WIFE BY DECEPTION

by Donna Sterling

  Kate noticed the puzzled glances Darryl threw her, as if he was surprised at her participation. Camryn obviously hadn't culled very often. Handling squirmy sea creatures wouldn't have been her cup of tea. Kate didn't let that stop her, though. Mitch seemed to have accepted the changes in her personality as a result of the accident and her abstinence from alcohol. She didn't care if Darryl accepted those changes or not.

  "Ow!" she cried, smarting from another jab of a shrimp head. "Why don't we wear thicker gloves?"

  "Thin is better to pick up da shrimp," Remy replied. "You have to feel what you're doing, or you squish 'em." He went on to warn her of creatures to avoid. Stingrays, saltwater cats, hot jelly and fire fish, to name a few. "Dere's all kind of danger in da sea, Cam. You have to take care."

  Action, however, spoke louder than words. The third time they emptied the nets, a huge stingray hit the deck—as big as a kitchen table, and slinging a six-foot-long, razor-sharp barb. As the creature flapped its wings and scuttled, the men laughed and leaped out of its way, like bullfighters in a ring. Eventually they caught it up in ropes and hoisted the monster back into the sea.

  Ah, the excitement of it! And the danger.

  "How much damage did he do to da net?" Remy asked.

  "Not much." Darryl inspected the twine. "At least, not dis time." He pulled out his knife and quickly repaired the hole, frowning in Mitch's direction as he headed back to the wheelhouse.

  "Mitch don't let us cut off da stingers," Remy explained to Kate. "Says dey need 'em to defend against natural enemies. As if dey aren't our natural enemies."

  Kate held back a smile; she supposed that anyone in charge of repairing nets would view the situation in a similar light. She felt a surge of approval for Mitch. He respected a stingray's need for defense despite the threat to his nets and loss of his catch. The realization oddly warmed her.

  As darkness fell and deck lights illuminated their work area, the men continued dropping nets, dragging, hoisting them in and culling. Kate's back and arms grew tired and her hands throbbed, but she wasn't quite ready to quit. During one of their rare breaks, shortly past midnight, she sat with Remy and Darryl at the galley table, sipping coffee and yawning. Their conversation lulled.

  Kate revisited a topic that continued to intrigue her. "Remy refuses to talk about the A word, Darryl. He said I'd have to ask you. He mentioned that it's a common item. Something you'd see around the house. Is it a-s-h-t-r-a-y?"

  "You don't need to know," Darryl grumbled, his frown returning.

  "But if I don't, I might say it. How about a-r-t?"

  Snatching up his coffee mug, he rose from the booth, then stomped out of the galley. Kate bit her lip. She hadn't meant to upset him.

  "Don't ask him no spelling questions," Remy advised. "He can't read."

  Dismay washed through her. Why hadn't she thought of that? She hadn't meant to put him in an awkward position. And she suspected that an apology would only embarrass him.

  "Yeah, dat's why he don't have his captain's license," Remy continued, "and why he don't go after his lady. Just because she's got an office job wit' da Terrebonne Parish Department of Education, he thinks he ain't worthy of her." Remy shook his head in patent disgust and muttered "imbecile" in French, which somehow made it sound more affectionate than insulting.

  "Why doesn't he just learn to read?"

  "He tried. Can't do it. Don't make no sense, though. I seen him dock an eighty-five-foot boat wit' no rudder and da outriggers down. No one can handle a boat, fix da engine, read da Gulf bottom or make a net like Darryl, except maybe Mitch. So why can't Darryl read?" Again, Remy shook his head, this time in bewilderment.

  Kate suspected Darryl suffered from dyslexia, or possibly a visual disability, and her heart went out to him. She longed to talk to him about it—advise him in her professional capacity as an educator—but knew he wouldn't appreciate her concern.

  "Pick up the nets" came Mitch's call over the intercom.

  Remy downed the rest of his coffee and headed for the back deck. Kate lagged wearily behind him. The night wasn't half over, and she ached in every part of her body. A shrimper's work was far from easy.

  Was this how Mitch had spent his childhood—toiling in backbreaking labor? Was shrimping the only line of work he knew? Did he ever long for an escape from it? Had frustration with the job led to violence against his wayward wife?

