In Too Deep (27 page)

Ben grunted. “God’s sake, West.
Can’t Joe give you a shot for those hormones?”

“
Scared I’ll fleece you,
Benny-boy?” Piper cocked her chin at her brother. “We could play
with jellybeans like we used to, if you’d prefer.”

“
Men don’t play with jellybeans,”
Ben said.

She widened her eyes. “Nuts then?
I’m sure you’ve some
nuts
somewhere?”

“
Unlikely,” West said.

Ben laughed, and for the first
time the sound was laced with nothing but good humor. “Still a
feisty thing, aren’t you?”

“
Feisty enough to empty your
wallet.”

“
We’ll see.” He hop-turned on his
crutch. “I better ask Shaye to play too, or we’ll never hear the
end of it. Oh—and West?”

West’s intense gaze wrenched away
from hers. “What?”

“
Go and rustle up some nuts for
the game, ay?”

West swore under his breath and
the look he sent her before he turned away nearly set her
just
in case I get lucky a second time
underwear on fire.

Chapter 13

West rose at
dawn, sat at his piano, and hammered out Chopsticks. Since Ben’s
bedroom was underneath his, he hoped the bastard had the mother of
all hangovers and each chord throbbed like a blister in his
brain.

They’d played hand after hand of
poker until four in the morning. Shaye left at one, Piper quit with
her winnings at half two and disappeared into her room, and the
rest of the guys staggered off just before four. Only Ben remained
a little longer, giving him the stink-eye before he limped
downstairs. Like West still planned to have
swinging-from-chandeliers monkey sex with Piper the moment Ben’s
back was turned.

Tempting. But what he had in mind
for Piper wasn’t a quick tumble in his bed. Oh, no. When he got
Piper beneath him he intended her to be panting his name and he
doubted she’d be keen on a screaming orgasm if Ben listened
below.

West’s fingers moved over the
smooth keys, sliding from Chopsticks into Chopin. He sighed as the
melody wound around him, the notes unknotting the ropy tension in
his shoulders. He should thank Claire for all the time she put into
teaching him to play, but he’d chew his own hand off first. Over
the years she never once asked about her beloved piano. Out of
sight, out of mind. A bit like him and Bill.

A soft thud at his bedroom door
before it swung open. His fingers stilled as Piper walked in with
two coffee mugs, her hair in random wet spikes and her robe knotted
around her waist. She smelled like mangoes and his conditioner
again. West curled his fingers into fists so he wouldn’t do
something dumb—like haul her onto his lap.

“
Don’t stop, it was amazing.” She
placed one steaming mug on a small table beside the piano and
cradled the other to her chest, standing by his bench
seat.

He shifted along and patted the
empty space. “Sit with me, then. And thanks.” He nodded at the
coffee.

After placing her drink next to
his, she perched on the edge of the bench, keeping plenty of air
between them. “I don’t want to get in your way.”

“
You’re not. Come
closer.”

Piper scooted over so the soft
toweling of her robe pressed against his bare bicep. A pretty flush
crept up her cheeks as her gaze zipped down to the open waist of
his jeans he’d tugged on and forgotten to button.

“
I can put on a shirt…if you
want.”

“
No. I’m good.” Her voice came out
a little strangled.

West’s gut dipped into a barrel
roll. Piper drove him to the edge of madness as her usual
ass-kicking self. But being vulnerable?

She slayed him.

“
Play for me?” she said, her voice
a whisper, a caress.

He wrenched his gaze away and
started to play, cursing every now and then when his fingers hit a
sour note. Nerves. Anyone would think he was soloing at Carnegie
Hall.

West never played for the rare
women he brought back to his room—though a few had asked. He smiled
at their sly innuendos about the skill of his fingers and shook his
head. Music revealed too much.

And yet he didn’t hesitate when
Piper asked. Because she knew his soul and all its scars, and wore
her own hidden under a mask of bravado. Or was it just the tinkling
ivories weaving silly fantasies in his head?

