"You know I hate Texans," Cortez was saying. He didn't blink. It was one of the more disconcerting things about him.

"If I remember my history, Texans weren't too fond of Comanches, either. But I'm not asking you to help a Texan. I'm asking you to help put one in front of a congressional subcommittee."

"Ah," Cortez said smoothly. "Is that so?"

"It is, indeed. I need a little help. A little detective work..."

"I'm on vacation. Do your own detective work."

"Cortez...?" Haralson held out an object on his palm.

The other man hesitated, his brow furrowing. "What is that?"

"You know what it is. You've been trying to beg, borrow, buy or steal it for the past five years. Help me out on this," he added, "and I'll sell it to you at the price you first offered."

Cortez's face hardened. "I don't want it at that price."

"Yes, you do." Haralson flipped it, emphasizing his possession of it.

Cortez groaned. "That's right, hit me in my weakest spot!"

"Always know a man's weaknesses when you plan to trade with him," Haralson chuckled. "Well?"

Cortez pushed back his raven-wing hair, his long fingers settling on the ponytail he wore it in when he was among whites. It seemed to draw more attention when he wore it down. "All right," he said bitterly. "But only because I'm a certifiable collector."

Haralson handed him the coin, a nineteenth-century two-and-a-half dollar gold piece.

"If you knew," Cortez murmured, handling the coin with something akin to reverence, "how many years I've been looking for one of these..."

"I do know. After all, I'm the one who bought it out from under you the day Harry in the code section put it on the market and I happened to be at FBI headquarters doing some research for Senator Torrance. I had a feeling it would come in handy one day."

Cortez gave him a skin-scorching glare. "So it did. All right, you'll get your pint of blood. I'll see if I can connect Lombard's larcenous employee to Burke's with something concrete. If I find anything illegal going on, I'll inform the appropriate people."

"Would I expect anything less from you?" Haralson asked with a wicked smile. "Trust me." He put his hand over his heart. "I have a soul."

"If you do, you keep it in your wallet," the Native American agreed. "I know you too well, Haralson. Just don't forget that you may have something on me, but I've got something on you, too. You had knowledge of a crime and didn't report it."

Haralson stared at him uncomfortably. He hadn't thought things through that far. He and Cortez were acquaintances, not really friends, but they occasionally did each other some good.

Cortez didn't smile, he smirked. He didn't like Haralson, but the man could be useful at times. It wouldn't hurt to do him one small favor, so long as it didn't breach any legalities. Cortez followed the very letter of the law in most things. He turned away, coin in hand, and went to pick up his jacket. "I'll be in touch as soon as I've checked out a few people and places."

Nikki had waded out into the surf to watch the distant freighter sail out toward the horizon. She wondered how it had been during Charleston's early days as a port city, when great sailing ships came here, carrying their precious cargoes of spices and rum and, sadly, slaves.

Pirates had come from here, people like female pirate Anne Bonney and her cohort Stede Bonett. Descriptions of those early days had fascinated Nikki in college, so much so that she'd done three courses in colonial history. The somber and dignified George Washington came to life as her professor lectured about the way the old warhorse had put on his old Continental uniform in 1794 and led 15,000 volunteers off to put down the Whiskey Rebellion-and how the rebellious Pennsylvania distillers had quickly dispersed at little more than Washington's threat of dire action. Far from the conventional image of George Washington with his little hatchet, the real man emerged from legend with stark clarity.

She wandered along with her toes catching in the damp sand and felt suddenly alone. Funny how a man she hadn't even known a week ago had made a place for him in her mind, in her heart. He didn't want Nikki in his, of course. He'd made that very plain. She supposed that, not knowing her, he'd cla.s.sed her as a gold digger and decided to cut his losses before she found out who he was. How amusing that she did know, and had tried to subdue her own interest for equally good reasons.

She felt a chill and wrapped her arms around herself. Just as well that it was over, she told herself. The chill grew worse. She laughed, because her chest felt cloggy and she'd been sure she was completely cured. She'd make herself a hot cup of soup and see if that wouldn't help. Then she'd have an early night, and soon enough Kane Lombard would become a sad memory.

She woke in the middle of the night coughing uncontrollably. Her throat was sore and her chest hurt. This was going to need the services of a doctor, she realized. She dialed, but Chad Holman wasn't at home. She lay back down. He'd be back soon, she was sure. She'd just close her eyes and phone him later.

But it didn't quite work out that way. She slept and didn't waken until morning. When she did wake, she couldn't talk at all and she was coughing up colored mucus. It didn't take a high IQ to realize that meant an infection. She had bronchitis or a recurrence of pneumonia, and a fever to boot. She was too nauseated even to sit up. She couldn't talk, so how could she call anyone? She could tap on the receiver, but Chad was a doctor, not a communications specialist. She couldn't get word to him to come and see her, although he certainly would, just as he'd come to see Kane. The same would be true of Clayton.

