by Ally Blake
“I have to ask,” he said, “how did you really end up here anyway?”
For a second JJ wondered where to start; with her boss and his pinchy fingers, or all the way back to Dainty Hill. Instead she went with, “I’ve always skewed younger.” Sissy.
A beat hummed between them in which she thought he might call her out, but he spun all the way around to lean his back against the bar, long legs stretched out into the open space, an eyebrow cocked as he played along. “Have you now?”
“Mmm-hmm. My husband too. He adores me, you know. To pieces. Only he’s super forgetful sometimes, and this trip was one of those times.”
“I see. And how long have you and . . . Mr. Jones been together?”
“A hundred years.”
He whistled.
“Though it feels like forever.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“He’s a foot masseuse by trade,” JJ went on. “With a side in Italian cooking and a Masters in Handymanning. He’s the perfect man.”
“Mmm. Though I wonder if you wouldn’t you prefer a man who was . . . present and accounted for?” And, he didn’t need to say, real? Again he didn’t need to say a word as he sat there all manly, and warm, and . . . preferable.
JJ breathed in only to find her lungs had gone tight. While Kane smiled around his scotch before downing a gulp, his eyes never once leaving hers. God, but he was gorgeous. He liked her too, even if only as a nice way to waste a few minutes in conversation. She could see it in his eyes.
Of course she’d just spent the ten minutes preceding his arrival convincing herself she had a tenuous hold on her own reality. So who the heck knew?
“As for Mr. Jones,” Kane said, kindly keeping up her pathetic lie, “if the guy can’t remember he’s meant to be on a cruise with a woman who ages as well as you have, I’d call it quits.”
“Kane Phillips; Fitness Director and last of the great romantics.”
His mouth kicked up at one corner, his eyes crinkling but it never quite turned into a smile. And in the quiet darkness, she tried not to notice how his longer fingers draped over the edge of his glass, elegant and nonchalant.
She tried not to notice the steady rise and fall of his chest, or the way the cotton of his shirt clung to his strong chest beneath.
She tried not to notice how often she found herself imagining him just leaning over and kissing her.
Failed on all counts.
“Another drink, Crusher?” the barman asked from somewhere behind the bar, snapping her out of the trance.
Kane raised an eyebrow. JJ somehow managed to shake her head no.
“We’re good, thanks mate.”
“What’s with the Crusher?” she asked, mostly to change the subject.
He glanced at her then, as if weighing her words, his thoughts. “It’s a nickname.”
“Yeah, I get that. What does it mean?”
“I used to play ball.”
He looked at her like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. But JJ’s shoes had been in a pile below her barstool from the second she sat down.
“Like . . . baseball?”
“Football. Aussie Rules.”
The square hands, one finger clearly broken more than once, the height, the muscle on muscle. He looked like he could be breaking bones and taking names right then and there. “Crusher because you used to crush the opposition?”
The smile eased back across his face. “Something like that.”
She got the feeling from his smile it was nothing like that at all. “Were you any good?”
“I was very good,” he said, his fingers toying with the lip of his glass in a way that made her shift on her stool.
So why was a very good football player working on a cruise ship when he was young enough to play, and clearly still built for it? Because . . . men. Changeable as the flippin’ seasons.
Maybe this trip ought not to be about numbing herself to the mess of her real life. Maybe she’d been blessed with a good chunk of time in which to search deeper for why her life was a series of circular hits and misses. But, at the very least, the man at her side was a reminder that it wasn’t entirely her fault.
“Sorry I didn’t recognize you,” she said, reaching for the straw of her melted cocktail, lifting it and letting the liquid inside drip onto her tongue.
“I’m perfectly content to go entire days without people recognizing me,” he said, his eyes narrowing on the straw before he shook his head and tried a smile on for size. But it didn’t quite fit, the whisper of melancholy in his eyes suddenly becoming everything. “That part of my life was a lifetime ago.”
“Injury?”
“Something like that,” he said, a hand unconsciously rubbing his thigh, just above his right knee, the other lifting the drink to his lips and throwing the lot down his throat in one hard go.
JJ watched the workings of his strong throat with a frog in hers. “My mum had hopes of my becoming a concert pianist.”
“Mmm?” He dropped his drink to the bar, his eyes alighting on her hands.
“Unfortunately I fractured my wrist the day before I was due to even have my first lesson.”
His eyes slid back to hers, the heart-tugging melancholy thankfully at bay as humor and heat mixed ’til her head swam. “Leaping from mossy stone to mossy stone.”
“You heard that too?”
“Not much gets missed on a ship this size. There are eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Meaning my fairy godmother will know we’ve had a drink together,” she muttered.
“Who’s that?”
“Hazel. She seems to think—” Belatedly realizing the water hadn’t washed the rest from her system quite so thoroughly after all. “Forget it.”
“Not on your life.”
She was saved from having to say more, when a staff group came into the bar—dancers by the look of them, all shiny and glittery and fit—laughing and chatting as they headed over to fill an empty couple of tables. One of the girls called out to Kane and gave him a hopeful wave.
He waved back but stayed where he was.
“Are they all gay? The guys?”
