Fox was standing in the hall, wearing tan chinos with a light brown linen jacket and a pale green shirt. His silk tie blended perfectly with his clothes, but it looked as if it were choking him, and Cindy wondered how long it had been since he’d last worn one.
“Hello,” he said. “You look nice. These are for you.” He handed her a bouquet of flaming hibiscus, the color of an August sunset, which he’d been concealing behind his back.
“Thank you,” Cindy said, accepting the flowers and going back inside to put them in water. He followed slowly, watching her.
“I wasn’t expecting this,” she said, rooting through the cupboards for a vase.
“I wasn’t expecting it, either. But I passed a florist’s and I was thinking about you, so I just stopped and got them. But then, I’ve been thinking about you a lot these past few days. If I’d been passing a furniture store you probably would have wound up with a desk.”
Cindy glanced at him quickly, and he grinned. She smiled back at him.
“How’s your head?” she asked.
“Fine. How’s your arm?”
“Fine.”
“Then I guess we’re both fine,” he said, and she laughed.
Cindy left the flowers standing in an old milk bottle filled with water. She picked up her jacket and purse. “Shall we dance?” he said, extending his arm. She took it, and they walked out together.
Chapter 3
The Gulf Coast night was warm and fragrant, refreshed by a salt laden breeze. Fox led Cindy to a late model sports car standing next to the curb.
‘‘This is your car?” she asked.
“Yes. You were expecting to go in the pickup?”
Cindy shrugged. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it,” she answered truthfully.
“Would you have minded that?” he asked as he opened the door for her, alert to her response.
“Why should I? It’s transportation.”
Fox thought that over while he walked around to get in on his side.
“You know,” he said quietly, as he pulled onto the road, “when I called earlier I half expected you to say that you had changed your mind.”
“Why?” Cindy asked, turning to look at him.
He lifted one shoulder slightly. “Ladies like you don’t usually...”
“Keep their word?” Cindy inquired, an edge to her tone.
He shook his head. “I just don’t go out with ladies like you a lot.” He smiled, but his eyes didn’t change. “Not much opportunity to meet refined young professors in my line of work.”
“I’m not a professor yet,” Cindy replied. Then she grinned at him. “Maybe I’m not even that refined.”
“I’d have to argue that point with you,” he said mildly. He turned to look directly at her. “Did Paula tell you that I’m a half-breed?” he asked suddenly.
Disturbed by the bluntness of his question, Cindy nevertheless answered him with the same candor.
“She didn’t have to tell me. I knew it when we first met, from your eyes.”
He examined her face briefly before turning his attention back to the road. “My parents were never married,” he went on evenly. “My mother left me with my father right after I was born. She went back to Boston.”
“That must have been very hard for you when you were growing up,” Cindy murmured. It sounded inane to her own ears, but she didn’t know what he wanted to hear.
“Those who knew her say that I look like her, not in coloring so much, but in my features.”
“Then she must have been beautiful,” Cindy said, meaning it, but also trying to make him feel better concerning a subject about which he was obviously very sensitive.
“And you have the nerve to suggest that you’re not refined,” he said, tossing her a teasing glance, and she smiled. She could almost feel the tension leave them like the passing of a dark cloud.
As Fox turned the wheel to negotiate an intersection, Cindy noticed a leather sheath strapped to his midsection.
“What’s that?” she asked curiously, before she considered that the question might be rude.
“What?” he responded, watching the stream of cars moving in the opposite direction.
“That thing around your middle—looks like an eyeglass case or something.”
“Oh. That’s a bowie knife,” he said casually.
“A bowie knife,” she repeated in disbelief.
“Yeah. I don’t like to carry a gun when I go out socially. My father taught me how to throw it.”
He noticed her transfixed stare. “Relax, princess. I’m not going to throw it at you.”
“Why do you have to carry anything at all?” she inquired, still trying to adjust to the idea.
“The people I take back to prison usually aren’t too happy about it, or fond of me for getting them there. On occasion they’ve taken their revenge when I least expected it. Most convicts don’t stay in prison forever, you know.” He glanced over at her. “I’ll leave it in the car if it upsets you.”
“Oh, no, no. I was just surprised, that’s all.” Cindy waited a moment and then said, “How did you get started with what you’re doing, Drew? If you don’t mind telling me.”
“I don’t mind,” he answered evenly. “I was always good at tracking. I learned to hunt animals when I was a kid. I never killed them—my family didn’t believe in it, except for food—and we didn’t need that. But I got a lot of experience following scents and clues, things an animal leaves behind that tell you where it has gone. And people are animals too, they leave spoor just like wildlife in the woods. At first I just tracked down anybody who bolted and then I collected the money. But as I became better and better at it, the cops called me in to find people they couldn’t catch.”
“Paula says you go after big time criminals now,” Cindy observed.
“Oh, yes, I’m a member of the elite these days,” he answered, with a hint of self mockery. “As far as my job goes, anyway. They’ve got computers and radar devices and everything else to assist me.”
“Who does?”
“Whoever I’m working for. I have some stuff of my own too, but the most sophisticated equipment is reserved for the police: state, feds, Interpol.”
“What’s Interpol?”
“International Police.”
“Paula said you went to Mexico not long ago on a case.”
“Paula says quite a bit, apparently,” he commented dryly. “I hope she hasn’t been scaring you off me.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Cindy replied defensively, and he smiled slightly.
“Yes, you are,” he said quietly, and left it at that.
They approached Tampa Bay, and Fox pulled onto the causeway, which spanned the gleaming water like a thin ribbon. The bay fanned out from it on both sides, sparkling like an aquamarine in the fading light.
“This is gorgeous,” Cindy breathed, craning her neck to look around her. “But the road is so low, doesn’t it flood?”
“Wait until you see it on the way back, when it’s dark, with a hundred lights reflecting in the water. And yes, it does flood, all the time during hurricane season. That’s the reason the Sunshine Skyway was built so high, fifteen stories above the bay at its highest point. It connects St. Petersburg and Bradenton. There are signal lights on the ramparts to warn off planes.”
Cindy shuddered. “I don’t think I’d like to go on that,” she said.
Fox glanced at her. “Afraid of heights?”
She nodded.
“Trust me, princess, I won’t let you fall,” he said softly, and Cindy felt a plummeting sensation in her stomach, as if she were tumbling from a cliff already.
Maybe she was.
Fox drove through St. Petersburg down to the water, parking in the lot of a restaurant that flanked a marina. Small boats bobbed at anchor all around them as he led her up an entrance ramp designed to look like a gangway. Inside, the walls were floor-to-ceiling glass, affording an unobstructed view of the inlet.
“This is lovely, Drew,” Cindy said, as the hostess led them to their table. “Thank you for bringing me here.”