Girl Gear 3: Bound to Happen (24 page)

Doug snorted. "Who cares if it's close to being paid for? He's young. He's single. Not to mention that he's a really hot property these days. Right, Mr. Big Shot Search-and-Rescue Man?"

Ray rolled his eyes at Doug's ribbing.

Doug continued to rib. "He needs to be living where the equally hot female action is, not wasting away out in suburbia."

"You don't care if he's getting any female action. You just want the sale." Kinsey made the accusation, giving Doug an elbow in the side while she pushed her fork through her spicy rice pilaf.

"Well, yeah," Doug admitted, and everyone laughed. Everyone but Lauren. And Anton, whose mouth appeared to be smiling but whose eyes were definitely not.

Ray didn't know if he'd ever seen two people more miserable in each other's company. Two people who, months ago, couldn't get enough of each other.

It made him wonder what things would be like between him and Sydney a few weeks down the road, if they'd still be on friendly speaking terms, with their fling over and done with and their lives back to normal.

If his life could ever get back to normal now that he'd seen what he'd been missing the past eight years.

Ray grimaced. "If I decide to sell, Neville & Storey will get the commission. Trust me on that."

"You won't hear the end of it otherwise." Doug delivered his ultimatum with the end of his fork pointed at Ray, then jerked a thumb in Anton's direction. "And Neville over there's going to back me up on this."

"Wait a minute."
Sydney
looked from Doug to Anton and back again. Her eyes flashed and the glare she delivered was not altogether a joke.

"You, Neville, and you, Storey. Let the man decide for himself where he wants to live and who actually deserves to get paid a commission. You all might play soccer together, but that doesn't mean Neville & Storey is the best firm to sell his family home. Especially when he's not sure he wants to move."

Ray liked it that she came to his defense. He liked it a lot and gave her a quick wink to tell her so. "Don't worry. I'm not that easy."

Eyes rolling,
Sydney
slumped back in her chair and crossed her arms. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Mr. Big Shot Search-and-Rescue Man can take care of himself.

"I don't know," Poe said, tossing her napkin onto the center of her empty plate and stretching her arms high overhead. "From the tales
Sydney
told last night, sounds to me like you're pretty easy."

Ray's brow went up and
Sydney
's went down as she turned to Poe. "What tales did I tell last night? And, even if I did tell tales," she went on, warming to the subject, "I guarantee that you were in no condition to correctly remember any of what I was in no condition to say."

"I remember enough. Or close enough. I think," Poe said, but frowned as she did.

This time Kinsey chimed in. "Yes, but do you remember what you said about Jess?"

"What about Jess?" Jess asked, and Doug added, "Yeah. What about Jess? And what about me? I'm gonna feel really left out if no one said anything about me."

But before anyone could answer any of the questions on the floor, Lauren shoved back her chair so hard it fell over, turned, hair flying, stomped from the room and out the front door. Her feet pounded across the veranda and down the steps. Everyone's gaze turned to Anton, who only stared at the last bite of fish in his plate.

Ray sought out
Sydney
's gaze and she responded with a helpless sort of shrug. And since no one seemed to know what to say and the atmosphere grew tense, Ray wasn't a bit surprised when Anton left the table, as well, heading for the rooftop deck, not out to the beach after Lauren.

Poe was the next to get to her feet, welcoming Jess's offer of help in clearing the dishes from the table. The two worked quietly, efficiently, and it was finally Kinsey who spoke into the room's oppressive silence.

"I don't mean to talk out of turn or behind anyone's back, but I cannot believe those two are having such a hard time getting things together."

"Some couples never get things together," Poe answered, scraping the leftovers from all the plates onto one. "For a lot of valid reasons."

The comment made Ray wonder if Poe was talking about Lauren and Anton or about herself. And then he looked at
Sydney
.

It struck him that they'd never talked about life after vacation. About what they were doing here together in the first place. Besides sharing the sort of intimacy that he'd never expected to share with any woman, but especially not with her. The sort of intimacy that he had, in fact, avoided for the obvious reason that the luxury of a soul mate was one he couldn't afford.

He needed to clear the air. Before they went any further, as friends or as lovers, they needed to talk. He'd thought he could pull off a casual affair. After all, Mr. Big Shot Search-and-Rescue Man had done it often enough in the past.

But this was
Sydney
and what he was feeling for her wasn't the least bit casual. He wanted her to understand how much he cherished her as a woman, how much the things they'd done together meant to him as a man. Honor demanded that he also make her understand that this island vacation was a fantasy and what went on here would stay here.

"Hey, dude," Jess said, interrupting Ray's thoughts. "We're still going deep-sea fishing in the morning, right? You and me and the so-called team of Neville & Storey here?" Jess grabbed Doug's shoulder and shook him hard.

Doug's hair flopped into his face and he reached up to shove it back. "I'm not sure we should trust the womenfolk to do their bazaar-shopping thing on the mainland without us."

"Excuse me, mister," Kinsey said, gathering up the used drink glasses and carrying the load to the sink. "But we women are perfectly capable of doing our bazaar-shopping thing without you cavemen along."

"Hey, I'm only going by what went on yesterday." Doug bit into a ripe dessert plum and shrugged. "We came back to what looked like a whole
lotta
drinkin
'
goin
' on."

