“Precisely.”
He hated that she was right.
“Make a better decision than I did, son.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
He was losing Piper again, this time for good. All because he refused to man up and put his feelings out there. Surely they could work something out about the Nationals, once they talked through it in a rational manner? And if he told her he loved her and she walked away afterward, would it hurt any less?
West stumbled out of his office and was halfway through the kitchen before he answered his own question.
Hell, no—and at least he’d know where he stood.
The wharf, crowded with passengers, was a nightmare to navigate when you were in a hurry. Not a good look if he bowled one of the howling, snot-faced kids into the water in the rush to locate his woman. His head spun from scanning everywhere at once, trying to spot either Piper’s distinctive hair or a flash of purple combat boots. He excused himself past yet another dawdling duo right in his path.
“Shaun.” He waved at the purser standing by the ferry gangplank and jogged over. “Piper on board yet?”
“The hot punk chick who bought you at the auction?” Shaun scratched his pathetic excuse for a goatee beard.
West gritted his teeth. Also not a good look if he clocked a ferry employee. “That’s her.”
Shaun shook his head. “Haven’t seen her, pal, and she should be on board by now—we’re sailing in five.”
Hope flickered, died, and then burst into life. Where was she? Maybe she changed her mind? Maybe she was waiting for him back at his place?
He whipped around and nearly collided with Ben, who stood two paces behind him, his hand outstretched, about to tap him on the shoulder.
“Where’s Piper?” C’mon, how desperate did he sound? West shoved his fists into his pants pockets and said in a lighter tone. “She’ll miss the ferry.”
Ben dropped his hand, his face implacable. “She’s not catching the ferry.”
A silly grin crept onto West’s face. Maybe she was back at his place, curled up on the sofa with one of those trashy paperback crime novels she loved. Or even better—naked in his bed waiting for make-up sex. Okay, some groveling on both their sides might be in order before that particular fantasy came true but—
“I put her on the first flight out this morning,” Ben said. “She left half an hour ago.”
His heart stopped. Just stopped dead. Like each artery pinched shut, trapping volcanic amounts of blood inside.
“Back to Wellington?”
“Yep. I watched her kiss Mum and Shaye goodbye and board the plane.” Ben tilted his chin, a familiar family gesture, which sucker-punched his heart into beating again.
She’d gone.
Piper had gone.
Then somehow he had to figure out a way to get her back.
***
Nothing like a road trip to put her new unemployment situation into perspective. Piper wound down her Mazda’s driver’s-side window and sucked in a lungful of cool autumn air. Well, technically, she wasn’t unemployed yet—but she’d handed in her notice two weeks ago when she arrived home. After that painful discussion with Tom she’d moved in with a friend for a few days, because left to her own devices in her tiny flat she would’ve resorted to a pajama-wearing, junk-food eating, ugly-blotched-faced-crying mess.
But today was a new day. Piper coasted down the road to the tourist town of Lake Taupo, the lake a sparkling azure against the snow dusted Mt. Ruapehu rising beyond the far shore. Soon she’d no longer be a cop. It should’ve made her sad, but it didn’t. What a wake-up call. She’d spent years making amends to her father who would’ve kicked her butt if he’d known she chose to follow his career path out of a skewed sense of duty and atonement.
Piper indicated and turned off the road into a bustling lakeside parking lot. Set up in one corner was a registration desk with a New Zealand Apnea Association banner staked behind it. She parked and got out of her car, hoping to catch a glimpse of West’s smiling face. Maybe not smiling after he saw her here.
She left Wellington yesterday on a solo road trip—ostensibly to take a little me-time to figure out her next course of action. Stowing her dive gear in the back seat spoke volumes about her intentions.
A late night candy bar session—her go-to vice when life threw manure-loaded curveballs—had crystallized some stuff in her mind. Stuff like, regardless of West’s stubbornness and sheer male bravado, he needed her for this competition. Ben was a good, dependable diver, but not in her league. Because she had skills, mad skills. And whether West loved her or not, she had his back.
