The Billionaire's Bride

“I can vouch for that,” Marnie muttered.

“Others say he is a drug dealer.”

“Drug dealer?”

Marnie couldn’t picture that. The guy was a royal pain in the fanny, but he didn’t seem like some sort of sleazy lawbreaker despite that wad of bills he carried. He was as suspicious as all get out, but would a drug dealer wade into the ocean intent on saving the life of someone he didn’t even like?

“Si. Me, I do not believe it. I think he is a booty hunter.”

“A wh-what?” Marnie sputtered.

“Booty hunter,” Marisa replied sincerely.

“Lot’s of men are,” Marnie said on a laugh. “But I’m thinking you mean bounty hunter.”

“Ah, that is the word. Si.”

“What makes people think he’s a bounty hunter?” Marnie asked, intrigued.

The other woman shrugged, but leaned in closer.

“He seems to do a lot of watching and driving. And a friend of my cousin has been inside his house. He hires her from time to time to come in and clean. She says he has all sorts of impressive equipment and computers. And last week, just after he arrived, she was there freshening up the sheets when she heard him on the telephone talking to somebody about justice and being a tracker.”

Bounty hunter? Marnie thought it seemed farfetched. But he fit the image she’d always had in her head when it came to the people who went after bail jumpers: Big, brawny, a little on the rogue side. And might that explain why he was so curious about who sent her? Did he think she was up to no good? Or, did he think she was out to collar some criminal before he did?

Marnie LaRue, bail bond agent. The very thought had her smiling. Then she set aside her mirth. The mysterious J.T. was none of her concern, she decided and headed back to her heavenly slice of golden beach, listening to Aretha’s soulful voice all the way.

When evening rolled around again, Marnie still did not have electricity. She glanced down the beach at the light already visible through the windows of J.T.’s abode. She really didn’t want to spend another night in the dark with nothing to eat but charred hotdogs. She didn’t particularly like the man, but she could tolerate him if it meant at some point she could ask to borrow his shower. And, after her conversation in town with Marisa, she had to admit she was even more intrigued by him. She decided she would go over, act nice and see if that got her foot far enough in the door to feel the brisk spray from a showerhead before she had to leave.

In the meantime, she would ignore the fact that J.T. had her hormones on full alert. It was a fluke, pure and simple. It had to be since the last time she’d felt this way, she’d been seventeen and head-over-heels smitten with Hal LaRue.

Marnie smiled absently, thinking about those golden days of the not so distant past when she had shamelessly wheedled and maneuvered in order to get what she most wanted.

And what she had most wanted was Hal.

She’d been the one to actually ask him out for their first date. She’d been a senior in high school at the time and she figured she’d waited long enough for him to get around to it. She’d set her sights on him when they were both juniors. She’d been a cheerleader, the homecoming queen. He’d been captain of the…chess club.

Okay, so most people hadn’t understood the attraction. But Marnie had found his brains as sexy as the way they were packaged: beneath tidy blond hair and behind wire-rimmed glasses that drew attention to a pair of serious, soulful dark eyes.

His physique leaned more wiry than brawny, which made sense since he ran cross country, but he could quote Shakespeare! None of the other boys Marnie dated would have known Hamlet from a ham sandwich, but Hal—Mr. Valedictorian, Mr. Quiz Bowl captain and a member of the debate team—had.

Someone with his brains could have gone anywhere, done anything. But he’d graduated from high school, attended Michigan Technological Institute in nearby Houghton for a while, and then he’d come back to tiny Chance Harbor on Lake Superior’s shore, three semesters shy of obtaining his degree.

“I don’t want to move to some unfamiliar city and work at some impersonal company,” he’d told her in that simple, straightforward manner of his. “Odds are good that’s exactly what I’ll wind up doing. Mechanical engineers aren’t in high demand in Chance Harbor. But this is where I want to live and raise a family.” He’d waited a heartbeat before adding, “With you.”

Marnie sighed now, remembering with bittersweet clarity the way their life had unfolded perfectly according to plan—at first.

Hal had gotten a job with the county and bought a small house within a stone’s throw of the biggest of the Great Lakes. He’d worked his way up to a department head by the time he finally asked her to marry him. Marnie had been twenty-seven by then and she’d said yes without hesitation. Slow, plodding Hal. For a while there, she’d thought she might have to pop the question herself.

In the end, they had only celebrated two wedding anniversaries before he’d died. And now she’d marked three anniversaries without him.

She glanced across the beach again, thinking about J.T. and the inappropriate tingle of attraction she’d felt when she’d first met him. What was it about him that called to her? He had that golden god thing going for him, sure, but even if she were in the market for a man, which she most certainly was not, Marnie wanted someone who was capable of stimulating conversation as well as mind-blowing sex. She’d had both with Hal. She’d never settle for less.

The memories, bittersweet and poignant, almost stopped her from leaving the house. As it was, she stepped back inside, telling herself it was just to get a sweater to pull over her T-shirt and shorts since it had grown chilly out as daylight waned.

A year ago, Marnie would have spent the remainder of the evening wallowing in unhappy thoughts peppered with what-ifs and if-onlys. Tonight, determination had her shrugging into the sweater, grabbing a bag of potato chips she’d brought from Arizona and the bottle of wine she bought earlier that day, and walking out the door. She was alive. She needed to act that way, not only for herself, but also for Noah.

Besides, it was really all about the possibility of a shower and nothing more, she told herself, intent on ignoring that fluky flutter in her belly.

Still, she didn’t miss the irony that as she crossed the stretch of beach she was quite literally walking out of the darkness and toward the light.

CHAPTER THREE

J.T. WAS scowling when he opened his door. He wore a long-sleeved lightweight pullover with a discreet designer insignia embroidered on the front and a pair of faded jeans in deference to the temperature dip. But his feet, tanned and the tops sprinkled with golden hair, were bare.

He leaned against the jamb and crossed his arms. “Come to apologize?”

Marnie had, thinking that might be the best way to wheedle a shower out of him, but she would be damned if she was going to now and have him believe she had somehow been shamed into it.

“Peace offering,” she said instead, holding out the chips and wine.

He didn’t invite her inside. He came out instead and closed the door firmly behind him before she could glimpse much of the interior. Still, she wondered, had those countertops been made of granite or marble? His place definitely was a huge step up from hers and Marisa had said he owned it.

“Are you coming?”

She watched one sandy eyebrow lift, as if he were daring her to comment or ask a question. She swallowed both.

“Lead the way,” she said instead.

A small wicker table and chairs took up most of a small patio on the side of the house that faced the ocean. J.T. accepted her gifts and headed toward it, turning his chair so that he was looking at the water when he sat.

The sun had almost set. It was but an orange glow melting onto the ocean’s relatively calm surface. And if not for the light that spilled from between the blind slats of the window behind him, Marnie might not have been able to make out his expression. But she could. His jaw was firmly clenched, as if her presence irritated him. He didn’t exactly invite her to sit and join him, but she did anyway.

“So, how long are you down here for?” she asked conversationally as she settled into her chair. She could hear her mother’s voice in her ear: A polite host or guest doesn’t monopolize the conversation but tries to get others to talk about themselves.

Clearly J.T.’s mother had made no admonition. At his glare, Marnie sighed.

“Oh, that’s right. You can ask questions, but apparently I’m not allowed to. I’ve got to tell you, J.T., given your attitude, it’s really no wonder that you vacation alone.”

If he was insulted, it didn’t show. “And what’s your reason?”