Dan All Over Again

She was fighting her own battle for balance, in more ways than one. If he grabbed her, he could easily send her over. Instead he pushed her backward…and tumbled right over the side of the boat. He landed in the water with a splash not very unlike the pelican she’d observed earlier.

“Oops,” she said when he came to the surface, water streaming over his hair and face.

“Oops? Is that all you can say? Oops?”

“While you’re in there, can you grab my magazine?”

Laughter from a nearby boat brought their attention to a young man holding his stomach. “Whatcha doing, Dan, trying to teach your sweetie how to fish by pretending to be one?”

“Hah, hah, hah,” Dan muttered, turning to face her. “Okay, sweetie, I saved your magazine.” He held up the sopping thing. “I hope my humiliation was worth it.”

Laughter began creeping into her voice. “My hero.” The more she fought the laughter, the harder it pressed against her sensibility until she was in a full-out gale. Oh, my, it felt good to laugh, so good, she wondered how long it had been since she had laughed like this. Even Sammy started yipping, running over to where she leaned against the side of the boat. She opened her notepad and added, Laughing at least once a day to her life goals list.

Dan swam toward the back of the boat and climbed up the ladder. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be distracting.”

She raised her eyebrows as he landed on the deck with a thud. “I’m not the one who fell in! I’ve behaved perfectly—you’re the klutz.” She tried hard to hold back any more laughter, turning and picking up the fishing pole he’d readied. “So, you going to let me cast this thing, or what?”

“I…you…argh!” He held out the magazine as though he were going to swat her with it, but tossed it to the bench instead.

“You’re so cute when you’re angry,” she said, remembering Pam’s earlier words.

He stalked up to her and pressed his wet, cool body against hers. If it was so cool, why was heat creeping through the layers of skin and muscle and zinging right into her bloodstream?

“I ought to throw you over my shoulder, take you down to the cabin and show you how cute I am,” he said in a low, husky voice that raised her temperature even more.

She looked up at him, all blustery with water dripping from his mouth. One drop landed on her own mouth, and she licked it off. Salty.

He lowered his head, and another drop landed on her lips. “I ought to kiss that look right off your face.”

The thought of that knocked her off-balance. Instead of the sober look she’d intended, a giggle erupted.

“Think this is funny, do you?”

She took a deep breath. “I can’t remember when I’ve had so much fun.” Well, she could, but she wouldn’t, no way, uh-uh. “So, you going to show me how to fish or what, mister fishing god captain manly man?” She tried to pull the fishing rod between them, before she did something impulsive, but it snagged on something.

“I’m trying to decide whether to throw you overboard for shark bait or—”

“Er, Dan?”

“Don’t interrupt me. I’m trying to think up a juicier alternative.”

“But, Dan…”

“I know, I’ll tie you up with dental floss—”

She tugged again. “As much as that thought titillates me, there’s something you should know.”

“And then tickle you with seagull feathers—”

“Oh, Dan,” she said in a singsong voice.

He hovered above her, too close for her own comfort. She ripped her gaze from that mouth that had once kissed every inch of her body, that without words told her he wanted to do it all over again. She blinked, then backed away a few inches, breaking eye contact altogether.

“Give me the pole,” he muttered, yanking it from her grasp. The sound of fabric ripping stopped abruptly as his face contorted in pain. “Ouch!”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you, but do you listen to me, no, you just stand there dripping on me and threatening me with becoming shark food or fulfilling some kinky dental-floss-slash-feather fantasy. I wonder what your dentist would think of that? What I was trying to tell you was the lure was stuck on something, and obviously that something is you, so let me remove it before you spear yourself.”

“Too late. I think you were put on this earth to drive me crazy, you know that?”

“Be quiet so I can operate.” When she traced the fishing line, she found herself giggling again.

“I suppose you find humor in hooking my butt.”

“And ripping a three-inch tear in your shorts.” Another giggle, this one high-pitched. She tried really, really hard to look sober this time. “I can’t help it if I hooked…the wrong fish.”

He slapped his hand over his face. “You really know how to make a guy feel like a—” he narrowed his eyes “—fishing god captain manly man.”

Another giggle erupted. Oh, this was bad, really bad. If she couldn’t control her laughter, how was she going to control the hot, heavy feeling swirling inside her? “It’s a gift, what can I say?”

