Anchors Aweigh - 6 (16 page)

He let me go and I swayed like a drunken sailor. He must’ve caught my bemused look, because he winked.

“For luck,” he said.

Luck, my pirate booty. He was looking for more than luck.

He suddenly took hold of his T-shirt and pulled it up and over his head and handed it to me. “Hang on to this for me, would you, T?” he said, giving me a smile that made me so weak in the knees, my legs buckled again. I made my way to a vacant table and sank into a chair. I mopped my hot face with Townsend’s shirt and found myself closing my eyes and inhaling the seductive scent that was Ranger Rick.

“Is this seat taken?” I heard, and looked up to find Coral LaFavre at the table.

I extracted my face from the cloth. “Not at all. Have a seat,” I offered, my eyes growing big when I saw the bowl of candy-coated chocolate she set on the table. For once, Lady Luck was smiling on Tressa Turner. In light of the previous afternoon’s undercover operation, Coral had my vote as the candidate most likely to be the target of murderous intent for personal gain. And when that likely candidate was in the possession of a bowl of chocolate? Well, heaven was just a sin away.

She looked on as the four competitors for the TV took their places.

“Isn’t that your fiancé out there?” she asked. “Oh, I forget. You don’t remember. Tragic,” she said, taking a long, lustful look at Manny.

“You’re Coral, right? You’re married to David,” I said, helping her remember she was married. “He reintroduced himself yesterday. Where is he, by the way?”

She waved a hand. “Oh, he’s around,” she said.

Despite the fact that the best-looking men on this—or any cruise ship anywhere—stood shirtless and flexing muscles and more, I couldn’t take my eyes off the bowl of candy. My fingers crawled across the table toward the dish.

Yes, I’d been a good girl and had resisted ripping into Manny’s gift of sweets the previous night, but that had had more to do with my not accepting the gift under false pretenses than a desire to abstain from the fruits of the cocoa bean. After all, I couldn’t return the box to him if I opened and sampled it. And I was planning to return it to him. Of course I was. It was, after all, the right thing to do.

“And who have you been doing?” I asked, and wanted to grab my own tongue, pull it out of my mouth and twist it around my throat.

“Excuse me?” Coral asked, turning back to me.

“What have you been up to?” I re-enunciated.

She shrugged. “Relaxing. Reading. Sleeping.”

Conducting a cabin check with Security Sam.

“You?” she asked.

“Me?” I said.

“What have you been doing? Besides falling down stairs, losing your memory, and waking up to discover two drop-dead alpha-male types sparring over you,” Coral said, her attention wandering away again while my fingers crept closer to their hard-shelled prey.

“Same as you, actually,” I said. “Relaxing. Sleeping.”
Surveillance of the security chief, in cahoots with a senior citizen front man.
“Asking lots of questions.”

Coral’s head snapped back to me. It felt like she was watching a tennis match. “Questions? What kind of questions?”

“Oh, you know. The usual questions one asks of others when they want to know things,” I responded.

“What kind of things?” she asked.

“Why, things you don’t know, of course,” I said, staring pointedly at the bowl of candy, no longer making any attempt to appear unaffected by the chocolate within arm’s reach. She saw my interest in the milk chocolate.

“Oh. Go ahead. Help yourself,” she said. “David smuggled them in for me. He thought I’d be pleased, but instead I feel like he’s trying to sabotage my efforts to lose weight,” she said. “So far I’ve resisted temptation. But now it’s like who cares if I’m fat? I might as well eat what I like when I like. We all have to die of something. Right, Tressa?”

I got the feeling then she was asking me for something. Something I didn’t have.

“David gave you this candy?” I said, my heart rate picking up as a horrible possibility occurred to me. “And you haven’t eaten any? Any at all?” I questioned.

She shook her head. “Not one. But like I said, why bother? I was chubby as a girl and only lost the weight because I starved myself. I’m not about to go back to that kind of hell.” She reached out and grabbed a handful of candies. “No way.”

