Burn: A Novel (22 page)

“What was that about?” Jenner asked.

“Nothing you need to know.”

“Do I need to know what a PFD is? It sounds sexually transmitted.”

“Personal Flotation Device.” He nodded toward the orange life vests. “When the drill starts, don’t get any ideas … about anything. All rules still apply and they will until we get back to San Diego. You do exactly as I say when I say it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said.

The alarm brought an end to that particular exchange, and was followed by a calm voice over the shipwide intercom. Cael picked up the life jackets—PFDs—that Bridget had placed over a chair, and tossed one to Jenner. He paused to take a quick look at the map on the back of the door, where there were simple directions to Muster Station Three.

“Smile, sweetheart,” he said as he took Jenner’s arm and ushered her into the passageway, where they immediately ran into two older ladies who were grinning as they exited the stateroom across from them. Evidently a lifeboat drill was a lot of fun to some people, Jenner thought. Personally, she’d rather be cozied up to breakfast—or lunch. She was so hungry she didn’t care which.

The ladies were dressed in casual cruise wear, including straw hats, walking shorts, deck shoes, and their bright orange PFDs. One was tall and slim to the point of being bony; the other was short and stocky. Together, they were wearing enough diamonds to open their own jewelry store.

“We’re going to Muster Station Three,” the tall one said. “I assume you two are headed in the same direction?”

“We are,” said Cael, smiling at them. Jenner wanted to kick him, because that smile was warm and genuine and made him look entirely too human.

“I’m Linda Vale,” said the tall lady.

“Nyna Phillips,” the other lady added, her smile a little shy. She had a really sweet face.

“I’m Cael Traylor, and this is my friend, Jenner Redwine.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Linda Vale. “We were in the Fog Bank bar last night. That must have been very distressing for you. I’m glad things worked out.”

Nyna winked at Jenner. “If I were twenty years younger, I’d have been bumping you out of the way.”

“Bump away,” said Jenner cheerfully.

The two ladies laughed, thinking she was joking. Cael squeezed her arm, giving her the silent message to behave, or else.

She gave him a smile as dazzling as she could make it. “Just kidding. He’s a gem, a man among men, a real prize. He stepped into my trap, and he’s mine now. There’s no escape.”

All three women laughed. Cael slanted a look down at her that promised retribution.

“We should have dinner together one night,” suggested Linda.

“I’d love to,” Jenner said, too enthusiastically. Cael gave her arm another squeeze, one she interpreted to mean that she wasn’t here to make new friends or do a lot of socializing. As far as he was concerned, she was here for one thing and one thing only, and that was to provide cover for him. If he thought he could keep her locked in the suite for the entire time, then he was in for a rude awakening.

“Ladies, we should be moving,” Cael prompted, because neither Jenner nor the two older women seemed inclined to do anything other than stand there and talk.

“Do we take a left?” Linda asked, her expression confused as she looked first one way and then the other down the passageway.

“Yes, ma’am, you do,” he said, holding out his hand to indicate they precede him.

“I’ll take your word for it,” she said as they began walking down the passageway. “I usually have a good sense of direction, but so far this ship has me completely confounded. If we really needed to get on a lifeboat, then I’d better have an angel on my shoulder whispering in my ear and telling me how to get there, or I’ll never make it.”

Behind them another door opened. Cael glanced briefly over
his shoulder at the sound, and Jenner did likewise, driven by nothing more than simple curiosity. Two men exited the suite with the double doors, PFDs in hand, and followed them down the hallway. It only made sense that they would all be at the same Muster Station.

One of the men behind them had the look of a sentient tank. He was just medium height, but so powerfully built he looked almost as wide as he was tall. His hair was so blond it was almost cotton white, and cropped very close to his head. He had restless eyes that continuously swept forward and back, noting anything and everything around him.
Hired muscle
, Jenner thought, but
smart
hired muscle.

So the target of Cael’s surveillance must be the other man. He looked fiftyish, with graying hair, but toned and fit, with a tan of the particular hue that said it was the best tan money could buy. She didn’t have time to see more than that, because Cael hustled her forward with more speed than grace.

“Hurry,” he said. “We shouldn’t be late.” Linda Vale and Nyna Phillips obediently picked up their paces, too, though Jenner was pretty sure he hadn’t been talking to the older ladies.

