Love Overboard Part 4

If she'd been alone, she probably would have burst into tears. She would have cried for all the kids she wasn't able to save from drugs. She would have cried for the Steve she never knew. She would have cried for all the times in the past eight years when she had desperately needed to cry and wasn't allowed that luxury. But she wasn't alone, and she had too much pride to cry in front of a man she'd known for only two days. Besides, she wasn't a woman who cried over spaghetti sauce. Usually she found a well-aimed expletive to be much more satisfying than indulging in tears. "So you suggest swimming, huh?"

"Did you bring a bathing suit?"

Stephanie sighed. She didn't even own a bathing suit. Narcs in Jersey City didn't lounge around at poolside waiting for middle-cla.s.s crime, and they couldn't afford fancy vacations.

Ivan grabbed the bottle of dish-was.h.i.+ng detergent from the sink and pulled Stephanie to the stairs. "From the sound of that sigh, I take it the answer is no." He pushed her up the stairs and stood beside her on the deck. "Are you the modest type?"

"My gynecologist asks that same question once a year, then he makes me sit in a freezing cold room wearing nothing but a paper jacket."

"What a brute. This is going to be much more fun."

Stephanie looked over the side of the s.h.i.+p at the still, black water. "You're not expecting me to skinny-dip, are you?"

"How bad do you want to get clean?"

The deck was empty and dark except for the soft glow of light escaping up the cabin hatches. The air was cool and heavy with the smell of the sea. The water lapped gently against the sides of the s.h.i.+p. It was inviting and scary as h.e.l.l. "Can you keep the crowds of thrill seekers away?"

"Absolutely."

"And what about you?" she asked. "Are you swimming?"

"No. I'm ogling. Besides, I'm in charge of crowd control, remember?"

"Crowd control, yes. Ogling, no. How do I do this? It looks like a long way down."

"The yawl is tied behind us. Just use the stern ladder. You can get undressed in the yawl and quietly slip into the water." He handed her the bottle of dish detergent. "Use this to wash your hair. It won't get gummy in seawater."

He watched her go over the gunwale and scale the side of the s.h.i.+p like a cat burglar. Lithe, silent, efficient. He admired her style and, at the same time, hated the knowledge that it was probably a talent she'd acquired in dark, garbage-strewn alleys in seedy neighborhoods. He'd like to believe she'd directed traffic in front of a grade school or had had a nice, boring desk job, but he instinctively knew differently, and he felt his gut knot at the thought of her going toe-to-toe with drug dealers and the slime they fed off.

Stephanie settled herself in the boat and removed her shoes. "Turn your back," she called to Ivan, thinking he looked like the Ches.h.i.+re cat with his rascally smile floating in the shadows of the night. "I'm not getting undressed with you staring at me."

I'm not much of a pirate, he thought, back turned. A real pirate would be down there in the boat with her... or at least sneaking a peek when she wasn't looking. He heard her sweats drop to the floor of the yawl and the soft splash of her hitting the water. And then the scream. His heart slammed against the wall of his chest, and in an instant he was over the gunwale, flying down the rope ladder. He reached the boat just as her head bobbed to the surface. "Holy Toledo!" she said, gasping. "This is cold! You miserable excuse for a human being, why didn't you tell me it would be this cold? And what are you doing in the boat?"

Ivan put his hand to his heart. "You screamed! I thought... I thought Jaws got you."

Several pa.s.sengers looked down at Stephanie and Ivan.

"What's going on?" Mr. Pease wanted to know. "Are we interrupting anything?"

"It was the knife killer, wasn't it?" Loretta Pease asked. "Soon as I heard that scream, I knew it was the knife killer striking again."

Ivan looked up at her. "No, it wasn't the knife killer. It was just Cookie taking a bath."

"At this time of the night?"

"She had blueberry batter in her hair," Ivan explained. "You can all go back to bed now."

