Ready To Burn (Due South Book 3) (2 page)

“I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’d better grab a seat while there’s still one free.”

“Shouldn’t be a rough crossing today. Nothing too bad to scare off the loopies, eh?” He nodded to a young couple seated by the ferry’s salt-spray stained windows, a matching set of hikers’ backpacks at their feet.

The loopies—or non-locals—glanced up at Mr. Peterson’s bugling voice. As usual, the man had forgotten to put in his hearing aid. Shaye patted his arm again and smiled apologetically at the young couple while she found an empty spot in the last row of plastic seats.

The ferry’s engine powered up, and the craft pulled away from the wharf. An hour on the boat was do-able. Easily do-able. She’d made the same trip hundreds of times, and unlike Piper, she didn’t suffer from seasickness. But after thirty minutes of Mr. Peterson loudly detailing his health issues to the hikers who’d had the misfortune of choosing the seats next to him, Shaye needed fresh air and alone time.

Tucking her shopping bag close to her body—like heck would she leave it on her seat for some sticky beak to peer inside—she pushed open the outside door. A stiff breeze wrapped her cute 1960s kick-pleat skirt around her legs as she closed the door. Spray stung her calves as she turned toward the deserted stern deck—

A rogue splash of sea water hit her directly in the face.

Blerk!

Air and salt droplets sucked down into her windpipe, both lungs contracting into fists for two endless seconds before the first brain-hemorrhaging coughs exploded from her chest. Nothing like a coughing fit to ruin a girl’s poise and—dammit, not alone after all. The wool pea-coat guy spun away from the deck railing and strode over.

“Are you okay?”

Her vision blurred as the effort of hacking salt water from her lungs made her eyes tear up. She fumbled with her handbag clasp and extracted a crumpled tissue to press to her eyes. Like trying to stop a river in flood with a bucket and spade.
Hah.

A hand touched her shoulder. “Can you breathe?”

Her skin heated, and she didn’t dare look up as she nodded. What a spectacle she was making, hunched over and spluttering.

An unopened water bottle appeared in front of her. “Here, sip this.”

A lull in the sound of the boat’s engines took the man’s voice from generic male tone to a voice that melted along her frazzled nerves. Boy, a woman could fry eggs on a voice that hot.

Shaye blinked and reached for the water. Paper handles slipped off her fingers and the bag plummeted to the deck. A set of fur-lined handcuffs, hot-pink crotch-less panties, and a pair of nude briefs guaranteed to hold her wobbly bits in place under a bridesmaid dress spilled out of the bag.

Oh, crapola!

“Let me get that—”

Cheeks igniting like a gas hob, Shaye dropped to her knees. Ouch…rough decking on bare skin—and double ouch…her forehead collided with a rock-solid object.

“Fuck!” said the rock-solid object bent over opposite.

Shaye clamped a palm over her throbbing forehead and moaned. Blinking back tears, she focused on two black and white man-sized Converse sneakers. Then lifted her gaze to denim-covered calves leading to muscular denim-covered thighs, and, since the pea-coat had parted, the bulge of a denim-covered—

She covered her eyes, the pretty colored flashes dancing on the backs of her lids almost blotting out the memory of that bulge. Almost. It’d been a looong time since she’d been up close and personal with that part of a man’s anatomy. Shaye groaned again. Wasn’t this mortifying enough without ogling the poor guy she’d head-butted?

“Are you okay?”

The second time he’d asked and the answer remained the same. She cracked open an eye and peeped between her fingers. Grazed kneecaps? Check. Empty
Flirt
bag? Check. And oh, fudge! Handcuffs? Crotch-less panties? Ugly support knickers? Check, check, check.

So not okay…

But in his concern for her wellbeing, her Good Samaritan might’ve missed the items from her shopping bag. Maybe she could scoop everything back into said bag before she suffered any further humiliation.

“I’m fine.” She peeled the hand from her face and inched her fingertips across the deck.

