Going Deep (Coastal Heat #1) (17 page)

“You were annoying.”

“But still you didn’t notice me,” he said, draping his arm over the seatback and turning to face her.

“You irritated me. Of course I noticed you.”

“I asked you to prom.”

Her brow furrowed and she sat straighter. “You weren’t serious. You were spouting off on Jack and then rambling down some kind of sociological or anthropological tangent—”

“And you told me the gang had reserved rooms at the Battle House Hotel for the after-party. Thanks for the invite, though. Really nice of you.”

Brooke held her hands out in helpless supplication, her eyes wide and earnest. “I didn’t know you were trying to ask me to the dance. You were always condescending. Like it was a crime to want to have a good time. I thought you were mocking me.”

“But a couple weeks later you wanted my chem notes.” He clenched his teeth, the familiar roil of anger and shame stirring inside him.

“And you wouldn’t give them to me.” She slumped against the seat, seemingly weighted down by this new understanding of cause and effect. Turning her head, she stared straight at him. “Did it make you feel better?”

“For about a minute and a half,” he admitted gruffly. Clearing the lump from his throat, he brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. “Maybe another minute or two more when Dean Richardson told me to start preparing my valedictory address.” Her soft lips parted, but he pressed his finger to them to stave off her retort. “But nothing made me fly as high as you kissing me back. And nothing terrified me more. The second I figured out what was happening, I panicked. I had no plan for that result. What the hell was I supposed to do with you?” He gave a soft chuckle. “I was a tongue-tied virgin who’d kissed a girl exactly once. You were…you. The queen of everything. I knew a helluva lot more about plankton than I did about women.”

She eyed him skeptically. “Do you know more now?”

“Enough to know when I’ve screwed up.”

Her expression softened and he pressed his advantage.

“Don’t give up on me yet,” he said. “I’m still learning.”

Brooke sighed and looked down at her clasped hands. “Maybe we’ve spent a little too much quality time together this week.” She shot him a sidelong glance then turned to look at the entrance to her building. “I think maybe we should call it a day.”

Covering her hands with one of his, he gave a gentle squeeze. “But not quits. Right?”

“Right.” Brooke drew a deep breath then faced him once more, a shadow of her pageant-ready smile curving her lips. “After all, you have all my research notes, and we still have a multi-national conglomerate to shame.”

He smiled, enchanted by the pearly pink flush coloring her cheeks. “I’m going to miss your soft sheets.”

Her faint smile expanded as she reached for the door handle. “Call me after you meet with Dr. Bennett tomorrow?”

“I will.” He pressed a staying hand to her arm. “Stay put. I’ll get the door.”

By the time he reached the passenger side, her grin kicked up to full wattage. “Such the gentleman.”

“Don’t want you ratting me out to my mother next week. She scares me more than you do.”

* * * *

Brian hiked himself higher in the cushion, grunting as the coarse fabric scraped his skin. He hadn’t been lying when he said he’d miss her sheets. Shuffling the neatly typed pages Brooke had given him, he scribbled another note in the margin then heaved a melancholy sigh. The night crept by at a snail’s pace. The gentle sway of the moored boat failed to smooth his ragged edges. He’d picked up his cell a half dozen times, each time rubbing the pad of his thumb over the blank screen and silently willing it to ring. It didn’t. Knowing he was being pathetic, he’d stumbled into the tiny galley and stashed the damn thing in the cabinet next to the peanut butter.

Telling himself it wasn’t pride keeping him from dialing her number but respect for her wishes, he grabbed the folder they’d spent the last few nights poring over together. Naked. In her bed. But the allure of the woman beside him hadn’t been enough to squelch the nagging questions her research revealed.

Shaking off the memory of Brooke’s long legs tangled with his, he reached for a transcript of an interview she’d done with one of the clean-up workers and read through the laundry list of symptoms again.

Difficulty breathing. Heart palpitations. Memory loss. Reduced IQ.

