I pulled back with all my might, shaking with exertion now, willing her to do it. Tap or ‘stop’, I thought, tap or ‘stop’. I thought I felt blood running down my thigh, and even the thought of it made me dizzy, so I concentrated on the arm I was doing my damnedest to break.
“Stop!” she finally yelled.
I released her immediately and rolled away. My heart was thundering in my chest; I could barely hear the crowd.
Ed swung in through the door, grasped my fist and raised it high over my head. “Winner!” he announced.
We turned in a circle, and then he swung me up and gave me another kiss. I’d felt scattered, but in an instant, he grounded me. And suddenly, we were in our own little world again. There was just him and me, and nothing else mattered. The roar of the crowd faded to a faint buzz, and I forgot about my throbbing knee.
Ed said a lot with that kiss. He told me he was glad that I’d won, glad I was okay. He told me he was proud of me, and maybe—just maybe—that he loved me. He was telling the crowd I was his.
I didn’t mind one bit. I just curled my fingers in his luxurious beard, and held on.
Ed finally pulled back with a growl. Panting, he stared down at me. “That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.
I was thinking I wanted him to carry me off to that big chair of his, where we could find out if it was big enough for two. In fact, my mind was a veritable collage of the ways in which I wanted him. I wanted him to order everyone to leave, to drag me to the floor and take me right here on the mat. I wanted him to splay me out on that gold bar and eat me until I screamed. I wanted him naked except for an apron, and I wanted to find out what sounds he’d make when I scraped my teeth over his nipple. When I called him Guidefather, in bed.
So it took me a moment to process what he’d said, another moment to be surprised, and about three to get my voice to work. “Seriously?” I rasped.
“Yes,” he growled. “When you wrapped your legs around her, when you made her submit…” He closed his eyes and groaned. “You were incredible. Where did you learn that?”
“I’m a cop’s daughter,” I said. He’d enrolled me in every self-defense class and martial art he could since I was old enough to walk, despite my protests. I didn’t take any pleasure in it, and I tended to apologize for each blow that I landed, but I’d definitely learned a few things.
Ed was looking at me like I was the best thing he’d ever seen.
The radio belted to his chest squawked. “Guidefather, this is Four-finger Frank, come in.”
Ed freed one of his hands to key his mic. “Yeah.”
I flexed my leg, remembering the bite on the back of my knee. I winced in pain, and wondered how bad it was. But of course I didn’t want to look…
“Boss, that blond dude just took off outta here in your sister’s boat. He’s headed up your way, moving fast.”
Ed’s eyes locked with mine.
“We think he’s got the nugget,” the man finished.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Knee bite be damned. I shot across the ring.
“Open the gate!” Ed called behind me.
I slipped through the growing opening with not an inch to spare. “Outta the way!” I yelled, just as I threw myself into the crowd. Surprisingly, they parted, and I hit the ground running.
Behind me, I could hear Ed yelling orders. “I want two of our fastest boats in the water, now!”
I ran up the stairs with his pounding footsteps just behind me. I darted under two pints of beer, which the guy sloshed, making Ed cuss. I flew out the front door and accelerated into a sprint.
Ed’s sister’s boat roared by just off the end of the dock. Fast. The guy had the pedal to the metal, both of his seventy horse motors full-open.
“Shit, we’ll never be able to catch him,” Ed said.
“I can catch him!” I was still running, wincing as my bare feet crunched on gravel. I scooped up my anchor and vaulted into my boat. The other boat’s wake hit, making mine bob and rock.
Ed jumped in after me, just as I was keying my engine. “You think so?” he asked.
I met his eyes. Grinned. “I know so.” My outboard roared to life. “Might wanna sit down,” I offered. I slammed it into reverse, and we slid suddenly away from the shore.
Ed caught himself and clambered back to sit next to me. He patted my thigh, and I saw his face was painted with a fierce grin as he looked ahead at the boat tearing away from us. The blond had quite a head-start.
