Wicked Nights
Wicked Nights
Anne Marsh
Winner takes it all…offFormer diving champion Piper Clark never loses. Unfortunately, if she doesn't land this lucrative contract, her diving business will fail. Worse still, it will be at the hands of her childhood nemesis, Cal Brennan–six feet of hard, rugged former Navy SEAL. So Piper proposes a wager: whoever loses the diving contract must take orders from the winner…in bed.Cal needs this contract for his own reasons. A former rescue swimmer, he may be having a few issues with diving since his last mission ended, but Piper doesn't need to know that. Something about her impulsive nature makes Cal rise to the bait, and there's nothing he'd like more than to show Piper exactly what rules are good for.All bets are on. And someone's about to start playing dirty….
Winner takes it all…off
Former diving champion Piper Clark never loses. Unfortunately, if she doesn’t land this lucrative contract, her diving business will fail. Worse still, it will be at the hands of her childhood nemesis, Cal Brennan—six feet of hard, rugged former Navy SEAL. So Piper proposes a wager: whoever loses the diving contract must take orders from the winner…in bed.
Cal needs this contract for his own reasons. A former rescue swimmer, he may be having a few issues with diving since his last mission ended, but Piper doesn’t need to know that. Something about her impulsive nature makes Cal rise to the bait, and there’s nothing he’d like more than to show Piper exactly what rules are good for.
All bets are on. And someone’s about to start playing dirty….
“I’d like to propose a bet...”
Piper had to stand on tiptoe to reach Cal’s ear. Since she was pressed against his butt, he wasn’t complaining.
“What are we negotiating?” His voice sounded gruff, but some things were definitely beyond his control.
“The Fiesta contract.” She didn’t retreat. Nope. If anything, she pressed in tighter.
“I’m not stepping away,” he warned. If he wanted to bring more veterans out here to Discovery Island to work, he had to have that business.
“I wouldn’t ask you to do that…more than once.” He felt rather than saw her smile against his throat. Piper had always been honest. It was one of the things he liked about her. Her next words were a whisper meant for him alone. “Loser takes orders from the winner for one night—in bed.”
And…whoa.
He hadn’t seen that one coming.
“We’ve always had a certain…chemistry. Aren’t you curious?”
Oh, yeah.
“I accept,” he growled.
Dear Reader (#ulink_5ed66632-4e89-5d1a-a846-c159c8108285),
My husband calls my Discovery Island books my vacation books, and he may have a point. I wrote much of my first Mills & Boon Blaze book, Wicked Sexy, sitting on the bathroom floor of a Tahitian bungalow with a large albino gecko for company. It was the only room with electricity where I wouldn’t disturb my sleeping kids—although I’m pretty sure they woke up the first time I spotted Mr. Gecko staring down at me from the thatched roof and nearly launched the laptop at his head.
Pieces of our vacations also made it into Wicked Nights. I’ve always been a fish lover, and not just served up on my plate. I fell in love with snorkeling when a very sexy, itty-bitty-swimsuit-wearing French man in Bora Bora told me to jump into the current and look at the fish. I did, and, despite almost drowning, I was hooked. I’ve tried to share some of the beauty of that underwater world in Piper’s dives. While Discovery Island is a figment of my imagination, the kelp forests and damselfish Piper sees are not. And hey, just for you all, I made sure to do my research and swim with sharks before I included them in the book.
There will be a third book—Tag deserves a happily-ever-after—and I’m thinking it’s time to vacation again. Where do you think we should go?
Happy reading,
Anne Marsh
Wicked Nights
Anne Marsh
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#ulink_62972c08-9677-5c55-8048-6f0c48462a76)
ANNE MARSH writes sexy contemporary and paranormal romances because the world can always enjoy one more alpha male. She started writing romance after getting laid off from her job as a technical writer—and quickly decided happily-ever-afters trumped software manuals. She lives in Northern California with her family and six cats.
For Gwen and Kimberley. Books definitely don’t write themselves—and you’ve been with me every step of the way on the road to Mills & Boon Blaze!
Contents
Cover (#u59a40743-9434-53ef-8394-fe3c618fbcd3)
Back Cover Text (#ueeaab4b2-beb9-5e7f-a0ce-8f1d1381b5fc)
Introduction (#u7e78f69f-bee6-5adf-b103-fc6fd56b3630)
Dear Reader (#u284f8442-bfd3-548b-9a94-82b86852fbc3)
Title Page (#udb2da105-07e7-5a8b-a523-c5d8b809209c)
About the Author (#udfd81022-971d-562f-944a-20f9ea48620b)
Dedication (#u4b33010c-bd02-58b7-97f8-0dc9ed560801)
Chapter One (#u30779d78-d4a9-533b-bed7-11e24f274187)
Chapter Two (#udaa5b81d-e1fe-50da-a5c0-ce57af206938)
Chapter Three (#u719b3cfa-57ad-59a5-875b-f21b429c92f4)
Chapter Four (#u7bd45ffa-4026-5ca0-bd41-8ef701e204f6)
Chapter Five (#ucc404663-28f7-5a97-a660-a09160a428a5)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
1 (#ulink_496375f8-6832-5892-93bd-f7c5c1c8c8c5)
PIPER CLARK CUT hard right, the prow of her motorboat slicing through the clear blue water, yards in front of his. He’d have recognized that impish, take-no-prisoners grin anywhere.
Plus, she flipped him the bird as her wake hit his deck, soaking both him and his gear.
Definitely Piper.
Good thing for her he’d grown up in the past twenty years. Cal Brennan’s ten-year-old self would have gunned his motor and gotten even, racing her for Discovery Island’s marina until he’d swamped her deck every bit as much as she’d swamped his. Tit for tat—those were the rules of engagement they’d always competed by. Still, he picked up speed, hugging her wake—and was just in time to watch as she maneuvered her boat into the last decent slip. Mentally, he readjusted his assessment of his maturity. Score one for Piper. He forced his fingers to unclench from the wheel, counted to ten and concentrated on searching out an empty slip. She waved jauntily as he motored past her, close enough to read the name painted on the boat’s side. What kind of name was the Feelin’ Free anyhow?
She’d always named things badly. He distinctly recalled being hit over the head with a stuffed teddy bear named Grand Poo-bah. There had also been a rescue puppy named Mr. Cuddles. Mr. Cuddles had been a mostly deaf white Boxer with a severe drool problem. Mr. Cuddles had moved on to the Happy Hunting grounds some years before, but apparently Piper’s lack of naming skills had stuck.
Not that the other four thousand full-time residents on Discovery Island would mind. Twenty-two miles long and eight miles wide, the island’s main selling point was its horseshoe-shaped bay with postcard-perfect deep blue water, dotted by boats and two piers. The pier for the cruise ships stretched out into deeper water, but the shorter pier was pure pleasure and clear at the other end of town. The good folks of Discovery Island had named that pier Pleasure Pier and the broad strip of creamy, palm-tree-studded sand fronting an old-fashioned boardwalk was Primrose Path. The hotels, shops and restaurants lining the street sported even worse names in Cal’s opinion. Good Time, Please Your Eye and Wine, Women and Song. The daily influx of tourists who ferried over from the California coastline to explore the boardwalk loved the names. Or they simply loved diving, fishing, zip-lining or doing any one of the hundreds of activities on offer. Discovery Island was big on keeping busy.
Grabbing his sodden gear bag and his deck shoes, he padded barefoot along the dock, enjoying the heat from the sun-warmed boards soaking into his feet. He and Piper had business, more so than usual. The familiar, soothing noises of the marina washed over him as he fielded greetings from the occasional other boaters and closed in on his target. Discovery Island’s marina was a hopping place, but the blue water with its glint of fish and kelp were an invitation to take it easy, as was the familiar bouquet of sea salt, motor oil and Neoprene rubber filling the air. Lazy waves broke against the docks, slapping fiberglass hulls, and he could just make out the beach boardwalk. On a summer day like today, the place bustled with tourists looking for the quintessential California dream. It was also an ideal day for diving, but he’d stuck to the surface. He hadn’t strapped on a tank or even free dived. Not him. He’d had a nice swim, stuck his head under water and promptly panicked.
Just like yesterday.
And every other day since his last dive as a U.S. Navy rescue swimmer. The dive boats he passed, loading and unloading, were an unwelcome reminder of what he’d lost. Temporarily. Somehow, he’d get his head on straight, would figure out how to get back in the game and back in the water. He’d never failed before; he wouldn’t start now. He had too much riding on his ability to dive.
Turning the corner and spotting Piper’s boat was almost a relief. The sighting was definitely a welcome distraction from the panicked voice in his head asking, What if you don’t get back in the game? What if you never dive again? Hearing voices was never a good sign.
“Piper Clark,” he bit out, relieved to have something to do. Setting his gear bag down on the dock, he moved to the edge where she’d tied up.
Retreat, the inner voice demanded. Stand your ground, sailor, his body urged.
Piper was naked.
Okay, so, she wasn’t totally naked, but a man could dream.
Somehow, he’d timed his arrival at her slip for the precise moment she grabbed the zipper running up the back of her wet suit. Undeterred by his presence—because surely she’d heard him snap her name—she pulled, the Neoprene suit parting slow and steady beneath her touch.
Hello.
Each new inch of sun-kissed skin she revealed made certain parts of him spring to life.
If someone had asked him what the over-under was on his seeing Piper naked, he’d have bet heavily against his spotting so much as a sliver of her bare flesh. If he’d expressed an interest, Piper would have shot him down, hard and fast. After all, she didn’t like him any more than he liked her. Their shared past was proof of that.
Even as he reminded himself she’d spent most of their early days trying to either torment or kill him, his eyes were busy. Piper’s arms were spectacular, strong and toned from hour after hour of pulling herself through the water and then back up into the boat. Diving wasn’t for the weak, and she’d had a professional platform-diving career long before the accidental collision five years ago between his boat and her Jet Ski had destroyed her right knee. After she’d rehabbed on the mainland, she’d up and moved full-time to Discovery Island. Island gossip hadn’t shared with him the reasons behind the move, but since he’d come back himself, he had to assume she simply loved the place as much as he did. Now she was looking sexier than any stripper, uncovering skin tanned a rich golden brown from time outdoors. The way she’d braided her water-slicked hair in a severe plait only drew his attention to the deceptively vulnerable curve of her neck.
But this was Piper.
So dragging his tongue over her skin and tasting all the places where she was still damp from her dive should have been the last thing on his mind. He’d read her the riot act about her careless driving and say his piece about tomorrow’s business meeting. Then he’d go his way and she’d go hers. After all, he’d been back on the island for almost six months and had managed to avoid all but the briefest of interactions with her. They said hello, goodbye (he suspected she preferred the latter), and nodded tersely at each other from across the street. Life was much quieter that way, because Piper invariably did plenty of yelling when she spent too much time around him.
The wet suit hit her waist.
Neither short nor tall, Piper had medium brown hair, brown eyes and a slim build. Those cut-and-dried facts didn’t begin to do the woman in front of him justice, however. They certainly didn’t begin to explain why he unexpectedly found her so appealing or why he wanted to wrap an arm around her and take her down to the deck for a kiss. Or seven. He didn’t like Piper. He never had. She’d also made it plenty clear he irritated her on a regular basis.
So why was he staring at her like a drowning man?
And...score another point for Piper. Like many divers, she hadn’t bothered with a bikini top beneath the three-millimeter wet suit. His kiss quota rocketed up to double digits.
“Piper.” His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears. Focus. Adrenaline rushed through him, sweat dampening his skin. He forced himself to breathe in, slow and easy. To push his heartbeat down and make the sudden energy pumping through his veins work for him. This wasn’t a rapid rappel down to a crash site to search for survivors or a midnight recon of a hostile-infested beach. Nope. This was Discovery Island, a good place with good people. He was home.
Without acknowledging his greeting, she bent over, shoving the heavy suit down her legs, and his throat went dry. Game over. Silver earbuds, which explained why she hadn’t answered him, flashed as she shimmied, working the suit off. Like always, Piper was lost in her own world, marching to her own beat. Ignorant of his presence, she gave him ample opportunity to admire the longest, sleekest legs he’d ever seen. Her blue-and-white-striped bikini bottom was all practicality, although the conservative cut still clung to her butt. Her water-darkened braid slid over her shoulder, and he wanted to fist her hair, holding her in place as he ran his hands up those legs and parted her for his kiss. Which made him a first-class bastard, even if he kept those thoughts to himself.
Yeah. But she clearly had more than one advantage on her own side.
He didn’t negotiate, he reminded himself. He acted. Decided, he approached the boat, knocking on the side to draw her attention.
She jumped, her head swinging around toward him. “If it isn’t my favorite SEAL.” She flashed him a grin as she popped the earbuds out, taking in his soaking-wet jeans and damp T-shirt. “Had a mishap?”
She knew precisely what had happened.
He dropped down off the dock, onto her boat. Deliberately, he let his feet hit the deck hard, savoring her little flinch. She wasn’t as off balance as she’d made him, but it was something. He’d take every advantage he could get because, Christ, she still wasn’t wearing a bikini top. Instead of covering her breasts or grabbing for a towel, she glared at him as if this whole situation was his fault. She was lucky her slip put her out of the line of sight of the other boaters in the marina and he was the only one who could see her. Piper flashed him, and any thoughts he’d had of being a gentleman flew out of his head. He imagined cupping her soft curves in his palms, rubbing his thumbs over the tips. He’d just bet she was a moaner, and—
He jerked his gaze back up to her face. “We’ve got to talk.”
* * *
FEET BRACED, LEGS APART, Cal Brennan made himself at home on Piper’s deck, nothing but challenge in his gaze as he waited for her to finish checking him out. He was magnificent. And mildly pissed off, which was pretty much the usual state of affairs between her and Cal. Of course, her soaking him when she’d buzzed past him into the marina might explain his foul mood. Faded jeans clung to a pair of powerful legs, and an old cotton T-shirt stretched over broad shoulders. Dog tags flashed as he turned his head to track her. Cal had never needed power suits to scream, “in charge.” He moved smoothly, confidently, as he came closer, his bare feet silent on the deck after his initial gunshot-loud landing. Behind him, down the dock, she caught a glimpse of a Harley parked in the street near her dive shop. Cal’s black low-rider bike screamed, “race me,” followed by, “take me.” And, while she’d never considered Cal as dating material, she had to admit he was hot.
Really, really hot.
“We need to talk,” he repeated and his patronizing, self-assured tone did a great job dampening the desire blazing a hot path through her belly. His eyes dropped briefly to her breasts again—darn it—then returned to her face. Like he was taking inventory and nothing more.
Right. The words coming out of his mouth were perfectly pleasant, but he clearly intended to do all the talking—while she did all the listening. That wasn’t how she lived anymore. She wasn’t six years old to his ten, any more than she was still a teenage diver bombarded by coaching advice. She was a businesswoman now. A grown woman.
Even if being near him made certain parts of her feel like a teenager.
“I’m listening,” she said neutrally because there was no point in pissing this man off before she had to. Plus, gazing at him was no hardship. If she was objective (which she usually wasn’t when it came to Cal), he looked every bit as sexy as his bike.
Not going there. Swiping her bikini top from her dive bag, she got busy with the ties. While she didn’t particularly care about the peep show she’d given him—you got used to stripping down on the dive boat and skin was just skin—she didn’t need to introduce the whole male-female thing to this conversation or tempt her hormones any further.
He approached swiftly, inserting himself into her personal space before she could protest. Big, callused fingers brushed the nape of her neck.
“Lift,” he ordered. His low, sexy, I’m-in-charge-and-we-both-know-it rasp almost made her forget she’d known Cal for twenty years and liked him for none of that time. She was in so much trouble.
Obediently, she lifted the wet tail of hair while she considered the merits of turning and kneeing him in the balls. Which would be, she decided, a waste. Her body was screaming for satisfaction of a completely different kind, which made no sense at all. She didn’t like Cal.
“You search me out for a reason? Or did you just stop by for the peep show?” She was proud of herself for calmly getting the words out. She didn’t sound like her hormones were rioting at all.
“I’ll pick option A.” His voice rumbled in her ear as he bent his head and tested the knot he’d made in her bikini top. “I hear you’re bidding on the Fiesta Cruise Lines contract.”
Fiesta Cruise Lines wanted a local dive shop to run trips for cruise ship clients. Since Fiesta put in one ship a week at Discovery Island, and they’d promised a minimum of twenty divers to start with, the contract was worth a significant chunk of change.
“My interest is no secret.”
“Business is booming?”
Her balance sheet wasn’t his business. She certainly wasn’t going to admit the dive shop she co-owned with her former diving coach wasn’t precisely bringing in the bucks. “What do you think?” she asked, turning away from him.
He was silent for a moment. Watching, of course, and probably plotting some terribly efficient course of action. Whatever Cal thought he saw, however, remained a mystery to her.
“I think business has been down on the island overall,” he said finally, unfortunately coming to precisely the right conclusion, like he always did. That was one of the most annoying things about Cal. He usually was right.
He shifted until he was blocking her path to the dock, unless she crawled over him, which she hadn’t done since she was seven. Or maybe nine. Their competitive moments blurred together. What she did know was that she had no plans for full-body contact with him today.
Today.
Whoa. Wrong idea. More clothes would have been good or perhaps a suit of armor. She’d never had the urge to think about Cal naked before. Cal’s family owned half the island, and he was the prodigal son who’d come home six months ago after a glorious stint in the military. He’d fought the battles and had the medals and the scars to prove it. She didn’t doubt his heroism, but his timing was rotten. She’d come back to Discovery Island two years ago herself to do some starting over and having Cal around now wouldn’t make her job any easier. Somehow, she rubbed him the wrong way and he returned the favor. The last thing she needed was his brooding self backseat driving or paying any attention at all to her plans for the dive shop.
And he would.
She just knew it.
