First Kiss before Frost

Chapter 3

Three

Tristan looked down at the woman plastered on the deck of his boat. Not a local, that was for sure. He would have known her, especially with that British accent. Probably not a tourist, either. Most of the visitors who came through Lost Harbor came prepared with fleece vests and mud boots. Or if they didn’t, they quickly adapted and added a few layers. The boardwalk in particular, the way it extended into Misty Bay, could be windswept and chilly, especially at this point in the season.

But this woman wore black fishnet stockings and half-boots with a heel. Also, her jacket contained no fleece whatsoever. It looked like a black shag rug in the form of a hoodie. Her eyes were dark too, and they seemed to take up half her face as she silently pleaded with him not to give her up.

She could have saved her damsel-in-distress face. Of course he wasn’t going to hand a woman over to some stranger with a flashlight. Any woman. No matter what face they made.

“Haven’t seen a soul until you came through,” he called. “What’s going on?”

“Someone’s missing from the Northern Princess.”

“Maybe they drank a little too much and lost track of time.”

The woman—Lulu? Seriously?—made a comical face at him. She had a face made for comedy, he realized. Expressive eyes, a mouth made for laughs, a dimple, a tiny nose. Everything about her features was just a little bit exaggerated.

“If you see anyone, contact security over at the cruise ship, would you?”

“Will do, sir.”

He looked down at Lulu, whose smile had dropped completely. The moonlight leeched the color from her face. Or was she white with fear? Maybe she thought he was serious about contacting security. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to make her think so.

He kept quiet until the security guard, or whoever he was, had moved out of earshot.

“C’mon,” he said quietly. “Let’s get out of sight.”

“Wait,” she hissed back. “How do I know it’s not out of the frying pan into the fire? I don’t think I should go inside with you.”

Huh. Good point. His sister Toni was an all-around badass, but she’d had a scarring encounter as a teenager in this very harbor. He hadn’t known about it, and it had come as a shock when she’d told him. Since then, he’d questioned a lot of things he never had before. The way his crew sometimes talked about women, for instance. He used to tune it out, but lately he’d been calling guys out when they veered over the line.

He was absolutely no threat to this woman, but just because he knew that didn’t mean she could assume that. She shouldn’t assume that. The world was a long way from how it ought to be.

But if he tried to convince her that he was a good guy, he’d just come off as an ass. The only way you could really prove it was over time.

Besides, he had no need to prove anything to a trespasser. No matter how long her legs were and how intriguing she was.

Shit, he shouldn’t even be looking at her legs. He had a dog to take care of.

In the end, he shrugged. “Up to you. If you leave, be careful on that ladder. You might be dizzy for a little while.”

After taking a bandage out of the med kit, he wrapped it around Fidget’s paw. He’d go after that bit of glass inside the cabin, where he’d have better light.

He bundled Fidget into his arms and got to his feet. Looking down at his unexpected guest, he saw that she still held the ice pack to her head. She looked scared, but he had no idea if he was the cause, or that security guard.

It occurred to him that he could be reading this situation all wrong. What if she’d stolen something from the cruise ship? What if she was the bad guy here? Seemed kind of sexist to assume that she was the victim in this scenario.

“Quick question,” he said in a low voice, in case the security guard could somehow still overhear. “Are you a threat to my boat in any way?”

“What?” She blinked those long eyelashes at him. “Like how?”

He didn’t want to give her any ideas. “Theft?”

“No.”

“Destruction?”

“No.”

“Vandalism?”

“No.”

“Okay. I had to ask, because local superstition says the Northern Princess always brings disaster.” He eyed her one more time, taking in her all-black clothing. Either she’d dressed for on-the-run chic or she had an emo-goth bent. With that quirky offbeat smile of hers, he had to go with on-the-run. “Good luck to you, whether you stay or go. Keep the ice pack.”

Somehow Lulu had forgotten that her head was turning into a block of ice because of that cold pack. She shivered and peeled it away from her head. A breath of wind danced across the water and gave her another chill.

Carrying the dog and the med kit, Tristan moved around toward the hatchway that led to the lower deck of the boat. She’d spent enough time on cruise ships that she knew basic nautical terminology. Hatch. Line. Port. Starboard. As in, she’d been staying in a starboard berth. But she knew nothing about this kind of boat, though she assumed it was meant for fishing.

Okay. That meant the tall man was a fisherman. What else did she know? He was kind to dogs. He hadn’t given her up to the man who said he was a security guard. He’d been irritated to find someone on his boat, but he hadn’t kicked her off. Nor had he leered at her, despite her black fishnets, which were part of her Can-Can act but also the only black stockings she had.

As a cruise ship performer, she’d fended off more than her share of come-ons. Even when she was doing puppet shows for the kids, there was always that one randy single dad who slipped her his cabin number. Sometimes they weren’t even single. Honestly, sometimes she thought her time as a dancer had given her a warped view of humanity.

