Anchors Aweigh - 6 (2 page)

My grandma and her new husband would honeymoon in an extravagant suite complete with private balcony. One could only hope that was where she intended to sunbathe “as God intended.”

I was used to my gammy’s…eccentricities. She’d been my roommate for some time before the wedding, and I was glad my days of digs-sharing with someone who collected fertility statues in various states of arousal, and who slept in cold cream, a hair net, woolly socks and nothing else, were behind me.

Townsend nudged my arm as he followed his folks down the narrow hall to their room. “You might regret not taking me up on my offer,” he said. “Your sister got airsick on the plane coming here and carsick on the shuttle from the airport. I can’t even begin to imagine what sea swells will do to her. Better keep the barf bags handy, mate.” He grinned and saluted me before moving on down the hall.

I shook my head. We’d just set foot on the ship, and already he thought he was the friggin’ lounge act.

“Here we are, ladies.” The fit, blond cabin boy with short, cropped hair, highlighted tips, and cute knees slipped a computerized keycard into a slot. “Your luggage should already be in your stateroom ready for you to unpack,” he said, opening the door. Once Taylor and I entered, he handed us cards of our own. His look lingered on Taylor, his fingertips slow to release her card.

“Are you by any chance a personal trainer?” he asked her. She shook her head.

“Aerobics instructor, maybe?”

I smirked. Oh, boy. Did this guy need help on his pickup lines or what?

Taylor smiled at him, her face still pale and wan from the shuttle transport. “No. I just like to keep in shape,” she said.

“Oh, right,” he replied, and I thought he looked a tad bewildered. “Right.” He looked over at me and gave me one of those up and down looks.

I shrugged. “I just like to eat,” I said.

“I see,” he replied.

“From what I hear, this is the place for me,” I commented, thinking of the stories I’d heard about cruises’ breakfast buffets, dessert buffets, and all-night buffets. I had to fight to keep from drooling.

“You’re right there,” he said. “Well, I’ll leave you to unpack.” Taylor handed him a tip, and he nodded as he backed out of the room. “If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to let me know.” He pointed at the nameplate on his shirt. “Just ask for Denny.”

“You aren’t by any chance affiliated with the restaurant, are you?” I joked. “Because their sausage and hash brown skillet with a side of cakes is to die for.” I was already looking forward to indulging my Midwestern appreciation for good—and abundant—food.

He looked at Taylor. “Good luck,” he said, and left.

I frowned. “Good luck? What did he mean by that?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” my sister said, and dropped to the bunk farthest from the door and nearest the john. “I’ll take this bed,” she said.

“Okay,” I agreed, noting the sweat beads popping out on her upper lip like tiny blisters. Her pallid complexion. The long, drawn-out moan. And we hadn’t even raised anchor yet.

Ohmigawd. The puke pails! Where were the puke pails?

“Denny!” I opened the stateroom door and barreled out of the room. “Oh, Denny! Ooompf!” I plowed into something rock-hard, like a brick wall or one of those long, heavy punching bags like Rocky Balboa beat up on when he was trying to whoop Apollo Creed. Only this impenetrable object had a heartbeat. And respiration. And body heat that caused my own temperature to rise quicker than the fur on my gammy’s cat, Hermione, when my two golden labs, Butch and Sundance, invaded her space.

I found my fingers tracing the outlines of abs that seemed chiseled in stone. I looked up and spotted pecs that strained the limits of the black T-shirt covering them. My eyes traveled to an arm so large it was bigger around than my thigh. (Hey, now. Be nice.) My heated gaze came to rest on a tattoo I’d seen before. A very distinctive tattoo. A tattoo that could belong to only one person.

The time it had taken for drool to collect in my mouth as I’d pondered all-you-can-eat breakfasts and all-night-long buffets—my saliva dried up in half that time once reality set in. I didn’t need to examine the thick, corded neck, the rugged, stubbled jaw, or sensuous lips for positive identification. I didn’t need to note the earring in a finely shaped lobe or study the arrogant contour of the nose to make sure. I didn’t need to lock gazes with irises so dark against the whites of the pupils they appeared jet-black for positive identification.

But I did it all just the same.

My belly did a flip-flop that had nothing to do with moving water beneath my feet when hot breath seared my face.

“Ahoy, Barbie.”

Okay, I admit it. I almost wet my pants here. Only one guy called me Barbie.

“Ahoy back,” was all I could think of to say. I was in shock. Or maybe denial. This was the very last person in the world I’d expected to run into outside my stateroom on the Custom Cruise Ship
The Epiphany:
the bad-boy biker I’d first met at a smoky bowling alley bar and later bailed out of jail for fighting. A guy I next encountered in a makeshift cell on the Iowa State Fairgrounds. A specimen whose size made me feel like Tinkerbell in comparison. Okay, okay, more like Peter Pan.

Yet here he stood. All six-foot-three of him. Manny De-Marco/Dishman/da name du jour. My super-sized, super-sexy super-secret and oh-so-faux fiancé.

