Forbidden Touch. Paula Graves

      She leaned back. “How long was I asleep?”

      Maddox lifted one dark eyebrow. “You weren’t sleepin’. You were out for the count.”

      “How long?” she repeated, fear blooming in her chest. It was getting worse. Discomfort had always been part of her gift, but in recent years, the intensity of pain had increased, her recovery periods extending from minutes to hours to days.

      “About ten minutes. I got your room key out of your purse. Hope you don’t mind.” Maddox handed her the slim card key. “You got a first aid kit around here? We should check your temperature, make sure you’re not hyperthermic.”

      Hyperthermic? She slanted a look at him, surprised he’d use such a fancy word for sunstroke. He didn’t look the type. “I’m not overheated,” she said.

      “You sure?” He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, frowning. “You still look awfully pale. Maybe I should call that doctor after all.”

      Iris shook her head. “There’s nothing a doctor can do.”

      He stared at her, his expression queasy as he apparently jumped to the wrong conclusion. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

      “No—no. It’s not fatal,” she assured him quickly.

      Just crippling, she added silently.

      “Glad to hear it.” A smile dimpled his cheeks, but his gaze remained wary, and she could feel him retreating from her.

      She quelled a sense of disappointment and tucked the bedcovers more snugly around her. “I’m okay now. Really,” she added, not missing the skepticism in his expression. “I’m going to rest a little and get something to eat.”

      “Then what?”

      “Then I guess I’ll call the police again and see if I can get them interested in Sandrine’s disappearance.”

      He nodded slowly, watching her through narrowed eyes. For the first time, she noticed his lower lip looked red and puffy.

      “What happened to your lip?” she asked when it became clear he wasn’t going to say anything else.

      “You’re a hardheaded woman.”

      That explained the pain in her forehead. “I’m so sorry.”

      He shrugged off her apology. “No worries, sugar. The bleeding didn’t even last that long.”

      “You don’t have to babysit me. I’m all right now.”

      “At the beach—do you remember—?” He paused and started again. “You told me someone was hurt. And then a few seconds later, a woman ran up the beach calling for help because another woman was hurt. How did you know?”

      The answer would only lead to more questions she didn’t want to answer. Not now. Not to a stranger. “I guess I heard the woman calling before you did.”

      He pressed his lips together but didn’t ask anything else. He stood up, towering over her bedside. The light from outside cast him in shadow, hiding all but outlines of his strong, square features. He touched her shoulder. “It was interesting meetin’ you, Iris. I hope you find your friend.”

      Fire licked her skin where his fingers lay, spreading heat over her collarbone and into her chest. Pain, thick and black, trembled under the surface of his touch, a reminder of the sensation she’d felt when Maddox first touched her at the café. He was as much in pain as the woman at the beach, though his pain came from somewhere inside him.

      If she were stronger, she might risk what she called a drawing, a deliberate attempt to ease the distress she could feel festering inside him. But whatever was eating at him was big and strong and old. She didn’t know if she could bear it.

      “The offer stands. You find your friend, bring her to town and I’ll buy you both a drink.”

      “Thank you,” she repeated, almost sagging with relief when he removed his hand from her shoulder and walked to the door. The tightness in her chest receded, the blackness ebbing from the edges of her vision.

      He turned in the open doorway, his head slanting as he gazed back at her. “If the police don’t help you, let me know.”

      “What can you do?”

      He smiled. “I know people who know people.”

      “Are any of those people private detectives?”

      His only answer was a widening of his smile as he closed the door behind him.

      

      “MAN COME lookin’ for you, Mad Dog.” Claudell Savoy looked up from behind the bar when Maddox entered the Beachcomber, a tiny hole-in-the-wall dive that catered more to locals than the tourist crowd. “Seem real interested in where you at.”

      Maddox shot the grizzled Creole bartender a wary look. “You tell him anything?”

      “Not me, man.” Claudell didn’t sound convincing.

      “For enough cash, you’d sell out your mama. What’d you tell him?” Maddox slid onto a bar stool in front of Claudell. He was the only one around; the bar wouldn’t open for another hour, but Claudell never minded the company.

      “I jus’ say I see you around here sometime.” Claudell grinned, looking proud of himself. “He give me twenty dollars.”

      Maddox frowned. “Thanks, buddy.”

      “You ain’t nobody’s buddy, man. We both know that.” Claudell set a tumbler in front of him and pulled out a bottle of rye whiskey. “Here. On the house.”

      Maddox put his hand over the glass. “Rain check.” The temptation to drown his chronic dissatisfaction in liquor was getting a little too strong these days.

      Claudell shrugged and put the glass back in a rack behind the bar. “Say, I remember somethin’ else ’bout that man.”

      Maddox met the bartender’s expectant gaze. “I ain’t givin’ you twenty bucks, Claudell. Good try, though.”

      Claudell shrugged, smiling. “Bah, I tell you for nothin’. He say someone name Celia lookin’ for you.”

      “I don’t know any Celia.”

      “He say she wanna talk to you. Real important.”

      He didn’t like the sound of that. “What’d he look like?”

      Claudell grimaced. “You know. Tourist.”

      Great, that narrowed it down. “Did he say where I could find him if I happened to want to talk to this Celia?”

      “Didn’t say. Give me this, though.” Claudell reached into the chest pocket of his stained white uniform shirt and retrieved a business card.

      Maddox took it from him. “Charles Kipler Management,” he read aloud. An address in Beverly Hills, California. The cell phone number listed might be a place to start.

      He pulled out his own cell phone and started to dial the number, then stopped, remembering why he’d come here in the first place. While looking for Iris’s hotel room key, he’d come across the photo of her friend in the front pocket of her purse. He’d snapped a shot with his phone, figuring he could show it around, help her out.

      Not as if he had much else to do these days.

      He showed Claudell the image. “Ever seen this woman?”

      Claudell peered at the photo. “Not me. Pretty, though. You meet you a girl, Mad Dog?”

      Maddox ignored the bartender’s salacious grin. “She’s gone missing from the Hotel St. George.”

      “St. George?” Claudell’s smile faded. “No good. I hear bad thing about St. George.”

      Maddox pocketed his