Jack & Jilted (16 page)

“We’ll be going shortly,” Jack said. “You’ll have dinner at sunset, on the ocean—no worries there.”

“Oh, we’re not worried,” Tom said. “I think she just wanted to know if we, you know, needed to be on deck for anything. For the next couple of hours.”

Lily laughed again and blushed some more, and her eyes were brighter than a blowtorch.

“Uh, no,” Jack said. “In fact, you can stay in your cabin the whole time if you want. Or have your run of the ship. There’s just me, the cook and two crew members. We’re at your disposal.”

Lily’s smile curved into something decidedly more naughty. “Well, we’ll probably come out for dinner,” she said. “If only to refuel.”

Tom gave her a walking half hug, and they grinned at each other broadly.

Oh, yeah, Jack thought. These two weren’t going to be any trouble at all. Hell, he could probably serve them vitamin E and graham crackers and they’d be fine. They were obviously here for one reason only. When he put their bags in their cabin and shut the door behind him, he heard them slide the bolt in the lock. He would’ve laid odds that the two of them were naked and/or getting busy within five minutes. Not that he was eager to prove his assumption. He headed for the deck, away from the cabins.

“We casting off, boss?” Jose asked from the top deck. “The engines are ready to go.”

“We’re still waiting on Chloe,” Jack replied, curbing his impatience. Where the heck was she?

Ten minutes later, Chloe came running up, duffel bag slung over her shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she said between breaths.

“No problem,” Jack said, giving Jose and Ace the go-ahead. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, sounding embarrassed. “I just…you’re not going to believe this, but I overslept. Till close to noon. I haven’t done that in longer than I can remember.”

Jack grinned at the memory. “You slept in when…”

He stopped before he could say when we were sleeping together. He thought about those days—when he was lazy, too, because they’d averaged about two hours of sleep at night, if that. And were always ready for more.

“Uh, you must feel comfortable at your parents’ place,” he said instead. “You know, living like a teenager again.”

“Actually, it was the opposite,” she said. “I slept lousy there. I guess I’ve gotten used to feeling the waves, you know?”

He nodded. He knew that exactly. He always had trouble sleeping when he was onshore after all his years living on the Rascal.

“That,” she said, “and I had a lot on my mind.”

He winced. Just as he’d suspected.

“Which I’d like to talk to you about,” she added.

He sighed. “Jose? You guys okay taking us out?”

Jose scoffed at the question, and Jack realized he couldn’t dodge having the conversation with Chloe based on his captainly duties. “All right,” he said to Chloe. “Come on. We’ll talk in the cabin.” He got the feeling he wouldn’t want Ace or Jose listening in on this one.

Chloe followed him down the stairs to the hallway, passing the honeymoon cabin. As Jack had predicted, there were already sounds of marital bliss occurring.

“Those the guests?” Chloe asked in a whisper as they hurried to the captain’s cabin.

“Yeah. Nice couple,” Jack said. “I think it’ll be smooth sailing with those two.”

“That’s good,” Chloe said, her voice obviously relieved.

“Especially considering how far we’re going,” Jack agreed.

Chloe blinked, and he remembered—the Rorshans were actually guests he’d booked on his own. He was so used to Chloe handling the details he wasn’t used to filling her in on things. “He’s rich. We’re going to Hawaii.”

Chloe’s eyes bulged. “Across the Pacific?”

Jack smiled, amused. “Unless you know another way.”

“Oh. I…huh.” Chloe looked unsettled and pale. He gestured to her to sit down on the bed, and she did without a word. “We’ve usually been pretty close to the coast, that’s all.”

“Don’t worry,” Jack said, realizing that she was scared. “I’ve done the San Diego-Hawaii run tons of times. It’s perfectly safe. I know what I’m doing.”

“Okay,” Chloe said. After a moment, she smiled back at him, her expression full of trust.

What would I give to have somebody look at me that way every day?

Jack sighed, sitting at his desk. “So let’s get this over with. What did you want to talk about?”

The smile slid off her face, much to Jack’s disappointment. “Get this over with? That’s a positive way of looking at it,” she groused.

“You have that look about you,” Jack replied. “Besides, you should know by now that whenever a woman tells a guy ‘We need to talk’, she’s about to nail his butt to the nearest convenient wall.”

“That’s sweet,” she said, scowling.

He leaned back. “But not wrong.”

“It’s about the partnership thing.”

“I figured.” He braced himself. “So what are your terms?”

She scooted back on the bed until she was leaning against the cabin wall, and for a second he considered joining her. No matter how rough her decision was, he got the feeling that if he was in arms’ reach, it would be a lot easier on him. Just touching her tended to make his worst days much, much better.

However, this was assuming that she wasn’t about to say We can have the business but not the sex.

She breathed deeply. “I think we need to clear up a few expectations,” she said carefully. “Before we decide to do anything more permanent.”

He frowned. He wished women would get to the point. Chloe was great and more straightforward than most women he’d met, but times like now, she tacked around an issue as if it were the Bermuda Triangle. “Okay,” he said. “Expectations about what?”

“What do you want out of life, for example?”

He blinked, wondering where the hell that came from. “You’re looking at it,” he answered. “I want the Rascal out on the water. I want to live my life my way.” He smiled. “I want to make enough money to keep doing both of those things.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “Um…is that all?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

Apparently, that was the wrong answer. It was her turn to frown.

“Well, what do you want out of life?” he asked, wondering how he could have muffed a question that arbitrary.

“I want to feel as if I’m a part of something,” she said. “I think the Rascal could be that.”

“That’s good news,” Jack said, feeling better.

“I want to be financially independent.”

He thought about it. “We don’t make millions around here, although we’re doing a hell of a lot better since you joined the crew.”