I shoved the throttle forward, almost knocking us both backward as the bow kicked up. Then we were streaking forward, the wind catching at our hair. It was chilly on the river without shoes or a jacket—or a float coat, I noticed with a grimace. Mine had blown onto the floor from the front bench, and Ed hadn’t had time to grab his.
Knowing exactly where the barely-submerged sandbars were, I steered to one side of the river and then the other to follow the blond. I held my breath as he streaked over each of them, knowing running aground at that speed would throw the idiot, hard. But, the lucky bastard made it over one, and then two of them.
“He’s pushing his luck,” Ed yelled over the ripping wind, his expression telling me that he, too, was having trouble watching this fiasco.
I patted his hand, still warm on my thigh. Then I reached into the console, and pulled out my .50 caliber revolver. I’d stashed it in there a year or so ago, and besides target practice, hadn’t yet had an excuse to use it.
“Could you take the wheel?” I asked, my voice sweet as maple syrup. Our boat skipped across the other’s wake as we angled in behind him. I swung us back out a bit so the engine didn’t line up with the driver.
“I’m having this weird sense of Deja vu,” Ed said. But he took the wheel.
“I’ve always wanted to do this.” And this one wasn’t Helly’s boat. In fact, I really disliked the person who owned this boat.
I stood, leaned one hip on my console for balance, and swung the gun up in front of me. It was heavy, both hands definitely required. “Hold her steady,” I murmured. I squinted into the wind, ignoring the tears it ripped from my eyes. This was gonna be a difficult shot.
“You’re beautiful,” Ed offered, watching me sight down the barrel.
I grinned. Breathed out.
Pulled the trigger.
The blond’s boat swerved as it experienced sudden, one-sided power loss. He cut the gas, and it slogged in the water. Smoke plumed from the damaged engine.
“Yes!” I punched a fist into the air.
Ed throttled back to avoid T-boning the other boat, and grabbed the back of my shirt to keep me from flying forward. I heard seams pull, but I didn’t give a damn.
The beautiful blond turned to watch us approach, his eyes wild. They caught on my little pirate flag, and widened still further. He went white as a sheet and stumbled backward as we slid up alongside.
Then our wake hit him. I lost my grin when he lost his balance against the far edge of the boat.
“No!” I yelled as I launched myself across the gap into his boat. I reached for him.
But it was too late. Arms windmilling, the blond fell backward. And overboard.
I brought myself up short against the gunwale. I got a split-second view of the shock on his face before the silty water curled over it.
“Damn it, damn it,” I said. He hadn’t been wearing a life vest, and unlike in Ed’s falling-in story, I knew this area of the river was more than two feet deep.
His blond head bobbed up several feet downstream.
“Get back in,” Ed yelled.
I jumped back into my boat, and we cut through the water after the crazy blond. My heart was thudding as we maneuvered alongside. I leaned over the side and made a grab for his hair, but it slid through my fingers. He dipped under again.
And anyway, why was little ol’ me the one trying to haul a full-grown man into the boat?
“Take the wheel,” Ed said, apparently having had the same thou
ght.
From the helm, I watched the roiling gray water for long, breathless seconds, edging us forward, praying the man bobbed up again. If he didn’t…
He popped up, and I felt a pang as I saw his face. He looked terrible, so pale, his eyes half-closed, his lips blue.
Ed snagged his arm and started to pull him up. The blond was dead weight, hanging there as Ed grunted, struggling against gravity and the merciless drag of the river.
I tripped forward, ready to help him.
The blond slipped from his grasp, bounced off the edge of my boat, and slid soundlessly back under the surface.
“Fuck!” Ed exploded. He braced his hands on the side and growled in frustration. “This is going to suck so fucking much.”
I stared at him, not knowing what he meant. All I knew was that that man was gonna die. He hadn’t been moving, hadn’t been trying at all. I knew in my heart he wouldn’t be bobbing back up. He was a goner.
If I hadn’t chased him, if I’d just let him go… none of this would have happened.
A man had died because of me. I’d killed him.
Then, Ed dove over the side. Without his life vest.
“No!” I shrieked, but it was oh for two as I missed my wild grab on him, too.