  She found that conjecture too painful to consider, and more impossible than ever to believe. A man who cared about the welfare of stingrays in the deep wouldn't inflict harm upon his wife, would he? But how could she, Kate, know for sure, when she'd only been with him three days and hadn't seen him interact with his family? Don't lose your objectivity, she warned herself, hoping she hadn't already done so.

  The wind gradually increased the bobbing of the boat, causing her culling stool to shift from side to side and occasionally toppling her off it. She considered giving up and going to bed.

  But the men's conversation caught her attention. They were talking about netting crawfish in the swamps.

  "You don't actually get into the swamp water, do you?" she asked.

  "Sometimes," Remy said.

  "But aren't there alligators?"

  Both men froze, as if stricken, and shot alarmed glances at her. She frowned in bewilderment. Surely they'd thought about the danger posed by alligators.

  "Oh, no, Cam," Remy moaned. "You said da A word."

  "I knew she'd say it," Darryl muttered. "I knew it!"

  "Alligator is the A word?" Kate cried.

  "Don't say it again!" they warned in unison.

  "But you told me it was a common word, something you'd have around the house."

  "Mais, oui. I have 'em around my house all da time," said Remy. "Don't you, Darryl?"

  Darryl nodded.

  Kate rolled her eyes. "You should have spelled it for me, Remy. Then I wouldn't have said it."

  "Too late now. I just hope we make it back to da dock okay."

  "Oh, you can't really believe that—"

  "Aahrrgg!" Darryl leaped from the stool, dropped his rake, ripped off his glove and clutched his hand. Blood pooled in his palm.

  "A catfish?" Remy rose in concern.

  Darryl nodded, wincing and cursing, his face ashen as he cradled his hand and staggered toward the cabin.

  "Saltwater cats have dem big ol' spikes on der heads," he told Kate as they hurried after him. "A catfish sting'll paralyze you wit' pain. Burn like fire. Make a grown man cry."

  Kate swallowed a lump that rose to her throat. Had she caused this by saying the A word? At the very least, she'd distracted Darryl from his culling. Mitch had told her to stay in the cabin. She should have listened.

  Mitch met them in the galley with a first-aid kit. Darryl refused treatment with an antibiotic, though, insisting that only mashed potatoes and salt would draw out the poison. Remy advised packing the wound with tobacco and spit.

  Kate realized that shrimpers—at least these particular ones—would rather argue than breathe. Wincing at the acute pain she saw in Darryl's face, she found a box of instant potato flakes, whipped up a paste, grabbed the antibiotic ointment from Mitch and squirted some into the potatoes. "Here's the mashed potatoes, Darryl. Give me your hand."

  "Salt," he croaked. "Dere's gotta be salt in it." Only after a few passes of the saltshaker did Darryl allow her to apply the potato paste to his wound.

  But that crisis paled in comparison to the next. She'd barely finished bandaging Darryl's wound when the boat jerked sharply to the left. Remy and Darryl exchanged ominous glances.

  Mitch headed for the wheelhouse, looking grim. Moments later, he uttered over the intercom, "Hoist the nets, as far as you can." Darryl worked the winch and Remy tugged on the ropes, lifting the nets above the water. The port-side net, however, remained partially submerged.

  The engine cut off. The silence startled Kate. The boat now drifted aimlessly with the waves. Mitch strode past her to the back rail, a
nd the other two men fell in behind him. Kate followed with a growing sense of foreboding.

  "Let me do it, Cap'n," Remy said.

  "You don't have the lung capacity." Mitch pulled his shirt over his head and discarded it. "Cut back to three packs a day, and maybe I'd let you."

  "Let him what?" Kate asked, alarmed by their sober faces—and the fact that Mitch had taken off his shirt. "What's wrong?"

  "A net's caught in the wheel." Mitch briskly unbuckled his belt.

  "In the wheel?" she repeated blankly. "But how could any part of a net get into the wheelhouse?"

  "Not dat wheel," Remy said. "Da propeller."

  "Propeller? You mean, the one at the back of the boat?"

  "Under da boat," Darryl specified, his face still white and drawn with pain, his bandaged hand held steady in her homemade sling.

