by Fiona Harper
She rubbed her eyes, got out of bed and braced a hand against the wall to stop herself from falling over. Her brain struggled to make sense of the mismatched information being sent to it. She hadn’t drunk much last night, so this couldn’t be the hangover of all hangovers. What the heck was going on?
As she lurched her way through the cabin she glanced out of one of the tiny lozenge-shaped portholes and finally the jigsaw pieces began to come together. There was blue. Lots of it. Above and below the horizon. And cliffs. Last time she’d checked Lower Hadwell had been all about green hills covered in woods and sheep-filled fields. Not a cliff to be seen. Which left only one conclusion to stumble onto.
They were at sea. Almost. Right at the mouth of the estuary.
Matthew must be much more of a morning person than she gave him credit for. How disappointing. And she’d at least have expected him to discuss with her which beach she’d like to go to. Behaviour like this reminded her of someone she’d much rather push to the recesses of her mind and slap the label What were you thinking? on.
The breeze hit her full in the face and tugged at her hair as she emerged from the cabin. The cockpit was empty, and no one was at the large wooden tiller at the back end. She could hear the mainsail rustling frantically above her head as it flapped in the wind. She stepped out into the cockpit properly, stood on one of the non-slip benches and looked further down the boat.
There, clipping a sail onto the wire that ran from the front of the boat to the top of the mast, was a hunched figure. Zoe called and waved at Matthew, but the wind stole her words. She yelled louder.
And then she had another one of those worst hangover ever moments, because when the hunched man stood up and turned around his face was different and his hair was all wrong. In fact, it looked a lot like…
But it couldn’t be!
Before she could tell her brain to start making sense, another large wave hit the boat—which she now realised had been responsible for the hollow bumping she’d heard in her cabin—and Zoe, who had not been on a yacht enough times before to know it was a good idea to hang onto something at all times, tumbled back into the cockpit.
Had that been the only thing that had happened, things would have been fine, apart from a few bruises and a general sense of embarrassment. But Zoe fell against the tiller when she landed and grabbed onto it for support, causing the boat, which had been facing the wind, to swing round sharply. The mainsail filled and Dream Weaver pitched sideways.
Zoe righted herself just in time to see the shocked face of the man at the other end of the boat. Definitely not Matthew.
Definitely her worst nightmare.
Definitely losing his balance from the unexpected lurch of the deck. In slow motion, he grabbed for the wire he’d been clipping the sail onto but missed. For a couple of seconds he seemed to hover in mid-air, but then there was a splash and a yell, and Zoe’s worst nightmare had fallen overboard.
* * *
Zoe freaked. For a moment she was frozen to the spot, her mouth opening and closing, her hands twitching as if they were grasping for something, as if their ineffectual motion could wind time backwards so she could catch him on the replay.
Then she screamed. Then she ran. Up the deck, hardly looking where she was going, until she reached the spot where he’d disappeared. Then she screamed a second time at the sight of Damien Stone, half-consumed by the sea, clinging for dear life onto one of the metal posts that surrounded the deck.
There was no time for discussion of the surreal wormhole that had ruptured time and space to bring him here. Zoe just grabbed his wrist, anchored one foot against another one of the metal posts and pulled. For a while they seemed to make no progress. Between them, they managed to pull Damien up towards the deck, but another wave would hit Dream Weaver, causing him to slip back a couple of inches.
Eventually, Damien managed to pull himself up further and Zoe took handfuls of his clothes—anything she could get her hands on—and dragged and tugged and yanked until his chest and one foot were on the deck and he managed to haul himself back on board.
As soon as he hit the deck he jumped up and ran to the cockpit, where he grabbed a rope and loosened it. Zoe ran after him, and by the time she reached the cockpit the mainsail was down, hanging untidily in folds over the boom like a giant piping bag.
That was when Damien turned to face Zoe. That was also when the shouting began. Lots of words, lots of half sentences. Not a lot of sense. They both finally fell silent, regarding each other warily, ribcages heaving.