“No idea. Why?”
“A friend told me they would be. At the time I didn’t think it would matter, but my options are fading.”
“Options?”
“I had such high hopes for this trip. I had my hair done. Bought a new bikini. Waxed in a pattern.”
He didn’t ask after the pattern, but he did become very still.
While JJ belatedly slid the straw back into the cocktail and pushed it way out of reach. “Why am I telling you this? Probably because you’re out of bounds.”
“Says who?” The tilt of his lips said he was teasing. The heat in his eyes said otherwise. She didn’t trust her instincts to split the difference.
“So,” he said, frowning down into his drink before she had the chance to answer, “the reason I tracked you down at dinner earlier.”
Change of subject. Happy with that. “Mm-hmm?”
“I have a favor to ask. A job for you, actually, if you choose to accept it. Thought you might be keen on a project or two. Keep you out of the clutches of Hazel and Myrtle and their cohorts.”
“There are more of them?”
“There are more. So very, very many more.”
“What kind of job?”
“I’m not quite sure yet. But it’s under my purview. One of my underlings is new, forgot to mention on her job application that she’s unerringly prone to seasickness. It’s messy and I’m down one staff. I’m not sure what I’d use you for, but I could use you if you’re keen.”
Oh the ways that she could take that.
“So what do you think?” He gave her that smile. A tiny glimpse of dimple, a whole lot gorgeous. The man knew just when to wield it and how. ’Til he had her right where he wanted her.
Not flirting so much as babysitting. Right.
JJ put down her empty glass, not looking him
in the eye lest he see her ridiculous level of disappointment. “Thanks for the offer, I’ll let you know. And on that note, it’s time this little duck heads to bed.”
She managed to extricate herself from her barstool with far less grace than Kane had exhibited when he’d hopped onto his—one of the down sides to a too-short skirt with a cheeky side split.
Not that he seemed to mind. He watched in amusement as she wrestled the thing into discretion. “I will ask again.”
“Then I’ll really think you’re stalking me.”
“To the middle of the Pacific and back. Think about it?”
Like she wasn’t about to go to her room and remember every moment of their talk. Every touch, every glance, every spark. Impersonal as it most probably was on his part.
In a last ditch effort at reassembling her self-respect, she made no such promise. Walking backwards she waved a salute. “Goodnight Kane Phillips—Fitness Director.”
“Night Juliana Jones—Time Traveler. Wild Girl,” he called across the bar, causing the table of gorgeous young dancers to turn and see what was going on. To see who this wild girl among them might be.
Wild Girl, she thought as she navigated the tables and headed out into the strange humming silence of a late night cruise ship.
It wasn’t the first time she’d been called that. Or the second. Back home in Dainty Hill it had been said ten times daily on the back of a kind of worried sigh as she’d darted by, hair flying, skin pink, bare feet taking her wherever her hungry heart drove her to be.
And as the cool air re-fizzed the cocktail in her veins she knew; numbing rum wasn’t what she needed. Or sleepy sun. Just the opposite.
What she needed was to wake the hell up. To reconnect with that audacious part of herself that had made her hitchhike her way out of town the day after her wedding. That deep, yearning part of her soul that when it wanted, wanted everything. Not just a better job, or a boss who could keep his hands to himself. But more.
She took the long way back to her room via the open deck, the loud swoosh of ocean slipping away beneath the hull, the night wind in her hair, cool moonlight pouring over her skin.
She was here now on this wondrous ship, so this was the place, this was her chance to recapture that kind of want. And if she couldn’t do it here, then she may as well give up, move back home to the quiet desperation of Dainty Hill, get a proper full-time job at her ex’s hardware store—he was such a nice guy he’d give her one—and learn to play the violin after all.
Or was it the piano?
Chapter 9
JJ was a runner. And not just figuratively.
She loved the pounding of her feet against asphalt. The way it cleared her head. The physical sensation of sweat expelling toxins—both physical and mental. The resultant endorphins a natural high.
But the next morning as she left her room she wondered if running was the best idea.
Her first attempt at getting up to no good had stopped after less than a drink, which meant at least she wasn’t having to nurse a hangover. Thank goodness. Because despite that she’d barely slept a wink.
So, zomebiesque, in yoga tights and tank top, hair scragged back in a high ponytail and big dark sunglasses covering half her face, ear-buds blasting the Black-Eyes Peas, she ran around the pool deck of the ship, past the early morning crowd, who’d already cased out their favorite deck chairs.
The morning was surprisingly chilly considering they were powering through the Pacific on a beautiful summer’s day. In open waters the boat had picked up speed. The water rushing against its bows was fast and furious and the wind whipping across the deck was brisk and fresh.
After a solid forty minutes of running, every breath in was like it was all brand new. Another twenty and she was drenched, pink-faced empty, and sticky with sweat. She headed up to the very top deck to cool down, which, naturally, was when she stumbled upon Kane.
Wind whipped at his purple polo shirt making a relief pattern out of the muscles of his chest. His beige cargo shorts showed off a pair of strong brown calves. A neat white cap with a pair of aviator sunglasses resting on top kept his tousled hair in check.
