Читать книгу Breathless - Sharron McClellan - Страница 12

Seconds after her alarm clock sounded, Jess sat straight up in her bunk and slapped the off button with the flat of her hand.

It took another few seconds to orient herself to her strange location.

One For The Money. Salvage ship. Puerto Isla.

She yawned and stretched. Her mouth tasted horrible. This was why she didn’t drink. It seemed to take her forever to get it together in the morning, and she felt fuzzy.

Though last night had been fun, she had to admit. The drinking. The singing. The eating. Even the bar fight had been a good time. Plus, it had given her an opportunity to see the crew in action.

They were a tight-knit bunch. Even Diego—one of the most silent men she’d met who was not a Marine—was in the thick of the brawl.

As for Zach, he was one surprise after another. Charming as hell, but the way he stood when attacked, held his hands and never hesitated, told her that it was not his first bar fight.

The faint smell of coffee and the steady thump of feet on the deck above caught her attention. The rest of the crew was up and moving and it was time for her to do the same. She grabbed her toothbrush, paste and towel and flung open the door to her private bathroom.

Standing in front of the shower was a seminaked Zach.

Okay, not so private, she thought as she stopped in her tracks.

With nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist and his skin damp from the shower, Zach did not look like a computer geek. Not like a mechanic. Not like an easygoing charmer.

He looked iconic.

His abs were washboard. His shoulders corded with muscle. There was enough hair on his chest to make sure a woman knew he was a man.

Her gaze swept upward, and she met his eyes staring back in surprise. Heat flooded her face. “Um, I…” She held up her toothbrush.

“We share a shower,” he said, his voice trailing off at the end as his attention was diverted by her baby-pink, boy-shorts underwear and the thin, white cotton tank top that served as her pajamas.

Jess felt naked despite the clothes and started backing out. “I should have knocked.”

He took a step and the towel started to slip and he grabbed it, his eyes widening. “I thought Liz told you. I’m sorry—”

But she was already in her room and shutting the door. “Could that have been more awkward?” she muttered, patting her cheeks to dissipate the heat.

She inhaled, slow and deep. Obviously, it had been much too long since she’d seen a naked man that wasn’t wearing military-issue underwear, covered in grease paint and getting ready for maneuvers.

She was a professional. A Marine. She’d seen plenty of naked men.

There was no need to act embarrassed. Straightening, she opened the door a crack. “Let me know when you’re done?” she called.

“Give me thirty seconds,” Zach replied.

Sounds of hurried shuffling emanated from the bathroom, and she peered inside, catching a glimpse of Zach in the mirror.

His back was to her, and the towel from his waist was now tossed over his shoulder, giving her a perfect view of his perfect backside.

There was a dimple on each cheek.

I could bite that like an apple. She yanked the door shut, realizing where her thoughts were wandering.

Oh, yeah, much too long since she’d seen a naked civilian.

“How are you feeling?” Liz asked when Jess stepped onto the deck wearing her standard boat gear of bikini top, shorts and deck shoes. “Not hungover, are you?”

“Takes more than a few shots and a bar fight,” Jess said, glancing to make sure that Zach wasn’t around. Taking Liz by the arm, she drew her aside. “Why didn’t you tell me that Zach and I were sharing a bathroom?”

Liz shrugged. “Didn’t occur to me.” She broke into a slow, wide grin. “Oh, don’t tell me that you walked in on him.”

“He was wearing a towel.”

Liz giggled, and Jess found it impossible to be angry at the girl. She wanted to. Really wanted to. But being angry with Liz was like being angry at a puppy.

“Hey, babe.” Nate walked past and patted Liz’s butt then smiled at Jess. “Slugger.”

“Back at you,” Jess said.

He pointed to Diego, adjusting lines and prepping the boat. “You ladies going to chitchat, or are you going to help get us out of here?”

Liz gave her husband a peck on the mouth then followed him.

In less than an hour, they cast off and One For The Money moved past the moored boats on her way out to sea. Jess realized she had yet to see Zach since their quasi-naked encounter and a part of her—the embarrassed part— didn’t want to.

