Desire on Deadline

by Lucy Lakestone

  “I think you’re a good time sober, too,” Alden teased, trying and failing to provoke a smile. “I understand your parents founded the Gazette?”

  “Actually, the previous generation did, but my parents served as publisher and editor for years. I grew up in newspapers and never left them, more fool me. My dad died a couple of years ago of a heart attack, and my mom isn’t well. She has advanced multiple sclerosis. She’d like to sell the paper, but — ”

  “It’s in trouble, isn’t it?”

  Roz looked up at him, her pretty face cloudy, half-shielded by her windblown hair. “Yes,” she admitted.

  “No brothers or sisters to help?”

  “No one.”

  “If anyone can save it, you can.”

  “Ha,” she scoffed. “You barely know me.”

  “I can just tell,” Alden said. “But why sell it? Why not just run it?”

  “The writing is on the wall,” Roz said. “I’d like to sell while it’s still worth something, before newspapers go away. Before it’s all Times and gossip. While I can still try to get my job back in Baltimore.”

  “The Sun? What did you do there?”

  “I’d just made it onto the investigative team when Mom took a turn for the worse. Before that, it was city government.”

  “Sounds familiar,” Alden murmured.

  “What was that?”

  “Oh, I once covered city government. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

  “Where?”

  “A small town in upstate New York. No place you’ve ever heard of.” Alden didn’t want to talk about it, but somehow, he didn’t mind her asking.

  “Why didn’t you like it?”

  “Because I fucked it up.” Alden stopped. They’d walked so far, the main building was out of sight. A few lights winked from the windows of the resort’s beachside villas, through the tropical foliage. He suddenly wanted to crawl into a hammock under the moon and sleep forever, oblivious to the past.

  “What do you mean?” Roz walked a few steps before realizing he’d stopped, then turned and walked back to face him. Her features were shadowed and mysteriously alluring in the moonlight. “What happened?”

  “I fulfilled my destiny and became a first-rate tabloid reporter, and I came here, to the Mimosa Times, the pinnacle of my journalism career,” he said, hearing the acid in his tone. He reeled it back in with a long breath. “How do you feel? Ready to go back?”

  Roz looked him in the eye. “OK,” she said softly, and in those two syllables, he heard a sympathy that threatened to cut him wide open. He mentally rebuffed the comfort he might find there.

  But as they walked back, Alden considered other forms of comfort. He slipped an arm around her shoulders.

  Roz stiffened for a moment, and then she relaxed under his light touch. Her arms were crossed again. She was certainly cold. He pulled her ever so slightly closer and felt a slow burn ignite in his body at her floral scent — jasmine, he thought — and her proximity. There was something about her that plugged him in, electrified him. He didn’t understand it, but he wanted her.

  No matter how stupid an idea that might be.

  They found their shoes and put them back on, then walked to the parking lot. Alden escorted Roz to her car and watched her unlock and open the door. He held it. She paused.

  “We can set up the balloon interview tomorrow,” she said. “How about I call Zoe? I know her slightly.”

  “I’m at your disposal.”

  “Huh,” she said, sounding skeptical.

  Tomorrow, they’d be chasing their separate leads again, back to competing. But that was tomorrow. Alden leaned closer, close enough to feel her breath on his face as she looked into his eyes. For a half-second, in Roz’s canny gaze, anxiety and fatigue warred with something else, something warmer, more subversive.

  Desire.

  Alden leaned closer — then sucked in a breath in surprise as Roz ducked into her car.

  “Thanks for dinner,” she said before she slammed the door. But despite the dismissal, he knew what he’d seen in her eyes. When she stole a glance at him as the car backed out, he saw it again.

  Wildfire.

  Damn. Roz zoomed off in her little hatchback, and Alden wondered if he’d imagined the whole thing.

  He strolled back to his old Beamer, his pants uncomfortably tight, his mind racing, wondering what tomorrow would bring.

