Cinderella Search (8 page)

Maybe it was time for them to let it go, to let Steve Jackson’s father come and kill it outright, rather than have to watch its slow and agonizing demise.

What if she simply walked down into the lounge, woke him up and told him to take it, take the whole shebang, take the responsibility off her shoulders? Then, she’d be free. But … free of what? She nearly laughed. Not guilt, that was certain. No, she was in this now and would see it through to the end. Whatever that end might be.

Lissa quickly moved toward Steve. Then she stood gazing at him. His eyes were closed as he breathed in the slow, steady rhythms of deep slumber.

What in the world was he dreaming about, to produce a smile like that?

She had to fight her stupid impulse to smooth that lock of hair off his forehead. Finally winning that battle, she suddenly lost another and picked up a hand crocheted afghan from the back of a sofa.

Stepping closer, she paused, then stared. There was no longer any doubt whatsoever about the reason for his smile, or what had nudged the magazine off his lap. Cripes! She clenched her teeth, not knowing whether she was most annoyed with herself for being impressed, or him for being in that state while he dreamed of … whom?

It sure wasn’t ghosts.

She picked up the magazine and dropped it on the table, where it landed with an audible slap. He didn’t wake up, though his smile faded and a frown creased his forehead for an instant. Still annoyed with herself, and with him, she spread the afghan over his long frame.

One of his big toes poked through between the imperfectly joined corners of four granny squares, making her smile. He murmured, smiled again, and cuddled the blanket up under his chin.

It took all Lissa’s strength to back slowly away from him instead of tucking the covering more securely around his shoulders and fixing it so his toe didn’t stick out. How could such a large toe, with a blunt-cut nail and a callus on the side, look so vulnerable? And why did it bring a catch to her throat? She sat down on the sofa next to his chair and watched him sleep.

She was still sitting there, listening to him breathe, aching to touch him, when she heard the distinctive squeak of the swinging doors from the dining room. She leapt to her feet and whirled around. There was Rosa, carrying a tray of rolls and pastries for early risers. Good grief! It was nearly five o’clock in the morning!

In one leap, Lissa started back to her post at the front desk, but she wasn’t quick enough.

“What’s this?” Rosa whispered, staring at Lissa, hovering between the lounge and the desk, and at Steve Jackson sleeping in a chair. “What’s he doing down here? I thought you told your dad you wouldn’t get involved with him.” She gave Lissa an arch grin. “I figured you’d change your mind.”

“I didn’t change my mind!”

“No, I don’t suppose you did.” Rosa set her tray on the reception desk. The mingled scents of cinnamon and yeast filled the lobby. “The mind seldom has anything to do with things like this, does it?”

Lissa was saved having to come up with a suitable reply by the arrival downstairs of George, Mark and Jamie Fredricks.

“Hey there, Lissa!” George boomed. “Have you looked outside yet? Gonna be another great day. Not a rain cloud in sight.”

He and his sons each grabbed a couple of rolls, shoved them into the white paper bags the inn provided, and stuffed them into the pockets of their fishing jackets. George turned to Rosa. “Coffee ready yet?” He added apples and oranges to his pockets.

“Comin’ right up, boys.”

The conversation woke Steve Jackson. Maria and Jacinta Allenda, also dressed for the dawn bite, came in from their cabin near the beach, equally eager to get a few hours’ fishing before breakfast.

There was nothing Lissa could do but stand there and stare as Steve sat up and stretched his arms high over his head, arching his back. He yawned, patting his open mouth with the back of one hand and then looked straight at her.

She gazed back at him as he slowly got to his feet, rising like a lithe panther from his lair. He caught the afghan as it slid toward the floor, holding its bright, orange, white and yellow zigzag pattern bunched in one fist.

She wanted to back away but she was frozen in place.

Something in his expression unleashed a wild, excited rush of blood through her veins. It weakened her knees and made her feel dizzy. Without shifting his gaze from hers, he took a step toward her, tripped over the part of the afghan caught on his toe and turned the fall into a push-up, from which he bounced to his feet. “There goes another guy, fallin’ for Lissa,” Jamie Fredricks snickered. “Won’t do you any good, Steve,” he added as Steve, appearing completely unfazed, grinned. “Lissa’s the original unapproachable woman.”

