Mesmerizing Stranger

Chapter 4

At 5:30 in the morning, Cate quit glaring at the ceiling of her cabin and gave up. She never had insomnia. Ever. But apparently, she was still too riled up about Harm to catch at any serious sleep, so she crawled out of the bunk and grabbed her laptop.

She didn’t feel quite so claustrophobic by the port window. Outside, a shimmer of pale light dozed on the smooth waters as she turned on the laptop. She was way overdue e-mailing her two sisters. She was between the two in age, but her role had always been the caretaker. The tough one. They’d all been scarred and scared kids, but Cate saw the other two as more wounded. Someone had to watch out for them.

The note to Sophie, of course, had to be first, because her e-mail box was clogged with e-mails about how happy her sister was. It was enough to give Cate hives. Enough was enough. Soph. You’re not still on your honeymoon. For Pete’s sake, you’ve been married almost six months. It’s time for you two to have a fight. A real fight. How can I trust this guy if he doesn’t behave like a normal male animal?

Then she pounded out an e-mail to Lily. I don’t want to hear all the teaching crap. This is summer. I want to hear that you’re out meeting guys, sleeping with guys, being irresponsible and impulsive. If you go to one more jewelry or Tupperware party, I swear to god I’m flying home to kick you in the behind.

There. Her sister-caretaking duties were done for the day. She closed her laptop, congratulating herself for getting her mind off Harm-and then noticed that only ten minutes had passed.

She tried a quick shower, thinking that maybe she could scrub the man out of her thoughts, but that didn’t work, either.

She’d never been afraid of a man. No reason to be. She’d already faced the life stuff that was really terrifying-which was, cut and dried, losing everything that mattered to you. Guys didn’t fall into that category. She could love them and walk away, just like she did possessions and places and everything else. Harm shouldn’t be any different.

Only, damnation, he was. She wouldn’t mind being attracted to a moneygrubbing hotshot, heavily into power and ownership and command and all that nonsense. That’s what he was supposed to be. That’s what she’d thought he was.

Impatiently, she towel-dried her hair, yanked on layers of merino wool and fleece, then slipped her feet into moc-boots. It was the way he’d kissed that threw her, she admitted to herself. She’d expected arrogance and selfishness. She’d expected him to be a taker.

Instead, he kissed as if he were a big old lonesome lion, who craved his own lioness to come home to, a cave of his own, the one place in a predator world where he could let down his hair.

As Cate climbed to the main deck, she almost let out a totally unfeminine snort. Harm in the role of romantic lion? Right. Annoyed the man was still entrenched in her thoughts, she was determined to concentrate on something else.

Like food. Food was always positive.

Ambling through the salon, the only sound she heard was the steady slop-slurping of water cradling the boat. As she passed through into the dining area, she found exactly the mess she’d expected-glasses and plates everywhere. She and Ivan had had a brouhaha before he hired her on. She was a chef, not a maid. Without a cabin boy, somebody was going to have to pick up the housekeeping duties. Eventually, they agreed-once he put more money in the kitty for her-that she’d clean up the dining room and galley 24/7. The rest of the boat was his problem.

She lifted the lid on the giant silver coffeepot-a treasure, old silver-and figured she’d grind Hawaiian beans today, add a touch of hazelnut…then scooped up a tray of glasses to cart into the galley.

She barely turned the corner before shock hit.

There was a long, bulky shadow on the floor. A body. A man’s body.

The tray careened on the counter in a noisy clatter of glasses and silverware. She fell to her knees, put her finger on the pulse of his neck, then felt another shiver of shock when she realized his eyes were open.

She knew CPR. She was damned good at CPR. Unfortunately, CPR was too darned late to do any good. She recognized Fiske even before she knelt down-who else had that classic Santa-Claus figure? But it seemed impossible that he was dead. She’d just seen him a few hours before. How could that dear, gentle, quiet man who loved her peppermint cookies have died just like that?

Confusion suddenly made her freeze. It was a darned real question. How could he have died just like that? Obviously, he must have been seeking something from the galley in the middle of the night. But what? And he was crumpled on the floor in the oddest position, his hands framed in a cupped position around his neck. Had he choked? But on what?

