Alias Smith And Jones

With the engine humming in the background, the sun on his back and the wind hitting him full in the face, Jones felt a measure of peace. The life he’d left behind five years ago could emerge, raw and vivid in his dreams, but the open sea always helped banish old ghosts. Of course, today the tranquility was marred by the presence of the woman below deck.

His mouth turned down. Damned if he knew why he’d taken her money. Well, hell yes, he knew…because he’d been unable to afford to turn it down. But no amount of money could compensate for some kinds of trouble, and he couldn’t rid himself of the nagging suspicion that the word described Ann Smith. With a capital T.

“School of dolphin up ahead, Cap’n. Pretty miss like to see?”

Gazing in the direction of Pappy’s outstretched finger, he followed the man’s island dialect with little difficulty. “She’s down below, sick. Let’s leave her there.”

“Ladies like dolphins,” Pappy persisted. His wizened face was the color of walnut, burnished by his heritage and decades in the sun. “Pretty miss no different.”

“She’s more different than you think,” Jones muttered.

Although the other man couldn’t have heard his words from this distance, it was a sure thing he’d caught the tone. His voice split into a wide grin. “Cap’n show pretty miss nice things and mebbe she be nice to Cap’n.” He cackled at the dark look Jones threw him. “I ask her. I bet she want to see.”

Shrugging, Jones watched the other man disappear below. The woman wouldn’t be coming above, he’d put money on that. He’d never met anyone yet who was only seasick the first hour of a voyage. She’d be confined to bed for at least half the day.

Which suited him just fine. The blonde was a distraction, one he didn’t need. Even after she’d left the tavern last night, he’d been unable to stop thinking about her. Smoke hung thick in the place, so there had been no reason for her light, fresh scent to have lingered long after she’d left. And even less excuse for his mind to return to her, time and again that night, until he’d finally made an excuse to Lexie and gone home, alone.

He hadn’t been drunk, not quite, so he couldn’t blame his lack of concentration on liquor. No, it had been the woman who even now was probably retching below who was responsible for his sudden restlessness. That and a certainty that this was going to be the longest four days of his life.

“What you do with pretty miss, Cap’n? Toss her overboard?”

Although the idea had merit, he shook his head at Pappy’s question. “I told you, she’s in her stateroom.”

The man swung his head in silent negation. “Not there. And not getting sick in head, either. Not in galley. You leave shore without lady?”

He stared at the man, impatient. “Of course not. C’mere. Take the wheel.” When the man sprang to obey, he turned and went below. There wasn’t much space below deck. The woman had to be somewhere. He just hoped if she’d gotten sick she’d made it to the head.

It took a few moments below deck to discern that Pappy had been right. Ann Smith was nowhere in sight. A wave rocked the ship wildly, and he mentally cursed his crew member’s handling of the ship. Steadying himself with a hand against the wall, he opened the last remaining door.

And found the troublesome blonde in the last place he’d expected, the last place she should have been. In his cabin again, this time sprawled across his bed with her face buried in his pillow.

Ignoring the sudden knot that clenched in his stomach at the sight, he fixed her with a glare. Her head was bright against the navy sheets, and he had the sudden thought that now her scent would linger there, too, a tormenting reminder of her presence in a place she’d had no business being.

The glare settled into a scowl as she shoved herself upright in the bed, rose and turned for the door. Then sank slowly back down on the mattress when she saw him in the doorway.

“Hi.” Her tone was the most timid he’d heard from her, but it did nothing to allay his anger. “That…that was a big wave, wasn’t it? Did you feel it?”

“Must have been a big one to knock you out of your bunk, across the hall and into my bed.”

“Oh, well…about that.” She bounced up again, her hands twisting on the strap of her purse nervously. “I wasn’t actually in your…hmm.” Her gaze couldn’t seem to find a place to land. “I just…I took the pills you gave me but my bunk is sort of small and uncomfortable. I thought I’d rest better in a bigger bed.” She moistened her lips under his silent regard. “And I did. It’s a very nice bed….”

