Beyond Reach

He leaned forward, his voice honed to an edge as deadly as the pearl-handled switchblade. ‘Don’t think I’m so desperate for crew that I can’t fire you.’

‘Go ahead!’ she stormed. ‘I dare you.’

Her eyes, fueled by rage, were the turbulent blue of the sea under gray skies. In her free hand she was clutching a butcher-knife she’d been using to chop onions; her breast was heaving under her blue knit shirt, her whole body taut with defiance.

Troy said scathingly, ‘You’re behaving like a ten-year-old.’

‘At least I’m capable of emotion!’

‘Just what do you mean by that?’

‘I mean you’re as cold as the refrigerator. You’re frozen, solid as the block of ice in the—’

A man’s voice floated down the companionway. ‘Ahoy, Seawind… Anyone on board?’

Troy’s muttered profanity made Lucy blink. He said furiously, ‘Don’t think we’re through with this—because we’re not. I’m the boss on this boat, Lucy, and you’d better remember it.’ Then he turned on his heel and took the steps two at a time. She heard a stranger’s jovial laugh and then the murmur of masculine conversation.

For two cents she’d follow Troy up those steps, march down the dock and leave him in the lurch. Let him find another crew-member! What did she care? One of the reasons she’d become self-employed was so she wouldn’t have to deal with dictatorial male bosses. Because one thing was clear to her: what she had earlier labeled as Troy’s confidence wasn’t confidence at all. It was arrogance. Downright arrogance.

High-handedness. Despotism. Tyranny.

The buzzer rang on the stove. The crab dip was as perfectly browned as any her mother had ever made, and smelled delicious. Balancing it on top of one of the gas elements on the stove, Lucy heaved a heavy sigh. Tyrant though Troy was, she still wanted to sail out of the harbor the day after tomorrow. She wanted to hear the slap of waves under the prow and feel the helm quiver with responsiveness. She wanted to swim in the turquoise waters of a coral reef…

She reached for the packages of crackers she’d bought, and five minutes later was climbing the steps with a platter on which the crackers and some celery stalks were artistically arranged around the dip. ‘Hello,’ she said, with a friendly smile at the man sitting across from Troy.

‘Jack Nevil,’ he said bluffly, getting to his feet. ‘Skipper of Lady Jane… Is this for us? You’ve lucked out, Troy.’

Lucy smothered a smile. Troy said with a dryness that wasn’t lost on her, ‘I sure have… Want a beer, Jack? Or something stronger?’

‘A beer’d be great… and one for the lady?’

‘The name’s Lucy,’ she said limpidly. ‘I’d love one; it’s been pretty hot in the galley.’

Her eyes, wide with innocence, met Troy’s. He was quite aware of her double meaning, she saw with some satisfaction. He said blandly, ‘Jack, who was that chemist who won the Nobel prize—Prigogine? His thesis was that at a state of maximum disequilibrium, a system will spontaneously create its own order—I think that’s Lucy’s theory of cooking.’

‘If this dip is anything to go by, the theory works,’ Jack said enthusiastically. ‘Have a seat, Lucy.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said sweetly, ‘I’d better get back to work. Troy’s a hard taskmaster.’

‘Only that I have a preference for eating before midnight,’ Troy responded equally amiably. ‘Thanks, Lucy…see you later.’

And who had won that round? Lucy wondered as she went back to the steaming-hot galley. If she were an optimist she could call it a tie.

But Jack Nevil and her mother’s crab dip had probably saved her from being fired.

Two hours later Lucy twirled the last strawberry in the chocolate sauce and took another sip of the German dessert wine in her glass. She’d drunk rather more wine than was good for her in the course of the meal. Maybe to hide the fact that Troy had spoken very little as they ate. Or maybe so she’d have the strength to face all the dirty dishes stashed below. ‘What a glorious night,’ she said soulfully.

Jack had left before dinner, having demolished the crab dip and three beers. She and Troy were eating on deck, where the smooth black water was illumined by a three-quarter moon and stars glimmered in the blackness overhead. It was blissfully, blessedly cool.

‘That was an excellent meal, Lucy,’ Troy said brusquely. ‘But entirely too elaborate—I can’t have you spending all day in the galley when you’ll be needed out on deck.’

She took a gulp of wine. ‘Is that what’s called damning with faint praise?’ she said provocatively.

