Breathless Encounter: Breathless EncounterThe Dark Side of Night

by Cindy Dees

  “A hundred? Good grief, how deep can you go?”

  “World-class free divers go up to 265 or so meters down. Of course, they have to use weights and fins to get there and back on a single breath.”

  “And I suppose you can do better, can’t you?” she asked in resignation.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “What’s the world record for breath-holding underwater?” she asked curiously.

  “Around eleven and a half minutes. But the difference between those folks and me is I’m fully functional for that long. They have to sit still and let their bodies mostly shut down.”

  “The thought of being underwater that long makes me ill.”

  He reached up to squeeze her shoulder sympathetically. “You had a bad scare. It takes time to get over it. And this is a good start.”

  “What is?”

  “You’re sitting by the water, kicking around in it, getting wet.”

  “I got hot waiting for you.”

  His mouth quirked as a blush climbed her neck. He didn’t compound her embarrassment by commenting on her verbal slip.

  “What are the odds I could get you to slip into the water?” She tensed beneath his hand and he added hastily, “I’m not talking about actually swimming. Just floating next to the deck. You can even hang on to it the whole time. I’ll be right beside you.”

  “I don’t think so….”

  “Sunny, the longer you refuse to face your fear, the more it will grow in your mind until it becomes something insurmountable. I’m not suggesting you throw on scuba gear and head for the ocean’s depths. I’m just suggesting you start taking baby steps toward overcoming your fear.”

  “But why? Plenty of people live perfectly productive and normal lives without ever coming within a hundred miles of an ocean.”

  “But they’re not you. If I’m not mistaken, a large portion of your life has centered around water. Do you really want to give up that part of yourself for good?”

  “Quit being so reasonable,” she complained.

  He sat up beside her. Slipped back into the water. “C’mon. You don’t even have to leave the deck,” he coaxed. “Just scoot forward until your legs are all the way in the water.”

  She slid a few inches closer to the edge of the deck. Her expression was apprehensive. He treaded water easily in front of her until her frown relaxed. “Roll on your stomach, sweetheart. Lay on the deck and let your hips slide into the water.”

  He moved in close and put an arm on either side of her, gripping the dock until he created a human safety net around her. The position had the fringe benefit of giving him a great view of her juicy tush. No doubt about it, Sunny had a great figure. Slowly, she rolled to her stomach and eased deeper into the water.

  Of her own free will, she slid nearly to her waist into the sea. And then, very slowly, she eased fully into the water. She maintained a death grip on the edge of the deck, though, and he stayed right behind her, their bodies nearly touching.

  “Are you okay?” he murmured.

  “Getting there,” she gritted out.

  They floated together in silence for several minutes. He’d give anything to know what she was thinking about, but she didn’t share. Eventually, she pulled herself toward the deck.

  “Had enough?” he asked.

  She nodded jerkily. He submerged below her, grabbed her by the waist and gave a mighty kick upward, launching her up onto the deck easily. He surfaced and hoisted himself up beside her.

  They lay there in silence so companionable it hurt. How could someone who felt so right to him be so damned wrong for him?

  “Same time tomorrow?” he murmured.

  “For what?”

  “Another swimming lesson.” She tensed beside him, and he added, “I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to, Sunny.”

  She relaxed fractionally.

  “You have to admit I don’t make a half-bad personal lifeguard.”

  That made her smile. “I suppose not.”

  Her smile tore his heart into little pieces. Dammit, he couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t stay all breezy and casual when what he really wanted to do was throw her down and make love to her until she confessed she couldn’t live without him any more than he could her.

  He popped to his feet and jerked a towel around his waist. “Tomorrow, then.”

  * * *

  Sunny stared at Aiden’s retreating back. What had she done to make him so grouchy? They’d been talking and happy, and then all of a sudden, he just scowled and took off.

  His abrupt rejection was almost too painful for her to stand. She retreated to her room to shower off the salt water and lick her emotional wounds, but she found no relief in her tiny stateroom. She longed to be with Aiden every moment she was apart from him, and she dreaded his departure every moment she was with him.

  She had to find something to do to distract herself. She was too tense to read, and she’d never been the type to browse magazines. The yacht had a good collection of movies, and she headed for the rec room where those were stored. Too bad she couldn’t work on her own movie—

  Why not? This ship supposedly had the very latest in computer technology. She headed for the bridge and the ship’s communication officer. The guy was a sweetie and hooked her up with a computer and monitor tucked away in a corner of the bridge so she could start editing her raw film footage. She plugged her camera into the front of the computer and loaded up the first memory card.

  She was engrossed in cataloging a graphic scene of dolphins struggling to free themselves from fishing nets to surface and breathe when a male voice behind her exclaimed, “What the hell is that?”

  She looked up at the sailor, surprised. “Dolphins drowning.”

  “God, that’s awful.”

  “Welcome to the commercial fishing industry. You ought to see what Japanese sailors do to the dolphins they catch. This is nothing.”

  “People like that ought to be rounded up and shot,” the man declared.

