Elusive Dawn (12 page)

"I borrowed a shirt of yours," she said casually. "Hope you don't mind." She could see his eyes speculating on whether or not she wore anything beneath the flimsy cotton.

"Not at all," he muttered, turning back to the stove.

Robyn smiled slightly as she gazed at his broad back. The smile was new to her, something that had surprised her only moments before while she'd looked into the mirror and brushed her hair. Her smile, she had realized, was feline in the extreme. The way she imagined women down through the ages must have smiled while busily plotting the downfall of a man...

"Can I help?" she asked brightly.

"Feed your cat," he grunted.

Robyn crossed to his side to open a cabinet door. "My, but we're surly this morning," she observed, getting out the cat food. "Didn't we sleep well?"

Shane neatly flipped a pancake out of the pan and onto a plate. "Since neither one of us is royalty," he said tersely, "you can dispense with the 'we.'
I
slept fine."

Since Robyn had heard him pacing the deck above her head long after she'd turned out her light, she knew that to be a barefaced lie. But she hid another smile and silently fed her cat.

She was encouraged rather than upset by his irritation. It showed her clearly that his good intentions were beginning to get a bit threadbare. And that was just fine with her.

They ate breakfast in something of a strained silence,
then
Shane went up on deck to get them underway while Robyn cleaned up the galley. By the time she mounted the steps, he was ready to raise the sails.

Robyn took the wheel, watching him and humming to herself. Her hair, not braided or pinned up today, fanned out behind her in the breeze as the boat began moving in the brisk wind.

It was oppressively hot even with the wind, and the sky looked a bit hazy. Robyn saw Shane cast several thoughtful glances up while he worked, but he said nothing.

Shane shed his shirt and tossed it back to land at Robyn's feet, leaving him only in shorts and sneakers. She inhaled deeply at the magnificent spectacle. She saw him glance back at her more than once, but what was on his mind she couldn't tell. He came to take the wheel once they were well underway, and she stepped back with a smile.

He returned the smile-half forced and half wary, Robyn thought-but the expression died an almost ludicrous death when she calmly started unbuttoning her shirt.

"Robyn-"

"I think I'll get some sun," she said casually. "Is it too hazy, do you think?" She tossed the shirt onto the padded bench.

Shane's eyes swept her body, taking in the bathing suit that would have turned heads on the Riviera, and then skittered away hastily. "No," he rasped, and then cleared his throat. "No, I don't think it's too hazy. Watch out that you don't burn, though."

"I'll be careful," she promised, leaning against the side of the boat and reaching back to brace herself on the low chrome railing. The suit, she thought cheerfully, certainly had the effect the saleslady had promised.

It was black, one-pieced, and far from demure. Tying at the neck, two narrow strips came down to just barely cover the tips of her small full breasts before joining below her navel, becoming one strip that continued between her thighs and back up over the gentle swell of her bottom. Two skimpy strings anchored the bottom part of the suit by tying around her waist.

The strings were tied in a bow.

Robyn had bought the suit on a whim-mainly because Kris had been teasing her-and had never gotten up the nerve to wear it.
Until now.

She was feeling reckless, and the feeling was wonderful. She felt marvelously free for the first time in literally years, pleasing herself by deciding to tempt the fates and do something out of character. If she had been playing with fire the night before, she was playing with dynamite now, and there was something wild and exhilarating about it.

In that moment, Robyn came closer than she ever had to understanding why men like Shane and Brian shared a love of danger. She was not, like them, risking her life on a dangerous impulse, but she began to understand how danger-any kind of danger- could hold a strange, addictive joy.

"Robyn?"

Emerging from her reflections, she turned her head to look at Shane. "Yes?" she responded, reaching up to brush back a strand of windblown hair and blinking at him in the still-hazy sunlight.

"Where did you get that?"

"What?"

"That suit you nearly have on."

"Why? Don't you like it?" she asked in injured innocence.

Shane very nearly glared at her. "If you're wearing it when we sail into Key West," he said flatly, ignoring her question, "you'll probably be arrested."

