Mesmerizing Stranger

Chapter 1

In the army, Harm Connolly had developed a reputation for trouble. Not for getting into it, but getting out of it, and he was most attracted to trouble when the odds were against him.

Temporarily, though, impossible problems didn’t strike him as any fun at all.

For the first time in his life, he couldn’t find his guts. He really, really wanted to disappear in a deep, dark cave under an assumed name where no one could possibly find him.

It was the boat.

Since he’d arrived in Juneau yesterday, the rain had gushed down in thick, drenching sheets, and still showed no sign of letting up. The rain didn’t bother him. That he was cold and soaked didn’t bother him, either.

But standing on the dock, staring at the l03-foot yacht-ironically named Bliss-Harm reflected gloomily that he’d rather suffer a burst appendix, get married again, face a firing squad-anything but climb aboard.

He’d never liked boats. Didn’t matter if it was a dingy or a luxury yacht. The idea of being trapped on one for the next two weeks was enough to give him shudders…and the funny part of it all was that the boat trip had been his idea.

The gray, relentless rain blurred any chance of clear visibility, but Harm still kept his gaze homed on the four men climbing aboard ahead of him. They were all brilliant-a ton smarter than him-yet they’d become his employees a mind-boggling few weeks ago.

They’d sucked up to him from the get-go, but with each other… Hell. This morning, typically, none were speaking to each other. Enough friction sizzled among the four to fry a hole in the ozone. The silent anger pouring off the men was so toxic that it was bound to combust unless Harm somehow found a way to identify and defuse the source. Soon. Damn soon.

The yacht staff-captain and mate-greeted each of the men and ported their gear. Harm was last by choice. He wanted to board that boat like he wanted to cuddle up with a hornet’s nest. Still, if he had to find something positive about this incredible mess…at least there were no women around.

When push came to shove, Harm didn’t doubt his ability to handle financial crises or catastrophes or unexpected avalanches.

He was pretty good at handling most anything but estrogen.

“Mr. Connolly-Harm! Welcome aboard!” The captain, in full rain gear, surged forward and extended his hand. “Hope your trip into Juneau was pleasant. Nice weather for whales, huh?”

Harm was beginning to recognize Alaskans’ unique brand of humor, and even wet and raw, the captain’s smile was deferential. Harm got mighty tired of people treating him as if he walked on water, but in this case, he didn’t mind the wary respect. Naturally, he’d thoroughly researched Ivan Gregory before signing on for this trip.

The captain was thirty-eight, of Lithuanian descent, a man’s man with a history of hard drinking, womanizing and maverick morals-but Harm didn’t mind a man’s faults as long as he knew what they were. The critical factor was Ivan’s experience. The captain knew the seas around Admiralty Island like the back of his hand, and had an unbeatable track record for sailing his way through rough weather, always bringing home passengers and boat undamaged.

“It was good to meet your men.” Ivan grabbed his duffel before Harm could reach for it. “Interesting group. My crew is especially looking forward to this trip…we’ll get your gear taken below, give you some time to wander about and get familiar with the ship…”

“That sounds fine. Thanks.” Harm tuned out the captain’s small talk as he stepped aboard.

He’d seen pictures, done his homework, of course, but was still startled by the reality of the boat’s interior. Peeling off his wet hood and jacket, he noted the aft deck was big enough to hold a board meeting. Double doors led into a spacious salon, the inside wall paneled in wild cherry, the cabinetry done in a rich burl. The leather seating clustered midroom was framed by bookshelves, all stuffed with books and references on Alaskan lore. Harm was just leaning closer to study the signed oil painting on the inside wall when his head suddenly shot up.

For an instant, he thought he heard a soprano. A woman’s voice, emanating from the next room off the passageway-the entrance to the dining area.

But his attention was immediately distracted by the shock of hearing laughter from his team. His four guys were all peeling off their wet-weather gear, same as he was, but they were suddenly talking, clearly surprised and enthralled with the comforts of the yacht, sounding animated about the trip ahead. Harm wanted to hold his breath. He had no illusions the camaraderie would last, but it was a beginning-the whole reason he’d put this trip together. All four of them, he believed, were good men. Or had been good men, once upon a time. This trip was a chance to see if there was a prayer he could pull them back together.

