TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT

by Sharon Mignerey

  "Done!" she called to Ian.

  "Which way's it going?" he asked.

  She told him, and he steered them in a direction that angled away from the buoy.

  She watched, expecting to see the dark shape of the other boat emerge out of the mist in any second. When she finally spotted it, it was no longer directly behind them, but following in the general direction the buoy had followed. But, if anyone onboard looked in their direction, the deception would be for nothing. Little by little the other boat moved farther away, and the distance between the two widened to a half mile. In and out of the mist it appeared, then disappeared, finally out of sight, swallowed up by the rain-laden clouds.

  She kept watch for long moments, convinced at any moment the boat would appear as it had done once before. She had just turned to go back inside when her gaze lit on the fishing net at her feet. It had come from Kyle, as well. And they had seen the float plane before Kyle had returned with the supplies.

  Methodically she searched through the heavy strands of hemp, figuring it would be the perfect place to hide another transmitter. When she didn't find one, she wasn't sure whether to be relieved or worried. If there was one transmitter onboard, there could be two or more.

  She went back inside. "It worked." She came to stand beside him at the bridge, worrying about the fishing net.

  "You might as well spit out whatever's bothering you," Ian said, glancing at her.

  "That plane found us yesterday before we met up with Kyle." She tried to remember the places on the boat Kyle had been yesterday when they first met up with him. He'd been on deck, and they had sat at the table across from the galley.

  "I've been thinking about that, too."

  "I think we should get rid of the fishing net," she said, moving to the table looking beneath it.

  "We can dump it overboard just like the transmitter."

  "We could. But I won't do that." There was nothing anywhere around the table or the benches on either side. "It's too dangerous for whales and seals and—"

  "Okay." Ian glanced at the chart. "Let's head for the nearest shore and get rid of it."

  Fifteen minutes later a steep cliff rose out of the mist. A few hundred yards away, they found a ledge above tide line. Rosie knew from firsthand experience just how heavy fishing nets were. Even so, Ian manhandled the net with ease, giving her another demonstration of his strength. While she held the boat steady against the waves crashing against the shore, he piled the net in an untidy heap on the rocky ground well above the tide line. The whole time, her heart hammered in her chest while she watched for the other boat, which, mercifully, never appeared.

  When they were again underway, Ian went to change while Rosie chose a course that she hoped was away from the other boat. Rosie heard the hum of the clothes dryer, and a second later he returned to the bridge.

  He sat down on a chair near the wheel. As before, his color was none too good. On the bench next to him Annmarie still lay asleep, though she stirred fitfully.

  He looked back at the rough water outside the window. "The seas are rougher, aren't they?"

  "Yeah. And these aren't as high as the weather forecast said."

  "So we need to find another inlet."

  "We do," she agreed, catching his glance, then pointed at the chart and a ragged peninsula on the opposite side of the straight. "If you can stand this for a couple of hours, there are several inlets and fjords we could choose from."

  He studied the chart with her for a moment. "I bate being in these waves, but I agree with you. It puts a lot of distance between where we dumped the transmitter and the fishing net." He rubbed a hand across his jaw, then shook his head.

  "Want to take over the wheel for a while?" she asked. "When I've been seasick, that somehow helps."

  He managed a smile. "Rosie Jensen. Seasick? That's hard to imagine."

  "It's been known to happen." She shrugged. "Or, you could try to sleep like Annmarie."

  "Not hardly, much as I'd like to." He came to the wheel and braced his feet.

  She brought him crackers from the galley, which he munched on while he steered the boat into the heading they had chosen. Rosie admitted that he'd made a pretty good sailor so far. He seemed to have an instinctive feel for keeping the boat guided directly into the waves, which, though rough, minimized the pitch. For a novice he was doing okay—a lot better than okay, if she was honest with herself.

  She sat down on the upholstered bench next to the wheel and gathered Annmarie into her arms. The child opened her eyes briefly, then snuggled closer with a contented sigh. Rosie's arms tightened around her—this child of her womb, this child of her heart who was her sister's daughter.

