“I bet Larry is headed for the dive bars or is already there,” Kate said, “trying to talk someone into working rather than drinking.”
“It won’t be easy, especially if word is out that the dive is cursed. Divers are a superstitious lot.”
She just shook her head. “Larry can’t seem to catch a break. At least Mingo and Luis are reliable.”
“How long have they been diving for Moon Rose Limited?”
“Let me check.” She got her computer and cleared a place for it at the little bar. Eyes narrowed, she scanned what work logs she had been able to put together. “They came on after the wreck was cleared of most of the overburden, so they’ve been here longer than any other diver but Larry.”
“Which makes them prime suspects in any theft.” After Larry.
Her head snapped up. “Why?”
“They’ve been working the wreck from the moment the heavy lifting was done. They’ve kept at it despite rumors of a cursed dive. They could even be the ones who started the rumors just to keep away the competition.”
“I know Volkert’s a pig and can’t be counted on for much more than his next meal, but the digital files don’t show anything suspicious about any of the divers.”
“Files can be doctored,” Holden said calmly. “Sand and silt can be ‘accidentally’ kicked up, obscuring the view while the divers stash some small goods for retrieval after the dive is shut down. Really small goods can be smuggled ashore.”
“How?”
“I check the dive gear, but not body cavities.” He laughed. “The look on your face . . . Be grateful you’re not worrying about diamond miners in South Africa. Man is an extremely clever monkey.”
She started to say something, then simply shook her head. “Even if the divers are stuffing things up and down their wazoos, we have no way of proving it. In fact, unless you catch someone with the goods, there’s no proof at all.”
“Yes.”
“Then even if no one is stealing, you can’t prove that, either. But you can ruin Moon Rose Limited by simply saying that someone must be stealing, because not much has been recovered from what is historically believed to be a rich wreck.”
“Yes,” Holden said. And Chatham is just the sort of prick who would do that. Far better to tar the Donnelly family than to get tarred himself for paying out good money to dive a dry wreck.
“We were screwed from the day Larry signed the contract,” she said.
We, Holden thought. After all these years away from it, she still identifies with the family business. Will I have a chance to convince her there could be an us before this whole bloody mess blows up?
“Now who’s frowning?” she asked.
“Was I?” He stood up and began methodically cleaning the dishes. “Must be all the spicy food. As for the rest, yes, it’s difficult to see any way for Larry to come out on the winning side of this game. I’m sorry, Kate.”
“It’s not your fault.”
The curve of his mouth was too unhappy to be called a smile. “That’s very adult of you. In truth, I’m both messenger and executioner. That would be hard for even an adult to accept.”
“You can’t know that for sure. There’s still time to dive, to find enough to please a reasonable man, enough to save Larry’s reputation.”
Holden didn’t want to be the one to quench the hope in her eyes by pointing out that possible and probable rarely had a bridge between them. “I hope you’re right.”
“You mean that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Relief made her a bit light-headed. She hadn’t known until that moment how much it meant to her that he was pulling for the dive’s success.
“Such a beautiful smile,” he said, coming over to her. “Thank you for believing me. I doubt that your brother would. Your grandfather certainly doesn’t.”
“They’re . . . frightened.”
“They have reason to be.”
She closed her eyes for an instant. “That’s why I trust you. You don’t avoid the hard truths or try to pretty them up.”
Holden gave her a long look. “Most people would dislike me for those very things.”
“I’ve spent too much of my life hiding from the truth of death. My parents died. I tried to save them. I failed. And then I ran.”
“Love,” he said softly, tracing the line of one cheekbone, “you were a child. Even if you had been an adult, you couldn’t have changed anything. Very likely something went wrong with your mother’s rebreather. She blacked out, lost the mouthpiece, and breathed water. Your father couldn’t get her to the surface in time to save her, but gave himself a fatal case of the bends trying. It’s a miracle you got him into the workboat at all. I’ve seen men convulse hard enough to pull muscle from bone.”
Tears stood in her eyes but she said nothing.
“Even if you had had a bariatric chamber aboard the Golden Bough,” Holden said, each word gentle, relentless, “you couldn’t have got him aboard in stormy seas alone and it would have been too late in any case. Air bubbles in the heart are quite fatal.”
A tear slid down her cheek and caught at the corner of her mouth. He bent, sipped at her lips, and rested his forehead against hers.
“You did as much as any trained man of twice your weight and four times your strength could have done,” he said. “It rips at me knowing you think you failed when you never had the least chance of succeeding. It tears at me listening to you pace the room when your dreams won’t give you peace.”
“How did you know?” she whispered.
“Post-traumatic stress is a fact of life in war zones. It exists in civilian life, too, for all that we ignore it. You went through bloody hell the night your parents died. You’re still going through it. At least let me sleep by your side so you’ll know you aren’t alone when you awake in a panic.”
“You make me sound like a child seeking comfort for nightmares.”
“In nightmares, we’re all children.”
