Josh was grinning by the time she’d worked the ropes enough for him to slide his hands through. Leave it to Cari to find a solution in her history books. Jackknifing off the bed, he knelt beside her on the floor and cupped her face in his hands.
“Remind me to read old Pettibone’s diary when we get home. I want to know what other tricks you learned.”
“What makes you think you’re going to have time to read anything when we get home?”
The flash of mischief in her brown eyes made Josh ache to kiss her. Instead, he drew in a deep breath. This wasn’t the time or the place for declarations, but he wasn’t taking any chances. They weren’t home free. Not by a long shot. But no matter what happened, he had to tell her the thoughts that had whirled through his mind these past hours.
“I meant what I said a while ago,” he said urgently. “I love you. More than I ever thought it possible to love another human being.”
“Me too.”
“I don’t want a divorce.”
She shook her head, smiling. “Me neither.”
“I don’t have much to offer you right now. I don’t even know if I’ll have any income coming in for a while.”
“I don’t care. I can earn enough to keep us in pizza and plant food. That’s all we’ll need until you get your swing back.”
Josh blinked. Obviously the term “not much to offer” was a relative one. To him, it meant he wouldn’t be able to provide Cari with the kind of freewheeling big-money life-style that came from standing in the winner’s circle. To her, it boiled down to the basics in life.
But they both knew there was more at stake here than pizza and plant food.
“I might not ever get my swing back,” he told her evenly. “Hell, I couldn’t even see well enough to hit Paxton a while ago, and he was standing just a few feet away.”
Her hands came up to cover his. “Josh, listen to me. I understand that you’re at a critical point in your professional life, that you may not be able to play golf again the way you did before. I wish I could help you through that, but I can’t. All I can do is tell you that I love you. Whatever comes, we’ll face it together.”
“It’s not just my life we’re talking about here. You’re at a critical point in your career, too.”
She tilted her head as a host of emotions chased across her expressive face. Josh saw acknowledgment, resignation, and fierce determination.
“I still want to complete my degree,” she said, her eyes on his face. “If it takes me five or seven or ten years longer than I’d planned, then it takes me another five or seven or ten years. I can accept that, if it means I’ll spend those years with you.”
Josh couldn’t help himself. She looked so serious, so fierce.
“Just think of all the costumes you can come up with during those years, sweetheart,” he teased. “As much as I enjoyed playing pirate and bride and groom with you, I have this sudden urge to see you as a harem slave, with an emerald in your belly button and rings on every one of your sexy little toes…”
“Josh, for heaven sakes!”
“…and not much in between,” he finished, grinning broadly.
“We’d better make sure we have five or seven or ten years left to play any games at all,” she retorted.
“We will,” he promised, as determined now as she’d been a moment ago. Then he kissed her. Gingerly, given his split lip, but very, very hungrily. She clung to him, her arms tight around his neck, as though she wouldn’t ever let him go.
Reluctantly Josh reached up to loosen her arms. When he saw the smears on her cheeks left by his bloodied hands, reality came crashing back with a vengeance. His jaw tightening, he helped her up.
“We need to plan our attack.”
“Attack?” she squeaked. “Shouldn’t we just wait till Enrique comes back and, er, ambush him? You know, two against one?”
He shook his head. “There’s no guarantee he’ll come back alone. We can’t take that chance. We have to get out and warn the other passengers. There are ten of us, and, what—four crew members?”
She nodded. “The captain, Enrique, the chef, and the woman who cleans the cabins. The chef’s wife.” Her eyes wide, Cari stared at him. “Oh, Josh, do you think they’re in on this smuggling, too?”
“We have to assume they are. Look around the cabin. See what you can find to use as a weapon.”
As she searched, Cari’s bravado of moments before faded. Suddenly the huge cabin seemed much more a haven than the prison she’d considered it for the past few hours. She wasn’t cut out for adventure on the high seas, she admitted to herself. Given the choice between going topside to take out some twentieth-century brigands and cowering in her own bed with the covers over her head, she knew exactly which she’d choose. Assuming she could have Josh under the covers with her.
