Swept Away 2 (6 page)

Ethan has clearly chosen him.

Ethan’s computer screen isn’t filled with his usual spreadsheets, but his word processor is open, and he’s typing away.

“Is that for work?” I ask him.

He glances toward the front windows. Nalani is out on the bow by herself, sitting on the trampoline with her legs drawn up to her chest.

Mick and Kyle went out earlier—they must be on the bridge.

“No,” Ethan says. “It’s a description of Mick and questions I’m sending to a private investigator I just hired.”

I blink at him. “Oh.”

He opens up his e-mail page and attaches the document before sending it off. Then he looks over his shoulder at me. “Hopefully he receives that e-mail sometime before tomorrow.”

Ethan really does hate how slow the Internet is out here.

As he comes to sit beside me, I ask, “What are you having the PI investigate?”

“His name’s Garcia. He’s in Miami, which is where Mick is from. Supposedly. I want him to get a better idea of who Mick is.”

Supposedly?
“Do you think he lied about where he came from?”

“Maybe.” Staring at his computer screen, Ethan drums his fingers on the table. “Goddamn. I hate this. There’s nothing I can do but wait. I want answers.” His lips are flat, and that muscle works in his stubble-covered jaw.

Back home, Ethan probably just needs to snap his fingers and people will fall over themselves to do his bidding. “We’ll be in Hawaii soon,” I reassure him.

“Not soon enough,” he mutters.

Yesterday, he said we have two or three more days to go, and a part of me was sad about that because I wished I could stay on the
Temptation
with him forever. Now, I want to get there as fast as humanly possible and be able to get off this boat and away from all this tension.

It’s not just the tension, though. I still haven’t completely recovered from Kyle getting a concussion and falling overboard. Now, peanuts in my coffee—then that reaction...

I’m scared. I’m confused. I don’t know what’s happening, or why, and I am trapped out here, with no way to escape any of it.

Ethan says he has a couple more EpiPens, but mine are still nowhere to be found. The theory that neither of us has spoken about but weighs heavily on my mind is that Mick or Nalani deliberately got rid of my EpiPens before they put peanuts in my coffee somehow. If Ethan hadn’t had his own epinephrine…

What if there are peanuts in everything now? What if someone has rubbed peanut dust over every bit of food on the
Temptation
?

Needless to say, I haven’t eaten anything today. I’ve only drunk clear, pure water.

Ethan’s fingers stop drumming the tabletop, and his hand closes over mine. He gazes at me, dead serious. “I’m going up on the deck. I want to talk to Mick.”

I blink at him. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

I can’t see how, in any way, shape, or form, that’s a good idea. “Are…are you going to accuse him?”

Ethan stares in the direction of the galley, considering. “No. I’m going to ask him some leading questions and see what he says. See how good he is,” he adds bitterly.

My frown deepens. “What makes you so sure about this?”

“Something’s not right. Something’s going on.” He rises all of a sudden. “I need to talk to him. Come up with me, okay? I want to keep an eye on you. And you can distract Kyle.”

We go out onto the deck. Mick and Kyle are on the bridge, Mick working on one of the instruments and Kyle steering, and I go up to them and grab Kyle’s arm. “Hey, can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure.” Kyle sets the autopilot and turns to me, his gaze searching mine as if he’s hopeful I intend to say something he really wants to hear.

I sigh. “Come with me to the cockpit?”

He nods, and we go down to the cockpit and sit on the white leather seats.

We’re quiet for a minute. My attention is focused on Ethan and Mick on the bridge. Ethan has his hands jammed into his jeans pockets, and he appears casual and unaffected. I know the opposite is true.

Mick tilts his head in polite inquiry as Ethan asks him a question. Then he nods and answers.

God, I wish I knew what they were saying.

“What is it, T?” Kyle asks me.

I turn to him and try not to instantly flinch away. He gazes at me with wide, shiny green eyes, his lips parted in a hopeful expression that twists my heart. He’s like a puppy wanting affection. Kyle’s never like this. I want my fun-loving, laid-back friend back.

“I just…” I scramble for something to say. “I just wanted to thank you. For earlier.”

His forehead creases. “What do you mean?”

“For helping me. With the peanut reaction.”