Comprehension dawned slowly, and Jones felt like three kinds a fool. He’d really been gone from civilization too long if he was becoming this slow on the uptake. Jamming his hand through his hair, he muttered, “I don’t believe this.” It wasn’t as if it hadn’t happened to him before, but of all the sorts of trouble he’d half expected to encounter with the woman, this kind had been the furthest from his mind.

“Look,” he said, turning his gaze back to her. “I think I know what’s going on here.”

She looked panicked. “You do?”

“Yeah. Damn.” This was embarrassing, which was a crock. He didn’t have anything to be embarrassed about. “But this thing between us is strictly business, okay? And that’s the way it’s gonna stay. I don’t mix business with pleasure, ever.” He’d learned his lesson about that the hard way and still had the scar to prove it.

Her expression was a mask of horrified fascination. “You…you think I want to have an affair with you?”

“Yeah, well…sex, anyway. And you seem like a very, uh, a real nice person. But I’m not interested in you that way.” Jones was proud of his tact. Although it wasn’t a skill he practiced on a regular basis, he thought he’d managed pretty well. Which didn’t explain her suddenly thunderous countenance.

“Let me get this straight. Even if I were offering casual no-strings sex, you wouldn’t be interested.”

What was it about women that they had to belabor everything? He thought he’d been damn clear, and it was something more instinctive than diplomacy that had him refraining from pointing out that she didn’t look like a no-strings kind of woman. “That’s what I’m saying.”

“It’s because I don’t have big boobs, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Boobs.” Her tone was disgusted. “I’ve got brothers. I know a man’s brain cells drain away the moment his hormones kick in. If I had a pair of thirty-six D’s you’d be drooling all over me.”

He couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. “For your information, I never drool.”

“All men drool when their tongues are hanging out of their mouths, which seems to be a universal reaction of your gender when faced with a huge set of mammary glands.”

There was a dull throb beginning in his temple. “Look, I was trying to be polite, and you’re missing the point.”

“Oh, I got the point all right. If I was contemplating having wild tempestuous sex with you, you wouldn’t be interested. I got that loud and clear.”

How the hell she’d managed to make him feel guilty when she’d been the one to sneak into his bed was beyond him. “Okay, then. I’m glad we got that out of the way.”

“Did we ever,” she muttered, shoving past him and marching down the corridor.

He followed her, feeling at a loss. “You know, at your weight, if you had big b— If you were big busted, you’d probably topple over every time you got up.”

She was ascending the ladder in record time. “Yeah, yeah. I told you, I know what men like.”

“You don’t know me,” he said flatly, tearing his gaze away from the curvy hips preceding him. Because if she did, if she ever found out that he was developing an inexplicable interest in delicately made blondes with backsides shaped by an angel, well then God help them both.

Chapter 3

As mortifying events went, it ranked right up there with the time Sally Ann Bunston had announced to the boys in their seventh-grade class that Analiese Tremaine stuffed her bra. But having to endure three straight years of taunts about whether she was “packing” each day paled in significance to the scene in Jones’s stateroom.

Staring out at the school of playful dolphins, she concentrated on deep breathing and vengeful thoughts. She wondered if there was a knife onboard sharp enough to carve Jones into shark bait. The other crew member could handle the ship, and hadn’t she heard once there was no law at sea?

She supposed she ought to be grateful. Just the thought had her grinding her teeth. After the impact of that wave had dumped her headfirst onto his bed, and she’d looked up to see him standing in the doorway, her mind had gone completely blank. He’d seemed suspicious enough the first time he’d walked in on her there. How in heaven’s name was she going to explain a second time?

Then he’d handed her a perfect explanation, at least one that his colossal ego had seemed to buy. She’d had no choice but to play along, even while she’d wanted to go for his throat. Was the man actually used to women hiding under his bedcovers in order to seduce him?

She threw a dark look in his direction. The answer, quite obviously, was yes. And why that should make her want to hunt for that carving knife again was a question she really didn’t want to face. Lord knew she had plenty of experience dealing with formidable male egos: she’d grown up with three brothers. The walls of their home had practically dripped testosterone.