His eye-sockets were sunk in shadow, his irises reflecting the harbor’s obsidian surface. ‘And that’s another thing,’ he said, in the same hard voice. ‘You and I can fight like a couple of tomcats from sun-up till sundown tomorrow. But when the Merritts come on board there’ll be no more fighting. We’ll get along even if it kills us.’

To her horror she heard herself say, ‘You mean you’ll actually be nice to me?’

He banged his clenched fist so hard on the table that the cutlery jumped. ‘I’ve never in my life met a woman as contentious as you! Don’t you ever let up?’

‘I wouldn’t be so cranky if you’d act like a human being,’ she retorted. ‘It’s because you’re so—so unreachable.’

‘Unreachable is exactly what I am, and what I intend to remain,’ he answered grimly. ‘I said no male-female stuff and I meant it. And don’t, if you value living, ask why.’

Any flip reply Lucy might have made died on her lips, because there was genuine pain underlying Troy’s voice and the moonlight lay cold along his tightly held jaw and compressed lips. He had a beautiful mouth, she thought unwillingly. Strongly carved yet with the potential for tenderness. What had made him so unreachable? Had filled him to the brim with suppressed rage?

Whatever it was, it was his secret. Nothing to do with her.

Swallowing the strange bitterness this conclusion caused her, Lucy let her thoughts march on. There was more than an element of truth in everything Troy had said. The meal had been too elaborate. And people didn’t pay high rates for a charter to spend their time listening to the crew fight all day. She downed the last of her wine and said forthrightly, ‘I’ll prepare simpler meals from now on. And I’ll do my best not to lose my temper again.’ She gave him a small smile. ‘Or at least not more than once a day.’

His mouth softened infinitesimally. ‘I should have told you there’s a very good delicatessen on one of the backstreets—you can buy a lot of stuff already prepared and freeze it. Quite a lot of it’s West Indian style, so the guests enjoy it. Plus, it would make life much easier for you.’

‘Oh. That’s a good idea.’ And because Troy’s voice, like his face, had gentled, and because she was alone on the deck of a yacht in the tropics by moonlight with a handsome blond man, she babbled, ‘I’m going to give the galley a good cleaning tomorrow before I bring in the supplies. The brass lamps and fittings are tarnished, so I’ll polish them, and then I’ll—’

‘It’s okay, Lucy… If there’s one thing I’ve learned today it’s that you’re a hard worker. Why don’t you go to bed now? You must be exhausted. You can take one of the cabins downstairs and I’ll sleep up at the bow.’

‘I think you just gave me a compliment,’ Lucy said dazedly. ‘A real one.’

‘I believe I did. Off you go.’

Struggling to collect her wits, Lucy muttered, ‘I’m going to do the dishes first, they won’t take long.’

He stood up. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

As he stretched lazily, a bare strip of skin showed itself between his waistband and his T-shirt. She dragged her gaze away. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

‘Two confrontations with Raymond Blogden today, along with a yelling match with me, is more than enough for one woman. Come on, let’s get at them.’

‘You can be so darn nice when you forget about being angry,’ Lucy blurted, then, before he could reply, ran on, ‘I know—I shouldn’t have said that. My sisters always tell me I speak before I think, and they’re right. They’re right about nearly everything,’ she added gloomily, ‘it’s very depressing. But it seems such a waste when you could be nice all the time.’

‘You’d be bored,’ Troy said. Then he raised one brow in mockery as he gathered the dessert dishes from the table. ‘Besides, I was just practising for when our guests arrive.’

And that, thought Lucy, was that. After picking up the leftover chocolate sauce, which now looked sickeningly sweet, she followed Troy down the stairs.

CHAPTER THREE

LUCY woke at daylight. She knew exactly where she was as soon as her eyes opened. On board Seawind in Road Harbor. With four weeks ahead of her to cruise the Virgin Islands.

She jumped out of bed, filled with the tingling anticipation she had felt as a little girl every Christmas Eve. Except that this time she was the one who’d given herself a gift. The gift of time, she thought fancifully. What better gift was there?

Although even Christmas Eve hadn’t always been trustworthy, she remembered, her hands faltering as she pulled on her darkest shorts. Her father had died when she was three, and confidently, at three, four and five, Lucy had requested Santa Claus to bring him back. Only when her elder sister Marcia had laughed at her efforts had she ceased to hope that she would find him early in the morning under the Christmas tree among all her other presents.