She looked into the shifting colors of his eyes, more gold than green or blue in the lamplight, except for the stark indigo ring separating white from changeable crystal. And within those magnificent dragon eyes, the certainty of nightmare lurked.
Hers were not the only haunted dreams.
She couldn’t change the past, couldn’t lift the burden of failure from her brother’s shoulders, couldn’t save her grandfather from change or age; but she could have a few more hours of being fully alive in this incredible man’s arms. She could pull something from the wreckage of hopes, salvage something of value from the depths of nightmare and black water.
“Yes,” she breathed against his lips. “Sleep next to me.”
She took his hand and led him toward her room. The bed was narrow, sheets pulled up, a light blanket folded at the foot. The tropical night was unrelieved by moonlight and the encroaching greenery closed out all but a few stars.
“It doesn’t have to be more than tonight,” Kate whispered, as much to herself as to Holden. “But I have to have tonight.”
He came down onto the bed with her, lying on his side facing her, bringing with him the scent of salt and life and man.
She leaned into him and inhaled deeply. “This is what I’ve missed and never knew it,” she said, pressing her lips against his neck. “How could I? I’d never met you. Fill me so I won’t miss you when you’re gone.”
He whispered her name, almost afraid to breathe, to shift the moment from the now when she was his to the uncertain future. His calloused fingertips traced her eyebrows, her cheekbones, her lips.
She tasted his fingertips and murmured her pleasure, touching him in turn. His body was taut, hot, almost violent with life, and she wanted him all the way to her soul.
They didn’t know when they began kissing. There was no past, no future, only now and a need that was greater for having been fully satisfied. Now they knew what awaited. Now they wanted even more. Tongues and lips blended, breaths quickened, pulses beat in an
cient rhythms of passion, and fire consumed.
His hands were sweet and heavy on her shoulders and the curve of her back, fingers sliding down to catch the hem of her shirt.
As much as she wanted his hands on her bare skin, she stopped him. “You first.”
She pressed her body against his as she moved her hands down, savoring the flex and shift of muscles tight beneath his skin. He waited for her to open his shorts and find out how much he wanted her. She tugged at the waist of his khaki shorts, but her fingers weren’t responding to her mind, only to her need to soak in the heat of his skin and the texture of the tight line of hair sinking beneath his shorts.
“You sure you want me to go first?” he asked roughly as she stroked him.
“I like the feel of you. And I want . . . I need to see you, too.” She reached across him for the light on her bedside table, but all her fingers could reach was the flashlight she always kept in case the electricity failed.
“May I help?” he asked when it remained dark, and his hands were sliding up her waist and beneath her scrap of T-shirt.
When his fingertips pinched her nipples, she gasped and arched against him. The beam of the flashlight made jagged patterns on the ceiling.
“You’re cheating,” she said breathlessly.
“Am I? Show me.”
A cone of light slid down the wall and centered on her breasts as he caressed them. Her nipples were poking up between his fingers. He felt the heat of her blush flare beneath his hands and she started to move the flashlight.
“Keep it there,” he said, his voice thick with the beating of his blood.
Slowly he eased her pale T-shirt up until one breast was revealed. Even the harsh light couldn’t pale the rose of her nipple or the life of the creamy flesh that quivered, waiting for his touch.
“Holden . . .”
His tongue touched the pouting pink invitation of her nipple. The sight of the caress spotlighted made her hand shake, and with it the flashlight. His eyes burned in the reflected light, watching her heartbeat quiver through her breast. Then he lowered his head and took the stiffened nipple into his mouth and sucked. Heat snaked through her at the sight of his beard-shadowed cheeks hollowed out with the force of his caress.
Part of Kate felt that she should be embarrassed by the stark sexuality of seeing him suckle, of watching his fingers slide beneath her twisted shirt and stalk her other nipple, fingertips pressing and plucking until her whole breast stood up and begged for him.
“Beautiful,” he said, nipping, playing, his fingers dark against her skin.
His other hand guided the flashlight clenched in her palm, stroking her with light and shadow.
“Take off your shorts,” she said.
“Let me hold the flashlight.”
“Not a chance.” Her voice was husky, determined. “It’s my turn to give orders.”
His teeth gleamed in the reflected light as he stood and stripped. He kicked his clothes aside and stood next to the bed, hands on hips to keep from reaching for her, waiting to see what his sexy, unpredictable lover would do next.
She made a humming sound of pleasure as the cone of light traced his shoulders, his chest, the midnight hair leading to and surrounding his naked, proud flesh and the tightly drawn globes beneath.
“I know men aren’t supposed to be beautiful,” she said in a whispery voice, “but you are.”
She watched the jerk of his erection and the gleaming pearl that appeared at its broad head. Slowly she leaned forward, holding the flashlight steady until she tasted him, salt and musk and man, the taste of life on her tongue. The flashlight slipped from her fingers. She had found something much more satisfying to hold.
Holden saw the light jerk and caught it before it left her hand. He would have set the flashlight aside, but the sight of her tasting him, licking his violently sensitive flesh, then taking it into her hot mouth was too beautiful to give up. He hissed through his teeth and fought not to come.
