Page 11 of Fire on the Moon

Chapter Four

Francesca hugged her arms around her shoulders as she turned in a circle, inspecting the bedroom.

Zane Marshall had said he worked for a detective agency and had come down to Naples for a job. Just to do a little checking on his story, she opened drawers and inspected the closet in her bedroom. It was clear that the room wasn’t occupied by anyone on a regular basis, which might or might not prove anything. She had heard him go downstairs, and maybe she might have done a little more snooping if she hadn’t been sure she’d get caught at it. He had a way of listening and looking that made her think of an animal on the hunt. He’d told her he wanted to help her, but she had gotten the impression that he’d make a formidable enemy, and she didn’t want to do anything to get on his bad side.

At the same time she knew she was attracted to him, which didn’t make any sense because she’d never been the kind of woman who dated men she considered dangerous. And that’s how she’d describe him.

All that rattled around in her head as she lay in bed, wearing his tee shirt. It felt like much too intimate a thing to do. But she couldn’t sleep in her sundress and she certainly wasn’t going to lie here naked except for her panties.

She was sure she wouldn’t sleep, not just because she was alone with a strange man—a man she couldn’t figure out. She’d been through too much with her uncle, the thugs, and the fire. She reached to clasp the locket her uncle had given her. He’d said it was a cherished family possession. He’d wanted her to have it, and now he was dead. Could she ask Dad about it? She winced. That would mean having to tell him the whole horrible story of coming down here.

Her mind kept turning over the day’s events, but she was so wrung out that she did finally drift off. She woke with a start a few hours after the sun came up, yanked from a sensual dream with a dark-haired man whose face she couldn’t see. But she knew it had been Zane Marshall, the man who had rescued her and brought her to his house.

And now her dreams had turned him into a lover? She clenched her teeth, intent on banishing the implications. The dream didn’t make it any easier to face her host.

She knew at once that there was no use lying in bed any longer. She’d only be hiding from whatever was going to happen today. She would either have to trust Zane Marshall or get out of his hair. As soon as that thought struck, she felt a powerful pang of loss. She wanted to stay with him. And then what?

She’d still be in trouble. Longing to give her father the gift of connecting with his only brother, she’d found Angelo Lucci’s number and called him. But she should have stifled the impulse. It had been stupid to get tangled up with him again after all these years. She should have remembered all the negative things Dad had said about his brother before he’d gotten sick and started obsessing about his old life.

Unwilling to face Zane yet, she spent some time in the shower, then wished she had something to wear besides the sundress and sandals that had seemed so right for Florida. She didn’t even have the jacket she’d worn on the plane because that had burned up last night.

Finally she knew it was past the time for delay. When she came downstairs, she found him sitting in one of the living room chairs with his long legs up on a large footstool. Sometime in the night he’d changed into jeans and a pullover shirt.

She studied him as she reached the first floor. It looked like he’d spent the night there. And he was a lot less worse for wear than she was. On the other hand, nobody had tried to kill him yesterday.

“How are you?” he asked, making the question casual.

“I wouldn’t say I’m great,” she answered honestly. “Maybe a cup of coffee would help.”

“I don’t drink coffee.”

“Really?” She looked around the kitchen and spotted a Keurig on the counter. “There are probably pods for this.”

“I guess. I haven’t looked.”

“What are you going to drink?”

“Herbal tea.”

She tried not to wrinkle her nose as she turned away and found a basket of pods.

“There’s no milk,” he warned.

“I get by with sugar,” she answered, eying the nearby basket of packets.

While she fixed herself a mug of Donut Shop, he used the hot-water dispenser at the sink to fill another mug and put in a tea bag that smelled like ginger.

She knew she was stalling as she opened the pantry and then the fridge looking for something to eat. The only thing in the fridge was meat.

When she found a box of crackers in a cabinet, she pulled it out and bit into one. It was just on the edge of stale.

Looking up, she saw him watching her. For a long moment, neither of them moved, and it seemed as though they were trying to share secret information that neither of them wanted to speak. But staring at each other wasn’t going to cut it. She swallowed. This was decision time. She was in a hell of a fix, and she couldn’t cope on her own.

She watched him watching her. “All right,” she finally said.

“All right what?”

Her fingers tightened around the mug in her hand. “I guess you’re thinking that any normal person would go to the police, but I can’t do that because my father is in the witness protection program. He’s been known as Glen Turner for the past eighteen years. Before that, he was in the mob in New Jersey.”

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