The Pleasure Trip

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Ignoring the pounding in his head to follow the stupid thrum of his clueless heart, he made up his mind to find out more about The One Who Got Away. For that matter, it’d been months since he’d taken a cruise and now that his divorce was official he found himself homeless and in need of some high seas revelry.

“Hell no, you’re not part of a dying breed. Give me five minutes to shower and I might just be wild and crazy enough to fly you back to Barbados myself.”

* * *

RITA WAS CALLING IN favors at an alarming rate as she sweet-talked the most junior member of the ship security team into telling her everything he knew about Jayne’s illicit escape from the ship the day before. But she’d sewn a prom dress for the guy’s little sister last spring and he ’fessed up without a wince since Jayne had promised to be back onboard the next day.

While the news was reassuring, Rita knew better than most people that Jayne didn’t always stick to a plan.

Now, as she stood on a pier on the opposite end of the marina and watched Harrison shake hands with a local charter boat captain, she wondered how she could ever repay him for all the help he’d given her last night and today. Jayne had never had a problem with accepting kindness from strangers, graciously smiling whenever passengers—men, women and little old ladies—brought her flowers after a performance. But Rita was uneasy with anyone who offered to do too much for her. Somehow, she’d find a way to make it up to Harrison. Maybe he had a sister young enough to need a prom dress?

“We’ve got the boat for four hours.” Harrison stopped in front of the small craft he’d picked out with a practiced eye the moment they’d arrived. “We’ll cruise around to a few of the marinas on the western side of the island and see what happens. The guy in charge of the charter vessels said he’s been here since dawn and hasn’t seen anyone fitting your sister’s description get off a boat.”

“How do you know what my sister even looks like?” She took his hand as he helped her onboard and reminded herself to pop a few ginger tablets as soon as they got settled. It had taken her weeks to get used to the rocking motion of the Venus, never mind that most people on cruise ships never felt the swaying at all. A boat like this would have her seasick in no time if she didn’t take precautions.

“I figured she must look a lot like you since you escaped the show manager’s radar last night.” He moved around the deck like an old sea hand, untying ropes, hauling in buoys or bumpers or whatever they called those fat pads used to make sure a boat didn’t get scratched up by the dock. “By all accounts this Danielle the Dastardly runs a pretty tight show, so if you danced your way out there under her nose without her noticing… I put two and two together.”

“I don’t look anything like Jayne.” Okay, small inevitable family resemblance aside. “She’s the cover of Vogue. I’m the ‘before’ photo on the makeover page when they strong-arm the average woman on the street into a makeup chair.”

“All I know is you look mighty good to me.” He slid behind the steering wheel and fired up the engine. “You like boats?”

“I like them fine once I pop some ginger pills.” Shaking her purse to free up all the infrequently used items in the deepest recesses of the striped satin lining, she followed the sound of rolling tablets in a bottle until she came up with her medicine case chock-full of everything from sleeping pills for the nights when Jayne blasted her radio full-power to aloe caplets for sunburns.

“Is this outing going to bother you?” Harrison moved away from the steering wheel to push off the dock, giving the boat a gentle shove by planting his foot on the pier and propelling them deeper into the water.

Chewing the pills quickly, Rita shook her head. Determined. Ready to make headway.

“Not nearly as much as it will bother me if I don’t find Jayne.”

“You two are pretty close, I take it?” He jogged the few steps back to the wheel and steered them slowly around the docked boats, being careful not to create too much of a wake.

He looked perfectly at home there, the strong Caribbean sun bearing down on his dark hair to give it a burnished glow, his feet spread on the deck like a man who’d navigated plenty of rough waters in his day.

“It’s a relationship forged in fire.” Sinking onto the seat beside him, Rita shoved her heavy purse off her shoulder and tried to relax. Concentrate on the pleasing vision of Harrison’s legs in khaki shorts. “We’ve been through a lot together and that makes us good friends as well as…women who know far too much about each other’s weaknesses.”

“Sort of codependent?”

She bristled at the very idea.

“Hardly. We watch each other’s backs.” Often whether they really wanted to or not.

“So how was she watching your back last night when she ditched you on what Missy seemed to think was the turning point of your career?”

Surprise—and anger—reminded her she couldn’t relax too much around a man she didn’t know all that well despite the romantic night they’d shared. No matter how charming and helpful Harrison seemed, he wasn’t family. He might not understand the world according to a Frazer.

“It wasn’t a turning point. I sewed some outfits for extra cash. And while it would have been helpful if Jayne had been there to do her job—Everybody makes mistakes.” Wrenching her gaze off his fine butt, she retrieved her sunscreen out of her bag to slather over skin with a high tendency to burn.

“Some more than others.” He cranked the boat into a higher gear as they cleared the marina and hit the open water. “I’m close to my family, too, and I can’t remember a time I would have left them holding the bag to chase dreams that could have easily waited a day or two.”