He, on the other hand, searched the cabin with a grim determination that bordered on eagerness. When he hefted a heavy red-sealed bottle of Scotch and smacked it against his palm, his lips drew back in a feral smile.
“I can’t think of a better use for the captain’s redlabel bar stock than to crack it over his head,” he murmured. “Let’s hope I can get close enough to—”
He broke off, his entire body tensing as he cocked his head, listening intently.
“Oh, God!” Cari whispered. “Enrique’s coming back already?”
She turned and raced across the room. With a leap, she threw herself on the bed. Maybe she could act as a decoy for a few precious seconds. Just long enough to lure the steward far enough into the room for Josh to get a clear swing at him. She jerked her arms behind her and stared at the door, wide-eyed and trembling.
To her considerable surprise, Josh ignored the main entrance to the suite and crossed to the sliding glass doors. He halted a few feet away, back flattened against the wall beside the curtains that covered the doors. The tic that had fascinated Cari so much just last night beat a furious tattoo in the side of his jaw.
Her blood was hammering so loudly in her ears that she almost missed the faint scratching at the glass. Swallowing, she stared at the curtains. Josh’s brows slashed down at the sound. He hefted the bottle of Scotch higher.
The scratching came again, and then a faint whisper.
“Josh?”
Cari and Josh looked at each other, suspicion and hope warring on their faces. She held her breath as he reached out and lifted the edge of the curtain an infinitesimal fraction. When Josh flashed her a grin and lowered his weapon, her pent-up breath came out in a sob. A moment later, he unlatched the sliding glass doors and Eric slipped inside.
The boy took one look at Josh’s face and whistled softly. “I told Granddad there was something funny going on this morning!”
“How did you know?”
The teenager snorted. “Enrique’s face had something to do with it.”
“Smart kid.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t think much about it until you didn’t show up for our golf lesson this morning. The captain made some joke about you and Cari being on your honeymoon, but, jeez! You’ve been on your honeymoon for a week now, and…Well, this is golf we’re talking about.”
“So it is,” Josh replied, grinning at Cari over the boy’s head.
She shimmied off the bed and came over to join the other two. “How did you get down to our deck?”
“I climbed down the awning support,” Eric replied with a shrug, as if. the answer should be obvious to anyone, even a history teacher. “Granddad’s keeping watch up on the sun deck right now.”
Josh gripped the boy’s shoulder. “Eric, are the clubs still there? Up on the sun deck?”
“Yeah. Why?”
He chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then tugged the boy around to face him. “I want you to stay here with Cari while your granddad and I go see the captain. I need you to protect her,” he added, stifling the boy’s protest. “So I don’t have to worry about her during my…discussion with the captain.”
The look he sent Cari
stifled her protest, as well. Her job was to keep Eric out of danger. She understood it. She accepted it. But she didn’t like it. At all. Consequently, she was as nervous and tight-lipped as Eric when Josh slid the glass door open and stepped out onto the small private deck.
Josh stood in the shadow of the awning, his pulse pounding. Astern, the Nautilus III churned a wake of white lace against a sparkling sea. Overhead, gulls whirled in an endless azure sky. He shuffled sideways an inch, then another. Craning his neck, he peered over the edge of the awning.
To his intense relief, he spied Paul Sanders’s beefy, balding figure leaning against the rail of the sun deck.
It was over so quickly, Josh felt cheated. He wanted blood. He wanted the satisfaction of smashing his fists into Enrique’s face. He wanted Paxton on his knees.
He got one good swing in. Enrique howled like a gored bull when Josh slammed an iron down on his wrist and sent the gun skittering across the deck. Paul Sanders scooped up the gun and trained it on the man with a skill that told Josh the cement business bred some tough customers.
The two men then put the steward out cold without the least compunction. Leaving him securely tied and under the supervision of another club-wielding passenger, he led a small army of vigilante executives to the bridge.
