Forgive & Forget (Love in the Fleet)

by Ashby, Heather

  “I love it out here where I have control over my world,” Philip said as they motored out of the marina. “You know, a sailboat is a lot like life. I can’t control the wind or the water, but I can manipulate the sails and work with whatever the weather throws at me.”

  He laughed a genuine laugh. Perfect, white teeth flashing. The kind where she knew the laughter reached his eyes behind his sexy sunglasses. Wait. It wasn’t the sunglasses that were sexy. It was him. Those incredible shoulders stretched out a faded blue T-shirt that hung over board shorts. Long, tan, muscular legs. Boat shoes. No socks. Sweet. A Ralph Lauren ad with the perfect sailor boy.

  Hallie was in a crapload of trouble now. Had she bitten off more than she could chew with her little charade? This was a really nice man, the kind of guy she might hurt if she just disappeared. And did she want to disappear? Not so much anymore. Hallie hadn’t felt this comfortable around a man in a long time. Maybe never. Except for Rebecca’s dad. Like her Uncle Pete, Philip made her feel safe. And respected. He was quality. He was a gentleman.

  An officer and a gentleman. From her ship.

  Reality stabbed her in the solar plexus. No way could she see this guy again. Somehow she’d have to let him down easy. Her experience with men in the past had been that they would eventually stop thinking with their brains and show their true colors. Maybe if she gave Philip enough time, he’d—what did they call it in the commissioned ranks when an officer messed up? Fall on his sword? That would give her a valid excuse for not dating him again. Her heart fluttered in her chest when she realized she wanted to continue to see him.

  “You must have grown up sailing,” she said, untangling lines.

  “Not really. My parents were originally from Oklahoma, so they were more into football. I started sailing in college with Sky, my roommate at the Naval Academy. He’s a helicopter pilot over at the Air Station and since we’re both here for the spring and half the summer, we joined this boat club.”

  Philip pulled out a battered, straw cowboy hat and cocked it on his head, giving the Ralph Lauren model a Marlboro-Man-goes-to-the-America’s-Cup makeover.

  “Nice hat, Cowboy.”

  “I come by it honestly. My dad always wore jeans and boots and a cowboy hat when he wasn’t in uniform. His call sign was ‘Spurs’ if that tells you anything.”

  Her heart hitched.

  Call sign.

  “He was a Navy pilot. He’s retired now, but they all have call signs—the name they go by when they’re flying. Usually some funny story behind how they got them.” He held up both palms in surrender. “I have no idea why his nickname was Spurs and I don’t want to know. He sent me this hat for Christmas one year and it’s been my lucky sailing hat ever since.”

  “So he flew airplanes?” Dumb question. As opposed to what?

  “Yeah, P-3 Orions. Big four-engine propeller jobs used for anti-submarine warfare and reconnaissance. He and Sky love to get together and shoot the bull.”

  Whew. Not F-14 Tomcats. “How about we pony up and hit the trail?” She gave him a little giddy-up click and a wink as she helped him unfurl the sails.

  Together they raised the mainsail and headed out into the St. Johns River. Philip nodded his approval and seemed impressed that Hallie knew how to manage the sails. The breeze kissed her face and ruffled her hair as they headed up the river and under the Buckman Bridge, passing the Naval Air Station, quiet on a Sunday morning.

  “So is this what sailors do on their day off?” Hallie asked.

  “This is so different from what I do all day long—or all night long on a bad day. Here, I am out in the fresh air and sunshine. It certainly doesn’t smell like oil—or sewage.” Philip’s mouth curved into a crooked smile. He was so much more relaxed than last night, joking about sewage today.

  “But you like your job, don’t you?”

  “I love taking things apart and fixing them. My dad tried to talk me into flying, but it didn’t interest me. ”

  Extra points for you.

  “Whenever he used to take me to the airfield to hang around his squadron, I was always more interested in how the aircraft worked than flying them. I’m just not a flyboy kind of guy.”

  Good. Hallie wouldn’t be there otherwise.

