Читать книгу The Pleasure Trip - Joanne Rock - Страница 11

DECISION MADE, RITA tugged Harrison toward the stairs, hormones kicking up a conga line more enthusiastic than the one they’d watch snake through the pool area two decks down. His kisses had aroused all her senses, tuning her into his every movement, his every breath.

They took the stairs together, striding more quickly now than their leisurely stroll around the running track earlier. But then, they had a very definite, a very delectable goal in mind.

Turning the corner at the end of one flight of stairs, they needed to enter one of the restaurant areas to find the next flight down. But before they re-entered the closed part of the ship, Rita’s heightened senses heard a noise along the rail. A muffled cry?

“Did you hear something?” Harrison stopped short as Rita bumped into him, his suit jacket framing a set of abs any woman would drool over.

“Yes.” She strained her ears to listen while she forced her eyes to look away from rippling male muscles.

“It sounded like a whimper or a sniffle.”

At the mention of a whimper, Rita was immediately plagued with a vision of her sister returning to the boat, crying in the hallway, forsaken and forgotten by her no account boyfriend. Even as she dismissed the idea as impossible in the middle of the ocean, Rita heard a distinctively feminine sob from underneath the stairwell.

The crying female on the other side of the wall wasn’t Jayne. Even in the vacated dimness of the stairwell, Rita could see the tall blonde perched at the rail, her head buried against a pink duffel bag.

Missy.

Hurrying over, she could hear Harrison’s steps following more slowly behind her.

“You okay, Missy?” She reached to touch her friend’s shoulder, instantly on alert even though a part of her still longed to be heading back to Harrison’s room. “What’s wrong?”

Lifting her head to reveal red-rimmed eyes and traces of tearstained stage makeup, Missy shook her head in sniffly despair. She swiped a hand across her face when she noticed Rita wasn’t alone.

“I got fired.” Voice breaking on the last word, Missy fell into Rita’s arms to cry harder.

“Danielle did this? Damn her for a heartless—” Anger burned away the feel-good endorphins Rita had been savoring from Harrison’s kisses. She had the sinking feeling her night to be self-indulgent was rapidly going down the tubes, but how could she walk away from her friend?

“It’s okay.” Missy hiccupped as she swiped more tears away with the sleeve of her shirt. “I’ll find something when we get back home. Sammy—the somersaulter—said he knows some club owners around Fort Lauderdale, so maybe he can help. I just wish Danielle had let me earn out the rest of the week’s paycheck. I could have been at home playing with Annabelle if I wasn’t going to be making any money this week.”

Missy had an eight-month-old daughter back home who stayed with Missy’s mother while she worked. Rita knew they barely made ends meet since the baby’s father—an international crew member Missy had met on a Fort Lauderdale beach—had returned to his Eastern European home rather than help support his family. Missy had hoped the dancing gig on the ship would lead to something more stable. Gazing blankly around the darkened stretch of deck under the stairwell, Rita willed words of encouragement into her head. Too bad her eyes couldn’t move past the abandon-ship evacuation route placard on the wall over Missy’s head, which pointed passengers in the direction of the nearest lifeboat station. The whole ship seemed to be coming apart today.

“Could you go after them for wrongful termination?” Harrison straightened his tie while he seemed to size up the situation faster than Rita. “Some companies are willing to work with you if they’re afraid you’re going to cost them a lot of time and aggravation.”

Missy smiled through her tears as she acknowledged his presence. “I’m Missy, and I’m sorry to ruin your night.” She looked back and forth between Rita and Harrison. “But I wouldn’t ever try to cause anyone aggravation.”

Rita’s gaze met Harrison’s and she felt the heat crackle between them as they both remembered what they’d been about to share. Still, he seemed to understand her growing sense that things weren’t going to progress any further tonight.

“You didn’t ruin anything.” Rita slung her arm around her friend’s shoulders, knowing Jayne could be in the same situation tomorrow if Danielle had realized she’d skipped out on her performance tonight. Gesturing toward Harrison, she introduced him. “And this is Harrison Masters. A really nice guy, but he probably has no idea how little entertainers make for this cruise line or how much power the cruise industry wields.”