It didn’t help, she thought glumly, as the dolphins faded from view, that her outrage over his “rejection” hadn’t been totally feigned. No woman wanted to hear that a man found her unattractive, and despite his protests to the contrary, she knew exactly what she lacked that would have snared his interest. She’d seen for herself the type he went for last night when he’d been pawing that waitress. He’d be the kind of guy who liked his women available, inventive and gone in the morning.

Based on the supply of condoms she’d found in his bottom desk drawer, he was either overly optimistic or very well prepared. It was probably the latter, which made his rejection smart even more. It didn’t matter that she didn’t want him, on any level. It was the principle of the thing.

Blowing out a breath, she reached into her purse for sun-screen. Smoothing a generous amount over her bare arms, she repeated the action on her legs. After rubbing a small amount of lotion on her face, she settled her sunglasses on her nose, dropped the bottle back into her purse and stretched out on the chair. The breeze kept her from being too warm in the sun, and she could feel a measure of tension seeping from her body. Until she thought of the disappointment Jones’s desk had yielded. Then her muscles tightened yet again.

She’d found a log in which he apparently kept track of his business dealings. The charter she’d set up with him hadn’t appeared in it yet, but two others had in the past month. The person’s name who’d scheduled the trip had appeared, along with the number of days, nature of the trip and payment. However, there had been no entry dated around the time Sam would have crossed to Laconos. Its absence would suggest that Jones and her brother had never hooked up at all. Except that another notebook had listings for dates of fuelings, the gallons and prices. And Jones had fueled up the ship more than once after the last documented charter.

Ana stretched out on the lounger watching the gulls wheel overhead, and wondered what the discrepancy meant. Did the man take the ship out himself when he didn’t have paying clients? It would seem reasonable to expect that he might. She found it equally reasonable to think that maybe he hadn’t logged Sam’s trip because her brother had asked him not to. Or that he knew the secretive nature of Sam’s job and realized it was best to leave no traces.

It was a long shot, she admitted silently, but Sterling knew that her brother had docked at Laconos, and that he’d arrived by ship. And although she had no more proof than before that she was retracing her brother’s steps, she remained convinced. She needed to start planning how to gather information once she hit the island. Sterling had been very definite about the parameters of her assignment. She, of course, had some ideas of her own.

A shadow fell across her chair. “You feel better now?”

Opening her eyes, Ana saw a blinding smile in a seamed, weathered face. The man standing above her was no more than her height, and she’d guess that he wasn’t much heavier. His friendly expression was a welcome contrast to the scowl Jones usually graced her with, and the lemonade he was holding was tantalizing.

She tipped her glasses down. “Yes, I’m feeling fine.”

The frosty glass was thrust into her hand. “For you. Good to drink liquids in sun.”

Ana took the lemonade and indicated a seat beside her. This, then, was Pappy, the crew member Jones had mentioned. He was obviously a native islander, and it was equally obvious that he had a much sunnier temperament than his boss. “Won’t you join me?”

“Cap’n say you go to beaches.” Pappy sat on the edge of a lounger next to her. “Lots beaches near, and Cap’n know them all. You be pleased.”

To save herself from answering, she raised the glass to her lips. Right now she’d be most pleased if the captain happened to fall overboard, preferably in shark-infested waters, but she hated to douse this man’s enthusiasm. “Have you worked for Jones a long time?”

At the man’s exuberant nod, she felt a measure of pity for him, followed by a nebulous idea. “So I guess you know him pretty well.”

Pappy bobbed his head again. “Cap’n good man. Keep his ship in good shape. And—” his expression went sly “—ladies like Cap’n. Cap’n like ladies.”

Some ladies. Analiese wanted to correct him. Women whose obvious charms were matched by looser morals. In that, he was much like most of the men in her acquaintance. It was plain to see where Pappy believed her interest lay. And she was willing to let him believe just that if it meant she could get him to divulge a bit more information about the mysterious Jones.

“He said you did the cooking and helped navigate. Do you join him on all his trips?”

The man squinted against the rays of sun. “All trips. Only small crew for some, but Cap’n, he need to eat.”

“Have you been to Laconos lately?” she asked daringly. “Jones seemed worried about my safety there.”

“Pretty miss be safe on beach. Cap’n make sure.” He shrugged. “No one want to drive away tourists. Bad for island.”

