Not good to be taking this medicine. Not good at all.
He scanned six medical abstracts, punched in another clarification and then sat back, steepling his hands.
The woman was in a bad place and it was going to get worse. She didn’t deserve this. She’s had enough hard knocks in her life, according to what Izzy had found out about her. Though it wouldn’t affect the mission, Trace would have to be told about her medical condition.
Izzy wanted all his facts straight before that.
He noted the name of the head of the research institute in charge of the first clinical trials. Silent, he drummed his fingers on the desk and planned his next move. Once his story was complete, he pulled out his private cell phone.
The author of the journal article answered on the second ring. His enthusiasm at hearing from Izzy was real. The two had met over a matter of some stolen documents and a possible IPO nightmare a year earlier. A friend of a friend had suggested Izzy could help out.
Forty-eight hours later the documents were recovered and the disgruntled employee behind the theft was on his way to jail.
It was always nice to have people owe you a favor, Izzy thought. He was going to call the favor in now.
“Delson? It’s Teague. Yes, I’m doing fine. No, still burning the candle at both ends. No vacation time in sight, so we’ll have to wait on that fishing trip to Montana. I’m calling about one of your new products. I have a few questions.” Izzy glanced at the printout he had made earlier and mentioned the name Trace had given him. “I’d like to know the range of conditions it treats and all possible side effects.”
As he listened, he made notes on his laptop and planned how he would deliver the news to Trace.
Already he sensed that the SEAL’s question had been personal. Trace had a reputation for avoiding emotional entanglements and skirting any kind of relationship.
Something told Izzy all that was about to change.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SHE WOKE UP SLOWLY.
The noise—or the lack of it—hit her first. Gina realized she was on a higher deck than her own, one well away from the throb of the engines.
So she wasn’t in her own cabin. Not in her own bed.
She opened her eyes and stared into the darkness. Her hand stretched to meet the edge of the bed.
Queen size.
Hers was a twin.
This mattress was firm. Hers was soft.
She blinked at the darkness. She was lying half-asleep on a strange pillow in a strange bed. A stranger had his hard fingers on her waist. She lay tense, feeling his hand rise, tracing her ribs in a way that made her pulse skitter.
Okay, Ryan. Time to think. Time to remember every detail of the night before. She tried to inch across the bed and pain stabbed through her forehead.
She studied the clock nearby: 5:04. A hint of gray peeked around the blue curtains across the room and felt the resistance of rising seas.
She closed her eyes, but the images of the night before remained a blur. There had been a problem with her kitchen computer. Someone had attempted access, triggering a warning, and she remembered Tobias waiting for her in the kitchen while he checked out the system.
Someone else had been there with her.
Cool eyes. Hands with the steady confidence of a man who faced danger often.
Heat washed into her face.
How had she ended up in bed with Trace O’Halloran?
He had followed her after she’d received the page from security. Then he had grilled Tobias like someone with extensive computer experience.
Afterward, Trace had insisted she eat. They’d gone on deck, watched the sunset, argued a little.
After that everything faded. Vainly Gina kept trying to string together the fragments of the evening. Had she fainted?
She remembered taking a gel tab while they were on deck. The foggy feeling had begun shortly after.
Her pills had never affected her this way before.
She remembered that Andreas had found the bottle under her desk.
Contaminated.
Gina couldn’t believe any of her staff were responsible. It had to be Blaine.
Blaine.
She closed her eyes, stunned at the hatred that would cause such an attack. For long moments a sense of personal violation left her disoriented.
How far would Blaine go in this vendetta?
But Gina’s train of thought vanished as warm, callused fingers slid up her leg. Under her skirt.
Across her thigh.
Her skirt was hiked up slowly, stopping at the top of red lace bikini panties. A rush of heat shot into the pit of her stomach as Trace turned. Muttering, he worked one finger along the elastic just below her waist.
She was still fully dressed. Nothing had happened between them. They hadn’t…
Relief struck her. But in its wake, desire stirred and need curled through her chest. Gina held her breath as he buried his face in her hair, his leg pinning her to the bed.
One very muscular and very warm leg.
His chest was inches away from her face, every sculpted line close enough to touch. She swallowed hard, imagining her fingers trailing over those hard lines, bringing him awake with the liquid warmth of her mouth.
She’d never wanted to explore a man’s body the way she did now, reckless and urgent. Her body felt heavy with rich anticipation, and she yearned to follow every instinct and press closer.
All the more reason that she had to leave immediately, before she did something that she’d seriously regret.
She inched away, slipping out from under his leg. When he gave no sign of waking, she slid to the edge of the bed and eased one foot onto the floor.
Still clear. She started to stand up and then felt the lace at the bottom of her knitted shrug pull tight. Looking back, she saw that the sleeve was caught on a small chain around Trace’s neck.
First the forklift. Now a chain. Maybe knitting was dangerous to her health.
Gina gnawed her lip. She’d have to slip off one sleeve to free herself. Otherwise the lace border would be torn. Considering that it had taken her a month of knitting to finish that particular ruffled lace edging, there was no way she’d ruin all that work.