Ivan pushed up his captain’s cap and was clearly trying to channel the group’s attention. “Okay, everyone, Hans here is my first mate.” He motioned at a spectacled, gray-haired man who looked like a quiet grandfather type. “Cate’s our chef this trip. You’ll meet her shortly. Hans, in the meantime, will take you below, help stow your gear and then give you a tour of the ship. The only place off-limits is the crew’s quarters. Otherwise, you’re free to go anywhere, and explore all you want. I’ll be topside for a few minutes, calling the harbormaster. We’ll lunch in the dining room at twelve-thirty and do some Q & A, fill you in on the schedule, safety features and all that. A-OK?”

Cate? Harm’s head whipped around again. There’d been no woman’s name on the crew roster. He was positive.

And then he saw her.

Actually, what he precisely noticed was her shrugging off the captain’s attempt to cup her fanny as she hiked past him into the main salon.

She dodged the captain’s move, smooth as silk, but Harm’s gaze still narrowed. Since she was female, she was inherently a problem. The captain’s behavior hinted there could be an additional awkward problems between employer and employee. Yet, determining how much difficulty she was likely to add to the trip was confounding because her looks didn’t remotely fit the picture.

Her hair was blond, paler than wheat, and she wore it razor short, spiked up every which way. Maybe she’d gotten around to brushing it last year. Her clothes revealed the flat figure of a kid-skinny jeans, mocs, a long-sleeved T-shirt with the slogan Forget Love! I’d Rather Fall In Chocolate! If she reached five-three, Harm would be surprised. With no makeup and a patch of freckles on her nose and a downright stubborn chin, she looked young. twenty-four, twenty-five? And far more like a scrapper than a siren.

Yet the first mate, the well-past-Viagra-age Hans, gazed at her as if she were the sex goddess of the century.

Harm’s warring men-Purdue, Yale, Fiske and Arthur-spotted her and got the same moonstruck look.

The captain obviously thought she was the sexiest thing to ever sail this sea or any other.

Harm wanted to shake his head. Were they all crazy? She was no dazzler. More like an underfed scruffy mutt.

Only then she smiled and said, “Hey, guys. I’m Cate.”

His heart went slam as pitifully as all the rest. It was that ssslllooooowwww smile. That throaty voice. That incomprehensible “something” that sent a guy’s testosterone soaring and ransomed his common sense.

Him, too, Harm thought gloomily. His heart was thumping like a puppy dog’s tail; his equipment already standing to attention. Hell.

He’d known this trip was going to be a nonstop stresser, but he figured her presence on the boat was going to turn the next weeks into a nightmare times ten.

Cate greeted the group with an exuberant smile. She didn’t have to pretend. It was easy to be happy; she’d known from the start that this two-week gig was truly a dream job. There were only two teensy exceptions.

There were way, way, way too many men.

And the captain persisted in thinking that a bite of the cook was a job perk.

Still, she’d never been one to let a couple inconsequential details bog her down, and continued with her intro spiel. “Hey, guys! I’m Cate. Cate Campbell. Like the captain said, I’m your chef for the trip. I trained in New Orleans under one of the best chefs in the universe, which isn’t to say that I’ll ever be that good, only that my goal here is to knock your socks off with some terrific food-starting with lunch today at twelve-thirty. Just take whatever seat you want in the dining room. And over the next hour, I’ll try and track each of you down separately, make sure I’m straight on any food allergies or preferences you have. Okay?”

Oh, yeah, that was okay. When the five guests climbed aboard, Cate had gotten a good studying look at all but the head honcho…but this was their first chance to get a look at her. The boss man still eluded her, was shedding rain gear in the companionway, his face in shadow-but his four minions had front-row seats. They looked up, and the smell of testosterone suddenly clouded the clean sea air. Sprawled like wet rats in the cushy leather chairs, they suddenly straightened their postures. Heads nodded like bobbers.

She’d seen the response from men before. Her sisters claimed disgustedly that she was sexy even when she was down with a nose cold-which was both silly and untrue. But men were men.

Cats were so much easier to get along with.

“All right…I’m back to cooking. Only one other thing I want to say up front. I’m the god in the galley. I’m not your wife, not your girlfriend-you don’t have to watch your language or your manners around me, and you don’t need to help with a thing. But nobody touches my knives, my tools or my spices. Can’t imagine why you’d want to, anyway. If you need something from the galley, all you have to do is ask. We square?”

More head bobbing. A little laughter. A lot of smiles.

“Okay, I’ll catch up with each of you in a bit.”

En route back to the galley, naturally, Ivan tried to cop another feel. She shot him a look so icy it could have stopped global warming in its tracks, then just moved past him.

