Hours to Cherish (12 page)

“You haven’t beaten me.”

“But I have, Cat. In a Hobie Cat—in your room.” He grinned, feigning apology and fear as he saw her fingers tighten around her mug and her teeth clench. “But only because I’m heavier, of course!”

Cat suddenly wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh or bash the mug over his head. His next statement, quiet, serious, halted any action on her part. “But I can give you something no other man can, Cat. Real faith, real belief, and real respect. Because I’m not afraid of you, Cat. Nor do I put you on some type of unreachable pedestal, adoring from a distance. I know you, Cat. DeVante will never know you as I do.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Cat interrupted. “You don’t know me anymore.”

“If I’d never known you, Cat, I’d know you. We’re two of a kind. I think you know that too.”

“Really?” Cat arched a brow cryptically. “If you have faith in me, Clay, it’s new.” She suddenly found herself fighting an absurd urge to cry. “I wanted to go with you on other salvage trips. You never let me come.”

Clay stood, dusting the sand from his pants. He was silent for a minute, looking down at her. Then he spoke, softly. “I was wrong, Cat. I made a lot of mistakes—I’ll never deny that.”

He started walking back toward the lodge, hands in his pockets. Twenty feet from her he stopped, turning back. “If you want to find the
Santa Anita
, Cat, meet me in your father’s library at eight tonight.”

Cat stared at him, hesitating, then asked, “Clay, where have you been? How can you expect me to agree to assist you in making my life a disaster when you won’t tell me anything?”

Clay grinned. “If I remember correctly, you didn’t want to know.” He shrugged. “But meet me tonight, and I’ll tell you a little.”

“Sounds like you’re bribing me.”

“Am I? Not really. I already warned you that curiosity killed the Cat.”

“Maybe I’m not that curious.”

“Maybe—but I doubt it.”

Whistling, he started back toward the lodge. “Think I’ll check on my docks.”

“
Your
docks!”

“Sure—if we share five hundred thousand, we share the docks!”

“You’re too much, Miller!”

He didn’t respond. Cat stared after him until his tall form, so lithe and agile as he walked the sand, disappeared. “Damn him!” she muttered. Cat turned her eyes back to the ocean. On the horizon she could see the yacht that had brought Clay, listing gently in the calm surf. Shading her eyes with her hand and squinting, she tried to read the boat’s name. Her heart took a little leap as she made out
Sea Witch II
.

There were little things that Clay hadn’t forgotten
. I was wrong, Cat. I made a lot of mistakes
—
I’ll never deny that
. …

His words came back to plague her. I made mistakes too, Clay, she thought, but I really can’t tell you that because it’s too late to matter. It has to be too late.

Sighing, Cat hugged her knees to her chest. What am I going to do, she wondered, staring out at the boat. If only she had seen the name yesterday, she would have known, she would have recognized Clay. And never fallen for his goading. But would it have made any difference? Clay said it himself, he played to win. He would have merely found another way of twisting her arm.

Why the hell am I playing these games with myself? she asked herself next. Because no matter what he had done, she knew she would meet him in the library. He was right. She wanted the
Santa Anita
.

And I want to know what happened to Clay, I want to know where he has been, even if the answers hurt.
And I want to go with him
.

No, she told herself, it will be a simple business venture. I will never give him my heart again; it’s already been shattered.

“Oh, hell!” Cat muttered, rising and brushing the sand from her jeans. “Why is this happening? I had forgotten you, Clay Miller. I really had. …” Well, you were almost forgotten, she added silently.

She turned her steps purposefully for the lodge. The night’s menu needed to be discussed with Swen. Harris Smith of Georgetown was due to arrive for lunch so that they might discuss a trade on diving trips for the guests of their respective lodges. She had a meeting with the staff at three, and with a sales rep from Star Divers at four. By eight, she would be able to meet with Clay with a certain amount of collected cool.

Where the hell was Sam? Cat wondered irritably. She stopped in her tracks and her gaze turned back to the turquoise water and the
Sea Witch II
swaying like a crystal beauty at anchor. Clay would never leave the yacht like that for an extended period of time.