  “That’s why I’m making this film. To get the public angry enough to take action.”

  The guy pulled up a chair beside hers. “What else have you got?”

  “I think the next sequence isn’t quite so unpleasant. What’s your name? Mine’s Sunny.”

  “Everybody on the Nymph knows who you are. And I’m Grisham.”

  “That your first name or last?” she asked.

  “It’s just Grisham.”

  She sensed a story but didn’t push for more. He didn’t look like the type to share his life story at the drop of a hat.

  An underwater film sequence came up of thousands of small fish darting around the camera. The silver flashes created a mesmerizing dance as they dashed one direction and another in perfect synchronization.

  “Did you film this?” Grisham asked.

  She nodded, remembering how happy she’d been that afternoon. How at peace in the sea. The contrast to today’s earlier dip in the ocean was shocking. She murmured, “I was documenting the food chain. These herring are plankton eaters and in turn are eaten by midsize predatory fish.”

  “Nice,” the sailor commented. “I’d keep some of that for your final film.”

  Assuming she ever got the funding to compile the darned thing. She still had no voice-overs, no interviews and a ton of statistical research left to do. It would take thousands of dollars to make a finished film happen. And at the moment, she had little more than the clothes on her back to her name. Were it not for Aiden’s generosity, she’d be basically broke and homeless.

  Being so dependent on another person made her extremely nervous. And it didn’t help that she’d slept with the guy. The whole thing smelled like some sort of tawdry trade of sex for room and board. She didn’t think for a second th
at was what it was, but the appearance of it made her wince. Still. It was yet another reason she should never have jumped in the sack with Aiden McKay...no matter how hot he was.

  Aiden was right. They never should have hooked up with each other. But how she was going to keep her hands off him going forward, she wasn’t quite sure. She had self-discipline, but resisting the pull between them was going to be a Herculean task. Hopefully, he had lost all interest in her after she insisted on knowing the truth about him, and there would be no sparks between them going forward. He’d been polite but definitely distant this morning.

  She felt a presence behind her and knew instantly that it was Aiden. Her skin tingled and her entire body felt energized. She couldn’t resist glancing over at him and caught him scowling at her. Their gazes met for just an instant. But it was enough. Her pulse leaped and her insides went liquid and needy. Dammit. She was in huge trouble.

  “What’s this?” Aiden demanded.

  What was his problem? But then Grisham slid his chair several inches away from hers, and it hit her. Aiden didn’t like the sailor cozying up beside her watching her film footage. Well, that was just tough. If Aiden wasn’t going to keep her for himself, then he didn’t have any say in who else she got chummy with. She smiled brightly at Grisham.

  “Ready for another nasty sequence? In the next bit, I used a telephoto lens to capture a Japanese fleet that was shark fishing. Or shark finning, to be more accurate.”

  Grisham made a face. “I’ve heard about it. I’ll pass on watching it.” He got up and moved away from her monitor. Although whether it was the horrifying film or Aiden that drove him away, she wasn’t quite sure.

  She watched film footage well into the evening. The chef sent up a plate for her, and it was closing in on midnight when the footage she’d shot in the rainstorm came up on the screen. Her eyes were gritty, and the gray fog enveloping a distant fishing boat didn’t make the footage any easier to make out. This footage was a bust. It was of far too low quality to salvage anything for a film. She yawned and pressed the button to fast-forward past the footage.

  But from behind her, Steig, who was pulling a bridge shift, barked, “Wait!”

  She looked up, startled.

  “What was that on your screen?”

  Surprised, she answered, “That was just a bunch of rain and some fuzzy fishing boats in the distance. I think they were whalers. I tried to shoot them because I was surprised to see them so far north in such warm waters.”

  “Go back. Let me see them again.” The Swede bent down over her shoulder to peer at her monitor.

  “What’s so interesting?” she asked.

  He answered absently, “That’s not a fishing boat.”

  She stared at the fuzzy image anew. Now that he mentioned it, the rigging extending out from the sides of the vessel didn’t hold the lines and nets that went with deep-sea fishing. They looked more like...antennae?

  “Can we enhance this image?” he asked.

  “I have no idea. This is your computer equipment. A good film studio could probably enhance the pixilation and get a clearer image.”

  “Or a good photo intelligence analysis program,” he replied.

  “Don’t government agencies use those?” she asked.

  “Yes. Or well-equipped yachts out hunting for pirates.” He grinned. “Let me call up Grisham and see what he can do with those images. He’s our resident computer wizard.”

  In short order, her earlier film-watching buddy was hunched over his computer, typing rapidly. “It’ll take a couple of hours to run the program, but I can push the pixilation.”

  “Do it,” Steig ordered. “If you want to go catch a nap, Sunny, now would be a good time. You must be getting tired after all those hours working on your film.”

  He was not wrong. She headed wearily for her cabin, but her steps faltered as she passed by Aiden’s room. What she wouldn’t give to crawl into his bed and into his arms for a cuddle. With a sigh, she continued on to her own room and her lonely bed. Would they ever get past their respective hang-ups and find a way to be together?