  “Water is my thing.” He waved his arm indicating the sailboat and the sparkling water of the river. “Sailing, swimming, and ships. My mom was a competitive swimmer and she introduced me to it when I was little. I competed all the way through school, even at the Academy. I still swim whenever I can.”

  That explained his incredible shoulders. Hallie reached for the sunscreen, then whipped off her T-shirt, exposing her bikini top—and much more.

  Attention. On. Deck.

  Desire punched Philip squarely in the gut. Never had he seen a more perfect female body—and he had spent a lot of time around women in bathing suits. But none of them compared to this woman. Or this bathing suit. Usually when a woman was tall and slender, she had small breasts to match her build. Maybe Hallie had stepped into the wrong boob line when they were putting her together, because these babies were all but spilling out of her polka dot bikini top. And there was no question they were the real McCoy. He somehow knew Hallie McCabe was genuine through and through.

  “I love to swim too. Well, just freestyle, you know.” She continued to apply sunscreen to her shoulders and—oh, God—down into her cleavage. Did cleavages sunburn? “What’s your best stroke, Philip?”

  “Breast. I mean, butterfly. I mean, I’m good at breast, but better at butterfly.” Glad he was tan, he felt heat clear to his scalp.

  “Cool.” She indicated the river. “Maybe you can show me a thing or two today.”

  He wasn’t going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole.

  When Hallie bent down to apply lotion to her legs, a lock of her hair slipped free and curled down over her right eyebrow. She mindlessly pulled it back behind her ear, but it fell again. He’d watched her tuck it numerous times last night. She seemed unaware of how often she did it, or how much it turned him on. Suddenly he understood why Muslim women covered their hair. This golden tendril was that seductive.

  Hallie finger-combed it back, then piled her long, sun-kissed hair onto the top of her head and handed him the bottle of sunscreen. “Would you mind putting some of this on my back?”

  His breath caught. Sky’s voice tickled his ear: “Think of it as an engraved invitation.” Philip hissed shut up to his brain as he took the proffered bottle. He rubbed sunscreen into the baby-soft skin of her perfect back—above and below two sets of skimpy strings that separated him from nirvana—and struggled to keep his groans to himself. How easy it would be to pull those strings and slide his hands around to caress her polka dots. Yeah, like he’d ever do that. He slid his thumbs down her backbone to the top of her shorts. Or he could just slip his fingers down inside. Wait, what the hell was wrong with him? Shoulders. Stick with her shoulders.

  “Mmmm. That feels so good,” Hallie mumbled. “I haven’t had a good backrub in ages.”

  Philip leaned in closer, rubbing lotion into her neck. “You must be studying too hard. Your muscles are in knots.”

  He caught a whiff of something fruity in her hair, which combined with the coconut in the sunscreen served to thicken the blood in his veins. He’d probably never drink a pina colada again without thinking of this moment. Remembering himself, he backed off and capped the sunscreen. “That should keep you safe for a few hours.”

  At least from the sun.

  He went back to fiddling with the sails, hoping she hadn’t seen her effect on him.

  Hallie reached for the bottle of sunscreen and looked at him expectantly. “Your turn.”

  “Oh, no, that’s okay; I don’t burn,” gushed from his mouth too quickly. Not only was that true, but he wasn’t ready for her hands on
his body. Not yet.

  She pointed to his shirt. “Peel. Everyone needs sunscreen. It’s not even the damage now you have to worry about. Skin cancer may not show up for years. There are lots of people making foolish mistakes in their twenties that they’ll pay for later.”

  He pulled off his shirt, bared his back to her, and hoped he didn’t make a foolish mistake in his twenties, like exploding on contact. “I suppose you’ve reported on this.”

  “As a matter of fact, I have. And I got an A.” She began to apply the lotion to his back, “Let’s get this on you before you burn to a crisp and regret it later. Maybe years later.”

  He barely heard her talking now.