If he’d slipped and fallen in the tight space of the galley, he would undoubtedly have hit a hard surface-yet there was no sign of blood or physical injury. If he’d choked, there was no sign of food or whatever he could have choked on.

She gulped, then jumped to her feet and hit the lights. She wanted Harm. To tell him first, to be the one to deal with this. But that was just her heart’s instinct. Rationally, she knew her first responsibility was to contact Ivan. On a ship, the captain was the god, the law, and any other role that was stuck with bottom-line responsibility. She reached for the pager on the wall by the sink, her hands shaking as she hit the button for Ivan’s cabin.

“What?” Ivan’s voice was curt and groggy. No surprise, she’d wakened him.

“It’s me, Cate. I’m in the galley. Fiske is here. I don’t know what happened. But somehow…he’s dead. I just found him.”

Ivan muttered a curse, a sound of shock. Then, “I’ll be right there. Don’t do anything else until I get up there. Or…wait. Wake Connolly, would you? It’s his man. We should tell him before anyone else finds out. And I’ll be there as fast as I can get dressed.”

She hung up, took one last long look at Fiske, and then ran. Her mind felt like a shaken box of Scrabble pieces, unable to form coherent words, make coherent sense. She pelted through the silent boat, belowdecks, then rapped sharply on Harm’s door. He was undoubtedly sleeping. She’d probably have to rap more than once. Yet she hadn’t even lifted her hand for a second knock when the cabin door opened.

Cate didn’t panic. She never panicked. She wasn’t the shaky, panicky type, yet Harm took one look, said, “Easy there,” in a voice more gentle than silk. He pulled her in, pulled her close. “Bad news,” he said, not wasting time framing it as a question.

She nodded, because her chin seemed to be wobbling too much to get a clear word out. It was his fault she couldn’t keep it together. At least he didn’t sleep naked, but he was only wearing sweat bottoms tied low on his hips. Her cheek seemed to be pressed into the geography of blond hair on his chest, which covered a far more muscular torso than a desk man should have. It’s not that sex was on her mind. It wasn’t. Even remotely. It was just…

No one did that. Held her. Just pulled her in and held her. And because Harm was so clearly braced for trouble, to take care of trouble, she didn’t have to be.

“It’s Fiske, Harm.”

“Sick?”

“Worse. I found him dead on the galley floor. I paged Ivan right away, woke him up-he’s probably en route to the galley by now. He asked me to come get you.”

“Of course.” But he didn’t immediately release her, as if waiting to make sure she was steady again. He pulled back, blue eyes examining her face, shrewdly assessing how she was. “It’s frightening. Finding someone who died. Happened when I was in the military too damned often. I don’t care how tough you are. It’s hard.”

She took a big gulp, found the steadiness that had eluded her. Maybe she’d just needed him to say that she wasn’t a wuss. “It was awful,” she admitted, and then quickly turned around to face the door.

The instant Harm let go of her, he reached for the drawstring tie at his waist, obviously intent on dressing fast-whether she was there or not. “Could you tell what happened? How he died?”

She hesitated. “I’ve got some solid first-aid background, but I don’t have any doctor-type judgment or experience-”

“Cate. Could you tell how he died?”

From the quiet urgency in his voice, she realized what he was really asking-if Frisk had died a natural death or if he’d been murdered.

Shock numbed her throat. She understood that the problems in his company were grave, but not that Harm had been worried about something like foul play or violence being a possibility. Suddenly, everything she’d seen and heard took on extra dimension. Her voice seemed to come out full of gravel.

“I don’t know, Harm. There was no blood, so it didn’t look as if he fell and hit his head. I…” She just couldn’t force the picture back in her mind. “I can’t guess why he was in the galley. Whatever happened must have occurred after you and I went below deck, so the timing had to be in the really wee hours of the morning.” Her voice started to crack. “But I just don’t know what a heart attack or stroke looks like, so I-”

“Okay. Damn. Didn’t mean to make you feel put on the spot. The facts’ll come out, Cate. It’ll all get figured out. And I’m headed up right now.” But before charging ahead of her toward the companionway, he snugged a hand on her shoulder. It wasn’t a sexual touch-just a totally personal one. A gentle squeeze of support, an awareness of how upset she was, even if she didn’t show it. A gesture to let her know he was there.

