Sail Away

“Why?”

She sent him another hard look, a line forming between her brows. “It was time,” she replied, without giving him a clue to her motives.

“Does it have anything to do with your fight with Simms?”

Marnie started to answer, then held her tongue. She should be the person asking questions, not the other way around! What the devil was Drake doing on her boat? She felt nervous and hot, though the bridge was barely 50° F. Adam had always put her on edge; his angled features, thick hair and intense eyes fairly screamed “sexy,” but she’d ignored his rakish good looks when she’d worked with him. She knew a lot of attractive men, but Adam was different. He was more than just simply handsome. There was a restlessness about him, an earthiness coupled with repressed anger that caused her to react to him on a primal level. Kent had called Adam primitive and for once he’d been right: there was a certain primal sexuality to the man.

So here he was, in the tiny bridge, a storm thundering outside, the boat lurching and tilting, and all she could think about was keeping distance between herself and him.

“You made a mistake,” she said flatly.

“Just one?” One side of his mouth lifted.

Marnie gripped the helm and felt her palms dampen with sweat. All she wanted was to escape her past and sort out her identity. But now she had to deal with Adam Drake. Even though he had come to her rescue at the party, she didn’t want him fouling up her first real bid for freedom. “Look, you’ve got to get off the boat.”

“Why?”

“You’re not part of my plan.”

He snorted and tossed back the hood of his poncho. “We’ve got more in common than I thought. You weren’t part of mine.”

“Let’s get one thing straight—we’ve got nothing in common.”

He glanced at her sharply. “So you’re a believer in the great lie, too. You really think I skimmed off money from the Puget West project.”

“There’s been no other explanation,” she said, hedging.

“I was cleared, damn it!” In two swift strides he was so close to her that she noticed the gold flecks in his brown eyes. His nostrils flared in outrage.

“You weren’t cleared,” she said evenly, “there just wasn’t enough evidence to indict you.”

He drew in his breath sharply; the air whistled through his teeth. “Well, Miss Montgomery, I guess I was wrong about you. I thought you might be the one person in the entire Montgomery Inns empire that realized I’d been set up. But you’re just like the rest, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m different. I ended up with you as a stowaway. I didn’t ask you to come on board, did I? As far as I’m concerned you should get off my boat.” She considered telling him that she’d stood up to her father and the board, declaring him innocent, but decided the truth, right now, was pointless.

Adam’s gaze raked down her. “What do you want me to do? Walk the plank?”

“If only I had one.” He could joke at a time like this? The man was incorrigible! There was a slight chance that he was a thief, and now he’d stowed away on the boat, proving that he obviously had no scruples whatsoever. And yet there had been a time when Marnie had relied upon his judgment, had trusted his interpretation of the facts. She had sat through many meetings with Adam in attendance. He always spoke his mind, arguing with her father when necessary. Unlike Kent, who worked diligently to have no mind of his own and think exactly like her father. The proverbial yes-man. She shivered at the thought that she’d once believed she loved him. She’d been a blind fool, a rich girl caught up in the fantasy of love.

The Marnie Lee groaned against the weight of a wave, and a tremor passed through the hull. The wheel slid through Marnie’s fingers, and Adam grabbed hold of the helm, his arms imprisoning her as he strained against the wheel. “Only an idiot would sail in a storm like this,” he muttered.

An idiot or someone hell-bent to have a life of her own, she thought angrily, surrounded by the smell of him. The scent of after-shave was nearly obscured by the fresh odor of water and ocean that clung to his skin. His hair gleamed under the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling and his features were set into a hard mask as unforgiving as the sea.

“Do I have to remind you that you’ve shown up uninvited twice in one night? That must be some kind of record, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know what to think right now,” he admitted, his eyebrows thrust together and deep lines of concentration etching his forehead, “but I sure as hell can come up with a hundred places I’d rather be.”

