Love Overboard Part 3

Stephanie woke up with a start and fell off the edge of her narrow bunk onto the padded bench seat and ultimately onto the cold wood plank floor. She instinctively rolled into a crouch and reached for her gun. When she didn't find it tucked into the sweats she was using as pajamas, she stayed perfectly motionless while her mind scrambled to place her in the proper environment. The room was black as pitch and unfamiliar. She'd been having a nightmare, and now she was awake-almost.

"I've heard of people jumping out of bed before, but you've got them beat. I especially liked the way you reached into your pajamas. Dreaming about me?"

Stephanie groaned when everything clicked into place. She was on a boat. It was the middle of the night. And for some yet-to-be-explained reason, Ivan Rasmussen had awakened her. She pulled herself up and blinked at him. "Did you wake me?"

"Time to get up, Sleeping Beauty. Time to get the stove stoked up. Time to get the coffee going. Time to bake the pies."

"You have a death wish? Is your insurance paid up?"

Ivan lit an oil lamp, casting the cabin in a soft glow. "Can I choose my method of death?"

She put her nose to the s.h.i.+p's clock on the cabin wall. "It's five o'clock!"

"Yeah. I let you sleep an extra half hour."

"Ace told me Lucy got up early to bakes pies but I thought he was kidding."

Ivan lit two more oil lamps. "Sometimes she bakes cheesecake."

"Listen, Ivan, I've seen those people up on deck. They're not in such good shape. They don't need the calories. They shouldn't have the cholesterol. There's nothing wrong with having an apple for dessert," she said, crawling back into her bunk.

Ivan grabbed her by the ankle but released it when she growled. She sounded as though she meant business! He considered his options. He could do the caveman thing and haul her out, or he could do the pirate thing and crawl in next to her, or he could do the cowardly thing and try to lure her out with a bribe.

Ten minutes later, Stephanie opened one eye and sniffed the air. Coffee. She pulled the covers over her head and burrowed under her pillow, but the aroma of coffee crept under the bed linens. "Crud." He was playing hardball. "Coffee," she croaked out. "I want coffee."

Ivan threw another log into the woodstove. "You have to get up to get it."

Stephanie dragged herself out of bed and lurched across the room. "Sneaky, aren't you?"

"Yup."

She brushed the hair out of her face and took a mug of steaming coffee from him. "Rasmussen men leave something to be desired, do you know that?"

Ivan poured himself a cup of coffee and grinned at her. "Most women find Rasmussen men to be irresistible."

"Irresistible is different from less than perfect." She looked over at Ace's empty bunk. "Where's my partner in crime? Did he jump s.h.i.+p?"

"He's been up since four-thirty, like a good galley helper, but he was afraid to wake you. He says you talk in your sleep about shooting people."

Stephanie lowered her eyes and sipped her coffee. "Guess I've been watching too much television."

Ivan stared at her, wondering if she actually shot people. He remembered the way she'd rolled under the table, crouched, and reached behind her out of instinct, and he felt a chill race down his spine. She said she was twenty-nine, but she looked more like nineteen, her youthful appearance only adding to his un-ease, making him feel ridiculously protective. People shot other people in self-defense, but she didn't look battered or persecuted. Criminals shot people. He knew she wasn't a criminal. There was one other possibility. She mentioned earlier that she was sort of a teacher in a government program. Ivan thought that was a stretch. "You're a cop, aren't you?"

She felt her heart stop, then start beating again, very deliberately. Thud, thud, thud. Lord, when would the panic leave her? How many years would it take before that question didn't make her whole life flash before her eyes? She took a deep breath and kept her voice low and steady. "I was a cop."

She said it with a finality and tone that didn't encourage further discussion. Her mouth was drawn tight, and her gaze held his, challenging him to make a flip remark. He thought of her rolling down the hill and cooking fish-eye soup and got an immediate mental image of Stephanie Lowe starring in one of those goofy Police Academy movies. Then the image changed. He watched the play of emotions on her face and knew she'd been a better cop than cook. Probably one of the best. And he also knew something terrible had happened to her.

"You don't want to talk about it, do you?"

"No."

"Everyone has secrets on a pirate vessel," he said. "It's allowed."

Stephanie felt the tears hot behind her eyes and blinked them back in a rush of relief that Ivan hadn't asked any more questions.

"I really should go look for Ace," Ivan said. "He has a knack for worming his way into a warm bed. He's probably snuggled next to a sympathetic female body by now, handing her some pathetic line about being an orphan or being a virgin or being abducted by Martians when he was eight."

Stephanie smiled at the obvious affection and resigned humor in Ivan's voice. He was doing a good job of lightening the conversation, and she appreciated it. "Any of it true?"

"He's the pampered son of a corporate lawyer. He isn't an orphan. He isn't a virgin. And to the best of my knowledge he was never abducted by Martians."

"You like him, huh?"

"Yeah. He's an okay kid. He reminds me a lot of myself at his age." He looked at Stephanie and grinned. "I thought I was pretty hot stuff when I was nineteen. Anyway, his dad's a friend of mine, and he asked me to take Ace on for the summer as a favor."

