Dangerous Waters

by Laurey Bright

  His T-shirt was in the saloon, he recalled vaguely, along with Camille's light cotton top. Dropped anywhere in their eagerness to get naked with each other.

  Camille had been just as impatient as he was, surprising him and increasing his already overwhelming desire for her. Maybe they had both been suffering from frustration, adding an intensity to their lovemaking that he didn't remember experiencing since his first, clumsy encounter with a willing girl. And that had certainly not come up to expectation.

  But Camille…she'd more than matched his conviction that they'd be perfect together.

  Coming out of the head, he pulled on his jeans and zipped them. A pale blur on the floor of the saloon was Camille's thin cotton top. He lifted it, inhaling her unique, woman scent, neither flowery nor spicy but sweet and aphrodisiacal. Her skin had smelled like that, and it had been smooth and cool, then warm under his hands, with firmness and softness underneath. She had neat, round breasts that fitted into his palms, and a beautifully shaped behind that she liked him to stroke. When he'd run his hands over it, she'd curled her legs up and nestled into him like a contented kitten…

  Damn, he was hard again, and she was fast asleep. He switched off the light over the berth, but the glow coming in the portholes clearly showed her dark lashes forming perfect crescents against her cheek, her hair tumbled in unaccustomed disorder. He wondered how she felt about being wakened for sex…

  There was a lot he didn't know about her. Well, he'd learned quite a bit last night. And he looked forward to finding out a good deal more.

  Stopping by the desk, he hung her flimsy top over the chair. There was a piece of paper lying on the desk, and the searchlight that had found him and Camille earlier on deck swept the boat again. The words "Sale" and "Sea-Rogue" in bold letters leaped at him before the light passed. They were still imprinted behind his eyes when it had gone and he blinked, without thought snatching up the paper.

  His hand was shaking, his body icy cold.

  Turning, he almost stumbled over her suitcase and backpack, stacked beside the desk along with her laptop in its bag. The significance of that took a moment to penetrate.

  He looked at Camille, innocent in her sleep. And then back at the paper he held. It had been in full view, not even folded.

  He could still feel the imprint of Camille's kisses on his mouth, his body. He could taste her on his tongue. He knew how it felt to be inside her and have her close about him, tight but incredibly soft and warm and silky.

  Now he was cold. Despite the summer night, and the stuffiness of the cabin.

  He stood irresolute for seconds before heading for the door. The couple of steps seemed like a mile.

  Quietly he closed it behind him and switched on the saloon light, placed the papers on the table and sat down to peruse them.

  His chest constricted as he read the words on the first page, then turned to the second.

  They were identical. Two copies of a sale agreement for a half share of the ketch Sea-Rogue, including chattels and contents as at the date of Barney Broderick's death. Drummond had been thorough, the i's dotted, the t's crossed. Both pages carried his signature—and Camille's. Dated yesterday.

  Chapter 13

  Camille was having an erotic dream involving her and Rogan in the depths of the ocean, making love on a bed of waving seaweed, the water caressing their limbs as they twined about each other in leisurely abandon…

  It was the noise that woke her, a steady chug-chug. The mattress seemed to vibrate beneath her and the cabin swayed. The boat was moving.

  Moving?

  She threw off the sheet, her feet hitting the floor with a thud. Hastily she pulled on panties and knotted a sarong at her waist. Her top was folded across the back of the chair in front of the empty desk, and she grabbed it and hauled it over her head. On the way to the door she stopped short, her heart plunging, and whipped around to look again at the desk. No pale oblong of paper showed against the dark square.

  She'd left the sale agreement there in full view, and Rogan had found it and…

  What was he doing?

  Flying to the door to wrench it open, she was stunned to find that she couldn't. Foreboding making her hot and cold in waves, she tried again, then fumbled for the lock where the key had always been, confirming her dread suspicion. No key.

  This was incredible. No one in his right mind would lock someone into a cabin and then…what?

  Sickening panic attacked her. Maybe Rogan wasn't in his right mind—hadn't she accused him of being paranoid? Hadn't she worried that he was deluded, obsessed, unbalanced on the subject of his father's death and its relationship to a will-o'-the-wisp treasure?

