Love Overboard Page 10

  Stephanie wondered at the pain that statement caused her. “Mmmm. I suppose pirates aren’t very domestic.”

  Ivan tugged her closer. “Doesn’t have anything to do with being domestic. It has to do with finding the right woman.”

  “Picky, are you?”

  “Very. Marriage isn’t something a person should rush into.”

  Stephanie stared at him for a moment. “I can’t imagine you rushing into marriage.”

  He’d choose very carefully, and his marriage would last forever, she thought. If the family photos and paintings on the wall were any indication, he came from a long line of family- oriented Rasmussens. Again, there was the twinge of pain that she preferred not to analyze.

  She decided to steer the conversation in a lighter direction, so she wrinkled her nose and teased him. “You seem more like the sort to be dragged to the altar—kicking and screaming.”

  Ivan stared back at her. He’d always thought so, too. He’d liked his easy bachelor existence. It was amazing how something ridiculous, such as a broken toilet, could change your entire outlook on life. All his plans for the future now included Stephanie. Bachelordom had become a colossal bore.

  There was the sound of tires screeching outside the house, and Ivan and Stephanie ran to the window in time to see a car swerve onto the sidewalk and come to a bumpy stop with two wheels on the curb. Its driver rested his head on the steering wheel for a second, took a dis- believing look at Haben, and shook his forehead before slowly driving away.

  “Melody must be up on the widow’s walk again,” Stephanie said. She stormed outside and looked up at Melody. “What are you doing up there? You’re a traffic hazard.”

  “I’m talking to Tess. She doesn’t like Mrs. Platz being in her bedroom. She says she doesn’t mind making this into an inn, but she doesn’t want strangers in her bedroom. Oh yeah, and she wants pineapple upside-down cake for dessert tonight.”

  Ivan made sure the doors were locked and the windows secure. Stephanie shut off the lights and took the hand Ivan offered when he met her in the foyer.

  “So, lady innkeeper, what do you think of this hotel business?”

  “I think it will be fun. What do you think?”

  Ivan smiled wanly. “I think it will be a pain in the butt. I spent the entire evening explaining household artifacts to Mrs. Platz. What I really wanted to do was find a dark corner and make out with you.”

  Stephanie looked at him. “Do grown-ups make out?”

  “Yeah. When grown-ups do it they call it foreplay. And it’s pretty hot stuff.”

  “And Mrs. Platz made me miss it. Will there be another opportunity?”

  His hands splayed across her back, and his mouth met hers in a slow, sensuous kiss. “You can’t escape it.” His lips moved to her temple, then her ear, and he told her some of the details of foreplay.

  Stephanie got a rush that went from her heart to her doodah. He was right. It was pretty hot stuff. She rocked back on her heels when he released her. “Wow.”

  “Play your cards right, and tomorrow I might tell you more. I might even demonstrate.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  A promise he was going to enjoy keeping. In fact, he’d like to keep it later in the night. Or even better, he’d like to keep it now. It could take months for her to really learn to love him, he reasoned. He didn’t think he could wait months. Maybe he was being greedy. Maybe he should be content with being liked a lot. She already liked him a lot. And he really shouldn’t hold off because of her virginity. That would be discrimination. He didn’t want to be accused of being a sexual bigot. He almost had himself convinced when the phone rang.

  “I have to get this,” Stephanie said, moving out of his arms. “It’s probably my mother. She always waits for the rates to go down before calling.”

  Her mother. It might as well have been a call from God. So much for rationalization. He waved good night and went upstairs, telling himself it was all for the best, but not quite believing it. He had payroll checks to sign and a stack of ledgers to go over. Pretty boring stuff compared to relieving Stephanie of her virginity.

  Half an hour later Stephanie crept up the stairs and got undressed in the privacy of her room. She dropped a warm nightgown over her head, checked her closet, and looked under her bed before creeping under the big down quilt. The wind had picked up since the afternoon, whistling in the eaves and roaring through the oak tree just outside her window. She was glad she’d had Ivan remove the screens and put the storm windows in place. The heating bill was going to be prohibitive if they had this much wind throughout the winter.

