Lightning Strikes (The Almeida Brothers Trilogy #3) (14 page)

“So leave,” she said.

“I can’t leave.  You have my pants.”

With the same arm she was using to cradle their wet clothes, she wrapped a hand around the door handle of the boat’s interior.  When it didn’t open, she sighed.

“Dammit.”  She stood tall, catching Jack’s eyes.  “Locked. On to the next one.”  She leaped off the boat and down onto the pier next to him, pressing his pants and shirt into his chest.  “Your pants, my good man.”

Jack tilted his head at her and accepted his wet clothes, holding them to his bare chest.

“You’re free to go now. I’m on to the next boat with or without you.”  Holding his exasperated gaze, she crossed over to the boat on the opposite side, rapping the lyrics to
Jay-Z
’s
On to the Next One. 
She gave him a playful look over her shoulder as she shimmied in her bra and panties.

“Nina,” Jack protested, watching her hop onto the next boat.  “Stop this madness and let’s get a hotel room.”

Nina turned to him.  “Where’s the fun in that?  I want to live my
life,
Aries.  I just want to live.  Now will you stop being such a pussy?  I used to do this all the time when I lived here.  Half the boats in this Marina belong to retirees who only come out here in the summer, and most of them are too stupid to lock up their boats.  They’ll never know we’re here.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I have returned your pants—and your shirt—and
still
you are choosing to stay.  Which means you’re probably crazier than me.  The only thing crazier than a crazy person is a crazy person who doesn’t know he’s crazy.”

Jack lifted his brows, fighting a smile.  “You would make a great lawyer.”

Nina froze, met his eyes over her shoulder, and then looked away from him with a frown, bending down at the door of the boat.

“Whoa, did I push a hot button?” Jack asked.  “Why is that a hot button?”

“Why do people need to know every single thing about each other all the time?” she mocked.

“Turning my words around on me?  Allow me to rephrase; you’d make a
fantastic
lawyer.”

“Yeah well.”  She turned back to the door.  “Life doesn’t always work out the way you want it to, does it, Aries?”  She suddenly yelped out loud when the boat’s door clicked open.  “Yes!” She smiled over her shoulder.  “Unlocked baby.  On the fourth try.  That’s a new record for me.”

“Do you want to go to jail today?” Jack asked, remaining on the pier wearing nothing but boxers and a frown of disbelief.

She disappeared down the stairs that led to the bottom of the boat.

Silence fell in.  He stared at the open door of the boat for several minutes.

“What are you
doing
, Jack?” he asked himself, placing one foot on the deck of the boat.  “This woman is going to get you arrested…” His second foot joined the first.  “Prison is not for you.  You would
not
do well in prison.”  He gazed into the open door of the boat, and down the steps where she’d disappeared before he took the first step down as well.

“Oh, screw you!” Nina beamed.  “That doesn’t count!”

Jack cringed.  “Why the hell not?”

“You can’t use characters from movies.  Bilbo doesn’t count.”

“First of all, Bilbo and
bilboes
are two completely different words, spelled in two completely different ways.  Second of all,
bilboes
is absolutely a word.  Just like every other word you’ve challenged me on in the last half hour.”  He motioned to himself.  “I know my words, doll.  I
love
words.  I know more of them than you ever will.  Accept this, please.”

“Never.”  Nina leaped for the dictionary in between them for what had to be the millionth time, hearing him sigh in defeat as she did.  “No way in hell that’s a word.  That is a Lord of the Rings character.”

Since this boat was one of the larger models in the bay, the interior was roomy.  Unlike most of the other fishing boats in the area, they didn’t have to crane their necks to the point of pain just to get around down there.  After climbing down the steps and being greeted by a full-sized mattress in one corner and a small kitchenette in the other, Nina had shrieked in delight.  They’d hit the jackpot with this boat.  After moaning about breaking an entering, minimum sentencing, and how he was too handsome a bastard to survive in whatever prison he’d end up in, Jack had finally done what he did best.

He’d given into her.

After scouring the boat’s supply to see what they had, Nina had been lucky enough to find a board game that would keep them distracted.  To her delight, she hadn’t even had to force him to play.  He’d been more excited than she was.

“It’s a word, woman.  I’m telling you; it’s a word
.
”  He reiterated as she flipped through the dictionary.  The recessed lighting in the domed ceiling hit his serious eyes just enough to pick up the bronze flecks, making them glimmer.

Nina finally found the word after slicing through the pages of the dictionary.  She brought the book so close to her face it touched the tip of her nose, and then she frowned, peeking at him from over the binding.

“What’s it say?” Jack chirped.

