OOD EVENING, MISS,” the doorman said when Kate walked past the lobby of the hotel’s main building a few minutes before eight. Festive torches lit up the entrance and lined both sides of the long driveway. Couples were arriving and departing in a steady stream, some dressed for dinner at the hotel, others wearing shorts and heading for more casual island nightspots. “May I get you a taxi?”

“No, thank you.” Kate looked down the line of waiting vehicles. Most were red or white compact rental cars, she noticed idly; then she remembered reading that Volkswagen bugs were the preferred choice of serial killers. If Wyatt was driving one of those, she would not get into it, she decided. Rather than going into the lobby and waiting there, she wandered slowly down a sidewalk bordered with giant bushes on her left and the hotel’s main driveway on her right. As she neared the end of the bushes, she saw a black convertible with its top down turn into the drive, but a sudden outburst of angry male shouts from the other side of the bushes filled her with foreboding and made her quicken her pace in their direction.

Two bellboys trotted past her, apparently summoned by the shouting. Kate heard one of them say the word dog, and she broke into a run just as Mitchell Wyatt brought the convertible to an abrupt stop at the curb beside her. She saw the surprised look on his face as she raced past his car, but she didn’t have time to stop and explain.

Reaching the end of the bushes, Kate came to a halt beside the bellmen, and her fear quickly turned to reluctant amusement. Two angry, shouting gardeners were chasing Max in circles and waving their rakes at him, but he was easily staying out of their reach.

Behind her, Mitchell Wyatt said drily, “For a moment back there I thought you were running toward my car because you were extremely eager to see me again.”

Over her shoulder, Kate flashed him a distracted, laughing look. “Were you flattered or frightened?”

“You ran past me before I had time to react.” A moment later, he added jokingly, “If you’re interested in betting on the outcome between the dog and the gardeners, I’ll give you the gardeners and ten to one odds.”

“At twenty to one, that’s still a sucker bet,” Kate replied with a plucky smile. He grinned at her quip, and suddenly Kate’s earlier fears that he could be a violent criminal seemed nonsensical. She waited a few more moments to assure herself that Max was in no danger of actually being caught; then she turned and walked with Mitchell toward his car. “I wish they wouldn’t chase him,” she said. “One of the maids told me that several of the local islands have problems with packs of dogs roaming around, but this dog isn’t dangerous. He’s just hungry. He isn’t doing anyone any harm.”

“If I understood what the bellmen were talking about just now, that dog is doing the gardens a whole lot of harm because he’s so big,” Mitchell said as he opened the car door for her. “And he also scares the hotel guests. Last week, he ran up to a little girl and she got hysterical.”

“He’s lonely,” Kate said sadly, thinking of the way he’d leaned against her and blissfully closed his eyes when she petted him. As she slid onto the passenger seat, she said, “What language was the doorman speaking? A lot of the hotel staff speaks French, but that wasn’t French.”

“It was Dutch, and I may have gotten most of it wrong—” he said, but the screech of automobile brakes behind them made them both turn sharply, just in time to see the dog bounding across the drive between cars, followed closely by a golf cart with the two gardeners in it. The golf cart stopped safely at the curb and an arriving taxi stopped in time, but a departing taxi was accelerating on the other side of the median, and Kate screamed a warning to the dog. Max swerved at the sound of her voice and tried to run to her instead. The taxi hit him.

Kate was out of the car, running, before the taxi driver got out of his vehicle. Mitchell caught up with her and grasped her arm. “Let me take a look first,” he insisted.

“I want to help,” Kate cried frantically, trying to wrench free of his grasp. “Let go of my arm.”

Stunned that she wanted to subject herself to what could be a gory scene, Mitchell let her go and quickened his pace to keep up with her.

When Kate rushed around the front of the taxi, her fear turned into anguish. Max’s still body was lying on its side, his head against the curb, his eyes closed. Kneeling next to him, she felt frantically for a pulse at his throat. She found it and relief flooded through her. “He’s alive,” she said quickly, “but we need help.” Lifting her head, she looked toward the bellmen and gardeners who’d gathered into a group next to the taxi driver and Mitchell. “Call a veterinarian right away,” she told the hotel’s employees.

One bellman looked blankly at the gardeners and then the other bellman. “A veterinarian?” he repeated as Kate began tentatively examining the bleeding cut on Max’s head.

“An animal doctor,” Mitchell clarified impatiently in English, then again in Dutch.

The gardeners were aghast at the suggestion; the bellmen were obstinate. “No, miss, no doctor,” one of them said. “We’ll take care of the dog, you go now and enjoy your evening.” He said something in Dutch to his companions and the group of men moved forward.

Their shadow fell across Kate just as she realized how they were likely to “take care of” a large, destructive, unconscious animal that was an annoying nuisance to adult hotel guests and a terrifying threat in the minds of some of their children. “What do you intend to do?” she asked stubbornly.

“We’re going to drag him off the road now so the cars can get through, and then we’ll take him away.”

“No!” Kate said with an adamant shake of her head. “He shouldn’t be moved. The cars can go around him. He may have spinal injuries or broken bones.” They didn’t care one bit about any of that, she realized, so she appealed urgently to the man she’d promised to take to dinner. “We have to help him!”

Mitchell gazed at her beautiful face and realized she expected him to agree it was imperative to save the life of a mangy, homeless, mongrel dog. And, suddenly, he did agree—although it was her eyes and not the dog that caused him to come to that conclusion. Inwardly amused by the effect those beseeching green eyes were having on him, Mitchell said solemnly, “I’ll see what I can do.”