Damien’s tone was low and dark. ‘Please tell me I’m hallucinating!’
Zoe’s hands popped onto her hips. ‘Charming! That’s what I get for saving your life!’
‘It was you who tipped me overboard!’
He wanted to cast accusations around? Fine. Zoe had plenty of her own.
‘Well, if you hadn’t practically kidnapped me… If you’d actually thought to inform me you were taking the boat out for a sail…’ She paused and frowned. ‘Hang on. What are you doing here anyway? Are you stalking me?’
Damien laughed so hard he almost fell overboard again. ‘This really is an alternate reality, isn’t it? And I should ask you what you’re doing on board Weaver. You don’t even know how to sail!’
She pulled herself up straighter. ‘I might know how to sail. How would you know?’
Damien gave her one of his patented superior looks at that moment. It made her wish she’d let him flounder in the waves instead of breaking three nails fishing him out.
‘Believe me, it’s obvious,’ he said dryly.
They stood there, at opposite ends of the cockpit, radiating irritation, neither of them willing to answer the other’s question first, as if doing so would indicate surrender.
Damien blew air out through his mouth and shook his head, then he reached for the rope dangling into the cockpit, wound it round something that looked like an over-sized pepper grinder and started to hoist the sail. She sat down in the cockpit and folded her arms. ‘Where are we going?’
Damien looked back over his shoulder as he secured the rope. He reached for the tiller, then sat down facing her. The boat started leaning again as the wind hit the triangle of white, and Zoe was childishly pleased that she was on the upper side. At least she was until Damien turned the boat around so it pitched again, and then he was smiling down at her, his lips thin, and she was glowering back at him, her arms folded so tight now they felt like a corset.
‘I’m taking you back to the marina,’ he said finally.
Zoe frowned harder. ‘Why me?’
Damien looked at her as if she should have been in a straitjacket. ‘So you can collect your stuff and disembark. I don’t know what kind of stupid joke you are trying to pull—’
‘Listen, Mr—’ Zoe stood up, but forgot to factor in the wonky floor and sat straight back down again. ‘Luke told me I could use his boat for the next couple of weeks, so I’m not going anywhere.’
That wiped the smug smile off his face. ‘But Sara told me…’
They looked at each other.
‘Double booked,’ they both said in unison.
Then they sat in silence, trying to cogitate what that might mean.
‘You don’t think they meant to…’ Zoe said, shaking her head.
Damien was doing the same. ‘No. They wouldn’t. They know I don’t like—’
Zoe raised her eyebrows and the rest of the sentence stayed unsaid.
‘It must be some kind of mistake,’ he added, having the decency to look at least a little sheepish.
Zoe looked out to sea, as if searching for answers there. ‘We could always call them and ask them if…’ Zoe trailed off and her gaze returned to Damien, who looked every inch the competent sailor as he nudged the tiller this way and that, every now and then checking the compass or looking out to a spot on the headland.
He lifted one side of his mouth in a wry smile.
‘You’re right,’ she said. �
��Not a good time to be phoning the happy couple, first day of their honeymoon and all.’
Damien’s mouth thinned into a straight line again and he looked away.
‘We’re just going to have to work this one out on our own, then.’
Zoe nodded, and then she shivered. She’d been so taken up in rescuing Damien, then wanting to rip his head off, that she’d totally forgotten she was only wearing her pyjamas—a soft grey vest and a pair of pink and grey striped bottoms.
Damien must have caught her shudder out of the corner of his eye, because he turned his head and looked at her again.
‘Why don’t you go below deck and get warm?’
If Zoe had been a cat, the fur along her spine would have just risen straight up. She opened her mouth.
‘Oh, calm down,’ he said dismissively, and when she looked as if she was about to do the opposite he made an observation. ‘You’re a little bit wet,’ he added.
‘So are you,’ she countered.
‘Yes,’ said Damien, looking her up and down, ‘but I’m dressed for sailing and I don’t think that fabric you have on is very…water repellent.’
