by R. T. Wolfe
He slipped a thigh between hers, scissoring her legs when they moved to the side. His hard thighs guided hers. They were warm and she had to concentrate to keep her eyes from rolling to the back of her head. Her breasts moved against his chest as their bodies rotated. His hip pressed into hers when he wanted her to step back. Like a magnet needing its positive charge, she followed when that hip turned away.
His cheeks were flushed, the veins over his temples pulsed. His jaws flex as the waves of heat seared back through her arms and legs and landed like a tsunami in her center. She convinced herself the sweat that formed at the base of her neck was from the movements and dozens of bodies clustered around them. Not from the dancing.
They'd known each other long enough to interpret gestures and read the meaning behind their stares. Had they broken eye contact since the song started? The cobalt blue was deep and bold, like the entrance to the hidden cavern Zoe found.
The image of the skull blew past her vision, bringing her out of her sensual trance. Good thing since the next song was slow, and she had lost all trust in her body's reactions to deal with something slow. She could not fall for Dane Corbin. Not now. Not ever.
Chapter 7
They hadn't spoken during their dance, not out loud anyway. It was appreciated since that meant Zoe didn't get caught yelling at the top of her lungs when the song stopped. As she pulled away from the dance floor, he grabbed her hand and stopped her. She had to use so much force to make her getaway, they might have tumbled to the ground in opposite directions if he let go.
He gave in and let her lead them toward the bar, but he clasped her hand tight enough she couldn't let go. She recited small chants in her head, reminding herself he would have been dancing that same dance with some other girl if Zoe hadn't showed. Somehow the fact that he chose her instead of one of the others wasn't getting the right response from her libido.
"Second round, please," Zoe practically yelled. It was time to make sure Dane knew where they stood. Where did they stand again?
Oh, right. Boss. Not boss.
Playboy. Girl who doesn't want a playboy.
World traveler. Small island girl.
"You're thinking." He stood much too close for her chanting to do any damned good.
She took her beer. "Some women do that. You probably don't know any."
Dane handed the bartender some money before Zoe could get to it.
She took a deep drink. It was cold and crisp. She felt it in her thighs.
"You didn't ask me what I wanted to drink," he said low in her ear. He stepped away, making her want to pull him back. He brushed her nose with his thumb and said, "You have something there."
She knew what it was. She burned it in the sun. It was slight, but enough to peel.
"Is that what girls do for you? Get your drinks? Because I'm not one of them. And I have a fungus on my nose. You'd better go wash your hands."
His smile was beautiful, warm, and familiar. And it was cheating. She sighed, suddenly defeated. Closing her eyes tighter than she wanted, she dipped her head. "I'm going to find my sisters, Dane. Consider the truce paid in full." She turned away from him but then thought differently. Spinning on her heels before he could get away, she added, "And thank you," but he was there, close enough to feel the rise and fall of his chest against hers.
His eyes dropped to her mouth as he dipped his head closer. With both hands, she pushed him away as her heartbeat shot up and her chest heaved. "See you tomorrow." Her heart told her to turn around, but thankfully her head made her feet walk away.
Her sisters sat at a tiny table in the center of the tightly-fit section. They both had their brows lifted high.
Willow smirked. Raine crossed her arms. Zoe took two long swigs before sitting down with them.
"Need a cigarette?" Raine asked.
Zoe waved her hand like she was shooing a fly. "Don't be silly." She took another, longer swig, emptying her bottle completely. It might cool the embarrassment that crept up her neck and surely filled her cheeks.
Willow smiled.
"What?" This was not happening.
"You danced." Willow said flatly in direct contrast to the smirk on her face. "With Dane Corbin. It was hot. I've never seen him do that before."
"Now, you're just being stupid." Zoe knew this, at least, was true. "He dances like that with anything with breasts. Raine? Help me out, here."
Raine shook her head. "I have to agree with Willow on this one and not just because I feel guilty for the way I treated him earlier, although I do."
"I'm sure he's doing the same thing with some other—"
"He left after you didn't let him kiss you by the bar," Raine said.
"Alone," Willow added.
* * *
Zoe worked hard to avoid Dane. It wasn't healthy to obsess about something that wasn't meant to be. And avoiding was working well. Ultimate Frisbee on Sundays. Walking her section of the beach on her assigned days each week. She found and staked an average of three nests per morning. Raine was right. Nesting season would be big again this year. Captaining the tour boats kept her away from the shop and from him.
The occasional text messages from the detective helped. He was sweet. They planned on getting together Friday night for dinner. His texts sometimes reminded Zoe of her parents. She realized her parents were a young middle-fifties, but the similarities were still disconcerting. Disconcerting, but cute.
Today was for show. Zoe couldn't avoid the gift shop forever. She needed to prove to the other employees she wasn't sleeping with the boss. It was the only theory the guys had come up with as to why Dane would have bought a business that kept him from his frequent treasure hunting trips. If she were honest with herself, she wasn't even sure why he agreed to her request.
