In Too Deep (43 page)

Shaun shook his head. “Haven’t
seen her, pal, and she should be on board by now—we’re sailing in
five.”

Hope flickered, died, and then
burst into life. Where was she? Maybe she changed her mind? Maybe
she was waiting for him back at his place?

He whipped around and nearly
collided with Ben, who stood two paces behind him, his hand
outstretched, about to tap him on the shoulder.

“
Where’s Piper?” C’mon, how
desperate did he sound? West shoved his fists into his pants
pockets and said in a lighter tone. “She’ll miss the
ferry.”

Ben dropped his hand, his face
implacable. “She’s not catching the ferry.”

A silly grin crept onto West’s
face. Maybe she
was
back at his place, curled up on the sofa
with one of those trashy paperback crime novels she loved. Or even
better—naked in his bed waiting for make-up sex. Okay, some
groveling on both their sides might be in order before that
particular fantasy came true but—

“
I put her on the first flight out
this morning,” Ben said. “She left half an hour ago.”

His heart stopped. Just stopped
dead. Like each artery pinched shut, trapping volcanic amounts of
blood inside.

“
Back to Wellington?”

“
Yep. I watched her kiss Mum and
Shaye goodbye and board the plane.” Ben tilted his chin, a familiar
family gesture, which sucker-punched his heart into beating
again.

She’d gone.

Piper had gone.

Then somehow he had to figure out
a way to get her back.

***

Nothing like a road trip to put
her new unemployment situation into perspective. Piper wound down
her Mazda’s driver’s-side window and sucked in a lungful of cool
autumn air. Well, technically, she wasn’t unemployed yet—but she’d
handed in her notice two weeks ago when she arrived home. After
that painful discussion with Tom she’d moved in with a friend for a
few days, because left to her own devices in her tiny flat she
would’ve resorted to a pajama-wearing, junk-food eating,
ugly-blotched-faced-crying mess.

But today was a new day. Piper
coasted down the road to the tourist town of Lake Taupo, the lake a
sparkling azure against the snow dusted Mt. Ruapehu rising beyond
the far shore. Soon she’d no longer be a cop. It should’ve made her
sad, but it didn’t. What a wake-up call. She’d spent years making
amends to her father who would’ve kicked her butt if he’d known she
chose to follow his career path out of a skewed sense of duty and
atonement.

Piper indicated and turned off the
road into a bustling lakeside parking lot. Set up in one corner was
a registration desk with a New Zealand Apnea Association banner
staked behind it. She parked and got out of her car, hoping to
catch a glimpse of West’s smiling face. Maybe not smiling after he
saw her here.

She left Wellington yesterday on a
solo road trip—ostensibly to take a little me-time to figure out
her next course of action. Stowing her dive gear in the back seat
spoke volumes about her intentions.

A late night candy bar session—her
go-to vice when life threw manure-loaded curveballs—had
crystallized some stuff in her mind. Stuff like, regardless of
West’s stubbornness and sheer male bravado, he
needed
her
for this competition. Ben was a good, dependable diver, but not in
her league. Because she had skills, mad skills. And whether West
loved her or not, she had his back.

She wouldn’t let another man she
loved drown.

Piper strolled to the registration
desk while trying to look everywhere at once. Where was he? Where
was Ben?

She nodded at the elderly man
perched on a lawn chair behind the desk. “Hi. I’ve come to sign on
as a safety diver for one of your entrants—Ryan Westlake, from
Stewart Island.”

“
Sign on, ay?” The man peered over
his half-rimmed specs. “You’re leaving it late, aren’t you, lass?
Safety diver details were to be completed with the entry form.” He
made a sucking noise with his lower lip. “Let me just check what’s
on his form.” He bent over his laptop and pecked the keys with his
two index fingers.

“
Here he is—Ryan Westlake,
Oban?”

“
That’s him.”

“
Hmm.” He scrolled down the
screen. “Friend of yours, is he?”