She wouldn’t let another man she loved drown.
Piper strolled to the registration desk while trying to look everywhere at once. Where was he? Where was Ben?
She nodded at the elderly man perched on a lawn chair behind the desk. “Hi. I’ve come to sign on as a safety diver for one of your entrants—Ryan Westlake, from Stewart Island.”
“Sign on, ay?” The man peered over his half-rimmed specs. “You’re leaving it late, aren’t you, lass? Safety diver details were to be completed with the entry form.” He made a sucking noise with his lower lip. “Let me just check what’s on his form.” He bent over his laptop and pecked the keys with his two index fingers.
“Here he is—Ryan Westlake, Oban?”
“That’s him.”
“Hmm.” He scrolled down the screen. “Friend of yours, is he?”
“Uh-huh.”
The man sucked his lip again and nodded. “I remember that chap now. He’s a favorite to win, you know—hang on, there’s a note added to his entry.” He shoved his specs up his nose and leaned closer. “Oh my. Looks like your friend’s pulled out. Rang the organizer last week, it seems.”
“Pulled out? You mean he’s not here?” Piper pressed her palms on the desk to give her wobbly legs some stability before she collapsed on her ass.
The man looked over his shoulder and then back at her. “Not unless he’s here as a spectator.”
West spectating instead of competing? Not likely. “Does his file say why he pulled out?”
A brief shake of his head. “Sorry, miss. You’ll have to ask him that yourself.”
Piper removed her hands from the registration desk and shoved them in her jacket pockets so the old fella wouldn’t see them tremble. “Yeah, I’ll do that. Thanks.”
She walked back to her car, climbed in, and braced her palms on the steering wheel.
West quit the free-diving Nationals. Why?
She thunked her forehead on the steering wheel to knock the answer into her brain. Her mother and Shaye promised to let her know if Bill’s health took a downward turn. Not that, then. Maybe West hadn’t found another safety diver? Guilt momentarily prickled her skin but she shrugged it off. West had other diving contacts—not a valid reason to prevent him from competing.
Had he changed his mind and quit for her?
Piper thunked her head a second time. Dumb brain inventing a dumb explanation.
She rubbed her forehead and watched the boats ferrying competitors out to the dive site. Even though she denied it, she’d given West an ultimatum. Then, scared he wouldn’t pick her, she’d run like a whimpering puppy with its tail tucked between its legs.
Up until this moment she thought West hadn’t picked her. That leaving Oban without saying goodbye had been the right thing to do. When West didn’t pound on Kezia and Shaye’s front door to demand they talk it out, she assumed his silence meant decision made.
But maybe he was just a little slow on the uptake, being a guy and all.
Could this be a sign? A hopeful sign?
Piper snatched up her phone and scrolled through her contacts, staring at West’s number as if the digits were a code revealing his secret thoughts. She sucked at code-breaking, so she checked her watch: seven thirty-five a.m.
He’d be at the piano, running his fingers over the keys. Did he miss the way she br
ought him coffee and sat at his side, touching his leg as he wove melodies around them? Did he miss her? She sure as hell missed him. And more than she missed the heart she’d left behind in his hands.
Did West miss her? Did he love her?
One way to find out.
She tossed the phone on the empty passenger seat and started the car. A phone call wasn’t going to cut it. Piper preferred to conduct her interrogations in person.
***
Piper was about to throw up. Repeatedly throw up. But instead of dragging her own carcass under a bench to collapse, she had someone else to do it for her.
Footsteps thumped up beside her. She continued to scrutinize the green hills of Stewart Island as the ferry roiled toward it. “Are we there yet?”
“Keep staring at the horizon, you’ll be right.” Ben leaned his elbows on the railing, glanced toward her and then sidled away a step.
Clever man. She was this close to puking on the new shoes he’d picked up in Invercargill before he met her at the airport.
Piper hadn’t expected anyone, but she couldn’t stop beaming at the sight of her big brother sprawled on an airport seat.
“I’ve come to hold your sick bag on the crossing,” Ben said with a grin.
