SeaChange (3 page)

* * * * *

What was he going to do with her? He’d planned to drop her
at the nearest ER, notify the Coast Guard, and get the hell out of her life.
She was pretty banged up, could have any number of internal injuries that he
didn’t know about, definitely had a minor concussion. But she’d seemed pretty
determined about avoiding the hospital. He told himself it wasn’t any of his
business. She was a big girl, and once they docked she’d no longer be Jake’s
concern.

Wanting to be sure she was steady enough to walk on her own,
he stayed with his ear pressed to the wooden cabin door until he heard her
footsteps pass and the door to the head click shut. Fine then. She was up and
mobile. It was up to her if she wanted medical attention.

He thought about her sitting there in his bed, mostly naked,
and a totally inappropriate bolt of lust shot all the way through him. He wasn’t
going to do anything about it of course. She was too vulnerable right now and
he wasn’t that big an asshole. But, damn, she was magnificent with her Viking
build, and when she’d been thinking, a tiny crease had formed between her
white-blonde eyebrows, making him want to smooth the wrinkle out with his
thumb—or his lips.

Hell!
For all he knew, the man who’d died last night
had been her lover—or husband. Even though she’d stayed calm, he’d seen the
shock and grief behind her tear-filled blue eyes. Which is why he should turn
her over to the cops, get back on his boat, and forget he’d ever met her.
Another place, another time, he might have had a good time with her, but the
present combination sucked out loud.

“Right, then,” he muttered to himself, climbing the narrow
stairs. He’d take her to the cops, give his own statement, then he’d be out of
it. He’d refuel the boat, stock up on groceries and head back to sea. He hadn’t
been to Hawaii in a while, or Tahiti. Maybe if he found himself a dark-skinned
beauty to play with, he’d be able to forget about long blonde hair, haunted
blue eyes and the body of a Norse goddess. Maybe.

“What a beautiful butt,” Heidi murmured to herself as she
watched her rescuer leave.
Shit! Boat
. She’d meant boat, not butt.
Aw
,
hell
, she admitted to herself while limping across the cabin to the
bathroom, or head. She’d meant both. From what little she’d seen so far, Jake
Delos and his boat were pretty much equally mouthwatering. And equally out of
reach. She’d never have the money for a boat like this, not in a million years,
and the man was way out of her league too. A guy like that could take his pick
and probably did.

Animal behaviorists have to take a lot of psychology
classes. Heidi was fully aware that she was focusing on her attractive savior
to avoid the feelings of loss and grief that threatened to overwhelm her. As
long as it was working. If she gave in to her real emotions, she’d be a
quivering lump on the floor. First she had to get back to San Diego and deal
with the authorities. Then she could collapse.

The bathroom was tiny but clean and functional. Whoever Jake
Delos was, he didn’t share his boat with a woman. The only hint of femininity
in the room was her bikini hanging from the door to the shower. She gave it a
quick study, found a little damage but nothing major. It even smelled faintly
of soap instead of seawater. What a sweetheart. He’d washed her suit, which
would work as underwear. And it was mostly dry—thank heavens she’d paid a
little more for the fast-drying fabric. The T-shirt she was wearing was a
little snug to wear in public with nothing underneath it.

She used the facilities, then stepped into the tiny shower
and washed with the bar of green deodorant soap and bottle of store brand
conditioning shampoo she found. It felt intimate, even a little naughty, to be
using his toiletries, but she didn’t really have much choice. Even if just
thinking about him was making her hot, she had no business going there. Not
right now. Then thoughts of Brad punched through the numbness and the tears
welled up again. One more time, she squashed them down by imagining what her
host would look like without his shorts and T-shirt.

The hot water lasted only a few minutes, so Heidi pulled
herself together and washed in the cold spray, carefully cleaning the abrasion
on her scalp. Something had hit her in the head when the Zodiac flipped. She’d
probably never know what. She dried off with a towel that smelled like a man,
and once again an image of Jake Delos formed in her mind, this time unbidden.
Was it just her body crying out to reaffirm life after her brush with death?
Her knees gave out and she sat down hard on the lid of the toilet.

The pain that spiked through her temple jolted her enough to
shake off the wave of lust. Sort of. She couldn’t get him out of her mind as
she put on her swimsuit, then pulled the knit cotton shorts over it. They were
a little snug too. Even though Delos was a big guy, it figured his butt was
narrower than hers. Heidi had long ago given up on the concept of looking like
a fashion model. Though she was strong from constant hiking, swimming and
diving, she wasn’t and never would be thin. She could starve herself and be
sturdy, or she could eat pretty much whatever she wanted and maintain an extra
fifteen—okay, twenty—pounds. Thank you, Norse ancestors. The small room was
warm from the shower, or maybe it was just her, but she left off the shirt.

