Wicked Nights (20 page)

quit.

Piper...

She’d taken a devastating hit to her knee, a career-ending injury. She didn’t look unhappy, though. On

the contrary. She’d healed and then she’d come back to Discovery Island and started over. He didn’t know

if he had that in him, but he admired her tenacity. She made up her mind about what she wanted and she

went for it. Her head was definitely on straight, unlike his. Which made him wonder why she was out here

with him. If she hadn’t known before, she knew now. He wouldn’t be leading any diving trips for the Fiesta

Cruise Lines’ folks.

“What exactly bothers you about diving?” Their hands, he couldn’t help but notice, were still connected.

The waves washed in, swirling around their feet before retreating. “You clearly don’t have a problem with

getting wet. And you used up all the hot water at my place, by the way.”

“Nope.” He was A-OK with that part of diving. And with showering at her place.

“So, which specific part don’t you like?” She wiggled a little, digging into the sand with her butt, and

the move had her shoulder brushing against his. Then, because apparently that wasn’t torture enough, she

reached up and unzipped her wet suit. The black Neoprene rubber parted, revealing a sun-kissed V of skin.

The daisies on her bikini top winked mockingly at him.

He gritted his teeth. “I panic when I submerge,”

“That must have been one heck of a mission.” Score one for Piper.

When he didn’t say anything, though, she poked him in the side. “Confession’s good for the soul.”

He’d never believed that. “The mission went...south.” She poked him again. “Jesus, Piper. You’re not

helping.”

“I’d like to.” Her voice turned unexpectedly serious. “But you have to let me, Cal.”

Right.

“Have you discussed this with Daeg and Tag? Or with your family? A trained professional?”

“No,” he said curtly. “This is something I have to get over. It’s not something anyone else can fix.”

“The first time I climbed the diving tower after my accident, I told myself everything would be fine. A

nice, easy forward pike. Nothing too complicated or twisty. The minute I made my approach, though, I

knew I was in trouble. My knee didn’t have any intention of cooperating. My power leg took the hit in the

accident, and I didn’t get any height off the board. I told myself it was just one dive, so I tried it again.

Same story.” She shrugged. “Every time I climbed the tower.”

“So you quit.” As soon as the words were out, he wished he could take it back. A look of pain flashed

across her face, quickly masked. Piper didn’t like it when other people saw her hurting. She’d been like that

the day he’d pulled her out of the water, too, insisting she was fine even though she’d been out of her head

with pain and shock.

“I thought of it as moving on.”

“I’m not ready to let go of this,” he said quietly.

Acting on impulse, he reached down and touched her knee. She’d chosen to wear a shorty rather than a

full wet suit, and for the first time, he wondered if she’d known there was no way he was diving. The scar

on her knee was a thick, twisted ridge. No matter how much sun she got, the scar tissue would always stay

white. He ran a finger along the side of her leg.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not unless I overdo it. Or wear three-inch heels for hours on end.”

“I wish I could have done something more.”

She was silent for a moment. “Me, too, but you did everything you could.” She splashed him, knocking

water onto him with the flat of her hand. “You’re holding out on me. Spill.”

“I’m not going to melt.”

“Or run shrieking?” There was something about the look in her eyes as she slid him a sidelong glance.

Piper being playful wasn’t new. He’d watched her pull this shit for years, poking, teasing, prodding. She

had no fear and no boundaries. And yet, right now he was okay with it. He didn’t mind her asking.

Okay. Scratch that. He minded a whole lot, but he sensed that the reasons behind the questions were

well-intentioned. She wasn’t asking in order to make fun of him. Nope. Piper wanted to help.

Him.

Something tightened in the region of his heart. “I won’t run,” he agreed.

“Good.” She bumped his shoulder companionably with hers again, a little smile playing across her lips.

Like they were old friends, but...he didn’t want to be friends with Piper. Or, rather, he didn’t
just
want to be

friends with her. He looked at her and saw the same face, the same person, he’d known since he was ten,

but now he saw someone more. A woman he wanted to get to know better. Piper was more than a pretty

face and a bum knee, or even a stubborn, argumentative competitor.

“You’re smiling,” she said, but her eyes were firmly fixed on the ocean.

“You bet.”

“We already did,” she said darkly.

“And I paid up.”

“Which makes it my turn,” she pointed out. “I owe you a night.”

One more wicked night with Piper.
Just the thought had his body heating up, but he didn’t want to go to

bed with Piper because of a bet, either. Not that he wasn’t grateful for the cover story. He had a feeling that

the chemistry between them had been as much of a surprise to her as it had to him. One night hadn’t erased

the attraction.

He still wanted Piper.

And, after he ran the logic in his head for a moment, he didn’t imagine his feelings were going to

change after the good folks at the Fiesta Cruise Lines awarded their contract.

“Tell me more,” she repeated, leaning against him. “Tell me it all.”

He shook his head. “I wish it were that simple, Piper.”

“I’m waiting,” was all she said.

She really was going to make him say it.

He risked a look at her face, but she didn’t look horrified or shocked. He read concern there, but it

seemed more directed at him and less, “I’m partnered with a crazy man.” She chewed on her lower lip,

clearly thinking something through.

“We were on a rescue mission over the Indian Ocean, searching for survivors from a tsunami that had

hit the area hard. Whole villages had been sucked out to sea, and sometimes, if we were lucky, there were

survivors clinging to the debris. We’d already pulled two people up in the basket, but the water was rough

and there was enough crap in it to be a concern.”

It wasn’t the chop that got to you. It was the unseen obstacles in churned-up water. You couldn’t see.

All you could do was swim and pray—and get the survivors into the basket as fast as possible. They’d

plucked two people off an impromptu raft that looked like it might have been the wall of a house or a shed

door. Whatever it was, it was unrecognizable now, but it floated and it had made all the difference to the

two survivors.