She heard his muttered chuckle. “Sheesh, Cate, it wouldn’t kill you to loosen up. Don’t forget, we’re in Alaska. Rules are a lot more flexible here.”

“I’m positive I told you in the job interview that I flunked ‘plays well with others’ in kindergarten.”

“God, I love a feisty woman,” he said.

She kept on going, didn’t even waste a roll of the eyes. The captain wasn’t a serious problem. As far as she could tell, Ivan was a terrific sailor, just a jerk around women. She could handle him with both hands tied behind her back, and even if the other men proved to be mangerines-boys with unmanageable balls the size of tangerines-Cate didn’t anticipate any sweat working with them, either.

She would hardly be an adventure chef if she didn’t love a little risk and danger now and then.

She zipped into the galley, instinctively whistling some old kick-ass rock and roll. What a kitchen. She’d made dinner for seven in the Himalayas in a snowstorm, sand-roasted snake for a gay couple in the Amazon, so maybe cooking under adverse conditions was her forte-but man, there was nothing wrong with a little luxury.

Naturally, she’d brought her own knives and spices-what chef didn’t?-but the galley was a techno dream. Armed with a hot pad and spatula, she checked on lunch, savoring the work space at the same time. The Corian countertops were in a sharp navy blue; the walls ice-cream white. A Thermador cooktop and grill accompanied the Sub-Zero fridge and freezer. Extras included the trash compactor, double sink, convection microwave and two-count ’em, two-Thermador convection ovens, and that wasn’t even counting the to-die-for pantry.

The whole package was enough to give a girl multiple orgasms-without all the hassle and messiness of a personal relationship. Besides which, the job was going to leave her with a chubby chunk of money. How could a girl not whistle?

It took less than ten minutes to put the finishing touches on the lunch menu. Obviously, the first meal needed to be killer good. Not fancy. Nothing that guys would be afraid of. It just had to be exactly right.

Once those chores were checked off, she grabbed her list with the passenger names and hustled below to the guest cabins. The big shot, she already knew, was Harm Connolly. The first names of his guys were Fiske, Yale, Purdue and Arthur. At the first cabin door, she rapped, and waited.

The man who answered the door was short, white-haired, plump and out of breath. Fiske. She took one look at the kindly eyes, judged him to be good to the bone and smiled. “A lot of running around this morning?” she asked sympathetically.

“Glad to finally be aboard and settled,” he admitted.

“I’ll bet. And I’m not going to bug you, just want to ask a couple of things to make sure I have the right info. Do you have any food allergies? Or any food issues, cholesterol, diabetes, anything you didn’t put on the form that I need to know about?”

“No allergies. Nothing but the usual boring health issues, either. A little heart issue, have to take cholesterol meds, should lose a few pounds, that kind of nonsense. Had to give up doughnuts.” He added in a mournful tone, “I love doughnuts.”

“Me, too,” she confessed. “Rather have coffee or tea?”

“Coffee.”

“Listen, Fiske, if you need a treat, you come find me. You hear? Or if there’s anything special you like, just say.” She resisted hugging him, but right off the bat, she could tell he was going to be an angel.

When she knocked on the next door, she knew she’d found Purdue even before the guy introduced himself. It was the look. Tall, dark, good-looking, maybe thirty, know-everything, so smart he charmed himself. In another ten years she figured the sharp edges might start showing up, but right now, he’d tickle any single woman’s radar. Hers not included, of course. He had the posture of someone who was always tense, always ready to duck and run-or charge. Maybe he had good reason to never relax, she thought, and knew perfectly well all those prejudgments weren’t fair.

“Just checking things off my list,” she said cheerfully. “Do you have any food allergies or dislikes you didn’t already mention?”

“Anything you make, Cate, I guarantee I’ll like.”

There were compliments, and then there was flattery. She’d never had patience for the latter, and was pleased to see him bump his head on the narrow cabin door when he turned around. At the end of the narrow corridor was a bathroom-head, she reminded herself of the correct term-and then rapped on the cabin door after that.

Arthur looked just like his name. He was easily six feet, maybe fifty-five to sixty, with a handsome head of premature white hair and a long face with stress-dark eyes.

“Any special things I can make for you, Arthur? Food allergies? Types of food you really don’t like?”

“Nothing special, but I tend to get up early. How soon is coffee available?”

“Any time you want. I’ll have a pot of fresh in the salon by 6:00 a.m. If you want it earlier yet, no sweat, just say.”

