by Anne Marsh
She couldn’t wait.
Right on cue, a certain sexy SEAL rode up on his motorcycle. She had a moment to wonder where he was coming from—because his dive shop was right around the corner—but maybe he’d been out at the Brennan place. His family lived on Discovery Island year-round and had an enormous, rambling old house a couple of miles outside town. The home sported the kind of cheerful, shabby chic she’d seen on the pages of various magazines and was a far cry from her own family’s summer cabin. Her cabin was a euphemism for “four walls held together with baling wire and duct tape.” She’d probably wake up in the ocean one day.
Since she’d spent the morning doing the books at Dream Big and Dive, she’d been just around the corner, and she’d walked. Which—she shot a glance at her sandals with their three-inch heels—had been a stupid thing to do. Her knee would hurt like the devil later tonight, but she’d chosen the shoes because right now she needed to feel sexy. Powerful.
Cal should have looked out of place wearing a suit and straddling a motorcycle, but he didn’t. He also probably had another PowerPoint slide presentation, which he’d use to wow the assembled minions, in the messenger bag thrown over his shoulder. She hadn’t slept well, which she blamed on Cal. If he hadn’t been such a good kisser, she wouldn’t be gritty-eyed from all the tossing and turning she’d done. She headed for the door. The sooner the meeting started, the sooner she could win the contract and put all this behind her.
“Ignoring me?” The knowing rasp of his voice almost had her pausing.
Almost.
The truth was: absolutely. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking when she’d kissed him. And the blame rested solely on her shoulders. As did their bet, when she thought about it. Whatever. Shaking Cal out of his complacency was practically a public service.
Kissing him had nothing to do with how he’d made her feel.
Absolutely nothing at all... Liar, liar, pants on fire, the voice in her head chanted, and her libido nodded along happily. Darn it. This was not supposed to be happening. She wasn’t supposed to be feeling anything for Cal other than a little friendly competition. She didn’t need things to change.
“Definitely ignoring me.” Warm male hands cupped her shoulders, halting her in her tracks. A little zing shot through her as his breath gusted past her ear.
“Apparently, I’m not succeeding.” She reached for the door, but he beat her to it.
“You’re losing the battle,” he agreed cheerfully and pushed the door open, motioning her to go through first.
She considered standing there on the sidewalk, but Cal was stubborn. Since he had the door open, he’d probably stand there until hell froze over or she walked away. And walking away meant giving up on the contract, which wasn’t happening, either.
She brushed past him into the hotel, trying to ignore the way the accidental touch brought the hard muscles of his arm to her attention. The door slammed shut behind her, and Cal fell into step beside her, easily matching her pace. Of course, he wasn’t wearing heels.
“I take it this means you don’t want to talk about last night.”
She made a shut-up-now gesture, because, hello, they were in the hotel’s very public lobby, and they both had to live on the island. She knew Cal’s mother. Amy Brennan loved her sons, Cal included, but she also lived to see them married off and reproducing. Cal was the most stubborn holdout of her three sons, so if Mrs. Brennan believed there was any chance Piper and Cal were getting together... Nope. Not happening. Piper was still hoping no photographic evidence of last night’s embrace would show up on Facebook.
“You kissed me,” Cal pointed out cheerfully, punching the button for the elevator. He looked down at her feet. “I assume we’re not taking the stairs, since you’re wearing those shoes.”
“What’s wrong with my shoes?”
“Absolutely nothing,” he said. “But I am wondering how you manage to walk in them. Doesn’t your knee bother you?”
She wasn’t talking about her knee. “My knee is none of your business,” she gritted out. The hotel had to have the slowest elevators known to humankind. She’d take the stairs, but Cal was, of course, right. Her feet hurt, her knee throbbed, and if it had been anything other than a business meeting, she’d have toed off the shoes and swapped them for the flip-flops in her tote bag.
“Actually, your knee kind of is my business.”
The elevator dinged, the doors slid open and she limped inside. Unfortunately, like always, Cal was right on her heels. He held the door with one large hand and then reached around her to press the button for the third floor.
The doors shut, making her uncomfortably aware the space was too small for the both of them. Plus, all her elevator fantasies rushed unbidden to the forefront of her head.
Cal filled up all the available space, big and sure, but she still wasn’t discussing her knee with him. After all, every possible angle of the injury had already been discussed in the national media. When it had become clear she wouldn’t be resuming her platform-diving career, the media had run stories about the accident and her broken dreams. She preferred not to relive those moments.
Move ahead.
Don’t look back.
If she could change that day, she would. But life didn’t pass out do overs, and Cal had saved her life. The truth rankled, if she was being honest. She’d always stood on her own two feet, always pulled herself out of the water, no matter how hard or badly she hit. Except for that one afternoon when she’d needed Cal to do it. Of course, there were worse things than having to say thank you. Things like being dead. So even if she wished she’d gotten herself out of trouble, she still appreciated everything Cal had done.
“Third floor?” she asked, ignoring the fact that since he’d punched the button, it was clearly their destination. Cal never got the details wrong.
