“You’re stil referring to the boat, I hope.”
He flashed another grin, quick and crooked as lightning.
“Just making it clear. Once I line up another berth, another job, I’m gone.”
“Then we don’t have much time,” she said with more truth than he knew.
He stood there, shirtless, dripping, regarding her with glinting golden eyes. “How much time do you need?”
Her heart beat in her throat. Her mouth was dry. He thought her interest was sexual. Of course he did. That’s what she had led him to think.
“Why don’t we start with coffee,” she suggested, “and see what happens.”
He glanced at his companions, bundling sails on deck.
“Drinks, and you’ve got yourself a date.”
Lara swal owed. She had hoped to be back in Rockhaven by nightfal. But a few hours wouldn’t make that much difference to their safety. She wanted desperately to succeed in their mission, to prove herself to the school council. She rubbed her tingling fingertips together. If only she could touch him. But they were separated by more than four feet of water. “Five o’clock?”
“Seven. Where?”
She scrambled to cul a name from their frustrating foray along the waterfront earlier in the day. Someplace close, she thought. Someplace dark. “The Galaxy?”
His eyes narrowed before he nodded. “I’l be there.”
Relief rushed through her. “I’l be waiting.”
Justin watched her walk away, slim legs, trim waist, snug skirt, nice ass, a shining fal of dark hair to the middle of her back. Definitely a ten. “Hot.” Rick Scott, the captain, offered his opinion.
“Very,” Justin agreed.
Her face was as glossy and perfect as a picture in a magazine, her eyes large and gray beneath dark winged brows, her nose straight, her mouth ful — lipped. Unsmiling.
Why a woman like that would choose a dive like the Galaxy was beyond him. Unless she was slumming. He picked his way through the col apsed sails and coiled ropes on deck.
Which explained her interest in him even after she’d learned he wasn’t a rich yacht owner.
The stink of mineral spirits competed with the scent of brine and the smel s of the bay, fish and fuel and mudflats.
“The hot chicks always go for Justin,” Ted said. “Lucky bastard.”
Rick spat with precision over the side. He was tidy that way, an ex — military man with close-cropped graying hair and squinting blue eyes. “Next time you send the halyard up the mast, you can climb after it. Maybe some girl wil hit on you.”
A red stain crept under the younger crewman’s tan. “It was an accident.”
Justin felt a flash of sympathy. He remembered — didn’t he?
— when he was that young. That dumb. That eager to please. “Could have happened to anybody.”
He’d made enough mistakes himself his first few months and years at sea. Worse mistakes than tugging on an unsecured line. He wondered if the girl would be another one.
Dredging the disassembled winch out of the bucket of mineral spirits, he laid out the gears to dry. He was working his way north again like a migrating seabird, fol owing the coast and an instinct he did not try to understand. The last thing he needed was to get tangled up on shore.
“I’ll be waiting,” she’d said in that smooth, low voice.
He reached for the can of marine grease. Maybe she could slake the ache inside him, provide a few hours of distraction, a few minutes of release.
Mistake or not, he would be there.
This bar was a mistake, Lara thought. The Galaxy was four blocks from the waterfront, off the tourist path, in a rundown neighborhood of shaded windows, sagging porches, and chain fences.
She perched in one of the dingy booths, trying to watch the room without making eye contact with the sailors and construction types straddling the stools at the bar.
Or maybe not.
At least in these seedy surroundings, no one would question if she and Gideon helped one slurring, stumbling patron out to their car later that night.
Over the bottles, a TV flickered, competing with the glow of the neon signs. mil er. bud. pabst blue ribbon.
The air stank of bodies and beer, a trace of heavy cologne, a whiff from the men’s room down the hal. She folded her hands in her lap, her untouched Diet Coke leaving another ring on the cloudy table.
“Is it hot in here, or is it you?”
She looked up to find two sailors flanking her table.
“Excuse me?”
The larger sailor shifted closer, trapping her into the booth.
“You’re too pretty to be sitting here alone. Mind if we join you?”
She wasn’t alone. Gideon watched from an il — lit corner, his attention divided between her and the door.
She straightened on the sticky vinyl seat. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“I don’t see anybody.” The sailor — hovering drunkenly between cheerful and offensive — nudged his companion.
“You see anybody, T.J.?”
T.J.’s blurred gaze remained focused on Lara’s breasts.
“Nope.”
“Let me buy you a drink,” the first guy said.
“No, thanks,” Lara said firmly.
“There you are.” A male voice, deep and smooth, broke through the noise of the bar and the wail of the jukebox.
Somehow the sailors shifted, and there he was, tal and lean and attractively unshaven, looking perfectly at ease among the Galaxy’s rough clientele.
It was him. Her quarry from the boat.
Her heart, her breath, her whole body reacted. Her fingertips tingled. Wel, they would. She was attuned to him, to his energy.
He grinned at her. “Miss me?”
“You’re late,” she said.
Twelve minutes. Not enough to abandon her mission, but Twelve minutes. Not enough to abandon her mission, but enough to pinch her ego.
“Come on, baby, don’t be mad. You know I had to work.”
The newcomer’s eyes danced, and she realized abruptly he was acting, playing a part for the sailors who stil hemmed her into the booth. He lowered his voice confidingly.
“Thanks for keeping an eye on her. She gets. restless if I leave her alone too long. If you know what I mean.”
Lara kept her mouth shut with an effort. The shorter sailor guffawed. His companion shifted his weight like a bul, hunching his shoulders.
“I should pay you back,” the newcomer continued easily.
Man-to-man, she thought, making them like him, make them side with him, diffusing the tension. He moved again, angling his body so smoothly she almost didn’t see him slide his wal et from his front pocket.
Feet shuffled. Something passed hands. The sailors nodded to her and then ambled back to the bar.
Lara narrowed her eyes. “Did you just give them money?”
“I bought them a round.” His grin flashed. “Why not?”
“You paid them to go away,” she said, torn between outrage and admiration. She couldn’t imagine Gideon — or Zayin or any of the Guardians — dispatching an opponent by buying him a drink.
“Think of it as supporting our troops.” He met her gaze, his own wickedly amused. “Unless you’d rather we pound each other for the privilege of plying you with alcohol.”
“Of course not. Anyway, I already have a drink, thank you.”
He eyed her glass and shook his head. “Place like this, you order beer. In a bottle. Unless you want to wake up with something a hel of a lot worse than a headache.”
He turned to signal the waitress.
Lara appreciated his concern. But his caution would make her task more difficult. Her fingers curled around the handle of her bag on the seat beside her. Maybe it wouldn’t be necessary to drug his drink, she thought. Explanations were out of the question. He wouldn’t believe her, and they might be overheard. But surely she could rouse something in him, a response, a spark, a memory.