Going Overboard

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “Damn straight. That’s why I changed it around.”

  “You what?”

  “I rearranged a few things so it’s more accurate.”

  He was nuts about this woman. “You edited my list?”

  “It needed some work. Now it looks better.” She looked pleased with herself, but then her mouth drooped again. “Or it did. Now it sleeps with the fishes.”

  He started to laugh. He should have been outraged that she’d messed around with his computer, and furious with himself for dumping it overboard. But the strangest thing had happened. Once he’d accepted that the laptop was unusable, a huge weight had lifted, one he hadn’t even known he was carrying. He couldn’t work. He physically couldn’t work. My God, but he felt liberated.

  “Chance,” she said, “maybe we should try to dry it out again, like we did after you poured coffee into it. You never know. Miracles do happen.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Miracles happen all the time. Hang on to the ladder for a minute. I’ll get it.”

  She followed his instructions, moving away from his supporting arm.

  When his hand was free, he reached up and took the computer off the deck. Then he held it out over the water… and let go.

  Andi shrieked and started after it, but he grabbed her before she could dive under the water.

  “What are you doing?” she cried. “There’s no way it’ll work now!”

  “That’s right.” He pulled her close. “When we’re ready to leave, I’ll go get it. In the meantime, pucker up those lips and kiss me. We have three hours to make up for.”

  ANDI COULDN’T BELIEVE the transformation in Chance with the laptop six feet under the surface of the lake. Apparently it had been the anchor weighing him down, reminding him of his obligations. Without it, he seemed reborn. He stripped off his bathing suit and they cavorted in the water like children, chasing and splashing around the cove until they were panting from the exertion.

  But beneath the playfulness ran the sensuality that held them both in its passionate grip, and eventually Chance led her back to the boat and made love to her until the sun dipped below the horizon. They called Nicole and found out that she, Bowie and Chandi were flying back to Chicago the next day, which left Andi and Chance free to finish their vacation as they pleased. In celebration, they cooked dinner on the beach, spread out beach towels and made love again.

  And it was love they were making. Andi couldn’t kid herself that physical pleasure was all she felt when he touched her, when he moved within her. She’d promised Nicole she wouldn’t let down her guard, wouldn’t let herself get hurt. Maybe if he hadn’t knocked his laptop into the lake, she would have managed not to fall so completely in love with him, but this unhampered Chance was impossible to resist.

  As they retreated to the boat for the night and Andi snuggled into his arms, she tried not to think of how little time they had left.

  HE WOKE HER at dawn with little nibbling kisses. The aroma of coffee drifted from the kitchen, and she turned toward him, thinking she knew what he wanted before his morning coffee.

  “Time to get up,” he whispered. “Time to fish.”

  “Fish?”

  “It’s the very best time. Come on. The coffee’s almost done. I have the poles ready.”

  She reached for him. “I had a very different pole in mind.”

  He backed away and grinned at her. “Thanks for the compliment. Hey, don’t close your eyes again.” He leaned down and pried her lids open. “Come out to the rear deck. I set up two chairs. It’s more fun with two.”

  “So’s my idea.”

  “We’ll do that later. Now it’s time to catch some fish. Fish for breakfast. Yum.”

  “Doughnuts for breakfast. Yum squared.” She swung her legs to the floor. “I remember Bowie saying you loved to fish, but I thought you must have outgrown it.”

  “Luckily I didn’t.”

  “Luckily.” She peered at him. He really did look all excited, as if getting up before the sun was the greatest idea in the world. “Chance, it’s barely light out there. Fish don’t have alarm clocks. They won’t be up yet.”

  “Fish get up very early.”

  She loved most of the changes in him since he’d dumped the laptop overboard, but she wasn’t sure this fishing thing qualified as a positive sign.

  “Here, wrap the sleeping bag around you.” He draped it over her shoulders. “You’re going to love this.”

