Between Roc and a Hard Place

by Heather Graham

  His eyes were intense and his voice husky when he promised her softly, “I’ll tell you this. I have never, never slept with anyone like you in all my life. Never. Now, come on—Ms. Davenport.”

  She spun around quickly, startled by the effect his words had on her. Once again, she was just a breath away from tears. She was in better shape when he was being rude, when he was angry, making demands!

  She walked quickly, keeping several feet in front of him. When she finally saw his crew, Connie was anxiously pacing before the fire, Marina staring into it, and Joe, Peter and Bruce were looking in the direction from which she and Roc were coming.

  Guilt plagued her. They were all worried. And wondering, of course, if they should be saving their leader—or leaving him to his, er, private recreation.

  Connie stopped pacing. The three men tried to look in different directions.

  “Something smells wonderful!” Melinda called out, only a slight tremor in her voice. Dear lord. She could feel crimson color flooding her face again. Did everyone know exactly what she had been doing?

  Roc was closer behind her than she had suspected. She nearly jumped when he said, “Well, did you all start eating yet? What are we waiting for? Connie, is there a cold beer for me?”

  “Sure!” Connie called. “We—uh, yeah, well, we kind of waited. The fish was too tempting, though. Marina’s got more. We’ll put it right on.”

  Roc shook his head, accepting the beer Connie handed him. “The chicken’s fine for me.”

  “For me, too,” Melinda echoed quickly.

  “There’s plenty more,” Marina offered, her dark eyes giving away no hint of curiosity.

  “We’ll have it another time,” Melinda promised, trying to sound cheerful.

  “Catch!” Roc called suddenly, throwing her a can of beer. She caught it swiftly, wondering just what Roc had told these people about her.

  They’d definitely known he’d had a wife. And that she was old man Davenport’s daughter.

  They’d all been wary enough of her, certainly.

  The barbecue was delicious, and the night was beautiful. One by one everyone came to sit around the fire. The orange flames snapped and crackled against the ever-darkening night.

  Roc was across from her. She was half listening to one of Bruce’s tales about a ghost ship that sailed the Atlantic when, in the very middle of the story, she found herself distracted again with an inner trembling.

  How could she be sitting here so calmly when they had made love in the sand such a little while ago? When he had accused her of such awful things, when he had nearly walked away, when he had made her tell him everything.

  She was a fool.

  She could still close her eyes and feel his touch.…

  And, looking across the fire, she could see his shoulders glinting copper in the fire glow, see his eyes, which met hers now and then, still questioning.

  She had told him the truth, yet he still seemed suspicious.

  “Oh!” Connie gasped, letting out a little scream and jumping up.

  A branch had fallen where she had been sitting. A very small one.

  Bruce burst out laughing. “Connie!” he admonished his sister.

  “Well, it scared me!” she snapped. She stared at her brother, shaking a firm finger at him. “You were sitting there talking about bony fingers and suddenly—” She broke off. “Where did that branch come from?” she asked, frowning.

  Melinda turned around. The trees were some distance away.

  Peter stood, as well, shrugging. “The wind must have carried it from those trees over there.”

  Connie shivered, staring at them. “Bony fingers, dead eyes!” she muttered. “It’s like they’re looking at us, isn’t it?”

  Roc moved to stand behind Connie, staring off at the trees, too.

  “You feel eyes in the darkness?” he asked, but his tone wasn’t as light as Bruce’s. Melinda stared at him, wondering what he could possibly be thinking.

  “It’s late,” Connie murmured.

  “Very late,” Marina agreed, rising and immediately and efficiently beginning to gather up the dinner things.

  Without comment, the others began to help her. Melinda gathered the utensils, while Roc and Peter made sure the fire was completely out. With very little conversation, everything was gathered and brought to the dinghy.

  The same efficiency made cleanup equally quick when they returned to the Crystal Lee.

  When they’d finished, Marina told Melinda goodnight and left her in the galley.

