Dangerous Waters

by Laurey Bright

  "I'm not scared," she lied valiantly. "I'm angry!"

  "Sure," he said, patently disbelieving, his tone soothing. "I guess I can't blame you. You look cold. Do you want me to fetch you something warmer to put on?"

  Surely if he meant to kill her he wouldn't be concerned about her being cold? Beginning to feel foolish, she shook her head. "I'm all right."

  Rogan regarded her for a second, then nodded. "Let me know if you need anything."

  * * *

  Camille had nursed every intention of giving Rogan no cooperation, speaking only when necessary. But unless she skulked in her cabin she couldn't totally avoid him.

  The vastness of the ocean all around was awe-inspiring, and its ever-changing colors, from green to turquoise blue to indigo and even purple on the horizon, were hypnotically beautiful. The intense blue of the sky was sometimes cloudless, sometimes held wisps of white or gray, or plump luminous cushions of overflowing cumulus gilded at the edges.

  At night the stars spilled their splendor across the vast sky, so bright and close it was almost possible to believe she could reach out and touch them, while the moon gave a pearly sheen to the restless water.

  Her resolution not to share any of these pleasures made them less satisfying. Despite the beauty all around, and the number of books on board that she read for hours at a time, after three days she was close to screaming with boredom.

  Rogan was always busy—studying charts, altering the angle of the sails, or scowling over the radar screen, when he wasn't at the wheel. She couldn't help admiring his handling of ropes and sails that looked so complex and confusing. There was a guilty, poignant pleasure in just being with him.

  In the saloon she found a sailing manual with diagrams of rigging and equipment, and instructions. She settled down in a corner of the cockpit to learn something about her enforced environment.

  When Rogan went below she took the manual and began to walk about the boat, identifying the sails and the sheets—which were ropes, not sails—and the heavy iron cleats for securing them, that were a tripping hazard on the deck.

  "What are you doing?"

  Her hand on a line, Camille turned to the sound of Rogan's voice. "Trying to find out how this thing works."

  "Why?" He came closer, angling his head to see the book in her hand. "If you were thinking of shoving me overboard and sailing her yourself, I'd think again…"

  "I'm not that stupid!"

  "So," he said, "can you remember what this is?" He pointed to a sail.

  "The mizzen?"

  "Good girl. Do you know what it does?"

  Learning that she could manipulate the boat, make it obey her, gave her a satisfied sense of accomplishment. That evening she cooked, and they ate on deck while the sunset polished the water with gold and set the few clouds hanging over the horizon on fire. The silence was less hostile. She was too tired, she told herself, to maintain her antagonism.

  In the following days they slipped into an edgy truce. The boat was a world of its own, and after ten days Camille lost count of time and dates. She seemed to be living in limbo.

  One evening Rogan said, "You'd better take a seasickness pill before you go to bed. The weather isn't looking good for the next twenty-four hours. And make sure the portholes in your cabin are closed."

  In the night Camille woke to find the boat pitching in a way she'd never before experienced. Waves thumped heavily against the hull, and as she threw back her sheet she saw water spitting at the portholes.

  Hurriedly she pulled on cotton shorts and a shirt, then a pair of sneakers, staggering against the alarming movement of the boat, and lurched into the saloon. Rogan must be on deck. She could hear rain, and she donned a slicker from the wet-weather locker under the companionway.

  She made her way up to the cockpit and was immediately attacked by driving rain that stung her eyes, so she couldn't at first see Rogan and had to quell a spurt of panic. Suppose he'd been washed overboard? Ghostly white-tipped waves seemed to be coming at them from all directions. Then his voice came loud against the sound of the water hissing over the bow and thumping along the deck. "Get below!"

  She could just make out his dark figure battling with a recalcitrant sail. The boat heeled, more water washing over it in a furious rush, and Rogan bellowed, "Look out!"

  Camille grabbed at the nearest solid object, then quickly clipped on a safety line before making her way along the madly swaying deck.

