him. She tucked her hand into her escort’s arm as if for protection as they made for a corner table being abandoned by another couple.

He could hardly blame her, Rogan conceded, rubbing a knuckle over the three-day growth on his cheeks. Other men might look interesting and even glamorous unshaven, but he just looked unkempt and probably sinister. His thick, near-black hair was rust-colored on the haphazardly curling ends, overlong after weeks without seeing a barber, and the sea and sun of the Arabian Gulf had made it harsh and difficult to comb into submission.

He raised his glass to gulp a good shot of whiskey, not taking his eyes off the woman as her companion negotiated a passage through knots of tough, tanned fishermen, sunburned visiting yachties, and weathered locals in checked shirts and creased boots.

Sometimes holiday-makers from luxury yachts liked to hobnob with the regulars and soak up local color rather than patronize the classier lounge bar in the newer part of the building. These two didn’t look like hobnobbers.

The man was slim, probably ten years older than Rogan’s thirty-one, with neatly combed midbrown hair and smooth untanned cheeks. He wore precision-pressed sand-colored slacks, and a black blazer over a toothpaste-white, roll-collared shirt.

Rogan’s T-shirt, long since faded from red to an uneven pink, was rumpled, and his jeans, softened with wear and washing, conformed comfortably to his body. When he’d heard about the old man he had packed his kit in a hurry and barely made the first available flight. Clothes had been the last thing on his mind.

After collecting a room key he’d deferred the long hot shower he planned, in favor of a bracing drink. One whiskey, he’d promised himself, then he’d go upstairs and make himself respectable. Or at least as respectable as he was ever likely to look.

Instead he found himself ordering another drink to give him an excuse to ogle a woman, his blood stirring when she leaned forward to speak over the noise of the bar to the man opposite her, revealing the upper slopes of her breasts, the velvet shadow between them. When a waiter approached the table she looked up and smiled. Rogan shifted on his bar stool. That smile would have brought a stone statue to life.

He made the second drink last until after she and her companion had been served with white wine. Her right hand closed around the stem of the glass while her left one rested on the table. Both were bare of rings.

Didn’t mean a thing—she could be in a relationship. Rogan turned his attention to the man, who did sport a gleam of gold on the middle finger of a hand that obviously had scant acquaintance with manual labour. He looked like an accountant or a lawyer. Reminded of his brother and why he was here, Rogan tossed off the remains of his drink, not wanting to think about the reason he’d flown home. Easier to occupy his mind fantasizing about a pretty woman.

He placed the glass on the counter and the barman inquired, “Same again?”

“No. Thanks.” His gaze returning to the woman, Rogan got off the stool and hoisted the bulging pack at his feet up to his shoulder.

The movement must have caught her eye. She looked up and a faint rose color entered her cheeks. She blinked the deep-sea eyes and turned away to stare into her wine, a curve of burnished hair falling across her cheek. Her escort looked up too, his glance taking in Rogan’s disreputable appearance before returning to his companion. He said something and the woman shook her head, then lifted the glass to her lips.

The man looked at Rogan again, warning him off with an ice-blue stare. Rogan slanted him a resigned grin and raised a hand in a half salute as he ambled to the door.

Granger was on time as always. Rogan, showered and shaved and in fresh jeans and a gray T-shirt, found him in the lobby, beside a large Christmas tree decorated with tinsel, colored gewgaws and, in defiance of the New Zealand summer, cotton-wool snowflakes.

The two men gripped hands and Rogan reached out to slap his brother’s shoulder, noting signs of strain about eyes the same vivid aquamarine as his own. “You’re looking pretty flash,” he said, nodding at the suit and discreet silk tie.

Granger allowed himself a tight smile, his eyes glinting. “I don’t suppose you even own a suit. I brought along a spare you can borrow. You’ll be a pall-bearer, won’t you?”

“Uh-huh.” It was the least he could for the old man. “You haven’t put him in a suit, have you?” At a guess, their father had never worn one in his life.

Granger shook his head. “He’d have died all over again.”

Rogan’s laughter cracked in the middle. He clamped his teeth shut and there was a small, awkward silence. Then he said, “Let’s eat.”

Camille Hartley saw two tall, dark-haired men, strikingly good-looking and bearing an unmistakable family resemblance, enter the dining room. It was a moment before she recognized the casually dressed one as the man who had stared at her earlier in the bar.

The piratical beard shadow was gone, revealing clear-cut bone structure and a stubborn jaw, and he’d ruthlessly combed back the unruly mane of his hair, its obstinate waves dampened and glossy under the artificial lights. She had a momentary picture of him standing in the shower, water sleeking his hair and cascading over his sun-browned body. A very good body—his clothes did little to hide the broad shoulders and chest, narrow hips, powerful legs. He looked superbly fit and strong—a man who did something physical for a living.

As if he’d felt her stare, his head turned. She saw an oddly bleak look in the blinding green-blue eyes, and then it vanished, replaced by a gleam of interest, a hint of bold inquiry.

She wrenched her gaze away, directing her attention to what James Drummond was saying. James, from their first meeting yesterday, had shown a rare respect for her mind, and a real though circumspect desire to get to know her more than superficially. Already they had established a tentative rapport. Yet still she was disconcertingly conscious of the other man, needing to breathe carefully, her heart beating faster and sending the blood to warm her cheeks.

Irritated, she inwardly shook herself. She wasn’t in the habit of mentally undressing strange men, and had outgrown blushing years ago.

He was hardly the first male to stare at her, although few were so frank about it. Aware that the gods had been generous to her, she had learned to be chary of men who were less interested in her personality than in flaunting her as some sort of trophy. She’d guess that the unsettling stranger, with his unabashed gaze and knowing grin, was the love-’em-and-leave-’em type, a genus she kept well clear of.

“Try concentrating,” his brother advised as Rogan’s eyes strayed again from the menu in his hands to the woman whose luminous gaze was now fixed on the man opposite her.

Granger half turned to see who he was looking at. “Not that I blame you,” he admitted, “but I’m hungry and we’ve got things to talk about. I’m having the pepper steak.” He closed his own menu.

“Wild pork,” Rogan decided. “And a beer.”

Granger ordered a bottle of red wine, and Rogan sipped his beer while they waited. “Thanks for booking me a room,” he said. “I could have slept on board the Sea-Rogue.”

“I thought you’d appreciate a real bed. Besides, I wasn’t sure the boat would be available. I only collected the key from the police station just before I came here. Have you been down to the wharf?”

“I arrived less than half an hour ago,” Rogan told him with a shake of his head. “Did you get all your business done?” Granger had said he had things to do but would be at the hotel in time for dinner.

“That’s one of the things we should talk about,” Granger said. “I checked out Dad’s will.”

Trust Granger to think of the legalities. Well, someone had to. “He made a will?” That didn’t sound like Barney.

“Years ago. I persuaded him to get it fixed up with one of my colleagues. The police needed to sight it before they would hand over the boat.” Granger paused. “You and I own half of the Sea-Rogue and everything in it.”

“Half each?”

“Half for us two together. He left the rest to Taff.”

“That’s fair enough,” Rogan conceded. Taff “Taffrail” McIndoe had been Barney’s first mate and sailing partner for more than twenty years.

“But if Taff predeceased him,” Granger continued, “his share was to go to his legitimate descendants.”

“Taff isn’t married, and anyway he hasn’t predeceased—”

“He died two months ago. I only found out after the police called about Dad.”

Rogan’s beer glass hit the table with a thud. “Taff died?” It was almost as big a shock as his father’s sudden demise. “How?”

“Liver disease. They were somewhere way out in the Pacific, and by the time Dad finally got him to a hospital at Rarotonga it was too late to do anything.”

While Rogan digested that, Granger added, “You know how he used to put the booze away. It’s a wonder either of them survived as long as they did.”

“Dad never drank at sea.”

“He made up for it on land. According to the pathologist there was enough alcohol in his body to sink a ship.”

“They cut him up?” Rogan’s voice went hoarse.

Granger eyed him levelly. “They have to do an autopsy in a case of sudden death. Besides, he’d been in a fight.”

“You didn’t tell me that!”

“You’d only have stewed about it all the way home. There could be manslaughter charges at least.”

Rogan’s hand closed tightly about his beer. “Against who?”

“Whom.” Granger shrugged. “The police are investigating but they don’t have any witnesses. He was found in an alleyway near here and he’d probably died in the early hours of Sunday. But the cause of death was a heart attack, not the beating he’d taken.”

He’d taken a beating? “There must have been more than one of them.” Barney Broderick had been a big man, toughened by a life at sea.

“Dad wasn’t getting any younger,” Granger reminded him, “and he’d have been reeling drunk.”