“
Uh-huh.”

The man sucked his lip again and
nodded. “I remember that chap now. He’s a favorite to win, you
know—hang on, there’s a note added to his entry.” He shoved his
specs up his nose and leaned closer. “Oh my. Looks like your
friend’s pulled out. Rang the organizer last week, it
seems.”

“
Pulled out? You mean he’s not
here?” Piper pressed her palms on the desk to give her wobbly legs
some stability before she collapsed on her ass.

The man looked over his shoulder
and then back at her. “Not unless he’s here as a
spectator.”

West spectating instead of
competing? Not likely. “Does his file say why he pulled
out?”

A brief shake of his head. “Sorry,
miss. You’ll have to ask him that yourself.”

Piper removed her hands from the
registration desk and shoved them in her jacket pockets so the old
fella wouldn’t see them tremble. “Yeah, I’ll do that.
Thanks.”

She walked back to her car,
climbed in, and braced her palms on the steering wheel.

West quit the free-diving
Nationals. Why?

She thunked her forehead on the
steering wheel to knock the answer into her brain. Her mother and
Shaye promised to let her know if Bill’s health took a downward
turn. Not that, then. Maybe West hadn’t found another safety diver?
Guilt momentarily prickled her skin but she shrugged it off. West
had other diving contacts—not a valid reason to prevent him from
competing.

Had he changed his mind and quit
for her?

Piper thunked her head a second
time. Dumb brain inventing a dumb explanation.

She rubbed her forehead and
watched the boats ferrying competitors out to the dive site. Even
though she denied it, she’d given West an ultimatum. Then, scared
he wouldn’t pick her, she’d run like a whimpering puppy with its
tail tucked between its legs.

Up until this moment she thought
West hadn’t picked her. That leaving Oban without saying goodbye
had been the right thing to do. When West didn’t pound on Kezia and
Shaye’s front door to demand they talk it out, she assumed his
silence meant
decision made.

But maybe he was just a little
slow on the uptake, being a guy and all.

Could this be a sign? A hopeful
sign?

Piper snatched up her phone and
scrolled through her contacts, staring at West’s number as if the
digits were a code revealing his secret thoughts. She sucked at
code-breaking, so she checked her watch: seven thirty-five
a.m.

He’d be at the piano, running his
fingers over the keys. Did he miss the way she brought him coffee
and sat at his side, touching his leg as he wove melodies around
them? Did he miss her? She sure as hell missed him. And more than
she missed the heart she’d left behind in his hands.

Did West miss her? Did he love
her?

One way to find out.

She tossed the phone on the empty
passenger seat and started the car. A phone call wasn’t going to
cut it. Piper preferred to conduct her interrogations in
person.

***

Piper was about to throw up.
Repeatedly throw up. But instead of dragging her own carcass under
a bench to collapse, she had someone else to do it for
her.

Footsteps thumped up beside her.
She continued to scrutinize the green hills of Stewart Island as
the ferry roiled toward it. “Are we there yet?”

“
Keep staring at the horizon,
you’ll be right.” Ben leaned his elbows on the railing, glanced
toward her and then sidled away a step.

Clever man. She was this close to
puking on the new shoes he’d picked up in Invercargill before he
met her at the airport.

Piper hadn’t expected anyone, but
she couldn’t stop beaming at the sight of her big brother sprawled
on an airport seat.

“
I’ve come to hold your sick bag
on the crossing,” Ben said with a grin.

“
You could hold it, but you
so
won’t.”

Opting to travel like the locals,
since she’d soon be one again? Not one of her smartest ideas.
Because even though locals would label this ferry trip glassy
smooth, her stomach disagreed, seething with nerves.