  "I told you to go below!" A wave foamed over the bow and traversed the entire deck, pulling at their ankles and calves.

  "Let me help!" she shouted against the wind's wail and the fierce whack of the water. "Tell me what to do."

  Another wave made her stagger and gasp. Rogan cursed, then handed her a line. "Keep that taut, and when I tell you, start tying the sail." Then he turned to work at containing the snapping sail while the boat was thrown about on ill-tempered waves like a giant's toy.

  She had never been so scared in her life.

  Chapter 14

  Once Rogan had accepted that Camille wasn't going to leave him to it, obeying without question every order except to return below where she'd be dry and warm and safe, they faced the waves and the wind together. Her heart leaped in fear each time a wall of dark water threatened to bury them, but somehow Rogan sent the craft soaring over the slavering crests and sliding down the other side. His grim confidence was a reassurance she clung to while they fought to keep the boat afloat and in one piece.

  Toward dawn the wind abated and the rain stopped, and gradually the water became calmer under a sheet of gray sky. They were wet and exhausted and Camille's arms and shoulders and back ached. But they had weathered the storm. Now she knew exactly what it meant.

  Too wrung out to talk, they watched the increasing glow that warned of the imminent arrival of the sun. Camille didn't remember when she'd been so alive, as if every nerve was alert, every particle of skin newly sensitive. She felt the coolness of the still-brisk wind, tasted the salt tang of blown spray, smelled the ocean and the old wood of the boat and the subtly erotic scent of the man beside her.

  "We made it," Rogan said, his arm about her shoulder.

  Instinctively she turned, lifting her face, and saw the brief hesitation in his before he lowered his head and their mouths met, damp and salty and cold, but instantly warmed.

  He drew her closer, parted her lips under his, and kissed her so superbly she felt floaty and soft and beautiful, despite being soaked to the skin and exhausted. She raised her arms and held him, wanting the kiss to last forever, wanting not to think, only to experience this moment as if it were the rest of her life.

  Even when it became an explicit statement of desire, a carnal claim to her mouth, her body, she didn't protest, nor at the possessive caress of his hand over her breast, her rib cage, the curve of her hip and behind.

  It was Rogan who broke off the kiss and moved her hands from about his neck, holding them tightly between his own as he muttered, "I have to sail this damned boat. We're on the edge of a hurricane here…"

  Coming back to reality was a shock. Camille blinked at him, trying to reestablish some kind of equilibrium. What had she been thinking of?

  While they'd been battling the storm together all that mattered was keeping the boat afloat and themselves safe. But the relief and elation at realizing they had come through unscathed had needed some physical expression.

  "You'd better go below and dry off," Rogan said. It sounded like an order.

  "What about you?" He was just as wet as she was.

  "I'll be fine."

  She didn't argue. A long hot shower would have been nice, only at sea the water was strictly rationed. Instead she rubbed herself down vigorously with a towel and put on clean dry clothes from undies to cotton shorts and a T-shirt. Then she scrambled some eggs that had been preserved in petroleum jelly, made coffee, and took them up to Rogan.

  He smiled at her somewhat quizzically when she presented them. "Thanks. And thank
s for helping out. You were terrific."

  "Just looking after my own skin," she told him. "I've no desire to drown at sea."

  He grinned. "Back to normal, are we?"

  She didn't feel normal, she felt confused and chagrined. For a short time she'd forgotten how they'd come to be here, forgotten his perfidy and her own pride, lost in his arms. Without answering, she turned away.

  Rogan gave a sharp sigh. "Okay," he said, "I get the message. Here—you'd better have this."

  Reluctantly turning back to him, she saw he was holding out his hand, her cabin key resting on his broad palm. "If it'll make you feel safer," he suggested.

  She had never feared being sexually assaulted by him. Even when she'd briefly had nightmare thoughts about possible murder, rape hadn't figured in them.

  Gratitude was an inappropriate reaction. He'd had no right to appropriate the key and imprison her in the first place. But the unexpected gesture was oddly warming, and she was horrified to discover a threat of tears pricking at the backs of her eyes. She snatched up the key and fled down the companionway.

