Hours to Cherish (4 page)

The water—clear, beautiful, peaceful, tranquil—could become a formidable, raging foe, as all who loved it knew. The swirling suction created grabbed at Cat, hanging to her, holding her like the tenacious fingers of quicksand. Trying not to panic as pressure pounded her lungs with the speedy descent, Cat closed her eyes, praying desperately to remain calm. If only she went with the power that assailed her, it would shortly release her.

She was in no more than forty feet of water, but she had never before descended to such a depth without her lungs being filled with air. Don’t! her mind screamed in warning, don’t fight, don’t flail.

It felt like hours that the sea gripped her, interminable hours in which the blood began to pound viciously in her head, the “liquid light” of the water became a swimming black. But it wasn’t hours. It was doubtful that it was more than a minute. Cat felt the water release its hold. The pressure in her lungs was becoming unbearable, but she still fought against panic. She had neared the bottom of the harbor, she couldn’t just rush upward. She could cause herself inestimable damage. Cat forced herself to begin a smooth ascent.

She was startled, as her vision began to clear, to find the stranger streaking toward her. He was so strange-looking, hair whipping away from his temples, features so tense, the tiny lines around his eyes emphasized in the distortion of the water. His eyes, she thought, seeing them for the first time. She was growing giddy with lack of air. A less experienced swimmer would have drowned. She was still near panic and might open her mouth to fill her lungs with the sea and she was noticing a man’s eyes. … But they were familiar … disturbingly so.

His arm slipped around her and she didn’t protest. She couldn’t have. Besides being so dizzy, she was fast losing her reserves of strength.

It was a powerful kick of his legs that brought them to the surface. His arms stayed around her until they reached her Hobie Cat, listing ever so slightly after having righted itself. His hands came around her rib cage beneath her breasts and she was hoisted high out of the water. Her mouth opened; her lungs, starved for oxygen, sucked in. She coughed. A thunderous slap hit her back—one she was vaguely sure would hurtle her again into the water. But her cough desisted—she was gulping for air again, and this time it filled her lungs smoothly. Hung over the fiberglass with the man behind her, Cat let her head go limp and rested her chin, thinking of nothing else but filling her lungs until the mad heave of her chest slowly gave way to a quiet, easy sound. She became aware of the lap of the sea around her, of his flesh against hers. …

“Are you all right?”

Cat nodded to the anxious question and tried to twist to see the face of the stranger. His position would allow no such thing, and rather than accommodating her by moving back, the stranger pressed closer. She glanced at the arms that came around over hers. Well-built arms, she thought, lightly freckled, tufted with dark hair, so sinewed, she doubted if the skin could be pinched.

Familiar.

Just as the eyes, so strange in the sea, had been familiar.

“You are all right,” he ascertained. Cat felt a little quiver race oddly down her spine. She couldn’t see the man’s face, but she had felt the touch of his lips, the velvet whisper of his voice against her ear. … God! She could feel him! Wrung out as she was, she could feel him … quiver at that brush of his lips. …

He was suddenly gone. She sensed him move out, inhale and hold a deep breath, and then smoothly jackknife his sleek form back into the crystal-clear water. He repeated the gesture several times. Cat kept breathing, vaguely wondering what the hell the idiot was doing.

He reappeared by her side—dark glasses beaded and dripping with water but firmly back in place. “Lost them when I plunged in after you,” he explained briefly, adding, “My eyes are sensitive to light.”

It was a lie. Cat knew it was a lie. An obvious lie! But she still didn’t have the strength to tell him he was a liar and demand that he remove the glasses. He was unlikely to do so at her command, and she was in no position to remove them herself.

She just kept breathing and hanging on to the fiberglass, watching him with eyes that clearly accused him of being a liar.

The man hoisted himself onto the Hobie Cat and gripped her wrists to pull her up. “I’ll take us back in,” he murmured. “Seems a couple of your friends are already on their way out for the other Hobie.”

Cat remained silent, watching the tall man steer their craft. She was fascinated by his well-shaped legs, which stretched dripping and glistening not a foot from her face. They were legs like many she had seen, powerful from swimming, from striding a deck. … Nicely covered with that golden brown hair, tanned, deeply, deeply tanned. …

He glanced down to where she leaned over the craft. “Seems like I won, Mrs. Miller.”

