the sound of that sigh, I take it the answer is no.” He pushed her up the stairs and stood beside her on the deck. “Are you the modest type?”
“My gynecologist asks that same question once a year, then he makes me sit in a freezing cold room wearing nothing but a paper jacket.”
“What a brute. This is going to be much more fun.”
Stephanie looked over the side of the ship at the still, black water. “You’re not expecting me to skinny-dip, are you?”
“How bad do you want to get clean?”
The deck was empty and dark except for the soft glow of light escaping up the cabin hatches. The air was cool and heavy with the smell of the sea. The water lapped gently against the sides of the ship. It was inviting and scary as hell. “Can you keep the crowds of thrill seekers away?”
“Absolutely.”
“And what about you?” she asked. “Are you swimming?”
“No. I’m ogling. Besides, I’m in charge of crowd control, remember?”
“Crowd control, yes. Ogling, no. How do I do this? It looks like a long way down.”
“The yawl is tied behind us. Just use the stern ladder. You can get undressed in the yawl and quietly slip into the water.” He handed her the bottle of dish detergent. “Use this to wash your hair. It won’t get gummy in seawater.”
He watched her go over the gunwale and scale the side of the ship like a cat burglar. Lithe, silent, efficient. He admired her style and, at the same time, hated the knowledge that it was probably a talent she’d acquired in dark, garbage-strewn alleys in seedy neighborhoods. He’d like to believe she’d directed traffic in front of a grade school or had had a nice, boring desk job, but he instinctively knew differently, and he felt his gut knot at the thought of her going toe-to-toe with drug dealers and the slime they fed off.
Stephanie settled herself in the boat and removed her shoes. “Turn your back,” she called to Ivan, thinking he looked like the Cheshire cat with his rascally smile floating in the shadows of the night. “I’m not getting undressed with you staring at me.”
I’m not much of a pirate, he thought, back turned. A real pirate would be down there in the boat with her… or at least sneaking a peek when she wasn’t looking. He heard her sweats drop to the floor of the yawl and the soft splash of her hitting the water. And then the scream. His heart slammed against the wall of his chest, and in an instant he was over the gunwale, flying down the rope ladder. He reached the boat just as her head bobbed to the surface. “Holy Toledo!” she said, gasping. “This is cold! You miserable excuse for a human being, why didn’t you tell me it would be this cold? And what are you doing in the boat?”
Ivan put his hand to his heart. “You screamed! I thought… I thought Jaws got you.”
Several passengers looked down at Stephanie and Ivan.
“What’s going on?” Mr. Pease wanted to know. “Are we interrupting anything?”
“It was the knife killer, wasn’t it?” Loretta Pease asked. “Soon as I heard that scream, I knew it was the knife killer striking again.”
Ivan looked up at her. “No, it wasn’t the knife killer. It was just Cookie taking a bath.”
“At this time of the night?”
“She had blueberry batter in her hair,” Ivan explained. “You can all go back to bed now.”
“Great crowd control,” Stephanie said. “Maybe we should have sold tickets.”
Ivan grinned at her and poured a glob of dish detergent on the top of her head. “Hold on to the edge of the boat, and I’ll wash your hair.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “Can you see below the water?”
“Do you expect the descendant of a pirate to answer that honestly?”
Chapter 4
Stephanie ducked her head back to rinse out the soap and pushed herself away from the yawl. The water was tolerable, now that she was used to it, and she stroked out, enjoying the sensual freedom of swimming naked.
“Don’t swim too far,” Ivan called. “The cold is going to sneak up on you.”
She waved to acknowledge his warning and swam parallel to the ship for a few more minutes before returning to him with chattering teeth. “Is the p-p-person in charge of crowd control also in charge of towels and d-d-dry clothes?”
“I knew I forgot something.” He looked at her hopefully. “You could always air-dry.”
“You know what you are? You’re a