“Oh, yeah?” Steve said. He shook the afghan loose from his toe and, still staring at Lissa, carefully folded the blanket twice, then dropped it onto the sofa.

Steve watched a delicate pink flush rise up Lissa’s throat to tint her face as he came close to her. “Hey,” he said, “thanks for the cover. That was nice of you.”

Her lashes fluttered. She shrugged. “You looked … chilly.”

She looked warm. “I was dreaming about you,” he said, and she suddenly looked a lot more than warm. As an excuse to touch her, he captured a loose wisp of hair and slipped it behind her ear. Her cheek was satiny, heated, its curve enticing. She shivered.

“Are you sure you aren’t hiding some latent mothering instincts deep inside somewhere?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Positive. I don’t have a maternal instinct to my name.”

Her voice wobbled the faintest bit and a pulse hammered hard in her throat. He touched the tip of his finger to it. He wished it was the tip of his tongue. He wanted to return to last night’s fantasy, and this time, make it reality, hear her whispering into his ear, feel the heat of her breath, taste her skin, her lips, her mouth, drag in great gulps of the scent of her hair. He wanted—

“No?” He forced the question out through a suddenly raspy throat. “What kind of instincts do you have, Lissa?”

For a moment, he thought she wouldn’t reply as their gazes meshed.

“Strong instincts of self-preservation,” she finally said and slipped behind the front desk. Once again she darted behind the door in the back wall and closed it firmly behind her.

Aboard her boat, Lissa sat sipping coffee. She should, she knew, go below again, grab a few hours’ sleep, then get back to organizing the festival, but it was a glorious morning and she hated to waste it sleeping. The early fishermen had gone out and wouldn’t be returning anytime soon, not with the weather so lovely. Steve, she was certain, would be among them.

The sun shone brightly from a cloudless sky and the waters of Madrona Cove wore shimmering reflections of the hills and bluffs along the protective points of land that held it in their arms. She remained on deck, slowly swinging in her hammock chair, one foot propped on the rail, coffee cup propped on one knee and looked out.

“This is Lissa’s boat.” She heard the marina manager’s voice behind her.

“Boss Lady?” said a laughing voice that startled Lissa into pushing her toe against the rail, spinning her chair around so fast that most of her coffee slopped out. “Yup, it makes sense.”

Merv laughed, too. “One of a kind, she is, our Lissa. Oh!” he added in what some might have taken to be genuine astonishment, “there she is herself.”

Steve Jackson standing on the dock in broad daylight was no less attractive than he had been by lamplight. He shaded his eyes with one hand as he peered up at her into the sun.

“Mornin’, Liss,” Merv went on. “Okay if we come aboard?”

Without waiting for her reply, he stepped up onto the deck. Steve remained on the float. “You’ve met Steve Jackson?”

“Yes,” she said. “We’ve met. Planning another day’s fishing, Steve?”

“No, I wasn’t thinking of going out today.”

“Why not?”

He grinned. “Is it compulsory?”

“I … no. Of course not. It’s just that’s what I thought you’d come for.” Too late, she remembered the circumstances under which he’d said those words. “I mean, it’s what most of our guests come for.”

“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” he said.

“Really? Looked to me as if you did all right.” He’d slept longer than she had, which had been not at all.

“That was just a catnap.”

“Problems last night?” Merv asked innocently.

“Not really,” Steve said. “I was … restless, I guess. I moved down to the lounge to read, and fell asleep there. Lissa was kind enough to toss a blanket over me.”

“Good for her,” Merv said, bestowing an approving look on her. “Uh, Liss, I was telling Steve about the renovations we’ve done to your boat here. I wonder, since you’re obviously not too busy, if you wouldn’t mind giving him a tour.”

As she opened her mouth to refuse, Merv gave her a pointed look. “I promised I’d help Larry with a little job he needs to take care of for the next hour or so.”

She suppressed a sigh. All right, Merv: Message received.

“I sure hope tonight will be an improvement over last night,” Merv said to Steve, with every appearance of sincerity. “The whole Madrona Inn team likes to pull together to make every guest’s stay exactly what we all want it to be.”