"Don't be ridiculous. Everything that should be covered is, so why worry?"

He looked as if he wanted to argue with her, but he said nothing more.

Robyn turned her face back up to the
sun,
feeling rewarded and wondering if her strategy was working as well as she hoped it was. She could feel Shane's eyes on her from time to time, and she discovered yet another unfamiliar sensation: a heady pleasure in the knowledge that he found her body beautiful. She felt a bit like an exhibitionist posing in her skimpy suit, but she told herself firmly that the cause was certainly worthwhile.

Shane's temper became more than a little frayed as the day wore on. He anchored the boat close to one of the small keys near Marathon at lunchtime and dove over the side without explanation. Robyn, whose suit really wasn't designed for swimming, calmly went below and fixed a lunch of sandwiches. A lunch Shane hardly did justice to when he emerged, dripping, from the sea.

Robyn kept her suit on until they got underway again, raising the sails herself this time. She was an old hand at it by now and didn't have to ask for instructions or help from her silently watching skipper.

Tying off the last sail, she started back toward Shane, wondering if she had imagined his low groan moments before. He certainly looked a bit odd, she thought, and she suffered a brief moment of compunction.
But only a brief moment.
She wasn't
doing
anything, after all.

Robyn went down to her cabin and stared at herself for a long moment in the small mirror over the chests.

She carefully brushed the tangles from her hair,
then
changed out of the suit and into a pair of very brief white shorts and a flimsy button-down shirt, the tails of which she tied in a knot beneath her breasts. No
bra,
and it was obvious. She stared into the mirror again,
then
turned away, muttering to herself, "I must make a lousy vamp."

The afternoon, however, progressed quite nicely- for her, anyway. Other sailboats were in strong evidence as they neared Key West, and Robyn enjoyed waving at anybody who waved at her. Most of the wavers, she noted, were men. Shane didn't seem to notice all the attention Robyn was drawing, but he did swear somewhat violently when one busily waving skipper nearly plowed his small sailboat into an even smaller catamaran.

"You," Shane declared flatly, "ought to be locked up!"

"Why?" She looked at him innocently.

"You're a hazard to navigation. And get that damned cat down off the sail!"

"Temper, temper," she chided as she hurried to foil George's attempt to see the world from the top of a mast.

Prudently, she held George in her lap during the rest of the trip into Key West. Nudging Shane was one thing, she decided, but there was no sense in shoving him. Coping with George was the straw he didn't need. There was a fine line between passion and anger.

They tied up the boat at a marina in Key West and went ashore for the few remaining hours of daylight. Shane kept Robyn close to his side while they visited the lighthouse, the Aquarium, and the Little White House. Drawing the inevitable masculine glances, Robyn looked up once to see Shane bestow a stony glare on one perfectly harmless-looking man. She hid a satisfied smile.

She wondered vaguely if falling in love with Shane had done this to her: made her a mass of contradictory impulses. She wanted him, but didn't want to make a commitment. She had been grateful for his platonic rules only days before, but now she wanted them broken.

She wanted him to carry her off to their boat and make love to her until she couldn't think straight, until questions of right and wrong and what was good for her no longer mattered.

Lying alone, but for George, on her bunk that night, Robyn suspected a little grimly that Shane had finally caught on to her game. She wondered what had taken him so long. Not that it mattered. He knew now; there had been speculation in his eyes as he'd wished her good night up on deck. Now that there were two in the game, what role would he play?

He had become a little thoughtful while they'd eaten supper at a hamburger place, narrowed eyes watching her intently. But he had continued to talk to her casually, certainly not demanding an explanation for her behavior.

He didn't ask for an explanation on Saturday, either.

Robyn wore a skimpy bikini during the morning, waving energetically at other boats as they left the marina and nearly hanging over the side in her enthusiasm.

Shane looked amused.

Robyn dug out her bottle of suntan lotion once they were well underway, and asked him to get her back for her since she couldn't reach it.

Shane complied with perfect calm.

