by Amy Andrews
Of course.
The man had a perpetual hard-on.
‘Hi,’ she said, using the back of Rick’s chair as a brake for the trolley.
Rick spun around as the impact interrupted him mid-flirt.
‘Oops, sorry, damn thing is impossible to control,’ she said, smiling sweetly at the waitress, who looked as if she was about to give Stella a piece of her mind for careening into a customer.
A sex-god customer.
Stella was pretty damn sure if someone had barged into her chair with a dangerous weapon, Ms Flamenco wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.
‘Hey, Stel.’ He grinned. ‘Have a seat. You want a coffee? Something to eat? Ramona says they do a mean nachos here.’
Stella smiled at Ramona. ‘Nachos and a flat white would be great, thanks.’
Ramona nodded at Rick. ‘I’ll be back in a jiffy.’
I just bet you will, Stella thought uncharitably as she sat down.
‘Whoa, you buy the whole shop?’ Rick asked, examining the contents of the missile that had smacked into him.
‘You have to cover every contingency,’ she said waspishly.
‘Ooh, Snickers,’ he said, pulling out the packet of fun-sized chocolate bars. ‘My favourite.’
Yes. Which was why she’d bought them.
‘Can I take your order, sir?’
Stella looked up at another goddess smiling down at Rick as if he’d invented oxygen. Lord, where did this coffee shop source their staff from—www.lookgoodnaked.com?
‘We’ve ordered,’ she said tersely.
‘Sorry.’ Rick smiled and shrugged.
‘No worries,’ the woman said, her smile not wavering, her gaze not leaving his. ‘If you need anything just yell. I’m Holly.’
‘Thanks, I’ll holler, Holly,’ he said and she giggled.
Stella rolled her eyes. ‘You’re incorrigible.’
Rick grinned. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Stella ignored him, instead choosing to go through the docket with him for anything she might have forgotten while they waited for their meal. It was going to be too late once they’d cast off in the morning. No less than two waitresses interrupted them while they did so.
Their meals finally arrived and Stella almost laughed as yet another woman, a leggy redhead, delivered them.
Were they drawing straws?
This one looked older—older than Rick for sure—and had the calm authority and predatory grace of a woman who knew what she liked. She introduced herself as the owner.
‘Ramona was saying you’re sailing north for a few weeks. I don’t suppose you need a deckhand?’ she joked as she placed Rick’s meal in front of him.
‘I’m the deckhand,’ Stella intoned.
Was she invisible?
Was it that ridiculous to think that she could be his girlfriend? It seemed every female employee in the coffee shop thought so, if their quick dismissive gazes followed by their unabashed flirting were any indication.
She wanted to stand up and say, Hey, I’m a famous author, don’t you know. But then Rick looked at her and winked and she felt as if he’d just ruffled her hair and slipped her a few bucks to run along and leave him do his thing.
She felt like his kid sister.
‘Do you know boats?’ Rick asked.
The woman smiled. ‘Oh, yes, my ex always owned classic yachts. I hear yours is a beauty.’
Rick nodded enthusiastically. ‘You should drop by the marina and see her. The Stella is a true class act.’
Stella blinked.
Had he just invited a cougar back to the boat?
Oh, no, don’t mind me.
The woman smiled at him. ‘I may just do that.’
‘Can I get some cracked pepper?’ Stella asked.
The redhead gave her a cursory once-over and disregarded her in less than five seconds. ‘I’ll send Ramona over,’ she said and she slunk away.
‘God, this looks good, doesn’t it?’ Rick asked as he turned his attention to his meal.
Stella had suddenly lost her appetite. Sometimes she just couldn’t work him out. The man knew he was attractive to women. She’d seen him work that to his advantage too many times to class him as clueless, but she didn’t think he truly understood how effortlessly it worked in his favour.
Even when he wasn’t trying, women flocked. And of that, he was totally unaware. She was sure of it.
She picked at her meal and was pleased when they managed to leave the coffee shop unmolested forty-five minutes later. He took the trolley, managing it like the flocks of women—effortlessly—and they caught a taxi back to the marina.
Once on board they stocked the galley with the supplies then sat at the dining table drinking beer and plotting their course. Stella felt the jet lag catching up with her again as Rick’s deep English voice, sounding even more so in this land of different accents, laid out the first leg from Cairns to Port Moresby, which would take them about two sailing days. The boat bobbed rhythmically to the melody of a hundred loose halyards clinking against their masts and she yawned.
It wasn’t until a voice from outside disturbed them that Stella realised two hours had passed in a drowsy haze and she’d barely taken any of it in.
‘Ahoy there! Anyone home?’
Rick frowned. ‘Who’s that?’
Stella’s head cleared as she recognised the sultry tones of the coffee-shop owner. ‘I’m guessing it’s the leggy, redheaded cougar.’
Rick laughed as he took a swig of his second beer. ‘Really? Oh...’
He seemed disappointed, which perversely made her both happy and annoyed and a lot more awake. ‘Er...you invited her here. What did you expect?’
‘Did I?’ Rick frowned. He didn’t recall.
Stella blinked. ‘You said, you should drop by the marina. Women are literal creatures, Rick.’