But this man, so far, hadn’t set off any red flags. Her choices were:

1. Stay on deck and freeze.

2. Leave the boat and find another dumpster to hide behind. With a bonus of possibly running into that “security guard.”

3. Go inside a cozy boat cabin and help a hot guy bandage a dog’s paw.

And then there was the other factor. The entire reason for this escape. She couldn’t go anywhere until she figured that out. If he was going belowdecks, she should go too and do some Desperado reconnaissance.

“Wait. You might need help with Fidget.”

“I got it, don’t you worry your frozen head about it.”

“I worked for a dog groomer for a short time. It’s much easier with two people.”

He shrugged those wide shoulders. “Suit yourself.”

She sniffed the air as another gust came through the harbor. Was that chamomile tea she smelled?

That did it. Some hot tea would be fabulous right now.

She came into a low squat and, keeping her head down, waddled across the deck like a duck. Mr. Bad Guy could have binoculars for all she knew. She couldn’t risk standing up; she had to keep out of sight.

She didn’t straighten up until she reached the bottom of the short stairway that led into a strictly functional galley. Tristan had spread a towel across a table that was bolted to the floor. Fidget lay on top of it like a king who was kindly allowing his paw to be tended to.

Shooting a quick glance around the galley, she spotted nothing out of the ordinary. Then again, if something was out of place, how would she know?

“What are you, a gymnast?” he asked as she stepped to the other side of the table. “That was quite a move you just did.”

He must have been keeping an eye on her progress across the deck.

“I’m a dancer,” she said with some pride. “Well, for now. Actually, maybe not anymore, since it seems that I’ve left my current place of employment.”

“You’ve been working on that cruise ship?”

“Yes. It’s my second stint on a cruise ship, but my first trip to Alaska. I always wanted to be a dancer, but to be honest, my career is probably over now.”

“Hard to get good references when you leave your job in the middle of the night?”

“That too. But I’m thirty and all too familiar with these.” She brandished the cold pack. “Thank you, by the way. My head feels a little better.”

He fished a pair of tweezers from his first-aid case.

“Want me to do that? My hands are smaller than yours.”

Not that she was paying any attention to his hands, with their gentle movements and big knuckles. She’d always been a sucker for a man’s hands. In her opinion, they could tell you a lot about a guy. From her observation of Tristan’s hands, she’d guess that he was strong, steady and cool under pressure.

And the fact that he handed her the tweezers spoke well of him too. He wasn’t afraid to let a woman take the lead.

She bent over Fidget’s paw while he kept a firm grip on the dog’s coat. “Is there a vet in this town? With glass it’s best to get a professional.”

“Yes, we have a veterinary clinic, but I don’t want to wake Doctor Vivian up at this hour. She has a new baby.”

“If the glass is deep enough, it could hit something important. We don’t want to simply yank it out.”

He absorbed her words in a thoughtful way that she appreciated. People didn’t always take dancers seriously, especially ones like her. She was no graceful ballerina; she was the comic relief. “I suppose we could just leave it until morning, but I hate to see him suffer.”

She liked that he used the word “we,” as if he accepted her help with this situation.

“Here, let me see if I can get an idea of how big the piece of glass is.”

“The Olde Salt is pretty good about keeping the area clean. It’s probably a small sliver that got overlooked.”

“The Olde Salt?”

“Local watering hole. Fisherman hangout. Bottles have been broken, I’m not going to lie. But like I said, they’re meticulous about keeping it clean. I know because my sister used to tend bar there. And because I’ve logged some time there myself.”

“I don’t drink much,” she murmured as she bent closer to the piece of glass. Blood dried on the dark pad of Fidget’s paw.

“I don’t either,” he said in a surprised tone. “I have an alcohol allergy.”

“I have an allergy to sobbing on random shoulders, which happens after about one sip of anything alcoholic. The strongest thing I drink is a mocha latte. I don’t suppose you have a cappuccino machine on board?”

“Of course we have one. It’s right next to our massage chair, to the right of the hot stones,” he deadpanned.

She broke out into a wide grin. “You’re funny.”

That drew nothing but a scowl from him. “Focus on Fidget, if you don’t mind. What do you see in there?”

“It looks pretty small to me. Can you move that light closer?”

He picked up an electric lantern and held it over the dog. They both huddled over the Irish setter, who seemed delighted by all the attention. Carefully, she used the tweezers to get some purchase on the piece of glass. When she had a firm grip, she gently drew it out.

With a sigh of relief, she saw that it wasn’t big enough to have hit any major veins.

“Surgery complete.” She adopted an authoritative doctor-ish voice. “Nurse, you can go ahead and close.”

Tristan didn’t seem to mind playing the nurse. “Nice job, Doc.”

He squeezed drops of blood from the pad of Fidget’s paw, then blotted it with a clean antiseptic wipe. The dog whimpered, but despite his name, didn’t fidget too much. Once Tristan had finished cleaning it, he wrapped a bandage around the paw and swatted Fidget on the rump. “You’re good to go, buddy. Come on now. Want a treat?”

“You have dog treats onboard?”

