“A minor setback in my cookie making,” Stephanie told him, trying to sound casual, almost swooning every time his fingertips touched her temple.
“How bad was the fire?”
“It was just some bags burning in the oven. I think we might even be able to eat the ham.”
He did a fast mental assessment of their course, searching his mind for a night harbor that had a restaurant. “Was that Mrs. Pease I heard saying she was going to be burned to a crisp and drown?”
“She got a little excited.” Stephanie put her hand on the wheel, feeling the polished wood slide under her fingertips.
“I guess I can relate to that,” Ivan said, watching to see if she caught his implication. “Stephanie Lowe,” he whispered, his voice a sexy growl, “you stir up the pirate blood in me.”
“Omigod.”
Ivan tipped his head back and laughed. It had been the perfect response. It said it all. He motioned for Stephanie to take the wheel and stood behind her. “Now, my fair pirate’s wench, time for thee to learn the ways of the ship.”
“Are you kidding me? You mean I really get to drive?”
“No, you don’t get to ‘drive.’ You get to steer. And while you steer, we can talk.”
“If I’m the one steering, why are you still hanging on to the wheel?”
Ivan pressed himself lightly into her back and murmured into her hair, brushing his lips against the shell of her ear. “Because it’s a sneaky way of getting you where I want you.”
Stephanie closed her eyes and swallowed as a combination of panic and desire rushed through her. He was good. She had to give him that. He’d made sure everything was right up front in a voice that sounded like rustling sheets. So what’s next? She wanted new experiences. How about a roll in the hay with a scoundrel? She cringed at the word scoundrel. Six months ago she would have said jerk. Now here she was thinking about ghosts and pirates and scoundrels. And romance.
She supposed those were the things her move to Maine was all about. She needed some fun and some whimsy in her life. She needed to make friends. And maybe she needed to have a real honest-to-goodness love affair. She was pretty sure a romance with Ivan Rasmussen wasn’t a good idea-but nature seemed to be taking its course in spite of her misgivings.
Ivan tugged at Stephanie’s hair. “Do you feel it, Steph?” he asked. “What do you suppose this is between us? Lust? Love? Magic?”
The huge sails rattled, and Ivan spun the wheel to change direction and catch the wind.
Stephanie licked her lips, tasting the salt spray that bathed her face when the boat bit into the sea. “It’s too soon for love, I hardly know you!”
“What about love at first sight?”
“Love at first sight is lust.”
“Okay,” he said. “What about lust at first sight? Are you in lust?”
“Definitely not!”
He grinned down at her. “Liar.”
He liked her bravado and her ability to go forward, and for the first time in two months he felt at ease with his decision to sell Haben. Somehow, he knew it had fallen into the right hands. Whether Aunt Tess thought so was another issue.
Stephanie turned to face him. “We haven’t touched on magic.”
“Magic is a definite possibility. Any ghost who would stoop to screwing up a toilet wouldn’t hesitate to mess with people’s lives.”
He looked dangerous when he smiled like that, Stephanie thought. He was teasing-on many levels. It was darned unnerving, and the beard served as the perfect foil for a smile that would have been a definite tip-off to Little Red Riding Hood. Worst of all, she couldn’t tell where the teasing ended, but she suspected he actually did believe in ghosts.
Chapter 3
Stephanie sprawled on the polished fo’c’sle roof and stared at the black sky and bright stars. There aren’t stars like this over Jersey City, she thought. Jersey City had too many lights of its own to be bothered with stars. And if you did see stars, they weren’t close like Maine stars. Jersey City stars were remote, because nature was remote in Jersey City. Jersey City was loud and vital and had great pizza parlors, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a stand of virgin pine. Stephanie closed her eyes and admitted to herself that she definitely missed the pizza. You didn’t just wipe away your old life and start over without a few misgivings, and there had been times in the past two months when she thought she might have made too drastic a change in her lifestyle. Probably she should have moved to Connecticut for a couple of years, bought a few things fromL. L. Bean, then moved to Maine.
It was the house that had pushed her into it, she decided. When she was nine years old she’d spent the summer with Lucy in Camden and had carried the fascination with the big white house with her ever since. It was one of those bits of baggage that forever floated loose in the mind, surfacing during moments of boredom, triggering fits of fantasy and vague discontent.
Even though she hadn’t known the history of the house, it had conjured up images of black-frocked, bearded sea captains and their patient wives. She’d recently learned that it had been built in 1805 on the foundation of Red Rasmussen’s lair. It was a magnificent huge box of a house, with a handsome cupola surrounded by a picket-fenced widow’s walk. It had high ceilings with elaborate plaster medallions, black marble fireplaces, elegant moldings, and woodwork that had been carried by schooner from the mahogany forests of South America.
It sat on a hill overlooking Camden Harbor and was frequently wreathed in fog. It was a house that had weathered hurricane winds, sleet, and snow and had not succumbed to aluminum siding. To a nine-year-old from New Jersey, it had seemed very romantic and exciting. When Stephanie reconsidered it at twenty- nine, it was Haben’s endurance that impressed her the most. Haben was a survivor. It had been built with quality and pride. It felt stable to her at a time when her life was looking shaky.
Ivan stood watching Stephanie. She has secrets, he thought. She could be disarmingly candid, and yet he had the feeling she was guarding something. She reminded him of a cat that was always listening. Behind the good humor was a constant wariness. It wasn’t cynical, he decided, but rather a kind of mental and physical alertness, as if she continually waited for something to happen. He had a fleeting thought that he might be the cause of all that tension, but quickly discarded it. Don’t flatter yourself, Rasmussen, he mused, this woman’s been up against something a lot more dangerous than your pirate routine.
She was lying flat out on the deckhouse roof, but she wasn’t relaxed. Ivan felt his heart constrict with the suspicion that she probably hadn’t relaxed in so long she’d lost the ability to do so.
Ivan saw her eyelids flutter open and knew he’d been detected even though he hadn’t made a move or uttered a sound. The woman had radar. The man who married her would never get away with anything. It was a disconcerting thought. He’d known her for approximately ten hours, and he was thinking about marriage. It was Aunt Tess, he decided. She was getting even with him for selling the house. “I’m a bachelor,” he mumbled under his breath. “I like being a bachelor. Get off my back!”
Stephanie propped herself on one elbow and looked at Ivan. “Were you mumbling at me?”
“I was talking to Aunt Tess.”
“She always sails with you?”
“Never.”
Stephanie raised her eyebrows. “This is a special occasion, huh?”
“I’m beginning to think so.”
She sat up and swung her legs onto the deck. “This conversation is making me nervous. Is it leading up to something?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Hmmm,” she said, throwing him the cool, appraising look she’d cultivated for teenage con men and twelve- year-old drug dealers. “Okay, then we have an understanding.”