“I’m in the resort business, too, remember?” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and passed it to Missy, his mussed dark hair brushing his eyebrows in a way that would make any woman’s fingers itch to brush the strands aside. “And no matter how powerful the employer, the rules remain the same for their personnel practices. They can’t fire you without just cause.”

Rita wasn’t sure how sound his advice was about pursuing wrongful termination, but she appreciated his calm insights on the situation. In her family, getting fired would be a major drama involving days of histrionics. The whole family would have to weigh in with an opinion—always a vehement, fiery stance—and then they’d argue the merits of that person’s ideas until they were all hoarse. And if ever there was a cool voice of reason in the mix, it would invariably be Rita’s. So to have Harrison preempt her with such rational logic seemed sort of…deflating.

Which was utterly stupid. She should be grateful Jayne wasn’t around to start a public brawl with Danielle.

“What reason did Danielle give for letting you go?” Rita had never heard of a dancer getting the axe in the middle of a cruise week before. They still had two more shows and a handful of smaller responsibilities like helping the Karaoke King on Open Mike Night or posing for photos with passengers around the pool.

“She said I was late on my cue again tonight.” Missy speared her hand through her long hair, sweeping aside the mass of curls from her face. “I thought I’d done a pretty good job this time but Danielle hauled me aside as the show ended. She asked me a million questions about you and Jayne, then she dropped the bomb that I wouldn’t be returning to the show.”

Her face crumpled as a new round of sobs began.

“She asked about me?” Rita drummed her fingertips on the rail.

“This Danielle is in charge of the performers?” Harrison seemed to be following the conversation better than most outsiders would. For that matter, didn’t most guys bolt at the first sign of tears?

He seemed like a nice guy. A nice, smart guy, which was doubly rare in her experience.

“Yes. She runs the floor show with an iron fist and considers it her job to inspire fear in the hearts of all her dancers. I think she suffers from the delusion this makes them dance better.” Turning back to Missy, Rita needed to get back to an important point. “You said she was asking questions about me?”

“You and Jayne. I don’t think she realized that you covered for Jayne tonight but apparently your stage time ran over by a couple of seconds and that might have tipped her off. You know how she prides herself on running the whole thing by the clock.”

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

Rita had purposely exited the stage on the wrong side to avoid Danielle in case she hadn’t realized she’d taken Jayne’s place. But that opposite stage exit probably took a little longer after the music died, causing the smallest ripple in Danielle’s rigid time scheme.

“By the time she tracked down the problem, I was probably already—” Rita’s gaze went automatically to Harrison “—busy somewhere else. And her frustration with the show was my fault, not yours.”

“You don’t know that.” Missy shook her head in emphatic denial, sending curls flying. “Rita, I’ve messed up a ton of times, and she knows it.”

“But you didn’t mess up tonight.” Rita could just picture Danielle in one of her snits. The obsessive manager had looked for a target for her anger and found someone totally undeserving, someone who’d been working hard at her job while Rita was drooling over a total stranger. “I’ll make sure we straighten this mess out and if there’s a way to get your job back you’ll have it back or we’ll sic Jayne on her.”

Assuming Jayne came back onboard.

Her sister was going to have hell to pay for putting them all in this position. But until Jayne came back to fulfill the position of token Frazer woman gone off the deep end, Rita wouldn’t hesitate to engage in a few histrionics of her own.

Squeezing Missy’s shoulder, she hoped she could find a way to fix this.

“Missy, would you excuse Harrison and me for a few minutes and then I’ll meet you at my room so we can come up with a game plan?” She needed to talk to him. Owed him an explanation, or a makeup date…or a quickie in the elevator to tide over her hunger for him.

“Sure.” Missy scooped up her duffel bag. “And you don’t need to meet with me. I’ve taken up enough of your time already.”

“Don’t be silly.” She nudged Missy forward with big-sister muscle she couldn’t help but flex whenever someone needed help. “I’ll catch up with you in a little bit.”

As they waited for the sound of Missy’s footsteps to disappear, Rita could already feel the heat of the man beside her. But as much as she still wanted him, she wasn’t sure how to maintain her Jayne-impulsiveness once they left the dark cocoon of intimacy the Jupiter deck offered.

