Hours to Cherish (20 page)

Cat knew her easy agreement had surprised both Clay and Sam, but as they seemed to accept her words at face value, she smiled again and left through the cabin doors. Plenty of time had passed now.

Just to ease their suspicious little minds, Cat did run the deck hose. She rinsed all the diving paraphernalia left so haphazardly on deck. But then she slipped into her mask and fins, and quietly eased her body over the edge of the port side and into the water. A quick glance told her the direction to take to reach the third boat—Jules’ boat, according to Clay. In just a few minutes she would disprove his haughty assertion.

With slow and easy strokes and the swift power accredited her by virtue of the massive fins, Cat was shortly within reach of her mark. Pausing in the water ten feet from her destination, Cat was able to read the boat’s name:
Chrissy
.

She was a handsome yacht, about forty-five feet in length. And more than that, she was a boat Cat was sure she had never seen before. Clay was wrong. Cat knew every pleasure craft that Jules owned.

Pulling her mask from her face, Cat swam toward the ladder cast over the aft. Catching hold of a rang, she began to climb aboard, calling out, “Ahoy, there!” She slipped off the awkward flippers and tossed them aboard before attempting to step into the craft. No one had appeared on deck and she called out again. “Hello! Is anyone here?”

The main cabin door squeaked slowly open and a man appeared. He was almost Clay’s size, Cat thought, inadvertently taking a step backward and almost returning to the water she had just left. And he wasn’t a kid. His leathered face and limpid, narrowed blue eyes gave him the appearance of a man of at least forty, and he was evidently quite surprised to see her.

He said nothing, and Cat began to feel her first qualms of uneasiness. She began to speak, willing nervousness from the authority in her voice.

“Listen,” she said coolly, “I thought I should come over and warn you about a few things. Those spear guns you’re using are illegal in Bahamian waters, and the Bahamians are very sticky about their laws being obeyed. If the water patrol comes by, you could find yourself under arrest. But more than that, what you’re doing is much more than rude. I’m sure you’ve seen our diving flags up. Killing those sharks for fun is cruel and also dangerous. If you do something like that to some of the divers out here, they’ll come after you. A lot of Bahamians make their living from the sea, and they would think it only justice. …”

Cat’s voice trailed away as two other men of similar shapes and ages suddenly joined the first on deck. They all proceeded to stare at her silently, and a grip of panic knotted into her stomach. She stood straight, determined not to display her nervousness, and began to speak again. “Please be more careful and considerate from here on out. I would hate to be forced to call the water patrol.”

Cat bent to retrieve her mask and fins, the knot in her stomach tightening as she gasped. It had suddenly hit that she recognized the man on the left. She didn’t know him, but, as with Sam, she had seen him before. He captained one of Jules’ salvage barges.

Oh, God! Cat thought, her shock so great that she felt physically ill. Clay had been right and she had been a fool … none so great as a fool determined … but Jules? No, she still couldn’t accept the fact that she had entertained the idea of marriage to a man who would do such a thing.

Maybe they weren’t working for Jules. They were out on their own. Cat thought about Jules, his Gallic charm, his determination to consistently be nothing less than gallant, except for their one argument over the salvage of the
Santa Anita
. …

She abruptly realized that she had gasped and then frozen, and that now the men were looking from one another to her. Cat desperately attempted to repair the damage done by her startled sound of recognition. Her free hand moved to grasp the ship’s rail as she prepared to spring for a quick escape.

“Stop her,” the burly man she had recognized snapped. “She knows me, we can’t let her go now. DeVante will have to deal with her.”

“No!” Cat cried, her protest sick and stunned. They were working for Jules. A man she had laughed with, a man she had cared for deeply, even thought she had loved. …

They moved after her from three directions, their steps assured. Cat finally galvanized into action, springing from the deck.

But too late. Her foot was caught, and though the intent had been only to restrain her, not hurt her, the fury of her own spring sent her head crashing against the hard planking of the deck’s edge. The sharp pain seemed to split her skull, and then she wasn’t feeling anything at all. The world dimmed, then disappeared in a cloud of fog.