“I promised him salmon and I could never break a promise like that. Salmon is a sacred trust.” He crossed the galley and opened the half-size refrigerator. On the door, she saw an erasable magnetic whiteboard with a grid of chores marked out on it. Clean the head. Make dinner. Swab the floor. That sort of thing. All the spaces were blank, which she assumed meant that he was doing all those chores himself.

He drew out a dish covered with plastic wrap, then with the other hand whipped a plastic bowl off a shelf. All the shelves had pieces of wood nailed across them. In case of stormy weather, she imagined. The galley had a cozy, workmanlike feel to it. A chess set sat in a corner nook, with a box of paperbacks next to it.

Tristan set the bowl, now containing a ruby-red filet of salmon, onto the floor. That did it. Fidget leaped off the table and practically attacked the fish.

Lulu’s stomach growled. She’d been too anxious to eat dinner in the crew quarters after their night’s performances. She’d stuffed some water biscuits and wrapped Godiva chocolates into her jacket pockets—emergency rations, she figured. Would it be rude to whip those out now?

Did most trespassers worry about rudeness?

Digging into her pocket, she withdrew a handful of chocolates. “Would you like a little midnight snack?”

Casting her an odd look, he shook his head.

“Please tell me you don’t have a chocolate allergy too. That would be altogether too grim.”

“No, I love chocolate. But I get the impression that’s all the food you have and I’m not about to take it from you.”

“Not true.” She reached into her other pocket and withdrew the packages of Saltines. “Midnight snack of champions.”

He laughed for the first time and all of a sudden he didn’t look like a stern boat captain but like a playful, very fit surfer. Between the sun-streaked hair and his rugged bone structure, he sure was a looker when he laughed.

And when he didn’t, to be honest. Even when frowning at her, he was a good-looking man, and she’d seen her share as she traveled the world. But when he laughed, he looked like boatloads of fun. No pun intended.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I can fry up some salmon for you. Little thank you for taking care of Fidget so well.”

“Goodness, are you always this nice to trespassers? I’ll have to leave a review on Yelp. ‘When looking for a boat to hide out on, you can’t go wrong with the Desperado. Generous host, decent accommodations. Word to the wise, bring your own cappuccino.’”

He snorted as he moved to the small galley stove. With each movement an efficient symphony of coordination, he whipped out a cast-iron frying pan, flung some olive oil in it, tossed in a salmon filet and shook some kind of spice mixture over the whole thing.

An instant later, a divine fragrance filled the air. Even Fidget lifted his head to sniff. Her mouth watered and her stomach growled again. By the time he plopped a plate on the table before her, he’d added some cold fried potatoes and a pickle.

She gazed up at him, speechless.

“Water? Tea? Ginger ale?” he asked her. “That’s about all I have onboard right now.”

“Some hot tea would be wonderful.” Even though the galley was cozy, the chill from her midnight escape hadn’t left her.

He brought her a box filled with Ziploc bags with labels on them. She sorted through the selection. Very feminine writing filled each label. For sleeping, with some zzzz’s on it. For when you miss me, with a heart.

Wife? Girlfriend?

She shot a covert glance at Tristan’s left hand, but saw no ring. That didn’t mean much, though. Not all married men wore rings. Surgeons, for instance. Mechanics. Cheaters.

She selected some ginger tea, which had a drawing of ocean waves on it. “For seasickness?” she asked.

“Supposedly. I couldn’t say, since I’ve never been seasick a day in my life.”

“Neither have I. Everyone warned me I would when I took the job on the cruise ship. But I never did. Half the time it barely felt like we were at sea. It was like a floating shopping center. A mall, as you would say.”

He filled the teakettle from a water cooler, then put it on the stove. “Are you going to tell me why you left this magical floating mall?”

She hadn’t decided yet. He seemed trustworthy enough, but was there any benefit to telling him? Best to keep her cards close to her vest for now.

“Does it matter? I’m not exactly seeing this as a long-term relationship,” she quipped. “If it were, we’d both have to share some deep dark secrets.”

“Is that how it works?” Amusement rippled through his voice. “What if I don’t have any?”

She eyed him up and down for an extended moment. He was one tall drink of water. Seawater, you could say. He carried himself with confidence and strength. And yet there was a shadow behind those eyes, which she now saw were an extremely attractive shade of gray with a smudge of blue. Her overall impression, based on her limited time on the Desperado and her many years of reading people, was that he had plenty of deep dark secrets.

“If you don’t have any, I recommend you find yourself some,” she said lightly. “Deep dark secrets make any man five times more attractive, depending on the secrets, of course. They should actually make an aftershave for it. Notes of woodsmoke and hidden wounds.”

He was watching her so closely that the whistle of the teakettle made him jump. Moving back to the stove, he poured boiling water into a mug and handed it to her.

Fishing is the New Sexy, it proclaimed in flowing script. At the moment, she couldn’t disagree. What could be sexier than a man who hid you from a bad guy, then made you salmon and seasickness tea?