BRIDAL JEOPARDY Read online

  She loved the intensity on his face—in his mind—as she quickened the pace.

  His exclamation made her raise her head as she stared at the water pouring down on them. She had stopped thinking about the water, but now it was pulsing in time to the movements of her body.

  She drove them to a sharp, all-encompassing climax that radiated to every part of her body while the shower seemed to explode in a cascade of water.

  She felt Craig follow her into ecstasy, and as they came back to themselves, the shower settled down to a normal flow.

  She heard Craig’s silent laugh. That last part was...

  Unexpected, she finished as she collapsed against him and he lowered her to her feet.

  Proof we can do more with our minds than we thought.

  I don’t believe we can count on sexual arousal every time we need to generate psychic power, she answered.

  He reached for a towel and trapped it around her shoulders, then began to dry her off.

  As he did, she caught the thought in his mind.

  You’re full of ideas, she answered.

  You don’t think we should try it?

  Is it ethical?

  We’re not going to harm anyone. We’re just going to have a practice session.

  * * *

  THEY GOT DRESSED, left the room and stopped at the office to ask for lunch recommendations.

  Mrs. Marcos suggested several restaurants, and they decided on a place with a deck along the bayou and an extensive seafood menu.

  On the way over, they discussed Craig’s plan.

  The restaurant was pleasantly decorated with rough-hewn wood on the walls and old-time photographs from the twenties and thirties. The dining room was about half-full, with plenty of tables available both inside and out.

  They walked in and stood together waiting for the hostess to return to the podium. She was a young woman with curly blond hair and a bright smile.

  “We’d like a table,” Craig said without volunteering any other information. But silently he was asking to sit out on the deck—along the railing.

  “I have a lovely spot on the deck along the railing,” the hostess said.

  Craig gave Stephanie a satisfied look. “That would be great,” he said to the hostess.

  They followed her outside, to the only prime spot left at the edge of the deck.

  “Your server is Julian, and he will be right with you,” the woman said before she left.

  “That went well,” Craig said when they were alone.

  “It doesn’t prove anything. She could have just decided to give us this spot.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, we’ll see what we can get the server to do.”

  A dark-haired young man wearing a black T-shirt and black pants approached the table carrying a pitcher of water.

  “Hi, I’m Julian, and I’ll be your server this evening.”

  They’d silently agreed that Craig would get him not to pour the water and ask if they wanted tea instead.

  As he lifted the pitcher, she fed Craig energy.

  Julian’s hand shook for a moment, and he lowered the pitcher, a strange expression on his face.

  “Uh, I was wondering, would you prefer iced tea?” he asked.

  “Why, yes, we would,” Craig answered.

  “Sweetened?” he asked.

  “Correct again.”

  “I’ll be right back with your tea.”

  When the young man had departed, Craig wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at Stephanie.

  She laughed. “Okay, that was pretty good. Maybe we can work up a stage act.”

  “Yeah, it was good, and you can’t argue that he was pushing tea instead of water.”

  She nodded and opened the menu, scanning the entries. “Now what?”

  “Get him to suggest that we try the popcorn shrimp?”

  “Too easy. He’s probably already thinking about them.”

  * * *

  CRAIG RAN HIS FINGER down the menu. “Get him to sell us the fried okra.”

  “Have you ever tasted it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s an acquired taste. Let’s try something else.”

  He turned back to the menu. “Okay, buffalo wings.”

  When the server returned and set down their glasses of tea, he asked, “Can I get you started with an appetizer?”

  “What’s good?”

  Again Stephanie let Craig make the silent suggestion to the man while she added her power to his mental push.

  “I think you’ll love the buffalo wings,” Julian said.

  “Excellent,” Craig answered. “Bring us an order.”

  He slid his foot along the deck boards and rested his shoe against Stephanie’s. “Score another one for us.”

  Making food selections isn’t that hard. Do you think we could have made those thugs who kidnapped us put down their guns?

  Not then. Maybe now, Craig answered.

  You’d bet your life on that?

  No. That’s why we’re practicing.

  We’re just playing games, she shot back.

  That’s all we can do—unless you want to get someone in town to rob a bank. It’s got to be stuff that’s within bounds of the law.

  I don’t think you’re going to get that guy to jump into the bayou. And I don’t want to suggest something that would get him fired—like tossing the buffalo wings over the railing. What if we see if we can get him to deliver them to the wrong table?

  Okay.

  They relaxed at their table, sipping their iced tea. When Stephanie saw the waiter come back with the wings, she sent Craig a silent message. He’s here.

  Craig let her direct the next part, but she felt him lending energy. She told the guy to deliver the appetizer to the table in back of them, and she saw his face take on a confused look. He stopped for a second, then walked past them to the next table.

