* * *
As the Della Ray backed out of its slip into the mouth of the harbor, it became obvious to Piper that the boat was an extension of Brendan himself. And the time he spent on land was just filler. He sat in the captain’s chair with easy command, confident in every movement, the wheel sliding through his ready hands, his eyes vigilant. Framed in the hazy sunlight, he could have been from past or present. A man and the ocean. Timeless.
Piper watched him from the relief skipper’s seat, her cheek pressed to the wood paneling of the wheelhouse, never having felt safer in her life. Physically, anyway. The hum of the engine beneath posed an ominous warning to the trembling organ in her chest.
“How far out are we going to go?”
“Five or six miles,” he said. “I’ll drop the anchors and give you a tour. Sound good?”
She nodded, finding herself looking forward to it. Watching this man move in his natural habitat. It had the makings of capability porn all over it. And maybe if she asked enough questions, they could avoid having the talk of all talks.
Yeah, right. There was no getting out of this. The set of his jaw said a resolution was imminent, and he had way less of a hangover than she did. Also, he was in a sexy boat captain mode. It did not bode well.
“Hey,” Brendan said, his bearded chin giving a persuasive jerk. “Come steer this thing.”
“Me?” She stood slowly. “Are you sure? Based on my track record, I will find the one parking meter in the middle of the ocean and back into it.”
Laugh lines appeared around his eyes—and then he patted his big, sturdy thigh. Oh yeah, like she was going to pass that up. “Get over here.”
She feigned one more moment of indecision, then climbed onto his left thigh, mentally praising Hannah for packing her a skirt so she could feel the denim of Brendan’s jeans against the backs of her legs. The shift of muscle.
Brendan took an old captain’s hat off a peg on the wall and dropped it onto her head. Then he wrapped his left arm around her middle and tugged her back more securely against his chest. “See this dial? Just keep the arrow right about here. Northwest.” He took her hands and placed them on the wheel, making sure they were steady before letting go. “How’s that?”
“Cool.” She laughed breathily, fascinated by the vibrations that started in her palms and traveled up to her elbows. “Really cool.”
“Yeah. It is.”
Feeling almost giddily light and kind of . . . unrestrained, she pointed out at the horizon. “Mermaid off the port bow!” He snorted in her ear. “Phew. I’ve gotten the Little Mermaid reference out of my system. I was going to explode.”
“I don’t know how I feel about my boat making you think of a Disney movie.”
“Aw, don’t be jealous of Prince Eric, we—” She turned her head and found him a breath away, those vivid green eyes trained on her mouth. Not on the water, where she expected them to be. The arm around her belly flexed, his palm molding to her rib cage. Heat slicked up the insides of her thighs, her skin sensitizing all over. “Don’t you dare look at me like that,” she said choppily. “You’re the one who wanted to talk first.”
He exhaled hard. “And then you ran up my stairs in a purple string. It had an impact.”
“You live, you learn,” she chirped.
A growl kindled in his throat. “You’re going to punish me all day, aren’t you?”
“Count on it. I bet you’re second-guessing wanting a high-maintenance girlfri—” She cut herself off just in time. “I’m holding your livelihood in my hands, Brendan. Let me focus.”
They drove the boat for another fifteen minutes before Brendan eased the throttle into an upright position. He pressed a series of buttons, and a steady rumble followed, which he explained was the anchors going down. And then it was quiet. Just the lapping of water against the side of the boat, and the gentle groans of the ship compensating for the rise and fall of the ocean. They sat in the captain’s chair with her head leaned back against his shoulder, his fingers trailing up and down her bare arm.
“Come on,” he said gruffly. “I’ll bring you out on deck.”
Nodding, she followed Brendan down the stairs of the wheelhouse and out onto the wide floating platform that made up the deck. The vessel bobbed beneath them, but he moved like it was stationary, his legs easily compensating for the dips and lifts. She tried to copy his effortlessness and thought she looked only slightly drunk.
“Last week, there were seventy steel traps stacked on this end.” He gestured to the end of the deck nearest the wheelhouse, then stooped down to show her a covered portal. “When we’re on the crab, this is where we put the keepers. Males over a certain weight. We send them below to processing, then on to the freezer hold.”