by Helen Brenna
She blinked. A quick bump and grind was all she’d been after. Maybe several quick bumps and grinds. An ache developed low in her chest, hurting for him, for her. “All these years. Why didn’t you say something?”
“I tried.” He cupped her cheeks in his hands, tentative, as if he didn’t quite have the right to touch her. “Every summer I’d come back from Texas and start working up the courage. We’d finally get a couple minutes alone, and then Sam would appear out of nowhere and your eyes would light up. I’d swallow everything I was about to say ’til the next summer.
“Before I knew it, we were seniors in high school. I came back after graduation and something had changed. You and Sam had made love over the winter. You belonged to him.” He stepped back and stuffed his hands in his front pockets, as if he didn’t trust himself not to touch her. “Heck, I couldn’t blame you. Look at me, balding, scrawny. Look at you. So, so beautiful. And Sam…”
Sam had been gorgeous, charming and eager to love her. And she’d loved him, loved his family, would’ve given her right arm to be a part of it. In a way, maybe she had. Her eyes pooled with tears. D.W.’s pain was hers. “You’ve kept this inside all these years.”
“What else could I have done that wouldn’t have hurt all of us?” He reached out and ran his thumb across her lower lip. “But now…there isn’t anything to keep us apart.”
The hunger in his eyes mirrored her own. He lowered his head for a kiss, and stopped, uncertain. Impatient, she pulled him down the rest of the way. Instead of the sparks she’d anticipated, the moment fell flat. He drew back, disappointment darkening his eyes.
She caressed the tiny scars barely visible on his neck, the spot where she’d scratched him all those months earlier, and tenderness clogged her throat. “We’ve been friends so long,” she offered. “Maybe it won’t work.”
“Oh, it’ll work, Claire,” he groaned. “It has to.” This time, when he brushed his lips to hers, his need burst into a fire for two. He backed her against the wall and leaned into her. She molded to him as if frozen at her core and craving his heat.
“Oh, Claire,” he whispered against her mouth.
She’d been waiting on this moment too long. Finally, she was going to make love to D.W. His hands slipped under her shirt and his fingers pressed against her skin, loving and demanding. He felt so good. He felt so…different. Different than Sam. Different than her husband. Her husband. Sam had been the only one. In all these years.
As if a switch had been flipped, guilt, heavy and gray, settled in her stomach. She wasn’t falling in love with any man. She was falling in love with her dead husband’s best friend. How could this be right?
“Claire?” He drew back. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know,” she cried.
“Baby, it’s okay.”
“I miss Sam. I want him back. But I want you, too.” She pressed her fingers to his lips. Wanting him, but sick with shame. Needing him, but not knowing how to let him in. Frustrated, she fingered the gold chain around her neck, sliding it back and forth. Sam wasn’t dead after all. “We can’t happen,” she said, miserable, yet determined.
He closed his eyes and held her hand against his face. “You need time, that’s all.”
“No, D.W., I was wrong. Us…this…is wrong.”
“I know what I felt in that kiss, Claire, and it was everything good and perfect and right. Your body’s one step ahead of your heart, but your heart’ll come along. I can wait.” He smiled, a little sad, a lot resigned, and opened the door. “Forever, if I have to.”
JAKE FELT LIKE SLIME. Pure, unadulterated sludge of the earth. Annie had poured out her heart to him, and him alone, about the death of her parents, wept in his arms, allowed him to offer her comfort, and all he could think about was the way her wetsuit outlined every curve on her frame. The way it clung to her body. In fact, he wanted to be that wetsuit. Cover her everywhere at once. Feel every millimeter of her soft, creamy flesh against him. Know her intimately. Protect her and devour her at the same time.
Slime.
Then again, to his credit, they’d been half sitting, half lying on his bunk the entire time it had taken Simon to dock in Freeport, return with a new cooling line and start toward Andros without Jake so much as making a move. Annie certainly couldn’t have intended to arouse him when she’d placed her knee over his leg, settling herself more closely against him. She probably had no idea the effect her hand was having on him now as she absently brushed her fingers back and forth over his chest, rubbing ever so softly against the fabric of his T-shirt the way a baby sought comfort with a blanket. Back and forth. Back and forth. Only she was far from a baby, and he didn’t have comfort on his mind.
