Love Overboard - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,23
Lucy, but it’s not enough.” She bit her lip against the wave of nausea and decided she’d smelled enough brewing coffee to last a lifetime.
“You look a little pale,” Ivan said. “Maybe you should get some air.”
Mr. Pease smiled at them. “I think it’s real nice that you two are getting married. Love on the high seas. That’s romantic.”
Ivan’s left eyebrow cocked a fraction of an inch. “Getting married?”
Mr. Pease blinked. “Aren’t you getting married? I heard you were getting married.”
Mrs. Pease rolled her eyes at her husband. “You always jump to conclusions. You didn’t hear they were getting married. You heard they were—” She stopped and flushed. “You heard they were very close friends.”
Mr. Pease winked at Ivan. “Must be something to have pirate blood in you, huh?”
Ivan forced a tight grin. “Mmmm.”
Melody looked up from her rolls. “So are you two sleeping together, or what?”
“We’re just ‘or what,’ ” Stephanie told her. She took a deep breath. “I really do need air.”
Ivan followed her up and put a steadying arm around her while she hung on the ropes. When the color had returned to her face, and he could see she was taking some interest in the whitecaps skidding past them, he kissed the back of her neck.
“That’s how rumors are started,” Stephanie said.
“No one saw. I was very careful. And besides, rumors are started by Ace. I accidentally pulled your panties out of my pocket while I was giving him a lecture on morals last night.”
Her first reaction was surprise. She’d forgotten about the panties. And then her sense of the ridiculous took over. She tipped her head back and whooped with laughter.
Ivan pretended to look serious. “This is no laughing matter. My honor has been compromised.”
“Nonsense. Pirates are supposed to carry panties in their pockets.”
“How about your honor?”
Good question. She thought about it for a moment and decided her panties had a legitimate reason for being in his pocket, so her honor was untarnished. The only possible repercussion might be that her image was prematurely improved. And a new image was pretty much inevitable. She’d been contemplating a shift in outlook. Her attitudes about permissive sex hadn’t changed, but her qualifications for a partner had become more flexible. She had very special feelings for Ivan and wanted to explore those feelings further. She wasn’t ready to make a decision yet, but she felt certain she’d know when the time was right to sleep with a man, and it wouldn’t necessarily be the result of a marriage certificate.
She leaned back against the ropes and flashed him a brazen smile. “I’ll just look at this as a trial run to see if I like being a fallen woman.”
Ivan rested his head against hers and talked into her hair in the soft, rumbling voice that Stephanie had come to love. “Let me know what you decide.”
Stephanie felt her mind go slack for a moment, then pull back. He wasn’t just carelessly flirting anymore. He was making a serious overture at moving the boundaries of their relationship. And it was scary. She turned from him to give herself some space and studied the horizon.
Ivan pointed to a stretch of land dead ahead in the distance. “That’s Holbrook Island. Castine is almost due north on the mainland. I’m taking a more inland route for the rest of the trip so we can see the autumn foliage and have some protection from the storm.”
“Do you think the storm will be bad?”
“No. It’s veering out to sea, but it will make the water choppy for a few days.” He leaned back against the roof. “My great-great-grandfather sailed these waters in a schooner very much like the Savage. He transported lumber down the Penobscot River and throughout the bay. He’s one of my favorite ancestors. He was a little boring compared to some others, but I think he must have led a quality life. I know from his diary that he took the time to see the sun set, and he enjoyed his family, and he built Haben.”
Stephanie sat beside him, drawing her knees close to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “Would you rather be hauling lumber than human cargo?”
He grinned. “Hauling lumber sounds like a job, and I’m a bum at heart. This is like being on a continuous vacation.”
“What do you do in the winter?”
“Make repairs and improvements. Last winter I built the yawl.” And last spring I worked twelve hours a day in a shoe factory, he thought. Not