by Amy Andrews
Anthony Granville had occupied a legendary status amongst the men that knew him but he’d still got himself dead.
It was Nathan who’d been Rick’s role model. His stand-in father. And Nathan who had taken on his full-time guardianship when he was a tearaway fifteen-year-old and his grandmother had washed her hands of him.
Rick had only ever wanted to be at sea managing his half of the business. And Nathan had facilitated it.
But he hadn’t made it easy—oh, no.
Nathan had been a tough task master.
Rick had thought his days of schooling and routine were done but Nathan had been worse than his grandmother. Nathan had insisted that he do his schooling by correspondence. And when he was done with that for the day, he’d given him every lousy job possible.
Had worked him like a navvy.
And Rick couldn’t be more grateful. In his own way, Nathan had given him a better grounding than if he’d grown up in a loving, two-parent secure home.
He’d been so angry with Nathan when he’d landed in the UK thirty hours after they’d given up trying to resuscitate him.
Angry that Nathan had left him to be the bearer of bad news.
Angry that he’d left full stop.
But he’d known the news had to come from him.
The thought of someone else telling Linda—telling Stella—had been completely unpalatable. Nathan would have wanted it to be him and he hadn’t wanted it to come from anyone else.
How could he have let some faceless policeman tell Linda? She and Nathan might have been divorced but even Rick had been able to see the deep and abiding love she still felt for him.
And there was no way he’d have let anyone else tell Stella.
The autopsy results just prior to the funeral had made Nathan’s death more palatable. Rick had understood, as a man of the sea himself, that Nathan had chosen the ocean over a hospital.
But it hadn’t lessened his loss.
And his very impulsive purchase of the Dolphin was so mixed up in the whole vortex of grief he just hadn’t been sure of his motivations.
But, as she opened her eyes and smiled at him as if she were riding a magic carpet instead of some very tame waves, he was one hundred per cent sure.
The Dolphin was part of them. Their history. And whatever else happened over the years in their lives, it would always bond them together, always be theirs—his, hers and Nathan’s.
* * *
It had been quite a few years since Stella had been snorkelling. But as they lay anchor a couple of hours later crystalline tropical waters the exact shade of Rick’s eyes beckoned, and she was below deck and back up again in record speed.
‘What on earth are you wearing?’ Rick demanded as she appeared by his side while he was rummaging around in a storage compartment for some goggles and fins.
Stella looked down at her very sensible one-piece. ‘You don’t like the colour?’ she asked.
He tisked to cover the fact that he didn’t give a damn what colour it was. ‘It’s stinger season, Stel. There should be a wetsuit hanging on the back of your cabin door and a stinger suit in one of the drawers.’
Stella looked at the water, desperate to feel it on her skin with no barriers just as she had in her Lucinda dream.
‘Oh, come on,’ she protested. ‘We’d be pretty protected out here on the reef, surely?’
‘I’ll be sure to tell them that’s what you thought when they’re giving you the anti-venin.’
Stella shrugged. ‘I’m willing to risk it.’
Rick shook his head emphatically. ‘I’m not.’
He worked in an inherently dangerous field—there were a lot of things in the ocean that could kill a man—and his reputation for safety was second to none. He certainly wasn’t going to have to explain to Linda that he’d let her daughter die too.
He pointed to the stairs leading to the lower deck. ‘Go,’ he intoned.
Stella rolled her eyes. ‘Yeh, yeh.’
‘Don’t make me come down there,’ he threatened.
Stella felt the flirty threat right down to her toes. What would he say if she challenged him to do just that?
Rick smiled to himself as she slunk away, her one-piece riding up the cheek of one buttock. He looked away. When she reappeared a few minutes later she was zipped into light blue neck-to-ankle Lycra.
‘I hate these things,’ she complained as she pulled at the clinging fabric. ‘I look like a dumpling.’
Rick deliberately didn’t look. What Nathan’s daughter did or did not look like poured into a stinger suit was none of his business. He was still trying to not think about that half-
exposed butt cheek.
‘Everyone does,’ he said, handing her some flippers and her mask and snorkel.
Stella glared at him. No, not everyone did. Not size-zero six-foot supermodels. Which she wasn’t. And certainly not him, half zipped into his, his thighs outlined to perfection, the narrowness of his hips a stark contrast to the roundness of her own. He looked like an Yves St Laurent cologne guy or James freaking Bond walking out of the Mediterranean in his teeny tiny swimming trunks.
She fitted her mask to her head and looked at him. ‘Aren’t you coming?’ she asked, staring pointedly at his state of undress.
‘Right behind you,’ he said.
* * *
They snorkelled on and off for most of the afternoon. They stopped a couple of times to grab a drink of water and Rick found his state-of-the-art underwater camera but otherwise they frolicked in the warm tropical waters for hours as if they were kids again playing pirates and mermaids.
She’d forgotten just how magical it was with the sun beating on her back and her head immersed in an enchanted underworld kingdom. Where fish all the colours of the rainbow darted around her and cavorted amongst coral that formed a unique and fascinating underwater garden.