“What did you expect? That I’d just sit there and watch you…” He trails off.

“No,” I say quietly. “I didn’t expect that.”

We sit there in silence for a moment as the
Temptation
rises and then dips beneath us, although the motion is gentle now, far less violent than in last night’s gale.

“I don’t want to lose you, Ky,” I blurt out.

His lips twist. “That’s not going to happen.”

“But…I’m with Ethan.”

“You know how I feel about that. I told you. It’s not going to last, T. And when it ends, I’ll be there. You know I will.”

“But…what if I can’t…”

“Can’t what?”

“See you as anything beyond a friend?”

His mouth opens, then closes. “I’m willing to work on it. I’ll wait until you’re ready.”

Ready for what? To fall in love with him? He’s got to know that falling in love doesn’t work like that.

The urge to tell Kyle that nothing has changed between us is a strong pull in my chest. But…it would be a lie. Things
have
changed between us. It was so easy to be with him before, but all day, whenever he’s glanced at me, I see the longing in his eyes that he was so carefully masking before, and it makes me squirm in discomfort.

“Don’t be weird, Kyle,” I say. “Please. You’re still my friend. My best friend. And some strange things have been happening, and I’m scared and I just want to get to Hawaii.” I gaze down at my lap. “I need you right now.”

His hand flexes as if he wants to touch me. He would have before. But now, things are different. I’ll interpret his touch in a different way—we both know it. His fingers curl into a fist. “I’m here,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I glance back up at Ethan and Mick. They’re still talking. Mick is gesturing widely with his arms, but he doesn’t appear at all perturbed.
What are they talking about?

“And I’ll be there in Hawaii, and I’ll be there when we get home,” Kyle says. “I always am.”

“Yes, you are. And have I ever told you how grateful I am to you for that?”

“I don’t want your gratitude.”

I close my eyes. “I know…but it’s there anyway.”

We’re quiet for a long minute. Then, Kyle says, “I’m on watch. I should go back.”

It seems Mick and Ethan’s conversation is winding down too. “Okay,” I say.

His fist opens, and he begins to reach for me, but he stops in mid-action and lowers his hand. He gives me a wry smile. “Okay, then.”

“Thanks again for this morning.”

He snorts, and then he’s gone, heading back to the bridge just as Ethan steps out of it, heading toward me. The two men brush by but don’t acknowledge each other. Not surprising.

Ethan takes my hand and leads me back into the cabin. “Did you learn anything?”

“Nothing concrete,” Ethan says, “but he’s a liar. I asked him what he thought about you—told him that we’d hooked up—and he acted surprised.”

“He knew,” I muse. “The way he kept looking at us. Watching us.”
Watching me.
I shudder.

“He didn’t say much, but his eyes are shifty. He might be good at acting like a mild-mannered, friendly guy, but he’s a shitty poker player. I know he’s lying.”

“Does he think you suspect him?”

Ethan shrugs. “I don’t know. But he could be even more dangerous if he suspects I might be on to him. I don’t want you alone with him, ever. From now till we get to Honolulu. Understand?”

I nod. Too much has happened for me to blow this off.

He pulls me into his arms and kisses me, long and slow, telling me so much just in the possessive way he holds me. His lips move against mine, making gentle promises.

I care for you.

I’m not going to let anything happen to you.

I want you, Tara.

Chapter Fifteen

When ten p.m. rolls around, I go out on deck to begin my watch. It’s not surprising that Ethan closes his computer and follows me out, even though he’s technically not supposed to be on watch for another hour.

Nalani doesn’t spare a glance for me—she just hands me the logbook and turns away. But I stop her, touching her shoulder. “Wait.”

She turns back. It’s clear she’s trying to keep her expression blank, even professional, but emotions work their way through the shadows in her eyes.

And suddenly, I’m at a loss. My best friend has hurt this woman, and I have no excuses for him. She doesn’t want my sympathy, though. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.

“I’m sorry, Nalani,” I manage awkwardly in a voice too low for Ethan, who’s still in the cockpit, to hear. “I didn’t mean for this—any of it—to happen.”

Her lips begin to twist as if she’s on the verge of saying something sarcastic.