  “Basal cell carcinoma…middle layer epidermis…melanoma…”

  The cool, slick feel of her palms on his skin shot straight to his groin and he wondered just what he might regret today—the hell with years from now. The sunscreen wasn’t protecting him from anything. As a matter of fact, it made things a whole lot worse. It was all he could do not to groan out loud as her thumbs worked their magic into each tender muscle.

  Stopping at the base of his neck, she teased and probed. “Aha, you’ve been working too hard as well. It always shows up in the neck.”

  She dug into his shoulder muscles, pulling and slipping and pushing. Unintelligible grunts of pleasure slipped out of him. He didn’t know which felt better, Hallie touching him or someone kneading away his tension. Philip forced himself to think about quadratic equations and the sewage intake valve on the ship.

  Anything but her hands on his body.

  “Thanks, Hallie. That’s good.” He twisted away from her. “I better concentrate on sailing before we capsize.” Or I take you right here on the deck of this sailboat.

  He redirected. “Hey, how about getting me a water bottle?”

  Philip might get a moment’s respite if she would turn away to the cooler, because he certainly needed cooling off.

  Unfortunately, he looked back at the wrong moment and caught her reaching into the cooler. Her perfect ass leaning over in those shorts—could you even call those things shorts?

  He closed his eyes to block out what his primal brain was trying to tell him was beneath them. No. Forget it. That made it even worse.

  Philip went back to equations.

  They sailed for several hours, mindful of storm clouds to the east. Mostly they chatted about their boating experiences. Often they remained comfortably quiet, enjoying the sunlight sparkling on the water and the slap of the waves on the hull. Philip shared tales of growing up in a Navy family and moving around the world. Hallie talked about growing up with her mom and her cousin’s parents. What a strong woman her mom had been up until breast cancer took her four years ago.

  “Sorry to hear that, Hallie. What about your dad?”

  Hallie bit back bile, swallowed, and composed herself. “He was never really in my life. Thank God I had my aunt and uncle. I don’t know what I would’ve done without them when Mom got sick. They took care of everything, including me.”

  Instinctively, she ducked her head and continued talking as Philip brought the boom around. “My Uncle Pete is awesome. He has always been a dad to both Rebecca and me. He taught us to sail and how to throw a baseball—like boys—and took us to Orioles games every summer. Mostly, I love him because I know I can count on him.”

  She glanced out at the horizon, lost in good memories of Uncle Pete—which helped take the sting out of thinking about her asshole father.

  She reigned in her attention, stood, and reached for the sails. “Hey, let’s drop anchor. You want to take a dip?”

  “No, thanks. I am one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  A wry smile tugged at Philip’s lips as he pulled in the sails. “My buddies are always teasing me about being a dip. A nerd. A geek. They call me Bill Gates.”

  She knew it. “Nicknames can be hurtful. I should know. I had nicknames in high school that mortified me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. But ours is all in good fun. It’s kind of like a pilot’s call sign. You don’t get to pick your Navy nickname, so you might as well be happy with the one you get.”

  Philip finished furling the sails, then sat across from her, and spread his long arms along the gunwale with his foot propped on his knee. He grinned, showcasing beautiful white teeth, his broad shoulders and chest now fully exposed to her.

  “Poor Sky got the nickname ‘Skylark’ because he got so many demerits for skylarking at the Academy. That means not paying attention. Or getting caught daydreaming.”

  Hallie knew what skylarking meant and she was doing it right now as he rambled on about his buddies. Because she was taking in Philip’s naked swimmer’s torso for the first time and, besides his well-developed physique, Philip had a happy trail. She’d also heard it called a treasure trail, but either way she could only imagine the happy treasure at the end of the trail of hair from his navel down to his…Hallie could do the math. Tall man. Long arms, legs, fingers, toes, and—

  Long officer’s arms, legs, fingers, toes, and—

  From her ship. That snapped her back to the present. “Hopefully you’ll end up making as much money as Bill Gates.”

