Love at High Tide

by Christi Barth

  “You won’t be scared? To stay here by yourself?” Darcy toed off her sandals and left them lined up on the mat. They tried to do everything possible to keep the apartment sand-free. The floor mat was sort of a quarantine zone for shoes and bags.

  “Nah. I’ve got my mace. Well, your mace. I should really buy more. Anyway, there’s no way Pavel knows where we live. I’ll be fine.”

  Trina clicked on the lamp on the end table. The pop of light revealed Pavel sitting at their round kitchen table. His eyes were still red and irritated. Darcy wondered if the ice crystals she’d tossed at him had scratched his cornea, or if the sugar had kickstarted an infection. Either way, she hoped it was twice as painful as the cut he’d inflicted on Trina. Pavel wore a black tank, armholes gaping but the belly fabric stretched taut, almost to the breaking point. Loose black jogging shorts, wide-strapped sandals. Oh yeah, and a fat, blunt gun in his right hand, pointed square and steady, straight at them.

  Darcy took all this in fast, like when she scanned a textbook a page at a time. When they’d confronted him before, the element of surprise had been a factor in their favor. This time, Pavel held that card. Of course, the bigger point was that he held a gun. An oh my freaking god gun. Three months ago, when a lion had skirted the edges of the Fulani village, Darcy thought she’d been scared. Maybe so, but right now was far worse. Now she was terrified.

  Mace wasn’t much of a weapon from halfway across the room versus a gun. They couldn’t get at any of the kitchen knives without crossing past Pavel. And picking up the vase in the corner, running over and managing to bash him over the head all before he pulled the trigger seemed highly unlikely. So no weapons. No chance of imminent rescue, either. When they’d just left Coop, he foresaw at least another couple of hours at the police station.

  “What are you doing here?” Darcy blurted out. Playing innocent was worth a shot. Not that she could think of any alternatives, if he didn’t buy it.

  “You girls are trouble.”

  “How did you find us?” Trina voice was strong. Like he’d pushed her around once too often, and she wouldn’t take another round lying down.

  “You tail me? I tail YOU!” he thundered. “You think I don’t see you at beach? Hiding behind binoculars that reflect sun into my eyes all day? When you leave the beach, I follow you here. But daylight no good for taking care of business. So I wait until you leave, until is dark. Easy to jimmy lock.”

  How is it the man didn’t know enough grammar to use articles, but he knew the word jimmy? Not that there was a real lock on the sliders to the deck. It was a simple latch. She could push it open with one finger. Except that the slider was wide open. Only the screen was shut. Darcy realized she was concentrating on the trivial. Time to pull it together and figure a way out of this mess.

  Trina perched on the edge of the flowered couch cushion. “We’re really not trouble. In fact, we’re leaving tomorrow morning. Darcy has to fly to Africa to start her new job. How much trouble could she really be, all the way over in Africa?”

  “Don’t care. Care about trouble you cause here. You follow me, you listen to me talk to my girls. You know too much.”

  “We don’t know anything.” Playing innocent hadn’t worked. Maybe playing stupid would. “It was just a game. Like playing tag. See how close you can follow someone without getting caught. We followed an old lady earlier in the week for three days. She never noticed us. Obviously, you’re much more observant.”

  “A game? That was why you dressed up in wig?”

  Ohmigod, had he bought it? Could it be that easy to get this maniac out of their house? “Uh huh. Just a fun vacation game.”

  Pavel surged to his feet. “You think I’m stupid? Both of you too old for games.” Waving the gun, he indicated Darcy should move in closer to Trina. Damn. That made them a single target, instead of two. Trina grabbed her hand. Okay, that was comforting. Better to be shot holding her best friend’s hand than just standing in a doorway. Huh. When they’d filled two solid pages with hopes for the future in each other’s senior yearbooks, dying together from some crazy Russian had not once come up as a possibility.

  “Tell me what you know. Why you follow me. What you hear,” he demanded.

  No ideas came to mind. No lies. The truth wouldn’t do them any good. Now what?

