Julien gave him that superior “carry my man purse, you peon” look Dean already hated. “We aren’t paying you to think, Mr. Warren.”
“Captain,” Dean corrected.
“Captain,” Julien repeated snidely. “We hired you to drive the boat, not ask questions.”
Dean was about to tell him to go to hell, but a third man spoke behind him. For someone whose life often depended on his ability to detect someone sneaking up on him, it was disconcerting as hell. Four weeks of sitting on his ass watching the waterways for something that didn’t exist was catching up to him.
“It’s camera equipment,” Jean Paul said with an admonishing look to Julien. “We are planning to make a short film to aid in our protest against the drillship.”
“Is that right?” Dean said. He hadn’t thought much of their ringleader that first night in the bar—and his opinion hadn’t changed. Julien was a douche bag but harmless. This guy? Not harmless. He was pure thug. “Sounds interesting. I’ve done some filming myself,” Dean lied. “What kind of cameras do you use?”
“Is something wrong here?”
Dean turned at the sound of his boss. MacDonald was standing on the dock with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and glaring at him something fierce. Old MacDonald had better be careful or he was going to burst a blood vessel.
Unfortunately he wasn’t alone. Annie stood beside him, looking a little concerned but otherwise pretty damned incredible. Dean wasn’t happy to see her—he didn’t want her involved with these clowns—but he had to admit the view was stunning.
She had incredible legs—of which he could see every endless inch in her very short cutoff denim shorts. Not that he was complaining. Short was good with legs like hers. Really good. Long, tanned, and toned worked for him.
She wore a plaid shirt over a white tank top and had it tied at the waist. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, but she had on a pink Red Sox hat—that needed an explanation—and tan leather flip-flops with that little rainbow tag on them. Both the hat and the flip-flops were well-worn.
She looked quintessentially American, as if she had just walked off a beach in Honolulu or San Diego, and something about that hit him. If he were inclined toward sentiment, he would say it was a longing for home.
Shit.
He turned away to look back at his boss. No getting sentimental there.
“Nothing is going on,” Jean Paul replied smoothly. “The captain just had a question about our camera equipment.”
MacDonald turned Dean’s question back on him. “Is that right?”
Dean heard the challenge. He wasn’t supposed to be asking questions. MacDonald had told him to mind his own business.
Dean was tempted to tell them all to go to hell and walk away. But something stopped him. Something that he didn’t want to examine right now. He needed the job, but he knew that wasn’t the only reason.
“Aye,” he said, adapting MacDonald’s verbiage. “Jean Paul was just telling me all about the little movie they are planning to make.”
Dean didn’t believe for two seconds that they just wanted to get close to the drillship to film something. Those boxes looked way too heavy and big for camera equipment. Ten to one they were planning to board the ship via the fancy inflatable they were bringing along and stage some kind of sit-in like those nutjobs from Greenpeace.
His gaze met Annie’s, and he let her know that he didn’t buy any of it. But it wasn’t his business—nor could he make it his business. If she wanted to get herself thrown in jail, he wasn’t going to stop her. She could take care of herself—she’d made that clear, hadn’t she?
He was just the taxi. He and the boat would be long gone before any police showed up. They might eventually track the charter company down, but he’d deal with that if he had to. Besides, that would happen whether he captained the boat or MacDonald did. But he suspected the cops wouldn’t have much interest in them.
She looked away, her pink cheeks all the admission he needed.
Dean had been so focused on Annie that he hadn’t noticed MacDonald carrying a hot pink duffel over his shoulder until he held it out to him. Although how the hell he’d missed that, he didn’t know. “Take the lady’s bag to the sleeping quarters.”
He would have sworn the old buzzard didn’t have a gallant bone in his body—especially for Americans whom he thought loud, brash, and demanding—but apparently MacDonald had a weakness for drop-dead gorgeous and sweet.
Dean couldn’t blame him.
He reached for the pink monstrosity, thinking it was a damned shame to ruin such a nice bag—it was the one with backpack straps frequently seen on expeditions to Everest and cost a couple of hundred bucks—with such a ridiculous color.
“That’s all right. I can carry it,” Annie started to say.
But Dean had already grabbed it and was heading downstairs. He opened the door to one of the two small rooms that had been made passenger sleeping quarters when the tug was converted into a dive charter and put it on one of the berths.
He would have left, but Annie was standing in the doorway. To get by her, he’d have to brush up against her, which after the other night he knew was not a good idea. He’d been hurting half the night: hot, restless, and guilty. He’d sensed that she was looking for someone to talk to, maybe even someone to confide in, and it wasn’t—couldn’t be—him.
“Nice bag,” he said instead.
She looked embarrassed—which, seeing as he was growing really fond of those little blushes, wasn’t a good thing. “My mom gave it to me for the trip. She thought the color would be easier to spot in baggage claim.”
“She’s right about that. Not likely to get stolen, either.” He paused and gave it another look—maybe more of a shudder. “Especially by a guy.”
