Slow Hand (7 page)

The invitation stunned Teri. Touched by his coaxing tone, she hated to refuse him. “I can’t stay another week. I have to get back to work.” The words popped out without thought. Of course she had to return to her life. She had a job, a career, a promotion waiting.

Everything she’d worked for was within reach.

And she had the stilettos to prove it.

Jared pulled away, sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her. His magnificent, broad-shouldered, slim-waisted, and muscular back. He’d never looked so forbidding.

“It’s very sweet of you to ask me. I appreciate it. Maybe I can come back for my next vacation?”

“Sure, that’s what you’ll do. Come back another time.” He stood and headed toward the shower. Like the first morning she’d seen him tousled from bed, he stretched and reached for the ceiling.

She catalogued the memory of this, too.

She tried to imagine him in her apartment stretching in the morning. Even he wouldn’t be able to touch the ceiling there.

She was at a loss. This was not supposed to happen. She thought about her next vacation. She was not supposed to feel this wild excitement at the prospect of seeing him again.

Seeing him. Jared. Her pirate. She tried to place him in Manhattan. Maybe sitting in a theater and laughing with her at a musical comedy.

No, that didn’t fit. If he visited New York he’d be at the docks.

Tears built behind her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Simple visits wouldn’t be enough to sustain what they shared and she knew it.

She owed Jared so much, but there were no words. She heard the shower running and considered joining him, but the stall was too small for two, even two connected at the hips.

She had to go back to her own life. She had wedding presents to return, and she needed to make arrangements to stay in her apartment. By now, it would be all over the studio that she’d been left at the altar. She dreaded the questions and the pitying looks, but she could handle them. She had to prove she was okay, had to face everyone.

She’d get back to work, throw herself into landing that promotion and show everyone she was fine.
In fighting spirit.

For Thanksgiving, she’d go to Kansas to be with her family just like usual. She thought about four days on the
SandJack
instead. Decided it would be too hard to be here again. Four days wouldn’t be enough.

Not nearly enough.

She would do whatever she could to keep thoughts of Jared at bay. Work hard, play hard, take up jogging, work longer hours, harder hours. Whatever it took, she’d do it until this time on the
SandJack
became just a gentle memory with no power to hurt.

It was sweet that he’d asked her to stay longer, but another week of this and she feared she wouldn’t want to leave. And that was definitely not what Jared wanted. No, he wanted his freedom. He’d made that plain when he’d spoken of his divorce and his wife’s demands.

Jared let the hot water sluice down his sex-ravaged body. Teri wore him out, beat him at all his
board games, sent his taste buds to heaven with her baking and made him laugh. Knowing she was leaving was killing him.

He’d led the conversations as much as he’d dared. He’d tried to get her to think about her life in New York and that maybe things had changed now, but she was as stubborn blind as she was hot.

He’d even asked her to stay another week and been refused. If he tried to explain about the sparks and love at first touch and the men in his family, she’d say he was crazy. He probably was.

Well, shit. If he was crazy, then every MacKay male that ever lived was, too. Could this kind of crazy be hereditary?

He scrubbed his chest and his scalp to clear his thoughts. Teri could keep him befuddled with sex. The more he had the more he wanted.

He wanted her, but she’d given no indication her feelings went deeper than having a good time for a short time. She’d even laughed at his suggestion she stay for another week. Totally focused on returning to work, she’d missed the urgency in his voice when he’d issued the invitation.

He had charters booked through the next three months and he couldn’t afford to cancel any, not when the business had just started to take off. He didn’t have anyone he could trust with his clients, so leaving to go to New York with her for a while was out of the question.

Not that he’d been invited.

He went to the galley to make coffee the way Teri liked it and couldn’t come up with anything to convince her to stay but the bald truth. He was in love and wanted to marry her.

But on a week’s worth of sex and vacation time, she’d never believe it.

Later that morning, the
SandJack
slipped easily into her place on the pier, and Teri scrambled to secure the bow, while Jared took care of the stern.

He knew she was looking for some kind of formal goodbye, some special words between them. But he couldn’t think of one right thing to say. There weren’t any words that would suffice for him.

He wasn’t the kind of man who said, “Thanks, Teri, you were great,” as if grading her performance. And time had already run out. Usually, he returned to dock in the wee hours of the morning so he would have time to restock the food and liquor, but he’d broken his own rule to have a couple more hours with her.

Now he barely had enough time to get the linens and food delivered and his cleaning crew aboard.

Jared seemed distracted by all the details of settling the
SandJack
into her berth, so Teri headed into the cabin to get her luggage, ducking her face so Jared wouldn’t see how distressed she was.

What was the point in letting him know she didn’t want to leave? These days had been a brief frivolous time carved out of an
unfrivolous life. Of course, she wouldn’t want to leave, she told herself. Who would?

But she was an adult now, not the grown up girl who had waited at the altar for words that never came. Jared had turned her into a woman willing to live her life on her own terms and she would be grateful forever.

But that didn’t mean he wanted her here forever. No, this whole thing belonged in the mists of memory and that’s exactly where she was going to file it. It would soon be nothing more than a pleasant thought, a quiet smile, or an errant scent on the breeze.