“He never said anything about having a dicky heart…did he?”

“You know he wouldn’t admit to being less than a hundred percent healthy.” Barney had indiscriminately labeled all doctors quacks and used their services only in the direst need. “He might not even have known.”

Rogan hoped that was so. And that Barney hadn’t known he was dying when some thug—or thugs—left him alone and injured in a dark alley. His hand clenched harder on the beer glass. He’d like to beat the hell out of them in retaliation.

“It was probably pretty quick,” Granger assured him. “The way he’d have liked to go. Without any fuss.”

“Yeah.” Rogan tossed off the remains of his drink, trying to drown an illogical remorse. It wasn’t his fault, or Granger’s, that the old man had lived and died far from his family. They didn’t really owe him much at all, except the genes he’d bequeathed to them both, probably more or less by accident—of which Rogan seemed to have inherited the lion’s share.

He signaled the waiter for another beer. “Does Taff have any descendants?” he asked.

“Possibly dozens—” Granger gave him a rare grin “—scattered all around the Pacific, and none of them legitimate.”

The waiter brought the beer and a fresh glass. Pouring the frothing stuff, Rogan looked up quizzically. “You don’t think the old man fathered a few more children too?”

“I hope not. There’s no mention in the will of any secret siblings.”

Their food arrived and Rogan picked up his knife and fork. Real New Zealand wild pork and gravy with roasted vegetables. His mouth watered. He’d let his brother deal with the legal issues. Granger, after years specializing in corporate law with an international legal firm, had just launched his own practice in Auckland.

The thought of spending his days in an office, no matter how plush, made Rogan’s blood run cold, but apparently Granger enjoyed it.

While Granger refilled his own glass Rogan stole another look at the woman he’d mentally nicknamed Ocean-eyes, and watched as she raised her fork to her mouth and opened perfect lips to slip the morsel in. The faintest ripple disturbed the smooth line of her throat, making him wonder how it would feel if he had his hand there, against the fine skin. Maybe with his thumb in the little groove at the base…

She reached for her wine and drank some, leaving a delicate sheen on her upper lip when she put down the glass and smiled at her companion.

Rogan had a dire urge to kiss the wine from her lips and taste it on the soft, warm mouth. A hot bolt of desire invaded his body, accompanied by a sharp envy of the man on the receiving end of that smile.

Too long without the company of women, he told himself, turning his attention to the pork and sawing at it with unwarranted vigor. The meat was tender and succulent, and he was determined to enjoy it to the exclusion of that other, inconvenient and less easily satisfied appetite.

He knew when Ocean-eyes left the dining room, but didn’t look up. By that time Granger was talking about the funeral arrangements, and out of respect Rogan tried to blot everything else from his mind.

“He wanted his ashes scattered at sea,” Granger said, “from the Sea-Rogue.”

Rogan would have wondered at anything else. “What time is the service?”

“Eleven. Some of his old drinking mates have volunteered to help carry the coffin.”

Rogan grinned. “Do you think they can stay sober until the wake? We are having a wake, aren’t we?”

“It seems to be expected. The proprietor here’s offered me a special rate for the private bar.”

He probably wanted to shield his more refined clientele from a gathering of Barney Broderick’s mates. Most of Barney’s life had been spent on the ocean, but Mokohina was nominally his home port. From a sheltered deep-water cove and small shingly beach the old town straggled up the hills behind the bay. Formerly a mixture of settler cottages and modest villas, solid homes built by retired farmers, and a scattering of classic holiday “baches”—knocked-up boxes with few pretensions to architectural style—the port had been discovered in the last ten years by the owners of expensive oceangoing yachts, and land-based refugees from city life.

Semi-mansions had appeared on the higher slopes. New shops and food outlets aimed at the burgeoning tourist trade joined the modest stores that had served the district for decades. Two motels and a few bed-and-breakfasts catered to the summer influx, and trendy café bars had opened along the waterfront. But the permanent residents and regulars like Barney Broderick remained loyal to the old Imperial, a two-story colonial relic, recently enlarged and refurbished, boasting a creaking veranda on the top floor and kauri wood paneling in the interior.

The new owners had wisely left virtually untouched the well-used public bar. Its scarred, varnished timbers reeking of generations of hard-drinking sailors and fishermen, it was within staggering distance of the old wharves and the Sea-Rogue’s preferred berth when she was in port.

Granger picked up the wine bottle and offered it. Rogan shook his head. After whiskey and beer he didn’t fancy adding wine to the mix. He watched his brother empty the bottle into his glass, then quaff the lot. Granger seldom, if ever, drank to excess, and the wine didn’t seem to have much effect, even when they left the restaurant.

In the lobby they paused by the elaborately carved, polished newel at the foot of the broad stairs. It was too early to go to bed, and the air seemed thick and over-warm.

“Think I’ll go for a walk,” Rogan said.

“Good idea.”

Outside, without discussion they strolled across the road and turned along the curve of the waterfront. Rogan ducked his head under a wide-spreading pohutukawa and skirted a dinghy leaning bow-up against the tree.

The strip of sand gave way to a retaining wall where the water slapped rhythmically at hard gray stones. Several dozen boats lifted and dipped on the restless waves in the bay. A high moon picked out the glimmer of metal here and there, and cast white hulls and masts into relief, while dark ones disappeared in the blackness.

Both men knew where they were headed.

The cheap cafés and fast-food bars, the shops selling local handcrafts, gaudy sarongs and souvenir T-shirts, were replaced by boating and fishing suppliers.

Rounding a curve, they reached a part of the shoreline where the streetlamps were fewer and the vessels tied at the weathered wharves were sturdy, battered working boats instead of glossy, greyhound pleasure craft. Past a warehouse, a marine engine repair shop and a malodorous fish-processing plant, they reached the mooring where the naked masts of the Sea-Rogue loomed against the stars.

Rogan scarcely hesitated before leaping lightly onto the deck below, followed by Granger. The ketch shifted against the wharf, the worn tires hanging from the boat’s side to buffer the hull making soft bumping noises. Rogan went to the stern and ran his fingers along the old-style teak taffrail, paused as he found what he’d been searching for, and traced over the letters carved into the timber.

“Still there?” Granger came to stand beside him.

“Yep.” Rogan had been eleven, Granger twelve, when they’d marked their initials with a pocketknife. They’d expected a blast from their father as soon as he discovered the defacement, but he’d just laughed and clapped them on the back with his big, rough hands.

A loose halyard flapped against the metal mizzen, and Rogan looked up, glancing at the furled sails. He remembered the thrill of the first time he’d been allowed to help hoist them, the wind cracking them free and blowing cool and strong on his face, while the ketch’s bow forged blue-green water into a foamy V, throwing up a fine white spray that showered him with its salty blessing.

He’d fallen in love with the sea there and then. A love that had never left him. The only thing better than sailing was being underwater—a living, breathing part of the ocean itself. Between diving contracts he sometimes chartered a yacht with a buddy, exploring recreational dive sites. Or spent time on a tiny Pacific island where he and other professional divers supported a local dive school, giving financial and practical help.

“Want to go below?” Granger asked.

“Sure.” Tomorrow they’d see their father’s body in the funeral parlor before they carried his coffin to the seamen’s chapel whose doors Barney Broderick had seldom darkened in life. But his beloved Sea-Rogue was where Barney’s spirit lived. This was their real goodbye.

Granger dropped into the cockpit where the mizzen was stepped, a few feet forward of the wheel. He took a key ring from his pocket and opened up the deckhouse to descend the short, steep companionway to the dark interior.

Rogan followed him down. “Have you been aboard since the old man…?”

“No.” Granger flicked a switch but nothing happened. Evidently Barney hadn’t hooked the boat up to shore power. “Hang on a minute.” He fumbled about the galley area behind the companionway.

A small flame flared, and within seconds he’d lit a kerosene lamp hanging from a gimbal. The light flickered, brightened, and steadied. Varnish gleamed on the mahogany interior; a slit-eyed mask from the Philippines leered from one of the few spaces on the bulkheads.

“Guess it hasn’t changed much,” Granger said.

The palm-leaf matting on the floor looked new, but otherwise was identical to what Rogan remembered from years back. So was everything else.

Seats that could serve as narrow berths formed an L at the table, their once-floral coverings faded and thin. A bank of instruments occupied the navigation desk near the companionway. Recessed shelves fitted with fiddle rails to safeguard the contents in rough weather held old volumes that Barney had treasured, along with some paperbacks, nautical knickknacks, and shells and carvings from islands around the Pacific.

In the galley a cutlery drawer sat half open, and a cupboard door hung ajar. Granger said, “The police searched the boat for ID and a contact address.”

