In Too Deep Read Free

blockage in her throat.
“I’m only here to help. I’ll run the dive tours until your leg
heals.”
    “ It’s not that simple. I don’t
just offer tours now. A lot of my business comes from cage dives.
It’s why I bought the bigger boat.”
    “ Cage dives?”
    “ A shark cage. See the Stewart
Island Great White sharks up close and personal. Loopies love
it.”
    “ Oh, Ben.” Spidery tickles iced
down her spine. “Not the sharks.”
    “ Don’t you go all holier-than-thou
on me. While you’ve been up north living the dream I’ve done what I
needed to survive.”
    Someone brushed against her, and
Piper leaned forward.
    “’ Scuse me.” Smitty’s gap-toothed
grin leered above a huge plate of fried fish and chips. “Good to
see you again, lass.” He winked and waddled off, stopping at the
nearest group of men and muttering, “You fellas mind your own
beeswax, ya hear?”
    Piper lowered her gaze to the
scuffed floor and took a deep breath. Old Smitty was the worst
gossip of the lot, and even from his perch in the far corner, she’d
bet a month’s wages he’d been eavesdropping.
    Liquid glugged into a glass and
she looked up. “Thought you didn’t drink that imported
crap?”
    “ I’m not in a position to turn
down a free beer when it’s offered.” Ben shifted in his seat and
turned his face away to glower at the window.
    Outside the wind had picked up,
hammering sheets of rain against the glass in a blustery tantrum.
She shivered, even though the temperature inside with so many
bodies crammed together bordered on suffocating. “Listen, I’ve
another idea we can try. When’s your next tour?”
    He took a sip of his beer and
wrinkled his nose. “Got a shark dive booked this Wednesday—why? You
gonna swim with the big fishies, little sis?”
    Piper shot him a cocky smile. “I’m
meaner than anything that cruises the ocean around here. So what
time do we leave?”
    “ We?” He hacked out a laugh.
“There’s no we, Piper. Doc says I’m not allowed on a boat for at
least five to six weeks, and I assume you haven’t got a commercial
skipper’s license?”
    Piper stood, rubbing her
protesting thigh muscles with damp palms. License? Ah, no, she
hadn’t considered who would skipper Ben’s boat. She just assumed he
wouldn’t be able to dive. “No. No license. What about one of your
mates?”
    “ It’s summer. No one has any spare
hours to give me.” He reached for the crutches braced on the other
side of the table. “I told you, it’s under control. We don’t need
you here. Go back to the city.”
    She lifted her chin, ignoring the
small stab of hurt at the bitterness of his tone. “Not an option.
So who’s skippering for you?”
    “ Me,” a voice grated directly
behind her.
    Her pulse exploded into chaos, but
she controlled the tremble in her muscles as she half turned toward
him. “Hello, West.” She moderated her tone so it was chilled with
absolute politeness.
    His voice remained the same, but
the boyishness there at twenty had vanished now West had nearly hit
thirty. His shoulders were broader, the cut of his business shirt
hinting at the shape of his chest beneath, and his dress pants sat
low on lean hips. His dark brown hair, once unkempt in sync with
Ben’s, was stylishly trimmed and kept in line by some slick
product. Bet the locals gave him hell about that.
    Eyes the brittle blue of dried sea
coral locked with hers. One assessing look shattered any doubt that
he recalled each intense moment spent together when she was
eighteen.
    Bubbles of old, revived attraction
fizzed through her veins, as potentially deadly as nitrogen
collecting in her cells during a dive. Those feelings couldn’t be
allowed to multiply. A fizz could turn into a trickle, the trickle
to a cascade, and the cascade to a torrent. She wouldn’t go through
the devastation of purging Ryan Westlake out of her system
again.
    Fool her once, and all that
crap.
     
    ***
     
    West smothered a grim smile as