Can you say, abandon ship!

CHAPTER TWO

“Barbie looks surprised,” Manny observed, displaying his glaring gift for understatement.

I nodded, still stunned by this unexpected complication.

“Barbie looks confused.”

I nodded again.

“Barbie looks hot.”

My eyes widened. “Oh, no, really, I don’t. I’m sweaty and frazzled—”

“Barbie’s face is all red.” Manny placed fingers on my forehead. “Definitely hot,” he said, with a flash of white teeth and a gaze that rested on my lips.

“Oh. Hot, as in sweaty and perspiring and travel-grungy,” I said.

This was so not the kind of banter one was supposed to engage in with a dark, dangerous dude on a fun-in-the-sun cruise ship. On the other hand, the crude overture, “Hey, babe, wanna come to my pad and roll around on my bed and get hot and sweaty?” had probably initiated more than a few sexual encounters, so I was in the ballpark. If the ballpark was “Suck at Small Talk with Big Giant Men” Stadium.

“Same ol’ Barbie,” was all Manny DeMarco said in response.

“What are you doing here?” I finally made myself ask after his scrutiny became too uncomfortable. “Do you work on this ship?” I reminded myself I’d never gotten a straight answer out of him as to just what he did for a living. “Are you security?” He’d be darn good at it. He’d saved Barbie’s bodacious bod a time or two.

He shook his head and reached up to secure a strand of flyaway hair behind my ear. “Nope.”

“Personal trainer?” I said, recalling Denny’s earlier query.

Manny shook his head. “Negative.”

“Night club bouncer? Casino blackjack dealer? Lounge act?” I rattled off more possibilities.

“No, no, and no,” he said.

“Then what are you?” I asked, frustrated.

He smiled. “On vacation,” he said, and tapped my chin with his fist.

“Vacation?” I repeated. “Vacation? What about Aunt Mo?” I asked. “Her heart and all. She didn’t—”

“Ahnt Mo’s cool,” Manny said.

I looked at him. “She is?”

“She’s always wanted to go on a cruise.”

“She has?”

“Manny figured now was the time.”

“He did? I mean, y-you did?” I stammered.

Okay, there are a couple things you’re probably wondering at this point, and now is as good a time as any to clarify matters. One: Manny likes to talk about himself in third person. Why? I have no idea. None. And I have no plans in the near future to ask him. Two: His dear, devoted, saintly “Ahnt Mo,” who raised him from a whelp and who has a rather tricky ticker, thinks I’m engaged to Manny. It had been her dying wish to see him married, and I’d agreed to play along with a fake engagement. But then she hadn’t died.

“You mean—”

“Ahnt Mo’s on vacation, too,” he said.

I stared at him.

“On vacation? On this ship? With you? And me?” And Townsend made four! I felt my throat tighten. “How? When?” I forced the words past the constriction. I sounded like I’d reverted to some monosyllabic language from prehistory. Next I’d be bent over, my knuckles dragging the ground, grunting, sniffing an armpit and scratching myself in awkward places.

“Joltin’ Joe gave us the heads-up,” Manny said, and the pieces of my fragmented brain slowly began to come together.

“Joe? Joltin’ Joe Townsend?” I put a hand out. “About yay tall? White hair, white skin, chicken legs? The same Joltin’ Joe who hit you with pepper spray a year or so back? Who later conned you into giving my gammy and him lessons on how to run covert surveillance of my Uncle Frank when they suspected him of infidelity?”

The same Joe Townsend I’d suspected of being up to something earlier?

“That’s the one,” Manny confirmed.

“How? Why? When?” There went Cave Gal Tressa again. Heck, I might as well haul out a stone tablet and start chiseling away.

“Joe’s grandson Nick canceled. Joe thought of Manny and Mo. He finagled some Fed he met in Arizona to push the paperwork through.”

I just stared.

Finagled was right. The conniving little barnacle had orchestrated this little debacle with the finesse of Machiavelli. But why? For what reason? And did I really want to know?

“Barbie looks like Ken just told her he wants to see other people,” Manny said.

Funny. I was sure my expression more closely resembled the one Barbie might wear if Ken announced he was gay. And in love with Dick Cheney.

“So what exactly is the situation with Aunt Mo?” I asked, recalling with some degree of anxiety the last time I’d encountered Manny’s intimidating aunt. It had been a week earlier, back home in Grandville. She’d cornered me in Hazel’s Hometown Café, Pastor Browning in one booth, Ranger Rick in another, and demanded a date for the wedding be set posthaste.

What did I do, you ask? Why, I did what any street-smart, plucky, twenty-first-century cowgirl from the Heartland would do given the same situation: I got the heck out of Dodge. The next day I was on a big silver bird headed to Arizona.

But now it appeared the posse had caught up to Calamity Jayne, and there was no viable means of retreat at her disposal. It was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid holed up in a tiny house with the Bolivian Army just outside the front door all over again.