“I understand you need to help your friend.” Harrison’s blue eyes saw right through her despite the shadows of the stairwell. “I just hope you’re not having second thoughts about us.”

“No second thoughts.” Although now that they’d been interrupted, Rita wondered if it wasn’t for the best anyhow since they barely knew one another. She was normally a certified chicken when it came to men, even though she liked to tell herself she was just extremely practical. “And I’m sorry tonight didn’t work out.”

“That’s okay.” He squeezed her hand and planted a kiss on the back of her fingers, an old-world gesture that stole her heart.

“Maybe another time.” She couldn’t believe she was angling for another date with him when she’d just convinced herself she didn’t know him well enough to sleep with him. But sometimes, there was no accounting for chemistry and, oh baby, did she have it for him.

“I’d like that. I want you bad, Rita Frazer, but only when you’re one hundred percent into the moment. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about this, too.” He watched her with lazy eyes, reminding her how hot things could be between them. “You have no idea how sorry.”

Her body still humming with good vibrations he’d brought her, she shot him a smile and hoped she could find a way to be bold and brazen with this man again soon.

“I have a pretty good idea.”

* * *

TAKING DEEP BREATHS, Jayne steeled herself for confrontation as her long, lost lover poured her a drink. Heavy on the gin, easy on the tonic.

Thank God his bartending abilities were better than his dating skills.

“So you’re traveling incognito these days?” He passed her the drink and the question she didn’t want to answer, all the while staring at her with a lazy look that married men should be forbidden to bestow on unsuspecting females.

The rain still pounded the thatched roof over the bar, the fans whirring gently over the lounge to stir the sultry air.

“It protects my privacy to use my sister’s name now that my fame has spread throughout the Caribbean.” She toasted him with her glass before indulging in a sip, knowing damn well he’d see right through the lie and not caring a bit. “I’ve never been one to cause a stir, you know.”

“And you find the general public immune to transparent clothing?” He leaned forward to peer over the bar, his chocolate-brown eyes raking in every inch of her dripping sundress. “I’ll admit I’m surprised.”

Her heart stuttered for an instant as a shark-tooth pendant clanked against the bar when he’d leaned near, bringing his features into too-enticing focus. He’d grown a patch of hair beneath his lower lip, a close-shorn triangle that she wondered what would feel like against her chin if she…

Snap out of it. Jayne forced herself back to reality by inhaling the scent of damp bamboo. If Rita were here, she would have nudged Jayne in the calf with a sisterly kick.

“I had an unexpected run-in with bad weather.” The gin burned her throat before hitting her veins in a sizzling jolt. No, damn it. That was Emmett’s eyes on her body giving her the sizzling jolt. The gin couldn’t begin to dull senses so sharply attuned to this man’s presence. “Perhaps you could just hand over the telephone and I’ll remove myself and my transparent clothing from your fine establishment?”

She heard the bristly tone in her voice and refused to care that he’d gotten under her skin. He was married, after all. Completely out of her jurisdiction. What did it matter if he thought she was a washed-up has-been in her soggy clothes? He had another woman—a gorgeous, dry woman—waiting for him as soon as Jayne placed her call.

“Technically, it’s no longer my establishment.” He reached under the bar and came up with a telephone. “But feel free to call long distance. I hear the new owner has deep pockets.”

“You sold the bar?” Jayne ignored the phone, her problems of ten minutes ago suddenly less significant. “I thought you were going to stay in St. Kitts forever?”

He’d told her as much when he’d been trying to convince her to give marriage a shot. She’d panicked at the idea of settling down in one place—a fate almost as scary as settling down with just one man—and promptly accused him of loving St. Kitts more than her.

In retrospect, she’d realized it hadn’t exactly been a rational argument. But then, she’d never tried to be the world’s most rational woman. That was Rita’s niche. Up until Emmett, Jayne simply hadn’t been used to men taking her too seriously.

“I guess forever didn’t turn out to be as long as I’d hoped.” He picked up the bottle of tonic and poured himself a glass. “Mind if I join you?”

