A Dangerous Leap (3 page)

Caitlyn crossed her bare legs at the ankle and wiggled her gold-painted toes. “Are you sure the guy who owns this boat isn’t your sugar daddy?”

Kelly sputtered out a laugh. The Admiral might be flattered, but his wife certainly wouldn’t be. “More like an uncle. He was a close friend of my parents, he was a couple years ahead of my dad at Annapolis. I’ve known him all my life.” She adjusted the port trim tab. “He and his wife only get down here part of the year. My living on the boat, and taking it out, keeps it in much better shape than sitting in the slip getting musty and covered in bird poop.”

She’d come to love her floating home. With its roomy forward stateroom, small galley, and head with built-in shower, it boasted bigger quarters than most ship-bound Coasties had. She enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere at the marina, and the gentle sway and slap of the water when she slept.

Unfortunately, the boat’s movement and sounds now brought to mind erotic visions of a blue-eyed, dark-haired man she couldn’t seem to get out of her system.

“So, has he asked you out?”

Kelly jerked her head around to look at Caitlyn. “The Admiral? Are you—”

“No, you doofus. Razz. Has he asked you out yet?”

Embarrassment made Kelly concentrate on navigating the narrow channel. Women like Caitlyn didn’t seem to understand guys weren’t interested in dating Kelly. Sure, she’d never lacked for male friends, and she had always been invited to group outings. But she’d never been sought out when couples broke away for more intimate pursuits.

She was sure Caitlyn had always been part of those first couples to leave.

Kelly laughed out loud at herself. She’d just turned twenty-eight, not eighteen. “No, he hasn’t. And I’m sure he’s not going to. Remember, he already has a girlfriend.” Maybe if she kept repeating that to herself, she would stop fantasizing about the man. “Anyway, I’d rather hear about that hottie doctor you’ve been seeing,” she said, hoping to deflect any more talk about Ian. She didn’t need him haunting her day off.

* * *

Ian slowed his steps along the dock, the afternoon sun shooting lasers of light off the water. The kid at the marina’s office had said it was a maroon-on-white cabin cruiser. It was supposed to be berthed between a forty-foot sport fisher and a beautifully restored old wooden cruiser.

When he saw the empty slip the stab of disappointment cut deep. He couldn’t explain his fascination with Kelly other than she was a puzzle. Like an illusion that initially looked simple, the longer and harder he studied her, the more complex she became. He doubted many people saw beyond that what-you-see-is-what-you-get first impression. He wanted to be the exception.

Even being away from the air station for two days working on a shipboard clinic hadn’t kept her from his imagination. Now it was his day off and he’d manufactured a reason to track her down.

Ian stood for a moment, vacillating between hanging around for Kelly’s return, or turning tail and leaving. The throaty rumble of twin engines caught his attention. He smirked at the boat’s name.
Sea Dawg
backed into the slip with enough skill that more than one boater watched with admiration—or maybe it was the sexy little captain that had them all eyeing the maneuver with more interest than a simple docking deserved.

Kelly looked tiny standing at the helm of the thirty-six-foot boat. She deftly shifted the engines from neutral, to reverse, to neutral again. She wore a pair of aged denim shorts and a utilitarian sport bra top that shouldn’t look suggestive but did. Cait stood on the boat’s bow tying off lines to the pilings. Kelly hopped up and cast the stern line onto the dock. Ian grabbed it and quickly looped it around the cleat. When he looked up, Kelly’s surprised smile greeted him.

“Hey, sailor, would you tie off the port side while you’re there?”

“Aye, aye captain.” Ian gave a smart salute and caught the tossed line in mid-air.

While he finished securing the boat, Caitlyn gathered her belongings and leaped to the walkway with cat-like grace, and Kelly shut down the engines.

“Kel, I’ll catch you in the morning, thanks for the tour. Ian, since you’re here, why don’t you be a sweetie and help Kelly hose down the boat? I’d do it, but I’m late for an appointment.”

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” he said. He glanced over at Kelly and saw her glaring at Caitlyn.

“Really, it’s okay. I don’t mind helping at all,” he added. Whatever it took to spend time with her worked for him.

Her eyes shifted and she acted like she’d just remembered him. “Sorry, I don’t mean to appear ungrateful.”

