by Ginna Gray
"I don't know..."
"C'mon, Rebecca. You'll enjoy it. Besides, no one should spend their birthday alone. So whaddaya say?"
She searched his face. After a moment, a hesitant smile curved her mouth. "Thank you, Travis. I'd like very much to go out on David's boat with you."
Chapter Five
"Have you ever fished before?"
Rebecca looked up and realized that she'd been caught eyeing the rod and reel that Travis had just handed her as though it were a foreign object. She smiled ruefully. "Actually... no. But I'm anxious to learn," she tacked on when his mouth compressed. "Really."
That he didn't believe her was obvious. Annoyance and skepticism flashed across his face, but, with a visible effort, he reined in on both. "Yeah, well, hold on. Let me bait your line, then I'll show you how to cast."
When he had attached a hunk of squid to the hook, he led her over to the side of the boat. Several times he demonstrated the proper way to cast and how to reel in the bait to lure the fish, explaining the finer points as he went along. Rebecca paid close attention, taking in every word and movement.
"Okay, now give it a try," Travis said, and handed the rod back to her.
Rebecca flexed her wrist, bobbing the end of the flexible pole, testing its weight and balance. After slanting a tentative glance at Travis, she set her feet, drew back, and let fly. Instantly a bird's nest of tangled fishing line erupted out of the reel like a malignant growth.
"Oh! Oh! What happened? What did I do?"
"Put your thumb on it!" Travis yelped.
Put her thumb on what? In a dither, Rebecca couldn't remember, and the snarl of looped fishing line just kept growing.
Cursing under his breath, Travis reached around her and clamped his palm down on the spinning spool.
Rebecca bit her lower lip and darted a timid look over her shoulder. "What happened?"
"You just had the granddaddy of all backlashes, that's what happened. You cast so hard the line came off the spool faster than the weight on the bait end could carry it out." Shaking his head over the hopelessly snarled mess, he took the rod from her. After a few minutes of trying to untangle the volleyball-size coil, he gave up and cut it off.
When he had re-strung the rod he hesitated before handing it back to her. "Look, you don't have to do this, you know."
"No, I want to learn. Honestly."
With a shrug, he handed her the rod and stood back. "This time, don't cast so hard."
Rebecca heeded his advice so well on the next swing the line reeled out with an anemic whir to a length of only about six feet.
"Now you're not casting hard enough," Travis said impatiently. "Here, let me show you."
Before Rebecca realized his intent, he stepped up close behind her and encircled her with his arms, placing his hands over hers.
"Swing in a smooth motion and just throw it out there, nice and easy," he murmured in her ear, guiding her hands and suiting action to words.
Rebecca swallowed hard and nodded. Speech was beyond her. She could barely breathe. Her heart boomed in her chest like a kettledrum.
By bending his knees, Travis had fitted his body to hers, spoon fashion. His jaw rested against her temple, and from shoulder to wrist his bare arms touched hers. As usual, his attire consisted of only a pair of cutoffs. All along her back she could feel his chest pressing against her, the silky mat of hair that covered it tickling her bare skin above her camisole-style top. His unmistakable maleness pressed intimately against her bottom, the hairy roughness and strength of his thighs rubbing the backs of her legs beneath her trim shorts. His male scent surrounded her. She could even feel his heart thumping against her back.
The incredible intimacy of their position rattled Rebecca so she couldn't think, but Travis seemed oblivious to it. Over and over, he guided her arms, swinging the rod in a smooth cast, reeling in the bait, swinging again. Through it all, Rebecca remained tongue-tied.
She had no idea whether her reaction was caused by fear or excitement. All she knew was she felt suffocated.
"Okay. Think you got it now?" he asked after they had repeated the procedure at least a dozen times.
Rebecca licked her lips. "I think so."
He stepped back, and she drew a deep breath and tried to control the trembling that threatened to buckle her knees. Concentrating fiercely, she clenched her jaw and repeated the motion he'd shown her.
The cast was wobbly and not overly long, but to her relief the baited hook sailed out over the side and plopped into the water without mishap.
"A little short, but not too bad," Travis commented. He moved away and picked up his own rod, taking up a position at the rear of the boat. "Keep it up and you'll get the hang of it."
Rebecca drew several deep breaths, deliberately slowing the pounding rhythm of her heart. She had overreacted. Just because Travis had gotten too close was no reason to panic; she had nothing to fear from him. And there was certainly no reason to get excited. This was Travis, after all.
They didn't speak. The only sounds were the intermittent plops of their lines hitting the water and the whir of the reels. She was acutely aware of him standing just a few feet away. Now and then she glanced in his direction, but she was careful to appear unaffected.
Over and over she cast out the baited hook and reeled it in. Surprisingly, after a while the repetitive motion calmed her.
Her efforts were far from the smooth casts that Travis made, nor did they have the same results. In no time he'd caught three nice-size trout but she had not gotten so much as a nibble.
For hours they fished almost side by side without speaking. Rebecca stopped only once, just long enough to fetch a floppy-brimmed straw hat from below deck to protect her face from the burning rays of the sun. Several times she noticed Travis glancing her way, his expression puzzled, but she didn't acknowledge his interest or respond. Once she relaxed, the silence, though not exactly companionable, was soothing.
