In Too Deep

by Tracey Alvarez

  Piper gaped at West like he’d suddenly sprouted horns and a forked tail.

  They always squabbled growing up—usually the kind that ended with someone getting dunked in the ocean—and the easy rivalry between her and her brother’s mates had been a fun way to blow off steam.

  That’s what she expected this time. A nice, harmless shouting match that would bury the real reasons for her irritation. They would wind each other up, yell a bit and then everyone would feel better. But she hadn’t anticipated the ice in West’s blue eyes as they examined her without a glimmer of remembered affection.

  She swallowed back a bitter dose of hurt. “Get your hands off me.”

  His palm burned her cool flesh, each finger branding a stripe on the soft skin of her inner arm. West moved closer, the few inches of height he had on her blocking out the sun. Hell, his size had less to do with blocking out the sun than just standing close to him. He dazzled her. And that alone made Piper want to punch him.

  But she refused to shrink back, to allow him to see how his hand on her bare skin affected her. She latched onto her anger, pulling a memory from her days in police training college to reinforce it.

  “More aggression!” her instructor bellowed at her when she’d participated in training exercises tackling suspects who were really other cops in jumpsuits. “You’re a cop arresting a suspect who could have a concealed weapon. Don’t give him a frickin’ cuddle and kiss!”

  More aggression, that’s what she needed. Definitely not thoughts of cuddles and kisses with the man who hadn’t blinked from examining her in the last ten seconds. She moistened her suddenly dry lips, and froze when something changed in his gaze at the flick of her tongue. Heat flared, heat that melted the ice of only a moment ago.

  Piper narrowed her eyes so she wouldn’t see his gaze track down to her lips again. Because she was mad, not thinking about the reasons why he might find her mouth interesting. “Remove your hand before I start breaking fingers.”

  Aggressive enough? Better than the alternative of, “Kiss me you crazy fool.”

  His smile was insolent as he slid his fingers along the sensitive underside of her arm, finally pulling them away. “I remember you begged me to touch you, once upon a time.”

  Yet another cringe-worthy moment in her past. “Aw, you still think about me sometimes? That’s sweet. But that was before I became a stone cold bitch.”

  His eyebrows rose. Yeah, she’d heard the whispers after her father’s memorial service when she’d stood at her mother’s side, dry-eyed and stoic. More like catatonic with guilt and grief, but hey, that wasn’t quite as juicy.

  “You want to order me around at Due South, go ahead, if it makes you feel all alpha. But you don’t get to tell me what to do in the water.” She jabbed him in the chest. “And you sure as shit don’t get to put your hands on me.”

  West wrapped his larger hand around hers, gently forcing her finger back into her fist. “Since being near me is so damn unbearable, why don’t you hop on the next ferry and run back to the city. We’ll all understand you just couldn’t cut it. It’s not like you haven’t run before.” His voice, smooth and slightly bored, could’ve been reciting an inventory list.

  Piper’s chin lifted, her treacherous heart hammering over and over against her breastbone. “I’m not leaving until my brother’s home is safe. Deal with it.”

  West brushed her hand away from him as if the feel of her skin was repellent. So she stalked—if one could stalk on a shifting surface with neoprene jammed in one’s butt cheeks—past him into The Mollymawk’s galley.

  ***

  Hadn’t it been fun rowing Piper back ashore after mooring The Mollymawk? West snorted. Stony silence to the nth degree—like that wasn’t a blessing. He dragged the dinghy up Halfmoon Bay beach while Piper sashayed off like the queen of the frickin’ island.

  Ben, who sat on a park bench overlooking the beach, didn’t merit a word from his sister. She dropped the little digital camera in his lap and swept past, crossing the road to Due South. If she tipped her nose any higher the woman would trip over her bright green sneakers.

  West finished pulling the dinghy out of the reach of the incoming tide and shoved the oars inside it.

  “How did you piss her off this time?” Ben crutched his way over to the line of boulders separating grass from sand.

  “I don’t need to do anything to piss her off.”

  “Just being alive, hmm?”