He didn’t want her anywhere near the man, Jenner realized. She still didn’t know who he was, but at least she knew what he looked like.

“So,” she whispered conversationally, “that’s him?”

“Not your concern.”

“You made it my concern, numb-nuts.”

He slanted a glittering blue glance down at her. “It’ll be a miracle if we make it to Hawaii without you getting tossed overboard.”

T
HE LIFEBOAT DRILL WAS UNEXCITING.
All Jenner learned about escaping from a sinking ship was how to put on her PFD, and where to go in case of an emergency, though she supposed that was basically all she needed to know. She’d have liked to see a
lifeboat actually launched, but when she thought about it realized the difficulty involved in getting the lifeboat back in place, considering they were secured to the ship at least two stories up from the water line, maybe even more, and the ship was cutting through the ocean at a pretty fast clip. Being inside one of those suckers when it was launched was probably a trip, too, one she hoped she never took.

The man who had come out of the double-door suite was sitting two tables over from them at the Muster Station, which was actually one of the indoor cafes. Cael tried to position his chair so he was blocking her view, but he was thwarted by Nyna Phillips, who pointed toward the man and said, “That’s one of the co-owners of the ship. He’s hosting the Cruise for Charity, so we’ll probably see more of him than we will of the captain.”

“Really?” asked Jenner, delighted by this opening. “I had no idea that’s who he is. What’s his name?”

Nyna thought for a moment. “I’m sure I heard, but I can’t recall. Memory’s the second thing to go, you know.”

“What’s the first?” Linda Vale asked, leaning forward with a grin that said she expected something salacious.

“I don’t remember,” said Nyna, completely deadpan, and they both burst into laughter.

As soon as the drill was concluded, the gray-haired man and his bodyguard disappeared. Jenner forestalled being hustled back to the suite and handcuffed to a table or chair by exclaiming how hungry she was, and inviting both Linda and Nyna to eat lunch with them on the Lido deck, in one of the outdoor cafes. The two women accepted with pleasure, and Cael had no choice but to go along, though the look he gave Jenner when the other two weren’t looking said he wasn’t taking this lightly. He fished his cell phone out of his pocket, called someone, and spoke very briefly before closing the phone.

The outdoor cafes were buffet-style so lunch was very casual. Jenner sucked down some more coffee, ate enough to make up for not having had breakfast, and in general did everything she
could to postpone going back to the suite. Linda and Nyna, however, soon excused themselves because of some classes they’d signed up for. Jenner watched them walk away, giving a little sigh of regret. She wished they could have stayed longer. Not only did they seem genuinely good-hearted, now she was once again alone with Cael.

Despite his reluctance to have lunch, now that it was over he didn’t seem to be in any great hurry to return to the suite. He lounged in his chair, somehow managing to look elegant, indolent, and dangerous all at the same time. For all his surface sophistication, there was something predatory about him that lingered just below that layer of gloss. He was the type of man women noticed, she thought again, but not just women. She caught several men, perhaps more aware than others, giving him slightly wary, sidelong glances as if they wanted to make certain they knew exactly where he was.

Suddenly she got it. He
wanted
to be seen. Specifically, he wanted to be seen with her. He was cementing the idea of them as a couple, and she had promised to cooperate fully.

“Let’s go for a walk,” she said, standing and holding out her hand to him. “I could use the exercise after being so tied up this morning.”

That blue gaze lashed her as he took her hand and stood, then slid his other hand around her waist and turned her toward the railing. “You’re living dangerously, Redwine,” he murmured, just loud enough for her to hear.

She smiled, turning her face up to him as if he was flirting with her. “Relax, big boy.” She kept her voice as low as his. “You still hold all the cards, except for one. We’ll go for a simple walk, and you can use the opportunity to show everyone how nuts we are for each other.”

His arm remained around her waist as they strolled along the railing. Jenner lifted her face to the sun, trying to will herself to turn her mind off and relax for a moment. This is the first full day of a two-week cruise; she would be with Cael, under his control,
for another thirteen days, and if she didn’t find some way of dealing with the stress she’d crack under the strain. She would talk to Syd every day and that way they would both be reassured that the other was still alive, but she also needed some respite from constantly worrying at the situation like a dog going at a bone.