What could she say? What could she do? She had to show Steve around her boat. Though she’d rather have pitched him in the drink, she conjured up a smile.

“Sure,” she said, resigning herself to the inevitable. She’d be a team player if it killed her. “Come aboard. Would you like some coffee? Sugar, milk?”

“Black,” he said, his eyes on hers as he strolled beside her on the deck of her old, converted tugboat. “And sweet.”

She couldn’t force a reply through her throat. He wore faded blue cutoffs with ragged edges. His powerful brown legs spoke of hours on tennis courts or golf courses or other playboy activities. His blue polo shirt added depth to the color of his eyes and its open neck gave her a tantalizing peek at that golden mat of hair on his chest.

She jerked her gaze away as Merv gave them an insouciant wave and left her alone. Alone with Steve Jackson.

“I—I’ll get the coffee,” she said, snatching up her own cup. She scuttled below and wasted a good three minutes telling herself she did not need to put on lipstick, did not need to brush blush over her cheeks or powder her nose, did not need to do anything but pour two mugs of coffee and take them outside.

Before she made it back on deck, however, vanity won out.

She even combed her bangs and whipped on a smidgen of mascara, though her dark lashes really didn’t need it. But maybe her self-confidence did.

When Lissa returned, Steve had unfolded a canvas chair and set it up near hers. He had both his bare feet on the starboard rail as he looked out toward the entrance to the Cove. He smiled his thanks as she set his coffee on the deck beside him.

Suddenly, she found she wasn’t quite prepared to look at Steve, though she couldn’t have said why it was so difficult. All she had to do was be friendly. Keep him entertained. Keep him from returning to his room while Larry did the job that had to be done.

“I was admiring that big house over there on the point,” Steve said, breaking a silence that Lissa was beginning to find unbearable. Following the direction of his gaze, she looked at the sprawling, white-shuttered, brown-painted house set in a swath of grass that sloped almost to the water’s edge. It had its own wharf and boathouse, and was surrounded by well established shade and fruit trees. “It looks like a real home.”

She eased herself into her swinging chair. “It was,” she said. “It was my home when I was a little girl.”

He arched his eyebrows. “I thought you lived at the inn.”

“My parents split up when I was ten and the house had to be sold. I spent summers here with Dad in the manager’s residence on the inn’s third floor. The room you first stayed in was mine. The one you have now, was Dad’s.”

“It must have been fun, living in a hotel.” Steve sounded, she thought, wistful.

“Didn’t you? You said your father owns resorts. You never lived in any of them?”

He shook his head and changed the subject. Of course, under the circumstances, he wouldn’t want to talk about his father’s business.

“I like the name of your boat,” he said, “Boss Lady. It’s exactly what I’d have expected—a feminist boat.”

“I didn’t name her. Maria and Jacinta did. The Allendas? Your table mates?”

He nodded, sipped his coffee, his eyes on her face as if he was waiting for her to go on.

Feeling oddly compelled to do so, she continued. “They bought her, moored her here, had her converted from a tug to a pleasure craft. They took turns as captain, and whoever’s day it was to be in charge was referred to as Boss Lady. That worked all one summer, then realized they really didn’t like living aboard and would rather stay in one of the cabins ashore and fish from a runabout. So when I was looking for a place to live, she’d been on the market for several years and I got her for a fraction of her real value.”

“You don’t mind fishing from a bigger boat?”

“I don’t fish.” She hadn’t intended it to come out so coldly.

He cocked his head. “And you sound disapproving of those who do.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to. It would be sort of hypocritical, wouldn’t it, earning my living in a place that caters to sports fishing, if I disapproved.”

“But you do,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Lissa knew she should deny it, but somehow, the bright sun, the fresh morning and the steady gaze of the man sitting beside her made equivocation more difficult than telling the truth. “To fish for food for yourself or others is okay within reason. It’s the greedy desire to catch your limit every day, whether you need the food or not, the insistence on getting the biggest fish, the trophy fish, that enrages me. I absolutely loathe fishing derbies, because they encourage people to toss out the smallest fish from their boat the minute they have a bigger one on board, in order not to go over their daily limit. It’s so wasteful, and before long, there won’t be any fish left, unless we start conserving them, caring for their habitat, and—”