Cate headed back on deck, thinking what a way to tick a girl off. She wasn’t used to anyone being there for her. She didn’t want anyone there, hadn’t depended on anyone since she could remember-and liked it that way.

She damn near fell in love with the man over that single stupid gesture.

Of course, she wasn’t herself. Finding a dead body was a mighty upsetting way to start a day.

If she wanted to wallow, though, there was no possible opportunity. Topside, Harm and Ivan took over the galley, locked in discussion.

Harm’s men seemed to smell the crisis, woke up early, popped on deck one after the other, each appearing shaken by the news of Fiske’s death. No one seemed to know what to do, what to say-and heaven knew, neither did she. But she just started pitching in, starting with making coffee, one pot, then another.

Even after Ivan and Harm headed for the pilothouse, no one wanted to be in the galley-not until some decision was made regarding Fiske. Cate couldn’t imagine anyone wanting the original fancy breakfast she’d planned, but she raided the storerooms and pantry, came through with plates of fresh fruit, breads and preserves. Everyone said they weren’t hungry, but both coffee and food disappeared every time she put out more.

Harm’s men sprawled in the salon. Harm and Ivan kept charging in and out of the pilothouse. No one quit talking when Cate brought coffee or took away empty plates, so she heard everything that was going on.

Whatever anyone wanted to happen, a death on sea just wasn’t exactly like a death on land. The captain had all the decision-making power onboard. It was his call to radio the coast guard, and when he discovered a CG cutter was less than two hours away, it was his decision to bring them in. Two ruddy-faced uniforms boarded just after ten.

In the meantime, she watched Harm’s men, trying to imagine one of them harming Fiske, stealing that treasure of a formula. The three hung together, and pretty much never stopped talking about Fiske-it wasn’t as if anyone could think about anything else-but nothing sounded odd to her.

“What else could it have been but a heart attack?” Arthur kept saying.

“It could have been a stroke,” Yale kept saying right back.

“He liked his sweets. Didn’t even try to keep the weight off,” Purdue kept pointing out. “He must have had arteries clogged to the gills. And that’s probably what he was doing in the middle of the night in the galley. Going after something to eat.”

“Maybe we’ll never know.” Yale couldn’t sit still, kept jumping up and pacing around the salon, staring at the sea, not seeing it. “But one way or another, I assume we’ll immediately head home after this.”

Cate suspected that going home was the ideal choice for the thief. Freedom of movement was easier in the home environment, where here, everyone was under Harm’s microscope. The culprit could try playing the innocent card, but who could possibly do that 24/7 without a slipup?

Another hour of upheaval followed the coast guard’s arrival. They met with Harm and Ivan, then took Fiske’s body aboard their vessel and left. Moments after that, Ivan and Harm assembled the whole group in the salon to relay what would happen next.

Ivan started talking first. “Coast guard will be taking Mr. Fiske to Juneau. There’ll be an investigation started there, including an autopsy, no different than for any other unexplained death. That’s pretty automatic before a body can be released out of state. For that matter, to you outlanders, I have to tell you, that’ll probably take more time than the same basic investigation in the Lower 48.”

“Which means what?” Arthur asked. “What kind of time are you talking about?”

“A week minimum is what they put on the table,” Ivan said. “After that, Mr. Fiske’ll be flown to Georgia, where I gather his daughter lives, the closest relative, so that’s where the funeral will be held.”

“Not by us, not in Cambridge?” Yale asked.

Harm stepped in then, and Ivan stepped back, poured himself a long, tall mug, braced it with whiskey, and heaved himself in a chair. Harm looked exhausted, Cate thought.

“No,” Harm said. “It’ll be with Fiske’s daughter. I talked to her myself just a short time ago…”

Cate stopped listening for a few minutes, because she had heaps of dirty dishes and messes to clean up by then. And no one was thinking about lunch or dinner, but sooner or later they were both her responsibility. She needed to scour her galley. Think through what kind of foods might help calm down six traumatized men.

She’d just started a dishwasher load when she heard voices raised, grabbed a towel to dry her hands and walked back into the salon-at least as far as the doorway. The stress in the air was combustible. Ivan and Hans had disappeared back to the pilothouse, clearly to let Harm deal with his men.