“Are you going to unhook me, or what?”

“Betcha I win with the biggest catch. Uh-oh, you’re bleeding.” A tiny spot of blood marred his shorts. She started the delicate process of extracting the hook from the fabric. “I’d have thought your underwear would have given you an extra layer of protection.”

He shot her a backward look that reeked of sheepishness.

“You’re not wearing underwear?”

“I’m behind in laundry.” He shrugged like a little boy caught with his finger in the cake icing. “At five in the morning, underwear’s not a big concern.”

“Oh, gawd.”

“And you get to patch me up. Good thing you brought those bandages.” He nodded with boyish satisfaction.

“Oh, no, I’m not putting a bandage there!”

“That duty always falls to the fishing goddess, and that’s you. Besides, I won’t be able to see what I’m doing.” He turned to face her, taking the lure from her hand and hooking it to the fishing pole eye. “Want me to throw you over my shoulder and take you down to the cabin?”

“Uh…no! Okay, okay, I’m going already.” She grabbed up those treacherous bandages and followed him into the cabin. “Dan! What are you doing?”

He was standing there with his shorts dropped to his ankles, glistening back and pale, bare butt facing her. He started to turn around to answer, but she quickly reached out and placed her hands on his wet back.

“Don’t…turn around.”

At a yipping sound, she turned to find both Thornton and Sammy standing in the entranceway watching them with great interest, their tails wagging. “Oh, go away!”

He started to turn around again. “What’d I do?”

“Not you!” She kept him firmly in place. “Where’s your disinfectant?”

“It’s in that little cabinet over the sink.”

After getting the bottle, she took a deep breath and lowered herself to the height of his derriere, cloth in one hand, bandage in the other. The skin was smooth and the white buns perfectly formed. She swallowed a sigh and applied peroxide and then the antibiotic.

“Ouch!”

“There,” she said, slapping on the bandage. “Now put your shorts on.”

He started to turn around again, but she stopped him just in time. “Before you turn around!”

He yanked up his shorts and turned. “What’s the matter? As I recall, my manhood was being called into question earlier. Don’t you want to see evidence to the contrary?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I’m going up and hook myself a real fish.” With a lift of her eyebrow, she launched herself back to the safety of the open deck.

Dan was tucking in his shirt when he emerged, wearing a different pair of shorts. To her ultimate mortification, she heard cheers and applause. She scanned the boats in the area and saw men raising their arms in victory.

“Way to go, McDermott!”

“The fishing god knows how to catch ’em!”

Dan puffed up his chest, an enormously cocky grin on his face. “Well, what can I say? She couldn’t wait to get her hands on me.”

She made a sound of frustration, grabbed the pole and flung it forward. The lure whipped past Dan’s face and dangled mockingly at the end.

“Whoa, babe, let me show you how it’s done. No need to hurt anyone. Again.”

The world “babe” echoed nicely in her mind. “I suppose you think that was my fault, too.”

“No comment.” He came up behind her and put his fingers over hers. “Pull this down; that releases the line. You need to hold it with your finger here, nice and tight, so when you rear back, it won’t go flying. We call that premature ejac—uh, never mind. When you cast, release it at the farthest point of thrust.”

Like she could think with his damp, hard body pressed up behind hers. “All right, I’ve got it.” She shook him away. All this talk about showing her how it’s done, premature ejac—she laughed, shaking her head. Not to mention thrusting! It had definitely been too long, and now was no time to realize it.

She tried to remember everything he’d just said, but the lure went straight down into the water with a loud plop! instead of arcing gracefully through the air.

“Try it again. You let go too early.”

“Premature ejaculation?” she asked, getting a grin out of him. “Now I know how you guys feel.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.”

“Hey, Danny boy!” a familiar voice called from a short distance. “You’re thinking with the wrong rod, bringing a woman out here during a tournament.”

She cringed before even looking up to see Hal’s grinning face as his boat drifted close. He was an older version of Dan, thirty pounds heavier, with a perpetual drunk look about him. To substantiate that impression, the hand he gestured to Cassie with held a can of beer.

“Keep your business out of my rods,” Dan told him.

Her mouth dropped open. “You told your dad to mind his own business?” Even Hal looked surprised.