  She switched off her bedside light and was thankful for the quiet. Obviously Eileen Platz hadn’t found any dead people in her closet. There would have been a scream by now. She wondered if Lucy and Melody were having trouble sleeping. Probably not. They hadn’t seemed too upset about the corpse. Of course, they hadn’t seen him. He hadn’t crashed down onto their feet. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, but there were too many things rolling through her mind—mostly thoughts of Ivan.

  She slid out of bed, temporarily giving up on sleep, and went to the window. She’d chosen this bedroom because, like the master bedroom, it was at the back of the house and overlooked the harbor. She raised the shade and pulled the sheer curtain aside. It was a dark night, but she could see the outlines of the tall ships against the black water. One of them was the Savage, she thought, feeling a surge of pride and affection.

  She slumped onto the chintz-covered window seat and looked into the night with unfocused eyes. She wondered if Ivan was already asleep in the bedroom across the hall and felt a vague discontent that they were separated. They weren’t married or engaged. They weren’t even lovers. There was no justification for the loneliness and frustration she felt, but she felt it all the same. Some of it was sexual. As Ace would put it, she was a hotbed of raging hormones. Thanks to Ivan Rasmussen.

  She was musing about the pleasures of love when a gust of wind shook the house, and the dead man in the gray suit swung past her window.

  It happened so fast, Stephanie thought she’d imagined it. When he swung by a second time, she stifled a scream and jumped from the window seat in astonishment. It took a moment for her to gather her wits and shake away the initial horror. There was an explanation for this, and she was going to find out what it was.

  She moved toward the window when another blast of wind buffeted Haben, and the dead man crashed through the window, feet- first. His eyes were closed in eternal slumber, and his hands were innocently clasped across his chest. He smashed into the wooden window frame, and his feet flew up from the impact, almost kicking Stephanie in the head.

  She instinctively jumped back, losing her balance and sprawling on the rug amid a shower of broken glass. By the time she’d scrambled to her feet, the man was gone. She stood helpless, inches from the window seat, afraid to move in her bare feet.

  “Ivan!”

  He was at her door even before she’d called. “What was that crash?” He looked at the window and at the glass surrounding her.

  “It was the guy in the suit,” Stephanie said. “He was flying around past my window. Next thing I knew, he’d crashed right through. Never moved a muscle. Had his eyes closed the whole time.”

  Ivan grimaced. “Steph, the man’s been embalmed. You didn’t expect him to open his eyes and say howdy, did you?”

  “No, but then I didn’t expect him to crash through my window either.”

  He walked across the room and looked out the window. He scooped Stephanie into his arms and crunched over the glass shards to the door. “Stay here,” he said, setting her on her feet. “Don’t move from this spot. I’m going outside to investigate, and I don’t want you running around the house in your nightgown.”

  Five minutes later he was back. “I couldn’t find anything. I’m calling the police.”

  Stephanie grabbed him by the shirtfront. “No! You can’t do that. No one will ever s
tay here again. What am I going to say to Eileen Platz? She’s not going to understand about some old guy in a gray suit turning up in closets and crashing through windows. It’ll get in the newspapers. They’ll say the house is possessed. I’m in enough freakin’ trouble with Melody up there on the widow’s walk.”

  The line of his mouth tightened. “Okay, but you can’t sleep here, and I’m not leaving you alone. This dead guy has a definite preference for your room.”

  He hooked his hand behind her knees and lifted her into his arms. He quietly closed the door and carried her across the hall. “You can stay with me tonight.” It was a sign, he decided, his tongue firmly planted in his cheek— and much more potent than a phone call from her mother. It would be wrong to ignore a definite sign such as this. “We could see if tab A fits into slot B.”

  “Are you kidding me? How can you think of tabs and slots at a time like this? There’s a dead guy running around out there! And why are you dressed? You don’t even have your shoes off.”