Where the dark shadows of huge manta rays and small reef sharks hovered in the distance.
Where the silence made the beauty that much more profound.
It was after five o’clock when they called it a day. Stella threw on her clothes from earlier; Rick just unzipped his suit to his waist and looked all James Bond again. They threw some fishing lines in to catch their dinner while they drank cold beer and looked at Rick’s pictures on her laptop. They laughed and reminisced and Rick showed her the pictures from their latest salvage—a nineteenth-century frigate off the Virgin Islands.
They caught two decent-sized coral trout and he cooked them on a small portable grill plate he’d brought up from below. It melted in their mouths as they dangled their legs over the side and watched the blush of twilight slowly creep across the sky to the gentle slap of waves against the hull.
Stella could feel the fatigue of jet lag catching up with her as the balmy breeze blew her drying hair into a no-doubt completely unattractive bird’s nest.
That was the one good thing about hanging out with a guy who’d known you for ever—he’d seen her looking worse.
Rick took her plate away and she collapsed back against the deck, knees bent, looking up at the stars as they slowly, one by one, appeared before her eyes. She could hear the clank of dishes below and by the time Rick rejoined her night had completely claimed the heavens and a mass of diamond pricks winked above them.
A three-quarter moon hung low in the sky, casting a trail of moonbeams on the ocean surface.
‘Are you awake, sleepy head?’ Rick asked as he approached.
She countered his question with one of her own. ‘Is it waxing or waning?’ she asked, knowing that a man of the sea knew those things without ever having to look at a tide chart—it was in their DNA.
‘Waxing,’ Rick confirmed as he took up position beside her, lying back against the sun-warmed wood, also
staring towards the heavens. He’d taken his stinger suit off and was wearing just his boardies.
Stella sighed. ‘It’s so beautiful. I bet you never get sick of this.’
‘Nope. Never.’
He’d spent countless hours on deck at night, with Nathan teaching him how to navigate by the stars. He supposed to some, even back then, it had seemed hopelessly old-fashioned with all the sophisticated GPS systems and autopilot technology that had been around in the salvage industry for decades, but it had got him out of trouble more than once when satellites had been down or equipment had failed.
And he’d loved listening to the awe in Nathan’s voice as he’d talked about the heavens as if each star were a friend. He hadn’t just known their shape or the positions in relation to the horizon, but he’d known all the old seafaring legends about them and told them in such a way that had held Rick enthralled.
Nathan’s celestial knowledge had been encyclopaedic and Rick had soaked it up like a sponge.
And then he’d regurgitated it to an awestruck Stella, who’d hung on his every word.
How many hours had they spent as kids lying on their backs on the deck of a boat pointing out different constellations, waiting with bated breath for the first shooting star of the night?
Her arm brushed his as she pointed at the Southern Cross and he realised he’d missed this.
This...companionship.
The last time they’d done it was the summer she’d finished school for good. A year after that near kiss. She’d alternated between giddiness at the freedom of it all and distraction over her impending results. They’d lain together on deck and looked up into the diamond studded abyss and he’d told her if they saw a shooting star it would be a sign that she’d passed.
No sooner had he spoken the words than a white streak trailed its incandescent light across the heavens right above them. She’d gasped and he’d told her to shut her eyes and wish upon it and watched her as she did.
Yep. He’d missed this.
God knew he’d had a lot of women in exactly this position over the years but this was different. For a start he hadn’t been remotely interested in looking at the stars with any of them. Although to be fair, as his relationship with Stella had teetered on the brink of something neither of them had been game enough to define during their teen years, he hadn’t exactly had his head in the stars with her either.
But he did tonight. Stella somehow seemed to bring out the amateur astronomer in him.
And it was...nice.
No agenda. No pressure. No expectations.
Just two old friends relaxing after the perfect day.
‘Hey,’ Stella said, extending her neck right back as her peripheral vision caught a moonbeam illuminating a chunk of metal hanging off some kind of a fixed pole at the stern. She squinted. ‘Is that a shower head?’
Rick extended his neck too and smiled. ‘Yep. I’ve always wanted to be able to take a shower under the stars.’ He grinned, relaxing his neck back to a more neutral position.
She laughed as she also released the abnormal stretch, returning to her inspection of the night sky. ‘Well, you’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?’
He nodded. ‘I’ve been thinking about this boat for a lot of years.’
They fell silent for a moment, letting the slap of waves against the hull serenade them as their gazes roamed the magnificence of the celestial display.
Stella’s yawn broke the natural rhythm. ‘I’m beat.’ She shut her eyes. ‘All that sun and sea on top of the jet lag is a deadly combination.’
‘You can’t go to bed before we see a shooting star, Stel. Look.’ He nudged her shoulder. ‘There’s Gemini.’
Stella’s eyes flicked open and she dutifully followed the path of a perfectly formed bicep all the way to the tip of his raised index finger. She tutted. ‘You always had a thing for Gemini.’
He grinned. ‘What’s not to like about two chicks?’
They laughed and just as he was lowering his arm it happened: a trail of light shot across the night sky, burning bright for long seconds.