He unhooked the lamp and headed toward the stern, pausing at an open door to one side of the short passageway. Taff’s cabin, with colorful pictures torn from National Geographic magazines pinned over the bunk, a battered peaked cap hanging on a hook, a rolled sleeping bag at the end of the mattress, looked as though he’d just stepped out on deck.

Granger moved on to what Barney had liked to call the master’s stateroom in the stern, crammed with more books and a built-in desk. The attached wooden chair had a curved back, the varnish worn pale in the middle, its seat softened by a thin, indented cushion. Rogan had the absurd idea that if he put a hand on it he’d find it still warm.

A marine chart of the Pacific lay open on the desk, with a small pile of tide tables and almanacs. Items of clean clothing were heaped on the relatively roomy berth fitted at the stern, and books occupied the shelves above.

As Rogan followed him inside, Granger turned, lifting the lamp high. The framed picture of their mother still hung over the doorway, where Barney could see it every night before going to sleep.

Rogan swallowed, then blundered back to the saloon.

Granger said evenly, “I guess that’s it.” He rehung the lamp, and turned the flame down until it disappeared.

In the blackness Rogan groped for the companionway. Back on deck he breathed in the pungency of salt water and fish, and a whiff of diesel. “He didn’t deserve to die like that,” he said hoarsely. Like some bit of discarded flotsam, callously abandoned to the cold and dark.

“Nobody does,” Granger agreed.

Rogan closed his fists, overwhelmed by a hot-eyed, skull-thumping rage. Whoever was responsible for causing his father’s secretly damaged heart to finally stop beating—when he found them he’d bloody well tear them apart, limb from limb.

Chapter 2

Camille wasn’t sure what to wear to the funeral of a man she’d never known.

The one dress she’d packed—lightweight, creaseless, and simple enough for any time of day—had been fine for dinner with James Drummond. But even with a beige silk cardigan to cover her shoulders it looked a bit frivolous for a somber church service.

Entering the historic seamen’s chapel later, she was glad she’d settled for forest-green jean-style pants with a cream shirt and low-heeled braided-leather shoes.

Two men seated near the coffin wore impeccable dark suits, but other suits in evidence were of the ill-fitting, limp and unfashionable kind resurrected from some forgotten corner of a wardrobe, and the air was pervaded with a faint odor of naphthalene and mildew.

The service was simple and brief. When the minister paused, one of the men in the front pew went to the lectern, and only then Camille recognized her piratical stranger’s dinner companion of the previous evening.

Shocked, she turned her gaze to the second man.

He’d had a haircut, but the broad shoulders straining at the jacket of the suit, and the confident tilt of his head, were already familiar. She half expected him to turn and grin at her with the same bold insouciance he’d shown last night.

But of course he wouldn’t. This, she realized as his brother began to speak, was his father’s funeral.

Camille hardly heard the eulogy, dimly registering words like “adventurous” and “indomitable” and “determined.” She wondered if his sons had really known Barney Broderick. If they too had longed for a father who went to the office every day and came home for dinner every night and read the newspaper and watched TV before going off to bed. She swallowed, assailed by a familiar sensation—half sadness, half anger.

The man in the front pew dipped his head, momentarily out of her sight, but when he raised it again his big square shoulders were straighter than ever.

He didn’t take up the minister’s invitation for anyone to share their memories of the deceased, but a few gristly, weather-creased men spoke of a staunch friend, a fine sailor, a great bloke, and “one of nature’s gentlemen.” The last elderly raconteur told a couple of down-to-earth anecdotes about “old Barney” that had his cronies rocking with laughter and then wiping away tears.

His two sons as they helped lift and carry the coffin were tearless, seemingly emotionless. Outside, the coffin was slid into a hearse and the brothers stood shoulder to shoulder, fielding handshakes and condolences.

Camille waited for a gap and had almost decided to give up and return to the hotel when the pirate brother looked over the shoulder of a man who was shaking his hand, and she saw the quick flare of recognition in his eyes as they met hers.

He said something to the man and then he was pushing through the crowd, throwing a word here and there, moving inexorably toward Camille until he fetched up directly in front of her, so close she took a startled step backward.

Scowling down at her, he said, “Who are you?”

“Camille Hartley,” she told him. “I’m sorry about your father, Mr. Broderick.”

“Rogan,” he said. “Or Rogue, if you like. Did you know him?”

“Not really. I was supposed to meet him here yesterday, but when I arrived I was told he’d…died. I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“Why were you meeting him?”

“He asked me to. It concerned…my father.”

“Your father?”

“Thomas McIndoe.”

For a second he looked confused. Then he said, “Taff? Taff was your father?”

“Yes,” she admitted stiffly.

“So old Taff does have descendants.”

“One,” she confirmed reluctantly.

There was a stir in the crowd behind him, and his brother came to his side. “Ready to go to the crematorium?” he quietly asked Rogan. The notice in the newspaper had said the cremation would be private. “I told everyone we’ll see them later at the Imperial.”

He nodded curtly to Camille and made to turn away and take his brother with him.

But Rogan stood his ground. “Granger,” he said, “this is Taff’s daughter.”

Granger stared at his brother, then at Camille. He looked back at Rogan. “You’re kidding.”

“She’s his daughter. So she says.”

Slightly miffed at the addendum, Camille held out her hand to Granger. “Camille Hartley,” she said. “I’m sorry about your father.”

Granger took her hand and briefly clasped it in a firm, cool grip. “Hartley?” he queried. “You’re married?”

Camille shook her head. “It’s my mother’s name.”

The two brothers exchanged a fleeting glance that obscurely annoyed her with its hint of some secret joke.

Then Granger cast her a keen look. “You do know about Taff? I mean—”

“That he died, yes.”

“Then may we return your condolences?”

“Thank you, but I scarcely remember him.”

A woman touched Granger’s arm. Middle-aged, with brass-colored curls and red-rimmed eyes. “Sorry to interrupt, love. I just want to say, your dad might have been a bit of a rough diamond, but he had a good heart. I won’t go along to the pub, only I’d like to talk to you two boys sometime. You’ll be in town for a while?”

Rogan said, “A couple more days anyway.”

She moved off and Granger turned back to Camille. “Will we see you at the wake?”

“I wasn’t intending to be there.”

Rogan asked, “Are you staying at the Imperial?”

“Yes. But—”

“We have to talk to you,” he said, “don’t we, Granger?”

Granger said slowly, “I guess we do.” He glanced back at the hearse, where the driver was showing signs of impatience.

“You’re not leaving Mokohina yet, are you?” Rogan pressed her.

After a small hesitation she conceded, “Not yet.”

“Then we’ll see you later.”

Camille didn’t answer, and as he moved away with his brother he shot a glance over his shoulder as if willing her to stay.

The wake was just the sort of send-off Barney would have enjoyed. Drinks and stories flowed freely, and Rogan lost count of the number of beer-breathing, teary-eyed old salts who clapped him or his brother on the shoulder and urged them to join in yet another toast to their father.

One white-bearded, purple-cheeked character whispered hoarsely, “Did he tell you about his find then, boy?”

“What find?”

Rogan edged backward, but the beard only moved closer, and the man squinted up at him through watery, bloodshot eyes. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?” The old guy was probably talking through the bottom of his beer glass.

The man looked about them covertly and clutched at Rogan’s arm. “We gave Taff a send-off the night your dad got his, y’know. In absentia, so to speak. Poor old Taff.” He shook his head in sorrow. “Barney was saying Taff had missed out on a fortune.”

Barney would say that. He’d always hoped someday to uncover sunken treasure.

The beard leaned closer still. A whiff of tobacco breath mingled with the beer. “I reckon,” the man said portentously, “him and Taff found something.”

Rogan looked about for an escape route. “Then I guess he died happy.”

“And that’s another thing.” A broad, blunt finger poked his chest. “Heart attack, they said, right? But what brought that on, eh? Someone jumped him, didden they? Barney didn’t have an enemy in the world.”

“It wasn’t the first time he’d got in a…fight.” Rogan avoided the words drunken brawl. Apparently Barney was already in line for the sainthood conferred by death, but he’d had minor brushes with the law in several Pacific ports after becoming involved in some pub scrap.

“Not for years,” his friend averred. “He was getting a bit long in the tooth for that sort of caper, you know.”

He was probably right, but Barney had been mourning his sailing companion, a man he’d spent way more time with over the years than he ever had with his wife or his sons. And he’d been drinking heavily. “Maybe he felt like getting in a fight that night.”

The white-bearded chin protruded stubbornly. “Or maybe some bastard robbed him. Y’know, all night he kept feeling his breast pocket as if he had something in there he didn’t want to lose.”

“You think someone from Taff’s wake beat up my father?”