“Yeah.” He settled in on the other side of the elevator as if she’d never sat on his lap last night or made free with his body. “So, how is your knee?”
“Better.” She owed him that much. “Stiff sometimes, and it can only take so much stress before it buckles. I appreciate what you did for me that day.”
She did, too, even if she would prefer not to talk about it.
This wasn’t the first time she’d thanked him—although, admittedly, it was only the second because, hey, she had her limits—and he once again shrugged off her thanks, as if she’d expressed her appreciation for a cut in line or a cup of coffee. Clearly, in Cal’s world, a rescue was just all in a day’s work, no matter how much his rescue had meant to her. He dropped his gaze to her knee. For one charged moment, she thought he’d reach out and touch her there.
“So no more platform diving?”
No, and the truth still stung. “The knee can’t handle the hurdle. As soon as I push off, it buckles. I couldn’t get the air height to be competitive.”
“And being competitive mattered most?”
Pretty much. Piper’s family competed. In the pool, on the ring or on the field, the Clarks competed and they won. Her parents didn’t know what to make of her newfound desire to own a dive shop. Her brothers were simply, fiercely, adamantly protective. Moving to the island and temporarily putting some ocean between her and them had been the only way to avoid suffocating. She’d had a career-ending injury, not a deathblow, but they had a hard time seeing it that way. While she appreciated the open offer of a job on the ranch, it wasn’t what she wanted for herself.
“I didn’t want to climb the tower and dive, knowing I’d score dead last in every meet. Plus, I would have been cut from the team after one season anyhow.”
So she’d left.
“I tried,” he said abruptly. “I did everything I could think of to miss hitting the Jet Ski.”
Cal had driven his motorboat into the breakwater, trying to avoid the crash. If he hadn’t... Well, the alternative was one more thing on the list of things she didn’t think about. She hadn’t known he blamed himself in any way for
the accident. That was why these things were called accidents and not on-purposes.
“I know,” she said, because she did.
“Jesus, Piper. You shouldn’t have been out there. You knew better.”
And there it was...the lecture he’d probably been storing up for the past five years. She didn’t want to hear it now any more than she had back then, when he’d shown up in her hospital room to hear her awkward if heartfelt thanks. She was an adult, not a child he could scold.
“I did. What I did not know was that Lance had spent the morning at the bar taste-testing margaritas. If I had, I wouldn’t have gone near a Jet Ski with him. I’m not stupid.”
The elevator dinged and the doors opened. She was taking the stairs after this meeting. He stepped forward, ever the gentleman, and held the door for her. Since arguing over his good manners would only point out her lack of the same, she started forward.
“Piper.” Had his mouth brushed her ear?
She kept on moving. That was the game plan, both for today and for her life.
“I never thought you were stupid, okay? Just—” He ran a frustrated hand over his head.
“Impetuous? Stubborn? Had a mind of my own?” She gave him the list over her shoulder, still heading toward the conference room. “Check, check and check, big guy. Don’t feel sorry for me, though, because I’m about to kick your butt in there and score your contract.”
* * *
HE’D NEVER ONCE felt sorry for Piper. Not when he’d dived beneath the surface, searching desperately for her body. Not when he’d brought her up, bleeding and unconscious. Not when his mother had mentioned how sweet Piper Clark would never dive competitively again. He’d felt plenty of emotions—anger, frustration, worry and concern heading the list—but pity wasn’t one of them. Her strength defied feeling sorry for her because she’d already picked herself up and forged ahead.
She wore another business-casual number today: a hot-pink shirtdress that—once again—stopped well north of her knees. The neck was unbuttoned low enough to reveal a chunky necklace, some kind of beaded flower thing studded with sparkling stones. He was 100 percent certain he’d never seen a flower like that in nature.
She didn’t look back at him after she delivered her ultimatum, just sashayed down the hall, away from him, leaving him to admire the sassy hitch to her walk. She’d never asked for pity or even a break. After the accident and their uncomfortable meet and greet in her hospital room, he’d given her some space because it seemed like the whole world had been all over her, wanting to know how she felt about losing her berth on the national diving team. Piper had been born to compete, and she hadn’t even had the chance. Lance’s criminal decision to drink and drive had guaranteed that, and the brief prison sentence the man had earned couldn’t possibly begin to atone for what she’d lost.
The trash talking and competitiveness covered up something else.
He followed her into the room. Part of him actually wanted her to win, which was stupid because he needed the cruise line’s business if he wanted to expand Deep Dive’s offerings and bring more veterans on board to help out. Piper, however, clearly didn’t feel like throwing the contest in his favor. He didn’t think it was the chemistry they had between them that made him feel like handing her the win. He hoped.
Ten minutes later, he wasn’t sure what to think. He stared at Sal Britten, who’d just delivered his bad news as though it was some kind of trophy.
“So,” the man concluded, “We’re not sure which direction we want to go in. You’re both equally strong candidates, and to be honest, the competition came down to you two. The other applicants weren’t even close. One of you is earning the contract, but we’re not ready to make a decision today.”
Translation: the guy couldn’t make up his mind.