  Suddenly near tears, Rosie studied each feature, from the small hands that rested so trustingly on her chest to the fine spray of freckles that kissed her cheeks and nose.

  "What do you think about when you look at her?" Ian's voice was so low that Rosie wasn't sure he had really spoken.

  She glanced briefly at him before returning to her study of Annmarie's features. One day Annmarie would return to her mother, and before that happened, Rosie wanted to memorize everything about her.

  "My uncle Ross always talks about balance," she finally said. "An orca can be a harbinger of evil or a benefactor." Lightly she touched Annmarie's soft hair. "I don't like the circumstances, but I'm glad to have her with me."

  "A silver lining in every cloud," Ian commented.

  Rosie chuckled. "Yeah. Something like that." She stared through the window, where the waves broke over the bow. "If my uncle were here, he'd be praying to the storm and the water to allow us safe passage and hide us from our enemies."

  This time Ian laughed. "That pretty much sums up what I've been thinking, though I wouldn't have called it a prayer."

  Gradually her attention shifted from the child sleeping with so much trust in her lap to Ian. From where she sat, he was in profile to her, his weight shifting slightly as the boat moved through the waves. He wore one of the long-sleeved knit shirts that Kyle had delivered, the dark-navy color emphasizing his size. She easily remembered him without the shirt. The dark whorls of hair. The heavy ropes of muscle across his chest, shoulders and long arms. Not once had the man been any more forceful than necessary, she realized. He had bruises from their first encounter—she did not.

  The memory of his kiss danced at the edge of her mind, though she was determined to hold it at bay. She found she could not. The kiss, like the man, was a contradiction. Strength cloaked in gentleness, passion shimmering beneath his restraint. Invitation. Oh, did she dare accept what he had offered?

  As if aware of her study, he turned his head enough to look at her. "You doing okay over there?"

  She nodded.

  The corner of his mouth lifted in his easy smile. "More to the point, am I doing okay?"

  "Perfect," she said, voicing the first thought that came to her.

  He laughed. "Oh, ho! Perfect."

  "Don't let it go to your head."

  Still chuckling Ian returned his attention to the heavy seas. "Oh, I wouldn't dream of it. Like you told me before, I could be doomed for disappointment."

  "You could," she agreed. "So, where did you find the transmitter?"

  "I hadn't unpacked everything," he lied, remembering his stunned surprise when he'd discovered a box of condoms—that hadn't been on his list to Kyle—when he unpacked clothes and toiletries Kyle had bought for him. Annoyed with Kyle's assumption, Ian had thrown the box into the nightstand drawer without even looking in it. A box that contained the transmitter was hidden by a few foil packets. A damn near fatal mistake.

  "At least you found it."

  "Yeah."

  The silence stretched out between them, and Ian found himself once again feeling the effects of the rolling waves. "Talk to me, Rosie."

  "About what?"

  "Anything that will take my mind off my stomach. Tell me about fishing with your dad when you were a kid. Was it like this?"


  "Worse," she returned. "Why, this is a fair-weather day compared to some."

  He stuck a leg out toward her. "Okay, keep pulling. I asked for it."

  She grinned. "Yeah, you did." And she launched into the stories of fishing for halibut and salmon that were part of her family's lore. Whether the time passed quickly or not, he couldn't have said. He liked the things she told him about her family, but then he always liked those stories, though he always felt like the little kid peering through the pet shop window with no hope of having that puppy he wanted.

  "Your turn," she said sometime later. "What about your family, your parents?"

  "There's not much to tell," he responded, realizing he should have foreseen this. He didn't talk about his family. Even his best friend, Jack Trahern, didn't know the details. If anybody would have understood, it would have been him.

  "There's always something—even if you're an only child."

  "I have four brothers and a sister." Had, he mentally corrected.

  "They must be proud of you."

  "Not hardly."