The man looked shocked. Then he scowled. “Well, the pub was full and we were in the public bar. It wasn’t a genteel private do like this.” He looked about at the crowd splashing beer on the tables and the floor as they poured it from brimming jugs and brandished their glasses in raucous toasts. One man snored in a corner while his companions rocked in their chairs with laughter at another who stood on the table, declaiming a long and exceedingly ribald poem. In competition, a group being kept upright only by their affinity for the solid bar counter struggled through an off-key and heavily adapted version of “Shenandoah.”

Rogan manfully kept a straight face. It was becoming obvious why the proprietor, after hosting Taff’s send-off, had preferred to corral this particular group of patrons in a separate bar.

“Webby, you old piker!” Another enthusiastic mourner clapped the bearded man on the back. This one was taller and younger, with gingery whiskers peppering a long, creased face under a thistle-head of reddish hair. “Fill up, then!” He poured a stream of beer into Webby’s glass, then waved the jug invitingly at Rogan. “What about yourself, Rogue?”

Rogan shook his head. Already he was feeling slightly unattached from his surroundings, the beer fumes and smoke and noisy revelry receding in an alcohol-induced haze.

Webby dug the newcomer in the ribs. “Hey, you remember old Barney at Taff’s wake, don’t you, Doll? Don’t you reckon he was all fired up about something?”

Doll? Rogan blinked as the taller man pondered. “He was fired up about a lot of things—doctors, Taff dying on him, the government, customs regulations…”

Webby poked him again. “Wasn’t he talking about getting rich at last?”

“Barney was always talking about getting rich.”

“Yeah, but that night…”

Rogan edged away, leaving the two of them arguing. Granger, a slightly hunted look about him, caught his eye and came over. “Do you think anyone would notice if I left? This lot might keep going all day.”

“And all night,” Rogan speculated. “I’ve had enough, anyway. I don’t suppose they’ll miss us if we slip away.”

Granger’s look held veiled surprise. Then he grinned slightly. “Not much of a female presence here, is there?”

Rogan tried to look offended, suspecting he only looked sheepish. Sure, he liked female company when it was available. Came of being without it for so much of his working life. Even on shore, in some places where he’d worked just looking at a woman could get him thrown into jail or worse. Not to mention the even greater danger to any poor girl who might be tempted to return the compliment.

So in a free country where what a man and a woman did was a matter of mutual consent and no one else’s business, he made the most of the sometimes brief periods he had to enjoy being with them.

He liked women. He liked their bodies, softly rounded or slender and supple, and their silky smooth skin, and their hair—how they kept it shiny and sweet-smelling, sometimes curled and plaited and decorated. He liked the way they moved, the subtle roll and sway of their hips and behinds as they walked. And how if they liked a man back, they touched their hair and tilted their heads and peeked at him with shy, flirty eyes. Or boldly looked at him and smiled, inviting him closer.

He specially liked their laughter, and their voices—light and pretty, or low and sexy. And how they listened, really listened when he talked. He liked the way they cared, about all sorts of things—children, the environment, their girlfriends’ problems.

And he was awed by how capable they were. His mother had needed to be, but other women too seemed to just know things that men blundered through without a clue.

He liked being with them. For a while.

Sometimes a leisurely drink or two with a woman in a warm bar was as pleasurable in its own way as a wild romp in bed. Not that he wasn’t open to offers…

He wondered if Ocean-eyes was around.

Camille, he remembered. Her name was Camille. Nice. Yeah, and it suited her. Although she didn’t look consumptive like The Lady of the Camellias.

It wasn’t easy escaping, and it was another hour before the brothers slipped through a side door and Rogan gulped in a lungful of fresh air.

“Let’s walk,” Granger said.

Putting some distance between them and the revelry inside, they strolled randomly along the nearest street, then uphill, where for a while they silently observed the view, and finally by a roundabout route made their way back into the heart of the town.

Rogan told Granger about his conversation with Webby. “Do you think it’s possible Dad had stumbled on something valuable?”

Granger snorted. “The old man chased after so many wild geese he could have started an egg farm.”

That was certainly true. Except that he’d never actually caught one.

Granger’s step faltered, then picked up, and Rogan said, “What?”

“Nothing.” His brother looked grim. “That’s the street where he…”

Died. Rogan stopped, looking back. The alley would be a shortcut from the hotel to the Sea-Rogue, a more direct diagonal route behind the buildings that meandered along the dog-leg line of the shore. “Show me.”

Granger halted too. “There’s nothing to see.”

“Do you know exactly where?”

Granger studied the set of Rogan’s jaw, and said tersely, “Come on, then.”

It was a service alley between the unwindowed back walls of several business premises. Bags and boxes of rubbish sat against some, and a heavy smell of fish wafted from a rattling air-conditioner, mingling with the aroma of decaying fruit and vegetables spilling from an overfilled bin a little farther along where fat black flies droned lazily about.

“Here.” Granger stopped at big double doors with peeling paint. On the wall, a faded sign above identified the premises as Tench and Whiteburn, Sailmakers Since 1899. A heap of sodden and stained canvas, rotted rope and collapsed cardboard boxes gave off a moldy fetor, and a couple of stubborn tufts of grass that had fought their way through uneven cracks in the tar-seal lent the only sign of life except for the flies.

“I told you,” Granger said. “There’s nothing to see.”

A van roared into the alley, slowing as it lumbered by with barely enough room to pass them.

Rogan turned away, his throat tight. “Let’s go,” he said in an almost normal voice, leading the way and heading blindly toward the hotel. “I want to get out of this bloody suit.” He stripped off the jacket that was stifling him and threw it over his shoulder, pulling irritably at the dark tie about his throat and stuffing it into a trouser pocket.

“It’s my second-best suit,” Granger told him. “And I’ll thank you to treat it with respect.”

Rogan snorted. “I don’t know how you stand wearing them all the time.”

“I guess your shoulders are wider than mine.” Granger gripped one of them. “All that muscle-bound machismo stuff you do for a living,” he mocked gruffly.

Rogan’s reply was even less polite than before. Scowling, he shrugged off his brother’s hand. He needed a stiff drink. Never mind that he’d already had more than enough beer. A whiskey was what he was after. Harsh, strong whiskey. Neat. Undiluted alcohol.

They reached the hotel, warily peering into the deserted lobby before entering.

Rogan headed for the doorway labeled Bottle Store, ignoring his brother’s lifted eyebrow. “See you in fifteen minutes,” he muttered.

He did too, feeling considerably better as he rapped on Granger’s door exactly one minute early, having broached a bottle of Black Watch in his room.

“Here,” he said, thrusting the borrowed clothes at his brother. “Thanks.”

Granger took the suit and tie and motioned him in, going to the wardrobe.

“She’s still here,” Rogan said.

“Who? Oh—Whatsername McIndoe. You’ve seen her?”

“No, but I checked at the desk.” He’d half expected her to have bolted. At the chapel she’d seemed uncertain, ambivalent. “Shouldn’t we talk to her before we do anything else? And she’s Camille Hartley, remember.”

“Oh, yeah, Taff’s illegitimate daughter.”

“She can’t help that.”

“I wasn’t being snide, Rogue.” Granger finished hanging the suit and closed the wardrobe. “Facts are facts.”

“Does that mean she doesn’t inherit half the Sea-Rogue?”

“Extramarital children do have some rights. It’s not my field, but she might have a case, if only morally. Did you get her room number?”

Rogan shook his head. “They wouldn’t give it to me. Even wearing your suit.”

“You weren’t, any more,” Granger pointed out, picking up the bedroom phone. “You’d already hauled half of it off.” He’d taken off his own jacket but still wore shirt and tie.

He spoke into the receiver, asking to be put through to Miss Hartley’s room.

After a brief conversation he reported, “She’ll meet us down in the Garden Lounge in five minutes.”

Somehow that made Rogan feel considerably lighter than he had all day.

The Garden Lounge looked seldom used. Its small, multipaned windows were curtained with loops of white lace, and when the men entered, Camille was in a cane armchair by a low table, watching them cross the carpet toward her. Her legs, neatly tucked to one side, were encased in dark green trousers. What a waste, Rogan thought regretfully, remembering those legs emerging from her dress last night.

Her gaze flicked across Granger and lit on Rogan. For some reason she looked apprehensive, and as the men drew closer her eyes grew larger, darker.

He was no Adonis, but surely he wasn’t that intimidating? Suddenly he felt taller and bigger, as if he’d somehow expanded under her eyes, and he wondered if he should have put on something a bit more reputable than thin-kneed camouflage trousers and a khaki shirt with the sleeves ripped out.

Army surplus clothes were cheap and hard-wearing. And comfortable, for gosh sakes.

