Her Sworn Enemy (Men of the Zodiac) (12 page)

“What if the doc and I have an understanding? How’s that anyone’s business?”

“It ain’t. Not exactly, except you got us all under a no-fraternization rule. We look up to you for that, and a man can’t lead what he don’t follow.”

Tuck ignored the twist in his stomach. Deep down he knew sleeping with Bella was asking for trouble, but they’d both gone into it knowing this was only for the short term—no promises, no expectations. So what was the harm in that? Sure, she’d like it to be more, she’d made that clear, but she knew not to expect it. The problem was she deserved more. Hell, she deserved better than him. She deserved a man who would put her up on a pedestal and believe she was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him, and he just wasn’t that guy. He couldn’t be, not if he wanted to rectify his past and be more than the man his father was.

“You want me to talk to the crew?”

Toneau smirked. “That’d be one hell of a meeting.” He shook his head. “No, word will get around quick enough if you let key people know that you and the doc have decided to be an item. It’s the hiding it that they won’t understand. Feels like you’re telling them to do one thing but not following it yourself. Now if you change the rules we all go by, then fine, no harm.”

Tuck nodded and put his hand on Toneau’s shoulder. “You’re a good man.”

The problem was, Tuck thought morosely, was
he
a good man?

Now that they’d found the wreck, the countdown clock on his relationship had started ticking. And while he admired Bella and had never met anyone like her, the tendrils of a romantic relationship were still too binding for his taste. Oh, he was tempted. Hell, yeah he was tempted, but years of seeing what being in an uncertain relationship had done to his mother still kept him latched on to the one thing he knew to be true. In the long-term, relationships that hooked into your heart and kept you tethered were ones that destroyed you, no matter how in love you thought you might be.

Chapter Ten

“Y
ou need to take a break.” Tuck stood at the entrance to the conservation lab, his arms crossed, tanned torso bare, looking terribly…distracting. It took a moment for her brain to reengage and actually process what he said, instead of staring at him and enjoying the view.

The sound of Rory opening a multiplex container to bring out another basket of items recovered from the
Rapid
snapped her out of her daze. Within a day of positively identifying the cannon, they had started working the site, and the amount they brought up was staggering. Days had started to blend together as she worked sixteen-hour shifts. “Do you see all these containers? How on earth can I take a break? Half of this isn’t even photographed or cataloged yet.”

He sighed and shook his head at her overdramatic tone. “You need to get out of this lab for a little bit. You and Rory have been working non-stop for a month. If you don’t get some sun and a little R&R soon, you’re gonna snap.”

“I am not!” She looked over at Rory. “I’m fine. We’re fine, aren’t we?”

Rory refused to make eye contact with her and shook his head, too. “I’m not the boss, Doc. If the captain thinks you need a break, he’s probably right.”

Tuck stepped into the lab, getting close enough she could almost taste the sea spray on his skin. “All work and no play makes Bella—”

She stopped him with a finger on his lips. “There’s plenty of play, and you know it,” she said low enough for only him to hear.

The corner of his mouth lifted in a sexy, knowing smile, and he kissed her finger. “Doesn’t mean you don’t need to get out of here for a break.”

“Like what?”

“Come dive with me.”

“Dive?” She wasn’t sure she remembered how. During one of her courses she’d been required to try it a few times, but not enough to become certified in it or to do it as a sport. Basically, she’d learned the science behind it, gotten wet a few times, and left it at that.

“You’ve snorkeled, right?”

She nodded. Snorkeling was easier. Simple. Minimal commitment. Bella frowned. Maybe she had as many issues with commitment as Tuck did. But then she’d never met a man she could rely on before to not eventually hurt her somehow.

“Same difference. Use your mouthpiece, only big thing is you keep breathing with it instead of going to the surface, and you always dive with a buddy. How’d you get out of knowing how to dive if you were studying underwater archeology?”

“I studied maritime archeology and history and rely on big, burly guys like you to do the grunt work and bring everything to the surface,” she replied.

“Grunt work. You greatly underestimate my value, Doctor Dupré.”

She glanced down at the broad expanse of his bronzed chest and the muscles covered with taunt skin. Tuck could have been a work of art. She traced down his chest with her finger, enjoying the ripple and flex of his muscles in response to her touch. “Oh, I don’t underestimate,” she said with just a hint of seduction. “I like to mess with you.”

The blue in his eyes grew bright with arousal. “You can’t properly call yourself a scientist in underwater archeology until you’ve at least been on a dive. Take off your lab apron, and get in a swimsuit. I’ve got Toneau prepping our equipment now.” A sexy, slow smile spread across his lips. He nodded his head and raised his eyebrows twice in a quick bump. “We’re going down.”

