A Rare Chance Read online

  “Any chance you found out how much Darrow’s making?”

  “No.”

  He grinned. “Would you tell me if you had?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I take it you’re sticking to your story: You’re going to all this trouble just because Pete Darrow resigned from the police force and you can’t understand it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re not my friend.”

  He rolled off the railing. “I’ll bet you are. Still have my address and phone number?”

  “I won’t need you.”

  He grinned and chucked her under the chin with one knuckle. “You never know, Gabby. One of these days you just might.”

  She didn’t wait for him to saunter out of sight before pounding up the front steps into her building, then taking the three flights of stairs to her apartment as fast as she could. The man was relentless, intriguing, irreverent. He wasn’t going to back off until he got what he wanted.

  Is he dangerous?

  If you cross him, yes.

  He’d meant Pete Darrow. But Gabriella had the feeling Cam Yeager could have been talking about himself as well. She shuddered and unlocked her door, pushed it open, then remembered Scag was on the roof. A familiar mix of irritation and relief rushed over her, inevitably the case when her father was within a thousand miles.

  She found him at the worktable just inside her specially built rooftop greenhouse. He was in his element. The greenhouse had three climate-controlled sections for her hundreds of orchids. She hadn’t meant to have so many. But once started, her collection had quickly multiplied way out of proportion to the amount of time she had available to tend it.

  Scag had gone straight to work. He’d started rearranging, sorting, dumping, repotting. Gabriella was just happy to have him busy while she figured out what to do with him.

  “I made a list of supplies I need,” he said without looking up. “It’s going to take several weeks and a pot of money to pull this place together. You want me to put in an order?”

  She glanced at his list. Scag had spared no expense in devising it, but she didn’t argue with him. “Go ahead.”

  “I’ll tell them it’s an emergency, see what they can do. I’ll use the phone downstairs and call it in.”

  He reached for his cane. Gabriella wondered if it would become a permanent fixture in his life. He looked less gray-faced, less exhausted than he had the night before, but still feeble. She’d offered to set up a doctor’s appointment for him. He’d declined. All he needed, he insisted, was a little time to mend.

  “Need help getting downstairs?” she asked.

  “I can manage.”

  He pushed through the aluminum door out onto the deck, where she’d finally uncovered her teak furniture, and down the stairs to the kitchen. Gabriella followed him, feeling frazzled. She had an ex-cop on her doorstep and her eccentric, injured father on her roof. Lizzie Fairfax was coming to dinner with her and the Reading brothers. Pete Darrow was still following her. What next?

  While Scag called in his supply order, Gabriella retreated to her bedroom to get dressed. In no mood to fool with what to wear, she chose a simple black dress with a strand of pearls, pearl earrings, and strappy black shoes. She combed out her hair and darkened her cosmetics, adding a smudge of charcoal liner to her eyes and going for red lipstick. She was done.

  Lizzie was waiting for her in the living room. She had on a peach dress that managed to be elegant, understated, and sexy. “Scag let me in,” she said, dangling a set of keys. “He gave me my own set of keys. You know Scag. I came by this afternoon, and he had to come down from the roof to buzz me in. He thought it’d be easier if I had my own keys. I told him it was up to you—”

  Gabriella waved a hand. “It’s okay, Lizzie. I don’t mind.”

  She smiled. “That’s what he said you’d say.”

  “He doesn’t know me half as well as he thinks he does. He’s gone home?”

  “He instructed me to tell you he’d be back first thing in the morning to continue triage.”

  “Triage. I swear he can’t understand how a single orchid survives without his intervention. If he’d waited ten minutes, I could have given him a ride.”

  “I suggested that to him,” Lizzie said. “But he insisted on taking public transportation. He doesn’t want to be beholden to you in any way.”

  “Ha. He just doesn’t want to hear me tell him I told him so.”

  “That too.”

  Gabriella glanced at her friend. “I did tell him, Lizzie. He has options. He doesn’t have to traipse after orchids for the rest of his days. He could be a contributing editor for horticultural magazines, an expert for botanical gardens, he can lecture at garden societies and colleges, write books and articles, even his memoirs. He doesn’t have to climb trees in Ecuador in search of the one epiphyte left in the world he might not have seen.”