  Yeah. And being dumb enough to stop breathing when Piper was in the water with the shark—a visceral reaction of wanting her out of harm’s way. He’d nearly dragged her out of the cage and made a fool of himself after she flipped him the bird. Later she’d displayed the same smugness as when they were kids, when Glenna would instruct him and Ben to, “Keep Piper with you and stay out of trouble.” Inevitably they’d all fail to do the second part and Glenna would give them the look. A ball-shriveling look that made him want to kick Piper’s ass for raising hell.

  So this morning’s episode had been a knee-jerk reaction. She hadn’t been in any real danger. They’d dived with Piper’s dad, Mike, for years. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d lost a regulator. Mike would knock it out of their mouths while teaching the three of them to scuba. “Be prepared for equipment failure or for something to go tits-up. You need to know what to do.”

  A lost regulator was no biggie. Yet he’d raised his voice, grabbed her arm, let Piper bait him, because it was easier than admitting she got to him. Still got to him. He nudged the blades of the oars further into the dinghy and glared at the smirk on Ben’s face.

  West climbed over the boulders and punched his arm. “You owe me for putting up with your sister’s crap.”

  How would he get through six more weeks? He already wanted to kill her. Kill her, but maybe do her first. He’d never claimed to be a gentleman when Piper was concerned.

  Ben snickered. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll hand over my first born child, pinky swear.”

  “Dickhead.” West brushed past Ben, shoulder checking him before he slumped onto the park bench. He flung his head back to stare at the sky.

  Muted thumps as Ben hopped over to sit next to him, his crutches clanking together as they rested against the wood slats. “Be nice to the cripple, man. Jeez, didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”

  “No. She left me to turn feral—and don’t start with the yo’ mama jokes.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re having an I miss my mummy moment and I’m being insensitive—wanna hug it out?”

  West extended an arm without turning his head and shoved. But a smile kicked up at the corner of his mouth when Ben recovered and shoved him right back. Ben was the only person on this island he would put up with this shit for.

  They’d always been mates, always had the other’s back. In his earliest memories, eight-year-old Ben punched one of the Reynolds boys when they teased West for playing the piano like a girl. He couldn’t remember now if it were Gavin or his older brother, Seth. Most likely Gav, since he’d always been a nasty little prick, while Seth, at least, grew out of being a complete asshat.

  “So,” Ben said after a comfortable pause. “Piper gave you a bit of grief then?”

  “She’s a pain in the butt. A genetic trait, I reckon.”

  “You gonna say that around my mother?”

  “I may be having a crappy day, which is turning into a crappier week, but I haven’t got a death wish. Yet.” West sat up and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs.

  “I know some good spots to hide your body if you want me to permanently end your misery.”

  West grunted.

  “You told her to go home, didn’t you?” Ben said.

  “What makes you think that, Einstein?”

  “Because I know you. And I know her being here has shoved a burr up your ass.”

  West trained his eyes on a group of kids racing across the beach, a sand-covered terrier hot on their heels. Back to that again. This morn
ing Ben’s reaction seemed a normal, big-brother deal. But now? Ben and West double dated with Piper and Erin at the girls’ final school ball, but had Ben guessed he and Piper had been sleeping together for a few weeks before it? Or was he just fishing? Best mate or not, this was one conversation they weren’t having.

  “I don’t care that Piper’s back and I told her if she couldn’t cut it, she should hop on the next ferry. You, on the other hand, have a cactus-sized burr up your ass about your sister, and have had for years.”

  Ben snorted. “There’s nothing up my ass but the sun shining out of it, thanks.”

  “You resent her for becoming a cop when it was your dream.”

  The smile switched off and Ben’s knuckles flared white around the crutch’s hand grip. “More my old man’s dream—and that dream’s ancient history. I resent her for much more mature reasons now.”

  “Sure. Like coming back here to help you out?”

  “You flipping sides now? You always had a soft spot for her.”

  West cleared his throat and stood. “Sod off. She’s only here to rub your nose in her generous gesture, then she’ll swan off back to the city.”

  “Exactly.” Ben leaned back on the bench and crossed his ankle on top of his bulky cast. “So she’s gone to buy a ferry ticket then?”

  “No.”