Robyn found the remains of the first day's bottle of wine and toasted his health all through lunch.

Shane drank half the bottle and stayed sober as a judge while Robyn fell asleep on the padded bench.

Robyn woke up mid-afternoon, feeling cranky, and purposely let George finally succeed in climbing to the top of the mast.

Shane laughed.

By the time they dropped anchor off Long Key late that afternoon, Robyn was ready to consign man and cat to Davey Jones's Locker and sail home alone.

Banging pots and pans in the galley while Shane got everything ready for night, she was torn between irritation and amusement. Some vamp she was! She couldn't even get the man drunk and take advantage of him, for God's sake!

Damn
that chameleon she'd idiotically fallen in love with! She needed a scorecard to keep up with his moods. Wonderfully tender on that first night; utterly stricken when she'd told him about Brian; calm and reasonable when he'd proposed this trip; charming the first couple of days; bad-tempered and brooding yesterday; and completely cheerful today.

It'd serve him right, she thought sulkily, if she made him fix his own damn supper!

Before she could do more than roughly plan a meal, Shane was yelling down at her from the deck, effectively wiping rebellious thoughts away.

"Better make it a cold supper, Robyn!"

Robyn braced herself automatically as the gentle rocking motion of the boat began to increase in intensity. Frowning, she stared out the tiny porthole above the sink, uneasily realizing that the setting sun was now hidden behind leaden clouds. She quickly put away the pots and pans, hanging on to the sink from time to time to brace herself.

Latching everything securely, she started up the steps to the deck, meeting a nervous George and watching him over her shoulder as he dashed into her cabin.

She found Shane carefully tying the sails down, and her uneasiness increased as she saw his serious face. "What's going on?" she asked, looking worriedly at the choppy water surrounding them.

"Storm," he replied briefly, double-checking the knot he'd just tied.
"Coming out of the Gulf."

"How bad?"

Shane must have heard the anxiety in her voice, because he turned his head to smile reassuringly at her.
"Shouldn't be too bad.
These late afternoon storms usually blow over pretty quickly. And we're in the lee of the island, which helps. We'll probably feel quite a bit of motion, though, so if you're nervous, you'd better go take a pill."

"I've been all right so far," she defended hesitantly.

"Suit yourself." He shrugged.

Robyn decided to take a motion-sickness pill just to be safe.

She'd nearly reached the steps when Shane called out to her.

"Have you started supper yet?"

"No." She paused, looking inquiringly at him.

"Just as well.
We probably won't feel like eating until this is over with."

Having completely abandoned her attempts in the art of vamping, Robyn silently went below and took a pill.
Two, actually.
Then she sat on the narrow bench by the table in the galley and stared at the porthole. It darkened rapidly, brightened from time to time by flashes of lightning. Thunder rumbled distantly, and then closer.

Robyn became aware of rain pattering on the deck above her head just as she heard Shane's feet on the steps. A moment later, he was sliding onto the bench beside her.

"That should do it," he said as if to himself, then sent a sidelong glance at her tense face. "Not worried, are you?"

"Me? Worried? Why should I be worried?"

"We'll be fine, Robyn."

"Right," she murmured.
"Right, skipper."

"I promise."

"I'll hold you to that."

Shane smiled slightly and then suddenly asked for his explanation. "Mind telling me the rules for the little game you've been playing since yesterday?"

Robyn stared at him for a long moment, then asked wryly, "Is
this what's
known as 'getting her mind off things'?"

"Acquit me of any ulterior motives. I'm just curious, that's all."

Suddenly embarrassed by his perception and her own ridiculous games, Robyn stared down at the table top, flushing. "Well, find something else to be curious about,
dammit
," she mumbled.

In a thoughtful voice, for
all the
world as though he were talking about something inconsequential, Shane said, "I couldn't decide whether to take you up on your somewhat blatant offer, or throw you overboard."

"Thanks!" she snapped tartly.

"However, since I'd already decided to abide by my good intentions, there was only one thing to do."