With Good Behavior (18 page)

“But how could they prove those charges?” Hunter asked. “Wasn’t it obvious the money and guns weren’t yours? That you just got mixed up with the wrong man?”

“It was the 
way
 I got mixed up with the wrong man. Once they found out I’d slept with Logan, they really started going after me.”

“How did they find that out?”

Sophie pressed her lips together, looking off to the side. “I told them.”

Hunter stared at her for a few moments.

“I wanted to do the right thing after I’d so royally screwed up everything,” she said. My attorney was livid. He said I’d have no credibility in front of a jury once they found out I’d behaved so unethically.”

“Jesus,” Hunter said. “I’m taking notes on all of this, you know, to prevent something like this from happening to me.”

She smiled grimly. “I’m glad somebody can learn from my mistakes.”

He glanced at his watch. “Sophie, I’m sorry to end our session abruptly, but we are out of time.”

“That’s okay. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”

“I’m glad, but I know it must be rough all the same. Next week we’ll talk about your father.”

“We will?”

“Yes. We’re working to connect your family experiences to your current struggles.”

Sophie recognized her own words repeated by her psychologist, and he winked. “I want to do my best work with you, Sophie. We’re going to make sense of why you did what you did, okay?”

She nodded and rose to leave, feeling a bit drained. She had a long day of cruises ahead of her, and she needed some energy to make it through. A warm smile from Grant would help immensely, if only he were not so distant these days.

As she left the office building, she ruminated on Hunter’s belief that she was a caretaker to the extreme. She was determined to try to do better.

Caretaker
, she mused. Logan had certainly taken care of her. He’d taken care of her career, her ethics, her self-respect, her 
dignity
. With an acrid bitterness in her heart, she headed toward the docks.

S
ophie hopped from the dock to the deck and glanced around the empty ship, sighing. Despite her morning therapy appointment, she’d arrived at work ahead of Grant. She wanted to confront him about his standoffish demeanor and hoped she’d have enough courage.

Heading toward the bar to check on her inventory for the day, she stopped short when Grant emerged right in front of her from the stairs leading to the machine room. He wiped black engine oil off his hands with a towel, looking rugged and manly in a dark-blue jumpsuit.

Once he caught sight of her sad, tired eyes, lacking their typical coppery glow, he asked, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she immediately replied, hearing the edge to her voice.

He looked at her uncertainly for a moment, then began to walk away. Sophie called out, “Actually—”

As he turned back to face her, Sophie heard Hunter’s words, 
Take care of 
your
 needs
, in her head. “Actually, I’m not fine. I had a rough therapy session this morning.”

He nodded sympathetically. “You look like you’ve been crying.”

“No, I …” Her voice trailed off as she gazed into his eyes: so earnest, so caring, so entrancing. “Yeah,” she finally admitted. “We were talking about some family stuff.”

He nodded again and continued wiping his hands with the old rag he clutched nervously.

Sophie couldn’t turn off the nagging internal voice that encouraged her, implored her, to tell Grant how she felt. 
Use assertive communication!
 Her heart pounding in her chest, she took a deep breath. “Grant, I, um …” She found his intense gaze searing into her, making her feel unsteady and unmoored. But she continued. “I—I feel kind of hurt, um, hurt and puzzled that you’ve been so aloof lately.”

There. She said it. Oh God, was he going to be mad at her? Was he going to think she was a clingy psycho woman?

His eyes registered surprise. “I have? I’ve been aloof?”

“I think so. You haven’t really said much at all to anyone since, um, Ashley was here.” Sophie watched him listen and tried to explain further. “I just, you know, I’ve missed you. I’ve missed your smiles.” Her cheeks flushed pink.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was being such a jerk.”

“No, no—you weren’t a jerk.”

He took a deep breath and averted his eyes. “Not that it’s much of an excuse, but I’ve had a lot on my mind since I talked to Ashley. I told you how my Uncle Joe got me this job, right?”

He glanced at her and she nodded, feeling grateful for Joe’s indirect employment help for her as well.

“Well, Joe did more than that. He pretty much saved my life. He’s been like a father to me since I was eight years old. And now 
I 
have a nephew—Ben—who’s almost 
sixteen
.” Grant’s voice warbled with emotion. “And he needs me, like I needed Joe. He needs his uncle to save him, if it’s not too late.”

Grant was surprised at how much he shared with Sophie, but he didn’t want her thinking she was to blame for his recent introversion. He looked down.

