Beyond Reach

‘Didn’t you bring a pair of shorts with you?’

A blush crept up her face. ‘No. I—no.’

‘Check in the forward cabin—the drawer under the port bunk. You can borrow a pair of mine.’

In spite of herself her voice shook. ‘You mean you’ll take me for a trial run?’

‘Yeah… that’s what I mean.’

She gave him a dazzling smile that lit up her face and gave her, fleetingly, a true beauty. ‘Thanks,’ she said breathlessly. ‘You won’t regret it.’

Before he could change his mind, she climbed up on the foredeck, her bare feet gripping the roughened fiberglass. The forward hatch was open. With the agility’ of the fifteen-year-old she had once been, she climbed down the wooden ladder into his cabin. It had two bunks, one unmade; a faint, indefinable scent of clean male skin and aftershave teased her nostrils. Closing her mind to it, as she had closed her mind to the awkward truth that once again she was doing her utmost to involve herself with a big, handsome, blond man, Lucy pulled open the left-hand drawer. She scrabbled among Troy Donovan’s clothes, not quite able to ignore how intimate an act this was, and shook out the smallest of the three pairs of shorts there. Dropping her skirt on the bunk, she pulled them on. They might be the smallest pair, but they were still far too big, the waist gaping, the cuffs down to her knees. After grabbing a canvas belt coiled neatly in the corner of the drawer, she cinched in the waistband and let her T-shirt fall over it.

She looked ridiculous. And somehow she wasn’t so sure that that was a bad thing.

Not stopping to analyze this, Lucy climbed back on deck. A skipper from another boat had ambled over to help with the mooring lines. Troy said, giving Lucy’s attire a single derisive glance, ‘The ignition switch is by the radio. Then you can retrieve the anchor—these are the handsignals I’ll use.’ Briefly he demonstrated them. ‘We’ll head out under power, and once we’re in the strait you can hoist the mainsail.’

She should have been nervous. But, as the diesel engine began to throb beneath her feet, Lucy felt such a purity of happiness rocket through her body that there was no room for anything else. Again she went forward, pulling on the gloves she found stowed by the anchor winch and glancing back over her shoulder to catch all Troy’s instructions.

The groaning of the winch and the clanking of the anchor chain made her feel fully alive, every nerve alert, every muscle taut. As she guided the chain into its berth she found herself remembering for the first time in many years how at fifteen she had anticipated in hectic detail the way such feelings might be deliciously enhanced by that mysterious act called making love.

How wrong she’d been! Big blond men. Bah! The next time she fell in love, Lucy decided, it was going to be with someone short and stout and bald. Then Seawind began to move, and all her concerns, her love-life included, vanished from her mind.

Within minutes she’d hauled in the fenders and stowed them away. The dock was receding. The channel with its red and green buoys beckoned them on. Troy said, ‘There’s sunscreen in the cupboard under the bar. You’d better put some on before we get out on open water.’

Again Lucy went down the companionway steps. The cabin was spacious, constructed from highly polished mahogany. Two couches, flanking a dining table inlaid with marble, two padded swivel chairs, a chart cupboard and a neatly appointed galley were all fitted in without any sense of constriction, and again Lucy felt that shaft of unreasoning happiness. As she smoothed the cream over her face and arms the deck began to lift and fall beneath her feet.

When she want back up, Troy said tersely, ‘You can hoist the mainsail now.’

She fastened the halyard to the headboard and began hauling on the sheet, bending her knees to give herself leverage, using every bit of her strength. Following Troy’s instructions, she tightened the winch, slotting the handle and bracing herself against the companionway. Then she unfurled the headsail and trimmed it to a port tack. The breeze had freshened as they left the confines of Road Harbor. Troy turned off the engine and suddenly Seawind came to life, her bow rising and falling as she heeled into the wind that was her reason for being.

‘Isn’t this wonderful?’ Lucy cried, giving Troy another of those brilliant smiles that held nothing in it of seduction yet was infinitely seductive.

Her shirt was molded to her body, her hair whipping about her ears. ‘Ease off the headsail,’ he ordered in a clipped voice.

Lucy knew enough to do as she was told. But, spoiling her exultation, a cold core of dismay had appeared somewhere in the vicinity of her gut. Did she want to sail with a skipper who so plainly hated his job? He had yet to give her anything approaching a real smile. Even now, as he checked the masthead fly and adjusted the wheel, he didn’t look the least bit happy to be out on the water.

‘We’ll change tacks in a few minutes,’ he called. ‘I’ll tell you when.’

This maneuver went without a hitch. Then Lucy took a stint at the wheel, delighted to find that her old intuitive sense of wind and sail had never left her. After they’d changed tacks again, Troy questioned her on the rules of the road and threw a number of hypothetical situations at her to see how she’d deal with them. Then they headed back to the harbor, running before the wind. Finally, Lucy furled the headsail and folded the mainsail on the boom, and before she knew it Troy was backing into the dock. He was, she had to admit, a more than competent skipper.

The engine died, and into the silence Lucy said tautly, ‘Do I pass?’

He leaned against the folding table that ran along the centre of the cockpit and answered her question with another. ‘It’s ten or eleven years since you sailed, right?’