But sailors knew Morse Code, she thought foggily. Certainly, they did! So if she could remember just the distress signal and how to spell her name in Morse, she could get Kane to come. He didn't want her, but in an emergency, that didn't even matter. Thank G.o.d she'd taken an interest in Morse Code when Clayton's senior legislative counsel Mary Tanner's boyfriend had bought his first shortwave. He and Mary had broken up years ago, but Nikki still remembered the code.

She had Kane's number. He'd given it to her to telephone him that last morning they'd gone out together. She painstakingly pushed the b.u.t.tons. There was a pause and then a ringing sound. She waited. Waited. Three rings. Four. Five. Her heart began to sink when the phone was suddenly jerked up and an impatient male voice demanded. "Who's there?"

He was in a hurry. It didn't dawn on her that his housekeeper would normally have been answering the telephone, which was a good thing or she might not even have tried to get him. She tapped on the receiver.

"What the h.e.l.l...?!"

She made a hoa.r.s.e sound, afraid that he was going to slam the receiver down. She tried again. S...O...S...

The code caught his attention. "All right, I get the message, you're in trouble and you can't talk. Is it Chris?" he added, because he'd taught her Morse.

One tap. He frowned. "One for no, two for yes. Try again."

One tap.

He hesitated. Who could be doing this? Jake? "Can you give your name in Morse?" he asked.

There was a pause and a cough, and the cough made his breath catch. "Nikki? Nikki, is it you?"

Two taps. Two taps. "I'll be there in two minutes."

He put the receiver down and ran out the door.

Nikki lay back on the pillow, weak tears of grat.i.tude rolling down her pale cheeks onto her dry, cracked lips. She hadn't thought he'd understand, but he had. And at least his voice had sounded concerned. That could have been an illusion. At the moment, she didn't care. She only wanted to sleep.

Chapter Seven.

Nikki heard him at the door, but she was too weak and sick to know or care how he was going to get in. She only knew that he would. He was the sort who got things done even in an emergency. Nikki recognized that trait because she had it herself. She might go to pieces later, but she was always cool when it mattered most.

Kane discovered an unlocked window and went in through it. He found Nikki on the bed, feverish and sick, sounding as if she were breathing water in and out of her lungs.

"My G.o.d," he said quietly.

Her eyes opened, dark green with pain and illness in a face like rice paper. "Kane," she whispered, but her voice made no sound.

He didn't waste a minute. He wrapped her up in the cover and carried her out the door to his waiting car. Ten incredibly fast minutes later, he walked into the nearest emergency room carrying her in his arms.

Time seemed to blur after that. She remembered voices and needles and the coldness of metal against her bare skin. Then she slept, very deeply, and the pain mercifully went away.

When she woke, it was dark and she was lying in an unfamiliar bed. It was king-size, with a white and brown and green color scheme that was repeated in the curtains and the bedclothes. The furniture was dark Mediterranean and as st.u.r.dy-looking as the man who obviously lived here.

She stirred, trying to raise herself, but it was just too much of an effort.

Kane opened the door and came in, wearing a black-and-white-toweling robe and nothing else. His dark hair was damp, if neat. He smelled of soap.

"Need something?" he asked quietly.

"I need to get to the bathroom," she whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

"No problem there." He pulled back the covers, revealing Nikki in a pale blue silk gown, and lifted her gently free. "Silk. Does he buy them for you?" he asked as he carried her toward the bathroom.

"I buy them...for myself. Why am I here?" she croaked.

"Because I didn't fancy trying to sleep on that d.a.m.ned bed in your guest room again," he said bluntly. "How can I reach your lover to tell him where you are?"

"He's abroad," she lied shakily. "And I don't know where he is exactly."

He sighed. "Well, that solves one problem, at least. Here." He put her down. "If you need help, don't stand on modesty."

"I won't."

Several minutes later, her face washed, she opened the door and he returned her to bed.

He sat down beside her, disturbing the tie of his robe to reveal a portion of his broad, hairy chest. "Here, swallow this," he said, producing a pill from a small vial. "Doctor's orders," he added when she hesitated.

She took it from his big hand and managed to swallow it past her sore, tight throat. She grimaced as she handed back the gla.s.s of water he'd given her. Her eyes lingered on what she could see of his bare skin and as she dragged them away, he glanced down and chuckled at his state of undress.

"Was I giving you a floor show?" he mused. "Does it matter? You know what I look like. You stood in the doorway and stared at me that first morning after I washed up on your beach."

