Her Frog Prince

by Shirley Jump

  She gave him another glare. She was really good at those. Must have practiced glaring a lot in finishing school or wherever it was that gave her that attitude.

  Brad put out a hand. She caught it and started to haul herself up. "Whoa, not so fast or you'll pull us both in. Do it slow and easy, a little at a time. Here, use the edge of the boat and slide in." He grinned. "Just like landing a marlin."

  Her answering scowl told him she didn't like being compared to a hundred-pound prize fish.

  It took some effort, and some delicate balancing on his part, but he managed to get her into the boat When he did, he noticed she was slim yet strong, and only a few inches shorter than his six-foot-two-inch height. Even wet, she was a gorgeous woman, all legs and long blond hair.

  She plopped onto the single seat in the center of his boat, minus a shoe. A high-heeled strappy kind of shoe at that. What kind of person wore high heels on a boat ride?

  "It took you long enough," she said. With a hand over her eyes to block out the sun, she scanned the horizon for the still departing Lady's Delight.

  "How'd you fall in anyway?"

  She shook her head. "I swear that old woman tripped me when I walked by her. Was she just looking for a lawsuit?"

  Brad decided that was a rhetorical question and let it stand unanswered, even though he had a few ready replies.

  She pressed a hand to her chest and winced. "You know, you could have broken a rib dragging me in like that."

  "You could be more grateful I got you out at all. The sharks are always looking for something to eat."

  "Sharks?"

  He took in her wide emerald eyes and flushed damp skin. The side of his brain ruled by testosterone contemplated some nibbling of his own, but of a very different kind. If he ignored everything that had come out of her mouth thus far, she was a very attractive woman. Maybe she was just having a bad day. A very bad day.

  And maybe he was too damned nice. Hadn't his mother told him that? More than once in his twenty-nine years of life? Being nice didn't get you ahead.

  Didn't get you a plum research position. Didn't get you the notice of the top brass at the Smithsonian.

  Being nice got you on a dinghy in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico with a dripping wet, ungrateful woman with more attitude than common sense.

  "I'm sorry," she said, letting out a sigh. "Thank you for helping me."

  Okay, not so much attitude.

  "Apology accepted." He reached behind him for a towel and tossed it her way. Gigi had wisely stayed in her corner of the boat, avoiding the whole thing. Dogs had damned good instincts. "Here. Dry off."

  "While I do," she said, waving a manicured hand his way, "you gun the engine and get me over to Torchere Key. If I hurry, I have enough time to change, redo my hair and makeup and look like a human again before I meet with the Phipps-Stovers." She started to rub at her hair with the towel, then paused. "Well, go ahead."

  "I don't take orders." Brad picked up the charts beside him and made a few notations about the squid he'd seen, ignoring her. Gigi let out a little bark of support. She didn't much like being bossed around, either.

  "Pull that cord thingy, will you?"

  Brad dipped a container into the ocean for a water sample, capped it and labeled it with the date and time, using a waterproof marker.

  The woman let out a sigh. "What are you doing?"

  "Right now? Taking a water sample."

  She let out a gust. "Why?"

  "I'm looking for something," he replied, answering the water-sample question. Much easier to talk about his work than debate her communication skills. Or lack of them.

  "What? Your lunch?"

  "Giant squid."

  She looked a hell of a lot better speechless. Almost beautiful. Even wet and dripping and half shoeless.

  "A…a…giant what?" she finally managed.

  "Squid."

  She blinked. Several times. "There is such a thing?"

  "Well, no one's ever seen a live one, but yes, there is."

  She snorted. "Like Bigfoot, I'm sure."

  He gave her a glare and dipped his thermometer into the ocean, busying himself with the reading. "They exist."

  "Yeah, and so do happy marriages, I hear. I think it's all a bunch of fairy tales people tell their kids to keep them from wandering the streets at night."

  He pivoted toward her, the thermometer dangling from his fingers. "What flew up your butt this morning?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "I didn't fish you out of the water so you could call my research a fairy tale."