  "I can't believe that. You have a military record that would make any parent proud—"

  "Medals don't mean a thing," he interrupted, wishing he had foreseen this particular turn in the conversation. He flexed his hands around the wheel.

  "That's not what Hilda found out."

  "Then she didn't get the whole story." Of course, she wouldn't have. That had been part of the deal. He kept his nose clean, and his juvenile record would be expunged. Too bad it hadn't also erased the memories. He couldn't blame Hilda for checking up on him—in her shoes he would have done the same thing.

  "Big, bad Ian Stearne. Cut from the same cloth as our friendly neighborhood thug, Marco." Rosie's voice was casual, and he knew she was referring to what he'd told her earlier.

  "You've got it, baby. I'm exactly the kind of guy your daddy would have chased off with a shotgun, and he would have been right." He turned to glare at her.

  "I've come face-to-face with the worst that men can be," she countered.

  He doubted that she had. "Ever hear about Cain—the evil brother?"

  "Of course."

  "You're looking at him. I used to have four brothers—and I still would if I hadn't killed one of them." He looked at her to make sure she understood.

  The boat strayed, and Ian fought to bring it back on course. Memories he didn't want were at the surface, churning like the storm they were fighting their way through.

  "I used to run with a gang," he added, without being completely sure that he spoke aloud. "I thought I was hot stuff, but I was nothing but a punk who lived by The Code. Hurt one of us, and we'd hurt one of you… And one night they came looking for me. Only they found my sister and one of my brothers instead." The memories sprayed over him like the waves over the bow. "She lived. He didn't."

  Through wave after wave the boat heaved forward. Ian kept waiting for Rosie to say something, anything. She didn't.

  He remembered that hour in the judge's chambers as though it was yesterday. It was the first time in his sorry life that somebody had made crystal clear the consequences of his actions. Then he was given a glimpse of another kind of life—the kind he had once dreamed of as a small boy. "In a conversation—lecture—that was strictly off the record, I was given a choice," he finally added. "Enlist and learn some discipline. Or be assured the next time I was arrested I'd be looking at hard time. I took the coward's way out. My mother and my sister and my brothers—they don't think I've paid my debt for Aaron's death." He watched the waves march relentlessly toward them, making subtle adjustments in the steering. "They're right."

  "And so you founded Lucky's Third Chance."

  He looked over his shoulder. "How the hell do you know about that?" The foundation provided him with purpose in his life. The idea was simple and based on his training experiences in the service. Show people how to be successful in spite of their fear, show them how to do things they thought they couldn't. And build, small step by small step, on those successes. His vision—but staffed with people who had the right training to make a difference.

  "A newspaper clipping that Hilda gave me."

  He returned his attention to steering the boat. Much as he wanted Rosie to think he was a hero, he wasn't, even though the article she referred to painted him that way.

  "What happened to your brothers and sisters?" Rosie finally asked.

  "I don't see them much." His mother hadn't turned down the house he bought for her, but he wasn't welcome there. When his sister mentioned she was starting a business, Ian had made sure she had the start-up capital she needed. Then she accused him of trying to buy her forgiveness, which wouldn't happen—not in this life. Micah, his youngest brother, had thanked him for the money that ensured he could go to school without working. He was about to finish his graduate studies. They traded e-mails occasionally, which was all Ian had come to expect. Adam and Eric—they wanted nothing to do with him at all. And he couldn't fault their reasons for hating him.

  "And, just in case you're tempted to think that I've got it together, my ex-wife thinks I'm pond scum." He wasn't sure why he was so driven to show her these parts of his life that he'd hidden from others.

  Five more waves sluiced over the bow before Rosie said, "You're just determined to make me think the worst of you."

  "Damn straight, baby."

  "Then you might as well tell me about her."

