Undertow by Cherry Adair Read Free Book Online Page A

front pockets of his jeans. ´What kind of problems?µ
    ´What is this? Twenty questions?µ
    ´Just curious.µ
    She got up, her movements jerky as she gathered the blanket and pil ows. Í·m going to bed, but in the future, if you want me to stick around and do my job, stay out of my engine room.
    I like my privacy.µ

    Wow. The quil s were bristling. ´Just one more thi ng«µ he said, just waiting for her reaction.
    She spun and glared at him. ´What?µ
    ´You left your book,µ he said mildly.
    Í·l get it tomorrow.µ She swept from the room, chin held high, the blanket dragging behind her like a royal train.

    * * *
The second she was in her cabin, Teal slammed the door and sat on the edge of the bed in a tumble of blanket and pil ows without turning on the light. This was not going to work. It wasn·t going to work on so many levels it made her dizzy.
    He couldn·t just go barging into places he wasn·t welcome. It was intrusive and real y annoying. Everything about him annoyed the hel out of her. He was just too « cheerful. Too impervious to her rudeness. Too³Teal punched a pil ow, then clutched it to her chest.
    She didn·t want chatty, or charming, or inquiring. She wanted to be left the hel alone in her engine room, which held the seasickness at bay and didn·t ask stupid, intrusive damned questions. Zane Cutter brought out the mean in her. She didn·t know which was worse: that he didn·t remember what had happened between them the night of his father·s funeral, or that she did .
    She·d had a crush on him since she was six years old. That crush had developed over every summer until Zane freaking Cutter, Casanova of the Caribbean, was al she could think about, dream about. Dennis Ross had been the closest she thought a man could come without being the man himself.
    Wrong. Wrong. And God. Very wrong.
    Maybe she needed some sort of mind wipe. She·d probably be a better person for it, Tea l thought angrily. Feeling used, and yeah, she admitted it, heartsick for someone who didn·t even know she existed, had driven her into a relationship with Denny. She·d even married the bastard and look how wel that had turned out.
    Stupid. Al the way around stupid. Denny had been a bad Zane clone ³Zane, who eighteen months ago had made her believe she was beautiful. For one night, he·d made her hope that she could have a normal relationship. Then the next morning, he·d told her to ´get the hel outµ without bothering to open his eyes.
    Oh, she·d tried to forget him. In fact, she hadn·t returned to Cutter Cay since the funeral. But then Sam·s cancer intervened. She·d come back out of duty, to check on her father, and found her heartache hadn·t improved, it had just been on vacation.
    Rol ing off the bed, she switched on the nightstand lamp, which bathed the room in a warm glow. It was a nice room³ cabin . Queen-sized bed. A smal , comfortable easy chair, couple of lamps, a tiny bathroom al to herself. The hum of the generator down the hal was faint, and the hol ow sound of the water lapping against the hul made her tummy rol .
    A glance out the smal porthole showed only the running lights competed with the reflection of starlight on the water. Everyone had gone t o bed. She·d wait another half hour and take her blanket back to the engine room and sleep there. In the morning, she·d be the first one up. Nobody had to know how bad her seasickness was.
    She dug in her duffel bag and took out her phone to start counting down the days until she was once again on terra firma. Zane had said they·d be out here in the freaking middle of nowhere for a month. She entered the date on her calendar.
    She·d hold him to it, too. And while she had the phone in her hand, she checked t o see if Sam had cal ed. He hadn·t. What a twit she was to think that he would. A person didn·t think about duty when he was dying. He·d passed along the message that he·d cal if he needed her. He·d asked her to fil in. That was al he wanted. And