She shouldn't get to skip gift shop duty, and she did trash duty like everyone else. She checked off customers for boat tours and signed them in when they returned. In between, she answered questions, ran the register, and straightened up racks of clothes. She—actually Dane—got in a new shipment of sandals, some for men and some for women. As dumb as it was, it felt a little like Christmas.
Fair enough, she decided, as she organized the display. She was the one who insisted on selling versus a true merger. She'd spent that past several months walking the line between convincing her former employees they had to answer to Dane—because she was no longer their boss—and still using her skills as lead boat captain.
A man of at least fifty came in. He was alone and dressed in weathered shorts, leather sandals, and a faded button-down shirt. His hair was long and braided. Small hoop earrings hung in each lobe and tattoos covered his right forearm and left calf. The size of the rings on his fingers and the pendant hanging from his neck rounded the package and screamed, 'treasure hunter.' A good-looking man, definitely, but not her type. And what was it with her sudden interest in older men? Salt and pepper hair curled just over his ears. He was well over six foot, blue eyes. Not the solid blue of Dane's, more of a crystal blue, like a husky's. It must be her sex moratorium.
"Can I help you with anything?" She smiled. He smiled back. Whoops. Gold tooth. Definitely not her type.
"This Dane Corbin's place?" He held out his hand, and she took it.
They shook as she answered. "It is now, yes. He's running some errands. Can I leave him a message?"
The man turned his gaze downward. "No. I'll catch up with him soon enough." His eyes ran over her shop—Dane's shop. It made her uncomfortable. She'd built it, decorated it, stocked it, and restocked it. It might not be hers, but she still took pride in it.
"This doesn't look like Dane."
"Oh? How do you know each other, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Nah. Name's Nemo. Lucky Nemo. Named before the movie." He winked.
Yes, cute but not her style.
Thumbing through some of the key chains on display, he spoke like he was reminiscing. "Dane and I have spent days, sometimes weeks together."
; Treasure hunter. She was right.
"He's been hanging low lately." Lucky turned in a circle and squinted. "And for this, I guess."
She didn't like his tone. Zoe leaned her hip on the back of the chair customers used to try on shoes. "His business doubled recently," she said defensively. Did several months count as recently? "We're old high school friends." Why did she add that? She shrugged. "He's been busy. What's it like out there in the middle of the ocean?"
He turned to face her and tilted his head. "You haven't had this conversation with him, old friend?"
She was caught off guard. She hadn't, actually. He never discussed his treasure hunting, and she never asked. Now, she felt like a heel. "He doesn't talk about it."
"You're serious." Another statement.
"Is that strange?"
"Strange? Dane doesn't miss many chances to tell about his best haul or the next place he wants to hit."
He said it like they were planning bank robberies.
A customer brought a shark tooth necklace and a pair of trunks to the sales counter. She hoped Lucky wouldn't leave. He walked around like a tourist, except he shook his head back and forth every now and then.
"Thank you for coming," she told the boy with the shark tooth. "Have a nice day." She turned her head away from Lucky but kept her eyes on him.
"Did he tell you about the deep sea dive off the west coast of the Hawaiian islands?" he asked her.
She shook her head. It felt like an apology.
"Mostly silver place settings. The price of silver is up these days." He smiled wide making his gold tooth glint in the florescent lights. "How about the Smithsonian? Of course he told you about the Smithsonian."
"The Smithsonian? You mean as in thee Smithsonian? Dane donated something to a museum? I thought he sold everything he found." The last part came out wrong. Or it came out right but shouldn't have come out at all.
"Calypso's ship. Divers thought they'd cleaned it, but Dane has a knack at finding hidden compartments." Lucky brushed his wavy hair over an ear and leaned in. He looked like he could be a model for a rock star magazine. "He could have bought this island for what he gave up." He shook his head in obvious disgust.
"Are you telling me Dane Corbin donated millions of dollars' worth of treasure?"
"Not millions, sweetheart, but he probably doesn't want me to say. Not if he hasn't offered up the information himself. And not some of the pieces. It brings tears to my eyes, but he gave up the entire haul. I'm sure it brought real tears to the geeks at the Institute."
She wanted to listen to him longer. Ask him more questions that hadn't come to her yet. Her elbows found their way to the glass counter near the cash register. She rested her chin in her hands as he spoke of the dangers they'd encountered. Sharks and competing divers. The times they searched for weeks and came up empty handed.
Apparently, Lucky was the wheels—or boat owner—and Dane was the one with the intuition. The bell rang on the front door. She barely heard it and didn't offer a greeting. It was Dane.
He hardly ever walked through the front. He stopped short when he saw Lucky and frowned. "Lucky Nemo," he said cautiously. "What brings you to the island?"
* * *
Tomorrow was a beach walk day. It took Zoe days to recover from her near-kiss with Dane and a few more to wrap her head around his donation to the Smithsonian. Beach walking served as therapy.
She crawled into bed and thumbed through her phone before turning out the lights. There was something about crawling into a crisply made bed. It was more soothing than her mother's raspberry tea.
She'd gotten into the habit of texting her mother each night, reminding her to lock her doors and windows. Zoe was mostly sure her parents started locking their doors at night—something they'd never done in the thirty-plus years they lived there—but the windows? They preferred to keep their windows open day and night. The mature pines and palm trees that surrounded their house served as reasonable shade from the brutal Florida summer sun. At least her parents thought so.