She found a comb beside the sink and used it to untangle her
hair, being extra careful to avoid tugging on the painful wound on her right
temple. Her elastic ponytail band was long gone, so she’d have to leave the
heavy mass down. As she worked, she bit her lip to stave off the tears as she
mentally reviewed the steps she’d need to take in the next few hours. Number
one—police. She wondered if they’d mind if she went home for a change of
clothing first. Yeah, they probably would. That made clean clothes number two
on the list. Afterward, she’d have to call Brad’s parents and the university.
She and Brad had both been post-doctoral fellows at the Weston Oceanographic
Institute, working on an off-site research project for the summer. She’d have a
huge pile of explanations to make there, including the loss of the Zodiac, the
digital video equipment and the waterproof laptop. Then she could crawl into
bed and cry herself senseless.

Her stomach growled. Okay, food was going to have to be in
there somewhere too, if she wanted to stay functional. Maybe they could hit a
drive-through on the way to the cops.

She straightened up the head, hung up the towel she’d used.
Time to face him again. As she passed the clock in the bedroom, she saw that
only half an hour had passed. Damn, that meant she’d have to make small talk
for another ninety minutes.

She left the bedroom portion of the cabin and emerged into a
large space that filled the center of the boat. Along one wall was a galley
area with shiny stainless steel appliances and a booth-style dining table big
enough for six, and the rest was a living room—salon, she remembered, it was called
on a boat. Built-in bookshelves lined the walls below the windows, interspersed
with leather-covered sofas and cabinets. One wall held an oil painting that
looked even older than the boat, while another held a large-screen plasma TV.
The boat, just like the man, was a study in contrasts. A door next to the
galley led to the engine room, while another at the far end opened into the
bow, which held a smaller cabin set up as an office rather than a second
bedroom. The tiny space held a computer desk with a laptop and even more books.
Finally, all that was left was to go up the stairs to the deck and face the
future.

* * * * *

Jake sat at the helm in the enclosed bow section of the
upper deck and stared out at the ocean, trying to avoid thinking about his passenger.
He knew his reaction to her was inappropriate under the circumstances, but he
just couldn’t get the image of her sky-blue eyes out of this mind. Suddenly, as
if he’d conjured her, she appeared in the doorway between the pilothouse and
the sundeck.

“Any problems?” Her voice was still hoarse from the seawater
she’d swallowed, but it was steady now. She’d obviously pulled herself together
while she’d cleaned up; she looked better too, sad but not broken, and
physically stable. Heidi was going to be okay, he decided, feeling a wave of
relief wash over him. He wouldn’t have to worry about not getting her checked
over. The only thing he really wished was that she’d put his shirt back on over
the bikini top.

“Nope.” He closed his mouth tightly to make sure he wasn’t
drooling.

She fluffed the wet strands of hair that hung down past her
shoulders. “What marina are we headed for?”

“Mission Bay,” he answered. It was his favorite, one of the
older municipal docks, filled with as many battered fishing boats as shiny new
yachts. “We can catch a cab and head to the Coast Guard station. Then you can
go home. Unless you live down in Ensenada?” Oops, he hadn’t thought of that. He
resisted the urge to smack himself in the forehead.

“No. My apartment, such as it is, is in Ocean Beach. I was
camping in Mexico for the summer, doing my dolphin research.”

“Alone?”

“Just me and Brad.” She winced, her face going pale. “Jesus,
Brad.” She paused, looked like she was gulping back tears at the mention of her
partner, but she got it together before he could say anything. “You think the
Coast Guard is best? Not the police? Or Homeland Security?”

“Coast Guard is probably your best bet, but I wouldn’t be
surprised if they shuffle us around some.”
Us?
Where had that come from?
Aw, hell, he was going to stick with her through the reporting process, wasn’t
he? He called himself a few obscene names in his head.

“It’s going to be messy, isn’t it?” She looked resigned
rather than daunted. Good.

“Probably,” he agreed. A body might have been found by now,
but unless Brad Whatsisname had kept ID inside his wetsuit, they wouldn’t be
able to identify it, and things moved especially slowly in Mexico. On the other
hand, if she didn’t call in the incident as soon as reasonably possible, the
U.S. authorities would assume she was hiding something, might even suspect her
of complicity in her friend’s death.

“And I’ll have to call his parents. That’ll be fun. They
already hate my guts.”

Okay, her more-than-friend, he corrected himself. Which is
why he absolutely was not going to leap across the three feet between them and
kiss her senseless.

She stood there for a while, staring out at the water. Jake
could understand that. When he was stressed out, there was nothing like the
ocean to calm the nerves, and he figured she probably needed that right now.

“Can I ask you a favor?”