Brian leaned his head against the bolster and closed his eyes. If he hadn’t seen the results of various toxicity screens, he might have diagnosed the workers with a bad case of falling in love. He’d been shaky all night. Wanting Brooke had become a part of his heartbeat. The need to be near her pulsed inside him, steady, strong, and more than a little relentless. His desire for her drove everything he’d done for the past week. Hell, if he were being honest with himself, he’d stretch that week into a decade. Having her in his life was his ideal result. He needed to figure out the formula to make their relationship work. And he’d start with the basis of her request to work with him.

He closed his gritty eyes and drifted for a few minutes, letting the details of Brooke’s investigation play through his mind. While he believed the victims’ claims to be real and valid, it was clear to him the correlation between the dispersants used and the symptoms they were now exhibiting were not wholly conclusive. Of course, they never could be. All science was based on the building blocks of assumptions. It was all too easy for conclusions to be drawn or suppressed, depending on the forces of funding.

Big money in play on both sides. Enough to guarantee the existence of multiple agendas. He was no medical expert. He’d also been on the outside looking in when it came to the science of dealing with the disaster. There were many things he didn’t know about this particular situation. Too many. And though he was wary of taking sides in this pissing match, he wouldn’t let Brooke wade into the morass without having her facts sewn up tight as a drum.

Brooke’s research aside, his visit to the Horizon Institute would be a good indicator of whether he’d made the right choice in coming home. The last time he’d interacted with any of his former colleagues, the entire Gulf Shore was in crisis. The government fumbled about, hamstrung and ineffective. Eco-friendly movie stars pitched their fantastical ocean vacuums to big oil, and desperate to grab hold of the media-friendly appearance of doing something productive, they bought them. They also ponied up the cash to fund the Horizon Institute and tapped one of the Gulf Coast’s most esteemed oceanographers to take the helm.

As the clean-up efforts faded from the headlines, Brian approached his friend and colleague, Bill Bennett, for permission to film aboard the institute’s research vessel hoping to refocus the spotlight on the impact the spill had on the area’s ecosystem. He’d been denied with little explanation. But one of the fellows, a guy Brian had taught as a graduate student, finally confessed, with not a little glee, that the reason his request had been rejected was because he lacked credibility as a scientist. This from a group of men who were conducting “unbiased” research on the impact of the oil spill, and every bit of it funded with sludge money.

A tinkling rush of water stirred him from his thoughts. He frowned, trying to place the source of the trickle—not easy to do when one is living on a boat—but then his brain kicked into gear. He leaped from the bed, banging his skull on the bulkhead as he dove for the galley. The sound of a rushing stream greeted him when he yanked open the cabinet door. He grabbed his cell phone from its hiding spot and slid his thumb over the image of a sleep-tousled Brooke glaring up at him from a jumbled nest of pillows, making a mental note to change her custom ringtone. “Brooke?”

“Hey.”

“Hi.” Pressing the flat of his hand to his throbbing cranium, he sank onto the narrow galley bench with a grateful
whoosh
of relief. “How are you?”

“Maybe feeling a little stupid?”

He chuckled, heat creeping up his neck as he ducked his head. “That makes two of us.”

“It was a really dumb fight.”

“I think it takes a special kind of brilliance to engage in a fight so stupid.”

“There’s the Brian I know.”

“And love?” The words popped out before he could bite them back. Her answering silence made his chest ache. Masking his discomfort with a weak laugh, he took a stab at lightening the mood. “At least lust?”

“Maybe a little, but you don’t make it easy sometimes,” she said at the same time.

“Really?”

Brooke gave a breathy laugh. “No, you’re right. It’s probably just lust.”

Grinning at the jar of peanut butter, he latched on to the bit he liked best. Brooke might love him a little. “How little? Room for growth?”

“My bed smells like you.”

He blinked, taken aback. “Wow. Do I really stink?”

“You smell like saltwater and sunscreen. Sometimes some aftershave or soap might be mixed in, but the salty, coconutty undertones hang tough.” She paused for a moment, giving him enough time to wonder if this assessment was a good thing or bad. “A little fishy at times, but I’m a coastal girl. I don’t mind.”

She left the sentence hanging in a way that worked on his already ragged nerves. Like she was the trophy fish and he the bait she chose to nibble but couldn’t decide to take.

