Her First Vacation (2 page)

At that moment Claire swore to herself that no matter what
happened, if she spent the entire trip puking her guts out with seasickness,
she would come home swearing it was the best time she’d ever had in her life.
She was tired of being the punch line of her sister’s jokes.
Tired
of living in the shadow of her mother and sister.
Tired
of being the rational, sensible, utterly responsible woman that she was.
She was going on this cruise and somehow she was going to find a way to enjoy
it. She’d come home tanned and relaxed with a whole new outlook on life and her
sister would be the one forced to eat her words.

CHAPTER ONE

Claire lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and
praying that the mocking refrain playing repeatedly in her head would stop. It
was her sister’s voice, saying “I told you so,” in that singsong tone children
used when they taunted one another. She was three days into the cruise and she
was, as her mother and sister had predicted, not enjoying herself. Oh, there
were parts she liked. First of all, she had been thrilled to discover that she
not only did not suffer from seasickness, she found the motion soothing. And
there was no doubt that the ship and all its amenities were spectacular. It was
an impressive sight all alone. Her room wasn’t anything particularly
magnificent, though it was on the outside of the ship and she even had a tiny
little balcony. She spent most of her evenings out there watching the sea and
the sky and the way the ship cut through the water with such seeming ease. That
was another part of the trip that she was coming to realize she appreciated.

In all her life, she’d never been to the coast. She hadn’t
ever been anywhere. Her first sight of the sea hadn’t been all that wonderful.
It had looked dark and dirty and nothing like the pictures in the brochures the
travel agent had shown her. But the day before they’d reached the tropics and
the water had turned into something magical. As clear as glass and the most
incredible shade of blue-green that she’d ever seen. The photos couldn’t
possibly do it justice. They’d docked for a while at an island, though Claire
had not gone ashore. They weren’t going to be there long and she’d chosen to enjoy
the beauty around her from the comfort of the ship.

The night before, at dinner, she’d learned that all her
tablemates had left the ship. They shared stories about the village and the
people of the island. The women discussed the things they’d bought. Claire had
felt even more an outcast than usual. Of course, she’d felt out of place from
the first moment she saw the others she’d been seated with. It didn’t take her
long to realize that the seating wasn’t entirely random. There were eight of
them that shared a table, four women and four men, and not one of them was
married. If that wasn’t enough to make her uneasy, the people themselves
certainly were. The other women were the sort that made Claire
feel
frumpy. They weren’t all necessarily beautiful in the
most classic sense of the word, but they each displayed obvious self-confidence
that made up for any particular physical shortcomings.

Two of them were very typical women, reasonably attractive
though without the special spark that Claire had spent her life envying in her mother
and sister. The third was by far the most attractive. Cathy Baldwin was
vivacious and flirtatious. She was pretty and she knew it. She generally
monopolized everyone’s attention, especially that of the men at the table.
Claire had watched her flirt with all four of them while somehow managing to
make each of them feel that she was focused exclusively on him. It was a
baffling talent that Claire knew she would never master. She simply didn’t have
that kind of personality. The other women apparently didn’t share her observant
nature, though. Or perhaps they simply didn’t care. Either way, the three women
seemed to like one another and were quickly building friendships.

The men weren’t quite as chummy with each other as the
women, though they seemed to get along okay. Two of them pretty much
overshadowed the others. Colin Montgomery and Garret Palmer were the kind of
men that had always scared Claire to death.
Handsome, strong,
confident, and supremely male.
Not that the other two were homely or
effeminate. They just sort of paled in comparison. It was similar to what
happened to her next to the other women, though less pronounced because the two
men made a serious effort to keep themselves involved in the conversation.

Claire, as usual, was left on the
outside,
or at the very best on the fringes, of the circle. She sat there, barely
speaking, watching them all and wishing that somehow, she could figure out how
to join in. Mostly, they all ignored her. She’d seen the dismissive looks the
other women had given her when she first met them. She’d seen the
disappointment on the faces of the men when they realized their fourth
candidate for shipboard romance was a frumpy old maid.
All
except Colin.
He hadn’t given her the same vaguely disdainful look as
the others. To be completely truthful, there didn’t appear to be any expression
at all on his face or in his eyes when he looked at her that first time. He’d
plastered a generic smile on his face as he introduced himself and since then
he hadn’t spoken more than a few dozen words to her. That was, however, more
than she could say for any of the others.

Basically, she was every bit as alone and outcast as she
was at home and she was miserable because of it. For some unfathomable reason
she’d imagined that things would be different once she got away from her
family. She’d thought some magical transformation would take place, and she
would finally blossom just as her sister had years before. She would lose her
inhibitions and grow some confidence. She would become someone new. She should
have known better. Any fool knew that people didn’t change. Not that
drastically and certainly not overnight. So here she was, the same mousy
wallflower she’d always been, and she had another two and a half weeks to
endure it.
Because she would never even consider going home
early.
Her sister might have been right, but Claire would never give her
the chance to gloat about it.
Which meant she was stuck.
She sighed as she reached over to turn off the light. It was going to be a long
three weeks.

Colin Montgomery prided himself on his powers of
observation. He was the kind of man who could take in an entire room in a
single glance and keep his attention focused on one subject while his eyes and
even his voice appeared to be locked onto another. He had a very
compartmentalized nature. It’s what made him so damn good at working
undercover. As he surreptitiously watched his target, he pretended to focus on
someone else entirely. His gaze locked onto the face of Claire Abernathy as she
leaned against the railing and stared out at the activity in the harbor around
them. He could see the pucker between her brows, the downcast edge of her wide
mouth. In the time that he’d known her he could count on one hand the instances
he’d seen her smile. Even fewer were the times she’d met him eye to eye. Shy
didn’t quite seem to be an adequate word to describe her. She was the most
retiring woman he’d ever met. She said virtually nothing, unless she was spoken
to directly. She just sat there, watching everyone and everything around her
with those big, gray eyes of hers. She was a teacher, he knew.
Elementary.
The very idea of it scared him as nothing else
ever could. He’d faced down the nastiest drug cartels, crime families, and
other unsavory characters without once flinching. But a room full of little
kids sounded like his worst nightmare. How could she be so timid and deal with
that?

