A Lover Awaits Read online

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  “This is one night I’m not likely to forget.”

  “Stop a minute and catch your breath,” Simon said.

  “You all right?” he asked, close enough that his breath warmed her already overheated face.

  “Uh, huh,” she lied.

  He ran the back of his knuckles along her cheek, making her catch her breath. “You’re trembling.”

  “I’m not used to the exercise.”

  “Liar”

  He was crowding her against the tree she leaned against, still touching her with one hand, while his other was flattened on the tree trunk behind her. Though his body was inches from hers, she imagined them clinging together...naked.

  Vaguely remembering the reason they’d been forced to run into the swamp, she whispered, “Don’t you have anything more productive to do?”

  “Well, then...”

  His head dipped slow enough that it gave her time to duck if that was what she wanted to do.

  She didn’t....

  Dear Reader,

  As a writer I love nothing more than throwing my heroes and heroines to the precipice of danger, to make ordinary people fight the worst villains and win. For me, it’s a celebration of the human spirit, the discovery of untapped strengths that I am certain we all possess if only we can find the courage to reach deep inside ourselves.

  A Lover Awaits is book three of my Seven Sins series. For this series, I’ve chosen to raise the stakes, to push my heroes and heroines to the emotional edge at the same time they are fighting for their very existence. In the midst of mortal danger, they must wrestle with equally destructive inner demons and take back their lives...and in doing so, be rewarded with a love for all time.

  Let me know how you enjoy their stories at

  P.O. Box 578279, Chicago, IL 60657-8297.

  A Lover Awaits

  Patricia Rosemoor

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  Thanks to Elaine Sima for her spectacular house which now belongs to me via Phoebe ; to Elaine and Sherrill Bodine for introducing me to a fascinating new setting; and to Dennis Perry for helping me work out some of the crime details.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Phoebe Grant—She was determined to find her sister’s murderer.

  Simon Calderon—He was equally determined...to find absolution for himself.

  Audra Laughlin—Did her insatiable appetites finally take their toll?

  Boone Calderon—Did Simon’s twin brother really have bad blood as Simon had always feared?

  Vance Laughlin–Audra’s soon to be ex-husband had never stopped fighting the divorce.

  Blair Ratclifle—The fiancee Boone dumped for Audra had never forgiven him.

  Elise Navarro–She not only worked with Boone, she seemed obsessed with him.

  Jimmy Bob Dortch–The handyman knew more than he was saying.

  Kevin Saltis–Phoebe’s partner had an even deeper insight to Phoebe’s sister than she did.

  Prologue

  “Our newest subject is Phoebe Grant,” Zoe Declue announced, fingering the folder she’d set on the table between them, then suddenly withdrawing her hand.

  Alex Gotham stared at his collaborator, fascinated by the haze of pink creeping up her neck and beneath the blunt cut of her silvery chin-length hair.

  “What’s the rush?” he asked. “We haven’t even ordered yet.”

  Zoe started, her gaze darting around the room until it lit on a nearby waitress, arms loaded with a tray of food. Her deep green eyes flashed open wide, almost as if she’d just remembered she’d asked him to meet her at a restaurant rather than at her office, Alex thought.

  “I, uh, know what I want, and it might be a while,” she murmured in that soft voice that enveloped him in its silky cocoon. “I thought we could get a head start on the, uh...topic for Chapter Three.”

  Lust.

  How odd that she avoided saying it, Alex thought. As odd as her insisting they meet in a public place...as odd as her wearing a steel-gray suit designed for a more mature, harder personality. He’d never seen her in anything but softly neutral outfits touched with some warm hue that made him suspect an intriguing sensuality hidden beneath her cool exterior.

  Hidden...

  Alex couldn’t help himself. He said, “Why don’t you give me your take on the topic before getting into specifics,” just to see her reaction.

  “Yes, well...lust...gratification without involvement. A sin that denies feelings deeper than the physical.”

  The becoming color spread to her cheeks, making Alex suspect that Zoe was embarrassed.

  Perhaps a bit prudish?

  They’d been working together only a short time and he didn’t know her well enough to say...

  A research psychologist, Zoe Declue had approached him to write a book about the Seven Deadly Sins—a humanistic examination of pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony and lust. She wanted to demonstrate how these sins kept a person isolated from society and therefore from loving freely. And through the cooperation of her colleagues across the country—and given the written permission of their patients who would remain anonymous—they were able to focus on true-life narratives. Each chapter would tell the story of a single person who’d found a second chance at life after recognizing and rising above one of the emotion-based sins.

  Writing the book with her was his second chance, and for that, Alex was grateful. Several years before as a moderately successful investigative reporter, he’d been thrown into stardom with the publication of Lost Youth, his highly touted nonfiction look into the world of runaway teens. Unfortunately, his life had taken an unexpectedly gruesome turn, and it had been downhill from there...straight into the depths of a liquor bottle.