"Ace has been in some trouble," Stephanie guessed.

"He's had problems. I think he's straightening out."

Stephanie gave Ivan a long, considering look. She liked him for keeping Ace's problems confidential, and she liked him for trying to help by giving Ace a job. She hadn't expected Ivan the Terrible to have any substance, and it left her momentarily stunned when she realized Ivan might understand what she'd done with her life. She knew she'd have to wrestle with that later.

She'd also have to think about prejudging men on the quality of their buns. She'd underestimated Ivan Rasmussen because his jeans curved in all the right places. She was afraid to ask about his education. He'd probably graduated magna c.u.m laude from Harvard Law School.

She moved closer to the stove to warm her bare feet and refill her coffee cup, feeling the caffeine kick in. "I'm awake," she announced. "Now I'm going to make pies." She hitched up her sweats and gave Ivan a brazen smile. "I might even make one that's edible."

Someone screamed from the back of the s.h.i.+p, and Stephanie felt her skin crawl at the sound of raw terror. She bolted up the galley stairs and headed for the aft cabin, where she found Mr. Pease trying to calm his wife.

Loretta Pease saw Ivan enter the cabin behind Stephanie and directed her attention to him. "I was almost killed, right here in this bed. By a woman. Skippy had gotten up to visit the facilities, and this woman just glided in and looked right at me. Wasn't one of the pa.s.sengers either. I know all the pa.s.sengers. Scared me half to death. She was all in black, with her hair done up on top of her head, and she was holding a knife."

"Sometimes Loretta likes to take a nip of sherry to start the day off right," Mr. Pease told Ivan.

"I didn't have a nip of sherry, you old coot. I'm telling you, there was a woman here."

Stephanie took the older woman's hand and began collecting information. Loretta Pease was obviously shaken. Her face had been white when they'd arrived, but color was flooding back into it now. Her palm was moist, her hand unsteady. Her gla.s.ses were neatly lying on the shelf above the small sink, Stephanie noticed. She remembered Mrs. Pease had pushed her gla.s.ses down her nose and looked over them to search for the fish eye in her soup. That meant she was nearsighted. Coupled with the fact that the cabin was dark, it meant she probably hadn't gotten a very good look at the woman. "Did this person touch you or say anything to you?" Stephanie asked.

"No. She just stood there with this big knife."

"Can you tell me approximately how old she was?"

"It was too dark. I couldn't see her face well, but I swear, she had the biggest knife I've ever seen. A great big carving knife. Do I smell coffee?"

"You bet," Ace said, popping into the cabin. "Fresh brewed aboard the Josiah Savage. Everyone can come below and get some, drink up, then we'll search the vessel to flush out this woman from h.e.l.l."

"The coffee was a good idea, but I think we could soft-pedal the woman from h.e.l.l stuff," Ivan told him.

"Just an expression," Ace said affably.

Stephanie held Mrs. Pease's plump hand. "Why don't you get dressed and come down to the galley? You can have some coffee and help me make blueberry m.u.f.fins for breakfast."

An hour later Ivan dropped in to see how the baking was going. He told himself he was checking on Loretta Pease, but he knew it was a lie. Stephanie Lowe fascinated him as no other woman ever had. She'd been a cop! So how did he feel about that, he asked himself. A little threatened? Definitely. And very curious, and very aroused, and oddly pleased. It seemed to suit her. He picked a clump of m.u.f.fin dough out of Stephanie's hair. "You're a mess."

"Flatterer."

He poured a cup of coffee. "Everything okay here?"

"We've made enough m.u.f.fins to feed the whole Pacific fleet," Mrs. Pease said, taking a big basket of warm m.u.f.fins topside.

Ivan sipped his coffee. "Ace and I have searched the s.h.i.+p and haven't turned up anything unusual."

Stephanie followed his gaze to the butcher block knife holder and gave him a silent affirmation that his discovery was correct. There was a knife missing.

She moved next to him and kept her voice low while she filled the last m.u.f.fin tin. "It's suspicious but hardly conclusive. I'm not familiar enough with the galley to be sure the knife is missing. Lucy could have lost it or misplaced it."

He stared at her for a minute, absorbing the pleasure of being near her, feeling the need to tease her out of her self-imposed silence about her past. He didn't want to be shut out. He'd go very slowly, he decided. He'd keep it light until she felt comfortable. "Were you like Eddie Murphy?"

"What?"

"You know, Beverly Hills Cop. Did you go around sticking bananas in people's tailpipes?"

Stephanie smiled. "Figuratively, yes."

"And as a former professional, what do you make of this?"

"I think Mrs. Pease saw something. I'm not sure what."

Ivan nodded. "Whatever it was, it vanished into thin air."

Stephanie stood statue still, a spoonful of dough poised over the batter bowl. "Like a ghost? Aunt Tess have any homicidal tendencies?"

Ivan shook his finger at her. "Don't even think it! 'Vanished into thin air' is just a figure of speech. Aunt Tess doesn't go skulking around wielding carving knives. She's a nice old lady. Besides, ghosts don't look human. They're... gauzy or something."

