White Hot (5 page)

Sam had a firm rule against fraternizing with her crew, on or off the ship. No matter how incredibly sexy the man in question happened to be.

And no matter how depressingly lonely she’d been feeling since her ex-husband, Jim, had left her.

But a ship’s captain was supposed to be a leader. Set an example. Be beyond any whisper of scandal. It was why she called everyone “mister” or “miz,” to keep a correct personal distance firmly in place. Some skippers went out of their way to be buddies with their crew members, but Sam couldn’t do that. Because of her very precarious position in her father’s company, she must scrupulously avoid even the perception of weakness or undisciplined behavior. She knew only too well that even if he didn’t fire her, the old man would use any excuse to bust her ass down to an office
job—the proper place for a woman in the company, according to him. Even his daughter. Hell,
especially
his daughter. The only reason he’d given her this chance at her own ship was because he knew damn well if he didn’t, she’d walk out of his life for good. He was still trying to convince himself that he was making up for three decades of being anything but a father.

Good luck with
that
delusion.

But she had to admit, the sight of Clint Walker’s enticing bedroom eyes and his hard, muscular body was making her ask herself what harm would come if she indulged in a small indiscretion. Just this once. It
had
been nearly three years since her bastard ex-husband had departed for greener—make that
younger
—pastures, leaving her essentially alone in the world. Wasn’t she entitled to a little human comfort? Even a little pleasure? She’d been so hurt, so utterly blindsided and betrayed by Jim’s leaving, there’d been no other man since. The thought of starting another relationship made her break out in a cold sweat. It was that trust thing. But she just didn’t have the stomach for one-night stands, or vacation flings, or indiscriminate bar pickups. She didn’t have anything against such things—for other people—they just weren’t for her.

Normally.

Until Clint Walker had come barging into her stateroom waving a gun and looking so gorgeous her mouth actually watered thinking about him.
Lord
have
mercy
. The lieutenant commander was walking, talking sex on a stick.

As long as you plugged your nose.

He’d made it pretty darn clear he was interested in her, too.

And, after all, she reasoned, who would know? If they were careful and kept their short, no-strings affair under wraps, no one would be the wiser. And as soon as
Île de Cœur
hit the dock in Seattle, Clint Walker would be gone like a shot, out of her life for good.

The ideal man.

Hot and temporary.

She’d have to give his proposition—or had it been hers?—some serious thought….

When she finished dressing and made her way to the mess hall for breakfast, Walker was already there, wearing dark blue pants and a white uniform shirt complete with the gold stripes appropriate to his newly assumed rank. An old navy peacoat was draped over the back of his chair. As promised, last night she’d scrounged a spare set of clothes from the storage room, and quietly sneaked into his stateroom to leave it on his bunk—
after
putting her ear to his door and hearing the shower running.

Chicken.

Warmth flooded her cheeks like a schoolgirl’s as Walker caught her gaze from across the mess hall and smiled. He stood, for no other apparent reason than that she’d entered the room. Wow. Was that good navy training? Or a good mother…? She gave him a quick smile back and kept walking.

She wasn’t the only one who noticed his gentlemanly behavior. Lars Bolun frowned, pausing with a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth. Ginger came around with a pot of coffee and Sam’s favorite ceramic mug, filled it, and set it in her usual spot at the head of the long Formica table. But Ginger’s eyes never strayed from the newcomer.

“Can I top yours up, too, Clint?” she asked him with a subtle flutter of her eyelashes.

A sudden, intense, and completely irrational spurt of jealousy stabbed through Sam. Mortified, she tamped it down, even as she noted with satisfaction that Walker’s eyes were still glued to
her
rather than Ginger as he took his seat again.

Lars Bolun noticed that, too, and his frown deepened. He really needed to get over it. She glanced down the table at Carin, who was watching
him
…unnoticed as usual.

“Thanks, Ginger,” she said, striving for normalcy in her tone and actions. She stuffed her cap into her coat pocket and strode to the buffet that had been laid out on a table
along one wall. “I see you’ve all met Mr. Walker. He’ll be joining us as first mate until Seattle. Mr. Bolun, I’d appreciate if you show him the ropes this morning before you go off shift.”

