Tossing her suitcase on board, she felt better than she had all night. She unleashed the moorings holding the Marnie Lee fast then climbed to the helm. The engine started on the first try, the dark waters of the sound churning white. Biting her lip, Marnie maneuvered the craft around the other vessels and toward the open waters of Puget Sound.
She decided to head to Orcas Island.
There was an old resort on the island, a resort her father planned to refurbish, and the old hotel would be the perfect place to camp out the first night. From there she would decide what she was going to do with the rest of her life. She couldn’t be Victor Montgomery’s baby forever. Nor did she want to be Kent Simms’s wife. That left Marnie Montgomery, a single woman who had dutifully done everything her father had requested, from college to her career at Montgomery Inns.
Marnie let out the throttle and the boat sped forward, the prow knifing through the choppy dark water, the wind tearing at her hair. She let out a whoop of pure joy!
For the first time in her twenty-four years, she felt completely free. She closed her eyes and felt the soft caress of the wind on her face.
The next few weeks were going to change the course of her life forever!
CHAPTER THREE
ADAM TRIED TO MOVE his cramped muscles. He’d been hiding in a storage closet in the hold for forty-five minutes, according to the luminous face of his watch, and for the last fifteen the boat had been moving, cutting through the water at a pretty good clip. The Marnie Lee pitched and rolled as they traveled, and Adam guessed that the storm was stronger than the weather service had predicted. The force of the gale didn’t seem to deter Simms though; he never turned about.
Good. The farther they were from Port Stanton, the better. Adam couldn’t wait to see the look on Simms’s face when he appeared on deck.
Adam gave Kent another fifteen minutes, then eased himself from the tight quarters. He’d stashed an overnight bag in the galley because he’d learned over the past year to be prepared for anything. He didn’t know how long he’d be stuck with Kent—he hadn’t worked that out yet. A lot depended upon Simms’s attitude and what kind of deal they could cut, because, Adam was sure that Kent Simms was up to his eyeballs in the embezzling mess. There was a chance that Simms hadn’t been involved, but the probability was slim. From his overreaction at the sight of Adam, to his insistence that security be called, Simms looked guilty as hell. Yep, Simms was hiding something. Adam just had to find out what it was and how it was tied to the embezzling.
He glanced up the stairs, felt the lash of rain and wind and decided to give Kent a couple more minutes while he changed. Tossing his bag into an empty cabin, he stripped out of his tux and slid into jeans, flannel shirt, sweater and high-tops. Finally he flung a black poncho over his head.
Using sea legs he’d acquired in the navy, he climbed up two flights to the bridge and twisted his lips into a grim smile at the thought of scaring the living hell out of Simms. If nothing else, Simms’s reaction would be worth the rocky ride.
Flinging open the door of the bridge, he stopped stock-still. A blast of wind caught the door, ripping the door latch from his hands. Papers rustled and caught in the icy breeze. Marnie Montgomery, planted at the helm, nearly jumped out of her skin. With a scream that died in her throat, she whipped around and fumbled in the pocket of her jacket, presumably for a weapon. The helm spun crazily and the boat shuddered.
“Drake? What the hell are you doing here?” she cried, her face ashen, her hair blowing in the wind as she scrabbled to regain control of the spinning wheel. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
He was as stunned as she. Marnie? Here? At the wheel in the middle of a gale-force storm? The wind was fierce, the waters of the sound rolling and unpredictable.
“I asked you a question,” she said, her blue eyes dark as the angry ocean. “And close the door, for crying out loud!”
Damn his rotten luck! Adam caught hold of the latch and pulled the door shut behind him. The door slammed tight, shutting out the wind and rain.
Papers stopped blowing, and Marnie’s blond hair fell back to her shoulders. “Well?”
His entire plan—spontaneous as it had been—depended upon getting Simms alone. Now he had to deal with Simms’s angry lover. Terrific! Just damned terrific. “I’m looking for Kent Simms.”
“Here?” she said, laughing bitterly. The disgusted look she sent him accused him of being out of his mind. “You expected him on board?”
“Isn’t he?”
“Not if he has a brain,” she muttered. Scowling, she added, “I think Kent’s back at the hotel, living the good life, kissing up to my father.” She turned her concentration back to the sea.
So she was still furious. Good. Her anger might work to his advantage, Adam thought. Now that he was on this pitching boat in the middle of a storm, he had to improvise his hasty plan, and though he wasn’t quite sure how, he knew instinctively that any rift between Simms and Victor Montgomery’s daughter was a good sign.
“What do you want with him?” she asked, never taking her eyes off the boat’s prow.
“We need to talk.”
“About what?” Her voice was casual, but he noticed a glint of suspicion in her gaze as she hazarded a quick glance in his direction. “No, don’t tell me. Let me guess. This has something to do with the reason you crashed the party, doesn’t it?”
When he didn’t immediately respond, she plunged ahead. “And since I don’t think you’re interested in filling out a job application for Montgomery Inns, you must want to talk about the money that’s missing from the Puget West project. Right?”
It galled him the way she talked about the embezzlement so flippantly. He’d gone through hell in the past twelve months, and she acted as though it didn’t really matter, just a little inconvenience.