She flushed uncomfortably. "I didn't know you saw me."

"Oh, I was flattered," he remarked dryly, refastening the robe. "But I've already got a lover."

"Yes, so you've said."

He reached down and touched her skin at the collarbone, feeling the heat and dampness of her skin, her involuntary withdrawal from his fingertips.

"I said some harsh things," he said quietly. "You can't forget them. Probably it's a good thing. I have too many complications in my life right now."

"So do I," she whispered. "I only wanted to be friends. I never said I wanted to be your lover."

"That's true," he said lazily. "But your eyes say it all the time." He lifted his hand and softly traced around a taut nipple, watching her reaction to the blatant intimacy. Her body shivered and she caught her breath. "What a fierce reaction for such an innocent little caress, Nikki," he said, his voice deep and seductive. His big hand flattened over her breast, feeling its firm, hot contour while his thumb and forefinger worked tenderly at the hard nub that crowned it. She was gasping now, even if her hand did raise to catch his wrist in a token protest.

His eyes were steady and speculative on her face. She wasn't accustomed to this kind of intimacy. Like a rank innocent, she was torn between the need to protest and the longing to submit. The pleasure she was feeling was all too evident. So was an odd fear.

"Doesn't he make love to you at all?" he asked quietly. "You're starved for a man's touch."

"Please...don't," she said, shaken.

His dark eyes slid down to the clinging fabric. Only spaghetti straps held the bodice in place, and he'd already dislodged one. His hand moved, slowly tugging it the rest of the way down until he bared her breast to the mauve rise of her nipple. Her eyes widened on his face, as if she couldn't believe what was happening.

"You let me touch it. Now, are you going to let me see it?" he whispered deeply.

Her nails bit into his wrist. This couldn't be happening! She was sick, she was helpless, perhaps it was the medicine...

"Yes," he murmured, completing the slow descent of the silk, and his eyes found her, enjoyed her, took pleasure from the exquisite creamy firmness of her breast in the sudden silence of the room.

No one had ever made her feel that she might die if he didn't do more than look. Not even in her younger days, before Mosby destroyed her confidence in her femininity, had she known such a primitive need.

"You have a little fever, still," he said, letting his fingertips touch her, trace her, worship her. "Your skin is hot to the touch. Especially here, Nikki, where it's hardest. It makes you tremble when I caress it, doesn't it? It makes you want to pull me down and wrap your legs around my hips and pull me into you, because you know that's the only thing that's going to make the aching stop."

"d.a.m.n...you!" she choked.

"You don't want it any less than I do," he whispered. "Look, Nikki. Let me show you."

He stood up, his body vibrating with the same fever that held her captive. His hands loosened the single knot that held his robe in place. He pushed it aside and dropped it, and stood before her with magnificent pride in his aroused masculinity, in the perfection of his tall, hard-muscled body without a single white line to mar the even tan that covered it.

Nikki's face colored, but she couldn't look away. He was beautiful. Her eyes traced him with the same rapt fascination an artist would bend on a work of art. He was a work of art.

"You are utter perfection," she whispered.

"So are you." His legs held a faint tremor as he looked and wanted her just short of the point of madness.

"Oh, Kane," she bit off, too weak and shaky to do anything at all about the anguish of her need.

"It's been a very long time since I've been this aroused," he said matter-of-factly. "But you're hardly in any condition to satisfy me."

With sheer force of will, he picked up his robe and shouldered back into it. Nikki lay watching him, helpless, submissive as she never would have been if she'd been completely well.

"That could become addictive," he mused, watching her pull up the loosened spaghetti strap to stay the confusion his dark eyes were causing.

"What?"

"Letting you look at me," he said, smiling faintly. "I can never remember wanting the lights on before, when I was aroused like this. Have you ever made love in the light, Nikki?"

She couldn't stop shaking. "I feel ill," she whispered.

"You are ill, little one," he said, contrite as he realized how ill she'd been. "And I'm a brute for behaving like this. The sight of you in that gown has made me mindless, I suppose. You need rest, not s.e.xual innuendoes."

"Were they only that?" she asked unguardedly, watching his face close up at the question.

"I wish I could tell you that they were," he replied curtly. "But the fact remains that a relationship between you and me wouldn't work."

"Are you sure?" she asked hesitantly.

He sat down beside her, his expression one of reluctant resignation. "Nikki, a year ago my wife and son were killed in an explosion," he said bluntly. "I'm not coping very well, despite the lover I told you about. Sometimes nightmares keep me awake. I don't know how I feel, because I've tried so hard not to. It's too soon," he concluded roughly.