  But he was coming back.

  Work was keeping him sober, one day at a time. Alex wondered about Zoe’s sin against herself. More than once, he’d suspected her interest in the project was as personal as it was professional.

  What would she have to resolve so that she could find fulfillment and happiness?

  Thinking that it was only a matter of time before he found out, Alex let her off the hook and returned to the subject of their next chapter.

  “So this Phoebe Grant...she was promiscuous?”

  “That’s not exactly what I meant to imply.” Zoe opened the folder. “Her story is far more complex.”

  “Aren’t they all?” Alex murmured.

  “Very early on, Phoebe became convinced that love was...well, the source of unhappiness for the women in her family.”

  Confused, he asked, “So she rejected men?”

  “No, not at all. She merely decided that, um...” Zoe licked her lips. “...lust was preferable to love.”

  Again, he was struck by her surprising difficulty in broaching the topic. Wanting to explore that, he held himself in check instead. “So she chose to get her physical gratification without emotion.”

  “Exactly. Through therapy, Phoebe came to realize th
at she’d actually been cheating herself of real happiness.”

  “Sex therapy,” Alex couldn’t resist saying, just to see the soft color returning once again to Zoe’s cheeks.

  “Grief counseling,” she countered. “I told you it was complicated. Let me start from the beginning.”

  He took the newspaper clipping she held out to him. The lurid headline read: Passion Ends in Murder-Suicide.

  Chapter One

  “Just in...” The anchorwoman’s dark eyebrows arched beneath straight blond bangs. “Last Monday morning, the bodies of Boone Calderon and Audra Laughlin were found in his Marco Island home,” she said.

  A photo of the couple filled the television screen.

  “While the investigation continues, authorities surmise the deaths to be a murder-suicide. The preliminary investigation indicates that Calderon shot his lover to prevent her from reconciling with her husband—successful Fort Myers businessman Vance Laughlin—before turning the gun on himself...”

  The words from the newscaster’s earlier broadcast echoed in Phoebe Grant’s head until she wanted to scream, “Not true!”

  A gust of wind howled through the palm fronds and threw fine wisps of hair in her eyes as she picked her way through the aftermath of the tropical summer storm. Her dock shoes were soaked, her bare ankles and shins nicked by vegetation and other debris that littered the ground. Phoebe hardly noticed. Too aware of the pressure in her chest, of the rush of blood through her ears, of the knot in her stomach, she stopped and stared at the silhouette of the house.

  For a moment, the dread filling her at the thought of entering made her waver in her purpose.

  Even in the middle of the night, lights temporarily doused by electrical failure, moon swamped by diminishing storm clouds, she could see the structure clearly in her mind’s eye: two stories high...pillars flanking the front doors... exterior the color of lust...

  Sucking in the fetid air mixed with the strong odor of fish always left behind after a storm raged through the area, she forced her legs forward.

  A warning hiss and a skittering sound—a big and heavy body quickly scrambling along the ground—followed by a loud plunk into the channel made her insides clutch. Alligator. The dangerous reptiles didn’t usually hang out around here. This one had probably taken shelter from the storm. But where one gator lurked...

  Not savoring the thought of an accidental meeting in the dark, Phoebe snapped on the flashlight she’d removed from her glove compartment and swept its beam over the area. A six-foot saw palmetto had been upended from its roots, a low hedge of lantana flattened, its crushed leaves releasing a spicy pungent aroma.

  Nothing more threatening than debris.

  Fishing her sister’s extra set of house keys from her pocket, Phoebe hurried to the front door, released the lock and let herself inside.

  What she expected to find, she couldn’t say. But something—anything—to prove the authorities wrong.

  Boone hadn’t killed Audra. Hadn’t turned the gun on himself. She knew this deep in her heart. Her sister had been too happy. Had put too much stock in this relationship. No matter what Vance had told the authorities—no matter that he had played the contrite and grieving husband to the hilt—Phoebe knew Audra hadn’t had any intention of reconciling.

  So why the lie?

  Vance was the one who had a reason to be jealous. Not that he’d ever needed a reason before, she grimly remembered. The man had been downright delusional.

  And why wouldn’t Detective Sandstrom believe her? He’d listened politely, had even promised to check it out, but she had the feeling he’d categorized her as being something less than a credible source. Too emotional.

  She didn’t want to think the other...that money could buy anything...anyone...even the men sworn to uphold justice.

  Her brother-in-law had plenty of cash to spare. Had he bought off someone associated with the investigation? If she found evidence that might incriminate him, then what?

  Phoebe only hoped she could trust Detective Sandstrom to do the right things So she was inside. Now what?