  “Oh, yeah.” She stumbled down the hall, trailing the sleeping bag like a down-filled bridal train.

  He settled her in a deck chair, cast her line for her and put a cup of coffee in her hand. “Isn’t this great?”

  “Outstanding.”

  An hour and another pot of coffee later, she turned to him. “So when does the excitement start?”

  “Well, they’re not biting on the lures we have.”

  “That’s because we should have bought live bait. I told Bowie that we—”

  “Your earrings.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What have we got to lose? Let’s try your earrings and see if they go for those.”

  “You may not have anything to lose, but I have a lovely pair of earrings, a memento from my darling brother-in-law, to lose.”

  “He can make you another pair. He’d love to. Please, Andi. I really want to catch a fish for breakfast, don’t you?”

  “You bet,” she muttered.

  “You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”

  She couldn’t bear to squash his excitement, even if she didn’t understand it one single bit. “I am. I really am. I’ll go get the earrings, one for each of us. Maybe we’ll catch two fish!”

  “Hey, yeah!”

  Turning away, she rolled her eyes and went in search of the earrings.

  A half hour later, Andi begged Chance to stop catching fish because they had more than they could eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

  “You could take some home and freeze them,” he said hopefully as they stood on the rear deck with a cooler full of fish.

  “Sorry. I have an understanding with my freezer. I don’t put dead fish in there and it gives me an endless supply of Fudge Ripple Delight.”

  “Did you see the way your earrings worked, though?” He held the feathered creation, a little the worse for wear, in one hand. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Jefferson Sporting Goods needs to get this lure on the market.”

  Andi looked at him. “Gonna give Bowie a bonus?”

  He glanced up, startled. “Yeah, I suppose I should, huh?”

  “You know, this may work as a fishing lure, but the idea of earrings isn’t bad, either.”

  “Yeah, if you don’t lean too far over the boat while you’re wearing them.”

  Andi laughed. “Hey, cross-promotion! Catch a guy or catch a fish, whichever you’re in the mood for.”

  “I don’t know, Andi. Jefferson’s always been a pretty conservative company. That sounds kind of goofy, considering our image.”

  “Too bad you’re so restricted. It would be fun to see what would happen if you turned Bowie loose on a campaign for marketing his lure earrings. In fact, if I were you, I’d turn him loose, period. Let him be in charge of new ventures for the company. His creativity is pretty much wasted in sales.”

  “I’m not sure he has the discipline to carry through if I didn’t have him in some structured position.”

  That did it. “Better erase that old tape, Chance. That’s your dad talking, not today’s reality. Think about what you’ve seen on this trip. Think about the night little Chandi was born. When you were sidelined, Bowie picked up the ball without missing a beat.”

  “It was his wife, his daughter.”

  “It’s his business, too! He’s a Jefferson, although he hasn’t been given much opportunity to prove it. You have no idea what would happen if you cherished his free spirit instead of scoffing at it, like your dad did all his life.”

  “I don’t scoff.”

/>   “Don’t you?” She was determined that this time they’d finally get to the end of the argument.

  “I get a kick out of Bowie. He’s a fun guy.”

  “Yeah, but fun has its place, right? There’s a time for it, and then there’s a time to get down to business and be serious.”

  “Well, of course.” He stared at her as if he couldn’t believe she’d even bother stating the obvious.

  “You don’t trust Bowie’s ability to get down to business and be serious when the situation demands it. Even though you’ve had some powerful evidence recently that he’s not the fluff-brain you think he is.”

  He seemed uncomfortable. “I don’t know if what happened the other night would translate into business situations.”

  “The hell it wouldn’t! A crisis is a crisis. And in this particular one, you folded. You hate that, don’t you? You’d like to forget it, and return to the old days, when you could handle anything and Bowie couldn’t be trusted to tie his own shoes without direction.”