Stella gasped and Rick whispered, ‘Quick, make a wish.’
Stella thought about Lucinda and Inigo. And dear Joy with the patience of Job. She squeezed her eyes shut as the light faded into extinction and wished for another blockbuster.
Rick turned his head and watched her eye-scrunching concentration. ‘What’d you wish for?’ he asked.
Stella opened her eyes, her breath catching in her throat at their closeness. Even with the dark pressing in around them, his blue eyes seemed to pierce right into her soul. ‘It’s a secret,’ she murmured. ‘If I tell you it won’t come true.’
He shook his head. ‘You always were a romantic. I should have known you’d go on to write romance novels.’
His voice was light and teasing and not full of scorn as Dale’s had been. Dale had been barely able to say the R word. She smiled. ‘Says he who insisted I wait to wish upon a star,’ she countered.
He laughed. ‘Touché.’
His laugh did funny things to her insides and a part of her wanted to stay out with him all night and watch the sun come up, but her eyelids were growing heavier and she yawned again.
She sat. ‘Right. I’m off to bed.’ She stood and looked down at him lying on the deck of his boat wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung boardies and still somehow managing to look as if he ruled the entire ocean. ‘See you in the morning.’
He nodded. ‘I won’t be too far behind you,’ he murmured.
Stella turned away from him, padding her way across the deck, conscious of his eyes on her. She heard his faint ‘Night, Stel’ reach her as she climbed down the stairs.
She was too beat to reply as her legs took her past the galley, through the saloon to the aft cabin where Rick must have placed her luggage earlier. She didn’t bother to shower, hell, she barely bothered to undress, just kicked out of her shorts, pulled the sheets back and crawled under.
She was dreaming even before her head hit the pillow.
Dreaming of Vasco.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WAS ten the next morning before Stella woke. The gentle rhythm of the waves had rocked her into a deep, jet-lagged slumber. She had a quick shower and threw on a sarong and T-shirt. Rick wasn’t below deck but there was an incredible aroma coming from above and she followed her nose.
He was standing at the grill in his boardies—no shirt—and for a moment she just watched the broad bronzed planes of his back that narrowed the closer they got to his waistband.
Or perhaps hip-band might have been more salient.
But then her stomach outed her by growling loudly and she propelled herself forward. ‘Sorry for sleeping so late,’ she said as she approached him.
Rick turned and smiled at her. ‘It’s fine—jet lag’s a bitch like that. I’ve only been up for half an hour myself. But, lucky for us—’ his smiled broadened into a grin ‘—the fish have been up for a while.’
Stella inhaled. ‘Hmm. Smells great.’
‘Grab some plates—we’ll eat, then get back to the marina.’
They ate quickly and were under way half an hour later, Rick again letting Stella take the wheel. It was early afternoon before they were finally on land again and alighting a taxi at Cairns Central Shopping Centre.
‘So you think you can remember how to provision a boat for a few weeks?’
Stella nodded. She’d often gone with Sergio to buy supplies just prior to an expedition. Serg, a grizzled veteran of the merchant navy and stalwart of Mills and Granville, usually went out on the longer trips as chief cook and bottle washer. He cooked good plain food in bulk and pastry to die for.
‘I checked out the galley properly so I know what storage capabilities there are. I assume we�
��ll buy fresh food where we can along the way?’
‘Yep.’
‘So I’ll get all the usual staples.’
He handed over the company credit card of which she was a signatory. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked as she slid the plastic into the back pocket of her shorts.
‘I’m heading to the Boating, Camping, Fishing store to pick up a few things. Let’s meet up back here at that coffee shop,’ he said, pointing behind her, ‘in about an hour?’
Stella checked her watch. ‘Right. See you then.’
Shopping in another country was always a challenge. In Penzance she frequented the local supermarket and she knew what and where everything was. Far from home, it took her much longer to find the things she’d already put on a mental list in her head.
But at least Cairns had first-world shopping facilities and everyone spoke the same language. She and Serg had certainly shopped in much more rudimentary surrounds.
By the time the hour was up Stella had a trolley piled high with provisions and the credit card had taken a hit—if they were going to be limited in what they ate for the next few weeks, then she was going to make damn sure what they did have was of the highest quality. Good chocolate—for her anyway, Rick wasn’t fussy—and the most decadent biscuits money could buy—for him.
Serg had told her when she was a teenager that Rick had a sweet tooth that was best kept fed. She hadn’t been sure whether that had some double meaning or not, but it had certainly fed her hormone-fuelled imagination.
Stella pushed the uncooperative metal beast with two wonky wheels for what seemed like five miles in the giant sprawling shopping centre. She almost crashed into a shop window and earned the wrath of a mother who thought Stella was deliberately trying to run her tantrumming little angel down.
When she finally reached the coffee shop her abdominals, quads and biceps were cramped with the effort of keeping the damn thing on track. Her mood was not great. It didn’t improve any to find Rick, with one shopping bag, chatting up a tall, dark-haired waitress who looked as if she were born dancing the Flamenco.
