Between Roc and a Hard Place

by Heather Graham

  “Aye, captain!” Bruce agreed.

  He paused to let Marina finish filling his cup, and by then Melinda was ready with one of her innocent questions. “So you’re diving today? Where are we heading?” Aquamarine eyes, wide, innocent, looked around the cabin.

  They’d all nearly dropped their tongues on the floor over her—Bruce, Peter, even Joe. And somehow she seemed to be gaining the sympathy of the women in the crowd. Roc waited for one of them to tell her exactly where they were going to look for the Contessa.

  But they all seemed to have retained some sense of loyalty. There was silence in the cabin.

  He smiled, leaning toward her. “You’re not supposed to tell spies what you’re up to and where you’re going, Ms. Davenport.”

  Bruce nudged him. “Trellyn,” he whispered. “She’s still a Trellyn, isn’t she?”

  Roc raised himself up, meeting her eyes. “I’m not so sure she ever was!” he exclaimed softly; then, despite the liquid beauty of Melinda’s eyes, so determined upon his, he swung around to leave the cabin.

  She jumped up, following him. “Roc!”

  He paused at the steps leading to the upper deck, looking back. They still had an audience.

  “What?” he asked impatiently.

  “Let me dive.”

  “You must be insane.”

  She threw up her arms. “What am I going to do?” she inquired almost desperately. “I’m a prisoner here. Where can I go with any information? Who can I tell?”

  “There’s still a radio on this boat!” he reminded her.

  “And you won’t let me use it.”

  “I won’t always be aboard—”

  “But your crew—”

  “Don’t know you—and your loyalty to your father—quite the way I do, Melinda!” he reminded her softly. So softly that their audience couldn’t hear him.

  It was almost amusing. The whole group of them suddenly seemed to lean forward en masse, trying to catch his words.

  “I told you, my father—”

  “Right. Longford let you out in the middle of the ocean. That’s even worse.”

  He spun around, determined not to be stopped.

  “Roc—”

  He swung to face her once again. “Go do the dishes!” he snapped irritably.

  She stared at him, her fingers clenching into fists at her sides, her chin still high, her eyes more dazzling, but damp, as if she might really care.

  He’d seen those eyes look like that before.…

  She turned around, and he did likewise, a little blindly, hurrying up the steps to the deck. He headed for the anchor winch and automatically set it in motion, rolling up the heavy anchor from the bottom of the sea. Bruce was quickly there beside him. “Take her up!” Roc said, leaving him to finish the task while he climbed to the elevated helm to stare out at the horizon.

  He’d been careful in the last week. He knew right where he wanted to search, but he didn’t want to anchor too near the spot by night, and he had changed his anchorage every night so as not to arouse suspicion in those who might be watching him.

  Obviously he had been found anyway. Melinda was aboard.

  But he hadn’t been discoverd actually diving, and that, at least, was good.

  Bruce called to him that the anchor was up, and he flipped on the switches for the motor, idled a moment, then took the big wooden wheel and started a course toward the Bahamas, toward a deserted island near the southwest section of the Northwest Providence Channel and a treacherous reef that had once caused danger to the great ships seeking the riches of the New World.

  The Crystal Lee was a smooth-running, fast boat, and he quickly felt the cool rush of the morning air touching his face, sweeping back his hair. The sun was rising now; it was going to be a hot day, just barely cooled by the sea breezes.

  It felt good to stand against the soothing, salt-laden wind. It helped to clear his mind after his difficult night, and it seemed he reached his destination far too soon.

  He cut the motor and called down to Bruce to cast the anchor. They were off the reef by a good fifty feet, but the water here was still no more than fifty or sixty feet deep. He hurried down from the helm, only to discover that Melinda was there with the others, dressed once again in her black bathing suit, waiting patiently.

  “Bruce, you’ve checked the tanks?” he asked his friend, staring at Melinda all the while.

  “Joe and I did. Checked and rechecked.”

