Read Online Jaine Austen 8 - Killer Cruise by Laura Levine - Free Book Online Page B

alongside us, Emily happily ensconced in Graham’s arms. For a woman of her advanced years, she bore an uncanny resemblance to a high school teenager, batting her eyes and giggling at her date’s bon mots.
    Graham had his charm turned on full blast, earning every cent of what they paid him to keep the single ladies amused.
    Cookie was up on the bandstand, still radiant from her earlier tryst, belting out old standards. Every once in a while Graham caught her eye and winked at her over Emily’s shoulder.
    What an operator.
    Meanwhile, out in the audience, Kyle and Nesbitt were glaring at the happy couple, Kyle guzzling enough gin to open his own distillery.
    “We’re going to take a break now,” the band-leader announced after Cookie wrapped up a lovely rendition of “Blue Moon.” “But we’ll be back in ten.”
    I started off the dance floor but Robbie pulled me back.
    “Oh, let’s not join the Gloomies,” he said, eyeing Kyle and Nesbitt. “What do you say we take a walk out on deck?”
    This time Sensible Me didn’t even put up a fight.
    “Sure,” I managed to sigh.
    It was a beautiful night, the kind you see in cruise-line commercials—mild and balmy with gazillions of stars in the skies. When you live with L.A.’s perpetual overhead gunk, you tend to forget how many of those twinkling babies actually exist.
    We strolled along the deck, the moon glittering like diamonds on the water below. Talk about your Kodak moments.
    What next, I wondered? Would Robbie turn to me and tell me how he’d always yearned to meet a freelance writer with generous thighs, and then take me in his arms and wrap me in a torrid embrace?
    Apparently not.
    “That was the dinner from hell,” he said, not breaking stride.
    Oh, well. It was all for the best he didn’t make a pass at me. The last thing I wanted was to rush into things. (Who am I kidding? At that moment I wanted nothing more than to throw caution to the wind and plunge headlong into a frantic lip-lock.)
    “I thought Nesbitt would have a cow when Aunt Em asked her to change seats.”
    “She was steamed, all right.”
    “Good for Aunt Em,” he said. “I’m glad she’s having fun. Poor thing’s led a pretty sheltered life.”
    “She never married?”
    “No. She had some big romance when she was very young, but it didn’t pan out.”
    “I just hope she’s not falling too hard for Graham. You know, he already has a girlfriend.”
    “I wouldn’t worry about that. Underneath her ditsy ways, Aunt Em’s pretty sensible. She’s been on enough cruises to know that Graham is one of those men hired to dance with the single women. Surely she can’t think anything serious is going to happen between them.”
    Obviously he hadn’t Clue One about the self-deluding inner workings of a woman in love.
    We stopped now and leaned against the rail, looking down at the moonlit waters below.
    “Besides,” Robbie said, “it’s not Aunt Emily’s love life I’m concerned about. It’s yours.”
    “Mine?” I flushed.
    “What’s with you and that ice sculptor anyway?”
    “Absolutely nothing,” I assured him. “Nothing at all.”
    “I just thought from the way you two have been together…”
    “No, Anton and I are definitely not an item.”
    “Any significant other back home?” he asked.
    Play hard to get , I told myself. Let him think he has some competition. Make up some guy you’re seeing occasionally.
    “Aside from my cat, no.”
    Way to go, Jaine.
    “Well, that’s a relief.” He inched just a tad closer. “So tell me about yourself. What do you do when you’re not sailing the high seas?”
    I told him about my career as a freelance writer, and my fondness for fine literature and crossword puzzles, carefully omitting my penchant for Chunky Monkey, Cosmo quizzes, and daytime TV.
    “You go in for water sports?” he asked. “Sailing, scuba, that sort of stuff?”
    And then the most outrageous lie popped out of my mouth.
    “Oh, yes. I love it