“Maybe.”
Cari wasn’t the only one who caught the withdrawal in Josh’s voice. While she studied his face, Sanders, Sr., sputtered an apology.
“That was real bright of me, wasn’t it? I forgot you’re on your honeymoon. Last thing you’d want to do is give golf lessons.”
Josh’s eye caught Cari’s. His momentary stiffness vanished, replaced by a deliberate, teasing grin. “Well, I can think of one or two other things I’d rather do,” he admitted.
Paul clapped a hand on his grandson’s shoulder. “C’mon, son. Let’s leave these two lovebirds alone.”
Cari’s face flamed as she and Josh righted tumbled crockery, sopped up spilled coffee and tossed soggy rolls overboard for the fish.
“Interesting kid,” Josh commented.
“Think so? He was my dinner partner before you arrived on the scene. My private name for him is Eric the Terrible.”
Josh laughed as he stacked the remains of their picnic breakfast on the tray. “He’s not so bad. Just bored. Hey, you didn’t get anything to eat. Want to go topside and catch what’s left of the buffet?”
“No, I—” She broke off, wincing, when the angry red patch on her thigh accidentally brushed the table edge.
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s nothing. A little spilled coffee landed in my lap, that’s all.”
He walked around the table. “Let me see.”
“No, really. It’s nothing.”
His dark brows snapped together as he took in the blistered patch of skin on the inside of her thigh. “It doesn’t look like nothing from this angle. Sit down. I’ll check the bathroom for first aid supplies.”
“I…”
“Sit down.”
She didn’t protest further, for the simple reason that he had already stepped through the sliding glass doors and headed for the bathroom. And if the truth were told, she’d be happy to put some ointment on the stinging burn.
Josh didn’t give her the chance to doctor herself, however. Hunkering down on one knee in front of her chair, he squeezed a generous dollop of antiseptic cream onto a folded gauze pad.
“Here, this ought to do the trick. Spread your legs a bit.”
Her face as hot as her seared skin, Cari eased her legs apart. Get a grip, O’Donnell, she chided herself. He was only trying to help. There was nothing the least bit sexual about the way he stroked the cream over the burn. No reason to tense as he lightly taped the gauze pad in place.
His hands were gentle, sure, steady. Hers itched to bury themselves in his crisp dark hair.
His breath warmed her already heated skin as he worked. Hers got stuck in her windpipe.
He sat back on his heel, his arm resting on his knee as he surveyed his handiwork, then glanced up at her.
“Feel better?”
Sure. Uh-huh. As if she could feel anything at all, with Josh Keegan parked so intimately between her legs.
“Yes, thank you,” she managed to squeak out.
When he rose and moved back, Cari felt a surge of relief. And the strangest ripple of disappointment. Okay, more than a ripple. A medium-size wave.
“I’d better go change,” she murmured, swiveling the chair away. The movement brought her thighs into contact with each other, and she couldn’t help but wince again.
“Looks like you won’t be strolling through Nassau’s shops this morning,” Josh observed.
“Or. anywhere else.” She sighed, glancing at the colorful palette of pastel-hued buildings lining the bay. “I’m glad I got to explore the island yesterday, since we’re leaving at noon. I’ll just laze in the sun today, and venture ashore when we dock at Saint Thomas tomorrow.”
“Are you sure? We could take a taxi to Paradise Island Casino and try our hand at the tables. You wouldn’t have to walk more than a few steps.”
“The last place I want to visit on this trip is a casino,” she replied with a grin. “Aside from the fact that I don’t have what you’d call a poker face, I have to watch my pennies until I hear about the grant. I only came on this cruise because the prize package covered all expenses.”
“I’ll stake you,” he offered, his gaze holding hers.
“No, thanks. But you ought to go. Even a new groom has to, ah…”
“Come up for air sometime?”