She forced herself to look around at the ship. From the moment she’d first set foot onboard yesterday afternoon, she’d been too preoccupied to pay much attention to her surroundings. The
Silver Mist was
supposed to be something special, as far as ships go, and she wanted to take a look at her.

As Bridget had said, the Lido deck was the fun deck. People clustered around and in the pools, and teak deck chairs seemed to cover every square inch. Some sort of game was going on by one of the pools, and the sound system boosted the emcee’s voice to an almost painful volume. Cael winced and turned Jenner in the opposite direction, and for once she was glad to follow his unspoken instructions.

If it hadn’t been for Cael’s presence, she thought, Syd would have been right: She’d have enjoyed the cruise. She did love the ocean. She’d become accustomed to its presence over the past seven years, but the gray-green Atlantic was nothing like the vibrant colors of the Pacific. The deep water was a gorgeous navy blue, but every so often the light would change and she’d catch a glimpse of aqua and turquoise. With no land in sight, the sensation was of being alone in the world—if being with about a thousand other people could be called “alone”—on a bright and pristine floating city.

She could smell the newness of the ship, she realized. It was everything: the paint, the carpet, the upholstery, even the wood of the deck. Everything was new and fresh, and under different circumstances she’d have loved it.

Cael’s arm remained around her waist, the heavy weight a constant reminder to behave. To anyone watching, of course, they would look like new lovers, enthralled with exploring this strange and exciting connection they’d found. Only Jenner knew that his
grip was a bit too tight, and she blew out a small sigh of frustration. Where the hell did he think she was going to go if she ran? They were on a
ship
, for God’s sake. It wasn’t as if she could jack a car and escape. Besides, as he so often reminded her, there was Syd.

He probably heard the sigh, because he snuggled her closer and bent his head to kiss her temple, then settled his mouth close to her ear. “Make it look good.”

She turned her head, dipped her chin. “I’m too scared,” she said, putting a little whine in her voice and managing not to snort. She
had
been terrified … but she wasn’t now. Odd. Maybe the body and mind could handle terror for only so long, then some sort of coping mechanism kicked in and held the terror at a distance.

He did snort. “Bullshit. You don’t scare worth a damn. So act as if you love me, honey, because otherwise there’s no point in having you out here and I’ll drag you back to the suite. Do you want to spend the rest of the cruise handcuffed to a chair?”

She definitely didn’t, so she angled her shoulder toward him and smiled up at him. Only he could see, so she fluttered her eyelashes at him like some nitwit overwhelmed by his testosterone. He needed her out here, she thought. Maybe he could explain away her absence from the many shipboard activities that most of the passengers were already taking advantage of, and maybe no one would think anything of it if she didn’t attend any of the formal dinners or auctions, the events that were the whole purpose of this Cruise for Charity. Maybe he could make these people believe that she’d throw all sense to the wind to take up with him, even though she wasn’t known for mindless, reckless affairs.

Most of the people onboard ship didn’t know her, but enough of them did that he couldn’t make her all but disappear for two weeks without questions being raised. He had to let her out of the stateroom, he had to allow people to see her, talk to her. She had to attend the scheduled events.

Too bad she couldn’t think of a way to use the exposure to her advantage. She was surrounded by people, but if she screamed for
help … then what? She’d look as if she’d gone insane, because Cael hadn’t done anything in front of anyone that would make anyone look at him with doubt. He’d been charming to Linda and Nyna, attentive to her, and from the way he was looking down at her the casual observer would think he was downright besotted.

And if she screamed for help, what would happen to Syd?

Because she couldn’t see any way out of the situation, she turned her thoughts instead to
why
. He’d gone to a lot of trouble for a peek and a listen into someone’s stateroom. She didn’t know the name of the man in the next suite, but if he was a co-owner of the ship then he was very wealthy, because ships like this had to cost billions and billions of dollars to build and outfit. So, in the real world, wealth equaled influence. Who was he? What were they trying to find out about him? Maybe he had a kinky lifestyle and they were trying to get pictures for some sort of blackmail scheme. That scenario kind of worked for her, except for the way they were going about it. Having an entire team of people aboard a cruise ship like this had to have cost a small fortune, then add in the expenses of the team that had snatched Syd.