“No, that’s fine.” Arthur seemed to look through her, not at her. Cate fully understood that some people treated staff as invisible, but Arthur appeared more preoccupied than rude or snobbish. She made a mental note to watch out for him, make sure she found things to tempt him at mealtimes.

The last aft cabin was hers-the sleeping area was the size of a closet, with an adjoining hatbox-size head. Normally, she’d sleep in the crew quarters, but when Ivan lost his regular chef and interviewed her…well, Cate wasn’t about to sleep in a bunk in the open crew quarters, not when there was a spare cabin with a locked door.

On the starboard side, again she knocked…and the last of Harm Connolly’s guys yanked open the door. Yale. Had to be. Easy to guess how the two youngest men had picked up Ivy-League-type monikers, no matter where they’d actually gone to school. Yale was blond to Purdue’s dark, thin rather than muscular, and had a trimmed beard where Purdue was clean-chinned. Still, they both looked like up-and-comers, duded up with expensive labels and styled haircuts, in the same early-thirties age bracket.

“Hey,” he said, giving her the same up-and-down that Purdue had-although not as offensively. Somewhere in that practiced expression was some honest friendliness. “Quite a boat.”

“Fantastic, isn’t it?” She reeled off her short list of questions.

“I can eat anything.” He cocked his head. “You can’t be on 24/7.”

“I’m not. Once dinner’s put away, I’m on my own time.”

“So…you do have some free hours.”

She wasn’t about to pretend she didn’t understand where he was going. “Tons. Crew and staff eat together, tour together when we’re offshore. We’ll all have plenty of time to get to know each other. Once the dinner stuff’s completely put away, though, I’m on my own time. Which means you guys can stay up deck, drink all night, watch whatever you want and do whatever you want, without crew in your face.”

“That’s good,” he said, then opened his mouth to continue.

“I’m en route to your boss,” she mentioned, which shut him up beautifully.

Of course, it shut her up, too. Ivan had made clear to the crew that sucking up to Harm Connolly was required. Unfortunately, Cate had always flunked the course in kowtowing. It would have helped if she’d gotten a look at him before, she thought glumly, but no, she hadn’t thought ahead and made the effort. Truth to tell, failing to think ahead was a fault of hers. In fact, pretty much a fault on a daily basis. And she really didn’t want to put her foot in her mouth right off the bat with the head honcho…which meant she was all too likely to.

She rapped. Waited. Thought aha, maybe she could get a reprieve and not to have to deal with him right then-but then the door unlatched and there he was.

The punch in her gut was completely unexpected. He was the owner of a big-to-do company, for Pete’s sake. Mentally, she’d had pictured him as in his sixties, tyrannical, formal.

Instead she got a half-naked dude with sculpted shoulders, unshaven cheeks, and a head full of towhead blond hair, spiky and wet from a fresh shower.

At least he’d pulled on pants before answering the door, but the technogear revealed the long, lean muscles of an athlete, not a desk guy. His eyebrows and chest hair were as white-blond as his hair, his skin ruddy. The glower of impatience on his brow radiated arrogance, energy. He couldn’t be older than mid-thirties. And the sharp, dark gaze inhaled her in a single testosterone-colored photo snap.

His expression telegraphed that he knew what he liked, and he liked the look of her.

The overall punch was…well, downright bamboozling. It was more than his being unexpectedly hot. She just rarely, rarely got that suck-in-the-gut response for a guy. She loved men; what woman didn’t? And she’d slept with them now and then, of course. Liked a good-looking ass, naturally. But she always carefully steered miles around the rare guy who brought on that suck-in-the-gut feeling.

She liked adventure. Hell, she loved risk.

She just didn’t like risky men.

“You’re the chef,” he said, in a voice that sounded like rough gravel.

“Yes. And I don’t want to bother you. I just wanted to ask you a couple of short-”

“Come in. There are a few things we should cover.”

She didn’t want to go in any of the boys’ cabins. But she tapped her pencil on her list and sucked it up.

The master cabin was an awesome comfort zone-queen-size bed, teal carpet thicker than a lawn, teak cabinets for gear, an angled private head. Steam was still pouring from that bathroom, a thick white towel abandoned on the bed, all of it smelling like wet, clean male-intimate, distracting. Somehow there wasn’t room enough for the two of them, even in the most spacious cabin onboard.

She backed up against the door, thumbed on her ballpoint and started with the questions, but he immediately interrupted her.