She gave her head a little shake. She rarely thought of her father now. And she had a lot to do today. Reaching up to look out of the open port, she saw that the sun was already glinting on the water, and again she was swept with excitement. When she went to the supermarket today she’d leave a message on her mother’s answering machine, explaining her change of plans, then she was free. All she had to do was work hard and have fun.

And keep her temper with Tory Donovan.

She could handle Troy. She was through with big blond men.

Just as everything had gone wrong the day before, today the gods were with Lucy. Before she left for town, the galley, the brass and the woodwork were all gleaming with cleanliness. Near the delicatessen she found a spice shop that sold a series of recipe books with all sorts of suggestions for easy and tasty meals and aperitifs—just what she needed. She bought the first volume and several bottles of mixed spices, had a lemonade in a little restaurant and drew up her menus, then hit the deli and the supermarket.

It gave her great pleasure to stow everything away in her tidy galley. In the tiny microwave over the gas stove she heated rotis for lunch—West Indian sandwiches stuffed with curried chicken and vegetables, that tasted delicious washed down with ginger ale. Troy had been scrubbing the deck and polishing the winches; they ate in a silence that she was quite prepared to call companionable. When she’d cleared away the dishes, she tackled the three cabins that led off the saloon.

She was down on her knees wiping the floor of the aft cabin’s shower when Troy spoke behind her. ‘Let’s take a break, Lucy.’

She glanced round, swiping at her hair with the back of her hand. ‘How does it look?’

‘You’ve done wonders,’ he said.

His praise gave her a warm glow of pride. ‘I’ve had a ball, actually—the woodwork and the fittings are all so beautiful that it’s a pleasure to clean them. Much more fun than cleaning my apartment.’ She sat back on her heels, stripping off her rubber gloves. ‘What was that about a break?’

‘I have to run the engine a couple of hours every day to keep the refrigerator and freezer cold. I thought we might head for Peter Island and have a swim. What have you got left to do?’

‘The saloon floor. Make the beds and put out the towels.’ Lucy tilted her head to one side. ‘You did say swim, didn’t you?’

She had managed to coax from him one of his reluctant smiles—a smile that, oddly, hurt something deep within her. He looked at her bucket and sponge. ‘I hate to tear you away from something you’re enjoying so much.’

‘For you, I’ll make the sacrifice.’ She got to her feet. ‘Will you show me how to snorkel?’

He looked surprised. ‘You don’t know how?’

‘Troy, I’ve never been further south than Boston in my entire life. Everything down here’s new to me.’

Her forehead was beaded with perspiration and there was a smudge of dirt on her chin, but her eyes were dancing and her smile was without artifice. Troy said slowly, ‘You’re making up for lost time, aren’t you?’

She wouldn’t have expected such discernment—or even interest—from him. Her heart beating a little faster, she said, ‘I guess I am. These four weeks seem like time out. A break from my normal life. I—I seem to have lost my sense of direction somewhere along the way.’

As though the words were torn from him, he said, ‘You’re not alone there.’ Then he raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Let’s pull up anchor and get out of here.’

No more revelations, Lucy realized, and knew better than to push. ‘I’ll dump the bucket and be right there,’ she said. But for a moment she stood still, watching him stride across the saloon and up the steps. His leg muscles were those of a runner, but what was he running from?

And how had he lost his way?

Once they were anchored off the beach at Peter Island, Lucy went below to put on her swimsuit. She had bought it—acting on another of her impulses—in the middle of a hailstorm in March. It was, in direct consequence, a bright red and quite minimal bikini. If she’d known about Troy Donovan, she thought, trying without success to cover even a fraction of her cleavage, she’d have purchased a staid one-piece. In an innocuous shade of beige. She pulled a white sport shirt over the bikini and went up on deck.

But the wind instantly whipped the shirt away from her body. As Troy turned around, about to say something, his jaw dropped, and he gaped at her as though someone had hit him hard in the chest. She was tall and full-breasted, her hips ripely curved, her long legs tapering to narrow ankles and feet. As an adolescent Lucy had hated her body, for she had shot up at the age of thirteen, towering over the boys in her class yet having to endure their covert and not-so-covert sniggers at her generous breasts. She had wanted to be tiny and delicate and feminine, like Tanya Holliday.

In the intervening years she had more or less made peace with her build. But right now she felt absurdly self-conscious, as though she were fourteen again. Grabbing at the shirt, she yanked it over what felt like an immense expanse of bare flesh.