“We don’t have a choice,” Harm was saying. Purdue and Yale were hunched over, like sprinters ready to race flat out. The older Arthur was the one whose harsh voice rasped in the air.

“It’s just wrong. Being here. Everything’s wrong.”

“I know, Arthur. I feel the same. None of us are going to be in vacation mode after this. But the coast guard wants us to stay here for the next week.”

“I still don’t get it,” Purdue snapped. “Fiske had a heart attack. Or whatever. It had nothing to do with us. You’d think we were under suspicion.”

Cate wiped her hands harder, realizing the sudden silence was an answer in itself. They all felt under suspicion-for the theft in the company. But now Fiske’s death had a question mark about it, as well.

“The coast guard is the authority in these waters. They want us on the boat where we’re all easy to find, easy to question. There’s nothing any of us can do for Fiske’s family-or anything else-until the investigation is done. Cause of death has to be determined.”

“I understand that,” Arthur said. “But I don’t see why that has anything to do with any of us.”

Since Harm had clearly already answered that, he pushed on. “Ivan has agreed that he’ll sail us back to Juneau as soon as we get the okay from the authorities. Otherwise, we keep on the original time schedule. I’ll be in daily contact with the authorities. If there’s any way to get this resolved sooner, Ivan will speed up our return to base. Also…speaking for myself, I wouldn’t want to fly back to the mainland and home, knowing Fiske was still in Juneau, with no resolution for him.”

There, Cate thought. Harm had found the one thing they could all agree on. None of the men wanted to leave Alaska until Fiske did.

“So that’s it for now,” Harm said.

That might have been “it”, but Cate watched the day deteriorate from disaster to major gloom. Once the coast guard cutter disappeared from sight, all of them-except for Ivan-wandered around the yacht like lost souls. No one wanted food. No one wanted to talk. No one wanted to sit. No one could settle down or rest or sleep.

Cate couldn’t fathom how anything could make the situation better…until the whales showed up.

Harm’s ears were ringing. He’d been stuck in the pilothouse for hours because his cell phone connection kept petering out, and the only other means of communicating to the outside was the radio. Ivan and Hans showed him how to work it. Since then, he’d been on it nonstop. There seemed no end to what needed to be communicated-calls to the company, calls to Fiske’s daughter in Georgia, calls to the firm’s attorneys, calls to the P.I. firm he’d been working with.

Cate kept popping into the pilothouse, delivering coffee and food, taking away remnants from the last batch. She was…extraordinary. Yesterday he’d thought she was full of herself…and he knew damn well she had reason to be “full of herself” after sampling that woman’s dangerous kisses.

But today, in a crisis, she’d just stepped up the way…well, hell. The same way he did. No conversation. Just filling in where something needed doing, taking charge without asking or making any fanfare about it. She’d taken better care of his men than their mothers likely would have-all with that sexy butt and godforsaken hairstyle, and now that he realized it, those deep, soft eyes of hers.

“Harm.” Ivan had given up calling him “Mr. Connolly” the instant they’d stood over a dead body together. Still, the captain’s voice maintained a deferential tone. “There’s another message coming in.”

Ivan shifted so that Harm could stand in front of the ship’s receiving device. Few electronics worked this far from the mainland except for the ship’s equipment, Harm was discovering. And the message just coming in put a burr in his pulse.

“Problem?” Ivan asked. Yet before waiting for an answer, he suddenly glanced out the window, promptly cut the engines, and swiftly motioned for Harm to look out.

Harm stepped around Ivan. His jaw dropped when he saw the strange, huge mounds in the sea moving toward the boat. “Those can’t be whales,” he said.

“Oh, yeah, they are.”

For the first time that day-maybe for the first time in weeks-Harm felt something quiet in his soul. Beyond the sea in every direction were mountainous islands, cliffs and ragged slopes that speared the sky. Fragrant pines somehow found purchase in the rock, adding a rich spice to the air, a verdant green against the pale sky. On almost every turn of land there was an eagle-or a nest of them-overlooking its regal domain.

The “mounds” in the sea, though, were something else. Hans had already opened the pilothouse door, directed by Ivan to urge everyone topside.

“They’re humpbacks,” Ivan told Harm. “Looks like an extraordinary sized pod from here. I can count…twelve? Thirteen?”