Damn it! So that’s where Sam was! Guarding the
Sea Witch II.
He had already gone over to the enemy. Cat could feel the temperature of her blood rising steadily, and kicked up a pile of sand to lose steam. “Oh, the hell with all of them,” she muttered. “There’s probably not a male in the world worth trusting! I just hope one of those two is planning on taking out the afternoon diving party!”

Clay took a long sip of beer, crooked his elbow behind his head, and lay back against the hull of the
Sea Witch II,
squinting as he stared into the brilliance of the sun at noon. He closed his eyes completely. It was comfortable here, the sun was hot but the sea breeze cool, the waves beneath him created a gentle lull. Last night hadn’t given him much sleep, and now he could feel lethargy seeping into his system. He didn’t really fight it.

It was funny, he thought, it had been a day just like this when his life had taken its strange detour. The boat had been another
Sea Witch
, his first, and the woman who had filled his thoughts, as she did now, was also his sea witch, Cat. He had thought of her thus from the day they had met. She combined all the elements and mysteries of the sea, passion and turbulence, gaiety and depth, crystal calm and clarity and raging storms.

He hadn’t known he loved her when he married her. He did know that Jason Windemere wished to see his headstrong daughter wed, and he knew that Cat fascinated him as no other woman ever had. Never had he met a woman more innately sensual, beguiling, and innocent, yet possessing an inner peace. Once he held her, he became entranced. She was a witch—a sea witch. He couldn’t sleep, because all he could do was think of her, remember her in his arms, the feel of long slim legs entwined with his. She was an obsession, he had to have her, had to keep her, his alone.

But at twenty-six, he had also been determined to seek his fortune and make his name. Somehow he had expected that marriage would tame Cat, change her into a sweet and docile creature, content to wait to greet him each time he returned, the perfect female, soft and beautiful, welcoming him with fragrant hair and silken skin.

Cat had other ideas, and why he had opposed them, he wasn’t sure. He admired his wife’s quick mind; he knew her knowledge of the Bahamian seas and history was comparable to that of a well-programmed computer, and that as well as being one of the most competent divers he had ever met, Cat was capable of spieling off every step taken by Jacques Cousteau in his quest to develop modern-day scuba gear. He didn’t resent his wife’s keen mind; it fascinated him, as did her darkly fringed emerald eyes, abundance of sable hair, her lithe form, so slender and yet so shapely, so perfectly toned.

He simply hadn’t been ready to make her his partner in all things. An orphan, Clay had, by nature and inclination, become a loner. He had worked for every penny he made, seldom strengthening friendships because he was either studying or earning a dollar.

He’d grown up in the heart of Kansas, but even there the lure of the sea had reached him. The ocean granted her treasures to those with perseverance, and he had plenty of that. And the United States Navy had been quite willing to take a poor boy to sea and school him and open up the mystical world of aqua and indigo magic to him.

The Navy had enhanced Clay’s talents and also had given him a certain worldliness and sophistication. He learned he held the power to charm and persuade and had very little trouble getting backers for his first expeditions. He quickly became a “name” and the basic principles of honesty and judicial dealings ruled his business from the first; there wasn’t a time when he went out that his backers weren’t well rewarded. By the time Clay married Cat, he was well on his way to a position of prominence—and he had become his own backer.

Had it all really been seven years ago? he wondered, feeling the hot kiss of the sun on his face. Almost. Summer would make it exactly seven years. Seven years since he had lain like this, thinking of Cat, realizing that he loved his wife, admitting to himself that he did flirt with other women in front of her to hurt her. To remind her that he was his own man, that marriage didn’t give her a right to his mind, his plans. He made his decisions, he worked where he chose, when he chose, with whom he chose.

Cat had tied him into knots. Since his years in the Navy, he had enjoyed the company of women, loving variety, taking pleasure, giving pleasure, but never giving his heart, never caring much about seeing any female again. His true mistress had been the sea—until Cat, and reason and logic had gone up in flames. She drove him crazy, and he was well aware he demanded more than he gave. If he could have, he would have possessed her completely, locking her away from everyone. The night he had seen her with another man almost sent him into a murderous rage.