“The problem is, I’m not as strong as Joe. I’m too chickenshit to stand up to my family like Joe did.” He clenched his fists. “I don’t know why I’m not stepping forward—it’s not like I have anything to lose. They’ve already destroyed my life. But I’m just standing back watching it all happen, watching them take down Ben with their sinking ship … I’m not even willing to throw him a damn life-raft.”

It hurt her to see the self-hatred in his scowl. She knew she was violating their pact not to discuss the past—hell, they’d both already broken that rule this morning—but her inner therapist could not help but ask, “How did your family destroy your life?”

Drinking in her beautiful brown eyes, her high cheekbones, and her perfectly sculpted lips, he sighed. He wanted to keep this classy, elegant woman away from his destructive family, but apparently that wasn’t possible.

“Sometimes I like to pretend it’s my family’s fault that I was busted for aggravated robbery,” he said. “But the truth is it’s all my fault. I’m the one who screwed up my life.”

Aggravated robbery?
 At least now she could confirm for Kirsten that Grant was not a murderer. She felt deep gratitude that he’d opened up to her.

“I feel sad that your family has made things hard for you.” She grasped his wrists with her delicate fingers. “I went to prison because of guns and money too.”

“You did? Guns and money?”

He looked shocked. Then his widened eyes crinkled as he choked down laughter.

“What is so funny?” Sophie asked indignantly.

“You are like the most vanilla girl ever. Guns? 
You
?” He let out a hearty laugh. “Yes, you are quite the thug, Sophie Taylor.”

“Hey, I could be a bad girl. You’d never know.”

“Yeah, you could be Bonnie to my Clyde.” He winked suggestively.

She smiled, and he dropped the rag to the deck below, needing his hands free to fix another type of engine. “Come here, you little lawbreaker,” he demanded with a grin.

Sophie stepped forward and he lovingly circled his arms around her waist. He leaned into her, his bemused eyes inches from hers.

Peering up at him, she reminded herself to keep breathing.

His sultry voice quietly apologized, “I’m sorry for acting so distant. But no matter how messed up I get about my family, you know how I feel about 
you,
 right?”

She swallowed hard. “This is kind of new … Sometimes I’m not sure.” Her voice trembling, she confessed, “Sometimes I’m afraid you don’t want to be with me.”

He frowned and a determined look set in his eyes. His hand snaked up her spine and gently cradled the back of her head, her soft hair running through his fingers as he drew her face to his. Their lips barely brushed for a few tantalizing seconds. Sophie cupped the smooth skin of his jaw with her hand. Her peripheral vision blurred completely, and she was conscious only of his hypnotic gaze, enraptured by the flecks of emerald green in a sea of sapphire blue.

Finally, his full lips crashed onto hers. He stole all her oxygen in his absorbing liplock, and his tongue playfully flickered into her mouth, exploring and grazing her own. Her hand angled down from his hip and tentatively landed on his rear end, feeling the solid, sculpted muscles beneath her fingertips and causing them both to come up for air.

Their noses nuzzling as they paused, he whispered, “I hope that answered your question. I hope you’re no longer afraid.”

Sophie smiled seductively. “Maybe just a little afraid. I might need more convincing.” She leaned in to resume when a gruff voice loudly interrupted them.

“Un
freaking
believable. No wonder you two wanted to work together.”

They scrambled out of their embrace to find none other than Jerry Stone glowering at them from a few feet away. How had they not heard their parole officer approach?

“Officer Stone,” Grant acknowledged anxiously. He stood perfectly straight. “I didn’t see you there, sir.”

Sophie blushed as she stared at their surprise visitor. “I guess you got the news that I’m working for Eaton Tours?”

Jerry raised his eyebrows. “You call 
that
 working?” Smirking, he added, “If that’s working, then I obviously chose the wrong career.”

Grant coughed nervously. “Sir, you’re here to check up on us?”

“Yes, Madsen. It’s standard procedure to visit you at home and work to make sure you’re not getting into any trouble. I tend to avoid informing you in advance because I enjoy keeping my parolees on their toes. I like the element of surprise.”

“Well, you sure surprised us, sir,” Sophie confirmed uncomfortably.

Jerry chuckled. “Thirty years and that was definitely a first: parolees sucking face right in front of me.” He shuddered. “Jesus, I could have done without that!”

Grant forced himself to recover. “I apologize for the unusual welcome, sir,” he said as he firmly shook Jerry’s hand. “May I show you around the ship?”