"Have you ever seen one?"

"Well, no, not actually."

Stephanie put the last batch of m.u.f.fins in the oven. "Then how do you know what they look like? For that matter, if you've never seen a ghost, how can you be sure your house is haunted?"

"My mother's seen Tess."

Stephanie raised her eyebrows.

"Tess only shows herself to women." Ivan took a warm m.u.f.fin and broke a piece off. "That's the legend. Only the women of Haben have seen her. And not all of the women. She's picky about who she scares." He popped the piece of m.u.f.fin into his mouth and chewed appreciatively. "These are good!"

"You sound surprised."

"Mrs. Pease must have made them."

"Boy, that really hurts." She put the bowl into the sink to be washed and pushed her hair behind her ears, wondering about the legend, wondering if she believed it. "We have m.u.f.fins and coffee on deck at seven, right?" Stephanie asked Ivan. She unconsciously caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth and stared at him, only partially listening to his answer, her mind still occupied with thoughts of ghosts.

He grinned at the fresh swipe of batter clinging to her bangs. "Yup. And full breakfast in the galley at eight." He took a tray and began arranging mugs on it. "So, what do you really want to know?"

Stephanie wiped her hands on her sweat-pants and realized with a start that she'd been telegraphing her inattention. There'd been a time when she would never have dared do that. Now, there was Ivan, seeing right through her, and she was loving it. It was a good feeling. All those years of evasive answers and role-playing and never letting down her guard were behind her, thank heaven. She'd lost patience with it. She wasn't all that good at relaxing yet, but she was getting better. "Do you honest-to-goodness believe this Aunt Tess business?"

Ivan fed her a piece of his blueberry m.u.f.fin. "This is not the time or place to discuss such mystic matters. I think we need to arrange a rendezvous."

"A simple yes-or-no answer would be fine."

"A simple yes-or-no answer wouldn't be nearly enough. First of all, you should talk about spooky things when it's dark. Everybody knows that. And fog helps a lot." His gaze dropped to her mouth. "And a little moonlight wouldn't be a bad idea either."

"Moonlight talk always makes me nervous."

He fed her another piece of m.u.f.fin and purposely stroked her lower lip with his fingertip. "It's my duty as the descendant of a famous pirate to make women nervous once in a while."

"Gee, Red would be proud of you."

He pinned her against the counter. "Red would think I was a wimp. You know what real pirates did to their women?" he whispered, letting his lips brush against the sensitive skin just in front of her earlobe.

Stephanie s.h.i.+vered in antic.i.p.ation.

"They ravished them," Ivan told her. "It wasn't a pretty sight."

"That's it? No details?"

Ivan threw her a stern look. "You're not cooperating here. You're supposed to be intimidated."

"You know what intimidates me? The thought of making breakfast. According to Lucy, I'm supposed to whip up a cauldron of oatmeal, three dozen eggs, and seven pounds of bacon."

"Sounds about right." He took the tray of mugs and turned toward the stairs. "I'll meet you on the p.o.o.p deck tonight at ten, Cinderella. Wear something appropriate for ravis.h.i.+ng."

At ten o'clock Stephanie took the last of the blueberry pies out of the oven and damped down the fire. Now she knew why Lucy made pies first thing in the morning. If you tried to make them in the afternoon, when the s.h.i.+p was under way, the filling slopped over the sides and baked on the bottom of the stove. So you had your choice of making them at night or making them in the morning. Since Stephanie wasn't a morning person, she'd decided to make them at night.

She looked down at herself and took an inventory of everything she'd cooked: oatmeal, spaghetti sauce, cookie batter, blueberry pies, and coffee. Wonderful. And she hadn't washed her hair since the previous morning or changed out of the sweats she'd slept in the night before. On the positive side, she'd cooked a d.a.m.ned good dinner of fried chicken, biscuits, green beans, and corn on the cob. Cooking wasn't much different from police work, she concluded. It required concentration, imagination, hard work, a little technical knowhow... and luck. She looked longingly at her bunk, wanting nothing more than to crawl behind the red curtain and sleep for at least a year. Unfortunately, Ivan was waiting for her on deck.

Ivan levered himself down the galley stairs, a slow smile spreading across his face as he took in the sight of Stephanie Lowe at the end of her first full day aboard the Savage. "I got tired of waiting, so I thought I'd come check things out. Pretty tough job, huh?"

"A hot shower, and I'll be good as new."

"I have a better idea. What you need after a long day of slaving over a scorching stove is a moonlight swim. Cool, refres.h.i.+ng..." Erotic, he added to himself.

A moonlight swim sounded great. Too bad she didn't have the strength to drag herself up the galley steps. "It's a lovely idea, but I'd sink like a stone. I'm exhausted. I'm afraid I'm going to have to opt for the shower."

Ivan slung his arm around her shoulders. "Honey, this is a carefully restored nineteenth century schooner. We don't have a shower."

"Oh Lord, no shower." She slumped against him. "I have blueberry batter in my hair and spaghetti sauce soaked right through to my underwear, and you're telling me we don't have a shower?"