  Alone, Melinda hesitated, then climbed to the deck. She could hear Roc discussing the next day’s dive with Peter and Bruce.

  She didn’t feel like seeing them all again, so she hurried silently to the captain’s cabin.

  She hesitated for a long time, then stripped and hopped in the shower, washing away the sand that still clung to her.

  When she came out of the shower, the cabin was still empty. She hesitated again, then turned off the light on the desk, crawled into the captain’s bunk and lay there listening to the cacophony of her own heart.

  Minutes later, the door to the cabin opened. Moonlight filtered in, and she saw Roc silhouetted there, the light gleaming on his shoulders, his face in shadows.

  His thoughts in darkness.

  Then he entered the cabin, closing the door behind him, moving like a cat in the night, silent, graceful.

  She nearly gasped when she realized that he was standing by her side.

  “Sleeping?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head, then wondered if he saw the motion. “No.”

  “You’ve waited up?”

  “I—I showered. The sand, you know.”

  “Umm. The sand. I haven’t showered. Should I?”

  She felt her heart slamming again. “Your life is none of my business, remember?”

  “So I shouldn’t shower?”

  She smiled suddenly, her lashes sweeping her cheeks. “It’s entirely up to you.”

  “Ah. So I’m not welcome.”

  She scooted over toward the paneling, running her hand over the empty expanse beside her.

  “No,” she said very softly, “you’re very welcome—with or without sand.”

  They were the last words she spoke that night. In a matter of seconds he was stretched beside her, warm, electric.

  And the sand didn’t matter in the least.

  Chapter 8

  The next day they explored the same area again. Melinda seemed drawn to it, Roc realized, and though they still hadn’t found anything, he was more than willing to go with her instincts.

  So far, she’d found the only real clue to the Contessa.

  She was ahead of him today, moving with tremendous ease and grace before him in the fascinating if sometimes eerie world of the sea. The coral shelf to their left housed a wild variety of creatures. Huge, slow groupers—two of them, maybe four hundred pounds apiece—were staring at them with glassy eyes. Just beyond the big fish there was a plateau of anemones, with pretty, bright orange and white clownfish—tiny as fingertips—darting swiftly within their hosts’ wavy fingers, luring prey for the anemone that supported the fish.

  They passed a pair of yellow tangs, brighter than sunlight. Yet even as they passed the tiny creatures, Roc suddenly became aware of something much larger looming in the water.

  Instinctive wariness held him still as he watched, but experience told him the creature wasn’t a shark. Just ahead of him, Melinda, too, had gone still, watching, waiting.

  Then the creature came into full view, and Roc grinned around his mouthpiece. They were being visited by a dolphin.

  That the curious mammal was swimming near them was not an unusual experience. Dolphins were common in these waters—both the mammal, like their friendly visitors, and also the very edible, much smaller and brightly colored dolphin fish—but as often as Roc had seen them swimming near him before, he had never seen one behave quite like this. The animal swam straight to Melind
a.

  He saw her eyes widen behind her mask. She arched a brow to him, then reached out.

  Just like a puppy or a kitten, the dolphin seemed to want to be scratched.

  Melinda’s hand moved gently, knuckles stroking down the creature’s throat and downward to its belly. Her air bubbles rose around them both. The dolphin arched its body and plummeted in a smooth dive beneath Melinda. Roc swung around just in time for it to come up on his other side, staring at him with dark eyes, like a precocious youngster who had managed to trick his parents.

  He’d swum with dolphins before, having studied them as part of his major in school. They were, in his opinion, absolutely incredible creatures, amazingly intelligent and definitely capable of affection. In captivity, those individuals born and raised with human interaction could display a startling ability to form friendships with man. But in all his days of diving on the ocean floor, he’d never seen one come quite so trustingly close in the wild as this fellow was doing.

  He wondered if perhaps the animal hadn’t belonged to an aquarium or private study facility, then somehow found its way to the ocean, because it wasn’t just being friendly, it wanted to move right in.