Looking at the parolees skeptically, Jerry relented. “That would be fine. Is that your uniform?”

Glancing down at his navy-blue jumpsuit, Grant grinned. “I wore this when I was chief toilet cleaner. But since then I’ve been promoted. I was just doing some maintenance in the engine room down below.”

“You made it up to chief navigator, Madsen?”

“Yes, sir. And I’ve also been filling in as docent on occasion. Would you like to see the bridge?”

Nodding, Jerry appeared impressed. He followed Grant up the stairs to the top deck.

Sophie bit her lip, unsure if she should follow. She looked up at the bridge and found Grant engrossed in explaining the various controls for the ship, with Jerry listening attentively. She sighed and headed toward the bar, her original destination before running into Grant, who was truly a good man, she thought. And who had given her quite a good kiss.

She knelt down, reaching deep into the cabinet for a wayward bottle of rum, and heard Grant’s voice patiently explain, “We run four cruises daily.”

“When are your days off?” Jerry inquired, trailing Grant into the passenger seating area.

“Uh, so far we don’t get any days off,” Grant responded.

Sophie rose and nervously eyed her parole officer from behind the bar.

Noticing her appear over the counter, Jerry asked, “And what are your duties on board, Taylor?”

She blushed. “I, um, serve the drinks, sir?”

Jerry looked disgusted. What kind of boss put a parolee in charge of booze? “And you don’t get any days off? Where is this Roger Eaton?”

Grant and Sophie exchanged nervous glances.

“Who the fuck wants to know?” a familiar male voice grumbled from behind them. Turning around, Grant and Sophie both inhaled sharply to find their boss strolling slowly and unsteadily toward them, working to get his sea legs back.

Grant quickly approached Roger. “Do you need any help, sir?”

Roger waved him off, continuing to stare at the salt-and-pepper-haired invader on his ship. Clearing his throat, Grant introduced them, “Mr. Eaton, this is Officer Stone from the DOC—our parole officer.”

Finally shuffling over to Jerry, Roger breathed heavily as he extended his hand, and the two men shared a vigorous handshake. “The PO is checking up on his cons, huh?” He took a sideways glance at his employees, smirking, “No wonder these two look like they’re about to crap their pants.”

Jerry wasn’t quite sure what to make of this greeting, so he got down to business. “You’re Madsen and Taylor’s employer?”

“That I am,” Roger confirmed. “Though what possessed me to hire 
two
 parolees is beyond me.”

“Are they causing you any trouble, sir?”

Roger decided joking around might not be the best idea at this juncture. “They’ve been doing fine,” he said. “They told you they’ve been running the cruises the past four days?”

Jerry shook his head.

“Yeah, I had a goddamn heart attack and just got released from the hospital,” Roger said. “I had to let these two take over, and from what I can tell so far, they didn’t fuck it up.”

Grant felt his shoulders drop an inch, and he realized how anxiously he’d been awaiting his boss’s assessment of their performance. He had the sense that “not fucking it up” was high praise.

“I’m a little concerned about Taylor working the bar, Mr. Eaton. Has she had proper bartending training?”

Roger shifted uncomfortably. “She’s just a server. We have a bartender who has trained her on spotting fake IDs.”

Sophie stopped breathing at Roger’s lies. They did indeed have a bartender, Dan, who was another of Rog’s old Navy buddies, but he was constantly hung over, which made his attendance at work spotty.

“Have you had any problems with tardiness, insubordination, or association with criminal activity from either parolee?” Jerry asked, still a bit suspicious.

“Nah, none of that,” Roger replied.

Mentally checking off his list of questions for employers, Jerry added, “Any use of alcohol or other substances at work that you know about?”

Now Grant held his breath. He could imagine how fast he would return to Gurnee with an allegation of drunk boating.

Roger maintained his poker face. “Look, I’m just returning from the hospital, so I have to do some investigating to see how these two truly performed in my absence. But I got nothing to report to you indicating that they should go back inside. They were royal pains in the ass, making me go to the hospital when I had chest pain, but they probably saved my life in the process. And they both work very hard.”

Sophie wanted to kiss Roger right then and there, but she restrained herself, anxiously twirling a tendril of blond hair in her fingers instead. She glanced surreptitiously at Grant, who broke his military gaze forward to shoot her a nervous look.

Suddenly, Roger barked, “Speaking of working hard, what the fuck are you two doing just twiddling your thumbs? Get this ship ready for the first cruise!”