“Sure, haven’t I always?”

Hal leaned forward and squinted his eyes at her. “Hey, isn’t that what’s-her-face?”

“Nice to see you again, too, Fred,” she shot back.

“Ooh, she’s still feisty! Danny, you gonna let her talk to me like that?”

“Knock it off, Hal.”

“Knock what off? Here, have a beer.” He tossed a can to Dan. “You want one, Wanda?”

“I’ll pass, Fred. I don’t usually imbibe until, oh, at least nine in the morning.”

“Suit yourself,” Hal said with a shrug, taking a big swig and burping.

Dan discreetly set his can on the bench. Then she heard it: squeak, squeak, squeak. When Roger stepped up from the cabin on Hal’s boat, Cassie made a decidedly unfeminine sound. He wore a dress shirt with the Looney Tunes bow tie, and his nose was covered in white zinc, as were his lips.

“Boy, they just don’t have any standards when it comes to who they’ll let join this tournament,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Or are you the booby prize?”

Roger blinked. “Cassie? What are you doing here? You don’t fish. And what do you mean, booby prize? Oh, you’re kidding. Ha, ha.”

“I most certainly do fish. Why, I just caught a big fish a few minutes ago.” She turned to Dan. “That’s the weenie I was telling you about.”

“You’re the guy who has to go around stealing other people’s accounts, eh?” Dan asked.

“I didn’t steal her account,” Roger said with a sniff. “It was a good business decision backed by our boss.” He rubbed his nose and left a big smear across his cheek. “Who are you?”

Dan slung his arm around her shoulders. “I’m the guy who’s going to teach her everything there is to know about fishing so she can steal the account right back.”

“I’m the only one who’s going to present the campaign to the client.” His grin looked funny with the white lips. “Unless you want to work with me.”

“I’m pitching the account on my own.”

“You can’t do that,” he whined.

“We’ll see about that,” Dan said, shocking her with his uptake of her defense, though she was slightly distracted by the hand that hovered just in front of her right breast.

“Says who?” Roger said.

“You don’t know Cassie very well, do you?” Dan said with a laugh.

“I’ve been trying to.” Roger did that sniffing thing again, making her wonder if it was a territorial ritual like the dogs did.

Dan chuckled. “Well, I was married to her, and you know what? I don’t envy you, not at all. But you’ll learn soon enough.”

She warmed at those words, but she put them aside for now. “I had no idea Hal and Roger were friends.”

“I’ve never seen him with Roger before. My guess is that your weenie doesn’t know the least thing about fishing, and he’s here doing the same thing you are.”

A grin spread across her face. “I’ll bet you’re right.” She called to Roger. “Since when do you fish, anyway?”

“I’ve been out on boats fishing nearly my whole life. I’m almost a pro. I could go on, but I’d just embarrass myself.” Roger’s knuckles were white where they gripped the railing on the boat. Wait a minute. She recognized that particular shade of green coloring his face. He was seasick! And he’d left his pills at the office.

“Well then the greasy hamburgers they’re going to serve at lunch, along with those oil-drenched fries should be no problem for a sea man like yourself.” His mouth tightened. “And for dessert, escargots. You know, those snails people dip in garlic butter and eat whole. I’ll bet they’re chewy, like conch.” Roger covered his mouth. “And oysters! Gotta have raw oysters, those wonderfully slimy things that slide right down your throat—”

Roger hunched forward, then raced down into the cabin. Squeak, squeak, squeak!

Hal watched him go, then raised his hands. “Oh, great. He’s already tossed his cookies twice.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You are a menace.”

She blew him a kiss. “Only to a sweet guy like yourself.” She turned to find Dan looking at her. “I suppose you agree with him.”

He grinned. “Well, you might have a lot of different effects on me, but you definitely don’t make me sick.”

“Just what a girl wants to hear.” What kind of effects? No, she didn’t want to know. But of course Dan hadn’t taken anyone’s side. She tilted her head and lowered her voice. “Thanks for your vote of confidence. About the fishing and all.”

He tweaked her nose. “I always knew you could do anything you set your mind to.”

“Even when I was flaky?”

“Even then.”

