Queen For A Night (2 page)

He held her gaze for long, considering moments before giving a short laugh. “I see. You're the substitute queen if it turns out Murielle is tied up with her dad.”

“Only if you agree,” Caroline said while heat rose in her face. “That’s if I can talk you into being king, of course.”

“And if you can’t?”

“The krewe vice president and his daughter are next in line. But the family owns a seafood restaurant, you know, and enjoy it a bit too much. The special costumes made for Uncle Tony and Murielle won’t begin to fit, and there’s no time to have new ones made. They would have to make do with rented outfits.”

“Oh, now we can’t have that.” The comment was desert-dry.

“It’s never happened before.” The beauty and pageantry of the costumes were a highlight of the ball. Anything less than magnificent would be a huge letdown for the krewe and its guests.

“You and I are close enough in size to fit these get-ups, I suppose?”

She measured him with a quick look before tipping her head. “So it seems, with a little alteration for height in your case. Murielle says so, anyway. “

Swift thought moved behind Ross McDougall’s piercing blue gaze. Then he stepped to the stainless steel chain looped between railing posts at the entrance to the boat. Unfastening it, he held out is hand. “You had better come with me.”

His manner was so compelling, and Caroline’s thoughts so absorbed by convincing him to act as king, that she put her hand in his warm grasp without thinking. As she stepped aboard the gently bobbing yacht, he released her then moved past back out onto the dock.

Caroline turned to track his purpose while massaging the tingling sensation that remained in her hand and arm. As he whipped the yacht's thick bow line from around the dock stanchion, uneasiness stirred inside her.

“Wait a minute. You—you don’t mean go out into the gulf with you?”

He gave her a quick glance as he strode toward the stern. “I have to run a part down to one of the oil rigs. We'll be back before midnight.”

Ross McDougall, she knew, owned a fleet of crew boats operating between the ports and offshore oil platforms from Morgan City, Louisiana to Matamoros, Mexico. The craft they were on was his private yacht, however, a fifty-foot beauty built for speed and ease of handling by one qualified man. It was not a working boat.

“I thought you had men hired for things like that.”

“Sometimes I prefer to do it myself, especially when it's a night run. Is it a problem?”

A night run, just like that. Good grief. “It’s not exactly what I had in mind.”

Returning from the rear of the vessel, he leaped back on board and stopped to look down at her, his gaze bright with irony and an odd heat only half-screened by his lashes. “What did you have in mind, exactly?”

“Nothing! I mean—only to talk for a minute or two.”

“You think I might take you out in the middle of nowhere and dump you overboard? Or something less sinister and more personal?”

“The thought never crossed my mind.” Her mouth went a little dry as it certainly crossed it now.

“Too bad.” A smile curled a corner of his well-defined mouth. “But you’d better decide whether you're going or staying.”

He had cast off the stern line. They were drifting now, the distance between dock and boat widening by the second. The space was already broad enough to make jumping back onto the wooden catwalk undignified, if not downright dangerous.

“You could nose back in after you start the engine,” she suggested.

“Maybe. Is that what you want?”

“Couldn't you wait just a few minutes?”

The negative shake of his head was firm. “A storm is whipping up out in the gulf. They need this part out on the rig before it hits.”

If she refused to go with him, there would be no opportunity to plead her case. Time was growing short; the Mardi Gras ball was only 48 hours away. It wouldn't be fair to wait too long before letting the substitute king and queen know they must step in.

“A situation that will be remedied by the time we make our way down the bayou to open water.”

“If anybody sees us heading out so close to dark, they’ll wonder what's going on.”

“Does it matter?” He had moved to the open doorway into the boat's cabin, but stood with one hand propped on the frame as if he had all the time in the world. The yacht was gliding slowly backward toward an overhang of willows on the bayou's curving bank opposite the house. They would be plowing into them in about a minute.

It was a boat ride; that was all. No need to make a big deal out of it.