This gave her something to do. Because if Troy was staring at her, she was struggling hard not to return the compliment. Under his taut belly his dark green trunks sat low on his hips; any attempt to regard his torso as nothing but neatly delineated groups of muscles—like the diagrams in her anatomy text—was a miserable failure. She said weakly, ‘Where’s the snorkeling gear?’

He snapped his mouth shut, knelt down and began hauling fins and masks out of a storage hatch. The wind played with his thick, unruly hair. Lucy quickly found a pair of fins that fit, then Troy passed her a mask. ‘Try this one. Keep your hair out of the way—when you breathe in through your nose, the mask should stay airtight.’

The first mask was too big. As she pulled on the second Troy came closer, checking the seal. ‘That looks good,’ he said. ‘You put this piece in your mouth and clamp your teeth over it. If water gets in the tube, throw your head back and breathe out hard.’

He was standing so close to her that Lucy was having difficulty breathing at all. Fighting to subdue her pleasure in the way Troy towered over her, she nodded her understanding of his instructions.

‘The reef’s to our left,’ he added. ‘I’m going to dive down and check that the anchor’s holding, then we’ll head over there.’

He pulled on his own fins and slid off the transom of the boat into the water. Lucy shed her shirt and followed with rather less grace; with her fins flapping in front of her and an undignified splash she fell forward into the sea. But she soon discovered that the fins added immeasurably to her speed, and by the time Troy surfaced with a thumbs-up sign she was over the reef. She dunked her mask into the water and gave a gasp of delight.

Below her in the clear turquoise water big purple seafans waved in the current, and a coral that looked like nothing so much as ostrich feathers swayed lazily back and forth. Patterns of sunlight danced on the white sand. Through the prongs of a hard coral shaped like antlers a school of fish darted; when they turned as one, their scales flashed with the iridescence of sapphires. Lucy opened her mouth to tell Troy about them, swallowed seawater as bitter as Epsom salts and raised her face, choking.

Immediately, it seemed, Troy was beside her. ‘You okay?’

She spat out the water and the mouthpiece. ‘The fish— they’re like jewels!’

His own mouthpiece was hanging by his ear and he had pushed his mask up. ‘Indeed. But when you’re underwater you’d better keep your mouth shut—unless you want an early supper.’

‘Yuk,’ she said. ‘I never did like sushi.’

‘And, seriously, don’t brush against any of the corals. Fire coral can sting you quite badly.’

‘I won’t.’ Flashing him another smile before she adjusted her equipment, she struck out again. There were fish everywhere: black, yellow, silver, red and blue, small and large, striped, spotted and lined. Fascinated, she hovered over the shelves and crenellations of the corals, then Troy gestured to her and she swam over to him, forgetting how little of her body the bikini covered, ignorant of how gracefully she moved, her limbs all pale curves, her cleavage shadowed. Following his pointed finger she saw three small pink squid fluting through the water, their huge eyes, like silver coins, riveting her gaze.

Impetuously she surfaced again, shoving her mask away from her face. ‘Thank you so much for bringing me here, Troy!’ she sputtered. ‘It’s unimaginably beautiful—like another world.’ But then her voice died away. ‘What’s the matter?’

He said with a savagery that frightened her, ‘You’re the one who’s unimaginably beautiful.’ The flat of his hand hard against her back, he pulled her closer, the water swirling between them. Then he bent his head and kissed her wet lips, his mask bumping against hers, his arm heavy across her shoulders.

Her fear vanished. It was as though all the wonders she had just seen, all the brilliant hues of the fish and of the corals, had exploded in her body in a wild kaleidoscope of color, and for a split second that was outside of time Lucy was consumed by an all-powerful and allconsuming happiness. But, as suddenly as he had seized her, Troy thrust her away, his heavy breathing overriding the splash and ripple of the sea. He looked as though he hated her, she thought blankly, and could not, for the life of her, think of a word to say.

‘We’d better go back,’ he grated. ‘We’ve still got a lot to do.’ As if he was being pursued by sharks, he began stroking toward Seawind in a strong overarm crawl.

Lucy, barely remembering to tread water, stayed where she was. She was about as adept a judge of character as she was a gourmet cook, she decided. Never, in a thousand years, would she have anticipated that kiss.

Troy hated her. So why had he kissed her?

Or did he hate her because he’d kissed her?

