Love Overboard

  Chapter 3

  Stephanie sprawled on the polished fo’c’sle roof and stared at the black sky and bright stars. There aren’t stars like this over Jersey City, she thought. Jersey City had too many lights of its own to be bothered with stars. And if you did see stars, they weren’t close like Maine stars. Jersey City stars were remote, because nature was remote in Jersey City. Jersey City was loud and vital and had great pizza parlors, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a stand of virgin pine. Stephanie closed her eyes and admitted to herself that she definitely missed the pizza. You didn’t just wipe away your old life and start over without a few misgivings, and there had been times in the past two months when she thought she might have made too drastic a change in her lifestyle. Probably she should have moved to Connecticut for a couple of years, bought a few things fromL. L. Bean, then moved to Maine.

  It was the house that had pushed her into it, she decided. When she was nine years old she’d spent the summer with Lucy in Camden and had carried the fascination with the big white house with her ever since. It was one of those bits of baggage that forever floated loose in the mind, surfacing during moments of boredom, triggering fits of fantasy and vague discontent.

  Even though she hadn’t known the history of the house, it had conjured up images of black-frocked, bearded sea captains and their patient wives. She’d recently learned that it had been built in 1805 on the foundation of Red Rasmussen’s lair. It was a magnificent huge box of a house, with a handsome cupola surrounded by a picket-fenced widow’s walk. It had high ceilings with elaborate plaster medallions, black marble fireplaces, elegant moldings, and woodwork that had been carried by schooner from the mahogany forests of South America.

  It sat on a hill overlooking Camden Harbor and was frequently wreathed in fog. It was a house that had weathered hurricane winds, sleet, and snow and had not succumbed to aluminum siding. To a nine-year-old from New Jersey, it had seemed very romantic and exciting. When Stephanie reconsidered it at twenty- nine, it was Haben’s endurance that impressed her the most. Haben was a survivor. It had been built with quality and pride. It felt stable to her at a time when her life was looking shaky.

  Ivan stood watching Stephanie. She has secrets, he thought. She could be disarmingly candid, and yet he had the feeling she was guarding something. She reminded him of a cat that was always listening. Behind the good humor was a constant wariness. It wasn’t cynical, he decided, but rather a kind of mental and physical alertness, as if she continually waited for something to happen. He had a fleeting thought that he might be the cause of all that tension, but quickly discarded it. Don’t flatter yourself, Rasmussen, he mused, this woman’s been up against something a lot more dangerous than your pirate routine.

  She was lying flat out on the deckhouse roof, but she wasn’t relaxed. Ivan felt his heart constrict with the suspicion that she probably hadn’t relaxed in so long she’d lost the ability to do so.

  Ivan saw her eyelids flutter open and knew he’d been detected even though he hadn’t made a move or uttered a sound. The woman had radar. The man who married her would never get away with anything. It was a disconcerting thought. He’d known her for approximately ten hours, and he was thinking about marriage. It was Aunt Tess, he decided. She was getting even with him for selling the house. “I’m a bachelor,” he mumbled under his breath. “I like being a bachelor. Get off my back!”

  Stephanie propped herself on one elbow and looked at Ivan. “Were you mumbling at me?”

  “I was talking to Aunt Tess.”

  “She always sails with you?”

  “Never.”

  Stephanie raised her eyebrows. “This is a special occasion, huh?”

  “I’m beginning to think so.”

  She sat up and swung her legs onto the deck. “This conversation is making me nervous. Is it leading up to something?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Hmmm,” she said, throwing him the cool, appraising look she’d cultivated for teenage con men and twelve-year-old drug dealers. “Okay, then we have an understanding.”

  “Yup.” He eyed her with a critical squint. “Just exactly what are the terms of this understanding?”

  Stephanie fidgeted. Darned if she knew. She just wanted to steer the conversation away from ghosts and sex. She didn’t feel especially brave or knowledgeable about either of those subjects. “I thought the terms were obvious.”

  “No involvement?”

  “Right,” Stephanie said, “no involvement. Physical or otherwise.” Then she smiled at him. It was too late. They were up to their armpits in involvement.