She rolled her eyes, bringing the book back down.  “Even if it
is
a word, that doesn’t mean you can define it.  If you can’t define it, it doesn’t count.”

“You’re a terrible sport; you know that?”

“I’ll even give you the first two words of the definition,” she beamed.  “And I bet you still can’t define it.  Bilboes, an i—”

“Iron bar with sliding shackles,” Jack finished.  “Used to confine a prisoner’s ankles.  The very device that is going to be around
our
ankles if anyone catches us on this boat.”

She slammed the dictionary closed, tossing it with pouted lips.  “Lucky guess.”

He smirked.

“I should’ve known you’d throw out every pretentious Aries lawyer word you could think up the moment I chose this game.”

“Judging from all of the sexually explicit word variations
you’ve
come up with, I’d have guessed you’d be a lot more acquainted with words that mean
iron bar.”

“Oh, screw you.”

“So that’s a triple word score for me,” Jack said, leaning over to scribble his latest victory on the score pad they’d been keeping.  He could feel her eyes blazing a hole through the side of his head, and his feelings were confirmed when he met her eyes and saw nothing but pure hatred.  He smiled at the sight, holding out his hands.  “I think we both know what that means.”

She rolled her eyes.

“You have to answer one question, any question.”

“Yeah, I know what the rules are, Aries.  I’m the one who made them up remember?”

“God bless you.  You had no idea how badly you’d screwed up.  If only sexually deviant words were longer, huh?”

“Just shut up and ask me the damn question—even though you couldn’t be bothered to ask me this many questions up until now.”

“What can I say, a little friendly competition brings it right out of me.”  He licked his lips and stared down at the game board for a while, thinking.  A moment later, his eyes lifted to hers.  “Why are you divorcing your husband?”

She brought her knees to her chest.  “That’s not fair.  I haven’t asked you any personal questions like that.”

“When did you lose your virginity, what sized condoms do you wear, and do you eat pussy, are
not
personal questions?”

“Those are fun
questions,” she cried.  “For
fun
.  And I still can’t believe that you lost your virginity at nine-years-old—yet another explanation as to why you’re so battered and broken inside.”

Unmoved, Jack held his hands out, the corner of his mouth lifting.  “I still don’t have an answer to my question.”

“Fine.  It’s like that?  Fine.  Wait until I get my next triple word score.”

“I think we may be waiting quite a while.”

She clicked her teeth.

“Still waiting…” He blinked up at her, giving her a lazy smile.

With a deep sigh, she let her crossed legs flop down onto the bed, making them, and the chips on the Scrabble board bounce.

“It was a long time coming,” she said.

“I’m not satisfied with that answer.”

“Too bad.  That’s the answer.  Now it’s my turn… you fucker…” She mumbled the last two words under her breath while giving every inch of her concentration to her scrabble chips.

Jack took his bottom lip under his teeth, watching her as one minute after another ticked by with her frowning at those pieces.  If he weren’t in direct competition with her, the urge to sneak up behind her, curl his arms around her waist and push his lips against her ear, giving her helpful hints, would’ve been too strong to bear.  Hell, it was too strong to bear, even then.  When she reached for her letters and then stopped herself, pressing her pointer finger between her teeth with a shake of her head, his lips beamed into a full-blown smile.

She snuck a look at him, still thinking.  “Yeah, keep smiling.  I’m about to fuck you up with my next word.  Then it’ll be my turn to ask you a nosey ass question.”

“And I’m going to do you just like you did me, and give you a half-assed answer.”

“My answer wasn’t half-assed.”

“‘It was a long time coming?’  That’s the kind of answer you give to a perfect stranger.”

“We
are
perfect strangers.”

Jack searched her eyes.

When she finally dove into her letters and began spelling out a word, Jack was in rapture.  For a moment, his brow was pulled, wondering where she was going, and just as she was reaching for the last two letters, a laugh escaped his lips.

“How did I know?” he asked, just as she sat down her last letter, an ‘A’.

“Acrophilia,” she said, throwing him a look.  “A fetish for sex in high places.  Mountain tops, rooftops—“

“Airplanes?” Jack offered, tilting his head.  “If only I’d known from the moment you sat down next to me, that you had so many ‘philias’ on your mind.  We could’ve crept into the lavatory, and—”

“Oh shut up already and mark down my triple word score while I think up a question.”  She rubbed her hands together.

“Is there a single dirty word you don’t know?” he asked, leaning over to mark down her score.

“I want to know why your parents weren’t on your Runaway Groom footage? Why haven’t they called you?”

Jack froze in mid-scribble, the smile vanishing from his face.  “That’s two questions.”

“Fine.”  She brought her knees to her chest, hugging them.  “Are your parents in your life?”