The rest of the crew had straggled into the mess after her; now eight curious pairs of eyes cut from her to Walker and back again.

“Where the hell
he’d
come from?” asked Frank, ever to the point.

“Fuckin’ A!” Johnny exclaimed. “He’s not the fuckin’
stowaway
, is he?”

“I believe I made my opinion of stowaways known to everyone last night,” she evaded, keeping her back to them as she filled her plate. “The company feels we should have a full contingent on board. Mr. Walker showed up early this morning.” It was a fine line, but neither statement was a lie.

Walker followed her lead, shrugging at their skeptical looks. “The fishing trawler I was working had to put in for extensive repairs here in Dutch. What can I say. I got bored waiting.”

“Funny, I didn’t see you come aboard this morning,” Lars Bolun said with dangerously narrowed eyes.

Again Walker shrugged. “I didn’t see you, either. Were you supposed to be keeping watch?”

Bolun’s mouth parted in affront, but Spiros Tsanaka preempted him. “Which trawler?” he demanded suspiciously.

To her relief, Walker answered promptly with the name of a small vessel owned by a local family, one familiar to all of them. “Captain Ryan’s a good guy,” he said, paused, then added, “but their cook stinks. This,” he said, lifting a forkful of Denver omelet, Ginger’s specialty, “is the best meal I’ve had in weeks.”

The tension broke a little, and there were even a few chuckles. Most of them had met and liked Captain Ryan, and everyone in Dutch knew that Ginger was the best cook on the line. His compliments were a point in his favor.

“So,” Bolun began.

Glancing at the clock, Sam cut him off before he could
get started with an inquisition. “Mr. Bolun, what else needs to be done before we’re secure for departure?”

Sam didn’t exactly blame them for questioning the whole stranger-showing-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-right-after-an-intruder-scare thing. She’d been terrified herself last night, she reminded herself. But she also didn’t want the crew interrogating Walker. The last thing she needed was word of her somewhat iffy decision to let him stay on board getting back to her detractors at Richardson Shipping, or to her father. Not before she could explain her reasons, anyway.

Aside from which, it was getting close to their six a.m. departure time. The clock was ticking.

Bolun looked briefly put out by her interruption. But he got over it and, with a note of pride, recited a very short list of things left to do before the tide peaked.

“Seems like Mr. Walker wasn’t the only one bored last night,” she said approvingly. Lars had taken care of much of the prep work on deck during his stint on watch. “Thanks for that.”

“Just doing my part,” he returned somberly. “I know how much is riding on this transit.” He didn’t add, “for you,” but the implication was clear from the way the statement hung meaningfully in the air.

Sam didn’t dare look at Walker. Or at Bolun. She didn’t feel like making explanations. And she sure as hell didn’t want either one of them getting the wrong idea about the other. Which was when she decided that escape was sometimes the better part of valor. She gulped down her coffee, grabbed a buttered roll to go, and stood. “Think I’ll go down and check on Chief Shandon’s progress with the deck crane,” she said. Tugging on her cap, she beelined it for the exit.

“Don’t you people have work to do?” she called over her shoulder. “Because if you don’t, I can find you something.”

Their grumbles echoed after her.

She emerged on the narrow poop deck behind the mess and got her first glimpse of the day outside. The weather
had been crazy for the whole month of June. Hopefully July would be better. But it was impossible to tell from where she stood.

One of the things she’d loved best about growing up in Alaska was the sparkling yellow sun. It lit up the grand panorama of the state’s natural wonders in an endless rainbow of brilliant colors. The wide, limitless sky was often so blue it hurt to look at it, the forests a green so deep and varied that it defied description. The crystalline lakes, the pristine white snow, even the wild animals were painted in a vivid palette of colors not found anywhere else in the world. That she had been forced to abandon her beloved Alaska for gray, colorless Seattle was just one of the myriad reasons she hated her ex-husband. Unfortunately, even the whole state of Alaska wasn’t big enough for her and Jim to inhabit at the same time.

Not in her opinion, at any rate.

