Manhattan Merger

“That reminds me I better get up and let Craig know we’re not leaving with him in the morning.”

“He already knows.”

“How?”

“I had a little powwow with him before I climbed in your tent. He’s already welcomed me to the family.”

“I’m so happy I think I’m going to burst.”

“Don’t do that,” he growled against her neck playfully. “I’ve got plans for us in the morning. The pilot’s going to pick us up at eight. When we reach Las Vegas, we’ll take the plane to Grand Junction. I’ve been anxious to meet my rival.”

She frowned. “What do you mean? There’s no other man in my life.”

“Oh, yes, there is. According to your mother, you and this guy have been inseparable since you fl

ew home from New York. I understand he sleeps in your bed.”

“Winston?” she half-squealed in delight.

“Who else?” He chuckled. “If he’s going to live with us at Crag’s Head, I want to start making friends with him now. If we can reach the point where he tolerates me, then we’ll be doing well.”

“Tolerates you—”

Rainey wrapped her arms around him. “He’ll love you. He won’t be able to help himself anymore than I can. Diane spoke the truth. I’m the proverbial putty in your hands.”

“Such heavenly putty.” The kiss he gave her set her on fire. When he finally tore his lips from hers, she wasn’t ready to let him go.

“Come on.” His breathing had grown shallow. “I don’t trust myself in here with you any longer. Let’s take a walk to the river and make plans while we wait for the sun to come up.”

It already has, darling. Don’t you know the whole universe filled with light the moment you set foot in my tent?

The continuous clank of the buoy which marked the channel beyond Phantom Point brought Payne back to a cognizance of his surroundings.

He reached blindly for his bride of twenty-four hours, needing her like he needed air to breathe.

Instead of her warm luscious body gravitating to his, as it had done so many times throughout the night, he found a cool sheet. In place of the avid mouth he yearned to plunder all over again his lips met the pillows redolent of her fragrance.

Coming fully awake, he jackknifed to a sitting position. The semi-dark room below deck revealed he was alone. Maybe she was in the main salon off the galley.

“Rainey?”

No answer.

Though his thirty-five foot sloop was anchored in the bay, it still listed. The swells were bigger than usual.

Payne leaped to his feet and threw on a robe.

He called to her again. Still no response.

That sent him racing for the stairs. By the time he’d reached the deck, his heart was thudding at a sickening rate.

With whitecaps surrounding him, and no sign of his wife in the aft cockpit, a blackness started to engulf him as real as if he’d just been knocked overboard by the boom.

He dashed toward the foredeck on a run. “Rainey?” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

“I’m right here, darling!”

Her answering voice had to be the sweetest sound he’d ever heard in his life.