Ian gestured to the cruiser. “Permission to come aboard?”

Pink tinged her cheeks, sending Ian’s sex-starved brain on a fool’s jaunt to lustful thoughts. Would her whole body glow like that after—

“Permission granted, sailor. But you don’t need to help clean the boat—you didn’t get to ride on it.” She stepped back from the transom door allowing him access to the cockpit.

She slid her sunglasses down her nose and looked at him over the rims. “So, what’s up—just happen to be in the neighborhood and decided to stop by?”

The sparks of humor in her eyes made him want to laugh and groan at the same time. Instead, he stood grinning like an idiot at someone more likely to kick his heart around like a soccer ball. And walk away without a backward glance when she tired of the sport.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts and glanced around the cruiser. “I’d heard a rumor about you living on a boat and thought I’d check it out.” This excuse sounded lamer than his real excuse. And now, asking her about the other rumor seemed exceedingly stupid, to say nothing about being self-serving.

Kelly’s look turned speculative, but when she pursed her lips, his brain took a detour south again. Her full mouth spoke volumes without even moving. Unfortunately, the body part doing the most listening was about to embarrass the hell out of him.

Abruptly he moved away, pretending to check out the helm. “You handled this baby like you’ve been driving a boat all your life. Is that another genetic thing?”

Smart, Razz, bring up her family when you know damn good and well that’s not a pleasant subject for her
. The array of the sophisticated instruments he was staring at finally sunk in and he whistled softly. “Man, you’ve got everything on here.”

Radar, sonar, GPS, hell, there was even a built-in computer with charts displayed on it. He looked over his shoulder at Kelly, a different kind of excitement making his blood run fast. “Have you had her off shore?”

She shook her head and skimmed past him to settle her cute little butt on the flipped-up captain’s seat. He jerked his gaze back to the instrument array, desperate to concentrate on what she was saying, not on how good her legs looked in those damn shorts.

“Only fifteen miles or so. I’d like to take a long cruise down to the Keys to do some diving. I’m a fish at heart, so put me on, or in the water and I’m happy,” she said, a wide smile lighting her face.

Suddenly Ian didn’t care if she didn’t want to settle down, or if she’d kick him to the curb in a couple of weeks. He hadn’t been this strongly attracted to a female since he’d lusted after Melissa in ninth grade. And while that attraction had been all about his awakening hormones, this need for Kelly went beyond such a simple explanation. Hell, he couldn’t even identify what he was feeling.

Now he needed to know; was she, or wasn’t she?

“Have you heard the talk about you being gay?”

God, had he just blurted that out? He’d never wanted to be washed overboard in his life, until that minute.

She stilled and his gut tightened. Hell, he’d blown it big time now. But Kelly’s hoot of laughter burst out without any nervous restraint. “Boy oh boy, Ian. How long have you been in the military? That rumor comes ’round every time a guy gets his nose out of joint around a semi-competent female in uniform. I’m straight, but here’s a clue—sexual orientation doesn’t affect job performance, one way or the other.”

She pulled her sunglasses off and looked at him candidly. “I don’t even have to use any brain cells to come up with the guy who started that one,” she said and rolled her eyes dramatically.

His own laughter evaporated his earlier tension like spit on a carrier deck in summer. He’d rarely—if ever—been around a woman so sure of herself. Whether she was right for him or not, didn’t seem to make a damn bit of difference—he wanted her and that was all that mattered.

Acting on pure instinct, Ian leaned in and captured Kelly’s lips in a hard, demanding kiss. He tasted shock, but also hunger, encouraging him to press for more. The tip of his tongue touched hers and she stiffened, then pulled back, her eyes going wide.

Disbelief chased across her face, followed closely by chagrin. The corner of her mouth kicked up and she eased back on the captain’s seat with a small shake of her head. “Gee, let me guess. You selflessly volunteered to check me out. To verify I’m not gay?”

* * *

Ian’s features hardened and Kelly unconsciously leaned further back. No matter how much she might want him, she wouldn’t let herself become a hash mark on his personal scorecard.

“What? You think I’m coming on to you as some kind of test?” He blew out a harsh laugh then scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Hell, if I was the kind of guy who only cared about getting laid, I wouldn’t have turned you down that first night we met.”

