"Go?" Alexi echoed hollowly.
"Good heavens, yes. I have a chess match with Charles Holloway in less than half an hour, and I'll be damned if I'll let that youngster catch me napping."
"Youngster?"
"A mere eighty-eight," Gene told her. "Kiss me again, Alexi. It's an old man's last great pleasure."
She kissed his cheek. By then, Rex had finished with his fan and reached the table. He shook hands with Gene.
"Have a good sail, now," Gene said.
A streak of stubbornness flashed through Alexi. If Rex had been over at the other table, planning his future dates, then he should already be asking one of them out on the boat.
"I don't think I'm going, Gene." They both stared at her. She certainly had their attention. She smiled serenely. "Maybe I'll scout some nearby kennels for a good German shepherd."
"Alexi, you know that you are making me insane," Rex said softly.
"Really? Then I'm quite sorry."
"Alexi, you're going on the boat."
"Rex, I am not."
He looked as if he wanted to explode. At the moment, it was nice. He couldn't possibly make a move against her.
They were in a public restaurant, and Gene was standing right beside him.
Rex looked at Gene. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"
Gene shook his head. "Women. They're very independent these days."
"Yes, but is a man supposed to let one get herself killed?"
"That's up to the man, I suppose," Gene mused.
Alexi, who had been watching the interplay between them, suddenly gasped. Rex caught her arm and dragged her out of the chair and threw her over his shoulder.
"You can't do this!" Alexi wailed. "We're in a public restaurant! Gene...?"
The world was tilting on her. Rex was walking quickly past tables and waitresses and startled customers.
"Have a good time, Alexi!" Gene called.
"Rex, damn you, you can't--"
"Alexi, most obviously," he promised her, "I can."
And, most obviously, he could. They were already out in the bright sunlight again, and Rex was hurrying down the dock toward a beautiful red-white-and-black sloop with the name Tatiana scripted in bold black letters across her bow.
Chapter 11
Alexi was dizzy. He was walking so quickly that her chin banged against his back and the ground waved beneath her feet. She spat out his name, then swore soundly. But he didn't seem to hear a thing--he didn't even seem to notice that she was ineffectually struggling to rise against his sure motion. "Rex--"
He swung sharply--and made a little leap that seemed to Alexi like a split-second death plunge on a roller coaster.
"Rex!"
They were on the boat. He still didn't stop. Alexi had a blurred vision of a chart desk and a radio and a neat little galley with pine cabinets. They quickly passed a dining booth and a plaid-covered bunk and a little door marked Head. Then Rex barged through a slatted door and dumped her down on something soft. For such a tiny cabin, it was a big bed, built right into the shape of the boat and full of little brown throw pillows to go with the very masculine brown-and-beige quilt that covered the bed.
"This is absurd," she told him, curling her feet beneath her and trying to rise to a dignified position. She got high enough to crack her head on the storage shelves that stretched over the bed.
"Small space," he warned her. "And you're absurd. Yes, no, yes, no--dammit, use some common sense and don't act like a school kid."
"Me?"
"You!"
"You have the nerve to say something like that to me when you're acting like a Neanderthal?"
"It's better than behaving like a jealous child."
"What?"
"This one all started because I gave out a lousy autograph."
"Oh, you know, Morrow, you really do overestimate your charms. I just don't want to be here."
He touched her face with his palm. "Don't worry, sweetie. There's nothing to be afraid of out here. You won't need to sleep with me. You can have the cabin all to yourself."
"I_"
Her rejoinder froze on her lips because--despite his bitter denunciation--he was slipping his shirt over his head. Still staring at her in a cold fury, he kicked off his shoes, then started to slide out of his jeans.
"What--what are you doing?" Alexi gasped out, pained.
"Oh, don't get excited," he tossed back irritably. Naked except for his briefs, he turned from her, bronzed and supple and so pleasantly muscled. He opened a drawer, pulled out a pair of worn denim cutoffs and climbed into them, smiling at her sudden speechlessness. "Eat your heart out, Ms. Jordan," he told her. And then he was gone, slamming the slatted door in his wake.
Alexi, numb, stared after him for several seconds. A moment later, she heard the rev of a motor and felt movement.
The cabin was lined with little windows. Alexi bolted to the left to look out and saw that the dock was fast slipping away from them.
"Why, that...SOB!" she muttered. They were passing the channel markers to the right and left and heading for the open sea. She was off with him for the duration--with or without her agreement.
She threw a pillow across the room in a sudden spate of raw fury. He couldn't do this. He really couldn't--she had said no. But he was doing it anyway. He deserved to be boiled in oil. Someone needed to tell him quickly that this was the modern world. That he couldn't do things like this.
It wouldn't matter, she decided grudgingly. Rex would do what he wanted to do anyway.
After a moment, Alexi realized that the hum of the motor had stopped. She could hear footsteps above her.
And she could hear Rex swearing.
She smiled after a moment, realizing that he had turned off the motor to catch the wind with the sails. And he was having a few problems. She kicked off her shoes and lay back on the bunk, smiling. He'd planned on her giving him a hand with the sails, she realized. And now, of course, he was presuming that she wouldn't move a muscle on his behalf.
"Right on, Mr. Morrow," she murmured.
But then her smile faded, because she was remembering how cute he had looked, stripping out of his jeans to don his cutoffs--then indignantly denying her suppositions about him. Maybe "cute" wasn't the right word. Not for Rex. He was too deadly dark, too striking, too mature, too dynamic.
No... at that moment, 'cute'' had been exactly the right word.
Maybe she had been acting like a schoolgirl, and, at the end, maybe she had balked and refused the trip because of pure and simple jealousy. No--there was definitely nothing pure and simple about it. Painful and complex. She didn't know where she stood with him. And she was afraid to make any attempt to find out.
Something dropped with a bang. She could clearly hear Rex muttering out a few choice swear words.
Alexi sat up and smiled slowly and wistfully. They were far from shore; they were together, and alone with the elements. Maybe she wouldn't exactly offer a white flag, but...
Alexi hopped off the bed and hurried through the door. The boat pitched to the right, and she had to grab the wall to keep from falling. "I hope I don't get seasick," she muttered to herself. She steadied herself and hurried down the hallway, past the head, past the neat-as-a-pin little dining room and living room and on through the galley to the short flight of ladder steps that led to the topside deck.
"Watch it!" Rex snapped, annoyed, as her head appeared.
Standing on the top step of the little ladder, she ducked as the boom of the mainsail went sweeping past her. “Grab the damn thing. Help out here!" Rex called to her.
He was at the tiller, leaning left, trying to control the wayward sail at the same time.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Trim the sail."