Carefully, she leaned back over Trace. Trying not to breathe, she inched the sweater lower. Her movement made a small silver medal of St. Christopher slip down his naked chest.
Light glowed over his skin, rising and falling gently in sleep. The two of them were caught closely, the small silver links wrapped around fine yarn, locking her against him in a way that was quickly reducing her brain to mush.
After more twisting, she finally felt one side of her sweater slide free. Now she had to untwist his chain and free it from the knitted lace hem.
Holding her breath, she traced the chain’s length, her face inches from Trace’s cheek. At any second she expected to see his cool gray eyes snap open.
He didn’t move.
Time seemed to slow down as she carefully untwisted the chain. The silver was still warm from the contact with his skin as it slid through her fingers.
She tried to ignore his chest, to ignore his tight jeans. Half-zipped, they gaped slightly over lean hips. Dark hair arrowed across his stomach, disappearing beneath taut denim, and Gina tried not to think about what would happen if she pushed that denim lower. The mental images tormented her.
The chain slipped free. His eyelids flickered, but he didn’t move. She wriggled away from him, fighting emotions that seemed to belong to someone else. It wasn’t like her to be so reckless.
Gina realized she wanted to stay. She wanted to draw heat from his heat, strength from his strength.
Nothing about her life made sense. She valued control and order, but she didn’t feel in control of anything now. Thanks to Blaine, she was cornered and confused, under attack from all sides.
He stretched.
His jeans pulled open a little farther.
Gina tried to look awa
y. She had never wanted the physical strength of a man’s body like this, never been so aware of her own body responding in turn. Need churned through her. She wanted more and she wanted it now.
With him and only him.
Which was exactly why she had to leave.
Panic made her hasty, and she half fell off the edge of the bed, trying not to stare at the place where his jeans opened above lean thighs.
Forget it, Ryan. Forget the spectacular thighs, the lean abs and everything else about him.
You thought you were ready for reckless, but you aren’t even close.
Even then she couldn’t fight a wave of regret. With quick, silent movements she retrieved her purse and shoes. Like it or not, she’d have to leave her sweater. She couldn’t keep tugging and risk waking him.
Or, God forbid, risk deciding that she should stay.
Dawn light outlined the windows and Gina heard the cry of seabirds as she slid open the door and tiptoed out into the hall. Only then at the door did she look back.
Trace was motionless, one hand open on the blanket. He looked strong and contained, peaceful in sleep, and the sight feathered through her chest. He looked like a man she could trust. Maybe even a man she could spend the next seven or eight decades of her life with.
Alarm bells went off in her head.
Sharing was not in her day planner. Gina knew from personal experience that sharing was an illusion you had until the day you woke up and found out the other person was just using you until he’d squeezed out all you had. Then he’d ditch you and take all your credit cards with him.
Okay, that definitely sounded cynical.
Too damned bad.
No use pretending there were roses and picket fences ahead. Or wondering why she suddenly wanted them, when she never had before.
Gina took a deep breath. This was too confusing. Why was one man making her throat dry and shaking up her life completely?
She closed his door, shaking her head, relieved to be gone.
There were twenty trays of brioche to inspect in her kitchen. Everything else would have to wait.
TRACE LET HER GO without a word. It hadn’t been easy. In fact, it had been downright painful.
He crossed his arms behind his head and watched light shimmer behind the drawn curtains. Maybe it was the vulnerability he’d seen in Gina’s eyes. Or maybe he was just turning soft.
He stabbed a hand through his hair and sat up slowly. Her fragrance still drifted on the air. Light and soft, it reminded him of sunlight on wildflowers in one of the high meadows where he’d grown up back in New Mexico.
Sunlight and wildflowers, O’Halloran? You are dead in the water, pal.
He took a hard breath, turned and felt something squish beneath his shoulder. He realized it was the edge of her lilac sweater, one sleeve twisted around the silver chain that his mother had given him the day he’d joined the Navy.
Good luck, she’d called it, adding a small St. Christopher medal that was about two hundred years old.
Trace had taken neither off since. Once down in Colombia a drug lord had tried to cut it off with a machete, but Trace had taught him the error of his ways.
That story belonged to the memories of a younger, more hotheaded SEAL.
He stared up at the ceiling, his body sheened with sweat. He still felt the slide of her hips and the gentle nudge of her fingers as she’d tried to pull the damned sweater free. He hadn’t given any sign of noticing.
Talk about torture.
He’d managed not to groan when her leg slid over his. He’d been aroused beyond anything he’d ever known, tormented by her wriggling and small, soft sighs of exertion. He closed his eyes, wondering what it would feel like when they actually made love.
They’d probably melt down the whole damned ship.
Trace knew that it was going to happen. Sometime during the walk to his cabin, with Gina half asleep in his arms, he’d come to the decision.
When the time was right.
As the room filled with light, he listened to the rush of the sea and the sigh of the wind. He’d grab another two hours of sleep before he took a walk to check out Tobias’s progress. They would have to pack up the samples of the previous night’s mess along with the pill he’d taken from Gina’s bottle. A courier was already waiting at the port.
