High Tide by Jude Deveraux Read Free Book Online

rotting old deck, for the first time she noticed the only other person on board. Eric was probably in his early thirties, short and not someone you’d notice or remember after you’d seen him. Even looking at him, she couldn’t describe him.
    â€œHi,” Fiona said, giving him her most dazzling smile. Thanks to exorbitant dental bills paid by her father, her teeth were perfect.
    Eric looked up from where he was tying a rope to a shiny metal hook with an expression of, Are you talking to me?
    Fiona didn’t have time for chitchat. “Have you worked for Roy long?”
    â€œLong enough,” he said cautiously.
    I’m in a bad private-eye movie, she nearly said aloud, then took a deep breath. “I’m trying to find out why he wanted me to come on this trip.”
    The man pulled the rope tighter. “You’ll have to ask him. I just do the work; he doesn’t confide in me.”
    â€œBut you drive a car for him, and now you’re on a boat with him, so you must have heard something.”
    He gave her a little smile as he looked her up and down in a way that let her know that if she wanted to visit his cabin, he was willing, but he wasn’t going to
talk
to her.
    For the second—or was it the third?—time that day Fiona threw her hands up in frustration, then started walking again. “And people say that New Yorkers are crazy,” she muttered. “I’ve got an old man panting after me, the guywho swabs the decks is leering at me, and a bird freak tells me I’m sexless. If this keeps up I’m going to jump overboard and those crocs wouldn’t
dare
tangle with me. Yes, yes, Roy, I’m coming,” she yelled. “Keep your shirt on.” She lowered her voice.
“Pllleeeaaaasssseee
keep your shirt on.”

    â€œFiona, honey, you’re not eatin’ enough to keep a bird alive,” Roy said, then seemed to think that was the funniest joke he’d ever heard. “‘Keep a bird alive’ and Ace here is an expert on birds, get it?” he said as he nearly exploded in adoring laughter over his own witticism. “I tell you, sometimes I just plain crack myself up.”
    They were sitting at the table in the inside of the boat. You couldn’t really call it a cabin, but when you were in a country that had weather that ranged from hot to hotter to hell, what did you need with a back wall? Fiona thought. Roy took up the end of the table, while she was sitting across from Ace. Heaven help her, but he was
laughing
at Roy’s asinine jokes.
    â€œRoy,” Fiona said loudly so she could be heard over his self-induced chuckles, “why did you call me here? If you’d wanted someone from my company to go fishing with, I’m sure someone else would have been more suitable. No, thank you,” she said loudly, and pointedly, to Ace, who’d just poured himself more wine from the jug but hadn’t offered to fill her glass.
    This exchange made Roy put his hand over his mouth to hide his mirth. “You two wanta tell me how you met before today?”
    â€œNo!” Fiona and Ace said in unison, then refused to look at each other.
    â€œRoy,” Fiona said firmly. “I’d like to know why you asked
me
to come here.”
    â€œHoney,” Roy said as he reached for her hand, but Fiona moved to pick up her full wineglass and drank some of the awful stuff.
    â€œMore?” Ace asked when he saw her grimace. “It’s a good vintage, at least three months old.”
    â€œBy golly,” Roy said as he slapped the table. “I sure do wanta hear what went on between you two.”
    â€œYou like a good story, don’t you, Roy?” Fiona said, still trying to direct the man’s mind. “After all, you created
Raphael,
didn’t you?”
    â€œAh,” Roy said, and he instantly sobered. “I didn’t think it would be so popular.” His voice was soft, as though