It was amazing how the spurt of pure rage could instantly return strength to her body. “What?” Cat shrieked. She almost bolted to her feet but controlled the motion when the craft took a hard keel.

“I won,” the stranger repeated firmly.

“You did not! The race was interrupted!”

“Un-unh,” the stranger said firmly. “The sea is not a predictable critter, Mrs. Miller. You have to be prepared for her idiosyncrasies—even when caused by man. I held my craft.”

“You must be twice my weight!” Cat snapped.

She saw a brow lift in a high arch above the rimof the glasses. “Mrs. Miller—we all enter the game with no handicaps decreed. You have the advantage of harbor knowledge. I didn’t see you give your previous contenders any quarter because of that point in your favor.”

“I freely acknowledge that I know the harbor!”

He tilted back his head and laughed. “I’ll be happy to freely acknowledge my weight.” His tone suddenly grew hard and serious. “You wanted to play the game, Mrs. Miller. Well, you’ve lost. I’m sure Sam will assure you that I shot the finish line. You owe me five hundred thousand dollars.”

“You’re crazy!” Cat protested hotly. “I spilled.”

“That’s your misfortune. According to the rules, I won.”

“You’re all heart and sportsmanship,” Cat said scornfully, determined that she shame him into a rematch. But could she win a rematch?

It didn’t seem to matter if there was a possibility of her winning another race or not. “I’m not interested in sportsmanship at the moment, Mrs. Miller. Like you, I played to win.”

“Tremendous,” Cat muttered with hostility. “Well—sir—” she continued, placing as much disdain as she could manage upon the title, “I’m afraid you’re out of luck. My sportsmanship is as poor as yours. I haven’t got five hundred thousand dollars.”

“I know that.”

Cat’s eyes shot to his, trying to fathom his expression beneath the glasses.

“If you know it,” she demanded with high irritation, “then what the hell are you getting at?”

“We’ll work something out,” he told her complacently, laughing as he saw the firm tightening of her jaw. “In private, of course. I promise no one will know that Cat Miller has to bargain to pay her debts.”

Damn, did she hate this man, Cat thought viciously. Still, she returned his stare, a spark of hope rising within her. Perhaps those on the shore would proclaim the race aborted. They would demand that she be given a rematch.

He laughed again, and Cat had to clench her jaw tightly to keep from jumping up and attempting to strangle him. “Cool down, Mrs. Miller,” he warned lightly. “I was laughing simply because the wheels turning in your head were visible. You think someone is going to rush nobly to your cause. You’re wrong. Every man up there is going to leap to your side—to make sure you’re okay. But I’m willing to bet another half a million that all of them—even your Sam—will proclaim me the winner.”

They were nearing the dock. Heedless of the Hobie’s balance, Cat came to her feet, ready to spring to the planking. “We’ll see about that,” she muttered ominously before leaving him.

But a half hour later she was having to bitterly accept defeat. Just as he had said, her friends and customers had swarmed around her, assuring themselves that she had survived her spill in full health. But after she had cheerfully assured them all she was fine, those same fickle friends turned enthusiastically to the mystery man to offer admiration and heartiest congratulations. Even Sam, damn him! Cat thought. Why couldn’t he be just a little partial when it came to her? But Sam’s honor meant more to him than even Tiger Cay. And he would expect Cat’s honor to be the same.

Sighing as she viewed her sodden reflection in the beveled mirror of her dressing table in the large master suite of the main house, Cat began to nibble at a nail. What the hell was she going to do now? She decided she was as shell-shocked as her first, planned contenders had been with their losses. If she wasn’t in shell shock, she would be standing here screaming in panic.

She turned from the mirror and stared blankly at the nail she had just torn ragged. Legally, she decided, she didn’t owe the man a dime. In fact, their gambling had been
il
legal. But legalities weren’t the point. Here in the out islands, one’s word and honesty meant everything. The man—wasn’t it ridiculous, she owed him more than she owned and she didn’t know his name—apparently didn’t have a moral qualm in the world. And for a man engaging in a “gentleman’s agreement,” he sure as hell wasn’t any gentleman. If he were the least courteous, he would have claimed a mismatch.

