by Maggie Wells
Her lungs started to burn and her eyes watered. The thrum of her heart slowed to a dull thud. Water licked and slapped the sides of the boat, but still no sign of Brian. Icy tendrils of panic banded her chest. Gripping the teak rail she rose from her seat, swiveling her head from side to side as her search turned frantic.
“Ahoy.”
What little oxygen she had left her on a squeak. Hand to her throat, she whirled to find Brian peeking over the opposite side of the boat, his biceps flexed and the tips of his fingers turning white as he fought the pull of the waves.
“Jesus! Don’t do that!” Stumbling back into the seat, she sank like a bag of bricks. Before she could muster enough air to really let him have it, Brian’s fingers slid from the rail. He’d disappeared again. Heart hammering, she shot across the boat to stare into the dark water where he’d been moments ago. “I swear, Brian—”
“What?”
She spun around to find him climbing the ladder affixed to the stern, but this time she felt no relief. Grinning, he shook like a dog, spraying water in every direction. Dark splotches dotted her jeans and beaded on the fleece. Anger bubbled up from deep inside her, liquid hot and pulsing. “What are you? Twelve?”
His eyebrows arched. “No. I was a lot skinnier when I was twelve.”
She opened her mouth to blast him, but he snaked out an arm and hauled her against him, fast as lightning.
“I couldn’t hold my breath as long, either.”
“You scared me.” She ground the words from between clenched teeth, but he simply smiled.
“Good. Now I know you care.”
Her jaw dropped in disbelief and his grin stretched wide. “Seriously? This was a test? I let you stink up my sheets. My mother fed you pot roast. Hell, I’m going to have to start wearing turtlenecks in May because you’re like one of those sucker fish—”
“Echeneidae,” he supplied helpfully.
“Stop it.” She slapped his arm. “What a crappy thing to do.”
“I’m sorry.” He crooned the words as he drew her close, tucking her face into the damp, salty curve of his neck. “I was only playing.”
“You’re a jerk.” She tried to pry herself from his grasp, but he held firm.
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re getting me all wet.”
“Oh. Would you look at that….” He pulled back enough to flash a playful leer. “I suppose I’ll have to take you below and get you out of those wet clothes.”
“You think I’d sleep with you now? After that stunt?”
“I don’t recall saying anything about sleeping.”
“Brian—”
“Brooke—”
“Don’t make me hate you again.”
The teasing gleam in his eyes gave way to a flare of genuine interest. “You hated me before?”
Like a match dropped on dry glass, ten years of indignation ignited. Fire blazed in her belly and a molten river of white-hot rage flowed through her veins. “You may have gotten by with walking away before, but I’m not going to stand here and take it again.”
“Walking away from what?”
“You walk away from everything,” she said with a scoff. “But the next time you get the urge to jump ship on me, just keep on going.”
He stared at her, his brows knit in consternation. “It was a joke. I was playing—
“Well, it wasn’t fun for me. Not then, and not now.”
“Not then?”
“You don’t do that. You don’t get to just kiss me and run away.” She tried to pull away, but he held strong.
“I didn’t run away.”
She waved a hand, dismissing the semantics. “Walk away, swim away, whatever.”
His eyes narrowed and his jaw drew taut. “Is that what this is about? What exactly would have happened if I stayed, Brooke? Would you have thrown yourself at me and declared your undying love for me in front of the whole school or would you have hauled off and slapped my face?”
“You didn’t stick around to find out, did you?”
“Hell no, I didn’t,” he growled.
“Coward.” She spit the word at him, trembling with anger and adrenaline.
“Like you were any braver than I was. You spent your whole life smiling and simpering, making everyone think you had nothing more than air bubbles in your head. Flat out apologizing when you aced an exam or denying when someone accused you of actually enjoying Shakespeare.” His upper lip curled into a sneer. “Don’t pretend you were less chicken than I was. At least I took the chance. You just stood there, smiling your vapid smile and waving to the crowd like you’d been crowned Miss America.”