"Great crowd control," Stephanie said. "Maybe we should have sold tickets."

Ivan grinned at her and poured a glob of dish detergent on the top of her head. "Hold on to the edge of the boat, and I'll wash your hair."

She looked at him suspiciously. "Can you see below the water?"

"Do you expect the descendant of a pirate to answer that honestly?"

Chapter 4.

Stephanie ducked her head back to rinse out the soap and pushed herself away from the yawl. The water was tolerable, now that she was used to it, and she stroked out, enjoying the sensual freedom of swimming naked.

"Don't swim too far," Ivan called. "The cold is going to sneak up on you."

She waved to acknowledge his warning and swam parallel to the s.h.i.+p for a few more minutes before returning to him with chattering teeth. "Is the p-p-person in charge of crowd control also in charge of towels and d-d-dry clothes?"

"I knew I forgot something." He looked at her hopefully. "You could always air-dry."

"You know what you are? You're a p-p-pervert. Turn around while I get into the boat. I'll put my sweats back on."

"Sacrilege." He faced the side of the s.h.i.+p. "It's a crime against nature to cover that beautiful, clean body in spaghetti-stained sweats- especially the mole."

Stephanie pulled the s.h.i.+rt over her head and struggled into the pants. "That mole is in a private place!"

"And it's very pretty," he said softly.

She didn't know whether she was pleased or furious. She really should be mad at him, but there was something about the tone of his voice that touched her. It wasn't lewd or suggestive or even calculating. She couldn't see his face, but she knew he was smiling. A small, gentle smile, as if his world had suddenly turned beautiful because she had a mole on her backside. "Thank y-y-you," she said.

"We have to get you warm. Can you make it up the ladder?"

"This is nothing," she said. "Last February I was thrown into the Hudson River."

He caught up with her on the deck and whirled her around by her s.h.i.+rtsleeve. "I want to know about it."

Even in the dark, Stephanie could see that his eyes were hard. His mouth was drawn tight, and a muscle worked in his jaw. She blinked at him in surprise, confused by his emotional reaction. "It was c-c-cold."

"d.a.m.n." He picked her up and carried her to the galley, where he set her down in front of the stove. He checked the bunks to make sure they were empty and pulled the hatch cover shut. "Get those wet things off." He grabbed a large towel, a pair of thick socks, and a set of clean sweats from the shelf above her bed and returned to her, obviously disgusted at finding her still fully clothed. He muttered something indiscernible and unceremoniously stripped her sodden s.h.i.+rt over her head.

"Hey!" Before she could get anything else out, Ivan had stuffed her into the clean sweats.h.i.+rt. He had his hands on the waistband of her pants when she instinctively gave him a knee to the groin and knocked him backward with a follow-up kick to the chest. He rolled over in pain and took several quick gasps of air before he was able to regulate his breathing. Stephanie groaned out loud and rushed to his side. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do that! It was a reflex."

Ivan closed his eyes, trying to relax. The pain in his groin was subsiding to the point where it wasn't nearly as bad as the cramp in his ego. He'd just been trashed by a 120-pound woman. When he'd heard she'd gotten dumped in the river, he'd almost gone blind with rage, all his protective instincts for her welling to the surface. And then this poor, defenseless creature had leveled him!

Stephanie dabbed at his damp forehead with the towel. "Are you okay? You aren't permanently damaged, are you?"

"Do you care?"

"Of course I care!"

"Swell." He realized he was pouting and burst out laughing. He wasn't a man with a frail self-image. Now that the pain was reduced to a dull ache, he found more humor than humiliation in the incident. "When I was a kid and I skinned my knee, my mother always kissed it to make it better."

Stephanie hit him over the head with the towel.

He slowly got to his feet and turned his back to her. "If I were you, I'd hurry up and change while I'm still recovering."

She did as she was told in record time. "I'm all dressed," she said, tugging at the socks.

