Love Under Fire Page 5

  “Hey, Rowan! It’s me, Jo. Can I come aboard?”

  Silence spiked tiny tremors of fear at the base of her skull. From the depths of her overactive imagination, she culled the ghost ship, Marie Celeste. And the thought gelled as she took in a galley to one side of the entrance; it sparkled as if neither dish nor spoon had ever cluttered its counters.

  Mmm. Her feet sunk into thick blue-gray carpet. She curled her toes into it, drying her damp panty hose. Sheer luxury. So this was what it meant to be a Stanhope. Rowan had landed on his feet working for Allied Insurance. On her side of the line this would smack of corruption, but from Rowan’s the label read, perks of the job.

  On the lush, woolen pile, she crossed the main saloon as if walking on water, then drifted up two short flights of steps, passing the upper saloon by, and into the pilothouse. Silence thundered in her ears as if the soft suede walls swallowed every sound she made. Her skin prickled. The horizon slid up and down the outside of huge wraparound windows as the boat tugged at its moorings as if eager to be gone.

  “Good idea, I’m outta here, too,” she muttered, spinning on her heel to retrace her steps, coming to an abrupt halt on the top one. Shaking her head, she laughed. “Good Lord, you need a change of reading material. You didn’t used to be so easily spooked.”

  The briefcase on the dining table didn’t catch her attention until her return journey. Immediately, she reversed her decision to leave. Rowan had to be around. He wouldn’t go off, leaving the place open for just anyone to enter the way she had. Once more, she called his name, “Rowan!”

  At the next set of steps, she hesitated. The sleeping quarters lay below. No problem, all she had to do was knock first.

  She went on down.

  The door on her right stood ajar. L-shaped bunks took up two walls, all of them made up as neat as a new pin. Across the companionway the door was closed. She rapped on it with her knuckles, then gradually eased it open, but saw no signs of occupation. Her choices narrowed to one last door.

  Her shoulders drooped as she spied another neatly made-up bed without even a hollow in its surface to say someone had sat there. Expelling a gusty breath did nothing to relieve the disappointment threatening to swamp her. “Wrong darn boat!”

  “Depends which boat you were looking for.”

  “Rowan!” she gasped, caught off guard, her mouth gaping at his half-naked figure framed in wisps of steam in a doorway that was hidden among the paneling.

  “I…I did knock,” she stammered, trying to make sense of a breathless response that tied her larynx in knots, cutting off the air to her lungs.

  Water darkened his hair to burned sugar, molding it tightly to his scalp, until it fell into damp curls at his nape. His broad, broad shoulders glistened where diamond-bright drops of water beaded, pausing momentarily before the slide down the long muscles of his arms.

  She had never seen Rowan without clothes. Had never expected to. Never even imagined it before today, and still she couldn’t believe her eyes.

  Was it any wonder he’d taken her breath away? Sculpted satin-smooth curves and hollows fitted his upper body as God had intended. Perfectly.

  His chest shuddered lightly on the aftermath of a sigh. Even as she watched, his flat, male nipples set wide on the curve of his pectoral muscles, crested, tensing in the wake of her gaze.

  Jo’s blood leaped from her heart to her face.

  Embarrassment was no hindrance to eating up his manly beauty with her eyes. No power on this earth could make her drag them away.

  A narrow white strip, edging his charcoal-gray shorts, deepened his tan in contrast. Languor weighed her eyelids, a sensual heaviness. She knew she should look somewhere else, up…down…anywhere and pretend his body hadn’t responded to her blatant voyeurism. But Lord, the sight of cotton knit molding his form stole her breath away.

  Jo swallowed. Oh, my.

  The seconds it took to remove her gaze dawdled like hours. Yet one glance at his thighs sent her reeling back to the safety of the companionway. Her stomach shot up to meet her throat and devoured every particle of heat from her body.

  Cold. She felt so cold.

  And sick.

  She had done that. Blighted all that perfection in one unthinking second, with no other justification than she had been focused on Max. But after Rowan’s sacrifice, how could she make excuses? And whom could she make them to?