Faced with the business end of Enrique’s gun, Paxton surrendered without a fight. A quick search showed that the chef and his wife were unarmed and totally astounded by the turn of events. Still, to be safe, Josh kept the couple under guard alongside Paxton and Enrique. Then he faced the group of well-dressed men and women who were left to operate the ship.
“Anyone here know how to drive a yacht?”
“I’ve got a boat at home,” one of the passengers volunteered. “It’s just a thirty-footer, but what the hell? That’s only a hundred and twenty feet or so shorter than this baby.”
Josh sketched him a salute. “She’s all yours, Captain. At least until the Coast Guard arrives.”
Six hours later, the Nautilus III glided gracefully toward a long wooden pier stretching out into Georgetown’s harbor.
Clutching at the rail, Cari stared in dismay at the crowd jammed onto the pier. The entire population of Grand Cayman Island must have congregated to greet them, as well as every international reporter in the Caribbean.
As the engines reversed and the Nautilus shuddered to a slow halt at quayside, camera crews jostled with sound handlers for position. Reporters with bags slung over their shoulders elbowed each other aside. Shouts rang across the fast shrinking distance.
“Josh! Hey, Josh!”
“Over here, Keegan!”
The man at Cari’s side lifted a hand and gave them a friendly wave. She could only marvel at his sangfroid.
He’d warned her that their distress signal had been picked up by ships of several different nationalities. That the story had no doubt gone flashing over the network satellites before the high-speed Coast Guard cutter cruising off Haiti came to their aid. She’d expected media interest, but not this…this frenzy.
She shivered at the thought of facing this horde. An instant later, an arm slipped around her waist.
“Kind of intimidating, isn’t it?”
“There’s no ‘kind of’ about it.”
Josh cocked his head, smiling down at her. “Remember what I told you about handling the media? You tell them what you want them to hear, and listen selectively to what they say or print about you.”
“I’ve got a better idea. You tell them what you want them to hear. I’ll sneak ashore later.”
Laughter rumbled up from deep in his chest. “No way, sweetheart. We’re in this thing together, remember?”
His words went a long way toward shoring up Cari’s frayed nerves. Unfortunately, he accompanied them with a long, slow, knee-bending kiss that delighted their audience and totally destroyed Cari’s tenuous composure. She clung to him with both hands, barely able to breathe, while a chorus of catcalls and whistles rose from the pier.
When the yacht bumped gently against its padded berth a few moments later, she was still trying to draw air into her starved lungs. Josh glanced down at her, his signature grin lifting one corner of his mouth.
“Ready?”
“No.” She sighed. “But I suppose we’ll have to face them before we can go ashore and try to find an emerald to fit my belly button.”
The look in his hazel eye made Cari’s toes curl. Her sexy little toes, according to Josh.
“This is going to be one of the shortest news conferences in history.”
She was basking in the heat of his promise when the passengers began to congregate at the gangplank that bridged the short space to the pier.
“Cari!”
Evelyn Sanders edged her way through the perfumed crowd. Diamonds glistened at her ears, and another huge stone weighted her ring finger. From the eager anticipation on her face, it was obvious the older woman was looking forward to her moment in front of the cameras.
“With all the excitement, I almost forgot to give you this!” Beaming, she passed Cari a ribboned box. “It’s not much. Just a little memento from Paul and Eric and me. I hope you like it.”
Cari fumbled with the ribbon, then lifted the lid. When she saw the photograph framed in crystal and silver, she gave a gasp of sheer delight.
“Oh, Evelyn! Thank you!”
Her eyes misting, Cari studied the shot of her and Josh cutting their wedding cake. Her groom stood behind her, tall and solid and incredibly handsome in his ivory linen jacket and light blue shirt. The sea breeze ruffled his dark hair, and his mouth curved in a teasing grin that was all Josh.
Cari’s heart overflowed, and she was sure she couldn’t love him any more than she did right now.