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Put that candy down!”

She stared at me. “What?”

“You heard me. Put that down this instant!”

Coral got an
I’m gonna need a little help here
look on her face.

“You don’t need that candy!” I told her. “Resist! Resist!”

Okay, so I was getting a little agitated. But for all I knew, those cute, colorful little candies were laced with strychnine or arsenic or whatever poison tickled David Frazier’s Compton fancy.

“I may not need it, but I sure as hell want it,” Coral said.

I reached out and took the candy bowl. “Oh, no you don’t,” I said. “Now give me that. Come on. Fork it over. Now!”

“You just want it for yourself,” Coral accused. “I know that gotta-have-a-chocolate-fix look when I see it, and you got it bad, girlfriend.”

“Okay. I admit it. I want to stick my mouth in that bowl and come up with a tongue that looks like Joseph’s coat of many colors,” I admitted. “But I won’t. We can do this, Coral,” I said, reaching out for her hand that clutched the candy. “We can beat this addiction together!”

She stared at me and then slowly opened her fingers. Her palm was a kaleidoscope of melded—and melted—colors. Rainbow colors. I put the bowl out to her. She dropped the deformed candies in the dish. I got up and walked to the side of the ship and dumped the candies over the side. I heaved a sigh of relief.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said.

I nodded. “I get that a lot,” I said.

By this time we’d missed the first part of the race. I decided at the very least I should have a photographic record of the historic moment that saw Rick Townsend wearing a woman’s swim top. I grabbed my camera out of my bag and stood to get a better view. I captured Townsend’s image with my telephoto lens.

I blinked. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Townsend was clad in the same hot pink bra I’d worn. I frowned. Unbelievable. Un-freakin’-believable. Townsend and I could wear the same bra size?

Kill me. Kill me now!

Manny, tastefully attired in a light blue swim top that accentuated his dark, even tan, had just finished the rice cake and was downing his beverage in record time. Townsend, however, held the edge. He exited the plank before Manny, stripping out of his grass skirt like a pro. All he had to do was unhook the bra and he’d be the victor.

And to the victor went the high-def TV

I found myself yelling and jumping up and down.

“Go! Go! Go!”

I frowned. Townsend seemed to be having trouble with the bra hooks. Meanwhile, Manny had reached the end of his plank and had dropped his grass skirt as well. Time seemed to stop for a second as Manny turned to look up at the audience gathered on deck. His searching gaze came to me. And stopped.

Confident and unhurried, without relinquishing my gaze, Manny’s huge arm bent oh so slowly behind his back. Before you could say, “He’s had lots of experience at this,” the light blue swim top fell to the ground.

Manny strolled to the buzzer and smacked it. He turned and caught my stunned gaze, and winked at me. The crowd gasped.

To the victor go the spoils.

Holy hooks, eyes and winkers!

I sucked in air and looked around wildly, wondering if anyone anywhere onboard had a bag of oracle bones handy. ‘Cause I predicted one heck of a squall on the horizon.

Talk about yer shaken booties and shivered timbers.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I gave everyone the slip. I needed some time to absorb the significance of Manny’s sudden interest in me. It was flattering, certainly. What girl doesn’t want to be pursued by a hot—okay, incredibly hot—guy? But just what did Manny’s overt declaration mean? Could he really have feelings for me? Feelings beyond those relating to the fraudulent fiancée fantasy he’d cooked up? Feelings I’d purposely ignored up until now because I wasn’t ready for the complications acknowledging Manny’s feelings would bring? Now I not only had to confront the possibility that he might have deeper feelings for me, but also admit I wasn’t altogether indifferent to him either. But just what were those feelings and how deep did they run? Well, that was the million-dollar question, now, wasn’t it?

