Mesmerizing Stranger Read online

“Hey,” he said, giving her the same up-and-down that Purdue had-although not as offensively. Somewhere in that practiced expression was some honest friendliness. “Quite a boat.”

  “Fantastic, isn’t it?” She reeled off her short list of questions.

  “I can eat anything.” He cocked his head. “You can’t be on 24/7.”

  “I’m not. Once dinner’s put away, I’m on my own time.”

  “So…you do have some free hours.”

  She wasn’t about to pretend she didn’t understand where he was going. “Tons. Crew and staff eat together, tour together when we’re offshore. We’ll all have plenty of time to get to know each other. Once the dinner stuff’s completely put away, though, I’m on my own time. Which means you guys can stay up deck, drink all night, watch whatever you want and do whatever you want, without crew in your face.”

  “That’s good,” he said, then opened his mouth to continue.

  “I’m en route to your boss,” she mentioned, which shut him up beautifully.

  Of course, it shut her up, too. Ivan had made clear to the crew that sucking up to Harm Connolly was required. Unfortunately, Cate had always flunked the course in kowtowing. It would have helped if she’d gotten a look at him before, she thought glumly, but no, she hadn’t thought ahead and made the effort. Truth to tell, failing to think ahead was a fault of hers. In fact, pretty much a fault on a daily basis. And she really didn’t want to put her foot in her mouth right off the bat with the head honcho…which meant she was all too likely to.

  She rapped. Waited. Thought aha, maybe she could get a reprieve and not to have to deal with him right then-but then the door unlatched and there he was.

  The punch in her gut was completely unexpected. He was the owner of a big-to-do company, for Pete’s sake. Mentally, she’d had pictured him as in his sixties, tyrannical, formal.

  Instead she got a half-naked dude with sculpted shoulders, unshaven cheeks, and a head full of towhead blond hair, spiky and wet from a fresh shower.

  At least he’d pulled on pants before answering the door, but the technogear revealed the long, lean muscles of an athlete, not a desk guy. His eyebrows and chest hair were as white-blond as his hair, his skin ruddy. The glower of impatience on his brow radiated arrogance, energy. He couldn’t be older than mid-thirties. And the sharp, dark gaze inhaled her in a single testosterone-colored photo snap.

  His expression telegraphed that he knew what he liked, and he liked the look of her.

  The overall punch was…well, downright bamboozling. It was more than his being unexpectedly hot. She just rarely, rarely got that suck-in-the-gut response for a guy. She loved men; what woman didn’t? And she’d slept with them now and then, of course. Liked a good-looking ass, naturally. But she always carefully steered miles around the rare guy who brought on that suck-in-the-gut feeling.

  She liked adventure. Hell, she loved risk.

  She just didn’t like risky men.

  “You’re the chef,” he said, in a voice that sounded like rough gravel.

  “Yes. And I don’t want to bother you. I just wanted to ask you a couple of short-”

  “Come in. There are a few things we should cover.”

  She didn’t want to go in any of the boys’ cabins. But she tapped her pencil on her list and sucked it up.

  The master cabin was an awesome comfort zone-queen-size bed, teal carpet thicker than a lawn, teak cabinets for gear, an angled private head. Steam was still pouring from that bathroom, a thick white towel abandoned on the bed, all of it smelling like wet, clean male-intimate, distracting. Somehow there wasn’t room enough for the two of them, even in the most spacious cabin onboard.

  She backed up against the door, thumbed on her ballpoint and started with the questions, but he immediately interrupted her.

  “I’ll be fine with any food you serve.” He radiated impatience, more than annoyance. “I need some meeting time with my staff. The dining room would work best because of the table size. When’s it free?”

  “Whenever you want it to be.” Ivan would be proud of her. It was a kowtower’s answer, even if her chin was already chucked up to hold her own. The man was too damn tall. Not counting his other faults.

  “This is the deal. I want my staff to have a vacation out of this. Want to see them interacting in relaxed situations, onshore, offshore, meals and all. But I need to secure some uninterrupted time with each of them-with the door closed, just me and each of the men, for a good hour each day.”

  “So you specifically need the dining room then. Morning or night?”

  “Morning. After breakfast. Obviously, that schedule will need to be flexible, depending on the trip agenda for that day.”

  “No sweat. Dining room’s yours from nine until ten-or later if you want it. I do need to start setting up for lunch by eleven-thirty, ballpark. If that won’t work for you, just let me know.”

  “Fine. Now, problem two. The captain told me you’d be sleeping down here.”

  She wasn’t sure where he was headed, but somehow she was already bristling. “Yes. If the captain didn’t mention it, his usual chef is a man, who came with his son, who worked as a cabin boy. Normally, everyone bunks in the crew quarters. But when the chef had emergency surgery, the job came open for me-”

  “I don’t need all these details.”