Heck, now he was even censoring his thoughts. As if she’d know what he was thinking.

He remembered her flushing last night as he watched her. She’d known what he was thinking then, all right. The gist of it anyhow.

Granger said, “Thank you for coming,” and she actually smiled at him—not a wide smile, but a smile of sorts, and now she wasn’t looking at Rogan at all.

The men sat down and a waiter brought coffee for three. Rogan would have liked a beer but his head was already floating inches above its normal position. And he figured, when Granger cast him a firm look before he ordered for them both, that as usual his big brother was right. He’d had enough to drink. At least for the next few hours.

“Why did you want to see me?” Camille asked.

She kept her attention on Granger while he explained the terms of Barney’s will.

He reached the bit about Taff’s descendants, and for a moment her delicious, tempting mouth fell softly open, making Rogan’s blood stir as he wondered how it would feel to close it with his own.

“You may be able to make a claim,” Granger was telling her, “if you have proof of your relationship.”

She blinked at him.

“For instance, is his name on your birth certificate? Even though your parents weren’t married—”

Her chin tilted. “My parents were married.”

Rogan interjected. “Taff was married?”

She glanced at him with a hint of scorn. “He seems to have forgotten it, but he was once.”

Granger said, “I’m sorry, I misunderstood.” He fished in his pocket. “In that case you’d inherit half the boat and its contents—plus half of any profit still outstanding from voyages Taff made with our father. As executor I need your address and phone number.” He handed her a card. “This is my office address. You’ll need to produce your birth certificate to prove your right to your inheritance, and—”

“I don’t want it.” The rose-pink lips went tight.

“Why not?” Rogan demanded, making her look at him.

But not for long. Her gaze skittered away again to Granger. “Can’t I just waive any rights I have?”

Granger looked at her curiously. “It would be simpler to let things take their course. Then you can dispose of your portion as you like. The boat might be worth quite a lot.”

She opened her mouth again, then closed it, her eyes glazing in thought. “How much?”

“The market for classic wooden craft is apparently pretty lively. There are huge variations depending on a number of factors, but some fetch prices in six figures.”

“Have you seen her?” Rogan asked Camille.

“I looked there for your father yesterday, but no one was on board. Someone from a fishing boat came over and told me what had happened.”

Barney had been found by a delivery driver on Monday morning, and it was Tuesday before the police had identified him and tracked down Granger.

“Why did he want to see you?” Rogan asked.

Her face went stiff, expressionless. “He wanted to give me some things he thought I should have. I suppose he meant my father’s…effects. He said he had to talk to me but he couldn’t leave his boat for long. I was due for annual leave and it quite suited me to come north.”

“Would you recognize your father’s belongings?”

Camille shook her head. Dryly she said, “I’d have been hard put to recognize my father.”

Granger asked, “Have the police talked to you?”

“No, why? I can’t tell them anything.”

“You should check in with them all the same. If you were supposed to be meeting Dad they’ll want to see you.” Granger pulled out a notebook. “Your contact details?”

She recited them stonily, and stood up. “Thank you for explaining the situation.”

“We’ll be in touch,” Granger promised, rising too.

By the time Rogan had put down his coffee cup and started getting up she’d already left them. He sank back, watching her walk away, until he realized Granger was watching him with amused tolerance.

“Get your eyes back in your head, little bro’,” Granger told him, “and your butt out of that chair, unless you plan to stay here.” Eyeing him critically, he added, “Mind you, a second cup of coffee wouldn’t do you any harm.”

Rogan glared at him, hoisting himself from the chair. All the time they’d been talking Camille had scarcely glanced his way, her eyes pretty much fixed on his brother throughout. And Granger hadn’t even seemed to notice. Did the man have ice water instead of good red Broderick blood in his veins?

Not fair, of course. Last night he’d shown a cursory appreciation, at least, of Camille’s spectacular beauty. On the surface she was very similar to the women who occasionally, briefly, graced Granger’s life—classy, polished, composed. Like him. Only better-looking.

Inexplicably, when he followed his brother into the lobby Rogan’s heart settled somewhere near his midriff, as if he’d swallowed one of his lead diving weights.

His father had just died. It was natural to feel depressed. He ought to be feeling this way.

None of Granger’s beloved laws said he had to like it.

Chapter 3

As Rogan and Granger crossed the lobby they were waylaid by a bunch of men erupting from the private bar. “Boys!” a solidly built man flushed with beer and bonhomie hailed them. He hooked an arm about Rogan’s shoulder. “Bloody good do, this. Barney’d be proud.”

The others milled around, one in an oversize suit asking peevishly where the effin’ can was until his fellows shoved him in the right direction. Propelled back into the thick of the wake and obliged to drink yet another toast or three to Good Ol’ Barney, it was some time before the brothers extricated themselves.

“What now?” Rogan asked.

“We could check over the Sea-Rogue,” Granger suggested. “Pack up Dad’s clothes, make sure there are no perishables on board. And decide how the boat’s going to be looked after until we sort out the estate.”

“Estate? He doesn’t…didn’t…own anything but the boat, did he?”

“It’s a legal term,” Granger said patiently. “You’re probably right, but a standard clause in the will covers anything not specified, like bank accounts, bonds or other assets. He could owe money, or have some owed to him.”

“Didn’t he buy salvage rights to a wreck years ago?”

Granger laughed. “I don’t suppose it’s worth anything. The Maiden’s Prayer. She disappeared in a storm in the 1850s with no survivors, carrying passengers returning from the Australian gold fields to America with the loot from their endeavors. There were chests full of gold on board—nuggets or bars—and several thousand dollars’ worth of gold and silver coins. Not counting what passengers had in their luggage.”

“A fortune,” Rogan commented.

“If it were ever found,” Granger said dryly. “The insurance company was happy to part with the salvage rights in return for a modest cut, particularly with the new laws about historic wrecks making recovery more difficult and expensive. Dad asked me to make sure his rights were solid and there’d be no counterclaims. The papers were with his will. But it’ll take more than a maiden’s prayer to pinpoint where she went down, with practically the whole of the Pacific to choose from.”

Camille had returned to her room feeling rather dazed at the idea she’d inherited a share in a boat worth thousands of dollars. And through the generosity of a man she didn’t remember even meeting.

Although he hadn’t really left it to her, but to her father. She wondered if Barney had discussed the bequest with his mate. And if so, whose idea it had been to provide for Thomas McIndoe’s family in the event of his death.

Staring out the window at the hill behind the hotel, she dredged up what she remembered about the seaport that had thrived in the days of sailing ships and sunk into obscurity with the advent of road and rail transport. One of the old houses crowding the slope featured a small tower with a railed enclosure around it. A widow’s walk, similar to those in other historic ports around the world, from which women used to watch for their men coming home from the sea.

Like so many of those men, Camille’s father had finally failed to return. But it was a long time since his wife had given up keeping vigil for him. Nobody had been waiting and hoping to welcome him home.

For a while she tried to work while the deep rumble of male voices penetrated the floor, and loud guffaws and occasional shouts or snatches of song floated clearly through the open window.

Distracted and restless, she left the room and ran down the stairs, her hand enjoying the smoothed curve of the baluster that ended at an ornate carved newel post, then hurried across the lobby into the dazzle of the sun.

Unthinkingly she directed her steps toward the seafront and then the old wharf, eventually finding the Sea-Rogue snugged against the massive wooden piles.

Camille didn’t know much about boats, but this was a weatherworn veteran compared to the elegant yachts in front of the hotel. The deckhouse had a higher, squarer profile, with two steps leading from the wheel well to a narrow door, not a lift-up hatch cover. A waist-high timber rail instead of wire lines guarded the afterdeck, and a slender bowsprit like those on old sailing ships tapered forward from the bow.

After a brief hesitation she stepped across the small space to the rail almost level with her feet, and jumped onto the deck, pushing aside an uneasy feeling of trespass. After all, she’d been told she owned half of the craft.

The boards shifted under her feet. She touched a sun-warmed spar—or was it a boom? She was hazy about modern nautical terms.

A screeching gull drew her gaze upward. Two masts soared against the sky, and the sun glowing through a gauzy layer of cloud made her eyes water. The boat appeared bigger now she was on board. She stepped down onto one of the slatted seats in the wheel well to reach its floor.

Two farther steps led to the closed door. The wood around the brass lock had been splintered, fresh raw wounds showing through the varnish. As she reached out to investigate, a male voice from the dock said, “It’s locked.”

Camille jumped, flushing when she turned to confront the Broderick brothers, standing above her on the wharf. Rogan looked faintly amused, curious, and his brother noncommittal but a bit austere.

“Not anymore,” she said. “It’s been broken into.”