“I don’t intend to stay out here for the majority of the work,” Clay told Sam, after telling him his time-estimate for bringing up all that was salvageable was several months. “I’d like to find the jewels,” Clay continued, “or rather, I’d like Cat to be able to find them. They were her dream, and finding the ship was her theory. But other than that, Sam, I want to get back to Tiger Cay. I want to start building a home life.” Clay laughed. “I think I’m getting old, Sam.”

“Maybe,” Sam laughed in return, taking a long sip of beer. He frowned then, more aware of Clay’s past than Cat, and much aware of the hardships endured. Sam had never met a man he respected more than Clayton Miller, and he had determined from the beginning that Cat needed to be back with her husband. But getting Cat to accept the husband who was more than a match for her own fiery temper was proving a slow process.

“Clay,” Sam demanded, his frown deepening, “do you really think DeVante is trying to sabotage this operation?”

“I don’t think it, I know it, Sam,” Clay said firmly, his frown matching his friend’s. “DeVante is in hock all over the place. He took a few chances too many that didn’t pan out.”

Sam narrowed his dark eyes. “How do you know that?”

Clay shrugged, his voice somewhat bitter. “I’ve been keeping tabs on Cat. I heard some things about DeVante within the business—not fact, just rumor. But when I heard about him and Cat, I couldn’t take a chance on rumor being true. So I checked up on DeVante. I called various banks and business concerns, and in a few instances I was able to have him spied on. He always suspected that Cat could find the
Santa Anita
. He simply hadn’t expected she’d be so stubbornly determined to find the ship herself. And he couldn’t take that chance, not unless she married him. And Cat was dragging her feet not even knowing that she couldn’t marry him because I was still alive. DeVante is in trouble, Sam. He doesn’t know that we’ve found the ship, but he knows we’re close. He has to get us out of these waters so that he can search himself. As of tomorrow, though, it will be all over. Our claim will have been secured.”

Sam began to reel off a few of his opinions regarding Jules in very explicit language. Clay firmly contained the twitches that were about to spread a grin across his entire face. Sam adored Cat. He was the finest protector alive. “You mean,” Sam demanded, “that DeVante never cared a thing for Cat, he was always after her property and her knowledge?”

“No,” Clay interrupted, his voice harsh and guttural. “At least,” he added dryly, “I don’t think so. He used to boast of her in every port and about how he was the only man she would ever give more than a hello and good-bye. He wanted her, as if she were a special jewel to covet. So in his rather warped way, it seems he does care about her. From what I’ve been told, he wants her almost as much as he wants the treasure.”

Clay could feel himself tightening as he said the words; his features seemed to tense painfully and he could swear his blood steamed. He had always tried to be logical when he thought of his wife all those years, but logic hadn’t always tempered his feelings. The vision of Cat, naked, her lustrous hair streaming over her shoulders as she approached him, her body so lithe and yet fully shaped, her lips curled in a tantalizing smile, plagued him each time he closed his eyes. He loved her, she was his. Thinking of her in the arms of another man almost made him sick with a possessive rage. But those were gut feelings. Rationally, he had to assume that another man had taken his place and he forced himself to understand. If Cat had been happy, he wouldn’t have interfered. He hadn’t lied to her. If she knew the truth about DeVante and still chose him over Clay, he would exit from her life.

Or so he had thought. But now he had held her again, felt the passion of her body respond to his. She was no longer a vision, or a fantasy. If she wasn’t already aware that she was his, he would simply have to make her so, by fair means or foul—and he admitted freely that a number of his means already had definitely been in the “foul” category.

“Where the hell did she get to, anyway,” Clay murmured, suddenly realizing that it had been some time since she had sweetly smiled and volunteered to rinse all the gear. Suspicion sent a shiver down his spine. It wasn’t like Cat to take to a command so readily, and although he had carefully phrased his words to make his desires sound like a logical explanation, Cat had known she had been issued a challenge.

“Something is wrong,” Clay said tensely, standing to rush out on deck with Sam behind him.

“Her mask and fins are gone,” Sam reported tersely.

“Oh, God,” Clay groaned. “What has that fool woman done?”

But it was himself he wanted to kick. He had been the fool. A sane man didn’t tell a woman that a man she had loved was crooked as a mountain road and simply expect her to believe it. He should have done something, gone with her to challenge the divers.