Wrenching herself from his embrace, she wrapped her arms tight around her stomach. The wind whipped her hair into her face. Her cheeks burned with the heat of a thousand suns. “Take me home.”
His chest heaved as he let out a shuddering sigh. He reached for her again but she shrank from his hand, wounded and aching, unwilling to be consoled by the man who’d inflicted the hurts.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” He croaked the words.
She felt the pull of his gaze, but she refused to give ground. Tension hung thick in the air.
“Don’t. Please. Don’t go all ice queen on me. Yell at me. Tell me I’m an asshole,” he implored. “I know I am, but damn it, Brooke….”
No. She wasn’t going to listen to his rebuttals. Not when he was riding his high horse. Not when he was hitting so damn close to the bone. Turning into the wind, she gazed at the strip of sandy beach visible in the distance. Gulping a deep breath, she injected every ounce of steel she had into her voice, praying it wouldn’t break or quiver. “Take me back now, or I’ll swim for shore.”
A flock of gulls filled the strained silence with catcalls. A pair of jet skis passed to starboard, one hotshot throwing off plumes of water as the other sped straight ahead. At last, Brian scooped his sweatshirt from the deck and shrugged into it. She dropped into a rear-facing seat before he could brush past her. The engines came to life with a roar and the boat cut a skidding circle through the choppy waves when he turned the wheel. Brooke barely had time to brace herself when Brian pointed the nose of the boat in the direction of the marina and did as she asked. Full speed ahead.
Chapter 12
Waterlogged and seething, Brian slid into the driver’s seat of his car without a thought for the glove-leather upholstery. The sedan was low-slung and sleek, a marvel of European engineering, but cars never meant much to a man who lived his life underwater. Still, it got him from point A to point B. Most days. Too bad he had no idea how to get himself out of this stupid fight.
Sunday afternoon traffic was light, but the drive seemed endless. The acrid tang of regret lingered on his tongue. The angry impulse turned inward the moment he fired the engines and headed back to the marina. He didn’t dare glance over his shoulder until the boat was nuzzled safely in its slip. When he did hazard a look in her direction, he saw Brooke hop agilely onto the dock and take off without him. Thankfully, she couldn’t go far. They’d driven down to the island in his car.
He’d stopped sneaking peeks at Brooke’s silent profile once they hit the bridge to the mainland. No point in torturing himself. Nothing he could say would ease the sting of his words. He’d spoken the truth, and nothing hurt worse. He passed the time rehearsing his apologies, honing them in his mind, searching for the right words to get them back to where they’d been before he’d decided to soothe his own insecurities by messing with her head.
He didn’t bother looking for a parking space as they approached her building. The scientist in him rebelled against assumptions, but the waves of shimmering silence emanating from the passenger seat made him fairly certain he wasn’t going to be welcome in her cozy little apartment. He hoped his exile would last no more than a night. He didn’t think the damage would be irreparable. After all, it was a truly stupid fight. But it was damn hard to tell how deep he was in it when she refused to speak a word with more t
han two syllables.
Stifling a sigh, he coasted to a stop in front of the entrance. The click of her seatbelt rang through the plush interior like a gunshot. She reached for the door handle before the tires crunched to a complete halt and he gripped the wheel tighter. “Don’t.” The word tumbled from his mouth, soft and dense with emotion. “Don’t leave things like this.”
“I’m not the one who makes a mess then walks away. You are.” The bitterness in her tone shredded him.
“I’m not walking away from you this time. Talk to me. Yell at me. I’m sitting right here and I’m not going anywhere.”
Brooke hesitated long enough to draw a short, shallow breath. It was enough to give him hope. Then she dashed it.
“Maybe this is the risk in dating someone you know too well but not quite enough.” Her tone was cool and philosophical, but each word landed like a blow. “We know which buttons to push but not when to stop.”