He’d never, ever cut her any slack, not since the time they’d met when she was six years old and she’d first come to the island with her family for summer vacations in the cheerfully ramshackle, ocean-side cottage that had belonged to her grandmother. The cottage’s three bedrooms barely afforded enough room for Piper’s parents, her three brothers and herself, but the cozy camping had been part of the appeal. She’d loved those summers. Now the cottage was hers, which was a good thing given how little money she made as a dive instructor. Once she owned Dream Big and Dive outright, however, things would change. She’d be able to expand and to implement some of the ideas she had. All she had to do was win the Fiesta contract so she could convince the bank to loan her the money to buy out her partner.
Cal had driven her six-year-old self crazy. Twenty years later, he’d just gotten better at doing it. Of course, she also knew how to return that favor.
It was strange, though, how much he looked like her definition of a hero. He was a big man, pushing more than six feet. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw like he’d had better things to do than shave and didn’t mind living rough. Cal owned the space around him and not merely because he was tall, his wide-legged stance ensuring he easily rode the gentle swell and slap of the marina water against the boat’s hull. He was the kind of man who controlled any situation.
She stared at him and he watched her right back. She had the sudden feeling he knew exactly what she was going to do, before she did it. When she stepped away from him, however, his hand slid off her neck and he let her go.
“How are my business plans any of your business?” she replied. Not the politest of questions, but they had a history. He nodded, like she’d just confirmed something he already knew, and she couldn’t help but notice he didn’t smile. The fine lines around his eyes didn’t come from laughter, she realized, but from hours at sea. This man was 100 percent warrior.
And hot enough that she wanted to take him down to the deck herself...
He leaned back against the edge of her dive boat. “Because I’m bidding, too.” His dark brown eyes were unnervingly gorgeous. God had definitely not been playing fair the day Cal had been gifted with that feature.
“Tell me you’re joking.” She kept her voice steady, when she wanted to scream. Unfortunately, she wasn’t surprised. Of course Cal would go after the contract she had her eye on.
“Afraid not.” He said the two words calmly, as if he hadn’t just dropped the mother of all bombshells on her. She needed the contract. Had to have it or give up her dream of buying out Del, her partner, because every bank she’d approached so far for the loan had made increased cash flow a condition of borrowing the money.
“Why?” she demanded.
“Because I run a dive center.” He made it sound so logical.
“You run a command center,” she countered, going on the offensive. “You handle all the search-and-rescue ops for the sector. Why do you want to run dive trips for a cruise ship?”
“Look around you,” he said drily. “And then tell me how busy you think I am.”
“We’ve had one tropical storm this summer.” Which probably only underscored his point. One was singular and nowhere near enough to base a business on. She understood—she just didn’t like it.
“I want to bring in more former SEALs to lead dive trips, and it was still a free country, last time I checked. In order to hire more divers, I need to increase our revenue. When I win the Fiesta contract, I do exactly that.”
He said it as if the contract was a sure thing.
Maybe it was. He was a veteran and a highly experienced diver. He’d trained U.S. Navy SEALs, the same guys who ensured they did still live in the free country Cal had so mockingly mentioned, and there was no way the executives evaluating the proposals wouldn’t weigh his military service into the equation. Plus, his plan of hiring former veterans was unspeakably nice. Until he’d thrown his name into the ring, she’d seriously had her competition beaten. She narrowed her eyes. Fortunately, she still had a card of her own to play.
“You’re not the only one who needs to increase revenue.”
“So, business is down for you.”
It was, and at the worst possible time, too. She needed a beefed-up balance sheet to get her business loan.
She gave him an assessing look. “For you, me and everyone else.”
He shrugged. “I heard several other dive shops had submitted a proposal to Fiesta.”
“The cruise line has plenty of choices.” Unfortunately. No, she’d think positive. She was good at what she did and she’d win this one.
The other option wasn’t acceptable.
“That contract is mine,” she said. She’d visualized nailing each and every dive before she’d climbed the tower in a competition, and she’d do exactly the same here. Cal might be a decorated veteran and combat swimmer, but she was a U.S. national platform-diving champion and a heartbreak story. She didn’t like playing the celebrity card, but she’d do whatever it took to win. After her accident, she’d spent two years in the media spotlight, and her name on a dive roster would make people look twice.
He shook his head, shoving off the railing. “Again, it’s a free country. You can think what you like.”
His tone, however, made it perfectly clear he, at least, didn’t think she stood a chance.
“You bet.”
Dream Big and Dive was her dream and she wasn’t letting go. She might not have the cash to purchase Del’s interest in the business outright and the banks might have labeled her a poor risk for a business loan, but she’d never gone down without a fight, as Cal knew very well. If she won the Fiesta contract, she won her funding and her shot at making Dream Big and Dive one of the best dive programs for novice divers in California. She’d make it to the final round of bidding, and she’d be in it to win it.
She never lost. Ever.
* * *
PIPER CLARK WAS GORGEOUS. Objectively speaking, Cal knew that. What he admired more, however, was the way she met his stare without flinching or dropping her gaze. She was a fighter to the core and Cal’s instincts said she wouldn’t go down easy. The problem was, she was still his competition for a job he wanted.
Hell.
“You won’t win this one,” she warned. She stood there, hands parked on her hips as if she owned this competition, and he was certain she believed she did.
“I can.” He would, too. His business, Deep Dive, was hands down the best operation in town. Piper, however, clearly believed she had the number-one, go-to place on the island. She also radiated an attractive confidence, which would only help her sell it to the Fiesta executives. Her hair was starting to dry now, dark streaks of wet giving way to lighter brown, and for a woman standing there in a bikini, she looked remarkably sure. He definitely needed to date more—or at all—because he was fairly certain he was staring. And that he’d noticed exactly where her bikini top had left pale white lines on her shoulders. She had freckles, too, and lots and lots of bare, smooth skin.
Except for her right knee.
She took a step, staggered slightly when the wake from a passing boat rocked the deck, then righted herself. If he hadn’t been watching her so closely, he’d have missed the lightning-fast correction. Her knee was the only part of her that wasn’t tanned perfection. The ridges of scar tissue were nothing gruesome—he’d seen far worse during his military career—and the lines were white. He put a hand out to steady her and then pulled it back. Yeah. The look in her eyes said she didn’t want help. He’d seen the same look on the faces of plenty of soldiers. He understood wanting—no, needing—to do things alone. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have his own gremlins riding his back, which was one of many reasons he wanted to bring more veterans and former teammates on board at Deep Dive. Sometimes, a guy needed a job and a place to work through his shit.
“You can’t stop me,” she said, her hands tightening on her hips.
He shook his head. “Honey, that’s where you’re wrong.”
She smiled at him. “I’m going to win.”
“You’re so certain?”
“You like to be in charge.” Her eyes narrowed accusingly as she went off on one of those Piper tangents he’d never been able to follow. Jesus. Yes, of course he did. The expression on her face said she did, too. Which was too bad for her because, not only was he good at it, he held all the cards here. Instead of responding, he shot her a look.
She shook her head. “No. I don’t think so, Cal.”
She said his name with the same tone of mocking disgust his SEAL teammates had used when trash talking each other, except her voice held a note of sincerity. He’d seen her breasts. Hell, he’d touched her skin, even if it was only the brush of his fingers against the back of her neck, so it was okay. She could call him anything she wanted, because names didn’t bother him. Actions mattered. Not words.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Win,” she said so sweetly his teeth hurt. “That’s what I’m going to do, Cal.”
Not in his lifetime. “I’ve got you seriously outgunned here.”
“Bet me,” she said in the same tone.
He observed her cautiously. Trouble had just shown up on this mission. The playful sparkle in her eyes telegraphed the message loud and clear. Since the only thing she had to be happy about was his leaving the field to her, and he had no intention of doing that, she clearly believed she’d come up with an alternative plan.
“Uh-huh,” he drawled, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning in. “What are we betting about?”
“The outcome of the contract negotiations,” she clarified, smiling up at him.
“There’s only one possible outcome.” He dismissed her words with a quick nod. “Deep Dive wins.”
“That’s what you think.” She shrugged casually, clearly baiting her trap.
He’d play.
“It’s a fact.” Unexpectedly, he didn’t want to see her get hurt. If she pulled back now, quietly, she could avoid the agony of defeat and all that. Hell, he almost qualified as a gentleman.
“Then, beat me, fair and square.” She shot him a fierce grin. “I’ll bid. You’ll bid.”
“I’m not betting you about this.”
“Why not?” She leaned forward, bracing her arms on either side of him, on the edge of the dive boat. She wasn’t a tall woman and she was careful not to touch him, but somehow she’d turned the tables on him. Again not surprising. Piper had made a career out of shocking him. “Maybe you’re just chicken. Put your money where your mouth is, Brennan. Bet me.”
“You’re not betting money.” He wouldn’t take her money anyhow. He was almost certain Piper’s cash flow left something to be desired. He wanted to beat her, not bankrupt her.
She leaned closer. He tried to pretend her bikini-covered breasts weren’t brushing his chest, that her top and his T-shirt were more than enough fabric to keep his imagination from rioting. Piper’s breasts were a sweet handful, curvy tops spilling over the edge of her bikini. When she’d been a platform diver, her swimsuit tops had been engineered to compress and create a smooth, sleek line. This top was something else. Feminine. Tempting. And yet—this was Piper. He didn’t like her, he reminded himself. She didn’t like him, even if she loved pushing his buttons. So where had this chemistry come from?
“You’re scared.” She sounded smug. “We both know I’m winning this one.”
And...buttons pushed. “Am not.”
Great. He’d regressed to being a three-year-old, except for the part of him that was clearly an adult and wanted to show Piper how much he appreciated her bikini top. Which he wasn’t going to do.
A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. He knew that smile. He was in so much trouble here. “Are. Too.” She underscored each word with a not-so-subtle poke in his chest.
He captured her fingers in his before she could drill holes into his heart. The words flew out of his mouth before he could think about it.
“Business, Piper. This is strictly business.”
“Uh-huh.” She gave him a look he couldn’t interpret and—he wasn’t sure, but did she check him out as she pulled away? Getting a read on Piper was frustrating. “You keep telling yourself that.”
2 (#ulink_dfefd1ed-e9ae-51ba-a0d3-b13f40bf88a9)
DISCOVERY ISLAND HAD bars for tourists (all with kitschy names like Devil’s Wine and Beer and Skittles) and then there were the places for residents. Diver’s Haven was mostly a local scene since the bar was tucked off the main boardwalk. It wasn’t precisely a hole-in-the-wall, but the place hadn’t exactly earned a prime spot in the local food and wine department, either. It did, however, have cold beer and satellite TV. Tonight, Cal appreciated both. Going head-to-head earlier with Piper had been the icing on a frustrating day of broken equipment, canceled dives and a boat engine leaking enough oil to re-create the Exxon Valdez.
The bar propping him up was made from salvaged driftwood, an artistic touch he’d always suspected had been Big Petey, the bar’s owner, being cheap rather than fashion-forward, given the booths with cracked vinyl seats. Neon lights in the window advertised brands Big Petey had no intention of stocking and the jukebox worked intermittently, rather like its owner. Big Petey also extended credit to anyone and everyone and had more dishwashers than he did bar glasses because he was incapable of turning down a job seeker. Big Petey was a good man, and he’d never seemed to mind Cal wasn’t much of a drinker.
Cal had a one-beer limit. Alcohol wasn’t advisable when training, and he wanted his head back in the game. Plus, he’d seen more than one good soldier lose himself inside a bar. So, for the moment, he settled for just sitting at the bar, empty bottle in front of him. The game played on the big screen, and the clack of balls from the pool tables in the back competed with the occasional groan as a batter struck out. Tag and Daeg, fellow former rescue swimmers and current co-owners of Deep Dive, had moved on to the backroom and a game of pool and talking trash. More words flew than balls when those two played, only proving that nothing much had changed since their last tour of duty together. He still thanked his lucky stars every day that he’d been able to convince them to move up here from San Diego and join him rather than reenlisting.
Big Petey looked over at him when a commercial came on. “You ready for another?”
He didn’t want to put the man out of business. “If you make it a cola.”
Big Petey also didn’t stock any name-brand sodas. Local gossip alternately claimed he’d outspent his account with both major distributors or referenced the man’s legendary cheapness. Since the stuff Big Petey poured was no better or worse than what Cal had drunk in dozens of overseas ports, and had bubbles, Cal didn’t care which version of the story was true.
Big Petey grabbed the dirty glass and stowed it somewhere beneath the bar. “You’re making me a rich man, Brennan.”
At least he’d merited a clean glass. Maybe. After all, he couldn’t see exactly where the new glass Big Petey slapped down on the bar had come from. It was possible his original glass had simply round-tripped. Big Petey aimed the soda gun in the glass’s general direction and squeezed.
“Drinks taste a whole heck of a lot better with rum.” Big Petey did not have a personal one-beer limit, and Cal’s choice of beverage was a constant source of amusement for the other man.
“Big Petey makes an excellent point.” The scent of apples and something floral surrounded him as Piper slid onto the empty barstool beside him, resting her bare arms on the counter.
A big grin creased Big Petey’s face. “If it isn’t our world champion.”
Piper made a face. “I didn’t compete.”
Big Petey grabbed another glass—from the shelf behind him, so definitely clean—and carefully set it down on a cocktail napkin in front of Piper. Piper also merited a bowl of peanuts. If Cal hadn’t already known the other man had been nursing a soft spot for Piper, he now had all the proof he needed.
“You’ll always be my champion,” Big Petey said gruffly. “I’d have been sitting here in the bar, watching you win gold, if you’d gone to the world championships.”
Piper smiled and mimed blowing kisses while admiring an imaginary medal. Cal bet it was indeed gold in her imagination. Piper had never settled for being anything but the best. He had no idea how she could handle the constant references to her almost-successes, but she always had a smile when her spot on the team was mentioned, even if she usually changed the topic immediately. She’d had to drop out after the accident because, as superhumanly competitive as Piper was, even she couldn’t force her knee to heal fast enough for the world championships.
Sure enough, she pointed to Cal’s glass and deflected Big Petey’s interest in her diving dreams. “I’ll have what he’s having.”
Big Petey huffed. “Jack and cola. Coming right up.”
Piper snagged a handful of peanuts. “Cal here is predictable. He’s downing straight-up soda, and we all know it.”
He wasn’t that predictable. Was he? He turned on his stool and reached in to steal a handful of peanuts from Piper. And...wow. She hadn’t been wearing that dress earlier. In fact, he was certain he’d never seen her sleeveless mint-green number before. Little stripes covered the fabric, making him want to look closer, or maybe it was the woman in the dress. The thing had a neck high enough to pass muster with the most conservative of audiences—apparently he’d seen all he was seeing today of Piper’s breasts—but a dearth of fabric south of her butt, stopping a good two inches above her bare knees. She wore a pair of those sandals with laces that wrapped around her ankles and calves and made him think about unwrapping. Piper dressed up was dangerous.
She tugged the peanut bowl out of his reach. “Those are mine.”
Her eyes laughed at him, so he snagged a second handful.
“You bet. That’s what makes them taste so good.”
“You don’t change.” She sighed dramatically and then raised her glass in the air. “Cheers.”
“Right back at you.” He clinked his glass against hers. For a few minutes, they nursed their drinks companionably while the home team struck out on the television.
Daeg slid between them, depositing two empty bottles on the bar. “Wow. Now, here’s a sight you don’t see every day. There’s only twelve inches between the two of you, and no one’s fighting.”
“We don’t fight all the time,” Piper protested. “And you just took up all the space anyhow.”
Daeg eyed the peanuts and she nudged the bowl toward him. “Consider it a public service,” he said.
“Hey,” Cal protested at the peanut move. “You’re discriminating.”
Piper flashed him a grin as Big Petey swapped out Daeg’s empties. “You bet.”
“We get along.” Right. Like cats and dogs, oil and water...he could trot out every hackneyed, clichéd comparison and they’d all be accurate. He and Piper fought. Sparred. Lived to one-up each other.
Piper swiveled on her stool, her knee brushing his thigh. He did his best to ignore the small contact.
“Sometimes.” Daeg raised his bottle to Piper. “Cheers. But most of the time, the two of you are either fighting or daring each other to do stupid crap. I grew up here, too. I know exactly what the two of you got up to.”
Piper shrugged modestly. “What can I say? Cal here is suggestible.”
“Someone here is also a sucker for crazy dares,” Cal pointed out.
Piper had never met a dare she wouldn’t take. She’d done all sorts of crazy things over the years. She’d gone cliff jumping at midnight (which was when he’d discovered his calling as a rescue swimmer). Ridden in a string bikini printed with the American flag down the boardwalk on the back of his Harley (one of his all-time favorite memories). She’d engaged in a very failed attempt at bison tipping, after arguing that the island’s bison and cows were more or less interchangeable, and had instead discovered that bison patties stank to high heaven. She’d made him buy her a pair of new sneakers after that one, which he’d thought was fair.
Her grin lit up her face. “You should take more chances.”
Over his dead body. “And you’re going to kill yourself one of these days.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Her hand rubbed the scar on her knee self-consciously. They didn’t talk about the Jet Ski accident that had put an end to her diving career. She’d come far too close to dying. Fortunately, he’d completed emergency medical training as part of his rescue-swimmer education. After he’d saved her, he’d staunched the bleeding and thanked God a major artery had been missed. The crystal clear water of Discovery Island had looked like a bad shark attack had occurred that day.
“You up for a game of pool?” She practically jumped off the barstool as she made her getaway.
Daeg looked at him. “Nice going, asshole. Now, go make it up to her.”
“By letting her win?”
Cal collected their glasses. He debated grabbing the peanuts, too, but he wasn’t a waiter and Piper was already marching across the bar toward the pool tables in the backroom. She clearly expected him to follow, and he felt guilty enough for bringing up bad memories to indulge her.
Daeg shook his head. “No one lets Piper do anything. She just does it. She’ll win fair and square on her own.”
That was true, too. He followed her while he chewed on that one.
The bar’s pool table setup was ad hoc at best. Big Petey had gone for the more-is-better approach and shoehorned two pool tables into a space meant for one. The proximity didn’t leave a whole lot of room to maneuver.
