He shook his head. “As soon as she‟s serviced, I‟m on to the next one.”
Apprehension gripped her. She arched her brows. “You‟re still referring to the boat, I hope.”
He flashed another grin, quick and crooked as lightning. “Just making it clear. Once I line up another berth, another job,
I‟m gone.”
“Then we don‟t have much time,” she said with more truth than he knew.
He stood there, shirtless, dripping, regarding her with glinting golden eyes. “How much time do you need?”
Her heart beat in her throat. Her mouth was dry. He thought her interest was sexual. Of course he did. That‟s what she had
led him to think.
“Why don‟t we start with coffee,” she suggested, “and see what happens.”
He glanced at his companions, bundling sails on deck. “Drinks, and you‟ve got yourself a date.”
Lara swallowed. She had hoped to be back in Rockhaven by nightfall. But a few hours wouldn‟t make that much difference
to their safety. She wanted desperately to succeed in their mission, to prove herself to the school council. She rubbed her
tingling fingertips together. If only she could touch him . . . But they were separated by more than four feet of water. “Five
o‟clock?”
“Seven. Where?”
She scrambled to cull a name from their frustrating foray along the waterfront earlier in the day. Someplace close, she
thought. Someplace dark. “The Galaxy?”
His eyes narrowed before he nodded. “I‟ll be there.”
Relief rushed through her. “I‟ll be waiting.”
Justin watched her walk away, slim legs, trim waist, snug skirt, nice ass, a shining fall of dark hair to the middle of her
back. Definitely a ten.
“Hot.” Rick Scott, the captain, offered his opinion.
“Very,” Justin agreed.
Her face was as glossy and perfect as a picture in a magazine, her eyes large and gray beneath dark winged brows, her nose
straight, her mouth full-lipped. Unsmiling.
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 collapsed 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 smells 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 will 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 and years at sea. Worse ones 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, following the coast and an instinct he did not try to understand. The last thing he needed
was to get tangled up onshore.
“ I’ll be waiting, ” she‟d said in that smooth, low voice.
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,