Captain's Paradise: A Novel

by Kay Hooper

  “You’ll have to. It wouldn’t be in character to give it back. Besides, do you really want to go back in there?”

  “No. But it isn’t right.”

  Patiently Michael said, “Then we’ll stop at a church somewhere and you can put it in the collection box.”

  Robin sighed but walked beside him without further protest. She knew she was stupid to feel guilty about accepting money from a man like Jack under false pretenses; it was probably ill-gotten gains anyway. Still, he’d been kind to her in a rough way, and she couldn’t help but feel bad about it.

  “How did you guess they wouldn’t bother you in there?” Michael asked curiously as they walked.

  “It made sense.” He seemed to have forgotten he was still holding her hand, and Robin wondered why she didn’t pull it away. “A girl dressed like I am, probably pretty young and down on her luck—but wearing a religious medal she could have pawned. A cop told me once that some of the roughest men still have a tendency to respect ‘good’ girls. I took the chance.”

  “You sure did.” He squeezed her hand briefly. “And you pulled it off. You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that.”

  Still fooling them all! Robin’s bitterness grew when she realized that the aftermath of fear had left her feeling weak and shaky—as always. Oh, damn, why couldn’t she conquer her fear? Why couldn’t she find some hint of courage inside herself?

  “Thanks,” she said tautly, and immediately changed the subject because she felt like a fraud. “Are we going back to the boat?”

  “After we stop for supplies, I think we’d better. And we should head for that island right away. The crackdown on boats in these waters won’t last longer than a couple more days, I’d guess. Once the heat’s off, Sutton could decide to bolt.”

  For the first time, Robin wondered what he planned to do when they found the yacht. If Sutton was indeed an old enemy, then Lisa’s position was decidedly precarious. From what Robin had heard, Sutton was just as likely to enter into a gun battle with a Coast Guard vessel as he was to surrender to them.

  In a small voice she said, “We can’t just tip off the Coast Guard about that yacht, can we?”

  After a moment Michael said, “I don’t know, but it’s doubtful. One hint of trouble, and Sutton’s likely to throw the girls overboard. And they won’t be in any condition to survive that.”

  “Then how can we help them? How can we get them and Lisa off the boat safely?”

  “I don’t know, Robin.” Michael walked on steadily, not looking at her. “I just don’t know.”

  It wasn’t over, Robin realized, going cold inside again. The worst wasn’t over. She’d had some vague idea of alerting the proper officials and standing by while the girls and Michael’s sister were safely rescued. But she realized now that it wouldn’t be so easy, or so simple. Finding the yacht wouldn’t be enough.

  She forced her voice to remain steady. “We’ll need some kind of backup once we find the yacht.”

  As they turned in the direction of the marina, Michael stopped suddenly and faced her. They stood before a tavern slightly more upscale than the one Robin had gone into, and the hellish glow of a red neon sign in the window lit Michael’s face and made his grim expression all too obvious.

  “No, Robin.”

  “There must be someone you can trust!”

  “That isn’t the point.”

  “Yes, it is,” Robin insisted, and felt a flash of bitterness spurred as much by her own self-doubts as anything else. “But it has to be you, right? Just you alone, and never mind that you’re way the hell outnumbered.”

  “Robin—”

  The ice was cracking, and fear was the reason. Fear for him. Nothing mattered except this terrible hunger for him, clawing at her until she was raw and helpless. He’d get himself killed, and every instinct she could lay claim to surged in protest. The feelings tangled inside her in wild confusion.

  She jerked her hand away and forced a hard laugh. “I hate heroes, I really do. They make the rest of us feel so damned inadequate!” Then, horrified to have said that aloud for the first time, she shoved her hands into the pockets of her windbreaker and hurried past him. She knew he was behind her, but he didn’t speak and didn’t attempt to catch up. Robin was blessed with a good sense of direction, and even with her thoughts and emotions in turmoil was able to find the marina easily.