Finally, he reached out to cover her hand with his own, putting an end to the silent torture. Her fingers stopped. Her entire body grew still. Slowly, she eased her hand from his grasp and spread her fingers lower. Oh, man. He held his breath, waiting, dying a little with every second that passed. She dragged his shirt out from under the waistband of his shorts and slipped her hand, cool and tentative, against his bare stomach.
“Hmmm,” he moaned. “You know what you’re doing?”
“Not really,” she murmured, “I thought I was letting you know…I want you.”
He chuckled. Apparently she liked slime. His kind of woman. “You said this would never happen again.”
“I lied.”
With that, he rolled her onto her back and leaned over her. One glance into her green eyes, and all thoughts of motor problems, GPS malfunctions and the almighty Concha dissipated like fog under a blazing midafternoon sun. Right along with every reason he was so wrong for her. She wanted him. He wanted her. What could be easier?
He reached for the zipper of her neoprene prison and dragged it slowly down, exposing a black bikini and lots of bare, beautiful skin. For a moment, he studied her, deciding where to touch and taste first. Everything about her screamed temptation.
“Jake,” she breathed on a moan, her eyes at half-mast. “I need…something.”
Those lips, full and wet, couldn’t be denied. He closed his mouth over hers, driving his tongue into her warmth. She wriggled under him, and he rolled the wetsuit off her shoulders. He kissed a trail down her arm as the retreating folds of the wetsuit exposed inch after inch of her skin. Stopping at her delicate silver bracelet, he slid his tongue under it and licked at the tender area on the inside of her wrist. After yanking her other arm free of the wetsuit, she snatched his T-shirt off and pulled him down to her. Her skin, hot silk and cool cream, melted against him.
“Oh, sweet Annie.” He couldn’t get close enough, fast enough.
“Get this thing off me,” she said, clawing at the suit.
More than glad to oblige, he gripped the rubbery edges and peeled the wetsuit lower, past her rounded hips, down her slinky legs, and over the turn of her narrow ankle and long little toes. At an angle on his bunk, one delectable knee cocked, her body spoke to him of long hours of lasting pleasure, both days and nights, wet and steamy. This, he might want to last longer than a single off-season.
“Jake!” His mother’s voice came across his radio, sounding like a cannon blasting in the quiet of his small cabin. “It’s Mom. You there? Over.”
He looked back at Annie, her hair tousled, her lips kiss-reddened and her breath coming in short pants, and a strange, primitive awareness that he’d made his mark on her washed over him. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted her to belong to him, to bury himself deeply inside her and claim her as his own.
“I need to talk to you,” his mother’s voice intruded from the desk behind him. “Pick up.”
With one flick of a switch, he could turn off that radio and tune out the outside world. He could call diving season officially concluded. A quick stop at Andros Island’s main port to drop off his crew, and he and Annie could have the Mañana to themselves for weeks, even months, on end. The image of them idling naked on the bow deck in the middle of the Car
ibbean flashed in his mind, their limbs and bodies intertwined, making it impossible to tell where he ended and she began.
He wanted her so badly he’d blow off the Concha.
“Jake, you there? Over.”
Blow off the Concha? And he’d be blowing off OEI, all their employees and the promise he’d made to his dad. Jake rubbed his hands briskly over his face, dispelling the trance. She looked so vulnerable, so beautiful. “Annie, this is crazy. You don’t want me in your life, and you know it.”
He turned away from her and grabbed the transmitter. “Yeah, Mom. Jake here. Over.” Annie would surely come to her senses and hightail it out of his cabin before he was done with this radio transmission.
