Amber Beach

by Elizabeth Lowell

  And he would do just that—when he was certain he couldn’t take it one more instant. Until then, he would take it like a man, silently, muscles clenched, sweating from head to heels, breathing like a racehorse coming down the home stretch.

  “That’s it,” he said hoarsely.

  “But I was just getting the hang of it,” she protested, tracing with her tongue the pulse that beat so violently.

  Jake kicked aside his briefs, lifted Honor, and wrapped her legs around his waist. “Get the hang of this.”

  Her pupils dilated with pleasure as he peeled off her pants and sank into her. Her response was a rhythmic contraction and a wave of heat that almost stripped away his control. Hotter than her mouth, deeper, sweeter, she was all around him, he was flying and falling at once, spinning.

  “I’m losing it,” he said raggedly.

  Honor didn’t hear him. She was already lost.

  21

  WHEN JAKE CAME into the kitchen carrying his duffel, Honor was wrapping up salmon sandwiches to take on the boat. Other bags of food stood ready on the counter.

  “Did you find enough tie-downs for your Zodiac?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I can’t believe it fit beneath the radar arch.”

  “That was the easy part. Getting the Zodiac down to the boat in this wind was a lot of fun.”

  “You should have let me help you.”

  Jake agreed, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “I still think you should call Ellen. You would be safe.”

  “I would go crazy worrying about Kyle and you.”

  “You trust me with your body but not your brother, is that it?”

  “No. That’s not it.”

  He looked at Honor’s stubborn profile. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I can’t help that.” She stuffed sandwiches into plastic bags and ignored him.

  Jake bit back a savage comment. No matter what she said now about trusting him not to hurt Kyle, she hadn’t mentioned love in all of the wild, windswept hours they had spent in bed waiting for full darkness to come . . . and wishing it never would.

  “What if I just bundle you up and drop you on Ellen?” he asked roughly.

  “I’d tell her where you were.”

  “You won’t know.”

  “Seal Rock.”

  His head turned swiftly toward Honor. “When did you learn how to read the chart plotter?”

  “Watching you. Seal Rock is the only route Kyle entered that we haven’t tried.”

  “There’s no guarantee he’s anywhere near there.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why are you going?”

  “I told you.”

  “If you trusted me, you would stay on land.”

  “Typical male logic—wrong.” Honor picked up the food bags and met Jake’s glance squarely. “You’re wasting time.”

  “What if something happens to you?”

  “What if it happens to you?”

  His mouth flattened. He went through the arguments in his mind again. He had tried all of them twice, some of them three times. Honor wasn’t buying any of them. He had all but come right out and said he was looking for Kyle’s corpse and he didn’t need her for that. The heavy hints had seemed to go right over her head.

  Then he had seen the fear and grief in her eyes and felt like a murderer.

  “Stay here,” Jake said gently. “Believe me, it will be easier on you.”

  “No.”

  “You’re not being reasonable!”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  He dropped the duffel on the table and began cramming in supplies. “If you get seasick and scared, don’t come to me for sympathy.”

  “I figured that out already.”

  Jake didn’t doubt it. With a muttered word he hit the light switch, throwing the kitchen into the same darkness that filled every room but the bedroom. He stood impatiently, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the moonless night.

  “What about the bedroom light?” Honor asked after a few moments.

  “Leave it on.”

  “Why?”

  “If the spy thinks we’re wrestling in the sheets, he won’t wonder why the rest of the place stays dark.”

  “Don’t people turn out the lights to make love?”

  “Did we?”

  “I didn’t notice. Did we?”

  Despite his irritation, Jake couldn’t help smiling as he thought of Honor all flushed and passionate, then sated and sleepy, then her curious mouth arousing him all over again while he watched and wondered how he had gotten so lucky and unlucky at once: Honor was a lover who matched his own hungry sexuality; she was a woman who didn’t really trust him.

  He had a bad feeling that she was planning on ending their affair after he found Kyle.

  “Any darkness that came was due to sunset creeping up on us,” Jake said. “I was enjoying every bit of the view. Especially the look on your face when you came that last time.”

  “Jake!”

  “What? Don’t tell me you didn’t like it.”

  Honor hated the blush she knew was staining her cheeks right then. It made her feel like a schoolgirl. Jake’s slow smile gleaming in reflected light told her that he liked teasing her. He also liked satisfying her.

  “You’re trying to get my mind off going out on the water, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Is that what I’m doing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it working?” he asked.

  “Sometimes.”

  But there was a catch in her voice that told Jake this wasn’t one of the times. He put an arm around her and pulled her close, comforting her even though he had sworn he wouldn’t.

  “Last chance,” he said softly. “Stay with Ellen.”

  “No.”

  For an instant his lips brushed Honor’s hair. Then he released her and headed out the back door. Together they hurried down the path and into the strong wind. For part of the way, forest screened them from any watchers. For the rest of the path, they would have to depend on darkness and luck.

  “The dock will be slippery,” Jake warned her in a low voice. “So will the boat.”