She was wrong.
Moments later, she stood beside him on the pier. He fielded the melee of shouts and questions with a good-natured ease that amazed Cari.
“What’s this about you taking out a whole band of smugglers with a one iron, Josh?”
His warm, rich laughter flowed across the pier. “As Lee Trevino says, only God can hit a one iron. I used a two.”
“We saw that kiss a few moments ago, Keegan,” someone at the back of the crowd called. “Who’s the mystery lady?”
Josh glanced down at Cari, his faced filled with a tenderness that made her clutch Evelyn’s gift to her breast.
“The lady is my wife.”
Epilogue
The front door of Gulliver’s Travels flew open. Tiffany Tarrington Toulouse dashed in, her cheeks bright. and her wild mane of silvery-white curls tossed by the chill November wind.
“Lucy! Jimmy! Everyone! Did you see the paper this morning?”
Her breathless excitement brought Lucy Falco from the coffee maker, and Jim Burns from his computer. The other travel agents put phones on hold and gathered in the center of the spacious work center, peering over Tiffany’s shoulder as she whipped open a folded newspaper.
“Look, it’s Josh Keegan and the woman he met at the Halloween charity ball. You remember the mock ceremony you told us about, Lucy? The one they participated in?”
“How could I forget?” Lucy replied, smiling. “Every woman at the ball, me included, sighed in sheer, unadulterated envy when Josh said, ‘I do,’ even though it was all a gag.”
“It wasn’t a gag! They’re really married! And they took advantage of the cruise package Jimmy put together to go on their honeymoon.”
“No kidding?” The former short-order cook turned used-car salesman turned travel agent gaped at the UPI photo of Atlanta’s best-known bachelor with an arm around the woman identified as his bride.
“But what’s all this about modern-day pirates and drama on the high seas?” Lucy asked, her dark brows slanting as she tilted her head to read the upside-down headlines.
Tiffany’s eyes danced with a liveliness that belied her sixty-plus years. “Well, it seems the honey of a deal Jimmy worked out on this cruise wasn’t quite as sweet as we thought.
The captain gave us such a tremendous discount because he was using the cruise business as a front for a drug smuggling operation.”
“Drug smuggling!” Lucy’s eyes widened in dismay. “We sent Josh Keegan and…and his wife off on a ten-day cruise aboard a boat involved in drug running?”
Jimmy groaned. “Oh, no. When Mr. Gulliver hears about this, I’m going to be back hustling used cars!”
Snatching the paper from Tiffany’s ringed hands, Lucy absorbed the details of the situation they’d unknowingly thrust two clients into. At least no one was hurt, she read with a surge of relief. She glanced at the photo again, her tension easing as caught the glowing look on the bride’s face. Remembering Cari O’Donnell’s stormy expression when she’d accepted the prize package in the hotel lobby Halloween night, Lucy came to the conclusion that more had happened on that cruise than either the bride or groom had shared with the press.
“I’ll talk to Mr. Gulliver,” she assured the anxious Jim Burns. “The boss will understand that you couldn’t possibly know about the drug running.”
Lucy had worked for the elusive entrepreneur for several years now, communicating with him primarily via phone and fax. He wouldn’t be happy about this, but he wasn’t arbitrary or unfair.
Her smile encompassed the rest of the small group. “We all need to take a lesson from this experience. Let’s make sure we don’t put together any more honeymoon packages quite this…exciting. Stick to our tried-and-true carriers and resorts.”
“I’m working on another package right now,” a wide-eyed Tiffany put in. “I’ve got a soldier flying home from overseas on leave. A small Thanksgiving wedding. A honeymoon at an old established lodge. Nice, safe and traditional. We can’t go wrong with this one.”
“I hope not,” Lucy replied, her glance lingering on the photograph of Cari and Josh Keegan. “I sincerely hope not.”
* * * * *
eISBN 978-14592-7905-6
HALLOWEEN HONEYMOON
Halloween Honeymoon Page 14