In Too Deep (8 page)

“
Oh, yeah. Shark must’ve been a
thirteen-footer.”

“
More like eleven.” Sunglasses
still covered his eyes and he kept them directed at the horizon,
his thumb hooked all casual-like in the pocket of his shorts. As if
the catching-some-rays act could convince her he wasn’t seething on
the inside.

Piper yanked on the wetsuit’s pull
tag, dragged the neoprene off her arms and chest, leaving it to
flop down around her hips. Adjusting the straps of her swimsuit,
she directed another covert glance at West. He still stared out to
sea, but this time the twitch of his Adam’s apple and the
white-knuckled fingers around the bottle neck indicated an imminent
blowout.

“
Must’ve been my lucky day to see
one without any bait.” She stood and grabbed a towel off the nearby
stack, rubbing it over her damp skin.

“
Scared the crap out of you,
didn’t it?” He dropped his feet off the fish bin and slid the
sunglasses to the top of his head.

Her temper sparked at the smirk
coloring his gaze, fanning to flame by him being right. A more
accurate description of her reaction was
terrified-to-a-whisker-of-a-meltdown. And the shark’s sudden
appearance couldn’t explain the sick apprehension that choked her
before the dive. Not a comforting admission, when the ability to
think clearly and cope under stress would affect her future career.
“It startled me, at most.”

“
Startled? You leapt two feet
backward— it was a wonder you didn’t swallow your
tongue.”

“
I wasn’t expecting a shark to
just
be there
, that’s all. My reaction was completely
understandable and no big deal.”

West stood, muscles bunching under
his thin tee shirt as he crossed his arms. “It could’ve been a big
deal if you’d knocked the regulator out while you were
panicking.”

Trust West to select the one word
guaranteed to trigger a response. Seabirds wheeled in the air
currents, their cries slicing through the only other sounds—waves
slapping against the hull and her teeth grinding together as she
counted to ten. Counting didn’t help.

Piper threw down the towel,
balling her hands into fists. “I don’t panic.”

“
You did that time,
baby.”

“
Bull. Shit.”

West edged around the table. “And
your hissy-fit when I ordered you up? Childish, even for
you.”

Hissy-fit? Heat flamed her cheeks
and spread, hazing her vision red, loosening her tongue. “After
three-and-a-half grueling weeks on the Navy training course, a
little thing like a shark or a lost regulator
would not
make
me panic. I was in no danger, so your power trip was uncalled
for.”

“
Just had to prove how big your
balls were, didn’t you?”

“
I don’t have to prove anything to
you.” She turned to make a grand exit to her cabin but West blocked
her path, wrapping his fingers around her upper arm.

“
You’ve got something to prove to
everyone with that giant chip on your shoulder. But I’m not playing
your juvenile pissing game again. Next time I signal you out of the
water, you get out of the fucking water.”

Piper gaped at West like he’d
suddenly sprouted horns and a forked tail.

They always squabbled growing
up—usually the kind that ended with someone getting dunked in the
ocean—and the easy rivalry between her and her brother’s mates had
been a fun way to blow off steam.

That’s what she expected this
time. A nice, harmless shouting match that would bury the real
reasons for her irritation. They would wind each other up, yell a
bit and then everyone would feel better. But she hadn’t anticipated
the ice in West’s blue eyes as they examined her without a glimmer
of remembered affection.

She swallowed back a bitter dose
of hurt. “Get your hands off me.”

His palm burned her cool flesh,
each finger branding a stripe on the soft skin of her inner arm.
West moved closer, the few inches of height he had on her blocking
out the sun. Hell, his size had less to do with blocking out the
sun than just standing close to him. He dazzled her. And that alone
made Piper want to punch him.

But she refused to shrink back, to
allow him to see how his hand on her bare skin affected her. She
latched onto her anger, pulling a memory from her days in police
training college to reinforce it.