  Behind her she heard the couple telling Julian that they hadn’t ordered the wings. In fact, they were waiting for their dessert.

  He did a quick about-face and came back to Craig and Stephanie, his cheeks flushed.

  “Sorry about that. I don’t know how I got mixed up.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Craig said.

  We have to stop playing with him, Stephanie said when he’d left the food and departed.

  Yeah, poor guy.

  They ate the wings and ordered shrimp étouffée and grilled snapper, which they shared before returning to their cottage for some more intimate practice sessions.

  Worn-out, they fell asleep, but the events of the past few days had taken their toll.

  * * *

  JOHN REYNARD PICKED UP the phone. The police detective on the other end of the line said, “I have some information for you.” The caller was the guy he’d sent over to the dress shop earlier who took substantial amounts of money under the table to keep Reynard informed on police-department business.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I have a fingerprint report on the man who called himself Craig Brady.”

  “That’s not his name?”

  “He’s Craig Branson. He’s a private detective out of the Washington, D.C., area.”

  “What the hell is he doing here?”

  “I’m working on that. He made an inquiry about a body that turned up in the bayou. A guy named Arthur Polaski.”

  John felt a frisson go through him. How did Branson know about that?

  “You think Branson is in New Orleans investigating Polaski’s death?”

  “Or what he did before he was killed.”

  “Yeah, thanks for the heads-up.”

  The cop hesitated. “I think one of the other guys in the d
epartment gave Branson the heads-up about Polaski.”

  “Why?”

  “Apparently Branson made it his business to keep in touch.”

  Oh, great, John thought. But then he supposed if you had a police department full of informants, you couldn’t control who was giving out information to whom.

  “You need anything else?” his contact asked.

  “Can you find out if Branson has used his credit card recently? Maybe I can get a line on where he went.”

  “Okay. Do you want him arrested?”

  “For what?”

  “He’s down here using an assumed name. We could have him brought in for questioning.”

  “Yeah. That might be good. If you can find him.”

  “There could be an accident while he’s in custody.”

  “Even better.”

  * * *

  STEPHANIE KNEW she was dreaming, but there was nothing she could do about it and no way she could stop the course of events her mind had conjured up.

  The dream started at her father’s house. She and Craig climbed out the window and down to the ground. Then she rounded the corner and ran into the two thugs with the guns. Only this time was different. This time she was alone.

  They hustled her to the van, and she kept crying out in her mind, crying out for Craig, but he simply wasn’t there. She was totally alone. The way she had been all her life. Only now she knew what it was like to be bonded with her soul mate. But he wasn’t there. He had vanished. And she couldn’t go on alone. Not after what she’d found with him.

  The two thugs were there, but they weren’t her only captors. John Reynard stood over them, telling them to tape her hands and feet. He was telling them to take her away, to a place where Craig could never find her.

  His eyes met hers, and she felt ice forming in her chest and throat.

  “You betrayed me with that man.”

  “No,” she lied.

  “You belong to me,” he said. “I’ll take you back, but only if you promise never to see that other guy again.”

  Her mouth worked, but no words came out. How could she make that promise? How could she say she would never see Craig again? That would be as good as death.

  Chapter Twelve

  In the dream, the two thugs were holding her down in the back of the van, and she struggled against them, knowing that if they drove away with her, she was dead. Desperate to escape, she kicked out with her foot, making one of them gasp.

  Good.

  Someone was calling her name, and it didn’t sound like either of the men who had taken her captive, or like John.

  “Stephanie. For Lord’s sake, Stephanie.”

  She heard the words in her ears—and in her mind. And they finally penetrated through the dream.

  It was Craig. He was here, calling her, holding her.

  Her eyes blinked open, and she stared up at him, catching his relief.

  Stephanie.

  Craig, she answered. I was so scared. I was dreaming those men had me, and John was there.

  I know. I caught the edge of the dream as you started to wake up.

  I thought I’d lost you.

  You’ll never lose me.

  She sighed deeply as she held on to him, overwhelmed with gratitude that he was here—with her. Yet she knew he couldn’t make the promise to be with her always. He could be yanked away from her, the way his brother had been yanked away from him.

  No. I promise.

  Despite his reassurance, her thoughts were racing. Something awful is going to happen. We have to get away before it does. Can’t we leave Louisiana? Go somewhere nobody knows us?

  She caught his reluctance to consider the desperate suggestion. I understand why you want to run, but we won’t really be safe until we find out who’s after us.

  How do we do it?

  The answer must be in Houma.

  She shuddered. I don’t want to go there.

  I know. He gathered her closer, running his hands up and down her back, combing his fingers through her hair, stroking his lips against her cheek.

  She relaxed into his embrace, so grateful to have him.