  Ivan smiled back at her. “As the blood relative of Red Rasmussen, I feel it my cavalier obligation to lie once in a while to a pretty woman. What’s your excuse?”

  “My father’s grandmother was a Hungarian Gypsy. My great-uncle Fred defected from the army. My great-grandfather’s brother was hanged for rustling.”

  “That explains it.”

  Stephanie woke up with a start and fell off the edge of her narrow bunk onto the padded bench seat and ultimately onto the cold wood plank floor. She instinctively rolled into a crouch and reached for her gun. When she didn’t find it tucked into the sweats she was using as pajamas, she stayed perfectly motionless while her mind scrambled to place her in the proper environment. The room was black as pitch and unfamiliar. She’d been having a nightmare, and now she was awake—almost.

  “I’ve heard of people jumping out of bed before, but you’ve got them beat. I especially liked the way you reached into your pajamas. Dreaming about me?”

  Stephanie groaned when everything clicked into place. She was on a boat. It was the middle of the night. And for some yet-to-be-explained reason, Ivan Rasmussen had awakened her. She pulled herself up and blinked at him. “Did you wake me?”

  “Time to get up, Sleeping Beauty. Time to get the stove stoked up. Time to get the coffee going. Time to bake the pies.”

  “You have a death wish? Is your insurance paid up?”

  Ivan lit an oil lamp, casting the cabin in a soft glow. “Can I choose my method of death?”

  She put her nose to the ship’s clock on the cabin wall. “It’s five o’clock!”

  “Yeah. I let you sleep an extra half hour.”

  “Ace told me Lucy got up early to bakes pies but I thought he was kidding.”

  Ivan lit two more oil lamps. “Sometimes she bakes cheesecake.”

  “Listen, Ivan, I’ve seen those people up on deck. They’re not in such good shape. They don’t need the calories. They shouldn’t have the cholesterol. There’s nothing wrong with having an apple for dessert,” she said, crawling back into her bunk.

  Ivan grabbed her by the ankle but released it when she growled. She sounded as though she meant business! He considered his options. He could do the caveman thing and haul her out, or he could do the pirate thing and crawl in next to her, or he could do the cowardly thing and try to lure her out with a bribe.

  Ten minutes later, Stephanie opened one eye and sniffed the air. Coffee. She pulled the covers over her head and burrowed under her pillow, but the aroma of coffee crept under the bed linens. “Crud.” He was playing hardball. “Coffee,” she croaked out. “I want coffee.”

  Ivan threw another log into the woodstove. “You have to get up to get it.”

  Stephanie dragged herself out of bed and lurched across the room. “Sneaky, aren’t you?”

  “Yup.”

  She brushed the hair out of her face and took a mug of steaming coffee from him. “Rasmussen men leave something to be desired, do you know that?”

  Ivan poured himself a cup of coffee and grinned at her. “Most women find Rasmussen men to be irresistible.”

  “Irresistible is different from less than perfect.” She looked over at Ace’s empty bunk. “Where’s my partner in crime? Did he jump ship?”

  “He’s been up since four-thirty, like a good galley helper, but he was afraid to wake you. He says you talk in your sleep
about shooting people.”

  Stephanie lowered her eyes and sipped her coffee. “Guess I’ve been watching too much television.”

  Ivan stared at her, wondering if she actually shot people. He remembered the way she’d rolled under the table, crouched, and reached behind her out of instinct, and he felt a chill race down his spine. She said she was twenty-nine, but she looked more like nineteen, her youthful appearance only adding to his un-ease, making him feel ridiculously protective. People shot other people in self-defense, but she didn’t look battered or persecuted. Criminals shot people. He knew she wasn’t a criminal. There was one other possibility. She mentioned earlier that she was sort of a teacher in a government program. Ivan thought that was a stretch. “You’re a cop, aren’t you?”

  She felt her heart stop, then start beating again, very deliberately. Thud, thud, thud. Lord, when would the panic leave her? How many years would it take before that question didn’t make her whole life flash before her eyes? She took a deep breath and kept her voice low and steady. “I was a cop.”