Cal hated indecisiveness. From the way Piper practically vibrated on her chair beside him, for once she was in agreement with him.
“We’ll have a second round of competition,” Sal continued, oblivious to the tension in the room, “with just the two of you competing. We’re asking you to pick two dives from your sample programs, something new and innovative our cruisers won’t have done before. Then you’ll take us out, walk us through them. Since you’ll be leading the program, we’d like to see how you work in the field and how well you can bring another dive master up to speed, as sometimes one of the ship’s dive masters may be accompanying you. We’ll do a morning dive, followed by a surface interval and then we’ll finish off in the afternoon.”
Hell. Cal had one week to wrestle through his unreasonable reaction to submerging, and that was if he and Piper could actually work together without killing each other. He wanted to believe his diving was possible—he wasn’t stupid enough to bet they could cooperate—but...yeah. He could guess the odds. Piper had won and she didn’t even know it. He slid a sidewise glance at her.
She blinked, the only sign she hadn’t been expecting the news other than that betraying twitch in her seat. She was good.
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight.” She sounded calm. Collected. This was going to be prime. “You want us to make a second pitch. In the water. And you want us to work together.”
The cruise ship guy beamed. “Exactly. We can see for ourselves exactly how you’d lead a group. It’s perfect.”
She narrowed her eyes. “But nobody wins the contract today.”
Sal nodded happily, as if he expected Piper to agree wholeheartedly. Clearly, he hadn’t done his homework on her.
“In fact, we both lose.”
Sal suddenly looked like a deer in the headlights. Cal stepped in before Piper said something to completely torpedo her chances. After all, he wanted this to be an equal competition. Although, if he was truly interested in being fair, a little voice whispered, he’d pull out now. Unfortunately, the chance to needle Piper was too tempting.
“I’m happy to put something together for you. I’m sure Piper here feels the same way.”
Yep. She felt exactly the way he did. Her pretty little heel ground into his foot beneath the table. She’d apparently remembered he wasn’t wearing work boots today. Gently, he hooked a foot around hers.
“Piper?” He shot her a smile and knocked her foot off his. “Are you in?”
“You bet.” She sounded all prickly, though.
He loved hearing it. It meant she was paying attention to him, that he’d gotten her riled up good. He didn’t know why he enjoyed making her mad...but he always had. From the first time they’d met—which had been at a particularly memorable picnic where Piper had “accidentally” upended her sweet tea in his lap and then jumped off a twenty-foot ledge and into the ocean with her brothers—to, well, just about every encounter they’d had, they’d fought. Except for last night on the swing ride. He didn’t know why he and Piper had reacted so strongly to each other, but the chemistry thing probably had something to do with it.
So he stood up, collected his gear and exchanged a round of hearty handshakes with the cruise ship executives. Piper worked the room beside him, clearly determined not to cede him an inch.
In step, they went out into the hallway. The hotel simply wasn’t big enough to accommodate a mass exodus of five people. Cal hung back while the executive crowd squashed into the elevator. Piper hesitated but then waved them on. Standing butt to groin with the people you wanted to do business with wouldn’t make doing business any easier. There were some things he simply didn’t want to know. Apparently, he and Piper had finally found common ground. He grinned.
She leaned back against the wall and made a small, shooing motion with her hand. “You run along, too.”
He wasn’t sure how she intended him to leave—the elevator had barely begun to make its downward descent and he wasn’t jumping out of any windows just to oblige her—so he settled for staring her down. He wasn’t going anywhere, and the sooner she accepted his presence, the better. It would have helped if he knew why he’d glued himself to her side, but he
didn’t. He’d walked her in. He’d walk her out. It was that simple. Plus, it bugged her, which was an excellent fringe benefit.
“We have to work together,” he pointed out. “Cooperating means we’re going to have to share air space at some point.”
“You really think we can work together?” She met him glare for glare, hands propped on her hips. The move drew his attention to the drawstring waist of her dress. She’d tied the narrow cord into a perky bow. One tug, and he’d bet she’d come unwrapped like the best of Christmas presents.
Whoa. Down, boy.
He muttered something under his breath. Nothing about today had gone as planned. Apparently, miracles still happened, however, because she looked away and shrugged.
“I have my doubts.” She toed off her shoes with a little groan of relief that shot straight to his groin because he had to imagine she’d make the same sexy sounds in bed. Sex clearly wasn’t on her mind, however, because she fished in her bag and produced a pair of battered neon-pink flip-flops she slipped onto her bare feet. “So much better. I’m taking the stairs.”
He stared at her toes. She dropped her heels into her bag.
“You don’t want to wait for the next car?” His voice sounded husky. This was Piper, he reminded himself. Letting her star in his erotic fantasies would make working with her even more complicated.
She gave him a look he couldn’t decipher—other than the absolutely-not portion of it—and opened the door to the stairwell. They were apparently taking the stairs.
He strode after her because it was hurry up or get left behind. Piper was a woman on a mission. She tackled the steps with the determination his sisters used on a new gallon of ice cream. The soles of her flip-flops slapped against the bottom of her feet. She sure was in a hurry to get somewhere.