Stark hunger drove me to the turkey taco bar. Being a connoisseur of sorts on tacos, taco burgers, chili dogs, and beef burgers from my off-and-on employment at my Uncle Frank’s Dairee Freeze restaurant, I was skeptical that the faux South of the Border fare would even remotely resemble the real thing. Nonetheless, I built my turkey taco with the skill and confidence of a pro, cramming meat, tomatoes, lettuce and cheese into the middle of the whole-grain taco shell. I drizzled a healthy amount of taco sauce on my creation and took a big bite, expecting my taste buds to rebel, but to my delighted surprise, the turkey taco was surprisingly yummy. So yummy, in fact, I ate half a dozen of them before I realized they were actually good for me.

I was wiping taco sauce off my chin when Courtney plopped down in a seat across from me. She had a handful of scratch lottery tickets in one hand and a dime in the other. She started to scratch her way through the stack.

“A taco lover, huh?” she said, pointing at the remnants of my meal.

“I have no idea,” I said. “It’s turkey.”

Courtney gave me a
huh?
look.

“So, I imagine you’re thrilled Manny won the high-def set,” she said. “I wish Steve and I could afford a fancy TV, but as you know already, we’re on a budget. We even let our life insurance policy lapse to pay down our debt,” she said. “And after your sales pitch that first night and all the talk about the bad stuff that can happen on a cruise, I can tell you, it sort of freaked Steve out. He’s a bit superstitious,” she explained, continuing to scratch her tickets.

“You don’t have life insurance?” I asked, thinking this was way too easy.

She shook her head. “Only temporarily, I assure you. We figure we’re both young and healthy and have relatively good jobs. Steve’s a mechanic and I’m an L.P.N. We don’t have children to provide for. So, it’s not as much of a risk as it might be,” she said, scratching another ticket. She shook her head. “You’d think I’d get tired of losing, wouldn’t you? But there’s this buzz you get at just the possibility that you could win. You won’t tell Steve, will you?” she added. “He wouldn’t approve.”

I shook my head. “My lips are sealed,” I said, my mind drifting to dessert and debating whether or not I had enough courage to actually try the frozen yogurt. After all, Uncle Frank, king of ice cream confections, would never know.

“I wonder. Do you have the soul of a gambler, Tressa?” Courtney asked.

I frowned. I’d never spent much time in casinos, more due to lack of funds than lack of interest. But I had the feeling others would cite my record of exploits as pointing to me being a gambler at heart. Others (notably one ranger) would observe that this risk-it-all attitude so prevalent in other areas of my life, however, did not carry over to matters of the heart.

“I don’t know. I’m fuzzy on a lot of things about myself lately,” I told Courtney, being über honest. “I do know I don’t have an overwhelming desire to grab those lottery cards and start scratching away. But I suppose that could be because I may not be the kind of person who takes losing well. I know I didn’t care much for losing that plank race earlier,” I told her.

She eyeballed me. “Do you think you’re the type of person who enjoys being the object of a wager?” she asked.

I drew your basic blank. “What do you mean? What kind of wager?” I asked.

“I might as well tell you. You’re bound to find out somehow. There’s a shipboard pool, and they’re taking bets on which gorgeous hunk you’ll pick.”

I stared at her. A gambling pool on my personal life! The nerve. The audacity. The abject humiliation of it all.

“What are the current odds?” I asked.

Courtney’s eyebrows lifted. “Split evenly,” she said.

Dang. No help there.

“Care to share any inside information?” she said. “A tip?”

I shook my head. I had nothing. Nothing I was ready to disclose.

“That’s okay. I already know who to put my money on, and I think it’s a pretty safe bet,” Courtney told me.

“Yeah? Who?” I asked.

“Rick,” she said. “Hands down. You’ll pick Rick.”

I stared at her.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“I’m pretty good at reading faces,” she said. “But even if I wasn’t, your face gives you away every time someone says his name. You just light up. When you were talking to him on deck the other day, you couldn’t keep your eyes off him. At the karaoke bar it was written all over your face. And at the plank-walking contest today, when you were jumping up and down and yelling. You were yelling for Rick. Not Manny.”