  “I had business to attend to.” Shoe factory business, he thought with distaste. I wasn’t cut out for the shoe business. Hopefully, sometime soon he could close that chapter of his life. He kissed her lightly on the lips. “And you’re still suspicious of me, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I think my nerves are shot. Too many years of being a cop. Too many days of living with Melody.”

  He pulled her into his room and locked the door. “You need to relax,” he said, smiling wolfishly. And he needed to relax. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since he’d met her.

  Relax? In his bedroom? In her nightgown? She couldn’t remember feeling more unrelaxed. It was funny how just moments ago when she was all alone, she’d thought it would be comfy to spend the night next to Ivan Rasmussen, and now that it was a definite possibility, she felt like jumping out the window.

  He had his hands at her hip, and his eyes gazed into hers, seeing the mirror image of his own excitement and his own apprehension. In all seriousness, he’d intended to wait a while longer before making love to her, but there was no way he was going to leave her alone and unprotected—and he knew there was no way he could spend the night with her and not make love. He rubbed his thumb over her panty elastic, enjoying the simple intimacy, and moved his hands up her sides to frame her breasts. He felt her shiver at his touch and saw her face light with pleasure.

  “I like this nightgown,” he said, his voice soft and seductive. “It’s sexy, with its high, ruffled neck and long, ruffled sleeves. It covers you from head to foot, but it clings in all the right places.”

  She stood absolutely still, barely breathing as he pulled the thin translucent material taut over her breasts. He lowered his mouth and kissed her, slowly, and her doodah started to hum a little tune.

  Doodah humming aside, there was no doubt in her mind that being with Ivan was right. She’d known Steve for years and hadn’t known him at all, and she’d known Ivan for a very short time and felt as if she knew all that was important about him.

  There had been an overwhelming chemistry between them from the very beginning, but that wouldn’t have been enough. It was enough for kisses and a few fantasies, but it wasn’t enough to make her want to spend the night next to him. She realized now that she had to love a man to think of doing that. Ivan was very close and very real, and she loved him.

  She tugged his shirttails from the waistband of his jeans and slid her palms along the flat plane of his stomach and the hard wall of his chest. “I’m glad I waited all these years,” she said. “I’m glad my first time is with you.”

  “Hmmm, so do you love me?” he asked, flicking the overhead light off, unbuttoning his shirt. “How much?”

  Stephanie smiled at him. “Enough.”

  “Enough for what?”

  “Enough for anything you have in mind.”

  Ivan’s grin flashed white in the subdued light of the bedroom. He kicked his shoes off and nestled her close to him. He kissed her temple and the sensitive spot just below her ear.

  He wanted to go slow, to make it beautiful for her, but she was making control difficult, and he felt a rush of heat slam into him as her hands explored the small of his back and slid below his waistband.

  He groaned and moved against her, kissing her hard. The kiss deepened, demanded more, promised everything. He laid her on the bed, inching her nightgown over her head, moving the material slowly, kissing each new inch of exposed flesh—the inside of her knee, her thigh, dark slick shadows, and all the soft feminine places pirates like him loved to ravish. He watched her arch under his kisses, her breathing shallow, her eyes following his every move.

  “Steph, are you sure? We could stop here…” Not easily, he thought, but he could manage it.

  “I’m sure.”

  Lord, how he loved her. The strength of it almost took his breath away. He was taking something very special from her, and he wanted to make sure he was replacing it with something equally wonderful. In his heart he offered her everything he valued—fidelity, trust, respect, affection, passion.

  “I love you,” he whispered, his hand sliding across her belly, dipping lower, stroking, inflaming.

  She whispered the words back. “I love you.” And she really did love him, she thought. And she loved what he was doing to her.

  “Do you like this?” he asked, his finger circling the center of her universe.

  “Yes,” she said on a sigh.

  And then it happened… her universe exploded.