  “That used to be my reply, but I gave up on it years ago. I got the nickname at the Academy and it follows me wherever I go. Truth be told, I guess I am kind of geeky. I’m not much of a party guy.” His face brightened. “Although there is a party at my Captain’s house on Saturday. It’s more a social obligation than anything else. Would you like to go?”

  Adrenaline shot straight to her gut.

  A party at his Captain’s house? Which meant her Captain’s house. And gee, wouldn’t it be fun to chat with her boss, Commander Scott, while they sipped cocktails and nibbled on appetizers? Not freaking likely.

  “Sorry, Philip. I have a big paper due the following week. I really need to work on it all weekend.”

  “Does that mean you wouldn’t be up for sailing again next Sunday?”

  A smile lit Hallie’s face. “Now that I think I could manage, especially if I work hard the rest of this week. Tell you what. Let’s plan on sailing next Sunday and if you get home early from the party Saturday night give me a call. Surely I can take a study break—but only if it involves a glass of wine.”

  “Deal,” he said.

  Hallie stood and peeled off her shorts. “Come on, Cowboy. Let’s see you swim.”

  The water was chilly for mid-June. Philip struck out with a strong freestyle stroke and left her in his wake. He swam back underwater until he popped up, surprising her. Her mouth eased into a smile she couldn’t control as he playfully splashed her.

  “Thanks for coming today, Hallie. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Me too.” Suddenly the water didn’t feel quite so cold.

  She begged him to demonstrate his butterfly stroke and was it ever beautiful. Oh, how he could cut the water. Those powerful shoulders twisting and turning, his long, strong arms pounding the water between breaths. The upper half of his body rocketing out of the river, as he stroked away from her. For a second she imagined those long, strong arms stroking her. And as to the pounding? Her nipples hardened and it had nothing to do with the temperature of the water. Then reality reared its ugly head.

  Step away from the officer—or would that be swim away?

  The storm clouds continued to move in, so they headed home. About halfway back the heavens opened, drenching them. Philip tied his hat on Hallie’s head, as if that was going to do any good, but she was touched by the gesture. She had trouble pulling in the mainsail because the wind kept blowing it out, so Philip took over and let the wind take them back under sheets of rain. He gave Hallie the tiller and seemed impressed with her sixth sense as they tacked their way through the storm.

  Drenched to the
bone, once they reached the marina, Hallie laughed as she ran under the eaves. Dripping wet, she removed his hat, shook it off, and handed it to him. “Here’s your hat, Cowboy.”

  Philip gave her a look that licked her body.

  He dropped the hat on the ground, slid his sunglasses into his wet hair, and pulled her gently to him. Angling his head, he kissed her slowly and tenderly. Rain poured down around them, splashing at their feet. Water trickled down their faces, making the kiss even more sensual.

  He slid his fingers through her wet hair and gently tipped her head backward, cradling it in his hand. The first swipe of his tongue took her breath away. She returned the caresses. Slow. And deep. His mouth was firm, his lips soft. Urgency shot through her when be backed her against the wall. He pressed his soaking wet body to hers, but did not move further, even though the treasure at the end of his happy trail had apparently voted to take things to the next level.

  Philip broke the kiss and rested his forehead on hers. “I’m sorry. But as somebody so eloquently put it, I’ve wanted to do that all afternoon.”

  “Me too,” she whispered before reigniting the kiss. Philip complied willingly. Her hands dug into his hair pulling him closer. Glad her back was to the wall, Hallie felt as if her knees might buckle.

  A low moan slipped past her lips. What was she doing? She had no business kissing this man. But then his tongue delved into her mouth, sweeping away all the rules. His stubble scoured her chin, but Hallie didn’t care. Nothing in the world mattered except this kiss.

  Lightning flashed and they jumped apart. The thunder that immediately followed shook the deck and vibrated the air around them. Philip grabbed her hand and pulled her around the corner into the building. A pulse throbbed in his neck as he fought to catch his breath. “Is it my imagination or did the earth just shake with that kiss?”

  Hallie willed her heart to stop racing and answered with a good-natured smile. “Not bad for Bill Gates.”