  She found herself alone once she reached the boat, and realized only then that Michael must have stopped somewhere to get those supplies he mentioned. Miserable, she went below and took a shower in the tiny bathroom, making use of the first opportunity she’d had to wash away the salt of her enforced swim of last night. She found another pair of cutoff jeans and a short-sleeved green blouse, then went up on deck to allow her hair to dry in the night breeze.

  The marina was well lit, and she saw Michael easily when he returned almost an hour later carrying two boxes of groceries and supplies. He didn’t look at her as he jumped aboard and took the stuff below, and Robin felt even more miserable.

  Typical Robin, shooting her mouth off, she thought. She’d had no right to say that. He was worried to death about his sister—and he was an agent, for God’s sake; of course he was courageous enough to deal with Sutton alone. He would too; she knew he would. Heroes, sure. And she had to be attracted to them.

  Especially attracted to Michael Siran.

  Robin groaned inwardly and rested her forehead on her upraised knees. Oh, Lord, she was doing it again! Like ore to a magnet, she couldn’t help but give in to the attraction of strong men … only to find herself resenting them, because she, a coward, could never feel equal in such a relationship.

  That was all it was, of course. All. Just an attraction, and these other tangled feelings didn’t mean anything at all. She was a dumb woman with an insane fascination for strong men. Nothing more.

  Desperately, she went on lying to herself.

  Eyes closed, she felt more than heard soft footsteps on the deck, and became aware that Michael had sat down on the padded bench across from the one she occupied. She heard the snap of a lighter, and looked up to find him lighting a cigarette, face expressionless.

  “You want to tell me what that was all about?” he asked when the lighter was back in his pocket.

  She cleared away the lump in her throat. “Nothing. It wasn’t about anything. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have said it.”

  “I want to know why you said it, Robin.”

  “Just forget it, all right?”

  “No.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked at her steadily. “There’s something going on inside you that I don’t like, something that’s tearing you up. So what’s this crap about heroes—and your feeling inadequate?”

  She stiffened. “It’s nothing. I told you.”

  Michael began frowning. “Robin, I don’t know what you think I am, but if you’ve got some image of armor and a white charger, you can forget it.”

  “Not that kind of hero.” Robin heard herself, and she couldn’t believe she was saying this; she had never told anybody about her stupid fixation. “Not the storybook stuff, all pretty and white and bloodless. The real thing, Michael, that’s what you are. You and men like you.”

  “Robin—”

  “Oh, I know all about men like you.” She knew her voice was shaking, but the words burst out nonetheless, like waters from floodgates. “My father, my brothers, uncles—all cops. My father. He’s a cop like you, the kind of cop you don’t read about in the papers. He earns scars instead of medals, just like you do, I’ll bet. He hasn’t any nerves and doesn’t know what fear is. Like you. Pressure never gets to him, and he never doubts himself and his abilities, and he’s always in control. Like you.”

  “Stop it, Robin.” Michael suddenly rose and crossed the small deck between them, tossing his cigarette overboard and sitting down on the bench near her raised legs. “Is that what you think a hero is, some kind of superman? Robin, you just described a machine, not a hum
an being. And you sure as hell didn’t describe me.”

  He was too close, too near, and her body was heating slowly. Her laugh was a small, hollow sound. “Didn’t I? You’re going to tackle Sutton alone even though you’ll be outnumbered at least ten to one. What do you call that?”

  “My only option.” He took a breath, releasing it impatiently. “Robin, if I thought we could get more than ourselves and this boat anywhere near Sutton’s yacht unobserved, we’d have an army as backup. I’m not too proud to yell for help, but in this situation one man has a better chance of getting on that yacht without raising the alarm.”

  “And then?” Her voice was taut. “What, Michael? Do you think you can get those girls off the boat by yourself? Or are you going to take a cannon along to persuade all those armed men to give up peacefully?”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,” he said, more than a suggestion of clenched teeth in his voice. “But I’ll do whatever it takes to get Lisa and those other girls safely out of Sutton’s hands.”