  His equipment was on the deck. Joe Tobago, who would be staying aboard, reached for Roc’s tanks and mask and helped him into them. Connie and Bruce had helped each other, and there was Melinda, giving a hand to Peter.

  Roc thanked Joe briefly and accepted his flippers, then found that Melinda was staring at him. “You’re not diving,” he said curtly.

  “But—”

  “Go—”

  “Don’t tell me to go do the damned dishes! I already did them. You can ask Marina!” she informed him in a vehement rush.

  “You’re still not diving!”

  “You can’t keep me out of the water!” she cried.

  He looked over at Joe. “If you see another boat, any boat, near us, lock her up somewhere. It could be Longford trying to pull her back out of the sea.”

  “Roc, you have no right—”

  “I have every right!”

  He didn’t wait for her reply but sat on the edge of the boat, then rolled backward into the water, setting his mouthpiece into place. Seconds later he was alone, accompanied only by the lulling sound of his regulator as he breathed in and out, sinking lower and lower into the sea. The blue and green seemed to close around him, and the cool, floating feeling that he loved so much entered into him, easing tension swiftly from his limbs. God, it was wonderful. It was another world, where all the rules changed and a man became nearly weightless, where the sweet sound of silence blanketed the harshness of the world above the surface.

  He was nearing the reef, with the highest point jagging up to about fifteen feet below sea level, when he heard a sudden whooshing sound.

  Another body in motion in the water near him …

  Like a small dolphin.

  Or a five-foot-eight-inch woman.

  He turned his head. There she was. No tanks—neither Joe nor Marina would have betrayed him so far—no mask, no flippers. Just Melinda, with her incredible swimming skills and her near record-breaking ability to hold her breath.

  She was swimming below him, golden hair following in her wake. She was as graceful, as fluid as any fish or creature of the sea, and truly, at that moment, she might have been a mermaid, a siren, one of Neptune’s daughters, reigning supreme in the beautiful blue-green waters.

  Damn her hide!

  He plunged downward, swimming after her. She had gone past the reef, over to the other side, where the World War Two shipwreck lay strewn about.

  Even as he pursued her, she disappeared inside the hulk.

  “Melinda!” He started to scream her name, nearly choked, then swore at himself for being a fool.

  Then he started after her in furious pursuit.

  Chapter 5

  He followed her across the rusting hull and in through a door that hung eerily on half of its hinges. The sunlight that had streaked through the beautiful blue-green water was dimmed within the confines of the rusted old hulk. Crossing a deck filled with cramped living quarters, he came to the point where damage and time had worn the downed ship completely in two. There was a near-barren expanse of sand, with just a few areas of haphazardly thrown seaweeds, coral and delicate, beautifully colored little sea creatures. The rest of the rotten ship had fallen over the shelf and lay another twenty feet deeper, about a hundred yards away.

  Melinda was just disappearing over the ledge that led that twenty feet downward.

  He caught her halfway down. She stared at him furiously, trying to shake free. How long had she been holding her breath now? It was uncanny.

  He forced her to take his mout
hpiece. She inhaled a vast supply of air, then tried to escape his hold once again, but he held onto her tightly. He pointed to the surface and let her know that he was taking her there—whether she wanted to go or not.

  He gave a good kick, and they went shooting upward together. His legs brushed hers in the water, and he was startled by the erotic impact that slight touch seemed to have on him. She was sleek here under the sea. Tempting, even as he longed with all his heart to wring her neck.

  They broke the surface, and he spat out his mouthpiece. “What do you think—”

  “I’m not diving, I’m swimming!” she said irritably.

  “What you’re doing is dangerous, and you know it!”

  She was silent for a moment, her lashes sweeping her cheeks. She knew it was dangerous to crawl around the old hulk the way she’d been doing. She could too easily become trapped by some falling piece of rot.

  She opened her eyes again, staring straight at him. “Then what you’re doing is dangerous, too!”

  “But I have air tanks—”

  “And you should still be with someone.”

  “Well, if I weren’t following you around, I would be with someone!”

