Queen For A Night (5 page)

Which was not a good thing to think about just now, either.

He wondered if Caroline's days out on her dad's boat had taught her anything about navigation. If they had, he might be in trouble. He could have been halfway to the rig by now if he had pushed it instead of idling along close in to shore while she ate her dinner. He had no ulterior motive, though he doubted she would believe it.

Somebody had taught her to expect the worst of men. He didn’t need two guesses as to who that had been.

Considering her delicate bone structure, also her translucent skin and how easily it would probably bruise, he wanted, suddenly, to murder her ex-husband himself. As if that would help at this late date. He wondered if anything could.

In a few minutes, he would come about and set a proper course. For now, he needed a couple of neutral, nonthreatening subjects to fill the quiet between them.

Deliberately wiping everything except bland politeness from his tone, he said, “I think Tony mentioned you have a job in graphic design. What is it you do all day long besides draw?”

The oil rig showed up on the horizon like a firefly in a dark night sky, a spark of light winking off and on with the rise and fall of the boat on the waves. It was not alone. From all points of the compass other rigs sent their lights beaming across the heaving night seas.

Caroline watched the platform grow larger and its light brighter as they approached, watched its skeleton reaching upward out of the waves with a Jacob's ladder of lights marking the towers. The white and orange superstructure was ruthlessly functional in design, yet had a streamlined kind of beauty as it stood stiff-legged in the black, shifting waves.

Ross cut the engine to a low idle. Swinging in her direction, he gestured toward the wheel. “Here, take over while I go topside.”

Panic shifted inside her. The lift and fall of the boat in the water suddenly seemed higher and more violent, the rig far too close for comfort. She stared at him with disbelief in her eyes.

“It's no big deal,” he said patiently. “All you have to do is hold her in one place for a few seconds.”

She realized what he intended. He was going up to the flying bridge to maneuver the boat closer to the rig, hold it steady while men from the rig came on board to secure the piece of machinery they’d delivered. If she hadn't been there, he would probably have locked the wheel in place while he made the transfer from one set of controls to another. With the height of the waves, that was risky.

Her dad's boat had been smaller and not nearly as fancy, but he had let her take the wheel once or twice in similar situations. She rose and moved toward the instrument panel.

The approval in Ross’s smile as she stepped in front of him was oddly affecting. The feeling escalated as he let her put one hand on the wheel, and then reached around her, enclosing her in the circle of his arms. Against her ear, he said, “Hold it steady, just like that.”

She swallowed hard, concentrating on controlling the shiver that threatened. “All right, I’ve got it.”

“Good.” He touched her shoulder, a brief, warm gesture of trust. A moment later, he was gone.

The wheel was warm from his hold. It twitched and moved under her Grasp as if alive, a vivid reminder of why men personalized boats, calling them by feminine pronouns. Caroline wrapped both hands around it, holding tight. “You and me, gal friend,” she murmured to the boat. “We can do this.”

Ross had left the cabin door opened. The wind sweeping inside was chill and gusting, lifting her hair in a wild skein around her face. Through the opening, she could see the slow swinging of a boom as a Nautilus crane was brought around into position overhead. Men in coveralls and hard hats moved here and there on the platform's deck, playing out lines, getting ready to transfer the piece of machinery from the boat to the rig. She thought of how the huge chunk of metal and wire would have to be lifted up and off, also how it could crack the boat's white fiberglass hull like an eggshell if it were dropped back upon it from any height. It was enough to send a cold shudder down her backbone.

Yet that consideration was wiped from her mind as she noticed the way the boat was riding up and down in comparison to the stationary platform. The seas must be running fifteen feet or more; they were slopping over the rig's dolphin deck with a steady, washing motion. The rumble of the huge platform generators came and went, muffled by the wind and the sound of the waves. It had not been just her imagination that the water was getting rougher. The threatened storm could not be far away.

The wheel swung under her fingers in a decisive turn, while the engine revved up again. Ross had reached the controls on the flying bridge. She released her Grasp and stepped back.

It would be cold and wet up on the flying bridge with the wind and blown spray. Thinking of her father and the nights she had gone out fishing with him in bad weather, Caroline slipped down to the galley and started coffee in the wall-mounted coffeemaker. She came back up then, to stand braced in the cabin doorway. Raking her hair back, twisting it in a long tail and holding it with one hand to keep if from flying in the wind, she watched the operation that was under way.

The coordination between the men on the rig, those on the yacht and Ross was practiced and efficient, a matter of hand gestures, shouted commands, and heartfelt curses. A short time later,
L’escapade
jerked and rose higher in the water, dancing on the surface, as the piece of machinery was plucked from her deck and lifted straight up with the whine of cable. Men shouted, heaving on the tag lines attached to stabilize the heavy, crated piece. A moment later, the crane operator in his lighted cubicle swung his burden and set it on the platform with a rattling thud.

It was done, the delivery made. They could go.

A final hail, a last salute, and the boat eased away from the rig. When they were well free of it, Caroline took the wheel once more while Ross made the transfer back inside. His hair was spangled with salt spray, his clothes damp. Without a word, she brought coffee up from the galley and set it in front of him.

Ross reached for the mug with a quick word of thanks. Caroline smiled as she saw his eagerness. In the act of sipping, he paused, holding her gaze.

Something in his eyes, or maybe only sympathy for his chilled and damp condition, made gooseflesh break out along her arms. She lifted a hand to rub at it. He watched the gesture for a fixed instant before he deliberately turned away.