“What?” Rogan jumped to the deck, followed by his brother.

Feeling she needed to apologize for her presence, she said, “I’m sorry, I just wondered…”

She didn’t know what she’d wondered, what she’d been thinking. Only that her father had spent a good part of his life on this boat, sailing the Pacific with Barney Broderick.

They weren’t listening to her anyway. Rogan let out one explosive word, Granger swung the door open and they plunged into the gloom inside.

After a moment’s hesitation Camille entered the tiny compartment inside the door and descended a short, ladder-like companionway after the men, taking a few seconds to adjust from the light outside. Then she gasped in shock.

The foam squabs by the table were askew and the covers ripped. Small carvings, shells and pieces of paper lay all over the place. Books had been wrenched from their shelves and some paperbacks torn in two, the matting on the floor shoved aside, and a conglomeration of sailing gear, food stores, ropes and objects that Camille couldn’t begin to identify hauled from storage compartments that gaped open. The railed galley shelves were empty, cupboard doors hung wide and drawers had been upended, the contents of food scattered over everything.

Standing between the two men under the low ceiling, Camille could feel the anger emanating from them both, chill and focused from Granger, hot and fierce from Rogan.

“Who…?” Camille began, but it was probably an unanswerable question.

Rogan swore again before he said shortly, “No idea.” He picked up a book, blowing a cloud of flour off its tooled leather cover, then rubbing his forearm over it. “Bastards.”

His brother’s expression was closed. “We probably shouldn’t touch anything until the police get here.”

The lone constable stationed in Mokohina surveyed the wreckage with Rogan and Granger before returning to the deck, where Camille waited to give him a brief statement.

“Probably teenagers,” he told them, turning to the men. “Can you tell if anything’s missing?”

Granger shook his head. “We were only here for a few minutes last night, and it was dark. Before that, as I told your detective yesterday, neither of us had been on board lately. But the police searched the boat on Tuesday.”

The constable said he would contact the Criminal Investigation Branch in Whangarei. “They might want to take a look, since they’re inquiring into your father’s death.” Suddenly thoughtful he added, “There’s a rumor that he struck it lucky recently.”

Granger gave a quiet, sardonic laugh. “My guess is his friends had some fanciful hindsight after he was…found.”

Nodding as if his own suspicion was confirmed, the policeman closed his book. “Well, I’ll secure the vessel and ask the wharf manager to keep an eye on it.” He glanced at his watch. “If they need a scene examination it’ll probably be tomorrow. We’ll let you know when they’ve finished.”

On the way back to the Imperial, flanked by the men, Camille didn’t like to break the silence, grim on one side and seething on the other.

They were nearing the hotel when Rogan spoke over her head to his brother. “D’you reckon this has something to do with what happened to Dad?”

“I doubt it,” Granger answered. “There are ghouls who study newspapers for death notices, and target homes when the families are at the funeral. This is probably the same sort of thing. Or maybe some young idiots heard the rumor and tried their luck, hoping to find a treasure chest on board.” His scathing tone implied what he thought of them and their gullibility.

When they entered the lobby the noise from the private room had lessened considerably. Granger said, “Time to shoo the diehards into the public bar, I think.”

The young Maori woman behind the desk called to Camille, “Miss Hartley…there’s a package for you.”

Camille excused herself from the men, and the receptionist handed her a small parcel and an envelope. “Have you decided how long you’re staying?” the girl asked.

Having left her departure date open, Camille had become interested in the town and its little-known history, and on learning of Barney’s death felt she should attend his funeral. Now things were complicated.

“We have a full house after the weekend,” the receptionist explained. “It’s the annual Mokohina big-game-fishing tournament. People come from all over for it.”

“I’ll remember that, thanks.”

Opening the envelope, she bypassed the ancient, creaking elevator and started up the stairs. She drew out a single sheet of thick, elegant paper and unfolded a note written in a precise, almost copperplate hand.

This may interest you, it said. Thank you for a very pleasant evening, which I hope to repeat before you leave.

The signature was a flourishing, curlicued James, and he’d added his telephone number.

In the upper hallway she found Rogan lounging against the wall. Startled, she said, “I thought you were still downstairs.”

He straightened. “Granger’s taking care of things. I wondered what you’re doing for dinner. We thought we’d try the Koffee ’n’ Kai café along the road. Care to join us?”

It was extraordinary, the effect he had on her. Whenever they were within meters of each other she was totally aware of his presence. She could feel now the warm prickling on her skin, although he hadn’t moved any closer.

He smiled at her and she reminded herself that Rogan Broderick wasn’t her type, no matter how dazzling his male charisma. “Thank you,” she said, “but I have other plans.”

What plans? her mind scoffed. A lonely dinner in a discreet corner of the dining room or a snack in her own room, and a boring evening making research notes, talking to her tape recorder?

“Maybe some other time?” Rogan suggested.

“Maybe.” She gave him a thin smile and went along the passageway to her room, telling herself not to hurry, and not to look back to check if her sense that he was watching her was right or wrong. But when she heard a door close as she unlocked hers she couldn’t resist a covert glance.

The passage was empty.

“James,” she said into the phone a few minutes later, “thank you so much! It’s a gem.” She placed the little volume on the night table, running her fingers over the gold-embossed pattern on the leather cover and the gilt title on the spine: Journals and Letters of a Lady in New Zealand, 1835-7. “I’ll be sure to return it before I leave.”

“No need,” James Drummond’s light, creamy voice assured her. “It’s a gift. How was the funeral?”

“Oh, that’s very generous. Um…” she said, “…crowded. Mr. Broderick had a lot of friends.”

“And did any relatives turn up?”

Chatting over dinner, she’d told him she didn’t know if Barney had relatives. “Two sons.” One who makes my hormones go crazy. And one who should but doesn’t. “They were in the dining room last night but I didn’t know who they were.”

“Those two big guys?” he asked curiously. “Have you spoken to them?”

“Yes, we had quite a talk.”

“Really? What about?”

“Apparently I inherit part of the boat—the Sea-Rogue—through my father.”

“How…interesting.” He sounded genuinely intrigued. “Anything else?”

“Well, what’s inside it, and possibly some outstanding payments from my father’s last voyage.”

“I’d love to hear all about it. Have dinner with me at my house?”

“Tonight?”

“Do you like fish? One thing about this town, you can always get good fish. And my housekeeper is a very good cook. Or,” he added teasingly, “do you have a date with the brothers Broderick?”

She’d turned them down, but felt guilty about claiming other plans. Having dinner with James would validate that excuse. And he’d be an antidote to Rogan Broderick.

Cultured, intelligent, charming, with interests similar to hers and an obviously sympathetic nature, James was a total contrast to the bold-eyed pirate who was occupying far too much of her mind.

“No,” she said, “I don’t have a date.”

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said, even though she told him she had her own car. “No need to dress up for me.”

A quick sortie through her bag and she settled on light-blue cotton pants and a loose knitted top. James arrived on time, and whisked her away in a low-slung, polished white car that looked as though it had just driven off the advertising pages of a glossy magazine. It covered the winding uphill road to his house in barely five minutes.

Designed in colonial style but incorporating modern touches, the building soared three stories high, with broad verandas and big windows to take in the spectacular views.

Inside, real crystal chandeliers glowed on varnished timber walls and highlighted a breathtaking collection of antique furniture.

“Antiques are my business,” James replied smilingly to Camille’s admiring comment. “Wholesale prices.”

“Your shop is very well stocked for such a small town.”

“Overseas visitors find prices here reasonable, and quite a few yachties get stuff shipped home. It’s been worthwhile keeping the original store open for that reason, and for the retirees and newcomers who are building. But I have another store in Auckland, and a nice little apartment, so I divide my time between here and the city. Summers are pleasant in the north, and I do some entertaining here.”

Obviously the antique business was a lucrative one, or perhaps he’d inherited money as well.

She followed with a glass of wine in her hand while he showed her stunning examples of craftsmanship in furniture and fine porcelain, and equally impressive works of art, and a small collection of historic coins and thimbles in a glass-fronted cupboard. Surrounded by mementos of days past, she was enchanted.

Dinner was served by a gaunt middle-aged woman on a sheltered corner of the wide veranda, and when James brought up the subject, Camille felt sufficiently relaxed to talk about her unexpected inheritance.

His light eyes bright and interested, he said, “I’d like to see your boat.”

“It’s not mine. Well, only a part of it is. At the moment no one’s allowed on board. It was burgled and police detectives from Whangarei may want to look at it.”

James looked surprised and concerned. “Were there valuables on board that would have interested a burglar?”

“Rogan and Granger didn’t seem to think so.”

