Sleepwalker

by Karen Robards

  “We’ve got to put in, now.” His terse remark as he emerged from the cabin sent Mick’s blood pressure skyrocketing. She instantly left off scanning the shoreline to check out the positions of their pursuers. The helicopter, with its trailing Jet Ski and runabout, was definitely closer, while the Jet Ski following the coast was just a few coves back, and closing fast. As a group, they formed a rough triangle that was going to be difficult to evade.

  “I’m looking for—,” Mick broke off as she spotted it. “That rock.” Relief cleared the frown from her face as she pointed. “I know where we are.”

  “Good.” He was all business. “Back us in. Let’s do this. Uh, can you stand up and drive? That would make this easier.”

  “This,” obviously, was his fake driver construction. Sliding off the seat, Mick stuck her feet in the too-big boots to protect them from the cold deck even as she manipulated the controls. At the same time, she watched out of the corner of her eye as he stuffed the hoodie until it did, indeed, look almost human, if the human had a wobbly neck that kept letting the head pitch backward in a way that was impossible in nature. Turning the boat around while distracted by his efforts and the progress of their pursuers wasn’t all that easy, but she managed it, easing back as close to the beach as she could before the propellers started nudging up against something solid, which she presumed was land. That still left them about ten feet short of solid ground, but there was no doing anything about it. Push any further, and the Playtime would be stuck. Positioning the throttles with just enough power to hold them in place, she looked around to discover the thief at the stern, leaning over the water doing who-knew-what.

  “If we’re going to stay in place, we need to drop anchor,” she called to him, instinctively keeping her voice as soft as possible, although she knew that the chances that anybody chasing them could hear was almost zero. “It’s down there by you. In the corner. Throw it overboard.”

  Looking past him as she spoke, she saw that the trailing Jet Ski was curving up the near edge of the cove it had been searching, which meant that it was approximately two coves back. If her calculations were anywhere near accurate, they had maybe ten minutes before it reached the cove they were in. Farther out in the lake, the helicopter and its followers were sweeping ever nearer, the rotor’s rhythmic thumping perfectly audible now that she knew what she was listening for. Mick’s heart picked up the pace, and her mouth went dry.

  “Hey! Ali! Did you hear me? Throw the anchor overboard. Near the swim platform, so we can cut the rope when we’re ready to let the boat go.”

  “I heard you.” He straightened, and she saw he was clutching a broom. Water streamed from the straw end. “The water off the back is about three feet deep.”

  “Wonderful.” That meant she was going to get soaked to about midchest. Mick shivered at the thought. But there was no choice: in all likelihood, staying with the boat would kill her quicker than plunging into icy water. Following her pointing finger, he found the anchor—a classic made of heavy silver metal affixed to a stout rope—and pitched it off the stern. Then he picked up the dripping broom again and came toward her.

  “What are you going to do with that?” she asked. With the anchor down, she was able to leave the throttles in neutral and not worry that the boat was going to drift out.

  “Give our driver a spine.”

  Reaching her, he broke the broomstick in half across his knee, then shoved the straw end up the back of his fake driver. The head immediately shot up.

  “That actually worked,” she marveled.

  “Tie that sleeve to the wheel.” Nodding at the sleeve to her right, he knotted the other sleeve around the wheel himself. When they were finished, the hoodie looked more like a person driving than she would ever have thought possible. Not that Mick had time to appreciate their handiwork. A glance over her shoulder told her that the Jet Ski was now in the next cove over.

  “We’ve got to move,” she said. “Look.”

  He looked around, too, saw the same thing she did, and started unzipping his jacket.

  “Get the wheel in position. Probably we want the boat to go at a diagonal across the lake. That should keep it from beaching itself for a good long while.” Shrugging out of his jacket, he dropped it on the mate’s chair, then pulled the underlying hoodie over his head as he spoke. “I’ll see if I can’t wedge this end of the broomstick in to hold it.”