  “I was only trying to explain that the crew quarters were set up for men. I mean, it’s an open space, everyone bunking together. I could have done that if I had to, but I’d rather have some privacy, and you didn’t book all the cabins, so there was the small cabin aft, has its own head. If you’re afraid I’ll be noisy-”

  “I’m not afraid you’ll be noisy. I’m afraid you’ll be an awkward distraction.” He took another impatient breath, looked away, then back at her. “Arthur’s married. The others aren’t.”

  “I have to admit, I think Fiske is adorable,” she offered, referring to the oldest of his staff, but he just sighed at her attempt at lightness. Clearly, he had no sense of humor.

  “This is the story, Cate. I inherited my uncle’s pharmaceutical company when he died a few months ago. At the time I was living across the country, outside Portland, Oregon, but I moved, put the life I had there on complete hold. There just was no one else to take on Future, Inc. It was more than a family commitment. The company was in the middle of doing…extraordinary things. None of that is your business or your problem. But my situation is that my science management team is in the middle of a major crisis. I’m using these two weeks of being trapped on this boat to ferret out personalities, problems, solutions. But I’ve got my hands full without adding further complications to this…soup.”

  “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.

  And he still wasn’t eating.

  If there was one thing Cate couldn’t stand, it was a man who didn’t appreciate fabulous cooking. At least if it was her fabulous cooking.

  She didn’t see any sign of the huge problems with Harm’s men that he’d implied, but she did pick up a bunch of information. The guys looked ultrabright for apparently darned good reasons. Plump Fiske was the financial VP. Tall Arthur was the head of “projects.” Yale and Purdue were lead scientists. Cate wasn’t sure what all that meant, but she gathered their lab was located in a quiet, wooded area somewhere outside of Cambridge, and that they created some serious, heavy-duty medicines.

  The tension around the table only turned itchy when the subject of some new cancer treatment came up. Cate sensed that easily enough, but more, she was stuck rethinking her first impression of Harm. Sure didn’t sound as if he were just a money monger or a suit. He was obviously involved in something real and serious.

  Once she got that, she started studying his staff the way he did. In two blinks, of course, it was obvious the men weren’t behaving like bosom buddies. Yale and Purdue had to compete with every breath. One couldn’t eat a bite without the other trying to eat two. Fiske tended to act like an abuse victim, not cowering exactly, but stellar at being invisible. He didn’t contribute to the conversation unless dragged into it. Arthur spoke only of the trip, what they were going to see and do, nothing of business or outside life.

  And they all sucked up to Harm. Would he like this, would he like that? Had he done this, would he like to do that? They piled it on so thick, Cate didn’t figure a shovel could get through it.

  Eventually, though, they’d leveled lunch, including a complete annihilation of h
er peppermint cookies. By then, she’d already leaped up twice to serve coffee and tea, and finally sank back in the chair to enjoy a cup herself, when she abruptly realized the table had gotten quiet. She glanced up, suddenly aware the whole group was staring at her. “What? What?”

  “We’re in love with you,” Yale said.

  “Completely. All of us,” Purdue contributed, with serious passion in his voice. “We want to be with you. Forever. All of us.”

  She grinned. “Yeah, I know. That’s what they all say. And if you think you liked lunch, wait until dinner.”

  Cate never left a galley-never left any kitchen-until the counters shone like mirrors, but after that she sneaked away for a break. Since the rain stopped, the men had been freely wandering around the boat, but after that she moved with the stealth of a thief. Once the rain stopped, the men had been wandering freely around the boat, but none of them had discovered the upper-upper deck over the pilothouse yet.

  It was all hers.

  Although no one would ever know it-it was forbidden-she’d been sleeping up here every night unless it rained. At night, it was colder than a well-digger’s ankle, but she didn’t care, didn’t care that the narrow white deck was slick with rain right now. She leaned on the rail, just breathing in the breathtaking view. Damn, but this really was Alaska.

  Mountains speared up from the endless sea. A watery sun painted the water with the sheen and depth of black diamonds. Tufts of emerald-green softened the craggy land masses, and pines reached tall enough to touch the sky. She spotted an eagle, then another, perched high and regal, reigning over their kingdoms. The air was so fresh it stung her lungs. Something leaped in the water…something bigger than she was. She snuggled deeper into her old Sherpa fleece and inhaled the peace.

  Sometimes, rarely, she remembered the god-awful time when her parents died, the fire, the night she and her sisters lost everything they’d ever known or loved. Lily and Sophie dwelled on it more than she did. Cate still experienced the loss in nightmares…but moments like this reminded her what enabled her to build a life alone, no matter what it took.