As a daughter of Henry and Harmony Clearwater, Zoe needed to justify using her air conditioner by turning it up a few degrees. Just as she typed her nightly nag to her mother, her phone buzzed.
'no need to text me, dear. we're locked up nice and safe. love you.'
She was parenting her parents. It had to be done.
'love you too, mom. night.'
As usual, the topic of conversation made her think of their intruder. The feel of his hand on her face, his arm clamped around her neck. It was as fresh as if it happened yesterday. Damn it. Now, she needed to check her locks. Flipping the covers back on her bed, she tossed her legs over the side as her phone buzzed again.
'night? are you going to bed already?'
Zoe walked around her small ranch house, checking locks in the dark as they texted back and forth. 'beach walking tomorrow.'
'still'
'not in high school anymore. I need my sleep.'
'are you pent up, dear? it's not good to let the cobwebs grow in the nether regions.'
Good grief. It was fun to have granola parents except for the times her mother wanted to give her advice on her sex life.
'i like to think of it as purposely independent'
Her phone buzzed twice this time.
'i'm on the island'
'do you need me to bring over new batteries?'
'mom!'
Zoe stood at her living room window laughing out loud.
'i'm not your mom, but i am on the island. you up for a visitor?'
The window. The window was unlocked. She had the air on for three days straight. Her body trembled and froze all at the same time. The lights. Holy shit, she left herself in the dark again.
Chapter 8
Grabbing her keys from the hook by the front door, she flew out. She imagined the man chasing her from behind and covered her head with her arms as she ran to her Jeep. It was dark. Her tall trees blocked the streetlights. The gravel under her slippers crunched as she ran, giving away her location to anyone hiding behind the trees. She didn't have the nerve to look.
Except the back seat of the Jeep. She had to check the back of the Jeep. Her hands shook so hard she dropped her phone. Scrambling to pick it up, she plopped in the driver's side and started the engine. She didn't want to look around, but backing up made it necessary.
A man. A man stood at the end of her driveway. She screamed.
"Whoa," he said, holding his hands out at her.
She recognized the voice, but then, no. As she darted her eyes around her, he started waving his arms like he was flagging her down. And he wasn't a small someone. He was tall and wore a gun holster.
"Zoe? It's me, Matt. It's Detective Osborne. You okay? I'm going to walk forward, now. Very slow. Take it easy."
Matt. It was Matt. She pulled the emergency brake, then ran out of her Jeep toward him.
"It's okay. Here, here."
She started laughing. It was sort of a hysterical laugh, but she was laughing. "That's something my father says to me when I'm hysterical."
"Father? Ouch."
She laughed again and looked up at him.
"Do you get hysterical often?" His face was hard to make out. The street light two doors down was visible from this part of the driveway, but it created a halo around his head, darkening his features.
Oh shit. Shit, shit. She must seem like a crazy woman. "My window. It was unlocked." Not helping. "I locked it. I know I did." Did she? "I'm almost positive I did. I've had the air conditioning on for three days straight, and I always, always lock my windows when I shut them." Her shoulders fell. She had a nice man who was actually interested in her—before now—standing in her driveway, and here she stood, acting like a lunatic.
"I heard about the break-in at your parents' home. You have every right to be jittery. Would you like me to take a look around?"
Afraid to open her mouth for fear more words might come out, she nodded and tried to smile.
Her arms and legs were like wet noodles, but she made them move as if she were a sane person.
They searched the house, turning on every light. He checked in each closet, under her bed, and behind her couch and loveseat. She stayed on his heels but stopped herself from hanging onto his holster.
"There's no one in here. Do you notice anything out of place?"
She'd been too scared to pay attention. She hadn't noticed anything when she came home, made dinner, or grabbed her shower. "I don't think so."
"Have you taken a good look?"
She shook her head and started strolling through her small home. She was tidy, so that made it easy. It was another one of those things she needed to change from her childhood. No large murals on the siding of her home and no clutter. It fit her parents but not her.
The living room was intact, right down to where she'd left her remote. The kitchen was good, the kitchen nook. Her bedroom was all in place, even the decorative pillows she left on the side of the bed that was never used. Ever.
The extra bedroom was an office. She often brought work home. When she had a business to bring work home from. The top, right desk drawer was open. Only a half-inch or so. She could have done that if a paper had wedged itself between the drawer and top. She reached down to pull it open and realized her laptop was closed. She never closed her laptop.
As if she burned her hand, she pulled it back. Her head turned to Matt, then back again. "I don't leave drawers stuck open, not even partially, and I never, ever close my laptop."
"Don't touch anything, Zoe."
She covered her mouth with both hands as she eyed the room. "I'm acting like a fool," she said between her fingers. "No one's in here." She said the last part for herself.
"Not a fool. Smart. You've been through an attack. Caught an intruder in the act. Caught him in the safety of the place you grew up in."
Wow. He had heard about the break-in.
"It's a feeling of violation and invasion. It takes time to get over something like that."