Why a woman like that would choose a dive like the Galaxy was beyond him. Unless she was slumming. He picked his way through the col apsed sails and coiled ropes on deck.
Which explained her interest in him even after she’d learned he wasn’t a rich yacht owner.
The stink of mineral spirits competed with the scent of brine and the smel s of the bay, fish and fuel and mudflats.
“The hot chicks always go for Justin,” Ted said. “Lucky bastard.”
Rick spat with precision over the side. He was tidy that way, an ex–military man with close-cropped graying hair and squinting blue eyes. “Next time you send the halyard up the mast, you can climb after it. Maybe some girl wil hit on you.”
A red stain crept under the younger crewman’s tan. “It was an accident.”
Justin felt a flash of sympathy. He remembered—didn’t he?
—when he was that young. That dumb. That eager to please. “Could have happened to anybody.”
He’d made enough mistakes himself his first few months 10
V i r g i n i a K a n t r a
and years at sea. Worse mistakes than tugging on an unsecured line.
He wondered if the girl would be another one.
Dredging the disassembled winch out of the bucket of mineral spirits, he laid out the gears to dry. He was working his way north again like a migrating seabird, fol owing the coast and an instinct he did not try to understand. The last thing he needed was to get tangled up on shore.
He reached for the can of marine grease. Maybe she could slake the ache inside him, provide a few hours of distraction, a few minutes of release.
Mistake or not, he would be there.
*
*
*
This bar was a mistake, Lara thought. The Galaxy was four blocks from the waterfront, off the tourist path, in a rundown neighborhood of shaded windows, sagging porches, and chain fences.
She perched in one of the dingy booths, trying to watch the room without making eye contact with the sailors and construction types straddling the stools at the bar.
Or maybe not.
At least in these seedy surroundings, no one would question if she and Gideon helped one slurring, stumbling patron out to their car later that night.
Over the bottles, a TV flickered, competing with the glow of the neon signs. mil er. bud. pabst blue ribbon.
The air stank of bodies and beer, a trace of heavy cologne, a whiff from the men’s room down the hal . She folded her hands in her lap, her untouched Diet Coke leaving another ring on the cloudy table.
“Is it hot in here, or is it you?”
F o r g o t t e n s e a 1 1
She looked up to find two sailors flanking her table.
“Excuse me?”
The larger sailor shifted closer, trapping her into the booth.
“You’re too pretty to be sitting here alone. Mind if we join you?”
She wasn’t alone. Gideon watched from an il -lit corner, his attention divided between her and the door.
She straightened on the sticky vinyl seat. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“I don’t see anybody.” The sailor—hovering drunkenly between cheerful and offensive—nudged his companion.
“You see anybody, T.J.?”
T.J.’s blurred gaze remained focused on Lara’s breasts.
“Nope.”
“Let me buy you a drink,” the first guy said.
“No, thanks,” Lara said firmly.
“There you are.” A male voice, deep and smooth, broke through the noise of the bar and the wail of the jukebox.
Somehow the sailors shifted, and there
It was him. Her quarry from the boat.
Her heart, her breath, her whole body reacted. Her fingertips tingled. Wel , they would. She was attuned to him, to his energy.
He grinned at her. “Miss me?”
“You’re late,” she said.