He shot a quick glance at his target, just to make sure he
hadn’t disappeared,
then
turned back to Claire. Before
he even realized what he was doing, he was moving toward her.

Claire had spent the night dreaming about her sister’s
mocking laugh and reliving all the most horrible times in her life.
Her father’s death, the nearly constant humiliation of being the
daughter and sister of the most beautiful women in the county and not being
able to hold a candle to them.
She’d crawled out of bed this morning
with a headache and an overpowering urge to cry. She did not cry. She’d learned
long ago that she wasn’t one of those women who came through a crying jag
looking fragile and delicate and utterly feminine. Her eyes swelled up like
she’d stuck her face into a barrel full of something she was deathly allergic
to, her nose turned Rudolph red, and the effects lasted for hours. It was far better
to just hold the tears back than to let them loose and then have to endure the
recovery.

She’d come out onto the deck because she hoped the activity
would occupy her mind while the wind cleared it. Unfortunately there was virtually
no breeze at all and even the crowds wandering around as they waited for the
first boats to leave for shore didn’t snag her attention, much less hold it. So
she was staring out at the harbor, not really seeing anything there. The
sailboats, the crystalline water that reflected the brilliant blue sky, it was
all lost on her. She was caught up in an unpleasant circle of what-ifs, and it
appeared that nothing was going to snap her out of it.

Colin leaned against the railing beside her, but she didn’t
move. She didn’t even acknowledge that he was there. He studied her profile for
a moment,
then
spoke.

“It’s an awfully beautiful morning to look so unhappy.”

Claire just about jumped out of her skin when the deep
voice sounded so close beside her. She gasped as she spun around and met the
dark gaze of the only man on the ship who appeared to even know she was there.
He was as handsome as ever. His light brown hair looked mussed, as if he hadn’t
bothered to do more than run his hand through it. His jaw was freshly shaved,
though it still bore a hint of shadow. It always looked shadowed. She imagined
that if he let it grow for just a few days, he’d be close to having a full
beard. She saw his lips move, saw the flash of his teeth as he smiled at her,
and all without breaking their locked gazes.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She had to force herself not to drop her gaze as she shook
her head. “It’s okay. I was just lost in my own thoughts.”

His smile faded a bit. “Not happy ones I’d guess by the
expression on your face.”

Claire shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

He didn’t push her. Instead he turned and leaned against
the rail as he looked out at the harbor just as she’d been doing moments
before. He sighed. “You know, I don’t think I would ever get tired of looking
at a scene like this.”

Claire turned to scan the harbor. There was quite a bit of
activity, even this early in the morning, but it wasn’t anything that a person
couldn’t see at countless other harbors in the world. She shot him a frown.

“You like boats that much?”

He smiled a bit. “Not the boats.
The
water, the sky, the scent of sweet, tropical flowers in the air.”
He
turned to catch her looking at him and met her gaze once more. “It’s so wild
and free. It looks pristine, in spite of all the traffic. That’s not something
I see much of in the city, and I’ve come to appreciate the beauty of nature
when I get a chance to see it.”

She remembered that he’d said he was from Chicago. She
couldn’t imagine living in such a large city. She couldn’t imagine living
anywhere other than where she lived. Then again, a few months ago she couldn’t
have imagined herself going on a cruise. She turned to look out at the water
and at the sky. She drew a long, deep breath into her lungs and caught the
sweet scent he’d mentioned. Her eyes swept over the expanse of beach she could
see curving around the far edge of the harbor. Palm trees leaned out over the
sand, their green fronds swaying ever so slightly in a gentle breeze that
didn’t reach her. He was right. It was beautiful. In spite of the people and
the activity in the harbor, there was
a wildness
to
the place, as if nature had agreed to tolerate the invasion of humanity but was
biding its time until the day when it would once again reign supreme. She
turned back to Colin.

“Thank you for pointing out the beauty I was too
preoccupied to notice.”

Colin was immensely surprised by her words. He hadn’t been
trying to make a point. He’d just been giving voice to the things he felt. Yet
she was standing there, thanking him as if he’d gifted her with some arcane
secret. And the gratitude in her eyes was genuine. He straightened.

“Don’t mention it.”

She turned away from him, staring out at the sea once more.
She said nothing for so long that Colin wondered if she was waiting for him to
leave. Then, just when he was ready to turn away, she spoke up.

“This is the first time I’ve ever been out of my hometown.”

He couldn’t say it was exactly shocking, considering her
reserved nature. But in this day and age, he imagined that it had to be an
exaggeration. People didn’t spend their entire lives in a single small town
anymore. Even if it was just a vacation once in a while, people traveled.
Everyone traveled these days. Didn’t they?

“The first time?”

She nodded. “I’ve never even been out of the state. Not
until I got on the plane that brought me here. I went to college, but chose one
near to home. I had,” she hesitated, “obligations. So I stayed local and then
after graduation I got a job, and I’ve been working ever since.”

Colin searched through the neat mental files in his brain
to make sure she’d mentioned what she did for a living. If he started talking
about details he shouldn’t know, he had a feeling she’d notice. Once he was
sure she’d mentioned her occupation on the night they’d met, he spoke.