When the Sun Goes Down

by Gwynne Forster

  “I’ll see you later.”

  “Unless you want the job of assuring your passengers that there really aren’t any wild wolves howling on this ship, you certainly will see me later.”

  Her frown dissolved into a wide grin. “If I thought you were joking, I’d see if you’d really do that. But you look as if you might. I suppose sailing brings out the nuttiness in some people. See you at a quarter of seven. Jacket and tie are de rigueur.”

  To her delight, she had no serious requests from passengers for service that afternoon. No one seemed to have been left behind in Bahia, no children were lost on the boat, and no one had to fly home in a family emergency. For her, that constituted a banner day. At five o’clock, she hooked the land phone to the operator, closed her office, and went to her stateroom.

  Her ship-line phone rang as she walked into her room, and thinking that Carson might be her caller, she ran to answer.

  “Ms. Farrell speaking,” she said, remembering that she was the ship’s PR officer.

  “Hi, sis,” Gunther said. “I see you’re in Jamaica. When are you leaving there?”

  “Saturday morning. How’re things?”

  “Fine with me. We had a terrible storm the other night, and Father’s house got some damage. Riggs is taking care of it.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “Actually, it’s pretty serious, but the insurance will cover it, so not to worry. I hope Edgar stays in Las Vegas or somewhere until they’ve completed the repairs, because I don’t want to live in the same house with him.”

  She sat down, contemplating the consequences of that news. “No. I don’t, either. There wouldn’t be one minute of peace.”

  “Yeah, and it’s a pity. He thinks life’s screwing him, and he can’t see that he’s doing it to himself.”

  “And to us as well. Where will he stay?”

  “Riggs is trying to get the insurance company to pay for his lodging in a furnished apartment or a bed-and-board accommodation.”

  “I hope he can manage it.”

  “Right. I take it you’ll be back here sometime Sunday.”

  “That’s my plan. I gotta get ready for dinner. Here, nobody goes late to the captain’s table. See you later.”

  “Right on!”

  She dressed in a sleeveless, buttercup-yellow chiffon-silk dress that had tucks from waist to midhip, flared to an inch below the knee, and had just the right amount of décolletage. With her hair around her shoulder, gold bangles at her earlobes, and a beguiling perfume at her throat and wrists, she knew she was at her best. If she had doubted the effect, Carson’s gasp when he opened the door would have reassured her.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said, kissing her cheek, “and you ... you look perfect.”

  “Thanks. You’re not doing badly yourself,” she said of his towering good looks and flawless physique in a white shirt, blue and white striped tie, navy jacket, cream-colored slacks, and white shoes.

  “Thank you,” he said, and it occurred to her, not for the first time, that Carson didn’t pay much attention to his looks or that, if he did, he didn’t compare his own looks to that of other men. And it was just as well, because he towered over most in ways more than height.

  “We’re going down?” he asked when she pushed the Down button on the elevator. “I walked around this afternoon, and I thought I saw the restaurant on a higher floor.”

  “You did, but we’re not going there. We eat at the captain’s table.”

  “I’m impressed. Do you always eat with the captain?”

  “I’m fourth-ranking officer on this ship. If I were number six, I’d eat somewhere else.”

  “All right. I stand corrected. You can’t blame me for not wanting that guy in my territory.”

  She raised an eyebrow, but she decided to treat it as an innocent comment and not say anything. She’d promised not to see other men, but if he wanted serious territorial rights, he’d have to give her a reason and he’d have to make it plain and verbal. They entered the captain’s dining room, and it pleased her that the captain also had a female guest. Please God, don’t let it be his sister, or any other female relative.

  She walked with Carson to the head of the table. “Captain Meadows, this is Mr. Montgomery.”

  “Good to meet you,” the captain said in his deep, gravelly voice. “Welcome. I hope you’re enjoying the cruise.”

  “I am indeed, sir, and I’m delighted to have this opportunity to meet you.”

