In Too Deep (2 page)

"Say something worth listening to, damn it. I don't give a crap if you drown. But it's my frigging worst nightmare. So turn the hell around and talk to me."

He attributed his accelerated heartbeat and sweaty palms to the relentless approach of the typhoon. The wind felt cool on his wet skin. Hell. Even a rational man would give pause when faced with a monsoon.

Thanks to Church it was fucking more than that for Michael. He kept his gaze locked on the other boat and not on the broody, malevolent, almost black water that stretched into infinity. The sea wasn't a woman to him. It was a man-eating, man-mutilating monster.

Merciless. Amoral.

Greedy. Unforgiving.

Christ, he'd lived with night sweats and day demons for months, and in the process developed a phobia bigger than the
Titanic
.

Michael snorted. A Navy SEAL afraid of the sea…

Ex.

Ex-Navy SEAL.

Well, screw
that
for a joke.

"Danger, danger, Will Robinson," Michael muttered, getting a firm grip on the seat of his chair as the
Nemesis
went up one side of a wave, and down into a deep trough before bobbing back to the crest. The fishing pole clattered to the deck as a frothy wave washed over the side, dousing his legs with water.

An icy sweat formed on his skin. He ignored it.

Que sera sera.

If this trip didn't cure his irrational fears, nothing would. He'd purposely surrounded himself with what he feared the most: water.

It was a last-ditch, drastic act. The sea was either going to kill, or cure him.

And right now the former was a distinct possibility…

Water foamed across the deck and drained back into the ocean, leaving a malevolent gleam on the boards. He swallowed hard.

Tally turned. Michael could once again see her face. "—So full of it," he repeated, reading the lady's furiously moving lips. She had a pretty mouth. A mouth that was going to be sucking up seawater if they didn't hurry up and do whatever-the-hell they were going to do before this storm hit.

Tally fell into her erstwhile lover as a wave broadsided their boat. She shoved away from him as soon as she caught her balance.

"Six minutes and counting," Michael guesstimated aloud. "Then I'm outta here. What the hell kind of name is 'Tally,' anyway?" he asked the three-legged cat, who'd jumped onto his lap, walked the plank of his thighs, and now stood, legs braced, on Michael's outstretched legs. Sharp claws dug into his shins. Black fur combed by the stiffening breeze, Lucky's ragged ear twitched in response.

Michael repositioned his feet on the teak railing; Lucky adjusted his weight accommodatingly. "Tally Ho? Tally up to the bar? No, that's belly up to the bar, isn't it? Which is where the hell we should be right n—pull in your claws or get off my damn leg, Cat!"

Tally Ho said something. Bouchard shook his head and put an arm around her shoulders. The lady didn't like the contact and shoved him away.

Bouchard abruptly left her side and went below. Tally braced her arms on the brass railing of the
Serendipity
and glared up at the grayish purple sky. The movement did interesting things to her breasts. Michael let the rising wave shift the binoculars to where Bouchard had disappeared.

He'd be a hell of a lot happier watching this storm from inside a comfortable hotel room than this up close and personal. He had a few other kinks to work out over the next several days other than recon.

The hatch on the other boat opened. Tally ignored Bouchard as he emerged and skulked around the wheelhouse and out of sight. What was he up to? And where was the crew needed for a boat the size of the
Serendipity
! There had to be at least one, preferably three, hands aboard. Probably below, keeping out of the danger zone. The
Serendipity's
sails should've been set an hour ago, but they billowed with the force of the wind, straining at the anchor and mast. Those poor fools. They should've headed back to the island before now. It didn't make any sense for them to be this far from shelter for no reason. Not in this weather.

"Dumbshits," Michael muttered, standing up. "No reason why we have to be out here risking our asses to keep tabs on morons, is there, Luck?"

But, damn it, Bouchard was up to something. A sixth sense prickled. Pins and needles for Michael's atrophied soul. He leaned forward, raising the binocs for a final look before heading out to sea to race the storm.

With no warning, a ball of flame erupted from the sea, blowing the
Serendipity
to smithereens.

"Jeesus!"