I marveled at her powers of observation.

“Interesting theory,” was all I said.

She smiled. “You’ll pick Rick,” she told me. “Just wait and see. You’ll pick Rick. You won’t be able to help yourself. He’s doing his best to show you how he feels and he won’t give up.”

It occurred to me that she could very well be right.

“I like your friends, Sherri and Ben,” I said, changing the subject, thinking I was moving ever closer to narrowing the field of possible perps to one. “Sherri seems really reserved,” I said. “Is she always that quiet?”

Courtney stopped scratching and looked up at me. “She’s always been shy. Why do you ask?”

I shrugged. “She just seems, I don’t know, sad. Dissatisfied with her life. She doesn’t care for your hometown, that’s for sure. She made that very clear.”

“Aren’t we all dissatisfied with who we are and where we are at times?” Courtney said. “That’s just life.”

“I suppose,” I agreed.

We visited for a few minutes more and I started to yawn, great big, gaping, unforgivably rude yawns. I should have known better than to eat that much turkey. Isn’t there, like, some special ingredient in that particular poultry that makes you sleepy? Triptopan or something? I know I get really drowsy and have to crawl to the sofa after Thanksgiving dinner. Of course, most dinners affect me this way.

I apologized to Courtney and excused myself, citing an urgent matter I needed to attend to. One very important catnap.

When I opened the door of my cabin, a flash of pink at my feet got my attention. I bent to pick it up. It was an envelope. A hot pink envelope. My name was written on the front in big, black, block letters.

How fun. Sail mail!

I turned the envelope over, opened it up, and drew out a card. On the front were two adorable yellow lab pups. The darling duo made me homesick for my furry fellows back home. I opened the card.

I gasped. Inside was a certificate for a high-def plasma TV A short message was scrawled on the card.

“So Barbie will get the big picture.” This card also bore a single
M
as a signature.

My hand shook as I stared at it.

Big picture, indeed.

It looked like Manny DeMarco was doing his level best to broadcast his interest. I shivered. The stakes had been raised yet again. Manny sees Ranger Rick’s serenade and raises him one high-def TV

You know, a girl could get used to this contemporary courtship.

I put the card with the chocolates and drew the covers back. I slipped my shoes and skirt off and slid between the sheets of the bed. I yawned. Being the object of two suitors’ affections was exhausting, and a pampered princess needed her beauty sleep.

By the time you could say, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” Princess Tressa was fast asleep.

I awoke to a dark cabin, my night-owl vision taking time to adjust. I lay there, relishing the warmth of the covers and enjoying the rare feeling of not having to be at a given place at a given time. Man, that’s what I call a vacation.

I rolled over on my back and stared at the ceiling, evaluating where I was in terms of identifying the dude who wanted his better half to swim with the fishes while he reeled in a big haul. If what Courtney had said was correct and Courtney and Steve had allowed their policy to lapse, that left me with either Coral’s creepy manager husband with the three names and the bleah handshake, David Frazier Compton, or Ben Hall, Sherri’s sometimes-distant, sometimes-loving husband. My money was on David. I never discount the bleah factor. The guy oozed sleaze from the moment I met him.

Still, there was Steve’s missing buff to consider. And from the spat I’d overheard it was clear Steve handled the money in that household—probably with good reason. And it was always possible he could have just told his wife the policy was no longer in effect when, in reality, he still held a policy on her with himself as beneficiary.

All these
what-ifs
and
could-bes
made my head hurt. The truth was, I didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to figure out the whodunit alone. Didn’t want to do life alone any longer.

I found myself thinking about Ranger Rick: his dark brown eyes, his tanned, lean torso, his musical dedication to me. I started to hum our song.