  Chance’s gaze grew flinty. “This isn’t about me, it’s about him. You haven’t lived with him for twenty-seven years. I have. If I gave Bowie the kind of freedom you’re talking about, he’d be all over the map. He’d flit from one thing to another, never settling on anything long enough to make a success of it.”

  “Well, I’m no different. Does that make us so bad?”

  He didn’t say anything, but the answer was there in his eyes.

  She’d guessed that was his opinion of her. She just hadn’t wanted to think about it. “Bowie and I are fun to have around once in a while, but don’t count on us for the long haul, because we don’t have that kind of stamina, right?”

  He took her by both arms. “Let’s take Bowie out of this for a minute. You have tremendous potential, Andi. I’m not so blinded by lust that I can’t see how capable you are. When you were working with Bowie on yoga, I realized that you’re a natural teacher. If you’d just grab hold of something, maybe open your own yoga school, for example, you could be—”

  “Like you?” Had he not made this comment, she would have taken great satisfaction in having him learn from Nicole that she’d gone into business for herself. Now he’d suppose it was his idea, not hers, which took the incentive right out of it. “You want me to drive myself day and night to achieve some goal someone else set for me? No, thanks.”

  He released her and turned away. “I suppose you think I should just abandon Jefferson Sporting Goods to Bowie and run away with you to some desert isle where we can live on love.”

  Tears of frustration filled her eyes, but she blinked them back. “Bring Bowie’s fishing lure and you have a deal.”

  He bowed his head. “I can’t, Andi.”

  Her throat hurt from the effort not to cry. She’d set herself up for this, after all. “Can’t or won’t?”

  He turned, his eyes filled with agony. “Won’t, then. Good or bad, I’m the way life has made me. I can’t imagine turning the company over to Bowie, no matter what I’ve seen on this trip. And I can’t image life without the challenge and the competition I’m used to. I’d go crazy on a desert island.”

  “And all that you love about your life would drive me crazy.”

  He swallowed. “I’ve been asking myself if there was any way you could come to Chicago, any way we could work out some arrangement.”

  She closed her eyes against the pain and took a long, shaky breath before she dared speak. “What we’ve found here is too fragile, Chance.” She forced herself to look at him while she finished. “We’d kill that special feeling in a week.”

  He gazed at her in silence. Finally he spoke, his voice husky. “Please tell me we didn’t just kill it this morning.”

  If the ache in her heart was any indication, she still loved him, stubborn type-A behavior and all, with a fierceness that promised to give her a great deal of misery in the future. “Is your laptop still in the lake?”

  “Unless you hooked it with one of your wild casts.”

  “Would you expect me to cast any other way?”

  “No.”

  She held out her arms and gave a seductive little shimmy. “Then let the good times roll.”

  14

  CHANCE MARVELED at Andi’s generosity of spirit as she threw herself into their last full day as if there were no tomorrow. He’d never encountered that kind of resilience and he was both awestruck and fascinated.

  In the morning she made love to him with gusto, and in the afternoon she taught him water ballet until she nearly drowned herself laughing as he gracefully pointed his toes in the air. Most women he’d known would have spent hours in hurt silence after a conversation like the one he’d had with Andi on the rear deck of the boat. But as the sun set behind the cliffs, ushering in their last night together, Andi was standing on the beach, instructing him on the finer points of the macarena.

  The only problem was, he couldn’t imagine who he’d be dancing with once Andi was no longer a part of his life. But they’d come to an impasse. She apparently expected him to become some sort of beach bum, which was out of the question. As for transplanting her to Chicago, he’d pretty much given up that idea. She was probably right—their carefree relationship wouldn’t survive once he returned to the world of big-city business.

  “You have a decent sense of rhythm, Jefferson,” she said, bobbing in time with him as they undulated through the moves of the dance, she in her black swimsuit and he in his bathing trunks.

  “You should have seen my rendition of the hokeypokey in kindergarten. I put them all in the shade.”

  “I’ll bet. You know what this dance would be good for?”

