Semper Paratus. Always ready.

Years ago, Coast Guard rescue swimmer Dylan Holt left Kodiak, Alaska, with his heart in pieces. He thought Nolee Arnauyq and her mouthwatering curves were behind him—until he’s sent to rescue the crew of a capsizing boat...including Nolee. And Dylan is definitely not ready for the too-familiar way his body aches at seeing her again.

Nolee’s always gone after what she wanted, and to hell with the risks. Now she’s a rookie ship captain taking on the deadly waters of the Bering Sea. But out on these treacherous waters, there’s no way to avoid the sizzling sexual tension between them—or the dangerous pull of emotions that could leave both their hearts lost at sea...

How she wanted him...

“We’re older now,” Nolee whispered.

“Wiser.” One eyebrow rose. Dylan’s hands settled on the outside of her knees and skimmed their way up her thighs, pausing on her hips.

“We won’t make the same mistakes we made before.”

“So you’re saying...”

The force of her need for him shook the fingers she slid up his biceps. What would it feel like to have this officer obey her every wicked whim? If she was in charge, surely she wouldn’t be as vulnerable...in danger...of giving him everything, including her heart.

“I can’t fight this, Dylan.” The fire he’d ignited inside her two weeks ago, the one that continued to smolder, could no longer be contained. The sensual flames licking over her flesh confirmed her assessment. “If we keep things physical only, we can indulge a little while you’re here.” Her eyes dipped to his hard, handsome mouth.

“We shouldn’t waste the time we have left together.”

Dear Reader,

The wintry Bering Sea has never seen such a heat wave as when Nolee Arnauyq reunites with her first love, USCG rescue swimmer POV 1 Dylan Holt...and ends up igniting a relationship that’s too hot to handle!

Rookie crab-fishing boat captain Nolee has a lot to prove on her first season at the wheel. She doesn’t want to be saved, thank you very much, yet professional rescuer Dylan has an aggravating habit of showing up just at the right—or wrong—moment. She can’t turn down his offer to help when an accident leaves her short-handed on deck, yet how can she focus on scoring a big catch when she’s wondering if it might be Dylan she wants to net most of all?

If you’re a fan of the Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch series like me, you’re sure to love this high-stakes, steamy adrenaline rush of a romance aboard Nolee’s vessel, the Pacific Dawn. Visit me at karenrock.com to learn more about my future releases or to let me know what you think of this book. I’d love to hear from you!

Happy reading!

Karen Rock

His Last Defense

Karen Rock

www.millsandboon.co.uk

KAREN ROCK is an award-winning young adult and adult contemporary author. She holds a master’s degree in English and worked as an ELA instructor before becoming a full-time author. Most recently, her Harlequin Heartwarming novels have won the 2015 National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award and the 2015 Booksellers’ Best Award. When she’s not writing, Karen loves scouring estate sales, cooking and hiking. She lives in the Adirondack Mountain region with her husband, daughter and Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Visit her at karenrock.com.

To the USCG sea and air rescuers and the badass crab crews and captains who risk their lives every day on the treacherous Bering Sea. Your bold, adventurous lives are an inspiration. Special thanks to USCG commander Bill Friday, as well as the Time Bandit’s captain, Jonathan Hillstrand, and his fiancée, Sheryl, for their patient help in fact-checking. I never could have done it without you!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Extract

Copyright

1

“WATCH OUT ON the bow!” Captain Nolee Arnauyq hollered into the mic of her crab-fishing boat, her heart beating every which way.

Below the wheelhouse, brightly clad deckhands scrambled for cover as gale-force winds whipped the Bering Sea, hurtling waves at the Pacific Sun. “Move it!” she yelled over the PA system.

The last man’s yellow slicker disappeared under the overhang just as another wave smashed the rail. It pummeled the wooden deck and metal gear, sweeping high across Nolee’s windows, obliterating her view of the black day.

Come on. Come on...

Her fingers tightened on the throttle as the vessel pitched in twenty-foot swells, buffeted by forty-five-knot winds. She peered through the streaming water. Despite the frigid late December temperature, the air inside the wheelhouse pressed, warm and humid. A trickle of sweat wound down her cheek. The weather maps hadn’t predicted the massive winter storm would jog this far west.

