by Kylie Brant
It didn't help, she thought glumly, as the dolphins faded from view, that her outrage over his "rejection" hadn't been totally feigned. No woman wanted to hear that a man found her unattractive, and despite his protests to the contrary, she knew exactly what she lacked that would have snared his interest. She'd seen for herself the type he went for last night when he'd been pawing that waitress. He'd be the kind of guy who liked his women available, inventive and gone in the morning.
Based on the supply of condoms she'd found in his bottom desk drawer, he was either overly optimistic or very well prepared. It was probably the latter, which made his rejection smart even more. It didn't matter that she didn't want him, on any level. It was the principle of the thing.
Blowing out a breath, she reached into her purse for sunscreen. Smoothing a generous amount over her bare arms, she repeated the action on her legs. After rubbing a small amount of lotion on her face, she settled her sunglasses on her nose, dropped the bottle back into her purse and stretched out on the chair. The breeze kept her from being too warm in the sun, and she could feel a measure of tension seeping from her body. Until she thought of the disappointment Jones's desk had yielded. Then her muscles tightened yet again.
She'd found a log in which he apparently kept track of his business dealings. The charter she'd set up with him hadn't appeared in it yet, but two others had in the past month. The person's name who'd scheduled the trip had appeared, along with the number of days, nature of the trip and payment. However, there had been no entry dated around the time Sam would have crossed to Laconos. Its absence would suggest that Jones and her brother had never hooked up at all. Except that another notebook had listings for dates of fuelings, the gallons and prices. And Jones had fueled up the ship more than once after the last documented charter.
Ana stretched out on the lounger watching the gulls wheel overhead, and wondered what the discrepancy meant. Did the man take the ship out himself when he didn't have paying clients? It would seem reasonable to expect that he might. She found it equally reasonable to think that maybe he hadn't logged Sam's trip because her brother had asked him not to. Or that he knew the secretive nature of Sam's job and realized it was best to leave no traces.
It was a long shot, she admitted silently, but Sterling knew that her brother had docked at Laconos, and that he'd arrived by ship. And although she had no more proof than before that she was retracing her brother's steps, she remained convinced. She needed to start planning how to gather information once she hit the island. Sterling had been very definite about the parameters of her assignment. She, of course, had some ideas of her own.
A shadow fell across her chair. "You feel better now?"
Opening her eyes, Ana saw a blinding smile in a seamed, weathered face. The man standing above her was no more than her height, and she'd guess that he wasn't much heavier. His friendly expression was a welcome contrast to the scowl Jones usually graced her with, and the lemonade he was holding was tantalizing.
She tipped her glasses down. "Yes, I'm feeling fine."
The frosty glass was thrust into her hand. "For you. Good to drink liquids in sun."
Ana took the lemonade and indicated a seat beside her. This, then, was Pappy, the crew member Jones had mentioned. He was obviously a native islander, and it was equally obvious that he had a much sunnier temperament than his boss. "Won't you join me?"
"Cap'n say you go to beaches." Pappy sat on the edge of a lounger next to her. "Lots beaches near, and Cap'n know them all. You be pleased."
To save herself from answering, she raised the glass to her lips. Right now she'd be most pleased if the captain happened to fall overboard, preferably in shark-infested waters, but she hated to douse this man's enthusiasm. "Have you worked for Jones a long time?"
At the man's exuberant nod, she felt a measure of pity for him, followed by a nebulous idea. "So I guess you know him pretty well."
Pappy bobbed his head again. "Cap'n good man. Keep his ship in good shape. And—" his expression went sly "—ladies like Cap'n. Cap'n like ladies."
Some ladies. Analiese wanted to correct him. Women whose obvious charms were matched by looser morals. In that, he was much like most of the men in her acquaintance. It was plain to see where Pappy believed her interest lay. And she was willing to let him believe just that if it meant she could get him to divulge a bit more information about the mysterious Jones.