  Honor didn’t doubt it. She could almost taste the salt spray in the air. She definitely could feel it in the sting of wind-driven dampness against her skin.

  Though the moon hadn’t risen yet, there was enough starlight to see that the water was white as much as it was black. Even in the sheltered cove, wind waves more than a foot high broke against pilings and threw water onto the floating walkway. The only good news was that the tide wasn’t particularly low—the ramp leading down to the dock wasn’t as steep as it would be in a few hours, or as slippery.

  Holding the supplies, Honor cautiously crept down the ramp and onto the dock. Before she reached the boat, Jake had unloaded his stuff and was taking hers. He stepped back down into the boat, set the supplies in the cabin, and returned to the dock just as she was lowering herself into the boat.

  Jake was right. It was slippery. If she hadn’t been wearing deck shoes, she would have been on her hands and knees.

  He lifted her aside, opened the engine hatch, and squatted on his heels. He took a deep breath, then another. No smell of gasoline. He would risk it.

  But first he removed a small flashlight from his jacket pocket and aimed a pinpoint of light into the compartment. Everything looked the way he had left it—shipshape and ready to go. He stood and lowered the heavy cover into place.

  “I’ll turn on the blower,” Honor said quietly.

  “No. Sit in the pilot seat and don’t touch anything.”

  “But—”

  “No blower,” he said over her protest. “No lights. Nothing.”

  “But—”

  “Do what I say or get off the boat.”

  The low, flat order told Honor that she wouldn’t win this argument. Besides, he was the expert, not her. If he didn’t want to use the blower, who was she to argue?

 
She ducked into the cabin, tossed her backpack into the V berth, and climbed into the pilot seat.

  Jake was right behind her. He leaned across the helm seat and started the engine. Even the wind couldn’t completely muffle the sound. Very soon someone would figure out that the throaty growl belonged to a boat. Then Ellen would get a call. He doubted that she was sleeping on the Bayliner. It would take her a few minutes to get to her boat. Not much of a head start for him, but it would have to be enough.

  Instead of giving the engine time to warm up as usual, Jake went right back onto the dock and started casting off lines. Carrying the stern line in his hand, he leaped aboard and took up the controls.

  As soon as his hands wrapped around the wheel, Honor let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. Very quickly the Tomorrow was free of the dock and heading out into choppy, wind-tossed water. Away from the shelter of the headlands at either end of Amber Beach, the waves doubled in size.

  Honor reminded herself that it didn’t matter, a boat could float on waves of any size. She wished she believed it in her gut as well as her head. It seemed that her instincts and her mind had been in a state of war ever since Jake Mallory walked into her life.

  Instantly she told herself that she wasn’t being fair to Jake. Kyle was the one who had turned her life upside down. All Jake did was turn the whole mess inside out—and her with it.

  But it was too late for regrets. She had made her choices and now she was at the mercy of the wind, the ocean, and a man she trusted more than she should.

  In troubled silence Honor watched while Jake bent over the chart plotter, called up the menu, and punched in his choice. A dotted line appeared on the radar screen. He turned the helm until they were on course and nudged the throttle up.

  For a time she took the tension and the pitching waves in silence. Then she started asking questions. “Do you think we got away without anyone noticing?”

  “Doubt it. But by the time they can do anything about it, we should be off their scope.”

  “What about the Coast Guard?”

  “Their chopper is at Sand Point, twenty minutes away. We’ll be long gone by then.”

  “Won’t they look for us?”

  “Clouds, wind, and night are on our side. We’ll run without lights in the lee of the islands and hope the Coast Guard doesn’t find us.”

  The SeaSport lurched as it dropped down off a wave. Though Jake wasn’t going as fast as usual, he still wasn’t exactly crawling. Honor had to brace herself on the bulkhead to stay in the seat.

  Switches clicked and the windshield wipers rushed to clear salt water from glass. Not that it mattered. Without a moon or even the bow floodlight turned on, there wasn’t much to see.

  The cry of wind and the smack of waves on the hull became a kind of silence that ate at Honor’s already frayed nerves. The more her eyes became accustomed to the dark, the more she realized how much white water there was.

  “What about logs?” she asked finally.

  “You see any?”

  “No.”

  “Neither do I.”

  More noisy silence. The cabin was dark but for the chart plotter’s screen and the eerie green glow of the radar screen showing islands and the occasional bright spot of navigation markers.

  “What’s that way off to the left?” Honor asked.

  “A tugboat with a barge in tow.”

  She looked at the radar screen. “How can you tell?”

  “Look out the window. See the lights on the ‘Christmas tree’?”

  “The what?”

  “The tall mast. All tugs have them. The number of lights tells you how long the towrope is. The color of the running lights tells you whether it’s coming or going. This one is starboard to, headed out. We’ll cross well behind it and whatever it’s towing.”

  Honor turned away from the radar screen and looked out over the water. Sure enough, the boat had a vertical line of lights. “Not my idea of a Christmas tree. Too skinny.”