Which still didn’t answer her question. She phrased the next one more pointedly. “When was last time you were on Laconos?”

Pappy rubbed his jaw. “Me? Last month, mebbe. Most people, they like fishing. Many other beaches. Laconos not beautiful like Bontilla.”

Which meant, Analiese thought, her stomach knotting, that if Jones had taken Sam to the island, the trip had been kept secret even from his trusted crew member. She manufactured a smile and drank again. Her throat had gone suddenly dry. “A ship this large must take a lot of fuel. How many gallons does it hold? Enough to get us to Laconos, I hope.”

The man chortled. “Two big tanks, pretty miss, plenty to go to Laconos. Each tank hold two hundred gallon. Only take three hundred to get to island.” He rose, smiling widely. “I go make lunch. You need food, so you not get sick again.”

She gave a vague smile in response, and he walked away, his stride adjusting automatically to the pitch of the ship. Reaching down, she opened her purse and took out the notebook she kept there. She’d taken some notes while thumbing through Jones’s logs, using a coded shorthand that no one but her would be able to make sense of. Checking them, she determined that Jones had refueled the ship three times in two days well after his last documented charter. Which would have readied the ship for the trip to Laconos, refueled it for the trip back, and then again to prepare it for the next charter. She added and subtracted gallons for several minutes, before she sat back, satisfied. Given the fueling history, this ship could have been the one to carry her brother to the island.

It was thin, she acknowledged, amidst a growing sense of certainty. But it was something. And since she’d discovered that Pappy hadn’t accompanied them, the man would have no other information for her. Which meant, of course, that any other details would have to be pried from Jones himself.

Despite the heat, her skin prickled. The thought of having to play along with his egotistical belief that she was hot for him, in return for stray tidbits she might glean, was about as appealing as having surgery without benefit of anesthesia. But finding Sam was worth the sacrifice, wasn’t it?

Jones would be less likely to be suspicious of her questions if he thought she was using conversation as an excuse to get close to him. She scowled at the thought, but the truth of it couldn’t be denied. He’d handed her a perfect opportunity, and she’d be a fool not to use it.

She could always, Ana thought, consolingly, consider the exercise as practice. God knew she needed the experience at flirting, and since Jones had said in so many words that he was immune, he was a safe enough target. And besides learning information about her brother’s disappearance, maybe before this trip was over, she’d have Jones eating his rejection of her, word by demoralizing word.

She smiled, stretched more languorously on the deck chair and raised her face to the sun. The idea was one to relish.

“Brought you something to eat,” Ana said, strolling toward Jones with a tray Pappy had prepared.

His gaze flicked from her face to the food, then back again. “Is it poisoned?”

“Do you trust your cook so little?”

“It’s not Pappy I don’t trust.” His meaning wasn’t lost on her, but she chose to ignore it. Although earlier in the day she would have given a great deal to see him choke on a chicken bone, she was beyond those feelings now. Almost.

“You were right, Pappy is a great cook. I already ate and it was wonderful.” And when she’d finished, she’d offered to relieve the crew member of the plate he’d prepared for Jones, uncaring of the conclusion Pappy had drawn. She was eager for an excuse to approach the other man. Just not for the reason that Pappy and Jones seemed to think.

Setting the tray down on a nearby table, she removed the napkins covering the food and pulled up a chair. Jones watched her carefully. “What are you doing?”

“I thought I’d keep you company while you ate,” she said artlessly. “You’ve been up here all morning alone. I figured you wouldn’t mind a little company.”

He reached for a piece of chicken. “I like being alone.”

She refrained from pointing out that with his personality, he was likely to spend a great deal of time in that state. Despite her efforts, her gaze lingered on the puckered scar on his back. She’d spent more than an hour formulating ways to finesse needed information from him before approaching him with lunch. But instead of the discreet questions she’d settled on, she heard herself say, “What happened to your back?”

“I lowered my guard.”

His stark answer sent a chill through her. She’d be willing to bet that for Jones that particular error had been rare, indeed. Ana wanted to ask who had gotten close enough to him to gain his trust, only to betray it. But she knew intuitively that he’d never tell her. “Tell me about Laconos,” she said instead, forcing her gaze away from him and out at the shatteringly blue water before them. “The State Department has cleared it for U.S. citizens’ travel, but you seem to believe that it’s still unsafe.”