Taking a healthy swallow of the hot brew, he set it down. He reached for the controls then. The boat surged forward with a powerful roar, heading back toward the Louisiana coastline.

The squall caught up with them when they were perhaps three-quarters of the way home. One moment they were cresting windblown waves with a steady slap and rush, the next they were struck by a maelstrom of wind and rain and sea water.

The boat rolled in violent reaction. Coffee mugs, loose magazines and a brass ashtray went flying. A pot in the galley slid to the floor with a clang. Caroline was nearly flung from the sofa, and only saved herself from being thrown across the cabin by rolling off it onto the carpeted floor.

Caroline heard Ross swear under his breath. He sprang to his feet, kicking his tall captain’s chair aside as he spun the wheel on a new heading. The violent bucking of the boat calmed somewhat, though the din of wind and water still roared around them. Caroline climbed slowly to her feet and resumed her seat, bracing herself in a sofa corner.

Black waves washed over the bow, smashing into the boat so fast and heavy the clacking windscreen wipers were nearly useless. Paneling creaked, beams groaned and crackled. Glassware tinkled with hidden, musical sounds. Waves slapped against the windows, washing in the frames with a circular motion. The wind keened around the flying bridge overhead. Still, the engines throbbed and whined without missing a beat as the boat plowed forward through the night.

Ross's hands on the wheel were steady, his features calm. Caroline's heartbeat slowed. It was just a storm, after all. Yachts like this one were built to weather storms.

Abruptly there was a shrieking noise. Water spewed in around the edges of the windscreen as a wave washed over it. It showered into the cabin, hitting the walls and ceiling, bouncing off in a dozen directions.

Caroline gave a strangled cry. Before she could move, another wave hit with a splintering crash. Salt water rushed inside in a torrent. She saw Ross brace against its force, clinging to the wheel as it funneled through the gaping hole to his right, splashing violently across the instrument console.

The pounding of the waves had knocked half the boat’s wide windscreen loose from its frame. As yet another one struck, the heavy panel ripped free of its last screws. It hit the carpeted deck and careened across it on a cushion of water before slamming into the wet bar. Another deluge followed, flooding, rippling across the cabin with a floating litter of papers, caps and sun glasses. Sea water swirled down the steps into the galley.

“Bed mattress!” Ross yelled above the din of wind and water. “Down below!”

Caroline saw at once what he intended. They had to have something to stop the water pouring in; the boat could take on only so much before it sank. There would be scant hope of surviving if they went down in these seas.
L’escapade
would be one more boat lost with all hands, one more casualty out of the dozens that occurred every year.

Galvanized by terror, she sprang from the sofa. Reaching the cuddy steps under the instrument panel at a splashing run, she ducked under yet another wave and tumbled down the stairs to the lower sleeping compartment.

It was dark and close in the low-ceiling sleeping cabin. She banged her knee on a bunk. Without bothering to look for a light switch, she bent and felt for its mattress. It was foam rubber, and only a few inches thick, but still heavy. She hardly noticed in her desperate haste and the pump of adrenaline through her veins. Muttering, gasping for breath, she bunched and rolled the thing and dragged it back up to the cabin.

Ross reached to help her before she cleared the last step. Securing the wheel for an instant, he grabbed the foam mattress with hard strength, doubling it as he slammed it into the windscreen opening. Together, he and Caroline wedged it tight, using their fists to pound it into the corners.

“Hold it if you can,” he commanded. “We've got to get out of this.”

His voice seemed loud in the sudden, comparative quiet. Caroline drew a shuddering breath. Her hands and arms trembled with strain and reaction. Yet as Ross shoved fuel to the engines, sending the boat hard forward once more, she did her best to do as he said.

Time crept like a tired sloth. The boat rolled and pitched while the squall howled around them. In the bright funnels of the boat's lights they could see nothing except racing waves trailing rags of spume and windblown curtains of rain.

The canvas-covered foam grew soggy. Salt water spurted around it at one corner with every wave that pounded the boat. Still, the mattress barrier held. They were going to make it.

Suddenly, a wild and triumphant exhilaration touched Caroline. She felt it surge through her with the same elemental power as the waves lifting the boat's hull. With it came fierce joy at being alive and where she was, on
L’escapade
with Ross McDougall.

She swung her head to look at him. He met her gaze, and an arrested look of surprise and something more appeared in his face. Then a slow smile curved his lips, rising to settle with brilliant satisfaction in his eyes.

It was a silent, vital communication like nothing Caroline had ever known before. She could sustain it for only a few seconds before looking away. The hot excitement of it lingered in her veins, however, warming her to the bone, settling inside the core of her with fiery power.

At last the wind began to die away. The pitch of the boat became a wallow. They could hear the engines again. After another few minutes, they could even hear each other without shouting.

It wasn't that the storm was passing, however, but that they were coming closer to the protection of the land. It was out there, a darker blackness in the rain-swept night.

Some minutes later, Ross slowed the engines, letting the boat idle forward. With a firm swing of the wheel, he guided it at an angle toward the blackness. The engines labored, as if cutting through thick soup. There was a long, tense moment while mud scraped under them with grinding, crackling sounds. Abruptly their forward movement ceased.

Ross cut the engines. In that abrupt cessation, rain could be heard drumming on the fiberglass overhead, along with the slap of waves and the rush of wind.

He moved to the door and shoved it open to step outside. He had been gone only a few seconds when the sound of the rear anchor cable began to play out with a loud, grating rattle.

An anchor.

This was not the bayou leading to Ross's house, not a dock of any kind. Beyond the windows, not a single light could be seen. There was nothing except darkness and marsh.