The Pleasure Trip

“My God. You don’t think they ever would have tried boating over to Barbados from St. Kitts to meet up with the ship?” In an instant, the phone was tucked back under her ear. “It never occurred to me to check in with the harbormasters.”

Panic welled in Rita’s throat at the idea of brainless Horatio possibly talking her sister into sailing into the port at Bridgetown. But it made perfect sense in a screwed-up way. He wouldn’t want to lose his job aboard the Venus any more than Jayne would want to lose hers.

And Rita had to find Jayne as soon as possible—not only to make sure she kept her job, but also to corral her into helping manage the latest Margie scare. Their mother had telephoned well after midnight in a rare and very expensive phone call to inform Rita that the bar where she’d been singing a couple of nights each week had just installed video poker.

Just exactly what Margie didn’t need. The machines were probably illegal but Rita knew those kinds of laws were poorly enforced. And the Frazer women couldn’t withstand another bankruptcy. Margie could be homeless by the time the ship docked in Fort Lauderdale.

“I think you’d be able to wrangle your answers faster if we rented a boat. Any harbormaster worth his stripes spends more time out on the docks than taking calls anyway. You can bring your phone to keep making calls, but we’ll look around all the docking areas for ourselves once we find a boat.” Harrison explained the strategy patiently enough but he looked ready to bolt from her tiny, cramped cabin. He couldn’t walk two feet in any direction without stepping on Jayne’s strewn clothes, Rita’s sewing jobs or bumping into furniture. “How about we check with some of this guy’s—Horatio’s—friends to see if they knew where he planned to take his bride?”

“Of course.” Nodding at the practical wisdom of his plan she slammed the phone down again. “I don’t know why I didn’t think to do that right away.”

“You want me to go ask some questions while you get ready to disembark?” He backed toward the door, careful to sidestep a shimmering gold satin bra.

He would do that for her?

“That’d be great.” She’d never had smart, sensible help before while facing a crisis, so having Harrison around seemed really…nice. Most guys who were interested in a cruise fling would have zero desire to play private detective for the sake of a missing sibling, but Harrison Masters was obviously not most guys. “Horatio is friends with a few other casino workers. Mostly a lady pit boss—Fiona, I think—and a nerdy security guard named James who makes sure nobody pockets chips that don’t belong to them.”

“Got it. Meet you by the atrium on the Bacchus deck in an hour? We should be docked within thirty minutes.”

He checked his watch before his eyes went to the clock radio beside her bed. Just that brief flex of his muscles and the sight of big, male hands brought back memories of those hands on her. Amazing how being with him had made all her worries retreat into the far recesses of her mind last night.

“Let’s meet in twenty minutes.” She could pull it together in ten if need be, but she figured Harrison would need at least that much time to track down some of loser-boy Horatio’s friends. “And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the help.”

“Not a problem.” He shrugged as he stepped out into the corridor of the ship’s lowest deck. “It was high time I had a little excitement in my life anyway.”

She had to smile at the thought, even if she wouldn’t exactly classify Jayne’s disappearance as “excitement.” What woman wouldn’t be attracted to this smart guy who led a sensible, low-key lifestyle without a lot of drama?

“Stick with me, handsome. There’s plenty more where that came from in my family.”

* * *

I CAME TO St. Kitts to elope.

Emmett replayed Jayne’s confession in an endless audio loop in his brain the next morning, his attempts at drowning out her admission with a particularly fine Kentucky bourbon having failed miserably. As he rolled onto his back and smacked a pillow over his eyes, he had to own up to the fact that all he’d succeeded in doing was adding a headache to the news that Jayne had wanted to get married, she just hadn’t wanted to marry him.

Well, welcome to the freaking club.

Claudia hadn’t really wanted to be married to him either, although she seemed damned happy now that he’d signed over the lucrative Last Chance as part of their divorce settlement. Son of a bitch, but he couldn’t get used to seeing all his dreams incinerate before his eyes. He might have the Midas touch when it came to business, but he’d acquired some sort of cursed ability to decimate anything he tried to grasp in his private life. His marriage? Boom. Explosive failure.

Jayne? Pow. He’d sent her running so fast he’d gotten whiplash as she peeled out of his life.

He’d promised to drive her to the local landing strip to catch a charter plane to Barbados today so she could meet up with the Venus, but for all he knew she’d left already. She’d gone real quiet in the Jeep last night after he’d spluttered in disbelief—and possibly yelled a tad about the foolishness of rash plans—at the news of her elopement.

But what had she expected him to say? Good job ditching work to marry a blackjack dealer with zero plans to make a real future with you? For that matter, what kind of loser stood up his bride-to-be?