  The captain gestured toward the woman who sat at his right. “This is Ms. Warren. She hopes someday to make an honest man of me, and I’m hoping she doesn’t give up, but she’s a landlubber, and I can’t resist the water. Magda Warren, meet my PR director, Shirley Farrell, and her friend, Mr. Montgomery. We’ll be nine tonight. While we’re waiting for the others, let’s have some drinks.” Minutes later, the purser arrived with his wife and small daughter, followed by the ship’s doctor and her husband.

  Carson seemed to enter freely into the dinner conversation and to show enthusiasm for the ideas bandied around, but Shirley knew that his mind was really on her. With every pause in his speech, he focused on her. It didn’t make her nervous; rather, it excited her.

  After a memorable meal, they bade their dinner partners good night. “Would you like to see a movie, or dance?” she asked him. “There’s a kind of old folks’ orchestra playing waltzes, fox-trots, and calypsos on the other end. Or we could sit in one of the lounges and talk.”

  “Let’s find a quiet lounge. I don’t care to have to fight with a gang of dudes who want to dance with you.”

  “Humph. I ought to insist that we dance. It would be fun to see how you’d react with half a dozen women trying to get you to dance. They’re out for fun, and they leave the idea of decorum at home. Nowadays, a lot of women feel that they don’t have to wait until a man asks them to dance.”

  “I’m all for that, so long as I’m not the man.” He grabbed her arm. “Which way is the lounge?”

  She couldn’t help laughing. It had never occurred to her that anything would make Carson Montgomery panic. “It isn’t funny; women are used to having men act foolish over them,” he said, “but they’ve always showed better taste and common sense.”

  She laughed harder. “I think you mean that as a compliment. Let’s sit over here.”

  They sat beside each other, and he slipped his arm around her shoulder. “I’d like to go into the city tomorrow. Can you go with me?”

  “My time is your time.” He was being a bit more casual than she had expected. There didn’t seem to be any urgency about what he wanted for them. Patience, girl! Wait till he shows his hand.

  He squeezed her shoulder. “Thanks. If it’s too hot, or you’re not enjoying it, we’ll come back to the ship. Let’s eat breakfast on our deck and leave the ship at about ten?” She nodded. “A few nights ago, Ellicott City had a terrible storm, and your father’s house sustained some damage. It’s my understanding that the insurance company will pay for the repairs. I thought you should know.”

  “Thanks for telling me. Gunther called me this afternoon and told me, but he didn’t say how bad it was.”

  Carson told her what he had observed. “I think the worst damage was the uprooting of that cottonwood tree and the breaking off of the chimney top.”

  She sat up straight, but he pulled her back into the curve of his arm, surprising her. “Just wait until Edgar comes back,” she said, as if she hadn’t noticed his show of possessiveness. “He’ll twist that into something against him. Gunther said that Riggs is asking the insurance company to pay for Edgar’s temporary housing, and I hope it will, because when he gets back here from Las Vegas, he probably won’t have a penny.”

  “Oh, he may win something.”

  “He’s the type who would put it right back in the slot machines.”

  “I never did understand gamblers,” Carson said. “The stakes are always against them, and they always think they can beat those
odds.”

  They talked for a while, and she became restless, wondering what he wanted for them. She knew he cared, but she’d begun to suspect that he still hadn’t made up his mind about her.

  “Shall we explore the place a little?” he asked her. Then he laughed. “I forget that you know this ship inside and out. Come on. You’re much too beautiful to be stashed away in a stateroom.”

  But right then, she wanted to be in a stateroom, and she wanted to be with him. “I think I’d like a glass of tawny port,” she said. She didn’t need it, but sipping it was a way to prolong the evening.

  He stood, took her hand, walked with her to the bar lounge, ordered the wine for the two of them, and had a bottle of it and two glasses sent to her stateroom. “Charge that to 4116-A,” he told the bartender. Walking back to their rooms, he dropped her hand and eased his arm around her waist. At her door, she wondered why he stood looking down at her, his gaze unreadable.