  He kept up the rhythm. “Yeah. Slapping mosquitoes. Just got one.”

  “I was thinking of people who work at computers all day. See how I’m moving my arms around?”

  “I love watching you move your arms around. I love watching you move your everything around.”

  “But think of it. If you called a macarena break every hour or so, they might not get that thing they get, you know—carpal tunnel syndrome.”

  “Or how about a yoga break?” He stopped dancing and gazed at her.

  “Well, I suppose.” Her glance was wary.

  Despite what he’d vowed to himself, the idea was too good to ignore. “Come to Chicago, Andi. There are carpal tunnel sufferers in every office on Michigan Avenue. With your talent and charisma, you could build up a business in no time.”

  She closed the distance between them and took his face in her hands. “And you? What would you be doing while I ran up and down Michigan Avenue in my tights and leotard?”

  “Carrying your yoga mat.”

  “Never kid a kidder, Chance.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him gently. “You’d be working those fourteenhour days Nicole’s told me about. I’d be lucky to catch a glimpse of the tailored sleeve of your Armani suit jacket as you whipped by.”

  He wound his arms around her and almost groaned aloud at the pleasure of pulling her close. “Wrong. I’d go without sleep before I gave up making love to you.”

  “Did you hear what you just said?” she admonished, and kissed him again, slipping her tongue into his mouth before drawing away again.

  “Yeah, I asked you to keep French-kissing me for about a hundred years, give or take a decade.”

  “You offered to give up sleep. Not work. Sleep. No, my workaholic lover. I’m not adding myself to your packed schedule.”

  “Then I’ll just have to kidnap you.” He delved into her lush mouth and tried to forget that tomorrow at this time he wouldn’t be able to kiss her. He wouldn’t be able to run his hand over her smooth back and cup her firm behind. He wouldn’t be able to pull down the straps of her swimsuit and kiss her warm breasts.

  And he wouldn’t have to try to remember where he’d thrown the box of condoms when he’d brought them down to the beach. During these last few hours, he’d considered stringing the box around his neck so he’d never be without, just
in case she started doing what she was doing right this minute. She’d reached inside his swimsuit to caress him in ways that meant he’d better find that box, and fast.

  “Wait,” he said, gasping as she fondled him with the exquisite talent he’d learned to associate with Andi. “Let me get the—” He glanced toward the towel where he remembered leaving the box of condoms. A raven was pecking at the box. “Hey! Scram!”

  He ran, or more accurately, considering his aroused state, he lurched toward the towel. The raven took the box in its beak and flapped skyward. “Oh, no, you don’t, birdbrain!” He leaped like a star pass receiver and grabbed the box, wrenching it from the bird’s claws. Then he did a belly flop into the sand. It knocked the wind from him, but it wasn’t hitting his belly that caused him to grimace in pain.

  “Chance?” She hurried over to him and crouched beside him. “Are you okay?”

  “I think…I broke…my…pride and joy.”

  “Turn over and let me look.”

  He spit out some sand and struggled to draw a breath. “You’re laughing, aren’t you?”

  There was a muffled sound, and then she cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t laugh about a thing like this. Come on, roll over.”

  He did, drawing another tortured breath in the process.

  “Poor baby.” She brushed the sand from his heaving chest. “Knocked the breath right out of you.”

  “Damn wildlife.”

  “Let’s see if I can inflate you again.” She eased his swimsuit down. “Why lookee here! It’s a valve!”

  Laughing made his chest hurt, but he couldn’t help it. “I think I squashed it.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet it still works.”

  Darned if she wasn’t right. Not long after she put her mouth there, he felt ready to explode. “Easy, Andi. Easy, sweetheart.”

  She kissed her way up his chest and smiled down at him. “Time to put the cap on,” she said, taking the condom box from his unresisting fingers. She pulled out a cellophane-wrapped package. “Uh-oh. Beak holes.”