“I don’t feel that way about Kyle,” I assure her, trying to nip whatever she was going to say in the bud. “I never have.”

“
Really?
” she says. It’s not a “wow, thank you!”
really
but more of a “you’re so full of bullshit”
really
.

My eyes flicker to Ethan, then back to her. “I’m with Ethan.”

She snorts, then says bitterly, “Today you’re with Ethan. That’s not going to last.”

Her words feel like a punch to my chest. Both Nalani and Kyle have said this to me. Is it that obvious?

I shake my head, trying to fling off my emotional reaction. “It doesn’t matter how it eventually ends.” The words sound rational and mature, and I give myself a mental pat on the back for that. “What matters is that I’m with him now. I just wanted to let you know that there’s nothing going on between me and Kyle.”

“But there will be.”

My brows draw tightly together over my eyes. “No, there won’t.”

“Come on,” she scoffs. “You’re too close. Men and women can’t be that close without there being something sexual between them.”

“Of course they can.” But I don’t even sound convincing to my own ears. I can’t stop thinking about the physicality of our relationship that Ethan was talking about last night. Because he’s right—it’s not completely normal. How could I have overlooked that?

“I thought it would be okay. I hoped that maybe I was wrong about the two of you, even though I knew better. I knew better! But”—she rolls her eyes—“I was stupid. God. That fucking asshole and his fucking sexy charm. He made me trust him. He made me—” She breaks off abruptly, then straightens, every muscle in her face seeming to freeze in place. “You need to be on watch now,” she says tightly. “The sails are luffing.”

She spins around and walks away. Striding through the cockpit, she doesn’t acknowledge Ethan at all. After she disappears through the companionway, Ethan makes his way to me.

He doesn’t ask what our conversation was about. I suppose he can guess. But his silence on the subject is fine by me. I really don’t want to talk about it.

Instead, he helps me adjust the sails, then go through the routine of logging our position and checking all the instruments as well as our course to ensure everything’s as it should be.

Finally, Ethan sits in the captain’s chair and pulls me onto his lap. “How are you?” he murmurs.

I wrap my arms around his neck and look up into his handsome face, and for the millionth time, I’m struck by the unreality of a man this gorgeous gazing down at me with something I can only describe as…adoration.

“Better,” I murmur. Now that his arms are around me. So much better.

He presses a gentle kiss to my lips. “That—this morning—might have been the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“It was scary for me too.” Not the scariest thing I’ve ever been through, though, which is kind of a sad commentary on my history.

We lapse into silence, and I try to weigh the fright factors of the defining scary moments in my life. I must be a magnet for scariness. The first anaphylactic reaction to peanuts. My parents’ death. The accident. The convenience store robbery and the Good Samaritan who took a bullet aimed right for my heart.

The accident.

I close my eyes at the wash of memories. Emily and I talking about her “fantastically wonderful” new boyfriend I’m going to meet for the first time. I’m teasing her about how this is her hundred and ninety-seventh “fantastically wonderful” boyfriend. We’re speeding down PCH at seventy miles an hour. Then, Emily pressing frantically on the brake pedal over and over again and screaming,
“Hold on, Tara!”

Hitting the curve…spinning out of control. Tumbling, my body thrashing around like I’m in a blender. Then the crushing pain in my leg…and heat—scorching, blinding heat…and nothing but blackness until I woke up in the hospital late the next day.

Ethan squeezes me tighter but says nothing. He seems to understand. He’s the first person besides Aunt Jo and Kyle who really gets me.

I lay my head on his shoulder. “I’m glad you were there. When you’re with me, everything seems…better. And easier.”

He sighs and nuzzles my hair, and I relax against him. I’ve been so jacked up on the epinephrine and my own natural adrenaline, this is the first time I’ve felt calm all day.

There will be no sex on the deck tonight. I’d fantasized about it, but that was before Kyle watched us two nights ago. There’s no way in hell it’ll be happening now. But even though every nerve in my body is already standing up and paying attention to my proximity to Ethan, I’m okay with another night of talking and cuddling.

More than okay with it. And if Kyle watches the whole time, fine. It might even be a good thing. He needs a firm reminder that I’m with Ethan, and I have no desire to be anywhere but in his arms.