  “Aren’t you coming in?” she asked him.

  “Are you sure you want me to?”

  “Why are you reticent, Carson? And you are, you know. You want more, a lot more, but you’re not asking for it, and I want to know why because this is definitely out of character.”

  “You don’t know how right you are. I’ve always avoided involvements with clients, because my integrity is a part of my license to do what I do. In a way, I’m working for you, and it doesn’t sit well with me. It never has. You’re right—I want more, and I need more, but I don’t want to appear to use you. You’re as important to me as the air I breathe.”

  “But what about me? Do you care about the way I feel and what I need?”

  “You know that isn’t a fair question. Imagine a hungry lion let loose among a herd of antelope. That’s how badly I want you. But if I can’t find that will and your brothers decide that I’m a charlatan who’s been using you, will you side with them or with me? I’m doing my best to make sure I don’t lose you.”

  She slid her key into the lock. “Really? I can think of other, more certain ways not to do it. Good night.”

  She went inside, closed the door, and looked around at the idyllic setting. Carson didn’t strike her as the kind of man who’d forgo such an opportunity. Most men would step up to the plate even if they merely liked the girl. She picked up the phone and dialed his room number.

  “What is it, Shirley?”

  “I’m perplexed. Are you sure you’re not married? I’m thinking that I don’t know any member of your family or any of your close friends. I don’t know much about you.” She knew from his long silence that he was battling his temper, but she waited. The ball was in his court.

  “Do you have the key that opens the door separating us?”

  “I have a key that fits it. Why?”

  “Open the door.”

  Her lower jaw sagged. It was not a request, but a command. A smart retort settled on the edge of her tongue, but she caught herself in time to restrain it. Both his words and his tone of voice said Don’t play with me. Maybe she’d taken a step too far. After debating with herself for a few seconds, she got up and opened the door.

  With his legs wide apart, his hands above his head, braced against the sides of the door frame, he seemed to her a figure of towering strength. She would have welcomed a smile, but there was none. He merely stood there, filling the space where the door had once been.

  She forced her teeth not to chatter the way they did when she was nervous, but it was as if marbles fought for space in her stomach, and perspiration dampened her undergarments. She stared at him, a thing of beauty, powerful and all man. Suddenly, her hand shot out and gripped his belt, in an attempt to pull him to her. He didn’t budge, but within a second, she was tight in his arms. He dumped her gently on his bed and sat on the edge of it.

  “Let that be the last time you goad me. What is there about me that you don’t like?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you think I’m hiding from you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  She sat up and looked him in the eye. “Everything.”

  He sucked in his breath, and his left hand went to his chest as if trying to regulate his heartbeat. His eyes darkened to stormy mists, and his nostrils flared.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked him.

  “Everything. Everything a man can get from a woman,” he said, “and I don’t want any other man near you.” He stood, lifted her from the bed, locked her body to his, and parted her lips with his tongue.

  Shock sped through her body as he pressed her to him in a boldness he hadn’t previously showed her. But if he thought she would protest, she let him know that he was giving her what she wanted, and she moved into him. He pulled his tongue out of her mouth and gazed down into her face. Unperturbed, she took his hand and rubbed it across the hardened nipple of her left breast. She knew he liked to suckle her, and the lights that flashed in his eyes told her she’d made the right move.

  “Yes,” he said. “Oh, yes. I’ve been looking at them all evening, and I want it. Give it to me.” She released her right breast and held it to his mouth. He took it, owned it, and owned her. Minutes later he stormed within her, unleashing the power of his masculinity until she screamed her release, and he followed her, triumphant in his ecstasy.