  The feeling’s mutual, he murmured in her mind.

  He rocked her in his arms, and when he began to make love to her, she brought her face up for a long, heated kiss.

  * * *

  JOHN REYNARD RANG the elder Swift’s doorbell and waited, impatiently tapping his foot on the floorboards of the wide front porch.

  It was early in the morning, earlier than he liked to be making a business call, but he had spent a restless night worrying about Stephanie. She’d disappeared, and he had to find her.

  He’d gotten a call back on the Craig Branson credit card. It hadn’t been used, which meant that the guy was being careful about revealing where he was.

  The last John knew, Stephanie was with him, and he meant to find her. And get her away from the guy.

  Was she a prisoner? Or had she willingly gone with the bastard? And what had Branson told her to get her to go along with whatever the bastard had in mind? Had he told her about the body of Arthur Polaski?

  But why would he? Unless he was trying to turn her against her fiancé.

  One thing John knew was that she’d left her car at home. Of course, there was no absolute proof that she was with Branson, but it was John’s best guess.

  In the middle of the night, he’d sent a message to a P.I. who worked in the D.C. area and started the guy checking into Branson’s background, looking for something that would explain why the man had shown up to investigate a twenty-two-year-old murder. And why he was dragging Stephanie around.

  When no one answered the door, he rang again.

  “I’m coming,” a voice called from inside.

  The crackly old voice sounded like Henri Swift.

  Half a minute later, a shadow appeared behind the lace curtain that covered the glass panel in the middle of the door. Finally the barrier was pulled open, and John and one of his men stepped inside.

  Swift blinked at him. He was wearing an old burgundy satin dressing gown. His hair was mussed, and his cheeks were covered with gray stubble. Obviously his visitor had gotten him out of bed. “What are you doing here at this time in the morning?”

  “Looking for my fiancée.”

  “She isn’t here.”

  “Maybe not now. But was she?”

  When Swift hesitated, John wanted to smack him upside the head. “Answer yes or no.”

  “I think she was here.”

  The answer elicited a curse. “Are you saying you don’t know for sure? Are you saying she came in and didn’t speak to you?”

  “I was out.”

  “Doing what?”

  Swift’s face tightened. “Getting supplies.”

  “Liquor?”

  “I was running low.”

  John made a disparaging sound.

  “I came home, and I thought she was in the house. But when I looked for her, she’d snuck out. If she was here at all.”

  “What makes you think she was here?”

  Swift shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I don’t appreciate your barging in on me like this.”

  “Oh, you don’t? Well, you don’t have much choice.”

  “We have an agreement.”

  “That’s right, and I don’t know where the hell to find your daughter. If she was here, I want to know why and where she went.”

  “All right. I heard someone upstairs, but nobody was there. When I investigated, I saw that the bedspread in her mother’s room was mussed.”

  John felt a wave of anger sweep over him. She hadn’t made love with him, but had she come here to do the deed with Brans
on? “You mean she was on the bed with someone?”

  “I don’t think so. I think she took a bunch of boxes out of the closet and put them on the bed.”

  “You’re quite the detective.”

  “It’s my best guess.”

  “Show me the bedroom.” He turned to the bodyguard he’d brought along. “Wait here.”

  “Yes sir.”

  John was already barreling up the stairs, then had to wait for the old man to come huffing after him.

  He led the way down the hall to a bedroom that looked as if it hadn’t been touched in years.

  “What boxes? Why?”

  Swift opened the closet and pointed to the top shelf. “That’s stuff my wife kept around. Stuff I couldn’t throw out.”

  “And why do you think Stephanie was into it?”

  “The boxes aren’t piled up exactly the way they were.”

  “I mean, what was she looking for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  John marched to the closet and pulled the boxes down. He could see folders and piles of old papers. Photographs and schoolwork from when Stephanie had been little. He wasn’t interested in the sentimental crap, but he looked at the pictures anyway, trying to find something that would give him a clue.

  There were photos of the family when Stephanie was little. He hoped he wasn’t going to find that guy Branson’s smiling face.

  That thought gave him pause. She didn’t know him from her past, did she?

  He looked up, seeing Swift watching him.

  “Get me some coffee. No cream. No sugar.”

  He could see the man wanted to say he wasn’t John Reynard’s servant, but he kept his mouth shut and shuffled out of the room. John could hear him rattling around downstairs, then a few minutes later Swift brought a mug of coffee. At least it was a strong New Orleans brew laced with chicory. John sipped while he looked through folders, wondering if anything would strike him. And wondering why he was bothering. Maybe because if he couldn’t have Stephanie with him, he could at least paw through her past.

  The notion made him snort. John Reynard didn’t settle for less than he was due. But in this case, he’d have to settle until he could change the equation.