Each time his right hand swept
across the keyboard, their arms brushed, awareness sparking the
hairs to attention along his skin. He switched from classical to
jazz, allowing the conflicting emotions to ooze out through his
fingertips as they stroked the haunting notes of Kosma’s “Autumn
Leaves.” When the last chord drifted away, his bare foot slid off
the pedal and he turned his head. Piper stared wide-eyed at his
fingers, a solitary tear tracking down her cheek.

“
Jesus, Pipe.” He reached for her
but she slid off the bench seat too fast, standing a safe distance
away.

Her palm rested against her
breastbone, her fingers spread across her throat. He’d caught her
off guard and something inside him softened. He ached to sweep her
into his arms and take her to bed—brush the tears off her face and
make her forget everything but her own name. And maybe that,
too.

But not now, not like
this.

“
Was it me, or the
music?”

“
Both,” her voice quavered. “I
didn’t know you could play like that—it was the most beautiful
thing I’ve ever heard, and you…you’re beautiful.” She wrapped her
arms around her waist.

“
Thanks. Though I’d prefer to be
called hot, or manly. God-like or generously-endowed, even better.”
He swiveled to face her, the boulder on his chest falling away at
the small curve her lips. “But I’ll take ‘beautiful,’ because it’s
better than
cute
.”

“
Cute, huh?” She scrubbed the last
teardrop off her face. “You were cute, deadly cute, you know—back
when you were five and sitting on that same piano bench in your
little Superman tee shirt and teeny-tiny sandals.”

He groaned. “Ma showed you that
photo?”

Piper grinned, and this time her
eyes creased in humor too. How had he ever labeled her smile as
sweet yet sexy? It was wicked—pure wickedness with lashings of
black leather and a riding crop.

“
Your mother showed me more than
just the piano one when I was growing up. There was baby Ryan
having a bath, toddler Ryan on his potty wearing only his red
gumboots, and I believe there’s even one of an older Ryan streaking
butt-naked along the beach at Horseshoe Bay.”

Jeez. Thanks Ma for snatching away
his illusion of mystique amongst Oban’s eligible females. How many
other people had seen Claire’s dirty little stash? “Hopefully there
were none of me as a teenager.”

“
Given your penchant for nudity,
it’s fortunate there weren’t.”

Another evil, evil grin. Her tears
had evaporated, but he remained curious at her reaction. So,
instead of taking the bait of a verbal sparring match, he stood,
and sipped his coffee.

Her gaze zipped to the door and he
pictured the cogs and gears of her mind grinding as she thought of
her next quip before darting away. Because bantering was easier
than talking. He should know, he’d been a bartender longer than a
manager. Keep the smartass comments popping back and forth and no
one got to dig below the surface.

“
Why the tears, Piper?”

Her mouth flat-lined, the last
curve of her lips disappearing. “What? I’m so tough I can’t get
girly once in a while over a movie or a piece of music?”

He cocked his head at the thread
of bitterness in her tone, an icy sludge settling low in his
stomach. Back then he’d fed her some line like that. Too tough, too
stubborn, too boyish. And it had all been bullshit—except perhaps
the stubborn part.

But he’d pulled the other two
words from the air in desperation because, at twenty, he had no
clue how to tell Piper he loved her. That he was terrified she’d
leave for the city and never want to come back. His cowardice hurt
her—and right before Michael drowned. No wonder she hated
him.

West rubbed a hand over his face.
“You’re not so tough.”

“
Yeah, I am.” Her lower lip
trembled and she tucked her hands up higher under her
armpits.

“
You don’t have to be, not around
me.”

A bitter laugh slipped through her
lips. “Of all the people I need to be tough around, you’re number
one. You shattered me once—” She shook her head and grimaced. “You
won’t slip past my guard a second time.”