Zoe was about to argue, but then she glanced down and saw what he meant. Her vest was plastered to her, soaked front and back, and her trousers weren’t much better. She glared at him. He couldn’t have mentioned this sooner? Or he couldn’t have taken a hot poker and burnt out his eyes?
She got up with as much dignity as she could muster, and then wobbled her way across the cockpit and down the stairs, mightily glad that after the first few steps he couldn’t see her front any more, couldn’t see the vest moulded to her rather impressive chest.
She didn’t, however, realise that the striped fabric clung just as lovingly to her bottom. And she didn’t see Damien lean over a little bit to watch her ample rear end wiggle its way into her cabin and disappear.
CHAPTER FIVE
AN UNEASY truce was established over bacon sandwiches a short while later. Damien took the boat to a little cove just near the estuary and dropped anchor. And Zoe, who was now warm and dry and dressed, fried the bacon while Damien took a quick shower and got himself into the same state.
The truce held, of course, because neither of them said much to each other. However, that couldn’t continue indefinitely, so once butties had been eaten and washed down with tea, it was time to retreat to their corners and fight this thing out.
Damien had decided as he drove down that morning that sailing was just about the only thing he could think of that would keep him sane over the next couple of weeks, that sailing and sailing alone would dislodge the unwanted fantasies in his head. He really didn’t want to hand Dream Weaver over to this woman—a woman who probably wouldn’t even untie her from her mooring. It was almost criminal to leave the boat neglected like that.
But underneath that sense of indignation he also had the horrible creeping feeling that he would end up doing the chivalrous thing, even though he’d rather be eaten by sharks first. The knowledge only served to make him more irritable. He drained the last of his tea, plonked his mug down on the propped-up wing of the table and looked at Zoe.
‘What were your plans?’ he asked in a perfect impression of calm and reasonableness.
Zoe tucked a strand of wet hair behind her left ear. She seemed slightly unnerved by his politeness, and Damien had a flashback to the night before, when she’d kissed him without reserve or barrier, and he’d sensed a hint of vulnerability beneath that brassy armour.
But they weren’t here to think about kissing—they were here to talk about sailing, remember?
She swallowed. ‘Just…you know. Having a break—a holiday.’
Damien frowned. ‘You weren’t going to take Weaver out on your own, were you?’
A spike of irritation totally eradicated any hint of vulnerability in Zoe’s eyes. That was better. He preferred that.
‘No,’ she replied, the space between her eyebrows puckering, ‘I’m not that stupid, whatever you might think!’
Damien took a deep breath. He was going to stay in control. He was.
‘I was going to explore Lower Hadwell and maybe Dartmouth, read, sunbathe—and Luke had arranged a skipper for me for a few days so we could go out sailing.’
Damien nodded. He knew he should do the decent thing, but the bobbing of the boat beneath him on the swell, the familiar slap of the steel shrouds against the mast, teased him. He really didn’t want to get back in his car and drive all the way back to London. It had been too long since he’d had the opportunity to sail like this. Maybe Luke had been right. Maybe he had been working too hard.
She folded her arms across her chest, and he knew she was digging in for a fight, that he might not get her off this boat unless he tied her up, popped her in a sail bag and drove her all the way back home in the boot of his car. He allowed himself a little daydream to that effect before he made himself face reality, and a stony-faced Zoe, again.
Just looking at her made him restless and jumpy—and in two completely different ways. How did she do that? How did his body respond to those curves when his mind was yelling No way?
And then an idea occurred to him. Both beautiful and idiotic at the same time.
At least while Zoe had been needling him at the wedding he’d forgotten about Sara. She might drive him crazy, but she was one hell of an effective distraction. And, much as he might wish it so, she wasn’t going anywhere. He knew she’d never cave and let him have the boat for the fortnight. For some reason she took everything he said or did very personally. So maybe he could make all her irritating qualities work for him rather than against him.
‘Why don’t I be your skipper?’
