tables on him.
‘Definitely not you, then,’ he smiled, relieved.
Stella smiled back. If only he knew. Beneath Lady Mary’s petticoats and pantaloons lay Stella’s every secret desire. She drained her beer, then checked her watch. ‘Right, enough time skiving off. Lucinda is whispering sweet nothings in my head.’
Rick frowned. ‘They talk to you?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Stella nodded. ‘Most insistently usually.’
He swallowed. ‘The heroes as well as the heroines?’
‘Yep.’
Rick’s mind boggled. ‘What do they say?’
Stella shrugged. ‘Their thoughts, dreams, desires.’
Good God—had Lady Mary whispered those things to Stella? Had she told Stella she wanted to see Vasco naked in the bath, that she wanted him to suck her finger into his mouth and she wanted to be tied to his bed?
Or had it been Vasco telling Stella what he wanted to do to Mary? Describing it in all the erotic detail that it had appeared in the book?
Had Stella been hearing him in her head?
* * *
Rick had never been so happy to see terra firma in all his life when they spotted the Papua New Guinea mainland mid-afternoon. His attempt to dissipate the heat of his thoughts hadn’t exactly gone to plan and he was pleased to be getting off the boat and distracting himself for a while.
They motored into Port Moresby harbour and docked at the Royal Papua Yacht Club. After seeing to all the official formalities they headed for the club.
‘Remember,’ Stella said as Rick smiled at a beautiful dark-skinned woman who openly ogled him as she passed by, ‘you’re on a dare.’
Rick almost groaned out loud. If he had to share quarters with a woman who wrote sexy literature for a living and dressed in next to nothing, then it was vital to put his flirt somewhere!
The fact that he was now bound to a ridiculous dare was just the really rotten icing on a really sucky cake. What was the world coming to when he couldn’t negate some totally inappropriate sexual urges with some harmless flirting?
He smiled at her. ‘Piece of cake.’
Stella grinned as she fell in beside him. She was so going to enjoy this!
He tried to ditch her first thing in the cool, modern surrounds of the yacht club, but there was no way she was letting him walk around unaccompanied, flirting with no redress. She stuck to him like glue as he organised refuelling and restocking of their fresh food supplies and some onwards paperwork for their visit to Micronesia.
They found a nearby craft market and she watched him get crankier as they moved through the stalls thronging with colour and spice and wall-to-wall gorgeous local women. She asked him his opinion about earrings, bikinis and having her hair plaited. None of which he had a strong opinion on other than exasperation.
She bought a sarong and an anklet that had a tiny shell and a little bell on a piece of rope. It was nautical and she was thrilled with her purchase.
He was plain annoyed.
By the time they’d returned to the boat after an evening meal at the club, he was withdrawn and every inch the brooding pirate.
Due to cloud cover and lack of interest there was no star gazing tonight. Just a strictly professional conversation about their onward leg and a discussion revolving around the weather, which wasn’t looking good for the next couple of days, but the long-range forecast remained excellent considering they were in the monsoon season.
‘You okay?’ she asked innocently as she picked up their empty coffee mugs and padded barefoot towards the galley. ‘You seem kind of tense?’
Honestly, the man didn’t realise how much his very survival depended on his banter with women—he needed it as if it were oxygen.
‘The no flirting getting to you?’ she queried, suppressing the humour that bubbled in her chest.
Rick heard the laughter in her voice only on a peripheral level as the tinkle of her anklet obliterated all else.
Great.
As if he weren’t conscious enough already of her every movement, he was going to hear her every movement as well.
He’d probably hear her at night rolling over in bed.
He plastered a smile to his face. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. It had only been forty-eight hours, for crying out loud—just how oversexed did she think he was? ‘I’m going up on deck to plot the course into the sat nav.’
Stella smiled as he departed. She had this dare nailed.
ON DECK the humid night was quiet and still, clouds obscuring what would almost be a full moon. Not even a light breeze tinkled the halyards. Faint music drifted down from the yacht club but the moorings were otherwise peaceful. No boats had cabin lights on, no one walked about stopping to chat, no low muffled conversations could be heard.
No one around to witness Rick gently belting his head against the wheel.
When he’d embarked on this voyage everything had been clear cut. The Mermaid and Inigo’s treasure lay out there somewhere and he and his good friend Stella, whom he’d known for ever, who despite some disturbing dreams was like a sister to him, were going to find it.
After all, it was what Nathan had wanted.
Now he had a whole other picture going on in his head and he was damn sure there was nothing brotherly about it.
And definitely not what Nathan had wanted.
Nathan hadn’t told Rick to leave Stella alone that day he’d caught them almost kissing. But he had spoken about how special his daughter was and left Rick in no doubt that he’d wanted someone just as special for Stella. Certainly a bunch of transient deckhands and divers on a motley collection of salvage boats had not measured up to Nathan’s expectations in any way, shape or form.
Nathan had wanted for his daughter the one thing he’d never been able to give his own wife—stability.
Someone who was going to be there for her always.
And Nathan had made sure every man in his employ had known that his daughter was off-limits.
Himself included.
But that was then. And this was now.
Nathan was dead. And Stella was all grown up.
She had breasts and hips and an imagination that would make a sailor blush.
How on earth was he supposed to ignore that? Particularly when she was downstairs right now—he could
