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“WellIstill don’t understand.” She barreled past him again, determined to check their headings if Jack wouldn’t pony up any answers. “Has it occurred to you or your brother that I might have a lot riding on this trip?”
Not waiting for his answers this time, she stomped through the galley and up toward the helm in her blanket, clutching the spread tight against the sea winds that swirled down the hatch.
“And did you know the Murphys aren’t the only people in the world who are passionate about their business?” she asked, on a roll now. “I never would have taken such a slow route to Bar Harbor if Keith hadn’t agreed to look over my business plan for me and give me his input on it along the way.” An awful thought occurred to her. She whirled around on the stairs to find Jack a half step behind her. “Does this have to do with some brotherly wager?”
Bets and contests of all varieties were the favorite pastimes of the Murphy men. Just ask anyone who’d lived in Chatham, Massachusetts for the last decade. After the annual Thanksgiving Regatta out on the open water, they returned home for the front lawn Turkey Bowl, a contest so official there were paid refs imported from out of town. Then there was the bet Jack had once made with Ryan to see how fast he could talk her into a kiss. Although that one—well, she hadn’t been all that offended at the time.
Jack’s pause was telling.
“Come back downstairs,” he insisted. “We need to talk.”
“Hmm. You forget that conversation for you consists of asking all the questions while I do all the answering. Sorry, but I’ll pass.” She had every intention of reaching Bar Harbor with a workable business plan in place before her appointment with the owner of the seaside bed and breakfast she’d had her eye on these last few months. With little capital to put down on the place, she wanted to have a thorough game plan mapped out for the bank. If she couldn’t nab a business loan, the inn could wind up in foreclosure.
She needed a fresh start some place new now that Jack was back home on the Cape. She’d gotten over their break up a long time ago. Truly, she had. But it had been easier when he was in the Navy or globe hopping for Murphy Resorts and she didn’t have to see him around town. Now that he’d started investing in` businesses around Chatham, he obviously planned on spending more time there. And while she’d like to think they could live in the same town, she wasn’t anxious to see him show up at the local clam bake with some girl she’d gone to school with or—worse – some jet set sophisticate he’d met on one of his European jaunts.
She was over him on the condition she didn’t have his future rubbed in her face. While she wouldn’t call herself a sore loser, per se, she was competitive enough to prefer winning.
Darting the rest of the way up the stairs, she stepped onto the helm. Night air blew over her, the fall temperatures out on the water decidedly cool even though the day had been gorgeous back home on the Cape. Sea breeze dotted her cheek with cool moisture, the taste of the salt spray on her lips reminding her of Jack’s skin. Ignoring the hum of residual pleasure through her body, she bent to check the chart plotter and the headings he’d set. Thankfully, Jack didn’t try to stop her. She didn’t think she could handle any more touching. Her body still sang with the seductive contact earlier.
“We’re going to Bar Harbor,” Jack told her finally, interpreting the longitude and latitude information for her since the high tech gadgetry wasn’t giving up any obvious clues. He checked a few instruments and made an adjustment to some stray dial. “Keith and I traded boats tonight after we got into a b.s. argument about who had the better vessel. Dumb guy stuff.”
She whirled around to face him, wondering how he could stand the wind with no shirt on. But then, he’d practically been born on a boat. He looked like a gorgeous Poseidon with his granite wedge of shoulders and his dark brown hair blowing in the breeze. He’d pulled on a pair of trousers, the dark pants unbuttoned at his waist where a hint of dark cotton boxers showed through the open v above the fly.
And whoa. How did her eyes end up on that southward journey? She yanked her gaze back to his tanned skin and the crinkle of tiny lines around his eyes that spoke of long days outdoors. They’d been there even when he was younger—he had a smile that lit up his whole expression but it was one that she’d only been privy to for a single incredible year together. The lines were deeper now, as if they’d been baked in from the sun all those months on a destroyer in the Pacific.
“So if you told him you had a better boat than him, how exactly did you end up sailing his out of the marina while I was sleeping?” She’d known the engagement party would run long. Keith had told her to make herself comfortable because he’d be late arriving.
She’d done exactly that. Had he set her up for this? Her stomach dropped at the idea he would do something so underhanded when she’d thought they were friends.
“Hmm…” He scratched a hand over his jaw. “I seem to recall I might have taunted him about his lack of love life right before I accused him of not knowing how to sail. I mean, will you look at this thing?” He gestured off-handedly to the state of the art equipment on the helm. The tiny hot tub built into the foredeck. “How does this floating house party bear any resemblance to boating as we know it?”
For a moment, the “we” sucked her in, included her in that exclusive little club of insiders that Jack respected. His list had always been short, his high standards tough for most mortals to meet. When she had been among the people Jack trusted, the feeling had been awfully damn happy for a girl who’d grown up without the mother who’d checked out on the family long ago and with a father more committed to his job than his kids. Compared to what she’d grown up with, Jack Murphy had once seemed like a Prince Charming hero to save the day.
Not anymore.
“So you didn’t want to take his party cruiser, but you were so dead set on forcing him to sail areal man’swatercraft that you swapped vessels.” She was starting to form a picture now. She could almost hear the conversation at Ryan’s party. “And what do you think Keith’s motive was for taking you up on the trade when he knew damn well I would be on board?”
A gust of wind blew the bedspread open around her legs, the fabric lifting clear up to her undies. She battled it back down, stuffing the excess fabric between her knees to pin it in place.
She thought she spied a flash of male appreciation in his eyes before he recovered the glower that seemed to be his trademark expression around her.
“I can’t imagine what he was thinking, but you can damn well bet I’m going to find out.” He waved his phone again.
“If you even get a cell signal out here.” She sighed. “Look, why don’t we just tuck into land wherever we are and I’ll catch a bus to Bar Harbor. No harm, no foul.”
She moved back toward the hatch to return downstairs and dress. She didn’t need this kind of garbage in her life. Whatever Keith had in mind by throwing her together with Jack tonight, it wasn’t going to work. Any chance of making peace between them had ended when he signed up for the Navy the second he’d finished telling her they were through.
Nothing like giving her the ultimate kiss-off. Not only did he dump her, but he’d also hot-footed it to the other side of the globe and sold himself to Uncle Sam in the process just to make damn sure she knew how serious he was about getting away from her.
Or at least, that’s how it had seemed to her. And he’d never disabused her of the notion, keeping his explanations to a bare minimum in a way that had hurt like hell.
“No.” Jack’s arms were around her, stopping her.
It didn’t make sense because she could see how much of a hardship it was for him to be near her. To touch her. Most guys would have at least let her dream on in her aroused state when they’d been in bed together, but Mr. Noble and Upstanding had been too honorable to cop an extra ten-second feel, bolting out of bed like she’d been a pariah.
So why did he have his arms around her now?
“Excuse me?” Her hair whipped around her face in a cross wind and she had to push it aside so she could see him.
