Finally, he did. “You want to bring it in?” Elliott called over the wind, tilting his head toward the wheel. “I’m not sure I’m skilled enough for this.”
Max sucked air into his starving lungs and released his death grip on the railing. He hated being on the water. More than that, he hated being on the water during a high wind with a man who didn’t know the first thing about boating. But that was the point. Max couldn’t have let his brother learn the ropes by himself on the open sea. People died like that. So Max just offered his trademark grin and sauntered toward the captain’s chair.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll take her in.”
“Her,” Elliott repeated. “Right. Sea lingo.”
Elliott had bought the boat to try to prove to himself that he wasn’t a workaholic, but now he looked troubled by the idea of learning how to have fun.
“It’ll be great,” Max said as enthusiastically as he could, considering that he was looking out at waves instead of solid ground. One careless move and the ocean would happily suck both brothers into its dark maw. Max was exhausted from constantly guarding against the danger.
Six weeks on dry land had sounded like pure heaven after three months on the southern Mediterranean searching for treasure. Max had the perfect damn life…and he hated it. Not that he was ungracious enough to let anyone else know that.
He glanced back to Elliott, who was starting to gather up their gear. Elliott was supposed to be learning, and Max knew he should call his brother over and guide him through docking, but he told himself it would be better to wait for nicer weather. Then again, if Elliott rocked the boat into a piling with enough force, the boat would need repairs and they could abandon this so-called vacation.
A wave swelled beneath them, throwing Max into the wheel as if in punishment for his fantasy. “All right,” he muttered into the wind before waving his brother over. “Come on. I’ll guide you through it. You shouldn’t take her out in crud like this, but you never know what’s going to blow in unexpectedly.”
He talked Elliott through the danger of the narrow breakwater and into the marginally calmer waters of the tiny harbor. Five minutes later, his jaw and hands ached from tension, but the boat was safely tied in at one of the slips.
“Good work,” he said to Elliott, instead of blurting out what he really wanted to say. Why couldn’t you take up golf like all the other high-level guys at the CDC?
Elliott jumped onto the dock and Max handed the bags up to him so they could start the walk to their cabin. “How’d you find this place?”
Elliott shrugged. “Somebody on one of the boating sites recommended it.”
“Looks nice.” Max jumped up and they walked in silence for a while before he took another look at his brother’s tight shoulders. “Elliott…” he started, wondering if he should mention the ex-wife. What the hell. “You’re not doing all this just because of Rebecca, are you?”
Though Max had worried about offending him, Elliott didn’t even look surprised, much less offended. “She was right.”
“Aw, screw her,” Max muttered. “You’re a great guy. You know how many women would kill to marry a guy like you? You’re totally stable. You’re hardworking and honest and—”
“I’m not plugged in, I work too damn much and I’m boring as hell.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit.”
Max scowled, shifting the duffel bag to his other shoulder. “You love your job.”
“Yeah, I love my job, but it can’t be everything. I always worked too much, but after the last flu crisis… I wasn’t even surprised when she left, man. She’d given me enough warning.”
Thinking of Rebecca, with her shiny black hair and bright blue eyes, Max shook his head. He’d first met her at his brother’s wedding rehearsal, and his initial impression had been positive. She was lively, a real firecracker, only slightly overwhelmed by the stress of pulling off a perfect wedding.
Six months later, Max had returned from another long stint on the water and found that her liveliness had shifted toward restlessness and impatience with Elliott. Her hostile remarks about Elliott working on weekends had been interspersed with pointed observations about Max’s work. Travel and excitement and weeks in exotic locations. She’d oohed and aahed until Max had been uncomfortable enough to leave early.
The truth was that life on the sea was utter boredom punctuated by moments of alarm. The tanned skin and windswept hair threw people off. But Rebecca hadn’t been interested in explanations. She’d only been needling her husband. Max hadn’t been surprised by the news that she’d left the day after their first anniversary. Apparently, Elliott hadn’t been, either.