The sun beat down, creating dancing spangles of light on the water and warming her skin. Wavelets slapped at the hull of the boat and every now and then something broke the shiny surface with a splash. As, far as the eye could see, there was nothing but ocean, with not another vessel of any sort to mar the great expanse of undulating swells. She and Travis might have been the only two people on earth.
The rocking motion of the boat lulled. So did the rhythmic action of casting and reeling in, and beneath the wide brim of the hat, Rebecca's expression grew dreamy.
Travis was right; no one should spend their birthday all alone.
She had almost refused Travis's offer. It had seemed the height of folly to spend the day with him, given their past history.
Rebecca's mouth twitched with amusement. During the trip to Alhaja Verde and all the while they were gassing up the Freewind and stocking the galley with supplies, they had treated one another with excruciating politeness, both grittily determined to keep their truce. The tension had been so thick she'd begun to regret her decision before they'd gotten two miles from shore.
Now she was glad she'd come. She was actually enjoying herself, and despite the prolonged silence between them, she was glad for Travis's company. Rincon Island was lovely and infinitely peaceful, and in the beginning she had needed solitude, but lately she had begun to feel lonely.
Rebecca executed a less-than-spectacular cast, and Travis, who had been watching, said, "Anytime you get tired of this, feel free to stop."
She glanced his way and smiled. "I'm not at all tired. I'm enjoying myself, actually."
Travis gave her a long look, then grunted, and raised his rod to cast again.
His hook had barely hit the water when Rebecca's rod bent almost double and she gave an excited shout.
"Oh! Oh, Travis! I've caught something. Quick, help me!"
"Keep the end up!" he yelled, shoving the butt grip of his own rod into a holder. "Give him line! Play him out! Keep the tip up, dammit!"
"I can't," Rebecca wailed, st
ruggling with all her might to hold on to the taut rod. "It's too heavy." With the end of the rod propped against her hipbone, she gripped with both hands and reared back, but the bent pole wobbled and jerked and, despite her best effort, edged steadily downward.
Once again, Travis pressed close against her back and encircled her with his arms, lending his own strength to the battle, his hands gripping the rod above and below hers. This time Rebecca didn't even register the intimacy. She was too excited.
"It is a big one," Travis acknowledged with barely restrained excitement of his own. "And man, can that sucker fight. Give him his head, sweetheart," he murmured in her ear. "But keep the line taut. Now reel him in a little. Just a little. That's it. That's good. Now play him out again. Let him wear himself out before you try to-bring him in. That's it. That's it."
He crooned the words in a lover's voice, his breath a hot caress feathering over her ear. The muscles in his arms and chest bunched and rippled against her flesh, but neither of them noticed.
For what seemed like hours they battled the fish, but gradually the desperate struggle grew one-sided, and with Travis's help, Rebecca managed to reel her catch ever closer.
"That's it, reel him in, honey. Reel him in. Keep that line taut. You don't want to lose him now. You've almost got him. Just a few more feet." Taking one hand off the rod, Travis reached to the side for the net. "Bring it up. Bring it up," he instructed in a low singsong, and Rebecca struggled to comply.' 'Easy does it now. We've almost got him."
Keeping one arm around her, firmly gripping the rod, he leaned over the side and scooped the flopping fish up in the net the instant it cleared the water.
"We did it! We did it!" Rebecca squealed. "We got him!"
She dropped the rod and hopped jubilantly from one foot to the other as Travis brought the catch aboard, and when he lifted the monstrous trout from the net she grinned at him, her face beaming with pride and happiness. "I really did it! I caught a fish!"
"You sure did," he agreed, smiling at her enthusiasm. "And it's a beaut, too. This rascal weighs ten pounds if he weighs an ounce. If I were you, I'd have it mounted."
Rebecca's grin faded. "Mounted?"
"You know—stuffed. I know a terrific taxidermist on Alhaja Verde. His prices are reasonable too."
"I couldn't do that," she protested, a look of horror on her face.
"It's that or eat it."
Biting her hp, she glanced at the fish, still flopping on the end of the line, then turned a pleading look on Travis. "Couldn't we just let it go?"
"What? After what we went through to catch this fish? Are you nuts?"
"Please, Travis. It seems such a shame to kill it. It's not like we need it for food. And I certainly don't want a trophy."
Travis stared at her, flabbergasted.
"Pleeese," she pleaded, and finally he sighed and rolled his eyes.
"What the hell. It's your fish." He gently removed the hook from the trout's wide mouth and, after one last, regretful look, tossed the magnificent specimen over the side.
Rebecca leaned over the railing and watched the fish swim away, a streak of silver darting beneath the surface of the water. She turned back to Travis, her face alight with pleasure and gratitude. Acting purely on instinct, she laid her hand on his arm, raised up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. "Thank you, Travis," she whispered, and smiled warmly into his startled eyes.
Travis went absolutely still, staring at her. After a moment the look in his eyes made her uncomfortable, and she turned away.
