Baited

by Crystal Green

“Gramps!”

  They turned around to find thirteen-year-old Christian Harrington gunning for them up the gangplank at full speed, weighed down by a backpack. His flop of golden hair hid one eye as he waved, then ran into a pole, his pack skewing his balance.

  “Oooo,” Kat said, wincing.

  She jogged over to see that Chris was okay. And…jeez, picking up that backpack, it weighed more than a tub of wet seaweed.

  “What’s in here?” she asked.

  Between excited breaths, he sputtered out, “Shark books. I brought all of mine to show you.”

  Aw, thought Kat. How sweet.

  She ruffled his goofy hair, and his face lit up in a smile. His pale skin was freckled, his lips a vivid shade of Kool-Aid pink, his teeth sheathed in clear braces. He wore the lanky, awkward body of a new teenager stretching to fit growing bones. All these great features and his positive energy hid the fact that Chris had led a real crappy life before Duke took him in. Duke had told her that when Chris was ten his parents were killed in a fire. Ever since, he’d taken care to raise the orphan in security and love, giving him the best in therapy and luxury—including a round-the-clock “butler team.”

  Kat wasn’t sure this was a great thing. All that the attention seemed to produce was a boy who hadn’t quite matured out of the age of ten and into what he was now.

  She hauled the backpack up to her shoulder. Ooof. “Are all of these hardcover?”

  “Most.”

  The boy shot her his awkward smile before they walked over to Duke. At least, Kat and her enormous backpack were walking over. Chris zoomed to his grandpa.

  Pepped up, Duke raised his hands to enfold his ward in a hug. “Chris,” he said, voice soft.

  They embraced as if they hadn’t seen each other in months. Kat knew it had only been hours, since Chris had been finishing up a math test with his regular tutor before going on this study-vacation and had just been dropped off.

  She lugged the pack to the deck, set it near her feet. “Where’s the rest of your stuff?”

  “The driver’s bringing it.” Chris faced her, enthusiasm lighting his eyes. “Kat, did you know that Guadalupe Island hosts one of the most prolific populations of white sharks on the planet?”

  His big words always cracked her up. “Brainiac. Thanks for the scoop.”

  Duke winked at her and lavished such an adoring look on his grandson that her heart clutched.

  And that’s when she heard the others.

  “Lovely San Diego!” called a cultured female voice.

  Careful footsteps dallied up the gangplank.

  As Chris sat next to Duke, Kat’s mentor sent her yet another sheepish grin.

  The Delacroix tribe. The family who’d been summoned from their out-of-state home because they were the main beneficiaries of Duke’s massive wealth.

  Eloise, Duke’s darker-side-of-her-forties daughter, was the first to step onto the M. Falcon. She was as sophisticated as they came, dressed in swanky-svelte sunglasses and a designer sports blouse and slacks with pearls mounded around an aging neck that didn’t match the plastic-surgery tightness of her face. A champagne-blond chignon completed her perfect look.

  “We’re here!” she said, voice bubbly as she lowered her sunglasses to sweep a glance over the deck. Content, she came to watch her father, smiling.

  “In all your glory,” Duke said, showing grateful cheer at seeing his family. Before Duke’s cancer, they hadn’t been very close, he’d told Kat. But things were beginning to change now.

  Eloise slipped her eyewear back on and waved her baggage-laden manservant on board. When her gaze lit over Kat, Eloise took a step back and said, “Why, hello.”

  “Hi,” Kat said, waving. “I’m Katsu Espinoza.”

  As Duke formalized the greeting, he bragged about how Kat was “a real mermaid” and hugged his daughter with such excitement that Kat ached. She wished she had her dad here for this, too.

  “Paradise,” Duke said. “All the people I love, with me on the adventure of a lifetime.”

  “Sharks,” Chris said, giving an excited little hop.

  How appropriate, because that’s when the rest of the Delacroix brood appeared.

  Eloise’s husband, Louis.

  Duffy.

  Alexandra.

  And Nestor.

  The whole gang was here for one big happy gathering.

  Chapter 3

  Later that afternoon, the M. Falcon cut through the water on its twenty-two-hour trek to Guadalupe Island. The scents of sunscreen and coconut tanning oil mingled with the salty tang of the ocean as Duke’s party enjoyed the start of his grand adventure.