"And?" Poe asked, keeping her response simple and succinct.

Doug rolled his eyes. "And I give up. I'm just a man on vacation trying to get along."

Poe shooed him away. "Well, then, get along out of here. You, too," she said, extending her shooing away to Ray and to Jess, who had already hustled his way to the front door. "We womenfolk have to figure out how we'll ever manage going shopping all on our own."

Reluctantly Ray got to his feet, making eye contact with
Sydney
while doing what he could to ignore a hovering Poe. "Are you going shopping tomorrow?"

"I'm not sure,"
Sydney
answered, bracing her elbows on the table, her chin cupped in her palms. Her eyes were not the least bit tentative or questioning as she captured his gaze.

And Ray knew they were on the same wavelength when she answered his question with a question of her own.

"Are you going fishing?"

Ray swore all his blood had settled in the lower half of his body. And he wasn't talking about his feet. "I was thinking I might just hang out around here. I'm getting close to being fished out. Might be nice to just relax."

Sydney
pressed her lips together as if fighting to keep her expression neutral. "I was thinking of doing the same thing. I've definitely seen all there is to see at the bazaar."

"Okay, then," Ray said, his heart thumping all the way from his throat to his groin.

"Oh,
puh-leeze
," Poe said. "You two make me sick." She pushed Ray toward the front door where Jess and Doug waited. "Go play in the deep end of the ocean."

Ray let himself be driven from the villa. He'd said what he needed to say. Tomorrow, once they were alone, he'd talk to
Sydney
. He'd tell her of his convictions, explain where he stood and why.

And then they'd make love, with the air cleared between them and nothing else standing in the way of their remaining vacation fun.

For some reason, Ray mused, that sounded just a little too simple.

SYDNEY LAY
on her stomach on the cushions she'd pulled from the loungers, beach blanket on top of the makeshift bed and hands stacked beneath her cheek. She'd arranged the comfy bunk on the far side of the deck, setting it up between the railing and the two umbrellas she'd propped on their sides for privacy.

Alone at last on Coconut Caye, she was taking full advantage of the solitude to sunbathe. In the nude. Beneath the wonderfully warm tropical sun and the wind that swept over her skin in gentle kisses. Actually that wasn't quite true. The part about being alone, anyway. Because she wasn't.

Ray was here, as well, though she wasn't sure where he was on the island. The rest of the vacationers had left an hour or so ago. The women were on their way to the mainland with Auralie, their sights set on the city's bazaar. And the men were headed farther out to sea for what Menga promised to be the fishing trip of a lifetime.

Sydney
knew she and Ray weren't fooling anyone. Their tête-à-tête after dinner last night had been witnessed by everyone but Lauren and Anton. For some reason, having the others know that she and Ray would be spending the day together bothered Sydney less than she would have imagined even a week ago. She and Ray seemed to have settled into a comfortable routine, an easygoing relationship that she'd found impossible to share with him back in the States.

There she'd been busy with gIRL-gEAR, the never-ending balance sheets, the marketing and promotion, the personnel issues. She'd been busy dealing with the details for the mentoring program, as well as the details for restructuring should the six partners vote to take on a seventh. She'd been busy trying to salvage what she could of her plans to help Isabel Leighton fund her foundation's famine-relief efforts—plans that
Sydney
thought had been settled.

And they had been settled. Until Nolan screwed up everything by going back on his word and, instead of helping
Sydney
, making the choice to help her mother. And that choice, that betrayal, hurt more than anything.

Sydney
shook off the thought. She did
not
want to be thinking of her father. If only Ray would show his face. Or, anything else, for that matter. Where in the world was he?

She did know he'd accompanied the men to the boat dock and helped with the loading of the fishing equipment. But the group had left an hour ago and she hadn't seen him since.

Her lemon-yellow bikini was draped over one of the umbrellas. The book she'd brought with her to the deck remained closed. The sun warmed her body through the lotion she'd rubbed into her skin. Eyes closed, cheek resting on her stacked hands, she listened to the rustle of the palm fronds, to the low drone of the sea, to the gulls squawking high overhead.

She listened to the sound of her own breathing and counted the beats of her heart. She heard subtle noises, the creaking of the deck and the
thwup
of the wind catching the umbrellas' canvas. But the one thing she was listening for, the one thing she wanted to hear, the sound of Ray's footsteps on the staircase, she never heard. And so she waited.

SYDNEY AWOKE SLOWLY
, realizing as she did so she was no longer alone. Without lifting her head from her hands, she knew it was Ray who had found her. She smiled to herself as anticipation swept through her, heightening her desire for him. Her belly clutched, her heart raced. She couldn't remember a time when she hadn't wanted Ray Coffey. And so she raised her head.

He stood above her, beautifully naked, his shoulders broad, his hips narrow, the scar on his chest a scimitar slice reminding her of the type of man he was. Brave and loyal. Selflessly honorable. Incredibly sexy, virile. Unabashedly steadfast in his values. A man she counted herself proud to call a friend, thrilled to call a lover.

His arousal thrust boldly toward her and
Sydney
got to her knees, compelled beyond belief to take him deeply into her mouth. She wrapped one hand around his swollen shaft, awed by the way her fingers almost failed to meet, and then her lips slid smoothly over the taut skin. He was warm and salty and he shuddered when she sucked.