  ≈≈≈

  Roz woke up grumpy, but then, that wasn’t unusual these days. There were a lot of reasons: the newspaper’s struggles. Her mother’s declining health. Obnoxious male journalists who got under her skin.

  She cranked up the four-cup coffeemaker in the quaint 1950s kitchen of the bungalow she’d rented. It was down the block from her mother’s house, the house she grew up in. Her mother had insisted on her getting her own place. “I can’t have you always underfoot, watching me all the time, waiting for me to fall over and worrying your face off,” she’d said.

  So now Roz worried her face off down the block, though she visited her mom often. On the good days, they went out for lunch. On the bad days, her mother curled up in bed and let a part-time home-care aide clean and cook and help her move around the house. Her mother said she hated to have her daughter in the house on those days, but Roz came anyway.

  Roz was glad she lived alone on days like today, when she was up at — God, was it really 4:45 a.m.? And after that tête-à-tête with her rival last night, the little sleep she did have had been rumpled by dreams she was embarrassed to remember today. Though she couldn’t help returning to them again and again: dreams of Alden taking his shirt off on the beach despite her protests, of Alden’s eyes flashing in the moonlight, of Alden pushing her down on the sand and ripping off her clothes and —

  She shook her head, poured coffee into her go-mug and sweetened it with a couple of teaspoons of sugar. It had been way too long since she’d gotten laid. In Baltimore, she’d been dating a nice high-school journalism teacher she’d met when she spoke in his class. Their tepid relationship had made it all too easy to break up when she left six months ago. But he was a good man, and that’s the kind of guy she needed to be with. Wasn’t it?

  Certainly she didn’t want an arrogant paparazzo with zero ethics.

  But she’d promised Alden that she’d set up an interview with the balloon pilot, despite her low hopes for good information.

  That would come later. This morning, she wanted to check out the explosion site while it was still fresh, get some color and detail about just what was out there. And maybe clues as to why it happened, something the police hadn’t told her.

  At least she’d gotten the GPS coordinates out of Jimbo. The probably hopeless search for survivors was supposed to resume once it got light; she wanted to sneak into the area before they got started and have a look around.

  She’d donned denim shorts and a sweater over a tank top, hoping she’d look like any other casual boater. Her only concern was the boat.

  Roz’s family had a twenty-three-footer docked at the small harbor at Pleasure Pointe, but it hadn’t been run in months. The boat was twenty-five years old, though her father had replaced the engine and updated the GPS about ten years ago. Her mother hadn’t wanted to deal with selling it, but she might have to soon, Roz thought grimly.

  Roz wasn’t all that handy with boats; her dad was the one who was crazy about fishing. She used to ride with him as a kid but got tired of it later, got interested in other things. So she had almost zero knowledge of how the thing worked. But it couldn’t be that different from a car, right? She had a key. And she knew the vessel ran. She had a cousin who tinkered with it and used it whenever he visited from up north, about twice a year, and he left it fueled every time.

  She only had to get eight miles offshore and back. There was no crime scene tape on the ocean. Piece of cake.

  Roz told herself all these things, incidentally craving cake, as she made the short drive to Pleasure Pointe Harbor and par
ked in the pre-dawn darkness. There was no reason she couldn’t do this, and it looked as if it was going to be a pretty nice day to be out on the water, less choppy than the day before.

  Pleasure Pointe was the smaller harbor on the island, nestled on the southwest tip, less used and more private. She saw a couple of fishermen taking out their boat, smaller than hers. Otherwise it was eerily quiet and chilly as she got out of her car. She grabbed a bag that held her camera and a couple of bottles of water, along with a granola bar, just in case. Then she locked her purse and phone in the trunk and headed out onto the docks.

  The Grady-White, which her dad had dubbed the Nellie Bly, looked fine in the minimal harbor lights. Its bimini could use a good cleaning, but it would be enough to keep Roz in the shade when the sun came up for her short trip back home. She tossed her bag on board and climbed in after it, getting oriented. She really hadn’t been on this boat since — good lord, had it been a decade?