  “If you don’t let go of me, you’re going to drown us both!”

  “Ah!” he exclaimed, but his hold on her didn’t ease in the least. “That’s it. I’ve got it now. You’re not a spy. You’re just here to torment me to death so your father—or Longford—has time to move in for the find!”

  “I’m not tormenting you—you’re tormenting me. And if you’d just let me help you … I’m a damned good diver!”

  “Out!” he told her, giving her a shove toward the ship.

  “You don’t rule the ocean!” she cried, treading water.

  He lunged toward her. She started swimming again, at first slipping easily away, since she was unencumbered, but then the added power of Roc’s flippers kicked in, and he overcame her about halfway between where they had been and the Crystal Lee.

  “I said, out of the water!”

  “And I said it’s a free ocean!”

  “Not while you’re on my boat.”

  “I’m not on your boat, I’m in the water.”

  “If you don’t quit arguing with me, I’ll haul you out of the water and—”

  “Oh, big talk! You wouldn’t dare. Your crew would mutiny!”

  “I dare just about anything, and you ought to know that by now, so there’s just one question left—is that a challenge, Ms. Davenport?”

  She jerked free of his hold, trying for a deep dive that would bring her back to the coral shelves, but he caught her first. With a firm hand on her arm, he started swimming hard for the Crystal Lee. She was strong, struggling and wriggling like a game fish on a line. But he reached the boat and the ladder, thrusting her toward it, then grabbing hold himself to force her ahead of him. Joe and Marina were on deck, anxiously waiting. Melinda leaped easily aboard, then disappeared into the captain’s cabin with a quick nod to the others.

  Roc struggled up more slowly, because of his gear. Fine, she was in his cabin. They would have a little privacy.

  Right. With everyone on board listening just a few feet away!

  “Eh, captain, I give you a hand!” Joe said, quickly coming over to take the tanks.

  Roc ripped off his mask, breathing deeply, trying to control his temper. Even as he did so, Connie broke the surface, calling out, “We’re coming up. It’s a wash so far, Roc. We haven’t found a thing.”

  He gritted his teeth. What was Melinda up to? He hadn’t realized it, but an hour had gone by, and she had kept him occupied all that time.

  Was that her job? To sabotage his search?

  He started for the cabin, but Melinda suddenly burst out of it, a towel around her shoulders. Her eyes met his, and he almost smiled.

  He knew her so well.

  She’d run to the cabin first for protection. Then she’d realized that it was the one place where he could get her alone—and where she couldn’t bat her lashes in hopes of help from the others.

  He was still staring at her when Peter and Bruce crawled aboard, too, releasing their tanks, pulling off flippers and masks.

  “Nothing,” Bruce muttered disgustedly.

  “Well, not nothing,” Peter said with a shrug.

  “We found some skulls,” Connie informed him. She shuddered a little. “Eerie. I never came across part of anyone who’d ever been living before.”

  Bruce leaned against the wall of the elevated helm. “But not a darned thing on the Contessa.”

  “Actually,” Melinda said softly, and suddenly all eyes were upon her, “I think I might have found something. Perhaps it did belong to the German ship, but it seems like it might come from before that.…”

  Roc, no less amazed than everyone else, watched as she slipped a long sand-encrusted item from the side of her leg, held there by the elastic on her bathing suit.

  He strode quickly across the deck. She held it out to him, one brow lifted in a definite challenge, her lip curled into a delicate smile.

  “What is it?” Connie cried.

  “Tableware of some kind,” Melinda said, her eyes still on Roc. He hadn’t taken the piece from her; he hadn’t said a word.

  She extended it to him. He wondered if it was like some kind of an olive branch.

  For a long moment he didn’t reach for it. Damn her. Down there with no tanks, with him following her, dragging her up.

  And she was still the only one among them to come up with anything that might have even a remote possibility of coming from the Contessa.

  “Roc?” She said his name softly, questioningly. He wasn’t even sure the others could hear her.