  Mitch tossed his belt aside, removed his boots, then reached for a coil of rope.

  Darryl cursed and grabbed the rope from Mitch. "I'll go. I'm da first mate. I'll go."

  "With a puncture wound? Hell, no."

  "It stopped bleeding."

  "You won't be able to use that hand for another few hours, at least. Forget it, Darryl. I'm going in."

  "Going in where?" Kate demanded, terribly afraid she knew.

  Mitch didn't reply but took the rope from Darryl and wrapped a length of it around his lean, bare waist.

  And then she realized what he intended to do. "You're not going in the water, are you?" she cried, horrified.

  "It's the only way to get the net out from the wheel." Mitch tied a knot with quick, hard tugs. "Until we do that, we can't go anywhere. We're dead in the water."

  Dead in the water. That was exactly what she was afraid of.

  "My God, Mitch, what about sharks? There has to be dozens of them. You can't see them now because it's dark, but—"

  "I know what I'm doing."

  "That's beside the point. The danger is there. It's real. Why don't you call the coast guard for help?"

  All three men slanted her scornful looks, as if the idea were ludicrous. "No self-respecting shrimp boat cap'n calls da guard for something like dat, chèr'," Remy told her. "At least, none from Loo-zee-ana. Mississippi, maybe."

  They had the temerity to grin at one another. Grin!

  Stunned that no one was going to stop him, Kate swung a wild-eyed, imploring stare from Remy to Darryl. "Are you two crazy? If you let him jump in that water, he'll be devoured. I saw those sharks gobbling up the trash fish. I saw the movie Jaws. And what about those monstrous stingrays? He'll be pierced through the heart. Or tangled in that net and drowned. You can't let him do it!"

  Remy evaded her desperate gaze and murmured soothing noises, which only confirmed her worst fears. Mitch continued tying the other end of the rope to the stern ladder, and Darryl narrowed his eyes at Kate, as if she were acting out of character.

  She didn't give a flying flip what he thought. The idea of Mitch diving off the boat into the black, treacherous deep filled her with cold, stark horror. She had to stop him!

  As Mitch finished securing the rope and turned to speak to his crew, Kate launched herself at him, knocking him against the stern ladder. Coiling her arms around his middle, mashing her face to his chest, she held on to him for dear life. His dear life.

  "You're not doing it," she shouted, her voice strident with barely checked tears. "I said the A word. And we left the dock on a Friday. And … for God's sake … there's a woman on board!"

  This was, without a doubt, a low point of her life. Remy and Darryl ganged up on her and pried her loose from Mitch. Despite her kicking, fighting and pleading, they restrained her, carried her to the cabin and locked her in the captain's quarters.

  And while she banged on the door and shouted herself hoarse, she knew, in the pit of her stomach, in the marrow of her bones, that Mitch was going to die. Anguish clawed at her throat. She'd never see him again. He would die. Like her parents and her sister. He would simply be gone.

  She curled up on the bed in torment.

  She wasn't sure how long she lay there before the door of the captain's quarters opened. Clenching her jaw to stop it from trembling, she braced herself for the unthinkable.

  No one spoke, and the door closed again. She glanced up to find Mitch beside the bed, towel-drying his hair. And peering at her cautiously.

  Incredulous, she stared at him. He'd made it. He'd come back alive. Relief slammed into her with such stunning force that she couldn't breathe.

  The sheer power of that relief soon triggered another emotion. Anger. At him, for risking his life. At the sea, for posing such a threat. At shrimpers in general, for shrugging at the danger. At herself, for caring too much.

  Cold with fury, she pointed at the door. "Get … out."

  He paused in the act of drying one broad shoulder.

  "Get out!" In a rage, she leaped from the bed and shoved the heel of her palm into his hard, bare biceps, pushing him toward the door. "I never want to see you again."

  He dropped the towel and grabbed her arms, trapping them at her sides. "I'm sorry for locking you in here. I had no choice. You—"

  "You could have been killed!" she cried, struggling to free herself from his grasp.

  "I know what I'm doing. I've done it plenty of times before."

  "That doesn't make it any better. In fact, it's worse. Barbaric. You didn't even use diving equipment, did you?"