Max cleared his throat. “You’re not trying to get her back, are you?”
Elliott surprised him by laughing. “Give me some credit. I know we weren’t right for each other. I just don’t want to make the same mistake again.”
“You dating somebody?”
“Would I be spending a week at the beach with you if I were?”
“Hell, you’ve already admitted to being bad with women. Wasn’t sure it would occur to you to bring a girl.”
“Bite me,” Elliott muttered.
“Again, better with a girl.”
The punch to his shoulder hurt like a bitch. Despite spending sixty hours a week behind a desk, Elliott wasn’t exactly a weakling, and they’d had plenty of practice whaling on each other as kids. Just as he had when they were young, Max laughed like it hadn’t hurt and pushed his younger brother hard enough to make him stumble.
The sound and smell of the ocean still pressed in on him, but with his brother’s laughter bouncing off the surrounding boats, Max decided maybe this vacation would be okay after all. But he’d stay on guard against disaster, just as he always did. The ocean had a way of serving up surprises.
CHAPTER TWO
“I THINK I’M DRUNK,” Chloe murmured. The clouds had drifted away, and she was floating in a pool of sunlight and alcohol. “When did we eat lunch?”
Jenn rolled her head and looked sleepily in her direction. “We were on the ferry during lunchtime. We forgot.”
“Huh. We should probably eat then, or this could get ugly.”
“Uglier than being drunk at 3:00 p.m.?”
“Way uglier. Should I fire up the microwave?”
Jenn groaned in answer and shook her head. “Maybe we should eat some big cheeseburgers to celebrate the start of our vacation. There’s a seedy bar just past the resort office.”
Though Chloe’s eyes had started to drift shut again, they popped open at the thought of bar food. “Really? We do want to start this week off on the right foot…”
“Exactly.”
Just beyond the blond halo of Jenn’s hair, Chloe spotted movement. Leaning forward a little, she slid her sunglasses down her nose and narrowed her eyes against the warm breeze. “Hello.”
“What?” Jenn asked before her mouth opened wide in a yawn.
The approaching men had come fully into view now, so Chloe relaxed back into her seat and pushed her glasses up to hide her eyes. “I think we’ve got neighbors.”
Jenn’s nose wrinkled. “Not those gossipy old ladies from the store?”
“Not even close.”
Her friend finally roused herself enough to roll her head in the other direction, and Chloe knew the moment Jenn spotted the two men, because she inhaled sharply enough to send a nearby seagull flapping away. The men were still too far off to have heard, but they were getting closer, obviously headed toward the cabin next door.
They both had dark brown hair and wide shoulders. Both wore cargo shorts that showed off strong calves dusted with dark hair. Brothers or cousins maybe, as the hard lines of their jaws were exact replicas, though one of the men was taller and had a dark tan that set him apart. The other wore cute wire-rimmed glasses and held his mouth in a far more serious line.
The tanned one turned his head in the direction of Chloe and Je
nn, and he hesitated a bit over his next step, probably surprised to find he had an audience. Still, he didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable as he jogged up the steps to the porch, the movement smooth despite the big duffel bag thrown over his shoulder.
Before the men had even disappeared through the door, Jenn’s head whipped toward Chloe. “Holy smokes! Do you think it would be wrong to have a torrid affair with twins?”
“You think they’re twins?”
“Close enough that I could pretend.”
Chloe rolled her eyes, choking on laughter. “If you take both of them, who does that leave me with?”
Jenn sat up, dropping her bare feet to the floor as she took off her shades to meet Chloe’s gaze. “Are you interested? I’ll let you have both if you’re serious.”
“Why?”
“Because you need to cleanse Thomas from your palate.”
Blood rushed to Chloe’s face, though she didn’t know why she felt shy.
“You need to,” Jenn insisted.
“No one wants to date an infamous Bridezilla. I’m kryptonite to the male sex drive. After the first date, a man would expect to wake up and find me standing at the foot of the bed in a tattered wedding gown, rattling a pair of leg shackles.”