She thought he might follow her into the cabin to help with the suitcases, but he didn’t come. It was better this way. There would be no time for private good-byes. They’d done that before breakfast, and after.
Then one last time in the tiny shower. She’d laughed when he’d suggested, but he’d promised there would be enough room. Jared buried himself so deeply she was barely able to roll her hips. They came with next to no movement, eye to eye, letting their minds and hearts bring them to the pinnacle. She’d shattered in his arms, feet, elbows and knees braced against the tight, slick shower walls, pinioned in place.

But for now, he was topside and had to focus on other things.

She hoisted her luggage and dragged the larger suitcases up to the deck. Then she lifted her carry-on bag. The points of her stiletto heels still threatened to poke holes in the bag.

She unzipped the bag and dug the shoes out. This pair was black, nearly new. She recalled watching her wedding shoes fill with water and sink into oblivion. Dread filled her chest at the idea of putting these shoes back on.

Not yet. She still had a few minutes and she would never mar the wooden deck with divots from these stupid shoes. She picked them up so they dangled from two fingers and then grabbed her bag and headed up the hatchway to the deck without looking back.

Jared waited topside to help her disembark. For the first time since she’d met him he was dressed in jeans and deck shoes. No shirt, but he didn’t need one. His skin was all the dressing he needed. She drank in the sight of him, her fingers itching to touch him one more time, but his expression was all business.

This businesslike Jared seemed out of place on the
SandJack
, considering her first impression of him. Insolence had rolled off his napping pose and his feet had been bare and the beer bottle had held a place of honor on his lap. And his eyes had been shaded until he’d looked directly at her and nearly killed her with his laser blues.

Of course she wanted to know why he looked so cool and composed, it was natural after their intimate relationship, but she liked him too much to put him on the spot by asking. She’d do them both a favor and walk away without speaking.

He vaulted off the
SandJack
to the dock. “Roll your suitcases over so I can get a grip.”

She did as requested and watched as he lifted her suitcases and set them down. The glance he gave her was cursory, moved from the top of her head to her feet. “Can you manage?” he asked without offering his hand.

“Good idea. We probably shouldn’t touch again.” She passed him her carry-on bag and he took hold of it from the far side so they wouldn’t brush hands. The action made it clear that Jared wanted to move on. A muscle in his jaw jumped as she climbed over the railing and hopped onto the dock.

“I see you’ve got your shoes,” he said. “You’ll be wearing them again soon.”

She appreciated his tone. Soft, easy, and natural. Like the man himself. “Not on board,” she said and lifted her hand, the stilettos dangling.

He nodded but his gaze went from the shoes to her feet and back again. “Jesus, Teri, just put them on.”

She set them on the dock and when she rose to full height again, she found him looking toward a couple who were quickly advancing toward the
SandJack
. They looked flushed, happy and excited.

“They look the way honeymooners should look,” she said, “and not at all the way I probably did.” A week ago she’d marched up this dock dragging her luggage, fuming with hurt and anger and a mix of emotions she wouldn’t wish on her worst frenemy.

“Damn, they’re early,” he said and set his hands on his hips.

The other couple neared and she heard the bride speak to her newly-minted husband. “Look at that boat! What a beauty.”

“I can’t take my eyes off of you,” he replied.

Teri looked where they were looking and saw the
Sally-Rose
moored a couple hundred yards off shore. She glanced at Jared at the same time he looked at her. Her heart kicked up a notch at his expression. Lust.

And not the kind he’d directed at her for a week.

The gleam in his eye was all about business and she wondered why he was suddenly wearing shoes. “Are you thinking what I think you are?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m considering an offer for her,” he drawled. “One might call it a proposal.”

Teri’s heart stalled. She looked at her shoes, one upright and the other lying on its side. She straightened the shoe and prepared to put them on. It was an automatic gesture, not tied to anything he’d said. The word “proposal” bounced around inside her head, taking up all the room she used for thinking.

The other couple jostled past her in their excitement to climb aboard. Jared lifted their bags to the deck and then handed the bride up to her groom who’d leaped aboard with all the agility of a seasoned sailor.

Their unbridled happiness and obvious love created a stab in the center of Teri’s chest. She couldn’t look at them a moment longer. Instead of facing them and Jared she considered her shoes as they waited to pinch her toes and make her back ache.

Adrift, bereft of the comfort of Jared she bit her lip, trying not to cry at the notion of slipping her feet into those damn stilettos.

She waited a moment, not knowing what it was she waited for.

Jared MacKay was the captain of the
SandJack
, ready and willing to give his customers everything they needed for a romantic getaway.

She knew exactly what Jared was, because Teri had had the romantic getaway. Jared had been perfect.

But Teri had gone and fallen in love. Stupid, so stupid.
Be an adult, put on your shoes, and walk away. He’d been teasing her when he’d used the word “proposal”.

Drawing in a heavy breath
, and trying like hell not to cry, Teri lifted her right foot and slid it into the shoe. She rose on the teetering heel.

“The problem with the
Sally-Rose
is she’s too big to sail alone. I’d need a first mate,” Jared said, his voice clear.

She nodded as if he’d been speaking to her when he was probably talking to the honeymooners. To confirm, she gave him a sideways glance through her hanging hair, but couldn’t see him through a swim of tears.

She blinked several time and then slid her second shoe on. Her toes protested and her insteps felt stretched by the high arches. But damn it all, she would get through this. She’d gotten through a humiliating jilt at the altar so she could damn well managed to walk away from this dock without collapsing.

A shadow fell across her feet. Deck shoes, blue jeans. Jared. Oh, God. He was going to be kind.