Her cheeks warmed, but Cari pressed her point. “Seriously, Josh, I don’t think we should let this silly marriage business spoil the cruise for either one of us. You go to the casino if you want. I’ll be perfectly content with my book and a deck chair in the sun.”
Josh wasn’t sure which sat worse with him. The idea that marriage to him was spoiling her vacation, or the thought that she’d prefer a book to his company. He wasn’t any more vain than the next man. Or any more stupid. He knew darn well that most of the women who’d made themselves so available during his years on the tour had been drawn more by his media image than by any interest in the man behind the image. Still, Cari’s casual dismissal put a definite dent in his ego.
“Tell you what,” he suggested coolly. “I’ll go up and get you some more breakfast. While you eat, we’ll negotiate our agenda for the rest of the morning.”
* * *
Their negotiations resulted in a compromise. Sensing that Cari was more disappointed than she would admit at missing out on her last few hours on the colorful, bustling Caribbean island, Josh suggested that he rent a car and take her on a driving tour. Her delighted smile and her eagerness for the expedition went a long way toward smoothing over the ding in his ego.
He left her for a few moments to make the necessary arrangements. When he returned, her glowing beauty made him question his judgment. Could he really spend the entire day and the coming night in the company of this vibrant woman without doing something really stupid, like implementing option three?
She’d exchanged her coffee-stained white shorts for a loose skirt in a pale yellow material sprigged with flowers in the same deep indigo as her sleeveless vest. Her hair was tucked under a hat of similar blue, its narrow brim turned up in front and pinned with a huge, artificial sunflower. She clutched an overflowing straw tote in one hand and a heavy leather-bound book in the other.
Josh relieved her of both burdens. “Can you walk, or should I carry you?”
“I can walk. Sort of.” She scrunched her nose. “But you go first. I suspect my bowlegged waddle will not be a pretty sight from behind.”
Grinning, he led the way down the narrow walkway outside their cabin to the hatch amidships. A burly uniformed crewman waited at the gate to the outboard stairs. Enrique. Josh decided he didn’t particularly like the man. Or the way the steward’s gaze slid past Josh and lingered on Cari.
“I brought the launch around for you.” Unhooking the gate in the rail, Enrique swung it open. “These stairs are tricky, yes? Give me your hand, and I will guide you down.”
Josh watched through narrowed eyes as Enrique’s big paw closed around Cari’s hand. The crewman guided her down the narrow steps with a great deal more solicitousness than Josh thought was warranted.
For the second time in the space of an hour, an unfamiliar emotion whipped through him. He’d worked his way past Cari’s blithe willingness to forgo his company earlier, but he suspected he’d have to put some effort into shaking this sudden, fierce sense of possessiveness.
The sight of another man touching Cari disturbed him. Disturbed him, hell. It raised primitive male hackles he’d never known he possessed. Jaw tight, Josh hefted Cari’s straw tote and moved toward the stairs.
“Where are you guys going?”
He turned to find Eric leaning against the bulkhead, both hands shoved in the pockets of his designer shorts.
“For a drive around the island.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Josh hesitated, his desire to get away for a while warring with the obvious boredom on the boy’s face. “What are you and your grandparents doing?”
“Gram wants to go shopping.
She says Granddad and I have to go, too.”
“A drag, huh?”
“You got that right.”
Still Josh hesitated. The kid wasn’t his problem. He and Cari were supposed to be on their honeymoon. They couldn’t be expected to baby-sit a bored, noseringed teen. But Josh remembered his own restless energy at Eric’s age, and knew how much he would have hated being cooped up on a ship full of adults.
“Would you like to come with us?”
From the downward curl of Eric’s lip, Josh was sure he would refuse. Relieved, he half turned, intending to get away before the kid changed his mind.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Oh. Okay. Go clear it with your grandparents. We’ll wait for you here.”
Cari took the teen’s inclusion on the expedition with cheerful goodwill. She never mentioned the burn caused by the dive-bomber soccer ball, which led Josh to eye her with a good deal of respect.