“And your point is that I must be some kind of messed-up enabler to allow my sister to take advantage of me?” She’d heard that one before, although usually snippy fans of gossip liked to cluck about enabling her mother as opposed to Jayne. Still, the same principle applied. She was cast as the sucker. “Or are you suggesting my sister must be a complete waste-case to flee her job?”

She scrubbed the sunscreen into her skin with extra force.

“Rita—”

“Or worse.” Another scenario smacked her upside the head with more force than a high kick to the temple as she tossed the SPF 45 aside. “You think both those things.”

“Hardly.” He slowed the boat as they neared another marina beside a stretch of ocean-view resort hotels. “I know all about the desire to help out your family and I’ve been down that route too many times myself to blame you for doing that same thing. I just hope your sister realizes what lengths you went to in order to cover for her because from the handful of people I talked to on the Venus about Jayne, I got the impression she takes the spotlight most of the time while you do twice as much behind the scenes.”

“I’d love to know who told you that, especially since you’ve been on the ship for all of three days.” How could her coworkers confide such intimate details to a perfect stranger? Curse the man’s sexy dark stare.

“Nobody said it straight out.” He slowed the motor as they closed in on a small dock. “I gathered as much from other things I heard from your friends and Horatio’s.”

“I forgot you talked to them.” She’d been slowly losing her brain cells to anxiety and fear since last night. Add to that the fear that her skin was burning from want of Harrison and not because of the Caribbean sun, and she was forced to admit she wasn’t thinking clearly at all. “Did you find out anything helpful?Anything besides the fact that Jayne and I are codependent enablers?”

She squinted toward a throng of tourists on the dock, a man and three bikini-clad women stepping aside for a young couple on inline skates.

“Only that Horatio was scheduled to work last night and they hadn’t heard anything about him ditching.” He eased the boat around a mammoth-size yacht to give them a better view of the pier. “But I couldn’t locate the casino workers you mentioned, just a couple of bartenders on a different deck from the casino and they were just barely crawling out of bed when I talked to them.”

“Bastard.” Rita’s gaze fixed on the man on the pier as the guy’s hand strayed over one of the women’s tanga swimsuit bottom. Squinting, she couldn’t believe her eyes as the man’s familiar features came into focus. “Maybe they didn’t know about Horatio skipping work because he never left the ship last night.”

“What do you mean?” Harrison cut the motor, presumably so they could ask the group on the dock a few questions.

Indignation pumping through her, she didn’t even bother lowering her voice as she pointed out the assgrabber a few yards away.

“That’s Jayne’s so-called fiancé right there.”

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_f5f7c5ea-193e-54d0-9be6-5337cfbed29c)

ON AN INTELLECTUAL LEVEL, Harrison processed the news that the jet-setter type on the dock was the same tool who’d stood up Rita’s sister. But the information seemed less important than the primary data Harrison currently received from his personal observations of the scene on the pier.

Horatio and three fawning females had all just stepped off the big-ass yacht beside the dock from which obnoxious techno-pop music still blared. A party seemed to be in progress onboard the hundred-and-twenty-foot monster where a couple of guys and three other women sipped a rainbow range of bright cocktails, their swimsuits as expensive-looking as the designer sunglasses perched on almost every nose. Money oozed from the yacht along with the mindlessly repetitive club music, and Horatio the runaway groom looked fairly at home with it all for a guy whose paycheck couldn’t be any fatter than what Harrison had pulled down during his time with the Bureau. And Harrison sure as hell could never afford the Breitling timepiece this bozo sported.

“Hey, scumbag, say cheese.” The shout came from Harrison’s elbow as Rita lined up her disposable camera for a shot of Horatio’s hand on the bikini babe’s butt. She clicked the camera before calling over the lens. “My sister’s going to annul this marriage so fast you’ll be a single man by nightfall, dip-wad.”

Harrison secured the boat in record time, recognizing quickly the shit was going to hit the fan. He would have liked to look around the dock more discreetly now that all of his agent instincts were up and running about Horatio’s big money connections, but discretion seemed out of the question since Rita fairly launched out of their rented boat to confront the dealer.

“Sorry to disappoint you, babe, but I’m definitely still a single man.” He squeezed his lady friend’s butt cheek for emphasis. “Good thing, eh?”

Harrison could practically feel the fury rising off Rita as she bared her teeth at him.

“Too busy to elope?” She edged the words past her lips despite the clamped jaw.

Harrison looped an arm around her shoulders and hoped she wouldn’t shove it off or start a big confrontation.

“Come on, Rita.” Horatio shifted his weight in a subtle show of discomfort Harrison wouldn’t have caught without years of experience at reading liars. “You know Jayne’s not the settling-down type. If we tied the knot she would have thrown me over in two months max.”

