She sank down onto the bed, the possibility knocking the wind from her. She forced herself to take a few deep breaths and not let emotion get the better of her.
If they were working for Karl, they’d be back again. This, she knew. Karl was nothing if not persistent.
She told herself to calm down. Not to jump to conclusions.
It was highly unlikely that this had anything to do with Karl. He had no idea where she was, after all. The only other person who did know was Tyler, and he wouldn’t tell Karl. He was possibly less of a fan of her ex-husband than she was.
Maybe she should just ask Cole to drop her off at the next island tomorrow. She could arrange for transportation back to Miami and then fly to Richmond and do what she should have done in the first place. Handle the situation with Karl face-to-face.
But she didn’t want to leave. She’d laughed more since getting on this boat than she had throughout her entire three-year marriage.
She thought about Cole and their dance.
Hmm.
Okay, so it was a nice dance.
She sat for a while, convinced herself it would be unreasonable to leave. She’d made a commitment to Margo to help her with her crush on Harry. She could hardly go back on her word, could she?
* * *
AT NOON THE next day, Cole and Harry anchored the boat in another spot known for snorkeling.
He and Kate had managed to avoid each other throughout the morning, and he wasn’t sure which of them had worked harder at it. The end result, however, had been a near comical series of sudden weaves and turns that successfully kept them from crossing paths.
Once they’d anchored, he and Harry got out the snorkeling gear. The Granger sisters were the first in line, dressed in lime green wet suits with the potential to blind if a person made the mistake of looking their way without the aid of sunglasses.
Cole handed them each a pair of orange flippers that did nothing to lower the volume of their color scheme. He glanced up to find Kate next in line, their gazes colliding head-on for the first time that morning. “What size do you need?” he asked.
“Small,” she said.
He pulled out a bag containing fins, mask and snorkel and handed it to her.
“Any sharks in these waters?” she asked.
“Only one,” he said, directing his gaze to Harry who was now showing Margo how to clean her snorkel.
Kate smiled, and Cole looked away, feeling at an unusual loss for words. Having been an attorney in his other life, it wasn’t an affliction he associated with himself. Maybe it had something to do with the pink-and-white bikini she wore this morning, or more specifically, the way she looked in it.
Dr. Sheldon appeared on deck and glanced at Margo who was laughing at something Harry had just said. The professor frowned, then headed over to Cole.
“I’d like some snorkeling gear, please,” he said while somehow managing to keep a protective gaze on his daughter, as if she were sixteen and plotting to elope.
Cole asked him what size, then pulled out a bag and handed it over. “We’ll be here a couple of hours,” he told him. “Be sure to snorkel in pairs.”
“I’ll be with my daughter, of course,” he said, checking the gear in his bag.
“Actually, professor,” Kate said, to this point a silent observer, “I was hoping you’d take me under your wing. Margo told me you know practically every fish there is by name.” Her accent had thickened, her voice suddenly sweet and cajoling.
Dr. Sheldon glanced at his daughter, now adjusting her face mask under Harry’s tutelage. The professor frowned again, then looked at Kate and said, “I’ll be happy to tell you what I know.”
It didn’t take an Ivy League degree to figure out what Kate was up to. Cole ended up with the Granger sisters. Both women appeared to have a grand time, laughing and generally making him feel as if he were the world’s most amazing guide. He decided it was a talent most often found in ladies of Southern origin, this dedication to making a man feel ten feet tall. He looked up once and found Kate smiling at him from several yards away, clearly amused.
A little while later, Dr. Sheldon finally managed to escape the Jeopardy! workout to which Kate had subjected him and headed back to the boat. At the same time, Lyle and Lily declared the need for a reapplication of sunscreen and followed him up the ladder. Kate still floated nearby. Cole did a bang-up job of ignoring her and was halfway up the ladder when she called out, “I know what you were wishing.”
He actually considered pretending not to have heard her, but even for him, that would have been rude. He held on to the ladder with one hand, slicked the water from his hair and said, “What?”
“That their knack for making a man feel like a man hadn’t fizzled out with the current generation of women.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You were loving every second of it. Not that I blame you. They’re adorable, and they meant every word.”
He dropped back into the water, sending a wave splashing over her.
“Passive-aggressive,” she accused with a smile, wiping water from her eyes.
He floated faceup, closing his eyes against the bright sun. “It’s a lost art, attracting bees with honey instead of vinegar,” he returned.
“They certainly had you wrapped around their little fingers.”
“And isn’t that the ultimate goal?”
“For whom?”
“Women.”
“I’m sensing a trap here.”
He chuckled in spite of himself. “No trap.”
“I can only assume you’re speaking from experience.”
“Let’s just say if I’m going to be manipulated, I’ll take the Granger ladies’ method of subtlety over the baseball bat to the back of the head approach any day.”
Kate remained quiet long enough that he thought she wasn’t going to answer. “Women don’t have exclusive use of that approach, you know.”