She wasn’t finished. “If you want my advice—”
“I didn’t come here for—”
“You should just get on with your life.”
“I’m not here for advice.”
“Then you shouldn’t have stowed away on my boat.”
Her boat? “The Marnie Lee belongs to Simms.”
She smiled at that, and her face softened a little. Even under the harsh lights of the bridge, with her hair still wet and her face without a trace of makeup, she was a beautiful woman. “Half of the Marnie Lee belongs to Kent. Unfortunately for him, his half is nailed to my half and I decided to leave the party early.”
“Why?”
She sent him another hard look, a line forming between her brows. “It was time,” she replied, without giving him a clue to her motives.
“Does it have anything to do with your fight with Simms?”
Marnie started to answer, then held her tongue. She should be the person asking questions, not the other way around! What the devil was Drake doing on her boat? She felt nervous and hot, though the bridge was barely 50˚ F. Adam had always put her on edge; his angled features, thick hair and intense eyes fairly screamed “sexy,” but she’d ignored his rakish good looks when she’d worked with him. She knew a lot of attractive men, but Adam was different. He was more than just simply handsome. There was a restlessness about him, an earthiness coupled with repressed anger that caused her to react to him on a primal level. Kent had called Adam primitive and for once he’d been right: there was a certain primal sexuality to the man.
So here he was, in the tiny bridge, a storm thundering outside, the boat lurching and tilting, and all she could think about was keeping distance between herself and him.
“You made a mistake,” she said flatly.
“Just one?” One side of his mouth lifted.
Marnie gripped the helm and felt her palms dampen with sweat. All she wanted was to escape her past and sort out her identity. But now she had to deal with Adam Drake. Even though he had come to her rescue at the party, she didn’t want him fouling up her first real bid for freedom. “Look, you’ve got to get off the boat.”
“Why?”
“You’re not part of my plan.”
He snorted and tossed back the hood of his poncho. “We’ve got more in common than I thought. You weren’t part of mine.”
“Let’s get one thing straight—we’ve got nothing in common.”
He glanced at her sharply. “So you’re a believer in the great lie, too. You really think I skimmed off money from the Puget West project.”
“There’s been no other explanation,” she said, hedging.
“I was cleared, damn it!” In two swift strides he was so close to her that she noticed the gold flecks in his brown eyes. His nostrils flared in outrage.
“You weren’t cleared,” she said evenly, “there just wasn’t enough evidence to indict you.”
He drew in his breath sharply; the air whistled through his teeth. “Well, Miss Montgomery, I guess I was wrong about you. I thought you might be the one person in the entire Montgomery Inns empire that realized I’d been set up. But you’re just like the rest, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m different. I ended up with you as a stowaway. I didn’t ask you to come on board, did I? As far as I’m concerned you should get off my boat.” She considered telling him that she’d stood up to her father and the board, declaring him innocent, but decided the truth, right now, was pointless.
Adam’s gaze raked down her. “What do you want me to do? Walk the plank?”
“If only I had one.” He could joke at a time like this? The man was incorrigible! There was a slight chance that he was a thief, and now he’d stowed away on the boat, proving that he obviously had no scruples whatsoever. And yet there had been a time when Marnie had relied upon his judgment, had trusted his interpretation of the facts. She had sat through many meetings with Adam in attendance. He always spoke his mind, arguing with her father when necessary. Unlike Kent, who worked diligently to have no mind of his own and think exactly like her father. The proverbial yes-man. She shivered at the thought that she’d once believed she loved him. She’d been a blind fool, a rich girl caught up in the fantasy of love.
The Marnie Lee groaned against the weight of a wave, and a tremor passed through the hull. The wheel slid through Marnie’s fingers, and Adam grabbed hold of the helm, his arms imprisoning her as he strained against the wheel. “Only an idiot would sail in a storm like this,” he muttered.
An idiot or someone hell-bent to have a life of her own, she thought angrily, surrounded by the smell of him. The scent of after-shave was nearly obscured by the fresh odor of water and ocean that clung to his skin. His hair gleamed under the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling and his features were set into a hard mask as unforgiving as the sea.
“Do I have to remind you that you’ve shown up uninvited twice in one night? That must be some kind of record, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know what to think right now,” he admitted, his eyebrows thrust together and deep lines of concentration etching his forehead, “but I sure as hell can come up with a hundred places I’d rather be.”
“That makes two of us,” she snapped, as his arms relaxed and he stepped back, giving her control of the vessel again. “We’ll put into port at Chinook Harbor.”
“That’s where you’re going?”
“It’s a little out of the way.” But worth it, to get rid of you, she thought unkindly. She didn’t need any complications on this trip, and any way she looked at it, Adam Drake was a complication. He stepped away from her, and she commanded the boat again, glad for the feel of the polished wheel in her hands. A hundred questions plagued her. What did he want with Kent? Why had he stowed away? How involved in the embezzling was he? And why, oh Lord, why, did she find him the least bit attractive? The man was trouble—pure and simple.
