Always Valentine's Day

They were all grouped together any old way, brothers and sisters, fathers and daughters. The silver-haired matriarch threw back her head in delighted laughter. Larkin glanced over and realized that Carter was watching them, as well, her own wistfulness mirrored in his eyes. Once upon a time they’d been a family like that.

Once upon a time, when her mother had been alive.

Abruptly she had to get out. “Excuse me.” She rose. “I’ll be right back.”

In the ladies’ room, she washed her hands in cold water, touching her cool fingertips to her forehead, adjusting the straps of her ruby silk halter dress. Fifteen years had passed since Beth Hayes had been killed by a drunk driver. Months at a time could pass without Larkin thinking of her, but every once in a while, like an ambush, she’d find herself overwhelmed by a wave of loss, an absence screamingly present.

She shook her head. Pointless to think of what might have been. Carter had done what he’d been able to, and if it had left her permanently wary of any and all relationships, that was her problem.

She ran her fingers through her hair and walked out the door.

Her destination was the dining room. Somehow, though, she found herself climbing the stairs that led to the fantail, instead, stepping outside to gulp deep breaths of the cool air. To either side, tree-covered mountains rose straight up from the water in a landscape that looked too wild for human habitation. The sun was finally setting, its ruddy rays slanting across the deck. The space was empty, quiet, with just the breeze for company.

Something different, Carter had said. Larkin knew how he felt. The restlessness had been brewing for months. Usually when it hit, she moved to another city, but she’d sworn off that. A change of scenery wasn’t the cure. She needed something more.

There was a sound behind her. “I thought that was you,” a voice said.

And she turned to see Christopher Trask.

She’d breathe, Larkin thought, in a moment. When she’d met him that afternoon, he’d been casual, appealingly rumpled. Now he stood before her in black slacks and a charcoal-gray silk shirt that made his shoulders look very wide. The effect was simple, sophisticated and sexy as hell. The man she’d met that afternoon clearly worked with his hands; the man before her belonged in an expensive gallery or on the scene of a sleek nightclub so new that celebrities didn’t even know about it.

He grinned. “I told you the ship wasn’t that big.”

She turned to face him, her back to the rail. “Nice to see you’ve survived so far.”

“Nice to see you, period,” he said. “Dinner dress suits you.”

“You clean up pretty well yourself.”

“I do my best. So how’s the first night aboard going?”

“It’s been…interesting,” she decided.

“It can’t be too interesting if you’re standing up here all alone. Didn’t your father make it onto the ship? I thought I saw you with him earlier.”

“Oh, he’s here,” she said. “Back in the dining room, actually. I just wanted to step outside for a minute. I just can’t get over all the daylight.”

He stepped closer to her. “It’s that whole midnight sun thing. It must make it hard on kids. No sneaking out at night.”

“And why do I think that that was an integral part of your repertoire growing up?” she asked, slanting a look at him.

“Ah, come on, it’s a part of summer, like watermelon and baseball. Are you telling me you never snuck out at night when everyone else was asleep? Just to see what it felt like to be outside and on your own when nobody knew about it?”

She could feel that sense of freedom beckoning just outside the window, that breathless sense of adventure. Or maybe she just felt breathless because he was so near, close enough she could feel the heat from his body.

“You’ve sneaked out now, haven’t you?” His voice was low. “You’re supposed to be in at dinner but you’re here.”

“I just—” Wanted something different. “Wanted some air. What are you doing up here?”

“I saw you.” The sunset turned his skin copper and made his eyes look dark. For an instant, she couldn’t look away. For a humming moment, a kind of a pure, distilled need surged between them. On a ship with three thousand other people, it felt like they were alone in the fading light. She could get lost in this man, Larkin thought suddenly.

She swallowed. “I should get back,” she said and turned to the doors. The motion of the ship sent her steps off course.

Christopher caught her arm to stabilize her. “Careful.”

She felt the imprint of each individual finger on her skin, warm, distinct from the growing chill in the air. Anticipation jumped in her stomach. Careful.

“You don’t want to fall,” he added softly, slipping his fingers down to her hand and raising it to his lips.

Heat bloomed within her. The seconds spun out as it flared into desire, and all she could do was stare. There was something hypnotic about his eyes, the warmth of his lips against her hand, something that made it impossible to think of anything except how they would feel against hers. She didn’t intend to lean in toward him. She simply had no choice.

His mouth was soft on hers. It was barely a kiss, just a light brush, yet she felt it everywhere. That so little could take her so far would have been terrifying if she’d been able to think of anything except the flush of heat, the shiver of excitement, the coursing of a need that could become all-consuming.

He hadn’t moved to hold her. He didn’t touch her otherwise except for that tantalizing brush of lips, that light graze that fired up every neuron in her body, making her pulse with the need for more. It was tease. It was invitation.

It was promise.

The restlessness she’d been feeling flared into hunger. Intellectually, she knew that whatever it was she yearned for couldn’t come from another person, any more than a quartet of wives had done it for her father. But she wanted Christopher Trask, oh, she wanted him.

Behind them, the doors opened and a chattering group of people walked out. “Whoops,” someone said loudly, “looks like we’re interrupting.”

It had her stepping back, her eyes flying open only to leave her feeling that she was still in a dream. “Well,” she said blankly.

“I was thinking more along the lines of ‘wow.’”

Larkin shook her head to get her mind working again. “I should…”

“Have a drink with me,” he supplied.

Forget about the drink, she just wanted him. But she had obligations. “It’s the first night. I haven’t seen my father in forever. I need to go back in.”

Christopher nodded and touched his hand lightly to the small of her back as they started toward the doors. “Later, then.”

Just a flick of a glance from him was all it took to start the pull again, but she couldn’t just disappear on Carter. She wasn’t twenty years old and here to find a guy to hook up with.

But what a guy.

She moved a little bit away from him as they walked through the doors to the dining room, but when she glanced toward her table, she stopped.

“What?”

“My father’s gone.”

“You sure you’ve got the right table? It’s a big dining room.”

“Of course it’s the right table. Over by the window, beyond the planter.”

Christopher looked where she gestured and raised his eyebrows. “You were gone a long time. Maybe he had to go see a man about a dog.”