“Does it hurt?”
“Not unless I overdo it. Or wear three-inch heels for hours on end.”
“I wish I could have done something more.”
She was silent for a moment. “Me, too, but you did everything you could.” She splashed him, knocking water onto him with the flat of her hand. “You’re holding out on me. Spill.”
“I’m not going to melt.”
“Or run shrieking?” There was something about the look in her eyes as she slid him a sidelong glance. Piper being playful wasn’t new. He’d watched her pull this shit for years, poking, teasing, prodding. She had no fear and no boundaries. And yet, right now he was okay with it. He didn’t mind her asking.
Okay. Scratch that. He minded a whole lot, but he sensed that the reasons behind the questions were well-intentioned. She wasn’t asking in order to make fun of him. Nope. Piper wanted to help.
Him.
Something tightened in the region of his heart. “I won’t run,” he agreed.
“Good.” She bumped his shoulder companionably with hers again, a little smile playing across her lips. Like they were old friends, but...he didn’t want to be friends with Piper. Or, rather, he didn’t just want to be friends with her. He looked at her and saw the same face, the same person, he’d known since he was ten, but now he saw someone more. A woman he wanted to get to know better. Piper was more than a pretty face and a bum knee, or even a stubborn, argumentative competitor.
“You’re smiling,” she said, but her eyes were firmly fixed on the ocean.
“You bet.”
“We already did,” she said darkly.
“And I paid up.”
“Which makes it my turn,” she pointed out. “I owe you a night.”
One more wicked night with Piper. Just the thought had his body heating up, but he didn’t want to go to bed with Piper because of a bet, either. Not that he wasn’t grateful for the cover story. He had a feeling that the chemistry between them had been as much of a surprise to her as it had to him. One night hadn’t erased the attraction.
He still wanted Piper.
And, after he ran the logic in his head for a moment, he didn’t imagine his feelings were going to change after the good folks at the Fiesta Cruise Lines awarded their contract.
“Tell me more,” she repeated, leaning against him. “Tell me it all.”
He shook his head. “I wish it were that simple, Piper.”
“I’m waiting,” was all she said.
She really was going to make him say it.
He risked a look at her face, but she didn’t look horrified or shocked. He read concern there, but it seemed more directed at him and less, “I’m partnered with a crazy man.” She chewed on her lower lip, clearly thinking something through.
“We were on a rescue mission over the Indian Ocean, searching for survivors from a tsunami that had hit the area hard. Whole villages had been sucked out to sea, and sometimes, if we were lucky, there were survivors clinging to the debris. We’d already pulled two people up in the basket, but the water was rough and there was enough crap in it to be a concern.”
It wasn’t the chop that got to you. It was the unseen obstacles in churned-up water. You couldn’t see. All you could do was swim and pray—and get the survivors into the basket as fast as possible. They’d plucked two people off an impromptu raft that looked like it might have been the wall of a house or a shed door. Whatever it was, it was unrecognizable now, but it floated and it had made all the difference to the two survivors.
“I’d come up with the first survivor, and Daeg and Lars went down to get the second. They’d gotten their guy into the basket, but Daeg took a hit. Lars convinced him to go up first.”
Cal could see that rescue as if it were yesterday.
* * *
THE BASKET CAME up in slow motion, like things did in nightmares but weren’t supposed to do in real life. Cal reached for the metal frame, steadying it as it bumped against the edge of the chopper, and they prepared to haul it in. For just a moment, he took his eyes off his boys in the water and focused on getting the survivor out and into the comparative safety of the chopper. The guy was in shock—no surprise after forty hours at sea—and didn’t or couldn’t speak English. Since Cal’s Hindi consisted of yes, no, and “Where’s the bar?” his linguistic efforts weren’t helping to calm the guy down, either. Although maybe the guy could have used a drink. Cal knew how he’d have felt after being sucked out to sea by a tsunami.
And then the pilot cursed over the headset. Screw international diplomacy. Cal picked up the survivor and set him down on a jump seat, buckling the safety harness around him.