Her voice held something he hadn’t heard before. She’d let her guard down, a vulnerability exposed that was completely at odds with the cool-as-a-cucumber Kate Winthrop he’d seen to date.
He grabbed one of the floats tied loosely at the foot of the boat’s ladder, skimmed it in her direction, then grabbed one for himself.
“Thanks,” she said, propping her elbows up on one side of her float and putting her snorkeling mask on top.
He did the same, and they studied one another for a moment. He had no idea what to think of Kate Winthrop. One minute, he was suspicious of her, the next exasperated, then amused and now curious. “Why did you come on this trip by yourself?” he asked, sending a pointed look at her ringless left hand.
She shrugged, as she dipped her hand in the water. “I needed a vacation.”
“Couldn’t find any other options, huh?” he asked, trying not to sound skeptical.
Laughter floated up from the other side of the boat. Harry and Margo. Obviously getting on famously.
“I just went through a divorce a few months ago,” Kate said in a quiet voice. “Not a pretty one.”
“Is there such a thing?” he asked.
She lowered her chin onto the float, her gaze not quite meeting his. “Our marriage wasn’t what I thought it was. He wasn’t who I thought he was.”
“People often aren’t,” he said, hearing the bitterness in his own voice.
“Is that from experience, too?”
“Unfortunately.”
A couple of minutes passed, and they were silent, the water making a gentle slapping noise against the edge of the boat.
“Some people are better than others at hiding what they don’t want the world to see,” she said.
He felt the hot sun on his shoulders. “Yeah,” he said.
“And aren’t you?” she asked.
“What?”
“Hiding something?”
The words had direct aim, and he did what he did best. Removed himself from
the line of fire. “I’ve got a few things to do before we head out. See ya back on board.”
He climbed the ladder without glancing back, but then he didn’t have to. He was sure she’d already figured out that one of his strengths was taking off when things started to get complicated.
* * *
KATE WATCHED COLE CLIMB the ladder to the boat, intrigued, and at the same time, wary. She didn’t know his story, but the conclusion was pretty clear. Cole Hunter was not a man she should be having a single second thought about. She’d walked this particular plank once already. And although the recipe for disaster might have been comprised of somewhat different ingredients, it still amounted to a recipe for disaster. Enough said.
* * *
PAIRING UP WAS Harry’s idea.
Margo’s father had been looking forward to the two of them snorkeling together, and she felt guilty for leaving him hanging. At the same time, she felt a little rush of rebellion that wasn’t entirely fair to him. As a modern woman, she was an anomaly, having made it through the entirety of her twenties with only two dates, both of whom her father had introduced her to.
Before this week, it wasn’t something she sat around dwelling on. It was just her life.
But looking at Harry’s bare chest and his nicely shaped shoulders, a wave of awareness for the things she had let pass her by hit her head on.
She climbed down the ladder into the water, slid her mask into place and popped the snorkel in her mouth. Without looking back, she swam away from the boat, intent only on putting some distance between Harry and herself. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to pair off with him after all.
For a while, she simply lost herself in the beauty of the living world beneath its roof of aqua water. The brilliant yellows and oranges, vivid purples and greens nearly took her breath away. She jumped at the tap on her shoulder, flopping faceup in a less than graceful rise to the surface.
Harry treaded water, looking at her through the lens of his mask.
“You scared me,” she said.
“Where’s the fire?” he asked. “You took off like somebody put jet fuel in your tank.”
She struggled for a response. She could hardly tell him it had something to do with his bare chest and its effect on her pulse. “I just wanted to get started,” she improvised. “I haven’t snorkeled in years. It’s incredible under there.”
He smiled at her, a half smile that implied he was having a little trouble figuring her out, then said, “We’d better take another look then, hadn’t we?”
They glided across the surface side by side for the next ten minutes or so. She almost forgot that he was there beside her until she turned her head and found him looking directly at her instead of the fish. She had the sudden sensation of falling, and wondered when she finally hit a solid surface again, if it would be soft or hard.
Ahead a school of very small, nearly transparent fish swam straight for them. Should she go to the left and let Harry go to the right? But just as she started to veer away from him, Harry reached for her hand and pulled her toward him. Together, they swam through the middle of the school which parted in a V.
Once the fish had passed them, she glanced at Harry, feeling the smile in her eyes. His held one as well. They swam on, and he didn’t let go of her hand, tugging her along beside him, as if that was exactly where he wanted her to be.
CHAPTER NINE
To change and change for the better are two different things.
—German Proverb
AFTER EVERYONE HAD finished snorkeling, Kate sat outside while the boat headed across open water. She was dying to talk to Margo, but the professor appeared unwilling to let her out of his sight now that he’d retrieved her from Harry’s clutches. From across the deck, Margo gave Kate a look of resignation, and Kate wondered what had happened in her life to cement such dedication to her father.
