Shell Game
Page 9
“Things are not always what they seem. He’s a good catch. I can tell. He’s ready.”
“Ready? For what?”
Nana shook her head and patted Sharla on the shoulder. “Good thing you never went into the family business. Your powers of observation are really lousy. Just trust me on this one. Luke Chapman is a man worthy of you. I’m meeting Herbie for breakfast. Want to join us?”
“Nope. Kyle is expecting me in the gym.”
“That one’s not so bad either. But he’s young and still having too much fun. Stick with Luke.”
“Nana.”
“Meet us upstairs dressed to disembark. By the time trivia’s over, most of the folks going ashore will be gone, and we won’t have to stand in long lines to get off the ship. And wear the sexy two-piece not the boring blue bathing suit.”
“Nana!”
“Sweetie, you’ll never catch a man if you don’t show your bait.”
* * *
Last night Luke had sent Kate the photos of the fingerprints. Within minutes data was flowing in fast and heavy. Good Old George was born Antonio Montanaccio in the popular North End of Boston. By the time he was eighteen, he’d had his own revolving door to the Suffolk County Jail. During the day he had worked as a shoe salesman. At night he had done favors for the local crime boss.
At twenty-two he had married Mary DeStefano and had moved to New York. Six months later Antoinette was born. Followed by Adella and Celeste, and five years in the state pen for breaking and entering. While in Sing Sing, Mary divorced his sorry ass, and, when Antonio was released, “Michael Green” was born. Then came “Ralph King” and “Paul Dempsey,” but lady luck had smiled on him when “George Bailey” went into the swindling business.
Kate was gathering what data she could without Conway getting wind of Luke’s off-duty curiosities. Luke and Herbie needed to get as much info as possible about the development site in Puerto Rico before they docked in San Juan.
Trivia was still at ten, and Sharla and the gang wanted to hit the ship’s beach port in time for the barbecue lunch. Luke, on the other hand, was ready for a little more physical activity. According to the brochures, all sorts of options were available, from renting seaboards to parasailing. But scuba diving had his number. Not many places to dive in the Afghan desert, and, ever since he’d boarded this tin can, the water had been calling his name. Today it would be just him and the fishes.
But first on Luke’s agenda was getting his ass to the gym.
“Morning, mate.” Kyle the personal trainer waved at Luke.
“Morning.”
“Missed ya yesterday.”
“Late night.”
Kyle’s head bobbed. “Yeah, know how that goes. I’ve got a session starting in five, but let me know if ya need anything.”
“Will do. Thanks, man.”
Luke stepped off to the side, leaned and turned, stretching his overanxious muscles before getting on the treadmill. Even if catching Bailey wasn’t a special op, the thrill of the chase was already building, and it felt damn good.
“Good morning, beautiful.” Kyle’s voice carried from the reception area. Luke would normally have ignored the voices around him except that he clearly heard a nervous laugh. Sharla’s laugh.
Almost missing his step as the treadmill kicked on, Luke began a steady uphill pace, watching the ocean beyond the glass windows, listening for the voices in the exercise room. He’d run less than a mile when being unable to see her got the better of him. Turning off the machine, he shifted places and hopped onto another machine, facing the area where Kyle helped guide Sharla in her workout.
When she leaned back on the exercise ball and elevated her hips, her cutoff T-shirt rising with every lift of her arms to expose the bare skin at her waistline, Luke almost fell face forward into the control panel.
Kyle said something Luke couldn’t make out, and she lost her balance, fell on her rear and broke into a fit of laughter. Immediately Kyle reached out to pull her to her feet, and yanked her up off the floor and into his chest. She got flustered. Kyle took a step back, and the adrenaline channeling through Luke’s body at the prospect of working a sort-of mission the next few days redirected to his fists and the prospect of knocking Kyle’s head off.
For another thirty minutes Luke tortured himself, watching Sharla work out and make smiley faces at the young trainer. “The guy’s too young for her.”
“Excuse me?” A man near about Luke’s age with the beginnings of a beer gut glanced his way.
“Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”
“If it’s a woman, stop. There’s no figuring them out. I’ve been married for ten years, and trust me. You’ll never win.”
“Right.” Luke looked back at Sharla. He was either going to have to fish or cut bait. And right now, cutting bait wasn’t the front-runner.
* * *
Showered and changed into the boring blue bathing suit and matching cover-up, Sharla scurried into the lounge to meet up with the trivia team. Gloria was the only one at the table.
“You made it,” Gloria said with a bright smile. “How’d the workout go?”
“Great. Except for falling on my butt a time or two.”
“Which trainer is working with you?”
“Kyle.”
Gloria’s brow creased in thought. “The Aussie?”
Sharla nodded.
“Sweet. Young, but sweet.”
“Yeah. He makes me laugh, so I don’t think about how stupid I look.”
“I doubt you look stupid. With your figure, you probably have all the guys in the place drooling.”
“Not exactly. Though I do think I make Kyle nervous. Can’t quite figure out why.”
“Why? Honey, you’re Grade A prime.”