Jack looked back at the pad, and, after finishing up what he’d been writing, he set the pen down.  He didn’t look up.   “My parents are dead.”

Nina breathed in deep, pulling her knees tighter to her chest and jamming her eyes shut.  “Jack.”

Hearing the regret in her voice, he licked his lips.  “You didn’t know.”

“I didn’t.”  She shook her head, opening her eyes and meeting his.  “I’m so sorry.”

He played his fingers along the letters, trying to smile.

“I’m an asshole,” she said.  “A vindictive fucking asshole.  I would’ve never asked about them if…”

Jack met her eyes and gave up on trying to concoct a fake smile.  “You didn’t know.”

Nina’s wide eyes fell to his fingers as he went back to studying his letters.  “My husband drew up the papers.”

At her whispered words, Jack’s eyes flew back up.

“I…” She shrugged, letting her eyes close for a moment before looking at him again.  “I was the one who got served.  I was the one who got blindsided.”

“You don’t have to do that.  I asked you a question, and you answered it.  You asked me a question, and I answered it.”

“But I want to answer yours with the same honesty you just answered mine.”  She pushed her curls away from her face before burying her chin in her hand.  “You know how a man’s argument for being angry when his wife gains weight is ‘that’s not the woman I married?’  And how
angry
that answer makes people?  Well, I get it.  By the time I was served the divorce papers, I wasn’t the same woman he married.  He wasn’t the man I married.  Both of us had changed so much; we didn’t recognize each other anymore.  We didn’t recognize our marriage.  For years, we were both living with a complete stranger.  So that’s why I say it was a long time coming.”

“What changed that made you both so unrecognizable?”

“Ah, that…” She pointed at him.  “Is gonna cost you another triple word score, my friend.”

Jack tilted his head with a smile and then surrendered, diving into his letters.

“S-E-X.” Nina laughed when he finished spelling out his word.  “God.  At least my filthy words are creative.  You’re losing your touch.”

“Never underestimate the power of the ‘X’.  That’s eight points.”

“But no triple word score.”

“I’m a man with a plan.”

“Or a man with a filthy mind.”

“You are
one
to talk.”  He laughed.  “Let’s go, Hurricane.  It’s your turn.”

When Nina hit another triple word score, Jack cursed under his breath, not just at the triple word score, but the obscure word that had landed it for her.

“What is this?” he demanded. “Are you hustling me?  Has this been your game all along?”

“You’re not the only one who knows a few
words
, Aries.”

“Fine.”  He jotted down her score and motioned to her.  “Have at it.  What’s the next invasive question?”

“Who’s your number four?” Nina asked.

He blinked, and then frowned.

“You said there are four people in the world who would care that you went down with that plane.  From The Runaway Groom footage in the diner—”

He rolled his eyes the moment he heard “Runaway Groom”.

She ticked off on her fingers.  “There was that blond guy, who I assume was your brother…”

Jack nodded.

She waited for him to tell her more about that blond brother who—though they were apparently at war over a woman—had been blinking back tears in his striking, emerald green eyes as he begged Jack for a simple phone call.  When nothing came, she continued.  “And then the two older people, who I assume are your grandparents?”

Jack nodded, again.

“So that’s three,” she said.  “The fourth one can’t be the manic blonde bride since she’d love nothing more than to see you dead in a ditch.”

Jack cringed.

“So who’s the fourth?”

“Remember when I told you the number
four
might be too generous?” he asked.  “Well, she’s the one that might be too generous.”

“
She
.” Nina’s eyebrows flew up.  “We both know it’s not the bride.  Who is
she
?”

“I’m afraid you’ve exhausted all your questions for this triple word score.”

“Ah,” Nina said, as an epiphany seemed to hit her.  “So you aren’t The Runaway Groom at all, are you?  You can’t be The Runaway Groom if the bride isn’t who you were actually running from.”

Jack spelled out another word as Nina continued enlightening herself, and once he was done, he pointed to it.  “Intrusive.”

Nina chortled.

“Causing annoyance by being unwelcome or uninvited.  Kind of like all these questions you’re asking me.”  He snapped his fingers.  “Oh, and also, triple word score.”

“Yeah, yeah.”  She waved a hand.  “You know, we could just talk without using some board game as a crutch.  We could just have a conversation like normal people.”

“I don’t know how to have normal conversations.”

Nina shook her head, fighting a smile.  “What’s your question?”

“What do you do for a living?”

“Damn.  That’s an easy one.  Are you sure you don’t want to go with something a little more ‘invasive’?  Something that will make my stomach sick the moment I hear it?  Something juicier?”