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Confusion flickered through her eyes just before she plastered on an overbright smile and stepped back.
“All righty, Doc.” Darcy’s thready voice drifted along the air as she made her way around a cooler of bottled water. “Let’s fire up this boat and hit the beach before Crusty eats all the food.”
She plopped down in the passenger seat, swiping a strand of hair from her brow. Her hands shook.
Guilt slugged him. He was a jerk. He’d done this, sent her confusing signals until this honest, good—totally hot—woman didn’t know how to react. She deserved open emotion, and yes, open desire from a guy who had something more to give her than a dried-up heart and rootless life.
But no way did he intend to let her find that guy tonight.
Max stepped behind the wheel of the boat and kicked it into reverse, backing away from the dock with more speed than necessary thanks to the frustration fueling his every move. Water chugged from the engine, then quieted as he guided the boat forward, chopping through the waves. Darcy stretched her legs on the side of the boat to absorb dwindling rays. If the woman glowed any more, he would be blinded.
Hauling his attention away from her, he piloted the boat along the tropical shoreline, trees darker, denser in the hazy glow of sunset. The sheer cliff of Lovers’ Leap stretched in the distance, about the only landmark Darcy hadn’t trekked through in the past weeks. Her confidences she’d shared on the roof echoed—how her father had found her on the cliff after the kidnapping she labeled a disappearance.
He pointed the nose of the boat away from the site. “I guess you went to luaus before as a kid, when your dad was stationed in Guam?”
When she didn’t answer, he glanced over and found more of those shadows in her eyes.
Then she smiled, her Darcy-glow back. “Sure did. Nobody can party like a crewdog. By the time I was thirteen, I even knew how to roast a pig with banana skins and ti leaves slapped over the carcass, burlap bags over the pit to hold in the heat.” She winked. “Hope you’re hungry.”
This woman made him hungry for things he hadn’t even known he wanted. “I’ll trust your recommendation.”
“Rumor has it Crusty and Doc Clark are going to pin Bronco and take pictures of him in a coconut bra to post around the squadron. I’m sure they would welcome your help holding down the big lug.”
There she went again, with more attempts to socialize him. Many had tried before her…and failed. He guided the boat through a cut in the lurking coral reef, then sped up again. “Do you ever bother with subtle?”
“Subtle has never been my strong suit.”
His hands gripped the wheel. “I appreciate your efforts to include me in your friends’ flyer games. But if you wanted to hang out with somebody who’s at the heart of a party, you should have parked yourself in front of Crusty’s room.” And he was glad she hadn’t. “This is who I am.”
“Grumpy?” She softened the jab with a grin.
“Most of the time.” Like now.
The boat sliced through waves, bouncing, sending showers of water up to sprinkle Darcy’s skin. Cling to her lashes. “Actually, I prefer to think you just have untapped social skills.”
He plastered a scowl on his face that he well knew wouldn’t deter her warrior spirit in the least. “And at the moment you have untapped manners.”
“I’ve learned subtle and polite don’t work with you.” Darcy swung her legs from the side of the boat. Elbows on her knees, she leaned toward him. “I figured something out these past couple of weeks. You need to smile more often, Max Keagan.”
“And you’ve decided it’s your personal mission to make that happen with luaus and coconut bras?”
“What are friends for?”
Memories of Eva scratched at his mind, of her trying to tease a smile from him. She would have liked Darcy. The thought bothered him. A lot.
Max yanked his mind back to the present as they circled round a jungle cliff and into a cove. A bonfire flickered up toward to the sky. Eyeing the hundred or so military personnel gathered along the beach, he decided she wouldn’t need his protection.
He cut the engine before it could chew sand and let the boat drift only feet from the beach. “My smiles are about used up for the day, Darcy. I’m going to head on back.” He forced himself to say, “I’m sure any one of the crew will give you a ride home. I won’t be good company tonight.”
“No one’s asking you to be.” Darcy braced her hand on the dash. “You don’t have to play. You don’t even have to smile. Just roll out one of those frowns of yours and eat. You have to eat, you know, as much as you seem resistant to admitting you’re mortal like the rest of us. So come on. Luau means feast, and I am more than ready to pig out.”
Her hand clenched around the dash until her knuckles whitened. “Please, Max. I don’t want to go alone.”
Shadows dimmed the glow in her eyes again. There was no mistaking them this time, even in the neon haze of the drooping sun. Darcy wore her independence like a second uniform. No doubt she could conquer whatever shadows waited on that beach for her. But she’d communicated a need for him tonight far stronger than when a snake had poised ready to strike her. He might not know why this indomitable woman needed him.
But he couldn’t turn away.
“Okay, Darcy, you’ve got yourself a grumpy, antisocial date.”
