The front door opened, but the lights stayed off. Her heart hammered, then settled when she recognized Rand’s wide-shouldered silhouette walking across the shared living area. She waited for him to knock on her suite door. Instead he bent and started to slide an envelope under the door.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He straightened and spun toward her so quickly that she flinched. She didn’t feel any better when moonlight flashed off the gun in his hand. Before she could blink, he holstered the gun at the small of his back and walked toward the patio.

“You scared the crap out of me,” he said.

“Same here. Anyone ever mention that you have fast hands?”

“Once or twice.” His smile gleamed. “What are you doing out here in the dark?”

“Trying to relax.”

“How’s that working for you?”

“Lousy.” Ice clinked as she lifted the whiskey glass to her lips.

“I see you found the Grand Marnier.”

She saluted him with the glass. “Who do I thank for it?”

“Grace, probably. She’s the one who made sure you had the suite with the Jacuzzi.” And the fountains turned on hard enough to thwart eavesdroppers. But still…

“I’ll share.”

“The Jacuzzi?” he asked, startled and intrigued.

“That, too. But I meant the liqueur.” She took another sip. “What’s in the envelope?”

“Walking-around money.”

She blinked slowly. “Excuse me?”

“Come inside, where we can talk.”

Reluctantly she went back inside and slid the patio door shut behind her.

Rand checked the electronic device Faroe had fastened to the door, saw the green status light, locked the door, and went to Kayla.

“Take it,” he said, holding out the envelope. “So you don’t have to use your credit cards or bank account.”

She took the envelope, surprised by its thickness. “Thanks.”

“All part of the St. Kilda service. You’d better count it. There should be five grand.”

“Five thousand dollars? Are you kidding?”

“No.” He reached for the whiskey glass she was waving around. “I’ll get you some more.”

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Drink it.”

“The money,” she shot back. “Five thousand dollars!”

“It’s the standard St. Kilda Consulting advance for an agent in the field. You run out before next week, you have to submit a requisition detailing why you need extra cash.”

Usually for bribes, but I don’t think she wants to hear about that right now.

“Room and board comes out of this?” Kayla asked.

“Not if you stay here.” He headed for the bar.

She hefted the envelope in her hand. “First Bertone buys my land for too much money. Now St. Kilda is giving me a five-thousand-dollar gift, with more to come next week. Gee, I’m beginning to feel…”

“Special?”

“Hunted.”

“I always knew you were smart.” Ice clinked, followed by the soft splash of liqueur. “It’s not a bribe, Kayla. Money is a tool. St. Kilda doesn’t want an agent to screw up because he or she didn’t have the cash for a plane ticket on the run.”

“Um,” was all she said.

Rand appeared in front of her, holding out the cut-crystal glass. It was half full.

“If I drink all that, I’ll crash,” she said, eyeing the glass.

“I’ll help you.”

“Crash?”

“Drink.”

“Good idea.” She took a healthy sip, cleared her throat twice, and looked at him from beneath dark eyelashes. “Whew. I usually add water.”

“Ice melts. Same thing.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?”

He took the glass from her fingers, sipped, and said, “Sweet. With a bite.”

“Better than beer-sour with a bite.”

He laughed softly and told himself to turn around and go to his suite and stop thinking about what he shouldn’t be thinking about.

Kayla, naked.

“How do you feel about single malt?” he asked.

“Scotch?”

“Yeah.”

“Smells better than it tastes.”

He laughed. “I had a buddy once who said he wanted to die of Glenmorangie.”

“Did he?”

“Still working on it, last I heard.”

“You sound like you envy him,” Kayla said.

When Rand didn’t answer immediately, she realized that he was watching her. Or to be precise, watching the triangle of skin revealed by the robe. Heat that had nothing to do with her recent bath flushed her skin. She shrugged the robe more closely around her.

“I might have envied him, once,” Rand said. “I’m older now.” A lot older. Too old to be thinking with my dick.

But there it was, ready, willing, and begging to think for him.

He turned and headed back to the bar.

“Now what?” she asked, settling into a chair.

“I want more bite.”

She was about to offer her teeth on his skin when she heard him crack the seal on a whiskey bottle and pour it into the glass. No ice followed.

Knowing St. Kilda, she bet the brand was single malt, Glenmorangie.

“No ice?” she said. “No water?”

“Neat.”

The pungent scent of the single malt rose to her nostrils as he settled in a chair near her.

Rand raised his glass, then looked at her. “What shall we drink to?”

“After today, let’s drink to innocence. The few shreds of it left in the world ought to be celebrated.”

“To innocence,” he said, clinking his glass lightly against hers. “Honored in the absence.”

“How did you lose yours?” she asked, sipping.

“The usual way. Backseat of a car.”

She choked, let him whack her on the back, and then waved him off. “I wasn’t talking about sexual innocence,” she said.

“I’m not sure I ever was that innocent. I was raised by a half-Tlingit grandmother whose own mother had been stolen as a slave. My father was a commercial salmon fisherman in the San Juans and in Alaska. He was gone half the year. My mother was an artist from Seattle who was gone as much as she was home. From what I saw, it was an open marriage. That’s what they’re calling it now, right? Not infidelity, or adultery, or cheating, just mutual understanding of needs and being sure not to bring anything home but memories.”

The coolness in his voice made Kayla flinch. “That’s a fair load of sophistication, or something, for a kid to be exposed to.”

“It was home.” And Reed was always there, ready to laugh or fight or hide, whatever was needed.

Rand sipped his whiskey, letting the smoky fire spread across his tongue. Every nerve in his body was on alert. Every sense honed to a fighting edge. Or fucking. He’d take either right now. Anything to push back the intimacy stealing over him, the scent of the woman next to him, her voice soft in the darkness, her skin pale, inviting.

“Any sibs?” she asked.

“Younger brother. By twelve minutes.”

“Identical?”

“Like peas in a pod. Reed always said he was better looking. People always said I was smarter.” They were wrong.

He let the hot, snarling kiss of scotch spread over his tongue, swallowed, sipped some more. He knew it wouldn’t stop the memories, but it might just blunt the sharpest edges.

“Identical twins,” Kayla said, grinning. “That must be great.”

“It was.” Rand let more whiskey bite his tongue, spread fire.

“You don’t get along?”

“He’s dead.”

The fountains laughed liquidly in the silence.

“I’m sorry,” Kayla said. “I can’t imagine-”

“You don’t want to.”

She closed her eyes. The neutrality of his voice told her more than any words; his twin’s loss was still an open wound on his soul.

Silently Rand watched a feral cat slide from shadow to shadow, hunting rodents in the exclusive resort’s carefully tended gardens.

Good hunting, buddy. The world needs less rats.

Kayla knew she should let the subject go. And she knew she wouldn’t. Rand interested her in too many ways, on too many levels.

“When?” she asked simply.

“Five years ago. In Africa.”

She remembered scraps of information that Faroe had given her. Goose bumps rose along her arms. “The man in the bwana suit?”