She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Does it offend your manly sensibilities? Real men don’t get bothered by something as silly as a color.”
Dean gave her a long, lazy shake of the head. “Sweetheart, if that’s your criterion, then I have to think that you don’t know too many real men.”
She laughed. “You do a good Texan drawl. All you’re missing is the hat, a piece of straw to chew on, and the boots.”
Shit. Dean controlled his expression—barely. He’d slipped and he knew it. This girl did something to him. Made him forget his defenses. Made him forget his damned head.
He needed to stay away from her. She was too easy to talk to.
“Customers,” he said flatly by way of explanation, and then moved past her. He was so angry with himself that he didn’t even need to steel himself when their bodies brushed against each other.
Or so he thought, until every nerve ending in his body seemed to jump into overdrive.
Cool down, old man. He was thirty-three, for fuck’s sake, not a horny teenager.
Well, not a teenager, at least.
“Thanks—for the help with the bag,” she said, clearly confused by his abruptness.
He nodded, trying not to notice that expression on her face again. It was the same one she’d had when he left her at the guest house a couple of nights ago. Wounded. As if his curtness and eagerness to leave had hurt her.
But it couldn’t be avoided. He was attracted to her—too attracted to her. And worse, he actually kind of liked her.
Which didn’t make a damned lick of sense. He had lines that he didn’t cross, and bleeding-heart liberals—a protester, for Christ’s sake—who probably sat around the campfire wearing Birkenstocks and eating granola while singing “Kumbaya,” and burning the flag that he’d spent his life defending were definitely over that line. Way the hell over the line.
But politics aside, she was sweet. Young—probably too young for him—and undoubtedly a little “I can change the world even though I’ve never been in it” naive, but undeniably sweet. And even if he couldn’t get be
hind her politics, he could admire her passion for her studies and her love of what she was doing.
It had resonated with him the other night. It was how he felt about his job.
Or at least how he used to feel.
He felt the now familiar mule kick in the gut of reality, and his jaw clenched against the memories. It came over him like that sometimes. All those men—his men. His friends. Dead. He didn’t want to believe that someone had betrayed them. There had to be another explanation.
The navy had been his life for almost fourteen years. Hell, it had given him a life—a fucking purpose. It had saved him and given him a way out of the future that had been ordained for him. He knew exactly where he’d be without it. In some shit hole, with a shit job, a wife he couldn’t stand, kids to take out his anger on, and drinking himself into oblivion every night.
Just like his old man. Wherever the hell he might be.
Dean turned his back on her and headed up the stairs. Before he could get sucked in again.
Eight
What was she doing down here? Clearly Annie had watched too many movies. Who did she think she was, sneaking around like this, superspy? There wasn’t anything down here.
The first two cases Annie opened contained exactly what they were supposed to: grappling ladders and other climbing equipment that they would use to board the ship. The third contained camera equipment for them to film.
One more and she was out of here. She pulled one of the newer-looking suitcase-sized cases from the stack and flipped open the lid.
She froze. Her stomach dropped, and most of the blood in her body went to the floor along with it.
The small storage room near the engine room only had a single overhead bulb for light, but it was enough to make out the plastic-wrapped cylinders taped together in bundles of three with duct tape, a yellow-and-black cord wound through them. They looked like packages of cookie dough or breakfast sausage.
That wasn’t what they were.
She stared at the contents with a mixture of disbelief and horror. Although she’d never seen explosive devices before, it didn’t take an expert to know what she was looking at.
Fear set in, and she quickly closed the lid—as if that would somehow make them go away. Her skin was like ice as she backed out of the room and closed the door.
She was so scared that she couldn’t think. God, she was shaking! What were they planning to do? Blow up the drillship? Julien must be crazy if he thought she would go along with anything like that.
She returned to her room and lay down on one of the berths, no longer needing to feign sickness as she listened for sounds of the men above. She’d claimed not to be feeling well and left them to their lunch. But she couldn’t stay down here forever.
What was she going to do now?
Her thoughts went to one person. The captain was involved with this whether he wanted to be or not. She suspected not.
But this was partially his fault anyway. He was the one who’d made her paranoid with that “what the hell are you involved with?” look he’d given her as they boarded the ship. If he hadn’t looked at her that way, she wouldn’t have had second thoughts. And if she hadn’t been having second thoughts, she wouldn’t have gone looking for trouble after she’d overheard Julien and Jean Paul talking a little while ago.
She’d been going through the dive equipment on deck but had gone back into the galley to refill her water bottle, when she heard voices in the adjoining room that served as a multipurpose lounge and dining room.
“Give me a little more time to convince her,” Julien had said. “I know she’ll come around.”
“We don’t have any more time,” Jean Paul responded. “If you don’t convince her, I will.”
Annie realized they were talking about her, and then, as now, her blood had run cold. She’d confronted Julien with what she’d heard when he came out to help her later, but he’d claimed Jean Paul had just been worried that she’d back out. He’d been convincing at the moment, but the conversation had replayed over and over in her head so many times she couldn’t let it go.
