“Of course we have one. It’s right next to our massage chair, to the right of the hot stones,” he deadpanned.
She broke out into a wide grin. “You’re funny.”
That drew nothing but a scowl from him. “Focus on Fidget, if you don’t mind. What do you see in there?”
“It looks pretty small to me. Can you move that light closer?”
He picked up an electric lantern and held it over the dog. They both huddled over the Irish setter, who seemed delighted by all the attention. Carefully, she used the tweezers to get some purchase on the piece of glass. When she had a firm grip, she gently drew it out.
With a sigh of relief, she saw that it wasn’t big enough to have hit any major veins.
“Surgery complete.” She adopted an authoritative doctor-ish voice. “Nurse, you can go ahead and close.”
Tristan didn’t seem to mind playing the nurse. “Nice job, Doc.”
He squeezed drops of blood from the pad of Fidget’s paw, then blotted it with a clean antiseptic wipe. The dog whimpered, but despite his name, didn’t fidget too much. Once Tristan had finished cleaning it, he wrapped a bandage around the paw and swatted Fidget on the rump. “You’re good to go, buddy. Come on now. Want a treat?”
“You have dog treats onboard?”
“I promised him salmon and I could never break a promise like that. Salmon is a sacred trust.” He crossed the galley and opened the half-size refrigerator. On the door, she saw an erasable magnetic whiteboard with a grid of chores marked out on it. Clean the head. Make dinner. Swab the floor. That sort of thing. All the spaces were blank, which she assumed meant that he was doing all those chores himself.
He drew out a dish covered with plastic wrap, then with the other hand whipped a plastic bowl off a shelf. All the shelves had pieces of wood nailed across them. In case of stormy weather, she imagined. The galley had a cozy, workmanlike feel to it. A chess set sat in a corner nook, with a box of paperbacks next to it.
Tristan set the bowl, now containing a ruby-red filet of salmon, onto the floor. That did it. Fidget leaped off the table and practically attacked the fish.
Lulu’s stomach growled. She’d been too anxious to eat dinner in the crew quarters after their night’s performances. She’d stuffed some water biscuits and wrapped Godiva chocolates into her jacket pockets—emergency rations, she figured. Would it be rude to whip those out now?
Did most trespassers worry about rudeness?
Digging into her pocket, she withdrew a handful of chocolates. “Would you like a little midnight snack?”
Casting her an odd look, he shook his head.
“Please tell me you don’t have a chocolate allergy too. That would be altogether too grim.”
“No, I love chocolate. But I get the impression that’s all the food you have and I’m not about to take it from you.”
“Not true.” She reached into her other pocket and withdrew the packages of Saltines. “Midnight snack of champions.”
He laughed for the first time and all of a sudden he didn’t look like a stern boat captain but like a playful, very fit surfer. Between the sun-streaked hair and his rugged bone structure, he sure was a looker when he laughed.
And when he didn’t, to be honest. Even when frowning at her, he was a good-looking man, and she’d seen her share as she traveled the world. But when he laughed, he looked like boatloads of fun. No pun intended.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I can fry up some salmon for you. Little thank you for taking care of Fidget so well.”
“Goodness, are you always this nice to trespassers? I’ll have to leave a review on Yelp. ‘When looking for a boat to hide out on, you can’t go wrong with the Desperado. Generous host, decent accommodations. Word to the wise, bring your own cappuccino.’”
He snorted as he moved to the small galley stove. With each movement an efficient symphony of coordination, he whipped out a cast-iron frying pan, flung some olive oil in it, tossed in a salmon filet and shook some kind of spice mixture over the whole thing.
An instant later, a divine fragrance filled the air. Even Fidget lifted his head to sniff. Her mouth watered and her stomach growled again. By the time he plopped a plate on the table before her, he’d added some cold fried potatoes and a pickle.
She gazed up at him, speechless.
“Water? Tea? Ginger ale?” he asked her. “That’s about all I have onboard right now.”
“Some hot tea would be wonderful.” Even though the galley was cozy, the chill from her midnight escape hadn’t left her.
He brought her a box filled with Ziploc bags with labels on them. She sorted through the selection. Very feminine writing filled each label. For sleeping, with some zzzz’s on it. For when you miss me, with a heart.
Wife? Girlfriend?
She shot a covert glance at Tristan’s left hand, but saw no ring. That didn’t mean much, though. Not all married men wore rings. Surgeons, for instance. Mechanics. Cheaters.
She selected some ginger tea, which had a drawing of ocean waves on it. “For seasickness?” she asked.
“Supposedly. I couldn’t say, since I’ve never been seasick a day in my life.”
“Neither have I. Everyone warned me I would when I took the job on the cruise ship. But I never did. Half the time it barely felt like we were at sea. It was like a floating shopping center. A mall, as you would say.”
He filled the teakettle from a water cooler, then put it on the stove. “Are you going to tell me why you left this magical floating mall?”
She hadn’t decided yet. He seemed trustworthy enough, but was there any benefit to telling him? Best to keep her cards close to her vest for now.
“Does it matter? I’m not exactly seeing this as a long-term relationship,” she quipped. “If it were, we’d both have to share some deep dark secrets.”
“Is that how it works?” Amusement rippled through his voice. “What if I don’t have any?”
She eyed him up and down for an extended moment. He was one tall drink of water. Seawater, you could say. He carried himself with confidence and strength. And yet there was a shadow behind those eyes, which she now saw were an extremely attractive shade of gray with a smudge of blue. Her overall impression, based on her limited time on the Desperado and her many years of reading people, was that he had plenty of deep dark secrets.
“If you don’t have any, I recommend you find yourself some,” she said lightly. “Deep dark secrets make any man five times more attractive, depending on the secrets, of course. They should actually make an aftershave for it. Notes of woodsmoke and hidden wounds.”
He was watching her so closely that the whistle of the teakettle made him jump. Moving back to the stove, he poured boiling water into a mug and handed it to her.
Fishing is the New Sexy, it proclaimed in flowing script. At the moment, she couldn’t disagree. What could be sexier than a man who hid you from a bad guy, then made you salmon and seasickness tea?
Four
She blew on the tea to cool it down, and caught Tristan taking a quick look at her mouth. Her lower belly tightened. Oh dear, she knew that feeling. Early warning sign of attraction.
Ignoring it, because it didn’t suit the needs of her current situation—which were to get very far away from Alaska as quickly as possible—she lifted the mug.