by Laura Moore
“Looks like this is going to be a truly educational experience, Owen,” he observed mildly.
In the midst of slipping her slate back into her goody bag, Lily stilled. While she’d been explaining about the reef and how she planned to conduct the study, Sean had appeared truly interested. What if he’d actually been mocking her and her irrepressible enthusiasm for her work?
Suspicious, she glanced at his face.
No, Sean’s expression was open, his gaze equally so. And when he smiled, something tight eased inside her. Lily’s own lips curved in shy response.
She discovered she was eager to call a truce in their private battle of wills. After all, unless you were in a James Bond film, it was hard to fight underwater. And Lily desperately wanted to dive in, cool off her overheated body, and refocus her wayward thoughts.
Because smiling or not, Sean McDermott was looming far too large in her mind.
Lily inspected the group, her eyes alert as she scrutinized every article of diving gear until she was satisfied.
Head bowed, Sean was busy adjusting the weight belt slung about his slim hips, checking the release to ensure it opened quickly in the event of an emergency.
Lily’s gaze traveled up, to Sean’s buoyancy control device. The bulky vest camouflaged him, hid the impossible perfection of his body. For that, she was absurdly grateful. Sean’s mask rested on the crown of his head. The mouthpiece of his snorkel grazed his cheek, swinging backward as Sean lifted his head. Hazel eyes met hers, and Lily felt their intensity penetrate to the very core of her being.
Warmth unfurled inside her, spreading, and Lily suddenly felt as if she’d been transported back in time . . . back to when she was seventeen, discovering for the first time Sean’s dangerous allure. And how much she wanted him.
Renewed longing tore at her.
The click of Sean’s weight belt snapping shut saved her. It brought her back from the land of memories to the deck of the Tangiers .
Her bare feet gripped the fiberglass deck as the boat rolled over a wave. She needed to be underwater, she realized with a trace of panic, where she could clear her mind of everything except the job at hand, where she could be free of Sean’s terrifying power.
She coughed, hoping to rid her throat of any betraying huskiness. “Tanks on, everyone. It’s show time. Karen, you and Sean go first. I’ll pass your cameras down to you. John and I will follow. Owen, if you could hand us our equipment?”
“Sure thing, Dr. Banyon.”
“That’s it, then. Remember: Check your gauges frequently and stay in sight. Let’s do it; let’s dive.”
Lily loved water. Loved the feel of it over her, against her, surrounding her. Lulling, sliding, breaking, crashing, it could be rough or gentle, salinated or fresh. Immersed in it, Lily was transformed. Rid of all terrestrial awkwardness.
Water was her true element.
As a girl, Lily had excelled at swimming underwater farther and longer than anyone on her swim team not simply because of her extraordinary lung capacity, but because she had lived for those special moments of suspended silence. Following the contoured depths of the pool, water slipping past, Lily had longed to remain in its embrace. Because during those moments, the incredible happened: Lily became an entirely new creature, her need for air secondary. A magical moment in a magical substance.
The reef was before them.
They swam in alignment, Lily and Karen center, Sean and John on either end. Her previous irritation with John Granger, her conflicting emotions toward Sean were forgotten. Lily opened herself to the ocean’s mysteries and infinite beauty, embraced them.
Her fins kicked in a steady rhythm, propelling her over the patches of sea grass, which, like a wavy carpet, led to the first outcroppings of coral reef. Behind the tempered glass of her scuba mask, Lily’s eyes tracked the marine life flitting past.
All around, fish zigzagged and darted, largely indifferent to her and the others’ presence. Without conscious thought, Lily retrieved her slate from her mesh bag and began cataloging, in rapid shorthand, the schools of grunts, snappers, parrotfish, and butterfly fish, which flashed and flickered against the aquamarine blue of the sea. Their hues a shimmery wealth of silvers, greenish blues, deep lemons, and vibrant purples, the fish streamed by, their destination the same as the humans’—the extraordinary living sculpture of coral.
Rays of sunlight penetrated in slanted bands, lighting the shapes and spectral colors of the reef. Its low-lying form stretched before her, beckoning like an exotic city. Lily, as ever, was its avid, indefatigable tourist. Sleek as a seal in her black wet suit, she went to work.