I wanted her to believe me because she loved me, he thought with rueful remorse. I wanted that faith from her, and I was asking too much. And lord, he thought in a sweat, he didn’t know how far DeVante would go, or just what orders his “workers” had been given.

“Let’s get the dinghy down,” Clay said to Sam. “We’ll move in quietly. …”

As they began rowing silently to the other boat, Clay could think of nothing but the admission he had forced from Cat. DeVante had never shared her bed.

The steam within Clay, the gut feeling he knew to be chauvinistic but still undeniable, began to grow. If Cat was touched, harmed in any way … Clay felt he could easily draw and quarter another human being.

But what if DeVante was on the boat himself? What if Cat did love him, was willing to forgive him once they had talked? So far, the man had been guilty of no more than a little illegal spear fishing.

Sorry, Cat, he whispered inwardly. I’m a liar. I’ll never let you go. You are my wife and I’ll fight you from here to hell and back to keep it that way.

And yet it wasn’t really his wife’s feelings he was worried about as they approached the intruder’s boat. He was simply praying she hadn’t gotten into any trouble.

Cat groaned softly, and it was her own groan that brought her back from the depths of the clouds. She wasn’t at all disoriented. The sound of her moan registered as a warning. She remembered immediately all that had happened, and she kept her eyes tightly shut as she tried to feel her environment and those around her.

She was lying on something soft … a bed within the cabin? … and as the ringing ceased in her ears, she could hear conversation.

“What do we do now? We should just have let her go. We hadn’t really done anything—”

“Don’t be a complete ass!” someone interrupted harshly. “She knew me. The only thing we can do now is get her out of here and to DeVante. He can deal with her, use some of that charm and maybe even get her to hand over her claim.”

“What good is that going to do? Miller is still sitting over the
Santa Anita
, and Miller is her husband.”

“A husband who hasn’t been around in a long time,” the harsh voice snickered in return. “I think DeVante will be happy to get his hands on her.” A laugh sounded. “In fact, I think DeVante will be pleased with the idea of a little revenge. He treated her like the virgin queen, then walks in to find her bedded down with a man she was claiming to be a ghost. Yeah, I think DeVante will be happy to have his ‘fiancée’ back. I don’t think he’ll let her act much like a little ice queen anymore.”

Her stomach was churning so violently that Cat had to swallow to keep herself from becoming physically sick. Oh, dear God, she prayed, forcing her eyes to remain closed with every ounce of her willpower, I have to get out of here.

The task of trying to retain a survival calm almost became impossible as she felt a finger trail over her arm. Another laugh sounded, one that held a hoarse, lascivious tone, sending chills of alarm warnings through Cat’s system. “Can you imagine leaving a woman built like this alone for all that time? Damn it, feel that skin. …”

Do something! Cat’s mind raged, but desperation kept her from falling apart in panic.

She could defend herself, but against three? She forced her mind to retreat to her teachings by Lee Chin. “We are a small race!” the young man had told her with a laugh. “And so we learn to make our adversaries use their power and strength against themselves. Channel your energies, your power is in your center, and the center is a circle of balance and grace. …”

And so she had spent days studying the art of T’ai Chi, learning to control her mind, to perfect the movements of the body. “It is not all hostile,” Lee had told her. “It is also training in peace of mind, in the beautiful possibilities offered the body. …”

And at the time it had been peace of mind, it had been enjoyable, and she had gone on to learn a few of the more aggressive techniques of judo. Cat had been so fond of Lee, so touched by his honorable declaration that he couldn’t pay her but he was at her service, as he was not a man ever to forget a debt … so young, yet so responsible.

But Lee, Cat thought desperately, I failed once. I failed against Clay, but then Clay had obviously had some training. Among the cutthroats and thieves in prison he had learned a lot about survival. It was unlikely that these thugs knew anything but using brute strength.

Cat opened her eyes into slits. She was right inside the cabin door, not more than a few feet from it. Only the man who had touched her was actually near her. If she could escape him, the element of surprise should take her out to the open. And then, pray God, the sea would offer release. And if she was lucky, Clay and Sam would be worrying about her by now. They should be out on deck, searching the water.