Piper grabbed a cue stick from the rack on the wall, inspected the tip and leaned her hip against the table. She was good at looking confident. He’d give her that.
“Perfect. You’re in,” she said when he stepped into the room.
“Piper.” Her name came out as a growl.
“Watch,” Daeg said to Tag. Apparently, he hadn’t been able to resist the promise of a free show. “I’m predicting another crazy bet.”
“Twenty bucks,” Cal said, knowing she wanted something more than his cash. She probably would negotiate for his shaving his head bald or singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in a monkey suit when the cruise ship docked, or any other embarrassing trick she could dream up.
“As if.” She waved a hand. “I don’t play for peanuts. Make it a hundred.”
They didn’t usually play for cash, but Piper couldn’t be making bank at the dive shop. She’d also bought in and owned part of the place, which had probably left her cash poor. Since he had plenty of cash, he was happy to share with her. It would mean losing intentionally, but as long as he made it look good...making sure Piper was fed and happy was worth it. Despite the way they constantly butted heads, he’d never wanted her upset or miserable.
“Ladies first.”
She rolled her eyes. “Way to set yourself up for the loss.”
He’d played her more times than he could count. Hell. He’d taught her to play. She was good, but he was better. He handed their drinks to Daeg and racked the balls.
She tugged on her ear and bent over the table. He’d seen her make the lucky gesture countless times on the diving platform, right before she hurtled through the air and ripped her entry. It must have worked, because she broke straight on, the balls scattering.
When the five ball rolled into the pocket, she straightened up. “Stripes. My favorite. It must be my lucky night.”
* * *
PIPER HAD NO idea why she’d gotten dressed up just to swing by Big Petey’s place. She’d been bored and lonely, though, going more than a little stir-crazy out at her place alone, so she’d hopped into her truck. Possibly, she’d headed here because she was almost certain to find Cal nursing a soda if he was at loose ends. Needling him was pure fun, plus the man seriously begged for a shaking up. Mr. Safety lived and played by the rules.
Growing up, their crazy bets had been a regular summer occurrence. She’d come out to Discovery Island and spend two months indulging in soft-serve ice cream, motorboat rides—and daring Cal. Even then, before he’d become a U.S. Navy rescue swimmer and moved on to rescuing the more deserving than she, he’d wanted to save her from herself.
She’d always been the bigger daredevil of the two of them. He’d rise to the occasion, but invariably remained so serious during the execution of their bets. He was a good sport when he lost, too, although he never lost by nearly as much as she wanted him to. Cal excelled at strategic thinking and, once he was in, he was all in.
She looked over at him, taking his measure. He didn’t look worried about their current bet. “You remember the last time we played pool?”
“Four years ago?” He sounded certain.
“The game that ended with you skinny-dipping in the mayor’s pool?”
He hadn’t expected to lose that particular game of pool, but he’d walked the four blocks to the mayor’s house, with her tagging along. Then he’d hopped the fence, lent her a hand as she scrambled over the top, awkwardly because her knee had been a hot mess, and proceeded to nonchalantly strip off. Good times. She’d give Cal credit. He always kept his word.
“Some things are hard to forget,” he agreed.
She wondered if now was the time to admit she’d snapped not one but six pictures of his amazing butt as he’d jumped into the pool. She’d hung on to those pictures, too, although she planned on claiming they were blackmail material.
Like them all, he was a little older now, but she’d bet he still looked spectacular naked. When she’d walked into the bar, he’d been staring at his empty soda glass, lost in thought. The scruff on his jaw and the faded pair of blue jeans and polo shirt weren’t military issue, but there was no mistaking him for anything but a soldier. He’d also looked alone somehow, even in the middle of the bar’s cheerful chaos, and that wasn’t right. Sliding onto the stool beside him had seemed natural.
Imagine that.
While she and Cal had never been enemies, they’d never been close friends, either. Between competing to one-up each other and his annoying insistence he knew best, they’d been at odds more often than not, and the days of simply hanging out together had ended with her family vacations. He’d joined the U.S. Navy; she’d gone to college and been headed for a professional diving career. All of which meant they’d met up infrequently in the past few years. And yet...it certainly hadn’t escaped her attention that they invariably rubbed each other the wrong way when they shared air space.
Grasping the base of the cue with her right hand, she rested the stick on the edge of the table. “You might want to back up. Bodily injury isn’t on tonight’s agenda.”
“Thank God,” Daeg muttered behind them and took a drink of what she was fairly certain was her soda.
Spreading her legs slightly, she leaned in and lined up the tip against the cue ball. “Three ball.”
Take that. Her shot produced a smooth, fast line to the ball, and it dropped into the pocket with a satisfying thud.
“Seven ball.” This time, it took a softer touch to send the ball into the pocket.
Daeg whooped. “She’s taking you to the cleaners.”
Then, darn it, the four ball ricocheted off the table’s side, and she knocked one of Cal’s balls into the pocket.
“My turn,” he announced, satisfaction filling his voice.
* * *
CAL BIT BACK a grin. That was his Piper. She’d gone all out, and her all-in strategy had backfired. Spectacularly. If he sank his seven balls, the game was his. So much for losing intentionally.
He looked over at her. “What do you think I should buy with my hundred bucks?”
He wouldn’t actually take her money, but teasing her was too much fun to resist. She belted out a curse and stepped away.
“Didn’t I hear you were trying to stop cursing?” His mother had pointedly mentioned Piper’s endeavor, apparently under the mistaken belief Cal might want to try the same himself.
He picked out a cue stick from the rack while he waited for her answer.
Her yes, when it came, was grudging. “I’ll put a quarter in the swear jar later.”
He didn’t know where Piper had learned to curse, but she could definitely outswear many of the SEALs he’d served with. Plus, not only was she creative, but she was loud. Her jar probably held enough quarters to fund an entire new wing for the library she’d apparently announced was the jar’s beneficiary. Over the course of the next ten minutes, he proceeded to sink his seven balls, one after the other, and Piper’s obligations to the swear jar grew more substantial.
Tag whistled. “I shouldn’t have bet against you.”
She stepped up behind him as he eyed his final shot. It was game over as soon as he sank the eight ball. “I’d like to propose a side bet unrelated to this game,” she said.
This game. Not a game.
His critical-thinking skills suddenly became nonexistent, which was probably part of Piper’s master plan. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach his ear. God knew what it looked like to the other guys in the bar. Since her front was pressed against his butt, he wasn’t complaining.
“What are we negotiating?” His voice sounded gruff, but some things were definitely beyond his control.
“The Fiesta contract.” She didn’t retreat. Nope. If anything, she pressed in tighter.
“I’m not stepping away,” he warned. If he wanted to bring more veterans out here to Discovery Island to work, he had to have the additional business. No pool game got in the way of that.
“I wouldn’t ask you to bow out...more than once.” He felt rather than saw her smile against his throat. Piper had always been honest. It was one of the things he liked about her. Her next words were a whisper meant for him alone. “Loser takes orders from the winner for one night—in bed.”
Whoa. He hadn’t seen this bet coming.
“You’re crazy.” Of course, he’d known that for years. Piper had never met a chance she didn’t want to take. Twice.
“If you’re so sure you’re going to win, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
He looked down at her arms, caging him in place, and wondered if she’d thought her bet all the way through. “There are other ways to take a man to bed, Piper, if you’re desperate.”
The bar’s noise gave them just enough privacy that the others couldn’t hear their low-voiced exchange, but this still wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have in public.
She gave a little laugh. “I’m not desperate, Cal.”
He eyed his cue stick and wondered what his next step should be. “Then, maybe you could explain it to me.”
“We’ve always had a certain...chemistry. Aren’t you curious?”
Oh, yeah, his inner bad boy growled.
“I’m going to take my shot,” he warned, all thoughts of deliberately throwing their match vanishing. “I’m winning. You don’t want to give me that kind of opening.”
“Go right ahead,” she said, and he had no idea what she was inviting him to do. And then...she blew on his ear. Right as he shot.
He scratched, the eight ball rolling into the pocket. Well...hell.
She stepped away. “Too bad, Cal. You lose.”
Scratching the eight ball was an automatic loss. Piper was clever. And at least now he wouldn’t worry about her grocery money for the week.
“You going to pay up?” She parked her butt on the edge of the table and smiled at him. “Because I think we’re done here.”
He pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and handed over a hundred. Had she even been serious about their new bet?
“You shouldn’t walk around with this much cash in your wallet. Someone might take advantage of you.”
She hopped down and started for the door, and the sassy twitch to her hips was the last straw. He opened his mouth.
“Drinks are on me tonight,” she called back, pouring oil on his fire.
“Piper.” Her name shot out before he could stop himself.
“Yeah?”
“I accept,” he growled.
3 (#ulink_be38dedd-6741-5921-b931-257421fe52a6)
PIPER BREEZED INTO the conference room with precisely one minute to spare. Cal wondered briefly if she’d sat outside, timing her arrival for maximum impact. Probably. Piper had always loved pushing boundaries, pushing buttons.
Particularly his buttons.
He, on the other hand, had shown up early for the meeting with the Fiesta Cruise Lines team, tested his equipment and made small talk with the visiting executives, getting a feel for the terrain. His audience today consisted of two males, one female, all somewhere between forty and fifty-five. Sal Britten, Ben Lloyd and Margie Kemp were recreational divers who had logged some fairly adventurous dives. He didn’t anticipate any difficulty selling them on his planned program.
Piper dropped a mammoth white tote bag onto the chair beside him. “Did you miss me? Getting anxious?”
He shot her a look.
She grinned back. “You were. That’s positively sweet. I’d almost think you were looking forward to losing. To me. Maybe you’ve been thinking about it since our game earlier this week?”
Her eyes twinkled as she needled him. She wore a white dress that stopped several inches above her bare knees. The perfectly modest V-neck showed no cleavage but drew his eye anyhow, as did the narrow brown leather belt wrapped around her waist beneath the fitted blue-and-white-striped blazer. She looked fresh and energetic. The cruise ship woman eyed her outfit and he could practically feel the two guys melting. Piper had that winning effect on people.
“I’m not falling for your game,” he warned softly.
“And I’m not playing.”
She turned away to introduce herself to the Fiesta executives, rings flashing on her fingers as she worked the room. He eyed her ring finger and discovered it was bare. Of course, he couldn’t imagine who would take her on for keeps, but there were plenty of crazy men out there. Or men who’d abandon caution when they got a good look at those high-heeled shoes of hers, which made him think of bondage clubs. Not, of course, that he’d ever been to one, but he had internet, and the tan straps crisscrossing her feet were suggestive.
She finished her meet and greet and turned back to him. Sal Britten paused in the middle of a long-winded story about his most recent shark-cage dive off the coast of Australia (Cal would have killed for a look at the man’s logbook, because he had his doubts about the man’s dive creds) and looked between them. “Do you two know each other?”
“You bet,” he said, deliberately needling her.
Piper’s eyes narrowed, then she winked at him. “Cal here was hoping I’d be a no-show.”
If Piper didn’t get her butt in gear soon, they’d run late, so he ignored the wink and headed for the back of the room. “This meeting starts now.”
She grinned at him, keeping pace with him. “Ready to lose, big boy?”
She made everything into a competition, a game. He was tired of it, frankly, but she wouldn’t let it go. If she wanted to compete, he’d compete. He was a SEAL. He didn’t ring out. He didn’t quit. Except when it came to diving, the unwelcome voice in his head pointed out.
The cruise ship guy looked over at them. “We’re ready to get started when you are. Who’s up first?”
Time for the opening salvo. “Ladies first. I insist.”
* * *
PIPER KEPT HER professional smile painted on her face, but her rescue swimmer wasn’t playing fair. Cal waved her to the front of the room, inviting her to lead off the pitches with a lethally charming, “Ladies first,” when they both knew going first was the weaker position. Their judges would hold back on scoring to leave room for the last diver.
He grinned and settled back in his seat, arms folded over his chest. If he looked good in nothing more than a pair of jeans and a faded cotton T-shirt, he cleaned up even better. He wore an open-necked shirt—she’d never seen Cal bother with a tie for anything other than funerals and weddings—and a dark suit jacket, which didn’t disguise the breadth and power of his shoulders. He had the build of a swimmer, his body advertising that it was trained to pull him through the water at a killer pace. She’d seen him swim, and it was a thing of beauty. She’d give him that much credit.
He was also big and bad, irritatingly calm as he sank back onto his seat, leaning slightly away from her, his legs stretched out in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest. The conference-room table hid his feet, and she fought the urge to peek and see if he was wearing steel-toed work boots. It was hard to imagine him in dress shoes, but he radiated control and competence.
He raised an eyebrow. Right. Her pitch. She hadn’t prepared slides or a formal talk, but she knew her message. She’d also loaded up her laptop with images she’d shot at the diving sites she was promoting, because a picture was definitely worth a thousand words. All she had to do was get Sal, Ben and Margie to imagine themselves in those waters, and she’d have them. She quickly tugged on her ear, hoping the lucky gesture would bring her the same good fortune she’d had every time she’d climbed the dive tower and competed.
“You’ve got a cruise ship full of passengers, most of whom have never dived before. The number of newbies seriously outweighs the number of certified divers. I’d like to go after that segment, grow your tour numbers. Why wouldn’t those passengers want to dive?”
She’d fallen in love with recreational diving during her own summer trips to Discovery Island. As soon as she’d turned twelve, she’d been fitted up with gear and taught to dive. Her first excursions had been off Discovery Island pier, fifteen-footers, where she could have dived to the bottom without the gas, but the tank meant she could stay under for thirty minutes. She’d loved it and she’d been hooked. Sharing her passion through her dive program just seemed...natural.
Cal sprawled in the back of the room, all hot-eyed, hard-bodied charm as she started walking the executives through a cost comparison of land-based tours with diving excursions. There was more money to be made on booking diving than most of the other shore excursions, and pretty soon her audience of three was nodding along. Except for Cal, of course. His expression said he wasn’t convinced.
“If the passengers have never dived before, are you proposing resort dives?”
“Good question.” She smiled at the woman and launched into the next part of her talk, walking the room through the shallow, baptismal dives she’d planned for the harbor as she displayed different images on the screen. At thirteen to fifteen feet, anyone in reasonable physical health could give diving a try. Pointing out the window at the gorgeous, light turquoise water, she asked, “Who wouldn’t want to get in there and see what’s happening beneath the surface?”
Cal raised a brow. She knew that look of mocking disbelief. It was, she decided, too bad for him she had every intention of winning this contract and wiping the smug look off his face.
* * *
PIPER HAD THE room in the palm of her hand, which further irritated Cal. Letting her go first had seemed like a smart tactical move, but now he was second-guessing himself. She’d been every bit as unprepared as he’d expected, talking off the cuff without a formal set of slides—and she’d captivated the room with her charm and casual photos. The Fiesta executives leaned forward in their seats, hanging on her every word as she walked them through a novice dive. Her sassy suit probably didn’t hurt, either, because looking at her while she talked was no hardship.
She strolled past him as she returned to her seat, mouthing, “Gotcha,” and then shifted her monstrosity of a bag to his seat when he stood up.
If she thought he was going down without a fight, she was even crazier than he remembered. The Piper of his childhood had relished a good fight. Even as a girl (or maybe because she was a girl with three older brothers), she’d always done her best to outrun, outjump and generally outdo anyone who crossed her path. She would have made an excellent SEAL, if Uncle Sam allowed women on the team. So he bumped her shoulder casually with his hip, leaned down and whispered sotto voce in the most condescending tone he could dredge up, “Good job, Piper.”
He wasn’t going to make this easy for her at all.
Firing up his PowerPoint presentation, he started stepping his audience through the slides. He’d planned a series of challenging adventure dives, along with a mission theme and faux combat training for college-aged divers and older. “All of our dive masters are former Navy SEALs. We can train divers to get to the next level.”
The female executive looked intrigued. “So you’re proposing extreme diving.”
“We’ll coach you to dive like a U.S. Navy SEAL.” He gave her a winning smile. “I think you’d enjoy it.”
Piper stirred in the back of the room. Clearly, she’d concluded that the business portion of today’s agenda was done and the executives wouldn’t see her unless they turned around. She put her feet up on the chair (his chair), stretching her legs out in front of her, and he wondered briefly if her knee hurt. Then he stared at her long legs and those shoes.... Those shoes should be illegal. She stretched and her dress fell up her thigh. He swallowed. Paused. Danger.
Quickly, he advanced to the next slide, explaining the SEAL-style obstacle course Deep Dive was building. Or, rather, Tag and Daeg were building, because Cal’s head still refused to get with the program. He was useless in the water, which made winning this contract that much more important. At least he could contribute here.
Piper shifted and the final shreds of his focus flew out the window. The room was warm, and in a nod to the heat, she slid off the jacket. The move pulled the material of her dress tight across her breasts, making it clear that her lingerie of choice for today’s business meeting had been a pink-and-black bra, despite, or perhaps because of, her white dress. Typical Piper. She loved bold statements.
And he was staring.
Focus, sailor.
He wouldn’t be distracted by happy-go-lucky, viciously competitive Piper Clark again. Although...his eyes narrowed even as he kept a pleasant smile plastered on his face. What were the odds she was doing this on purpose? She lifted her arms, twisting her hair up into a loose knot. Ran her fingers down her throat. His imagination rioted, and his body behaved as if it hadn’t gotten the memo he didn’t like Piper.
Definitely on purpose.
She fiddled with the buckles on her shoes, fingers stroking over her ankles, leg drawn up. The shadow of her dress on her thigh prevented him from seeing too high, but if she moved another inch, he’d have a clear shot of paradise.
He was going to kill her.
Ten minutes later, they wrapped up the meeting and headed for the door, the cruise ship executives promising a call in the next couple days. Cal had no idea what he’d said at the end, but it must have sounded okay because nobody was staring at him with pity in their eyes or a smirk on their lips.
“Nice job in there,” Piper said, falling into step beside him, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. Was she being polite, or did she feel threatened?