  She’d acted on instinct, not from plant. The late-night news broadcast had jolted her out of her shock-induced complacency. She hadn’t taken the time to think things through.

  What to look for?

  A diary...

  Audra had kept one from girlhood on, had ritualized recording her thoughts and emotions. Phoebe wished she’d remembered this when talking to the authorities, but even now, she was finding it difficult to remain clearheaded. Audra had been the only family she’d ever felt close to. Even now, tears threatened.

  She pulled herself together and concentrated on her mission.

  On leaving her husband, Audra had moved into their mother and stepfather’s vacated winter townhouse in Naples. But after meeting Boone, she’d begun dividing her time between their place and his.

  What was to say she hadn’t brought the journal with her that fateful night?

  It could be here, Phoebe reasoned.

  Armed only with the flashlight, she moved away from the door. Luckily she’d been in the house several times before—often enough to know her way around. Its center was an atrium, the double-story rise split only by a suspended walkway, which connected the second-floor master suite on one side of the building with the guest rooms on the other.

  She would start with Boone’s bedroom.

  Heading for the stairs, she paused at a hint of nearby movement. A mere whisper in the dark. She flashed the beam around the open living area and beyond, through the glass wall to the lanai. Nothing. Maybe the sound had come from the private dock where the boat Boone had used to get to work every morning was anchored.

  Another gator, she concluded.

  Shaking off her unease, she climbed the steps to the master suite. The sitting room, bedroom and bath bore witness to the investigation. Tom up. And yet the sign of a lovers’ tryst was still evident. Perfumed silk sheets. Candles burned to nubs. Flowers everywhere. Shriveled. Dead.

  Just like her sister and the man she’d loved.

  Though they hadn’t died here.

  Audra had been found floating facedown in the swimming pool, while Boone had clung to the edge, his right hand and leg dangling in the water. The gun had sunk to the bottom of the pool.

  A lump caught in her throat even as she heard yet another sound, nearly certain this one came from somewhere within the house.

  What if she wasn’t alone?

  What if the real murderer had returned to the scene of the crime?

  Phoebe nearly choked on her own stupidity. She should have waited for daybreak. She shouldn’t have come alone.

  Deciding to get out while the getting was good, to come back the next morning with Kevin—she’d twist her partner’s arm if necessary—she snapped off the flashlight and sidled out of the bedroom. Ears attuned to the night, she cautiously started back down the stairs, careful to make no sound herself.

  Not that she could hear much above the thunder of her blood rushing through her ears.

  Dry-mouthed, she barely breathed until she reached the bottom of the steps. She flew across the still-dark room toward the front door, a ragged, relieved breath rattling her chest as she reached for the knob.

  Her hand hit something solid...something whipcord hard...something distinctly not wood.

  With a smothered cry, she tried fleeing in the opposite direction—toward the lanai—but before she knew what was happening, a hard grip on her shoulder spun her around and shoved her to the floor. A heavy weight descending on her pinned her neatly in place.

  “Get off me!” she cried, flashlight and nails flying toward his face.

  As if by instinct rather than sight—unless he had a cat’s ability to see in the dark—he caught both her wrists and plunged her arms up over her head, somehow managing to remove the flashlight from her hand in the process.

  He...definitely a man... the murderer returned to the scene of the crime?

  An
d there she lay...her soft belly exposed... vulnerable.

  Phoebe tried bucking him, kneeing him, kicking him. All she got for her trouble was frustration. And then he easily grasped both her wrists in one hand and flashed her own light in her face.

  “Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “And what is it you want here?”

  Her lungs deflated by his weight, she could hardly squeak. “Me?”

  “You,” he repeated even as the power came back on and the room lit up like a Christmas display.

  Her eyes squinched automatically against the unexpected, nearly blinding light, but she forced them open wide and focused on her attacker.

  Loose strands of dark brown hair tumbled over a high, narrow forehead...heavy-lidded, almost black eyes (bedroom eyes, Audra had called them)... straight, prominent nose...hollow, beard-shadowed cheeks...teeth bared threateningly above a square jaw...definitely alarming...and yet as handsome as sin...

  Her mouth dropped open. “Boone...” rasped between her suddenly stiff lips. She blinked, but the apparition didn’t change.

  The man who’d been declared dead along with her sister continued to glare down at her.

  Ghost was the first thought that came to mind.

  Hoax the second, for this was no spirit but a fleshand-blood man.

  But she’d seen Boone Calderon. buried!

  A closer audit of his features revealed subtle differences—imperfections—the most notable of which was a scar threading his stubbled chin. Understanding hit her with a jolt. She’d known Boone had a brother who rarely came out of his swamp, though no one had ever mentioned he was a twin.

  “You’re Simon Calderon!”

  Her preconception of him made the statement an accusation. Heir to his brother’s estate, he hadn’t even shown for the funeral.

  “I know who I am—”