Zoe stopped moving. Her chest didn’t rise and fall, her eyelids didn’t blink. ‘What?’ she said so quietly he almost didn’t hear her.
‘You want two weeks relaxing in the sun—or whatever weather we get. This is England, after all—and I want to sail…’
She nodded, very softly, very slowly.
‘I know we…clashed…yesterday—’ He’d almost said kissed, but that hadn’t been his intention at all. He cleared his throat and continued. ‘But it was a stressful day for everyone, emotions were running high…’
His voice dried then. He went to take a sip of tea, but discovered too late his mug was already empty, and had to make do with swallowing once or twice.
Zoe leaned forward slightly, and her eyes lost that narrow, suspicious look. ‘You’d be my personal deck hand?’
That wasn’t quite the way he’d have put it, but he wasn’t going to quibble about it. This way, they could both get what they wanted.
‘I suggest we both use the boat. I can sail. You can sunbathe or shop or do whatever you want to do, and we can stay out of each other’s way. Same boat, separate holidays.’ It sounded so reasonable he almost believed it himself.
Zoe blinked, and Damien decided that without that hard, garish persona of hers in place—the one that made her headbutt life like a nanny goat—she was actually quite pretty.
Unfortunately, Zoe didn’t stay quiet and almost ladylike for long. He saw the moment the insolence crystallised around her like a shell. She folded her arms across her front and rested back against the padded bench that would probably double as his bed that night.
‘You’re on,’ she said with a twinkle in her eye, and Damien had to fight the urge to smile. ‘To separate holidays.’ She lifted her mug and toasted him with the remainder of her tea. ‘And a truce. I can do it if you can.’
Ah, they were back to that—competition. Oh, well. It was something he and Zoe knew how to do excessively well, and as long as they were both trying to outdo each other being polite and accommodating, things should go pretty well.
* * *
Zoe sat in the cockpit, her feet up on the opposite bench, with a book in her lap and a large baggy shirt on over her swimming costume. It was still a bit chilly this morning to start sunbathing, which actually suited her fine at prese
nt. She was going to have to work up to baring substantial amounts of flesh now she had an audience. Once again she wished she had her best friend’s figure. Sara had slender thighs, a flat stomach and an uncanny ability to say no to cake. Zoe, not so much—as her jelly-like thighs, bulging one-piece and general lumpiness bore witness to.
If only Mr Damien Stone weren’t so…well…good-looking. She’d feel more comfortable stripping off if her companion had a white, pasty pigeon chest and legs like two knotted pieces of string. No such luck. Even under his jeans and T-shirt, it was obvious his body was every bit as perfect as the rest of him.
A fact you know only too well, Zoe St James, since you were freely exploring it with your fingertips not even twenty-four hours ago.
That was then, she told herself. This is now. And she wasn’t going to mention that kiss, not if Damien wasn’t. She wasn’t going to weaken first. Bringing it up would only make it seem that she was some kind of desperate girly who had fallen under his spell. No way was she letting him think he had the upper hand.
Unwittingly, Damien Stone had engineered his own downfall. His suggestion had played right into her hands, because she was going to make him pay for that look on his face after he’d kissed her. He’d practically agreed to be her personal slave, and she was going to make the most of it. By the end of this holiday he’d know she could do disdain just as well as he could.
In fact, the whole situation might be deeply satisfying on so many levels. Teaching him a lesson would be cathartic, because it really wasn’t about him alone. It was all men like him, who thought everyone was beneath them, who needed to be taught a lesson. Men like her ex. Well, she was going to make sure Damien Stone felt way, way beneath her this holiday. A little humiliation might just be on the menu.
They’d sailed back into the Dart estuary and up to Lower Hadwell marina. Ever since they’d tied the boat up—Zoe knew there was a proper name for that, but it escaped her—Damien had been running around the boat like a mad thing. He’d opened all sorts of hidden lockers that she’d had no idea existed, checking sails and ropes and things she couldn’t identify.