“You cheated.” He strode toward the elevator.
“Excuse me?” He could hear the laughter in her voice. She knew precisely what he meant.
“The—” he waved a hand “—shoe thing you did in there wasn’t nice. Or fair.”
“From where I was standing, you were the competition.”
“Sitting,” he muttered, before he could stop himself. “And what you did was definitely cheating.”
“Did I distract you?”
“Piper.” He leaned over her to reach the elevator buttons first. “You showed me the goods. In a business meeting.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Mission accomplished. I’m going to win our bet, Cal. Maybe you should prepare yourself.”
She brushed past him into the elevator, and there was no way she mistook his attraction to her. He, on the other hand, decided to take the stairs. Followed by a ten-mile run.
4 (#ulink_14220707-6a04-5b06-98bd-87c40710412f)
PIPER HAD DISCOVERED her love of jumping when she was two. That was the story her mother told, at any rate. Toddler Piper had climbed up onto the back of the couch and then jumped off, both chubby fists raised in the air over her head. After achieving a remarkable amount of air for someone who’d weighed a mere twenty pounds, she’d crash-landed on the family dog, who’d proved to be both a good sport and an ally, letting her repeat her jump move twice more before her mother had been alerted by the noise and intervened.
When she was five, she’d discovered the springboard at the community pool. Then, at ten, she’d joined the local swim team. Racing was fun, but diving was better. When she’d dived, she’d flown. Performing gymnastics midair was an adrenaline rush better than any jump, and she’d ripped through the water leaving almost no trace of her entry. She’d won every meet and moved on to college and the NCAA championships. A berth on the national team headed to the world championships? No problem. She’d earned that, too. She’d been the golden child, the star diver—right up until she wasn’t. It had turned out the one thing Piper’s diving career hadn’t prepared her for was losing.
The Accident—and she always thought of the day in capital letters—had been just that. An accident. And it hadn’t happened at the pool, either. She hadn’t made a misstep on her vault or misjudged her somersault or twist. She simply hadn’t known Lance Peterson had started drinking at eight o’clock in the morning and stopped approximately twenty minutes before he’d invited her to take a spin on a Jet Ski with him. He’d seemed fine, but no, in the absence of an open container in his hand, she hadn’t insisted on a Breathalyzer or quizzed him on his drinking. Hindsight, however, was everything.
Being naively oblivious, she’d hopped on the Jet Ski when Lance had invited her to ride, because it had been that kind of afternoon: a group of casual friends hanging on the beach and enjoying ice cream and the sunshine. In the middle of the harbor, she’d realized Lance was impaired when her close proximity to him had made misinterpreting the alcoholic fumes wafting from him impossible. Of course she’d promptly snapped, “Go back,” in his ear, digging her arms tighter around his waist. Driving drunk was horrifically stupid, and she’d already been measuring the distance to shore. The swim hadn’t looked too bad, although even she had preferred not to take a chance with all the boat traffic zipping through the harbor. Unfortunately, Lance had made an easy dismount impossible, cutting in and out, whooping as he’d driven the Jet Ski left and then right. She’d have to pick her moment or convince him to head back.
“Lance—” She’d gotten his name out, Cal’s motorboat had come around the breakwater and Lance had cut it too close. So close that she’d seen Cal’s face, the look of fierce, calm concentration as he’d thrown the wheel right, ramming the boat into the breakwater as he’d tried to avoid the smashup. They’d hit anyhow. The Jet Ski had smashed into her leg as they’d flipped, and the whole world had narrowed to the pain radiating through her knee as she’d sunk down, eyes open. She didn’t have too many memories after the initial impact, which doctors had assured her was her body’s way of coping with the trauma. She did, however, remember Cal ripping through the surface of the water, swimming hard and fast to get to her.
Now, for the first time since the accident, she was standing on her own two feet. She had a loving, protective, competitive family back on the mainland. Her family had suggested medical school and then law school, before all but begging her to join the family business. She didn’t want that.
Her family was a ranch family. Her great-grandfather had started a small almond farm in midstate California, and the rest of the family had stuck close. Moneywise, there was more than enough in the good years—but they’d never made get-rich money. Other than summers on Discovery Island, her childhood had been full of tractors, ATVs, horses and trails. She’d spent more time outdoors than in, excelling in 4H competitions, winning blue ribbons and awards. Sure, she could have gone home, and they’d have made room for her in the family business, but...she wanted to create one of her own.
She didn’t want anything handed to her. Her three brothers had all happily settled down to ranch, competing amiably to see who could claim the most rodeo buckles, grow the biggest crop or innovate the most. Diving had made sense to them when she’d been diving for a berth on a national team, but owning a dive shop on a vacation island wasn’t aspirational enough for them. None of them had accepted that her new dream included four walls, a sometimes temperamental dive boat and racks of tanks.
Dream Big and Dive’s name came from the heart. Piper had learned firsthand that you had to let go of some dreams, but this time she was holding on. She wasn’t letting Cal Brennan beat her, not when her shot at owning the dive shop was on the line. Her soon-to-be place had a prime location, right off the boardwalk fronting the water, with plenty of foot traffic and easy access to both the marina and the beach where she loaded the dive boats.
Standing there in the front of the shop, she could just read the chalkboard outside, announcing the week’s dive sites and inviting newbies to come on in and sign up for a baptismal dive.
Her cell phone rang, blaring the Jaws theme song. Right now, the ringtone was all too appropriate. Her partner, Del Rogers, was the shark circling in her waters. Her former coach had franchised a string of dive shops in California and Hawaii, including Dream Big and Dive. Del had won dozens of gold medals and multiple U.S. championships, and photos of him caught in midair as he dived off the platform covered the wall in his San Diego office. He was a force to be reckoned with, and unfortunately for her, he was entertaining an offer on the shop. An all-cash, superattractive and almost-impossible-to-beat offer. The offer worried her, but she’d made a career of winning, and she’d overcome the odds this time, too.
“Piper,” he barked in the same voice that had demanded more of her fifteen-year-old self. More sit-ups, more push-ups, more air or more rotations. She’d always given it to him, and he’d coached her to be the very best.
“Good to hear your voice.” Not.
No chitchat. Del went straight to business. “Have you made a decision on the Discovery Island site?”
“I still want to buy out your interest,” she said, playing for time. Her desires weren’t the problem. Finding the cash was.
“Good.” There was a brief pause—she’d spent more time hanging in the air over the pool—followed by, “When?”
“I’ve got a meeting with the bank in two weeks.” Of course, talk was cheap. All she’d had to do to get the meeting was pick up the phone and dial. Unless she changed her cash flow, however, the outcome would be the same as the past two meetings. The banking professional would listen—professionally—and then recommend her application be denied.
“I’m going to take that offer for my share.” And...with nine words, Del benched her. She fought the urge to fling the phone because she couldn’t afford to replace her phone and she definitely couldn’t afford to buy the dive shop. “Money talks and cash sounds mighty good to me.”
“Del—”
He talked over her. “You’ve had a month to meet my asking price. I need to unload the place. It’s not cash flowing, and I’m overextended as it is.”
“I’m closing the Fiesta contract. Give me two weeks.” She was convinced she could turn the shop around and bring in enough business to make the place viable. Del, however, remained unconvinced.
“This is business.”
Her business.
Del had never accepted excuses. He’d always said, “Show me.” She scrambled for something to sway him. “Have I ever not won? You know how I perform in crunch situations.”
The brief pause on the other end lasted a year. Possibly three. Piper wasn’t entirely sure, but time slowed down in a very Matrix-like way.
Del exhaled roughly. “Two weeks. I won’t accept any offers for two weeks. If your offer isn’t in my hands, it’s game over.”
“Got it.”
She had her time. Now all she had to do was deliver. She was used to crunch situations and performing under pressure. Just pretend you’re climbing the dive tower, mere points out of the lead. One perfect dive. That was all it would take.
5 (#ulink_c5be3151-6ca4-5409-bc6b-6b64a8543edf)
PIPER RODE HER Harley down to the Pleasure Pier. A little sugar, a little fun. That was what she needed after her unwelcome call with Del had torpedoed her afternoon, and the Pleasure Pier was perfect.
Built more than a hundred years ago by one of Cal’s enterprising island ancestors, a man who’d decided to combine beer sales with fish sales (pure genius, in Piper’s opinion), the pier stretched out into the bay, living up to its name. The piles were painted the green of Doublemint gum and winked with white lights. The place stayed true to its roots, selling fishing licenses and fresh fish. The occasional angler parked on the edge, trying his luck in the water below before hauling the catch over to the weighing stations and a dusty wall of old photos of oversized, prizewinning marlin and swordfish, and successful fishermen. For the less fish-inclined, the pier sold saltwater taffy, ice cream and churros. An old-fashioned lemon-yellow swing ride lit up the far end by the beer kiosk.
A beer and candy sounded perfect, followed by a half-dozen, gut-churning rides on the swings. She wanted to fly through the air, leaving the day’s problems behind her. Ten minutes later, she traded in five bucks she should have been saving and acquired a fistful of paper tickets and a bonus bag of taffy. She’d passed on the beer, after all—she had the Harley, and some chances she wouldn’t take.
The swings slowed, riders stumbling away, laughing. Kids shrieked while their parents snapped photos, creating a scene that was loudly happy and all chaos. Perfect.
“Hey, Lenny.” She greeted the ticket taker, offering him the bag of taffy. Lenny had worked on the pier for as long as she could remember. Like the ride itself, he looked a little older each year.
“Haven’t seen you in a while.” Lenny poked through the bag, looking for the red-and-white taffy, like he always did. “Got your favorite swing all ready for you.”
“Perfect.” She laughed. Her feet flew to the bright red double swing she always rode. Deliciously garish, with over-the-top gold trim covering every edge, and faux rubies hot-glued to the sides, her swing winked at her just as enticingly now as it had twenty years ago. It also had the most lift of all the swings on the ride, or so she and her brothers had concluded after a summer of experimenting. She’d ridden it ever since.
She settled in, waiting for the ride to fill up. The sky was dark now, with plenty of stars peeking through the clouds. She’d always meant to buy one of those charts and learn their names. She tracked one glowing blob and debated if the slowly moving light was a comet or a shooting star. Her knowledge of astronomy was sadly lacking. She’d seen a shooting star once, a bright flare and a quick descent. The flash of red was her first clue that celestial milestones weren’t in her future tonight. Her “star” was a plane. Nope. She’d better not count on a career as an astronomer.
And...darn it. Despite her careful planning to not think about Cal or the bet she had impulsively proposed to him, Mr. Tall, Dark and Glum himself stood there on the pier, dogging her from the shadows. The Pleasure Pier wasn’t his kind of scene. She had a hard time imagining him fisting a bag of taffy and riding the swings until he was deliciously seasick. Cal was too responsible, too...something else. On the other hand, if she accidentally fell over the pier because she was too dizzy, he’d be the first one in to save her.
He watched from a distance, giving the impression there was an invisible space bubble or do-not-cross police tape surrounding him. The pier’s usual evening crowd flowed around him obediently. He’d changed out of his suit, looking more familiar in his usual faded blue jeans, T-shirt and work boots. His long, lean legs were stretched out slightly in front of him as he leaned against the pier’s railing, the ocean at his back. And, God, his eyes...she liked his watchful, heated gaze far too much for comfort. She had no idea why he was here, but as long as he stared, she was staring back.
So screw it.
Flip him the bird or crook her finger? Oh, the choices... Grinning, she flipped him the bird. He tipped his head in silent acknowledgment and then slipped away into the shadows.
She pushed down the strange pang of disappointment. She might not like Cal, but baiting him was almost as much fun as eating taffy and riding the swings. He had better things to do than stand there and watch her. Of course.
She’d been kissing distance from him that night at Big Petey’s, and the closeness had made an impression. That was all these residual feelings were. Because kissing Cal—or doing anything else with the man—would be a recipe for disaster. His hot body came with an arrogant, take-charge attitude she didn’t need in her life. She’d win their bet and thumb her nose at him. So what if she’d imagined the man doing a Chippendales routine at her own personal direction? Just because he’d have to take orders from her didn’t mean she had to give him any orders. She certainly hadn’t planned on actually getting into bed with him.
Lenny bellowed for last-takers, and she tightened her fingers on the chains connecting her swing to the ride. The anticipation of waiting to start was almost as good as the ride itself. As the music swirled and blared, the swing dipped and swayed as someone else sat down beside her. Nope. No way. She always rode alone.
She turned her head—although how she was going to protest sharing a public ride with single seats for solo riders, she didn’t know—and Cal settled onto the seat beside her. She couldn’t remember the last time Cal had ridden the swings. Or the first time, for that matter.
“I could be saving that seat,” she pointed out through a mouthful of candy.
He raised a brow. She hated when he did that. The gesture always, always preceded his busting her. Sure enough...
“For whom?”
He reached out a thumb and rubbed at the sticky corner of her mouth. Oops. She was wearing her guilty pleasure on her face. At least he hadn’t licked his finger first. Ignoring the rasp of his callused skin against hers, she pulled away from his touch. He was also far too literal. “I didn’t say I was.”
“Just that you could be,” he agreed. “Which you’re not. So fair game.”
“Since when do you ride the swings?”
“Maybe I’m trying something different.” His eyes met hers in silent challenge, and she wondered if her comment about his predictability had stung the other night.
Lenny was making final rounds, collecting tickets and checking the safety harnesses. If tonight were her lucky night, Cal wouldn’t have one. Of course, since he was never impulsive, he undoubtedly did.
Lenny paused.
Cal handed over his ticket.
So not her night.
A minute later the ride started, the familiar music drowning out the chatter of the pier’s crowds. The lights flashed a riff of rainbow shades, and Discovery Island melted into a colorful blur as they rose up off the ground. She loved this. The sensation was almost as good as platform diving had been. She could—again, almost—pretend she was flying.
Cal ruined it by opening his mouth.
“Good job today,” he said. Instead of looking out at the island, he was staring at her again. Cal was always annoyingly fair.
“You, too,” she admitted grudgingly. Because it was true, darn it. He had done a good job and it worried her. She really, really needed the contract, and Cal might be the person who stopped her from getting it.
The ride whirled up, gravity and centrifugal force working their magic as the swings swung out in a wide arc. She’d sat on the inside because she really hadn’t expected company, and he outweighed her. He braced himself as the ride turned, but his thigh pressed against hers. The world spun out of focus, and she couldn’t hold back the laughter anymore. Cal’s weight changed the swing’s pitch but not in a bad way. On the next turn, which came faster and higher, he slid into her—the man had no choice—and she leaned forward.
“There’s Deep Dive.” She leaned forward and pointed to his shop.
* * *
PIPER LIVED ON the edge.
Literally.
Cal wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and gently tugged until she wasn’t quite so close to the edge of the seat. The ride had a safety harness, a set of thin chains, which struck Cal as more ornamental than functional. The ride’s designers had clearly bet on gravity keeping riders in their places. Equally obvious, they’d never planned on Piper. She’d once debated the feasibility of jumping from the ride, when it swung out over the ocean at its highest point, and hitting the water.
He’d never know for certain whether she’d have gone through with the plan or not, but he’d watched her like a hawk for the rest of the summer until she’d gone back to the mainland with her family. She’d accused him of being an old grandfather. He’d countered that she’d had a death wish.
Her legs extended in front of her as their swing whirled into the next turn, and she threw her arms over her head, shrieking happily. Her right knee didn’t quite straighten all the way, the ridge of scar tissue there a visible reminder that some things in life hadn’t worked out for Piper. On the other hand, while the accident had put an end to her diving career, she didn’t seem to be in mourning.
Instead, she’d moved on.
Or moved back. Cal wasn’t sure which. All he knew was that he was off balance in more ways than one, which was pretty much what always happened when he was around Piper.
They needed to let go of this ridiculous bet. It was a stupid idea and unprofessional. He had no idea why he’d agreed to it in the first place, except that when he was around Piper, things seemed to happen. That was part of the problem.
At least he had a captive audience. She couldn’t run away from him now. “About our bet—”
“You can’t renege,” she said. “Look, you can see my boat.”
“Piper—”
“That’s my name.” She slid a sideways glance at him he couldn’t read. Too bad Piper didn’t come with an instruction manual. Or an off switch.
“We can’t do the bet,” he said firmly. He knew what happened when he gave Piper so much as an inch.
“You agreed,” she countered, every bit as stubborn as he remembered. The years hadn’t softened her up any. Or taught her to be reasonable.
He braced as the ride spun higher and the swings arced out into the air. Squashing Piper hadn’t been part of his plan. “Cut me some slack.”
“Nope,” she said. “No way. You were my childhood nemesis. You never went easy on me once.”
Her body curved into the turn, and she threw her arms up again with another whoop, taking at least a year off his life as her butt lifted off the seat. He anchored her with an arm around her waist, feeling the warmth of her beneath the thin cotton top. She looked sweet and sexy, both of which were misleading. He had no idea what game Piper was playing with him, but she’d never shown the slightest awareness of him as a man. Or sweetness. Stubborn, fierce, competitive—Piper was all of those. Sweet, however, was not part of her vocabulary.
He didn’t even like sweet.
He tucked her bag of candy into his pocket before it flew away. See? Nothing but trouble.
“We’ll renegotiate,” he stated firmly.
“Cheater,” she said, a small smile curling her lips, and the delight in her voice matched the grin on her face. “You’re a cheater, Cal Brennan.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. Up, down, sideways. He never knew where he stood with Piper, other than on her shit list. He seemed to have a permanent place there. But that was Piper. She was confusing, annoying and definitely...sexy? It had to be a residual from seeing her bare breasts the other day.