  “Why should we tell you anything?” Trina jutted her chin in a stubborn pose usually reserved for refusing to pay for extra packs of barbeque sauce at a drive-thru.

  “Because he has a gun,” Darcy hissed. “Try not to piss him off any more, please?”

  He barreled forward, his tree-trunk legs shaking the floor. God, they’d already proven they could outrun his slow fatness twice. If only they were outside. Of course, that was as useful as wishing they were at Radio City Music Hall watching a show.

  “You tell me,” he stopped right in front of Darcy, “or I hurt one of you. Bad.” Pavel lowered the gun to point at her knee. Just far enough out of reach that she couldn’t kick him. Close enough that he could probably shatter her kneecap with one bullet and both eyes closed. “When she passes out from bleeding, you and I will have some fun. Then you will talk.” He aimed a twisted leer at Trina.

  “Um, okay, wait. Don’t shoot anyone. Seriously. I pass out at the sight of blood. If we’re both passed out, you still won’t learn anything, right?”

  “No problem.” Pavel swung the gun wide to now point at Trina’s trembling knees. “I shoot you first.”

  A twanging noise filled the room. They all swung their heads to the deck. The screen door burst from its frame, because Coop had launched himself straight through it. He slammed straight into Pavel. As they fell, his gun arm flailed. Darcy screamed. Maybe Trina screamed, too? She just knew there were screams, lots of them.

  She pushed Trina to the floor. Diving onto her stomach, Darcy tipped over the coffee table as a makeshift shield. The men thrashed, rolling around. Grunts and swearing layered over their screams. Two gunshots rang out. She threw her hands over her head. Time stopped as she waited for the bullets to fall out of the air and pierce her skin. Darcy braced for the pain.

  It didn’t come. Instead, the sound of one final smack of flesh against flesh. Then quiet. Nope, yanking and squeaking noises. Nothing she’d classify as dangerous. Peering over the edge of the coffee table, she saw Coop, widespread bare feet straddling an unconscious Pavel. He’d tied Pavel’s feet together with the phone cord, and was in the process of tying his hands together with the cord from the lamp they’d knocked off the end table.

  Coop’s blond mop of hair was disheveled, midnight scruff roughened his jaw, and blood dripped from a cut over his eyebrow. His chest heaved beneath a torn navy tee. She’d never seen a sexier man in her entire life. Coop looked up as he viciously tightened the knot at Pavel’s wrists. A cocky grin quirked up one corner of his mouth.

  “Darcy Trent, you really make a man jump through hoops just to take you to bed.”

  * * *

  The ocean shimmered with fifty shades of gray. At its very edge, between sky and surf, a thin line the color of a pearl shimmered, slowly widening its way toward dawn. A trio of tan pipers poked their beaks in and out of the sand. Darcy breathed it all in. The peace of the beach settled over her. It calmed her much faster than the valium shot the paramedic had offered both she and Trina.

  Coop stroked his fingers through her hair. “My plan is to get you breakfast from the Fractured Prune. Best donuts on the planet. They’re hot, and you get to pick a glaze and toppings. My favorite’s the Pebble Beach, with honey glaze, cinnamon sugar and mini chocolate chips. I need at least six dollars for that.” He paused their slow stroll to shake his head. “Sorry. I get a little spacy at dawn o’clock. This is all the long way of saying I can only offer you about a dollar fifty for your thoughts.”

  “Mmm. I’ll pass on the dollar if it’ll buy me an extra do
nut.” She leaned her head into the hollow of his shoulder. “I guess I’m trying not to think about it. Who wants to mull over their first time being held at gunpoint? But I can’t let it go until it’s clear in my head. We didn’t have any chance. No escape, no clever way to talk him down. And then you hero’d your way through the door. You said you’d be tied up for hours with Ilona. What happened?”

  “My captain sent me packing.”

  Righteous anger swamped her. How could they do that to Coop? She tilted her head up to look at him. “Why? You hand delivered him a huge case. How could he force you off of it?”

  “Just the opposite. Because this is so big, Captain Wolff wants everything by the book. Right now, I’m technically on leave of absence. He wants me to get a final clearance from the department shrink to bump me back up to active duty. You know, to be sure the whole Secret Service thing didn’t crush my spirit.” He made air quotes with his fingers around the last three words.

