Dangerous Tides (Drake Sisters 4)

"You're right." She was ashamed of herself for jumping down his throat. Had anyone else said what Tyson had just said, she'd have known they meant to be insulting, but Tyson didn't think that way. In his mind, she was certain he thought he was being logical, separating the issues and comparing them to his own life. "I jumped to conclusions. I'm sure your parents weren't embarrassed by you, Ty. As children we often draw incorrect conclusions about why our parents do things."

His eyebrow shot up. She had a thing for his eyebrow, black as a raven's wing, drawing attention to the intensity of his blue eyes.

"You sound like one of the twenty-seven psychiatrists my parents sent me to. They wanted to find out what was wrong with me, why I wasn't normal."

She sat up straighter. She could feel his pain, buried so deep he truly wasn't aware of it. "Ty, they didn't really send you to twenty-seven psychiatrists, did they?" She ached for him, for that never understood little boy.

"Absolutely they did. They wanted me to be normal. I think it was great to talk about having a genius for a son, but it was something altogether different living with one. I talked about things they had no interest in or understanding of. They told me many times I was a great embarrassment to them for my antisocial behavior."

She pressed her lips together to keep from expressing sympathy, knowing he wouldn't want it. She had wonderful parents who doted on her all the time. Her sisters were loving and supportive and her aunts and uncles and cousins were the same. She couldn't imagine parents not wanting a child around or saying mean, hurtful things to their only son. Tears clogged her throat, shimmered in her eyes.

"Don't look so sad, Libby," Ty said. He reached out to run a finger down her cheek, tracing the path of a tear. "I didn't even notice after a while. I had other things to occupy my mind. I think I obsessed over their opinion of me when I was around seven or eight, but then I just accepted the fact that I was different and they weren't going to change and neither was I. Once I realized it, I moved on to the things I was really interested in. And I had Aunt Ida. She may not have really understood me, but she loved me and she always wanted me. She gave me the entire basement for a laboratory. I was in heaven. My parents didn't want me messing with chemicals or anything that could possibly blow anything up. Aunt Ida encouraged me. After a while I wanted to stay here in Sea Haven with her. It was just easier."

"But you didn't," Libby said.

"No, my parents would drag me back every now and then so we'd look good for some write-up in a magazine. They tried, don't get me wrong, they wanted to be great parents, but they just didn't understand how to parent me."

"I didn't hear about their death until recently. What happened?"

"A plane crash. It was a couple of years ago. I still haven't sorted everything out. The estate was overwhelming. I hide in the laboratory and try to forget about it most of the time. I know I've got to deal with it, but it's just not a priority for me. Sam and I had a talk about it a couple of weeks ago. He took care of most of the details for me and has been overseeing a lot of things, but I can't keep expecting him to do it. He has a life, too, and sorting out the estate is a full-time job."

"You're very close to your cousin, aren't you?"

"He's more of a brother than a cousin. He tries to understand me just the way my aunt did." A small grin spread across his face, softening the hard lines that were etched in his face, making him appear almost boyish. "Tries being the operative word. He's given up trying to double-date with me. He says I'm abrasive."

"Imagine that."

He shrugged. "I get bored easily with inane conversation. I try to keep my mouth shut and just listen but after a while I can't take it and I have to leave. I see it as the lesser of two evils, but unfortunately, my dates don't agree."

"You don't sound like that bothers you very much."

He ducked his head. "Not especially. I wish it did. I want it to. I just can't seem to dredge up the effort to care what people think of me."

"Not even for Sam?"

He sat back in his chair, fiddling with the stem of the wineglass, frowning a little as he thought about it. "No. Sam doesn't need me to be charming. We don't move in the same circles most of the time. He has his life and I have mine. Even when we're sharing the house, I'm mostly in the basement."

"You bring your work home," she guessed. "You take the time off, but you're still working."

"I can't let it go for long. I start thinking about things and then I have to experiment. Sam's used to me disappearing. He's the one that always looks after things, pays the bills, keeps the refrigerator stocked, but recently I realized what a burden I was putting on him and decided to get a full-time accountant. I'm trying to take some of the pressure off of him, to assume more of the responsibility."