Anyway, Ross McDougall was right; it didn’t really matter. She was a grown woman, married, divorced and closing in on thirty, not some green girl with no idea how to handle being alone with a man. What people said had nothing to do with her, especially if nothing happened. And in spite of Ross’s suggestive comment, it was highly unlikely anything would.

“So what's the decision?”

She met his eyes, searching their rich blue depths, their certainty and the strength of purpose behind them. There was nothing there to make her refuse.

“Let’s go.”

“Right,” he drawled. “Fasten the gangway chain there behind you?”

As he ducked inside the cabin, Caroline hesitated a moment longer, but then moved to do as he asked. Her decision had been made. There was no turning back.

The instant the chain was secure, the boat's big Chrysler inboard engines roared into life. The craft swung in a side-slipping curve, barely brushing the bank of willows before it heeled in a surge of power and headed toward the gulf.

Subtropical February warmth was in the evening breeze that swept into Caroline's face. The smell of the bayou stirred up by the propellers was rich and fishy. She took a deep breath, welcoming the familiar scent and humidity-laden balminess. The smooth rumbling of the engines, the vibration and shifting movement of the deck under her feet sent intense pleasure bubbling up inside her. She closed her eyes to savor the sensation while a smile curved her mouth.

She loved boats, loved being on the water. It had been a long time, too long, since she been out into the gulf. She was seized with a sudden need to see it again. She didn't know why she had objected to this trip, except that Ross McDougall had taken her by surprise with his virtual kidnapping.

Kidnapping. How melodramatic, as if she was some virginal maiden and he a pirate king. Things like that didn't happen anymore, not in this day and age.

Worst luck.

Whoa, where had that come from? She wasn’t a giddy teenager with more imagination than sense. No, she wasn’t, even if pirates and Ross had once figured large in her fantasies, a natural result of old tales that an ancestor of his had sailed with the infamous Jean Lafitte. The last thing she needed was to cope with an amorous male in close quarters and no place to go if she needed to fight him off.

There would be none of that. They were going for a run out into the gulf; that was all.

Yes, they were heading out. Out into the wide, wind-blown, sea-blue gulf where the waves rolled landward in eternal journeys from faraway places. Out there where the air smelled and tasted of salt and was sticky on the skin. Maybe there would be a moon after a while, one that would lay a bright, heaving road for them to travel. She couldn't wait to see.

Ross McDougall's yacht was a beauty. She liked the name she had noticed emblazoned on the stern,
L’escapade
. French, she thought, meaning an adventurous escape or maybe a getaway, something like that. What kind of man chose such a name?

She glanced through the open doorway to where Ross stood at the boat's controls. He appeared relaxed, his feet spread slightly for balance. His hands on the wheel were firm and sure as he sent the boat along the winding waterway. The rose-tinted light of the evening slanting through the windscreen caught the angles and planes of his face, turning them to copper and gold, while blazing in the depths of his eyes. His gaze, however, was not on the vista unfolding ahead of him. He was watching her.

The expression on his face was suspended, less easygoing than before, and more enigmatic.

A shiver caught Caroline by surprise. It rippled over her, leaving a prickle of gooseflesh in its wake. Strange. She might be hyper-aware of him, but had no reason to be so tense. No, of course not. In defiance of that idea, she swung from the railing and stepped into the cabin, closing the glass-paneled door behind her.

Teakwood and brass, nubby fabric and carpeting in heather tones of cream, brown and nautical blue formed the interior of the yacht. From the upper cabin where she stood, and where the control panel with its blinking lights was located, a short flight of steps led down into the aft, stern section. She could make out a galley down there with the usual small-scale stainless appliances and storage cabinets. A teak dining table was flanked by a bench on one side and armchairs on the other, while a sofa of the kind that could be made into a bed sat across the far end. The space was comfortable without being overly big or luxurious.

There was also a sofa in the upper cabin, set back behind the forward controls. A set of steps wound down behind that control panel, descending into what was most likely a cuddy cabin, or compact sleeping area, in the prow. Caroline gave those cuddy steps a wary glance as she moved toward the far end of the sofa, a good distance from Ross at the boat’s wheel.