  “How do you feel?” he asked her after some minutes.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never had an experience like that. It was wonderful, but I don’t feel like myself. I—”

  He levered himself on his elbows and gazed down into her face. “You are something of a phony. Talking about your needs. You didn’t know what you needed, because that’s the first time you’ve had an orgasm.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Your behavior told me. I’m in this real deep, sweetheart. What about you? Did you mean what you said a few minutes ago?”

  “What did I say?”

  “I’m serious, Shirley. You told me that you love me.”

  She couldn’t help grinning, because she had what she wanted, and she meant to keep him. “Yeah. I did say that, didn’t I? My brothers will tell you that I always keep my word unless it’s impossible, and I never lie, even when the truth is painful. Does that answer your question?”

  “Not really, but it will do.”

  “Don’t I have a right to know whether you love me?”

  He tweaked her nose. “I’ve loved you for months. Didn’t you know it?”

  “Know that? I knew you cared for me, because you showed me in so many ways.” She wrapped her arms around him. “Carson, I’m so happy I want to shout it to the whole world.”

  Looking down at her, he let his hands stroke her face in gentle caresses. “Right now, I feel as if I’ve got planet Earth in my own hands. But I know that happiness is a fragile state, Shirley. A lot depends on your ability to trust and respect those you love. Kiss me.” She did. He rolled over to his side, pulled the cover over them, and slept.

  She lay in his arms, wide awake, trying to deal with what she’d experienced. She’d told him that there were more certain ways of binding her to him, but in truth she hadn’t known what she was talking about. Now she knew, and she was much less sure of herself. He’d just taught her that he could control her as easily as she could control him. Perhaps even more easily. And she understood his reluctance to become involved with a person with whom he had a business relationship, albeit a remote one.

  He took his time, she conceded to herself, because he knew what intimacy with her could bring, and she’d pushed him, because she hadn’t imagined how much it would change her and what it would do to her feelings for him. He had his hand draped loosely across her belly, but suddenly a smile slid over his face. He stroked her breast until her nipple hardened and her libido began to gnaw at her. After about twenty minutes of discomfort, she sat up.

  “Wake up, you.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Wake up. I’ll bet you’re n
ot really asleep. You’ve got me completely out of sorts.” Annoyed because he didn’t respond as she would like, she massaged him to an erection and crawled on top of him. He awakened then, flipped her over on her back, and gave her what she needed.

  “That’s the most wonderful compliment you could have paid me,” he said when she had climbed down from an incredible high.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d appreciate my waking you up.”

  “Few things can make a man as happy as hard evidence that his woman wants him. Never hesitate, and don’t concern yourself about my reaction. I can’t imagine not wanting you.”

  Chapter Ten

  Gunther had begun to look forward to Thanksgiving Day as the possible turning point in his life. If he found that Caroline suited his lifestyle, he’d work at strengthening their relationship and teaching her to care for him. He corrected that. He’d court her seriously, and if their attraction for each other intensified, he’d work at making it permanent.

  He ran his hand through his hair and lifted his left shoulder in quick, successive shrugs. “I must be getting desperate. No man is more vulnerable to stupidity than a desperate one. I’ll just see what happens.” He answered the phone on his desk.

  “Mr. G, Frieda said she’s been trying to get in touch with you. She said it’s very important.”

  “What’s her number?” She gave it to him. “Thanks, Mirna. I’ll call her.”

  He dialed the number that Mirna gave him. “Ms. Davis, please.”

  “Frieda speaking.”

  “Ms. Davis, this is Gunther Farrell. I understand that you wanted to speak with me. How are you?”

  “I’m good, Mr. Farrell. I need you to write me a reference. I been working at the hospital for ’bout eighteen years. They gave me a small raise when I got my LPN four years ago, but I feel they should give me more money, Mr. Farrell. Would you please write me a recommendation and say how much you paid me?”

  Was he hearing correctly? “Are you saying they pay you less than that?” he asked her.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He sucked his teeth in disgust. “That’s ridiculous. I’ll be glad to do it. What’s your address?”