  She found the life preservers and confirmed the radio worked. Her cousin had kept the boat pretty neat. The cabin below and the head were clean, not that she’d be gone long enough to need them, but it paid to be prepared.

  Up top, she looked around again, secured her bag in a closed compartment and went to the front to release the bow line. Then she stood at the console, put the key in the ignition and turned it.

  Click click click zzzzz. Nothing happened.

  She tried again. Same thing.

  Crap. She didn’t want to be the dopey girl who couldn’t start her boat. Ask her to do any number of other things, and she’d prove she was equal to the task. Dissect a stack of government documents for data? Easy. Assemble IKEA furniture? No problem. But this?

  Maybe it was broken.

  The last thing she wanted to do was ask for help. She could call her cousin in Cincinnati. It was early, but he might be up at 5:30 a.m. Some people were, right?

  “May I be of assistance?”

  She whirled, peered into the dim light and found herself staring at the amused face of Alden Knox.

  ≈≈≈

  “What are you doing here?” Roz demanded.

  Alden held his hands out wide, palms up, wondering if finding her here was lucky or disastrous. “I swear, I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Why are you here? Fishing?” he asked, though it was obvious she wasn’t. No gear. No enthusiasm.

  She crossed her arms and didn’t say anything. In the yellow of the scant harbor lights, she looked pissed off. Par for the course.

  And pretty hot, in denim shorts and a dark sweater.

  “Aren’t you cold?” he asked.

  “Stop worrying about my temperature. Why are you here?”

  Alden sighed. “I’m meeting a fisherman here. Or I was. He just texted me. He’s too hung over to take me out.”

  “You’re going fishing,” she said in disbelief.

  “Apparently not.” They both knew why both of them were here. “Can I help you start the boat?”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because then you can take me out to the debris field and we can see the accident scene ourselves.”

  Roz huffed, the sound of frustration and, he hoped, capitulation. She uncrossed her arms. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “We’ve established we want different things out of the story,” Alden said, hopping aboard the boat. He’d worn jeans and a flannel shirt, more fitting to the cool February morning, but he didn’t mind looking at Roz’s shapely legs. “It won’t do any harm. It might even be helpful to have me along.”

  “I don’t see how,” Roz said. “Besides, you might ruffle that hundred-dollar haircut.”

  “I own a convertible. I live to ruffle my haircut. Or to have someone ruffle it for me.” He shot her a warm look, then scanned the console. “Is this your boat?”

  “It used to be my dad’s.”

  “Did you prime the fuel?”

  “What?”

  Alden grinned and went to the back of the boat. “See this? There’s a tube that runs from the gas tank to the engine. You have to squeeze the primer bulb so it gets the fuel moving. You squeeze it until it gets hard.”

  “Really.”

  He laughed. “Seriously. You want to squeeze it?”

  “I don’t want to squeeze anything,” she said drily. He pumped the black bulb attached to the line and returned to the console, Roz following.

  “You want to start it now?” he asked.

  She shook her head, her hair shifting with the movement. “Fine. I admit it. I don’t know what I’m doing, and apparently, you do. If you can start the damn thing, start it.” She crossed her arms again and watched him, and he took a second to enjoy the discomfiture in her eyes.

  “My pleasure,” Alden finally said. “You have to put it in neutral and push this forward.” He moved the lever and turned the key. The engine started up, racing.

  “Is it supposed to do that?” Roz asked with concern.

  Alden popped the lever into place, and the engine purred. “Now we’re idling. Want to release the transom line?”

  “Transom?”

  He laughed again. “The back. Did you seriously never ride on your dad’s boat?”

  “I did, but mostly I was reading or just enjoying the waves and sunbathing,” she said as she released the rope and the boat shifted farther from the dock. “He and my mom were fishing and doing the boat things.”