He handed her a cup of hot coffee and waited patiently while she sipped. He took the cup from her and towel-dried her hair until it was just slightly damp and completely unruly. He was standing very close to her, feeling ridiculously tender. She instilled the strangest feelings in him, he thought, feelings that were way beyond what they should be. They were wrapped in a pleasant intimacy that he'd never before experienced with a woman. And that intimacy was fueling a pa.s.sion that was frightening in its intensity. He was trying to cover it with a flirting, casual att.i.tude, but he didn't know how much longer he could get away with it. His body was going to betray him if he wasn't very, very careful.

He added a few logs to the stove to keep the fire burning and was relieved to see the color flooding back into her cheeks. He shouldn't have allowed her to swim, but he'd been mesmerized by the sight of her gliding through the black water.

Stephanie felt as if she were glowing from head to toe. She'd never experienced anything like her moonlight swim, and she'd never had a man care enough about her to dry her hair. It wasn't just l.u.s.t between them, she thought happily. He liked her. And she liked him. She reached for her mug of coffee and stared at the pies sitting on the countertop. She counted them twice. "There's a pie missing."

"Are you sure?"

"I could guarantee it. I gave these pies four of the best hours of my life. Man, this is the pits. A pienapper! How low can you go?"

"Maybe we should look on the positive side. At least they're not afraid to try your cooking."

She gave him a warning wrinkle of her nose. "You want to elaborate on that?"

Ivan grinned at her. "Not me. I try not to get drop-kicked more than once a day."

Stephanie grimaced. "I can't believe I did that."

"Now I know how you kept your virginity for so long."

"I was an undercover narcotics cop for eight years, and that's the first time I've ever had to use self-defense to keep my pants on." Ivan didn't say anything, but Stephanie suspected he was thinking of more practical methods of removing her clothes. Their gazes held for a long moment, until Stephanie sighed in defeat, acknowledging that she'd only prolonged the inevitable. Sooner or later, he was going to get her naked-or more than likely, she was going to get herself naked. She decided to change the subject and make him a peace offering. "Could I interest you in some pie?"

Ten minutes later they were sitting at the heavy oak table enjoying warm blueberry pie, when someone knocked on the closed hatch cover. "Anybody home?" a female voice called. "Do I smell fresh coffee and hot blueberry pie?"

A second female pa.s.senger made her way down the ladder. "Blueberry pie! Yum!"

Mr. and Mrs. Pease joined them along with several other people. Stephanie put another pot of coffee on to drip and brought out more plates.

"You know who would love this?" Mrs. Pease said. "Lena Neilson and her cabin mate, Elsie. Do you think I should go get them?"

"Yes," Stephanie said, "and you could see if Mr. Kramer and Mr. and Mrs. Dembrowski are awake." She cut two more pies into wedges, set them on the table, and returned to the stove.

Ivan stood beside her, slouched against the wood cabinet. "You like this, don't you?"

Stephanie laughed. "It's hard work being a s.h.i.+p's cook, but it's fun." She wiped her hands on her clean sweats, never thinking about the new blueberry stains she was acquiring. When she spoke she kept her voice low so the conversation didn't carry past Ivan. "I was a narc for a long time, and my world was really very small. My work environment was frantic. The station house was noisy and chaotic, with a bunch of dedicated, underpaid, overworked cops living on candy bars and coffee. When I wasn't at the station house, I was in a school that was even noisier and more chaotic. After a while you get to thinking all of it is normal. You wonder if the whole world lives on fast food and works eighteen-hour days."

"What about your family and friends outside of work? What about those Sunday chicken dinners?"

Stephanie cut another pie while she talked. "I had personal reasons for becoming a cop, but once I started working, the personal reasons weren't important anymore. It was the kids who were important. I liked them. They needed help. They needed someone to get the pushers far away from them. They needed education. They needed enough confidence in themselves not to succ.u.mb to peer pressure. It wasn't as if I was G.o.d and could solve all those problems, but I made a small contribution. Anyway, it was very consuming. I visited my family, but I lived in the high school hallways. Then I woke up one day, looked in the mirror, and realized I was getting too old to pa.s.s for a teenager."

