by Dani Collins
Discovering the incredible sensuality beneath her veneer of sunny confidence had been as unexpected as it was dangerous. He’d had a brief surge of craving for her particular brand of heat and had wound up blinded by lust into marrying her.
He’d since told himself he’d imagined that depth of passion, but her siren-like allure was still going strong. It was stinging his lips after a kiss that was supposed to have been a one-act play. He’d had to press her back out of self-preservation or he might have let it engulf them both.
He steered his mind from further exploring that pointless fantasy. A car was approaching. An engine cut and footsteps arrived on the stoop. The door opened and an older man with a white beard and a black robe and cap entered.
Words were exchanged in the local dialect. Tanja offered their marriage certificate.
Leon had a fleeting thought at how strange it was that she had the document on her, but nodded verification that it was his name.
Passports were produced. Leon’s came from the pocket of one of the soldiers. He’d had to keep his cool when that jackass had taken it at the marina. Thankfully, once the cleric recorded details from both, he handed everything back to Leon.
The cleric asked Tanja a few other things in the local dialect, recording her answers on a form. Leon wasn’t sure what that was about. An exit permit, perhaps. There were so many threads of strain in the room, he couldn’t tell which ones were being pulled. Was there some irregularity in her answers? Her allies, the woman who owned this house and the brother from across the street, seemed to be holding their breath and standing very still. Leon had the sense they expected this entire house to cave in on all of them at any second.
The cleric handed Tanja a piece of paper. She smiled politely, but her lips trembled. There was a sheen in her eyes. Her friends were glowing behind their stoic goodbyes.
Leon didn’t waste time trying to interpret it.
“Everything is in order?” he confirmed, forcing the soldiers to look at him. “I’ll take my wife and daughter to my boat, then.”
CHAPTER TWO
“I’LL DRIVE YOU to the marina in my uncle’s car,” Aksil offered as the soldiers left. “His plates are known. We won’t be bothered.”
Tanja had one last chance to hug Kahina, who had become like a sister to her, then her friend hurried across to her brother’s house.
Tanja cradled Illi against her shoulder as she climbed into the back of the sedan. Her bags were so meager Leon didn’t bother putting them in the trunk, only set the small knapsack on the floor and the diaper bag on the seat beside her before taking the front passenger seat.
Now she felt as though she was running, not even worrying over the lack of a car seat. It was a short drive, and her muscles were tense and twitching, her skin coated in clammy perspiration while her lungs felt as though they couldn’t sip enough oxygen. Escape loomed so close she could taste it. She only had to make it a little farther.
Tanja didn’t fully understand who Kahina’s uncle was, only that Kahina had appealed to him when the school had been shut down and all the female students forced into seclusion. The cleric and his wife had interviewed Tanja about how Illi had come to be in her care. After a few weeks of making inquiries, they had concluded she was telling the truth. Illi’s parents were dead. Her only living relative, her adolescent brother, was impossible to locate. The cleric had decided Tanja could continue to mother the girl so long as she didn’t draw negative attention to Kahina or the rest of their family.
Tanja had inadvertently broken that deal this evening. She had waited in terror for the cleric to denounce her to the soldiers, but he’d calmly forged a birth certificate and handed her the document before accompanying Kahina across the street to await the return of his car.
“I presume I owe your uncle a donation?” Leon asked as Aksil turned toward the marina. Leon stripped off his pullover so he was only in a body-hugging T-shirt, shoulders straining the light fabric. He unzipped a hidden pocket of the pullover. “This is euros. I had dinars, but they took it as a ‘moorage fee.’” He pronounced that with disdain. “I also have American dollars and pound sterling on the boat.”
“You hope,” Aksil said dourly, pointing to the glove box.
“Not my first unfriendly port.” Leon left the euros in the compartment. “They won’t find all my stashes.”
“We’ll see.” Aksil dropped his uncle’s name when they arrived at the marina and escorted them down to the slip.
Despite the security the armed guards had supposedly offered, the trimaran had been relieved of nearly everything that wasn’t nailed down. Some of the goods were piled on the dock beside the craft.
“At least they left the sail,” Leon muttered.
“Do you think they siphoned the fuel?” Tanja asked in an undertone.
“Less ballast if I have to paddle,” he retorted grimly, stepping aboard with her bags. “That’s cargo I brought so take what you need from it.” He nodded at the packs of disposable diapers and shrink-filmed cases of formula stacked on the dock.
The soldier who’d been guarding the stockpile shifted warningly. He knew as well as she did how much formula was worth here.
Tanja took what she needed for a few days of travel and, under the watchful eye of the nearby soldier, gave Aksil a last goodbye with Illi.
“We’re going to miss you both,” he said, touching the sleeping baby’s cheek. “My children will be upset they couldn’t say goodbye. Siman will cry.”
“I wish you could all come,” she whispered. The craft was so small it would barely carry the three of them, let alone a family of six plus Kahina, but she meant it.
“We have protection here,” Aksil said with quiet confidence. “And this is our home. You want to go back to yours. But you’ll bring our Illi back to visit someday.”
“I will,” she swore. “Tell your uncle thank you.” There weren’t words for what he’d done for them.