  Before Lizzie could respond, Gabriella grabbed her handbag and started for the door. She supposed she should change to a dinner bag but didn’t bother. Having Scag back in her life, she thought, had really flustered her. Of course, it was easier to blame him for her mood than admit how much it had bothered her to find Cam Yeager on her doorstep.

  Had he spotted Pete Darrow following her and Lizzie? Or had he been following them himself and just added Darrow to the scene for his own convenience, to convince Gabriella to help him figure out what his ex-partner was up to?

  Why would he need her help?

  Groaning to herself, she headed out. Lizzie followed. “Gabriella, are you all right?” she asked tentatively.

  “I’m sorry. Yes, I’m fine. I’m just—” She stopped. No, she didn’t yet want to explain Cam Yeager and Pete Darrow. Let Lizzie enjoy her evening on Reading Point. Even if it was just pride that was holding her back, Gabriella didn’t need Lizzie fretting about her. She paused on the landing, glancing around at her friend. “I guess I just worry about Scag, in spite of myself.”

  “He doesn’t help matters by being so ornery.”

  Gabriella laughed. “What else is new?”

  The most tangible consequence of Joshua Reading’s near-kidnapping a month earlier was the addition of an unmanned electronic security gate on the narrow, paved road out to his house on Reading Point. Gabriella rolled down her window and identified herself over an intercom, and the gate opened.

  “Sort of your fortress mentality,” Lizzie said beside her.

  Gabriella eased her car down the road, flanked by drooping pines and white-trunked birches and poplars just leafing out. She could see glimpses of the water down the gently sloping bank to her right. Farther out on the point, the shore became steep and treacherous, but also dramatically beautiful with its huge rocks and spectacular views.

  “He’s hired a new security man, an ex-cop,” Gabriella said. “It sounds like overkill to me, but I guess I shouldn’t talk since no one’s ever tried to kidnap me.”

  Lizzie scoffed as she took in the view out the passenger window. “You’ve been shot, Gabriella. You do recall that poacher in Tahiti?”

  She did. She also recalled that her father had exhibited more interest in protecting an endangered orchid than his daughter. He’d insisted she was in no serious danger and had reminded her she hated anyone hovering over her. It was true, but there were exceptions—namely when an angry poacher had a gun pointed at her.

  “It was just a graze,” she told Lizzie. “I only needed a couple stitches. Anyway, people respond to fear in different ways. Joshua’s had his sense of personal security undermined. He can’t pretend he’s invulnerable anymore. Knowing him, he’d also take any threat against him as a potential threat against TJR Associates and respond accordingly.”

  “So he’s not just being a weenie?”

  Gabriella shook her head.

  Lizzie grinned, settling back in her seat. “Good, because I think he’s kind of cute.”

  “Cute? Joshua Reading?”

  “Yeah, sure. H
aven’t you noticed?”

  “Not really, no.” She decided not to mention that Joshua Reading had once asked her to dinner—not on business; she’d nipped that subtle advance in the bud. No romance on the job. It was one of her unbreakable rules. “Anyway, I don’t think like that. I treat people as individuals.”

  Lizzie snorted, laughing. “Listen to you! As if you’ve never noticed a man’s biceps before. When did Gabriella Scagliotti Starr become so repressed? You who used to criticize me for being uptight on matters of the heart. Joshua’s single. Haven’t you ever thought about dating him?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll bet he’s thought about dating you,” she said slyly.

  Gabriella glanced over at her. “Lizzie, if you’re going to cause trouble tonight, I’m turning around right now. I swear I am.”

  Lizzie gave a mischievous grin. “He has thought about dating you.”

  “Lizzie.”

  “Oh, you’re so honorable. You’d never even consider dating your boss, would you?”

  “First, I’m not interested. Second, yes, I believe there are too many pitfalls to dating a co-worker, never mind a boss. Third, I’ve been too busy this past year to bother much with men.”