She was more than magnificent.
Seeing Lily in the sea had Sean regretting his impetuous decision to accompany her and her team. He should have stayed on land, never beheld this other side to her. Already too beautiful above water, beneath it, Lily’s body glided with sinuous elegance, tempting him. His fingers longed to reach out, grab her, and pull her against him. Below water, pressure increased. And with it, so did Sean’s unruly, unwelcome desire.
He didn’t want to need her.
The profound silence beneath the ocean’s surface heightened Sean’s awareness. Eerily crystalline images floated before his mask—all of her. Lily, suspended over a large, treelike coral with branches flat and wide, motioning to Karen, then pointing carefully so Karen could photograph whatever creature was hiding by its base. Lily then swam away, to exchange a flurry of hand signals with John as he filled test tubes and tucked them securely into their case. Sean watched them pull out gauges and compare readings, making the thumbs-up sign after they’d jotted them onto their slates. He saw Lily place a sediment trap, record its location in her notebook, and move on, only to stop, look, and signal to Karen once more.
Nothing seemed to escape her notice. When she hovered over a coral that resembled an overgrown cabbage, Sean found himself swimming nearer. And then he spotted it: the minuscule red crab nestled in a tiny shell, waving its claws energetically.
Lily, so competent, so capable . . . that didn’t surprise him. No, it was her spontaneous smile of joy when she came upon a sea feather, a species even Sean recognized. A delicate shade of maroon, it undulated like a dancer dressed in lace. Her smile didn’t fade away when her mask turned toward him and she beckoned, her glowing smile inviting Sean to share in the wonder of this world. An incredible smile that made him dizzy with a euphoria of the deep. With a euphoria of Lily.
Sean breathed slowly, in and out, the mix of oxygen and nitrogen in his tank replaced with a far more potent mixture. With every breath, awareness and desire invaded, overwhelming his defenses.
His eyes fixed on Lily, Sean succumbed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There were certain calls Pete Ferrucci placed from public pay phones only. Not a foolproof system, but the risk of tracing or tapping these conversations was greatly diminished. Years of delicate business dealings had demonstrated the usefulness of pay phones and of watertight, ready-made alibis.
A voice answered on the second ring.
“Hi, it’s me.” Pete Ferrucci didn’t need to identify himself.
“You talked to him yet?”
“No, he’s out of the office. That pink gargoyle of a secretary won’t tell me where he’s gone or when he’ll return. She’ll doubtless continue giving me the run-around right up to the six o’clock meeting.”
“Got to put the pressure on him. Some influential people will be deeply disappointed if this doesn’t pan out.” The condescension in Jack Gehring’s voice was clear as a bell despite the faint crackle of the connection.
“I’m working on it,” he replied, annoyed. Who did Gehring think he was? “Like I’ve already told you, the way to win is to beat him at his own game.” And that would happen as soon as the scientists gave the coral reef a clean bill of health. Ferrucci would then push the committee to vote against any restrictions—either on the reef or on the parcel of coastal land he and his associates had p
urchased. Then there’d be nothing to stop the town from voting in favor of the marina development.
“So what’s this about a new team of scientists? That was an even longer article than the one about the bridge crash.”
Like a kid in a candy store, Gehring had his eye on the Bellemer Bridge. Every conversation they had, Gehring brought up the topic. He’d even convinced himself that getting the bridge widened was the way to get the town thinking “big,” as in a bigger marina. Gehring was a fool. Ferrucci, however, saw no point in enlightening him about the bridge or his limited intelligence. Gehring and his bridge would come in handy eventually. And with Gehring fixated on his own plans, he wouldn’t see that Ferrucci had already grabbed the big, fat pot of gold with both hands.
“Yeah, well, the Courier’s a liberal rag; what do you expect?” Ferrucci said. “But I’ve got an idea about how to keep the bridge accident on page one for some time.”
“That reporter made this research team sound like hot shit. Not a good thing.”