  She said it with a finality and tone that didn’t encourage further discussion. Her mouth was drawn tight, and her gaze held his, challenging him to make a flip remark. He thought of her rolling down the hill and cooking fish-eye soup and got an immediate mental image of Stephanie Lowe starring in one of those goofy Police Academy movies. Then the image changed. He watched the play of emotions on her face and knew she’d been a better cop than cook. Probably one of the best. And he also knew something terrible had happened to her.

  “You don’t want to talk about it, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Everyone has secrets on a pirate vessel,” he said. “It’s allowed.”

  Stephanie felt the tears hot behind her eyes and blinked them back in a rush of relief that Ivan hadn’t asked any more questions.

  “I really should go look for Ace,” Ivan said. “He has a knack for worming his way into a warm bed. He’s probably snuggled next to a sympathetic female body by now, handing her some pathetic line about being an orphan or being a virgin or being abducted by Martians when he was eight.”

  Stephanie smiled at the obvious affection and resigned humor in Ivan’s voice. He was doing a good job of lightening the conversation, and she appreciated it. “Any of it true?”

  “He’s the pampered son of a corporate lawyer. He isn’t an orphan. He isn’t a virgin. And to the best of my knowledge he was never abducted by Martians.”

  “You like him, huh?”

  “Yeah. He’s an okay kid. He reminds me a lot of myself at his age.” He looked at Stephanie and grinned. “I thought I was pretty hot stuff when I was nineteen. Anyway, his dad’s a friend of mine, and he asked me to take Ace on for the summer as a favor.”

  “Ace has been in some trouble,” Stephanie guessed.

  “He’s had problems. I think he’s straightening out.”

  Stephanie gave Ivan a long, considering look. She liked him for keeping Ace’s problems confidential, and she liked him for trying to help by giving Ace a job. She hadn’t expected Ivan the Terrible to have any substance, and it left her momentarily stunned when she realized Ivan might understand what she’d done with her life. She knew she’d have to wrestle with that later.

  She’d also have to think about prejudging men on the quality of their buns. She’d underestimated Ivan Rasmussen because his jeans curved in all the right places. She was afraid to ask about his education. He’d probably graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.

  She moved closer to the stove to warm her bare feet and refill her coffee cup, feeling the caffeine kick in. “I’m awake,” she announced. “Now I’m going to make pies.” She hitched up her sweats and gave Ivan a brazen smile. “I might even make one that’s edible.”

  Someone screamed from the back of the ship, and Stephanie felt her skin crawl at the sound of raw terror. She bolted up the galley stairs and headed for the aft cabin, where she found Mr. Pease trying to calm his wife.

  Loretta Pease saw Ivan enter the cabin behind Stephanie and directed her attention to him. “I was almost killed, right here in this bed. By a woman. Skippy had gotten up to visit the facilities, and this woman just glided in and looked right at me. Wasn’t one of the passengers either. I know all the passengers. Scared me half to death. She was all in black, with her hair done up on top of her head, and she was holding a knife.”

  “Sometimes Loretta likes to take a nip of sherry to start the day off right,” Mr. Pease told Ivan.

  “I didn’t have a nip of sherry, you old coot. I’m telling you, there was a woman here.”

  Stephanie took the older woman’s hand and began collecting information. Loretta Pease was obviously shaken. Her face had been white when they’d arrived, but color was flooding back into it now. Her palm was moist, her hand unsteady. Her glasses were neatly lying on the shelf above the small sink, Stephanie noticed. She remembered Mrs. Pease had pushed her glasses down her nose and looked over them to search for the fish eye in her soup. That meant she was nearsighted. Coupled with the fact that the cabin was dark, it meant she probably hadn’t gotten a very good look at the woman. “Did this person touch you or say anything to you?” Stephanie asked.

  “No. She just stood there with this big knife.”

  “Can you tell me approximately how old she was?”

  “It was too dark. I couldn’t see her face well, but I swear, she had the biggest knife I’ve ever seen. A great big carving knife. Do I smell coffee?”

  “You bet,” Ace said, popping into the cabin. “Fresh brewed aboard the Josiah Savage. Everyone can come below and get some, drink up, then we’ll search the vessel to flush out this woman from hell.”