If only he could work a similar miracle with Brahim. She didn’t let herself grow emotional over Illi’s brother, though; otherwise, she’d be tempted to stay, and Brahim had made her promise to take Illi to Canada if she had the chance. Hopefully, once she was safely home, Tanja would be able to contact him and help him, too.
“The map you wanted...” Leon emerged from below to hand off what was no doubt another handful of notes to Aksil. “And some chocolate for your children.”
One or the other would be a final bribe to the mercenaries circling like sharks. Whatever got them out of the port without being shot at, Tanja supposed.
Leon helped her aboard with Illi, then tried the engine while Aksil cast off. The motor turned over and so did her heart.
She ought to be urging Leon to wait until first light to set sail, but she was anxious enough to get off Istuval that she was willing to take her chances in the open waters of a dark Mediterranean. Leon was a very experienced sailor. She knew that much about him, even if he was a stranger in other ways.
Her marriage had become something of an urban legend among her friends, only mentioned if someone was persistent about asking her on a date or setting her up. Since the summer she’d married Leon, Tanja’s life had been school and work, school and work. She hadn’t had time for socializing, never mind a serious relationship. Perhaps if she had met someone who had really tempted her, she might have felt compelled to seek a divorce sooner, but she never had.
Nevertheless, when she had come to Istuval, it had been with the intention of going to Greece afterward, to properly end things with Leon.
Everything had gone sideways shortly after her arrival. Had she procrastinated contacting him? Absolutely. She’d been so hurt and angry after his initial betrayal, she had resolved to force him to come to her if he wanted a divorce. It was a juvenile attitude she had come to regret when five years passed without a word, but the longer their silence went on, the ha
rder it became to be the one to break it.
So she’d put off reaching out to him until she reached Istuval. Then she had told herself she’d contact him once she was settled in her flat and job. She had pushed that until she had her class schedule and her lessons started. As soon as she felt comfortable teaching, she would definitely let him know she was in the “neighborhood.”
By then she’d been so caught up in Brahim and Illi’s situation, chasing her absent husband for a divorce had ceased to be a priority.
Now here Leon was, arguably doing one of the most gallant, husbandly things a man could do. He had swooped in to rescue his wife and had shouldered responsibility for a child who wasn’t his, without giving away the game.
Tears of gratitude arrived at the backs of her eyes like a battering ram. She could hardly see, but she braced her feet where she stood in the well of the outer deck, near where Leon took the wheel. With the baby clutched firmly to her chest, she waved at Aksil with her free hand.
Aksil waved once, but didn’t linger. He exchanged something with the nearest soldier and made his way back to the car.
“PFDs were taken,” Leon said tersely. “Go below so I don’t have to worry about you falling overboard.”
She didn’t take offense at his abrupt order. She’d sailed with enough captains, her father and brother included, to know that even the best conditions required focus and potentially quick action. They weren’t sailing into a storm, but it was dark and they would all be better off if she did as she was told and let him concentrate.
Even so, she was compelled to say, “Same.” Turning any sailing vessel around to recover a man overboard was tricky. She didn’t want to test whether she had the necessary skill. Not tonight. Not in the dark.
“Once we’re under sail, I’ll settle into the helm and won’t leave it until daylight.” He jerked his head to indicate he would be inside with her.
“Do you need help with the sails? I can put Illi down—”
“I can manage this alone. That’s why I bought her. Go to bed.” He might have glanced at her, but it was hard to tell in the dim glow of the running lights. “We’ll fly once she gets going, but it’ll be tomorrow afternoon before we reach Malta.”
Was that where they were going? She probably should have asked. “You don’t have to stay up all night. I can spell you off.”
“I’ve raced,” he reminded. “Sailed sleep-deprived many times. Go. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”
“Thanks,” she muttered. Had he met any new mothers? “Wake me if—”
“I will. But I won’t have to.”
She ducked her head to go through the small door, shuffled hunched over through the tiny space that was the helm with its captain’s chair and low-profile view over the bow, then negotiated the short, steep ladder into the cabin below. The saloon was a sleek, narrow space with a galley on one side and a bench settee with a long, narrow dining table on the other. An oblong door at the end led to the only quarters and was taken up by the V-shaped berth with storage space beneath and a skylight hatch above.
Everything was minimal and modest, not at all the opulent sailboat Leon had been swanning around in when they had met and married.
He had lost his father’s fortune, she had read shortly after he left her in Canada. That’s why he’d failed to invest in the marina her brother had taken over from their father. Recently, Leon had seemed to be coming back on top again—not that she made a habit of stalking him online. On the contrary, she purposely didn’t check up on him.
Maybe he had lost everything again while she’d been cut off from the world on Istuval. Typical corporate raider, successively gambling away people’s livelihoods.
She shouldn’t be so cynical when he’d just saved her and her daughter. She knew that, but she had resented him for a long time, and her exhausted brain was having trouble bringing the two versions of Leon Petrakis together, especially because she was also trying to figure out where to put Illi down for the night.