“I’ll be fine with any food you serve.” He radiated impatience, more than annoyance. “I need some meeting time with my staff. The dining room would work best because of the table size. When’s it free?”

“Whenever you want it to be.” Ivan would be proud of her. It was a kowtower’s answer, even if her chin was already chucked up to hold her own. The man was too damn tall. Not counting his other faults.

“This is the deal. I want my staff to have a vacation out of this. Want to see them interacting in relaxed situations, onshore, offshore, meals and all. But I need to secure some uninterrupted time with each of them-with the door closed, just me and each of the men, for a good hour each day.”

“So you specifically need the dining room then. Morning or night?”

“Morning. After breakfast. Obviously, that schedule will need to be flexible, depending on the trip agenda for that day.”

“No sweat. Dining room’s yours from nine until ten-or later if you want it. I do need to start setting up for lunch by eleven-thirty, ballpark. If that won’t work for you, just let me know.”

“Fine. Now, problem two. The captain told me you’d be sleeping down here.”

She wasn’t sure where he was headed, but somehow she was already bristling. “Yes. If the captain didn’t mention it, his usual chef is a man, who came with his son, who worked as a cabin boy. Normally, everyone bunks in the crew quarters. But when the chef had emergency surgery, the job came open for me-”

“I don’t need all these details.”

“I was only trying to explain that the crew quarters were set up for men. I mean, it’s an open space, everyone bunking together. I could have done that if I had to, but I’d rather have some privacy, and you didn’t book all the cabins, so there was the small cabin aft, has its own head. If you’re afraid I’ll be noisy-”

“I’m not afraid you’ll be noisy. I’m afraid you’ll be an awkward distraction.” He took another impatient breath, looked away, then back at her. “Arthur’s married. The others aren’t.”

“I have to admit, I think Fiske is adorable,” she offered, referring to the oldest of his staff, but he just sighed at her attempt at lightness. Clearly, he had no sense of humor.

“This is the story, Cate. I inherited my uncle’s pharmaceutical company when he died a few months ago. At the time I was living across the country, outside Portland, Oregon, but I moved, put the life I had there on complete hold. There just was no one else to take on Future, Inc. It was more than a family commitment. The company was in the middle of doing…extraordinary things. None of that is your business or your problem. But my situation is that my science management team is in the middle of a major crisis. I’m using these two weeks of being trapped on this boat to ferret out personalities, problems, solutions. But I’ve got my hands full without adding further complications to this…soup.”

“Aw, shoot. I was planning to seduce Yale one night, Purdue the next and run down the halls naked between cabins at all hours of the day and night.” Eek. He wasn’t smiling. And suddenly she felt awkward as a prickly thorn. He’d shared something of a problem and she’d buzzed him off. If he hadn’t implied she’d be a sexual distraction for his employees, she’d have behaved better. Darn it, Cate knew she got ticked off easily. So now she had to try to fix it. “I didn’t mean to make light of a touchy situation. And I appreciate your filling me in. When you’re working with your guys, I’ll do my best to keep us all out of your way.”

“It’s you I’m concerned with. Not the rest of the crew.”

Well, hell. He got her back up all over again. “Trust me. There won’t be a problem,” she said stiffly.

“I’m not trying to offend you.”

“You aren’t.” He was.

“I’m just trying to make sure you aren’t caught in the crosshairs of an awkward situation-”

“Trust me. I won’t be.” If her spine got any stiffer, she could have drawn a straight line with it. Above deck, she heard the engines start up.

He sighed. “Cate…I apologize. I can see in your face that I’ve handled this badly. I haven’t slept in two nights-”

“You haven’t handled anything wrong, and even if you did, you’re the boss. But I need to head up now. I’ll see you at lunch.”

She ducked through the door, scampered topside and kept on going. That man might be stupendously good-looking and hotter than any man she’d known in the last decade. But so far, everything he’d said had rubbed her mightily the wrong way.

Still… Her spirits lifted as she neared the galley again. From the summer when she was eight-and lost her parents and whole world to a fire-she’d never depended on anyone or anything to make her happy. She could survive anything, and had. She never let anyone so close that a loss could destroy her.

Her heart was open, she thought, just not to hurt. An example of that was how hugely she planned to enjoy this trip. She saw it as an outstanding challenge, the chance to savor a fresh set of experiences, an opportunity to see yet another wondrous place in the world. Whether Harm Connolly was an annoyance didn’t matter worth beans. She could put him out of her mind faster than a finger snap.

She had with every other man who’d given her a problem.