“You could hold it, but you so won’t.”
Opting to travel like the locals, since she’d soon be one again? Not one of her smartest ideas. Because even though locals would label this ferry trip glassy smooth, her stomach disagreed, seething with nerves.
Piper shivered as a gust of wind flicked sea spray in her face. No turning back for her now. She was a boots n’ all type of gal. She’d debated flying down to have it out with West the moment she returned from Taupo, but the gesture wasn’t big enough. She had to show him how serious she was about making their relationship work. So she’d emptied her flat, sold her car to a neighbor’s teenage son, and endured a bon voyage party. No one on the island knew her plans, except family, and she’d sworn them to secrecy.
She belonged with West—and on Stewart Island she’d either negotiate her happily-ever-after, or—Piper bit her lip, aware of Ben’s scrutiny. She didn’t want to think about the “or,” because she hadn’t formulated a plan B.
Plan A consisted of West or bust.
“What if he doesn’t…want me?” Even as the sentence slipped out she couldn’t bear to jinx it by uttering the “L” word.
Ben draped his arm over her shoulder. Her brother must love her if he risked puke on his new shoes. “Oh, he wants you, all right. He’s been a sulky SOB since you left, snipping at everyone.”
“West doesn’t sulk and he doesn’t snip.”
“Yeah? He told Mrs. Taylor to butt out of his business when she asked when he was bringing you back home.”
Piper forgot her stomach. “Get out! Did she wallop him with one of her sticks?”
“Nope. She whispered something in his ear and patted his ass.”
Piper forced a tight smile to her lips. “Incorrigible old woman.”
Ben gently shoulder-checked her. “Don’t worry, Stubby. He’s crazy about you.”
“You better hope so,” she muttered as the ferry prepared to dock. “Or we’ll end up roomies again.”
“Not gonna happen.” He tossed a wheeling seabird a crust of bread left over from his lunch. “You think anyone can resist a Harland on a mission? West is toast.” He chuckled and sauntered away toward the end of the ferry.
Toast, huh? Piper scooped her daypack off the bench seat and followed her brother.
She only hoped it wasn’t her that got burned.
***
“If you don’t get out of my kitchen—” Shaye said, when West pushed through the swing doors “—so help me God I’ll yank something vital off you.”
West stared at her flushed face and the pair of kitchen tongs clacking in his direction and moved further into her domain, risking emasculation. Showing her his palms, he shrugged. “Lunch crowd’s getting restless.”
“Well, they can wait, I’m busy.” Shaye gave him one last baleful glance and returned to whatever sizzled in her pans.
West leaned a hip against a sparkling countertop and tipped his head back to study the ceiling. Up before dawn, he hadn’t stopped running. With his dad putting in fewer hours, his best waitress off to greener pastures in Christchurch, and him having to fill three jobs at once, his tank ran on a whiff of fumes.
Worst of all, his chest ached from missing Piper.
He scrubbed a hand down a jaw of the same texture as a baby cactus. When had he last shaved? Buggered if he remembered. Though he did remember letting the woman he loved get away from him—what a dumbass.
Spying the growing pile of pots in the sink, West peered around the kitchen. “So, where’s Fraser?”
“Lunch break.” Shaye plated the steaks she’d been pan-frying and slid them onto the pass. “Not everyone is trying to work themselves to death, you know.” She smacked the bell. “Run to table eight, Lani.”
West swore as Lani swooped on the plates and disappeared into the restaurant.
Shaye slapped her hands on her hip and glared. “I’m starting a swear-jar. I figure with your language lately, I’ll have a trip to Paris by the end of the month.”
“Screw Paris.” He strode to the pots spilling out of the sink and jiggled a handle. “Who’s going to do all these pots? Me, I suppose.”
“No, me.”
Piper’s voice behind him weakened his legs like someone had knee-capped him with a sledgehammer. Goddammit, had he just hallucinated again? Every morning her whispers tickled his ear and her fingertips ghosted over his back as he stood in the shower, head down and eyes shut, until the water turned freezing. She was everywhere in his house. Every-damn-where except where she should be—with him. So maybe this was another cruel trick.
