“Yup.” He eyed her with a critical squint. “Just exactly what are the terms of this understanding?”
Stephanie fidgeted. Darned if she knew. She just wanted to steer the conversation away from ghosts and sex. She didn’t feel especially brave or knowledgeable about either of those subjects. “I thought the terms were obvious.”
“No involvement?”
“Right,” Stephanie said, “no involvement. Physical or otherwise.” Then she smiled at him. It was too late. They were up to their armpits in involvement.
Ivan smiled back at her. “As the blood relative of Red Rasmussen, I feel it my cavalier obligation to lie once in a while to a pretty woman. What’s your excuse?”
“My father’s grandmother was a Hungarian Gypsy. My great-uncle Fred defected from the army. My great- grandfather’s brother was hanged for rustling.”
“That explains it.”
Stephanie woke up with a start and fell off the edge of her narrow bunk onto the padded bench seat and ultimately onto the cold wood plank floor. She instinctively rolled into a crouch and reached for her gun. When she didn’t find it tucked into the sweats she was using as pajamas, she stayed perfectly motionless while her mind scrambled to place her in the proper environment. The room was black as pitch and unfamiliar. She’d been having a nightmare, and now she was awake-almost.
“I’ve heard of people jumping out of bed before, but you’ve got them beat. I especially liked the way you reached into your pajamas. Dreaming about me?”
Stephanie groaned when everything clicked into place. She was on a boat. It was the middle of the night. And for some yet-to-be-explained reason, Ivan Rasmussen had awakened her. She pulled herself up and blinked at him. “Did you wake me?”
“Time to get up, Sleeping Beauty. Time to get the stove stoked up. Time to get the coffee going. Time to bake the pies.”
“You have a death wish? Is your insurance paid up?”
Ivan lit an oil lamp, casting the cabin in a soft glow. “Can I choose my method of death?”
She put her nose to the ship’s clock on the cabin wall. “It’s five o’clock!”
“Yeah. I let you sleep an extra half hour.”
“Ace told me Lucy got up early to bakes pies but I thought he was kidding.”
Ivan lit two more oil lamps. “Sometimes she bakes cheesecake.”
“Listen, Ivan, I’ve seen those people up on deck. They’re not in such good shape. They don’t need the calories. They shouldn’t have the cholesterol. There’s nothing wrong with having an apple for dessert,” she said, crawling back into her bunk.
Ivan grabbed her by the ankle but released it when she growled. She sounded as though she meant business! He considered his options. He could do the caveman thing and haul her out, or he could do the pirate thing and crawl in next to her, or he could do the cowardly thing and try to lure her out with a bribe.
Ten minutes later, Stephanie opened one eye and sniffed the air. Coffee. She pulled the covers over her head and burrowed under her pillow, but the aroma of coffee crept under the bed linens. “Crud.” He was playing hardball. “Coffee,” she croaked out. “I want coffee.”
Ivan threw another log into the woodstove. “You have to get up to get it.”
Stephanie dragged herself out of bed and lurched across the room. “Sneaky, aren’t you?”
“Yup.”
She brushed the hair out of her face and took a mug of steaming coffee from him. “Rasmussen men leave something to be desired, do you know that?”
Ivan poured himself a cup of coffee and grinned at her. “Most women find Rasmussen men to be irresistible.”
“Irresistible is different from less than perfect.” She looked over at Ace’s empty bunk. “Where’s my partner in crime? Did he jump ship?”
“He’s been up since four-thirty, like a good galley helper, but he was afraid to wake you. He says you talk in your sleep about shooting people.”
Stephanie lowered her eyes and sipped her coffee. “Guess I’ve been watching too much television.”
Ivan stared at her, wondering if she actually shot people. He remembered the way she’d rolled under the table, crouched, and reached behind her out of instinct, and he felt a chill race down his spine. She said she was twenty- nine, but she looked more like nineteen, her youthful appearance only adding to his un-ease, making him feel ridiculously protective. People shot other people in self-defense, but she didn’t look battered or persecuted. Criminals shot people. He knew she wasn’t a criminal. There was one other possibility. She mentioned earlier that she was sort of a teacher in a government program. Ivan thought that was a stretch. “You’re a cop, aren’t you?”
She felt her heart stop, then start beating again, very deliberately. Thud, thud, thud. Lord, when would the panic leave her? How many years would it take before that question didn’t make her whole life flash before her eyes? She took a deep breath and kept her voice low and steady. “I was a cop.”
She said it with a finality and tone that didn’t encourage further discussion. Her mouth was drawn tight, and her gaze held his, challenging him to make a flip remark. He thought of her rolling down the hill and cooking fish-eye soup and got an immediate mental image of Stephanie Lowe starring in one of those goofy Police Academy movies. Then the image changed. He watched the play of emotions on her face and knew she’d been a better cop than cook. Probably one of the best. And he also knew something terrible had happened to her.
“You don’t want to talk about it, do you?”
“No.”
“Everyone has secrets on a pirate vessel,” he said. “It’s allowed.”
Stephanie felt the tears hot behind her eyes and blinked them back in a rush of relief that Ivan hadn’t asked any more questions.
“I really should go look for Ace,” Ivan said. “He has a knack for worming his way into a warm bed. He’s probably snuggled next to a sympathetic female body by now, handing her some pathetic line about being an orphan or being a virgin or being abducted by Martians when he was eight.”
Stephanie smiled at the obvious affection and resigned humor in Ivan’s voice. He was doing a good job of lightening the conversation, and she appreciated it. “Any of it true?”
“He’s the pampered son of a corporate lawyer. He isn’t an orphan. He isn’t a virgin. And to the best of my knowledge he was never abducted by Martians.”
“You like him, huh?”
“Yeah. He’s an okay kid. He reminds me a lot of myself at his age.” He looked at Stephanie and grinned. “I thought I was pretty hot stuff when I was nineteen. Anyway, his dad’s a friend of mine, and he asked me to take Ace on for the summer as a favor.”
“Ace has been in some trouble,” Stephanie guessed.
“He’s had problems. I think he’s straightening out.”
Stephanie gave Ivan a long, considering look. She liked him for keeping Ace’s problems confidential, and she liked him for trying to help by giving Ace a job. She hadn’t expected Ivan the Terrible to have any substance, and it left her momentarily stunned when she realized Ivan might understand what she’d done with her life. She knew she’d have to wrestle with that later.
She’d also have to think about prejudging men on the quality of their buns. She’d underestimated Ivan Rasmussen because his jeans curved in all the right places. She was afraid to ask about his education. He’d probably graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.
She moved closer to the stove to warm her bare feet and refill her coffee cup, feeling the caffeine kick in. “I’m awake,” she announced. “Now I’m going to make pies.” She hitched up her sweats and gave Ivan a brazen smile. “I might even make one that’s edible.”
Someone screamed from the back of the ship, and Stephanie felt her skin crawl at the sound of raw terror. She bolted up the galley stairs and headed for the aft cabin, where she found Mr. Pease trying to calm his wife.
Loretta Pease saw Ivan enter the cabin behind Stephanie and directed her attention to him. “I was almost killed, right here in this bed. By a woman. Skippy had gotten up to visit the facilities, and this woman just glided in and looked right at me. Wasn’t one of the passengers either. I know all the passengers. Scared me half to death.
