“No way.” Hank would rather be snatched bald than give up that disk. On land, Helen had no chance of defeating him.
But the big man was desperately afraid of the water. She pushed his hair-plugged head under again. Hank came up spluttering and choking.
“Help me. I can’t swim.” Hank grabbed Helen’s arm in a death grip and nearly pulled her under. She could drown with the desperate Hank. She chopped at Hank’s grasping hand until he let go of her arm.
Helen pushed his newly sodded head under once more.
That did it. She pried the disk out of Hank’s hand and stuck it in her pants pocket. Then she let go of Hank.
“Please, don’t let me drown.” Hank kept sinking and swallowing water. Helen grabbed his collar. She started to tow Hank to the water taxi when she saw another body in the canal.
It was Phil, floating face-down.
Helen let go of Hank. When he tried to cling to her, she kicked him hard in the gut. She reached Phil in two strokes and pulled his head out of the water.
“Phil,” she said. “Phil, please talk to me.”
He was unconscious. The back of his shirt was dry. Helen hoped that meant he’d just gone into the water. She tried to turn him over on his back, but his body was too heavy and slippery. All she could do was keep his head clear of the water and try to drag him to the taxi. She forced herself not to think about the things brushing against her legs.
Helen was so exhausted, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to hold onto him. To keep her concentration, she talked as she towed Phil toward the water taxi.
“All this time, I thought you were invisible,” she said.
“Do you know how hard I tried to see what you looked like?
I’d get up at six in the morning. I’d stay up until three A.M. I didn’t get a glimpse. I called you Phil the invisible pothead.
“When you saved me from that fire, I tried to thank you in person. I even left Cherry Garcia ice cream on your doorstep. You took it and said nothing. Didn’t even give me a peek at your face. What was that all about?”
Phil’s face was like something carved on a sarcophagus.
If she kissed his cold marble lips, would he come back to life? That happened only in fairy tales, not in dirty canals.
Helen kept paddling toward the water taxi, splashing and floundering, but moving forward.
“I even envied your pot-smoking because you could summon your dreams whenever you wanted. I was involved with a couple of jerks. Those guys were real nightmares. It was much harder to make them go away.”
Phil’s eyes stayed closed.
“Please don’t die,” she pleaded. “You’re the only decent guy I’ve met in Florida.”
The man had to be made of stone. Phil was growing heavier. Her fingers were cramping. She was afraid she’d lose him. Helen kept stroking toward the taxi, babbling to distract herself.
“Actually, I’m glad you’re out cold and can’t hear this. I can talk to you better that way. When you rescued me that time from the fire, I still remember how your hands felt. So strong and soft and hard at the same time. I figured a man with hands like that had to be good in bed.”
Helen’s own hands felt like lead. Her arms were logs of dead flesh. Her legs were lumps of rubber. She bumped into something hard. The boat. She’d reached it at last.
Strong hands lifted Phil into the water taxi while she treaded water. When Phil was safely aboard, she was lifted in. She saw flashing lights and knew the Coast Guard was on its way. She was vaguely aware of three wet- haired women and a sneezing young man huddled under blankets. They must have been in the dinghy.
I’m going to spend the rest of my life in jail for hijacking a water taxi, Helen thought. But at least I saved Phil.
He was stretched out on a bench, covered in blankets. His head was pillowed on a life jacket. She sat down beside him.
Phil’s eyelashes fluttered. They were longer than hers. It wasn’t fair to waste lashes like that on a man. Then his eyes opened.
“Phil, you’re OK.”
“Better than OK. Who hauled me out of the water?”
“I did. Now we’re even.”
“Not yet.” Phil pulled her down and kissed her hard. This was no marble man. His lips were warm and deliciously wet.
The boat rocked as the Coast Guard arrived to take her away.
I’ll remember this kiss, no matter how many years I spend in prison, Helen thought.
Chapter 29
That kiss saved Helen.
She was still in a lip-lock with Phil when the Coast Guard arrived, flashing blue lights bouncing off the night- black water. The water taxi was flooded with pulsing color.
Helen didn’t stop kissing Phil. This memory had to last a long time. She was going to jail.
Helen took a peek. She saw two small Coast Guard boats, about the size of Boston Whalers. She counted six men in dark blue uniforms.
Helen heard a soft, cultured voice say, “Are you the Coast Guard?”
That must be one of the rescued women huddled under blankets on the water taxi.
Helen had seen enough. Once the captain started talking, it would be all over for her. Was boat-jacking a capital crime?
She went back to kissing Phil.
“This is Capt. Jack Klobnak,” the rescued woman said, as if she was at a party. She’d bothered to learn his name. Helen had just threatened him.
“I’m Jan Kurtz. The captain saved us. He tried to head off that speedboat. It was running straight for our dinghy. The driver had to be drunk. That boat was going so fast. There’s no way the captain could have caught up with it. But he was there when we overturned. We would have drowned without him.”
Helen came up for air and sneaked another peek. Jan was about forty and would have been pretty if she hadn’t been dunked in a dirty canal. Her brown hair was plastered to her head and her eyeliner left muddy streaks.
“I think Capt. Klobnak saved the man over there, too, Jan said. “That woman is giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
“That will explain the lipstick all over your face,” Helen whispered in Phil’s ear. It felt like a fuzzy peach. She longed to nibble it.
“Ow. Don’t make me laugh. I’ve been kicked in the ribs, Phil said. “You better stop resuscitating me, before they see you’ve revived another body part.”
Helen pulled herself away while Phil bunched the blankets strategically around his middle.
“Are you OK, sir?” The Coast Guard officer was twenty-something with a shaved head and a lobster-pink sunburn.
“Do you need medical assistance?”
“I’m fine.”
He’s better than fine, Helen thought. The man kisses like a dream. She’d finally met her dream lover and she was going to jail for kidnaping a water taxi captain—if she didn’t die of pneumonia first. Her wet clothes weighed four thousand pounds. Her teeth were chattering.
“You’re cold.” Phil pulled off a blanket and wrapped it around her shivering shoulders. “Ouch. My ribs. Take this.”
Helen, bundled in coarse wool and wet khaki, felt a