Focus.

Grab crab. Get your men home safe.

If the tempest dragged the deckhands overboard, she wouldn’t be able to locate them fast enough. Paralyzing hypothermia would take hold within minutes, death in five to ten.

“Everybody okay out there?” she called to the crew. One, two, three...four and five...six...she counted then recounted as they emerged, her nerves jangling.

“Rock and roll!” her barrel-chested deck boss, Everett, shouted, giving her a thumbs-up. After nine years of toiling alongside him, first as a deckhand and then as relief captain before her recent promotion, Nolee knew he never backed down from extreme weather challenges.

And neither did she.

Despite everything, she couldn’t help but smile a bit at the amount of testosterone being thrown around—almost as much as the crab they’d caught. The undaunted gang took advantage of the momentary lull in the gale to bait another pot then drop it into the roiling sea. In a flash, the cage disappeared beneath the chop and its red marker and buoy grew indistinct as she steamed northwest on the edge of the unpredictable storm.

She slugged hot black coffee, burning her tongue, then jotted down the coordinates for this latest set on the string of pots and squinted into the gale. The tattered edges of her mast’s American flag whipped in the air.

The hairs on her arms rose. Pricked. Sometimes, she swore she could smell the ocean coming at her, a briny, deep-water scent that floated into her nose, her lungs, her blood. Sure enough, another wave rose; a roaring filled her ears.

“Off the rails,” she ordered. “That means you, blue,” she added to a staring, slack-jawed Tyler. She recalled her own growing pains as a teenage deckhand, how the numbing work back then had helped her heal her broken heart. Or form a scab over it, anyway. With relief, she watched Tyler stumble after the older men who’d been grinding all morning since dawn.

More water crested the port side, sweeping beneath the sixty crab pots left onboard. It lifted the sorting table in the middle of the boat and then slammed it down with a loud bang.

She winced. Was it damaged? Anxiety coiled inside her. She couldn’t afford the time to do a major repair. As a twenty-eight-year-old female rookie captain, she had a lot to prove.

She’d worked her tail off on fishing vessels ever since she was old enough to know she wasn’t cut out for the traditional lifestyle of her Inuit ancestors, and realize that if she wanted to help her single mom make ends meet, fishing the Bering Strait was the Alaskan version of the lottery. The stakes were high as hell, but the potential for payoff kicked butt. Most days, Nolee understood the sea, and the mentality it took to work it. Today? She and the sea were not on the same page. At all. Making her wonder what she’d been thinking to talk her commercial fishing company, Dunham Seafoods, into letting her captain a ship of her own.

A picture of her large Alutiiq family, taped beside her radar, caught her eye. Her aunts, uncles and cousins goofed around for the camera, while her mother stood slightly apart, frowning.

Would her critical parent be proud of her?

“What’s going on, Pete?” she called to her engineer.

The men had heaved the metal sorting table upright and Pete squatted beside it. “Wheel’s broken.”

Suddenly the bow dipped, and her eyes widened as a three-story wall of water rose and rose and rose in front of them.

“Take cover!” she screamed into the mic.

In an instant, the Pacific Sun bashed through a rogue, tsunami-sized wave, cleaving forward, plowing just below the surface, the world water. A deep shudder rattled through her and her breath was knocked clean out of her.

Reacting on instinct, she advanced the throttle, giving the ship more horsepower. They needed to bust through the wave. Not dive. She kept her hand steady on the controls, pleading with the sea to release her and her crew, and then they broke the surface, the gear scattered, her men gone.

“I need to hear from everyone, now!” she thundered, barely able to hear over the blood pounding against her eardrums.

Tyler crawled from between a couple of pot stacks waving an arm overhead, while the rest of the men staggered from their positions, clapping each other on the back, punching the air.

“It’s getting squirrelly out there,” she announced when she trusted her voice not to betray her concern. Crab fishing and coddling didn’t mix. “Inside, guys.”

Her men shook their heads and disappeared from view into the galley below. Just then a piercing alarm shrilled. She shot to her feet. The high water sensor!