  It was dark when she awoke. The wind had slowed and rain pelted the windowpane. It was a good thing Ivan had gone back to her room to tack plastic over the broken window. After he’d secured the plastic they’d showered together and made love again—for a very long time. They’d talked in hushed voices, enjoying the easy intimacy their loving had brought. They’d teased and explored and found preferences, finally losing themselves to the desire they’d created, and they’d fallen asleep with legs and arms entwined. It had been the nicest possible night, she thought. If it had followed an elaborate white-gowned ceremony, it couldn’t have been any more perfect.

  She snuggled closer and swept her hand the length of him, almost as a reassurance that he was real. He stirred in his sleep and wrapped his arms around her, his touch renewing the now familiar pulse of desire.

  Ivan wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or if he was awake—and didn’t care. He rolled over, and in one smooth, swift movement made her gasp at the speed of his reaction, leaving no doubt in her mind that he was the direct descendant of a pirate.

  Stephanie mustered her reserves and gingerly eased herself onto a chair at the breakfast table.

  Ivan looked up from his plate of pancakes and couldn’t resist teasing. “Have a rough night?”

  She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the dining room was empty. “Why am I the only one walking funny?”

  “Because you’re the one who got greedy and woke me up in the middle of the night,” he said, covering her hand with his and smiling at her with such unabashed affection that she was sure anyone watching would instantly know they’d shared a bed.

  “Don’t men get sore?”

  “I try to keep in shape,” he bragged, polishing off a tumbler of fresh-squeezed orange juice. “Practice, practice, practice.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Platz came in and took seats at the table. “It’s raining,” Mrs. Platz said morosely. “First no leaves, and now rain. And this is a lovely inn, but I hardly slept last night. The wind was howling, something terrible. And there were thumping noises and crashing noises. Lord, for a while there it sounded as if something was banging on my window.”

  Melody served them pancakes and sausage and glasses of juice. “Must have been Tess. I warned you about putting Mr. and Mrs. Platz in that room.”

  Eileen Platz put her hand to her throat. “Who’s Tess?”

  “Tess is our ghost,” Melody told her cheerfully. “She’s really a nice old lady, but she only likes to have Ivan
sleep in her bedroom.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Platz said, sizing up Ivan, “I don’t suppose I blame her.”

  Ivan tipped back in his chair. “Tess was the wife of Red Rasmussen, the pirate. She predates this house by about 150 years, but the current Haben was built directly over the foundation of the original Haben, and some believe she’s taken up residence here. Legend has it that Red died at sea, and Tess died waiting for him.”

  “How romantic,” Mrs. Platz said. “How sad.”

  “It wasn’t Tess that was at the window last night,” Stephanie said. “It was—” She paused and poured herself a cup of coffee. “It was the wind. It blew one of the branches from the oak tree into my window and smashed the glass. We’re going to have to trim that tree back,” she added lamely, looking at Ivan.

  Mr. Platz dug into the sausages. “These are terrific. Are they homemade?”

  “I get them from the butcher down the street,” Stephanie said. “He makes fresh sausage every Thursday.”

  Melody brought herself a plate of pancakes and took her place at the table. She eyed the sausage critically.

  “Does he add nitrates? Is the meat cured?” She opened her dark eyes extra wide. “I read about nitrates. They’re chemicals that they put in the meat to make it change color and stuff, and they give you cancer. They make your pancreas rot away, and you die writhing in pain. And if you drink beer while you eat the nitrates, you get huge cancerous tumors that grow all over your body. And do you know what they make sausage out of? Ground-up pigs. Have you ever seen a sausage pig? They’re big. We’re talking really big—”

  “Excuse me,” Stephanie said, “I think we’ve already had the discussion about pigs.”

  Melody blinked black mascara-caked lashes at her. “Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

  Mrs. Platz leaned forward. “About this ghost, has anyone ever seen her?”

  “I talk to her all the time,” Melody said. She lowered her voice for emphasis. “We be mates.”

  Mrs. Platz’s eyes glittered, and she sucked air through her narrow mouth. “Do you think she’d talk to me? I’ve always felt very strong cosmic vibrations, but I’ve never actually talked to a ghost.”