Eyes Of Fire

“Yancy!”

“Oh, don’t worry. No one else will be able to tell. I simply know you.”

“Yancy, damn it—”

“Don’t you go yelling at me. I didn’t tell him to walk back into your life.”

Sam poured the wine, set the cork in the bottle and walked around the bar. She headed to the set of chairs directly before the fire, leaving her glass on the counter. Yancy came over and sat down beside her. Sam stretched her hand out. Yancy took her fingers and squeezed them.

Sam had to smile. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. He just took me by surprise. But, Yancy, that’s not the worst of it! You wouldn’t believe…” She hesitated, wondering how much she should say. Then she remembered that she was talking to Yancy. “Yancy, someone just attacked me in my bathroom.”

“What?” Yancy nearly shrieked.

“Sh, sh!” Sam said. “You’ll have everyone checking out.”

“Well, girl, they should be checking out if that’s what’s going on. Who attacked you? Not—oh, I don’t believe it!”

“No, no, Adam didn’t attack me. He stopped the man who did.”

“Out of the past and straight to the rescue,” Yancy murmured. “But who…?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“He was wearing a ski mask.”

“A ski mask!”

“Sh!”

“No one is here. You were attacked by a man wearing a ski mask—on a Caribbean island?”

Sam nodded, turning around to make sure that Yancy was right and that they hadn’t been joined as yet. “I was in the tub when this guy appeared, dressed all in black, trying to drug me, I think.”

“You think,” Yancy murmured skeptically.

“Yancy, he had some kind of a cloth in his hands.”

“Black?”

“Right. Damn it, Yancy, this is serious.”

“I’m sorry. So tell me—”

“He was definitely trying to drug me. I can still recall the awful scent of the cloth. I was nearly knocked out, but then the guy in the ski mask was pulled away—”

“Adam?”

“Yes.”

Yancy was quiet for a minute. Then she shrugged. “Well, he is useful,” she said.

“Yancy…”

“Okay, so did you try to breathe wine because of the attack, or because of Adam?”

“Yancy!”

“Ah, because of Adam,” Yancy said.

“Yancy….”

“He did save you, right?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And you said thank you.”

“More or less.”

“Sam!”

“Yancy, you’re missing the point.”

“I’m not missing the point. There’s a dangerous whacko running around the island. We don’t want everyone to check out of the hotel, but neither do we want anyone else attacked by the whacko.”

“It’s strange, but I don’t think this particular whacko is a danger to the general public.”

“Now you’re losing me.”

“I don’t think our guests are in danger.”

“Why not?”

“The whacko is one of our guests,” she said, evading a direct answer to the question. She didn’t want to admit that she was relying on Adam’s judgment.

“My, my, my. What is the world coming to? Imagine. We’re letting the riffraff onto Seafire Isle.”

“Yancy, it isn’t funny.”

“Of course it’s not funny. You could have been…hurt. Or worse. Maybe we should call the mainland police.”

“I—I decided not to.”

Yancy arched a brow. “Did Adam suggest that you not do so?”

“Not exactly. He pointed out that it might not do me much good, and that I might wind up in greater danger.”

Yancy lifted her hands and let them fall back on the armrests of the chair. “Why?”

Sam didn’t answer her. She frowned suddenly. “Yancy, where’s the baby?”

Yancy smiled. “Upstairs. Lillie Wie is staying overnight because of the dinner party. She and Brian are napping right alongside each other.”

“Oh!” Sam said, leaning back into the chair with relief. Brian was six months old—and the love of all their lives. He had his father’s blue eyes and toffee brown hair, and the most winning smile known to man. Lillie was one of the day maids. There were four of them altogether; they came in the morning from Freeport and usually left with the mail boat in the afternoon, along with the two grounds keepers. Sam hadn’t been quite twenty-two when her father had disappeared, but between herself, Jem Fisher and Yancy, they had divided the duties on the island in a manner that had worked well right from the very beginning. Jem supervised maintenance, tennis, golf, lawn care, pool and beach care, and any repairs that became necessary. There were only two tennis courts, and the golf course was only nine holes. There was also only one pool, so Jem didn’t find his responsibilities overwhelming. Jem’s younger cousin, Matt, had taken a job with them during the last year, as well, acting as lifeguard, scuba instructor and jack-of-all-trades, but he only came over on weekends, when his college schedule allowed.

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