  "Oh, your research." But the tone in her voice said she still didn't believe him.

  Gigi got to her feet and in three steps was across the boat and in the woman's face. Standing up for her master, daring the intruder to make fun of the giant squid. Gigi knew. She'd spent enough time on the water to know almost nothing was impossible in the dark blue depths.

  "Get that—that—that creature away from me."

  "No can do. Gigi has a mind of her own. If she doesn't like you, she's going to let you know."

  The woman arched a perfectly rounded brow at him. "Your dog's name is Gigi?"

  Brad crossed his arms over his chest. "Is there anything else about me you want to criticize?"

  "Well, actually…" She pointed at his face, then bit her lip and shut up.

  "What? Say it."

  Gigi continued to hold her ground. Now she was standing up for the giant squid and her master.

  "Listen," the woman said, pausing, as if apologizing wasn't something she did every day. "We got off on the wrong foot. Let's start over." She extended a shaky, tentative hand past Gigi's side. "I'm Parris Hammond."

  He hesitated, then figured the bad mood of the morning was half his fault. No squid, no whale sightings and a wasted day on the boat hadn't put him in a very pleasant frame of mind. "Brad Smith." When he took her hand in his, the cool touch of her skin sent a shock wave through his veins. Like she'd been a power line and he'd been the fool who'd picked it up without wearing rubber shoes.

  Except he did have on rubber boots and he didn't feel foolish holding her hand. Not at all.

  She withdrew her grasp from his but not before he saw an echo of his own consternation in her eyes. Clearly he wasn't the only one playing with electricity. "Is that short for Bradford?"

  "Yeah, but don't ever call me that, not if you want me to answer."

  "Why not? I think Bradford sounds…rich."

  "Exactly."

  "Right." She nodded. "That's good."

  "Not in my book." He picked up the chart again and filled in the temperature block.

  "Well. Aren't you the enigma?" She went back to drying herself off, toweling down the front of her silky shirt. Brad's attention went from the chart to her, his gaze locked on the movements of the cream-colored terry cloth. It slid along her skin with ease, which made funny things happen in his gut. Her breasts peeked through the damp material of her shirt, giving him a clear image of what she'd look like naked.

  The chart slid out of his hands and clattered to the floor of the boat, the pen rolling to the other end. "I, ah, should get you back. You have a meeting with the…"

  His eyes met hers and her hand stilled. The air between them grew hot, charged. Her tinted lips parted, but nothing came out for a long second.

  "The…the Phipps-Stovers." But she didn't move. In fact, she didn't even seem to breathe.

  "You don't want to be late."

  Her focus stayed on him. "I'm never late."

  "Even for dinner?" Where the hell had that come from?

  A tease of a smile lit up her eyes. "Are you asking?"

  "Are you accepting?"

  She put a hand on her hip. "I'm not accepting until there's a firm offer on the table."

  God, the woman was frustrating. He didn't need these word games. He had enough exasperation looking for a nearly invisible squid. He turned away and yanked the cord on the engine. The motor gave a little gurgle,
then went silent. "Well, I'm not offering anything."

  Apparently, Parris Hammond wasn't used to having dinner invitations rescinded. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her jerk back, then get busy rubbing at her hair with the towel, hard enough that he was afraid she might end up bald. "Good, because I have a very full schedule."

  The motor turned over on the third try and Brad headed the boat toward the island. "Yeah, me too."

  "That giant squid must be very time-consuming."

  He wheeled around. "Will you quit with that?"

  "I wasn't being sarcastic. Honest. Just making conversation. I mean, what do you say when someone tells you they hunt squid for a living?" She shuddered. "It's so…gross."

  "Squid are not gross."

  She arched a brow his way.

  Brad gunned the engine. Gigi let out a yelp of protest. "Did you know the largest squid ever found weighed a thousand pounds? And the giant squid's arms are as thick as a man's thigh? Yet, they've never been seen alive and are truly one of the biggest mysteries of the sea."

  "Oh. Fascinating."