  After fighting for their lives together, it simply wasn't possible for her to maintain the distrustful distance she'd established between them. In the following days Camille took her turn at keeping watch, and mealtimes were no longer silent. Although there was undeniable tension in the air, when Rogan pointed out a spouting whale not far off Camille couldn't hide her awe and excitement, and when she turned to him he grinned back at her, sharing the moment.

  Several days after the storm a blue, cloudy smudge appeared on the horizon, gradually resolving into a tiny island hill, covered in thick, dense green except where gray rocky outcrops refused any foothold for plants. A rim of sun-bleached sand edged part of the island. White frills of foam about a mile from the shore warned of a protective reef surrounding it, but beyond the breakers the water was tranquil and jade-green.

  Other islands appeared and disappeared, until the boat approached a ring of small, sandy atolls, no more than a few feet above the water, surrounding a huge lagoon of translucent blue-green like Rogan's eyes.

  Slowly they sailed closer, keeping away from the telltale white water. One oval islet held three coconut palms with gracefully bowed trunks and gently moving green leaves, and close by a tiny hump of white sand had room for only one tree rising against the tropical sky.

  The three musketeers and the young latecomer, D'Artagnan. Barney's fanciful description had been apt.

  Rogan approached with caution, sounding for hidden hazards, and anchored securely well clear of the reef. He shucked the jeans he wore, revealing swim briefs that did nothing to conceal his magnificent masculinity, pulled on a wet suit, and picked up a mask and snorkel.

  "You're not using scuba?" Camille asked in surprise.

  "Not yet." He adjusted the mask. "Just looking around."

  After he'd slipped into the water she soon lost sight of the snorkel, and it seemed a long time before he climbed back on board and stripped again to his briefs. Unwilling to admit how relieved she was to see him, Camille averted her eyes from his damp, near-naked body, despising her predictable and shaming reaction. "Did you find anything?"

  He pushed back his wet hair and wiped salt water from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Coral and fish and crabs. How would you like fresh crabs for dinner?" He held out a bag that had half a dozen encased in mesh.

  They feasted on the crabs while the setting sun turned the white sands of the atolls pink and the palm trees became silhouettes against the fading sky, their restless leaves stilled when night descended on them and stars spread like gems on velvet over the blackness above.

  When she finally roused herself to go to bed, darkness had wrapped about them like a feather quilt, but the moon showed her Rogan's face, starkly lit as he turned his head and said quietly, "Good night, Camille."

  She had a mad urge to say, Come with me. Such a night demanded some kind of homage, a pagan sacrificial offering. The tropical warmth, the subtly scented air, the rhythmic rocking of the boat, the brilliant fecundity of the stars, created a mood of reckless eroticism.

  Frightened by the power of her instincts, Camille descended the companionway and locked herself in the cabin—not to keep Rogan out, but to ensure she didn't fling open her door and invite him in when she heard him leave the deck.

  In the morning Rogan moved the boat farther round the lagoon and went snorkeling again. This time he emerged with barely concealed triumph in his face as he pulled off his mask. "There's something down there," he said. "I'll have a bite to eat and then suit up for a dive."

  "I want to come."

  He scarcely glanced at her. "Wreck diving on a coral reef isn't for beginners. I'll have enough to do looking after myself. There are all kinds of risks."

  When he had disappeared into the green depths Camille experienced a few minutes of unreasoning fear. If anything happened to him down there, how would she know? She pictured a ghostly ship sitting on the bottom, broken masts ready to snag a harness or tear at a wet suit, tangled cables that would hold a diver in a death grip until he ran out of air or ditched his tank and surfaced too fast, risking the dreaded bends.

  If that happened he could die, or be crippled for life.

  There were probably sharks in these waters. Though he'd said they seldom bothered divers. She reminded herself that Rogan had years of experience and was certainly not stupid. He wouldn't take unnecessary risks.

