by Helen Brenna
He nodded. “So you find the mother lode. Then what?”
“I go back to Chicago. Home. I want a life. Kids and a husband. Solid ground under my feet.”
“As far away from any ocean as you can get, huh?”
“I don’t belong in this world anymore.”
“Annie.” He sighed, frustrated, and spread his hands out as if he might reach for her. “You can’t turn your back on your entire childhood.”
“Want to bet?”
“It doesn’t work. I tried flushing it out of my system in college. In the end, I knew. The ocean, diving, treasure-hunting, seep into your bones. Your parents screwed up pretty bad. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
“Give me one reason not to.”
“Because you’ll never be right with yourself. Treasure hunting’s who you are, not what you do.”
“Bingo. There’s the difference between you and me. I was never a treasure hunter to begin with. Just a treasure hunter’s daughter. It never was in my blood. Not like it was in my parents’. Not like it’s so obviously in yours.”
“You make it sound like an insult.”
“If the shoe fits…”
An exasperated sigh left his lips. “Were you allowed to make your own choices in college?”
“Yes. But—”
“If you’re so different from me, explain why you got a degree in marine archaeology. Why did you spend the last ten years thinking about the Concha?”
He was wrong. She was nothing like him, nothing at all like him. “What I’ve been doing the last ten years is none of your business.”
“What you’re doing now is my business, and I need to know I can count on you as a member of this crew.”
“I told you I’d be ready.”
“Prove it. You have a swimsuit on under that sweatshirt, don’t you?”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t planning on swimming. Just getting used to things one step at a time.”
“Time to jump in.” He tossed his baseball cap onto a nearby seat cushion.
“What?” Annie’s heart pounded.
“Swimming’s gotta come before diving.” Jake tugged his T-shirt over his head and slipped off his tennis shoes and socks.
“What are you doing?” The panic rising in her throat conflicted with the thrill of watching him strip. “Put your clothes back on!”
“Don’t ask me why, but I’m helping you.”
Tan as all get out, he stood in a pair of navy blue swimming shorts, hands on hips, nothing short of beautiful. She glanced down at his strong legs and noticed that the scar on his calf traveled past his ankle to the middle of his foot. From what Claire had said, the doctors must have completely reconstructed his ankle. It didn’t stop him from looking more virile than any man she’d ever known. With a muscular back, broad shoulders and a narrow waist, he exhibited a true swimmer’s physique. Only age gave him breadth, substance. Power.
Her stomach fluttered with sensations that had little to do with the sight of water or the boat’s movement. “This isn’t helping me,” she finally said.
“D.W.,” he yelled toward the helm. “Shut her down and take a little break.”
“Another swim?” D.W. asked.
“Yeah,” he shouted back and stepped up on the edge of the boat. “You said I did you a favor this afternoon, Annie. I think you need another one.” With that, he dove, his body straight as an arrow, causing barely a ripple on the water.
He disappeared only to resurface some twenty feet away. His wet muscles rippled and glistened in the fading red sunlight with each measured stroke. The tension melted from her shoulders. As graceful as she felt inept, his body cut through the water like a knife through butter.
“He makes it look so easy,” she whispered. Claire was right, the water didn’t know he walked with a limp.
As if sensing her appraisal, he stopped, shook the wet strands of hair from his forehead and looked at her. In a couple of strong strokes, he swam to the ladder next to her hand and climbed up. “Come on, Annie. Now or never.”
Her feet remained rooted to the spot.
“What do you think I’m going to do, drown you? If I’d wanted to do that I wouldn’t have dragged you back to the dock this morning in Miami.” He laughed, a deeply melodic sound that pulsated through her. “Look, I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.”
At that, she laughed, too.
“How do you expect to ever get scuba equipment on if you can’t handle the water itself?” he asked.