Piper shivered as a gust of wind
flicked sea spray in her face. No turning back for her now. She was
a boots n’ all type of gal. She’d debated flying down to have it
out with West the moment she returned from Taupo, but the gesture
wasn’t big enough. She had to show him how serious she was about
making their relationship work. So she’d emptied her flat, sold her
car to a neighbor’s teenage son, and endured a bon voyage party. No
one on the island knew her plans, except family, and she’d sworn
them to secrecy.

She belonged with West—and on
Stewart Island she’d either negotiate her happily-ever-after,
or—Piper bit her lip, aware of Ben’s scrutiny. She didn’t want to
think about the “or,” because she hadn’t formulated a plan
B.

Plan A consisted of West or
bust.

“
What if he doesn’t…want me?” Even
as the sentence slipped out she couldn’t bear to jinx it by
uttering the “L” word.

Ben draped his arm over her
shoulder. Her brother must love her if he risked puke on his new
shoes. “Oh, he wants you, all right. He’s been a sulky SOB since
you left, snipping at everyone.”

“
West doesn’t sulk and he doesn’t
snip.”

“
Yeah? He told Mrs. Taylor to butt
out of his business when she asked when he was bringing you back
home.”

Piper forgot her stomach. “Get
out! Did she wallop him with one of her sticks?”

“
Nope. She whispered something in
his ear and patted his ass.”

Piper forced a tight smile to her
lips. “Incorrigible old woman.”

Ben gently shoulder-checked her.
“Don’t worry, Stubby. He’s crazy about you.”

“
You better hope so,” she muttered
as the ferry prepared to dock. “Or we’ll end up roomies
again.”

“
Not gonna happen.” He tossed a
wheeling seabird a crust of bread left over from his lunch. “You
think anyone can resist a Harland on a mission? West is toast.” He
chuckled and sauntered away toward the end of the ferry.

Toast, huh? Piper scooped her
daypack off the bench seat and followed her brother.

She only hoped it wasn’t her that
got burned.

***

“
If you don’t get out of my
kitchen—” Shaye said, when West pushed through the swing doors “—so
help me God I’ll yank something vital off you.”

West stared at her flushed face
and the pair of kitchen tongs clacking in his direction and moved
further into her domain, risking emasculation. Showing her his
palms, he shrugged. “Lunch crowd’s getting restless.”

“
Well, they can wait, I’m busy.”
Shaye gave him one last baleful glance and returned to whatever
sizzled in her pans.

West leaned a hip against a
sparkling countertop and tipped his head back to study the ceiling.
Up before dawn, he hadn’t stopped running. With his dad putting in
fewer hours, his best waitress off to greener pastures in
Christchurch, and him having to fill three jobs at once, his tank
ran on a whiff of fumes.

Worst of all, his chest ached from
missing Piper.

He scrubbed a hand down a jaw of
the same texture as a baby cactus. When had he last shaved?
Buggered if he remembered. Though he did remember letting the woman
he loved get away from him—what a dumbass.

Spying the growing pile of pots in
the sink, West peered around the kitchen. “So, where’s
Fraser?”

“
Lunch break.” Shaye plated the
steaks she’d been pan-frying and slid them onto the pass. “Not
everyone is trying to work themselves to death, you know.” She
smacked the bell. “Run to table eight, Lani.”

West swore as Lani swooped on the
plates and disappeared into the restaurant.

Shaye slapped her hands on her hip
and glared. “I’m starting a swear-jar. I figure with your language
lately, I’ll have a trip to Paris by the end of the
month.”

“
Screw Paris.” He strode to the
pots spilling out of the sink and jiggled a handle. “Who’s going to
do all these pots? Me, I suppose.”

“
No, me.”

Piper’s voice behind him weakened
his legs like someone had knee-capped him with a sledgehammer.
Goddammit, had he just hallucinated again? Every morning her
whispers tickled his ear and her fingertips ghosted over his back
as he stood in the shower, head down and eyes shut, until the water
turned freezing. She was everywhere in his house. Every-damn-where
except where she should be—with him. So maybe this was another
cruel trick.