  She banged on the door with her fists and her open hand, yelling Rogan's name, but there was no response.

  Anger swamping fear, she kicked at the door, and looked about for something to attack it with, but found nothing that wasn't screwed down or too light to be of any use.

  Her cell phone. She'd call the police.

  She fumbled in the desk drawer, then hunted through her shoulder bag, knowing it was useless. Rogan had found the phone and removed it.

  Going to a porthole, she saw they had cleared the harbor and now a mere one or two lights winked from the shore. The only sound was the inexorable mutter of the engine.

  There was nothing to do but return to the berth she had so recently shared with Rogan, sit with her knees hunched up, wrap her arms around them and pray.

  When she heard footsteps on the deck her head jerked up, and she scrambled again to the porthole, but could see nothing. The engine stopped, and for a moment her heart leaped in hope. But the boat continued on its way, and the creaking and flapping noises she heard indicated that he'd raised the sails and was saving fuel.

  After a long time there was more thumping overhead, a rattle and a splash. The boat didn't seem to be moving anymore and she figured they were at anchor.

  A key scraped in the cabin door, and every muscle went bow-string tight, her skin prickling with gooseflesh.

  When Rogan's solid figure appeared in the doorway pure instinct took over. She launched herself off the berth and straight at him, in an adrenaline surge of searing rage. Her fists thudded into his chest, and he staggered. She tried to get past him, and even as he grabbed her arm to haul her back from the doorway she raked at his face with her nails. He stopped her with hard fingers on her wrist, and she sank her teeth into his hand.

  She heard him suck in a breath of pain, and experienced a primitive stab of satisfaction. Then he had both her wrists, holding her away with infuriating ease. She twisted them out and down, taking him by surprise, and swung a fist at his face, but he blocked it with his arm, numbing hers, and laughed, this time using a different hold to ward her off. She kicked at him, wishing she'd thought to put shoes on.

  "Settle down!" he said sharply.

  "The hell I will!" She made to bite him again, and he moved, pushing her toward the berth until her knees buckled and she fell, then somehow he turned her so that she was facedown against the pillow, her wrists clipped behind her.

  Helpless and more enraged than ever, she wriggled and kicked out as best she could, but now he undoubtedly had the upper hand. "You can't win," he said.

  She made a strangled sound of fury, fighting uselessly against his implacable hold, and gasped, "Bastard!"

  "Cat," he retaliated succinctly. "I'll be wearing your claw marks for a week."

  "Good!"

  She made another convulsive effort to free herself, and he said with ominous calm, "If you don't keep still I'll have to tie you up."

  "You wouldn't dare!" she panted.

  "Think about it," he invited.

  Camille didn't want to think about it. She wanted to kill him. She felt defenseless and vulnerable and stupidly afraid. It wasn't nice and all of it was his fault. She hated the thought of giving in, but if he carried out the threat she'd be even less able to defend herself. Or escape.

  For a few more seco
nds she lay taut and defiant, the veins in her wrists throbbing in his iron grip. "Let me go," she muttered, letting herself become limp.

  "Is it safe?"

  Camille gritted her teeth. "I won't attack you again."

  At first he retained his hold, then his hands left her, and she twisted to face him, pushing herself up on the pillows as he stood over her.

  Dawn was breaking, and in the gray light she could see the raking marks her fingernails had made down his cheek. His gaze was steady and somber on her mutinous face, but his mouth was uncompromising and not at all gentle. She could scarcely believe that it had wooed hers last night with tenderness and passion. He was wearing only jeans, his chest bare, and she had to consciously block out the memory of what it had felt like under her hands, against her breasts…

  She wrenched her gaze up to his face, to the accusing eyes and hard cheekbones and jutting jaw darkened with overnight shadow.

  He didn't look like a madman. He looked very sane and very determined and very dangerous. It wasn't reassuring.

  "What the hell," she demanded, "do you think you're doing?"

  "Saving you."