“So this is the perfect place. No one here knows who you are.”
Chloe shrugged and slipped her feet into her sandals. “Those guys aren’t from the island. For all we know they could be paparazzi.” She regretted her flip words when her friend’s eyes widened with alarm.
“You think they’re paparazzi?”
She glanced toward the cabin again, thinking of the healthy glow of the taller man. “No, I was just being rude. Those guys look way too healthy to be paparazzi. But as for dating…I just can’t do that.”
“So you’re never going to date again?”
Despite the humiliation burning through her chest, Chloe had to smile at the worry in Jenn’s voice. “It’s only been a month. I’ve got some new trust issues, Jenn. That’s what happens when your fiancé fakes his own death just to get away from you.”
“Thomas was obviously enormously screwed up.”
“Yeah, it seems so clear now.” Chloe let herself relax back into her wooden deck chair. “He was nice before though, right? That wasn’t my imagination.”
“Yes, he was nice, but—”
“So there’s another issue I’m trying to figure out. If he’d really been so nice, he would’ve at least called me after he faked his own death and humiliated me in front of the entire world, right? He’s never even called. Though his mom left me a couple of messages this week. Maybe he talked her into calling for him.”
Jenn cringed and swallowed hard, so Chloe forced a smile. “There’s no hope for me, Jenn. I can’t handle a pair of hot twins right now. You go on without me. Save yourself.”
Jenn opened her mouth as if to argue, but after a moment, she took a deep breath and shook her head. “So I can have them both?”
“You’re such a faker. You’ve only had sex with two guys in your whole life. Individually. I don’t think you’re ready for a threesome.”
“Shut up. You’re ruining my fantasy. And as you pointed out, fantasy is all I have most of the time.”
That was true. Jenn, who was willowy and beautiful and outgoing with her girlfriends, became a nervous wreck around men. A threesome was definitely not in her future. In fact, she was blushing already, just from talking about it.
Chloe rolled her shoulders and stood up, amazed that her neck had lost the ache that had resided there for the past month. “We’re both pitiful and hopeless, so we may as well have those cheeseburgers. The seagulls won’t give a damn what we look like in our bikinis.”
Jenn slipped on her flip-flops while Chloe grabbed her wallet, and they headed off across the sand, not bothering to pretend they weren’t trying to look into the men’s cabin as they passed. “They’re probably a couple,” Chloe murmured.
“I was serious about you going for it,” Jenn said. “Not with both of them, but at least one.”
“It’s not going to happen.”
“You need some fun, Chloe. I can’t stand seeing you this way. Screw Thomas. Live it up. Be Island Chloe!”
“Island Chloe, huh?” She shook her head in resolute denial. Her life was crazy enough as it was. “It’s not in me. Not right now.”
“Just…keep an open mind.”
Two minutes later they were standing in front of the rough gray walls of the bar, brushing sand off their feet.
“This place is great,” Jenn assured her. “It’s packed during tourist season. We used to swipe beers off tables and hang around on the deck.”
Nobody was on the seaside deck today, but the locals probably got tired of ocean views and sun.
When they finally walked in, the first thing Chloe noticed was the arctic air-conditioning. She was about to suggest that they sit outside when she noticed something else. A lot must have changed since Jenn had worked on the island ten years before. There were plasma-screen TVs in all four corners of the bar, and there was nothing static-y about the baseball games playing on any of them.
“Oh, no,” Jenn breathed.
Fields glowed in vivid green contrast to the bright white uniforms on the closest screen. “The wonders of satellite,” Chloe muttered, trying not to feel bitter, even as a familiar sense of panic boiled up in her chest.
“Chloe, I’m so sorry! I had no idea!”
“It’s not your fault, and it’s no big deal anyway. It’s just a sports bar. Nobody here cares about me.” And it was true, at least at the moment. There were only six customers in the place, and though heads turned in their direction, the games drew their attention again quickly enough.
