When the smoke from the chili cleared, Yale put down his beer, which was probably his fourth. “Something just occurred to me. We’re all gonna know.”
“You’re slurring your words,” Arthur said impatiently. “We’re all going to know what?”
“We got a thief in our company,” Yale told Ivan brazenly. “Somebody took a formula. Worth millions. Maybe billions. Maybe worth nothing, too, because the data disappeared…but that’s just what occurred to me. The data’s gonna reshow up. In someone else’s company. Then whoever sold us out is gonna be very, very rich. And then we’ll know who it really was.”
“You’re drunk, Yale.” Purdue moved his colleague’s beer away. “This isn’t anybody’s business but ours.”
“But that’s the thing, you see? What would be the point of anyone stealing if they didn’t get rich from it? But the minute the money shows up, the minute somebody gets rich, then we’ll know who it is.”
Cate saw the men all looking at Harm, as if they all expected him to put a lid on Yale-to stop the whole conversation. Instead, he eased back in his chair, and she remembered what he’d said-that he’d brought his team on this trip, to a place where they’d be isolated, out of their normal realm. He wanted to see if his staff could, or would, unravel-so he could discover what happened if they did.
When no one picked up Yale’s conversational lead, he reached over the table and grabbed another longneck. “The thing that really messes with my head,” he said, “is that all this time, I thought it was Fiske. You know. Because it had to be the financial guy, because it’s always the financial guys who know how much money is really involved-and who know how to get to it.”
“I don’t see how it could ever have been Fiske,” Purdue said. “Fiske had a heart of gold.”
“So do whores, they say.”
“Watch your mouth,” Arthur scolded, but then quietly, “I think anyone can be tempted to do anything…if the stakes are high enough.”
“And maybe the stakes weren’t money. Maybe it was something more important than money,” Purdue offered.
“That’s stupid. There’s nothing more important than money-at least when it’s big money.” Yale sighed, then let out a gigantic hiccup. “The thing is, if it was Fiske, then it’s almost the worst thing. Because the money might never show up. The formula might never show up. We not only won’t have the money or the data, but the world won’t have the damned cure. We’ll all be under a cloud of suspicion forever. You still suspicion us all, don’t you, Harm?”
“Suspicion isn’t a verb,” Purdue said with disgust, and hauled him to his feet. “That’s why I went to Purdue and you went to Yale. I wanted an education. You never got one. You don’t even know what you’re saying.” To the others, “I’m taking him back to the boat. Although I might have to roll him there.”
“I’ll go, too.” Hans stood, followed by Ivan. All of them ended up hiking back at the same time. As if reflecting the group’s mood, the clouds bunched up and produced another version of Alaska’s “summer rain”-drenching them in a downpour as they climbed aboard.
Cate retreated to the galley, where she cleaned and fussed and rearranged-and then did it all over again. Over the next hour, voices and sounds gradually faded away. She assumed everyone had caved below deck, needing rest after the long day, but there was no chance of her sleeping yet. She wandered through the empty salon, pushed open the doors to the aft deck. The deluge had stopped, the skies were just barely dripping, and the lightning had faded to a luminescent pearl-gray.
Her pulse jolted when she saw Harm, leaning over the rail. The shadowed overhang concealed his expression, but his posture was both tense and exhausted. He was staring at the black-silver waters as if his worries were as impossibly deep as those seas.
Before Harm realized she was there, Cate figured she should back up and back off, head below. It was easy to guess he didn’t want company-much less hers.
Since she never seemed to make the wisest choices, she edged closer instead. She didn’t say anything, just leaned over the rail right next to him. She felt his startled stiffening. Ignored it. He was as alone as a man could be, had no one to turn to. Maybe that wasn’t her problem…but she was the only one who seemed to be able to do something about it.
“I’m not good company right now,” he said.
He didn’t say go away, but he might as well have. “I can’t imagine you would be. After everything that happened today, I figured you might be in a mood to kick someone around. I’m not a bad kickee. You don’t owe me anything. I’m not in your company radar. And I’m tough as nails.”
“You’re not remotely tough as nails. And quit looking at me that way.”
“What way?”
He turned, just far enough so she could see his glower. “You think I won’t bite your head off-I will.”
“Go for it,” she urged him. “Bite.”
The conversation didn’t make much sense, but when he suddenly grabbed her…that made sense, she thought. He was pretty angry. Not at her, but at life. And at himself, she suspected, because he couldn’t solve unsolvable problems and find answers out of thin air-which he apparently expected himself to do.
So his hands were rough on her shoulders. He yanked her closer. His mouth slapped on hers, communicating pressure and dominance, and probably he intended to arouse fear in her. He was one pissed-off kahuna, all right.
Still, she didn’t back off and she didn’t kick back. She did what any other lunatic of a woman would do.
She melted. Right into him. Closing her eyes, feeling herself going soft and pliant all over. Feeling the rush of sensation when his kiss darkened, deepened, took.
Thrilling. Hells bells, it was a word out of her grandmother’s time, out of old movies in the forties in black-and-white. Real women weren’t thrilled by a guy’s kisses today. The whole idea was romantic and stupid.
Yet thrills kept shivering through her bloodstream, making her heart pound, making her knees feel weak. Making need shoot through her body with cat claws, sharp and real. It was just desire, she told herself. Nothing important. Just hormones.
But it didn’t feel like “just hormones.” His mouth felt like an answer to a question she’d never asked, the taste of him a spice and flavor she’d never known, the heat and power of him something her heart had craved her whole life-even if she’d never known it.
Her hands walked around him, closing around his waist, inviting the glue of his brick-hard chest against her soft breasts, his tense abdomen against her cushioning pelvis. Oh, yeah, she thought. This was worth dying for. Who knew?
When he suddenly jerked his head up, she just might have fallen if he wasn’t still holding on to her. She had to intake a good gulp of air, and even then, her head still felt foggy. His expression, she noted, was still glowering. But the anxiety and exhaustion and world of worry was gone. He was still mad.
But now, he was only mad at her.
“My God, you’re trouble,” he grumped.
“Watch it. Compliments go straight to my head.”
There. After that whole impossibly terrible day, she got a real smile out of him. Not that half-eaten grin he’d unwillingly let through in the café, but a real chuckle, a sign he’d thrown off a pound of that unbearable heaviness he’d been carrying around. But he removed his hands from her shoulders as if suddenly realizing his palms had been cooking on a hot stove, and immediately leaned back against the rail.