  He took it from her at last. It was heavily encrusted with sand and growth, but he had a hunch. She was right. He didn’t think that a relic from the German boat would be so heavily encrusted. It was heavy in his hand, too—and not just from all the sand.

  Just as he had always had a feeling about the Contessa being in this area, he now had a feeling that the object in his hand was from the lost ship.

  “I’ll take a look at it,” he said, his eyes on hers. “Just where did you pick it up?”

  She shrugged, then shook her head. “I’m not sure. I’d have to go back. I’d be more sure, of course, except that I wasn’t paying attention at the time. I thought a shark or something was following me. Of course, when I turned back, I saw it was you, but I was nervous and, naturally, forgetful.”

  “Naturally!” he muttered, and spun away from her. Ignoring all of them, he hurried down the steps to the galley, then down the second flight to the equipment room below. He drew out a cloth and set the long object on it, then found a small mallet and painstakingly began to chip away at some of the growth.

  It was a slow task. It required infinite patience. And he was good; he usually had all the patience he needed.

  But he wasn’t alone. One by one, they all followed him, Bruce and Connie, Peter, Marina and Joe and, naturally, Melinda.

  There just wasn’t enough room for the whole lot of them to sit there breathing at him.

  With a sigh, he looked up. “Give me a little air, okay? I’ll report the minute I know something.”

  Joe, always the wisest and most levelheaded of the group, nodded.

  “Eh, ’e’s right! ’E can’t breathe down here. Wife, come on. Let’s lie in the sun a while, eh?”

  Marina quickly went up. Joe arched a dark brow at Connie. A little unhappily, she went. Then Peter, though not without saying, “Call me if you need me.” Bruce shrugged and followed them.

  Only Melinda remained.

  He stared at her.

  “Well, I did find it,” she said softly.

  “But you were on my expedition,” he reminded her.

  “Just as you were on my father’s expedition—” she began.

  “No! Not just as I was on his expedition, and if he ever chose to tell you the truth about it, you just might believe t
hat. But it’s too late, isn’t it, Melinda? You simply chose not to believe in me—not to come with me. But I’ll tell you what, if this proves to be a piece from the Contessa, I will do something for you that your father didn’t do for me. I’ll credit you for the dive!”

  He was sorry for his outburst the moment it was finished. She stood very straight, without moving. She seemed to have gone pale beneath her tan, and her lashes had fallen over her marvelous aquamarine eyes. He saw the pulse beating at her throat. Indeed, he saw too much, because she was in that black bathing suit of hers that was not an erotic creation at all—except that it was on Melinda, and he could see the shapely, golden length of her legs and remember, could stare at the golden length of her neck and hunger. Could look at her lips and want to leap up, forget the past, forget the Contessa, forget even that there were five other people aboard the boat, and certainly forget himself …

  “I don’t need credit for the dive,” she said with quiet dignity. “It’s just that I did find the piece, and I’d like to see if it’s worth anything or not.”

  He stared at the piece in his hand, then chipped at it again. His fingers were shaking.

  He looked at her. “Melinda, give me a few minutes on my own. Let me get closer to the piece itself; then you can come back when we get to the cleaning.”

  She lowered her head again, then nodded and turned, and he found himself watching her every movement as she crawled up the ladder.

  Back, buttocks, legs.

  He tried to stare at the piece. His fingers were still shaking. His body felt as hot as molten lead, as tense as piano wire.

  He sat back, seething, wanting to wring her neck again.

  Wanting her.

  He looked at the piece, trying to concentrate. He needed her off the boat. He closed his eyes for a minute, willing his hands to be still. He went back to his task, slowly, carefully, chipping away.

  He hit the right place. Barnacles and grit broke away in his hands. He leaped up, going to a cabinet for cleaning solution, then dipping some onto a cloth and rubbing at the piece.

  It began to gleam a beautiful silver. Carefully, he rubbed farther.

  Finally he sat back, staring at it. Then he leaped up again, finding a magnifying glass, studying the piece with high excitement.