“Got that under control, too.” Ferrucci ground his molars. He was getting tired of Gehring’s constant whining. “I invited one of them for drinks at my place the night before.”
“Yeah? Which one, Banyon?”
“No, not her.” Banyon had the stiff righteousness of a true believer; she’d blow the whistle on him before he’d even finished his proposition. “There’s a guy with her. He’s her assistant. We’re in luck. He’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of Mount Everest.”
“Is that big enough to get the tests to come out squeaky clean?”
“I made my first pitch the other night. I’m real optimistic he’ll see things our way.”
Gehring gave a noncommittal grunt. “Damned inconvenient of you-know-who to fall ill,” he observed. “This whole thing would be over and a certain somebody a hell of a lot closer to being a one-term wonder if he’d finished the study.”
The idea of McDermott winning a bid for reelection had the vein on the side of Ferrucci’s temple throbbing violently. “No way is there going to be a reelection party,” he spat. “I have too much invested in this town. I’m bringing in someone I’ve done business with before, a stringer for the tabloids.”
“What good’ll that do? Everyone knows the guy’s pure as fucking Galahad.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Turns out the head scientist grew up here. Their families are close.”
There was a pause as Jack Gehring digested this bit of information. “Conflict of interest, huh? That enough to use?”
“Not by itself. But my gut says there’s something between them. I’ll let my guy do some sniffing around, see if my hunch is on the money.”
“Still, you’ll meet with him, the assistant?”
“I’m pretty sure we’ll be running into each other.” He’d instructed the Blue Dolphin’s bartender that John Granger should be welcomed like he was Donald Trump, Bon Jovi, and Dan Marino rolled into one. The girls who received drinks on the house because they were built like the Playboy bunny-of-the-month had been “encouraged” to be extra friendly to Granger, as well.
“Good, that’ll please our associates. Let’s talk again real soon.”
“Right.” Pete Ferrucci hung up the receiver, stepped out of the Amoco station’s phone booth, slid behind the wheel of his black Mercedes, and drove back to town.
The four of them had changed into dry clothes. The postdive atmosphere mellow and relaxed, they sat around the fore deck, enjoying the cool spray off the boat’s bow.
John was shirtless, working on his tan as he sprawled on the sunlit deck. A few feet away, Karen sat cross-legged, surrounded by her camera gear, carefully wiping each piece of equipment with a soft cloth before returning it to her camera case. Lily had opted for the shade of the Naugahyde bench. She was transcribing her notes on the reef into a spiral-bound notebook. Next to her, Sean was taking advantage of Lily’s absorption to study her profile, mesmerized by the sight of her worrying her lip as she wrote.
Not wanting to interrupt her work, Sean waited until she’d finished writing and closed her notebook. In a voice that was carefully casual, he asked, “So what’s your opinion of the reef? Did this section look okay?”
Lily shot him an assessing glance, and Sean knew she was thinking of their conversation in the car, of his “political” interest in the study.
“It was only the first dive, but yes, I’d say this section looked healthy,” Lily said. “When we get the analyses back from the lab we’ll have a much better picture. But there was lots of coral down there, which is always great to see.”
Out of habit, Sean had half expected that Lily would tell him to back off. Her reply had him smiling. Encouraged, he shifted, angling his body to face her. “There were a number of things down there I was curious about. You think you could tell me what they were?”
His question had Lily arching her brow. “I’ll give it my best shot,” she said dryly.
He grinned. “Right, dumb question.” Sean paused. “Of course, we could make it harder, a little more of a challenge. Care to play Name that Coral, Dr. Banyon? The fewer clues you need to identify it, the more points you score.”
“Sounds like fun. Can I join in?” Karen asked, looking up from the lens she held in her lap. “What about you, John? Want to match your wits against us?”
“Buzz off, Masur,” John growled sleepily before rolling over onto his stomach, his face turned away from them.
“So, Lily, want to play?” Sean asked. The words ignited a flare of need inside him.
Lily’s head turned, her face now tantalizingly near. And the rest of the world melted away. His gaze dropped to her mouth. He thought about what he’d like to do to those lush lips. Head angled, Sean leaned forward . . . and Karen spoke.
