"better?"

"no."

"come on, honey, stop arguing. you know you want this as much as i do. damn, you feel good," he urged her to bend forward until she was forced to grip the window ledge. her rounded bu**ocks tilted upward invitingly, exposing her warm, womanly channel to access from behind.

"honestly, jonas, there's a perfectly good bed right over there that we can use if you insist on this. i don't see why you have to... wait a minute. what are you doing? i think this might come under the heading of kinky. if you think i'm going to let you... oh, jonas."

he gripped her thighs and held her firmly in position while he probed the silken sheath. he felt her tighten in reaction to his penetration and he pushed harder, sliding heavily into her damp heat. he groaned as the dewy folds closed around him, and moved one hand to the front of her thighs to find the sensitive bud hidden in the tight red curls. verity shivered in his arms and her head tipped back. "you feel so wonderful, sweetheart. so good."

"jonas." she sighed passionately. her hair cascaded down her back. her lips were parted and her eyes were closed.

she gave herself to him in hot, welcoming, passionate surrender, the way she always did. at least when he was making love to her, she was fully aware of him, jonas thought. he lost himself in the pulsing ecstasy of the moment, aware on some level that somewhere along the line verity ames had become as necessary to him as breathing. he could not imagine life without her.

it had become very important that she feel the same way about him, he realized. he would use sex or anything else he could to keep that withdrawn, introspective look out of her eyes. he couldn't let her leave him, mentally or physically. he needed her.

jonas had learned over the past few months that when he was with verity, he was home.

verity was up before jonas the next morning. she awakened with an instant awareness of what needed to be done.

"we'll have to talk to maggie frampton," she reminded her sleepy-eyed lover as she urged him out of bed and into the shower. "if we get downstairs early enough, we might have a chance to interview her before any of the others show up for breakfast."

"the trouble with business managers is that they rarely consider the well-being of the troops. i didn't get much sleep last night."

"who's fault is that?" she demanded without sympathy. "hurry up and get dressed."

they found maggie frampton humming to herself in the kitchen. she was whipping up pancake batter and seemed startled to see them. she had on another faded print shirtwaist from her vast collection of housedresses, this one with small dots all over it. the chain around her neck disappeared beneath the prim white collar.

"well, hello there. you two are up bright and early. didn't think any of this crowd were what you'd call early risers. how about some coffee? got some made over there on the counter. old digby always had to have his coffee first thing in the morning. doctor told him he shouldn't drink the stuff, but digby said he needed it to get his heart started. help yourself."

"thanks, maggie." verity poured two cups and handed one to jonas.

"how's the big treasure hunt going?" maggie asked as she lifted a stack of chipped crockery out of a cupboard.

"you know about that?" jonas asked.

"i hear little miss sunshine wants you to keep an eye out for it while you're writin' up the report on the villa. talk about a waste of time and energy. digby spent years going through this place and never found a dime."

jonas cleared his throat. "as a matter of fact, we wanted to see if you could help us, maggie. you must have been closer to hazelhurst than anyone else. you lived here with him for several years, i take it?"

"this villa's been my home since i moved here twenty-three years ago come june." maggie sighed wistfully. "i miss the old coot. seemed like he was hornier than the devil himself most of the time, but i didn't mind. him and me, we got along fine together. after he disappeared, my sister down in portland kept tellin' me i should get off this island. but i can't bring myself to do it. this place is home-i can't just up and leave. digby would have wanted me to stay on here, i know it. he used to say so."

"what exactly did he say, maggie?" verity asked gently. she sensed the unhappiness lying just beneath the surface in maggie frampton. it was obvious the woman still mourned digby hazelhurst.

maggie rattled a pan and sniffed. she blinked rapidly a few times and then went on in a steadier voice.

"digby said this place was ours-his and mine. he'd have wanted me to keep an eye on it. the villa meant the world to him. he always said i was the only one who never laughed at him, the only one who understood. claimed if anything ever happened to him, he'd see to it i got to stay here as long as i wanted. but after he disappeared, there wasn't no will. digby never got around to writin' one up. just like him to put it off until it was too late. in the end, the court and a bunch of lawyers gave it to doug and elyssa."

"doug and elyssa will have to sell it," verity pointed out gently. "they can't afford to keep it. how did digby expect you to be able to pay the taxes and keep the place running?"

"you'll laugh, but the truth was, digby always said that when he found the treasure there'd be plenty of money to run this place in style. he had big plans to buy back all the furniture and paintings he had to sell off over the years. he wanted to restore the villa to the way it must have looked back in the sixteenth century. oh, he had lots of fine plans, digby did. and i was gonna help him with 'em. we was a team, him and me."

"too bad he never found the treasure he searched for all those years," jonas commented, leaning back casually against the counter as he sipped coffee.

"i never did believe in that story about a treasure, though i'll have to admit findin' it would have been great," maggie said. "but i used to think that for digby, most of the fun was in the looking, you know?"

verity found her remark unexpectedly insightful. "i can understand that," she said quietly. "you and digby were obviously very close."

maggie nodded. "you bet your jeans we were close. he didn't have no one else. his academic friends abandoned him as the years went by, and as for family, well! you'd have thought he was an orphan."

"what about doug and elyssa?" jonas asked sharply.

"you think they ever bothered to visit digby much before he died? not on your life. oh, doug did come out here once or twice a few years back, but that was about it. little miss sunshine never showed any interest in the villa till after she and doug inherited it. now all she can talk about is finding the treasure.