Sputtering, furious with herself, Samantha surfaced, caught hold of the end of the wooden dock and pulled herself up.
The water had been good. It had washed away the shock.
And the startling pain, she assured herself.
She didn’t glance toward the mail boat as she slicked back her newly soaked hair, waving a hand toward Jem. “It was just so hot!” she called. “Too much sun. I thought I’d cool down a little.”
Jem arched dark brows over his deep brown eyes, his handsome black face set in a mask of puzzlement.
It was obvious that she’d fallen in. She was lying, and he knew it. The rest of the passengers stared at her politely, trying to pretend that the wind on the way in hadn’t been cool enough to combat the heat of the sun.
It didn’t matter. She lowered her eyes quickly, tying the bow rope to bring the Sloop Bee to rest at the dock, then scampering to tie the stern rope and wait while her guests stepped from the boat with whatever personal equipment they had brought aboard. The mail boat docked behind the Sloop Bee. Zeb Pike, the mailman, offered her a casual wave, tossing the mail packet on the dock. He looked tired and seemed to be in a hurry today. Apparently Zeb wasn’t coming ashore.
But he was.
Definitely.
The back of her spine seemed to stiffen, and she determined to absolutely ignore him. Actually, at the moment, she had little choice. Her dive party was disembarking from the Sloop Bee, her Seafire Isle guests demanding her attention.
“It was great, it was beautiful!” a very attractive young brunette told her with glowing eyes. The woman was accompanied by a young man with glossy blond hair and equally bright eyes. He smiled and nodded at her words. The Emersons, Joey and Sue, on their honeymoon. They hadn’t looked at a thing beneath the sea except for each other.
Sam smiled. “I’m so glad you enjoyed the outing.”
“Oh, we did!” Joey Emerson assured her.
“We’ll see you for cocktails,” Sue said.
Sam nodded. I’ll bet, she thought. They were headed off for one of the cottages that flanked the main house of the Seafire Inn. Despite her own suddenly slamming heart and rising temper, she smiled, watching them go.
She didn’t imagine anyone would see them until the next day, and late the next day, at that.
“We could have stayed down a little longer the second time.”
Sam started and turned. She was being addressed by a guest in his mid to late forties, a tall, taut, well-muscled fellow with iron-gray hair, nearly black eyes and a stern, sun-leathered face. He probably did know diving—but if so, he should have known that she was going by all the proper rules and regulations.
“Mr. Hinnerman, we’re a commercial enterprise, out to entertain you. We go by the dive tables, and that’s that. I’m so sorry if we disappointed you.”
“I didn’t say I was disappointed,” Hinnerman said, inhaling heavily. “I just said we could have stayed down longer.”
“Perhaps we could have, sir, but we shouldn’t have, I’m afraid. Do you need some help with anything?”
“Help?” He arched a brow. The look told her that he found the idea of needing help with anything ludicrous. And he probably didn’t need help with anything—unless it was his personality. Strange man. Tough as nails. Yet his girlfriend—still sleeping up at the main house when the dive boat had left that morning—was just the opposite. Though Sam couldn’t quite determine her age, she decided that Jerry North couldn’t be very young, perhaps near forty, or even older. It didn’t matter. Jerry North was extremely attractive and would probably be so to her dying day. She was pure froth. Slim, small—just adorable. A blue-eyed blonde who didn’t do anything that might mar her manicure. She loved Seafire Isle anyway, or so she said. She liked to lie around the pool and walk on the beach. She liked cocktail hour, and the fact that they built fires in the parlor of the main house at night against the slight chill of the air after sunset.
She seemed to be a very nice woman, but, like Hinnerman, she sometimes made Sam uncomfortable.
She always seemed to be watching Sam.
“Mr. Hinnerman—”
“Liam,” the man corrected.
“Liam,” she agreed, and forced a smile, “I do hope you enjoyed what you were able to see.”
One of those flashes of unease Hinnerman could evoke in her swept through Sam as his gaze moved over her. Almost like a touch.
Just innuendo, never anything more. Still, she felt little shivers upon occasion, wondering what the truth about her guests might be. Perhaps they were just moderately kinky voyeurs. The looks Hinnerman gave her were definitely sexual.
But Jerry North’s weren’t. They were strangely sad, if they were anything at all.
So she was sad and kinky, Sam thought.
“I enjoyed it, all right,” Liam Hinnerman said, smiling at her broadly. “I always enjoy being with you. You are an excellent dive mistress.”
“Sam!” To her relief, Brad Walker, a lanky, green-eyed, freckle-faced thirteen-year-old with stylishly half-long-half-shaved reddish hair, the youngest diver aboard, came rushing up. “Sam, that was neat!”
“Neat,” Hinnerman muttered, and moved on.
“I loved it!” Brad continued to enthuse. “Especially that World War Two ship. So sad, huh? Do you think there are bodies in it?”
She shook her head, smiling. “No bodies, Brad.” To Brad, World War Two was as much past history as the American Revolution, yet she still had divers who came to see the navy wreck because they remembered comrades who had perished aboard it.
“Sorry, Brad. Luckily, most of the men escaped when she sank. The navy went after the few who didn’t. But they left the ship there, and it’s a memorial to all of them now.”
“It was cool. So cool,” Brad said.
“He’s just immature.” Brad’s slightly older sister, Darlene, a very pretty strawberry blonde with a nicely budding figure and who was fifteen going on thirty, sauntered lazily up beside him. She shook her head at Sam, as if they shared a knowledge regarding the total immaturity of men at any age. Sam had to grin—agreeing with Darlene’s secret assurance to some extent. “It wasn’t cool, Sam, it was an enormously gratifying experience.”
“It was cool,” Brad insisted.
“Just so long as you both enjoyed it,” Sam said.
“It would have been more fun if I’d had a real dive buddy,” Darlene said.
“I’m the one without the real buddy. Thunder thighs here kept tugging at me the whole trip, squealing every time there was a barracuda within a mile,” Brad said contemptuously.
Darlene shook her head in disgust. “There’ve got to be real men somewhere, don’t you think, Samantha?”
“I’m sure there are a number of them,” Sam murmured. Where was he now? She jiggled Brad’s baseball cap. “There are lots more wrecks out there. We’ll do some different ones tomorrow, huh?”
“Coo—el!” Brad agreed, running happily off, dragging his heavy dive bag along with him. The Walkers had been on Seafire Isle four days, but inclement weather had made this the first time they had been able to dive.
Darlene shook her head again. “It can be so trying, you know. These family vacations…” she murmured.
Her folks came up behind her. Judy and Lew Walker.