  “The coffee was a good idea, but I think we could soft-pedal the woman from hell stuff,” Ivan told him.

  “Just an expression,” Ace said affably.

  Stephanie held Mrs. Pease’s plump hand. “Why don’t you get dressed and come down to the galley? You can have some coffee and help me make blueberry muffins for breakfast.”

  An hour later Ivan dropped in to see how the baking was going. He told himself he was checking on Loretta Pease, but he knew it was a lie. Stephanie Lowe fascinated him as no other woman ever had. She’d been a cop! So how did he feel about that, he asked himself. A little threatened? Definitely. And very curious, and very aroused, and oddly pleased. It seemed to suit her. He picked a clump of muffin dough out of Stephanie’s hair. “You’re a mess.”

  “Flatterer.”

  He poured a cup of coffee. “Everything okay here?”

  “We’ve made enough muffins to feed the whole Pacific fleet,” Mrs. Pease said, taking a big basket of warm muffins topside.

  Ivan sipped his coffee. “Ace and I have searched the ship and haven’t turned up anything unusual.”

  Stephanie followed his gaze to the butcher block knife holder and gave him a silent affirmation that his discovery was correct. There was a knife missing.

  She moved next to him and kept her voice low while she filled the last muffin tin. “It’s suspicious but hardly conclusive. I’m not familiar enough with the galley to be sure the knife is missing. Lucy could have lost it or misplaced it.”

  He stared at her for a minute, absorbing the pleasure of being near her, feeling the need to tease her out of her self-imposed silence about her past. He didn’t want to be shut out. He’d go very slowly, he decided. He’d keep it light until she felt comfortable. “Were you like Eddie Murphy?”

  “What?”

  “You know, Beverly Hills Cop. Did you go around sticking bananas in people’s tailpipes?”

  Stephanie smiled. “Figuratively, yes.”

  “And as a former professional, what do you make of this?”

  “I think Mrs. Pease saw something. I’m not sure what.”

  Ivan nodded. “Whatever it was, it vanished into thin air.”

  Stephanie stood statue still, a spoonful of dough poised over the batter bowl. “Like a ghost? Au
nt Tess have any homicidal tendencies?”

  Ivan shook his finger at her. “Don’t even think it! ‘Vanished into thin air’ is just a figure of speech. Aunt Tess doesn’t go skulking around wielding carving knives. She’s a nice old lady. Besides, ghosts don’t look human. They’re… gauzy or something.”

  “Have you ever seen one?”

  “Well, no, not actually.”

  Stephanie put the last batch of muffins in the oven. “Then how do you know what they look like? For that matter, if you’ve never seen a ghost, how can you be sure your house is haunted?”

  “My mother’s seen Tess.”

  Stephanie raised her eyebrows.

  “Tess only shows herself to women.” Ivan took a warm muffin and broke a piece off. “That’s the legend. Only the women of Haben have seen her. And not all of the women. She’s picky about who she scares.” He popped the piece of muffin into his mouth and chewed appreciatively. “These are good!”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Mrs. Pease must have made them.”

  “Boy, that really hurts.” She put the bowl into the sink to be washed and pushed her hair behind her ears, wondering about the legend, wondering if she believed it. “We have muffins and coffee on deck at seven, right?” Stephanie asked Ivan. She unconsciously caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth and stared at him, only partially listening to his answer, her mind still occupied with thoughts of ghosts.

  He grinned at the fresh swipe of batter clinging to her bangs. “Yup. And full breakfast in the galley at eight.” He took a tray and began arranging mugs on it. “So, what do you really want to know?”

  Stephanie wiped her hands on her sweat-pants and realized with a start that she’d been telegraphing her inattention. There’d been a time when she would never have dared do that. Now, there was Ivan, seeing right through her, and she was loving it. It was a good feeling. All those years of evasive answers and role-playing and never letting down her guard were behind her, thank heaven. She’d lost patience with it. She wasn’t all that good at relaxing yet, but she was getting better. “Do you honest-to-goodness believe this Aunt Tess business?”