  Even with the lure of treasure before him?

  A strange noise drew her attention to the sky, and she looked up to see an airplane rapidly approaching. It was quite small, a silver-winged intruder that made a pass over the boat, then another before flying off in the direction it had come from, leaving behind silence except for the wind setting the palm leaves clacking, and the insistent boom of the waves against the reef.

  The water gleamed and glistened under the blaze of the sun. The Sea-Rogue shifted as if trying to escape the anchors that held it. Waves washing over the reef sent a fine misty spray into the air. A single seabird with outstretched wings floated in the air above the deserted lagoon.

  Camille had never felt so alone.

  The deeper Rogan dived the less time he could spend on the bottom, and the more he'd need to allow for decompression stops on the way up. She had no way of knowing if he was still down or on his way up—or if he'd got into trouble on the bottom.

  Her eyes hurt from scanning the sea and watching the buoy marking the shot line that would guide his ascent. She clutched at the rail, feeling under her tense palms the scored marks where he'd showed her his and Granger's initials. When he finally surfaced and clambered to the deck she said tightly, "I thought you'd drowned down there!"

  He didn't say anything until he'd lowered his tank gently to the deck and removed his mask. "Would you care?" He began stripping off the suit.

  "Of course I'd care!" Her voice was shrill despite her effort to steady it. She'd have been devastated, racked with pain and regret. Afraid she'd betrayed herself, she said, "I can't sail this blasted boat, for one thing!"

  Peeling the suit from his legs, Rogan laughed, casting her a glance.

  "It's not funny!" she snapped.

  The laughter died. "You were worried."

  She compressed her lips, so she wouldn't scream at him.

  He left his gear on the deck and came close enough to place cool fingers against her cheek, his eyes studying her with a too-concentrated stare. "I'm touched."

  She batted his hand aside. "Don't patronize me! And keep your hands to yourself!" It was all too tempting to lie her cheek against his hand, lean on his bare chest and give way to tears of relief and release from tension.

  His face went blank for a moment. He said, "I won't leave you all alone, Camille."

  But he would, he would…if she gave in to her emotions and let him take her heart, her life, in his hands. "You're like my father," she whispered. "And yours. All they cared about was their damned treasure h
unt."

  The brilliant aqua gaze didn't waver. "I care about you, Camille. And your father did too."

  Her chin lifted. "How do you make that out?"

  "Why else did he keep pictures of you…and the letter you wrote him when you were a little girl?"

  "What letter?" Sickeningly, she knew. Stupid, perhaps, to be embarrassed by something she'd done when she was five years old. But the small, cold lump of lonely hurt she'd felt then had never entirely left her—it was still hiding away in a locked corner of her heart.

  "You should talk to your mother," he said. "Ask her if Taff didn't try to get in touch with you."

  She recalled the last time she'd spoken with Mona. The static had made nonsense of what she was trying to say, and Camille had been too stressed at the time to analyze it, torn between reassuring her mother and wondering if she ought instead to be screaming for help.

  But now that she thought it through she realized she could make sense of it. I didn't take the trouble to keep him away from you all those years, only to have you go through the same thing I did.

  "No!" she said aloud, her eyes fixed on Rogan almost accusingly. Surely her mother wouldn't have been so cruel? She thought of the many times she'd asked when her father was coming back, only to be told on an acrid note she had been too young to understand that he was too busy to bother with them. Or, with a bitter laugh, that maybe he'd remember their existence someday. And finally that he'd forgotten them and she might as well stop asking and forget him too. "You're not the only child in the world without a father," Mona had reminded her in exasperation. "We can get along quite well without him."

  Of course she'd been right on both counts, but Camille had been ten years old before she could make herself believe that she would never see her father again. It wasn't as though he was dead, like the father of one of her friends. Other children at school had divorced parents but still saw their fathers on regular or special occasions, even holidaying with them.

  "Ask her," Rogan reiterated.

  He turned away to pick up his gear, and she said jerkily, "Did you find anything?"