The storm didn’t slow down for a minute. Harsh winds screamed across the deck and waves curled high to batter the hull repeatedly. Marnie’s stomach spent most of the trip in her throat, and she didn’t have time to consider Adam again. He made himself useful, helping read the charts and maps as they headed into the cluster of San Juan Islands.
Her plan was to drop him off in Chinook Harbor, spend the night on the boat, then, as soon as the storm passed, sail around the tip of the island to Deception Lodge, an antiquated resort her father wanted to restore. Making camp in a potential Montgomery Inn bothered her a little; the lodge still belonged to her father and as long as she was seeking shelter on Montgomery soil, she wasn’t truly free.
“But soon,” she muttered as she spied a few lights winking in the distance, lights that had to be on Orcas Island.
“But soon—what?”
She shot him a look that told him it was none of his business, and was about to turn inland when she spotted the buoy bobbing crazily ahead.
“Watch out,” Adam commanded, but the sea swelled under the boat like a creature climbing from the depths. “Marnie, you’re too close!”
Panicked, she checked the gauges. “Too close to what!”
CRACK! The Marnie Lee trembled violently, and for a second Marnie thought the boat was about to split apart.
“Damn it, woman, get out of the way.” Adam shoved her aside and threw open the door.
“You can’t go out…” Her voice was carried away by the cry of the wind.
“Just steer the boat, for God’s sake!”
Horrified, still trying to set the Marnie Lee back on course, she watched as Adam tied a rope around his waist, then worked his way around the bow, rain beating on his head, his hands moving one over the other on the rail. He paused at the starboard side, leaned over, then braced himself as another swell rolled over the deck, engulfing him. Marnie’s heart leaped to her throat. She saw the lifeline stretch taut. Her stomach lurched as the wave retreated and Adam, drenched, still braced against the force of the wave, appeared again.
“Thank God,” she whispered, her throat raw, “Now, Drake, damn your stubborn hide, get below deck and dry out.”
Another torrent of water washed over the deck and once again Adam vanished for a few terror-filled seconds. This time, when the water receded, he moved along the rail again before disappearing on the stairs.
She guided the ship by instinct; she’d learned sailing from her father years before. But all the while her nerves were strung tight, her ears cocked to the door.
Nearly ten minutes later, Adam returned to the bridge, dripping and coughing saltwater and glaring at her as if she were responsible for the storm. “There’s a crack in the hull—a small one on the starboard side, on line with the galley,” he said. “Not a big gash, but it’s not going away. You’re taking on water—slowly. I used some sealer I found downstairs, but it won’t hold, at least not forever.” His eyes were dark and serious. “You’ve got to turn inland.”
“But there’s no port for miles.”
“You don’t have a choice. The island’s close enough. Just head for land. We’ll worry about a harbor when we get closer.” He picked up the microphone for the radio and started to call the Coast Guard, but Marnie flipped the switch, turning off his cry for help.
“We’ll make it ourselves,” she said, refusing, in her first few hours of freedom, to give up any small bit of her independence. “Besides, I think the storm’s about over, the rain’s stopping.”
“Did you hear me, Marnie?” he demanded, ignoring her assessment of the situation. “Rain or no rain, sooner or later, this boat is going to sink like a stone. And we’re going to sink with her.”
“But not for a while. Right?”
“Unless we hit something else.”
“How long do we have?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Ten minutes? Twenty? Two hours?”
“Hell, I don’t know, but you can’t take a chance like this!”
“Why not?” she demanded, cranking hard on the wheel and checking the maps of the area again. They weren’t far from her destination, the point where Deception Lodge was sprawled on high cliffs over the ocean. If she could
beach the Marnie Lee soon, she wouldn’t have to call for help and suffer the indignities of having Victor running to save her only to remind her that she wasn’t yet ready to fly on her own wings. Well, damn it, he was wrong. And so was Adam Drake. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about your neck, Mr. Drake.”
“No more than I am about yours.” Sarcasm tainted his voice.
“Then help me get this boat to shore.”
He eyed her for a minute. “And for that, I get what?”
“A bargain? Now, you want to bargain with me?” she asked incredulously. She couldn’t believe her ears. “Isn’t staying alive enough?”
His lips curved crookedly. “Give me a little more incentive. My life this past year hasn’t been that great.”
Unbelievable! While the boat rocked beneath them, he wanted to barter. Marnie didn’t have time. “Okay, okay already. So I’ll owe you one,” she said, furious until she saw the glint of satisfaction in his dark eyes.
“All right, Marnie. You steer. I’ll keep the gash from getting any worse.” He started for the door but stopped, glancing back over his shoulder, his hair falling over his eyes. “What is this, anyway—some sort of quest? What’re you trying to prove?”
When she didn’t answer, he strode out the door. Marnie wasn’t about to confide in him; he could bloody well think what he wanted. After all, he hadn’t been invited along. She owed him nothing. Not even an explanation. Besides, if anyone had an explanation coming, it was she. What the devil was he doing looking for Kent on this boat?
She struggled with the helm until her muscles began to ache. Then, as she turned east, the storm abated. Waves still washed over the deck, but the wrath of the storm was spent, the wind no longer keening over the black water. The clouds, which had so jealously covered the moon, thinned to become a gauzy filter for weak moonlight.