  The answer was so unexpected she couldn't believe she'd heard it right. "What?" She'd never thought he suffered from a religious mania.

  "Although I'm not sure you deserve it," he told her grimly, and reached into the back pocket of his jeans. He tossed the sale agreement at her, to land on her thighs.

  Feeling sick, she muttered, "You don't understand."

  "Damn right I don't. How much have you told Drummond?" he asked.

  "About what?"

  "About me finding the log, and the Dumas clue, for starters. Have you been his little pawn all along? Did he put you up to going to bed with me? Maybe he suspected I knew more than I was letting on to you? I hope the pillow talk was satisfactory."

  Camille stiffened, her eyes hot. He was calling her a liar. And worse. "Don't you dare accuse me of…" She wasn't sure what to call it, but using sex to get something definitely wasn't anything she'd ever stoop to. As she'd clearly intimated to James, she recalled, her conviction of his probity momentarily shaken.

  At her hesitation Rogan's eyes assumed the bleak look she'd first seen when he'd entered the Imperial's dining room with his brother, then they turned cold and hard.

  "I wouldn't do that!" she insisted. "And anyway, James thinks you're crazy! I don't know what you think you're doing, but you can turn this boat around and head back to Mokohina right now!"

  He looked at her incredulously. "Maybe it's escaped your notice," he said, his tone scathing, "but you're not in a position to give orders, Milady."

  Fighting down panic, she said, "This is stupid! You could go to jail for years for kidnapping!"

  He didn't flinch. "I guess you could call it that. The thing is, you and I are the only two people in the world who know how to find that wreck. On past evidence, the first thing you'd do tomorrow is run and tell your friend everything you know."

  "I told you—"

  "And I won't risk him or his mate doing to you what they did to my dad—and probably to the Catfish's deckhand—when he has no further use for you."

  "Are you telling me," Camille said with conscious sarcasm, "that you're doing this solely for my sake?"

  He gave her a crooked grin that almost dented the armor of her anger. "It's not only your skin I'm concerned about. I don't want him finding the Maiden's Prayer before I do. Or knocking me off to give him a better chance."

  "Give me one good reason to think James is a crook and a murderer! It's ludicrous!"

  "I gave you reasons," he argued, his eyes sparking with anger, "and you said you didn't believe me! I've spent a lot of my life working with men of various sorts and of umpteen nationalities and I've learned to trust my gut instinct. When you live in an entirely male community some things get very basic. Your life might depend on one of those guys one day, and you have to know which ones you'd trust, and which will literally knife you in the back if circumstances—in their eyes—warrant it. Like recognizing the difference between a harmless dolphin and a killer whale can mean life or death when you're down at the bottom of the sea. Drummond might never have physically lifted a finger against another human being, but I tell you, at heart he's a killer."

  He was so convincing, so matter-of-fact certain, that despite herself Camille was shaken. Surely he couldn't be right? She said, "All you're saying is you have a feeling about him!" But she didn't sound nearly as forceful or scornful as she'd meant to.

  "I've never been wrong before."

  "You're wrong about me! And if I were part of your preposterous plot, why would I sign my share of the boat over to James?"

  Apparently he hadn't thought of that. "Maybe," he said slowly, "if you really don't believe in the treasure, you made a deal to ensure you didn't walk away with nothing. So you settled for a bird in the hand, with a little sugar on top. His offer was for way more than the market value."

  "I haven't made any deal—at least, only to sell the boat."

  His mouth tightened. "Either way, I can't trust you," he said flatly. "And if you're innocent I hate to think what he might do to get you to tell what you know now."

  He lifted his head, and she heard what he'd heard, the beat of a motor coming rapidly closer. He turned and left the cabin, closing the door behind him. She heard him cross the saloon, then the motor came close and cut out, and Brodie's voice shouted Rogan's name. As she slid off the berth a bump and a shudder flung her down again.

  After struggling back to her feet she went to the door and tried it, finding with some surprise that Rogan hadn't locked it again. She heard Brodie say something and laugh, and Rogan growl an indistinct reply.