The contact, combined with those words, sent little shock waves through her. She couldn’t take her gaze from his, focusing on the way the early morning sun highlighted the flecks of gold in his eyes, the way the droplets of water glistened in his hair. She tilted her head slightly, out of some long-ago instinct that invited him to kiss her.

Hal called out, “Hey, Dan! Always remember and never forget, it’s not the size of your rod, but how you use it.” He cranked his motor and maneuvered into a position on the other side of the island, luckily out of view.

“Augh, he is such a creep! That man’s intellect is rivaled only by garden tools!” She regretted her vehemence when Dan removed his arm from around her. Although the recollection that he used to give her breast a discreet squeeze whenever he put his arm around her shoulders did make the removal a good thing overall.

“He looks like a sea slug to me.”

“Not Roger! Well, him, too. I was talking about Hal. That guy is such a jerk. Too bad you’re related to him.”

“Aw, he’s not such a bad guy.”

“He doesn’t like women, you know.”

“Are you saying he’s gay? No way. He’s always got women around.”

“He might like sex, but he doesn’t like women. He doesn’t respect them. I sort of understand why, with your mom leaving the both of you. I was always afraid he’d poison you against women, too.” She could have said more, but why open that can of worms now?

His expression softened at the concern on her face. “I don’t dislike women. For example, I don’t even dislike you, even though you broke my heart.”

She swallowed hard. “But you haven’t been in a real relationship since our marriage.”

“Maybe I haven’t found anyone I wanted to be involved with. Maybe I figured if I couldn’t get it right the first time, I wasn’t meant to get it right at all.”

She took a sip of her water, trying to push away the defensive feeling growing inside her. “Was our marriage so bad that it ruined you relationship-wise?”

“No.”

The bright sun directly overhead and the nearly cloudless sky crystallized the moment. She’d ruined him for marriage. It had been so bad being married to her that he never wanted to be in a relationship again.

“What did I do that was so terrible?” she finally asked, unable to stand her silent recriminations. “I mean, I probably wasn’t the greatest housekeeper in the world, but what did I know, I’d never had my own place before, everywhere we lived belonged to someone else, or was I too flaky, that was it, wasn’t it—”

He reached over and wrapped his hand around her arm. “You’re doing it again. That skimble-scamble thing,” he added at her confused expression.

“Didn’t you hear what I was saying?”

“Cass, it wasn’t your fault.”

She met his gaze, seeing honesty, but knowing he had merely convinced himself of the fact. “Didn’t you ever try to figure out what went wrong in our marriage?”

“I wasn’t in it long enough to figure it out.”

“So that’s what killed you for marriage! I left too soon. I admit it, I panicked. Ran. Told you I was a flake.”

He anchored her chin with his fingers. “You were fine. You just didn’t want to be married to me, that’s all.”

“Don’t be so kind, Dan. It was me, plain and simple. All of a sudden I was married without even knowing who you really were. Or who I was. I looked in the mirror and I saw my mother, looking all in love and happy, just like she always did right after she got married. And I knew that in a few months, I’d get restless like she always did. I didn’t want to do that to you. We talked about buying a place of our own—”

“And I said something about having a kid someday. That’s what started it.”

“Not having a child, per se. I just remembered the way my mom dragged me around all my life, no roots or traditions, and if I was the same way she was, I couldn’t put my own child through that. Getting divorced made me evaluate my future for the first time. Made me make changes in myself. I even took The Supreme Seminar on Being Orderly.” She pulled her legs in tighter when he removed his hand. “Don’t you hate being divorced?”

He looked away. Why wasn’t he able to meet her eyes? Finally he shrugged, still keeping his gaze on a great blue heron stalking prey on the shoreline several yards away. “Divorce is no big deal. Happens a thousand times over every day.”

His words thumped against her heart, and she chomped down on the butter rum she’d been sucking. “So if divorce isn’t any big deal, then marriage must not be, either. Of course, how could I even think it was? We dated for, what, a month? And spent most of that in bed. Then we decided, for whatever reason, to get married. Total impulsiveness. I never want to go through a divorce again. Maybe I did make the decision too quickly, but believe me, I thought a lot about it later. I hate being divorced. I feel used and thrown out.” Her voice went all soft and mushy on her. “Like someone didn’t want me.”

“Cassie, wanting you was never a problem.”

