Risky Business by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online

of a rod into the socket attached to a chair. “For now, you sit and relax,” she told him. “Sometimes a fish is hot enough to take the hook without bait. If you get one, you strap yourself in and work.”
    Jonas settled himself in the chair and tipped back his hat. “And you?”
    â€œI go back to the wheel and keep the speed steady so we tire him out without losing him.” She gathered her hair in one hand and tossed it back. “There’re better spots than this, but I’m not wasting my gas when you don’t care whether you catch a fish or not.”
    His lips twitched as he leaned back in the chair. “Sensible. I thought you would be.”
    â€œHave to be.”
    â€œWhy did you come to Cozumel?” Jonas ignored the rod in front of him and took out a cigarette.
    â€œYou’ve been here for a few days,” she countered. “You shouldn’t have to ask.”
    â€œParts of your own country are beautiful. If you’ve been here ten years, you’d have been a child when you left the States.”
    â€œNo, I wasn’t a child.” Something in the way she said it had him watching her again, looking for the secret she held just beyond her eyes. “I came because it seemed like the right thingto do. It was the right thing. When I was a girl, my parents would come here almost every year. They love to dive.”
    â€œYou moved here with your parents?”
    â€œNo, I came alone.” This time her voice was flat. “You didn’t pay two hundred dollars to talk about me, Mr. Sharpe.”
    â€œIt helps to have some background. You said you had a daughter. Where is she?”
    â€œShe goes to school in Houston—that’s where my parents live.”
    Toss a child, and the responsibility, onto grandparents and live on a tropical island. It might leave a bad taste in his mouth, but it wasn’t something that would surprise him. Jonas took a deep drag as he studied Liz’s profile. It just didn’t fit. “You miss her.”
    â€œHorribly,” Liz murmured. “She’ll be home in a few weeks, and we’ll spend the summer together. September always comes too soon.” Her gaze drifted off as she spoke, almost to herself. “It’s for the best. My parents take wonderful care of her and she’s getting an excellent education—taking piano lessons and ballet. They sent me pictures from a recital, and…” Her eyes filled with tears so quickly that she hadn’t any warning. She shifted into the wind and fought them back, but he’d seen them. He sat smoking silently to give her time to recover.
    â€œEver get back to the States?”
    â€œNo.” Liz swallowed and called herself a fool. It had been the pictures, she told herself, the pictures that had come in yesterday’s mail of her little girl wearing a pink dress.
    â€œHiding from something?”
    She whirled back, tears replaced with fury. Her body was arched like a bow ready to launch. Jonas held up a hand.
    â€œSorry. I have a habit of poking into secrets.”
    She forced herself to relax, to strap back passion as she’d taught herself so long ago. “It’s a good way to lose your fingers, Mr. Sharpe.”
    He chuckled. “That’s a possibility. I’ve always considered it worth the risk. They call you Liz, don’t they?”
    Her brow lifted under the fringe that blew around her brow. “My friends do.”
    â€œIt suits you, except when you try to be aloof. Then it should be Elizabeth.”
    She sent him a smoldering look, certain he was trying to annoy her. “No one calls me Elizabeth.”
    He merely grinned at her. “Why weren’t you sleeping with Jerry?”
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    â€œYes, definitely Elizabeth. You’re a beautiful woman in an odd sort of way.” He tossed out the compliment as casually as he tossed the cigarette into the water.