Handed the map and the responsibility for navigation, Eric’s prickliness gradually disappeared. He got them lost several times as they drove through the city, but each twist and turn revealed some new treasure that delighted Cari so much that no one minded the circuitous route.
“Oh, look!” she exclaimed as Josh backed up after yet another wrong turn. “There’s the statue of Captain Woodes Rogers.”
“Weird-looking guy,” Eric muttered, peering a’t the stone figure standing guard outside the pink-and-white British Colonial Hotel.
“Rogers was a South Sea privateer, so scarred from battle that he had only half a face,” Cari explained. “The British king appointed him to subdue the pirates who ruled the Bahamas and restore order.”
“Real pirates? No kidding. Hey, did any of them wear patches, like Josh?”
Josh’s hand tightened on the steering wheel as he remembered his costume the night he’d met Cari—and his offers to play pirate with her. Since last night, the fantasy had gained a real hold in his mind.
“Eye injuries from sword slashes or pistol burns were common in those times,” she answered Eric. “A number of men wore patches.”
“Cool.”
Encouraged by the teen’s interest, she expanded on the topic a bit. “Actually, Nassau used to be known as Charles Town, until the Spanish sacked and burned it in a futile effort to drive out the likes of Blackbeard, Henry Morgan and Anne Boney. The town was rebuilt a year later, and rechristened Nassau in honor of the new king, William III, of Orange-Nassau.”
Eric draped his long, gangly arms over the front seat. “How do you know so much about these guys?”
“It’s my job. I teach history.”
“Yuck.”
“You didn’t think history was so yucky a moment ago,” she replied, laughing.
“Okay, maybe this stuff isn’t so bad. Tell me more about the pirates. Like, did they really force prisoners to sign papers with their own blood? And make them walk the plank? And fly the skull and crossbones on their ships?”
“Yes. No. Yes.”
Leaning an elbow on the opened window, Josh steered along the narrow island roads with one hand and listened to Eric’s peppered questions and Cari’s laughing responses. To his considerable surprise, he found himself as intrigued as the boy with Cari’s lively interpretation of historical events.
He’d been an average student all through high school and college, more interested in sports than academics. Maybe if he’d had a teacher like Cari to snag his interest, he might have achieved something better than his solid, if not spectacular, grade point average.
He slanted her a quick glance.
Who was he kidding? If he’d had a teacher like Cari in high school or college, his hormones would have gone into instant overload and drowned out every word she said. They were pretty close to that now.
He shot her another quick look, wondering how the hell he was going to get through five more nights without touching her.
Hard on the heels of that came another, far more disturbing, thought. How the hell was he going to walk away from her five days from now?
Seven
Thirty-six hours later, Josh was still pondering the implications of his growing fascination with Cari. By this point, the problem had taken on a driving urgency.
Wrapping his palms around the teak rail, he stared out at a midnight sea. The boat rocked gently beneath him, showing only mooring lights, in deference to the late hour. Josh caught a flash of phosphorescence in the distance as a wave curled beyond the entrance to Charlotte Amalie’s harbor. But the quiet beauty of the tropical night did nothing to lessen the tension that had him strung tighter than the anchor line.
He wanted to make love to his wife.
Badly.
So badly he couldn’t spend another moment in their cabin, listening to her thump the mattress and mumble in her sleep.
Yesterday had been sheer hell. Their long drive yesterday morning had been followed by a lazy afternoon aboard ship and a convivial dinner under a canopy of stars. Once Cari got past her shyness and her guilt over deceiving the others, she’d emerged as a bright, articulate dinner partner. One, Josh discovered, who remained completely unaware of her fresh, natural beauty.
Her store of historical trivia had fascinated the other passengers as much as it did Eric and Josh. At the teenager’s urging, she’d entertained them all with lively stories about the rogues who’d sailed these waters. She hadn’t glamorized the buccaneers, but she had balanced their daring and often brutal cruelties against the times, which could have compelled any man to desperate acts. Throughout the impromptu history lesson, she’d been in her element, dreamy and lost in another world at some moments, vibrant with laughter at others.