But when he turned, there she was—silhouetted in the back door with Donny snuffling around her boots, a goofy grin on his doggy face. The same goofy grin he’d have if his muscles hadn’t hardened into immobility.
West cleared his heart out of his throat and tried not to pounce on her right then and there. “Piper?”
“Took you long enough,” Shaye said. “What’d you do, swim over?”
Piper’s lips curved, the smile fading before it touched her eyes. Her gaze skimmed over his unshaven jaw, untucked shirt, and mussed hair. Yeah, he was a right mess, while she looked impossibly lovely in her black jeans and combat boots. God, he could kiss those purple monstrosities, he’d missed seeing them so much.
“Shaye.” He kept Piper centered in his crosshairs. “Go and explain to the diners there’ll be a delay with their meals.”
“That’ll go down well.”
“I. Don’t. Care.”
If Piper moved one step he’d go caveman—and to hell with kidnapping being illegal. He’d lock her in his bedroom and pray she came down with Stockholm syndrome.
Shaye moved to his side and jabbed his arm. “I’ll tell them their meals are on the house, shall I?”
West shoved a hand into his pants pocket, pulled out a two-dollar coin and slapped it on the counter. “Put this in your jar and tell them whatever you bloody want. Just do it.”
Shaye snatched up the coin and hissed under her breath, “Just don’t muck things up.”
With a toodle-oo wave to her sister, she left them alone.
“I’m hoping you didn’t come here just to wash dishes,” he said.
Piper shook her head and watched him some more with those big-cat eyes which seemed to peel back the layers of his soul. Well, if she could see into his soul, she wasn’t running away screaming.
A good sign.
“You caught me in the middle of chaos.” He flicked a hand at the sink. “Things have been crazy around here since I got back from Wellington.”
Her brow creased. “You went to Wellington?”
“I flew up to find you, but your flat was empty. The neighbors didn’t know where you’d gone, your aunt hadn’t a
clue, and your boss wasn’t helpful.”
“Oh. You saw Tom?”
West nodded. What a cheery meeting that’d been, the burly cop refusing to reveal a hint of Piper’s hiding place. Doubtful that a fist in the nose would loosen the man’s tongue, he’d walked away.
“He refused to discuss you at all, so I had no choice but to return home to try and organize this mess until I could go back and have another go at trying to find you.”
Piper scratched Donny’s head, studying West from under her lashes. “I stayed with a friend and then drove to Lake Taupo for the weekend. I packed my diving gear.”
Donny licked her fingers and she laughed.
Piper. At Lake Taupo. With diving gear. West pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to slow the pulse of blood exploding into his brain. “You went to the Nationals?”
“Yep.”
“You were going to be my safety diver?”
“You needed one, and I’m the best.”
“Is that the only reason you went?” Please don’t let it be the only reason she went.
Piper closed the distance and laid a palm on his chest. The simple touch and the warm all-woman scent of her floored him.
“I went because regardless of how you feel about me, I wanted you to be safe.”
West gripped the counter with numb fingers, swallowing. Unaware of his feelings for her, she’d pushed past her own nightmare to support him.
“That must’ve cost you a great deal.” His voice came out rough.
She petted his chest and gave him a wonky smile. “Losing you would’ve cost me much more. I didn’t want you down there without me watching your back.”
Cupping her face, West brushed a thumb over Piper’s lower lip and rested his forehead on hers. Her eyelids fluttered shut and her breathing hitched.
“I shouldn’t have let you walk that day—you were right, you know. I didn’t realize I’d pushed you away because of how my mother left me.” He chuckled bitterly. “I always thought I was a bad prospect for a long-term relationship—disposable, unlovable—feelings that became a shield to stop any woman getting too close. Except you, baby. You smashed that shield to dust. I accused you of being a quitter, of running away—and all the time it was me, scared shitless, and you called me on it. But, like a fool, I let nine-year-old history repeat itself and said nothing.”
In Too Deep Page 30