  He said it lightly, but Darcy wondered if he really just shook off the disappointment. Two years of a single focus erased in a moment. “Did it?”

  A deep sigh, followed by a long, slow exhale between pursed lips. “Yeah. I mean, of course it did, when they gave me the news. After Doug died, I thought the only way my death in the line of duty would matter—if it ever happened—was if I protected someone worthwhile.”

  Noble. But misguided, none the less. “Have you realized that day to day police work can still change and save lives? That everyone is worth protecting, not just one man?”

  “Smarty.” Coop gave her a gentle hip check. “It took talking to Ilona today to tip me back to that point of view. Hell, we might’ve changed the course of her entire life today. For the better. I can’t turn my back on that. But if you’d gotten in my face with all that three days ago, I’d already have my gun back on my hip by now. Next time, don’t hoard all the good advice.”

  Next time? Darcy couldn’t let her thoughts go there. Not when he was about to throw himself back into his work. “How did you know we were in trouble?”

  “I didn’t. In case Trina was asleep, I didn’t want to bang on the door. So I came around the beach side of the house. Figured you’d have the screen open to the deck. I didn’t expect to see a guy holding you at gunpoint. I punched 911 into my phone, left the line open and dropped it on the deck.”

  “For that, you’ll always be my hero.” Darcy stood on tiptoe to press a soft kiss into his cheek.

  “Hold on to that thought. I’ve got an idea I want to run past you.”

  Darcy had had enough of ideas and plans this week. All she wanted to do was curl up in bed and keep on kissing Coop until they fell asleep. Or until they got too hot and bothered to worry about sleep. “Sounds serious.”

  “Could be seriously good. Or you might tell me I’m seriously nuts.” Coop started walking again, swinging their joined hands together as they continued along the shore. “My sister Candace works for the Baltimore County school district. Their superintendent has been on a tear for about five months. They’re looking for someone to head up a study on former gang members, and kids transitioning from juvie.”

  “That sounds fascinating. Integrating them back into normal school culture has to be tough all the way around.” Gangs were so much like tribes, with their own language, customs, and initiation rites. Darcy spent a semester when she worked on her master’s degree studying the decades-old blood feud between rival Los Angeles gangs.

  He nodded. “Exactly. The district’s got a grant for it, but they’re on the brink of forfeiting it. It’s been tough to find someone to do the work. They finally had a candidate all lined up, but her husband’s getting transferred out of state. So they’ve got to fill that spot in the next two weeks...”

  Darcy followed his thought to the logical conclusion. Even, or especially, in education it always came down to one thing. “Or they lose all the money.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Rough. And it’ll be twice as hard to apply a second time for that grant.” She stared out at the water, spotting for dolphins. Not a single sighting yet this week, but dawn seemed like a good time to at least eye the horizon.

  “Yup. This first year is all research, just watching the kids and identifying trouble spots. Then the second year, after writing up a big-ass recommendation of where to go next, they’d start to implement the changes. Whoever does the research would be a shoo-in to stay and run the program.”

  Was he saying what she thought he might be? Coop didn’t ramble. This story had a purpose. It sure sounded like a job offer dropping directly into her lap. Or was desperate hope fueling her assumption? “Don’t tease me.”

  “No tease. I told Candace your qualifications. She even did a web search on you and pulled your thesis. As long as you don’t tank the interview next week, the job’s yours. If you want it.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s everything I didn’t know I wanted!” Darcy threw her arms around Coop. He picked her up and twirled her in a circle, her feet flying out behind.

  Coop set her down carefully, smoothing his hands down her arms. “Let me be clear. There are no strings attached.”

  Huh? “Did I think there were?”

  “I just, I mean—”

  Odd to see him at a loss for words. And unable to meet her eyes. Darcy cupped the scruffy line of his jaw covered in dawn o’clock shadow. “What is it?”

  “Look, you don’t have to date me to get the job. Candace made me swear to tell you that.” His feet shifted up and down on the damp sand.