“I need to talk to you about the wedding. It’s in a month and…”
Like a tuning fork, his every muscle vibrated with the sounds of Annie shuffling around behind him. The swish of her naked skin skidding across the rough blanket on his bunk. The flop of the rubber wetsuit as she angled those little toes directly through the leg holes. The zipper sliding up the curves of her body. Turn around. Make her stay.
He tried focusing on his mother’s voice, on every word she spoke. “…get this settled.” The words barely penetrated his brain. “I know you’re having a tough time with the wedding and I understand. I do.”
The door to his cabin quietly opened and just as quietly snapped shut. She was gone. Now, he could breathe. His shoulders relaxed.
“Jake? Are you there?”
“Sorry, Mom. What did you say?”
“We want your blessing.”
This certainly wasn’t a subject he would have chosen to divert his attention. All the same, it would do the trick.
“Jake, how about it?”
“You’re marrying Harold, Mom. Not me. What difference does my opinion make?”
“I want you two to get along. Is that too much to ask?”
“We get along fine. Other than a few differences of opinion about work. Besides, your life with Harold’s your own business.”
“But I want you to be a part of my life. Claire’s going to be my matron of honor. Harold wants you to be his best man. You’re the closest thing he’s ever had to a son.”
“I had a dad. Don’t need another one.”
Silence for a moment. “Jake, honey—”
“Mom, were you happy?” he asked. “Being married to Dad?”
“I loved your father. Very much.”
“Did you ever regret marrying him?”
“Every marriage has its ups and downs.”
“But were you happy? You know…fulfilled…contented…being with him?”
“I missed him. A lot.” More silence. “Sometimes I used to wish he’d been a car salesman, or a banker with nice steady hours. But when you love someone, you take them as they are. Could you have seen your dad in a suit and tie, sitting in an office every day?” She laughed.
Take them as they are. It was time for Jake to accept the fact that his parents had a less than perfect marriage, that his dad had been a workaholic and now his mother had a right to find happiness with another man.
“Come to think of it,” she added, still chuckling, “you’re just like your father. Can’t see you at a desk, either.”
Just like your father.
That’s what bothered Jake more than anything. This didn’t have anything to do with Harold, or the wedding. It was about the possibility of Jake dying tomorrow and not a soul other than his mother and Claire mourning his passing. It was about ending up like Vic Rawlings, gone and forgotten. Only worse. His dad had made a family and built a company from scratch. Jake had done nothing with his life. He was a treasure hunter. End of story.
“You okay with this wedding or not?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, Mom, for causing such a stir.” He ran a hand over his face and sighed. “Harold’s a good man. You have my blessing, whatever that means.”
“Best man?”
“Let me think about it, okay?”
“All right, sweetheart. That’ll do for today.”
“Can I get back to work now?”
“Love you, Jake. Over and out.”
“Back at ya.” He flipped off the radio and spun around.
The wrinkles in the blanket on his empty bunk stared back at him with the pout of a forlorn lover. He could see where Annie’s hips had been, her elbows, her head, and he ached to have her back in his arms.
He smoothed out the bedding, and something flickered in the narrow stream of sunlight pouring through the porthole. Annie’s bracelet. He picked it up. Holding it in his palm, he studied the three tiny charms clasped to the silver chain. A dolphin, a coin and a sea star.
From the scratched and worn state, it was obvious she rarely took off the bracelet. She carried her family with her everywhere she went. It was as plain to him as the smile on that little dolphin’s face. The coin was her father, the sea star her mother and the dolphin, Annie.
And Jake felt like a shark. How could he do to Annie what his father had done to his mother? Annie shouldn’t have to settle for anything. She deserved to go back to Chicago clearheaded, unattached, without a single regret. She deserved exactly what she wanted. A life. Kids and a husband. Solid ground under my feet. Everything Jake couldn’t give her.
CHAPTER TEN
THE MAÑANA ARRIVED at Andros Island shortly after lunch and rendezvoused with Jimmy, the Lori Lou’s captain, to get the status of their dives. Jimmy’s team had found no evidence of a shipwreck, so Jake moved the Mañana toward the second dive site he’d chosen from the aerials.