That low, intimate voice rocked her. The impulsive side she’d killed off came alive and begged her to wrap her arms around him and tell him she’d never stopped loving him, never—What was she doing? the Supremely Orderly side of her asked. That was crazy thinking. Of course she was over him. “I’m going to make sure the next man I marry is the last man I marry.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I made a compatibility list.” Did he actually wince? She forced herself to go on. “I got the idea from a quiz in Cosmopolitan on how to tell if the guy you’re dating is right for you. Before I rush into marriage, I’m going to make sure my groom-to-be is well-suited for me, has the same interests and most imporantly, views marriage with a serious eye.” She pulled her notepad out of her bag. “I need to add that to the list.”

He picked up his fishing pole and sent the lure out toward the Gulf. She felt as though she were having a conversation with the rippling muscles and freckles on his back.

“Well, Cass, I hope you find that guy, I really do. But I’ll give you some unsolicited advice from a male point of view: Don’t tell the guys you’re dating that they have to live up to some list. Nothing’ll scare a guy away faster than a set of ideals he has to live up to.”

“What do you have against my compatibility list?”

“Maybe it’s just me. Maybe the next guy you meet will be jumping through hoops to put check marks on that list.”

She lifted her chin. “He will, and he’ll do it happily.”

“Sounds like a dog trick to me.” Sammy barked. “See, even he agrees.”

She picked up the dog. “He’s agreeing with me. He knows I’m on the verge of meeting the man of my dreams.”

Sammy barked and ran across the bench next to Dan. Dan lifted a triumphant eyebrow. “What do you think he’s trying to tell you?”

“It’s more than obvious. He has to visit the potty.”

5

“GIVE ME A NICE, SMOOTH stroke, Cassie. Oh, yes, perfect. Mmm-hmm. Doesn’t that feel good? Not too fast now.” An hour later Dan’s voice coaxed from behind her ear, sending chills down her neck even though it had to be eighty degrees out. His body was pressed up behind hers, pelvis moving back and forth against her. “Don’t slow down. Keep up that pace, smooth and steady. Oh, yes.”

She turned and gave him a pointed look.

“What?” He actually looked innocent, as though he had no idea what he was doing to her.

Maybe she was reading more into his instructions for reeling the lure than she should. Maybe abstinence was playing tricks on her, like when one was deprived of light and started seeing things.

“At least I’m not experiencing premature ejaculation anymore,” she said, trying to find anything to cover her look. Well, it was better than the hair ball comment, anyway.

“That’s always something to celebrate.”

She cast again, a nice, smooth one that landed with a satisfying plop. “I think I’m getting the hang of this.”

“You’re not bad. You gave up too early the time I tried to teach you to fish.”

“Gave up? Your friends gave me such a hard time, I was miserable.”

“They were just having fun on you.” He leaned against the side of the boat. “I didn’t realize it was that bad. I figured you were making a token effort to learn to fish and didn’t like it.”

“Maybe I was overly sensitive. I could tell they didn’t want me around, and to be honest, I didn’t enjoy their company either. I was learning to fish so I could spend time with you. Alone.” She reeled in the lure again. “But this is fun.” She turned to meet his gaze, held there by hazel eyes filled with something she couldn’t define.

“Maybe we should have gone alone.”

“That would have been nice.” She broke away from his eyes, waving her hand. “But it doesn’t matter now. What’s past is past.”

He paused for a second before nodding. “Let bygones be bygones.”

“Water under the bridge.”

“Yesterday’s catch of the day.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Something like that.”

DAN LET SILENCE REIGN as he ran those words through his head time and again. But he kept getting distracted by the throbbing pain in his rear. And another throbbing pain, this one in the vicinity of his heart. Cassie still had the ability to drive him crazy. They’d been together, what, less than four hours, and he’d been accused of fearing the demise of his masculinity, been dumped over the side of his boat and even at the cost of his pride, couldn’t help but grin at the thought of being hooked in the rear, and then her efforts at bandaging him.

The woman was an enigma to be sure. At least he’d kept her from reading that magazine. If she’d read the article about the young upstart who’d founded a tackle company, it’d be all over. He was sure honesty was (a), (b) or even (b-1) on that damn list of hers and he wasn’t ready to be honest yet.