  The scars alone mightn’t have been so bad, time would take care of them, turn scarlet into silver. The missing muscle, though, could never be replaced. Not after the bullet that should have been hers, had ripped it apart, spraying it over the grass where she stood.

  “I’d better go back up…” she whispered through chattering teeth “…until you get dressed.” The complete understanding in his eyes was worse than anything she’d ever experienced.

  God help him, he hadn’t been able to control his body’s reaction to her. He’d stepped out of the shower, thoughts of her running through his mind, and suddenly she’d been there, as if he had conjured her out of thin air.

  The same but different.

  Her dark curls, as riotous and ruffled as a black, Oriental poppy after a storm, caught in a tangle at the back of her collar, unveiling a secret. Revealing another layer of the mysterious sway she held over his libido.

  If he’d had the courage to ignore the danger of her thrall, when he’d first known her, he would already have pushed back that black silk curtain to discover for himself the smooth tender hollow where her jawline met her neck.

  Instead, he’d been in control. Hell, he’d congratulated himself on it. So he’d never known that the pink slashing her high, Slavic cheekbones would match the rose of her earlobes.

  The loss had been his.

  Rowan’s chest heaved. Until today he’d never known her ears were pierced or that she’d choose anything as feminine as creamy pearls to highlight their petal-soft lobes.

  Damn, why was he torturing himself?

  An unwelcome hunger prowled his reason like a ravenous beast full of suppressed urges and needs. Habit pushed it back into the black cave at the back of his mind where it had hibernated for the past two years. Too late, far too late. The mere thought of claiming one of those glowing pink morsels with his mouth, and circling a pearl with the tip of his tongue, made him hard.

  Harder.

  Then she’d blushed.

  In all the years they’d worked together, he’d never known Jo to blush. It gave him a whole new take on her. A fresh angle corroborated by the way her cocoa-brown eyes had darkened to onyx. Arousal.

  The other signs might be hidden from view, yet he’d bet bullet-hard nipples strained against her bra and her female core would have been slick and damp to his touch. Yeah, she’d been ready, every bit as ready as himself, as ready as the bed waiting in the corner of the cabin.

  All he’d had to do was reach out, cup the back of her neck and the wanting would have been quenched.

  Jo would have been his.

  The salutary lesson had come with a look that took in his mangled leg. What else had he expected?

  Yet he still wanted her, ached with it.

  Shielding his unrelieved erection with one hand, Rowan zipped up his jeans. He’d given himself away. Years of self-discipline blown in a heartbeat.

  Time for more damage control.

  One large, black loafer slipped on to his feet followed by the next. He stood up, patted his belt buckle and pulled in a breath, ready to face Jo. From outside, the crimson tails of day’s end whipped color into the steamy haze as he left his cabin and followed the scent of freshly brewed coffee up the stairs and into the galley. Jo had made herself at home.

  She stood at the counter, staring out the window. “Just what the doctor ordered,” he said to the back of her head.

  The low hills behind the town were aflame with red, orange and purple. His mouth twisted slightly. Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. So, they were going to have a good day tomorrow. He could c
ertainly use one.

  She turned to face him, her eyes slightly red as if they’d captured the sunset. A smile poised precariously on her lips as if afraid the arms she’d folded across her breasts weren’t her best defense.

  Looking down the length of her body, he noticed what he hadn’t seen before, when his gaze had been fixed on her face. Jo had dolled herself up for their outing. The sleeves of her pearl-gray twinset were pushed up, businesslike, to her elbows, and the hem of her red skirt kissed the crease at the back of her knees.

  Her shoeless feet nearly floored him. The way she crossed the toes of one over the other, like a little girl awaiting punishment, and through the nylon he could see she’d painted her toenails red. Any ire or anger left inside him washed away as she changed from one foot to the other.

  He’d never thought he’d want to smile at a time like this, when life as he knew it hung in the balance, but he did. “Lost your shoes somewhere?”

  “They’re outside…on the deck…” She trailed off, and her explanation turned into a jumble of words and a spill of tears.

  Though he understood the risk, he had to go to her, comfort her. Place his hands on her shoulders, and feel her flesh mold beneath them. “Hey, hey, what’s all this?”