Sharla resisted the urge to look over her shoulder to see if some svelte woman stood behind her. Not that Sharla was a dog or anything. Danny had fallen all over himself the first time he’d met her. But she was no Marilyn Monroe.
Gloria shrugged. “You going to the beach?”
“Having lunch with Nana, then thought I’d see what I can do in the water. Maybe snorkel.”
“Not me.” Gloria waved her arm high at Sophia and Herbie coming toward them. “Toes are as far in as I go. Just give me a lounge chair, a piña colada and a cabana boy, and I’m happy.”
Now why didn’t that surprise Sharla?
The trivia game went about the same as the last few days, except something felt off with Luke. He’d pulled up a stool behind Herbie, even though there was an empty seat next to her. Occasionally he leaned forward to scribble something on a piece of paper for Nana, but not once did he look in her direction until the group broke apart to go ashore. Even then all she got was a casual see you guys later. What was with him?
Following her grandmother and Herbie to the elevators, Sharla refused to think about Luke. Next stop—fun in the water.
* * *
“Aren’t these the best ribs ever?” Sitting at a picnic table under the palms, Sophia groaned over another bite.
“Once on leave, when I was stationed in Yuma, we drove into some Podunk town in West Texas. Best damn ribs I’ve ever had.” Herbie dropped the bare bone onto his dish.
“Better than this?”
“Afraid so.” He picked up another rib. “Maybe someday you and I can take a road trip, and see if we can find that place again. Then you can decide for yourself.”
Sophia tilted her head to one side and studied the handsome older man before nodding. “You’re on.”
Even with the spare rib in Herbie’s mouth, Sharla could see his smile. It matched the one on her grandmother’s face. For the first time ever, Sharla felt like a fifth wheel. Pushing away from the table, she picked up her nearly empty plate. “You two enjoy the rest of your lunch. I’m heading out to see about getting in a little snorkeling.”
“See you for dinner, honey.” Sophia may have said it, but both she and Herbie were smiling and waving.
To any passerby
For that matter, how would Herbie react to Sophia’s past? The thought had Sharla frowning. She didn’t think Nana would have told Herbie about her background. What would Herbie say if he knew the family’s shady history? She didn’t want Nana hurt. Blast. It wasn’t Sharla’s place to tell him either. All she could do was ride it out. “Damn.”
“Something wrong?” Luke stood by the scuba rental shack.
Thinking of her grandmother and Herbie, Sharla hadn’t paid any attention to where she was going. Stopping to look around, she realized she’d passed the snorkel hut and had walked pretty far.
Concern creased his forehead. “Is Sophia all right?”
“Oh, yes.” She pointed left, then right, then let her hand fall to her side. “Sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“And where were you going?”
“Snorkeling. I think.”
“You think?”
She smiled. “It’s been eons since I’ve been on vacation or in the water. At least anything bigger than the neighborhood pool.”
“You’ve been snorkeling before?” Luke had told himself he was going to keep his distance until he’d made up his mind about what to do with the attraction between them. But when he saw her walking with such a deep frown on her face, he couldn’t have ignored her any more than he could walk away from a wounded puppy.
“A long time ago. Loved it. I even took scuba lessons, but then…”
“Then?”
She tipped her head and shrugged. “Life got busy.”
“How far did you get?”
“With the classes?”
He bobbed his head.
“Open water, but no deeper than twenty-five feet.”
“Open water is good. I was just getting ready to go out with the next boat. Want to buddy up?” So much for distance. His mouth had opened and the words had simply fallen out.
“Oh, it’s been too long. I don’t remember—”
“Let’s test your memory. Come here.” It had taken some convincing on his part to get the scuba rentals to do an afternoon run, but when another two couples walked up wanting the same, the dive captain relented. Most of the equipment was already on the boat and ready to go, but enough remained here for Luke to do a quick run-through with her. See how much she remembered.
“Tell me what this is for?” He held out the pressure gauge.
“That’s the gauge that shows how much air I have left.”
“And this?”
She glanced a few long seconds at the yellow octo. “That’s the backup regulator in case of an emergency, and we need to share air.”
Next he lifted the BCD and pointed to the low-pressure inflator.
Her voice a little stronger, she threw out, “Buoyancy Control Device. That’s to keep me floating at the surface or buoyant on the bottom.”
“Sounds like you’re good to go.” Together they walked to the back of the small rental shack where a few different wet suits hung. “The water is so warm here, the shorties should do.”
Twenty minutes later they were suited up, geared up and sitting side by side on the dive boat riding away from the beach crowd. He could tell by the way her fingers dug into her knees that she was nervous. Maybe he shouldn’t have talked her into this. Even if she had been certified years ago, ocean diving was different from a lake or aquarium.
He was all set to tell her coming along wasn’t such a great idea, when the boat stopped, and she turned to him with a bright smile “I wouldn’t have had the nerve to try this again on my own. Thank you.”
Her smile warmed him from the inside out. “You’re welcome.”
There was no need for any more thinking. He knew what he wanted. Had to try for. Now if he could just keep his hands off of her until he could convince her to give him a chance outside the water.