She’d known they were talking about something else, so while they were eating lunch, she’d decided to look in a few of the cases the captain had been so curious about. But never in her life could she have imagined this.
Jean Paul, Julien, and Claude were ecoterrorists, and she’d been stupid enough to get mixed up in whatever it was that they had planned.
Explosives. Good God, people could be killed. Her stomach turned for the God-knew-how-many-eth time.
There was no question: she had to tell the captain. He could radio for help or turn around or help her figure out a way to stop whatever they had planned. It wasn’t that she trusted him—though oddly she kind of did—but she didn’t have anyone else to turn to and she couldn’t very well commandeer the boat herself.
As she stepped out of the sleeping quarters into the narrow hall, the boat swayed, making her painfully conscious of her situation. Every scary movie she’d ever seen that took place on a boat picked that moment to come back to her. She was alone with a horrible secret, miles away from shore, surrounded by a bunch of extremists with explosives. Julien wouldn’t hurt her, but she couldn’t be as sure of the other two.
Her plan to talk to the captain had one problem: he was in the wheelhouse—where he’d been since leaving her so abruptly after helping her with her bag—which was stacked atop the deck level galley and lounge, accessed by metal ladderlike stairs on the opposite side. Meaning she would have to go out on deck and try to slip around where the three men were eating without being seen.
She didn’t even make it all the way up the stairs before Jean Paul cornered her.
Her heart leaped to her throat, but she tried to play it cool. “Hey.”
He didn’t respond. He was looking down the hall behind her. She turned to see what had caught his attention.
Oh God. She’d left the light on in the storage room, and the telltale glow was visible beneath the door.
Her skin prickled, fear setting all her instincts on edge. Had he guessed that she’d been snooping, and what she’d discovered?
Mustering every ounce of courage that she could, she turned back around to face him. Don’t be stupid. She wasn’t going to be that girl in the movie who gave everything away with her terrified expression.
“Excuse me,” she said with an irritated flip of her chin, trying to go around him.
He stepped in front of her, blocking her and clearly trying to intimidate her. He wasn’t a big man, but size didn’t seem to be limiting his menace any.
“Where are you going?” he asked. “I thought you weren’t feeling well.”
She looked him straight in the eye, giving no hint to the frantic race of her pulse and beat of her heart. “I thought some fresh air might help.”
“I will go with you.”
“That isn’t necessary. I was going to find Julien.”
Jean Paul held her gaze as if he knew she was lying. “You should do that.”
He stepped aside. She thought it was to let her pass, but he reached out to grab her arm as she went by. She’d changed earlier into warmer clothes, but even through the down of her coat, his touch repulsed her. He had on the ridiculous leather jacket and smelled of wine and cigarettes and sweat.
“Let go of me,” she said in a low, steely voice, which was surprising for how scared she was.
He did as she said with a small smirk. “Do what you are supposed to do, mademoiselle, and we won’t have any problems.”
There was no mistaking the threat. He suspected what she’d seen.
Knowing that the best thing she could do right now was to pretend to be with them, Annie said, “I will do whatever it takes to stop the drilling. Whether you and I have ‘problems,’ I don’t really care.”
The fierceness of
her reply seemed to surprise him. She must have been a better actor than she realized, because he let her go.
Instead of going outside for fresh air, she took a seat beside Julien in the lounge and tried to act normal—or at least as normal as she could under the circumstances.
The next couple of hours were torture as she pretended nothing was wrong while waiting for the chance to talk to the captain. He came down once to grab coffee and something to eat while Julien, Claude, and Jean Paul were still heavy into their post-lunch wine. Annie never drank before she went diving. Although she had no intention of diving anywhere with these guys, and could have used something to calm her nerves, Julien would notice.
She jumped up as soon as the captain came in, and offered to make him a fresh pot of coffee so she could go into the galley with him, but he said it wasn’t necessary, and she was forced to sit back down. When he came back out, he seemed to be doing his best not to look at her, not giving her a chance for some kind of silent communication. She felt like one of those hostages taken to the bank to empty their account and helplessly trying to alert the clueless teller that something was wrong. He wasn’t clueless, more deliberately avoiding. The darkness and anger had returned.
Dan left a few minutes after he came in, leaving Annie resigned to the fact that she was going to have to wait to talk to him until everyone went down to rest. But every time she tried to steer them downstairs, Julien would say, “Just a minute” and launch back into the current political discussion.
They were talking about renewed problems in Crimea. It was exactly the type of conversation that would have held her enthralled a few weeks ago—Julien and his friends’ take was always so different and she liked hearing their perspective—but that had all changed now that she’d learned he was some kind of psycho extremist.
She listened closely for something that she might have missed—something that should have alerted her—but even with what she knew now, he sounded so reasonable.
She still felt like such a fool. How could she not have realized what was going on? She’d been so blinded by Julien she hadn’t seen anything beyond his good looks and charm. He’d seemed so perfect. They cared about the same things, thought the same way . . .
Going Dark Page 9