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Anne Marsh
Winner takes it all…offFormer diving champion Piper Clark never loses. Unfortunately, if she doesn't land this lucrative contract, her diving business will fail. Worse still, it will be at the hands of her childhood nemesis, Cal Brennan–six feet of hard, rugged former Navy SEAL. So Piper proposes a wager: whoever loses the diving contract must take orders from the winner…in bed.Cal needs this contract for his own reasons. A former rescue swimmer, he may be having a few issues with diving since his last mission ended, but Piper doesn't need to know that. Something about her impulsive nature makes Cal rise to the bait, and there's nothing he'd like more than to show Piper exactly what rules are good for.All bets are on. And someone's about to start playing dirty….
Winner takes it all…off
Former diving champion Piper Clark never loses. Unfortunately, if she doesn’t land this lucrative contract, her diving business will fail. Worse still, it will be at the hands of her childhood nemesis, Cal Brennan—six feet of hard, rugged former Navy SEAL. So Piper proposes a wager: whoever loses the diving contract must take orders from the winner…in bed.
Cal needs this contract for his own reasons. A former rescue swimmer, he may be having a few issues with diving since his last mission ended, but Piper doesn’t need to know that. Something about her impulsive nature makes Cal rise to the bait, and there’s nothing he’d like more than to show Piper exactly what rules are good for.
All bets are on. And someone’s about to start playing dirty….
“I’d like to propose a bet...”
Piper had to stand on tiptoe to reach Cal’s ear. Since she was pressed against his butt, he wasn’t complaining.
“What are we negotiating?” His voice sounded gruff, but some things were definitely beyond his control.
“The Fiesta contract.” She didn’t retreat. Nope. If anything, she pressed in tighter.
“I’m not stepping away,” he warned. If he wanted to bring more veterans out here to Discovery Island to work, he had to have that business.
“I wouldn’t ask you to do that…more than once.” He felt rather than saw her smile against his throat. Piper had always been honest. It was one of the things he liked about her. Her next words were a whisper meant for him alone. “Loser takes orders from the winner for one night—in bed.”
And…whoa.
He hadn’t seen that one coming.
“We’ve always had a certain…chemistry. Aren’t you curious?”
Oh, yeah.
“I accept,” he growled.
Dear Reader (#ulink_5ed66632-4e89-5d1a-a846-c159c8108285),
My husband calls my Discovery Island books my vacation books, and he may have a point. I wrote much of my first Mills & Boon Blaze book, Wicked Sexy, sitting on the bathroom floor of a Tahitian bungalow with a large albino gecko for company. It was the only room with electricity where I wouldn’t disturb my sleeping kids—although I’m pretty sure they woke up the first time I spotted Mr. Gecko staring down at me from the thatched roof and nearly launched the laptop at his head.
Pieces of our vacations also made it into Wicked Nights. I’ve always been a fish lover, and not just served up on my plate. I fell in love with snorkeling when a very sexy, itty-bitty-swimsuit-wearing French man in Bora Bora told me to jump into the current and look at the fish. I did, and, despite almost drowning, I was hooked. I’ve tried to share some of the beauty of that underwater world in Piper’s dives. While Discovery Island is a figment of my imagination, the kelp forests and damselfish Piper sees are not. And hey, just for you all, I made sure to do my research and swim with sharks before I included them in the book.
There will be a third book—Tag deserves a happily-ever-after—and I’m thinking it’s time to vacation again. Where do you think we should go?
Happy reading,
Anne Marsh
Wicked Nights
Anne Marsh
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#ulink_62972c08-9677-5c55-8048-6f0c48462a76)
ANNE MARSH writes sexy contemporary and paranormal romances because the world can always enjoy one more alpha male. She started writing romance after getting laid off from her job as a technical writer—and quickly decided happily-ever-afters trumped software manuals. She lives in Northern California with her family and six cats.
For Gwen and Kimberley. Books definitely don’t write themselves—and you’ve been with me every step of the way on the road to Mills & Boon Blaze!
Contents
Cover (#u59a40743-9434-53ef-8394-fe3c618fbcd3)
Back Cover Text (#ueeaab4b2-beb9-5e7f-a0ce-8f1d1381b5fc)
Introduction (#u7e78f69f-bee6-5adf-b103-fc6fd56b3630)
Dear Reader (#u284f8442-bfd3-548b-9a94-82b86852fbc3)
Title Page (#udb2da105-07e7-5a8b-a523-c5d8b809209c)
About the Author (#udfd81022-971d-562f-944a-20f9ea48620b)
Dedication (#u4b33010c-bd02-58b7-97f8-0dc9ed560801)
Chapter One (#u30779d78-d4a9-533b-bed7-11e24f274187)
Chapter Two (#udaa5b81d-e1fe-50da-a5c0-ce57af206938)
Chapter Three (#u719b3cfa-57ad-59a5-875b-f21b429c92f4)
Chapter Four (#u7bd45ffa-4026-5ca0-bd41-8ef701e204f6)
Chapter Five (#ucc404663-28f7-5a97-a660-a09160a428a5)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
1 (#ulink_496375f8-6832-5892-93bd-f7c5c1c8c8c5)
PIPER CLARK CUT hard right, the prow of her motorboat slicing through the clear blue water, yards in front of his. He’d have recognized that impish, take-no-prisoners grin anywhere.
Plus, she flipped him the bird as her wake hit his deck, soaking both him and his gear.
Definitely Piper.
Good thing for her he’d grown up in the past twenty years. Cal Brennan’s ten-year-old self would have gunned his motor and gotten even, racing her for Discovery Island’s marina until he’d swamped her deck every bit as much as she’d swamped his. Tit for tat—those were the rules of engagement they’d always competed by. Still, he picked up speed, hugging her wake—and was just in time to watch as she maneuvered her boat into the last decent slip. Mentally, he readjusted his assessment of his maturity. Score one for Piper. He forced his fingers to unclench from the wheel, counted to ten and concentrated on searching out an empty slip. She waved jauntily as he motored past her, close enough to read the name painted on the boat’s side. What kind of name was the Feelin’ Free anyhow?
She’d always named things badly. He distinctly recalled being hit over the head with a stuffed teddy bear named Grand Poo-bah. There had also been a rescue puppy named Mr. Cuddles. Mr. Cuddles had been a mostly deaf white Boxer with a severe drool problem. Mr. Cuddles had moved on to the Happy Hunting grounds some years before, but apparently Piper’s lack of naming skills had stuck.
Not that the other four thousand full-time residents on Discovery Island would mind. Twenty-two miles long and eight miles wide, the island’s main selling point was its horseshoe-shaped bay with postcard-perfect deep blue water, dotted by boats and two piers. The pier for the cruise ships stretched out into deeper water, but the shorter pier was pure pleasure and clear at the other end of town. The good folks of Discovery Island had named that pier Pleasure Pier and the broad strip of creamy, palm-tree-studded sand fronting an old-fashioned boardwalk was Primrose Path. The hotels, shops and restaurants lining the street sported even worse names in Cal’s opinion. Good Time, Please Your Eye and Wine, Women and Song. The daily influx of tourists who ferried over from the California coastline to explore the boardwalk loved the names. Or they simply loved diving, fishing, zip-lining or doing any one of the hundreds of activities on offer. Discovery Island was big on keeping busy.
Grabbing his sodden gear bag and his deck shoes, he padded barefoot along the dock, enjoying the heat from the sun-warmed boards soaking into his feet. He and Piper had business, more so than usual. The familiar, soothing noises of the marina washed over him as he fielded greetings from the occasional other boaters and closed in on his target. Discovery Island’s marina was a hopping place, but the blue water with its glint of fish and kelp were an invitation to take it easy, as was the familiar bouquet of sea salt, motor oil and Neoprene rubber filling the air. Lazy waves broke against the docks, slapping fiberglass hulls, and he could just make out the beach boardwalk. On a summer day like today, the place bustled with tourists looking for the quintessential California dream. It was also an ideal day for diving, but he’d stuck to the surface. He hadn’t strapped on a tank or even free dived. Not him. He’d had a nice swim, stuck his head under water and promptly panicked.
Just like yesterday.
And every other day since his last dive as a U.S. Navy rescue swimmer. The dive boats he passed, loading and unloading, were an unwelcome reminder of what he’d lost. Temporarily. Somehow, he’d get his head on straight, would figure out how to get back in the game and back in the water. He’d never failed before; he wouldn’t start now. He had too much riding on his ability to dive.
Turning the corner and spotting Piper’s boat was almost a relief. The sighting was definitely a welcome distraction from the panicked voice in his head asking, What if you don’t get back in the game? What if you never dive again? Hearing voices was never a good sign.
“Piper Clark,” he bit out, relieved to have something to do. Setting his gear bag down on the dock, he moved to the edge where she’d tied up.
Retreat, the inner voice demanded. Stand your ground, sailor, his body urged.
Piper was naked.
Okay, so, she wasn’t totally naked, but a man could dream.
Somehow, he’d timed his arrival at her slip for the precise moment she grabbed the zipper running up the back of her wet suit. Undeterred by his presence—because surely she’d heard him snap her name—she pulled, the Neoprene suit parting slow and steady beneath her touch.
Hello.
Each new inch of sun-kissed skin she revealed made certain parts of him spring to life.
If someone had asked him what the over-under was on his seeing Piper naked, he’d have bet heavily against his spotting so much as a sliver of her bare flesh. If he’d expressed an interest, Piper would have shot him down, hard and fast. After all, she didn’t like him any more than he liked her. Their shared past was proof of that.
Even as he reminded himself she’d spent most of their early days trying to either torment or kill him, his eyes were busy. Piper’s arms were spectacular, strong and toned from hour after hour of pulling herself through the water and then back up into the boat. Diving wasn’t for the weak, and she’d had a professional platform-diving career long before the accidental collision five years ago between his boat and her Jet Ski had destroyed her right knee. After she’d rehabbed on the mainland, she’d up and moved full-time to Discovery Island. Island gossip hadn’t shared with him the reasons behind the move, but since he’d come back himself, he had to assume she simply loved the place as much as he did. Now she was looking sexier than any stripper, uncovering skin tanned a rich golden brown from time outdoors. The way she’d braided her water-slicked hair in a severe plait only drew his attention to the deceptively vulnerable curve of her neck.
But this was Piper.
So dragging his tongue over her skin and tasting all the places where she was still damp from her dive should have been the last thing on his mind. He’d read her the riot act about her careless driving and say his piece about tomorrow’s business meeting. Then he’d go his way and she’d go hers. After all, he’d been back on the island for almost six months and had managed to avoid all but the briefest of interactions with her. They said hello, goodbye (he suspected she preferred the latter), and nodded tersely at each other from across the street. Life was much quieter that way, because Piper invariably did plenty of yelling when she spent too much time around him.
The wet suit hit her waist.
Neither short nor tall, Piper had medium brown hair, brown eyes and a slim build. Those cut-and-dried facts didn’t begin to do the woman in front of him justice, however. They certainly didn’t begin to explain why he unexpectedly found her so appealing or why he wanted to wrap an arm around her and take her down to the deck for a kiss. Or seven. He didn’t like Piper. He never had. She’d also made it plenty clear he irritated her on a regular basis.
So why was he staring at her like a drowning man?
And...score another point for Piper. Like many divers, she hadn’t bothered with a bikini top beneath the three-millimeter wet suit. His kiss quota rocketed up to double digits.
“Piper.” His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears. Focus. Adrenaline rushed through him, sweat dampening his skin. He forced himself to breathe in, slow and easy. To push his heartbeat down and make the sudden energy pumping through his veins work for him. This wasn’t a rapid rappel down to a crash site to search for survivors or a midnight recon of a hostile-infested beach. Nope. This was Discovery Island, a good place with good people. He was home.
Without acknowledging his greeting, she bent over, shoving the heavy suit down her legs, and his throat went dry. Game over. Silver earbuds, which explained why she hadn’t answered him, flashed as she shimmied, working the suit off. Like always, Piper was lost in her own world, marching to her own beat. Ignorant of his presence, she gave him ample opportunity to admire the longest, sleekest legs he’d ever seen. Her blue-and-white-striped bikini bottom was all practicality, although the conservative cut still clung to her butt. Her water-darkened braid slid over her shoulder, and he wanted to fist her hair, holding her in place as he ran his hands up those legs and parted her for his kiss. Which made him a first-class bastard, even if he kept those thoughts to himself.
Yeah. But she clearly had more than one advantage on her own side.
He didn’t negotiate, he reminded himself. He acted. Decided, he approached the boat, knocking on the side to draw her attention.
She jumped, her head swinging around toward him. “If it isn’t my favorite SEAL.” She flashed him a grin as she popped the earbuds out, taking in his soaking-wet jeans and damp T-shirt. “Had a mishap?”
She knew precisely what had happened.
He dropped down off the dock, onto her boat. Deliberately, he let his feet hit the deck hard, savoring her little flinch. She wasn’t as off balance as she’d made him, but it was something. He’d take every advantage he could get because, Christ, she still wasn’t wearing a bikini top. Instead of covering her breasts or grabbing for a towel, she glared at him as if this whole situation was his fault. She was lucky her slip put her out of the line of sight of the other boaters in the marina and he was the only one who could see her. Piper flashed him, and any thoughts he’d had of being a gentleman flew out of his head. He imagined cupping her soft curves in his palms, rubbing his thumbs over the tips. He’d just bet she was a moaner, and—
He jerked his gaze back up to her face. “We’ve got to talk.”
* * *
FEET BRACED, LEGS APART, Cal Brennan made himself at home on Piper’s deck, nothing but challenge in his gaze as he waited for her to finish checking him out. He was magnificent. And mildly pissed off, which was pretty much the usual state of affairs between her and Cal. Of course, her soaking him when she’d buzzed past him into the marina might explain his foul mood. Faded jeans clung to a pair of powerful legs, and an old cotton T-shirt stretched over broad shoulders. Dog tags flashed as he turned his head to track her. Cal had never needed power suits to scream, “in charge.” He moved smoothly, confidently, as he came closer, his bare feet silent on the deck after his initial gunshot-loud landing. Behind him, down the dock, she caught a glimpse of a Harley parked in the street near her dive shop. Cal’s black low-rider bike screamed, “race me,” followed by, “take me.” And, while she’d never considered Cal as dating material, she had to admit he was hot.
Really, really hot.
“We need to talk,” he repeated and his patronizing, self-assured tone did a great job dampening the desire blazing a hot path through her belly. His eyes dropped briefly to her breasts again—darn it—then returned to her face. Like he was taking inventory and nothing more.
Right. The words coming out of his mouth were perfectly pleasant, but he clearly intended to do all the talking—while she did all the listening. That wasn’t how she lived anymore. She wasn’t six years old to his ten, any more than she was still a teenage diver bombarded by coaching advice. She was a businesswoman now. A grown woman.
Even if being near him made certain parts of her feel like a teenager.
“I’m listening,” she said neutrally because there was no point in pissing this man off before she had to. Plus, gazing at him was no hardship. If she was objective (which she usually wasn’t when it came to Cal), he looked every bit as sexy as his bike.
Not going there. Swiping her bikini top from her dive bag, she got busy with the ties. While she didn’t particularly care about the peep show she’d given him—you got used to stripping down on the dive boat and skin was just skin—she didn’t need to introduce the whole male-female thing to this conversation or tempt her hormones any further.
He approached swiftly, inserting himself into her personal space before she could protest. Big, callused fingers brushed the nape of her neck.
“Lift,” he ordered. His low, sexy, I’m-in-charge-and-we-both-know-it rasp almost made her forget she’d known Cal for twenty years and liked him for none of that time. She was in so much trouble.
Obediently, she lifted the wet tail of hair while she considered the merits of turning and kneeing him in the balls. Which would be, she decided, a waste. Her body was screaming for satisfaction of a completely different kind, which made no sense at all. She didn’t like Cal.
“You search me out for a reason? Or did you just stop by for the peep show?” She was proud of herself for calmly getting the words out. She didn’t sound like her hormones were rioting at all.
“I’ll pick option A.” His voice rumbled in her ear as he bent his head and tested the knot he’d made in her bikini top. “I hear you’re bidding on the Fiesta Cruise Lines contract.”
Fiesta Cruise Lines wanted a local dive shop to run trips for cruise ship clients. Since Fiesta put in one ship a week at Discovery Island, and they’d promised a minimum of twenty divers to start with, the contract was worth a significant chunk of change.
“My interest is no secret.”
“Business is booming?”
Her balance sheet wasn’t his business. She certainly wasn’t going to admit the dive shop she co-owned with her former diving coach wasn’t precisely bringing in the bucks. “What do you think?” she asked, turning away from him.
He was silent for a moment. Watching, of course, and probably plotting some terribly efficient course of action. Whatever Cal thought he saw, however, remained a mystery to her.
“I think business has been down on the island overall,” he said finally, unfortunately coming to precisely the right conclusion, like he always did. That was one of the most annoying things about Cal. He usually was right.
He shifted until he was blocking her path to the dock, unless she crawled over him, which she hadn’t done since she was seven. Or maybe nine. Their competitive moments blurred together. What she did know was that she had no plans for full-body contact with him today.
Today.
Whoa. Wrong idea. More clothes would have been good or perhaps a suit of armor. She’d never had the urge to think about Cal naked before. Cal’s family owned half the island, and he was the prodigal son who’d come home six months ago after a glorious stint in the military. He’d fought the battles and had the medals and the scars to prove it. She didn’t doubt his heroism, but his timing was rotten. She’d come back to Discovery Island two years ago herself to do some starting over and having Cal around now wouldn’t make her job any easier. Somehow, she rubbed him the wrong way and he returned the favor. The last thing she needed was his brooding self backseat driving or paying any attention at all to her plans for the dive shop.
And he would.
She just knew it.
He’d never, ever cut her any slack, not since the time they’d met when she was six years old and she’d first come to the island with her family for summer vacations in the cheerfully ramshackle, ocean-side cottage that had belonged to her grandmother. The cottage’s three bedrooms barely afforded enough room for Piper’s parents, her three brothers and herself, but the cozy camping had been part of the appeal. She’d loved those summers. Now the cottage was hers, which was a good thing given how little money she made as a dive instructor. Once she owned Dream Big and Dive outright, however, things would change. She’d be able to expand and to implement some of the ideas she had. All she had to do was win the Fiesta contract so she could convince the bank to loan her the money to buy out her partner.