Without waiting for her answer, he walked around the bar to join her on the other side. Her side.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea considering you’re married and I’m in a transparent dress, remember?” She tossed out the most obvious obstacles, knowing she didn’t dare let Emmett within five feet of her when she was feeling more than a little vulnerable. “In fact, I promised your wife I’d just make my call and be on my way.”

She meant to reach for the phone. Really, she did. But the visual of Emmett swinging his thigh around one side of a bar stool kept her gaze fastened to him with super-glue sticking power.

“Ex-wife.” Emmett’s eyes remained fixed on a manila envelope at the end of the bar for a long moment, as if totally oblivious to Jayne’s presence. “She’s officially no longer mine as of today.”

The hollow hurt of his words was unmistakable.

If Jayne had been a more sensitive woman, maybe she could have murmured something sympathetic and comforting. Hell, even a total stranger would offer up condolences on his failed marriage. But as his ex-lover, Jayne couldn’t help but ask the question burning through her brain with all the insistence of a migraine.

“How long were you married?” The question would shatter any illusion she might have created of aloofness, but the answer seemed too important to overlook. He’d asked Jayne to marry him nine short months ago.

“Seven months.” Tearing his gaze away from the envelope she could only assume carried his divorce papers, Emmett grinned over the rim of his glass. “A hell of a track record in married life, isn’t it?”

“You bastard.” Hurt reeled through her as her brain computed the proximity of his proposal to her with his proposal to another woman. “What did you do, ask the first woman you saw after I got back onboard the Venus last spring to marry you?”

“You said no.” He shrugged a shoulder the same way he must have shrugged off his so-called love for her. “And I respect that when a woman says no, she means it.”

“I said I wasn’t ready.” As he no doubt damn well remembered since she’d explained to him in detail all the reasons she needed more time. “Last I checked, ‘I’m not ready’ doesn’t mean no.”

“It didn’t mean yes, either, did it?” He swiveled on his bar stool to face her, his long legs almost touching her hip. “And you can take all the haughty feminine satisfaction you want from knowing I made a dumb-ass mistake by getting married in a hurry since I’m now divorced and I lost my bar in the bargain. So why not just make your phone call and you can high-kick your way back to the S.S. Good Times or wherever it is you make your home these days and we’ll forget this little encounter ever happened?”

Jayne felt her mouth drooping open at his unexpectedly heated words and promptly snapped it shut. Reaching for the phone she realized she didn’t have a phone number handy to call for a ride and she didn’t personally know a soul on St. Kitts. Present company excluded.

Settling the handset back in the cradle in the rather awkward silence, she was about to request a phone book when Emmett slammed his glass on the bar.

“And for crying out loud, would you put some damn clothes on?” He reached over the counter and dug blindly around until he came up with a bright orange T-shirt. Even at six foot two he didn’t exactly tower over her, but his strong arms and lean, surfer’s physique gave him a solid power that…communicated itself to her so clearly that it was all she could do not to lick her lips. “Wear this. Or drape yourself in cocktail napkins. But Jesus, woman, put on something.”

“Fine.” Recognizing an old-fashioned snit when she saw one, even if the fit-thrower in question would surely wring her neck if she called it as such, Jayne dutifully dropped the promo T-shirt touting orange-flavored rum over her wet dress.

“While you’re mighty quick to point fingers at me, I’d be willing to bet you haven’t been celibate since we broke up, but you don’t hear me asking you about the whys and whens of your personal encounters.”

She wasn’t touching that one with a ten-foot pole. Even if she’d tried her very best to be a born-again virgin for the last six months, she couldn’t forget that she’d been pretty quick to drown her sorrows after Emmett.

What a screwed-up, self-destructive pair they made.

“Sorry to hear about the divorce.” She’d never been skilled with an olive branch, but considered this a fair attempt at making peace. “Just because I take offense at the idea of you offering up a marriage proposal to another woman mere days after you made the same offer to me, that doesn’t mean I would wish you ill-will.”

Who said she couldn’t be magnanimous?