  “Don’t hate me, Rowan. Please. I didn’t know…it’s dreadful what I did to you, and I don’t know how to make it better.”

  “Aw, hell, Jo. Not pity.” Not from you. “I’m a tough guy and I’ve learned to live with it. I even made a New Year’s resolution. No pity allowed.”

  Though his mouth felt dry, he chanced a rendition of the phrase, “Big boys don’t cry.” His voice was husky and off-key from the lump strangling his throat, but it achieved the desired result.

  Jo smiled. “Don’t take up singing. You just murdered that.”

  He threw a quick retort into the ring. “Maybe you ought to call a cop.”

  His mind went back ten months, to New Year. He’d been two weeks out of hospital, in time for Christmas, taken a good look at himself and disliked what he’d seen.

  Life didn’t come with guarantees. Bone reconstruction, either, as he’d discovered the morning he’d put his foot on the floor and found the pin in his thigh had slid up inside the bone. Having one leg that was four inches shorter played hell on the ego.

  As the year began, he’d decided to get on with his life and make the best of what came. Meeting Jo again had thrown a spanner in the workings of his brave new life with the discovery he still hurt.

  “Want a cop, you’ve got one,” said Jo. “What can I do?”

  “You can pour me a cup of that delicious-smelling coffee and we’ll call it quits,” he said, not blinking at the lie.

  “That’s not near enough. If you’d like me to give up beating this dead horse of a case, it’s yours. Just say the word.”

  Hell, she was serious. She’d been so hung up on proving Rocky was guilty a few hours ago. Now, she was offering to stand aside, and make his problems with Skelton fade away. His leg must look a helluva lot worse than he’d feared. For as long as he’d known Jo she’d pokered up at the faintest whiff of payback.

  “Look, it’s no big deal. As long as I don’t try to run the mile in under four, I’ll be okay. I’m used to it.”

  She swallowed. Hell, he hoped she wouldn’t cry again. His resolve couldn’t cope with drying her tears.

  “That’s the problem, I’m not used to it. If only…”

  Rowan held up a hand as if to ward off the flow of regrets he could see coming. “Okay, I won’t keep on about it. Let me pour you that coffee.”

  Jo was rinsing their cups and saying, “Tomorrow, I’ll take you to Rocky’s house, what’s left of it, at Lonely Track Road. I’ll walk you through his explanation of what happened.”

  “I’ll want the afternoon free to check into his finances.”

  “That’s okay. I know Bull’s only given me a week, but that doesn’t mean I can put the rest of my cases on hold. He’d be chagrined if I didn’t keep up with them. That said, I received some new information this afternoon. No guarantees, in fact it sounds a bit iffy, but I should follow it up.” Her lip quivered. “If it comes up trumps, you can wipe out two with one blow, pay Rocky off, and still keep your bosses happy.”

  She sounded defensive and he couldn’t understand why, but she didn’t keep him in suspense for long. “Don’t think I made you that offer because I realized Rocky might be telling the truth. I don’t trust the man. If I’m wrong about this, I’ll admit it. I’ll even buy you dinner. But, if Rocky isn’t concealing the truth about the fire, then it’s something else. It might take me a while to suss exactly what, but I’ll do it. My biggest hurdle is Bull. The dope thinks the sun shines out of Rocky’s sorry behind and refuses to hear a word against him.”

  Wondering when she’d get around to hitting him with the punch line, Rowan asked, “Is this new information secret, or are you gonna share?”

  By the time they’d walked the length of the harbor wall and reached the Hard Luck Inn on the corner of Main and Broad Streets, she’d talked out Ginny’s information about Halloween with Rowan.

  “You’re right,” she told him. “Even though it disses any hope I had of pulling Rocky in, I can’t not check it out.”

  “From where I stand it looks like we’ve got Tuesday and Wednesday scheduled. Friday night we could be crawling through the bush in the dark, Saturday looks like a day off. Any thoughts on Thursday or are we just gonna go with the flow?”