  Roc reached out a hand, too, touching the dolphin. It edged closer to him, accepting his touch, moving just as if it wanted to be scratched once again, like a cat curling up on its master’s lap before a roaring fire.

  Melinda swam around, fascinated, running her hand down the dolphin’s back once again.

  Roc motioned her to move on, curious to see what the dolphin would do.

  It followed them.

  They spent several minutes swimming around the edge of the World War Two wreck again, crossing through skeleton doorways, over chunks of metal long grown over with seaweed and coral, their new friend following them.

  It was a fascinating dive, but one that was yielding nothing, Roc decided wearily a few minutes later as he checked his watch.

  He caught up with Melinda and tapped on his dial to show her they were running out of time. She seemed surprised and looked as if she were about to move onward again. He shook his head.

  She nodded, and they started toward the ship, the newfound friend still following them.

  As they neared the Crystal Lee, Melinda paused again, stroking the dolphin. She stared at Roc, and he could see her smiling around her mouthpiece. He shrugged. The dolphin swam around them again, and he reached out, stroking it. Then he gave the water a flippered kick that brought him to the surface, where he spat out his mouthpiece and swam the fifteen feet that brought him to the ladder at the back of the boat. Wrenching off his flippers, he crawled aboard. Bruce was there instantly, taking his tanks and mask as he slid them off.

  “Well?” Bruce said anxiously.

  Roc shook his head, watching for Melinda. If she was staying down to play with that dolphin …

  But just then she broke the surface, quickly swimming toward the boat, reaching the ladder, shedding her flippers, crawling aboard. She ripped off her mask as Roc caught her tanks.

  “It was wonderful!” she cried excitedly.

  “You did find something!” Bruce exclaimed.

  “A dolphin!” Melinda replied, happily nodding her head.

  Bruce frowned instantly, staring at Roc. “A dolphin?” he whispered, deflated.

  “It was wonderful!” Melinda repeated.

  Bruce looked at her as if he wondered what she had been breathing out of her tanks. “But, Melinda, there are lots of dolphins in this area. You must have seen them before.”

  She sat on the edge of the boat, squeezing the water out of her hair, shaking her head. “Bruce, never in my whole life have I seen one like this. Tell him, Roc!”

  A smile curved his lips, and startling warmth swept over him, a tenderness. Her enthusiasm was contagious, her fascinated pleasure with the creature something so warm and real that he found himself wanting to sweep her into his arms then and there.

  He leaned back instead, arms crossed over his chest, and shrugged. “I think our friend below must have had human contact before. Perhaps he belonged to an aquarium or private researchers. He is—” He paused a moment, looking over at Melinda; then he grinned. “He is pretty wonderful.”

  Just as he finished speaking, Joe and Marina, who had also been diving, broke the surface behind them, coming aboard.

  “Eh, mon! You never seen such a fish!” Joe exclaimed, coming aboard. “He thought he was my poodle!”

  Melinda laughed, staring at Bruce. “See!” she charged.

  With the Tobagos aboard, Connie came hurrying out of the galley, and they were all together at the bow of the boat, Connie and Bruce listening to the others’ tale about the dolphin.

  “I’d love to see him!” Connie exclaimed.

  “He’ll probably swim around again,” Bruce said.

  “But maybe he won’t,” Connie worried.

  “He may already be gone,” Roc warned.

  “I’ll go see,” Melinda volunteered quickly. She stood, poised to dive off the edge of the boat. Roc told himself that he really had no right to stop her. She wasn’t wearing a mask, fins or a tank, but she didn’t need them for what she wanted to do. If the dolphin was around, it would play with her right on the surface.

  She arched a brow at him, a small smile curving her lips. An invitation.

  He shrugged, then leaped up with her. His fingers curled around hers, and they jumped from the bow together, plummeting swiftly downward into the temperate waters.

  It was there—their new mascot—the dolphin waiting just as if it had known that they would come back to play with it.