  "I wore a mask to help me see. That's all the equipment I ever need. I haven't died yet, have I?"

  "Take me to the dock, right now."

  "Aw, chèr'…" He gazed at her in powerful regret, as if trying to find a way to explain the unexplainable. "I had no choice. The boat was too vulnerable. We were all at risk. But everything's fine now."

  "Nothing's fine, and don't call me chèr'." She choked on the last word and bit her lip to stifle a humiliating sob.

  He pulled her close in a warm, strong bear hug. She tried to jerk free, but her struggles only brought her into neater, tighter contact with his body.

  And, oh, how she needed that contact. A hard, long, life-affirming hug. She needed to touch him, hold him, squeeze the very breath from him. Punish him, in every way she could. She'd never hated anyone more!

  The tension born of fear and anger soon provoked trembling, and she clung to him in desperation, her face pressed against the steady, vibrant beat of his heart. He brought her down with him onto the bed and held her.

  After a while, her voice tremulous, she whispered, "I hate you."

  He stroked her hair, her shoulders, the small of her back, gently rubbing away the stiffness and, in the process, molding her body to his. "I'm sorry."

  They lapsed into silence, his arms a veritable fortress around her, locking all danger out and all warmth in.

  The trembling worsened. Mitch felt it in every part of her slender frame. And in his knees, his elbows and the pit of his stomach. He thought of it as aftershock. The result of an adrenaline surge.

  His adrenaline had been surging. It didn't matter how many times he'd freed nets from wheels; the possibility always remained that he wouldn't return to the surface alive. He took the necessary precautions and his crew lured most predators away from the stern, but even so, there were no guarantees.

  This time had been the worst. He'd seen the fear on Kate's face, heard it in her voice. Fear for him. Passionate fear. And he hadn't wanted to leave her. Too much remained unresolved between them. But the job had to be done or the boat would be disabled. Few things were more vulnerable at sea than a disabled vessel.

  So he'd locked her away, dived into the ink-black waves and let his adrenaline rush carry him through. He'd been praying all the while—to return to his family, to raise Arianne. To hold Kate again. To know her.

  Why should she, a virtual stranger, affect him as no one ever had? She was an impostor, with some scheme or another in mind. But she cared deeply for people. Not just him, but her sister. And Darryl, too, despite the fac
t that he probably hadn't said a civil word to her. Mitch had seen the vital concern in her face as she'd tended Darryl's wound. With potatoes yet. Who else would have made him mashed potatoes?

  No one he knew.

  And now her body trembled, as did his, and he couldn't seem to gather her closely enough.

  "You could have called someone for help," she whispered against the base of his throat, her hand sweeping up his back.

  "And have someone else dive for me? I can't see the sense in that." He rubbed his jaw against her temple; savored the privilege, the pleasure, of holding her. Her scent, spiced by the sea, the wind, the night, soon added a different tension to the one that already gripped him. A keen, sensual pull. A familiar heat. The one to which he'd awakened this morning.

  "You could've had the boat towed in to dry dock." Her fingers raked and tested the muscles of his shoulders and biceps, inciting a radiance that loosened their tension-wrought stiffness.

  Her touch echoed like sonar through his bloodstream, beaming to his very core. "If we had to wait for help, we couldn't have even anchored down," he said in an unnatural rasp. "If a storm hit, we couldn't have quartered the waves."

  "But your risk was a thousand times greater by diving into shark-infested waters. I saw the sharks, Mitch." She stopped her arousing caresses and tilted her face to his, her eyes wide with emotional turbulence. "Did you enjoy that dive? Are you a thrill seeker, like Ca—" she halted, midword, and her face flushed "—like I used to be?"

  "No! God, no." Revolted by the idea that she could think he was like her sister, deliberately milking danger for a thrill, he braced his hand along her face and earnestly stressed every word. "I didn't want to do it. I had no choice."

  "Don't you care about going home to your family?"

  Her voice was rising again, and her tension growing. "Don't you care about seeing Arianne?"

  "Yes! Yes, of course I—"

  "Then how can you—"

  He groaned and silenced her with a kiss. Not a gentle or tender one, but demanding. Maybe a little punishing. She tangled her fingers painfully in his hair, angled her face and drew him in deeper.