  He gave her a glance. "You're not impressed."

  "I'm impressed someone would know so much about them." She laid the towel on the bench beside her. "But why on earth would you want to?"

  "I'm a marine biologist. It's my job. Well, it's not going to be, not in a few weeks. Not if—" He cut himself off. Why had he told her that? It was more than he'd told anyone in weeks.

  "Oh. So what will you do then? Look for dolphins?"

  He tossed her a grin. "Start looking for mermaids. I seem to have better luck catching women than squid."

  Then he tilted down his hat, shading his eyes, and concentrated on getting his "catch" back to shore before he was tempted to use her for squid bait.

  Parris sat in the boat and wondered if she should take that as a compliment or not. Not, she decided. He'd just compared her to a slimy mollusk that caught things with tentacles, for God's sake. That was like being told she had a nice figure by a man with a walrus fetish.

  She tried to hold on to the sides of the boat as it skipped across the water, smashing on the waves like a Pinto bottoming out over speed bumps. She should have known better than to wear the Prada shoes for the island cruise. If she was going to lose one, she should have opted for cheaper footwear, something she didn't mind becoming a hermit crab home. She pulled off the remaining shoe and dropped it onto the floor of the boat. She'd go barefoot. At least her pedicure still looked good.

  The same could not be said for her Kenneth Cole outfit, though. Salt water and satin apparently didn't co-exist any better than Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

  The boat went over a bigger bump, jostling Parris. "Steady there." Brad placed a hand against her back.

  A very warm, very large hand. The hand of a man who didn't get manicures every week or spend his days behind a desk, clicking a mouse and sending hundreds of people scurrying to do his bidding.

  The ocean whipped by, the motor roared. Sea salt and water sprayed her face. The boat slammed against the water after another big wave and Parris bit back a shriek. "Aren't you going a little fast?" she shouted.

  "She may look like an overfilled balloon but she's tough. Built to take about anything."

  "I've never been on one of these," Parris said, clutching the seat with a white-knuckled grip. "I don't really like boats. Or the ocean."

  "Then why were you on one? In the middle of the Gulf of Mexico?"

  "It's my job." She ran a hand through her hair, now sticky with salt and the remains of her hairspray. "This week anyway."

  "And next week, what, I can catch your act at the Flamingo Club?"

  She tossed him a look over her shoulder. "I don't sing. Or dance."

  "Pity, with legs like that." His gaze traveled past the hem of her skirt, down her calves, settling on her ankles for what seemed a very long, very interested time.

  "Watch where you're going. Not me."

  "Why?"

  "So we don't hit a…a…" She looked across the wide blue expanse of nothing, then scowled at him. "Because driving the boat is your job."

  "I'm a multifaceted man." He grinned. "I can do two things at once."

  "Then drive the boat and think about your squids. Not me."

  "Why not?"

  "Why not what?"

  "Why not think about you?"

  "Because I'm not available."

  "Married?"

  "No."

  "Involved?"

  "No."

  "In a convent?"

  "No."

  "Good. Me neither." Beneath the brim of his ball cap, his hazel eyes teased her.

  She couldn't keep the smile from her face. "I couldn't quite imagine you in a habit."

  "Black is not my color." He plucked at the flannel shirt he wore over his faded squid-decorated T-shirt. "I'm more of a plaid guy."

  "Yeah, I can see that."

  "Oh, I get it," he said, nodding. "You're not available to guys like me. Not interested in the scruffy-professor type?"

  Her attention roved over the tattered ball cap shading the hazel depths of his eyes, the shaggy beard hiding what she suspected was a strong, square jaw, the cutoff worn flannel that displayed muscular arms yet ballooned around the rest of his well-built chest. If she burned all his clothes, took him to see Jose, her stylist, and gave a small sacrifice to Estée Lauder, she could maybe get Brad Smith looking acceptable enough for public viewing.

  Like a man, not a—what did he call himself— scruffy professor. Well, he already looked like a man, just more caveman than cover model. Still, to tell him that to his face would be tactless, and even Parris wasn't direct enough to do that. At least not until they were on solid ground.