  “You should’ve known better than to issue a challenge to Piper. She’ll never leave now.”

  West glanced over at Due South. Piper, Shaye, Kezia, and Kezia’s little girl, Zoe, walked through the doorway to one of the outside tables, talking and laughing.

  “Yeah, she will.”

  As soon as things got tough—and they would—Piper would run. Just like she always did.

  Only this time she wouldn’t take his heart with her.

  ***

  Piper entered Due South, her neck muscles knotted from the effort of not glancing over her shoulder at West and Ben still on the beach.

  Touches of Shaye and her mother were everywhere in the restaurant. Ten years ago the dining room of Due South could’ve been labeled “shabby chic”—minus the “chic.” Interior design didn’t figure much in Bill Westlake’s world and he hadn’t changed anything since his wife left the island.

  But now Piper saw Shaye’s hand in the turquoise fish-themed watercolors on the whitewashed walls, the splashes of matching color in the woven flax flower arrangements. A smattering of late lunch diners lingered over their wine glasses and desserts—seated on elegant cane chairs that screamed her mother’s taste. Wicker baskets stacked with firewood sat beside an open fire, ready to be lit when the temperature dropped.

  Bill must’ve let her mother and sister go wild with the restaurant’s décor, but he’d left the bar the same as it’d always been. A man cave.

  A little girl of eight or nine kneeled on the sofa in front of the fireplace. Sitting beside her, a woman with a riot of espresso-brown curls read a newspaper. The girl peeked over the sofa back, watching her approach with twinkling dark eyes and a bold smile. Some of her foul mood evaporated and Piper grinned back. What a sweetheart!

  Shaye leaned against the service counter talking to a young Maori woman with a tribal tattoo poking out from the sleeve of Due South’s signature turquoise polo shirt. Shaye glanced at Piper’s face as she slipped onto one of the wooden stools lining the counter and said to the younger woman, “Better start on a chocolate milkshake after you’ve taken those drinks out. Extra shot of syrup.”

  Piper slipped her sunglasses up onto her head. “What are we, twelve?”

  “That scowl on your face tells me it’s a chocolate emergency. Lani, make it two shakes when you’re ready. We’ll grab Kez and Zoe and sit outside.”

  The young woman fired Piper a quick look before scooping up the tray of drinks and scooting out from behind the counter. “On it.”

  “Lani? As in Lani Hohepa?” Piper whispered as the younger woman moved away. “She’s like a little kid with freckles and posters of cute boy bands on her walls!”

  “Hon, that was nine years ago. She can vote now. Drink. Have sex with hot guys like Kip, the bartender.”

  “Little Lani Hohepa is sleeping with your bartender?” Piper craned her neck around.

  “No, you nut. But she could if she wanted to. Or if he did. He’s a hard one to figure out. Anyway, I can see you’re in a snit, but since we’re eating with people who don’t know you’re loveable under that scary bad-cop persona, you can suck up some sugar and tell me later about what gigantic jerks West and Ben are. Come and meet the girls.”

  “I’m not in a snit. I don’t do snits.” Piper followed Shaye across the restaurant.

  She was just indignant at West’s behavior. Okay, so her one finger salute may have been a little uncalled for, but she was a dive cop, goddammit. She’d been in hairier situations. And she most certainly did not panic.

  Shaye tapped the shoulder of the brunette with the newspaper. “Kez?”

  The woman’s dark gaze slid quickly past Shaye, her wide mouth splitting into a grin. Kezia folded the paper neatly and stood, her pretty floral dress floating around her knees.

  “This is my sister Piper, down from Wellington,” Shaye said. “Piper, my housemate and friend, Kezia Murphy. Her daughter Zoe’s got her head in the toy box over there.”

  Without Shaye introducing the little girl, the relationship between the two was obvious. They both had the same hint of the Mediterranean in their bold features and olive skin. And while Zoe was too cute in her tee shirt, so yellow it stabbed her brain, her mother was a knockout. Something all the local penis owners in Oban would’ve spotted. She should’ve hated Kezia on sight for being everything she would never be—petite, feminine and sweet.