“But I don’t think it’s the bed. I think it’s me.”

“What’s you?”

“I showered, but I can still smell you on my skin. I changed the sheets, but you’re still on my pillow.” Those silky smooth, if a touch too feminine, linens rustled faintly and a groan gathered low in his belly. “I think I might miss you, Brian. Even if you are a stupid jerk.”

“Thank God.” He gulped at the boulder lodged in his throat. “Want me to come over?”

She snickered softly. “Not tonight. I just…I wanted you to know, so maybe you could figure out what we should do about it.”

“I already know what we should do.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Remember? We’re joining forces.”

“That’s right.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “Get the answers to your questions tomorrow, Dr. Dalton. I’m not sitting on these stories much longer.”

“I want to be sure.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” He closed his eyes, committing the soft wisps of her breathing to memory. “You were right. My bed sucks and it smells like mildew down here.” Wrinkling his nose, he shuddered. “Mildew and wet tennis shoes. I have sheets, but they’re nowhere near as good as yours. I didn’t see the point in bothering.”

Her husky laugh ripped straight down to his toes. “It’s about time you realized you’re inferior to me in every way.”

Gripping the phone a little tighter, he stared at the inky sky visible through the open hatch. “I’ve always known it.”

“Then it’s about time you admitted it.”

Again her bedclothes called to him. Again he was too damn far away from her. Gritting his teeth, he pushed the urge to beg as far down as he could and held his breath, hoping to drown the impulse.

“Brian?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t forget to pick up a copy of
The
Courier
tomorrow. I hear a certain ace reporter is interviewing some hotshot marine biologist guy.”

He smiled as the need to throw himself at a certain ace reporter’s feet ebbed. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. I hear she picked the best of those beefcake wetsuit shots you posed for to go with the article.”

“I never posed for any wetsuit shots,” he grumbled. But in truth, he was relieved to get back on flirtier footing. “I was working.”

“Is that what they call it?”

“Beats pulling random bits from Wikipedia and trying to pass them off as hard news.”

Brooke snickered. “I picked a good one—you’re stripping off the suit, red trunks, dripping hair. The ladies do love the eye candy.”

“As long as you like what you see, I’m good.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Her voice hit a low, raspy register that meant either sleep or sex was forthcoming and the simmer of arousal he felt the moment she said “Hey” heated to a rolling boil. He tipped the phone up to his mouth, hoping to seal the deal with one last apology. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“I know.”

“I wish I was with you.”

The smile in her voice bounced off the cell towers. “I know that, too.”

“Goodnight, Brooke.”

“Night, Bri. Dream about me.”

The phone beeped as the call ended. Looking down at the dark display, he huffed a laugh then glanced around the cramped little cabin. “Like I dream about anything else.”

The offices of the Horizon Institute were housed in a small brick building not far from the University of South Alabama campus. Technically, their grant funded various avenues of study, but the largest portion was attributed to research involving ecology and marine sciences. More specifically, the impact the oil spill had on both those areas. The institute provided learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at USA, both in the field and in the state-of-the-art lab they’d built on campus. The fellows who worked for the institute were granted faculty privileges. All in all, not a bad deal for those involved. Particularly the petroleum companies who stood behind the institute’s stylized logo touting their new and improved earth-conscious policies.

“Brian!” Bill Bennett crossed the small reception area, his hand extended and his smile wide and welcoming. “I was planning to give you another week to settle in before I loosed the hounds on you.”

Brian bit his tongue and tensed every muscle, hoping his surprise and the spark of pleasure the implied compliment lit didn’t show in his face. The warm welcome was not at all what he expected. He returned the older man’s smile, but the carefully cordial wording of the rejection he’d received the previous year played on a loop in his head. “Dr. Bennett. Thank you for taking the time to see me.”

Bushy white brows shot high. “I wasn’t being polite, boy. I was delighted when Jolie said you were on the phone.” He waved toward the narrow corridor. “Come back, come back.” Wiry and energetic, the older man blew past the framed accolades and awards covering the walls, making a beeline for the open door at the very end of the hall. “Your family fine?”