There was a lot more to it than that, but she didn't feel like relating it. They'd moved her from one school to another, prolonging her career. In the end, she'd almost been killed because she hadn't been smart enough to quit while she was ahead.

She shrugged away the memory of it. Almost killed didn't count, she told herself. Everything had worked out okay, and here she was, cutting pie.

"I've missed a whole chunk of my life," she said. "I spent my twenties masquerading as a teenager. I didn't mind that so much, but I did mind the rat race existence I'd become used to. When I quit the police force and did some long-overdue introspection, I found myself feeling absolutely starved for things that were wholesome. Clean air, healthy food, good people. The one thing I've missed at Haben has been the people. I haven't been able to open for business because of the repairs, and I've been lonely."

She handed him the pie to take to the table. "This is great. This is like a pajama party!"

Loretta Pease and Lena Neilson squeezed down the galley stairs. "We saw her!" Lena shouted. "She was on the deck. She had the knife, and there was blood on it!"

Ivan started toward the stairs, but Lena stopped him. "Don't bother rus.h.i.+ng up there," she said. "She's gone."

He moved aside for the rest of the pa.s.sengers filing in for blueberry pie. "Where'd she go?"

"Disappeared. Poof," Lena said.

Mrs. Pease agreed. "It's true. We came up from Lena's cabin, and there she was, all dressed in black, just like last time. She was standing at the back of the s.h.i.+p with the knife, and when she saw us, she jumped overboard, but we didn't hear a splash." Loretta Pease gave an involuntary shudder. "I got a pretty good look at her this time. She was creepy-looking. Her skin was white as a sheet, and she had lots of hair that was wild and had a blue tint to it. She looked like pictures you see of people who've risen from the dead."

"And when we went to look over the rail, we couldn't find her," Lena said.

Stephanie checked the people in the room. Everyone was accounted for, including Ace and the first mate. They'd both come in with Mr. Kramer. No one looked as if they'd been stabbed with a carving knife. "Maybe we should have a look around anyway," she said to Ivan.

"Okay, who gets pie? Who gets coffee?" Ace asked, taking over.

Stephanie and Ivan slipped away and walked the deck in silence while Ivan played the searchlight over every nook and cranny, along the gunwales, up the tall masts.

"You think Lena and Loretta were into the sherry?" he finally asked. "That part about the wild blue hair doesn't play."

"It's a little bizarre, but Loretta Pease doesn't strike me as a person who would make up stories."

Ivan skipped the light across the oak water casks and mahogany planking. "I don't like having some ghoul running around on my s.h.i.+p. And I like the part about the b.l.o.o.d.y carving knife even less."

"I don't like it either. I think, until we know otherwise, we have to a.s.sume she's dangerous, although my own personal instincts lean more in the direction of it being a prank. Of course, it could always be Aunt Tess. Or maybe it's a new ghoul? Ghosts in your bedroom, ghouls on your s.h.i.+p. You must be popular when Halloween rolls around."

"You think it could actually be a ghoul?"

Stephanie looked at him sideways. "Are you serious?"

"Does the thought of having a ghoul on board frighten you? Does it make you want to throw yourself into my strong arms for protection?"

"The thought of you believing in a ghoul frightens me. It makes me want to call the Coast Guard."

Ivan curled his hand around her neck, stroking the nape with his thumb. "I bet you go to horror movies and never scream. You're one of those people who sit there and say it's all done with special effects."

He had great hands, Stephanie thought. Warm and strong and clever. "It is all done with special effects."

He pulled her closer. "Hmmm. Do you believe in Santa Claus? The Easter bunny? The tooth fairy? Jaws?"

"Maybe Santa Claus..."