  Melinda caught hold of its dorsal fin, and the creature took her for a swift ride, striking out away from the boat, then swiftly turning and bringing her right back to where they had started from. She grinned at Roc, blinking against the salt in the water, then jackknifed her legs to bring her to the surface for air.

  He followed her. With both their heads breaking the surface, Melinda shouted to Connie, “Come on down! He’s here!”

  “Bruce, please, let’s go see it. We’ve got enough tanks.”

  Bruce grumbled, but he was already getting the tanks that would allow himself and his sister to dive. Treading water now, Roc called out to Melinda, ten feet away, “Okay, Ms. Davenport, can we let the others play with your sea beast now? We’re turning into raisins here.”

  She hesitated, as if she were about to protest, then lowered her lashes swiftly and agreed.

  Funny behavior for Melinda. She’d been with him for three days.

  With two incredible nights between them now …

  And she’d been an angel, never disagreeing with a single captain’s command.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?” she demanded.

  “I’m wondering what you’re up to,” he called honestly.

  A flash of fire touched her eyes, but she didn’t reply; instead she swam to the boat, crawling aboard easily, even as Connie toppled smoothly backward over the edge, wearing her gear.

  Roc followed, but more slowly. When he crawled aboard the boat, she had already disappeared. Joe and Marina were still seated on the bow, discussing the extraordinary behavior of the dolphin. Roc caught Joe’s eyes, and he knew his friend instantly realized that he was wondering where his wife had disappeared to so quickly.

  “She said she had a chill, boss man!” Joe said softly, a slightly wicked gleam in his dark eyes. “She needed a warm shower and a hot cup of coffee.”

  Roc nodded, staring at Joe warily, sliding down beside Marina. So she had a chill. Great. He’d just had to say something to ruin things when they were going incredibly well.…

  But why?

  He was startled by the swift pain that seemed to seize him, just like a knife in the chest. It was frightening. And he hated like hell to admit fear. But Melinda was here. Spending her days with him.

  Spending her nights with him.

  And in those days and nights, it was so easy to go back, to
pretend they had never been apart. There were even moments when he could forget that his wife had chosen her father over her husband.…

  Then there would be those other moments, moments when he would wonder what she was doing there. She had, after all, more or less leaped aboard from Eric Longford’s boat, and her father was still Jonathan Davenport.

  She had definitely been stunned to discover that she was still legally married to him, and yet …

  There were the nights.

  He did seem to have the good sense to keep his mouth shut when they were in bed together, but at other times, the bitterness remained. The mistrust. And then he just had to ask what she was doing here. They were on a treasure hunt. He needed to be on the alert. Yet every moment he was near her, his guard relaxed a little bit.

  So there was the possibility that she could be sleeping with him by night, searching with him by day … and radioing to her father during any private moment she might be able to sneak!

  Well, the future remained to be seen. And if he hurt her with his suspicions, then he was sorry, but then she damned well deserved them.

  He realized that Joe and Marina were staring at him, and he scowled.

  “My friend,” Joe said softly, “I suggest we go ashore for a break.”

  “A break!”

  “We need supplies,” Marina told him. “We’re nearly out of sugar and coffee and detergent.”

  “We’re low on gas,” Joe added.

  “And,” Marina added, “a night in Nassau might do us all good. Dinner at a restaurant.”

  “Dancing,” Joe added.

  Roc sat back, lifting his hands, then letting them fall again. “We’re on the brink of discovery—” he began.

  “And growing more and more frustrated every day,” Joe reminded him. “We know we’re in the right place. We’re staring straight at the answer—we just haven’t touched it yet. Maybe we need to close our eyes, take a break and look again.”

  Roc started to protest again, but he fell silent instead. Frowning, he thought over Joe’s words. Maybe his friend was right. They were staring at the answer. They couldn’t see it. Maybe they needed to look away.

  “All right,” he said quietly. “It should be about two hours into Nassau Harbor. We’ll go for tonight—we’ll leave by ten tomorrow morning. Marina, that will give you time for shopping and a little R and R.”