Pete appeared on deck and sloshed through the rolling water to throw open the hatch down to the keel, Everett fast on his heels. A sickening bile rose in her throat.

Stu, her relief captain, raced up the wheelhouse stairs. “Leak?” he asked, his voice a gravelly smoker’s rasp.

She nodded, then flipped on the speaker to the engine room. “Pete. Tell me what’s going on.”

The sound of rushing water crashed through the speaker.

There was static, and then Pete’s faint voice emerged. “We’ve cracked the cooling pipe. Nine to ten inches.”

“How much pressure is coming through there?” A rush of air escaped from between her clenched teeth.

“It’s gushing.” His gruff words were like hands on both her arms, giving her a shake.

She cleared her clogged throat, twice, then asked, “Can we replace it?”

“Yeah. But not out here. We don’t have that piece.”

The boat dropped several feet, rolled. “Rubber wrap won’t hold it,” she mused out loud, her pulse skyrocketing. Clamping down her panic, she turned the boat slightly to keep it from pitching so much.

“It’s our only shot,” came Pete’s grim voice.

“All right. Use baling and wire it up good. Stop that leak.”

“Roger.”

After several minutes of battling growing swells, more alarms blared on-screen. Failed bilge pumps. Engine power loss.

No.

She blinked at the words and a dark shadow pressed at the base of her skull, rising. The possibility of the ship sinking seeped into her consciousness. Squeezed. Nearly drew blood.

She pressed her eyes shut for a moment. Gathered herself. “Stu, I’m heading out. Keep us afloat.”

“Roger. Will do.”

Grabbing her gloves, she clattered downstairs and donned waterproof gear. She blasted by the remaining hard-faced crew and scowled when they rose to follow her. “Stay put,” she ordered, then listed, side to side, down the short hall to the portal and shoved down the latch.

Instantly, the wind snatched the door, swinging it wide and making her stumble, frigid spray buffeting her, knocking her sideways. Her boots skidded, and she crashed to one knee. Warm, iron-tasting blood washed across her bitten tongue.

She ignored the ache in her leg and pushed on, fighting her way to the engine room. Her breath came in short gasps that misted in the salty, water-logged air. After climbing down the wall ladder, she dropped into knee-deep flooding.

Pete labored over the cracked pipe. She shoved through the brackish swirl toward Everett and spotted three mostly submerged bilge pumps. A dark ring scorched their tops. They’d overheated. Beyond fixing. Her mouth vacuumed itself dry.

“Tell the guys to put on their life jackets if they’re not on already and bucket this out while you replace those.”

Everett frowned fiercely. “We’ve only got the one spare.”

She swore under her breath. Not enough. Not even close.

“Hook it up fast.”

Everett grunted, then clambered topside.

She thought quickly. Without enough operating bilge pumps to stop the rising water, and the pipe still spraying, the engines wouldn’t reboot, leaving the floundering Pacific Sun at the mercy of the relentless sea. Buckets wouldn’t do much.

Still. She wouldn’t quit. If she lost this eight-million-dollar boat on her first time at the wheel, she might never have another shot at captaining one and leading the independent life she’d worked hard to achieve.

But even more important, the safety of her men came first. They counted on her, as did their families. Even as another wave tilted the wet world sideways, sloshing frigid water past her knees, Nolee couldn’t help thinking about them. Everett had a newborn son. Pete had postponed his honeymoon until the opilio crab season, which they’d gotten special permission to fish early, ended. They all needed this run.

She wouldn’t let anything happen to them.

Back in the wheelhouse, she snatched up her radio, her eyes meeting Stu’s. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is the vessel Pacific Sun. We’re taking on water.”

White noise crackled through the speaker. “Roger. Pacific Sun, this is United States Coast Guard, Kodiak, Alaska, communication station. Over.”

She relayed rapid-fire specifics. “The seas are pounding us,” she concluded, her voice hoarse. “Not sure how long before we capsize.”

Speaking the words made it all the more real. She’d never been seasick a day in her life, but right now, she knew a whole lot about heartsick.