“
More aggression!” her instructor
bellowed at her when she’d participated in training exercises
tackling suspects who were really other cops in jumpsuits. “You’re
a cop arresting a suspect who could have a concealed weapon. Don’t
give him a frickin’ cuddle and kiss!”

More aggression, that’s what she
needed. Definitely not thoughts of cuddles and kisses with the man
who hadn’t blinked from examining her in the last ten seconds. She
moistened her suddenly dry lips, and froze when something changed
in his gaze at the flick of her tongue. Heat flared, heat that
melted the ice of only a moment ago.

Piper narrowed her eyes so she
wouldn’t see his gaze track down to her lips again. Because she was
mad, not thinking about the reasons why he might find her mouth
interesting. “Remove your hand before I start breaking
fingers.”

Aggressive enough? Better than the
alternative of, “Kiss me you crazy fool.”

His smile was insolent as he slid
his fingers along the sensitive underside of her arm, finally
pulling them away. “I remember you begged me to touch you, once
upon a time.”

Yet another cringe-worthy moment
in her past. “Aw, you still think about me sometimes? That’s sweet.
But that was before I became a stone cold bitch.”

His eyebrows rose. Yeah, she’d
heard the whispers after her father’s memorial service when she’d
stood at her mother’s side, dry-eyed and stoic. More like catatonic
with guilt and grief, but hey, that wasn’t quite as
juicy.

“
You want to order me around at
Due South, go ahead, if it makes you feel all alpha. But you don’t
get to tell me what to do in the water.” She jabbed him in the
chest. “And you sure as shit don’t get to put your hands on
me.”

West wrapped his larger hand
around hers, gently forcing her finger back into her fist. “Since
being near me is so damn unbearable, why don’t you hop on the next
ferry and run back to the city. We’ll all understand you just
couldn’t cut it. It’s not like you haven’t run before.” His voice,
smooth and slightly bored, could’ve been reciting an inventory
list.

Piper’s chin lifted, her
treacherous heart hammering over and over against her breastbone.
“I’m not leaving until my brother’s home is safe. Deal with
it.”

West brushed her hand away from
him as if the feel of her skin was repellent. So she stalked—if one
could stalk on a shifting surface with neoprene jammed in one’s
butt cheeks—past him into The Mollymawk’s galley.

***

Hadn’t it been fun rowing Piper
back ashore after mooring The Mollymawk? West snorted. Stony
silence to the nth degree—like that wasn’t a blessing. He dragged
the dinghy up Halfmoon Bay beach while Piper sashayed off like the
queen of the frickin’ island.

Ben, who sat on a park bench
overlooking the beach, didn’t merit a word from his sister. She
dropped the little digital camera in his lap and swept past,
crossing the road to Due South. If she tipped her nose any higher
the woman would trip over her bright green sneakers.

West finished pulling the dinghy
out of the reach of the incoming tide and shoved the oars inside
it.

“
How did you piss her off this
time?” Ben crutched his way over to the line of boulders separating
grass from sand.

“
I don’t need to
do
anything to piss her off.”

“
Just being alive,
hmm?”

Yeah. And being dumb enough to
stop breathing when Piper was in the water with the shark—a
visceral reaction of wanting her out of harm’s way. He’d nearly
dragged her out of the cage and made a fool of himself after she
flipped him the bird. Later she’d displayed the same smugness as
when they were kids, when Glenna would instruct him and Ben to,
“Keep Piper with you and stay out of trouble.” Inevitably they’d
all fail to do the second part and Glenna would give them
the
look
. A ball-shriveling look that made him want to kick Piper’s
ass for raising hell.

So this morning’s episode had been
a knee-jerk reaction. She hadn’t been in any real danger. They’d
dived with Piper’s dad, Mike, for years. It wouldn’t have been the
first time she’d lost a regulator. Mike would knock it out of their
mouths while teaching the three of them to scuba. “Be prepared for
equipment failure or for something to go tits-up. You need to know
what to do.”