I really wanted to trust Ranger Rick—trust him with my body and my heart. And he, too, was making an all-out effort to let me know how he felt. Maybe it was time to commit to a level of trust with Townsend I’d been squeamish about before. Be honest with Ranger Rick. Forthright. About everything. The conversation I’d overheard. My visit with Security Sam. The truth about my fall down the stairs and my subsequent memory loss. My raid on the ship’s galley and Operation: Room Service that yielded Joe a handsome tip and me information on a love affair at sea.

I frowned. Better leave that last one out.

The fact of the matter was I needed someone I could trust to help me keep tabs on my cruising couples trifecta until I got the goods on the guilty party. And, regardless of our past contretemps (don’t you just love that word?), the man for the job was, and always had been, Ranger Rick.

Decided, I made my way to the bathroom to splash water on my face. I was about to turn on the water when I heard the click of the keycard and the door opened. Ready to call out a greeting, I stopped when I heard the deep tones of my dad.

“You’ll have to tell her, Taylor,” he said. “At some point you have to tell her.”

I paused. Tell who what?

“I realize that, Dad,” I heard Taylor respond, “but right now is not a good time. There’s the head injury and the memory thing…”

“She’s fond of him. Maybe more. All that business earlier this spring brought them closer. You’ll have to tell her.”

I frowned.

What were they talking about? Who were they talking about?

“I will. Eventually. And it was only the once,” she said. “We’ve kept away from each other since then because, frankly, neither one of us knows what—or who—they want. But if he still has feelings for Tressa, why is he kissing me?”

I clamped both hands over my mouth to keep from betraying my presence as a
What she talkin’ ‘bout?
exclamation almost escaped me. Kissing?

Kissing!

Kissing!!

“You’re beautiful and smart and articulate, that’s why,” my dad said, and I shook my head. That’s just what every girl wants a guy to kiss her for, right? Her…articulation? Ew. In that moment, I felt sorry for Taylor.

“I noticed you didn’t include ‘gregarious personality and delightful but quirky sense of humor’ in your description,” Taylor said. “Because that’s not me, is it? That’s Tressa. The entertaining one. The funny one. The one everybody shakes a finger at or shakes their head over, but secretly wants to be just like her.”

That preposterous bit of news with all the legitimacy of a blogosphere posting caught even a seasoned, professional journalist like me off guard. Excuse me? Everyone secretly wants to be like me? Apparently Taylor had gotten into Mo’s stash of seaweed and toked on one too many funny little ciggies.

“You get your serious side from your mother and me,” Dad told Taylor. “Tressa is more like—”

“I know. Grandma,” Taylor finished.

I heard Dad chuckle. “She sure as heck wasn’t called Hellion Hannah for nothing,” he said. “But that’s another matter. What I’m concerned about is preserving the relationship between you two sisters. Nothing can come between sisters more than a man. You’ll have to tell her before she hears from someone else.”

“I will. Besides, it’s not as if she has a claim on him or anything. She’s kept him at arm’s length for some time. Tressa seems pretty married to her footloose and fancy-free lifestyle. Who knows how she really feels in her heart of hearts.”

“My point, exactly,” my dad stated.

“I hear you, Dad. I hear you,” Taylor said, and her hand appeared in the open door of the bathroom, and for a moment I thought she was going to come into the tiny stall, so I hurried to the shrinky-dink shower, got in and closed the curtain, and stood there for a tense few minutes praying she wasn’t going to do number two while I stood concealed behind curtain number one. Togetherness only goes so far, even with sisters.

Thankfully, she grabbed her hairbrush from the sink and that was it.

I cowered behind the curtain until I heard them both leave the cabin. I stepped out, wondering just who the
who
was I’d kept at arm’s length. Who the
him
was who’d kissed my little sister. Who the man was who could come between two sisters.

I remembered Kimmie telling me how Ranger Rick hadn’t been above using Taylor to try and make me jealous, which wasn’t like Rick Townsend at all. Still, they had spent time together last summer during the fair.