Temporarily, Harm couldn’t breathe. The whales were giants. From a distance, each one looked bigger than the yacht, and the whole group of them-or pod-was swimming straight for the boat.

“You cut the engines?” Harm asked, trying to comprehend why they weren’t sailing full bore in the opposite direction.

“Yeah. We’re in their territory. Good chance for everyone to see ’em up close.”

The pilothouse was only three steps above the foredeck, so Harm immediately saw when Purdue hustled to the rails, then Arthur, Yale and Cate charging behind him. For the first moment since hearing of Fiske’s death, the group was diverted from their dark mood. But it was Cate that Harm’s gaze homed on…honed on.

She burst out of the galley, saw the whales and made a delighted sound of laughter. “Aren’t they gorgeous?” she demanded of his boys.

“Why are they still coming so close?” Harm asked.

“I suspect…because they’re curious about us. It’s not as if they’re afraid. Those behemoths haven’t experienced anything they need to be afraid of.”

Curious? Everywhere, these big hunks arched out of the sea, aiming straight for the yacht, parting to surround it, half going on one side, half on the other. Harm figured any second this was going to turn into a Jonah-gobbled-by-the-whale day…and there below was Cate, leaning so far over the rail it was a miracle she didn’t fall in, still laughing, fearless, delighted.

And then he realized she was really leaning over. Her whole body was leaning over.

He reacted by instinct, pushing past Ivan, taking the steps down from the pilothouse in a single leap. She was going to fall. He knew it. He could see it. The least tip, and she’d tumble into that icy water.

Instead of helping her, his three men and Hans, stood like statues against the rail. They were all staring at Cate with a look of shock. It took a heart-thrashing second for Harm to realize what she was actually doing.

She was leaning so far out, with her arm fully extended…

To pet a whale.

The big guy, swimming alongside the boat, suddenly berthed in a smooth arch-close enough to the boat to bump it. In fact, he did bump it. The men all felt it.

And they all heard Cate’s giggle of delight, as if she’d just taught a puppy a new trick.

The whale circled, blew a fountain from his blowhole and dipped beneath the surface again. Harm hoped he’d disappear, go off wherever whales went off to, but instead the huge thing surfaced again. This time it surfaced beneath Cate’s hand. Apparently, it was coming back for another petting.

Harm heard her murmuring love words, crooning. To the whale, for Pete’s sake-who bumped the boat again in response.

But he also saw her face. Her expression was as simple and complex as joy. Damn, but she was fearless. Open to embracing anything. When had he last felt that free, that excited about the possibilities?

“Hey, Cate.” Ivan showed up from above. “Did anyone ever mention that you didn’t have the brain God gave a goose?”

Cate didn’t even lift her head. “He’s so beautiful. I thought he’d be cold. And the surface of his body was cold, but beneath, there’s this…thundering warmth. He’s smooth and even soft-”

“Y’all want to take a vote on whether she’s certifiable?” Ivan rolled his eyes with the guys.

“That’s it, make fun.” Cate scowled at the lot of them, then cast one more longing glance as the big behemoth swam off to his pals.

“Gonna take him home, Cate? Got a big enough bathtub for him, do you?”

“I’d like to see you bring home a date. Bet his eyes’d pop when he saw your choice of pets.”

“You like your boys big, do you?” That brought on a round of raucous laughter.

“Size does matter, boys,” Cate said demurely, and that brought another round of hoots and laughter.

She caught his eye moments later. There was just a flash in hers, a connection, but he got it. It wasn’t a day for laughter-just a day when they all needed some kind of comic relief. Cate had willingly provided it.

But when she looked at him, he knew she hadn’t forgotten finding Fiske in her galley. And his mind kept replaying how she’d behaved with that damned whale. So fearless. Reaching out to something she should have known was seriously dangerous.

And that wasn’t just whales and thieves.

It was him, too.

Harm spun around, told himself to quit obsessing on those haunting kisses and those sassy eyes and forget her. The message waiting for him in the pilothouse had come from the P.I. firm he hired in Cambridge. More troubling news. Bad news. A mounting trail of evidence defining a very clever thief.

But nothing to identify him.

And there was no way Harm could keep Cate safe-or any of his other men-until he somehow found that answer. Fast.