Instead of stealing a kiss from Lily, he nearly brained himself against the pilothouse. In the time it took to gather his scrambled wits and hazard a glance at her, she’d gone and tugged the brim of her fishing hat down low, shielding her eyes. . . . Ahh, shit.
“Go ahead, Sean, ask away,” Karen urged again.
He took a deep breath, trying to think of something besides Lily’s mouth. “Right . . . how about this: wide branches—”
“Elkhorn coral,” Lily and Karen pronounced simultaneously.
Sean shook his head with equal parts amusement and awe. “Two points apiece,” he decided. “Obviously I’ll have to make these questions a lot tougher.”
The quiz show continued, the three of them laughing as Sean’s clues grew increasingly far-fetched. Karen was doing a pretty good job, whooping with pleasure whenever she scored a point. But Lily won the contest when Karen drew a blank at the final round. Sean’s clue: pink spaghetti.
“Beats me,” Karen said with a frown.
“Up to you, Dr. Banyon,” Sean nodded, his eyebrow quirked in challenge.
“That would be a sea anemone.”
At Lily’s response, Karen dropped her head in her hands and groaned theatrically. Smiling, Lily continued, “Technically though, your question wasn’t really fair. Anemones don’t fall into the same category as coral,” she explained.
“Doesn’t matter,” Karen said, with a shake of her braids. “You won. Darn it! I should have gotten that.”
“Hey, you did really well, Karen. I was just lucky. There were a number of sea anemones, which caught my eye. And besides, soft coral doesn’t grow like ‘pink spaghetti’ in zone one.” As Lily spoke, she took off her hat to rake her fingers through her hair.
Sean wondered if she had any idea how her hair looked when she made it all tousled like that, as if she’d just gotten out of bed. He doubted it. Which only made her unconscious ability to seduce that much more lethal.
She was looking at him with a bemused expression. “Pink spaghetti,” she repeated, her tone marveling. “I can only say it’s a good thing you don’t spend your life cataloging species. I shudder to think how you’d describe a sea worm.”
“And what’s a sea
worm look like, Lily?”
She was silent a moment. Then, with a small smile playing over her mouth, she said, “Let’s just say a guy would recognize one instantly.”
While Karen rocked with great snorting guffaws, Lily merely smiled and batted her eyelashes innocently. Sean felt his grin stretch wide across his face.
Hot damn! Lily Banyon was actually flirting with him.
Sean was still wearing a grin when the Tangiers entered the marina.
“Yoo-hoo! Ahoy there, Sean. Ahoy!” The voice calling was high-pitched, feminine, and very eager.
Sean looked up. His scuba gear was laid out on the trawler’s deck. He straightened reluctantly, and the rubber hose he was using to rinse his equipment splashed onto his bare feet. He winced, not from the ice-cold water spraying his skin, but from the sight of Stacy Malloy clicking her way toward him. Though her advance was somewhat hampered, her steps perforce carefully measured so her heels wouldn’t sink between the gaps of the dock’s planking, Stacy nevertheless positively bubbled with enthusiasm as she approached. Sean sent a prayer heavenward that he could get rid of her fast.
“Who’s that?” John asked.
“Who’s who?” Lily replied distractedly. She and Karen were packing equipment into boxes, sorting what would be needed at the lab from what could remain aboard the Tangiers, to be stowed away under lock and key.
“The babe who’s clinging to McDermott like he’s her lifeline,” John replied.
Lily’s head jerked like a puppet on a string. She stared. Who, indeed, was that? Whoever it was, she was wearing white jeans that weren’t simply tight; they seemed laminated onto her curvaceous lower body. The woman obviously has a thing for clothes two sizes too small, Lily thought, eyeing the tiny red halter top. It was stretched to the max. A heavy sigh and it would split.
“Man, she sure is friendly. Some guys get all the luck.”
For once, John wasn’t exaggerating a woman’s enthusiasm.
It was silly to feel such a sharp pang of disappointment. This was Sean. Women routinely stood in line, waiting their turn to throw themselves at him. Now it was this woman’s chance.