  “I know.” She tried and failed to smile. “That’s what makes you a hero, Michael. That’s what fearless men do.”

  “Fearless?” He laughed shortly. “Fear’s an old friend of mine, Robin. And right now I’m shaking inside.”

  She stared at him, feeling a jolt of shock. All the strong men she had known and none had ever admitted to fear. Granted, she hadn’t brought the question up; because they appeared utterly fearless, she had accepted that as truth. But if this man, whose strength and courage she could almost see, like an aura around him, if this man admitted to fear …

  “It doesn’t show,” she whispered.

  He was still frowning, his sharp gray eyes probing hers. “Of course it doesn’t show; I don’t let it. Just like you don’t let it show.”

  “It shows on me like a red flag,” she told him, stubborn insistence in her voice. “And every time, every time I have to go into a bad situation, every time I have to at least pretend to be strong, the fear eats me up inside. And I know I’ll freeze. I’ll freeze up, and I’ll get someone killed. That’s why I couldn’t be—” She broke off, horrified.

  But it was too late. Michael finished the sentence quietly, a dawning understanding in his expression. “That’s why you couldn’t be a cop, like your father.”

  Robin tried to draw away from him, but she was hemmed in by the side of the boat and by the long legs stretched out beside the bench. She couldn’t move away without touching him, and suddenly she was more afraid of touching him than of anything else.

  “That’s it, isn’t it, Robin?”

  Her arms tightened around her upraised knees, and she couldn’t look away from those clear, perceptive eyes. “I went through the academy,” she said almost inaudibly. “Everyone said I was born to be a cop. But I knew the truth. I knew I was always afraid. I knew someone would depend on me someday, a partner, and I’d freeze up. I’d be paralyzed with fear, and I’d get that partner, or someone else, killed.”

  “Did you ever freeze up?” he asked quietly.

  “That doesn’t matter, don’t you see? I knew I would. And I couldn’t be a cop when I knew that.”

  “What happened? Did you drop out of the academy?”

  She swallowed hard. “No. I failed the written exam. Twice. I failed it twice.”

  Michael looked at her for a long moment, then said, “So you stuck that label on yourself as well.”

  “What label?”

  “Failure. Is that what your father called you?”

  “No.” She avoided his eyes. “I didn’t give him the chance. I haven’t seen him in three years. A coward to the end.”

  “Stop it.” He reached out, grasping both her shoulders and holding them hard. “Robin, fear is natural; in a dangerous situation you’d be an idiot if you weren’t afraid. And that failure of yours wasn’t an honest one.”

  “I know what I am,” she whispered, trying to ignore the hard strength of his chest pressed against her arms.

  He seemed about to shake her, but then drew a breath and spoke roughly. “Do you? Well, let me tell you what others know about you, Robin. What I know about you, even though we’ve known each other less than twenty-four hours. I know that you went through an experience that would have destroyed most women. You were kidnapped, drugged, treated like a piece of merchandise. But you still managed to save yourself by getting away and jumping overboard. And then, when any other woman would have run to escape those painful memories, you teamed up with a stranger to try to save those other women.

  “You went into a place that half the cops I’ve ever met would have avoided like the plague, filled with men very like the ones who kidnapped you. And you did it, Robin. You instinctively assumed the one role that provided a slight chance of success. And it worked. You went in for information—and you came out with it. You got the job done.”

  “I was afraid!” she cried.

  “So what? You think courage is measured by the lack of fear? No, Robin, it’s the opposite. Courage is doing what you have to despite fear.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, thinking of her father, always smiling, confident, unafraid.

  Michael did shake her then, but gently. His gray eyes went steely suddenly, with the inward-turned look of self-appraisal. “I’ve been in this business for ten years,” he told her flatly, “and I’m very good at what I do. I’ve worked in the Middle East, South America, every part of Europe and Asia. Dirty jobs, most of them, and hellishly tangled. I’ve been betrayed by people I thought were friends, captured, held prisoner. And, Robin … I’ve been afraid.”