While Simon worked on the engine below deck, making sure the replacement cooling line was doing its job, Jake, Claire and D.W. stood at the stern deck studying the Andros shoreline. Ronny maneuvered the Mañana east, while Annie sat on a bench nearby, keeping her fingers crossed that Jake would find the right spot and letting the warm breeze calm her.
With every passing moment, she grew more agitated. Though the sight of Jake in his diving gear seemed to have something to do with it, she attributed it to getting closer to the spot where she’d spent her last few days with her parents.
“Drop the anchor,” Jake suddenly yelled to Ronny. “This is it.”
As far as Annie could tell, they were still too far west. She paced back and forth in front of Jake, Claire and D.W. “This isn’t the dive site that I wanted to start at,” she said, hoping the conviction in her voice alone would be enough to persuade him to move the Mañana.
Ronny appeared from the helm. He, Claire and D.W. assembled their diving equipment and stayed out of the discussion. They surely knew that once Jake made his mind up about something there was no turning him around. Annie wasn’t ready to concede.
Jake moved about the stern, readying his own equipment. “I’ve studied every centimeter of those aerials you and Harold had taken. Jimmy and his crew on the Lori Lou are at site one. We’re at site two.”
She followed at his heels, a lump of nerves congealing in her stomach. “We’re too far west. It’s too deep here.”
A wave suddenly moved under the stern, rocking them back and forth. She lurched forward, and Jake reached out. The instant she’d stabilized, he dropped his hands to his sides as if contact with her burned him. And could she blame him? He was only saving her from herself. She should be thankful, right?
“How much experience do you have with aerials?” He flicked up the cover of a storage bin and reached in for a set of flippers with thick yellow stripes at the sides.
Don’t put them on! Don’t go diving. The image of her father decked out in full diving array washed over her. She took a gulp of air. “I know very little about aerials.”
“Then stay out of it.” He yanked on the flippers, followed closely by his buoyancy compensation vest and oxygen tanks. “When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it. D.W., you’re staying topside today.”
D.W. glared at him, but Jake only turned to Claire and Ronny. “Until Simon’s finished messing w
ith the engine, all of us work together canvassing each area. Let’s go.” He snapped the mask into place, popped the regulator between his teeth and he and Ronny dropped off the end of the boat.
D.W. held Claire back. He tucked a strand of her long black hair away from her mask. “Watch yourself down there. Okay?”
She smiled around her regulator and dropped into the water.
Panic closed Annie’s throat. People died diving. Every day. This was something she hadn’t planned on. She’d known the sight of water would throw her into an absolute tizzy. She’d known it would be difficult to actually get herself to swim, but she hadn’t, for one second, counted on the sight of Jake in diving equipment having any effect on her. She hadn’t counted on caring for him, either. But she did.
“What if there’s an accident?” She heard herself saying the words aloud.
“There won’t be,” D.W. said, dropping onto a deck chair.
“What if something happens when they’re down there?”
“Annie, those guys were diving before other kids were riding bikes.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Diving accidents happen to experienced people all the time. In fact, they’re the ones who get careless and take unnecessary risks.” She sat, stood, and then sat again. “Ronny’s down there. What if he’s the one that messed the transmission and GPS?”
D.W. considered her for a moment. “Ronny would never hurt Claire or Jake.”
He was probably right. Probably.
“They’ll be all right, Annie.”
“How do you know? What keeps you from worrying about Claire while she’s diving?”
“Well,” D.W. said, rubbing the back of his neck. He was dressed in the wildest wetsuit Annie had ever seen. Shades of red, yellow and hot pink shot through the black neoprene, not unlike the form of an abstract painting. “I could tell you I know deep down inside my soul that nothing’s goin’ to happen to her. Or that a part of me is with her when she’s under, keepin’ her safe. Or that I see a vision us of sitting on a dock, gray-haired and happy, next to two grandkids with fishin’ rods in their hands. And that’s how I know she’ll be all right.”