"Sam? He's always so--" Libby paused, searching for the right word. Did Sam ever appear anything but charming? Certainly not pressured. "Laid back? Easygoing? I heard you shared your inheritance with him. That was generous of you."

He laughed. "Generous of me? The money doesn't mean anything at all to me. Half the time I forget it's there. Sam shared his mother and his house with me. The money is nothing compared to that, Libby."

She heard the complete honesty in his voice. Maybe it had to do with the fact that the money had belonged to his parents, or that he was quite capable of making his own very good living, or maybe it was just his character, but she believed him--and she admired him. There was a lot more to Tyson than she'd ever thought.

"Why do you go parasailing and fight fires and find the wildest river to raft down? What drives you to do that?"

"I want to feel alive."

"Doesn't it bother you that you risk your bril--" She bit off what she was going to say. "That you risk your mind?"

His smile touched his eyes, warmed them to a deep blue. And there was too much heat in his smile. It was sensual and set the blood pounding in her veins.

"You were going to say brilliant, Libby. See? You did call me brilliant, didn't you? In the hospital."

His smile was so sexy. Everything about him was sexy, especially when he was teasing her. "I'm sure I didn't. You made the entire conversation up. I didn't say yes to a date at all."

"You really don't remember anything?"

"Bits and pieces. What about you?" She was curious as to what he did remember of that day.

"The rescue. Falling. It's all a little hazy. I don't remember much until I was in the hospital. I swear I saw Joe Fields there. He was standing in the corridor, but if he was really there, why didn't he come in and talk to me?"

"Who's Joe Fields?"

"He works in the corporate offices of BioLab and he's a good friend of one of the biochemists working on the PDG."

"Really? He must have heard about your accident and came to see you. I'm sure you're very important to your company."

"He couldn't have made it to Sea Haven that fast. Even by plane. He didn't have time. He had to have been here before the accident." Ty shook his head. "Or maybe I was so out of it I just imagined him. On the other hand, I remember that I dreamt about you when I was unconscious." A faint, slightly self-derisive smile curled his mouth. "I do that a lot so it isn't surprising. Then I opened my eyes and saw your face and thought I was dreaming. God, you're beautiful." His voice roughened and his eyes darkened even more.

Libby felt the rasp of his voice tripping little arcs of electricity through her body. Why was she so susceptible to him? She'd never felt such an overwhelming pull towards one man in her life. Not so all-consuming. Her throat was dry, as were her lips. She wanted to touch him. Her fingers itched to touch him. Libby Drake, always in control, was fast sweeping out of control by the slow burn spreading through her body with every heated look he gave her.

"I'm not, you know," she said, "beautiful." It took a while to find her voice. No man had ever called her beautiful before, but Tyson couldn't seem to take his eyes off of her. His desire was so stark and raw she couldn't help but believe his sincerit

y.

"You are to me. I really do dream about you."

He took another drink of wine and she watched him swallow. Even that was erotic. She had it bad. "You dream about me?"

His faint smile failed to reach his eyes. "You don't want to know what I dream, you'd slap my face."

A slow flush spread over her entire body. His voice was such a turn-on to her. God help her, all she wanted to know in that moment was exactly what he dreamt about her. All she could think about was tasting his skin. She closed her eyes and took a drink of the ice water, hoping it would help. It didn't. She touched her tongue to the beads melting on the outside of the glass, wishing it was his chest.

"Damn it, Libby. You're killing me. I don't have as much discipline as you think I do. Maybe we should find a bed and get it over with."

His abrupt tone, almost a snarl, brought her up short. What was she thinking? Libby knew her nature inside and out. She wasn't a one-night-stand woman. She didn't have flings. And she had always, always been far too aware of Tyson Derrick to think she'd walk away unscathed. He wanted sex. Plain and simple and who could blame him with the way she'd been acting? She'd been mentally undressing him most of the evening. She pressed the glass against her burning face.

"Libby?"