Only the formula was gone.
And Fiske was dead.
And she’d been pushed off the top deck.
And now Ivan was sick as a dog-maybe not poisoned, but it seemed beyond coincidental that a man with a cast-iron stomach would suddenly get ill, particularly because his illness proved to be a catalyst, the one thing that guaranteed they’d all call off the trip and head for home.
After dinner, Harm announced he was going up to the pilothouse. “Hans must be exhausted. I don’t know when he plans to drop anchor for the night, but I’ll spell him until he chooses to hang it up. If the captain’s still sick tomorrow, I think we should all take turns.”
Everyone agreed to that. By the time she’d sanitized the galley, the ship was pitching and tossing. The guys all claimed they were turning in early. She checked on Ivan one more time, then headed below deck to her claustrophobic cabin.
Internet connection was sporadic, but she still managed to connect with both sisters. Startling her no end, there were a series of notes from both. Who is this Harm? demanded Sophie several times, and Lily echoed the same kind of comments. You never mentioned a guy since I can remember. Call immediately when you get back on dry land.
Cate couldn’t remember saying a word about Harm. Weirder yet, her sisters must have forgotten that she was the caretaker and question-asker, the nosy one who watched out for the two of them-not the other way around.
She didn’t need watching over.
After turning off the computer, she stared at the wild seas through her porthole…and then moved. There was something she still needed to do tonight. Something more important than anything she’d done in a long, long time.
Possibly it took some traumatic accidents and disasters to make her rethink about what really mattered.
Harm prowled the circumference of the boat one last time-a pretty senseless thing to do in the rain, but he couldn’t rest. Everyone had long gone below, holed up in their cabins like squirrels on a dark winter day. He’d spoken with Ivan, gotten his own key to the pilothouse so he could continue sending and receiving messages through the night. It was still late afternoon in Cambridge, so it was possible more information could still come through from home base.
He’d accumulated information from the radio tonight nonstop. He had information and evidence of all kinds coming out of the woodwork-but nothing that had settled his mind. He’d never needed their permission to investigate his three men, but the P.I. firm he’d hired had dusted every closet in their lives.
None of them appeared guilty of anything. He’d found a few unpaid parking tickets. Years before, Arthur was guilty of a personal indiscretion when he’d been briefly separated from his wife. Yale and Purdue had smoked a few funny cigarettes in their college years. Purdue’s father had kicked his son around, causing a divorce and likely some scars on Purdue’s soul.
But there wasn’t one thing to indicate all three men weren’t bright, decent men who’d primarily been honest most of their lives. Certainly there was nothing pointing to guilt-much less guilt of the dangerous, reckless crimes going on.
Harm hated intrusively prying into their lives, and by the time he went below, he was damp-cold and his head was buzzing from exhaustion and stress. He hadn’t slept, really slept, since before his uncle died, or that’s how it felt. His neck was stiffer than dried rope, his eyes gritty.
His intent was to crash, long and hard-but not until he’d checked on Cate. She’d been on his mind nonstop, above, beyond and below anything else going on. Still, first he needed to stop at his cabin. Just hiking around the boat had given him a cold dose of wet sea, so he figured he’d drop off his wet jacket and shoes in his cabin before knocking on hers.
He unlocked his door, and before even stepping in, sensed immediately that something was odd.
He closed the door, stood still. No sound intruded in the silence. The Alaskan eternal twilight should have provided more ambient light, even this late, but the gloomy rain clouds had darkened the skies. His cabin was a muzzy charcoal, wasn’t going to get better until his eyes adjusted.
Quietly, he peeled off his wet jacket and heeled off his deck shoes, every sense still on red alert, trying to identify the “something” that was off. The instinct of danger overwhelmed his senses, hitched his breathing. After everything that had happened, he was prepared for anything. Or he told himself he was.
But it seemed…his gaze narrowed as his vision finally adjusted to the darkness…it seemed that his accelerated heart rate was responding to an entirely different kind of danger than any he could have anticipated. The “odd” thing, he identified, was the lump in his bed. The small, long lump under the blankets.
Slowly, he reached for his belt, unlatched it.
“If that’s Goldilocks,” he said lowly, “I’m not sure if you’re in the right bed.” The pants followed the belt to the floor; then he yanked the pullover over his head. “Were you looking for the big bear, the medium bear or the just right bear?”
“It is Goldilocks, and I’m only interested in the big bear.” The voice was as small as the body.
“Well, damn. You’ve got the right one then.”
But he wasn’t totally up for joking, even as he lifted the first layer of sheet and blanket and slid in. She shrieked, not the most seductive sound he’d ever heard. Possibly his skin struck her as ice-cold, at least compared to her nice, warm body. But he wasn’t actually trying to lay hands on her, only to tuck her in tight around the neck, make sure there were no air leaks.
“Listen, Ms. Trouble. I want you here. I want you sleeping here, because it’s a better bed, and I know you’re safe, and I want you next to me. But that’s it. You were not only hurt, you put out another 500 percent day. You need rest. And you’re going to get it.”
She edged up on an elbow, undoing all that meticulous tucking and safekeeping he’d done. “Yeah, right,” she murmured, and then pounced.
He was going to mention that he’d never met a woman he couldn’t seduce. He was going to also add that even his ex-wives never had a complaint about his lovemaking. That he’d always taken the lead, because he was damned good at taking charge-and taking charge of giving a woman pleasure was one of his favorite skills. Furthermore, women liked it slow. Which he knew. And catered to.
But my God. He couldn’t get anything said. Hell. He couldn’t even get a thought to stick in his head long enough to consider saying it.
She swarmed him-took him over, took him under-with warm, liquid kisses. With hands that kneaded and teased and took. Her hands seemed intent on learning any and everything that could conceivably rile him beyond sanity.
Brazen fingers strayed over his chest, then down, past his abdomen, finally closing over him as if she owned him, which at that moment, she did, lock stock and barrel. She squeezed tight, then stroked and explored some more. Above ground zero, a brazen tongue discovered his Adam’s apple, his earlobe, his mouth, after which she took her kisses lower. Those lips of hers snaked down at the same speed as her hands.
She disappeared under the covers.
Not a good sign.
Harm was beyond worried-about his good men, about his one rotten apple. About her. About trouble he’d brought on this boat. About Fiske. About failing his uncle and his uncle’s legacy.
But for the first time in hours, in days-possibly in his entire life-he could allow some of that responsibility to slip.
Conceivably, he didn’t really have a choice.
She took him in. Some way, somehow, for him she kept turning into the eternal woman. He knew that was idiotic thinking, but that was the whole range of emotions she invoked in him. Everything was about her and her boundless capacity for giving, for feeling, for being.
Like now. She teased him with her mouth, her tongue, her fingertips. Then twisted around before he could retaliate, and rubbed against him, with her breasts, her pelvis. She laughed with her low throaty whisper…then tickled a fingernail down his ribs…then slicked up his torso with her whole body like a cuddling cat…then sat on him, straddling his hips, weaving side to side, feeling the heavy hard shape of him, but not just joining. Just offering an engraved invitation. Over and over.