She tasted what escaped his control and hummed again, enjoying him.
Sweat broke over him from forehead to feet. He could feel the orgasm gathering at the base of his spine. Slowly, slowly, he freed himself from the sweet suction, ignoring her murmured complaint.
“But I like your taste,” she said.
“I can tell. You’re killing me, love.”
She kissed the glistening head. “I’ll be gentle, I promise.”
“I won’t be.”
As he bent and twisted toward his shorts, the light clicked off. There was a soft thud as the flashlight rolled away.
“Hey, that’s mine,” she said.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get everything you have coming,” he said, rolling on the condom by touch.
“But—” she began, then words turned into a squeak when she felt her shorts and underwear whipping down her legs.
She moaned and rolled her hips as two long fingers tested her readiness.
“Ah, you liked playing,” he said, both hunger and satisfaction resonant in his deep voice. She was hot and slick around him, squeezing his fingers in deep reflex, needing more. “Next time, I won’t throw away the flashlight. You’ll glisten and weep so sweetly. All that beautiful pink flesh so wet for me. I’d like to bury my tongue in you, but you have me so primed I’ll be lucky to last past the first stroke.”
She opened her knees wider. “Now, Holden. Now.”
“Or what?” he teased.
“I’ll—” Her voice became a soft keening as her body convulsed around his fingers.
He spread her wide and pushed through her orgasm, stroking her even higher. She writhed and cried and clenched around him, taking him deep, milking him with her body until his muscles corded and he slammed home, shuddering and groaning her name, giving himself to her until he had nothing left, not even breath.
It was a long time before either of them could move. Or wanted to.
Finally he lifted his head. “Want to shower again?”
She gave a mumble that he took as no. Then she definitely complained when he pulled out of her. He slipped through her hands, kissing her fingers as he withdrew.
“Hush, love. I’ll be back before you’re asleep.”
She made a grumpy sound and settled deeper into the rumpled sheets. When he returned moments later, he pulled the sheet over them, settled her against his body, and both of them fell headlong into sleep.
CHAPTER 13
KATE CAME AWAKE to the persistent ringing of her cell phone. The sounds traveling through the thin walls told her that Holden was showering. It was still dark out, though the birds were yammering in the trees, announcing that the sun would soon be along. She turned on the table light before she fumbled among the clothing tossed carelessly around the room. She smiled, remembering how it had been last night.
“Hello,” she said, finding and answering the phone in the same motion.
“I know it’s early,” Larry said. “Wanted to catch you before you came to the dive site.”
She yawned. “I’m caught. What’s up?”
“I need you to go to the fuel dock and check to see if the other tender is there. If it isn’t in the marina, rent another one for a few days.”
“Why do—” She stopped, realizing that she was holding a dead phone.
Larry had hung up.
“Something wrong?” Holden asked from the doorway.
He was fully dressed and he still looked good enough to eat. Memories of yesterday blazed through her in a rush of blood.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Larry wants me to check the marina for the Golden Bough’s other tender. If it’s not there, I’m supposed to rent another.”
“What happened to the first tender?”
She shook her head. “Another thing I don’t know. Larry just gave me marching orders and hung up.”
“Odd.”
“Very,” she said, shrugging. “But he never took pressure well, except when he was underwater. Lately he has been so ti
red and scattered I don’t think he should even be diving.” Or drinking. But that was something she didn’t want to talk about.
Holden asked softly, “Does he have a real choice?”
She bit her lip. “No, not if the business is going to survive. While I take a fast shower, will you raid enough fruit and bread for us to eat breakfast on the way to town?”
“For a kiss.”
“If I kiss you, Larry will be waiting until noon. You’re addictive.”
Smiling, Holden went to scrounge breakfast. When Kate hurried out of the shower, he was waiting by the front door with his customary duffel and a bag of food. Very quickly they were in the workboat and rounding the head to the harbor where dive bars, cafés, and fuel docks waited like old friends. Very old. From the water it looked like all the buildings were leaning against each other.
After half an hour spent cruising various places where the tender could have been left, Kate decided that renting another boat was a better use of their time. The only one available was a workboat just slightly smaller than the one that had mysteriously disappeared. Holden helped her rig a bridle to tow the rental before they headed at reduced speed for the dive site.
As the Golden Bough solidified on the horizon, Kate could no longer ignore the cold knot strangling her throat. She didn’t know what was wrong, but she knew something was. Even if Grandpa had an extra nightcap or two and Larry was cross-eyed tired, the Donnellys just didn’t misplace large equipment.
No one appeared when she brought the two boats alongside the larger ship. Holden took his duffel and a line and went aboard.
“Larry?” Kate called. “Grandpa?”
One of the Spanish brothers shambled over from the galley side as Holden tied off the workboats. Luis looked like a man who had taken an unexpected blow and was still trying to understand why. He noted the rental behind one of the Golden Bough’s tenders and looked even more confused.
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