Later.
Trace’s eyes closed.
He didn’t smell the lavender scent that drifted, filling the air as he slept.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
FRESH PASTRIES WERE COOLING in the refrigerator. The last set of brioche was perfect. One of Tobias’s men was finishing off a croissant warm from the oven, smiling at an attractive young pastry intern from Guatemala as Gina surveyed the kitchen anxiously and tried to relax. But every time she tried, Trace’s long, lean body jumped into her mind.
What if she hadn’t gone foggy all of a sudden? What if they had—
She closed her eyes and blew out a breath. What if was pointless and self-destructive. All you could do was hang on tight while change blew through your life like a storm.
The security officer noticed Gina looking at him. “Sorry to barge in, but Tobias told me to drop by and see how things were going. He said to tell you there’s a repairman coming by to fix your refrigerator unit sometime this afternoon. He also said to remind you about the thing tonight. He said you’d know what he meant.”
Gina knew, all right. She had everything set. “Tell Tobias it’s a go.”
“I’ll tell him, even if I don’t understand a word of it. By the way, the captain came in as I was leaving the security office. He told me to check if you had any iced mocha coffee available.”
“Coming right up. Give me three minutes and you’ll be ready to roll.”
“Since I was coming down anyway, Tobias—” The young officer cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. “Tobias wanted to know if you had any beignets. If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Yes, I do and no, it’s not.”
“How do you manage that? I mean, if Tobias or the captain wants something, you always have it.”
It wasn’t a mystery, of course, but Gina knew better than to reveal her secrets. One of the first things she had learned after being hired was that the captain had a major chocolate addiction, so she was careful to keep excellent chocolate ingredients ready at a moment’s notice. It gave her pleasure to do little things for people she liked.
She sent Tobias’s junior officer off with the chocolate drink, three beignets for Tobias and one additional pastry of his own. His gratitude was touching. Life on a ship was a self-contained world, and Gina enjoyed feeding as much of that world as possible.
The short night was catching up with her, and she had a pounding headache. It felt like a small hangover, though she had barely drunk half a glass of wine.
She suppressed a yawn and studied her crowded desk. In the cold, clear light of day, the idea of her sleeping in Trace’s bed was beyond embarrassing. She’d probably snored. What if she’d drooled?
With luck, she wouldn’t see the man for the rest of the cruise. One night’s disgrace was more than enough.
But the question of her pills was sobering. She had found her bottle in the pocket of her skirt when she’d reached her room. The gel tabs had looked completely normal. Even up close she had seen no signs of tampering, but probably a tiny syringe needle would leave no traces.
She wouldn’t touch any remaining pills in the bottle. Luckily, she always kept extra medicine in the small safe in her cabin. That supply would get her through the rest of the cruise.
As she sat at her desk, she checked her papers and drawers for any signs of new tampering, but nothing was out of place. There had been no alarms from the computer and no intruders in the kitchen.
She rubbed her head and suppressed another yawn.
“Busy night?” Andreas stared at her closely. “I think those are bags under your eyes, Chief. How late were you out with GI Joe?”
Gina
flushed. “Not so late.”
Andreas avoided her eyes. “Blaine is telling everyone who will listen that you were staggering drunk.”
“I…there was a reaction to my allergy medicine, that’s all.”
Gina looked around the kitchen, feeling a strange tension crawl along her neck. It was almost as if she were being watched.
She stood up slowly and walked through the kitchen. No one new was working. No one else was doing anything out of place. There was no reason to shiver as if something cold had slipped between her shoulder blades.
She frowned as one of the interns leaned toward the oven. Safety came first in her kitchen.
But Andreas reacted before she did. “Sleeves,” he called out sternly. “Roll them up or tie them off. Otherwise you’re going to drop a pan and get badly burned.”
The young blond intern flushed beet red. “Yes, sir.”
Gina realized the intern had a case of hero worship for Andreas. Judging by her assistant’s expression, he didn’t have a clue.
She decided to give the two a little nudge. They would be a good match, and she knew Andreas had finally begun to recover from an affair that had gone sour. She made a mental note to give him an extra night off this week, coincidentally the same night that her intern had off.
With kitchen safety restored and a romance nurtured, Gina poured herself another cup of coffee.
Near the porthole Andreas slid a ball of dough deftly onto a marble rolling board. “Another great day out there.”
“No kidding.” The sun glittered over miles of teal water, while the gray-brown mountains of coastal Mexico rose in the distance. “But one thing bothers me.” Gina rubbed her neck, staring out at the ocean. “Maybe we are crazy. We go around with sugar in our hair and chocolate under our nails. We get burned, banged and cut and we work like galley slaves. Then whatever we create vanishes in hours. Why do we do this again?”
Andreas and Imogen spoke together. “Because anything else would be stupid and boring.”
“Right. I keep forgetting that.”
As the smell of fresh, buttery croissants filled the air, Gina scanned her e-mail, saw nothing urgent, then logged off her computer.
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