“Roger that. Jayhawk is on the way with ETA of twelve minutes. Swimmer and pumps will be deployed.”

Bittersweet relief washed through her as she left Stu at the helm and joined the bucket line. On one hand, she didn’t want to be rescued. Never had. But on her life’s balance sheet, the US Coast Guard owed her big-time for the life-gutting sacrifice she’d made to them nine years ago when she’d given up the person who mattered most to her. They could damn well pay up with some help today.

She passed heavy pails among her crew, fighting a losing battle against water that wouldn’t stop coming. Half the buckets spilled or sloshed most of their contents before making it over the rail, the deck pitching so fiercely below their feet they could barely maintain balance. She worked fiercely, doggedly, and thought she’d weep with relief when she finally glimpsed orange as the Jayhawk passed over the ship. Keeping her head down, she continued to pass slippery, frigid buckets until Tyler pointed out that the rescue swimmer was on his way down.

She stared up at the dangling rescue swimmer descending onto her bucking deck. The mountain-sized man, clad in a bright orange suit, unhooked himself and strode her way, his step sure and nimble despite the heaving boat.

She blinked, suddenly feeling more off-balance than ever, fooled into thinking she knew him. It was just the outfit. Just that cursed Coast Guard swagger. Yet there was something about the broad-shouldered shape, the assured step and the bone-deep confidence visible in the green eyes behind his clear mask as he drew closer.

It couldn’t be.

“Dylan?”

He’d sworn never to come back to Alaska, had left without a goodbye. Her legs and arms went slack, and for a second she thought she might smack the ground.

The worst mistake of her life flipped up his visor. Spoke. “Hello, Nolee.”

* * *

NOTHING IN PO1 Dylan Holt’s military training had come close to preparing him for this.

He peered into Nolee Arnauyq’s fierce brown eyes, recognition firing through him even as another swell sent him teetering sideways. Thick black hair dripped onto cheekbones that jutted so high and sharp her eyes turned to almond slivers. In the arctic air, Nolee’s full lips trembled slightly, pale against tawny skin.

Someone he used to know; someone he damn well should have forgotten.

Right.

Get the job done, idiot. And get the hell out of here.

Kicking his ass into gear, he tore his gaze off her beautiful face and assessed the on-scene conditions. The Pacific Sun listed now to port at thirty degrees in high seas. Without propulsion, they could sink in minutes. No time to lose. He hoisted one of the two dewatering pumps dropped behind him on deck and turned back to Nolee. “Lead the way,” he shouted over the rise and hiss of the sea, cursing his luck at being the swimmer on duty today.

He’d once promised himself he’d never see her again.

She nodded, hefted the other sixty-pound pump, and turned, as economical and tough as ever. Captain of her own ship, apparently, and how impressive was that? But then, he remembered well what it was like to crew with her on a fishing vessel. She never expected anyone to cut her any slack, an attitude that had always won over the crustiest of seadogs.

And it was no different on the Pacific Sun, he could tell, as she led him past a line of life-jacketed men passing buckets from the keel. She’d had the foresight to ensure they’d all geared up in preparation for the deadly waters. She’d protected them, but hadn’t let them quit, either.

He and Nolee handed the carbon-monoxide-emitting pumps over to crew members to secure topside where they wouldn’t endanger lives, and descended down into the engine room, unreeling the hoses to vacuum up the flooding. The whoosh of incoming water filled his ears.

Shit.

This looked worse than reported.

Water sprayed from a pipe that a man, standing in thigh-deep water, was attempting to wrap with rubber. Another fisherman secured what appeared to be a replacement pump, their movements clumsy in the arctic flood, their efforts futile given the size and pressure of the leak. The Pacific Sun was past the point of no return.

“We’ve got to abandon ship,” Dylan shouted to Nolee.

She shoved back her hood and squinted up at him. Her dark eyes flashed, ink. “No!”

Damn that stubborn, reckless streak. Age hadn’t tempered it. She was every bit the spitfire who’d rocked his world as his first love, the only woman to whom he’d ever given his heart. And he’d gotten it back in pieces.

“We’ve only got enough fuel for fifteen minutes on scene. I need to get you off this vessel.”