Chloe let out a deep breath. Slowly. “Will you order while I grab a table on the deck?”
Jenn nodded and shooed her out as if there were a scrum of people at the door, all jostling for a seat outside.
Chloe spun and reached for the handle, but she froze with her hand wrapped around the cold metal. She didn’t like the fear creeping along her spine, didn’t like the panic making her fingers shake. Over the past month, she’d turned into a coward who jumped at every shadow and couldn’t even trust people enough to eat dinner near them. The mere sight of a working television squeezed her stomach into knots.
She didn’t want to run outside. She hadn’t been in a bar with a girlfriend in…forever.
Fear turned to rage for a brief, shining moment, and Chloe spun back to face the bar, determined not to run…just this one time.
No one was watching her. Not even Jenn.
She let go of her death grip on the door handle and took a deep breath. Thomas’s stupidity and cowardice had turned her into a paranoid freak. Or, if she were feeling fair, the twenty-four-hour media culture had turned her into that freak, but Chloe wasn’t feeling the least bit fair.
But she was feeling wonderfully anonymous, so she put her chin up, ignored the icy air-conditioning and took a seat at the nearest table. One baby step at a time, she’d find a way to start a new life for herself. After this was over, she’d dye her hair and get a new apartment and walk through life as if her name hadn’t become synonymous with psycho-bitch. But for now, she’d have a drink in the bar and not look over her shoulder while she was doing it. Baby steps.
TRYING HIS BEST to ignore the incessant sound of rumbling waves, Max prodded the hot coals in the grill he’d set up on the sand.
“Hey!” Elliott called from the porch. “You sure you don’t want me to do that?”
“I got it,” he shouted back. Elliott lived in a high-rise condo in D.C. He likely didn’t understand the dangers of wind-whipped fire. If Max didn’t man the grill himself, he’d just stand on the porch, arms crossed, watching Elliott to be sure he didn’t let the flames get too high. It was more relaxing to simply take control of the situation.
“All right,” said Elliott from right behind him. “I’ve got beer duty covered, tho
ugh.” He handed Max an ice-cold Corona and stood a little too close to the grill for Max’s comfort. Max shifted toward his brother to edge him farther away.
Jaw set as he stared out at the waves, Elliott moved a few inches to the side. Jesus, he looked even more miserable than Max felt. Max rolled his shoulders and put on his smile.
“Say,” he said, slapping his brother on the back, “there are women on this island.”
The creases in Elliott’s forehead deepened. “I think wild vacation flings are more your kind of thing.”
“Mm,” Max grunted, aware, as he always was, that the persona he’d crafted for himself fit him about as well as an extrasmall wet suit. Fun-loving, carefree adventurer. It couldn’t be further from the truth. But the wild woman part? That struck a little closer to home. “Yeah, well, I thought you were trying to add some spark to your life.”
“That last girl you dated sure threw off sparks,” Elliott offered, his mouth finally curving up in a smile.
“Don’t remind me,” Max groaned.
The smile twisted into a full-on grin. “What was her name?”
“Genevieve.”
“Right, the infamous Genevieve Bianca. She…”
“Hey,” Max cut in, “weren’t we talking about you?”
“What’s the point? Your life is a hell of a lot more interesting. It always has been.”
“The fucking plague is interesting, too.” Max deserved the laughter he got in response. Interesting was a mild word to describe his love life.
His woman problems had started out innocently enough. He liked to take care of things. To make sure the details of life were addressed. To make sure that people were taken care of.
There was no mystery about the origins of this neurosis. Their father had been an irresponsible, selfish bastard with no interest in taking care of anyone but himself. As the older son, Max had found himself stepping into that role. But something about the responsibility had gotten stuck deep inside him like a barbed hook. He couldn’t ignore it, even when any rational person would be able to walk away. The need to guide people out of trouble was a painful tugging in his brain. And women in trouble…
Crazy for Love Page 2
