Passionate Choice

Chapter 6.2

   When Selena and Heather stepped aboard the dive-ship, Keith was there to greet them.

   "Good morning," he said smoothly. "Nice to have you aboard, Heather. Sorry to hear about the professor's ankle. You're sure you want to dive without him, Selena?"

   "Gary can keep me company," she replied. Actually, she was bursting to tell him there and then that she had told Ben the truth about their brief affair and that it made no difference, she was still going to marry Ben, but she couldn't with Heather and Gary standing by. It would have to wait until she could be alone with him.

   "We would like to leave right away," asserted Heather bossily. "I can't afford to have you or this ship idle at a thousand dollars a day."

   "Of course not," murmured Keith, still suave although Selena thought she detected a glint if anger in his eyes before he turned away to give orders to Gary and Max to cast off the warps. "Perhaps you'd like to steer the ship, Heather," she heard him say, and he escorted the other woman up the companionway to the wheelhouse.

   The ship was under way sliding through the smith sunlit water, and Selena was on the foredeck enjoying as always the view of sea and land: the green glean of sand backed by the various greens of vegetation, the silvery jade green of shallow water close close to the shore, the deeper almost purple shade nearer the horizon, the sight of pelicans in flight formation, swooping low over the water, hustling the fish they cold see below the surface, when she became aware that someone was standing beside her, leaning on the rail too. She turned her head. Keith was beside her, tanned and lithe, his elbow just touching hers and immediately but unexpectedly she was swamped with all kinds of tingling sensations, her body's instinctive response to his powerful masculinity, something which never happened to her when she was with Ben. Nor when she was with any other man for that matter, she thought ruefully. Only Keith, it seemed, could awaken feelings of passionate desire within her, could kindle the naked flame that scorched through her.

   "Who is steering? Heather?" she asked, uneasily glancing at the wheelhouse.

   "No. The auto-pilot. Gary is keeping an eye on it. She is talking to him. Giving him orders." His lip curled cynically. "Did you know she and Ben commandeered the ship yesterday afternoon and went out to the reef?"

   "No. Why did they do that? Did Gary and max go with them?"

   "They did." He grinned wryly. "Max was most apologetic when he told me. It seems that Heather really threw her weight about, insisting that she was in command of the expeditions since she was paying for the hire of the ship and its crew and that they'd better do what she said or else she'd make damned sure they lost their jobs. She also for got Gary to admit that I'd been diving in the other side of the reef." He turned to give her a slow appraising glance. "Did you tell Ben what I told you about the wreck that is wedged under the coral?"

   "No, I don't. I decided not to. I wonder why he didn't tell me he and heather went out to the reef again? I thought he thought it was too windy, that there was too much surge for us to dive yesterday afternoon. Did he dive?"

   "Yes. Alone. Said he had had a sudden idea and wanted to check it out. The surge wasn't too bad, apparently." He considered her again thoughtfully, his eyes slitted against the bright light. "So he didn't tell you?" he murmured.

   "No. Nor did heather. And when o suggested that I explore the other side of the reef this morning, he told me it would be a waste of time because he and Professor Langdon explores there two years ago and found nothing."

   "Or found the wreck I saw and didn't want anyone else to know about it," remarked Keith drily.