She exchanged a glance with Chrissy and gave a nearly imperceptible shake of her head. She felt too vulnerable to be left alone with Mason. She might say or do something highly embarrassing. You know, like tackle him onto the netting and forcibly sit on his face.
Chrissy swallowed noisily before sputtering, “I have to…um…go vote.” And then she jumped from the trampoline and disappeared inside the cabin so quickly Alex felt the breeze of her departure.
Here she’d thought their heart-to-heart had forged between them the strong bonds of sisterhood. Apparently not. Chrissy had cut and run right when Alex needed her most.
The traitor.
Chapter 4
10:52 a.m.
“I’m calling a truce.”
Chrissy’s sexy voice, speaking in that slow island-life way, slid inside Wolf’s blood like brandy, delicious and smooth. Not that he was a big drinker, but a good brandy was his weakness.
Kind of likeshewas his weakness.
Glancing away from his study of the currents, he found her standing in the doorway to the pilothouse. Sunlight streamed in, creating a halo around her. But it was superfluous. Because Christina Szareck was a beacon all on her own. So bright he was surprised she didn’t draw in flying insects after dark.
I was certainly drawn to her from the beginnin’. Too bad I had to go and screw it up.
An ache bloomed behind his breastbone. He rubbed at it. He coughed. But nothing seemed to make it go away. So he asked, “A truce? Which means you admit we’re at war?”
She straightened from giving Meat a quick scratch behind the ears. The shameless mongrel had wiggled over to her the instant she appeared. Meat knew all it took to find himself on the receiving end of a treat or a good petting was one flash of his ridiculous underbite.
To have been born a bulldog, Wolf thought, remembering what it was like to have Chrissy’s fingers onhim.
The woman didn’t have soft hands. Not by a long shot. They were strong and callused from hauling equipment and fixing scuba tanks. But her fingers were long and slim, so very feminine. And she knew just the right amount of pressure to—
“It’s not a war,” Chrissy countered. “It’s a mutual dislike brought on becauseoneof us, I’m not saying who”—she pointed directly at him—“was a complete and total dillhole.”
“It was a damned misunderstandin’, woman!” he insisted for the ten billionth time. “And for the record, you might dislike me, but I don’t dislike you. Never have. Never will.”
“Whatever.” She waved a hand, unwilling to let the import of his last statement sink in. “The point is, we need to team up to get Alex and Mason together.”
He grunted. “Good luck with that. Mason isn’t only built like a boulder, heisone once his mind’s made up. The man’s immovable.”
“Nothing’s immovable. You just have to find the right leverage.”
Wolf might agree with Chrissy that Alex Merriweather, with her sunny smile and eager mind, was exactly what Mason needed to pull him out of the funk he’d been in since his divorce. But Wolf wasn’t one to go sticking his nose into other people’s affairs.
Okay. That wasn’texactlytrue. He had a huge passel of relatives back in Oklahoma, and everyone knew everything about everyone else. But that was different. That was family. When it came to his friends, his teammates, his business partners? He’d learned to keep his opinions to himself.
Or else couch them in someone else’s words of wisdom.
“Ever heard it said that minding your own business will take you far in life?” he asked.
She pursed her lips—those wonderful lips he knew could be soft and warm, so giving and greedy—and declared with a finger in the air, “I’m imposing a ban here and now. No more sounding like a fortune cookie when I’m around.”
“Fine.” He shifted slightly in the captain’s chair because thoughts of her mouth made him hard. “Put simply, you go muckin’ around in their love lives, you’re lookin’ for trouble.”
“I don’t want to muck. I just want to afford them as many opportunities as possible to be alone.” She pointed out the window to where Mason and Alex sat side by side on the trampoline. “Mother Nature will take care of the rest.”
Unconvinced but willing to play along, he said, “Just to be clear, you’re suggestin’ we team up in helpin’ Mason and Alex take a trip to Boner City?”
“Please.” She rolled her eyes. “Let’s remain adults about this. It’s Pound Town.”
Despite the tension vibrating in the air like a downed power line, he couldn’t stop the laugh that burst from him. And yet his humor was short-lived. “I might agree with your plan in theory, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you. Like I said, Mason is one tough nut to crack.”