An apology burned on his tongue,
but he swallowed it. If he said those two little words, Piper
wouldn’t hesitate to plunge a scalpel in to try and dissect his
motivations.

West rolled his shoulders to try
and ease the stiffness bunching the muscles across his back.
“Listen, it’s a nice sunny morning. How about we go
fishing?”

Piper’s eyebrows winged up like
he’d suggested she join him for a yoga session. Or maybe strip
poker. “Fishing?”

“
We’ll take my little run-around
out, like we used to.” Rubbing a hand down the back of his neck,
West met her wide-eyed stare. “When we were friends.”

“
We’re not friends,
West.”

He shrugged and gave her a
lopsided grin. “Fake it till you make it?”

When she said nothing, he added,
“C’mon, Pipe. You and me, the screaming gulls, and a couple of
rods. It’ll be fun. We both could use some fun.”

After a moment she uncrossed her
arms. “You used to sulk when I caught the biggest fish.”

“
Hey, I wasn’t sulking. I was
quietly resigned because I knew you’d boast all over town and do
that crazy happy dance.” He leaned an elbow on the piano top and
scanned the length of her, from the tips of her purple painted
toenails, to her hair, which had dried into an interesting
just-been-tumbled-between-the-sheets style. “I’d pay cash to see
you do those jiggley dance moves again, baby.”

“
In your dreams, Westlake.” With
lips twitching to keep a smile at bay, Piper grabbed her mug and
made a fast exit.

West drained the rest of his
coffee and shut the piano lid. The thing was, now she’d reminded
him of the way her body looked under those jeans and baggy tee
shirts she favored, he would dream of her tonight. And every night
until he managed to get his hands—and mouth—back on her.

***

“
See? No sulking,” West
said.

Behind her sunglasses, Piper kept
her eyes closed and stretched out her bare legs. The sun warmed her
skin and the cool sea spray tickled as it splashed over the hull.
West’s boat, the thirteen-foot-long “Daisy,” skimmed across the bay
and headed around the tree-lined coast. Fortunately, she hadn’t
suffered the humiliation of puking over the side.

Yet.

Being this close to West without
resorting to tart one-liners threw her off kilter. She vowed before
leaving Halfmoon Bay to keep her cool and play the
we’re-just-friends game, like West wanted. Except it hadn’t worked
out well. Hyper-aware in the small space of his fishing boat, every
move he made impacted her. Even while they waited for the fish to
bite in amicable silence, not a moment passed when she didn’t think
about him. And her thoughts were far from platonic.

“
And the reason why we’re heading
to another fishing spot around the coast?” She raised her voice
over the rumble of the motor.

“
Gotta give a man another chance
to reel in a kahawai as big as yours.” Wind ruffled West’s hair and
his grin stretched as wide as the horizon.

Goosebumps prickled along her
arms.

So
in over her head. She’d
been smacked in the face with that certainty this morning after
listening to him play. My God, talk about Killing Me Softly. Sneaky
bastard. And trust West to have such a classy trick to seduce
women.

Her mind travelled back to the
previous day—West pulling her into the shower, taking her to heaven
regardless of her weak protestations.

Dammit. West didn’t need to trick
a woman into his bed.

Piper focused her gaze on the
coast, the tree line giving way to another long, sandy beach dotted
with—“West!”

She lurched to her feet and West
pulled down the throttle arm, the little craft slowing.

“
Oh, Christ. I see them,” he
said.

Piper’s pulse leaped as she
counted the haphazard line of charcoal-colored bodies scattered
along the sand, the small waves hissing onto the beach barely
reaching their large, triangular tail flukes.

Twenty-six stranded and helpless
whales. Pilot whales, by their resemblance to giant
dolphins.

West guided the boat closer.
“They’re still alive. Some, anyway.”

Piper grabbed the plastic bin
storing the fish they’d caught, dumped the contents at her feet and
chucked a couple of smaller plastic buckets inside. “I’ll swim
ashore and start wetting them down. You go for help.”