But there was no way she could avoid him forever. Especially when she needed to give him the coordinates for their search.

“Be a grown-up,” she told herself. “He’s just a man, for pity’s sake.”

But a finely chiseled man, her libido whispered.

She told her libido to shut up, rolled her eyes at her overactive hormonal response and hurried to the control room before she had a chance to change her mind.

When she entered, Zach had his back to her. He wore black board shorts, a loose T-shirt and deck shoes. Next to him was a man of about the same height and in almost the exact same outfit.

“Gentlemen,” she said, stepping inside, curious and cautious as to the identity of the other man. Both turned and in seconds, she knew.

It was Alfred Holiday—Zach’s father. A twenty-somethingyears older version of his son, his hair was more gray than brown. The body a little thinner but just as muscular. He also had the same green eyes. “Pleased to meet you, Alfred,” Jess said.

“Please, call me Al. You must be Jess,” Al said, coming forward. “Sorry I wasn’t there last night, but I had a previous engagement.”

From the way he said it, and from the way he grinned, she had no doubt the previous engagement was of the female variety.

“I hear that you’re getting my son into trouble.”

She blushed, and glared at Zach. Was nothing sacred? “I know I should have knocked this morning, but I didn’t know he was there.”

Al’s brows arched in surprise. “I was talking about the bar fight.” He glanced back at Zach. “Something you need to tell me, son?”

“No. Nothing,” Zach said, his mortified gaze begging Jess to shut the hell up.

“Uh, I have coordinates,” Jess said, desperate to change the topic. Pulling the worn piece of paper from her pocket, she handed it to Al.

Silently, he read it, stroking his chin as he took in the information. “That’s a little far out,” he finally said. “Can I ask how you came by these coordinates?”

“You can, but then I’d have to kill you,” she replied, falling back on the well-known quote.

“Fair enough,” Al said.

Jess smiled. Few people gave in that easily, but Delphi said he’d worked with the government before so it wasn’t a total surprise that Al asked pertinent questions but didn’t press when she wasn’t forthcoming.

Setting the paper aside, Al took the wheel, and Jess realized they’d cleared the small port and were entering open ocean. Al pushed the throttle forward. She heard the slight whine as the engine increased in rpms and the vibration beneath her feet increased.

The engine hiccuped then resumed.

The men glanced at each other at the same time, and Zach started toward the door. “I’ll go check it out, Dad. Why don’t you come with me?” he asked Jess as he walked past.

Crap. She knew what this was going to be. A talk. An apology. Something that would make her uncomfortable.

Might as well get it over with, she decided and fell in behind him.

“I wanted to apologize for last night,” Zach said, once they were in the hallway.

She almost stopped walking. “Last night?”

“I should have warned you about the whole trial-by-singing thing.”

“Oh. Yeah. It was a little embarrassing but I’ve been through worse.”

“Marine?”

She did stop. “I never said…”

He kept walking. “You have that look.”

She hurried to catch up. “What look?”

“Jarhead.”

“Thanks,” she said, frowning. It was a common term, but she hated it. She thought it made Marines sound dumb, and the men she knew were anything but stupid. Arrogant? Yes. Pain in her ass? Definitely.

But not stupid.

Not if they wanted to stay alive.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” he explained, eyes widened as he saw her reaction to the term. “I know most people hear jarhead and think that means someone who takes orders without thinking. Dumb. Whatever.” He thrust strong fingers through his hair in frustration as he tried to explain himself. “I didn’t think that. I don’t think that.”

“Then what do you think?” Jess asked, as they continued to the engine room, not eager to let him get away without explaining himself. She’d been uncomfortable. Now, it was his turn.

“I’ve worked with Marines before. A few rescue teams to be specific.”

Just as Delphi said.

Zach continued, “They pay attention. To everything. And they will do anything for each other.” He glanced back at her, smiling. “You’re like that. My men were in trouble, and even though we embarrassed the hell out of you, you were right there.”

“You’re my crew,” she said, uncomfortable with the praise.

They reached the engine room, and the twin engines ran loud but steady as Al held them on course. No smoke. No fire. All seemed normal.