The boom of the explosion beat back the wind a fraction of a second later. With a screech, Lucky flew off Michael's legs as the
Nemesis
leaped in the violent backwash caused by the explosion.

Flaming wreckage flew high and wide, until the luxury yacht was nothing but floating debris burning on the water.

Michael braced himself as the
Nemesis
rocked violently with the impact. "Sonofabitch!" He sure as hell hadn't seen that one coming.

Dazed, Tally fought her way to the choppy surface, lungs burning, vision blurred, heart pounding. She rode the swells gasping for air and trying to figure out what had just happened.

One moment she'd been standing at the railing, waiting for Arnaud; the next… she was in the water. "Arnaud?" she shouted. "Hey! Arnaud!"

Chunks of flaming boat bobbed several yards away. She kicked off her remaining shoe and frantically scanned the charcoal-colored waves for a sign of Arnaud's bright head. And what about the crewman who'd been below? With his black hair and dark skin the other man was going to be almost impossible to spot. Oh, God. What
was
the other guy's name?

Lu!

"Lu!
Haere mai!" Oh, God. Oh. God
.

Tally did a full circle, riding the waves, trying not to panic as she searched for the two men, and kept as far away from burning bits and pieces as she could. She didn't want to think about how deep the water was, or how high the waves had become. Or what might be swimming in the murky depths beneath her.

Terrified, she swam as close to the fiery wreckage as she dared. Cold water chilled her body even as the fire heated her face. There was no piece of flotsam bigger than a surfboard. And pretty much everything that wasn't burning was sinking—fast. Most of the flames came from floating fuel, which did not reassure her.

She spat out a mouthful of water, coughed, and pushed her hair out of her eyes. A thrill of trepidation shivered through her at how tired she was already. She hoped to God there weren't any sharks around. She might not be a
good
swimmer, but she was a strong swimmer. Of course that didn't mean she could outswim a hungry shark.

Tally drew up her legs reflexively. Waiting for a wave to crest, she kicked upward and tried to spot Arnaud and Lu.

Both men might very well have died in the explosion. And if she trod water much longer, she'd be equally dead. Since Arnaud's favorite expression was "every man for himself," she reluctantly started swimming toward one of the boats she'd seen earlier. With help, she'd try to find him. If the adage "only the good die young" held any truth, Arnaud Bouchard was healthy, happy, and already swimming to shore. Tally hoped the crewman was with him.

By the time she reached the other boat she was exhausted and out of breath. Dark, storm-tossed waves pummeled her as if trying to shove her away from the boat. Salt spray blinded her; water rushed down her throat. She reached out, smacking her arm into the side of the craft.

With numb fingers, Tally gripped the rim of a porthole. Now what? She couldn't scale the side of the boat without assistance. She cried out as a wave dashed her painfully against the hull, then dragged her beneath the surface. Coughing and spluttering, she fought her way back to the top, lungs on fire.

"Help!" Futile. The wind howled, the waves slammed against the hull, and the world sounded like it was ending in a roar. She spat out a mouthful of salty water and held on. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the flames and black smoke of the
Serendipity
smudging into the low, dark cloud cover.

Tally shuddered, really, really frightened now as the waves buffeted her and the muscles in her arms trembled from the strain of holding on. Her fingers were beyond numb. She couldn't hold on forever.

She did a visual search of the length of the boat, trying to figure out how she was going to climb aboard. Where the hell was the ladder? Her grasping fingers slipped off the porthole. She kicked frantically to stay afloat, ignoring the ache in her thighs. Should've kept up that gym membership.

From this vantage point the boat seemed enormous. Not as big and fancy as Arnaud's, but it loomed over her, large and white and solid. And currently impenetrable and unscalable.

With any luck they had a swim platform on the back…

"Hey, lady. Life preserver. Behind you!"

Startled, Tally looked up. The dark silhouette of a man leaned over the railing. He pointed behind her.

Bracing a hand against the glassy smooth side, she turned to glance down the trough of the wave behind her. There indeed was a white and blue life preserver. Thank God. She reached for it. Went under. And, thanks to the waves, came up ten feet farther away.

So near and yet so far.

