Love Overboard - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,12

had been times in the past two months when she thought she might have made too drastic a change in her lifestyle. Probably she should have moved to Connecticut for a couple of years, bought a few things fromL. L. Bean, then moved to Maine.

It was the house that had pushed her into it, she decided. When she was nine years old she’d spent the summer with Lucy in Camden and had carried the fascination with the big white house with her ever since. It was one of those bits of baggage that forever floated loose in the mind, surfacing during moments of boredom, triggering fits of fantasy and vague discontent.

Even though she hadn’t known the history of the house, it had conjured up images of black-frocked, bearded sea captains and their patient wives. She’d recently learned that it had been built in 1805 on the foundation of Red Rasmussen’s lair. It was a magnificent huge box of a house, with a handsome cupola surrounded by a picket-fenced widow’s walk. It had high ceilings with elaborate plaster medallions, black marble fireplaces, elegant moldings, and woodwork that had been carried by schooner from the mahogany forests of South America.

It sat on a hill overlooking Camden Harbor and was frequently wreathed in fog. It was a house that had weathered hurricane winds, sleet, and snow and had not succumbed to aluminum siding. To a nine-year-old from New Jersey, it had seemed very romantic and exciting. When Stephanie reconsidered it at twenty- nine, it was Haben’s endurance that impressed her the most. Haben was a survivor. It had been built with quality and pride. It felt stable to her at a time when her life was looking shaky.

Ivan stood watching Stephanie. She has secrets, he thought. She could be disarmingly candid, and yet he had the feeling she was guarding something. She reminded him of a cat that was always listening. Behind the good humor was a constant wariness. It wasn’t cynical, he decided, but rather a kind of mental and physical alertness, as if she continually waited for something to happen. He had a fleeting thought that he might be the cause of all that tension, but quickly discarded it. Don’t flatter yourself, Rasmussen, he mused, this woman’s been up against something a lot more dangerous than your pirate routine.

She was lying flat out on the deckhouse roof, but she wasn’t relaxed. Ivan felt his heart constrict with the suspicion that she probably hadn’t relaxed in so long she’d lost the ability to do so.

Ivan saw her eyelids flutter open and knew he’d been detected even though he hadn’t made a move or uttered a sound. The woman had radar. The man who married her would never get away with anything. It was a disconcerting thought. He’d known her for approximately ten hours, and he was thinking about marriage. It was Aunt Tess, he decided. She was getting even with him for selling the house. “I’m a bachelor,” he mumbled under his breath. “I like being a bachelor. Get off my back!”

Stephanie propped herself on one elbow and looked at Ivan. “Were you mumbling at me?”

“I was talking to Aunt Tess.”

“She always sails with you?”

“Never.”

Stephanie raised her eyebrows. “This is a special occasion, huh?”

“I’m beginning to think so.”

She sat up and swung her legs onto the deck. “This conversation is making me nervous. Is it leading up to something?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Hmmm,” she said, throwing him the cool, appraising look she’d cultivated for teenage con men and twelve-year-old drug dealers. “Okay, then we have an understanding.”

“Yup.” He eyed her with a critical squint. “Just exactly what are the terms of this understanding?”

Stephanie fidgeted. Darned if she knew. She just wanted to steer the conversation away from ghosts and sex. She didn’t feel especially brave or knowledgeable about either of those subjects. “I thought the terms were obvious.”

“No involvement?”

“Right,” Stephanie said, “no involvement. Physical or otherwise.” Then she smiled at him. It was too late. They were up to their armpits in involvement.

Ivan smiled back at her. “As the blood relative of Red Rasmussen, I feel it my cavalier obligation to lie once in a while to a pretty woman. What’s your excuse?”

“My father’s grandmother was a Hungarian Gypsy. My great-uncle Fred defected from the army. My great-grandfather’s brother was hanged for rustling.”

“That explains it.”

Stephanie woke up with a start and fell off the edge of her narrow bunk onto the padded bench seat and ultimately onto the cold wood plank