  She stared at him, seeing the naked truth. “But it didn’t paralyze you,” she whispered. “It didn’t stop you.”

  “No. And it won’t stop you. You doubted yourself and your abilities in the beginning, and that’s natural. But you seem to keep misinterpreting your own reactions to danger. The point isn’t that you’re afraid. The point is that it doesn’t stop you.”

  “What if it does one day?”

  “It won’t.”

  “How can I be sure of that?”

  The hands on her shoulders gentled. “Robin, you should be sure of it now. You’ve already faced dangers most people never encounter. You just have to accept that fear is two-o’clock-in-the-morning courage.”

  Feeling very shaken, she murmured, “Is that a quote?”

  He smiled a little. “Paraphrase. Look it up sometime. Because that’s the kind of courage you have. The rarest kind.”

  Robin drew a breath, aware suddenly of the quiet of the marina, of the gentle rocking motion of the boat. Of him. His long fingers were moving on her shoulders, almost absently probing; his eyes were darkening. And she couldn’t look away from him. She had an abrupt memory of jumping off that yacht, of sinking into dark waters, alone and afraid.

  “What is it about you?” he murmured, clearly puzzled. “I’ve talked more in the last twenty-four hours than I usually do in a month.”

  “You’re … very alone, aren’t you?”

  “Except for Lisa.”

  Robin shook her head slightly. “That isn’t what I meant.”

  “I know.” His eyes were searching her face now, still puzzled, as if he were looking for something. “Professionally I rarely work with a partner. Personally I suppose I never thought it was fair to begin a relationship that couldn’t last.”

  “You mean friendship? Or a lover?”

  “Both. My life would strain any kind of relationship.”

  Robin was trying to concentrate, trying to keep her mind off the slow, inexorable awakening of her body and senses. “But you must have friendships. Dane, for one.”

  Michael tilted his head slightly, listening. “Maybe it’s your voice,” he said absently, then responded to her comments before she could react. “Dane? No, Dane isn’t a friend. We don’t know enough about each other for friendship. I’m secretive; he’s enigmatic. He’s too good a card player for my peace of mind. And even though I
’d trust him with my life—and have in some situations—I’m not so sure I’d turn my back to him.”

  She felt a sudden pang, remembering what he had said about having been betrayed by those he’d considered friends. “You two seemed to know each other so well. And yet you still feel suspicious?”

  One of his hands lifted from her shoulder and brushed a strand of auburn hair from her face, then lingered warmly against her neck. “I’ve always hedged my bets, Robin,” he said quietly. “Because sure things sometimes stumble, and the long shots can get you killed.”

  “Which am I?” she heard herself ask unsteadily. “The sure thing? Or the long shot?”

  “I don’t know.” His hand slid around to the nape of her neck, and he began drawing her toward him. “But for the first time in my life … I don’t know if I can hedge this bet.”

  Against her conscious volition, Robin felt her hands lifting to touch his chest, felt her legs parting so that as he drew her closer she was heavily aware of the warmth of his body in the hollow of her thighs.

  “I don’t think … this is a very good idea,” she managed to say almost inaudibly.

  “Of course it isn’t,” he said huskily. “What the hell does that matter?”

  Robin forgot her objections the moment his lips touched hers. She forgot everything but him and the violent surge of emotions rushing through her. She had never felt anything like this, and the force of it shocked her. It came from him, that force, but there was an equally strong response from deep inside herself, and that stunned her; she had never before felt such power.

  Her arms went up around his neck as he pulled her fiercely against him, and she felt him draw one of her legs across his, stroking the slender thigh left bare by her shorts. With a mind of its own, her body arched into his, driven to be closer.

  A wild sound tangled in the back of her throat as his mouth slanted across hers, deepening the kiss, and heat jolted through her like wildfire. What did it matter, she wondered dazedly, that there would have to be a reckoning for this, that she would pay dearly in tattered emotions. What did it matter that this time she was drawn to a man stronger than any she had ever known, with a force of will that would inevitably deepen her own sense of failure.