“Does she still think we’re—uh, you know—an item?” I asked, feeling my forehead crinkle.

“Manny caught Mo Googling shipboard weddings at sea before the flight,” he said, and I felt the noose tighten.

“And her ticker?” I asked, steeling myself for his response.

“Manny calls it her Timex.”

“Huh?” I said.

“Took a lickin’ but keeps on tickin’.”

Not exactly the glowing prognosis I’d hoped for, but considerably better than the “She could go at any minute” I’d heard last fall when I’d agreed to this one-take, onetime, walk-on role as Manny DeMarco’s fiancée and ended up as a regular.

“So…her heart can probably stand the truth about our little invented engagement, then?” I asked hopefully.

Manny frowned. “Better give it a day or two,” he said. “Let Ahnt Mo rest up from the flight out. Get her sea legs.” He moved closer to me, his large body effectively blocking the narrow corridor to anyone not as thin as a Victoria’s Secret model. “Catch her breath.”

Manny took a long, deep breath himself. To my growing anxiety, a hot gust of air hit my face like a blast from the corn-burning furnace my Uncle Frank installed the winter before. But this blast held the subtle scent of mint. “It’s been a long time. Manny’s missed Barbie,” he said, sliding even closer, if possible.

I blinked. This was a side of Manny I hadn’t seen before. Or maybe permitted myself to acknowledge. A softer side. A seductive side. Dare I say, a romantic side? One of those boy-meets-girl moments. Gulp.

“Yeah, well, Barbie’s been busy with school and work and weddings, and you’ve been…” I stopped and my eyes narrowed. “Where
have
you been?” I suddenly asked, recalling that every time I’d mentioned it was time for me to officially return his ring and for this couple to amicably go their separate ways, Manny had mysteriously disappeared.

“Taking care of business, Barbie,” Manny replied. “Taking care of business.”

Ha. But not the urgent business of setting Aunt Mo straight. That was for sure.

“Uh-huh. Business. Right. What was your line of work again?” I asked. “Consulting, wasn’t it? So, have you consulted anyone on the best way to break the news to your aunt that the wedding is off?” I asked. “Or maybe we should just ‘fess up and tell her the truth. That when we thought she was at death’s door, we wanted to give her a parting gift to die for.” I winced at my unfortunate choice of words. “Uh, you know what I mean.”

Manny shook his head. “Can’t do that, Barbie. Manny can’t lie to Ahnt Moe.”

This time, Barbie shook her head. “But you
already
lied to her. When you told her I was your girlfriend. That we were engaged,” I pointed out. “That wasn’t true.”

“Manny gave Barbie a ring, didn’t he? That’s for real, isn’t it?” Manny asked.

I nodded slowly “Well, yes, but—”

“And the ring is an engagement ring? Right?”

“Well, yes—” And a heckuva big one at that.

“And Barbie still has Manny’s ring, correct?”

“Well, sure—”

“And the idea of being Manny’s girl didn’t send Barbie running for cover.”

“Well, no, but remember, I’m from the Midwest. We come from hardy stock,” I said, feeling the need to lighten the mood. A lot.

“So, how about we just take things slow and easy?” Manny said. “Tressa,” he added, my name sounding strange, foreign, and surprisingly seductive on his lips. Tressa—not Barbie. “You can do that, can’t you, Tressa?” Goosebumps popped out on my arms and I shivered. I could tell from the twitching lips above me that the reaction had not gone unnoticed.

“Huh? What? Slow and easy?” I steered my runaway thoughts back on track. “Sure. Absolutely. No problemo. I can do slow and easy,” I motor-mouthed. “That’s my comfort pace. I’m built for endurance—not for speed.”

Manny smiled. A dangerous smile. A Jolly Roger smile.

“Manny looks forward to confirming that fact,” he said, and lowered his head—and lips—in my direction, his dark gaze confident and unwavering.

What Manny would have done—and how Barbie might’ve reacted—was left as your basic cliffhanger, because Denny with the cute shorts and nice knees made his way back down the narrow corridor in our direction. His eyes got huge when he spotted Manny.

“Ah,” he said. “He must be your personal trainer. Looks like you’re in good hands then.”

I stared as Manny gently squeezed my arms and stepped back to give Denny room to pass.

“Yeah, Barbie here’s in real good hands,” Manny said, and winked. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”

The familiar feeling of things spinning out of control hit me with the force of a tidal wave, and I felt my lungs lock up.

“Air! I need air!” I managed to say, and headed for the elevator and the upper decks.

Once up top, I ran to the ship’s railing, desperate as a plus-size about to be marooned on an island of cannibals. I sucked in fresh air by the gallon as I lifted a hand to my eyes and scanned the horizon in vain for a somber ship with black, billowing sails. I uttered a colorful curse.

Where the bloody hell was Captain Jack Sparrow when you needed him?