Cats and trimarans didn’t list as severely as sailboats, but Illi still might be sent rolling. She had mastered flipping onto her tummy and often woke up that way. The mattress was firm enough she should be fine sleeping next to Tanja, especially if she was tucked close to the bow. Tanja felt safe leaving her there with a pillow as a bolster while she brushed her teeth.
She didn’t bother changing into her pajamas, just positioned herself as a second wall of defense to keep Illi safely on the bed, realizing as she lay down that she was actually exhausted. Despite the late hour and her weariness—Leon was right, she hadn’t been sleeping enough—her busy mind fluttered like a trapped bird.
Obviously, her brother had asked Leon to come and get her, but why had Leon relented? What would happen next? Should she bring up divorce herself before she left for Canada? Why did the word divorce cut like a knife through the center of her chest? It was something she wanted. Needed. She couldn’t live in this holding pattern forever.
Then what? How would she pay for her flight home? She would have to tell him—
The engine cut.
Either they were out of fuel, which was so disheartening a thought that she bit back a whimper of anguish, or...
A sail snapped. The boat wobbled and Leon’s feet sounded on the deck above her. She watched for him through the hatch but could see only stars. After a moment, the constellations quit joggling and began to move in a steady path.
It shouldn’t have felt like such a relief to be steering into open water with wind their only propulsion. She had very limited supplies for her baby and suspected whatever groceries Leon had brought had been taken by the soldiers.
But when she heard him come inside and close the door, her entire being relaxed.
“Thank you, Leon,” she whispered, and tumbled into heavy slumber.
* * *
Pink was staining the wispy clouds beyond the porthole when Illi began to whimper.
Tanja sat up, disoriented, murmuring, “I’m here, baby doll. Let’s go find your bottle.”
She had left the one she’d prepared in the tiny fridge, but when she went to the galley to retrieve it, she realized there was no microwave. Darn it, this might get loud.
“Everything okay?” Leon leaned down from the helm. He looked tired and scruffy, with a darker beard and weary circles around his eyes, but he was still sexy as hell.
Where the heck had that thought come from? The very last thing she wanted or needed was a recurrence of a case of the lusts.
She yanked her libido back under control and said, “She needs a bottle.”
“Don’t use the water in the tap unless you boil it first. I bought this from a fellow racer who had it stored on Malta. It’s seaworthy, but the tanks are due for flushing. I didn’t have time.”
“Oh. Okay.” She should have asked if the water was safe, but she’d been operating on autopilot last night when she had brushed her teeth. She had poured a glass of water, rinsed and spit, then drunk what remained in the glass out of habit. It had tasted stale and metallic, but she felt fine. Maybe a bit off, but that could be chronic hunger or mal de mer, likely both.
She only needed to warm Illi’s bottle anyway so she set the filled kettle on the stove and started the flame. Then she swayed the unhappy Illi on her hip, keeping hold of a nearby ledge for balance.
“Soon, babykins. I promise.”
Illi was sucking her fingers and pinching her arm, letting her know what a jerk she was for taking so long to give her the bottle she wanted.
“There’s a hold they missed with emergency supplies.” Leon directed her to lift the cushions on the saloon bench and open the narrow hatch beneath. “I had the chocolate in there with some extra bottles of water. I think there’s a jar of instant coffee.”
“And soup and porridge,” she said as she exposed it and found the packets. It was a
ll dry, hardly haute cuisine, but she was so thrilled she was giddy.
The kettle began to whistle. She found a coffee mug that would fit the bottle, then poured some of the hot water around it, lightly bouncing Illi while they waited for it to warm.
She made Leon a coffee in the meantime and passed it up to him. “I don’t see any cream or sugar. I’d rather keep the formula for Illi.”
“This is fine, thanks,” he said drily.
She gave the bottle a shake and tried it on her wrist. It was tepid, but Illi greedily went after the nipple and drained the bottle in record time, eyelids growing heavy as she finished it.
They usually went back to bed after her early-morning bottle, but Tanja settled Illi on the berth with the pillow in place, then propped the door open so she could see and hear her. She came back to the galley to make a bowl of porridge that she took up to Leon.
“I can sit watch if you want to sleep,” she offered.
He looked between her and the bowl and the coffee he’d set aside to cool, then to the various instruments. There was nothing in front of them except a light morning chop and a brightening sky.
“You’re comfortable with all of this?”
“I couldn’t navigate manually.” She nodded at the rack of rolled paper charts, then clicked through the LCD screens on the hub mounted next to the wheel. “But it looks like we’re a few degrees off the course you’ve plotted to avoid... That’s a container ship?” She clicked to the Automatic Identification System screen to see the vessel’s ID and call sign. Another screen told her, “The depth is good, but I’ll keep an eye on it.” She clicked to the radar screen. “And I’ll watch for that little guy off our port bow.”
“And the radio?”
“Hold that button and bust into any channel with noise.”
“Good enough.” He slid off the bench, crowding her in the tiny space, head and shoulders hunched because the ceiling was so low.
She was slouched with a forearm braced on the back of his chair. All she would have to do was tilt her head and lean. Their mouths would fit perfectly. She knew that because that’s how it had been last night when he’d appeared out of thin air like the Greek god of rescues. He had kissed her like he’d meant it. She had kissed him back like she’d missed him.