He stood. ‘That’s cool.’ He disappeared into the galley and came out with another beer. ‘It’s never a hardship to spend some time with a beautiful woman. Who appreciates a classic yacht.’
Stella rolled her eyes. ‘She’s a decade older than you.’
He shrugged, then grinned at her as he cracked the tops on the beers. ‘So?’ And then she watched him disappear up the winding staircase.
Great.
What the hell was she supposed to do while he dallied above deck with a woman about the same age as her mother as if he were some young buck in need of sexual tutelage?
God, no, he wouldn’t...surely he wouldn’t have sex with her up there where anyone could see him? Surely he’d at least bring her to his cabin?
But then the thought of him bringing her down here was confronting on other levels. Stella didn’t want another woman below deck sullying all that it meant to her—to them.
God, would she be forced to listen to them rocking the bloody boat all night?
Would they be loud?
She didn’t think that Rick would be a silent lover. She’d always imagined he’d be quite vocal in his appreciation of a woman.
Just like Vasco.
She could only pray the jet lag still tugging at the peripheries of her consciousness would sink her completely under in a deep sound-proof abyss.
Stella could hear their muffled voices above her and could feel herself getting madder with each passing minute. She tried to concentrate on the weather charts and tide times on the laptop in front of her, but her eyes felt too gritty. She even pulled out her father’s research papers and tried to immerse herself in them, but she was just too damn tired and the redhead’s deep throaty laugh was just too damn distracting.
She could feel herself getting more and more tense.
How dared he entertain a lady and expect her t
o just meld into the furniture, stay below deck and pretend she wasn’t even here?
It might be his boat but she wasn’t going to feel ignored or non-existent. He had his whole life to be with as many women as he liked. To flirt and indulge in whatever hedonistic lifestyle he wanted.
But for the next few weeks he was on this boat with her with a job to do and he could bloody well take a break from being Mr Irresistible and keep his head in the game.
Stella was pacing when he joined her five minutes later, aware on some peripheral level she wasn’t feeling particularly rational. ‘That was quick,’ she said testily.
Rick shrugged. Danielle’s company had been pleasant enough but he didn’t feel like entertaining tonight. There was a lot of planning to do and he was aware of Stella below deck.
‘Big day tomorrow,’ he said as he made a beeline for the galley, throwing the empty beer bottles in the bin under the sink.
‘You should have brought her down here and shown her around. I bet she was dying to see below deck—a woman with an eye for a classic yacht and all,’ Stella said, sarcasm oozing from her pores.
Rick grinned as he washed his hands at the sink. ‘Oh, she wanted to. But I told her you had a headache. You know, from the jet lag.’
‘How considerate,’ she said sweetly. ‘She must have been devastated.’
‘Nah...I don’t really think she was that interested in the boat.’
Stella snorted. ‘You don’t say.’
Rick poked his head out of the galley to look at her. She seemed mad. ‘You’re bitchy when you’re jet-lagged.’
‘Yeh, headaches bring out the bitch in me too,’ she snapped.
Rick saw a spark of heat turn her olive gaze to an ominous green, like a hailstorm. He knew he was in trouble, he just wasn’t sure why. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked warily, approaching her.
Stella wasn’t exactly sure why she was so mad all of a sudden, but she knew she was. She shook her head at him. ‘You.’
‘Okay...?’
‘You honestly can’t switch it off, can you?’
Rick frowned. ‘Switch what off?’
‘God, you should come with a flirt alert. How on earth are you possibly going to manage this trip, four bloody weeks, without a woman around to charm?’
Rick, who was used to spending lengthy periods at sea, wasn’t worried about it. ‘I think I’ll manage,’ he said dryly.
‘Manage?’ Stella snorted again. ‘You can’t go a day without trying to hook up.’
Rick laughed. ‘I think you’re exaggerating a little.’
Stella stopped pacing and glared at him. ‘In thirty-six hours you have flirted with every woman who has crossed your path. Diana, the rental-car woman, the airline check-in chicky, the grandmother who ran the refreshment stall at Heathrow, several air stewardesses, the taxi driver, every waitress in the coffee shop today...’
She ticked off each conquest on a finger. ‘And when we get on that boat tomorrow after about twelve hours you’re going to start in on me because you can’t help yourself,’ she finished a little shrilly.
Rick blinked. Stel wasn’t usually the nagging, hysterical type so it was either jet lag or PMS. Neither of which he was game to suggest, but he hoped it was the former because that surely couldn’t last more than another day.
‘But I always flirt with you.’ He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’
Stella glared. ‘Why the hell not?’ she demanded, uncaring that she knew. ‘Is there something wrong with me?’
Rick blinked, not quite able to believe he was having this conversation. ‘That’s not what I meant. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re perfectly...’ He groped around for a word that was flattering without saying all the things he’d desperately tried not to think about her over the years—curvy, sweet, bootylicious.
A Nathan-approved word.
‘Decent.’
Decent?
Good God, she sounded as if she were someone’s homely cousin who was all right at a pinch but was hardly likely to be picked to play spin the bottle at a party. Stella doubted she’d ever felt so underwhelmed in her life.