  One they all knew could very well be his last.

  Even as he reclined contentedly on a deck chair, baseball cap and smile in place, Kat could tell that the excitement had sapped the last of his energy.

  “Need some water?” she asked.

  “Nope, nope. Not right now.” He placed a hand over the one she was resting on her own lounge seat.

  His enjoyment was obvious. Duke was supremely happy to be around his once-distant family: Eloise, who had already gone below because she’d gotten her five minutes of sun and had to mind her complexion; husband Louis, a thoughtful, gray-haired man dressed like Mr. Howell and enraptured by the passing ocean; Alexandra, the Paris-Hilton-blond daughter who worshipped the sun with her bikini-clad twenty-something body; Duffy and Nestor, the dark-haired sons who drank martinis and talked about stock options while ignoring the fishing poles they’d stuck into holders around the rear of the boat.

  And then there was the “other” neighborhood of the deck—the one where Kat felt just right.

  From a seat on the opposite side of Kat, a young woman laughed and told Chris a free-spirited joke. Dr. Janelle Hopkins from UCSD. Duke had left the regular tutor behind and hired the African-American shark scientist solely for the trip. She’d arrived just before the M. Falcon had departed and, wasting no time, had immediately started tutoring Chris. Kat had been hanging around, too, keenly interested in what the doctor had to say.

  And Duke was getting a kick out of watching Kat learn right along with Chris. He’d probably lecture her at dinner about applying for college again.

  The older man kept his hand over hers as he leaned back his head and closed his eyes. Kat squeezed his thin, brittle fingers, turning her attention back to Dr. Hopkins and Chris, caught by the pictures they were studying in one of the teen’s books. It depicted a monster great white shark—twenty feet in length if it was an inch.

  “We might get lucky,” the doctor said. “An eighteen-footer was recently spotted near the island. We’re going to see elephant and Guadalupe fur seals, California sea lions…”

  Chris shifted in his seat. White sunblock chalked his nose and increased his nerd factor. “I can’t wait to dive and take pictures of them. Right, Gramps?”

  “Ditto,” Duke said, even though Kat knew he wouldn’t even get near the shark cage.

  As if to punctuate that thought, he held his stomach, then slowly rose out of his chair, coming to balance himself on unsteady legs. A gust of wind blew over him, testing his stance with a low, whistling moan. A lone bird screamed and dove toward the water in a suicidal arc.

  Kat wrapped her arms over her knees, suddenly cold.

  “I’m going below,” Duke said, face pale.

  She started to get up, too. “I’ll come—”

  “No. Just need…some rest.” Duke walked away, trying to smile at her for reassurance.

  Hell, there was no fighting him. He had a pager for Wayne, the medic on crew, and Kat would check in on Duke later. Stubborn man.

  “Gramps?” Chris asked.

  “Just a nap, Chris.”

  “Then sleep tight,” Louis added as the wind tousled his gray hair. Duffy, Nestor and even the near-comatose Alexandra put on cheery grins, too, and bade their grandfather a good nap.

  Kat noted that even when Duke left the deck, their smiles stayed intact.

/>   Louis returned to the sea, smiling. Alexandra checked her tan line and turned over to brown her back, smiling. Nestor and Duffy smiled at each other, as if they were the Waltons and this was some kind of “awwww” moment.

  Smiles, smiles, smiles. If they were all such a big happy family, why hadn’t they visited Duke more often? Funny; and why did they all seem a little…distanced…with each other? Seriously, when they thought no one was looking they deflated a bit, like they were mingling for Duke’s sake.

  Still, as Janelle Hopkins and Chris started talking again, Kat focused on what Nestor, the younger brother, was saying.

  “So, how much Qualcomm stock do you think seven million dollars could buy?”

  “Enough to bring you back in the black, you careless moron.” Duffy drank from his martini glass, draining the contents and allowing the emptied vessel to dangle from his fingers.

  But Kat was still dwelling on Nestor’s question. Was he already mentally spending his inheritance from Duke? And was Duffy calling him out for it?