  She emerged onto the deck to see that the sun was rising and they were anchored just outside an unfamiliar cove where the cliffs rose sheer above the waves that dashed against them. The men had somehow roped the two craft alongside each other, and were manhandling bundles and boxes from the motorboat to the ketch, stowing them in the cargo space.

  Rogan ignored her, hefting a couple of air tanks onto the deck. There was a stack of them waiting to be loaded. Brodie said, "Hi, Camille."

  "Has Rogan told you what he's doing?" she demanded.

  Shooting a look at his friend, Brodie told her, "Said you're on a trip to the Islands."

  "He may be! Will you take me back to Mokohina?"

  Brodie stopped with another dive tank in his arms, then as Rogan snapped his fingers handed it over.

  Looking confused, Brodie said, "Did you have a fight?"

  Rogan put the tank down and said, "She's not going anywhere with you."

  Camille informed Brodie, "He's abducting me."

  Brodie seemed uncertain, and even more puzzled. Looking at the fierce red weals on Rogan's face, he said, "Did she do that?"

  Grinning faintly, Rogan touched the backs of his fingers to his cheek. "There's a tigress under that sweet exterior."

  Sweet! She'd give him sweet! Camille glared.

  Bewilderment showed on Brodie's face. "Um…why?"

  "Call it a lovers' quarrel," Rogan said.

  "I am not your lover!" Camille stated hotly.

  Rogan turned a cocked eyebrow to her, and she flushed. "I'm being held against my will!" Even to herself it sounded melodramatic, unlikely.

  Brodie looked from one to the other of them, obviously shocked. "Rogan wouldn't…I mean, he wouldn't…um…against your will…?"

  "She was willing enough last night," Rogan said. "Or this morning, rather. Early."

  Camille felt her cheeks burn. "You're twisting things! What you've done is a criminal offence!"

  Brodie was incredulous. "You're not saying Rogue attacked you?"

  Rogan said quietly, "Tell him, Camille."

  If she said yes Brodie would take her back to Mokohina, she was almost certain. Even if he didn't quite believe her, he was the kind of man who wouldn't leave a woman in the power of an accused rapist.

 
; Both men waited for her answer.

  "No," she said. "He hasn't physically hurt me. He locked me in the cabin and sailed off in the night."

  Brodie's expression changed to relief, though he was obviously troubled. He turned back to his friend. "I guess you had a reason?"

  "Several," Rogan told him. "One of them being she's safer with me."

  Camille made a scornful sound, and Brodie frowned. "She's in danger?"

  "She may not think so, but yes. Look, I don't have time to go into the whole story. Trust me, Brodie. And keep quiet about all this, okay?"

  Ignoring him, Camille said, "Abduction is a serious crime, Brodie. Do you want to be an accessory after the fact? Take me back with you and I promise I won't go to the police. Nothing will happen to Rogan."

  Brodie thrust a hand through his unruly hair. "I dunno, Camille. If Rogue says—"

  "Oh, for heaven's sake!" Camille burst out. "Is anything Rogue says or does okay with you?"

  "Rogue wouldn't do this without a damn good reason. Sorry, Camille," he added uncomfortably.

  She saw it was useless trying to persuade him. All she could do was seethe until he cast off, and she watched in despair and disbelief as he turned his boat and headed back along the coastline in the morning light.

  Rogan replaced the forward hatch and pulled up the anchor. She gauged the distance to the shore, but she had no hope of reaching it before he saw her, and the cliff looked unscaleable. They could be miles from civilization. This might even be an uninhabited island.

  The sails snapped open, and Camille huddled in the cockpit and tried not to watch Rogan walking easily about the boat, checking ropes and sails, bending to tighten something, standing and steadying himself with a hand on a mast while he gazed about them at the deepening blue of the sea.

  "Breakfast time," he said to Camille at last, the first words they'd spoken since Brodie left.

  "I'm not hungry."

  "Suit yourself." Rogan shrugged and disappeared into the galley. The smell of frying bacon wafted to her, and she got up and stepped from the cockpit onto the narrow deck, clutching at the nearest rope. Land was still visible, but they were too far out for her to swim for it.