The discomfort of still being soaked finally permeated through her mental dilemma. Sighing her frustration and turmoil, Cat moved into the old but elegant Victorian bathroom and stripped off her soggy clothes. For many moments she stood perfectly still, almost incapable of action, as hot water poured over her chilled body.

What the hell had she done? Too late, the question seemed to scream in her mind. She had known all along he had been goading her and she had fallen into the trap. Pride, she thought remorsefully, does goeth before a fall.
He
was supposed to be flat on his face. Instead, she was up to her neck in quicksand, floundering worse than she had been in the water.

This can’t really be happening; I couldn’t possibly have done anything so stupid! But she had. And so now, as she mechanically worked shampoo through the heavy length of her hair, she desperately pondered the stranger. What did he want? He had known she didn’t have the money; in fact, it was if he planned on her not being able to pay up. Bargain to pay her debts, he had said. Bargain what? And when would she get to discover just what he did have up his sleeve? When they had come up to the lodge from the dock, he had cheerily informed her they’d talk later. When was later? Later had best be soon. Forgetting all about her hair, Cat was tearing away at another nail.

Lord, things weren’t half as bad as they were going to be. Jules was due to return to Tiger Cay tomorrow. Maybe that was good. If he irritated her any further, Cat could just tell the stranger to go to hell. She began to laugh, imagining herself calmly asking Jules for five hundred thousand dollars. She’d have to endure a two-hour lecture on the idiocies of her sex.

But Jules had let her down before. She wouldn’t have been gambling in the first place if he had put a little faith in her abilities. Maybe, she thought a little desperately, she could push the wedding. Jules couldn’t possibly refuse to pay his wife’s debts and the five hundred thousand dollars couldn’t be that much of a hardship to him.

Cat sighed and stuck her head beneath the shower spray. She couldn’t do that. Not to Jules. She loved him, even if he did have his quirks. Honor, she told herself bitterly. Sam would be glad if he were to know that she did have a certain sense of honor.

Only if she were desperate would she think of not stalling her upcoming marriage. What do I mean, desperate? her mind shouted. I am desperate!

And waterlogged.

Cat stepped from the shower and vigorously dried herself, toweling her hair so that it wouldn’t drip. Calm down, talk to this man before going berserk. He planned to beat you—by fair means or foul. Maybe he wants something simple.

Like what? Cat frowned suddenly, thinking of Sam’s strange behavior after the race. He hadn’t appeared half as perturbed as he should have been. Cat had demanded to know if he—by any chance—had any idea of who the stranger was. “Maybe, maybe not,” Sam had replied enigmatically. With the crowd heading for the lounge within hearing distance, Cat hadn’t pressed him. “If he’s who I think he is,” Sam had said smugly just before she had left him disgustedly to shower and change, “you’ll figure it out soon enough. You should have figured it out by now.”

“I’m not exactly in the mood for riddles!” Cat had snapped. Sam had only turned away and smiled.

Now I have to wonder what’s the matter with him, too, Cat thought peevishly. Tiger Cay might be slipping from my hands and he’s smiling and talking in puzzles.

I’m going to face that damned cheat right now, she decided firmly. He had played enough games. He wasn’t going to tear apart what was left of her nervous system with any more procrastination.

With determination giving her every movement extra vehemence, Cat wrapped her towel around herself and threw open the bath door—only to stop dead still, incredulity and rage burning her from head to toe.

She had no need to seek out the arrogant stranger who had just made a catastrophe of a life of peace and tranquility. He sat comfortably, a bare ankle crossed over a bare knee, in the wicker rocker that flanked her bed, casually reading her copy of a
Smithsonian
, his eyes, still hidden by the dark glasses, rising as she froze in the doorway.

To top off his disgusting arrogance, he had the audacity to give her that devilish grin she was coming to loathe.

“Y
OU MAY HAVE WON
a bet,” Cat enunciated crisply, “but as of this moment, you have no rights to Tiger Cay. And if you did own Heaven’s Harbour and the lodge, you would still have no rights to my room. What are you? A lockpick as well as a cheat?”

He tossed the magazine on the bed, and smiled as he laced his fingers behind his head and nonchalantly crossed his ankles with his feet propped on her bed—an indication of a long and comfortable stay? Cat wondered.