Until she looked up at Zach.

Head cocked, his eyes were narrowed.

“What?” Jess asked. “What’s wrong?”

He held up a finger, indicating that she should be quiet. Walking over to the right engine, he kneeled down, peered between the moving parts and stiffened. “Jess?”

She hurried over, kneeled beside him, and he pointed at something. “Any idea what that could be?”

Her eyes widened. Metal casing. Wires. Timer. She knew what it was, and the thought made her gut twist. “Yes. It’s a bomb.”

Jess slid out from under the engine and sat up. Whoever had set the device was good. Very good.

Luckily, she was better.

“Well?” Zach asked. At his feet were the tools she’d requested.

“They used an rpm sensor on one of the propeller shafts to trigger the timer.”

He appeared confused, but she suspected it wasn’t that he couldn’t figure out what an rpm sensor did but it was residual shock from finding a bomb on his ship.

“It’s a cheap part,” she explained. “But clever. It reads the revolutions per minutes of the shaft, and as we speed up it converts them to miles per hour based on the circumference of the shaft.”

Zach looked up and to the right, his expression blank as he sorted what she was saying. When he looked back at her, she knew she was seeing the geek. The man that made millions with a single, complex thought.

In this case, not so complex, but so far out of his realm that it seem fictional. “So when we reached speed, it triggered the bomb.”

“Yes.”

“Will it detonate if we stop?”

She shook her head. “No. But it’s not going to stop the timer, either.” She braced herself, waiting for the panic that was sure to follow that statement.

He nodded, taking in the information. “This means they knew the circumference of the shaft. They know boats. Timing.”

Jess cocked her head, surprised at his calm demeanor. She’d expected fear, but instead he’d accepted the situation with unnatural calm.

Maybe his previous government missions were more dangerous than Delphi let on, and he was more accustomed to danger than she knew. Or perhaps it was simply denial. Either way, it worked for her and there was no time to analyze his psyche.

“Possibly,” she said, continuing Zach’s train of thought and adding her own. “Or they had plenty of time to figure it out while we were at the bar last night,” she said. An alternative thought crossed her mind—that one of his crew set the bomb—but she didn’t voice her suspicion.

Zach had kept cool regarding the bomb but she suspected that accusing one of his crew of espionage would send him over the edge.

“What does all this mean to us?” Zach asked. “Do we have time to go back to port? Get the crew off and then deal with this?”

“I’d rather not,” Jess said. “We need to stay out at sea. If I screw up, I’d rather do it in the middle of nowhere.”

“Good point,” Zach said. “But what about my people?”

His people. She prayed that none were involved in setting the device. “Of course,” she said. “We can stop the boat and put them in the life raft.” She nodded toward the rigged engine. “If this goes south, I don’t want their deaths on my hands.”

“How long do we have?”

She took a deep breath, held it and focused. “The timer is set for an hour, and we have about fifty minutes left. I want you all in the raft in five minutes.”

“There’s a bomb on the boat?” Liz’s voice squeaked. She was the last to arrive when Zach called for “all hands on deck.” The rest of the crew still stared at Zach, stunned.

All of them.

Not involved, Jess thought with relief. She’d seen enough, knew enough, to know a lie when she heard one, and the entire crew looked as if they’d been knocked upside their heads with a mallet.

“That’s what I said,” Zach said. “Now, everyone in the raft. Jess and I are taking her out as far as we can then she’ll dismantle the bomb.”

“Jess?”

“Apparently, it’s what she does for fun,” Zach said, looking at her.

She shrugged.

“Son…”

“Dad, do it.” Zach said. “I need you to take care of them.”

Still, they didn’t move, shocked by the revelation.

Jess walked to Zach’s side. This had gone on long enough. Stunned or no, she needed them gone. The longer they took the less time she had. “Everyone in. I need you to leave. Now.”

Everybody boarded the Zodiac but Zach. Pointedly, she looked at him. Then the raft.

He shook his head. “You need me to drive.”

Dammit, she didn’t have time to fight him. “I can pilot a boat, and I don’t need heroes,” she said under her breath to Zach as the others bobbed on the waves, waiting.

