“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.
Chapter 2
Cate wiped her hands on the linen towel. Panic was setting in. It was a comfortable, familiar panic, when a meal was just about to be served, but still, a definite panic. Lunch was a naturally easy menu to pull together, but it was still their first meal onboard, their first exposure to her as a chef. It had to be perfect. In fact, by her standards, it had to be way better than perfect.
“You ready to serve, Cate?” Ivan started to step in the galley.
“Out,” she snarled, then had to sigh when he threw his hands in the air in a gesture of comical apology. She could be nice. Really. She just didn’t have that people-pleasing gene-but God knew, she tried. Seconds later, she popped her head around the corner of the galley with a brilliant smile. “Just sit down, y’all. I’m bringing it out as we speak.”
And she did, one dish at a time. The first plate just held homemade bread, still steaming, accompanied by a fat scoop of mint butter. She’d chosen the asiago potatoes, because guys always-always-liked potatoes, and it was her own recipe with the bliss potatoes and specks of fresh chives and basil with the asiago cheese melted inside. The killer course was a thinly sliced skirt steak-if the guys didn’t go for that, she’d have to commit suicide. She made it with heavy cream and blue cheese and baby spinach, lemon juice-fresh, of course-and a bit of shallot. The only problem with the whole meal was having to do 99 percent of it at the last minute. At least the fresh salad had been easy; all she’d had to do was add some hazelnuts and mandarin oranges to perk it up.
She started to relax when she saw the Gobble Factor kick in. Each of the guys took a bite, looked at each other…then started wolfing it down. Men were such pigs.
She was so glad.
She heard two rounds of “Oh, my Gods” before she allowed herself to sink into the chair next to Harm. The seating wasn’t a choice. Cate had to be closest to the galley, and Harm and Ivan did the obvious male-posturing thing and had already claimed the two end chairs.
The minute they finished, she was prepared to bounce up and bring in dessert. It was an easy serve. She’d made peppermint cookies, her personal creation, and for those who wanted a heavier fare, vanilla honey-bee ice cream. For now, all she had to do was make sure no one needed anything. Ivan had the stage, was filling the guests in on the safety of the boat and the general lay of the land-or sea, as it were. There weren’t many rules. “We’ll get the safety drills out of the way. Then the boat’s yours. We do ask that you stay out of the pilothouse unless invited. Hans and I like company up there. We’ll ask every one of you to join us, but there isn’t space for more than two at a time…”
She listened. Sort of. She’d had a week onboard before the guests arrived, but she’d been running full tilt to get her food on and organized. She hadn’t paid a lick of attention to the safety stuff, primarily because she didn’t care. Harm, she noted, was studying his men more than he was eating, and felt a sudden frown coming on. Tarnation, maybe he didn’t like her skirt steak?
Ivan was onto the general itinerary by then. “Today, we’ll be at sea, so it’s a good afternoon to just relax, start soaking it all in. Chairs on both the fore and aft decks, with blankets and binocs. We’re starting on the west side of Admiralty Island, and the first offshore stop will be tomorrow night, Tennehee Springs. Anytime we see a run of good fish, we’ll stop, put our lines in. Any time we see whales or sea lions or bear, anything we run across, we drop anchor. You’re not in the city now. We built in time to kick back. If you don’t see a dozen eagles by this afternoon, I’ll be surprised.”
Cate took a bite of each dish. Par for the course, she wasn’t particularly hungry. Obviously, she taste-tested whatever she made, but she was fretting more how the others were responding.
Next to her, Fiske, as expected, pounced on anything sweet. Arthur devoured the potatoes, but wouldn’t have helped himself to more if Cate hadn’t unobtrusively passed the bowl again. Yale and Purdue presented no surprises; they wolfed down anything in front of them. Hans-Ivan’s uncle and first mate-refused to acknowledge that he had a hiatal hernia. She always had to watch out for him. If he didn’t eat slowly, he could suddenly start choking.
Ivan loved everything-his not being fussy was one of the few things about the captain’s character she appreciated-and at least he didn’t start with the liquor until after dinner.
Harm… She tried not looking at him again, but it wasn’t her fault that he was sitting right next to her. Their eyes kept meeting. A total accident, she was sure, not interesting or meaningful or anything…but damned, if he didn’t have killer eyes. Blue as the sea. Hawk eyes, narrowed, perceptive. For no sane reason in the universe, heat shimmered up her pulse. What was it about the darned man that kept disarming her? Tons of guys were good-looking. It didn’t make them any less problematic than the homely ones. Sometimes the opposite was true.
Still…the more she didn’t look at Harm, the more she happened to notice that the shadows under his eyes spoke of a very real exhaustion. And unlike his staff, who were generally decked out with the most expensive labels REI and Patagonia sold, Harm’s shirt was untucked, his pants wrinkled-as if he hadn’t had time to do more than throw clothes in a suitcase. And he rarely took his eyes off his men.