It’d been on the tip of his tongue to tell her she sure had shit taste in men, but caught himself just in time. Pretty damn humbling to realize he’d fallen into the same category as a guy who couldn’t say “I do” and then didn’t have the balls to say “I don’t” to a woman’s face.

Nice.

An efficient knock at his door echoed through his hungover skull with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. He moved the pillow off his head to shout back at the knocker.

“I’m still in bed.” And he wasn’t moving until he had proof positive that Jayne was still in the hotel and needed a ride. If not, he was making the Seawinds Suites his new home now that his divorce was official, his house had become the sole property of his ex-wife, and Claudia had neatly boxed up his every freaking possession and shipped everything to a local storage facility.

His ex might not love him, but she sure as hell had efficiency down to an art form.

“If that’s an invitation, your technique has really fallen apart over the last year.” The voice on the other side of the door sounded both sexy and bitchy and totally turned him on.

What kind of defective libido did he have that a haughty, high-maintenance woman like Jayne could inspire a hard-on even in the midst of a hangover from hell?

“If you get an invitation, woman, I guarantee you’ll know it when you hear it.” Shouting and wincing at the same time, he swung his legs off the bed and pulled on a pair of pants while he went to brush his teeth.

She could damn well wait.

“Emmett?” The conciliatory note in her voice was a surefire clue she needed a favor. He hadn’t dated Jayne for long, but for those few months he’d known her more intimately than any other woman. And he damn well recognized now just from the way she said his name that she needed help.

Did her moronic blackjack dealer understand her needs half so well?

Rinsing and spitting, he stalked to the door and opened it.

“What?”

He’d caught her by surprise. He could tell by the way she quickly pulled her softened features into a mask of cool collectedness. Still, he’d seen the hint of vulnerability on her face, felt her uncertainty for one disconcerting instant.

“There seems to be a problem with my bill because it’s ridiculously high.” She had folded and unfolded the piece of paper in question ten times over as she stepped around a matching sheet on the floor of his suite. “I think I got charged for your room, too.”

Her gaze dipped to his bare chest for a fleeting moment before she breezed past to pull open the curtains on the window overlooking the water.

“This looks right.” He scooped up his bill and compared it to hers, noting his ungodly bar tab and her dry cleaning bill for her dress along with the purchase of a pair of cheap rhinestone-studded flip-flops from the gift shop. “I’ve got it.”

“I don’t expect you to pay for my room. Or my shoes.” She flashed him a better view of her glittery pink thongs as she reached to take back the paper. “I just hadn’t realized these resorts were allowed to rob their guests blind for the chance to sleep in a dry bed.”

“I’m paying the damn bill and I’m not arguing about it since every word I utter reverberates in my head like a steel drum, you understand?” He hadn’t given a thought to the cost when he brought her here last night, but he knew most cruise companies didn’t pay their employees much for their efforts.

Jayne had never shared much about her past, but he’d gotten the impression she came from fairly humble roots not all that different from his own. Life had been kind enough to him since he’d figured out how to translate a gift for stock market prediction into cold, hard cash, but he’d seen the inside of the welfare office enough times in his youth to appreciate not everyone was lucky enough to find an honest means of living well.

“You play, you pay.” She stared out over the endlessly blue water. “Sometimes I have a hard time remembering that one myself.”

Emmett wasn’t touching that one. For all he knew he’d misunderstood what sounded to his clueless ears like an admission of normal human weakness, something completely uncharacteristic of the most proud female he’d ever encountered.

He remained silent so long she finally twirled on her heel to face him, her sundress swirling gently around her thighs with the movement.

“Are you ready to take me over to the landing strip yet, or did you change your mind about the ride?” She nodded toward the vast expanse of ocean out the window, her glossy red curls slithering seductively around her shoulders. “I’ve got to get back to the Venus to kick a certain man’s ass and apologize to my sister before a seven-o’clock rehearsal tonight.”

“You don’t think this loser ex-fiancé of yours is still on the ship?” Emmett reached for his shirt, his head clearing at the thought of losing Jayne for the second time in twelve months.

“He really likes his job. We weren’t planning to quit when we eloped, we just figured we’d take the night off to be wild and crazy.” Shrugging, she fished around in her purse and retrieved a pair of sunglasses. Shoved them on her nose. “Or so I thought. Guess I’m the last of a dying wild and crazy breed.”

Something about seeing proud Jayne Mansfield Frazer duck behind designer knockoff lenses clenched strangely at his gut. She’d changed since their first meeting a year ago and some sucker-for-punishment facet of his ego wanted to know how. Why.