But on the
Sea Witch
that day so many years ago, he had admitted he really loved her, and needed her. And that all their fights were so stupid, because there was no reason on earth why he couldn’t share his dreams and desires with her and have her with him always. She would make a magnificent partner. If he hadn’t been such a macho jackass, he could already have had a life any man would call heaven.

And that was when the sea had begun to swell. Deep in the bowels of the earth, a plate had shifted. And as he had groggily lifted his head, the world began to spin. The water, tranquilly blue just moments before, had become a vortex of viciously spinning black.

Somewhere, miles and miles away, a tidal wave hit from the shattering of the earth deep within the sea. But only those who studied the strange and erratic workings of the
tsunami
would ever guess that the disappearance of Clayton Miller was related. He would simply be cast as another victim of the infamous Devil’s Triangle. …

And yet it would be years before he would remember the action of the sea. It would be years before he would remember anything. His first memory would be that of opening his eyes, of seeing a strange Bahamian with a mouthful of gold teeth smiling down at him with concern. “Hey, mon, you all right? You been floating out there on that plank for a long time, mon. What’s your name? You an American?”

“I don’t know. …” Clay had said.

And so his rescuers had adopted him. They were a carefree crew, singing calypso late into the night, teaching him to play their rattrap guitars. They sang and ate and swam and fished—and carried illegal contraband between the Caribbean and the States. Clay didn’t know a damned thing about himself (not even what he looked like until he saw himself in the mirror in the galley), but he did seem to remember bits and pieces of history and geography. And he didn’t condemn the men with whom he sailed. The islands were famous for breeding poverty; these men had families they hoped to feed and they trafficked in nothing deadly.

But that was not the opinion of the officials who had picked them up in certain hostile waters. They had interrogated the crew, showing a special interest in Clay.

“
Qué es su nombre
? What is your name?” an officer bellowed at him.

“I don’t know my name.
Yo no sé
… I don’t know. …”

They asked him for hours and hours, lights blinding his eyes. If he started to fall, they prodded him up and continued hammering at him. “What is your name? Who are you … who are you … who are you. …”

Then he started to break, laughing until he cried. “I don’t know, if I could tell you, I’d be just ecstatic. …”

They weren’t sadistic monsters; they were merely officers in a country where rules were stringent, liberty meaningless, and duty all. Clay suffered no broken limbs, no beatings. To their credit, they tried very hard to discover his identity. They took his fingerprints, but apparently they never went to the right agencies. And so Clay worked the endless fields of sugarcane. Day after day after day, growing closer and closer to his Bahamian rescuers, who kept singing away their imprisonment.

The nights were the worst. He suffered a dream. He would be lying there and she would come to him, sleek as satin, her movements as fluid as turquoise seas. She was tall, her naked flesh a whisper of silk, her hair, a luxurious tangle of deepest mahogany, cascading over her shoulders, fanning over her breasts, touching him.

Her eyes were emerald, secretive, promising, beguiling. Her smile was as seductive as Circe’s song. She would come near, he would reach out to touch her, to entwine his fingers into the night velvet of her hair, to bring her down to him, feel the length of her hair against his chest, bury himself in its richness.

And then he would waken shaking, sweating. She was so close, so real. Every time he dreamed of her he was sure he would remember. … But the memory didn’t come. He knew he was haunted by an enchantress … by a witch. …

The days became months, the months, years. His body grew hard and strong from constant labor while his mind was honed by all that was around him. He learned that men could be bought, and that escape was possible.

On a moonless night he and his Bahamian rescuers left their prison behind them; their means, a rowboat and the cunning of desperation.

But Clay could not escape his dreams. They haunted his new life as he returned to the sea, following instincts that were also dreams.

And then there was Ariel. Ariel who loved him, but also knew he loved someone else. Ariel who knew she would give him up the day he returned with his memory intact.

It was the sea that had taken his past.

It had been only natural that in the sea he found his past returning. …