  Chapter 8

  “Wake up, Sunny!”

  She jerked awake, disoriented. She’d been dreaming about eating chocolate with her third-grade crush, Tommy Spencer. “Huh? What? Are pirates attacking?” she mumbled.

  It was Aiden, not Tommy, looming over her bed. And he looked more gorgeous than any man had a right to. He said impatiently, “You need to come up to the bridge.”

  “Why?” She all but fell out of bed and stumbled to her feet, vividly aware that she must look like Frankenstein’s bride right about now.

  “We identified that ship you filmed. And it’s not a whaler.”

  She grabbed her jeans and the last of the T-shirts the crew had donated to her and retreated to the bathroom to change. “What is it?” she called out.

  “It’s a surveillance ship.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Just what it sounds like. A spy vessel for a government.”

  “What government?”

  “We don’t know. It’s unmarked.”

  She yanked a hairbrush through her tangled locks and threw on mascara fast. Since when had she become such a cosmetics junkie? Irritated with herself, she asked, “What’s it spying on?”

  “That’s what we’re hoping you can tell us.”

  She burst out of her bathroom, staring at him in dismay. “How am I supposed to know?”

  Aiden merely stared at her grimly.

  She stepped fully into the bedroom. “You don’t seriously think I’m a spy of some kind, do you?”

  His jaw rippled.

  “Aiden! That’s crazy. I’m no more a spy than—” She broke off. She’d been about to say, than he was. But given his superhero skills and all his talk about serving mankind and being one of the good guys, it was entirely possible he worked clandestinely for the U.S. government. “Than a fish in the ocean,” she finished lamely.

  He turned silently and led the way to the bridge. She followed in trepidation. Did they all think she was a spy now, sent to infiltrate their yacht and...do what? Collect their names and send them to the bad guys? Suss out the capabilities of the Sea Nymph and pass them to her employers?

  Or maybe they thought this was about Gemma’s secret research. But if they thought foreign governments would go after the doctor’s work, the next obvious question was, what else hadn’t Aiden told her about

  Gemma’s work that could scare an entire country?

  She stepped onto the bridge. A cluster of men crowded around a computer screen, studying it intently.

  Steig glanced up at her. “Come have a look at this. Can you identify it?”

  She looked at the screen and gasped. The black

  narrow-prowed ship bristled with antennae and satellite dishes loosely draped with cargo netting. “That looks like the ship that ran down my boat!”

  “It’s an intelligence-gathering and surveillance ship,” Aiden supplied. “We think it’s Russian but are waiting for final confirmation on that. Where did you film this?”

  Sunny frowned. “I didn’t write down GPS coordinates to go with each memory card. I just shot my film.”

  “I need you to figure it out,” Aiden said soberly.

  “Well, it was raining. When was the last time it rained out here?”

  There was a brief pause while Grisham accessed the ship’s weather logs on a computer. Apparently, the Sea Nymph recorded such things as a matter of course. And didn’t she just feel like a completely inadequate sailor now?

  Grisham called out, “Ten days ago, if we’re talking the Gulf of Aden.”

  Sunny thought back. “I was farther south than the gulf, closer to the Horn of Africa.”

  “Then that would put this fil
ming...fifteen days ago,” the computer technician replied.

  It had rained the day before she sailed over her parents’ last-known coordinates. And that had, indeed, been about two weeks ago. “This was filmed in the vicinity of where my parents went down at sea. I had the exact coordinates of their last-position report written down. Unfortunately, my logbook went down with the New Dawn, so I don’t have any way to get the location for you.”

  Sober silence met her comment. Aiden asked quietly, “What was the name of your parents’ ship?”

  “The Sunshine Girl.” The name stuck in her throat. Her parents had named their boat after her. Through a haze of tears she saw Aiden nod at Grisham, who typed again on his computer. She beat the tears back, but it wasn’t a pretty fight, and she sniffed louder than she would have liked to.

  She hated crying in front of these tough, disciplined soldier types. It made her feel weak and incompetent. Although, she was operating on practically no sleep, Aiden was making her crazy and people were trying to kill them. She supposed she was authorized to be a tiny bit weepy.

  “I’ve got the coordinates from the Somalian Coast Guard search-and-rescue order,” Grisham announced.

  Aiden asked her with blessedly impersonal briskness, “What direction did you have to sail from filming this footage to get to your parents’ grave?”

  She thought back. She’d been upset enough at approaching her parents’ resting spot that those few days pretty much blurred together in her mind. “North. I had to sail north to get there.”

  Stieg nodded. “That would have put her toward

  Somalia for sure. In this area. How far did you have to sail to get to your parents’ coordinates?”

  “I don’t know. Twelve hours or so under sail once I cast anchor.”

  Grisham called out, “I’ll pull up the prevailing-wind reports for that day and calculate how far her boat sailed. What did the New Dawn weigh and what was its draft?”

  She provided the technical details on her boat, a little stunned at how efficiently these guys were zeroing in on the location of that fuzzy film footage.