The sun had begun to drop on the horizon when Kate headed downstairs to the galley where Harry put her on salad duty, which she handled surprisingly well. She carefully pulled apart the romaine lettuce leaves, washing them and then piling them in a large wooden bowl. Following his instruction, she threw in an assortment of toppings, artichoke hearts, black olives, crusty croutons and grated Parmesan cheese.
When the bowl was full, Harry glanced over her shoulder and said, “Hey, that looks great.”
“A little better than my last kitchen experiment?”
“Maybe just a tad,” he agreed with a grin.
She waited a few moments and then as casually as possible, said, “You and Margo sounded like you were having fun this afternoon.”
Harry reached for a cutting board, sliced open a juicy red papaya, the knife thunking against the wood. “Yeah,” he said, his voice suddenly a little more neutral. “She’s a nice girl.”
“She is,” Kate agreed.
He cut the papaya into bite-size chunks, and then began placing them on a white oval platter. “You don’t think she would get any ideas, do you?”
“Ideas?”
He lifted a shoulder. “About anything serious,” he said.
“Harry, you just met.”
“I know,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s just something about the way she looks at me.”
“You mean as if she likes you?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Anything wrong with that?”
Above them, footsteps sounded on the wood deck. Kate heard Cole’s voice and then Lily’s laugh.
“No,” Harry said. “I just don’t want any mixed messages. Signals getting crossed or anything like that.”
“Ah,” Kate said. “You don’t want her reading anything more into your intentions than a vacation fling. Is that it?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s it,” he said without looking at her.
She had to admit to a pang of disappointment for Margo. For reasons she couldn’t exactly explain, she decided to save face for her. “What makes you think she’s interested in anything else?”
He gave her a long look, before saying, “In my experience, there are two types of women. The ones who look at a man and see commitment. And the ones who don’t.”
“You think Margo falls into the former category?”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, her voice casual. “I think she’s just looking to set her dad straight. And you’re decent ammunition. Please don’t be offended by this, but temporary ammunition, I might add.”
He studied her for a moment, his surprise clear. “Well,” he said, “that’s good. Really. Ammunition. I don’t have a problem with that.”
“Good, then,” she said. “Why mess up something that doesn’t need to be anything other than two people enjoying each other’s company? Something that will be easily forgotten when everyone is back home again. Nothing more than a vacation memory.”
Harry smiled then, but it looked a little forced to her. She added a mental checkmark in Margo’s column even as she wondered at her own audacity for interfering.
“You know,” Harry said after a bit, “we could apply this same conversation to you and Cole.”
She raised one eyebrow. “No,” she said, picking up the salad bowl and heading for the stairs. “It’s not the same thing. Not the same thing at all.”
* * *
KATE WOKE UP the next morning to the sound of voices from somewhere on the boat. She listened for a moment, hearing cars in the background. They were in port. Wondering what was going on, she slipped out her door and up the stairs, running a hand over her sleep-tousled hair.
“Morning,” Cole said from up top.
With a mental picture of how she must look, Kate seriously considered running back to her cabin. Instead, giving vanity the boot, she turned and raised a hand against the glare of the rising sun. “I heard some noise when I woke up. I wasn’t sure—”
“Sorry,” Cole said, his gaze fixed on her. “The anchor switch jammed last night. I thought I’d better get it looked a
t this morning.”
“Where are we?”
“Tango Island. It’s near the Dominican Republic.”
“Oh.” She felt suddenly conscious of her shortie pajamas, the thinness of the sleeveless top that said Tadpoles Are Cute But They Still Grow Up To Be Frogs. She folded her arms across her chest and started backing down the stairs. “I’ll just get dressed then.”
“There’s some shopping on the island,” he said, putting his forearms on the railing and leaning over. “There’ll be time to go into town if anyone wants to.”
“Great,” she said.
“The shirt statement. Is that your personal philosophy?”
She felt her face growing warm. “So far.”
A smile touched the corner of his mouth. “Funny,” he said, “I’d have bet you still believed they could turn into princes.”
“I did,” she threw back. “Until I was, oh, eight or so.” She noticed, not for the first time, how blue his eyes were against his sun-browned face. She took a step backwards. Her foot slipped, and she grabbed at the handrail, righting herself with something less than finesse.
“Are you all right?” he asked, starting down the stairs after her.
She held up a hand to stop him. “Yes. Really. Fine. I’d better get dressed. Shopping awaits.”
“The important stuff,” he said.
She threw him a cheerful wave and headed for her room, determined not to dwell on the way he’d said that or even give a second thought as to why it bothered her.
* * *
THE PROFESSOR HAD woken up with a migraine headache, so Margo agreed to go into town with Kate and the Granger sisters. While she didn’t wish the professor ill, Kate was glad to see Margo smiling and clearly excited about their outing.
Cole and Harry stayed behind to take care of the boat, both advising the four of them to be careful with their purses. The women waited at the end of the pier to catch a cab into town. A brownish-orange car rattled to a stop beside them, a sign on top blinking Taxi. The car was small and appeared to be held together with several strategic rectangles of rust. Kate hoped no one decided to poke a finger through one of them.
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