  “You haven’t had any dates?”

  “A few.”

  She left it at that. Her dates since her return to Boston had been perfunctory. Dinner, the theater, a good-night peck at the door. She’d yet to find a man who could reconcile, never mind understand, the two sides of her personality that had her hunting for orchids with her crazy father on the one hand and putting together business deals on the other. Joshua Reading, for certain, wasn’t a candidate. However much she might respect his natural ease with people, he’d never shown any indication of understanding either side of her personality.

  The road curved closer to the water, where the woods gave way to wild blueberry and rose bushes. The tide was coming in, rough and gray in the fading daylight.

  “Quite the place,” Lizzie murmured as the house came into view.

  “Joshua has a place in town too, but he’s been spending more and more time up here. The house is only a year old. He had it designed to look as if it belongs here, part of the environment. The interior’s all grays, greens, blues, tans. The landscaping’s natural. Joshua won’t even add a daffodil.”

  “I can see why. It’s beautiful as it is.”

  Gabriella swung into the parking area below the house. They were among the first to arrive. Lizzie, clearly impressed, shot out of the car and exclaimed about the view, oblivious to the cold breeze that blew in off the water. Gabriella led her to the stone steps up to the main deck but stopped when she noticed Pete Darrow down on the rocks.

  Tension gripped her, her pulse increasing just at the sight of him. “Lizzie—would you mind going in without me? I’ll just be a minute.”

  Lizzie frowned. “What are you up to?”

  “I just want to take a peek at the water. Don’t worry. Remember, you haven’t seen me in a year. I’m a respected businesswoman these days. I got all my tilting at windmills out of my system.”

  “Is that possible for a Scagliotti? Go on. Don’t worry about me. When have I ever minded making a solo entrance at a dinner party? Go turn your Cape Cod soul loose. Just don’t tell me it has nothing to do with your being Scag’s daughter. You don’t see me wanting to traipse down to look at the tide in my high heels.”

  “I’m not going far. Back soon.”

  Leaving Lizzie to head up to the deck by herself, Gabriella took a wide gravel walk down toward the rocks, below the sprawling house. The walk soon gave way to a narrow path, barely a footstep wide, that wound down to the rocky embankment where she’d seen Pete Darrow. She watched her footing in her strappy black shoes. New England’s mercurial springs being what they were, a cold gust of wind off the water had her wishing she’d brought along a coat.

  She walked out onto a large, flat boulder that jutted out over the embankment and looked around for Pete Darrow, but there was no sign of him. He must have headed back to the house along another route, or perhaps cut down along the rocks to the security gate.

  Just as well, Gabriella told herself. Probably she’d be wise to confront Pete Darrow when she wasn’t meeting Titus and Joshua Reading and select guests for dinner.

  Still, if he’d followed her and Lizzie that afternoon, if what Cam Yeager had intimated was right and Pete Darrow couldn’t be trusted—worse, he was dangerous—then where better to confront him than on Reading Point? Let Titus and Joshua see what kind of man they’d hired.

  Of course, Pete Darrow might conclude she’d crossed him and pitch her into the ocean before anyone could stop him.

  Best to head back to the house, she decided.

  The tide was coming in and the air was brisk and clean, so she couldn’t resist a closer look at the water. Maybe it was her Cape Cod soul at work. She walked carefully out to the edge of the boulder, not daring to venture down the steep embankment dressed as she was. She could hear the ocean. Smell it. The wind whipped her hair into tangles. She didn’t care. Suddenly Scag and Lizzie and two ex-cops on her case all seemed far away.

  Then a movement down close to the water caught her eye.

  A man. He seemed to be sitting among the rocks.

  Pete Darrow?

  It was a three-foot drop to the next rock. Gabriella couldn’t do it in her strappy heels.

  The man waved a hand broadly at her, as if flagging down a car. What did he want?

  “Oh my God.”

  It was Cam Yeager.

  She felt a stab of panic, exhilaration, anger. He’d come anyway. She wouldn’t take him, so he’d gotten here on his own. Did Pete Darrow know? Was that why he’d been on the rocks?