The man was so scrumptious her stomach clenched. He was also teaching golf.
A row of rectangular patches of fake grass lined the length of the deck. Men and women in knee-length pants tucked into argyle socks, newsboy caps tipped rakishly atop their silver heads, knocked golf balls into the unsuspecting ocean.
Kane—looking far too vital for that time of the morning—moved down the line, calling out instructions, marshalling the troops. Stopping as one woman after the other pretended not to know how to hold a golf club so that Kane could tuck in behind and show them how.
His easy promenade halted when his eyes landed on her. A smile started in his eyes, and JJ fought the urge to tug at the running gear plastered to her sweaty limbs.
“And again!” he called, his deep voice booming as clubs swung with a whistle of air and thwack of wood on ball.
And he ambled her way, sliding his hands into the pockets of his shorts, drawing the fabric across all the goodness he had going on down there.
“Morning,” he said, doing that wicked-fast, all-over glance thing he was so good at.
“Morning!” she sing-songed. Then shielded her face with her hand as she looked out over the ocean at the little sprays of ocean water where the golf balls landed. “Seems to me a fishing rod would be the smarter option.”
He didn’t bite. Didn’t even follow her haze. His voice dropping a few notes as he rumbled, “Funny girl.”
“I try.” She felt her cheeks pinken even deeper than they already were. “Isn’t it kind of environmentally inept sending all those balls to the bottom of the ocean?”
“They’re made of rice paper. Dissolve completely in about thirty days if they aren’t digested before then.”
“An answer for everything.”
“I try.”
Her skin prickled all over and it had nothing to do with sweat.
And despite her protestations to herself the night before that he’d been tagged her glorified babysitter, standing there in the bright light of day, she couldn’t be so sure. Despite the smile, his arms clenched at his sides, his jaw was tight, and his eyes darkened and roved.
Okay. So the spark went both ways.
And she wondered—not for the first time—about his says who line from the night before. Had he really been intimating that if she was looking for a good time he might be up for the job?
“So how did you sleep?” He leaned against the railing, the sun creating a halo around his big shoulders. “Some people find the swaying soothing. Others spend the night upchucking in the nurse’s station.”
“The nurse’s station and I are yet to be acquainted.”
“Good for you. Best sleeps of my life have been onboard this broad. She rocks me to sleep like a baby.”
If only. In fact . . . she needed help on that score. And the thought of talking about such things with Raul, with the photo of those three beautiful innocent kids of his watching on . . .
“Um . . . can I ask you a favor?”
He crossed one lazy ankle over the other. “A favor, you say.”
“Forget about it.”
“Come on. Try me.”
JJ bit the inside of her lip. But she had six more nights ahead and there was no way she’d survive it with another like the night before.
She leaned against the railing beside him. “I actually didn’t sleep that well last night.”
“And why’s that?” he asked, his voice dropping deeper again.
She scrunched her eyes tight behind her sunglasses and said, “Old people sex.”
When he said nothing, she opened one eye to find him staring at her like she’d grown an extra head. “You didn’t get any sleep because you were having old people sex.”
“Not me! My neighbors. Going at it to all hours. Their bed must jut up against the same wall as my bed and lovely a
s my suite may be, the walls ain’t thick.”
At that he laughed. Big raucous guffaws of laughter that set the swinging golf clubs tipping to the floor. A couple dozen sets of eyes swung their way. Including, she saw, Bernie’s and Myrtle’s. They, at least, waved as they stared.
Waving back, and pushing away from her chummy position against the railing, JJ said, “Don’t worry about it. And your class needs their leader.”
Laughter trailing to a soft, sexy grin, Kane turned to his students and boomed, “Eyes on the balls, my friends. Eyes on the balls.”
With a grumble the class went back to hitting tiny balls with big sticks as Kane turned back to her, arms crossed over his huge chest. “Would you like me to find out who it is, and talk to them? Under the umbrella of . . . fitness direction?”
Her turn to laugh. “Good lord, no!”
“How about I wait in the hall outside their room tonight until they hit their stride, then bang on the door and run away?”
More laughter that soon turned into exhausted sobs rustled about inside her as the endorphins from her run began to fade. “I was thinking maybe a new room. For me. Smaller is fine. No window is fine.” Even she could hear the gloominess in her voice at having to downgrade from her lovely little haven. Maybe even leaving Raul’s hall in the process. She’d found another towel-buddy on her little desk the evening before. A rabbit. Adorable.
“It was really that disturbing?”
“It was sex. Every moan and groan and creak and thump and ouch and sigh. Bad enough that it went on for hours, worse that it made me count back to how long it’s been since I got any myself.”
Once again the lack of golf sticks hitting golf balls came to JJ belatedly as her words echoed down the deck and back as the golf class watched on in mute fascination.
“Devonshire tea’s up in the dining room in ten minutes!” Kane called, his eyes never leaving hers.
As if he’d called stampede, the class hustled for the exits in search of English Breakfast and scones.
“Okay,” Kane said when they were alone. “Here’s the thing. You might remember I had a favor to ask of you as well—or maybe not, you were nursing that sad-looking cocktail by the time I found you last night—”