Cal had driven her six-year-old self crazy. Twenty years later, he’d just gotten better at doing it. Of course, she also knew how to return that favor.
It was strange, though, how much he looked like her definition of a hero. He was a big man, pushing more than six feet. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw like he’d had better things to do than shave and didn’t mind living rough. Cal owned the space around him and not merely because he was tall, his wide-legged stance ensuring he easily rode the gentle swell and slap of the marina water against the boat’s hull. He was the kind of man who controlled any situation.
She stared at him and he watched her right back. She had the sudden feeling he knew exactly what she was going to do, before she did it. When she stepped away from him, however, his hand slid off her neck and he let her go.
“How are my business plans any of your business?” she replied. Not the politest of questions, but they had a history. He nodded, like she’d just confirmed something he already knew, and she couldn’t help but notice he didn’t smile. The fine lines around his eyes didn’t come from laughter, she realized, but from hours at sea. This man was 100 percent warrior.
And hot enough that she wanted to take him down to the deck herself...
He leaned back against the edge of her dive boat. “Because I’m bidding, too.” His dark brown eyes were unnervingly gorgeous. God had definitely not been playing fair the day Cal had been gifted with that feature.
“Tell me you’re joking.” She kept her voice steady, when she wanted to scream. Unfortunately, she wasn’t surprised. Of course Cal would go after the contract she had her eye on.
“Afraid not.” He said the two words calmly, as if he hadn’t just dropped the mother of all bombshells on her. She needed the contract. Had to have it or give up her dream of buying out Del, her partner, because every bank she’d approached so far for the loan had made increased cash flow a condition of borrowing the money.
“Why?” she demanded.
“Because I run a dive center.” He made it sound so logical.
“You run a command center,” she countered, going on the offensive. “You handle all the search-and-rescue ops for the sector. Why do you want to run dive trips for a cruise ship?”
“Look around you,” he said drily. “And then tell me how busy you think I am.”
“We’ve had one tropical storm this summer.” Which probably only underscored his point. One was singular and nowhere near enough to base a business on. She understood—she just didn’t like it.
“I want to bring in more former SEALs to lead dive trips, and it was still a free country, last time I checked. In order to hire more divers, I need to increase our revenue. When I win the Fiesta contract, I do exactly that.”
He said it as if the contract was a sure thing.
Maybe it was. He was a veteran and a highly experienced diver. He’d trained U.S. Navy SEALs, the same guys who ensured they did still live in the free country Cal had so mockingly mentioned, and there was no way the executives evaluating the proposals wouldn’t weigh his military service into the equation. Plus, his plan of hiring former veterans was unspeakably nice. Until he’d thrown his name into the ring, she’d seriously had her competition beaten. She narrowed her eyes. Fortunately, she still had a card of her own to play.
“You’re not the only one who needs to increase revenue.”
“So, business is down for you.”
It was, and at the worst possible time, too. She needed a beefed-up balance sheet to get her business loan.
She gave him an assessing look. “For you, me and everyone else.”
He shrugged. “I heard several other dive shops had submitted a proposal to Fiesta.”
“The cruise line has plenty of choices.” Unfortunately. No, she’d think positive. She was good at what she did and she’d win this one.
The other option wasn’t acceptable.
“That contract is mine,” she said. She’d visualized nailing each and every dive before she’d climbed the tower in a competition, and she’d do exactly the same here. Cal might be a decorated veteran and combat swimmer, but she was a U.S. national platform-diving champion and a heartbreak story. She didn’t like playing the celebrity card, but she’d do whatever it took to win. After her accident, she’d spent two years in the media spotlight, and her name on a dive roster would make people look twice.
He shook his head, shoving off the railing. “Again, it’s a free country. You can think what you like.”
His tone, however, made it perfectly clear he, at least, didn’t think she stood a chance.
“You bet.”
Dream Big and Dive was her dream and she wasn’t letting go. She might not have the cash to purchase Del’s interest in the business outright and the banks might have labeled her a poor risk for a business loan, but she’d never gone down without a fight, as Cal knew very well. If she won the Fiesta contract, she won her funding and her shot at making Dream Big and Dive one of the best dive programs for novice divers in California. She’d make it to the final round of bidding, and she’d be in it to win it.
She never lost. Ever.
* * *
PIPER CLARK WAS GORGEOUS. Objectively speaking, Cal knew that. What he admired more, however, was the way she met his stare without flinching or dropping her gaze. She was a fighter to the core and Cal’s instincts said she wouldn’t go down easy. The problem was, she was still his competition for a job he wanted.
Hell.
“You won’t win this one,” she warned. She stood there, hands parked on her hips as if she owned this competition, and he was certain she believed she did.
“I can.” He would, too. His business, Deep Dive, was hands down the best operation in town. Piper, however, clearly believed she had the number-one, go-to place on the island. She also radiated an attractive confidence, which would only help her sell it to the Fiesta executives. Her hair was starting to dry now, dark streaks of wet giving way to lighter brown, and for a woman standing there in a bikini, she looked remarkably sure. He definitely needed to date more—or at all—because he was fairly certain he was staring. And that he’d noticed exactly where her bikini top had left pale white lines on her shoulders. She had freckles, too, and lots and lots of bare, smooth skin.
Except for her right knee.
She took a step, staggered slightly when the wake from a passing boat rocked the deck, then righted herself. If he hadn’t been watching her so closely, he’d have missed the lightning-fast correction. Her knee was the only part of her that wasn’t tanned perfection. The ridges of scar tissue were nothing gruesome—he’d seen far worse during his military career—and the lines were white. He put a hand out to steady her and then pulled it back. Yeah. The look in her eyes said she didn’t want help. He’d seen the same look on the faces of plenty of soldiers. He understood wanting—no, needing—to do things alone. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have his own gremlins riding his back, which was one of many reasons he wanted to bring more veterans and former teammates on board at Deep Dive. Sometimes, a guy needed a job and a place to work through his shit.
“You can’t stop me,” she said, her hands tightening on her hips.
He shook his head. “Honey, that’s where you’re wrong.”
She smiled at him. “I’m going to win.”
“You’re so certain?”
“You like to be in charge.” Her eyes narrowed accusingly as she went off on one of those Piper tangents he’d never been able to follow. Jesus. Yes, of course he did. The expression on her face said she did, too. Which was too bad for her because, not only was he good at it, he held all the cards here. Instead of responding, he shot her a look.
She shook her head. “No. I don’t think so, Cal.”
She said his name with the same tone of mocking disgust his SEAL teammates had used when trash talking each other, except her voice held a note of sincerity. He’d seen her breasts. Hell, he’d touched her skin, even if it was only the brush of his fingers against the back of her neck, so it was okay. She could call him anything she wanted, because names didn’t bother him. Actions mattered. Not words.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Win,” she said so sweetly his teeth hurt. “That’s what I’m going to do, Cal.”
Not in his lifetime. “I’ve got you seriously outgunned here.”
“Bet me,” she said in the same tone.
He observed her cautiously. Trouble had just shown up on this mission. The playful sparkle in her eyes telegraphed the message loud and clear. Since the only thing she had to be happy about was his leaving the field to her, and he had no intention of doing that, she clearly believed she’d come up with an alternative plan.
“Uh-huh,” he drawled, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning in. “What are we betting about?”
“The outcome of the contract negotiations,” she clarified, smiling up at him.
“There’s only one possible outcome.” He dismissed her words with a quick nod. “Deep Dive wins.”
“That’s what you think.” She shrugged casually, clearly baiting her trap.
He’d play.
“It’s a fact.” Unexpectedly, he didn’t want to see her get hurt. If she pulled back now, quietly, she could avoid the agony of defeat and all that. Hell, he almost qualified as a gentleman.
“Then, beat me, fair and square.” She shot him a fierce grin. “I’ll bid. You’ll bid.”
“I’m not betting you about this.”
“Why not?” She leaned forward, bracing her arms on either side of him, on the edge of the dive boat. She wasn’t a tall woman and she was careful not to touch him, but somehow she’d turned the tables on him. Again not surprising. Piper had made a career out of shocking him. “Maybe you’re just chicken. Put your money where your mouth is, Brennan. Bet me.”
“You’re not betting money.” He wouldn’t take her money anyhow. He was almost certain Piper’s cash flow left something to be desired. He wanted to beat her, not bankrupt her.
She leaned closer. He tried to pretend her bikini-covered breasts weren’t brushing his chest, that her top and his T-shirt were more than enough fabric to keep his imagination from rioting. Piper’s breasts were a sweet handful, curvy tops spilling over the edge of her bikini. When she’d been a platform diver, her swimsuit tops had been engineered to compress and create a smooth, sleek line. This top was something else. Feminine. Tempting. And yet—this was Piper. He didn’t like her, he reminded himself. She didn’t like him, even if she loved pushing his buttons. So where had this chemistry come from?
“You’re scared.” She sounded smug. “We both know I’m winning this one.”
And...buttons pushed. “Am not.”
Great. He’d regressed to being a three-year-old, except for the part of him that was clearly an adult and wanted to show Piper how much he appreciated her bikini top. Which he wasn’t going to do.
A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. He knew that smile. He was in so much trouble here. “Are. Too.” She underscored each word with a not-so-subtle poke in his chest.
He captured her fingers in his before she could drill holes into his heart. The words flew out of his mouth before he could think about it.
“Business, Piper. This is strictly business.”
“Uh-huh.” She gave him a look he couldn’t interpret and—he wasn’t sure, but did she check him out as she pulled away? Getting a read on Piper was frustrating. “You keep telling yourself that.”
2 (#ulink_dfefd1ed-e9ae-51ba-a0d3-b13f40bf88a9)
DISCOVERY ISLAND HAD bars for tourists (all with kitschy names like Devil’s Wine and Beer and Skittles) and then there were the places for residents. Diver’s Haven was mostly a local scene since the bar was tucked off the main boardwalk. It wasn’t precisely a hole-in-the-wall, but the place hadn’t exactly earned a prime spot in the local food and wine department, either. It did, however, have cold beer and satellite TV. Tonight, Cal appreciated both. Going head-to-head earlier with Piper had been the icing on a frustrating day of broken equipment, canceled dives and a boat engine leaking enough oil to re-create the Exxon Valdez.
The bar propping him up was made from salvaged driftwood, an artistic touch he’d always suspected had been Big Petey, the bar’s owner, being cheap rather than fashion-forward, given the booths with cracked vinyl seats. Neon lights in the window advertised brands Big Petey had no intention of stocking and the jukebox worked intermittently, rather like its owner. Big Petey also extended credit to anyone and everyone and had more dishwashers than he did bar glasses because he was incapable of turning down a job seeker. Big Petey was a good man, and he’d never seemed to mind Cal wasn’t much of a drinker.
Cal had a one-beer limit. Alcohol wasn’t advisable when training, and he wanted his head back in the game. Plus, he’d seen more than one good soldier lose himself inside a bar. So, for the moment, he settled for just sitting at the bar, empty bottle in front of him. The game played on the big screen, and the clack of balls from the pool tables in the back competed with the occasional groan as a batter struck out. Tag and Daeg, fellow former rescue swimmers and current co-owners of Deep Dive, had moved on to the backroom and a game of pool and talking trash. More words flew than balls when those two played, only proving that nothing much had changed since their last tour of duty together. He still thanked his lucky stars every day that he’d been able to convince them to move up here from San Diego and join him rather than reenlisting.
Big Petey looked over at him when a commercial came on. “You ready for another?”
He didn’t want to put the man out of business. “If you make it a cola.”
Big Petey also didn’t stock any name-brand sodas. Local gossip alternately claimed he’d outspent his account with both major distributors or referenced the man’s legendary cheapness. Since the stuff Big Petey poured was no better or worse than what Cal had drunk in dozens of overseas ports, and had bubbles, Cal didn’t care which version of the story was true.
Big Petey grabbed the dirty glass and stowed it somewhere beneath the bar. “You’re making me a rich man, Brennan.”
At least he’d merited a clean glass. Maybe. After all, he couldn’t see exactly where the new glass Big Petey slapped down on the bar had come from. It was possible his original glass had simply round-tripped. Big Petey aimed the soda gun in the glass’s general direction and squeezed.
“Drinks taste a whole heck of a lot better with rum.” Big Petey did not have a personal one-beer limit, and Cal’s choice of beverage was a constant source of amusement for the other man.
“Big Petey makes an excellent point.” The scent of apples and something floral surrounded him as Piper slid onto the empty barstool beside him, resting her bare arms on the counter.
A big grin creased Big Petey’s face. “If it isn’t our world champion.”
Piper made a face. “I didn’t compete.”
Big Petey grabbed another glass—from the shelf behind him, so definitely clean—and carefully set it down on a cocktail napkin in front of Piper. Piper also merited a bowl of peanuts. If Cal hadn’t already known the other man had been nursing a soft spot for Piper, he now had all the proof he needed.
“You’ll always be my champion,” Big Petey said gruffly. “I’d have been sitting here in the bar, watching you win gold, if you’d gone to the world championships.”
Piper smiled and mimed blowing kisses while admiring an imaginary medal. Cal bet it was indeed gold in her imagination. Piper had never settled for being anything but the best. He had no idea how she could handle the constant references to her almost-successes, but she always had a smile when her spot on the team was mentioned, even if she usually changed the topic immediately. She’d had to drop out after the accident because, as superhumanly competitive as Piper was, even she couldn’t force her knee to heal fast enough for the world championships.
Sure enough, she pointed to Cal’s glass and deflected Big Petey’s interest in her diving dreams. “I’ll have what he’s having.”
Big Petey huffed. “Jack and cola. Coming right up.”
Piper snagged a handful of peanuts. “Cal here is predictable. He’s downing straight-up soda, and we all know it.”
He wasn’t that predictable. Was he? He turned on his stool and reached in to steal a handful of peanuts from Piper. And...wow. She hadn’t been wearing that dress earlier. In fact, he was certain he’d never seen her sleeveless mint-green number before. Little stripes covered the fabric, making him want to look closer, or maybe it was the woman in the dress. The thing had a neck high enough to pass muster with the most conservative of audiences—apparently he’d seen all he was seeing today of Piper’s breasts—but a dearth of fabric south of her butt, stopping a good two inches above her bare knees. She wore a pair of those sandals with laces that wrapped around her ankles and calves and made him think about unwrapping. Piper dressed up was dangerous.
She tugged the peanut bowl out of his reach. “Those are mine.”
Her eyes laughed at him, so he snagged a second handful.
“You bet. That’s what makes them taste so good.”
“You don’t change.” She sighed dramatically and then raised her glass in the air. “Cheers.”
“Right back at you.” He clinked his glass against hers. For a few minutes, they nursed their drinks companionably while the home team struck out on the television.
Daeg slid between them, depositing two empty bottles on the bar. “Wow. Now, here’s a sight you don’t see every day. There’s only twelve inches between the two of you, and no one’s fighting.”
“We don’t fight all the time,” Piper protested. “And you just took up all the space anyhow.”
Daeg eyed the peanuts and she nudged the bowl toward him. “Consider it a public service,” he said.
“Hey,” Cal protested at the peanut move. “You’re discriminating.”
Piper flashed him a grin as Big Petey swapped out Daeg’s empties. “You bet.”
“We get along.” Right. Like cats and dogs, oil and water...he could trot out every hackneyed, clichéd comparison and they’d all be accurate. He and Piper fought. Sparred. Lived to one-up each other.
Piper swiveled on her stool, her knee brushing his thigh. He did his best to ignore the small contact.
“Sometimes.” Daeg raised his bottle to Piper. “Cheers. But most of the time, the two of you are either fighting or daring each other to do stupid crap. I grew up here, too. I know exactly what the two of you got up to.”
Piper shrugged modestly. “What can I say? Cal here is suggestible.”
“Someone here is also a sucker for crazy dares,” Cal pointed out.
Piper had never met a dare she wouldn’t take. She’d done all sorts of crazy things over the years. She’d gone cliff jumping at midnight (which was when he’d discovered his calling as a rescue swimmer). Ridden in a string bikini printed with the American flag down the boardwalk on the back of his Harley (one of his all-time favorite memories). She’d engaged in a very failed attempt at bison tipping, after arguing that the island’s bison and cows were more or less interchangeable, and had instead discovered that bison patties stank to high heaven. She’d made him buy her a pair of new sneakers after that one, which he’d thought was fair.
Her grin lit up her face. “You should take more chances.”
Over his dead body. “And you’re going to kill yourself one of these days.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Her hand rubbed the scar on her knee self-consciously. They didn’t talk about the Jet Ski accident that had put an end to her diving career. She’d come far too close to dying. Fortunately, he’d completed emergency medical training as part of his rescue-swimmer education. After he’d saved her, he’d staunched the bleeding and thanked God a major artery had been missed. The crystal clear water of Discovery Island had looked like a bad shark attack had occurred that day.
“You up for a game of pool?” She practically jumped off the barstool as she made her getaway.
Daeg looked at him. “Nice going, asshole. Now, go make it up to her.”
“By letting her win?”
Cal collected their glasses. He debated grabbing the peanuts, too, but he wasn’t a waiter and Piper was already marching across the bar toward the pool tables in the backroom. She clearly expected him to follow, and he felt guilty enough for bringing up bad memories to indulge her.
Daeg shook his head. “No one lets Piper do anything. She just does it. She’ll win fair and square on her own.”
That was true, too. He followed her while he chewed on that one.
The bar’s pool table setup was ad hoc at best. Big Petey had gone for the more-is-better approach and shoehorned two pool tables into a space meant for one. The proximity didn’t leave a whole lot of room to maneuver.
Piper grabbed a cue stick from the rack on the wall, inspected the tip and leaned her hip against the table. She was good at looking confident. He’d give her that.
“Perfect. You’re in,” she said when he stepped into the room.
“Piper.” Her name came out as a growl.