He turned back to the wheel and adjusted its position. “I just think there’s cause for caution there, that’s all.”

“The scandal six months ago was like a Shakespearean tragedy. The crown prince of Laconos must have been desperately in love with his girlfriend to be so devastated by his family’s disapproval of their marriage.” The world had been shocked to learn that the prince, Owahano Bunei, of the royal family, had shot and killed his parents and siblings before turning his weapon on himself one night at dinner. And all because his parents had refused to give him permission to marry the woman he loved. “I’d heard, though, that the transition of power passed easily enough to Owahano’s uncle.”

“That kind of transition is never effortless.” It was his total lack of expression, rather than the words themselves, that alerted her. What Jones wasn’t revealing was of far more interest than what he did say.

She hadn’t asked Sterling about the nature of Sam’s mission on Laconos. It would have been futile. The man made even the taciturn Jones seem verbose. But she’d drawn her own conclusion from the information she’d managed to glean from her brother’s encrypted files. The United States government was taking a keen interest in the island’s new government, especially now that the current king was jockeying for more clout with the Global Trade Organization. Ana thought Sam had been sent on assignment to see, firsthand, if Laconos’s request should be opposed. Given her brother’s disappearance shortly after he arrived there, she wondered if he’d found a reason for that opposition.

“It probably won’t matter much to you and your friends one way or the other.” At Jones’s voice, Ana shifted her attention back to their conversation. “You’re just planning on enjoying the beaches, right? A day or two there, and you’ll be off to another island.”

She steered him away from a discussion of her fictional friends by saying, “I’ve heard that Laconos has a fabulous beach on the north side.”

“You may want to avoid that one.” Was that a tinge of embarrassment she heard in his words? Ana studied his profile searchingly. “There’s a great beach on the southwest side, too.”

“Why? What’s wrong with the north one?”

“It’s topless.”

“Sounds great.” With a provocative air she braced her hands on the table behind her and leaned back. She’d bet that Jones’s knowledge of topless beaches was firsthand. So to speak. “Is that the beach you go to?”

“I have better things to do with my time than to laze around on the sand all day.” He dropped the chicken bone back on the tray and reached for another piece.

“But what do you do when you don’t have a charter?” Not even to herself would she admit that there was a hint of personal interest in his answer.

He gave a shrug of one well-muscled shoulder. “Work on the ship.”

“You don’t ever take it out by yourself?” she prodded. Prying information from the man was like arm wrestling an alligator, but then, she hadn’t expected it to be easy.

“Sometimes.”

“Where are your favorite places to go?”

He slanted her a glance. “You know, you’re wasting valuable sun time in here with me. I’d think you’d want to be working on your tan.”

“I got enough sun this morning.” Let him think that she was in here to change his mind about taking her to bed. It might annoy him, but it would also allay his suspicions about the true reason for her interest. She made a production of crossing her ankles. “Are you going to show them to me? Your favorite spots, I mean?”

“Nope.” He’d polished off the second piece of chicken and exchanged the bones for another piece.

“Why not?” She imbued her voice with a deliberately sultry note. “Maybe they’d become my favorites, too.” As long as she was engaged in the pretense, she may as well pull out all the stops. Ana might not have had near the occasions she’d like to practice her feminine wiles, but she was a world-class observer. She knew the moves—the head toss, the pouty lips, the fluttering eyelids. Jones was given the full treatment, causing him to stare hard at her.

“Do you have something in your eye?”

She stopped fluttering them to glare at him. “No, you dolt.”

He looked unconvinced. “Maybe you should leave your sunglasses on. The sun is pretty bright on the water.”

With jerky movements she grabbed the sunglasses from atop her head and perched them on her nose. Okay, so her wiles were rusty. Come to think of it, they’d never exactly mesmerized any man, with the exception of Billy Ray McIntire, who’d barely qualified as such. But she couldn’t help believing Jones was being deliberately obtuse. Was she really so lacking in appeal?