  "She showed back up about a year ago," he said, his chest feeling as tight as it had the day he opened the door and found her on his porch. He hadn't seen her in seven years … and he hadn't thought of her in almost as long. "When we first got married, I was so sure she was the one." Bittersweet memories swamped him—the magic first months of marriage, the bitter months after he returned home from a stint in the Middle East and soon found out that somebody else was sleeping in his bed with his wife.

  "The one?" Rosie finally prompted.

  Ian glanced at her. "The woman who would be the mother of my children." He shrugged. "She wanted somebody who could give her an easier life than the one I had to offer."

  "A woman who came back for the kind of easier life that she'd have as the wife of a millionaire."

  Rosie's conclusion was dead-on.

  "Shame on her," Rosie added.

  The matter-of-fact statement cracked through his strange mood, and Ian laughed. A second later Rosie laughed, too. In her lap Annmarie stirred sleepily.

  And it hit Ian square in the middle of his chest—he wanted this. Despite the storm and feeling seasick, he wanted to be right here. He glanced at Rosie, who sheltered Annmarie from the storm. Here was a forever kind of woman—a woman by her own admission who wasn't impressed by his money.

  The laughter faded into silence, and Ian relaxed. Every so often he would look over at Rosie. Each time, she glanced away, making him think that she'd been staring. He studied her from the corner of his eye for a moment as another realization washed over him. Her stories of her family hadn't told him anything about Rosie he hadn't already known. She'd do anything for her sisters and Annmarie, but he'd known that before. She cared about her parents and her large extended family … and that wasn't new, either. She lived alone when she clearly didn't have to. What he didn't know was why she'd stayed away from Annmarie and Lily when she clearly cared so deeply for them.

  Ahead of them the dark silhouette of land appeared, and Ian glanced at the chart. "Do you have any particular inlet in mind?"

  She shook her head.

  "Time for a scientific method, then," he said.

  "Which would be?"

  "Well," he drawled. "You start with your age. Divide by three. Add nine, then divide by four, then subtract one and round up to the nearest whole number."

  She laughed. "And you do this in your head?"

  "No." He grinned, pleased that he'd made her laugh. "That's why it's scientific."

  "I see."

  "How about the fourth inlet?" he asked. />
  Rosie glanced at the chart, the name of his chosen destination immediately catching her attention. Holiday Cove.

  "It's as good as any. I could use a vacation." She traced the fjord beyond Holiday Cove. "There's a glacier farther on up the fjord. Have you ever seen one?"

  "Nope."

  "It's something to see."

  "Want to hang out there?"

  She checked the map again. "No. We're better off in the cove. Besides, being next to the glacier would probably drive you nuts."

  He glanced over his shoulder. "How so?"

  "As the ice moves, it pops sometimes. Sounds like gunfire."

  He grinned. "You're right. That I don't need." He chuckled, then asked, "Do you want to drive?"

  She shook her head. "You're doing fine."

  As had happened before, the island blocked much of the wind, and the waves subsided. Rosie kept a close eye on the chart, making sure there were no hidden reefs or rock formations that would tear the bottom of the boat as they sailed toward their destination.

  By the time they reached their chosen fjord, the waves had settled, and the mist and fog surrounded them in a protective shroud. As long as there were no more transmitters onboard, they would be nearly impossible to find.

  The three of them were at last alone.

  Ian should terrify her. He was, by his own admission, exactly the kind of man who most frightened her. Except that he—Ian—didn't. It was as though by opening the closet wide and turning on the light, she could see the skeleton was really only a shadow. A less decent man would have kept the closet door firmly closed.

  The feeling that curled through her stomach wasn't dread—it was anticipation.

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  « ^ »

  "Go fish," Annmarie announced, grinning at Rosie.

  Rosie began drawing cards from the deck in the middle of the table, adding to the six she already held in her hand. With each card she drew, Annmarie's smile became bigger. She held only two cards, and Ian could see they were a pair of kings. Chances were good that Rosie would have the card required to give her three-of-a-kind and end the game. At last she stopped drawing and set her three-of-a-kind on the table, which still left her with a dozen cards in her hand.