“Watch,” Daeg said to Tag. Apparently, he hadn’t been able to resist the promise of a free show. “I’m predicting another crazy bet.”
“Twenty bucks,” Cal said, knowing she wanted something more than his cash. She probably would negotiate for his shaving his head bald or singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in a monkey suit when the cruise ship docked, or any other embarrassing trick she could dream up.
“As if.” She waved a hand. “I don’t play for peanuts. Make it a hundred.”
They didn’t usually play for cash, but Piper couldn’t be making bank at the dive shop. She’d also bought in and owned part of the place, which had probably left her cash poor. Since he had plenty of cash, he was happy to share with her. It would mean losing intentionally, but as long as he made it look good...making sure Piper was fed and happy was worth it. Despite the way they constantly butted heads, he’d never wanted her upset or miserable.
“Ladies first.”
She rolled her eyes. “Way to set yourself up for the loss.”
He’d played her more times than he could count. Hell. He’d taught her to play. She was good, but he was better. He handed their drinks to Daeg and racked the balls.
She tugged on her ear and bent over the table. He’d seen her make the lucky gesture countless times on the diving platform, right before she hurtled through the air and ripped her entry. It must have worked, because she broke straight on, the balls scattering.
When the five ball rolled into the pocket, she straightened up. “Stripes. My favorite. It must be my lucky night.”
* * *
PIPER HAD NO idea why she’d gotten dressed up just to swing by Big Petey’s place. She’d been bored and lonely, though, going more than a little stir-crazy out at her place alone, so she’d hopped into her truck. Possibly, she’d headed here because she was almost certain to find Cal nursing a soda if he was at loose ends. Needling him was pure fun, plus the man seriously begged for a shaking up. Mr. Safety lived and played by the rules.
Growing up, their crazy bets had been a regular summer occurrence. She’d come out to Discovery Island and spend two months indulging in soft-serve ice cream, motorboat rides—and daring Cal. Even then, before he’d become a U.S. Navy rescue swimmer and moved on to rescuing the more deserving than she, he’d wanted to save her from herself.
She’d always been the bigger daredevil of the two of them. He’d rise to the occasion, but invariably remained so serious during the execution of their bets. He was a good sport when he lost, too, although he never lost by nearly as much as she wanted him to. Cal excelled at strategic thinking and, once he was in, he was all in.
She looked over at him, taking his measure. He didn’t look worried about their current bet. “You remember the last time we played pool?”
“Four years ago?” He sounded certain.
“The game that ended with you skinny-dipping in the mayor’s pool?”
He hadn’t expected to lose that particular game of pool, but he’d walked the four blocks to the mayor’s house, with her tagging along. Then he’d hopped the fence, lent her a hand as she scrambled over the top, awkwardly because her knee had been a hot mess, and proceeded to nonchalantly strip off. Good times. She’d give Cal credit. He always kept his word.
“Some things are hard to forget,” he agreed.
She wondered if now was the time to admit she’d snapped not one but six pictures of his amazing butt as he’d jumped into the pool. She’d hung on to those pictures, too, although she planned on claiming they were blackmail material.
Like them all, he was a little older now, but she’d bet he still looked spectacular naked. When she’d walked into the bar, he’d been staring at his empty soda glass, lost in thought. The scruff on his jaw and the faded pair of blue jeans and polo shirt weren’t military issue, but there was no mistaking him for anything but a soldier. He’d also looked alone somehow, even in the middle of the bar’s cheerful chaos, and that wasn’t right. Sliding onto the stool beside him had seemed natural.
Imagine that.
While she and Cal had never been enemies, they’d never been close friends, either. Between competing to one-up each other and his annoying insistence he knew best, they’d been at odds more often than not, and the days of simply hanging out together had ended with her family vacations. He’d joined the U.S. Navy; she’d gone to college and been headed for a professional diving career. All of which meant they’d met up infrequently in the past few years. And yet...it certainly hadn’t escaped her attention that they invariably rubbed each other the wrong way when they shared air space.
Grasping the base of the cue with her right hand, she rested the stick on the edge of the table. “You might want to back up. Bodily injury isn’t on tonight’s agenda.”
“Thank God,” Daeg muttered behind them and took a drink of what she was fairly certain was her soda.
Spreading her legs slightly, she leaned in and lined up the tip against the cue ball. “Three ball.”
Take that. Her shot produced a smooth, fast line to the ball, and it dropped into the pocket with a satisfying thud.
“Seven ball.” This time, it took a softer touch to send the ball into the pocket.
Daeg whooped. “She’s taking you to the cleaners.”
Then, darn it, the four ball ricocheted off the table’s side, and she knocked one of Cal’s balls into the pocket.
“My turn,” he announced, satisfaction filling his voice.
* * *
CAL BIT BACK a grin. That was his Piper. She’d gone all out, and her all-in strategy had backfired. Spectacularly. If he sank his seven balls, the game was his. So much for losing intentionally.
He looked over at her. “What do you think I should buy with my hundred bucks?”
He wouldn’t actually take her money, but teasing her was too much fun to resist. She belted out a curse and stepped away.
“Didn’t I hear you were trying to stop cursing?” His mother had pointedly mentioned Piper’s endeavor, apparently under the mistaken belief Cal might want to try the same himself.
He picked out a cue stick from the rack while he waited for her answer.
Her yes, when it came, was grudging. “I’ll put a quarter in the swear jar later.”
He didn’t know where Piper had learned to curse, but she could definitely outswear many of the SEALs he’d served with. Plus, not only was she creative, but she was loud. Her jar probably held enough quarters to fund an entire new wing for the library she’d apparently announced was the jar’s beneficiary. Over the course of the next ten minutes, he proceeded to sink his seven balls, one after the other, and Piper’s obligations to the swear jar grew more substantial.
Tag whistled. “I shouldn’t have bet against you.”
She stepped up behind him as he eyed his final shot. It was game over as soon as he sank the eight ball. “I’d like to propose a side bet unrelated to this game,” she said.
This game. Not a game.
His critical-thinking skills suddenly became nonexistent, which was probably part of Piper’s master plan. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach his ear. God knew what it looked like to the other guys in the bar. Since her front was pressed against his butt, he wasn’t complaining.
“What are we negotiating?” His voice sounded gruff, but some things were definitely beyond his control.
“The Fiesta contract.” She didn’t retreat. Nope. If anything, she pressed in tighter.
“I’m not stepping away,” he warned. If he wanted to bring more veterans out here to Discovery Island to work, he had to have the additional business. No pool game got in the way of that.
“I wouldn’t ask you to bow out...more than once.” He felt rather than saw her smile against his throat. Piper had always been honest. It was one of the things he liked about her. Her next words were a whisper meant for him alone. “Loser takes orders from the winner for one night—in bed.”
Whoa. He hadn’t seen this bet coming.
“You’re crazy.” Of course, he’d known that for years. Piper had never met a chance she didn’t want to take. Twice.
“If you’re so sure you’re going to win, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
He looked down at her arms, caging him in place, and wondered if she’d thought her bet all the way through. “There are other ways to take a man to bed, Piper, if you’re desperate.”
The bar’s noise gave them just enough privacy that the others couldn’t hear their low-voiced exchange, but this still wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have in public.
She gave a little laugh. “I’m not desperate, Cal.”
He eyed his cue stick and wondered what his next step should be. “Then, maybe you could explain it to me.”
“We’ve always had a certain...chemistry. Aren’t you curious?”
Oh, yeah, his inner bad boy growled.
“I’m going to take my shot,” he warned, all thoughts of deliberately throwing their match vanishing. “I’m winning. You don’t want to give me that kind of opening.”
“Go right ahead,” she said, and he had no idea what she was inviting him to do. And then...she blew on his ear. Right as he shot.
He scratched, the eight ball rolling into the pocket. Well...hell.
She stepped away. “Too bad, Cal. You lose.”
Scratching the eight ball was an automatic loss. Piper was clever. And at least now he wouldn’t worry about her grocery money for the week.
“You going to pay up?” She parked her butt on the edge of the table and smiled at him. “Because I think we’re done here.”
He pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and handed over a hundred. Had she even been serious about their new bet?
“You shouldn’t walk around with this much cash in your wallet. Someone might take advantage of you.”
She hopped down and started for the door, and the sassy twitch to her hips was the last straw. He opened his mouth.
“Drinks are on me tonight,” she called back, pouring oil on his fire.
“Piper.” Her name shot out before he could stop himself.
“Yeah?”
“I accept,” he growled.
3 (#ulink_be38dedd-6741-5921-b931-257421fe52a6)
PIPER BREEZED INTO the conference room with precisely one minute to spare. Cal wondered briefly if she’d sat outside, timing her arrival for maximum impact. Probably. Piper had always loved pushing boundaries, pushing buttons.
Particularly his buttons.
He, on the other hand, had shown up early for the meeting with the Fiesta Cruise Lines team, tested his equipment and made small talk with the visiting executives, getting a feel for the terrain. His audience today consisted of two males, one female, all somewhere between forty and fifty-five. Sal Britten, Ben Lloyd and Margie Kemp were recreational divers who had logged some fairly adventurous dives. He didn’t anticipate any difficulty selling them on his planned program.
Piper dropped a mammoth white tote bag onto the chair beside him. “Did you miss me? Getting anxious?”
He shot her a look.
She grinned back. “You were. That’s positively sweet. I’d almost think you were looking forward to losing. To me. Maybe you’ve been thinking about it since our game earlier this week?”
Her eyes twinkled as she needled him. She wore a white dress that stopped several inches above her bare knees. The perfectly modest V-neck showed no cleavage but drew his eye anyhow, as did the narrow brown leather belt wrapped around her waist beneath the fitted blue-and-white-striped blazer. She looked fresh and energetic. The cruise ship woman eyed her outfit and he could practically feel the two guys melting. Piper had that winning effect on people.
“I’m not falling for your game,” he warned softly.
“And I’m not playing.”
She turned away to introduce herself to the Fiesta executives, rings flashing on her fingers as she worked the room. He eyed her ring finger and discovered it was bare. Of course, he couldn’t imagine who would take her on for keeps, but there were plenty of crazy men out there. Or men who’d abandon caution when they got a good look at those high-heeled shoes of hers, which made him think of bondage clubs. Not, of course, that he’d ever been to one, but he had internet, and the tan straps crisscrossing her feet were suggestive.
She finished her meet and greet and turned back to him. Sal Britten paused in the middle of a long-winded story about his most recent shark-cage dive off the coast of Australia (Cal would have killed for a look at the man’s logbook, because he had his doubts about the man’s dive creds) and looked between them. “Do you two know each other?”
“You bet,” he said, deliberately needling her.
Piper’s eyes narrowed, then she winked at him. “Cal here was hoping I’d be a no-show.”
If Piper didn’t get her butt in gear soon, they’d run late, so he ignored the wink and headed for the back of the room. “This meeting starts now.”
She grinned at him, keeping pace with him. “Ready to lose, big boy?”
She made everything into a competition, a game. He was tired of it, frankly, but she wouldn’t let it go. If she wanted to compete, he’d compete. He was a SEAL. He didn’t ring out. He didn’t quit. Except when it came to diving, the unwelcome voice in his head pointed out.
The cruise ship guy looked over at them. “We’re ready to get started when you are. Who’s up first?”
Time for the opening salvo. “Ladies first. I insist.”
* * *
PIPER KEPT HER professional smile painted on her face, but her rescue swimmer wasn’t playing fair. Cal waved her to the front of the room, inviting her to lead off the pitches with a lethally charming, “Ladies first,” when they both knew going first was the weaker position. Their judges would hold back on scoring to leave room for the last diver.
He grinned and settled back in his seat, arms folded over his chest. If he looked good in nothing more than a pair of jeans and a faded cotton T-shirt, he cleaned up even better. He wore an open-necked shirt—she’d never seen Cal bother with a tie for anything other than funerals and weddings—and a dark suit jacket, which didn’t disguise the breadth and power of his shoulders. He had the build of a swimmer, his body advertising that it was trained to pull him through the water at a killer pace. She’d seen him swim, and it was a thing of beauty. She’d give him that much credit.
He was also big and bad, irritatingly calm as he sank back onto his seat, leaning slightly away from her, his legs stretched out in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest. The conference-room table hid his feet, and she fought the urge to peek and see if he was wearing steel-toed work boots. It was hard to imagine him in dress shoes, but he radiated control and competence.
He raised an eyebrow. Right. Her pitch. She hadn’t prepared slides or a formal talk, but she knew her message. She’d also loaded up her laptop with images she’d shot at the diving sites she was promoting, because a picture was definitely worth a thousand words. All she had to do was get Sal, Ben and Margie to imagine themselves in those waters, and she’d have them. She quickly tugged on her ear, hoping the lucky gesture would bring her the same good fortune she’d had every time she’d climbed the dive tower and competed.
“You’ve got a cruise ship full of passengers, most of whom have never dived before. The number of newbies seriously outweighs the number of certified divers. I’d like to go after that segment, grow your tour numbers. Why wouldn’t those passengers want to dive?”
She’d fallen in love with recreational diving during her own summer trips to Discovery Island. As soon as she’d turned twelve, she’d been fitted up with gear and taught to dive. Her first excursions had been off Discovery Island pier, fifteen-footers, where she could have dived to the bottom without the gas, but the tank meant she could stay under for thirty minutes. She’d loved it and she’d been hooked. Sharing her passion through her dive program just seemed...natural.
Cal sprawled in the back of the room, all hot-eyed, hard-bodied charm as she started walking the executives through a cost comparison of land-based tours with diving excursions. There was more money to be made on booking diving than most of the other shore excursions, and pretty soon her audience of three was nodding along. Except for Cal, of course. His expression said he wasn’t convinced.
“If the passengers have never dived before, are you proposing resort dives?”
“Good question.” She smiled at the woman and launched into the next part of her talk, walking the room through the shallow, baptismal dives she’d planned for the harbor as she displayed different images on the screen. At thirteen to fifteen feet, anyone in reasonable physical health could give diving a try. Pointing out the window at the gorgeous, light turquoise water, she asked, “Who wouldn’t want to get in there and see what’s happening beneath the surface?”
Cal raised a brow. She knew that look of mocking disbelief. It was, she decided, too bad for him she had every intention of winning this contract and wiping the smug look off his face.
* * *
PIPER HAD THE room in the palm of her hand, which further irritated Cal. Letting her go first had seemed like a smart tactical move, but now he was second-guessing himself. She’d been every bit as unprepared as he’d expected, talking off the cuff without a formal set of slides—and she’d captivated the room with her charm and casual photos. The Fiesta executives leaned forward in their seats, hanging on her every word as she walked them through a novice dive. Her sassy suit probably didn’t hurt, either, because looking at her while she talked was no hardship.
She strolled past him as she returned to her seat, mouthing, “Gotcha,” and then shifted her monstrosity of a bag to his seat when he stood up.
If she thought he was going down without a fight, she was even crazier than he remembered. The Piper of his childhood had relished a good fight. Even as a girl (or maybe because she was a girl with three older brothers), she’d always done her best to outrun, outjump and generally outdo anyone who crossed her path. She would have made an excellent SEAL, if Uncle Sam allowed women on the team. So he bumped her shoulder casually with his hip, leaned down and whispered sotto voce in the most condescending tone he could dredge up, “Good job, Piper.”
He wasn’t going to make this easy for her at all.
Firing up his PowerPoint presentation, he started stepping his audience through the slides. He’d planned a series of challenging adventure dives, along with a mission theme and faux combat training for college-aged divers and older. “All of our dive masters are former Navy SEALs. We can train divers to get to the next level.”
The female executive looked intrigued. “So you’re proposing extreme diving.”
“We’ll coach you to dive like a U.S. Navy SEAL.” He gave her a winning smile. “I think you’d enjoy it.”
Piper stirred in the back of the room. Clearly, she’d concluded that the business portion of today’s agenda was done and the executives wouldn’t see her unless they turned around. She put her feet up on the chair (his chair), stretching her legs out in front of her, and he wondered briefly if her knee hurt. Then he stared at her long legs and those shoes.... Those shoes should be illegal. She stretched and her dress fell up her thigh. He swallowed. Paused. Danger.
Quickly, he advanced to the next slide, explaining the SEAL-style obstacle course Deep Dive was building. Or, rather, Tag and Daeg were building, because Cal’s head still refused to get with the program. He was useless in the water, which made winning this contract that much more important. At least he could contribute here.
Piper shifted and the final shreds of his focus flew out the window. The room was warm, and in a nod to the heat, she slid off the jacket. The move pulled the material of her dress tight across her breasts, making it clear that her lingerie of choice for today’s business meeting had been a pink-and-black bra, despite, or perhaps because of, her white dress. Typical Piper. She loved bold statements.
And he was staring.
Focus, sailor.
He wouldn’t be distracted by happy-go-lucky, viciously competitive Piper Clark again. Although...his eyes narrowed even as he kept a pleasant smile plastered on his face. What were the odds she was doing this on purpose? She lifted her arms, twisting her hair up into a loose knot. Ran her fingers down her throat. His imagination rioted, and his body behaved as if it hadn’t gotten the memo he didn’t like Piper.
Definitely on purpose.
She fiddled with the buckles on her shoes, fingers stroking over her ankles, leg drawn up. The shadow of her dress on her thigh prevented him from seeing too high, but if she moved another inch, he’d have a clear shot of paradise.
He was going to kill her.
Ten minutes later, they wrapped up the meeting and headed for the door, the cruise ship executives promising a call in the next couple days. Cal had no idea what he’d said at the end, but it must have sounded okay because nobody was staring at him with pity in their eyes or a smirk on their lips.
“Nice job in there,” Piper said, falling into step beside him, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. Was she being polite, or did she feel threatened?
“You cheated.” He strode toward the elevator.
“Excuse me?” He could hear the laughter in her voice. She knew precisely what he meant.
“The—” he waved a hand “—shoe thing you did in there wasn’t nice. Or fair.”
“From where I was standing, you were the competition.”
“Sitting,” he muttered, before he could stop himself. “And what you did was definitely cheating.”
