Arthur and Fiske both focused attention on her now, although Fiske was the one who spoke up. “You don’t want a home? You’re a beautiful girl. You’re not thinking about a husband, babies?”
“Sure. But as you guys can tell, I generally get my share of offers.”
“Picky,” Ivan said, with a cock of his captain’s hat.
“Very,” Cate agreed, and then, smooth as silk, diverted the conversation away from her again. “Fiske, I can tell I’m going to have to make a fresh batch of peppermint cookies just for you tomorrow.”
Harm’s oldest in command was reaching for the cookie dish-again. “It’s not my fault, Cate. I’ve never tasted anything like these before. Can’t keep my hands off them.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” With a grin, Cate stood up. “Just want to tell you all now-breakfast tomorrow will be Ebelskivers.”
“What? What on earth is that?”
But she just chuckled. “My secret. Trust me, though, it’ll be worth getting up for. In the meantime…I’m going to go clean up my galley and get out of your hair. You can all start drinking and swearing and being pains in the keisters to your heart’s content. Glasses and beverages are here…” She motioned the side door of the fancy breakfront, which opened to reveal an ice chest. “Leave any dishes right here. I’ll deal with them in the morning. If y’all plan to walk around naked belowdecks, just so you know, I’ve seen it all before.”
“Does that mean you’re going to walk around naked, too, Cate?” Yale called after her.
“Are you kidding? I don’t like to scare men or wild animals. You can count on me to be covered.”
And she was gone, just like that-giving them all a view of her baggy pants and wild hair. Damn woman was as agile as a wood sprite, Harm thought. Full of herself, full of zest.
And every single guy tracked her as intensely as he did. Ivan watched her like a bird of prey. He’d gotten quieter with every drink. And his second in command, the grandfatherly Hans, was the next one to turn in and call it a night.
Harm wanted to. He stayed, though, waiting to see how his team related after Cate left. No surprise, their smiles faded out. Ivan stood up, groaned, wished everyone a good-night. Still, none of Harm’s men budged. Eventually, a deck of cards emerged on the table. Someone-Purdue?-started up a game of hearts.
Usually, a card game was good for a lot of groans and moans and competition, but Harm could see what was going on. No one wanted to be the one to leave. No one wanted to either look guilty or miss what anyone else said. Suspicion and worry were eating them all up from the inside out.
For fifteen minutes, Harm listened to the silent snap of cards, the increasing grim silence in the room, and finally spoke up. “You all look like zombies, and I’m just as tired. So I’m guessing you’re all still sitting here because someone has something they want to say.”
It was tall, white-haired Arthur who spoke up, the one who never made waves, never invited confrontation if there was a prayer of avoiding it. “We all know there’s a thief, Harm. We all know it has to be one of us.”
Purdue pushed back his chair. “And we all want to know what you’re going to do about it. It’s driving us crazy. Not knowing where we stand with our jobs, with the company, with our reputations. With not knowing what’s going to happen.”
Yale, who could be counted on arguing with Purdue on whether the sky was blue, actually nodded. “We can’t keep on this way. None of us can leave. We’ve all got too much at stake. But nobody can think with this cloud over our heads, much less imagine working together again.”
Harm waited for Fiske to take a turn, but his financial officer waved off the chance. So Harm took the floor.
“What we’re going to do-what I’m going to do-is figure out where the money is. Figure out who did it. And then put the lab together. My uncle built an outstanding team-but I believe we can make it even better. You’re each uniquely brilliant. One of you got sidetracked. Not all. Just one.”
Purdue said, “Okay, so that’s what you want to do. But how are you going to do it? All of us feel it. That we’re under a cloud of suspicion.”
“Because you are-but I didn’t put that cloud there,” Harm said. “The thief did. And I’ll tell you this. In the next ten days I’ll know who it is.”
They believed him. God knew why, but Harm saw the trust and reassurance in their faces. It seemed the right time to close down shop, and the group followed him below deck, all of them yawning and expressing exhaustion.
Harm was well aware that one in the group was a fantastic liar and unpredictably dangerous. But his main worry-his real crisis of a worry-was that the group was counting on him. The whole company-not even counting their cure for pancreatic cancer-would go down if he couldn’t.
And once Harm got that in his head, he couldn’t sleep. He tried to. Heaven knew he was beyond exhausted, and his cabin was as comfortable as a luxury hotel. The steady lap of water outside was soothing, hypnotic-or it would be for anyone without so many problems preying on his mind.
A couple of hours later, cranky and disgusted, he yanked on sweats and made his way topside. He just…wandered. He’d forgotten-or hadn’t known-that it was never going to be midnight-dark in the summer here. The sky wasn’t daylight-bright, more the dusky, pearl hues of a late twilight. The salon and dining areas were gloomy with shadows, only the gleam of occasional brass relieving the dimness. Outside, the air was crisp, the pilothouse as deserted and silent as the rest of the deck.
Harm kept ambling, seeking to find the highest spot on the boat so he could see the Alaskan night from the highest vantage point. Beside the pilothouse was another set of steps, leading to a small top deck. He climbed up, exploring, not looking for anything beyond a quiet spot with a view. He found the view…but he also found a five-foot-long lump of blankets already up there.
Initially, he assumed the dark bundle of blankets was just a cover for some kind of storage-until he stepped closer and saw a white oval in the middle of all those covers. A face. A pixie face with a gleam of annoyed blue eyes staring back at him.
“Do me a favor and don’t tell on me.”
A minute ago, Harm would have sworn nothing could have aroused his sense of humor. “Hmm. I sense blackmail potential. What exactly am I not supposed to tell on you?”
“I’m not supposed to sleep up here. No one is. And the last thing I want the captain to notice is that I’m not where I’m supposed to be at night.”
Since this was getting more interesting-and for damn sure, more distracting than a fistful of problems-Harm hunkered down on his haunches. “I suspect Ivan would be happier than a kid in a candy store to discover you were up here alone.”
“Yeah, there’s that issue, too.” She sighed. “This is the thing. I’m pretty seriously claustrophobic. Have been ever since going through that fire when I was a kid. None of my sisters can stand feeling trapped or locked in either, but I seem to have it the worst.” She paused. “On the other hand, I’m not the only one wandering around in the middle of the night. So what’s your excuse?”
“My excuse is that I seem to have given up sleeping. To add insult to injury, the less sleep I have, the stupider I get. So that’s pissed me off even more.”
“Ah, I’ll run for the hills then. I wouldn’t want to risk pissing off a hotsy-totsy corporate magnate.”
“I’m not a corporate magnate.”
“Well, you’re certainly crabby, whatever label you want to call yourself.”
His gaze narrowed with interest. “So why aren’t you running away?”
“You think I should?”
“Everybody else does.” It was her own doing that he ended up beside her. He could have stayed in that hunched position indefinitely. She was the one who lifted the blankets and unrolled a few extra feet of tarp. The tarp had obviously protected her from the damp deck, which she was willing to extend to him, as well.