  Though Rowan’s tone was conversational, Jo got the message. “I’m doing it, aren’t I? I’m organizing you. You did say I could be in charge.”

  “Remind me next time to think before I speak. It’s the only way to stay out of trouble.” A white grin split his face between the dusting of gold designer stubble and slightly darker moustache, softening his words. “One thing I insist on. We take my car to Te Kohanga. It’ll be quicker.”

  “Can I drive?”

  “I don’t know, can you? You looked a bit shaky getting out of the station house car park this afternoon.”

  “Oh, you…were you watching?”

  “Came out to apologize for stealing your space.”

  “My car gets that way when the engine’s cold. Once it warms it’s hell-on-wheels,” she said sticking up for the car she cursed six days out of seven.

  “I’ve known people like that.”

  In the lights from the bar, Rowan looked serious. Too serious. Tension that hadn’t crackled since she burst in on Rowan, half-naked in his cabin, and devoured him with her eyes, was suddenly alive and well and sparking between them.

  Confused, Jo sought to diffuse the situation by putting on a tough act. “Yeah, yeah, McQuaid, don’t think you can get away with distracting me. It’s payback time, buddy. At the very least, you owe me a drive for not giving you a parking ticket.”

  The tangle of emotions in her chest almost unraveled her. It didn’t matter which string she pulled, the knots just fell apart. Man, could she pick her moments. Her timing was always off. It was as if the minute puberty hit, they had handed her a certificate with an F in Relationships 101.

  Rowan raised his thick brown eyebrows. The creases at the corners of his eyes looked pale in contrast to his face. “Okay, I’ll think about giving you a turn at the wheel. Now let’s go inside and get this over with.”

  Jo turned the handle and Rowan stretched a long arm overhead, pushing the heavy door open. As she stepped into the noise and smoke, she turned, glancing at him. The strafe of lights flashing round the bar caught him square in the face. He looked like a stranger. What if they’d met for the first time today, this afternoon, as strangers? Would she still be having these feelings? Or was the fact that they weren’t strangers the reason she felt all screwed up inside?

  Rowan stopped just inside the bar, lifting his voice to be heard over the heavy-metal music blasting from the sound system. Rowan yelled, “What?”

  “I was just wondering why the moustache?”


  “Maybe I’m hiding behind it.”

  “Come off it. The Rowan McQuaid I know never hid from anything in his life.”

  He tagged her with a look that had “that’s what you think” written all over it. “All right, you got me. I was scuba diving up in Fiji and my brother thought he was being funny and grabbed me from behind. I turned too quick and my momentum thrust me into some jagged coral that cut my lip.” A wry twist pulled at his moustache. “I don’t know what frightened him more, all the blood from the wound, or the chance of it attracting sharks. He had me out of there and onto the boat in no time flat.”

  As if he couldn’t resist touching it, Rowan ran one finger across the toffee and gold bristles covering his top lip. Jo wished she had the courage to repeat the move.

  “Anyhow, I couldn’t shave until the stitches came out and by then I’d gotten used to it.”

  “It certainly changes your appearance. I guess that’s why I didn’t recognize you at first. So tell me, who is this brother? I never heard you mention him before.”

  This time the look said, “See? You don’t know me as well as you thought.”

  Rowan took his time about answering. The biker paraphernalia hanging round the walls finally caught his eye. He blinked, twice, then looked back at her and finally answered her question. “He’s just a regulation-size big brother who thinks he can boss me around.”

  But Jo had already lost the scent, and set off down another trail. “So what do you think?” she asked. The black painted ceiling and walls were hung with a mass of number plates; helmets, handlebars, front spokes even. A selection of chrome wheels looped in chains glittered like tinsel alongside brilliantly polished Harley signs being given pride of place. And among the clutter, a tangle of red-white-and-blue tattered flags, a mix of Confederate, Stars and Stripes, and New Zealand’s Southern Cross, added color where the spotlights caught them.

  “Bloody amazing. I never thought I’d see anything like this here in Nicks Landing.”

  Her eyes narrowed curiously, then she shrugged as if the thought evaporated in the booming noise. “Well don’t let it turn your head. Remember we’re here on business.”