“You need a ride somewhere?” Rising off the bar stool he replaced the phone under the bar and fished a set of keys off a hook on the wall. “I thought I heard you say you missed your boat, right?”

“I do need to find a hotel.” She took another halfhearted sip of her gin and tonic, wondering what Emmett had in mind. Desperate women couldn’t afford to be super-choosy about their rescuers and at least he’d had the decency to admit he’d messed up by marrying someone else.

“As luck would have it, so do I. What do you say we blow this clambake and call a truce?”

Let her guard down around Emmett? She’d have to be crazy to make peace with a newly divorced stud in a dangerous mood. But then again, no one had ever accused her of playing it safe.

Besides, she needed a ride.

“Truce.” She reached for her tiny purse, telling herself this was a practical solution to her problem. Even Rita would have to admit Jayne was making the best of a bad situation. “Just as long as we go separate ways once we get there.”

“Fine by me.” He walked over to the manila envelope and jammed the whole packet under his arm in defiance of the Do Not Bend dictate scrawled across the front. “But I’ve got dibs on the bar since I plan on getting rip-roaring drunk tonight. You think you can stay away?”

“I’m sure I’ll hold myself back somehow.” Sailing through the front door he held open for her, Jayne welcomed the raindrops that still poured in earnest from the sky. It was the next best thing to a bucket of cold water being splashed on her face—an age-old cure for a woman thinking completely inappropriate thoughts about a man she had no business daydreaming over.

And no matter that she was furious with him—not to mention hurt—over his rapid defection, Jayne couldn’t deny frequent mind wanderings picturing the man buck-naked. She had to admit he looked damn good. Both in her fantasies and in real life.

He jogged through the rain to a garage beside the bar and hauled open the door. Hurrying behind him, she saw the waves foaming with the storm on the other side of the road, the ocean empty of any ships for as far as the eye could see. She followed him into the dark and dilapidated clapboard structure that looked more suited to a backwoods farm than a tourist street. Squinting, she could see him unlocking the passenger door of a mud-encrusted Jeep.

Holding the door wide for her, he held his hand out to help her inside. She hadn’t touched him yet but couldn’t see how to avoid it now without making too big of a deal about it. No sense letting him know he got to her, right?

She reached for his hand, but his gaze had already fallen to her feet.

“Damn it, why didn’t you tell me you needed shoes?” He lifted her by the waist as if he couldn’t get her bare feet off the garage floor fast enough.

The imprint of his hands on her remained after he set her inside the vehicle, her skin warming all along her side.

“I guess I thought it was obvious I didn’t have shoes.” She wiggled her toes and had a flashback to a day in third grade when she’d outgrown her shoes and Rita had insisted she take hers since money was nonexistent in the years their mother had big gambling losses. Rita had worn an old pair of boys’ tennis shoes a neighbor had donated so Jayne could have their only pair of size five Mary Janes.

“Hell no, it wasn’t obvious since my eyes never made it past the dress.” He pulled a blanket out from behind the seat and tossed it in her lap. “Do me a favor and dry off.”

It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell him to do her a favor and go screw himself, but she would cut him some slack since she’d obviously walked into his life on a bad day. She didn’t know squat about marriage or how to make a go of a relationship but she knew divorce sucked—plain and simple.

Her childhood might have been fairly impoverished from a financial perspective, but at least her family had always been tight-knit and her mother had protected them from the upheaval of divorce by never remarrying. And Jayne had no doubt in her mind that no one besides their sainted father—God rest his soul—could have put up with Margie for long. Wrapping herself in the blanket Emmett had tossed her way, Jayne settled in for the ride while he started the Jeep and pulled out of the garage into the rain. She caught a glimpse of the Last Chance Bar through the downpour and wondered idly if Emmett would ever go back to the business now owned by his ex-wife.

The same business Jayne had made a beeline for in her darkest hour.

God, she’d been so caught up in seeing Emmett again she’d forgotten all about her fury with Horatio and the disappointment of her thwarted elopement. What a sorry excuse for a wife she would have made. She smiled as she tipped her head back against the seat and stared at the pattern of rain blowing across the passenger window.

“You’ll never guess what I was doing in St. Kitts today.”