“Hmmm?” He’d been concentrating so hard on
not
staring at her that he’d almost missed her whispered words.

“I know this is weird, and awkward, maybe even a little
pathetic, but…”

He looked up at her face, saw the crease between her
eyebrows, and watched her tongue dart out and moisten her cracked lower lip. It
was all he could do not to offer to take over the job. She stared pointedly at
his left elbow, ignoring his eyes. “Go on.”

“Would it be too much to ask…oh hell. I could really, really
use a hug right about now.”

“Of course.” He turned the captain’s chair on its pedestal
so his knees were to the side and opened his arms. “That doesn’t sound weird or
pathetic at all. Come here.”

Tall as she was, he didn’t think she was used to sitting on
a man’s lap. She approached him awkwardly, lowering herself in a tentative
manner, as if she were afraid something would break—or perhaps it wasn’t
hesitation, it may have just been pain from her scrapes and bruises. Moving
just as cautiously, he enfolded her in his arms, pressing her cheek to his
shoulder, and pulled her more firmly against him. Taking her weight was no
problem, and apparently she figured that out. After holding her breath for a
few heartbeats, she gradually relaxed in his embrace, finally allowing herself
to grip the shoulder of his T-shirt with one hand, while the other arm clamped
around his waist.

He breathed in the scent of his soap and shampoo mixed with
her underlying feminine fragrance, and bit his lip hard in an effort to control
his body’s reaction. When he felt the trickle of tears dampening the front of
his shirt, he forgot all about wanting her, though. He stroked one hand through
her long, damp hair, wishing he knew what to say to give her comfort. In nearly
eight decades of walking among humans, he’d lost many friends and it always
hurt. But he didn’t think he’d ever let any of them get as close to him as
Heidi and her partner had obviously been to each other.

She sat there on his lap, weeping silently, for maybe ten or
fifteen minutes. Jake simply continued to hold her close, rubbing her hair and
back, feeling more helpless than he could remember. When she finished, they sat
there for a few minutes longer. Finally Heidi wiped her cheeks with the back of
her hand and turned her face up to Jake’s.

“Thank you,” she said around a sniffle. Her voice was raw
and husky from crying, but sexy as hell.

“No problem,” he replied. “Honestly, you’re holding up
better than most people would. It’s okay to need a shoulder to cry on.” He told
himself he had to turn away, had to stop staring into those watery blue eyes
before he did something stupid.

“Well, thanks anyway.” She leaned up a few inches and
feathered a kiss on his cheekbone.

Jake knew it was an idiotic move, but his body went on
autopilot. He turned his face and pressed a small kiss on her full lips. Her
breath hitched, and he thought maybe his stopped entirely. Time hung suspended
for a moment before she brought her hand up into his hair and began to return
his kiss.

Cautiously he stroked his tongue along her lips, testing her
response. When she opened her mouth, he dove inside, heedless of the things he
should be thinking about. She tasted sweet, from the tea he’d given her. Her
own tongue slid silkily along his, tasting and exploring. Jake cupped the back
of her head with one hand while the other slid upward from her waist to cup the
side of one round breast.

“Whoa!” Heidi broke off the kiss and pulled back abruptly. “Jesus,
what the hell just happened here?”

“I’m sorry, Heidi,” Jake began. “I didn’t mean—”

“No, I know that.” She scrambled off his lap, moved back out
onto the deck, toward the hatch down to the cabin. “I think I should be the one
apologizing but…oh hell, I have no idea.” She opened the hatch and started down
the stairs.

“There’s coffee in the galley, if you want some,” he called.

“Thanks.” She didn’t even turn, just called the word over
her shoulder as she fled.

* * * * *

“You awake?”

Heidi’s words and the hand on his shoulder jolted Jake out
of a semi-doze. He spun the captain’s chair quickly, almost knocking the coffee
cup from Heidi’s hand. He caught it, offered her an apologetic grin. A glance
at the clock on the control panel told him she’d been below for maybe twenty
minutes.

“I saw your empty cup in the galley, thought you could use a
refill.” She held two cups, he noticed—his oversized mug advertising a San
Francisco coffee house and the black sea turtle one from Honolulu he’d put her
tea in earlier. She had the open pack of sandwich cookies he’d left on the
counter tucked under her arm. She’d also put the T-shirt back on over her
swimsuit, thank goodness.

“Thanks.” He nodded toward the mate’s chair beside him. She
sat, but he noticed she took great care not to touch him at all as she moved
past. Oh, goody, she was feeling awkward too. He took a cookie, gestured for
her to do the same. She did, nibbling it gently, making him jealous of the damn
thing. So he turned away.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” She gestured at the sunrise, under
which the San Diego skyline was starting to take shape.