  “Okay.” The practical side of her coolly accepted his statement. But why couldn’t she have it all? Was it tempting Fate? Being too greedy? Or was this her karmic reward for being held up at gunpoint? She had to at least try. “What if I want to date you?” Darcy held her breath. Beach fling, remember? He could easily buy her breakfast and send her on her way.

  His hand came up to cup hers. And his eyes brightened, like she’d just turned on the pilot light on a furnace. “Not just here at the beach, but once we get back home?”

  “I don’t have a home,” she said lightly. Funny how little that scared her right now. “Not yet. I guess I’ll be crashing with Trina until I find a place of my own.”

  “Baltimore, I mean.” He dragged her hands down in a white-knuckled grip at her waist. “As opposed to you being in Africa, or us hanging out here on the shore.”

  “Yes, in Baltimore.” Darcy squeezed right back, trying to convey how much her simple attraction to him had spiraled into a deeper yearning. Something that neither of them had expected. “I know you’ll be busy. Getting back into the swing of things with your squad. Hanging out with your enormous family. If they call you this much when you’re gone, I can only imagine how often they pop in on you at home.”

  Coop barked out a laugh. “Whatever you imagine, triple it. Work’s work. I put my life on hold for work for too long. I walked away empty-handed. Now I want to try grabbing with both hands for what I want. Work, family, fun, and a frisky brunette who drives me wild.” He drew a line in the toe with his sand, not meeting her eyes. “You’ll be busy too, you know. Packing, moving, starting a brand new job.”

  “So what?” she said recklessly. “I put what I wanted on hold for a long time. Put my parents’ expectations first, the expectations of my professors, and then my colleagues. Starting today, I’ve got to make new plans, new expectations. But we’re both tiptoeing around the fact this was just supposed to be a beach fling. Coop, if you still want that, I understand.”

  Now that sky-colored gaze latched onto hers with the strength of a tractor beam. “I want you. I didn’t know how to compete with Africa. I knew I didn’t have the right to ask you to stay. Not for a guy you’ve known for three days. But I’m crazy about you so far. I’ve fallen harder and faster than a bullet through a stack of feathers. All I want to do is ke
ep getting to know you better. Your favorite pizza toppings, what sort of movies you like, how you feel coming apart beneath my lips, how many times I can make you orgasm in one night—all the important stuff.”

  “Oh. I want to find out all of that about you, too.” She couldn’t say it out loud, though, not without her cheeks heating up more than the noonday sand. Cooper Hudson was a sex god to her. Brave, dedicated, funny—finding him was a gift, like a treasure from the sea Poseidon had tossed up at her feet. “I can’t believe how strong my feelings are for you. How much I hated the thought of never seeing you again. It scared me more than seeing that gun in Pavel’s hand.”

  “So no more beach fling. We’re going to jump into this dating thing with both feet?”

  “You caught me the first day we met. I’ll jump as long as you promise to keep catching me.”

  “And you’ll come back to the beach with me for the Fourth of July? It’ll be crazy with my family, but fun.”

  “Are there fireworks?”

  “Babe, you don’t have to wait for a holiday for that.” Cooper drew her into his arms, lowering his mouth to hover at her lips. Behind him, the sun shot past the horizon in the fireball of a new day, a fresh start. “I’ll make you see fireworks anytime you want.” He kissed her, a fiery kiss that ran liquid gold through her veins. Darcy had no doubt she would indeed be seeing stars by the time he was done. The beach would now and always be her favorite vacation.

  * * * * *

  Can’t get enough of Christi Barth?

  Look for the first two releases in her popular Aisle Bound series, available now!

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  Wedding planner Ivy Rhodes is the best in the business, and she’s not about to let a personal problem stop her from getting ahead. So when she’s asked to star in the reality TV show Planning for Love, it doesn’t matter that the show’s videographer happens to be a recent—and heartbreaking—one-night stand.

  Bennett Westcott admits he didn’t handle his encounter with Ivy very well. But looking at her beautiful smile—and great body—through a camera lens every day? He can’t be faulted for suggesting they have some no-strings fun.