Unfortunately, he was right. She’d come here to put the Santidad Cross to rest, and she had to dive to do it. The sooner she could dive, the sooner she could go home. “You promise you’ll let me move at my own pace? You won’t try anything funny?”
“Promise.”
His face was so unyielding, so serious, she knew she could trust him. She had to trust him. Unzipping her sweatshirt and stepping out of her shorts, she threw them on a nearby bench and hesitantly moved aft. Standing there in her swimsuit made her feel vulnerable.
“At this rate it’ll be dark before you get your toes wet.”
“I can’t dive in. I need to use the ladder.”
He moved down a few rungs and hung away from the boat, making room for her. That protective stance contrasted sharply with her image of him. Instead of an arrogant pirate, he was now the lifeguard, selfless and compassionate. All those muscles and determination, he’d never let her drown. She hiked herself up, swung her legs over the rail and positioned her feet on a ladder rung. She took one step. And froze.
Jake moved up behind her and wrapped a wet arm around her waist, holding securely onto the ladder with his other hand. “Don’t look down,” he whispered in her ear.
“Why are you helping me?” she whispered back.
There was only silence for several loud beats of her heart.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Look at the side of the boat. Breathe.” Gently, he tugged her down. “You can do this. Concentrate on every speck on that white paint. Concentrate.”
Black speck. She concentrated. Breathe. In and out. A breeze tickled her skin. His chest felt hot and wet against her back. She moved with him. Gray speck. Green speck. Black splotch. Water on her toes! She stiffened.
“You’re okay.” He tightened his hold around her. His hand gripped her waist. “I’m right behind you. I’ve got you.”
Water dripped from his arm and seeped through her suit, wetting her skin. They moved farther down the ladder. As if she’d somehow separated from her body, she felt water on her legs, her bottom, her stomach.
Too much. She inhaled sharply.
“Look at me now. Not the boat.” He spun her around to face him. “Annie, look at me.”
Hysteria threatening, she clung to what he was saying and locked her eyes on his.
“Breathe!” he ordered.
Trusting him, she inhaled.
“Slowly.”
She exhaled, counting down.
“Shhh,” he whispered. “Wrap your arms around me.”
She swung her arms around his neck and concentrated on him. Not the water. Anything except the water. Only Jake. His eyes. The rich brown heat of them. The dark, long lashes. The softness of his skin. The steely feel of his corded muscles flexing beneath her fingertips. For the first time, she noticed the gentle curve to the bow of his upper lip.
He really was beautiful. And for all his blustering to the contrary, this man did have a heart. She could feel it in the way he held her, close and safe.
He dipped their bodies in unison down to their shoulders. Out again. In again. Acclimating her. Coolness swirled around her breasts, contrasting vividly with the warmth of his skin. Water pooled in the indentation above his upper lip and slid around the curvy slope of his mouth. She forced herself to look away only to become enthralled by the rivulets of salt water running through the black hairs on his chest and across his biceps. Water had never looked so good.
She
forced her gaze back to his eyes and found him staring back. Something in him changed. The benevolent lifeguard and teacher had disappeared, and in his place was the pirate again, a predatory male, appraising her bare neck and shoulders for a place to bite. His eyes shifted to her mouth, and her lips opened expectantly.
His answering shudder awakened her more efficiently than any direct touch. For more than ten years she’d lived a half life, the circumstances of her parents’ death covering her like a shroud. Now, her body came to life. He wanted her, and she wanted him back. Thoughts, feelings and sensations she wouldn’t have believed herself capable of burst forth. The water became unimportant. All she knew was Jake.
“I believe we’ve ventured from our objective.” Her words came out in a breathy rush.
“There you go talking fancy again.”
“That’s ri…diculous.”
“Is it the water making you nervous?” He gravitated closer, their lips a mere hairsbreadth apart. “Or me?”
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.
“Doing what?” His hot, ragged breath buffeted her cheek. Softly, he brushed his open mouth back and forth against hers.