"He said you did the cooking and helped navigate. Do you join him on all his trips?"
The man squinted against the rays of sun. "All trips. Only small crew for some, but Cap'n, he need to eat."
"Have you been to Laconos lately?" she asked daringly. "Jones seemed worried about my safety there."
"Pretty miss be safe on beach. Cap'n make sure." He shrugged. "No one want to drive away tourists. Bad for island."
Which still didn't answer her question. She phrased the next one more pointedly. "When was last time you were on Laconos?"
Pappy rubbed his jaw. "Me? Last month, mebbe. Most people, they like fishing. Many other beaches. Laconos not beautiful like Bontilla."
Which meant, Analiese thought, her stomach knotting, that if Jones had taken Sam to the island, the trip had been kept secret even from his trusted crew member. She manufactured a smile and drank again. Her throat had gone suddenly dry. "A ship this large must take a lot of fuel. How many gallons does it hold? Enough to get us to Laconos, I hope."
The man chortled. "Two big tanks, pretty miss, plenty to go to Laconos. Each tank hold two hundred gallon. Only take three hundred to get to island." He rose, smiling widely. "I go make lunch. You need food, so you not get sick again."
She gave a vague smile in response, and he walked away, his stride adjusting automatically to the pitch of the ship. Reaching down, she opened her purse and took out the notebook she kept there. She'd taken some notes while thumbing through Jones's logs, using a coded shorthand that no one but her would be able to make sense of. Checking them, she determined that Jones had refueled the ship three times in two days well after his last documented charter. Which would have readied the ship for the trip to Laconos, refueled it for the trip back, and then again to prepare it for the next charter. She added and subtracted gallons for several minutes, before she sat back, satisfied. Given the fueling history, this ship could have been the one to carry her brother to the island.
It was thin, she acknowledged, amidst a growing sense of certainty. But it was something. And since she'd discovered that Pappy hadn't accompanied them, the man would have no other information for her. Which meant, of course, that any other details would have to be pried from Jones himself.
Despite the heat, her skin prickled. The thought of having to play along with his egotistical belief that she was hot for him, in return for stray tidbits she might glean, was about as appealing as having surgery without benefit of anesthesia. But finding Sam was worth the sacrifice, wasn't it?
Jones would be less likely to be suspicious of her questions if he thought she was using conversation as an excuse to get close to him. She scowled at the thought, but the truth of it couldn't be denied. He'd handed her a perfect opportunity, and she'd be a fool not to use it.
She could always, Ana thought, consolingly, consider the exercise as practice. God knew she needed the experience at flirting, and since Jones had said in so many words that he was immune, he was a safe enough target. And besides learning information about her brother's disappearance, maybe before this trip was over, she'd have Jones eating his rejection of her, word by demoralizing word.
She smiled, stretched more languorously on the deck chair and raised her face to the sun. The idea was one to relish.
* * *
"Brought you something to eat," Ana said, strolling toward Jones with a tray Pappy had prepared.
His gaze flicked from her face to the food, then back again. "Is it poisoned?"
"Do you trust your cook so little?"
"It's not Pappy I don't trust." His meaning wasn't
lost on her, but she chose to ignore it. Although earlier in the day she would have given a great deal to see him choke on a chicken bone, she was beyond those feelings now. Almost.
"You were right, Pappy is a great cook. I already ate and it was wonderful." And when she'd finished, she'd offered to relieve the crew member of the plate he'd prepared for Jones, uncaring of the conclusion Pappy had drawn. She was eager for an excuse to approach the other man. Just not for the reason that Pappy and Jones seemed to think.
Setting the tray down on a nearby table, she removed the napkins covering the food and pulled up a chair. Jones watched her carefully. "What are you doing?"
"I thought I'd keep you company while you ate," she said artlessly. "You've been up here all morning alone. I figured you wouldn't mind a little company."
He reached for a piece of chicken. "I like being alone."
