Seeing Stars (21 page)

Carefully she made her way back to the cockpit.

"It'll be dark soon," he shouted. "Well tack and anchor off Indian Island."

When they'd tacked, the motion changed entirely, easing and smoothing. Blake let out the sails and sent his boat running before the wind in a lazy rolling motion.

"When you go out on deck now," he warned, "keep your head down below the level of the boom. Running downwind may feel lazy, even safer, but it takes only a small course change for the wind to catch behind the sail when the boom lifts, and send it crashing to the other side." 

"I'll be careful." It seemed crazy to talk about being careful when they'd just taken on a storm in a boat that probably wasn't more than thirty-five feet long. "Thank you. This is wonderful."

She saw he was pleased. 

Some time later, he said, "Take the tiller and I'll get the anchor ready," and suddenly she felt nervous.

"We're not going back to the marina tonight?"

"The wind will be too strong at the harbor mouth by now. It'll drop off overnight and we'll go back at dawn."

Logically, spending a night alone at anchor with Blake was no different than spending a night in his house, but Claire felt inexplicably apprehensive.

Chapter Ten

Mac felt the anchor bite deeply into the mud bottom and knew they'd be secure for the night. He'd anchored in the lee of Indian Island many times before, and tonight when he set out with Claire he'd fully intended to anchor here again once he'd shown her what it was like to ride a storm.

It had seemed like a good idea when he planned it, part of his campaign to tempt her into changing her life for him. Except that now, with the boat surging gently underfoot in the reflected swell from the storm, and Claire somewhere down below where she'd disappeared when he anchored, he was afraid he'd made a mistake. 

It would have been better to take her somewhere romantic for dinner. After all, a guy should go with his advantages, and when a woman confessed that she'd once had a crush on him, and talked of dancing and kissing, only a fool would think she meant she wanted him to take her out on the water and scare the life out of her, racing into the eye of the storm.

She'd seemed to like it well enough at the time, but over the past half hour he'd watched her become more and more silent, even moody, and he figured that on second thought, the lady didn't like this sailing business a bit.

Which he should have known would happen, if he'd had any sense at all. He'd dated enough women, and knew damned few of them got off on the idea of leaving civilization to sail off into the sunset, not to mention sailing into a gray sky in high winds.

It might not have been too bad if he'd taken her home afterward, but anchoring overnight in an open anchorage on a lee shore, she'd probably spend the night listening to the wind and wishing she were anywhere but here.

What the hell had he been thinking of? He didn't have a lot of extra time for screw-ups, and for all he knew, she was down below getting cabin fever, wishing she were anywhere but on Blake McKenzie's boat in the middle of nowhere.

He swept a tangle of hair off his forehead with one hand and figured he'd better get down there and work on damage control.

Down below, he tossed his life jacket into the hatch beside the chart table, found Claire standing in the galley and wondered if he should start up the diesel to fire the heater.

"Cold?" 

She shook her head, but she was frowning as she said, "I went through the cupboards. You had a container of clam chowder in the fridge."

"You don't like clam chowder?"

"I love it, but I'm not sure how to light the stove."

He showed her, and then he pulled out some vegetables and started to make a salad.

"Can I help?" she asked, and he got out a paring knife and set her to work on the carrots, on the theory that she'd feel more at home if he let her help. At least, it would have been true if she were Grace, his sister, but he wasn't certain about Claire.

Where the hell had all this uncertainty come from? He was nervous in a way he couldn't remember being before. He frowned and pulled out the loaf of sourdough bread he'd picked up at the bakery this morning, let Claire set the table, and dished out two bowls of thick clam chowder. By that time it was getting dark enough that he lit the kerosene lantern over the dinette table, and went back to the cockpit to turn on the anchor light.

She waited for him to return before she began eating, and he turned the stereo on before he sat down, adjusting the volume so it wouldn't interfere with conversation. He was sitting before he realized the music was Nana Mouskouri singing love songs, which would have made more sense after dinner.

She took a spoonful of the chowder, then another. "This is great. Did you make it?"

"Grace did," he said, and she frowned.

She stopped eating, and he realized he hadn't even begun and took a spoonful of chowder, then buttered a piece of bread to keep his hands busy.

"Want one?" he asked, and when she nodded, he buttered one for her. He couldn't remember ever feeling this awkward with a woman, and while Nana sang
Love Changes Everything,
he wondered what he was going to say to get rid of that frown on her face.

Claire finished her bowl of soup and ate half her salad before she stopped and put her fork down. He heard her sigh.

"More soup?" he asked, which wasn't the brightest conversational gambit he'd ever come up with.

"Hmm." She seemed to consider it, then shook her head. "I might have another piece of that sourdough bread, though. I'll get it."

He slid out of his seat before she could, saying, "Don't move. I'll get it."

"I haven't done anything but stand around in the cockpit and pull on a couple of ropes this afternoon, but I'm absolutely exhausted."

"Sea air," he said, delivering the bread. "And constantly balancing against the motion of the boat."