She had no answers to either question, and she could see him hauling himself up on Seawind’s stern. She didn’t think he’d leave her behind. But then what did she really know about the man called Troy Donovan?

Painfully, pitifully little.

Once she’d washed the salt water from her body with the transom hose, Lucy winched in the anchor and disappeared below to get changed. She was pegging her wet swimsuit to the lifeline that ran round the hull when Troy finally spoke to her. ‘You can call that kiss temporary insanity or insatiable lust or just plain curiosity… I really don’t care. I assure you it won’t happen again.’

There was as little feeling in his voice as if he were discussing the lunch menu. Carefully not looking at him, because if she did she wasn’t sure she’d be answerable for the consequences, Lucy went below decks and started washing and buffing the mahogany floor of the saloon. When they reached the harbor, she went to the forepeak and used the agreed hand signals to anchor Seawind. No need for conversation there. Afterward, she finished the floor, made two of the three beds with fresh sheets and threw together a shrimp salad for supper—activities that kept her busy and out of Troy’s way, but did nothing to tame the tumult of emotion in her breast.

She was bent over the refrigerator, wondering where she’d hidden the bottles of dressing, when a sixth sense told her Troy had come downstairs and was watching her. Feeling her scalp crawl, not looking at him, she said, ‘Ten minutes and we can eat.’ As she moved two blocks of cheese to one side she saw the yellow caps on the dressing and pulled the bottles out. ‘Good, there they are.’

‘What the devil happened to your arms?’ he demanded.

She put the bottles on the counter and clicked the hatch shut. ‘What are you talking about?’ she said, glowering at him.

He stepped on to the narrow strip of floor between the stove and the sinks, crowding her into the corner. ‘Those bruises—how did you get them?’

Craning her neck, Lucy for the first time saw the ugly purple blotches high on the backs of her arms. Involuntarily she shivered, knowing exactly how she’d gotten them. ‘Blogden—when he grabbed me, his rings dug in.’

Troy’s epithet was unprintable. But Lucy wasn’t in the mood to be impressed. ‘I wonder what his motive was,’ she said shrewishly. ‘Temporary insanity, plain curiosity or insatiable lust?’

There was a small, deadly silence. ‘Are you comparing me to him?’

As clearly as if it had just happened Lucy remembered how Troy’s kiss had filled her with a joy as many-hued and vivid as the fish, and how everything he had done since then had repudiated that joy. She was honest enough to know she was as angry with herself as with him—for she’d been the one to feel the joy, she who had sworn off tall, blond men. She didn’t want to fall in love again, it hurt too much and got her nowhere. She said, ‘I am, yes. Although overall I’d have to say he showed more emotion than you.’

‘Don’t push me, Lucy.’

‘Why did you kiss me, Troy?’

‘I gave you three good reasons.’

‘I want the real one.’

‘I already gave it to you,’ he said with a wolfish smile. ‘Insatiable lust.’

Her knees were trembling. Bracing them against the cupboard door, Lucy said, ‘You’re the one who said no male-female stuff between us.’

‘Haven’t you ever wanted something—or in this case, someone—so badly your whole body told you what it wanted?’ he quoted mockingly.

Lucy paled. ‘You know what’s so horrible about all this?’ she demanded, with sudden, searing honesty. ‘I liked you kissing me. I wanted you never to stop.’ She dashed at the tears that had filled her eyes. ‘What a stupid idiot I am… because you’re nothing but a coldblooded manipulator. You wouldn’t recognize an emotion if you fell over it.’

If her vision hadn’t been obscured by tears she might have seen Troy flinch. But all he said was, ‘So you’re not quite as immune as you thought you were. Maybe we should sleep together, Lucy—then you could add me to your total. One more blond hunk to notch in your belt. Or wherever it is you keep tally.’

There was plenty of emotion in his voice now, and all of it was anger. ‘No, thank you,’ she said, as steadily as she could. ‘I’m a little more discriminating than that.’

‘That wasn’t the impression I got.’

That he should so misread her hurt horribly. She wasn’t one bit immune, she thought wretchedly, and knew she had to end this. Turning, she cut three slices of bread with a reckless disregard for safety, plastered them with butter, put two on Troy’s plate and one on hers, then put the butter back in the refrigerator. How could she possibly have woken this morning feeling as if it was Christmas Day? More to the point, how on earth was she going to get through the next four weeks?