“Did I distract you?”
“Piper.” He leaned over her to reach the elevator buttons first. “You showed me the goods. In a business meeting.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Mission accomplished. I’m going to win our bet, Cal. Maybe you should prepare yourself.”
She brushed past him into the elevator, and there was no way she mistook his attraction to her. He, on the other hand, decided to take the stairs. Followed by a ten-mile run.
4 (#ulink_14220707-6a04-5b06-98bd-87c40710412f)
PIPER HAD DISCOVERED her love of jumping when she was two. That was the story her mother told, at any rate. Toddler Piper had climbed up onto the back of the couch and then jumped off, both chubby fists raised in the air over her head. After achieving a remarkable amount of air for someone who’d weighed a mere twenty pounds, she’d crash-landed on the family dog, who’d proved to be both a good sport and an ally, letting her repeat her jump move twice more before her mother had been alerted by the noise and intervened.
When she was five, she’d discovered the springboard at the community pool. Then, at ten, she’d joined the local swim team. Racing was fun, but diving was better. When she’d dived, she’d flown. Performing gymnastics midair was an adrenaline rush better than any jump, and she’d ripped through the water leaving almost no trace of her entry. She’d won every meet and moved on to college and the NCAA championships. A berth on the national team headed to the world championships? No problem. She’d earned that, too. She’d been the golden child, the star diver—right up until she wasn’t. It had turned out the one thing Piper’s diving career hadn’t prepared her for was losing.
The Accident—and she always thought of the day in capital letters—had been just that. An accident. And it hadn’t happened at the pool, either. She hadn’t made a misstep on her vault or misjudged her somersault or twist. She simply hadn’t known Lance Peterson had started drinking at eight o’clock in the morning and stopped approximately twenty minutes before he’d invited her to take a spin on a Jet Ski with him. He’d seemed fine, but no, in the absence of an open container in his hand, she hadn’t insisted on a Breathalyzer or quizzed him on his drinking. Hindsight, however, was everything.
Being naively oblivious, she’d hopped on the Jet Ski when Lance had invited her to ride, because it had been that kind of afternoon: a group of casual friends hanging on the beach and enjoying ice cream and the sunshine. In the middle of the harbor, she’d realized Lance was impaired when her close proximity to him had made misinterpreting the alcoholic fumes wafting from him impossible. Of course she’d promptly snapped, “Go back,” in his ear, digging her arms tighter around his waist. Driving drunk was horrifically stupid, and she’d already been measuring the distance to shore. The swim hadn’t looked too bad, although even she had preferred not to take a chance with all the boat traffic zipping through the harbor. Unfortunately, Lance had made an easy dismount impossible, cutting in and out, whooping as he’d driven the Jet Ski left and then right. She’d have to pick her moment or convince him to head back.
“Lance—” She’d gotten his name out, Cal’s motorboat had come around the breakwater and Lance had cut it too close. So close that she’d seen Cal’s face, the look of fierce, calm concentration as he’d thrown the wheel right, ramming the boat into the breakwater as he’d tried to avoid the smashup. They’d hit anyhow. The Jet Ski had smashed into her leg as they’d flipped, and the whole world had narrowed to the pain radiating through her knee as she’d sunk down, eyes open. She didn’t have too many memories after the initial impact, which doctors had assured her was her body’s way of coping with the trauma. She did, however, remember Cal ripping through the surface of the water, swimming hard and fast to get to her.
Now, for the first time since the accident, she was standing on her own two feet. She had a loving, protective, competitive family back on the mainland. Her family had suggested medical school and then law school, before all but begging her to join the family business. She didn’t want that.
Her family was a ranch family. Her great-grandfather had started a small almond farm in midstate California, and the rest of the family had stuck close. Moneywise, there was more than enough in the good years—but they’d never made get-rich money. Other than summers on Discovery Island, her childhood had been full of tractors, ATVs, horses and trails. She’d spent more time outdoors than in, excelling in 4H competitions, winning blue ribbons and awards. Sure, she could have gone home, and they’d have made room for her in the family business, but...she wanted to create one of her own.
She didn’t want anything handed to her. Her three brothers had all happily settled down to ranch, competing amiably to see who could claim the most rodeo buckles, grow the biggest crop or innovate the most. Diving had made sense to them when she’d been diving for a berth on a national team, but owning a dive shop on a vacation island wasn’t aspirational enough for them. None of them had accepted that her new dream included four walls, a sometimes temperamental dive boat and racks of tanks.
Dream Big and Dive’s name came from the heart. Piper had learned firsthand that you had to let go of some dreams, but this time she was holding on. She wasn’t letting Cal Brennan beat her, not when her shot at owning the dive shop was on the line. Her soon-to-be place had a prime location, right off the boardwalk fronting the water, with plenty of foot traffic and easy access to both the marina and the beach where she loaded the dive boats.
Standing there in the front of the shop, she could just read the chalkboard outside, announcing the week’s dive sites and inviting newbies to come on in and sign up for a baptismal dive.
Her cell phone rang, blaring the Jaws theme song. Right now, the ringtone was all too appropriate. Her partner, Del Rogers, was the shark circling in her waters. Her former coach had franchised a string of dive shops in California and Hawaii, including Dream Big and Dive. Del had won dozens of gold medals and multiple U.S. championships, and photos of him caught in midair as he dived off the platform covered the wall in his San Diego office. He was a force to be reckoned with, and unfortunately for her, he was entertaining an offer on the shop. An all-cash, superattractive and almost-impossible-to-beat offer. The offer worried her, but she’d made a career of winning, and she’d overcome the odds this time, too.
“Piper,” he barked in the same voice that had demanded more of her fifteen-year-old self. More sit-ups, more push-ups, more air or more rotations. She’d always given it to him, and he’d coached her to be the very best.
“Good to hear your voice.” Not.
No chitchat. Del went straight to business. “Have you made a decision on the Discovery Island site?”
“I still want to buy out your interest,” she said, playing for time. Her desires weren’t the problem. Finding the cash was.
“Good.” There was a brief pause—she’d spent more time hanging in the air over the pool—followed by, “When?”
“I’ve got a meeting with the bank in two weeks.” Of course, talk was cheap. All she’d had to do to get the meeting was pick up the phone and dial. Unless she changed her cash flow, however, the outcome would be the same as the past two meetings. The banking professional would listen—professionally—and then recommend her application be denied.
“I’m going to take that offer for my share.” And...with nine words, Del benched her. She fought the urge to fling the phone because she couldn’t afford to replace her phone and she definitely couldn’t afford to buy the dive shop. “Money talks and cash sounds mighty good to me.”
“Del—”
He talked over her. “You’ve had a month to meet my asking price. I need to unload the place. It’s not cash flowing, and I’m overextended as it is.”
“I’m closing the Fiesta contract. Give me two weeks.” She was convinced she could turn the shop around and bring in enough business to make the place viable. Del, however, remained unconvinced.
“This is business.”
Her business.
Del had never accepted excuses. He’d always said, “Show me.” She scrambled for something to sway him. “Have I ever not won? You know how I perform in crunch situations.”
The brief pause on the other end lasted a year. Possibly three. Piper wasn’t entirely sure, but time slowed down in a very Matrix-like way.
Del exhaled roughly. “Two weeks. I won’t accept any offers for two weeks. If your offer isn’t in my hands, it’s game over.”
“Got it.”
She had her time. Now all she had to do was deliver. She was used to crunch situations and performing under pressure. Just pretend you’re climbing the dive tower, mere points out of the lead. One perfect dive. That was all it would take.
5 (#ulink_c5be3151-6ca4-5409-bc6b-6b64a8543edf)
PIPER RODE HER Harley down to the Pleasure Pier. A little sugar, a little fun. That was what she needed after her unwelcome call with Del had torpedoed her afternoon, and the Pleasure Pier was perfect.
Built more than a hundred years ago by one of Cal’s enterprising island ancestors, a man who’d decided to combine beer sales with fish sales (pure genius, in Piper’s opinion), the pier stretched out into the bay, living up to its name. The piles were painted the green of Doublemint gum and winked with white lights. The place stayed true to its roots, selling fishing licenses and fresh fish. The occasional angler parked on the edge, trying his luck in the water below before hauling the catch over to the weighing stations and a dusty wall of old photos of oversized, prizewinning marlin and swordfish, and successful fishermen. For the less fish-inclined, the pier sold saltwater taffy, ice cream and churros. An old-fashioned lemon-yellow swing ride lit up the far end by the beer kiosk.
A beer and candy sounded perfect, followed by a half-dozen, gut-churning rides on the swings. She wanted to fly through the air, leaving the day’s problems behind her. Ten minutes later, she traded in five bucks she should have been saving and acquired a fistful of paper tickets and a bonus bag of taffy. She’d passed on the beer, after all—she had the Harley, and some chances she wouldn’t take.
The swings slowed, riders stumbling away, laughing. Kids shrieked while their parents snapped photos, creating a scene that was loudly happy and all chaos. Perfect.
“Hey, Lenny.” She greeted the ticket taker, offering him the bag of taffy. Lenny had worked on the pier for as long as she could remember. Like the ride itself, he looked a little older each year.
“Haven’t seen you in a while.” Lenny poked through the bag, looking for the red-and-white taffy, like he always did. “Got your favorite swing all ready for you.”
“Perfect.” She laughed. Her feet flew to the bright red double swing she always rode. Deliciously garish, with over-the-top gold trim covering every edge, and faux rubies hot-glued to the sides, her swing winked at her just as enticingly now as it had twenty years ago. It also had the most lift of all the swings on the ride, or so she and her brothers had concluded after a summer of experimenting. She’d ridden it ever since.
She settled in, waiting for the ride to fill up. The sky was dark now, with plenty of stars peeking through the clouds. She’d always meant to buy one of those charts and learn their names. She tracked one glowing blob and debated if the slowly moving light was a comet or a shooting star. Her knowledge of astronomy was sadly lacking. She’d seen a shooting star once, a bright flare and a quick descent. The flash of red was her first clue that celestial milestones weren’t in her future tonight. Her “star” was a plane. Nope. She’d better not count on a career as an astronomer.
And...darn it. Despite her careful planning to not think about Cal or the bet she had impulsively proposed to him, Mr. Tall, Dark and Glum himself stood there on the pier, dogging her from the shadows. The Pleasure Pier wasn’t his kind of scene. She had a hard time imagining him fisting a bag of taffy and riding the swings until he was deliciously seasick. Cal was too responsible, too...something else. On the other hand, if she accidentally fell over the pier because she was too dizzy, he’d be the first one in to save her.
He watched from a distance, giving the impression there was an invisible space bubble or do-not-cross police tape surrounding him. The pier’s usual evening crowd flowed around him obediently. He’d changed out of his suit, looking more familiar in his usual faded blue jeans, T-shirt and work boots. His long, lean legs were stretched out slightly in front of him as he leaned against the pier’s railing, the ocean at his back. And, God, his eyes...she liked his watchful, heated gaze far too much for comfort. She had no idea why he was here, but as long as he stared, she was staring back.
So screw it.
Flip him the bird or crook her finger? Oh, the choices... Grinning, she flipped him the bird. He tipped his head in silent acknowledgment and then slipped away into the shadows.
She pushed down the strange pang of disappointment. She might not like Cal, but baiting him was almost as much fun as eating taffy and riding the swings. He had better things to do than stand there and watch her. Of course.
She’d been kissing distance from him that night at Big Petey’s, and the closeness had made an impression. That was all these residual feelings were. Because kissing Cal—or doing anything else with the man—would be a recipe for disaster. His hot body came with an arrogant, take-charge attitude she didn’t need in her life. She’d win their bet and thumb her nose at him. So what if she’d imagined the man doing a Chippendales routine at her own personal direction? Just because he’d have to take orders from her didn’t mean she had to give him any orders. She certainly hadn’t planned on actually getting into bed with him.
Lenny bellowed for last-takers, and she tightened her fingers on the chains connecting her swing to the ride. The anticipation of waiting to start was almost as good as the ride itself. As the music swirled and blared, the swing dipped and swayed as someone else sat down beside her. Nope. No way. She always rode alone.
She turned her head—although how she was going to protest sharing a public ride with single seats for solo riders, she didn’t know—and Cal settled onto the seat beside her. She couldn’t remember the last time Cal had ridden the swings. Or the first time, for that matter.
“I could be saving that seat,” she pointed out through a mouthful of candy.
He raised a brow. She hated when he did that. The gesture always, always preceded his busting her. Sure enough...
“For whom?”
He reached out a thumb and rubbed at the sticky corner of her mouth. Oops. She was wearing her guilty pleasure on her face. At least he hadn’t licked his finger first. Ignoring the rasp of his callused skin against hers, she pulled away from his touch. He was also far too literal. “I didn’t say I was.”
“Just that you could be,” he agreed. “Which you’re not. So fair game.”
“Since when do you ride the swings?”
“Maybe I’m trying something different.” His eyes met hers in silent challenge, and she wondered if her comment about his predictability had stung the other night.
Lenny was making final rounds, collecting tickets and checking the safety harnesses. If tonight were her lucky night, Cal wouldn’t have one. Of course, since he was never impulsive, he undoubtedly did.
Lenny paused.
Cal handed over his ticket.
So not her night.
A minute later the ride started, the familiar music drowning out the chatter of the pier’s crowds. The lights flashed a riff of rainbow shades, and Discovery Island melted into a colorful blur as they rose up off the ground. She loved this. The sensation was almost as good as platform diving had been. She could—again, almost—pretend she was flying.
Cal ruined it by opening his mouth.
“Good job today,” he said. Instead of looking out at the island, he was staring at her again. Cal was always annoyingly fair.
“You, too,” she admitted grudgingly. Because it was true, darn it. He had done a good job and it worried her. She really, really needed the contract, and Cal might be the person who stopped her from getting it.
The ride whirled up, gravity and centrifugal force working their magic as the swings swung out in a wide arc. She’d sat on the inside because she really hadn’t expected company, and he outweighed her. He braced himself as the ride turned, but his thigh pressed against hers. The world spun out of focus, and she couldn’t hold back the laughter anymore. Cal’s weight changed the swing’s pitch but not in a bad way. On the next turn, which came faster and higher, he slid into her—the man had no choice—and she leaned forward.
“There’s Deep Dive.” She leaned forward and pointed to his shop.
* * *
PIPER LIVED ON the edge.
Literally.
Cal wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and gently tugged until she wasn’t quite so close to the edge of the seat. The ride had a safety harness, a set of thin chains, which struck Cal as more ornamental than functional. The ride’s designers had clearly bet on gravity keeping riders in their places. Equally obvious, they’d never planned on Piper. She’d once debated the feasibility of jumping from the ride, when it swung out over the ocean at its highest point, and hitting the water.
He’d never know for certain whether she’d have gone through with the plan or not, but he’d watched her like a hawk for the rest of the summer until she’d gone back to the mainland with her family. She’d accused him of being an old grandfather. He’d countered that she’d had a death wish.
Her legs extended in front of her as their swing whirled into the next turn, and she threw her arms over her head, shrieking happily. Her right knee didn’t quite straighten all the way, the ridge of scar tissue there a visible reminder that some things in life hadn’t worked out for Piper. On the other hand, while the accident had put an end to her diving career, she didn’t seem to be in mourning.
Instead, she’d moved on.
Or moved back. Cal wasn’t sure which. All he knew was that he was off balance in more ways than one, which was pretty much what always happened when he was around Piper.
They needed to let go of this ridiculous bet. It was a stupid idea and unprofessional. He had no idea why he’d agreed to it in the first place, except that when he was around Piper, things seemed to happen. That was part of the problem.
At least he had a captive audience. She couldn’t run away from him now. “About our bet—”
“You can’t renege,” she said. “Look, you can see my boat.”
“Piper—”
“That’s my name.” She slid a sideways glance at him he couldn’t read. Too bad Piper didn’t come with an instruction manual. Or an off switch.
“We can’t do the bet,” he said firmly. He knew what happened when he gave Piper so much as an inch.
“You agreed,” she countered, every bit as stubborn as he remembered. The years hadn’t softened her up any. Or taught her to be reasonable.
He braced as the ride spun higher and the swings arced out into the air. Squashing Piper hadn’t been part of his plan. “Cut me some slack.”
“Nope,” she said. “No way. You were my childhood nemesis. You never went easy on me once.”
Her body curved into the turn, and she threw her arms up again with another whoop, taking at least a year off his life as her butt lifted off the seat. He anchored her with an arm around her waist, feeling the warmth of her beneath the thin cotton top. She looked sweet and sexy, both of which were misleading. He had no idea what game Piper was playing with him, but she’d never shown the slightest awareness of him as a man. Or sweetness. Stubborn, fierce, competitive—Piper was all of those. Sweet, however, was not part of her vocabulary.
He didn’t even like sweet.
He tucked her bag of candy into his pocket before it flew away. See? Nothing but trouble.
“We’ll renegotiate,” he stated firmly.
“Cheater,” she said, a small smile curling her lips, and the delight in her voice matched the grin on her face. “You’re a cheater, Cal Brennan.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. Up, down, sideways. He never knew where he stood with Piper, other than on her shit list. He seemed to have a permanent place there. But that was Piper. She was confusing, annoying and definitely...sexy? It had to be a residual from seeing her bare breasts the other day.
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Anne Marsh
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Winner takes it all…offFormer diving champion Piper Clark never loses. Unfortunately, if she doesn′t land this lucrative contract, her diving business will fail. Worse still, it will be at the hands of her childhood nemesis, Cal Brennan–six feet of hard, rugged former Navy SEAL. So Piper proposes a wager: whoever loses the diving contract must take orders from the winner…in bed.Cal needs this contract for his own reasons. A former rescue swimmer, he may be having a few issues with diving since his last mission ended, but Piper doesn′t need to know that. Something about her impulsive nature makes Cal rise to the bait, and there′s nothing he′d like more than to show Piper exactly what rules are good for.All bets are on. And someone′s about to start playing dirty….