"Is that it?" She leaned her head against the bulkhead and closed her eyes, giving him the chance to study her and realize she did look tired.

"Neither one of us got much sleep last night," he said softly.

"No," she agreed, her eyes opening, staring into his. "I had a great time, Blake." Color stained her cheeks and she stammered, "I didn't mean.... Well, I did have a great time last night, but I meant today. Sailing. It was wonderful."

He realized his heart was pounding. "Yeah?"

"I'm glad you let me go up to the bow pulpit. I'll never forget that... racing over the water... magic." She laughed, a breathy chuckle that played along his nerves and made him need her, as if it had been weeks since he'd touched her deeply... even months, instead of somewhere around fourteen hours.

He made himself breathe.

"So I could probably talk you into coming sailing with me again."

Her smile was slow and disastrous to his pulse, making him wonder if a man could develop a blood pressure problem overnight.

"I'd love it," she said in that lazy, husky voice, "but we probably can't."

"Let's sit in the salon," he suggested, deciding Nana, who was now singing
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,
was a good idea after all.

"I'll do the dishes," she said, beginning to clear the table.

"We'll do them together," he corrected, realizing that now that she was talking again and he wasn't worried he'd messed things up with this trip, there were advantages to working on dishes in a confined space with a woman he wanted badly, a woman who moments ago had admitted that last night had been
great.

He turned on the water and laughed at her surprise at hot water from the demand heater. "Propane," he said.

"Isn't propane dangerous on a boat? It's heavier than air. Wouldn't it settle in the bilges and—"

"Yes," he agreed, thinking how good it felt to be with a woman who wasn't afraid to show a few brains. "But it's convenient, and I've got two sniffers in the bilge, and the tanks vent overboard." He watched her slip their bowls into the soapy water, and said carefully, "About sailing..."

She turned her head toward him, both hands in water, and he knew that in a minute he would take her lips and make her eyes lose their focus the way they sometimes did when he kissed her.

"It's wonderful," she said. "Far better than the circus rides I used to be too much of a coward to go on. But as for going out again, I don't think I can get Jake and the others far enough along on the telescope before Friday. I figure we need the next three nights."

He gave in to temptation and took her shoulders in his hands, bent and took her lips when she turned with a question in her eyes. He let himself dip just deep enough to feel her response before he pulled back and found her staring up at him with her lips parted and her eyes wide with clear invitation.

He made himself resist, because they had things to talk about, things that he figured needed to be said before he let this go any further. Because one thing was for certain. If he really took her into his arms,
really
kissed her, nothing was going to get done or said until they'd both exhausted themselves in pleasuring each other.

"I had plans for the next three nights," he said softly. "Not the sort of plans that would include a trio of teenage boys."

He saw her flush rise from her throat into her face and realized that the light from the lantern only made her more beautiful to him. He was down for the count, and it was a good thing the lady seemed to be just as shattered by their kisses as he was.

"Not all night," she whispered. "Jake and the... we wouldn't work all night." Her face was flushed even more deeply now and he let himself take her lips again, just one more time.

"Blake? My hands... I'm... the dishwater."

"We'll let the dishes soak," he said roughly, grabbing a towel and getting in her way as she tried to dry her hands.

She turned away and carefully hung the towel back on its rail.

"You could stay longer," he said.

"On the boat?"

"No, in Port Townsend." She turned to face him, and he had no choice but to draw her into his arms. "Claire, there are things we have to talk about."

He realized he had her backed up against the cook stove and muttered, "Let's get out of here. Let's... in the salon..." He led her through the narrow passage to the salon where there was more room, then he sat and drew her down with him, into his lap.

"God, you feel good," he breathed as her weight settled against the part of his body that demanded he abandon talk and focus on action. "Claire, about Friday..."

"This is Monday," she said, her voice husky enough that he wondered if her pulse was beating with the same frantic pace as his. "We don't need to think about Friday for... for days."

"Yeah, but..." He put his thumb on the pulse beating at the base of her throat. "This morning, in the shower. Claire, I didn't use protection. It's never happened before. I've always—"

"It's all right." Her eyes wouldn't meet his, and he knew it wasn't all right at all, because the part of him that wanted her to be pregnant with his child, that urged him to use that possibility to bind her to him, couldn't be allowed to control his actions or his words.

"If anything happens," he said, "if you're pregnant, promise you'll tell me."

"I won't be." Her fingers covered his thumb over her throat. "Don't worry, Blake. It's all right."

"Promise you'll call."

Her fingers left his and drifted down to her blouse and his breath jammed up in his throat as she slowly unfastened one button, then a second, then drew his hand down from her throat, down until it brushed black lace.

He swallowed. "What are you wearing?"

She placed one hand flat against his cheek and he felt a pulse pounding. Hers? Or his? Neither... both, together.

"Find out for yourself," she invited as her lips settled onto his and took away the last vestige of his sanity.

Somewhere in the last twenty-four hours, she must have lost every inhibition she'd carried around for thirty-one years. Otherwise, how could she have half undressed, flagrantly inviting a man to want her, then kiss him as if... as if...