‘Gee, thanks,’ she snapped.
Rick pushed his hair off his face as he tried to comprehend how this night had gone so rapidly to hell. ‘I don’t understand... Do you...want me to mean it?’ he asked.
Stella’s breath hitched in her throat at the illicitness of the suggestion. What would that be like? To have all that deliberate blue-eyed charm turned on her? Like when they’d been teenagers and their banter had occasionally wandered into dangerous territory.
But grown up.
Diana’s you should have sex with him slithered into her brain and she pushed it away.
‘Of course I don’t!’ she said in her very best English-teacher-talking-to-a-student-with-a-crush voice. ‘But I don’t want you flirting with every other woman you come across either. It really is rather tiresome to watch and completely unproductive.’
Rick cocked an eyebrow. He’d personally never found flirting to be unproductive. But she was obviously accusing him of lack of control. ‘You think I can’t go a few lousy weeks without flirting with a woman?’
Stella crossed her arms. ‘Oh, I’m sure of it.’
‘Is this a dare?’ he asked.
Stella felt the conversation suddenly shift gears. It should have taken her back to their childhood but the silk in his voice took her to another place entirely.
A very adult place.
‘Sure.’ She shrugged. ‘I dare you. I dare you to go through this whole voyage without flirting with a single woman you meet along the way.’
Rick grinned, his gaze locking with hers. ‘And what do I get?’ he asked, his voice low.
The timbre of his voice stroked along all her tired nerve endings as he stared at her with his Vasco eyes.
What did he want?
Stella swallowed. ‘Get?’
Rick held her gaze. ‘If I win?’
Stella was lost for words for a moment. They’d never played for stakes before. Several inappropriate suggestions rose to mind but she quashed each one. She was too strung out to play games with him. ‘How about my undying gratitude?’ she quipped.
Rick shook his head slowly, dropping his gaze to her mouth. ‘How about that kiss that we didn’t quite get round to?’
Stella blinked as the teenage bad-boy looked back at her. It was a tantalising offer. One she knew he didn’t expect her to take. But she’d never been one to back down from a dare and, frankly, the idea was as thrilling as it was illicit.
She smiled. ‘Deal.’ She held out her hand. He wouldn’t be able to manage it, of course, but if the stakes were...interesting...maybe he’d at least try and comply.
Their gazes locked and Rick swallowed as he took her hand, cementing the deal.
Would she taste like coconuts too?
* * *
They cast off the next morning at eight o’clock, a good wind aiding their departure. The long-range weather forecast was favourable and Stella was feeling as if her body clock was finally back in sync.
Of course, she was also really embarrassed by her carry-on last night. She tried to apologise to Rick once they were out of the harbour and heading north.
‘Are you trying to welch on the deal?’ Rick teased. ‘Because you know how much I love a challenge.’
She did. God knew how many times she’d come close to drowning while challenging him to a competition to see who could hold their breath underwater the longest.
He’d beat her every time.
Except for that time he’d let her win and she’d been so mad at him he’d promised never to do it again.
‘Absolutely not,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I stand by it.’
> ‘Good.’ He grinned. ‘Now go write something.’
And she did. Sitting in a special chair at the bow of the boat, sun on her shoulders, breeze in her hair, laptop balanced on her knees, she found Lucinda flowed from her fingers onto the page. It was as if she frolicked and danced along the keys, slipping magically between Stella’s fingers, informing every letter, controlling every mouse click.
The cursor no longer blinked at Stella from a blank page. Instead words, lovely rich words of a bygone era, filled all the white spaces up. When Rick brought her a snack and her hat she realised she’d been writing for two hours solid and the number down the bottom of the page told her she’d written thirteen hundred words.
Thirteen hundred glorious words.
The morning flowed into the afternoon; the perfect calm conditions continued. Rick occasionally called to her, pointing out a pod of dolphins or an island in the distance. She got up and stretched regularly and when she was grappling with a scene she’d take the wheel for a while and magically, like tankers on the horizon, the solution appeared.
By the end of the day she’d written three thousand words and she felt utterly exhilarated. And it wasn’t all about the writing.
She’d forgotten how elemental sailing made a person feel. How it connected you to the earth on such a primitive level. How the feel of the waves beneath your feet and the push and pull of the tide drew you into the circadian rhythm of the planet.
How it connected her to her father.
She’d missed Nathan terribly the last six months, but out here he was everywhere. Every turn of the wheel, every flap of the sail, every pitch and roll of the hull.
They anchored just before sundown in the middle of nowhere. Just her and Rick bobbing in the middle of an enormous ocean beneath a giant dome blushing velvet and dappled with tangerine clouds.
Rick grilled steaks this time and Stella was pleased she’d kept a serving out of the freezer. She loved fish, but she knew by the time the voyage was over she’d be all fished out. And with three thousand words to celebrate, nice thick juicy steaks seemed like the perfect food. She tossed a salad and completed the meal with melt-in-your-mouth bread rolls.
It was utterly delicious and they savoured every morsel of the fresh food. Much later in their journey, when their fresh food had run out, the meals wouldn’t be this exciting.