  “What are you doing?” Actually, he was pulling his black tee over his head and dropping it, too, on the mate’s chair. Even as she positioned the wheel, Mick blinked at him. By that time, he was stripped to the waist.

  “What does it look like?” Hopping on one foot, he pulled off a boot, then a sock. Mick couldn’t help giving him the once-over. Just as she’d suspected, the man was built: wide shoulders, muscular arms, impressive pecs, a six-pack. She was registering that his chest was smooth with just a sprinkling of dark hair when he succeeded in pulling off his other boot and shoe and added it to the growing pile on the mate’s chair.

  “Getting naked,” he concluded. Then he started unbuckling his belt.

  Chapter

  8

  “Good idea.” If Mick’s voice held a faintly hollow note, there was a reason other than the fact that a gorgeous guy was stripping off in front of her: she was probably going to have to follow suit. Not that she was overly modest or anything, but getting naked outdoors with a stranger, even a hunky stranger, on a freezing cold night held zero appeal. To say nothing of the idea of plunging her naked self into icy water.

  “I thought so.”

  Out of an innate respect for a fellow human being’s privacy, she looked away as he unzipped his zipper and shucked his pants. Having figured out that he was stripping to avoid getting his clothes soaked while they splashed ashore, with the purpose of having dry clothes to put on again once they made it, Mick knew that however reluctant she was, she had no choice but to do the same if she wanted to survive. She doubted she’d last fifteen minutes if she tried trudging through the frosty night in icy wet clothes. Having so recently gotten warm, she dreaded exposing herself to the elements again. Would having dry clothes to put on when they reached land even make a difference? The water would be so cold. …

  Still, if she couldn’t get dry again, she had almost no chance of making it.

  “Hello, hypothermia,” she said, resigned, and started unbuttoning his coat.

  “Stop.”

  That caused her to glance at him again. He was stripping off his boxers with his back turned, although he was looking at her over his shoulder. The darkness hid a lot of detail, but she could see that his buns were small and round and taut, and paler than the rest of him. His thighs were long and muscular and dark with hair.

  “What?” she asked, busy undoing the next button.

  “Keep your clothes on. There’s no need for us both to get soaked: I’ll carry you in.”

  Mick’s hands stilled. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  Again, accepting favors wasn’t her thing, but then, neither was plunging naked into three feet of ice water. “Why would you do that?”

  “I’m a gentleman?” His voice was dry.

  She eyed him skeptically but started refastening the buttons she had undone. She could already feel the cold snaking over the little bit of skin she had exposed. Whatever his reason, she wasn’t about to say no.

  “Chivalry is not dead, huh?” she quipped.

  “Yeah, well, given your body size, the cold water is going to affect you a lot faster than it will me, and if you pass out or something, I’m going to be stuck dealing with you.” Now that, as a practical bit of self-interest, she understood and could accept. “Or I guess I could just leave you to freeze, but then my conscience might bother me. Here, take these.” Straightening, he passed her two guns: hers and a gleaming Sig Sauer. Clearly he wasn’t worried about her shooting him. He had reason: at this point, they had no choice but to trust each other. She was so pleased to get the weapo
ns that she barely even noticed that he was now totally naked. Well, she did register in passing that he had a great body. And that he was generously endowed. Actually the thought that flickered through her brain was, Wow, he’s hung.

  Even as she had the thought, the sizzling heat that he had engendered in her before shot to the surface again before shimmying through her bloodstream clear down to her toes.

  “Anyway, having one of us overcome with lust is enough of a complication,” he added. It took Mick a second, but then she realized he’d caught her giving him the eye.

  Fortunately, she never blushed. “You wish.”

  “Nah, right now I don’t need the distraction. But if you want to check me out like that again later, we can probably work something out.”

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  “We’ll see.” He passed her his phone. “Hang on to this.”