"I don't know about you, but I'm getting hungry. Why don't I fix us some lunch?" she asked brightly.
It seemed to take a moment for her words to penetrate, but finally he nodded. "Sure. There's some sandwich stuff in the refrigerator."
"Oh, I think I can do better than sandwiches." She flashed him another smile and hurried below.
Travis watched her go, a thoughtful frown creasing the skin between his blond eyebrows. Absently, he fingered the spot on his cheek where she'd kissed him.
When he became aware of what he was doing, he dropped his hand. It irked him to realize that he found Rebecca intriguing.
He spent the next hour trying to put her out of his mind, but the rattle of pots and pans coming from the galley made that difficult. The honeyed tones of her voice, softly humming a U2 tune, made it downright impossible.
Lunch turned out to be a steaming bowl of French Onion soup and a delicious chicken salad made with grape halves and walnuts, served with frosty glasses of mint tea. Travis hadn't had a meal that good since leaving D.C., over a month ago.
"You know, you surprise me," he commented casually, using the side of his spoon to cut through the layer of melted cheese on top of his soup. He looked at her across the small table, his mouth quirking up at one corner. "I would have never guessed that someone with your background would know how to cook."
"My background?" Her faint smile held a hint of sadness. "You mean because we always had domestic help, why did I bother to team?"
"Yeah. Something like that."
"One of our housekeepers taught me." She took a sip of tea, then shrugged. "My father was gone most of the time and I was lonely, I guess. Anyway, it was something to do. Then I discovered that I like to cook. When I was marri—'' She stopped and bit down on her lip. "Later on I took a cooking course," she finished in a subdued voice.
Travis caught the hesitation and wondered at it. He was sure that she'd been about to say 'when I was married.' Why had she stopped?
"You must have graduated at the top of your class, if this meal is an example. It's great."
Surprise widened her eyes, and she looked absurdly pleased. "Thank you."
Actually, quite a few things about Rebecca had surprised Travis that day. When he'd learned that she'd never fished before he would've bet money that he was in for a miserable time. He'd expected her to be squeamish about the cut bait and to complain about the smell, but after that first time, she had rebaited her hook herself without the slightest qualm.
At the very least, he'd thought she would become bored. To his astonishment, Rebecca seemed to have genuinely enjoyed fishing, even when she hadn't been having any luck.
She was patient—he'd give her that. And, thank God, she'd had the good sense to be quiet and not scare away the fish.
Of course, Rebecca always had been distant and quiet.
Travis took a bite of salad and fought back a grin, remembering her reaction when that trout had bit her line, and how hard she'd worked to bring it in. You would've thought she'd won the lottery, she was so excited.
You could have knocked him over with a feather. Rebecca Quinn? Jumping up and down squealing with excitement? It was not a sight he'd ever expected to see.
What had surprised him most, though, was when she'd begged him to throw the fish back. That kind of tenderheartedness, though he personally thought it foolish, wasn't exactly what you'd expect of a cold woman.
And then there'd been that kiss.
There had been nothing sexual about it. The peck had merely been a show of appreciation, but coming from her it had stunned him.
Like it or not, Rebecca had piqued his interest, and he found that he wanted to dig deeper.
"So tell me, what have you been doing with yourself these past years?"
It was an innocuous question, the kind meant to open the door for small talk between people who were not close friends, and he had been careful to keep his voice casual. Yet he saw a flash of something in Rebecca's eyes that looked like wariness. Interesting.
"Nothing much, really."
"Oh, c'mon. You went away to college, got married, divorced. That's something."
"You don't want to hear about that."
"Sure I do."
Rebecca poked at her salad. "Trust me, you'd be bored silly if I told you. But what about you? You're the one who leads an exciting life. You are still with the FBI, aren't you?"
"I'm on an extended leave right now, but yeah,
I'm still with the Bureau."
"Is something wrong? I mean... were you injured in the line of duty or something? Is that why you're on leave?"
Travis recognized the evasive tactic. The best way to avoid answering a question was to ask some of your own. He decided to allow it. For now.
"Naw, I'm fine. I had some time coming, and since I had some thinking to do, and Erin and Elise offered the beach house, I thought this was as good a time as any to take it. That's all."
He had known that Rebecca would not ask what he had to think about. She was much too polite and too reserved to pry into his personal business. Neither did he rule out the possibility that she simply wasn't interested.
"Well that's good. I mean.. .I'm glad you weren't hurt."
"Are you?"
"Certainly. Your family would be very upset if something were to happen to you. I know Erin and Elise were relieved when David left the Bureau."
"Yeah, David made the right move. He'd reached burnout and he was smart enough to call it quits before he got himself killed. Anyway, he's got it made now. He's got himself a beautiful bride and a high-paying job that he enjoys, which lets him afford a few of life's luxuries. Like this boat, for instance."
Rebecca looked around the compact cabin. The Free-wind was an older powerboat—a custom-made one, from the look of it. Built of wood, it sported brass fittings and gleaming teak decking, and the interior had been refurbished to include all the modern conveniences. There was a certain elegance about it, a feeling of quality that was missing in the modern fiberglass crafts. "It is lovely."