He leaned over to pour her some more wine, and glanced up at her face. “They should know. If so, they might be keeping it to themselves.” He sat back and lifted his glass, regarding her steadily over it. “You should keep an eye on your inheritance.”

“What do you mean?”

“Would you know if they’d removed anything?”

“I suppose not, but I don’t think—”

James said, “You’d be surprised what I see in my business. Families stripping furniture and valuables from a house before the body of their loved one is cold. How do the Brodericks feel about their father leaving a share to you?”

“They seem okay with it. One of them’s a bit reserved, but I think that’s just his nature.”

“Still, it pays not to be too trusting.” He raised his glass again. “Here’s to your good fortune.”

James deposited her at the hotel well before midnight. If she’d given him the right signals he might have invited her to stay the night, but when she said she must leave he didn’t demur beyond a polite expression of regret.

Although she had talked more than she’d meant to about the Sea-Rogue and the Brodericks, at least for part of the time she had managed to push Rogan Broderick and her astonishing reactions to him into the back of her mind.

When she went down for breakfast the following morning the brothers weren’t about, and afterward she avoided the wharves, instead making a pilgrimage uphill to the tiny Settlers and Seafarers Museum run by a dedicated group of volunteers in an old missionary church. The elderly woman taking money from a desultory trickle of visitors was happy to impart her historical knowledge of the town and its environs, and Camille spent a couple of hours there.

After detouring to take a closer look at the widow’s walk she’d seen from the hotel, and visit some obscure historic sites the museum volunteer had recommended, she returned to the hotel.

It was lunchtime. A bus occupied part of the hotel parking area, and the dining room was full of tourists chattering loudly in a dozen different languages.

Camille retreated, bought herself a sandwich and a paper cup of fresh orange juice, and found a park seat under a tree on the waterfront. She was on the second half of the sandwich when she became aware of someone standing before her, and looked up into Rogan’s brilliant eyes.

“Hi,” he said. “I saw you from my room. The cops have finished with the boat, and Granger and I are going to clean it up. We’ll let you know if we find your father’s stuff.”

After a second’s hesitation, she offered, “Can I help?” And then wondered guiltily if that had arisen from the faint suspicion James had planted last night rather than a genuine desire to be useful. Hadn’t she decided to keep out of Rogan’s way? But his brother’s presence surely would dissipate the peculiar tension she felt around him.

Rogan’s doubtful glance passed over her clothes, the same cotton pants and top she’d worn the previous night at James’s house. “You don’t need to—”

“I’ll go and change,” she said, “and be with you in about ten minutes.” The sooner things were tidied up here and her father’s belongings identified, the sooner she could get on with her life and remove herself from this man’s disturbing orbit.

He gave her a slow smile, and oh Lord, it was devastating. “We’d appreciate that.”

Rogan tapped on his brother’s door. Granger opened it wearing a cream golf shirt and beige slacks that might have graced the pages of a fashion magazine. “What?” he asked as Rogan grinned.

“Nothing.” Rogan himself wore his shabby khakis. Stuffing his tongue firmly in his cheek, he said, “You look very elegant.”

“I wasn’t expecting to be playing charladies.”

“I could lend you something—” not that he had much in the way of clothes with him, his diving gear taking up most of the space “—but you probably wouldn’t be seen dead in—” He came to an abrupt stop.

Granger said smoothly, scarcely missing a beat, “Anything of yours, no.”

“You don’t have to stay, you know. If you need to get back to work. Leave this to me.”

Granger shook his head. “I’ll shoot off tomorrow and be in the office on Monday. Shall we go?”

“Camille’s coming too,” Rogan told him.

Closing the door behind them, Granger lifted his brows.

“She volunteered,” Rogan said. “She’ll meet us downstairs.”

They were waiting at the foot of the stairs when Camille came down, wearing sneakers and denim shorts with a pale yellow T-shirt. Watching her long legs descend toward them, Rogan swallowed hard, and noticed Granger too was staring with some interest, before he turned to Rogan to share a male moment.

On the boat the men surveyed the chaos with identical expressions of masculine cluelessness in the face of a mammoth housekeeping chore.

“Are there cleaning things on board?” Camille asked. And when they turned to her, “Brushes, cloths, detergents?”

Rogan said vaguely, “There’s a cupboard opposite the head.”

They worked for hours—stopping only briefly to have a drink, nibble on crackers that the vandals had surprisingly spared in the galley cupboards, or take short breathers on deck.

Rogan somehow managed to control his breathing and his blood pressure whenever he caught sight of Camille’s curvy feminine behind stretching the fabric of her shorts as she bent to sift through the jumble on the floor, or when he couldn’t help noticing how pretty and perky her breasts were as she reached to replace a book on a railed shelf.

When the daylight in the cabin began to dim, Rogan glanced at his watch. “Anyone hungry?” he asked.

Granger straightened from his task of mopping the galley floor. “Now you mention it…”

Rogan pulled off his sweat-dampened shirt and wiped his forehead with it, leaving a streak of something that might have been cocoa across the tanned skin. Camille dragged her gaze away as he lowered the shirt. “Shall we call it a day,” he suggested, “and go back to the hotel?”

Camille said, “Couldn’t we finish tonight?” The main cabin was no longer strewn with foodstuffs, and the men had dealt with the gear and miscellaneous sacks and boxes that had cluttered the hold in the bow. Although the two sleeping cabins tucked into the sides and the larger one at the stern had been vandalised, they weren’t as bad.

“Sure,” Rogan acquiesced, “but I need to eat.”

Granger surveyed his brother, then himself, and finally Camille. The spilled condiments mixed with sauces, spreads and the water and detergent they’d used had left them all the worse for wear. “No decent establishment would have us,” he deduced. “We’ll have to buy hamburgers or something.”

“You volunteering?” Rogan asked. “I’ll have a double burger with egg and bacon, and plenty of fries. And a couple of doughnuts.”

With good grace Granger accepted the request and turned to Camille, who asked for a cheeseburger. “You’d better start the generator,” he advised Rogan, “so we can have some light.” Then, throwing his brother a quizzical glance, he ascended to the deck.

Camille realized she and Rogan were alone. The cabin seemed small and increasingly dark, and he was gazing at her rather disconcertingly.

She put a hand to her hair, smoothing several strands that had escaped from their elastic band to fall stickily across her eyes. Pulling the hair tie off, she gathered up the ponytail again and secured it.

Rogan’s eyes glazed. He cleared his throat and said, “I’ll get that generator fired up.”

He disappeared, and a few minutes later she heard and felt the throb of an engine. A light flickered on, and soon afterward Rogan came back.

Camille was carefully wiping down an old copy of Dumas’s Les Trois Mousquetaires, handsomely bound in tooled leather. She glanced up. “Your father read The Three Musketeers in French?”

“He was fluent in French,” Rogan said. “And a few other languages, including Pidgin.” He nodded at the book in her hands. “I struggled through that when I was a kid.”

“You did?”

“I’d already read it in English—but it was a challenge.”

Camille could picture him welcoming physical challenges; it hadn’t occurred to her he might enjoy intellectual ones.

She placed the book with others on a shelf. A lot of them seemed to be about disasters at sea. “You must have seen more of your father than I did of mine.”

“He dropped by when he was in port—a couple of times a year—and took us sailing along the coast when we were old enough. My mother wouldn’t let him go out of sight of the land when we were on board.” Rogan laughed. “I stowed away once. I was fourteen, and when the old man found me he went ballistic. Turned right round and brought me back. He said if I ever did that to my mother again he’d flay the hide right off my backside.”

Camille looked at him curiously. “Didn’t she mind that he spent so much time away from her?”

“I guess she did. She went with him one time, before she had Granger and me, but she got so seasick they had to airlift her off before Dad could get her back to shore, because she was dangerously dehydrated. After that she couldn’t face a boat again. But Dad lived for the sea. On land he was a fish out of water. I don’t think she ever tried to change him.”

“Is she…?”

“She died,” Rogan said abruptly. “When I was nineteen.”

“I’m sorry.”

He looked down at the books still piled on the floor, waiting to be cleaned and replaced.

Camille picked up a copy of Treasure Island. “I suppose you devoured this?”

“You bet. And this.” He lifted another book and wiped the cover with his hand. “Coasts of Treachery by Eugene Grayland. Great yarns, full of mayhem and murder.” Meeting her level look, he added hastily, “I mean, very well written. Educational,” he told her. “You should read it.”

“I have.” She read every New Zealand history book she could get her hands on—those aimed at a general audience as well as weighty, heavily referenced tomes and professional journals. “I’m a history lecturer.”

“Is that right? Where?”

His eyes were brilliant with interest and, Camille saw with satisfaction, respect. “At Rusden.” It was a small campus in the lower half of the North Island, a satellite of one of the larger universities.