  Mick was so stoked to find herself with the phone and both weapons in her possession that she responded to that last bit of needling with no more than a scathing look and stowed all three items safely away in the coat’s cavernous pockets, which, incidentally, also contained her handcuffs. When she looked up again, he was dropping his boxers on the pile of clothes, which he then quickly wrapped up in a man’s ratty gray sweater, knotting the sleeves so that it formed a bundle.

  “Probably we should hurry this up,” she said.

  “Here.” He passed her a huntsman’s folding knife, maybe six inches long but sturdy, the blade out and gleaming in the moonlight. “Keep this handy. We’ll need it to cut the boat free of the anchor. Get the wheel in position.”

  With an uneasy glance in the direction of their pursuers—the nearest Jet Ski was flying along the curve of the adjoining cove—she tucked the knife inside the coat’s breast pocket, careful to keep it easily accessible. She then stepped up to the wheel, turning it so that the boat would head at an easterly angle out into the lake.

  “You want to fix this so it’s stable?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “Hold it steady.” Coming up beside her (she resolutely ignored his nakedness, although there was not a thing in the world she could do about her quickening pulse), he shoved the broken broom handle through the spokes of the steering wheel so that it was wedged in place. “Take these. Keep them dry.”

  “These” referred to the bundle of clothes. Hooking it from the mate’s seat with one hand, he handed it to her. Using the knotted sleeves as a makeshift strap, Mick slung it over her shoulder like a purse.

  “Okay.” She shot another anxious look at the racing Jet Ski in the next cove. Out in the lake, the helicopter and its followers were getting way too close for her peace of mind. “We need to go. You get in the water, I’ll shove the throttles forward and join you, we cut the rope and that’s it.”

  “You just want to see me suffer.” He was already heading toward the stern, the light jacket he’d taken off earlier in his hands.

  “What are you doing?” Waiting to set the throttles until he was in the water, because she had no idea how long the anchor would hold with the engine pulling at full power against the rope, she followed him with her gaze. Involuntarily she registered the most annoying of a jumble of reactions that popped into her mind, which was, in two words, Nice ass.

  “Taking care of business.” As he spoke, he wrapped the suitcase in the jacket, tied the sleeves tightly in an apparent bid to hold the suitcase closed, picked up the bundle and heaved it toward shore. Mick watched the flexing of the truly impressive muscles in his arms and back with appreciation tinged with indignation that deepened when, after the bundle landed safely in the snow, he followed up with a fist pump.

  “You’re worried about money at a time like this?”

  “Hell, yeah. I’m always worried about money.”

  The Jet Ski in the next cove was riding its nearer curve now.

  “Think we ought to concentrate instead on getting off this boat?”

  “Next item on the agenda.” He looked back at her. “I’m going in. Make it fast.”

  “Like a speeding bullet. Go.”

  Climbing over the gunwale, he disappeared from view. Hearing the splash of his landing, she winced in instinctive sympathy as she pictured him being swallowed up by all that cold, black water. With a quick, reflexive glance at the fast-closing Jet Ski, she shoved the throttles to full power. The engine roared. The boat lunged forward like a leashed dog catching sight of a squirrel. Luckily it stopped short after just a few inches, which meant that the anchor was doing its job. Darting toward the stern, stripping off her makeshift mittens and tucking them in a pocket as she went so that they wouldn’t impede her as she cut the rope, she felt the deck throb beneath her feet. With so much power pulling at it, she feared the rope wouldn’t hold for long. As she had expected, she saw as she reached the gunwale, the boat was straining at the anchor, and the rope stretched taut from the clamp that secured it to the gunwale until it disappeared beneath the obsidian surface.

  “Come on.” His face a pale oval in the dark, he raised his voice to be heard above the motor. Waist deep in eddying water, he held his arms up to her as she flung her legs over the side. Clutching the makeshift bag of clothes with one arm, she put her hand on the sturdy shelf of his broad, bare shoulder then half leaned, half fell, forward into his arms. They closed around her, warm and tight, clasping her close against his chest, juggling her mere inches above the lapping water even as he staggered a little to keep his balance. God, he was strong. Good thing, too. Her face brushed his; she felt the scrape of the stubble on his chin, smelled the warm scent of what she guessed was soap and man.