A gust of wind caught the Flirt bag and scooped it into the air before dumping it into the ocean. The gust also flicked up the scrap of lace and ribbon masquerading as panties, which she’d paid nearly thirty bucks for, and blew them in the same direction. The Good Samaritan pounced like a giant cat, darting past her to snag the panties before they disappeared into the Foveaux Strait.

Meanwhile, the handcuffs hadn’t teleported into her purse. And neither had her new panties, which evidently were constructed of industrial-strength fabric capable of holding out against wobbly bits and errant wind gusts. Both items sat in plain sight, just out of reach. No way in hell the man now standing behind her hadn’t seen them.

Shaye’s chin sagged toward her chest.
Suck it up, Buttercup.
At least once the ferry disembarked she’d never see him again.

A warm grip on her elbow. “Need a hand?”

“Thank you,” she muttered, her throat sill raw from coughing. She let him help her to her feet.

Shaye staggered two steps across the deck, snatched up the handcuffs and panties, and stuffed them into her purse. If the man had any sort of decency, he’d return the pink ones in silence and allow her to slink away.

She turned back to him, pasting on a
let’s just ignore this embarrassing situation
smile. Pale blue eyes stared straight at her—eyes belonging to a nearly six foot tall, brown-haired, unsettlingly familiar male.

It couldn’t be.

Shaye’s heart ping-ponged around her chest. Could it be…?

Her Good Samaritan grinned, exposing straight white teeth—except for one slightly turned out front tooth missing a tiny chip. A chip she’d created bowling a cricket ball at him fifteen years ago.

It could be. It totally could.

He chuckled, a low and dirty laugh that made her scalp prickle. “Well, well. If it isn’t little Shaye Harland, all grown up.”

Shaye glanced down at the scrap of pink lace peeping out of his fist.

Fudge
. What a perfect way to be reintroduced to Del Westlake, her future brother-in-law.

She gawked at him. The skinny fourteen-year-old boy she’d known had transformed into a too-good-looking-for-his-own-good man. Good looking, but not drool-worthy—like, say, Due South’s bartender, Kip, or a shirtless Joe Manganiello. Not her type at all. So why couldn’t she drag her gaze away?

Shaye smoothed down her skirt while she wrangled her tongue into action. “Hello, Del. What brings you back to the bowels of Middle Earth?”

He folded his arms, the panties vanishing under his coat. “Lord of the Rings, right? Still can’t keep your nose out of a book?”

“Probably no more than you can keep your hands out of a cookie jar.”

Or out of a woman’s panties
…Oh yeah, a certain type of woman would be drawn to Del Westlake like an ant to sugar.

“Been a while since I’ve raided a cookie jar.” A dimple appeared in the crease of his cheek.

A woman susceptible to the Westlake’s charm might’ve gotten a little tingle down in her happy-place. But not Shaye. She’d worked with Ryan “West” Westlake for too many years.

She sniffed and tossed her ponytail over her shoulder. Limping slightly, she crossed to sit on one of the benches beneath the hand rail. She brushed grit off her knees, and Del eased down a few feet away. His assessing gaze roamed over her like laser beams, and her shoulders knotted into little rocky beads. Judging from Stewart Island’s green hills in the distance, she had at least another twenty minutes to suffer in his company.

Company she wouldn’t have suffered in at all, if the man hadn’t captured her panties.
Piper’s hen-party panties
, she silently amended. Shaye’d wear underwear like that the day she started baking muffins from a box mix.

Granny knickers and handcuffs and crotch-less panties…oh myyy. Why, why, did it have to be Del?
Play it cool, Shaye. Just play it cool
.

She leaned back and tugged her handbag closer to her side.

“So. Stewart Island’s a long way from Hollywood.”

Well, duh. So much for playing it cool.

“Thank God for it.”

Her hands bunched into fists around the hem of her skirt, stopping it from flapping up in the wind. No loyalty left from his New Zealand childhood, obviously. She brushed away a twinge of irritation. It made no difference to her. She expected West’s only brother to attend the wedding—Piper told Shaye that West had already asked Del to be best man. But given that Del worked as some hot-shot chef in LA, what was he doing here a month before the big day?

