represent the Palmer’s Island Historical Society, and it’s imperative that I speak with you.”
Silence.
Pressing her ear to the door, she thought she heard water running. Was he in the shower?
Fine. She could wait.
She sat on the sofa and mentally recited Robert Frost poems to keep her mind from wandering to the sure-to-be-enticing-and-distracting visual of Gavin Fortune standing naked under a spicket of water.
“The Road Not Taken,” however, simply led her to stare in the direction of the closed bedroom door and wonder what lay beyond.
With monumental concentration, she reminded her libido she wasn’t some creepy celebrity chaser. She was here with a serious purpose. She had justice, history and truth on her side.
He walked out in khaki shorts and nothing else.
She literally bowed her head. Was the man determined to derail her indignation?
To further annoy and embarrass her, he didn’t even notice she was sitting on the sofa until after he’d retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge and turned to head back to the bedroom.
“How did you get in here?” he demanded, grinding to a halt.
Pleased she’d finally caught him off guard, she crossed her legs. “I opened the door.”
“Then use it to go back out. I’m really very busy.”
When he started toward the bedroom again, she lurched off the sofa directly into his path. The scent of sea air and woody citrus wafted from his skin, and she fought not to inhale too deeply. Droplets of water still clung to his wavy hair, which, released from its binding, hung nearly to his shoulders. If possible, the change made him even more attractive.
She cleared her throat. “Mr. Fortune, I represent the Palmer’s Island Historical Society, and—”
“Why not the Society for the Defense of Boring Books? Or the Society for Unnecessary Exposition?”
Brenna narrowed her eyes, but she wasn’t lowering herself to his insulting level.
Before she could so much as open her mouth, however, he rolled on. “Look, honey, I meet your type in every town I go to.”
Brenna didn’t think it was possible to be more insulted or enraged. Yet she was. “My type?”
“Sure. A crusader. No man, nothing better to do than harass hardworking people and write scathing letters to the local newspaper and city council. Do you have a cat?”
What did Shakes have to do with this?
“I’m here,” she began in her sternest English teacher tone, “to discuss the graves you’re disturbing, and the great tragedy you and your gang intend to profit from.”
He laughed. He actually laughed. Again, annoyingly increasing his appeal. “My gang?”
“Yes, well …” That had been rather insulting, she supposed. After all, the Hispanic gentleman had been very gracious. “Your crew then.”
“Who have five PhDs between the three of them. And you do realize this great tragedy happened nearly a hundred fifty years ago, right?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“And this was a pirate ship, not the USS Benevolent Cruise Line?”
“Many so-called pirate ships were merely privateers who helped the war effort.”
“For a price.”
“Well, this ship aided the South, it was sunk by Yankees and I’m here to stand for the crew’s noble sacrifice.”
He cocked his head and studied her, as if truly looking at her for the first time. “Green eyes,” he mused. “Fair skin, red hair, temper like a hurricane. Irish, by any chance?”
She raised her chin. “I’m a Southerner—eight generations worth, to be exact.”
Very gently, he laid his finger in the dent in her chin. “Maybe so, but there’s an Irish vixen some generation way back.”
Desire shot into her stomach. She was pretty sure the same thing had happened to him, because the gold in his eyes suddenly deepened. His gaze fell to her lips and held. She curled her hand into a fist by her side to prevent the impulse to reach out and glide her fingers across his tanned chest to see if the muscles below felt as hard as they looked.
“Well, this is damn inconvenient, isn’t it?” he asked in a low tone.
“I—” She stepped back, unsure if her embarrassing reaction to him or his acknowledgment of the chemistry between them worried her more. “We need to discuss the shipwreck.”
“Fine.” He moved around her and headed to the bedroom. “Let’s go get a beer, and you can tell me all about your tragic cause.”
She glanced at her watch. “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon.”
“So? I’ll just throw on a T-shirt.”
When he returned, he was wearing a gray T-shirt and had pulled his hair back with a leather thong no doubt also used by the pirates whose treasure he was so adept at finding.
Lost in thought, she dimly registered that he’d stopped in front of her.
His impressive chest rose, then fell as he sighed, and he, too, checked the time. “It’s not a complicated proposition. Beer, no beer?”
Spending any more time with this man than was absolutely necessary seemed unwise. And yet it had been so long since she’d looked at a man with anything approaching desire, she was reluctant to let the feeling die. She’d been sure her ex had killed all her sexual impulses as well as their future together.
“How about iced tea?” she finally suggested.
He curled his lip as he laid his hand at the small of her back and guided her to the door. “For you, maybe.”
Outside, the wind had picked up, and Brenna flattened her hands against her sundress to keep it from flying up and giving Gavin Fortune and his crew an up-close-and-personal shot of her purple lace panties.
The blond-haired guy with wire-rimmed glasses smiled and nudged the Hispanic guy as they approached. “Pay up, Vasquez.”
“Poker, boys?” Fortune asked. “I thought you were programming the ROV.”
“No cards, amigo,” the Hispanic man, presumably Vasquez, said with a quick glance at Brenna. “A different kind of wager.”
“ROV?” she asked.
“Remotely Operated Vehicle,” Vasquez said, pointing at a device sitting on a table near him.
It was clearly mechanical, with lots of interlocking metal parts and tubing. It looked heavy. And complicated.
And