“With great reason, obviously.” Rita moved toward the back of the boat as if to exit, but Harrison held her back.

Hoping to defuse the tension before Rita knocked this guy’s teeth clear down his throat, Harrison kept his tone casual. “You know where we can find Jayne today?”

“We were supposed to meet at Island Dreams last night on St. Kitts and then catch a hop to Barbados this morning.” He checked his watch in slow motion as if to be sure he kept his name brand visible. “If she caught the flight we talked about, she would have touched down a few minutes ago.”

While Rita assured Playboy Joe that no dancer would ever look twice at him again once she spread the word of an unfortunate condition he’d contracted, Harrison noted the name of the yacht emblazoned on the bow. The Over-Under.

“Nice boat.” Harrison interjected while Horatio’s miniharem stepped back, their high heels a chorus of taps on the dock. “You have friends who like the over-under?”

“I’ve got a lot of friends.” Shrugging, he started to follow the females heading up the pier toward a waterfront restaurant and marketplace. “Who knows what they all like?”

Rita’s hand slipped around Harrison’s elbow, reminding him he couldn’t follow up on his instincts about the blackjack dealer now, even if those instincts were blaring loudly in his ear that something wasn’t right.

“Let’s head over to the landing strip and see if she’s there.” Rita’s simple red flip-flops smacked the back of her heels in rhythmic time as she walked the length of the boat with smooth, efficient strides bearing little resemblance to her stage strut of the night before.

Funny how the practical woman appealed to him as much as the fantasy siren. More, even. He appreciated people who valued hard work and family the way he did.

“Done.” Harrison untied their rented vessel and cranked up the engine, figuring the trip over to the landing strip was as good a time as any to let Rita in on his real motives behind taking the cruise. “But once we’re underway, I need you to tell me everything you can about Horatio.”

“Besides that he’s a two-timing snake with no moral system in place?”

Rita seethed inwardly as Harrison guided the craft away from the creep who’d thought nothing of leaving her sister at the altar. Forget that the altar doubled as a gift shop checkout counter. That didn’t diminish the magnitude of Horatio’s desertion in the least.

“Doesn’t it seem strange to you,” Harrison pressed on, “that a lowlife like him could attract not one but three women to keep him company today? He’s running with some big-money friends for a guy who makes pretty average wages.”

“You’re suggesting anyone who works on the Venus must be low-class?” She hadn’t expected economic prejudice from Harrison. He seemed so down-to-earth. So normal.

“Of course not.” He checked the map of Barbados the charter boat captain had given them, the sun casting a glare on the paper no matter where he positioned it. “I couldn’t afford a boat like the one he was on either, but if he doesn’t have any personal charisma and he’s got the morals of a snake as you pointed out, what basis does he have to form a connection with some multimillionaire yacht owner?”

“I’m sure there are plenty of multimillionaires whose morals suck, too.” Rita kept an eye on the coastline, trying to remember where an airport might be, but she’d never made much use of shore time like most of the crew, preferring to sew onboard the ship rather than party in Caribbean clubs.

“My point exactly. And if Horatio is hanging out with those kinds of wealthy, unethical people and sporting a Breitling watch that would be tough to afford on a dealer’s salary, doesn’t that make you suspicious?”

“So you think he’s doing something illegal? When would he have time between working and juggling five different women? The bastard.” Resenting Horatio’s treatment of her sister, she couldn’t get past that anger to think about whatever else he might be doing. “Don’t you hate people who have hidden agendas and stupid little secrets?”

“Uh, in theory, yes.”

“Why can’t people just be honest with each other and say, ‘I have three other women I’m screwing on the side. Would you care to be added to the list, or not?’ That might be skeevy, but at least it’s honest.” Rita knew Jayne had at least made an effort to get her life together over the past six months since she’d really streamlined the number of men she dated. This blow from Horatio had to hurt.

“There’s something we need to talk about.”

The quiet seriousness in Harrison’s tone called her from her sisterly outrage. Then, the stern set to his features as he steered the boat across open water gave her the distinct sense of impending doom.

She so could not handle more bad news today.

“Don’t tell me you’re sleeping with three other women?”

“It’s not as bad as that, but I don’t want you to think I have a secret agenda.”

Although she would have rather simply enjoyed the view as the wind plastered Harrison’s shirt to his muscular chest, Rita didn’t mind playing a few rounds of Worst Case Scenario to keep whatever he had to say in perspective. She couldn’t afford to let him hurt her when she could barely stagger through all that she had on her plate.

“Okay, I’ve got it. You introduced yourself to me last night because you have a thing for showgirls and now that you know me for the seamstress I really am, you want out?” She’d known plenty of guys who could only appreciate glitz and glitter and didn’t have a clue about what lay beneath.