  She inspected the older brother. Ruddy cheeks and beefy ex-linebacker physique. Hearty laugh and casual attitude. Cool or not?

  And how about Nestor? Did he also deserve more credit than she was giving him?

  Willing to give her doubts a rest for just a second, Kat looked at him with neutral eyes. Not bad, if you were into pretty. He was like the most innocent member of every boy band she’d ever made fun of: dimples, shy grin, soulful blue eyes and all.

  Okay, maybe it was just the neighborhood girl in her getting all prickly. She had her own prejudices, mainly about richies—besides Duke, anyway. Back in her world, everyone knew that folks with cash got the glory and others never had a prayer. Her outlook colored the Delacroix family, whether Kat wanted it to or not.

  Had they come on this trip only to butter Duke up and secure their share of the will?

  Hell. This just meant that it was up to her to make sure she defended him against the Delacroixs. She, along with Chris, would give him a sense of family, even if he was surrounded by blood relatives who didn’t genuinely live up to their end of the bargain.

  Kat must’ve been staring at Nestor and Duffy because both brothers glanced at her. They even smiled.

  Kat turned back to Chris and Dr. Hopkins, finding that the woman was out of her seat, up and stretching. Her cocoa-colored legs were long and slender, her breasts pressing against the cotton of her tank top.

  Once again, the wind picked up, humming a strange tune in Kat’s ears. The sky seemed a little more overcast.

  Dr. Hopkins stopped, a slow grin spreading over her face as she glanced over at the boys.

  Slyly, Kat peered at them, then back at Dr. Hopkins.

  Okay. So the boys had been smiling at the lovely lady behind Kat. Flirts.

  When Duffy turned away, pretty-boy Nestor kept throwing charm at the doctor, grinning like a fool.

  When Kat snuck a peek back at the doctor, Hopkins laughed, a gleam in her dark eyes.

  “Enough of them to go around, huh?” Kat ventured.

  Chris wrinkled his nose and looked at his cousins, just like he was Kat’s and the doctor’s big brother and it was his responsibility to check things out. But, shaking his head, he went back to his book.

  That cracked the women up. Kat had no interest in adorable posers or bulky sportsmen, but the laughter bonded her in a small way to Janelle Hopkins, girlfriend to girlfriend.

  “So can I get you two anything from the galley?” the doctor finally asked. “It’s snack time for me.”

  Both Kat and Chris said no, and Dr. Hopkins left them with a pert “Okay. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Kat.”

  Kat waited until she was gone. “A doctor. She’s smart, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Chris shut the book and laid it on the now-empty chair. “Wouldn’t it be awesome to have her job?”

  Oh, sure, Kat thought. Like she could ever afford the education. Like she had the brains, anyway.

  But before she could answer, Chris was out of his seat, pointing to the rear of the boat. When Kat looked, she saw Nestor’s fishing line whizzing to life.

  “Hey, they caught something!”

  It wasn’t a surprise when the excitable teen darted to his cousins, who stared at the bending pole like it was a foreign object suddenly come to life.

  When Chris made a grab for it, Nestor interceded. “Whoa, there, Chris. You don’t know what’s on the other end.” He unhooked the pole from its holder and worked the line, fighting whatever he’d snagged, seeming slightly amused and encouraged by Chris’s enthusiasm.

  Duffy followed suit, throwing a thick arm around Chris in companionship—a big boy who didn’t know his own age, much like Chris himself. An eternal kid.

  Yet the teen squirmed away, and Kat paused, taken aback by the vehemence in the boy’s reaction.

  Right away, Duffy’s face reddened, and it didn’t take a professor to see that he was hurt by his young cousin’s rebuff. But the embarrassment took the form of playful revenge when Duffy picked up the boy, wrapping a beefy arm around Chris’s middle. “So, you like the fishies, Chrissy?”

  Father Louis looked away from the sea. “Don’t, Duff.”

  Oblivious to Chris’s agitation, Duffy ignored his dad and quickly flipped his cousin upside down, pretending that he was about to hang him over the boat’s side.

  With a sigh, Louis stood up.

  “Put me down!” Chris yelled.

  “Hey, Nestor, need more bait?”

  Kat zoomed over to them. “Cut it out, you idiot.”

  Duffy seemed taken aback.

