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  Dane chuckled. Yeah, suggested. “Threatened” was more like it. He thought back to two days ago when Murdock and Ellen Denby had cornered him in his office.

  “You’ve become a real pain in the ass,” Murdock said in his typically brutally honest style. “If you don’t get your act together, there’s going to be a mutiny and you’re going to lose some top agents.”

  Before he could open his mouth to protest, Ellen piped in, “What Dane needs is to get some. How long has it been, anyway, big man, since you had a woman?”

  Dane narrowed his gaze on Ellen, Dundee’s only female agent, and grinned at her. “You volunteering for the job, Denby?”

  Murdock burst out laughing. Ellen eased her curvaceous hip down on the side of Dane’s desk and smiled coyly.

  “Only if hazardous duty pay comes with it,” she said.

  “If you take on our Ellen, you’d be the one needing hazardous duty pay,” Murdock said.

  “Murdock could be right about that.” Ellen crossed her long, shapely legs as she settled on the edge of the desk. “Besides, I’m not your type, am I, Dane? You like your women soft and sweet and adoring. The old-fashioned type is what turns you on.”

  “For your information, I don’t need a woman and I don’t need a vacation. I need employees who will—”

  “Ask how high when you say jump,” Ellen said.

  “Have I gotten that bad?”

  “Worse,” Murdock confirmed. “You’ve pushed yourself to the limit for way too long, buddy boy. It’s past time for you to take off to the Caribbean for a couple of weeks. Stop by and see Sam and Jeannie.”

  “Have you talked to Sam about this?” Dane realized that if they’d spoken to Sam Dundee, he really must have been acting like a real SOB lately.

  “Sam agrees with us,” Ellen said. “It’s vacation time for you. Right now. Effective tomorrow.”

  Dane headed toward the marina, where he’d docked the Sweet Savannah this afternoon. He hadn’t set foot on her in a couple of years. He’d almost forgotten how good it felt to be at the helm, to stand on the flying bridge and head out to sea. The yacht had been a part of his past—part of his life with Lorna. He had taken a lot of ribbing at the Bureau about being a millionaire playboy, but the people who knew him well knew that a playboy was the last thing on earth he’d ever been.

  Sure, he’d been raised in the lap of luxury in Savannah, the only son in one of the wealthiest and most revered Old Southern families. But he had also been raised with a sense of responsibility and the knowledge that he was expected to become a productive member of society. His grandfather had been a federal judge, his father a prominent criminal lawyer, so his joining the FBI directly out of college had carried on a family tradition in law enforcement.

  The evening breeze cooled as it came in off the Gulf waters. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The face that appeared in the darkness was Lorna’s. After all these years, he still couldn’t forget how peaceful she had seemed lying there in her bed, looking like a sleeping angel. Only she hadn’t been sleeping. She’d been dead.

  Opening his eyes, he cursed under his breath. Damn! That’s what came from having leisure time, from idle hours without something to occupy his mind. He couldn’t spend his entire vacation thinking about Lorna. If he did, he’d go mad.

  Suddenly Dane heard a whimper, then a loud gasp. He had thought he was alone on the beach.

  “Help me! Please, help me!”

  Dane tensed at the sound of the pleading voice. Female. Close by. And frightened.

  Although his vision had adjusted to the darkness during his stroll along the beach, he found it difficult to make out anything other than a small, dark silhouette heading in his direction. He took several steps toward the shadowy figure before confirming that it was, indeed, a woman.

  She reached out for him. “Oh, thank God!” She grabbed the front of his shirt and bunched the soft cloth in her tight fists. “Someone just tried to kill me. I need help. Please—”

  The woman fainted dead away. Dane grabbed her up in his arms. He glanced around for any sign of an attacker, but saw no one and sensed they were alone on the beach. He had two choices—either take her aboard his yacht or carry her over to the Grand Hotel. Instantly he chose the closer and safer location. He knew the woman’s attacker wouldn’t be aboard his cruiser.

  She was small and light in his arms, probably close to a foot shorter than his six-two. Within minutes he had carried her aboard the Sweet Savannah and belowdecks to the saloon. Just as he deposited her on the L-shaped settee, situated aft to port, the woman’s eyelids fluttered and she groaned.

  Rising to his feet, Dane stood and visually surveyed the petite lady from head to toe. About five-three, he surmised. Trim, bosomy, and pretty. Expertly styled, chin-length black hair spread out across the gray settee cushion.

  She opened her eyes—big, brown, expressive eyes. Glaring up at Dane, her fear and uncertainty showed plainly in the look she gave him. “Where am I? What happened?” Her voice clearly proclaimed her as a Southerner.

  Dane crouched down on his haunches beside her. “You’re aboard my yacht at the Point Clear Marina,” he told her. “You came running up to me on the beach a few minutes ago and told me someone had tried to kill you.”

  “I know that!” She glared at him in a way that told him she thought he was an idiot. “I meant, what happened after that?”

  “You fainted.”

  “I didn’t! I’ve never fainted in my life!” She tried to sit up, but groaned and fell back on the sofa. “Oh, God! Do something, will you?”

  “What would you like me to do, Ms…. Ms….?”

  “Annie Harden.”

  “I’m Dane Carmichael.”

  “Nice to meet you,” she said sardonically. She ran her hand over her side, then lifted the hand and moaned when she inspected it. “Do you suppose we could forget good manners and cordial chitchat for the time being, Mr. Carmichael? I think I may be bleeding to death.”

  Dane noticed her palm was covered in blood. Immediately he examined the left side of her burgundy suit jacket. A wet, sticky stain had formed around a wide cut in the fabric. “Tell me what happened.” He began unbuttoning her jacket, intent upon examining her wound.

  She slapped at his hands. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m trying to take a look at your wound to see how badly you’re hurt.” He grabbed her wrists and brought her hands over her head. Holding her arms steady with one hand, he used the other to lift her jacket. The white blouse underneath was drenched in bright red blood.

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t manhandle me.” She twisted and turned her arms in an effort to free herself from his hold, but suddenly cried out in pain and quit squirming. “He had a knife. I don’t think he stabbed me, although it felt like it. I think he just slashed my side.”

  Dane gently pulled the damp fabric out of the skirt waistband, then up and over the five-inch tear in her skin. Probing with the utmost caution, he examined the wound. Long and gaping, but not deep. “You’ll need a few stitches, but I think you’ll live. You probably fainted from a combination of pain and shock.”

  Dane stood, walked across the saloon into the galley and rummaged in the overhead teakwood cabinets. He removed a small, white towel, went back over to the woman and covered her wound with the soft, clean cloth. Then he took her hand and laid it over the towel.

  “Makeshift bandage,” he told her. “Keep the towel firmly over the wound. I’ll take you to a hospital, right after I call the police.”

  “I doubt the local authorities will be of any help,” she said. “I spoke to them a few hours ago and they practically laughed in my face.”

  Dane stared at her, puzzled by her statement. “How about filling me in on what you’re talking about?”

  Annie Harden took a good, long look at the man with the baritone Southern drawl. He was big, tall, and leanly muscled. Sleek and agile. And dressed casually, in tan cotton slacks