She refrained from pointing out that with his personality, he was likely to spend a great deal of time in that state. Despite her efforts, her gaze lingered on the puckered scar on his back. She'd spent more than an hour formulating ways to finesse needed information from him before approaching him with lunch. But instead of the discreet questions she'd settled on, she heard herself say, "What happened to your back?"
"I lowered my guard."
His stark answer sent a chill through her. She'd be willing to bet that for Jones that particular error had been rare, indeed. Ana wanted to ask who had gotten close enough to him to gain his trust, only to betray it. But she knew intuitively that he'd never tell her. "Tell me about Laconos," she said instead, forcing her gaze away from him and out at the shatteringly blue water before them. "The State Department has cleared it for U.S. citizens' travel, but you seem to believe that it's still unsafe."
He turned back to the wheel and adjusted its position. "I just think there's cause for caution there, that's all."
"The scandal six months ago was like a Shakespearean tragedy. The crown prince of Laconos must have been desperately in love with his girlfriend to be so devastated by his family's disapproval of their marriage." The world had been shocked to learn that the prince, Owahano Bunei, of the royal family, had shot and killed his parents and siblings before turning his weapon on himself one night at dinner. And all because his parents had refused to give him permission to marry the woman he loved. "I'd heard, though, that the transition of power passed easily enough to Owahano's uncle."
"That kind of transition is never effortless." It was his total lack of expression, rather than the words themselves, that alerted her. What Jones wasn't revealing was of far more interest than what he did say.
She hadn't asked Sterling about the nature of Sam's mission on Laconos. It would have been futile. The man made even the taciturn Jones seem verbose. But she'd drawn her own conclusion from the information she'd managed to glean from her brother's encrypted files. The United States government was taking a keen interest in the island's new government, especially now that the current king was jockeying for more clout with the Global Trade Organization. Ana thought Sam had been sent on assignment to see, firsthand, if Laconos's request should be opposed. Given her brother's disappearance shortly after he arrived there, she wondered if he'd found a reason for that opposition.
"It probably won't matter much to you and your friends one way or the other." At Jones's voice, Ana shifted her attention back to their conversation. "You're just planning on enjoying the beaches, right? A day or two there, and you'll be off to another island."
She steered him away from a discussion of her fictional friends by saying, "I've heard that Laconos has a fabulous beach on the north side."
"You may want to avoid that one." Was that a tinge of embarrassment she heard in his words? Ana studied his profile searchingly. "There's a great beach on the southwest side, too."
"Why? What's wrong with the north one?"
"It's topless."
"Sounds great." With a provocative air she braced her hands on the table behind her and leaned back. She'd bet that Jones's knowledge of topless beaches was firsthand. So to speak. "Is that the beach you go to?"
"I have better things to do with my time than to laze around on the sand all day." He dropped the chicken hone back on the tray and reached for another piece.
"But what do you do when you don't have a charter?" Not even to herself would she admit that there was a hint of personal interest in his answer.
He gave a shrug of one well-muscled shoulder. "Work on the ship."
"You don't ever take it out by yourself?" she prodded. Prying information from the man was like arm wrestling an alligator, but then, she hadn't expected it to be easy.
"Sometimes."
"Where are your favorite places to go?"
He slanted her a glance. "You know, you're wasting valuable sun time in here with me. I'd think you'd want to be working on your tan."
"I got enough sun this morning." Let him think that she was in here to change his mind about taking her to bed. It might annoy him, but it would also allay his suspicions about the true reason for her interest. She made a production of crossing her ankles. "Are you going to show them to me? Your favorite spots, I mean?"
"Nope." He'd polished off the second piece of chicken and exchanged the bones for another piece.
"Why not?" She imbued her voice with a deliberately sultry note. "Maybe they'd become my favorites, too." As long as she was engaged in the pretense, she may as well pull out all the stops. Ana might not have had near the occasions she'd like to practice her feminine wiles, but she was a world-class observer. She knew the moves—the head toss, the pouty lips, the fluttering eyelids. Jones was given the full treatment, causing him to stare hard at her.