“I’m not a hero,” he replied. “Have you ever driven a twin engine?”

“Yes.”

“One that has separate throttle and gear levers?”

Hell. “Yes.”

“Liar.”

She sighed. The others were waiting. “Just go.”

He shook his head again. “No. I’m not leaving you here, and the longer you argue the less time we have.” Leaning over the edge, he tossed his father a radio.

“We’ll be at the dock,” Al said.

Jess didn’t miss the ashen skin beneath his tan, and she couldn’t blame him. Bad enough to lose the boat.

But Zach was his only son.

Zach nodded. “See you there.”

Al nodded then revved up the Zodiac engine and sped toward port.

“Get to work,” Zach said, walking to the helm. “I’m taking us away from traffic.”

Just in case you screw up and we die.

He didn’t need to say the words. She felt it. “Give me fifteen minutes of top speed, enough to get us clear of anything, then stop,” she said. “I’ll need the engines off to do this.”

He nodded, and she headed down the stairs while he went to the helm.

Stopping by her room, Jess grabbed her MP3 player then headed to the engine room. Lying on her back, she studied the device. Tried to get into the mind of the person who set it.

Whoever it was, they wanted the boat gone, her gone and anyone who worked with her.

But Delphi said that Arachne wanted her alive. Was Delphi wrong? Did Arachne mean to kill her?

She rolled onto her back, the deck vibrating beneath her. Maybe it was all a test. Or to scare her.

A message that no one was safe with her?

Who knew what these people were trying to accomplish, but she knew she could not let them win. It wasn’t in her to toss her hands in the air and cry uncle.

The engines slowed and stopped.

Jess sat up. “Time to work.” Turning on the MP3 player, she listened to a compilation of Cake, Fatboy Slim and the occasional top-forty hit.

Zach walked through the door. “Anything I can do?”

“You could have left,” she said, her voice tinged with sarcasm.

“Not a chance,” he said. “Marines aren’t the only ones who refuse to leave a team member behind.”

She nodded, admiring him and wanting to smack him at the same time.

Cranking up the music, she wormed her way into the works of the engine, being careful not to burn herself on the now-hot parts.

Luckily, she didn’t have to go far. Using a screwdriver, she removed the bomb casing and breathed a sigh of relief. Whoever set this did not expect her to find the device. It looked simple.

A warning went off in her head as soon as the thought crossed her mind.

Nothing was ever that easy.

Especially disarming a bomb. “The Distance” stopped and Christina Aguilera’s, “Fighter,” began to play. One of her favorite songs.

She traced the wires. Good. Good.

Her hand stilled at a white one. Not so good.

There was a false wire in the mix. Meant to mislead her.

And if there was one there might be more.

She glanced at the timer. She had less than thirty minutes.

All the time in the world.

Sweat stung her eyes as she traced the other wires. They looked real. Active.

It was time to make the hard decisions.

She took a deep breath and removed her earphones.

“You okay?” Zach asked.

“Good.”

“What next?”

“Now, we see who’s smarter,” she said. “Me or the person who made the bomb.”

She pulled out the set of wire nippers from the front of her bathing suit. “Red wire. Blue wire.” She murmured her lucky chant, staring at the green and yellow wires.

Holding her breath, she snipped the yellow.

She exhaled. “Still alive.”

“Jess!” She tensed at Zach’s shout. “The timer.”

She glanced at it. It was counting down now at twice the speed of normal.

She’d screwed up. And bad. She took a deep breath. Now was not the time to panic. “Zach, get out of here!”

He yanked on her foot, trying to pull her out. She kicked him away. “You can do this,” she whispered. “You can do this.” There were two minutes left.

All the time in the world.

Red wire. Blue wire. Red wire. Blue Wire.

She scooted around the still-hot engine, burning her arm against the metal and no longer caring. She’d missed something.

She followed the wire to the C-4. There. Another wire. Whoever did this was good, she realized. Better than good.

Red wire. Her heart pounded in her ears.

“Jess!”

Seconds now.

All the time in the world.

She snipped the blue wire.