The Masked Man by B. J. Daniels

Author:B. J. Daniels
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2003-04-20T04:00:00+00:00

JILL WAITED in the cool shadows of the pines at the edge of the water until she saw Mackenzie Cooper leave his houseboat and walk up to the Beach Bar, just as Brenna said he did every evening.

The Beach Bar was a classic Montana bar with silver dollars, elk antlers and stuffed lake trout on the walls. Brenna’s family had built the bar at the end of the pier on pilings so that it overlooked the marina resort. One whole side was open to the air with stools and a few tables.

It was where both locals and tourists hung out, one of the few bars on the water and definitely blue-collar and fishermen friendly. Country-and-western music throbbed from the jukebox, blending with the sound of voices and the lap of water against the docks.

Jill waited until Mackenzie Cooper was well on his way to the bar before she slipped out of the pines and headed for the houseboat tied at the farthest dock from the marina, about thirty yards offshore.

She’d known she wouldn’t be able to just walk down the dock to the boat without being seen. That left only one way out to the houseboat with any hope of going undetected. Swim.

No light glowed inside the houseboat as she waded into the dark water. She couldn’t be sure that Brenna would be able to keep him at the bar. Jill couldn’t even be sure that tonight he wouldn’t change his routine, cut the evening short and return before she’d had time to search the houseboat and get away again.

She took a deep breath. She’d worn a shortie wet suit and a waterproof bag clipped to her waist with what she could find for tools to break into the boat. The water chilled her exposed skin as she dived under the surface. The small dry bag at her waist slowed her as she began to swim underwater through the open area to the docks.

She needed to stay under to keep from being seen for as long as she could. Once she reached the docks, she could swim alongside them to the houseboat.

Her pulse pounded in her ears, beating faster at just the thought of what she’d find in the duffel bag.

She tried to gauge her distance. If she surfaced too soon, she could be spotted from the bar. If she didn’t surface soon enough, she’d come up under the docks.

Her pulse spiked when she thought of being caught under a dock again. When she was nine, she and a neighbor boy had been playing and decided to hide under the dock at her house. She’d gotten her suit caught on a nail.

She released a little of her held breath now, swimming through the cold darkness, calculating in her head how far she’d come, how much farther she had to go and trying not to remember that day so many years ago when she was trapped under the dock.

She was already running out of air, her growing panic stealing too much oxygen, stealing too much of the time she would be able to stay underwater.

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