"Do you have something in your eye?"
She stopped fluttering them to glare at him. "No, you dolt."
He looked unconvinced. "Maybe you should leave your sunglasses on. The sun is pretty bright on the water."
With jerky movements she grabbed the sunglasses from atop her head and perched them on her nose. Okay, so her wiles were rusty. Come to think of it, they'd never exactly mesmerized any man, with the exception of Billy Ray McIntire, who'd barely qualified as such. But she couldn't help believing Jones was being deliberately obtuse. Was she really so lacking in appeal?
Steering around the obvious answer to that question, she concentrated again on getting the man to part with a bit of information. "So, where do you go to get away from it all? Beaches? Fishing? Deep-sea diving?"
He rolled his shoulders, clearly impatient with her questions. "I don't have a lot of free time. A ship this size takes a lot of upkeep."
So that line of questioning was a dead end. If there was another explanation for the discrepancy in his log other than the one she chose to draw, it certainly wasn't forthcoming. She changed the subject. "Osawa Bunei, that's the new king of Laconos, isn't it? Did he choose to keep the former cabinet or replace it with his own?"
Slanting a glance at her, he took a bite of the piece of chicken he held. After he'd chewed and swallowed he said, "What are you after on the island, a sun tan or a history lesson? From what I've heard he's replaced most of the original cabinet, and no surviving family members were chosen, which led to some dissension."
Ana frowned. "I thought the family had all been killed with the exception of Osawa."
"Not all the extended family. There were two other uncles and an aunt, as well as many cousins left. Osawa was just the next in line for the throne."
The scenario he'd described wouldn't have raised eyebrows in most countries, but in the small island nation of Laconos, nepotism was a time-honored custom. Osawa had probably had to remove family members from cabinet posts to replace them with his own picks, which didn't strike Ana as a good way to keep your relatives happy.
"Do you go to Laconos often?" she asked daringly. Heck, subterfuge didn't seem to work with him, so perhaps the direct route would prove more successful.
"No." He dropped the chicken hone on the tray and re
ached for a napkin to wipe his hands. "Most of my charters are for deep-sea fishing, a few families who want to go out for a day, that sort of thing."
The ship rocked against a particularly large wave, and Ana clutched the edge of the table in an effort to remain upright. Since it was bolted to the deck, it was as stable an anchor as she'd find. Jones merely adjusted his footing and leaned into the pitch of the ship, riding the motion in much the same way as a jockey melded his body with a horse's moves. His position drew her attention to the muscles that clenched and released in his back, and then lower, where the faded denim of his cutoff jeans clung faithfully to his masculine backside.
Ana tipped her glasses down to better contemplate the sight. The man's buns were as extraordinary as the rest of him, which really didn't seem quite fair. There ought to be a physical flaw somewhere. The scar didn't count, as it only added to his aura of danger. When the gods had been handing out bodies, she thought judiciously, this guy had been at the front of the line. Too bad the same couldn't be said about his personality.
He glanced her way then, and her gaze jerked upward guiltily. "Thanks for bringing the tray up. You'd better get it back to Pappy so he can wash it."
As a brush-off, it was offensively transparent. She reached for the pitcher of lemonade and poured some into a glass. "After I finish my lemonade." Pouring a second glass, she offered it to him. "Want some?"
Grudgingly he took it. "Look, I don't mean to be rude…"
"It must be an innate response, then."
"…but entertaining the guests isn't part of my duties as captain."
"I think we've already covered that."
"Neither is sleeping with them," he went on, earning a glare from her.
"Well, I've gotten over the disappointment of knowing I'll never bear your children," she announced sweetly, restraining an urge to toss the lemonade in his face. "Do you have something against polite conversation?"
