The Best Way to Lose (23 page)

“Hey, Evers! You missed all the fun!” The deckhand Billy Bob Davis hopped onto the barge to tie off the port line.

“Yeah, well, I had a grandstand seat,” the cook countered the jibing taunt. “Who went in the drink?”

“Tucker.”

“Thought so.” Evers kept a hand on Pilar’s arm, making her wait until the towboat made its swing to the starboard to make itself fast to the barges.

The minute they scrambled onto the boat’s deck, they were practically enveloped by the crew, eager to recount their heroics. Pilar kept looking for Trace, finally catching sight of him as he made his way down the ladder to her level.

“I thought I was a goner,” Tucker was saying. “I could feel that undertow pulling me down. And, man, I had a grip on that rope—”

“Yeah, he did,” Joe Allen interrupted with a laugh. “Even after we got him back aboard, he didn’t wanna let go of it.”

“It was like an inferno close to that fire…”

Pilar ceased to listen as Trace approached the group. She was content just to look at him, making sure he had all his fingers and toes. Like the rest of the crew, he was smoke-grimed. On his shirt were damp patches and the drying stains of perspiration from the excessive heat. The hairs on his arms were singed, but he appeared otherwise unharmed.

A broad, reckless smile was on his face, and his gray eyes were aglitter with the aftermath of adventure. In a way he had enjoyed it, she realized. He could have gotten himself killed, but he had enjoyed it, while she had been crazy with worry.

A lump came to her throat.
It was impossible to be angry with him. It was too crazy, and she was too happy just knowing he was all right. Tears welled in her eyes, turning them black and brilliant. His smiling glance finally strayed to her. There was nothing in his expression to suggest that it had ever occurred to him that she had been worried for his safety. It changed to a puzzled little half-smile when he noticed the tears in her eyes.

“Hey. What’s this?” He bent his head slightly to peer at her, teasing and curious.

“You crazy fool,” she declared in a voice thickened with emotion.

Some inner force impelled her into his arms. She hugged him tightly and buried her face in his shirt, mindless of its rank smell of smoke and sweat. Just to hear the sound of his heartbeat and to feel the solid strength of his body was a kind of bliss.

Her sudden action had taken him by surprise. It was a beat later before his arms circled to hold her and he bent his head, still vaguely startled by her emotional reaction. She felt the warmth of his breath stirring her hair and closed her eyes at the sweetness of the sensation. It squeezed a tear from her lashes and sent it trickling down her cheek.

“You’re going to get all dirty,” he advised her huskily. As the roughness of his hand cupped her cheek, he felt the wetness of that tear and tilted her head back so that he could examine her face. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

For a second all she could do was look at
him, knowing at last how much he meant to her. “I’d have died if I lost you, Trace.” It was a choked whisper, vibrant with feeling.

His gray eyes suddenly darkened, alive and searching with an intense longing in them that tore at her heart. She finally came to appreciate some of the torment he’d endured over her after the agonizing hours she’d spent that afternoon.

“You don’t have to wait until we get to Natchez, Trace,” she told him softly. “I love you and that’s all that matters.”

The touch of his lips was wonderfully tentative. For a minute his arms held her as if he’d been given something precious beyond worth and he was afraid of breaking it. But she kissed him back with fierce ardor to show him that the love she felt for him was strong enough to take anything. His mouth hardened in its possession of hers as his molding hands shaped her to his length.

Slowly and discreetly the crew wandered away from them and pretended they didn’t notice a thing. But here and there a small pleased smile showed at the picture the captain and his lady made together.