I heard a shout from behind me, and spared a glance back. The two boats full of guides had caught up and were sweeping alongside, flanking us.
Me. Flanking me.
It was just me in the boat, because the love of my life, the most awesome man I’d ever met, was somewhere under that icy, opaque surface. I didn’t know whether to stay close to the side to try and make a grab for him, or to go back to the console to idle farther downstream. I wanted to be in position when he popped up—but the absolute last thing I wanted to do was overshoot and hit him with my prop.
Shaking, I desperately scanned the rippling surface. I was more scared than I had been in my whole life. I might never see Ed again. He could have hit his head on his way in, or the blond could have grabbed onto him, drowning them both. The possibilities were endless.
My life flashed before my eyes, a gray and lonely life in which Ed’s gorgeous hazel eyes didn’t gleam at me, and he didn’t grin at me from behind that bushy beard, and my cabinet handles fell off and I couldn’t open them ever again because Ed was dead. One in which he didn’t touch me, or kiss me, or drag me into the rain to do all of the above.
My heart squeezed. My fingers clenched on the side. My throat and eyes burned, but I shook off the tears because I needed to see.
His dark head popped up several feet downstream.
“There!” the guides in the other boat yelled. They swung toward him.
I had already done the same.
Ed was moving, I saw with relief. His head bobbed as he pushed the motionless blond up into their waiting hands. The guides laid him on a bench and started pushing on his chest.
Two more reached over, grabbed Ed under the arms, and pulled him up and into the boat. He was able to stand, but the guides crowded close, steadying him. Ed was hunched in on himself, shivering. He wrapped his arms around himself momentarily, then thought better it and ripped off his wet shirt.
I steered over to them, intent upon the man I loved. I wasn’t so intent, though, that I didn’t notice when the blond convulsed and started coughing. The guides turned him to the side so he could spit river water. Relief washed over me.
Ed glanced up and gave me a pained smile through his chattering teeth, before he curled down and peeled off his soaked pants. One of the guides offered Ed a wool blanket. “Give it to him,” he said, shrugging a shoulder toward the blond.
I pulled up alongside and yanked the sleeve of the nearest guide. “Hold my boat,” I ordered. Looking surprised, he obeyed.
I jumped into their boat and rushed to Ed. “You idiot,” I said, the end of my statement muffled as I whipped off my own top.
Despite being half-frozen, Ed’s eyes went straight to my cleavage, pushed up by my lacy fuchsia bra. Good. He’ll probably live.
I started mopping at his cool, goose-fleshed skin, wiping away the water droplets with the cotton of my shirt. I grasped his arm and spun him around, scrubbing the wetness from his back.
The Trooper pulled level with us in his boat. “Everything okay here?” he asked. His eyes lingered on the smoking engine attached to the boat drifting next to us.
Ed nodded. “Just got a little wet.”
Pressing in close, I rubbed at Ed’s wet hair, then left the shirt in place, draped over his head.
“Here,” said Guileppe. He tossed over two space blankets, which the guides caught and started to unfold. “Anything else I can do?” he asked.
“Nah, we’ve got it, thanks. Go enjoy the fights.” Ed turned in my arms just as I closed them around him. My nipples hardened on contact with his chilly body.
A guide wrapped the thin foil blanket around the both of us as the Trooper motored back downstream.
Ed smiled down at me.
I glared up at him. “You scared about ten years off my life,” I told him. My voice shook, from emotion or the raging need to yell at him, I wasn’t sure. “Don’t you ever do that again.”
“I won’t,” he said. His hands slid up against my back. The feel of them, icy-cold instead of their usual warm, pissed me off anew.
“That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. You could have died.” I smacked a fist against his chest. “If you do it again, I’ll kill you myself,” I growled.
“I won’t,” he repeated. His eyes were tender.
I felt myself softening, but then a hard shiver wracked him, shaking us both.
“Damn you,” I started, “how could you—mmph!!”
You guessed it—he kissed me.
And I didn’t let shock slow me down. I kissed him back.