  Without answering, Jake adjusted the radar screen to maximum range. Other than a big oil tanker on its way to March Point, there was nothing on the water but wind, waves, and islands. He settled in for a long, bumpy ride.

  “Any lights behind us?” he asked after a time.

  “Not the last twenty times I looked.”

  He smiled briefly.

  “What does the radar show?” she asked.

  “Nothing following us.”

  “Do you think we got away clean?”

  He grunted.

  The ride went from lumpy to rough as the Tomorrow emerged from the lee of a small island.

  “Looks like we got away,” Jake said, smiling at Honor. “If anyone but the Coast Guard spots us now, we’ll look like vacationers who decided to weigh anchor and find a calmer spot to sleep.”

  “How long will it take to get to Seal Rock?”

  “I don’t know. Depends on the wind outside the islands.”

  Her hands locked on the bulkhead as the boat slid sickeningly down the side of a wave. She was certain the waves were bigger than they had been.

  “Jake?” she asked.

  “It’s all right, honey. If I thought the ride was more dangerous than leaving you behind, I would have tied you up and stuffed you in a closet.”

  “You wouldn’t have.” But even as she protested, she knew that he could have done just that. “Why didn’t you?” she asked, curious.

  “I knew you wouldn’t forgive me. But if I’m wrong and anything happens to you, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Everything that happens isn’t your fault. I’m a functioning adult, fully capable of making my own decisions and living with the results.”

  “I’m sure your brothers will see it that way,” Jake said ironically.

  “That’s their problem.”

  “As long as it’s my ass they’re after, it’s my problem too.”

  Honor opened her mouth and then closed it again. Jake was right. The Donovan males were very protective of their sisters. Sometimes it was endearing. Most of the time it was a pain in the rear.

  “Go into the V berth and try to sleep,” Jake said. “It could be a long night.”

  “Sleep? In this?”

  Honor braced herself as the Tomorrow’s bow bit into a wave and shot through to a sudden downward swoop on the other side.

  “This looks worse than it is,” Jake said. “You should see what it’s like in the Aleutians when storm winds are blowing and the sea runs forty to eighty feet high. Of course, the boats are a lot bigger, too.”

  “Eighty feet!”

  “And up.”

  “Why does anyone go out in that?”

  “Money.” He checked the radar screen closely, watching it through several sweeps. The blip he thought he had seen didn’t reappear. “Go ahead, get some sleep.”

  “I’d rather see the waves and worry than not see them and worry even more.”

  Besides, it was better than thinking about Kyle and his sexy, forlorn fiancé, the woman who had unintentionally damned him with every word she spoke.

  I believed him. I betrayed my family, my people, my country. All of them. For him. May God forgive me, I still love him. I still believe he will telephone me . . .

  Grimly Honor clung to the console and stared out into the churning darkness, trying to think of nothing at all.

  Honor awoke the instant Jake started to ease out of the V berth beside her. Not far above her face, the transparent hatch cover showed nothing more than the silver torrent of moonlight that had made the last hour of their journey easier for Jake and more terrifying for her.

  She really would rather not have known how wild the sea became before he finally anchored in the lee of an island and let the gale blow on without them.

  “Where are you going?” she asked. “It isn’t even dawn.”

  “Just checking the boat. Go back to sleep.”

  “Oh, sure. ‘Go back to sleep,’ “ she mi
micked. “Next time I go to a tennis match, I’ll know how the ball feels.”

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “It was worse.”

  “Next time I’ll stuff you in the closet.”

  “Next time I’ll let you.”

  His smile flashed in the moonlight as he bent down and kissed the corner of her mouth. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  Thirty seconds after Jake left the berth, Honor began to get cold. The sleeping bag they had been using as a blanket was plenty warm as long as he was beside her, radiating heat. Without him the berth felt like a pie-shaped slice of refrigerator. Even fully dressed in shoes, leggings, jeans, sweater, and sweatshirt, she wasn’t really warm.

  She inched past the electronics toward the cabin. The tension in her body, the feeling of having to remember to breathe, was so much a part of her now that she almost didn’t notice it. The dreams she was having were different. She couldn’t get used to them, the raw fear and the feeling that no matter what she did nothing got done, that Kyle was calling her name and his innocence into the darkness and wind, slipping farther and farther away from her with every cry . . . .

  The door to the head opened and closed behind Jake. Shivering, she eased past him in the narrow aisle.

  “Remember how to use it?” he asked.

  “Yes. I particularly remember how cold the seat is.”

  “Never noticed.”

  “Try sitting down when you pee.”

  The door slammed, leaving Jake alone but for the muttering of the radio. He smiled slightly; she really wasn’t a morning person. The middle of the night, however . . .

  He turned up the radio, tuned to the marine weather station, and listened while he put coffee water on to boil. He was still listening when Honor emerged from the head, shivering. He handed her a bright orange float coat. It would be too big for her, but it would help to warm her.

  “What’s the weather like?” she asked, pulling on the coat.

  “SSDD, until the high breaks up.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Same shit different day, until the weather changes.”

  “Goody,” she said sarcastically.