Undercover Mistress

But handsome? She disliked the word-it had always seemed to her the masculine equivalent of pretty, meaning something pleasant to look at but not terribly interesting. Celia was accustomed to handsome and pretty people. She’d been surrounded by them all her life and linked romantically with a few. More than a few, actually. Way more. Anyway, handsome faces held no great fascination for her. So, what was it about this man’s face that commanded her interest? More than commanded-she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away.

He said his name is Roy. Roy Starr.

A nice enough name, but in Celia’s opinion it didn’t suit him. It had a gentle, heroic, good-guy quality-like Roy Rogers, maybe?-that didn’t seem to match up with the dark, battered face on the pillow. All that face needed, she thought, was a scar on one cheek and a cutlass clenched between the teeth, and he’d be the perfect pirate. Straight from central casting.

But, how did she even know if Roy Starr was his real name? What if he’d lied about that? And about being from Florida and owning a charter fishing boat business and all the rest of it?

Easy enough to check. She bent to pick up the tray and, after a moment’s consideration, set the cup of tea on the nightstand, then rose and carried the tray into the kitchen. She left it on the counter and climbed the stairs- slowly, as had become her recent habit, but for a change not even noticing the tug of muscles and tendons on newly knitted bones.

Upstairs in the master bedroom she almost never used now, she seated herself at the large executive-type desk that sat before the sliding glass balcony doors like an island in a sea of sunshine. The morning sun coming through the glass highlighted the layer of dust on the desktop, and when she took the plastic cover off the computer, swirls of tiny particles danced into the light. She removed a stack of scripts from the chair and placed them on the floor, setting free a new flight of those tiny, joyous motes. A long-ago memory flashed into her mind: as a child, she’d imagined they were fairies and had tried, enthralled, to capture them in her hands.

She sat in the chair and powered on the computer. While she waited impatiently for the computer to work its way through the process of booting up, she tried to remember the last time she’d turned the thing on. It had been a while-she considered the computer, more particularly the Internet, just one more source of public intrusion into the cocoon of privacy she’d built around herself during the past year.

She could barely remember which icon to click to connect with the Internet but after a couple of false starts, managed to get online. She remembered watching something on one of the TV news magazine shows about something called Google-and, yes, there the word was, in big multicolored letters right up near the top of the Home Page, next to a box like a tiny blank movie screen.

She thought for a moment, then typed in the words, Roy Starr fishing charters Florida in the box. Feeling clever and venture-some, she clicked with a flourish on Search Web, then sat back to wait for results.

An instant later she jerked upright. The computer screen had already flashed back a blue bar with the words, Searched the Web for Roy Starr Fishing Charters Florida. Results 1-10 of about 115,786. Search took 0.18 seconds.

She gave a huff of astonishment and whispered, “Wow.” Then, clamping her teeth on her lower lip, she leaned forward and began to read through the entries on the screen.

A few minutes later she was triumphantly connected to a Web site for STARR CHARTERS, and gazing at a picture of a rather ungainly-looking white boat afloat on impossibly blue water. Plainly visible on the boat’s bow were the words, Gulf Starr. Below the picture, the company’s name and logo were featured artistically, along with mailing and e-mail addresses and an 800 telephone number. Below that were the words, Roy Starr and Scott Cavanaugh, captains-experienced, trustworthy, professional.

There were links to other pages and other pictures-a good many of them. It took some time, but Celia visited and studied them all. Most of the photographs featured happy sunburned fishermen displaying their catch, but several afforded glimpses of the crew, as well. The one most often shown was a big, burly man with honey-brown hair cut short in a distinctly military style. The brother-in-law, obviously. He looked to be in his mid-forties, and had a nice smile-a very nice smile, Celia decided, the kind that made the man wearing it look as if he might actually be trustworthy and professional.

The same could hardly be said of the other man in the photographs. This one had a lean and untamed look, with a whisker shadow and longish dark hair that flirted with the wind. And, far from inviting trust and confidence, his smile held a hint-just a delicious shivery touch-of wickedness.

So he was telling the truth-about this, at least, Celia thought, shaking off the shivers-though her heart went tripping on in double-time, oblivious to her will. But it doesn’t explain how he came to be shot and washed up half-dead on my beach.

It didn’t explain the nightmare babbling about boats and bombs and millions of people dying. It didn’t explain about a luxury yacht called Lady Of The Night. And who was Max?

Since the answers to her questions didn’t seem likely to magically appear on the computer screen she was staring at, she turned it off, huffed a frustrated breath and went downstairs.

In her bedroom, the stranger-Roy Starr, alleged charter boat captain from Florida-slept on, his breathing raspy and rhythmic, not quite a snore. Celia tiptoed past him to her dresser, then to the closet, gathering clothes and clean underwear. From the bathroom she collected makeup and toiletries, and then, arms full, trudged back up the stairs, pleased once again to note that her legs barely protested.

The master bathroom felt chilly and unfamiliar to her when she first entered it-hard to believe it had been almost a year since she’d used it last. In some ways, she thought, a very long year…and in others, the night of the accident seemed like only last week. Like yesterday.

Nausea twisted coldly in her belly. She slammed the door on those memories and turned on the water in the shower.

She unbelted her robe and let it fall, as was her habit, in a heap on the floor, and as she did that the thought flashed into her mind: Ohmigod, I’ll have to call Mercy!

Normally, the robe would stay where it had fallen until Mercy the cleaning lady or one of her helpers picked it up and either put it in the laundry hamper, or, if it was the day for it, in the washing machine. But, of course, the cleaning service was going to have to be cancelled, at least temporarily, since it would be hard to explain to Mercy and her girls the presence of a wounded stranger in her bed.

It occurred to Celia for the first time, as she stepped into the shower, that the man downstairs was likely going to change her life more than a little. Last night, what she’d done-getting Doc to help her, picking him up, bringing him here-she’d done in the dark and fog and loneliness of a sleepless night. The wee hours of the morning. People did crazy things in the wee hours of the morning-ask anybody! It hadn’t occurred to her then what it was going to mean, practically speaking. Such as the fact that, apparently, she was now going to have to do her own cleaning.

And cooking! What about that? Celia did not cook. She’d never learned how to cook, and it was a bit late to start now. Before the accident, she’d seldom eaten a meal at home, if you didn’t count breakfast-which she didn’t. As far as she was concerned, mowing down yogurt, fruit and coffee while barely conscious wasn’t really eating. During the past year she’d discovered the wonders of the local market’s deli and meat sections, and why, with all the ready-to-serve gourmet stuff available, would anybody ever need to cook?

Now, it appeared, she was going to be shopping-and preparing meals-for two. At least for a while. As long as it takes him to get back on his feet. How long might that be?

Her fingers, following the trail of soap over the familiar contours of her own body, paused and lingered, feeling the still-alien ridges of scar tissue that wandered drunkely across her lower abdomen. A spasm shook her, something akin to grief.

I thought I was over that.

Closing her eyes, she put her head back and let the warm water sluice over her, carrying away the soap and the last of the sand that had been transferred from the stranger’s body to hers in the course of the night. That strange, unbelievable night, while she’d held him and given him her warmth, and with her body-this