She placed her hand on his arm and bent down to remove her sandals, sighing as her bare feet settled into the grass. “Ooh, that’s better.”

“I’ll bet. Those heels look lethal.”

She laughed. “They’re killers, all right, but they make your legs look good.”

Her legs looked good without them, too. He forced his eyes back up to her face. Had she told him her name? If so, he couldn’t recall it. He was about to ask when she posed a question to him. “Do you wear those wide, red suspenders?”

“They’re part of our gear.”

“They’re such a turn-on.” Again her tongue flicked salt off her glass. Her lips were very red, her tongue pointed and pink.

He glanced past her, back toward Jay’s patio. He didn’t realize they’d walked that far. At this distance, Bon Jovi was little more than thudding bass. His pulse seemed to be keeping time with “Wanted Dead or Alive.” “Uh, as I said, I was about to leave.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean to keep you.”

“No, it’s okay, I-”

“I thought it would be nice to finish our drinks out by the pool. Where it’s cooler.”

He hesitated, but at that moment, cooler sounded very good. “Okay. Sure.”

He walked with her toward the pool, along the way taking several missteps. “The margaritas are strong,” he remarked.

“I was about to say the same thing. Want to go swimming? It would clear your head.”

A question about swimsuits wafted through his brain, but it was too elusive to grasp. “No. I think I just want to sit a minute.”

“Me, too. Let’s go over here.”

She led him toward one of the areas enclosed by vine-covered lattice. There was seating enough for a small group, but when he sat down on a chaise, she sat down on it, too. “Lean back. I’ll switch on the fan.”

He lay back onto the angled cushion and watched as she walked to a support post where there was a switch plate. A flick of her fingers and the overhead fan began to turn, creating a welcome breeze. His eyes closed, but he didn’t realize they had until she rejoined him on the chaise and he pried them open to see her smiling down at him.

She leaned over him and ran her cold glass across his forehead. “Better?”

He mumbled something but wasn’t sure that what he’d said were actual words. Her breasts were sort of in the way of his lips.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Fiancée.”

“I figured. Men like you are always taken.”

“Men like me?”

She smiled as she undid several buttons on his shirt. “Strong, handsome firemen with hair on their chests.” Her fingers combed through his. “So where is she?”

“Uh, Boston. Business.”

He jumped when she grazed his nipple with her fingernail and was about to tell her not to do that-he really was-when she said, “I’ve never been to Boston. Too cold. I like hotter climates, don’t you?”

Hallie was in meetings that were long but informative. See? He wasn’t so drunk that he couldn’t remember.

“It’s awfully hot tonight, though.” She lifted her hair off her neck with both hands, held it up, then dropped it. When she did, her hands skimmed over her breasts, and she seemed to like the feel of them, because her right hand stayed. It cupped her right breast, and her thumb began to idly stroke her nipple beneath the shiny F. The circular movement of her thumb was hypnotizing, and so was what it was doing to her nipple.

But as seductive as it was, he had to blink hard to hold it in focus. Jesus, he was drunk. His body felt heavy. He wasn’t sure he could move his legs, and didn’t particularly want to, because that would have meant dislodging…uh…

Had she told him her name?

Anyway, moving would have meant dislodging her, and he was liking the feel of her hip against his thigh.

How had he got so drunk on one beer and half a margarita? He had a much higher tolerance than that. Years of college drinking had conditioned him…

Where was his margarita, anyway?

“Your fiancée left you all alone?”

There was something he should say to that, but damned if he could think of what it was.

“That was pretty stupid of her.”

He didn’t remember disposing of his margarita, but he must have because his hands were otherwise occupied. One was on…

Shit, what was her name?

One of his hands was on her leg, being guided beneath her short skirt and up the inside of her thigh, and the other was being pressed against that tight, hard nipple, which had been bared to him.

Her breath was humid against his face. “Stupid of her, but lucky for me.”

That pink, pointed tongue he had noticed earlier…was it licking the salt off his lips? Something below his waist was feeling damn good, but wrong. Wrong.

This isn’t right. This isn’t right! Why am I doing this?

CHAPTER 10

WHEN RALEY STOPPED TALKING, THE CABIN WAS SILENT except for the occasional drip of the kitchen faucet. Eventually he looked across at Britt. “That’s the last thing I remember. Her tongue was in my mouth and her hand inside my pants, and I was thinking, What the hell am I doing? I need to stop this.” He shook his head as though to clear it. “After that, nothing.”

Britt drew a shuddering breath. “That sounds familiar.”

“I thought it would.”

“I don’t remember anything beyond wanting to make it to Jay’s sofa without falling down. Everything past that is completely blanked out.”

“Have you had any flashbacks?”

“I wish I could say yes.”

“You may,” he said. “Some of it came back to me, the way you remember dreams days after you’ve dreamed them. An image flashes and then vanishes before your mind can fully register it. A group of words you know you’ve heard but which make no sense. Like that.”

He reached for his water bottle and drained it, then folded his forearms on the tabletop and leaned across it toward her. “Don’t you think it’s awfully coincidental that we had similar experiences, and in both instances, Jay was behind it?”

“You think Jay set you up with that woman and had her drug you?”

“What do you think?”

The question wavered between them like smoke from a snuffed-out candle. After a time, Britt said, “I don’t want to think that of Jay.”

“No. Because he was a hero. And heroes don’t do things like that. Especially not to their friends.”

She pictured Jay, smiling and disarming. He always had a mischievous twinkle in his eye, but was he capable of treachery on the level that Raley had described? She couldn’t conceive of it. Not the Jay Burgess she knew.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

While lost in thought she’d been absently rubbing the goose egg on the back of her head. Raley had noticed. “It’s caused a dull headache. Do you have a Coke or something?”

He got up, took a canned drink from the fridge, and passed it to her. She opened it and took a sip. “Jay may or may not have had a hand in what happened to you,” she said. “But it doesn’t make sense that he drugged me so I would be an agreeable lover, and then smothered himself by holding a pillow over his face.”

“No. Somebody else came in and did that.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who do you suspect?”

“We’ll get to that. Let me tell you what happened that morning when I woke up in Jay’s guest bedroom.”

“He didn’t live in the same town house as he does-did-now.”

“No. His old apartment had two bedrooms, each with an attached bathroom, separated by a kitchen and living area.”

“Right. The bedrooms were on opposite sides of the apartment.”

Immediately after the words cleared her mouth, she realized she’d given herself away. She looked at him quickly to see if he’d realized the implication of what she’d said.

Of course he had. He said, “No surprise there.”

Her expression wasn’t contrite or apologetic. If anything, it was challenging. “So what? Jay and I dated when neither of us was attached, the affair was over soon. In fact, it was so short-lived it could hardly be called an affair. It was harmless.”