  Yeager waved again. She squinted in the fading light. The rocks he was on were covered with white barnacles, putting him below the tide line. With the tide coming in, he’d be inundated before long. So why didn’t he move? Didn’t he know he was about to get wet? He was a cop, she thought. Maybe he didn’t know anything about the ocean.

  She glanced up at the house. Where was Darrow? Could anyone see her?

  A wave rolled in, swirling onto Cam Yeager’s rocks. Still he didn’t move. From his awkward position, Gabriella decided he must have caught a foot between a couple of rocks and was trying to extricate himself.

  She sat gingerly on the edge of the rock, mindful of her expensive party dress, and slid herself down the three feet to the next rock. Her ankle twisted in her heels. She crept down another couple of smaller boulders, moving closer.

  The wind died down. “Are you stuck?” she called.

  He glared up at her. “No, I decided to take a spring swim. You going to get down here and give me a hand before I drown?”

  “Seeing how you’re being so nice about it, sure.”

  But she kicked off her shoes and made the drop to the next boulder, then leapt a three-foot chasm between two more. In another few seconds, she dropped below the tide line, barnacles cutting into her feet. She felt the cold spray of water, smelled the dead-fish smells of low tide.

  Cam Yeager was sitting in two inches of frigid seawater, his right ankle wedged between two jutting rocks. With the oncoming tide, the water would get deeper, fast.

  “You’re in a fine pickle,” she said.

  In spite of his predicament, he gave her a dry look. “Somehow I didn’t expect much sympathy from you.”

  “Hoist by your own petard, I’d say. Teach you to trespass. Your ankle’s not broken?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  His voice was deep, raspy, his jaw tight. He had to be freezing. Water oozed over Gabriella’s feet, so cold it hurt. She bit back a yell.

  Cam noticed. “Pleasant, isn’t it?”

  “Nothing like a spring dip in the North Atlantic. How did you end up in such a mess? I saw Pete Darrow on the rocks. Why didn’t you call to him for help?”

  “Gabriella”—his gaze leveled on h
er, his lips turning blue—“we can chitchat later. Right now I’d like just to get the hell out of this water.”

  She nodded, slogging through the water for a better look at his trapped ankle. A loose rock lay atop his shin, complicating matters.

  “It came down on top of me when I fell,” Cam said. “I can’t get a good grip on it from this position. I think you can manage it. It’s not that heavy or it’d have broken my shin.”

  She glanced at him. “Not to worry. I lift weights.”

  He gave her a wry look, the sexiness of his grin catching her off guard. “Then have at it, sweetheart.”

  A wave hit, swirling and seeping as it washed up over his legs, up to Gabriella’s knees. She shuddered in pain and shock. Cam’s jaw was clenched, his face going pale. His chest was the only part not soaked in icy saltwater. Gabriella doubted he could stand much more before slipping into hypothermia.

  Feeling a growing sense of urgency, she squatted down the way her weightlifting instructor had taught her, grabbing hold of the loose rock. She made sure she had a firm grip: She didn’t want to end up dropping it back down on his shin and breaking bones.

  Lifting on the exhale, she managed to half heave, half roll the rock into the water. Her own legs were numb from the knees down, and she could feel her body temperature dropping. After a lifetime with Tony Scagliotti, she well knew the signs of hypothermia. Much more and she’d be risking her own safety.

  Before she could catch her breath, a huge swell rolled up onto the rocks, up to her thighs and over Cam Yeager’s head. She fought to maintain her balance against the force of the water as the shock of the cold wiped out all thought, all pain.

  The ocean sucked the water back, and Cam coughed and spit and swore.

  “Are you okay?” Gabriella asked, her own voice hoarse with cold and fatigue.

  He nodded, saying nothing.

  “You’ll have occasional swells like that,” she said, “but I don’t think the tide’ll get that deep here. You won’t drown. You’re more likely to die of hypothermia.”

  His sea-blue eyes fastened on her. “That’s a comfort.”