“You’re a little early for the wedding.”

“I am.” He shoved his hands into his coat pockets, tipping his head to stare at the sky. “Change of plans.”

What plans? Oh, of course—Bill
.

Her stomach lurched sideways. “Your mum rang to tell you about your dad?”

“Yeah.”

Del jerked up from his slouched position and hunkered forward, his hands dangling between his thighs—hands empty of the lacy panties. Damn. They must still be in his pocket. Shaye wriggled on the hard bench, her gaze drawn from his coat to the tanned skin on his wrists and hands. A couple of fine white scars criss-crossed his fingers, and across his knuckles was an ancient burn mark, probably caused by a brush with an oven element—she should know; she had one like it on her pinkie finger. A chef’s badge of honor.

“Is he working at all?” he asked after a long pause.

“Three mornings a week on light prep, the rest of the time he’s bugging suppliers on the phone and doing paperwork.”

Del grunted—not quite a laugh, not quite a sneer. “Bet that doesn’t go down well.”

“No.” And it hurt to see her mentor struggle to keep up the pretense of coping with kitchen duties while still making the weekly trip to Invercargill hospital for dialysis.

If Del had come to see his father after thirteen years of silence…then Bill must be worse than she knew. Maybe Del had arrived early to go through the necessary medical rigmarole to see if kidney donation was a possibility. Her throat felt scratched raw, as if she’d swallowed an unpeeled kiwifruit.

“He’ll be glad to see you.”

Del twisted his head toward her. His eyes, so pale a blue they were almost steel grey, pinned her still.

“I doubt it.” The flat tone of his voice masked any emotion.

Well. That was odd…

Del must feel something about seeing his father again after so many years. But being a guy, he’d think confessing to emotions other than the acceptably masculine happy, bored, or horny meant turning in his man-card.

But did she want to pry further into the mine-laden fields of this man’s ego? No, she did not. She had a bit of a reputation as an eternal peace-maker, but not today, ladies and gentleman. She wouldn’t get in the middle of the Westlake family reunion if someone threatened her with one of her knives.

Del shifted positions again, arching his neck to glance past her at the rolling hills of Stewart Island. Then he checked his watch—because her company was just that stimulating—and shoved his fists into his pockets again. Which reminded her…

She stuck out a hand. “Can I have them back now? Please.”

Del’s brow creased over his baby blues. “What?”

The man really did have pretty eyes, but seriously? Making her ask?

“The underwear. For Piper’s hen party.”
Don’t-blush-don’t-blush
. She dropped her gaze from his eyes to his mouth…perfect lips circled with a trace of stubble. Just as pretty as his eyes.

Ah, not helping the anti-blushing efforts, Shaye-Shaye.

“Oh? They’re not for you?” He tugged the panties out of his pocket and held them up. There wasn’t much to hold, and the breeze caught the scrap of lace and wrapped it around his fingers.

“They’re a gift.”

“Like the handcuffs?”

“Yes. I thought they’d be funny, considering Piper’s previous job.”

Funny at the time…not so funny now that panties and handcuffs were subjects of discussion.

“That’s right, she’s an ex-cop. West mentioned it.”

Shaye launched into a defense of Piper’s credentials as the first female member of the New Zealand Police National Dive Squad.

“And the ugly brown panties?” Del interrupted. “Another gift?”

“None of your damn business.” She wriggled her fingers. “Now, hand them over.”

He tilted his chin, highlighting a small cleft. For a moment, she thought he’d dangle them out of reach. Instead, he leaned over and dropped them into her palm.

“Too practical for pink lace? You always were the sensible one.”

Yep. That was her. The youngest Harland sister—practical, sensible, dutiful, and in the minds of men like Del, b-o-r-i-n-g. Not that it mattered if the man thought she was dullness personified—he sure wouldn’t appear on her Mr. Perfect checklist either. Men like him weren’t perfect for women like her.