It felt like he was issuing her a challenge. Fine. She’d accept. She’d snorkeled dozens of times and had gone diving a couple of times. How hard could it be?

“You’re on.” She untied her lab apron and set it aside. “You going to be okay on your own for an afternoon, Rory?”

“He’ll be fine,” Tuck answered. “Right, Rory?”

“No problem, Cap.”

Tuck winked at him, and Bella wedged past him and headed toward her cabin to change.

A
half hour later she was on deck, stuffed into a neoprene wetsuit, a weight belt, a buoyancy compensator vest with tanks strapped to her, fins, a mask and snorkel, and a regulator all in place. “I didn’t remember there was so much extra equipment,” she muttered.

“Don’t worry. You’ll do fine.” Tuck had been giving her a quick, mini-diving class, explaining all the equipment and adjusting it to fit her properly. Every time his hand had brushed her bare skin, she had to repress a shiver of yearning for him to strip it all off her and carry her back to his cabin. An afternoon spent in bed seemed like a lot better form of rest and relaxation to her than diving, but Tuck assured her it would be an experience she’d never forget. All her diving until now had been in the deep end of a pool or shallow lake. Three dives in all, and only to pass a required class.

“I’m going in first, so I’ll be in the water in case you need anything. Remember foot out, step off, hold your mask, keep breathing,” Tuck said.

Bella nodded then watched his every move as he stepped effortlessly out over the water and splashed down, bobbing back up to the surface.

“Go for it, Bella!”

She pressed her mask to her face with one hand and clamped her lips around the hard plastic of the regulator as she lifted one finned foot out over the edge of the boat over open water and stepped out. The cool water hit her in a rush. She kicked up twice and bobbed up to the surface, making sure to tip her head back so her wet hair wouldn’t obscure her mask.

The first big difference she noticed was the gentle ebb and swell of the ocean waves. That hadn’t been a factor in either the pool or the lake. The current wasn’t too strong, but she could feel the gentle tug and pull of it as the water moved around her. He made the diver signal for okay, and she responded back with the same signal then motioned for ready to dive. She double-checked her regulator, breathing in. The familiar Darth Vader-like sound assured her everything was working fine, and she plunged beneath the waves.

Sunlight streamed down in white and gold ribbons from above, constantly rippling like they were in a breeze as the pale blue of the water surrounded her. It seemed endless, stretching out in all directions simultaneously. The bright yellow bottom of the
Discovery
bobbed on the surface, her only connection to the world above. Tuck was already swimming away. She let her arms float back to her sides and kicked hard, letting her fins do the work as she followed him down.

Exhilaration had bumped up her heart rate, which would mean a shorter dive if she sucked up the air in her tank too quickly. Consciously, Bella slowed down her breathing. She wanted to extract every minute she could out of the dive with Tuck.

She pulled in a deeper breath than she intended. All along these past few weeks she’d been savoring every moment with him, always the ticking clock in the back of her mind knowing that no matter how good they were together, the end was coming faster and faster like a bullet train. Emotionally, she was tied to the damn train tracks and going to get run over if she didn’t keep at least part of her heart to herself. But for now, in this moment, it was all worth it.

The sense of freedom was amazing, like being a fish herself. For a moment she let her neutral buoyancy allow her to hover in the water and the gentle sway of the current rock her. It was so damn relaxing. She could understand why he loved it so much. It fit him. And he fit her. And who knew, maybe fate was fickle enough to let it all work out. How, she had no idea. That was still a mystery. She kicked off again, trailing behind Tuck.

Spadefish, flat and thin like giant black and silver striped angelfish, meandered in a glinting cloud in the water, some of them chasing after the bubbles that rose from them in a trail as they dove deeper. They seemed serene, until something changed. An instant later the school moved in perfect synchronization as they darted and disappeared to avoid perceived threats in the water.

She heard their threat before she saw it, the clicks and high-pitched whistles of a pod of dolphins streaking through the water above them. Their supple, smooth bodies undulated as they swam, sometimes brushing against one another, other times breaking the surface. Bella tugged on Tucker’s BC vest and pointed up at the dolphins. He winked at her and gave her a thumbs-up. This was probably the coolest thing she’d done in years, definitely the kind of stuff that made a guy date-worthy. So was this a date? In a twisted kind of way, she supposed it was. After all, it was just the two of them in this watery wonderland.

It was hard to tell which direction they were swimming down here without a sun in the sky to guide her to east and west. There was only light up above and dark down below. She knew the area they were in was deep, but not as deep as it could have been. They were on a shelf of sorts, where the wreck had landed, but the deep water was close by.