‘Ten.’

‘You loved it.’

‘They were the best years of my life,’ Lucy heard herself say, and felt her face stiffen with shock as the truth of her words struck home. ‘That’s nuts, isn’t it?’ she said, more to herself than to him. ‘It can’t be true…’

‘It sure doesn’t say much for anything that’s happened since then.’

‘No…’ she whispered. ‘It doesn’t.’

Ruthlessly Troy Donovan hurled two more questions at her. Are you married—or living with someone?’

‘No and no.’ Fighting to regain control of herself— what was it about this cold, unfriendly man that made her reveal herself so blatantly and so unwisely?—she added, ‘Are you?’

‘I’m interviewing you, not the reverse,’ he retorted. ‘If you’re independent, and you so clearly love sailing, why aren’t you living on the west coast again?’

‘Mr Donovan,’ Lucy said coldly, ‘this is a hiring session. Not a counseling session.’

‘The name’s Troy. Why don’t you answer the question?’

‘Because I can’t!’ she flared. ‘Because the reasons I live where I do are nothing to do with you. ‘I’m not asking you why you never smile, why you have a job that you seem to dislike so thoroughly. Because it’s none of my business.’ Her face changed. ‘Please… are you going to hire me?’

‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’ he said unpleasantly. ‘The first guests come on board the day after tomorrow and there’s a pile of work to do in the meantime. However, I won’t make you do it for nothing.’ He named a salary that was more than fair. ‘I want you to take my vehicle now, and go to the grocery—’

‘You’ve hired me—for four whole weeks!’ Lucy interrupted. ‘But that’s terrific! Oh, I’m so excited!’ Grabbing the extra fabric that flapped around her slender legs and holding it out like a skirt, she did a solemn little dance on the deck. Then she gave him a wide grin. ‘I’ll do the very best I can, I promise.’

Because Troy was standing in the shade he had pushed his sunglasses up again and there was in the flint-gray eyes an unquestionable, if reluctant, smile. Much encouraged, Lucy said pertly, ‘So you do know how to smile. You’d be extremely handsome if you smiled properly, you know.’ She bared her teeth in an exaggerated smirk. ‘You should try it some time.’

‘Lucy,’ he said tightly, ‘maybe now’s as good a time as any to make something else clear. You and I are going to be living and working together in pretty close quarters for the next month. There’ll be no male-female stuff between us—have you got that?’

His smile was gone as if it had never been, and the anger that she’d already sensed as a huge part of his make-up was very much in evidence. She stared right back at him. ‘You’re afraid I might make a pass at you?’

Biting off the words, he said, ‘Of course I’m not afraid of you! But the comfort and security of the guests is our only concern for the next four weeks. You and I are coworkers—and that’s all.’

She could match his anger with an anger of her ownit would be all too easy—or she could keep her sense of humor. Choosing the latter—because his pronouncement definitely had its funny side—Lucy gave a hoot of laughter. ‘No problem! Now if you were fivefeet-seven, bald and overweight, then you should worry. But tall, blond and handsome—nope. I’m immune. Thank you very much.’

‘I don’t see what’s so funny,’ he snarled.

‘I don’t think you see anything very much as funny,’ Lucy said, with more truth than tact. ‘And I swear that’s the last remark of a personal nature that’ll cross my lips today.’

He said—and Lucy was one hundred percent sure he hadn’t meant to say it, ‘Immunity implies exposure.’

‘Indeed,’ she said drily. ‘I fell in love with my first blond hunk—the history teacher in school—when I was twelve, and I’ve been doing it ever since. When I came down here, I’d made a vow—no more blond men. Bald is beautiful. So you’re quite safe, Troy Donovan. Now, what was that about groceries?’

‘For their sakes, I’m glad none of them married you,’ he said nastily.

Lucy flinched. She would have married Phil, who’d had wavy blond curls and had proposed to her among the tulips along the Rideau Canal when she was twentythree years old. But Phil had met Sarah, chic, fragile Sarah, two months before the wedding, and had gone to Paris with Sarah instead of staying home and marrying Lucy. She said, almost steadily, ‘If they had I wouldn’t be crewing for you, would I? What did happen to your previous cook, by the way?’

‘Her son crushed several bones in his foot last night. She flew to San Juan with him this morning.’ His scowl deepened. ‘I shouldn’t have said that about marriage— I’m sorry.’

Despite her vow, a vow she fully intended to keep, Lucy was already aware that it would be much safer if she disliked Troy. He was taller than Phil, more handsome than the history teacher, and sexier by far than anyone she had ever met. ‘Grocery store,’ she repeated in a stony voice.

‘I’ll give you the keys to my Jeep. I want you to cook supper for me tonight, as if I were a guest—an appetizer to go with drinks, then dinner and dessert. This evening you can draw up menus for the next six days and I’ll check them over. Our first charter is just one couple, Craig and Heather Merritt, from New York. They’ll come on board the day after tomorrow—by then you’ve got to have the boat provisioned and spanking clean brass and woodwork polished, bathrooms spotless, beds made so they can have their choice of cabin. I’ll look after ice, water supplies and the bar, and in the meantime I’ll overhaul the engine and the pumps. Any questions?’