“I don’t need to make millions,” she responded, and he relaxed even more. “I just want to make sure I make enough to live well and retire at some point if I want to.”

“Makes sense.” He was only thirty-four, but he was starting to wonder about that whole retirement thing. She was logical enough to start thinking about it now. Of course, with somebody like Gerald as her husband, she would probably have had to watch her own backside or he’d have stolen her funds out from under her. “Anything else?”

She sighed. “This is where it gets sticky. You remember how we met, right?”

“Like I could forget!”

She was silent for a long moment. “I want to get married,” she said.

He froze.

“Not to Gerald—that was a huge mistake,” she said. “But I’ve been thinking about it. I want to matter to someone. I want to be in a relationship where I know that I’m working toward a future, and he is, too. I want to be in something loyal and committed.” She took a deep breath. “I want to be head over heels in love.”

He stared at her, not sure of how to respond. From the way she was staring back, he could tell she was expecting an answer of some sort.

“Oh,” he said finally.

She looked away.

“I guess that’s all the answer I needed,” she said and got up off the bed.

“You just sort of sprang that on me,” he argued, getting up, too.

“You like sleeping with me,” she said, grabbing her bag, “and you like what I’m able to do with your business. But you don’t want a wife or even a woman in your life, from what I’ve heard.”

“That’s not fair,” he said, realizing his mistake too late.

“It’s not unfair. It’s fact. If you don’t want it, I’m not going to insist and try to make something work that’s flawed from the beginning,” she said, her tone maddeningly reasonable, which only made things worse. “I’ve done that already and I’m not doing it again, thanks.”

“Damn it,” he said, grabbing her shoulder and turning her toward him, “I’m not like Gerald!”

She smiled and gently cupped his cheek with her hand. “I know that,” she said, and her smile was like banked embers—soft and warm. “But you don’t love me, either.”

His mouth worked, but no words came out.

She moved her hand, his cheek still warm from her fingertips. “I’ll go get dinner prepped,” she said, and without another word she walked out.

Jack sat down heavily on his bed. He should’ve known it would come to this.

A COUPLE OF DAYS later, Chloe was on deck looking at the ocean. In fact, there was nothing to see but the grayish blue-green swells, large ones, surrounding the boat for as far as the eye could see. It was a bit unnerving, yet it was also exhilarating. She was careful not to linger too close to the rails, even though part of her wanted to—wanted to stand on the bow like that girl in Titanic, feeling as if she were flying. The sky was dotted with the occasional bird, and she’d seen dolphins swimming in packs or pods or whatever groups of dolphins were called.

The couple, Tom and Lily, were easy to cook for—and they’d taken a lot of meals in their rooms. They didn’t even want her to clean the room or make the bed, because “We’ll only mess it up again” as they’d said. This left her with a lot of free time. She hadn’t packed any books in her hurry, and thanks to her conversation with Jack, she was not going to him to talk about anything—business or personal.

There wasn’t any point. After this trip, she would be out. Once Tom and Lily’s check cleared, she’d pay the last month of mortgage. She’d talked to the lawyers—they had a bid that they were accepting. She was going to make a small amount of money, even. Not enough to offset the wedding or recoup her savings but enough to start over.

And that’s exactly what she had to do, she thought, as dark as the waves that crashed against the hull. She was going to have to start over.

Why did you ask him if he loved you?

She closed her eyes, the pain and humiliation of that conversation still marinating in her. She did want to be in love, but being logical, she knew that they’d only known each other for a little more than a month. They’d been physically intimate, but that didn’t mean anything. At least to some men, that didn’t mean anything, she corrected. She realized now that her week with Jack had meant something very profound to her. It had shown her a whole new way to live. That sounded melodramatic, but he’d shown her that she didn’t have to have everything perfect. That sometimes it was good to just feel your feelings, and get past them. Granted, she probably couldn’t live her whole life that way, but it had worked wonders. She’d processed her feelings for Gerald. And thanks to Jack, she’d come up with the idea of working with him, giving her a way to save herself financially. She’d gained a whole new appreciation of the ocean and was developing a real love of ships. Those were all good things.

She knew now that she wanted all of that: the freedom, the happiness. She really did love working on the Rascal, and a part of her was heartbroken at the thought of leaving it and Jack, she admitted.

Maybe you’re being too hard-line about this.

It wasn’t like the way it was with Gerald, she thought reflectively. Jack had made her no promises, hadn’t said he was anything other than what he was. And he wasn’t asking her to leave the business, as Gerald had. In fact, he wanted her to stay whether they had a relationship or not. Was she being short-sighted? Was she throwing away a fantastic opportunity because she couldn’t separate her emotions from her livelihood?

She was leaning against the wall of the steering cabin when she heard Tom and Lily laughing at the back of the boat. Which meant that they were cutting off any way for her to get back to her cabin. She decided she’d stay where she was, out of respect for their privacy. She loved the boat, but that was the one thing it lacked: space to move around unnoticed. If you worked or lived on it, then you became part of a team, period. There was no room for loners. She’d liked that, too.

“Nobody’ll see us,” she heard Lily say in a stage whisper.

“Naughty,” Tom said back. “You are one naughty girl.” To which Lily let out a responding giggle.

Chloe was jolted out of her reverie. They were sunbathing out on the back deck, she presumed. Maybe Lily was talking about sunbathing topless—or rather nude, since she’d included Tom in her statement. It must be nice to be that in love, Chloe thought with an undercurrent of sadness. She thought she heard them kissing. It was sweet.

She was watching the clouds billowing in the sky when it occurred to her that the sounds she was hearing were definitely not kissing. What the heck were they doing out there in the open? She listened more intently. Then, against her better judgment, she crept closer, peeking from around the wall.