  “The boat things.” Alden smiled, imagining her in a bikini, a teenager without a care in the world, reclining idly in the sun with a book. He pushed the lever forward, then found the battery switch and selected battery two. Always good policy to charge up the backup. He moved slowly out into the small harbor and toward the open water.

  “How do you know about boats?” Roz asked.

  “Our family had a lake house in upstate New York. Many pleasant summer vacations involved boats.”

  “Of course they did,” she said. “Poor little rich boy?”

  “You apparently grew up in paradise. Are you complaining?”

  “No,” she said, her voice softening. “Sorry. I’m just not used to asking for help. I’ll try to keep my insults to things I actually know about.”

  Alden chuckled. “Fair enough.”

  The lights of the docks receded behind them, and stars shone above. The moon had already set, so the night seemed incredibly black, except for the scant light of their controls. This was so different from his previous life in South Florida, all noise and speed and glitter.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” she asked.

  “Not exactly. Earl was going to get me there. He promised. Only Earl is a better drinking buddy than he is a fisherman, apparently. And you?”

  “GPS,” Roz said. “This, I know how to do.”

  She moved closer to him at the console and keyed in the coordinates on the GPS unit. “That’s about where it happened. We should be able to get a look just when the sun comes up, see what we can learn.”

  “Probably not much,” Alden said. “But I figured it was worth a shot. If the explosion was so violent the boat was in small pieces, like your story said — ”

  “Aw, you read my story?” Her tone was sarcastic again.

  “Of course.” He didn’t miss a beat. “Then it must have had a violent cause. Maybe it was just a gas leak — ”

  “That would do it?” she asked, moving closer to hear him over the motor. Even with the odor of fuel wafting around them, she smelled like jasmine, and he got distracted for a second.

  “Sure,” he said, clearing his throat, speaking more softly so she’d have to lean in farther. “A spark would do it — if they had the wrong parts in the engine and fumes collected in the bilge, say.”

  “That doesn’t seem like murder,” Roz said.

  “You sound disappointed. It could have been sabotage, though an accident is a lot more likely.”

  Roz gripped the console a
s a particularly big wave made them bounce. “What if there was something criminal happening? Maybe they were running drugs or something.”

  “Why would Boyd Bellamy want to run drugs? He’s richer than Midas.”

  “The fishing guide might be another story,” Roz said, and then she shut up.

  Alden raised an eyebrow at her. “So we need to look into his financials.”

  “There you go with that ‘we’ again,” she said, but good-naturedly. “Yeah, that would probably be wise. See if he has a record and all that. That guy Verret said he was a fine young guide. Seemed pretty broken up about it.”

  “Of course. He lost a really expensive boat.”

  “That’s pretty cynical.” Roz looked into his eyes. They were still standing there in the dim glow of the console instead of retreating to the twin captain’s chairs, and the motion of the boat rocked them toward each other. It was all he could do not to let himself fall against her.

  “I’m a cynical guy,” he admitted.

  “That’s too bad,” Roz said, still holding his gaze.

  Her tone seemed — regretful. He had the oddest thought: He didn’t want her to be disappointed in him.

  “Just looking at all the angles,” he said as coolly as he could.

  She shrugged and looked at the GPS. “Another mile. You might want to slow down, keep an eye out for debris.”

  At that moment, there was a thunk as the bow of the boat struck something.

  “Slow down! Slow down!” Roz moved toward the edge of the deck, looking around the water.

  Alden pulled back on the throttle, slowing them to a crawl. “It wasn’t that big, whatever it was. We’re OK.”

  “Let me get the light so we don’t run into anything bigger,” Roz called. She moved to a side compartment and pulled out a big flashlight. She switched it on, and the brilliant beam cut a swath into the night, just as the slightest hint of gray touched the eastern horizon.

  Roz swept the surface of the water with the beam, occasionally calling out to Alden to shift right or left.