She wouldn’t have called it a kiss. More of a rubbing. A needy, yearning stroke building ever so sweetly in intensity. “Mmmm.” The moan escaped from deep inside her.
He answered with a groan of his own. Closing his eyes, he slanted his mouth and dipped his tongue inside. Now, that was a kiss. Thorough and persistent, his tongue spread waves of need through her as strong and sure as the tides swept the earth. Feverishly, he moved his mouth across the plane of her cheek, down her neck and back again.
Lost, she drew her hands across his back and tangled her fingers in the thick hair at the base of his neck. More. She needed something more. Hiking her leg around him, she moved closer, crushing herself against him, wanting him everywhere at once, around her, on her, in her. Apparently, she liked pirates.
“Jake?” Claire’s voice from above them split the night air. “Where are you?”
Startled, Annie pushed away from him and dove into the water. For one blissful instant her body took over, instinct had her kicking and stroking her way across the surface. Then she remembered where she was. In the ocean. Ten feet away from the boat. From Jake. From safety. She stalled, sputtered on a mouthful of water and panicked.
“I’m here.” Jake reached under her arms and held her tight. “Hold on.”
“I can’t!” Her arms flopped, her legs kicked ineffectively. “No…air!”
“I’ve got you. Relax.”
She clutched his neck, nearly forcing him under.
“You’re okay.” He tightened his hold. “Annie? Annie!” The heat of his body registered. Jake. Safety. Life. “Shhh.”
She stilled and drew in a shaky breath.
“Shhh,” he murmured. “It’s okay.”
Don’t look at the water. She squeezed her eyes closed and let him tow her back to the relative safety of the boat ladder.
“What’s going on down there?” Claire asked. “Is Annie actually swimming?”
“Go away, Claire,” Jake said evenly. “Leave us alone.”
“Do you need my help?”
“No.”
“Fine!”
Jake grabbed onto the ladder and Annie clung to him as the sound of Claire’s footsteps receded into the night. What in the world had just happened?
Jake Rawlings was sexy, no doubt, and although she felt completely safe in his arms, like a hurricane or tornado, he reordered her world. Her lack of experience wasn’t helping matters. When other girls had been dating, flirting and exploring during high school, she’d been stuck on a boat with her parents. In college, when she could finally make up for lost time, she’d felt incredibly incompetent. Now, at thirty-one, Jake made her feel like a loose cannon. She wanted to experience it all at once, no holds barred.
Only he-captain here wasn’t normal, land-loving husband material. Annie could no more envision Jake with two point one kids, living in a solid, brick-and-mortar house with a white picket fence than she could see herself living on this boat.
“Annie,” Jake finally said, a frown pulling at his brow. “I—”
She held up her hand to silence him. “What just happened was a mistake.” She climbed past him up the ladder. “It’ll never happen again.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
WITH THE VAST surrounding skies barely lit by the dawning red-orange sun, Jake sat alone at the galley table and sipped his black coffee. He appreciated, even anticipated, the solitude. All too soon the crew would be awake and about, eating breakfast, getting gear ready and destroying the tranquility.
There was so little time alone on a working boat he could almost understand the preference Annie’s parents had had for small crews. Still, what they’d done to her was flat-out wrong. A little girl needed people in her life, a network of family and friends and solid ground to grow and flourish. These days, more and more, so did he.
He took another chug of coffee, trying to wake up. He’d had a hard time settling in his bunk last night and, after that, a restless night’s sleep. Discovering the truth about Annie’s background had given her theories about the Concha’s position more weight, energizing him. Today could be the day. That mañana he’d been hoping for since he’d been a small boy.
Only that hadn’t been the whole reason for his difficulty sleeping. Intermittently through the night, the muffled sounds of her stirring in her bunk rustled through the thin walls of his cabin. He’d envisioned her lying there, naked or—better yet—in that lacy thing he’d seen lying on her bunk, wanting him the way she’d wanted him in the water.