  Then Kezia spoke, her voice slightly accented and with a natural soft rasp that would drive men wild. “If you need an accomplice to kick someone’s boy-bits, I’m your girl.”

  Not so sweet. So maybe she could forgive her for being small, and curvy, and with a voice of a phone sex worker. “Got anyone in mind?”

  “Whoever made you look like you wanted to spit nails when you walked in, cara.”

  “That would be Shaye’s boss. So I’ll have to take a rain check.”

  “Ah, well. It’d be a shame to damage someone so pretty.” Kezia pursed her lips thoughtfully. “We could hold him down while you muss up his hair.”

  “That’d teach him,” said Shaye.

  Piper laughed, but before she could speak a little voice interrupted. “I’m Zoe and I’m eight-and-a-half. Are you really a policeman?”

  Kezia’s daughter stood holding loosely on to her mother’s arm.

  “Hi, Zoe. I’m Piper, and I’m twenty-seven-and-a-third and yes I am a policeman—well, woman really.”

  “Cool.” Zoe cocked her head, and chocolate brown curls bounced. Piper bit her lip to prevent a gooey “aww” from slipping out. “Do you have a gun?”

  “Zoe!”

  “Mamma—I’m just asking.” She rolled her eyes in a theatrical fashion and turned back to Piper.

  Piper patted her hip pockets and frowned. “Darn, I must’ve left my gun in my other shorts.”

  Zoe giggled, covering her cherubic lips with a small hand. Then her eyes widened and shifted to a serious confidentiality. “Did you know in America last year over thirty-one thousand people died from guns? Thirty-one thousand!”

  Oh my God. She loved this kid already. “Really? That many?”

  Piper tuned out the huff of laughter from Shaye and Kezia’s muttered, “Sweet mother of God,” followed the soft slap of palm meeting forehead.

  Zoe nodded. “I read it on the internet.”

  The weight of the morning’s tension oozed out of Piper’s muscles. This was shaping up to be a fun lunch.

  ***

  Conversation flowed under the blue-tinted shade of the sun umbrella while they enjoyed their lunch. West arrived at their table with a charming smile for Kezia, Zoe and Shaye, but his gaze switched to hooded and cool when
it landed on Piper.

  Kezia excused herself to go to the restroom while West and Shaye continued to talk shop. Zoe played on her mother’s phone, and West turned away from Piper, excluding her from their conversation. Not that she gave a hoot about orders, or stock, or whatever else they continued to yatter on about. She had nothing to offer their discussion other than a barely masked yawn, because yeah, she was only the lowly kitchen-hand—and no offence to young Fraser whose job she’d taken over; he was a sweetie. Unlike his boss.

  Piper bent over Zoe’s shoulder and whispered, “I’m going to the bathroom too—you okay here with Mr. and Mrs. Boring?”

  The girl giggled, but didn’t look up from the screen. “Uh-huh.”

  Piper wound her way through the restaurant and went through the doorway leading to the public restrooms in the main hallway.

  A concrete slab of a man had Kezia backed up against the hallway wall. He towered over her, meaty hands wedged on either side of her arms, preventing her escape. “How long are you going to use your dead husband and cancer kid as an excuse?”

  Kezia’s fingers curled claws in the crook of the guy’s elbows, trying to force him away. Neither noticed her frozen in the doorway.

  “Leave my husband and daughter out of it. They’re not why I won’t party with you, Gavin.” Kezia’s voice could’ve crushed ice. “Now, back off.”

  Gavin. Gav. Piper’s mind made a quick foray back to age sixteen when Gav cornered her in Ford and Harley’s bathroom at the twins’ eighteenth birthday party. He’d followed her in, locked the door and tried to kiss her, ramming his slimy tongue into her mouth, grabbing one of her breasts. He missed having the tip of his tongue bitten off by millimeters. Then she kneed him in the nuts and went at him with the closest weapon at hand, which happened to be a toilet brush—but hey, those bristles could hurt if shoved somewhere with enough force. She only had time to smack him across his stricken face a few times before West and Ben, hearing the commotion, busted inside. Her heroes pissed themselves laughing at her makeshift club, but dragged Gavin outside and taught him a lesson about respect.