“You could make us a drink, if you don't mind,” he said over his shoulder. “Jack Daniels and soda for me.”

The wet bar was at the foot of the sofa. It took only a moment to locate glasses, liquor and the separate ice maker. She mixed the drink and brought it to him, leaning past his wide shoulder to set it in the holder built into the console.

“I suppose I should have asked if you get seasick.” He half turned toward her, as he spoke, his forearm brushing the curve of her breast.

She drew back quickly while hot color flared into her face once more. Her voice was not quite even as she spoke. “Not really.”

“There's no point in being brave about it. The truth will out in more ways than one if we start to roll.”

His gaze did not waver from hers, nor did he show any other sign he had noticed the contact between them. That was at least marginally reassuring.

“When we start to roll, you mean. My dad was a shrimper before he died, if you’ll remember. I used to go out on his boat, so know what it’s like.” A corner of her mouth lifted in a wry smile. “I can't vouch for what might happen if we hit rough weather, but I'll be fine as long as things are halfway normal.”

“Remember you were warned,” he said.

“Yes,” she said dryly to his broad back as he turned back to the wheel. “I'll do that.”

Caroline placed her glass of chilled Chablis on the heavy brass table next to the sofa. Making herself comfortable in a cushioned corner, she sat staring out the sliding glass doors across from her, watching the overhanging trees that edged the bayou as they slid past.

An odd, perilous content stole through her veins. It was an effort to shake free of it as Ross spoke again.

“Tony talks about you all the time, you know, carries a wallet full of your pictures. Next to Murielle, you're his favorite person in the world.”

He’d recognized her from those pictures, no doubt. It was good to have that explained. “My dad was Uncle Tony’s closest brother out of four, the next in age. On top of that, he's my godfather as well yours.”

“Looking out for you comes high on his list of priorities. He wanted to murder that husband of yours before you were divorced.”

“Yes, well, he wasn't the only one.” Her answer was meant to be glib and easy, but even she could hear the undertone of old anger. She reached for her wine, taking a quick sip.

“What happened there? How did you get mixed up with such a lowlife?”

He was speaking over his shoulder without looking at her. Caroline allowed her gaze to rest on his broad shoulders as she decided how to answer. Her marriage to Louis was none of his business; she couldn't think why he was interested. Maybe he wasn’t, not really. Maybe talking about it was something to fill the silence that hovered above the rumbling of the engines.

“Just bad luck, I suppose,” she said finally. “Or maybe I saw what I wanted to in him instead of what was there.”

“You didn't see the booze, the drugs? Can't say much for your eyesight.”

She gave a short laugh. “That all came later, along with the gambling.”

“It happens, I guess, when you bail off into marriage right out of high school.”

“It seemed a good idea at the time, joining forces while we got our degrees. We had such plans for the good life afterward. Trouble was, we had different ideas about what that meant.”

“Such as.”

“Louis wanted to make it big so he could have a fancy car, the latest electronic gadgets, and restaurant meals every night. I thought we ought to save for a home and a family. He spent a couple hundred dollars a month on haircuts, while I saved zip-seal plastic bags and mended the holes in his socks. We embarrassed each other, really. It wasn't working even before he got into the other stuff. Afterward, I—just gave up.”

“It takes intelligence to know when to quit, and guts to actually do it.”

“I guess.” She studied the swirl of wine in her glass, unwilling to look at him and perhaps let him know how grateful she was for his understanding.

It was a moment before he spoke again. “So now you want to be a Mardi Gras queen.”

“Not really.”

His glance was brief. “But you’re not refusing, either.”

She shook back her hair as she considered the implied question. “It’s because Uncle Tony thought it was such a good idea, I suppose. And the opportunity was suddenly there when it never had been before.” There was a bit more to it than that, but it was difficult to explain.

“You sure it’s not the fancy costume, the glitz and the spotlight, being the focus of all those sighs of envy?” He gave a short laugh. “Sort of like being a bride without the wedding night.”

She choked on the wine she’d just swallowed and coughed to clear her throat. “Good grief, no!”