As she clattered down the ladder to the weather deck to check on Chief Shandon, she grimaced. Despite the ubiquitous summer sun that wouldn’t set at all for another week or two, this particular day promised to be another of those awful, foggy, foggy, island days she’d grown so weary of enduring. They seemed to suck the life right out of her, and the crew, as well. With any luck, once they’d cruised out from the shallow waters of the Aleutians and entered the cold, crisp depths of the Bering Sea, they’d leave the fog behind.

“Hey, Chief,” she greeted Shandy. “How’s it going with the crane work?”

He glanced up wearily. He looked like absolute shit warmed over. His eyes were bloodshot and sunken, his tan skin lusterless, and his mouth etched in a downward curve. He couldn’t have gotten any sleep at all last night.

“Not great, Skip,” he muttered. Shandy was the only one she allowed to call her “skipper,” out of respect for his age and his vast experience and knowledge of everything having remotely to do with the workings of a ship. “I’ve managed to replace most of the worst-bent parts, but there’s still
a ways to go to put them back together and get the thing in a useable state again. Plus we seem to be out of a critical size of bolt I need to secure that last section.”

They both looked up at the very tip of the crane arm, which was listing at a precarious angle from the rest of the rig. From it hung a steel cable, attached to a giant metal claw-hook that secured the large steel mesh net that was used to load cargo onto the ship. It was swinging back and forth over the deck like a pendulum. If the arm broke off and the hook and net fell, someone could be seriously injured, or even killed.

“You’re a wonder, Chief. I’m sorry I have to put you through this. I wish we’d had the time to do these repairs in Dutch.” She felt guilty as hell about that. But if they’d stopped, they’d never make it to Nome in time.

He shook his head. “Heck, it’s my job, Skipper, and I don’t mind doin’ it. I’m just worried about the weather’s all.”

She sighed and looked around for Matty. “Where’s Mr. Shijagurumayum? Isn’t he helping you?” They really had to get this thing fixed. Or at least immobilized so it wasn’t a danger to the crew.

“Poor kid was falling over. I sent him up to his bunk for a few hours’ kip.”

She took in his rough condition. “What about you? I’m betting you’ve been up all night,” she said. It was obvious he was on the verge of falling over himself. “You should get some sleep too, Chief.”

He shook his head. “Can’t. With no bolts, I gotta get that top section welded, while the weather’s still good. Don’t want to take a chance of it turning nasty again. Been too unpredictable.”

It was a legitimate concern. Regardless of the forecast, you never knew what the Arctic would throw at you. Especially lately, what with the ravages of global warming.

“Can’t someone else do it?” she asked, nonetheless concerned for his safety. The man was dead on his feet. Her
hair rose at the thought of him climbing that broken crane arm with a welding torch.

Shandy sighed tiredly. “Ain’t no one else.”

“I can do it,” said a voice from behind her.

She turned. Lieutenant Commander Walker was standing with his arms crossed over his unbuttoned peacoat, feet splayed against the slight sway of the ship, studying the crippled deck crane above them. He’d found a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses somewhere and was wearing them, which rendered his bronze face completely inscrutable except for the firm set of his jaw.

“Who’re you?” the chief asked in a surprised way that made her think he might be wondering if he was so tired he was hallucinating.

She made the introductions, and Walker stuck out his hand, which Shandy shook assessingly.

“You weld?” the chief asked, with the hopeful voice of someone who’d been too oft disappointed.

“Yep,” the lieutenant commander said, followed by something indecipherable about acetylene and load capacity.

“Well. There you go, Chief,” Sam said, grateful for Walker’s unexpected expertise. Maybe her decision to let him stay hadn’t been so rash—or selfish—after all. “Bring Mr. Walker up to speed, then get below for some shut-eye,” she ordered Shandy. “We’ll be pushing hard for Nome, and I’d like you alert if we have engine issues.” She glanced at Walker. “Thanks. I appreciate the help.”

She didn’t wait for a reply but hurried off to do her last-minute checks and get the crew moving. The tide was nearly at its zenith. Time to get this show on the road.

“Samantha,” he called after her, bringing her to an abrupt halt halfway to the midstructure ladder that rose up to the poop deck, then up to the bridge.

She whirled and opened her mouth to rebuke him about calling her by her first name.