The farther down they went the darker it grew. Less light could penetrate from the surface, and she swam close enough to Tuck to make sure she could reach out and touch him at all times.

Tucker flicked on his flashlight and tapped her arm, pointing to the light clipped to her BC vest. She unhooked it and flipped her light on, too. The beam cut through the darkness, and she could see more sea life, corals, some thin and fragile like leafless bushes, others shorter and thick, like tentacles from an octopus, a few feather-like, seemed to sprout from the mix of sand and stony outcroppings at the bottom of the ocean. Colorful sea stars, orange, red, and purple of different shapes and sizes, and a variety of fish meandered through the coral, on a search for food. It was beautiful, like being in the tank of tropical fish rather than just looking at it.

Tuck grasped her hand, his fingers interlacing with hers. He squeezed her hand, and her heart swelled. Being down here like this with him made her feel as though it were only the two of them in the world. Together they swam, hand in hand, using their fins alone to propel them slowly over the alien landscape. Tuck squeezed her hand twice and pointed at a small red octopus moving through the coral. She nodded, and he swam closer to it to investigate. Personally, she had no interest in getting up close with something that squishy.

Tuck moved the beam of his light so that the edge of the halo lit up the octopus, but it moved quickly, too quickly, and into the brilliant center beam of the flashlight. It jetted upward in a red streak and almost collided with her as it darted past her and into the dark water beyond.

Bella sucked in a startled breath only to find water entering her mouth instead of air. While her instinct was to cough, she fought it, spitting the water out instead and trying desperately to hold on to the air she had left in her burning lungs. She waved frantically at Tuck, but he was turned away and didn’t see her. She kicked quickly until he was within reach then rapped hard on his tank.

He spun around, eyes growing wide behind his mask the minute he saw her lift up her faulty regulator and her panicked motions at her throat. He yanked his regulator from his mouth, blowing out a slow stream of steady bubbles as he handed it to her and reached for the back-up regulator he carried on his tank. Blessed air flooded her lungs as she inhaled.

He motioned to the surface, and she nodded. There was nothing more they could do down here now. They would have to both use his tank on their way to the surface. Halfway up they stopped for a decompression break, and Tuck checked the gauge to see just how much air they had left. He frowned, and then motioned upward.

Both of them knew if they didn’t stay long enough at this depth to decompress, they risked getting the flood of expanded gas bubbles in their bloodstream that divers called the bends. But since they were sharing the air that was left in his tank, getting back to the surface was a top priority, even if it meant they had to wait it out in the recompression chamber afterward.

They moved toward the light, but not fast enough. Bella took a drag of air off his regulator and instead of getting lungful, got only a sip. Tuck registered her panic and pulled her with him as he lunged toward the surface. They broke through the surface. Bella gasped as they hit the air and for a second floated, her head leaning back on her BC vest so she could suck in great gulps of air. She was lightheaded, and her body ached.

“Fire up the chamber!” Tuck yelled at the crew as he pulled her over to the metal ladder that hung down over the edge of the ship into the water. Her muscles were trembling, her skin itching, and she was so dizzy she could barely stay upright. Tuck put a hand at her lower back to help her as she climbed up. She thought Tuck was no better, but he kept making sure she was okay.

“Keep going, Bella. We’ve got to get into the recompression chamber ASAP.” Not easy to do when her legs felt as reliable and wobbly as soft-set gelatin.

The minute she sprawled out on the deck, Toneau and Barclay started stripping gear off her and Tucker, pulling the heavy tanks and BC vests from their backs and helping them up.

She tried and fumbled with the zipper to her wetsuit.

Tuck grabbed her hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it.” He quickly and efficiently peeled her out of the wet neoprene, his hands cold as they skimmed her flesh, and then pulled off his suit as well.

Both of them were given towels, dry clothes, and bottles of water before they were placed in the cylindrical recompression chamber. It was stark white inside, with one fold down bunk against one wall and a series of fold-down chairs along the other. Clear and black tubing hung suspended from the arched metal ceiling and connected to face masks with elastic on them like those found in airplanes.

The door clunked into place. “Are you feeling dizzy still?” Tuck asked. He pulled down the fold-away bed from the wall and yanked back the blue utility blanket and white sheet and placed a towel down for her.

She nodded and swayed a bit as she sat down on the bed, her ears popping as the pressure in the room increased. “Put your mask on and lie down,” he said. After about ten minutes of breathing the oxygen, the fuzziness in her brain receded.

“What happened?” Her words were muffled by the mask.