He turned to face her for the first time since he’d hurtled those hurtful words at her, knowing he owed her a little of his own truth in exchange for the pain he’d caused her. “I had to walk away that day. I couldn’t believe you kissed me back. It felt like a trick. One last, cruel trick—”
“I was never cruel to you!”
“I know, but….” He swallowed hard, forcing the hard lump of his misplaced pride down as deep as he could. “It killed me to walk away, but I was too scared to do anything else.” He ran a hand through his hair, grimacing when his fingers tangled in the saltwater stiffness. “Christ, Brooke, you kissed me back. I never expected you to kiss me back. What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to handle that? I’d only kissed one other girl, and that was because she kissed me first.”
The confession seemed to do the trick. Her eyes clouded with curiosity and confusion. “Who?”
“Louisa Perkins. She asked me to the Homecoming dance. I went because, well, you were….” He trailed off, waving a vague hand in the direction of her head, picturing her wearing a rhinestone tiara atop her coiled blond hair and a sparkling smile. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you all night. Poor Louisa. I was a lame date.” Managing a weak smile, he shrugged. “I don’t think Louisa cared. She just wanted to go. She had a checklist of things to do before graduation. I took her to the dance, participated in the obligatory goodnight kiss at her door, and helped her check a box.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, but her eyes remained sober and direct. “You always were good with a checklist.”
“Kissing you was the only item on mine. I spent all of senior year trying to make you see what an idiot Jack Tucker was. I talked to you every chance I got.” He chuckled and ducked his head. “Demeaning your boyfriend and listing all the ways Auburn was inferior to ’Bama wasn’t the cleverest form of flirtation, but short of kicking you in the shins I was at a loss on how to get your attention.”
“You were annoying.”
“But still you didn’t notice me,” he said, draping his arm over the seatback and turning to face her.
“You irritated me. Of course I noticed you.”
“I asked you to prom.”
Her brow furrowed and she sat straighter. “You weren’t serious. You were spouting off on Jack and then rambling down some kind of sociological or anthropological tangent—”
“And you told me the gang had reserved rooms at the Battle House Hotel for the after-party. Thanks for the invite, though. Really nice of you.”
Brooke held her hands out in helpless supplication, her eyes wide and earnest. “I didn’t know you were trying to ask me to the dance. You were always condescending. Like it was a crime to want to have a good time. I thought you were mocking me.”
“But a couple weeks later you wanted my chem notes.” He clenched his teeth, the familiar roil of anger and shame stirring inside him.
“And you wouldn’t give them to me.” She slumped against the seat, seemingly weighted down by this new understanding of cause and effect. Turning her head, she stared straight at him. “Did it make you feel better?”
“For about a minute and a half,” he admitted gruffly. Clearing the lump from his throat, he brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. “Maybe another minute or two more when Dean Richardson told me to start preparing my valedictory address.” Her soft lips parted, but he pressed his finger to them to stave off her retort. “But nothing made me fly as high as you kissing me back. And nothing terrified me more. The second I figured out what was happening, I panicked. I had no plan for that result. What the hell was I supposed to do with you?” He gave a soft chuckle. “I was a tongue-tied virgin who’d kissed a girl exactly once. You were…you. The queen of everything. I knew a helluva lot more about plankton than I did about women.”
She eyed him skeptically. “Do you know more now?”
“Enough to know when I’ve screwed up.”
Her expression softened and he pressed his advantage.
“Don’t give up on me yet,” he said. “I’m still learning.”
Brooke sighed and looked down at her clasped hands. “Maybe we’ve spent a little too much quality time together this week.” She shot him a sidelong glance then turned to look at the entrance to her building. “I think maybe we should call it a day.”
Covering her hands with one of his, he gave a gentle squeeze. “But not quits. Right?”
“Right.” Brooke drew a deep breath then faced him once more, a shadow of her pageant-ready smile curving her lips. “After all, you have all my research notes, and we still have a multi-national conglomerate to shame.”