The doorman smiled politely as Mitchell approached. “Good evening, Mr. Wyatt.”

Mitchell assumed the doorman would have witnessed the scene in the driveway, so he ignored the greeting, refrained from giving explanations, and tackled the problem: “The dog is badly injured. Where’s the nearest animal doctor?”

“There’s one here on Anguilla, but he will be closed by now.” As proof that it was quite late, he glanced meaningfully at the setting sun.

Having already anticipated that would be his answer, Mitchell strode past him into the lobby and headed for the front desk, where two couples were waiting to check in and another man was asking for directions. When he was halfway across the lobby, the manager emerged from a side door, saw Mitchell, and rushed forward to greet him. “Mr. Wyatt!” he exclaimed delightedly.

Mitchell reached into his pocket.

“I didn’t realize you’d booked reservations with us,” the manager said, holding out his hand for a handshake. “I’ve been busy with our new assistant manager because he’ll be in charge for the next week. I have to make an emergency trip to the States tomorrow, and he’s quite overwhelmed, I’m afraid.”

Mitchell clasped the manager’s outstretched hand and slipped a $100 bill into his palm. “I’m glad you’re still here tonight, Maurice, because there’s been an automobile accident in the hotel driveway that requires your special attention.”

“Oh, no! Is anyone hurt?”

“Yes.”

“One of our guests?”

“No, one of your stray dogs,” Mitchell said, already striding toward the telephone on the front desk with Maurice rushing along beside him. “I need an ambulance and a physician here immediately.”

“You... you want me to send for an ambulance and a physician because a stray dog has been injured out there?”

In reply, Mitchell picked up the telephone and held the receiver toward the flustered manager. “I want them to come as fast as they possibly can. I’m extremely fond of this particular dog.”

The manager took the receiver, pressed one button on the telephone, and hesitated. “They’ll refuse to treat a dog.”

“Appeal to their humane instincts,” Mitchell said drily as he withdrew cash from his pants pocket and began peeling off large bills to cover whatever inducement the ambulance driver and physician demanded before they’d make the trip.

The manager watched him a moment, then quickly dialed the rest of the ambulance’s phone number.

Mitchell stayed until that call and the one to the physician were both successfully completed; then he left the “inducement money” with the manager to dole out to the recipients.

Kate Donovan was in clear view across the driveway when he emerged from the hotel. The taxi driver had left in his taxi, the bellmen and gardeners had dispersed, and she sat alone on the grass, in the median beside the curb next to the dog, with her legs curled beneath her. Captured in the glow of torchlight, with her red hair a silken mantle across her shoulders and her hand gently stroking the injured dog, she looked ethereal.

She looked up as Mitchell neared, searching his face for a clue as to what he’d accomplished.

“Help is on the way,” he promised, crouching on his heels beside her. “How’s the patient?”

She shifted her attention to the dog as she answered, her fingers gently stroking the animal’s shoulder. “His breathing seems a little stronger and more regular. I can’t feel any broken bones, and his cuts aren’t deep, but he may be hemorrhaging internally. He started to come around a few minutes ago, or at least I thought he did.” She fell silent, and Mitchell said nothing more because he was listening for a particular sound. He heard it very soon—a siren growing louder and louder.

Kate didn’t notice the siren because she felt a slight twitch of muscles beneath her fingertips and suddenly Max opened his eyes. “There you are!” she said joyously. “Stay quiet,” she warned quickly, pressing him down with both hands when he made a feeble effort to roll onto his stomach. “Help is on the way,” she promised him. Without looking up, she asked Mitchell, “What sort of help is coming?”

Her question was almost drowned out by a vehicle roaring up the driveway and screeching to a halt in front of the hotel.

“That sort of help,” Mitchell replied, standing up.

Kate leaned forward and looked around his legs; then she looked up at him in laughing disbelief and unabashed admiration. “You called an ambulance?”

She would have said more, but Mitchell was already striding off toward the ambulance and the dazed dog was getting agitated, thrashing around in a feeble effort to roll to his feet. Soothing Max with her voice and hands, she watched two men jump out of the ambulance while a dark green car came racing up the driveway and lurched to a stop behind them. The car was still rocking when the driver flung open his door and got out, carrying a large black bag.

He was a physician, Kate knew at once, but her delight was doused by her fear that the doctor and ambulance drivers would all get back in their vehicles and leave as soon as Mitchell told them who their patient really was. Tensely, she watched Mitchell gesture toward the dog she was holding down.

Kate held her breath.

The doctor turned and started walking toward her. The ambulance drivers rushed to the back of their van and pulled out a stretcher.

Amazement and optimism soared through Kate, and she whispered to the dog, “I think we’re in very good hands, Max.” She was positive of it when the physician crouched down beside her, looked at the nervous, wary dog and opened his black bag. “Our local vet is on vacation, but I phoned a veterinarian friend of mine in St. Maarten before I left, and I brought along some things he recommended. Now then,” he said calmly, “dogs usually like me. Let’s hope this one does, too, because I don’t want to sedate him just yet. Head injuries,” he continued as he slowly reached out toward the dog, “can be—”

A low, throaty snarl began in the dog’s throat and his lips curled back over white fangs.

The physician yanked his hand back. “Wounded animals often attack anyone who comes too close,” he informed Kate; then he reached toward the dog again, this time cautiously, inches at a time. “But this fellow is willing to let you touch him, so he ought to let me do it. He’s actually a little afraid of me... and all that snarling is really just... a bluff.”

“No, I don’t think it—” Kate’s warning was drowned out by the physician’s yelp of pain.