Her indignation buckled under embarrassment and she sagged in her seat. He was right. She’d practically begged him to come home with her and he’d refused. She narrowed her eyes. “So why now? Why the interest now that you know who I am?”

Heck, for all she knew they had a wager going. The first guy to bed her would win the cash. She’d seen it before, and not just with the men—female Coasties wanted their fun, just like the guys.

“I thought it was pretty obvious that first day in the break room.” He dropped to the bench seat next to hers. “Come on, you’re not going to pretend you didn’t feel anything when I kissed you just now.”

He gave her his full charm workout, including the crooked smile and innocently raised brows. Yeah, like he could wear innocent convincingly. But he did make her laugh, mostly at herself.

“What I felt was your tongue invading restricted territory, sailor,” she said with attempted censure. Except she couldn’t claim it restricted any longer, at least not to him. Add weak to that growing list of negative attributes for herself.

He grinned and bobbed his eyebrows suggestively. “Wanna kiss and make up? Maybe you should put this in your ship’s log—our first fight.”

“And maybe you should become shark-bait.” Oh yeah, they’d gobble him up like pigs after truffles. How could she even pretend to be mad at him? Boy, she was in big trouble and she’d only known him a couple weeks.

He had a reputation for being a good guy, the one both men and women wanted to work with. Added to that was his way of looking at her as if she were the only one who mattered. God forbid, what would she be like if she allowed a physical relationship? She’d have no way to defend her heart, something she’d done for six long years.

“Come on, let me take you out to dinner. I know a great little burger shack with artery-hardening fries worth every ounce of LDL you’ll get.”

“Gee, how could I turn down such an offer—maybe I’ll get a chance to do a little extracurricular CPR.”

“Honey, any time you want to practice your rescue breathing technique on me, just holler.”

Oh yeah, she was in big trouble all right. Apparently resistance was futile against Ian Razzamenti’s blue-eyed charm.

* * *

“I can’t believe they let planes land at airports without any kind of control towers. That’s insane,” Karl fumed at his nephew as he scrambled out of the tin-can of an airplane. How in hell had he allowed the kid to talk him in to flying in something smaller than his car?

The airport had one tiny paved airstrip and a cluster of buildings on the north side of the east-west runway. A half dozen single-engine planes sat in tidy tethered rows

“You think there’ll be control towers in Colombia?” Andrew asked as he headed toward the open hangar door.

“Over half the country is jungle and mountains, so no, I don’t expect there to be control towers. Hell, I doubt there will be a real airport. But this is America. They can’t just let planes fly anywhere they want, landing and taking off without any kind of control.”

Andrew laughed. “Jeez, lighten up. I was in control. And I radioed my intentions to any other planes in the area.”

A teenage boy trotted out of the sliding metal door. “You need fuel?”

“Yeah, it needs to be topped off. Is Henry Cook around?” Andrew asked as he removed his sunglasses.

Karl scowled at his nephew. The kid was getting a little too cocky.

“He’s out with a student. He should be back in about fifteen minutes or so. You can wait inside in the pilot’s lounge if you want.”

“Thanks. Andrew, why don’t you help him with the plane,” Karl said and jerked his head toward the retreating teen.

Andrew winked at Karl and then followed the kid on his way toward the parked Cessna. “You learning how to fly?” he asked the boy.

Karl shook his head. Online or in person, his nephew had a knack for getting information. He pulled off his sunglasses as he stepped into the hangar. Several planes, twins and single engines, were shoe-horned into the tight space. To the left, another tall sliding door was half-way open and he could see the tail of a larger plane. A DC-3? Karl threaded his way between planes and rolling chests of tools.

The guy’s website had showcased a DC-3 he was restoring. Cook, the owner, had purchased several from South America, refurbished, and then resold them for a tidy profit. Karl stopped at the edge of the metal track for the rolling door and stared at the silver plane. Bare aluminum reflected the overhead mercury-vapor lights. The rounded lines and blunt nose called to mind old black and white news reels or maybe movies.

“Lookin’ for Henry?”

Karl turned at the voice behind him. An older man in a gray work shirt and navy pants stood slightly stooped, wiping his hands on a faded red bandana.