  “Yo. Heavier than I expected.”

  “Thanks a lot.” Her indignation changed to alarm as he staggered again. “Good God, don’t drop me!”

  “Tempting, I have to admit.”

  Under other circumstances she would have done more than give him a dirty look. “Are you going to stand around making jokes, or are we going to do this?”

  By way of an answer he grimaced and executed a careful sideways shuffle, seeming to feel his way along the bottom, which she guessed was icy, inches-thick mud. Clinging to him like Velcro to cloth, Mick hitched herself as high up in his arms as she could. Instead of letting her feet dangle, she had to stick them straight out to keep them out of the lake. Curling her toes in an effort not to lose the too-big boots, she looked around for the rope, which was by now just a few feet away, visibly vibrating from the amount of pressure it was under. Snow drifted down, soft flakes instantly melting where they touched. Glancing at the water—inky waves undulated maybe two inches below where she thought her butt hung—she shivered and scrabbled for the knife in her pocket as he negotiated the remaining distance. Without the protection of the boat, the wind was biting. The water temperature had to be nearly unbearable.

  “Cut the rope.” His words were terse. She knew he had to be dying of cold, and winced in sympathy even as he took the last, rocky step needed to bring her close enough to the rope to do as he told her. Hooking an arm tight around his neck and leaning as far sideways as she dared, she applied the blade to the fraying cotton with desperate vigor. Cold seemed to rise up from the water as well as swirl in with the wind. His bare skin was the only thing in her orbit that exuded even the tiniest bit of warmth. Everything else, the air, the knife, the softly falling snow, felt glacial. The smell of the lake—more oily tuna fish now than carp—rose around her. It was mixed with the acrid odor of exhaust from the engine, which blew out in a steady stream of white vapor nearby.

  “Hurry,” he said. There was tension in his voice. She could feel him shivering now, hear the faint click of his teeth chattering, and redoubled her efforts.

  “I’ve almost …”

  Ping.

  Just like that the rope snapped and the Playtime roared away.

  “… got it,” she concluded with relief.

  “Jesus.” As the wake caught him, he staggered. Grabbing at his shoulder, careful not to stab him with th
e knife she still held, Mick thought for a terrible moment that they were both going in the drink. But he kept his footing, and his hold on her, by what miracle of strength and fancy footwork she had no idea.

  Then she saw the second wave.

  “Look out!” Clinging like a barnacle, Mick heaved her body upward as many inches as she could. The surge of water passed a hair’s breadth beneath her to roll on toward the beach. She calculated it had to have immersed him to at least midchest.

  “Damn it, don’t wriggle.” He staggered again, and once again they nearly went down.

  “I couldn’t help it.” Mick held her breath as the issue hung in the balance.

  “Try.”

  The water licked and sloshed beneath her, splashing her with tiny droplets and swirling around him as if he’d been caught in the agitation cycle of a washing machine. She watched his jaw clench, felt him regain his footing, and let out her breath in a big sigh.

  “Way to hang in,” she said.

  “Damn,” he said. “That was close.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” she urged as the lake calmed again.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  He was already heading toward shore, step by careful step. Over his shoulder, she anxiously tracked the Playtime’ s progress. As it rapidly receded into the distance, the boat became no more than a speeding blur in the dark. The sound of its racing engine was lost in the murmur of the surf.

  “The boat?” he asked.

  In just those few seconds that she had looked away, his face had gone chalky, his jaw rigid. He shivered as if tiny tremors were rippling beneath his skin. His arms stayed locked tight around her, but instead of feeling like she was being held in a man’s protective embrace, she realized that his grip had taken on something of the quality of a zombie with rigor mortis. As he trudged forward, Mick got the impression that sheer willpower was all that was keeping him going. His voice had acquired a hoarse, gravelly quality, which she knew must have been due to the cold.