“That makes two of us,” she snapped, as his arms relaxed and he stepped back, giving her control of the vessel again. “We’ll put into port at Chinook Harbor.”

“That’s where you’re going?”

“It’s a little out of the way.” But worth it, to get rid of you, she thought unkindly. She didn’t need any complications on this trip, and any way she looked at it, Adam Drake was a complication. He stepped away from her, and she commanded the boat again, glad for the feel of the polished wheel in her hands. A hundred questions plagued her. What did he want with Kent? Why had he stowed away? How involved in the embezzling was he? And why, oh Lord, why, did she find him the least bit attractive? The man was trouble—pure and simple.

The storm didn’t slow down for a minute. Harsh winds screamed across the deck and waves curled high to batter the hull repeatedly. Marnie’s stomach spent most of the trip in her throat, and she didn’t have time to consider Adam again. He made himself useful, helping read the charts and maps as they headed into the cluster of San Juan Islands.

Her plan was to drop him off in Chinook Harbor, spend the night on the boat, then, as soon as the storm passed, sail around the tip of the island to Deception Lodge, an antiquated resort her father wanted to restore. Making camp in a potential Montgomery Inn bothered her a little; the lodge still belonged to her father and as long as she was seeking shelter on Montgomery soil, she wasn’t truly free.

“But soon,” she muttered as she spied a few lights winking in the distance, lights that had to be on Orcas Island.

“But soon—what?”

She shot him a look that told him it was none of his business, and was about to turn inland when she spotted the buoy bobbing crazily ahead.

“Watch out,” Adam commanded, but the sea swelled under the boat like a creature climbing from the depths. “Marnie, you’re too close!”

Panicked, she checked the gauges. “Too close to what!”

CRACK! The Marnie Lee trembled violently, and for a second Marnie thought the boat was about to split apart.

“Damn it, woman, get out of the way.” Adam shoved her aside and threw open the door.

“You can’t go out…” Her voice was carried away by the cry of the wind.

“Just steer the boat, for God’s sake!”

Horrified, still trying to set the Marnie Lee back on course, she watched as Adam tied a rope around his waist, then worked his way around the bow, rain beating on his head, his hands moving one over the other on the rail. He paused at the starboard side, leaned over, then braced himself as another swell rolled over the deck, engulfing him. Marnie’s heart leaped to her throat. She saw the lifeline stretch taut. Her stomach lurched as the wave retreated and Adam, drenched, still braced against the force of the wave, appeared again.

“Thank God,” she whispered, her throat raw, “Now, Drake, damn your stubborn hide, get below deck and dry out.”

Another torrent of water washed over the deck and once again Adam vanished for a few terror-filled seconds. This time, when the water receded, he moved along the rail again before disappearing on the stairs.

She guided the ship by instinct; she’d learned sailing from her father years before. But all the while her nerves were strung tight, her ears cocked to the door.

Nearly ten minutes later, Adam returned to the bridge, dripping and coughing saltwater and glaring at her as if she were responsible for the storm. “There’s a crack in the hull—a small one on the starboard side, on line with the galley,” he said. “Not a big gash, but it’s not going away. You’re taking on water—slowly. I used some sealer I found downstairs, but it won’t hold, at least not forever.” His eyes were dark and serious. “You’ve got to turn inland.”

“But there’s no port for miles.”

“You don’t have a choice. The island’s close enough. Just head for land. We’ll worry about a harbor when we get closer.” He picked up the microphone for the radio and started to call the Coast Guard, but Marnie flipped the switch, turning off his cry for help.

“We’ll make it ourselves,” she said, refusing, in her first few hours of freedom, to give up any small bit of her independence. “Besides, I think the storm’s about over, the rain’s stopping.”

“Did you hear me, Marnie?” he demanded, ignoring her assessment of the situation. “Rain or no rain, sooner or later, this boat is going to sink like a stone. And we’re going to sink with her.”

“But not for a while. Right?”

“Unless we hit something else.”

“How long do we have?”