  The shock of seeing the banked hurt on his face stole her words away, but as he continued to hold Chris captive, anger kicked in. She’d inherited her temper from her dad and had shown little patience for the calm her mom had tried to teach her when she was young, too young to understand.

  “Do it,” Kat said, “and I’ll shove my fist so far down your throat that I’ll tie your guts up for Duke’s birthday ribbon.”

  Nestor turned around to shoot a stunned glance at Kat. His pole zipped into the ocean, fish and all.

  In the meantime, Louis walked over, nonchalantly positioning himself behind Duffy.

  A flat valley-girl cadence sounded from behind them all. “Don’t push Chris’s buttons, you ass. If Gramps—”

  “Okay, okay, Alex.” Immediately, Duffy flipped Chris right side up, steadied him on the deck and made a show of straightening his cousin’s hair and shirt. “Gramps’s favorite. We need to hail your greatness, Chrissy. The great boss demands it.”

  Louis’s voice interrupted. “Decency demands it.”

  Without warning, he grabbed a handful of Duffy’s thick black hair and pulled back his son’s head.

  No one moved as the whites of Duffy’s eyes took over his widened gaze.

  “Okay, okay, I got it,” he said, voice tight. He reached for his father’s wrist just as he was letting go.

  With one last warning look, the patriarch mellowed, smiled at the sea, then walked below deck, leaving behind a silenced crowd.

  Seizing the chance, Kat rushed to Chris and guided him away from Duffy, taking him into her protective arms. As she did so, a mildly interested Alexandra watched them, blue eyes vacant, mouth pouted like a model in some magazine ad.

  Was she that much of a blank? Kat wondered. Or that good at hiding what was going on inside?

  Kat brushed away everything but Chris, yet she couldn’t ignore one thing—the parting gaze Duffy had given her. It was haunting, filled with mortification and…believe it or not…even a glimmer of regret that his stubborn nature couldn’t voice.

  Then again, she could be wrong.

  “Let’s find Dr. Hopkins,” Kat said, steering the boy toward the galley.

  “All right.”

  “How can you be so nice, Chris? If I were you, I would’ve slammed a few kicks in Duffy’s grill—and that would’ve been just the start.”

  The wind crept through
the hall, continuing its uneasy tune from the deck. Wood creaked around them, sounding like something was coming unhinged.

  “But I knew he’d stop sooner or later.”

  She’d seen kids like this. Victims of the playground. Kat, herself, hadn’t been one of those for long.

  “Gramps told me that Duffy sometimes gets too much testosterone in his system and that Uncle Louis says Duff hasn’t gotten all that college football line-backing out of himself yet…if he ever will. He’s always going to be a big, dumb dork who doesn’t have a clue how to contain himself.” Chris smiled, eyes wide. Kat could detect the threat of tears in them. “Besides, everyone gets worried about hurting me, so they always end up walking on eggshells and being super apologetic. You know, because of my parents.”

  She wasn’t sure what to say, whether to ask more questions or not. Duke had always given her the impression that it was a touchy subject and wasn’t to be broached around Chris. One thing she knew for sure was that Duke, himself, didn’t like talking about the death of his oldest son and his wife. The first time he’d mentioned it had been the last, and when she’d tried to bring it up again, he’d uncharacteristically shut her down. Understandable, though. There was no pain equal to that of losing a loved one.

  The teen sighed, just as though he’d sensed her uneasiness, as though he was all too used to it. “I’m tougher than they think. Sometimes, people call mellow kids like me wimps, but…maybe it just takes more to get me mad.”

  “Or maybe you’re more mature than people give you credit for.” Kat patted Chris’s back as they walked into a dining area, where Dr. Hopkins was seated, snacking from a plate of assorted cheeses Chef Linda had probably put together.

  And even though Kat tried to keep her mind on the conversation as it turned academic again, she couldn’t. The temper she’d inherited from her dad—her very own legacy—wouldn’t allow her to forget Duffy’s bullying. Because she knew exactly what being picked on felt like.

  An hour later, when Kat went back up to the deck to find Duffy, she discovered that everyone had deserted the area to get ready for dinner. Everyone, that is, except Alexandra. And Will.