Josh had ached to take her in his arms when he closed the cabin door behind them after dinner. He’d barely understood his vague, primal need to anchor her in his world, not the swashbuckling era she seemed to prefer. Then he’d lain awake most of the night listening to her mumbly, twitching sleep sounds and devising ever more erotic ways to stifle them.
As bad as yesterday had been, however, today had been worse. Much worse.
With its sophisticated satellite navigation and communications systems, the Nautilus III had made the long sea leg between Nassau and Saint Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands in good time. Early this morning, they’d dropped anchor in the harbor of Charlotte Amalie, which nestled like a pink-and-white birthday cake against the island’s steep green hills. At that point, Josh had made a serious strategic error.
In the face of Cari’s stubborn refusal to let him stake her to a visit to shops filled with every imaginable luxury, he’d suggested a picnic on one of the narrow, pristine white beaches hugging the shoreline. When she convinced him that salt water would aid the healing process of her burn, their picnic had become a snorkeling excursion. Somehow, Eric had ended up joining them…which was all that had saved Cari from being tumbled onto the sand and made hard, hot, furious love to.
Josh dug his nails into the wooden rail as he remembered the sight of her curvaceous legs slicing the green waters just a few feet from his face mask. He was sure he’d see those legs and that firm, rounded bottom in his dreams for the next couple of decades. Watching her delighted exploration of the treasures of the sea, Josh had gone hard with need, so hard he was surprised he hadn’t sunk like a stone to the bottom of the bay. That was the longest, most uncomfortable swim he’d ever endured.
Back aboard the Nautilus III, Cari and Eric had chattered on and on about the fantastically colored coral and fish they’d seen. All the while, Josh had fought the almost overpowering urge to haul her back to their cabin, peel off that old-fashioned bathing suit and ravish her as he had jokingly offered to do.
It wasn’t a joke anymore.
Not that he’d have to resort to silken bonds or teasing torture. Despite the fact that Cari hadn’t given him the least encouragement, she couldn’t disguise her increasing awareness of him, any more than he could hide his desire for her.
The only thing
that kept Josh from climbing in beside her in that endless bed was what would happen when they climbed out of it. Sometime in the past few days, Josh had come to the painful realization he wasn’t interested in a casual, short-lived affair with Cari.
He wanted…more. What, he wasn’t quite sure, but he knew it involved more than a roll in champagne-colored sheets.
Unfortunately, he was fresh out of “mores” to offer her. He had no business speculating about a future that included Cari, when his future was so uncertain. Until he returned to Atlanta and proved just what he could or couldn’t do with this damn patch over his eye, he had no right to disrupt her life…any more than he already had.
Frustration ate at him like old, corrosive acid. Turning away from the beauty of the moonlit sea, he paced the narrow walkway leading from the darkened sun deck to the forward part of the ship. His rubbersoled deck shoes squeaked on the varnished wood, but the faint sound was lost in the lapping of the waves against the hull. As Josh neared the bridge, he caught the greenish glow from navigational instruments and the silhouette of the white-uniformed captain at the communications panel.
“Right, we’ll be there tomorrow night, as scheduled.”
Tomorrow night? By “there,” Josh supposed the captain meant Saint John, the smallest of the U.S. Virgin Islands. They were scheduled to drop anchor and attend some kind of pig roast or something. The day after the pig roast, Josh remembered suddenly, the Nautilus III would cruise to Grand Cayman, the last stop on their itinerary before Cancún.
Josh’s stomach clenched so tightly he missed the captain’s next words. He couldn’t, however, miss the angry curse that followed a few seconds later.
“Dammit, you don’t have to worry about Keegan being aboard. I told you, no one else knows. Don’t get snakebit on me, Salazar. Just make our rendezvous as scheduled.”
Halloween Honeymoon Page 9