Actually, I did one better. I grabbed him, made damn sure he wasn’t getting away, and I kissed the hell outta him.
I love you. That’s what I was thinking, and that’s what I was trying to tell him as hot tears finally spilled from my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. I pressed closer, burning the feel of him into my memory—his taste, the shape of his lips, the feel of his firm length against me.
His arms tightened around me, while his kiss softened. It lightened until our lips barely met, and we were simply breathing each other in. I could feel his heart thumping against me, and his beard rubbed whisper-soft against my face.
He finally pulled back. His gaze flicked over my face, and his hands came up, his thumbs brushing the moisture from my cheeks.
Fuck it, I was just gonna tell him. I’d always been terrible at keeping secrets, anyway.
“I love you,” I said.
Ed looked into my eyes, his own warm with a smile. “I love you, too.”
My face split in a grin, and my heart felt just about full to bursting.
He shuddered again, making the thin foil around us crinkle.
Oh. Right. He was soaking wet, in his skivvies, on an icy river, after having taken what was basically the Polar Plunge. If I wanted to keep him, I needed to keep him from freezing to death.
“We need to get you warm,” I said.
“Isn’t that your place?” one of the guides asked.
I looked up, and yes, we were out in the river parallel to my cabin. I remembered passing it in the chase, but then we’d drifted back down.
They followed me in to my dock, one of the guides limping the blond’s boat in with its remaining engine.
“Bring him up,” I called over my shoulder to the guides. The ridiculously pretty blond was walking, but just barely. A couple guides got up under his arms and half-carried him up from my dock.
I latched onto Ed’s hand and pulled him to the cabin. He was a little clumsy, stumbling over his own feet here and there. I pushed inside, ducked into the bathroom for a towel, and tossed it to him. Then I ran upstairs, pulled on a shirt, and yanked the blankets from my bed. I handed those to Ed. The spares from my linen closet, I h
anded to the guides, averting my gaze as they stripped Chastity’s boy-toy.
My house was still a mess, and I saw them glancing around, probably wondering if I really lived like this. “It was the brothers,” I told Ed, waving my hand at the destruction. He frowned, and I figured I’d tell him more later.
I jacked my Toyo stove up to ninety degrees, and then filled a kettle and put it on to boil. Then I crossed back to Ed, where he’d folded down onto my ravaged couch. I found an opening in the blanket he’d wrapped around himself, and made myself comfortable on his lap. His firm thighs were a little chilly, but there was nowhere else I’d rather be. He wrapped his arms around me, and with a sigh, rested his chin on my head.
The blond looked a little more lucid now. He was muttering something in what I realized was a different language. And it sounded sorta familiar. “Is that…?”
A Swedish guide knelt next to him listening, nodded, and looked up at us with a smile. “It’s a different dialect, but I can understand him.” His own English was heavily accented.
“What’s he saying?” I asked.
“Cold, cold, cold,” he translated.
Grumbling, I dragged myself out from under Ed’s blanket to cross to the stove. I brewed up some chamomile tea, and handed one mug to the Swedish guide, and the other to Ed.
The fishing guide passed the steaming mug to the blond with a few words in his language. The blond Swede’s eyes widened, and he almost spilled the hot liquid on himself. He broke into a wide smile—an expression that took him from #20 on my Hottest Man Alive scale straight into the top five. He let loose with a stream of gibberish.
“He’s excited to have found someone that speaks his language,” the guide supplied.
“I take it he doesn’t speak English?”
The guide asked. The blond shook his head. “Said he did very poorly in school,” translated the guide.
“Can you ask him what the hell he was thinking, jumping in that river?” I asked. Okay, maybe it wasn’t a fair question, but I was still a bit peeved that I’d almost killed a man.
The guide spoke back and forth with him for a few moments. The Swede made some gestures, widening his eyes at me. The guide cleared his throat. “He says the pirate flag scared him. And… these are my own thoughts, not a translation: This man seems kind of… simple.”
Two Captains, One Chair: An Alaskan Romantic Comedy Page 31
