Read Online FEARLESS by Helen Kay Dimon - Free Book Online Page B

bounced around his mind. “Like that one time we went boating?”
    “Exactly like that, complete with rolling stomach.”
    “But that was a weird circumstance. You don’t usually get sick.” He pulled back and cupped her chin in his hand.
    “Not if I’m on dry land.”
    He laughed but stopped after he saw her grumbly frown. “Why didn’t you say something?”
    “You were in hottie-rescuer mode.”
    He could live with that. “As if that’s ever stopped you before.”
    “Honestly, I was willing to do anything if it meant I was safe and strange men stopped jumping out to kill me.”
    “I can see that.” He threw an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in as close as his bruised ribs would allow. He’d wrapped them earlier after Pax checked them out, but certain movements still had him hissing air through his teeth.
    “So, I’ll sit here until the world stops spinning, which I’m hoping is soon or we’re going to see that bread I ate one more time.”
    The words vibrated against his bare skin. “I’ll join you in sitting and just hope the rest calms down.”
    “You don’t have to.”
    “Maybe I want to.” His thumb slid into her hair. “Do you feel sick now?”
    She looked up at him. “Are you about to make a pass?”
    “Depends on the answer to my question.”
    “We need to be smart about this.” The way she grabbed on to his shirt contrasted with her comments.
    “Oh, definitely.” Slowly, and giving her plenty of time to pull away, he lowered his head to kiss her.
    She put a finger over his lips. “I am not sleeping with you.”
    “No. Of course not.”
    She lowered her hand to his chest. “That was too easy.”
    Oh, they would, and at some point they’d have to deal with the issues that drove them apart. It was clear to him this was more than the easy-to-ignore straggly ends of a broken relationship. These were threads that needed to be tied together again. He was never so sure as when he stared into those stunning eyes and saw nothing but welcome there.
    Still... “The timing is wrong tonight,” he said, only half meaning it.
    “Gee, you think?”
    But they could still kiss. He leaned in. Just before his eyes closed, a movement in the water grabbed his attention. At first he thought it was a buoy or dinghy that had broken loose.
    Her smile faded as her head whipped around to follow his gaze. “What do you see?”
    He was impressed she whispered despite the panicked tone to her voice. “Something.”
    Bending forward, he opened the storage cabinet under the bench. He felt around, moving over ropes and something that felt like a pulley. Then he felt it. Wrapping his fingers around the smooth plastic, he brought out a flashlight.
    “Stay here.” He motioned to her as he stood up and went to the railing.
    The focused beam moved over the dark water. The rhythmic thunking didn’t stop and he aimed for the sound. Following a line, the light landed on a small boat. The pieces fell together. It was the kind of boat you’d never take to the ocean but might spend hours loading down with unnecessary supplies.
    She appeared at his side. “What is it?”
    “Ken’s boat.” The light traveled over the craft but no one moved. The bigger concern was how close it sat to Pax’s boat.
    “I thought that Ken person never actually took his boat out.”
    Smart woman. “Exactly.”
    “What do—”
    He put a hand over her mouth when he heard a thump at the front of the boat. “We’ve got company, and it’s not Pax this time.”

Chapter Seven
    Not again.
    Lara tried to stop her insides from shaking hard enough to rattle her back teeth. She grabbed on to Davis’s hand with a death grip that would have broken the bones of a weaker man. Intuitively she knew she had to let go because he’d need two arms to fight off whatever new threat headed their way, but her brain refused to telegraph the message to her fingers.
    After a reassuring squeeze, he did it for her. He turned his flashlight off with