“I’d come up with the first survivor, and Daeg and Lars went down to get the second. They’d gotten

their guy into the basket, but Daeg took a hit. Lars convinced him to go up first.”

Cal could see that rescue as if it were yesterday.

* * *

THE BASKET CAME up in slow motion, like things did in nightmares but weren’t supposed to do in

real life. Cal reached for the metal frame, steadying it as it bumped against the edge of the chopper, and they

prepared to haul it in. For just a moment, he took his eyes off his boys in the water and focused on getting

the survivor out and into the comparative safety of the chopper. The guy was in shock—no surprise after

forty hours at sea—and didn’t or couldn’t speak English. Since Cal’s Hindi consisted of yes, no, and

“Where’s the bar?” his linguistic efforts weren’t helping to calm the guy down, either. Although maybe the

guy could have used a drink. Cal knew how he’d have felt after being sucked out to sea by a tsunami.

And then the pilot cursed over the headset. Screw international diplomacy. Cal picked up the survivor

and set him down on a jump seat, buckling the safety harness around him.

“What do we have?”

He moved for the open bay door, looked down and...spotted blood in the water. A pool of crimson

spread out around Daeg, even as the spotter barked out a terse announcement. “Houston, we have ourselves

a problem.”

They sure did. No way could Daeg make it up the ladder, dangling from the chopper, so Cal sent the

basket back down. It seemed to take twice as long to reach the ocean’s surface as it had on the previous

trip, but he knew that was an illusion. Time hadn’t really slowed to a crawl. He’d reach Daeg in time.

As soon as the basket was down, Lars loaded Daeg in. Cal assumed strong-arming was involved. The

basket was for survivors and not for SEALs. Daeg would be razzed about his ride for months.

Cal grinned, relief washing over him, and then, just like that, Lars disappeared. One minute he was

treading water, his hand holding on to the ladder as he waited for the basket to clear, and then he was gone.

They’d dropped the chopper lower, searching. He couldn’t tell if the water was clear or not, but Lars wasn’t

on the surface. He’d jumped, mask on, arms crossed and fins down. He couldn’t get down there quickly

enough, ripping through the water’s surface and mentally sectioning the area into quadrants.

No Lars.

Nothing but brown churn from the tsunami and the cyclone. All the picture-postcard blue was gone,

and he was diving in a garbage dump. Boards and trees and wood. Pieces of fishing boats, netting and what

had to be the contents of a half-dozen villages. Animals and who knew what else.

Dive. Surface. Over and over, until the chopper ran dangerously low on fuel.

He’d ascended, leaving Lars out there somewhere. He’d have gladly traded his own life for the other

man’s, but destiny wasn’t willing to broker the deal. He’d lost a brother, when there should have been

something he could do to rescue him. Like his job. Years of training, thousands of mission hours rescuing

others, but he’d come up short on the most important rescue of them all.

* * *

“ANOTHER TEAM RETRIEVED Lars’s body a day later. All I have left of him now are his tags.” He

fisted the tags around his neck.

By his side, Piper didn’t make the uh-huh noises or the head nods. She sat there silently, taking in his

words, but her shoulder pressed against his arm, her fingers stayed tangled up with his in the sand. He

fought the urge to press her down and strip off her clothes. To lose both himself and the memories in Piper.

That wasn’t fair to her, though, and he didn’t deserve the escape.

After, when he’d told her what he remembered, there was silence. He concentrated on his breathing, the

regular in and out of air moving through his lungs the same way the waves came in and then retreated. One

breath. Inhale and hold for twenty. Exhale, and then a second. And a third. Eventually, she snuck a peek at

him. He was pretty sure he didn’t look okay, because the pressure on his arm got deeper, and then she stood

up.

“Can you swim with me?” she asked. “Not a dive,” she added quickly.

He had a sudden feeling he might follow Piper just about anywhere. He filed the thought away to

consider later.

“I can swim. I train every day.”

She nodded, and he could practically see the gears turning in her head as she considered various ideas.

He didn’t need her to fix him, which was a good thing because he had a sneaking suspicion he was broken

beyond all repair. Or that it was going to take years he didn’t have before the Fiesta demonstration. She

reached down and held out a hand.

“You’re still sitting down,” she teased.

Warmth unfolded in him.

When he took her hand, she eyed him cautiously. They did have history, after all. “You’re not going to

pull me in, are you?”

She’d done that to him on more than one occasion. She reacted first, thought later. He tightened his

fingers on hers and her eyes narrowed.

“Nope,” he said. “Although I reserve the right to do so later.”

She grinned. “There’s hope for you yet, Cal.”

He hoped so. He really, really hoped so.

* * *

PIPER HAD ALWAYS had nothing but respect for the men and women who chose to serve. She

couldn’t imagine flying away and leaving a man down because it was the right thing to do. Because

otherwise the people you’d come out to rescue would be jeopardized. Those kinds of decisions didn’t come

up in her life—and probably explained Cal’s fanatic insistence on staying safe.

She tugged and zipped as they waded in, grateful for the shorty’s insulation. Although the water here

was shallow enough that the sun had warmed up the surface, it still packed quite a chill. The ocean off the

California coast was definitely no South Pacific dream when it came to warmth, although it didn’t seem to

bother Cal. Maybe it was his SEAL training.

Piper waded until she was chest deep, then sank down lower and lower into the water. Cal stopped with

her, letting her set the pace.

“Thank you.”

“That’s what friends are for.” She said the words lightly.

“Are we?” He rested his forehead against hers.

Were they? She thought about it for a moment, and the answer was yes. In a strange, frenemy kind of