He smiled, enchanted by the pearly pink flush coloring her cheeks. “I’m going to miss your soft sheets.”
Her faint smile expanded as she reached for the door handle. “Call me after you meet with Dr. Bennett tomorrow?”
“I will.” He pressed a staying hand to her arm. “Stay put. I’ll get the door.”
By the time he reached the passenger side, her grin kicked up to full wattage. “Such the gentleman.”
“Don’t want you ratting me out to my mother next week. She scares me more than you do.”
* * * *
Brian hiked himself higher in the cushion, grunting as the coarse fabric scraped his skin. He hadn’t been lying when he said he’d miss her sheets. Shuffling the neatly typed pages Brooke had given him, he scribbled another note in the margin then heaved a melancholy sigh. The night crept by at a snail’s pace. The gentle sway of the moored boat failed to smooth his ragged edges. He’d picked up his cell a half dozen times, each time rubbing the pad of his thumb over the blank screen and silently willing it to ring. It didn’t. Knowing he was being pathetic, he’d stumbled into the tiny galley and stashed the damn thing in the cabinet next to the peanut butter.
Telling himself it wasn’t pride keeping him from dialing her number but respect for her wishes, he grabbed the folder they’d spent the last few nights poring over together. Naked. In her bed. But the allure of the woman beside him hadn’t been enough to squelch the nagging questions her research revealed.
Shaking off the memory of Brooke’s long legs tangled with his, he reached for a transcript of an interview she’d done with one of the clean-up workers and read through the laundry list of symptoms again.
Difficulty breathing. Heart palpitations. Memory loss. Reduced IQ.
Brian leaned his head against the bolster and closed his eyes. If he hadn’t seen the results of various toxicity screens, he might have diagnosed the workers with a bad case of falling in love. He’d been shaky all night. Wanting Brooke had become a part of his heartbeat. The need to be near her pulsed inside him, steady, strong, and more than a little relentless. His desire for her drove everything he’d done for the past week. Hell, if he were being honest with himself, he’d stretch that week into a decade. Having her in his life was his ideal result. He needed to figure out the formula to make their relationship work. And he’d start with the basis of her request to work with him.
He closed his gritty eyes a
nd drifted for a few minutes, letting the details of Brooke’s investigation play through his mind. While he believed the victims’ claims to be real and valid, it was clear to him the correlation between the dispersants used and the symptoms they were now exhibiting were not wholly conclusive. Of course, they never could be. All science was based on the building blocks of assumptions. It was all too easy for conclusions to be drawn or suppressed, depending on the forces of funding.
Big money in play on both sides. Enough to guarantee the existence of multiple agendas. He was no medical expert. He’d also been on the outside looking in when it came to the science of dealing with the disaster. There were many things he didn’t know about this particular situation. Too many. And though he was wary of taking sides in this pissing match, he wouldn’t let Brooke wade into the morass without having her facts sewn up tight as a drum.
Brooke’s research aside, his visit to the Horizon Institute would be a good indicator of whether he’d made the right choice in coming home. The last time he’d interacted with any of his former colleagues, the entire Gulf Shore was in crisis. The government fumbled about, hamstrung and ineffective. Eco-friendly movie stars pitched their fantastical ocean vacuums to big oil, and desperate to grab hold of the media-friendly appearance of doing something productive, they bought them. They also ponied up the cash to fund the Horizon Institute and tapped one of the Gulf Coast’s most esteemed oceanographers to take the helm.
As the clean-up efforts faded from the headlines, Brian approached his friend and colleague, Bill Bennett, for permission to film aboard the institute’s research vessel hoping to refocus the spotlight on the impact the spill had on the area’s ecosystem. He’d been denied with little explanation. But one of the fellows, a guy Brian had taught as a graduate student, finally confessed, with not a little glee, that the reason his request had been rejected was because he lacked credibility as a scientist. This from a group of men who were conducting “unbiased” research on the impact of the oil spill, and every bit of it funded with sludge money.