Chapter Thirteen
“That was unbelievable.” Out of the water and riding back to shore, Sharla shimmied out of the wet suit and stood under the sprayer hose. “Absolutely incredible.”
“If you thought that was something, you should see the fish in the Great Barrier Reef. The colors and variety make this place look like a black-and-white photograph.”
“I can’t imagine.” Most of Sharla’s scuba lessons had been in a dive shop training pool. Eventually she’d graduated to the lake, but she’d moved to Florida before she’d done any ocean diving. The irony wasn’t lost on her. She’d moved to an oceanfront city and never went back in the water. Life had been crazy back then, getting settled in. Then, one by one, her family started migrating south. Soon afterward she’d met land-lover Danny and had never given diving another thought.
Luke took the sprayer from her. “Some buddies and I got a chance to go on leave there, and we grabbed it.”
“That’s right. You mentioned you’d been in the navy.”
The boat sputtered and jerked, then slowed and pulled alongside the short wooden dock.
“All aboard is in thirty minutes,” the dive leader said. “You can leave all the rented gear here. We’ll take care of it.”
Sharla set her face mask on the bench atop the wet suit she’d used, then reached for her cover-up. Sliding it over her head she felt the pockets for her keycard and ID.
“Something wrong?” Luke asked.
“I thought I put my cabin key in the pocket.”
Looking first from side to side, he bent down on all fours, feeling around under the benches.
Her gaze immediately went to the way his swim trunks hugged his backside, and she had to stop her mind from coming up with all sorts of interesting pictures.
“Here you go.”
“This seems to be my day to keep saying thank-you.” Especially for the view. “I wouldn’t want to learn the hard way how to get back on the ship without ID.”
“I doubt they’d just leave you here.”
“Maybe, but I’d rather not find out.” If there was one thing she’d gotten good at through the years, it was following the rules. Nothing to attract the attention of the police or a governmental bureaucracy, and that included the ship’s captain.
Halfway to the ship, Kyle emerged from under a thatch of palm trees to join them as they walked. “D’ya have a good dai?”
“I did.” She grinned. He did so sound like an Australian tourism commercial. Any minute she expected him to mention throwing shrimp on the barbie. “Enjoy your afternoon off?”
“Indeed.”
He gave a short wave to Luke who, moments ago, had been walking at arm’s length beside her and now stood so close she could feel the hair on his arms tickling her skin.
When Kyle fell in step at her other side, Luke’s hand slid over and settled at the small of her back. The unexpected contact seared her skin, sending heated sparks in every direction.
As quickly as his hand had advanced, it withdrew. Luke seemed to take an intentional step aside, leaving a good foot of space and no risk of contact between them. It was almost as if he had been as startled as she’d been to find his hand on her back. The rest of the walk he and Kyle chatted about the dive, compared the waters around Australia to the Caribbean and Hawaii, and agreed hands-down that Australia was a winner.
Back on board, keycards recorded and carried-on goods scanned, Kyle waved good-bye to her and Luke, and turned down what she presumed was the crew corridor.
“Sounds like Uncle Sam kept his promise to you,” she said.
“Oh, which was that?”
“Join the navy and see the world.”
Luke laughed and punched the elevator button. “Oh, yeah. I did at that.”
“Did you like it?”
“The navy?”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you leave?” He looked up at the panel of numbers over the elevator for so long that she thought he wasn’t going to answer.
“It was time.”
She considered the evasion. “What did you do?”
His head turned, and his gaze locked with hers.
The way he stared so intently into her eyes, she’d have believed he was trying to read her mind. Or see her soul.
“I’m a SEAL, Sharla.”
There was no need for a mirror to know her eyes were huge with surprise. A million careers in the navy, from paper-pusher to auto mechanic, and he had to be the most elite of Special Forces. “You said ‘am’ present tense. I thought you weren’t in the military anymore?”
“Once a SEAL always a SEAL. But I have been out of the navy for a little over two years.”
“Oh.” Relief rolled over her like the wake of a speedboat at full throttle. He may have once upon a time been the stuff movies were made of, but he didn’t do life-threatening missions anymore. Unless… “So what do you do now?”
“I work for the State Department.”
Images of bullets flying and Luke falling on the president to save the commander in chief’s life flashed before her eyes in widescreen Technicolor. “Secret Service?” She hoped he didn’t hear the note of panic in her voice.
“No.” He smiled. “The president’s going to have to stay safe without me.”
The tension eased from her shoulders. She wasn’t looking for a man and a relationship, but something about Luke Chapman was too damn hard to resist. But resist she would if he’d had another high-risk job. She’d been there. Done that. Hated the T-shirt. “Then what do you do?”
He hesitated again, studying her much the way he had a few minutes before, when she had asked what he’d done in the navy. “Internal Affairs.”
“Ooh, that’s gotta be rough. I know in the police department, those guys might as well work in a leper colony.” The night Danny had died, Tyler had taken out the perp with one clean shot. While the rest of the department had cheered, Internal Affairs had run an investigation. Standard procedure, Tyler had told her. But she saw how it had affected him and the other guys who had been mulling about her house in those days.
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