Her arms and legs threatened to give out. Her lungs felt waterlogged, and her eyes burned. Tally flailed toward the life preserver and finally managed a two-handed death grip on the ring.

A sharp tug nearly wrenched the ring from her puny grasp. She held tighter. The strength of the man hauling the rope zipped her through the water. Within minutes she was airborne and landed with an ignominious splat on the deck at his large feet.

For several moments, panting took every ounce of energy she could muster. Not even the cool wind slapping her wet skin induced her to move. Cheek flat on the smooth wood of the deck, she didn't bother opening her eyes when she felt a tug on the preserver. Straightening her fingers was all she could manage, and even that, shakily. Her lungs filled with the scent of varnish, salt, and the oily smell of smoke.

"Were you burned?" the man asked in a rough voice.

Tally lifted her upper body off the deck, feeling as if she weighed two tons. She coughed. "I—uh—don't know. I don't think so."

She looked up.

Up long, hairy, tanned, muscular legs, past ragged Hawaiian shorts, past a flat, bare belly to skim a broad, tanned, hairy chest. Good God. No wonder he could pull her out of the water with a single tug. The man was a giant.

Ignoring her, he braced against the roll of the waves and walked a few feet to stow the rope and life preserver in a locker aft, then turned and came back. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

Tally coughed up seawater. "I don't think so," she repeated. Frankly, she had no idea. She was just happy to be out of the water.

"Then rise and shine. There's a category-three monsoon bearing down on us. We're clearing out."

Tally staggered to her feet and spread her legs for balance. "Lord, yes, let's," she said to his back. "Thank heavens you were out here. I don't think I could've kept on swimming much longer."

"Fortunately for you I was catching my supper before the storm hit."

"My lucky day." Tally rubbed her frozen upper arms with her equally cold hands. "I'll never turn my nose up at a fish dinner again. You saved my life." She grabbed the railing to steady herself as the yacht rocked and rolled with the waves. Spray soaked her already sopping wet clothes. She shivered.

"Don't start the French fries, honey. It's not saved yet," he told her with a quick glance at the darkening sky.

He turned to fully face her, and Tally sucked in a sharp breath and took an involuntary step backward. For a split second her heart almost stopped beating, then lurched into a heavy rhythm that made her entire body feel hot and prickly.

Ye gods and little fishes!

A pirate!

A black patch covered her rescuer's left eye. The elastic holding it in place drew a thin line between his dark brows and across his forehead. His dark hair was wet, and slicked back off his lean face. His strong jaw was hazed with dark bristle. His face bore the austere lines of a man hounded by demons and comfortable with danger. He looked scruffy, unkempt, and strangely appealing. Tally attributed her reaction to being delirious with shock.

"Seen enough?" he asked dryly as she continued to stare. "Or do you want me to turn around?"

By all means, do
. "Sorry. I wasn't really looking
looking
—I zoned out there for a second."
Very smooth, Tallulah. "I wasn't looking looking"? Oh, brother
. She blew out a sigh.

He wasn't quite a giant, but he was solidly built, and towered over her own not insubstantial five foot nine by a good five or six inches. Six foot four of sheer power, hard muscle, and sex appeal. His broad, darkly tanned shoulders gleamed with moisture. Salt water glittered like tiny diamonds in the hair on his chest and on the silky dark hair on his thickly muscled legs. His hands and feet were enormous.

"Understandable." His mocking and enigmatic gaze took in her clinging clothes, bare feet, and grim hold on the railing as his boat rode the swells.

There wasn't a thing she could do about her appearance, so she didn't bother fiddling. Besides, she didn't want to draw attention to the wet transparency of her blouse. Not that he looked the type to be crazed by lust. Especially for a woman like her. Perversely disappointed, she realized that far from being crazed with lust at the sight of her size A boobs, the pirate hadn't even noticed he could see right through her shirt.

That one, piercing, whiskey-colored eye locked onto her, and Tally's stomach did a weird little somersault. Adrenaline still raced through her body at a furious clip.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Tally Cruise." Pleased she sounded coherent under the circumstances, she thrust out her hand and smiled.