Nothing turned him on more than a woman who enjoyed sex. Except for a woman who didn’t advertise the fact, like Annie. From the way her lips had moved against his mouth to the way she’d wrapped her leg around him and rubbed against him. It’d been like turning on a faucet. One minute, she was trying to figure out this water business and the next her moans filled his senses. He wasn’t sure what bothered him more: the fact that it had happened, or her insistence that it would never happen again.
At least she was being levelheaded about the whole thing. He was wrong for her in so many ways it wasn’t funny. He spent most of his life on the water, and she was afraid of it. And with a bum foot and more baggage in his past than any commercial airline, he was far from husband material. Not to mention the fact that indulging in a few nights of adult recreation with a female employee went against the grain.
Yep. She’d be doing him a favor by keeping her distance. As a matter of fact, as powerful as their attraction had been, he’d better keep some distance himself. Double buffer. That’s the ticket. After what she’d been through in her life, Annie deserved his restraint.
Simon shuffled into the galley and nodded in Jake’s general direction. He grabbed a bowl, a box of granola and a carton of milk before sitting at the table.
“Morning, Simon.” Jake had long since gotten used to the odd fellow his father had hired before Jake had been born. Though he rarely spoke, he could dive with the best and proved himself a jack-of-all-trades on salvaging operations. He not only maintained their diving gear, he could fix almost any engine you put in front of him.
Claire and Ronny came in next. “Good morning.” They spoke in unison.
“Morning,” Jake returned. He watched Ronny pour Claire a cup of coffee and wondered why a man so obviously enamored of women had never remarried after the death of his wife more than five years back. Maybe her battle with cancer had taken more out of him than he let on. No one really knew. Other than his plans to retire in two years, he shared little of his life.
“I made some scrambled eggs and toast.” Jake pushed aside his empty dishes. “There’s more on the stove.”
Claire sat next to Simon with her mug of coffee in her hand. Jake didn’t like the look of those dark circles under her eyes. He went to the counter, prepped two slices of toast and scooped up some eggs
.
“So when are you planning to tell us exactly what we’re diving for?” Ronny parked himself at the table with a plateful of eggs.
“You’ll know soon enough.” Jake placed the plate in front of Claire. “Eat.”
She looked at the food and grimaced. “I’m not hungry.”
“Eat, or you’ll blow away on the next stiff breeze. Captain’s orders.”
“He’s right,” Ronny piped in. Even Simon nodded.
Reluctantly, she picked up a fork and angled a sly grin in Jake’s direction. “You should have stuck around last night, Jake, and played some cards with us. Annie plays a mean game of hearts.”
“I wasn’t in the mood.”
“For cards anyway,” she said under her breath.
He wasn’t touching that spiny lobster with gloves and set of pincers.
“Did Annie swim?” she asked.
Wary, he glanced back at her. “Not quite, but she’ll get there.”
Claire broke off a corner of toast. “She up yet?”
“How would I know?” Jake answered. One look at Claire’s cat-got-the-canary look, and he immediately regretted his irritable response.
“Something’s going on between you two.” She smiled, an annoyingly knowing slant to her lips. “Annie doesn’t exactly fit the pattern, but it’s probably good you’re up and at it again.”
“Up and at what again?”
“You know, the off-season bimbo deal you had going for years. Before Sam died.”
Ronny’s eyebrows arced, and he tried hiding a smirk behind his coffee cup.
Claire jabbed some eggs with her fork. “Every year, after diving season was finished, it was the same thing. They clambered all over you, strutting their stuff, wanting to get their chance.”
Ronny set down his cup. “You always seemed to have one heck of a time deciding.”
“Oh, he decided, all right. For one season,” Claire continued. “One woman, and he treated her to all the elegant dinners, dancing, nice clothes and fine jewelry she could handle. That’s why I never felt bad for them. They knew exactly what they were getting themselves into.”