A lost regulator was no biggie.
Yet he’d raised his voice, grabbed her arm, let Piper bait him,
because it was easier than admitting she got to him.
Still
got to him. He nudged the blades of the oars further into the
dinghy and glared at the smirk on Ben’s face.

West climbed over the boulders and
punched his arm. “You owe me for putting up with your sister’s
crap.”

How would he get through six more
weeks? He already wanted to kill her. Kill her, but maybe do her
first. He’d never claimed to be a gentleman when Piper was
concerned.

Ben snickered. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll
hand over my first born child, pinky swear.”

“
Dickhead.” West brushed past Ben,
shoulder checking him before he slumped onto the park bench. He
flung his head back to stare at the sky.

Muted thumps as Ben hopped over to
sit next to him, his crutches clanking together as they rested
against the wood slats. “Be nice to the cripple, man. Jeez, didn’t
your mother teach you any manners?”

“
No. She left me to turn feral—and
don’t start with the yo’ mama jokes.”

“
I’m sorry. You’re having an
I
miss my mummy
moment and I’m being insensitive—wanna hug it
out?”

West extended an arm without
turning his head and shoved. But a smile kicked up at the corner of
his mouth when Ben recovered and shoved him right back. Ben was the
only person on this island he would put up with this shit
for.

They’d always been mates, always
had the other’s back. In his earliest memories, eight-year-old Ben
punched one of the Reynolds boys when they teased West for playing
the piano like a girl. He couldn’t remember now if it were Gavin or
his older brother, Seth. Most likely Gav, since he’d always been a
nasty little prick, while Seth, at least, grew out of being a
complete asshat.

“
So,” Ben said after a comfortable
pause. “Piper gave you a bit of grief then?”

“
She’s a pain in the butt. A
genetic trait, I reckon.”

“
You gonna say that around my
mother?”

“
I may be having a crappy day,
which is turning into a crappier week, but I haven’t got a death
wish. Yet.” West sat up and leaned forward, resting his forearms on
his thighs.

“
I know some good spots to hide
your body if you want me to permanently end your
misery.”

West grunted.

“
You told her to go home, didn’t
you?” Ben said.

“
What makes you think that,
Einstein?”

“
Because I know you. And I know
her being here has shoved a burr up your ass.”

West trained his eyes on a group
of kids racing across the beach, a sand-covered terrier hot on
their heels. Back to that again. This morning Ben’s reaction seemed
a normal, big-brother deal. But now? Ben and West double dated with
Piper and Erin at the girls’ final school ball, but had Ben guessed
he and Piper had been sleeping together for a few weeks before it?
Or was he just fishing? Best mate or not, this was one conversation
they weren’t having.

“
I don’t care that Piper’s back
and I told her if she couldn’t cut it, she should hop on the next
ferry. You, on the other hand, have a cactus-sized burr up your ass
about your sister, and have had for years.”

Ben snorted. “There’s nothing up
my ass but the sun shining out of it, thanks.”

“
You resent her for becoming a cop
when it was your dream.”

The smile switched off and Ben’s
knuckles flared white around the crutch’s hand grip. “More my old
man’s dream—and that dream’s ancient history. I resent her for much
more mature reasons now.”

“
Sure. Like coming back here to
help you out?”

“
You flipping sides now? You
always had a soft spot for her.”

West cleared his throat and stood.
“Sod off. She’s only here to rub your nose in her generous gesture,
then she’ll swan off back to the city.”

“
Exactly.” Ben leaned back on the
bench and crossed his ankle on top of his bulky cast. “So she’s
gone to buy a ferry ticket then?”

“
No.”

“
You should’ve known better than
to issue a challenge to Piper. She’ll never leave now.”

West glanced over at Due South.
Piper, Shaye, Kezia, and Kezia’s little girl, Zoe, walked through
the doorway to one of the outside tables, talking and
laughing.