She couldn’t help noticing again what an unusual blue his eyes were, like the inner curve of an incoming breaker at certain blue-water beaches. And his mouth was quite beautiful in a masculine way, the curves well-defined, his lips firm but not thin. Catching a glimpse of white, straight teeth, she felt her blood thicken. Her own mouth softened and parted infinitesimally.

Disturbed by a quick heat that made her legs weaken, Camille turned back to the task in hand. She thought Rogan moved closer, her skin signaling a simmering awareness.

To break the silence she said randomly, “All these books about shipwrecks…not exactly comfort reading for a sailor.”

Rogan gave a quiet huffle of laughter. “Dad had a dream that he’d find a sunken treasure one day.”

“I guess my father shared it.”

They’d been cut from the same cloth. Both had neglected their families to drift about the Pacific, picking up cargoes and passengers, diving for pearls or beche de mer occasionally, working onshore only when necessary. And in between, hunting for an elusive, legendary prize.

Granger returned with their meal, and they went up to the cool air of the deck to eat. Rogan shrugged back into his shirt, to Camille’s relief. She’d found his bare torso shamingly distracting.

“Camille teaches history,” Rogan told his brother. “At Rusden.”

“Really?” Granger looked at her thoughtfully.

“Mmm,” she confirmed, swallowing a mouthful of cheeseburger.

Rogan asked curiously, “You enjoy it?”

“Very much.” Teaching was a nice, steady occupation. If she needed excitement she could find it between the covers of a book about former times. And her salary was enough to keep her in reasonable comfort and help pay the mortgage on the house she shared with her mother. “What do you do?” she asked Granger.

“I’m a solicitor. And barrister, though I don’t do a lot of court work.”

“He likes playing with rorts and torts,” Rogan said with a tolerant but puzzled air.

Granger slanted him a grin, and for a moment the likeness between them was extraordinary. “I bet you don’t even know what they are,” he said.

“Dead right!” Rogan agreed cheerfully, lifting one of the cans of beer that Granger had brought back from his foraging expedition. He drank thirstily, and Camille stared in fascination at the tilt of his chin, the tautness of his throat.

When she pulled her gaze away Granger was looking at her, his eyes assessing, attentive. “My little brother is a deep-sea diver,” he said. “Fighting off sharks and giant squid for a living.”

Rogan spluttered, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That’s a load of sh…sugar,” he said. “I’ve never had to fight off a squid, even a baby one. They’re not aggressive anyway. You can stroke them.”

Camille asked, “Does that mean you’ve fought sharks?” Her skin crawled.

“I’ve had some close encounters, but they’re pretty harmless underwater as long as you don’t do anything stupid.”

Granger mocked, “And of course risking your life half a mile under the sea on a regular basis isn’t stupid.”

“No more stupid than sitting behind a desk all day,” Rogan countered. “You’re just as likely to die from an ulcer or heart attack there as I am putting in piles for a new oil rig or salvaging a wreck.”

Sending a lazy grin in his brother’s direction, Granger lifted his beer in acknowledgment. Camille deliberately watched him, waiting for a repeat of the small thrill, but it didn’t come. They looked so much alike; in fact Granger was probably the better-looking one—less hard-edged, more sophisticated, well-groomed. And yet he aroused in her nothing more than mildly pleasant appreciation.

There was no doubt about Rogan’s raw attraction. She was chagrined at being so susceptible to it.

To distract herself, she spoke to Granger about the first thing that came into her mind. “Do you think your father…and mine, might have discovered some kind of treasure?”

Granger looked amused. “Do you believe in fairy tales?”

Camille shook her head. She never had, even as a child. Her mother had taught her there was no such thing as Happy Ever After.

“To those two,” Granger said, “finding sunken treasure was the gold at the end of the rainbow, the holy grail of the sea. And they had about as much chance of finding it.”

When they returned to work Camille paused once to arch her stiffening back against her hands, and caught Rogan staring at the jut of her breasts. Quickly straightening, she turned away, hoping he hadn’t noticed the peaks suddenly showing through her T-shirt, as if he’d physically touched her.

While she dealt with the rest of the books, Rogan and Granger cleaned up the two smaller cabins.

Then Granger emerged, saying, “Some things of your father’s, Camille.” He put a cardboard carton on the table as Rogan joined them. “There are clothes too. Do you want to—”

“No.” She didn’t want to look at them.

After a slight pause Granger said, “We could give them to the Salvation Army along with Dad’s, if you like.”

“Yes, thank you.”

He gestured at the box. “You’d better have a look in here. It’s all that was in his cabin.”

Reluctantly she stepped closer, peering into the box. On top of a jumble of books, papers and miscellaneous items was a mounted photograph of a young woman smiling at the camera, holding a solemn-faced baby wearing a pink dress, with a matching bow in her short blond curls. Her mother and herself. Camille blinked and swallowed. Slowly she stretched out a hand and picked up the picture before placing it on the table.

Underneath it was another. She was older in this one, her fair hair in two pigtails, and she wore a party hat and clutched a balloon and a toy rabbit. Her sixth birthday party. The rabbit was the last gift she’d ever received from her father, and although she had thought it babyish at the time she’d cherished it for years. Until she realized he was never going to come home again.

“You were blond?” Rogan queried.

“It darkened as I got older.”

Tucked to one side in the box were a number of envelopes, slit to reveal folded letters. She reached in and pulled out one. The address, care of a post office in Suva, was in her mother’s writing—small, precise. Unexpectedly her eyes hazed with tears. She started to tremble.

“Hey!” Rogan’s voice was in her ear, his arm about her waist. “Are you okay? Sit down.”

He guided her to one of the seats by the table. “Can we get you something? Granger—?”

“It’s all right.” Camille blinked rapidly, only succeeding in forcing a tear to escape and run down her cheek. Furiously she rubbed at it with her fingers. “I’m fine,” she reiterated loudly.

Granger said, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m not upset! Just…surprised.”

It was a weak excuse. She couldn’t imagine why the sight of the meager keepsakes her father had hoarded should kindle a grief that was out of proportion. It wasn’t as if he’d ever been a real father to her.

Maybe that was it. He never had, and now it was too late. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I’m tired.”

Another pathetic excuse, but it galvanized the men into a flurry of apologies and self-blame. She’d worked too long and too hard, they should have realized, and Rogan would take her back to the hotel right now. Should they call a taxi?

“For a ten-minute walk?” She laughed shakily, embarrassed at their anxious outpouring. “Of course not. And I don’t need an escort.”

But soon she was walking along the seawall in darkness while Rogan kept a firm though careful hold on her arm, and Granger stayed behind to switch off the generator, secure the boat, and bring along the box of Taff’s belongings.

As they reached the more populous area, where streetlamps glowed and were reflected in the water, Rogan said, “Granger shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that.”

“It wasn’t his fault. I’m sorry I was such an idiot.” She was mortified at her unexpected show of emotion.

“You weren’t an idiot.” He pushed a leafy twig aside as they walked under one of the pohutukawas, and in the shadow she stumbled on a root that had distorted the path.

Rogan’s grip tightened. “You okay?”

His breath was warm on her temple. She caught a whiff of his male scent, the salty tang of fresh sweat and the less sharp aroma of musk, earthy but strangely not repellent. Was there nothing about this man that was unattractive?

“Yes,” she said. “Thanks.”

They walked on, but now she was tongue-tied, intensely conscious of the hand that still circled her arm, the masculine bulk of Rogan’s body, the exact height of her head where it came to just above his shoulder.

She heard the intermittent slap of water on the seawall, its softer lapping about the anchored boats, the rhythmic splash and creak of someone rowing a dinghy back to their yacht. Music and the chatter of patrons at an outdoor café clearly carried on the night air. Nearby a bird chirruped sleepily, perhaps confused by the streetlights into thinking it was still day.

They reached the hotel and Rogan sighed, almost as if he were relieved. He released her arm and asked, “Would you like a drink? Brandy, maybe?”

Camille shook her head. “I need a shower.” She looked down at her stained shirt and shorts. “And then I’ll go to bed. I can get that box from your brother in the morning?”

“Sure. I’ll see you to your room.”

“You needn’t, really.”

But he steered her into the ancient elevator, and when it stopped he followed her out and padded down the corridor at her side, waiting while she unlocked the door.

“Thank you.” She turned to him. “I don’t know why he kept those things. They can’t have meant much to him.”

Rogan looked at her gravely. “They must have meant something.”

Camille lifted her chin, her skin cold. Stupid sentimentalism would get her nowhere. She was grown up now, in no need of a father. Or any other man. “I’ll go through them tomorrow,” she said, “and see if there’s anything that can’t be burned.”

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