  "I'm tied up with my career right now. Dating would be a distraction." A lie, but only a grayish one. As soon as her sister Jackie returned from her honeymoon with Steven, her "career" as head of the business would end and she could go back to her life.

  If what she had could be considered a life. Lately, she'd had this empty feeling, like she needed more. What more, she couldn't say. Her twenty-seven years of experience had somehow become a cream puff without any filling.

  Or maybe she just needed to eat something better than portabellos for lunch.

  "A distraction. Uh-huh," he said, clearly not believing her. He shoved the throttle of the boat upward and the little craft lunged forward.

  Her heart jerked into her throat and her stomach got lost somewhere ten feet back. "You're going to throw us all out if you keep doing that." Finally the dock for La Torchere came into view. "You can drop me off right here. I'm staying at the resort."

  "In the main building or one of the villas?"

  She glanced at him. The shaggy beard didn't seem to fit with the appearance of a normal resort visitor.

  Maybe there was more to Brad Smith than met the eye. "You've been there?"

  The brim of his hat cast his smirk in shadow. "Oh, once or twice." He directed the boat to one of the lower-level docks, brought it up against the fenders and tossed a rope onto the cleat, tying it in a quick, secure loop.

  "Well, if you're ever over this way, look me up." Parris scrambled to her feet, trying to maintain her balance in the tilting boat.

  "Need some help?"

  "I can manage." She stepped off the front end of the boat and put one foot up onto the dock. Before she could get her other leg up, an incoming wave shifted the craft. The boat went one way, she went another.

  "Wait…oh! No!" Before she could stop it, she was doing a split worthy of an Olympic bronze medalist.

  "Let me—" Brad grabbed her hand. Weaving and wheeling her free arm, Parris pushed off the boat with her other leg, trying to use Brad for leverage to hoist herself up to the dock.

  "We should—"

  "I wouldn't—"

  The two of them tumbled out of the boat and lost their sentences in the water by the pier.

  She bobbed up first, then him. "Well, this is fun.
Not." Parris spat the hair out of her face and gave him a glower. "Where did you learn how to park?"

  "Probably the same place that taught you proper cruise attire."

  She swam the few feet over to the ladder on the end of the pier and climbed up, with Brad following right behind. Gigi barked encouragement from her place in the boat, which was now drifting back toward the dock. "For your information, I was barefoot when I disembarked."

  "Who uses words like that?" He stood on the pier, dripping wet and looking even scruffier than he had five minutes ago. "'Disembarked,' for God's sake. Just admit it. You fell in because you didn't listen to me."

  Parris parked her fists on her hips. "I fell in because you didn't tie up the boat tight enough."

  "No. You fell in because you were too stubborn to wait for me to help you."

  "You are infuriating! I deal with far less childish people than you in Hollywood."

  He arched a brow at her. "You work with celebrities?"

  "Sometimes. I'm a personal consultant. I help them look, act and sound better." A fib, not an outright lie. She had helped her friend Liza get ready for that audition. Liza had nabbed the part, so surely that counted.

  Brad started to laugh. And laugh. And laugh until Parris was quite tempted to shove him off the pier and leave him for the sharks. "What's so funny?"

  "You. Helping people. What do you do? Bully them?"

  "For your information, my clients are very happy with my services. I have many success stories." Okay, that one was an outright lie. She'd barely worked in the business since her father had turned Hammond Events and Consulting over to her and Jackie. But she was sure, given the right chance, she could do a good job. Probably. "I could even make you over. Not that it wouldn't be a challenge, but—"

  Brad took a step forward until he was inches away from her. Up close, he didn't look so bad dripping wet. His clothes clung to him, accenting every plane and muscle. She'd been wrong about his lack of manliness. If anything, he was more male than any man she'd ever known. Too bad he drove her up a wall.

  He pointed at her chest. "You are the most aggravating woman I have ever met."

  Give a man some beauty tips and he turns on you. "And you have all the personality of a wolverine."