friend and lawyer, Carr Hamilton, lived on the opposite side of the street in a beautifully modern house on the point, and she cast a glance that way, wondering if he was home and if she should bring him along for this unpleasant confrontation with Gavin Fortune.
After shaking away that impulse and finally finding a spot at the end of the back row, she turned off the car and checked her reflection in the visor mirror. Small features, fair skin and “green as a shamrock” eyes, according to her father. She applied a little pink gloss to her lips, knowing no amount of makeup or surgery was ever going to turn her into a cover model.
She laid her hand over her cell phone sitting in the console. She should call Sloan and have her come meet her. Men fell at her feet—both before and since she’d married her darkly gorgeous husband.
The only male who consistently rubbed against Brenna lately was her prize Persian, Shakespeare Fuzzyboots.
With her hand wrapped around her phone, she caught a glimpse of the newspaper she’d tossed on the passenger’s seat of her car. The confident smile and perfect teeth of Dr. Gavin Fortune flashed back at her.
Doctor? Ha!
He’d probably gotten an honorary degree from some university he’d donated a pile of cash to. His online bio had been vague, focusing on the high-profile treasures he’d found and profited from, not any actual qualifications he had for finding them.
With renewed determination, she stepped out of her car. She had a legitimate education. College had given her a teaching degree, specializing in literature, which she’d used in a variety of high schools throughout the South. She’d traveled through Europe, Asia and Greece. Sure, she lived on a small island, but she’d come home just two years ago, after her mother broke her hip playing tennis and needed her help.
The fact that she knew she was home to stay didn’t make her unsophisticated. The island called to her sense of poetry, history and sheer appreciation of beauty. She wasn’t hiding here. She certainly wasn’t remembering how she’d found her last boyfriend in bed with the girl from Merry Maids.
After learning from the harbormaster that the research team was renting slip forty-two, she made her way down the pier, past a variety of speedboats, cabin cruisers and yachts.
She’d nearly reached her destination when it occurred to her that they might even now be at the wreck site scavenging for valuables. The vision of that atrocity had her quickening her pace.
With great relief, she saw a large cabin cruiser with the script Miami Heat bobbing next to the dock. Three men were standing on the bow of the boat. None of them was Gavin Fortune.
They noticed her approach, and the swarthy, Hispanic-looking one approached her with a smile. “Looking for Dr. Fortune? ”
How had he known? “As a matter of fact, I am.”
His grin widened. “I bet I could help.”
“That’s very kind of you to offer, but I really need to see him.”
Shrugging, the man extended his hand to help her on board, then swept his arm in the direction of the boat’s stern. “He’s already turned away three today, señorita, but buena suerte to you.”
Thanking him, Brenna rolled her shoulders. She’d take all the good luck she could get. But what three—
Her steps faltered. Three women. He’d already had others coming to find him. And she’d bet her entire collection of first-edition Yeatses that they hadn’t come to call him out about his unethical research practices.
Were the women of Palmer’s Island that hard up?
She found him leaning against the railing at the very back of the boat and focusing on a stack of papers held in his hand.
She was somewhat prepared for the wavy, sandy-brown hair, pulled into a short ponytail at the nape of his neck, but as she moved toward him, he lifted his head. His hazel eyes and the disarming dimples in his cheeks had a lot more impact live and in person than on her computer screen or in the newspaper.
But the circumstance that had her heart threatening to jump out of her chest was the fact that he was wearing a wet suit. At least from the waist down. The top half of him—all tan skin and lean muscle—was completely bare.
He sighed as she continued to stare at him mutely. “Let me guess, you’re an amateur diver and you’ve always been fascinated by history.”
She blinked at his deep voice, heavy on the Southern accent. Texas maybe. With reluctance, she raised her gaze to his face.
And all the moisture in her mouth dried instantly.
“Ah … no,” she managed to say.
He straightened to his full height—a solid six-three—then strode toward her. “Look, honey, I’ve got a lot of work to do, so …” He stopped a few inches away, and she broke out in a sweat that had nothing to do with the blazing summer sun overhead. “How tall are you?”
By now, she should be used to the question, but he managed to startle her anyway. “Is that relevant?”
“You can’t be over five feet.”
She glanced down at her platform sandals, which added a good four inches to her height, and defiantly told the truth. “Four-eleven and three-quarters.”
When she looked up again, his gaze was pinned to hers. “What do you do?”
“I’m a teacher.”
“History? Social studies?”
Finally getting her bearings with his remarkable looks, she crossed her arms over her chest. “English literature, if you must know. Again, how is that relevant?”
“Oh, hell. Another Brontë groupie.”
“I prefer Jane Austen.”
If possible, he looked even more disappointed. “I was in a good mood today. I really was.” He folded the papers in his hand, then walked past her toward the cabin area in the center of the boat.
Seeing little choice, Brenna followed him and didn’t dare drop her gaze to see the back view of the skintight wet suit. “It’s urgent that I speak with you, Mr. Fortune.”
To her surprise, he didn’t correct her about his title, fake as it might be. “It’s Gavin, and I’m sure your cause is extremely important, but I have work to do.” In the doorway of the cabin, he turned. “If you’ll excuse me …”
Then he slid the door closed.
For several seconds, Brenna stood mutely on the other side of the glass barrier with her jaw hanging open. Only the prospect of humiliatingly facing Sloan and telling her she’d been aroused, intimidated, then turned away in less than three minutes by the same man she’d called the devil forced her to wrap her hand around the chrome handle and push the door aside.
Inside the cabin was a table bracketed on either side by black vinyl bench seats, a matching sofa on the opposite side of the boat, a kitchen area and a roomy cockpit. On the stern end was a closed door, presumably
