"That would be strange since I've spent so much time dating flyers." Was he only making idle conversation? Tough to think and decide with his body heat blasting.
"I figured it was a rebellion thing against your father."
No way was she confessing to her real reason for her recent run of flyboy dates who happened to have preppy blond good looks.
She shifted her attention to the boats in the distance and the ones remaining in the faraway dock by Beachcombers. More familiar memories of the place flooded her brain, stuffed fish peering down from over windows with glass eyeballs and slack jaws. Netting full of shells, sand dollars and coral stretched across the wall. Small lanterns rested on each wooden picnic table, the smoky blue glass letting little light flicker through, more mood setting than illuminating.
Nothing new, yet she still clung to every detail, searching for a hidden clue in the place where she'd run into Carson last week while waiting for Gary...
"Hey, babe," Gary's greeting jolted through Nikki a second before he leaned an elbow on the bar and kissed her neck.
She ducked to the side with the help of the spinning bar stool. "I was starting to wonder if you'd stood me up."
"Never." He tapped her nearly empty amaretto sour. "Could I get you another drink?"
The press of bodies stifled her. She wanted space. She wanted to go home.
But first she had to tell him what little relationship they'd had was over. "Two's my limit since I'm driving. I'll take some plain orange juice."
"You've got it." He angled over her shoulder to place the order, his chest sealing against her back until she could feel the imprint of his favorite belt buckle against her spine—a cold metal buckle shaped like an overlarge casino coin.
And the imprint of more steel, lower down.
Nikki hopped off the bar stool. "Let's find somewhere quiet to talk."
In public, but not right beside a table full of her father's fly buddies—Picasso, Mako and the new guy in the squadron, Avery, who she'd also dated a couple of times.
"Sure, just what I was thinking." Gary fell in step alongside her, then stopped, skimming a touch along her arm.
"Wait. You almost forgot your orange juice. Hold on and I'll go back and get your drink for you..."
"Nikki?" Carson's voice sliced through her memories like the hull slicing the waves.
"Yeah, uh right. Just daydreaming." Nikki clutched the side of the sailboat as if she could hold on to the memories already slipping away faster than the dispersing wake.
"Go right ahead." He shoved away from the side with muscle-rippling ease and a smile, closer. "This day's all about relaxing."
Even with the warmth of the sun on her face and her thick windbreaker protecting her from the misty spray, she rubbed her hands along her chilled arms, a deeper cold settling inside her at even the whisper of memory that helped her with nothing, except to hint further that Gary may have drugged her. He'd certainly had the opportunity. But hadn't she forgotten things from before he brought her drink? The effects of Rohypnol varied from person to person, with so many other variables factored in.>There she went again, being so trusting when he deserved to crawl for what he'd done. He certainly deserved more wariness. All he'd offered her were a couple of unsavory facts from his childhood.
He took her hand, a strong hand with short nails and impossibly soft skin he remembered, too. His memory flamed with their out-of-control kiss at his door, her hands tunneling up under his shirt, gliding her softness over him at a time when raw pain heated him from the inside out. He owed her so damn much.
Carson held her hand tighter as she stepped on the rocking hull, palmed her waist for the final boost. She looked so right there he wondered why he'd never thought to bring her before.
"Catch." He pitched the rope to her, leaped aboard and finished launching from the dock.
Already the familiar roll of the waves rocking beneath soothed his soul like a cradle in motion shooshes a baby. He took his place behind the wheel, firing the small motor to power them out of the narrow channel, Nikki an arm's reach away, trailing her fingers in the light spray.
She pulled her hand out. "Are you doing this today for my dad, too?"
"What part of 'trust me' did you not understand?"
She flicked her damp fingers, showering an icy spray on his face. "Just joking."
Laughing, he leaned low and popped in the CD he'd bought this morning once he'd realized he would be detouring to her parents' house. He cranked the volume as the best of the 1940's spun up some "Bing" along with the percussion of the waves against the hull.
"Oh, you're playing dirty today."
"Gotta work with what you've got." He revved the motor to clear the channel without creating too large a wake to damage the shore.