“I was married twice,” he said abruptly.
Now there was a conversation starter. “Yeah? That’s good.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Good? Most women run like hell when they hear that.”
She suspected they did. She suspected that was exactly why he’d mentioned that little bit of biographical information out of the blue. “My theory is that pretty much all men run from commitment after they’ve been burned twice. Even if they were to blame for doing a good share of the burning. Divorces are no fun for either side, or so I hear. Anyway, I appreciate your telling me. Now I know you’re safe.”
“Safe.” He rolled the word on his tongue, as if he’d never heard anyone, much less a woman, call him safe.
“Hey, I’m footloose. Not looking for a commitment. So it wouldn’t do for me to fall in love or you to fall in love with me. I don’t like hurting people-or being hurt. And you know what, Harm? I think you’ve been hurt enough.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you kiss like you mean it. That’s all I have to know.” She pushed off the railing. “The next time, though…”
He rolled his eyes. “I hear the warning in your voice. The next time, what?”
“The next time, don’t start something you don’t intend to finish.”
There now, she’d shocked him again. She walked away, thinking she’d done what she wanted to do-which was remove that exhaustion and stress from his face for a few minutes.
Of course, she’d also the same as dared him to make love to her.
As she locked the door to her cabin, already chafing at the claustrophobic space, she told herself it was about time she learned to curb her impulsive tongue. But the internal scolding didn’t last after she turned off the light. Yeah, she’d dared him. Yeah, it was a foolish and risky thing to suggest to a man of his power and virility, with a life so alien to hers.
But she didn’t regret it. She figured she should. That maybe she could talk herself into believing she didn’t want to make love with him. But her heart…just didn’t seem to swallow that good sense.
The next morning, when Cate heard the first sounds of voices in the dining room, she poked her head around the galley archway. “Just pour yourself some coffee, guys. And start with the fruit. I’ll be bringing in breakfast in two shakes.”
Her galley, she knew, looked as if a cyclone had hit. Outside, a blazing sun seemed to wash away all the gloom and troubles from yesterday-which unfortunately didn’t improve her own mood. She hadn’t slept well.
As anyone with a brain knew, mess with the cook’s sleep and everybody paid. She was grumpier than a porcupine with a tummy ache.
“One-minute warning. Y’all better be sitting down,” she called out. The Ebelskivers pan on the stovetop was hers. It took a unique pan to create the dish. The recipe for Danish pancakes was lighter than air, each one filled with a treat-like blueberries or cherries or a little orange marmalade or a scoop of wild honey. A few she filled with ham and cheese to make them more substantial. The boys could pick them up with their hands if they wanted. They didn’t even have to use silverware. “Need help?”
There. Her heart slammed like mad out of the complete blue, even before she whirled around and saw Harm. The circles under his eyes were bigger than whales, a testimony that he hadn’t slept any better than she had. But when a man looked that rough around the edges, how could he still exude so much virility and sexiness?
“No,” she said with no fanfare and no apology. As she’d reminded herself fifty million times in the middle of the night, she barely knew the man.
So she’d made a major judgment mistake and tried him. No one could be hopelessly addicted that fast. No one. “Out,” she said, and immediately turned around.
It wasn’t tricky to make Ebelskivers. It was just tricky to make them exquisitely perfect, and Cate wanted them better than even exquisite. When she had a free second-and she only had a single free second because the Ebelskivers couldn’t be left-she dashed into the dining room and put a glazed flowerpot of monkey bread on the table.
“You just pull it apart with your hands, guys. Eat it like that. The Ebelskivers are on their way in, but I’ve only got one pan, so they have to come out in shifts.”
She’d just dashed back into the galley when Ivan showed up. “Out,” she said.
At least he knew enough to obey by now.
They started diving in. She heard the first round of marriage proposals and vows of eternal love while she plopped in the second batch. In spite of the blinding sun, a stiff wind seemed determined to push the boat around. Since the stove was perfectly gimballed, the surface was automatically made level-and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t cooked in far worse conditions than this-but the pitch and roll still made cooking a wee bit more challenging.
She ran in with the next batch. By then, the men were hovering over the table, looking like kin to pigs at a trough. No one was drooling, but they’d all turned into obedient children-no hair combed, no shaved chins, but all with the same expressions.
“Each of you has that angelic look men get when they want sex. I’m not fooled,” she said. “And you can’t have sweets and carbohydrates like this all the time, so don’t beg.”
“We just want you to cook forever for us, Cate.”
Harm said, “Have you had even a bite?”
Actually, she hadn’t. Who had time? She’d share coffee with them when the last batch was done and on the table. For now, she had one more platter to go…and she was thinking, really, it wasn’t like today could be good for any of them. Fiske’s death was still fresh. So maybe she’d put together another round of comfort foods later. Like strawberry pie? Fresh? And maybe one more batch of peppermint cookies.
She opened the cupboard, watching her Ebelskivers, glanced in to check her spices, reached for the peppermint extract…and stopped dead.
The peppermint extract bottle had no top.
In her lifetime, Cate had never put away a spice without securing the lid. Spices aged too fast as it was.
Confused, she reached for the small container, and stopped dead again. The bottle was completely empty.
It couldn’t be. True peppermint extract was so strong that she never used more than a drop at a time. And she’d just opened it days before to make the first batch of her original cookies. The bottle should have been full, just short a couple of drops. She’d bought fresh from her favorite supplier before the trip.
“Cate?”
A sudden vision of Fiske filled her mind. The way he’d been lying on the galley floor, the oddness of his hands cupped around his neck as if he’d been choking.
A wisp of smoke startled her, made her realize her pancakes were burning. She grabbed the handle, saved the cakes in the nick of time, scooped that last round onto a plate and carted them into the dining room.
At a glance, she could see the men were filling up. Hands were going on tummies. The guys were getting that glazed-eye look testifying that they’d been sugared-up and filled-up for now…except for Harm.
His gaze found hers across the table, shrewd and sharp as one of her Wüsthof-Trident knives. “You all right?”
“Sure,” she said. But she wasn’t. She wasn’t remotely all right. She wasn’t sure if she was ever going to be all right again. Maybe it was crazy-she had to hope she was crazy-but the thought in her mind was as indelible as lead ink. Fiske had been murdered. And not just murdered, but killed by someone on the boat.
Once she set down the platter, she poured herself a mug of coffee and held it with both hands so she could keep the darned thing from shaking as she sat down. She was sitting with a murderer, her mind kept telling her-which was probably why her heart was pounding louder than a freight train.
The craziest thing of all was that she was the only one who knew what had happened. And even if she told, she couldn't imagine anyone would believe her.