Her mouth worked for a moment, and she peered at her laboring crew members. She nodded slowly, her expression inward, then shoved back her shoulders. “Get everyone to safety, but leave me be.” She turned to the guys working on the pipe and pump. “Everett. Pete. Tell the crew they’re abandoning ship.”

“The hell we are,” one of the guys swore.

“That’s an order.”

The man shook his head and dropped the wire into his pocket. “Roger.” He and the other crewman climbed up and out.

Nolee squinted back at Dylan for a moment then held out a hand for the hoses. He cursed under his breath. He’d left her before, once, when she’d given him no choice, but history would not repeat itself today.

Not under these conditions.

Not a chance.

Still. She was a civilian and captain of the vessel; he couldn’t compel her to follow his orders, much as he wished otherwise. After he got the crew off, he’d return for her and make her see reason.

“I’ll be back,” he vowed. He handed over the nozzle, snapped down his visor and headed topside. It took every ounce of will and training to leave her in the belly of the doomed ship. He’d learned to live his life without her, but that didn’t stop his instinct to protect her at all costs from surging back to life.

On deck, the fishermen continued bailing as the guy Nolee had called Everett lugged the dewatering pumps’ outtake lines to the rail and dropped them over the side of the unstable boat.

“6039 this is Holt,” Dylan spoke into his headset. When a wave swelled off the port side, he grabbed an oblivious guy, a young kid barely out of high school by the looks of it, and scrambled for cover by the winch. Water buffeted them for several seconds as they huddled and then he tried again. “6039 do you copy?”

“6039 copy,” his Jayhawk pilot and mission commander, LCDR Chris Abrams, said in the flat monotone they adopted in even the worst situations. “What’s your onboard assessment? Over.”

The wide-eyed teenager stared at him, his skin pale. When one of the men hollered, “Tyler!” he jumped to his feet then trudged back to the line.

Dylan stayed behind, listening hard. “They’ve got three feet of water in the hull and rising fast. Vessel is listing heavily. Structural integrity severely compromised with inadequate time to attempt repairs. We’re abandoning ship. Basket requested. Over.”

“Roger that,” Chris said, his voice crisp. “Basket is being deployed.”

Another oceanic blast tipped the vessel so that the rail drove to the surface before righting itself. He pictured Nolee below. He needed to get moving to return to her.

Inside his neoprene suit, his slick skin flushed hot, his blood humming with adrenaline. He emerged from cover and joined the crew who now held on to lines as the boat rose and dipped violently.

He cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered, “We’re abandoning ship. Who’s coming first?”

The fishermen eyed him, then one nudged an older crewmember forward. The man, with white hair and a craggy face, glared at him with red-rimmed eyes, uneven teeth bared between cracked, flaky lips. “I ain’t going first.” He pointed at the young guy in the blue slicker. “Take the kid.”

“Right.” Dylan nodded, understanding that it’d be a waste of time arguing with a sailor who’d rather risk losing his life than his pride. “Let’s go.”

For the next several minutes, Dylan toiled as the storm refused to lessen its grip, placing survivor after survivor into the basket until only he and Nolee remained on board.

“We have one minute,” he heard his commander say through his helmet’s speakers. “Is your captain ready? Over?”

“She will be,” Dylan answered, his back teeth pressing together hard. He slung an arm over a rope line and held fast when another swell lifted him off his feet, dragging. The ship groaned as sheets of metal strained against each other like fault lines before an earthquake. The lashings clanked. “Send down the strop. Over.”

Given the helo’s low fuel state, he had barely enough time for the dangerous hypothermic double lift.

“You have fifty seconds and then I want you on deck, Holt,” barked his commander. “Over.”

The sea receded and Dylan shoved his way along the slick deck, propelling himself forward across its steep slant. “Roger that.”

He would get Nolee out. End of story.

Descending as fast as he dared, he fought the wind and dropped down into the hull again. Icy water made his breath catch even with the benefit of the dry suit. Nolee should have been out of here long before now.

“I’ve almost got it.” Her strained voice emerged from blue lips. Her movements were jerky as she twisted wire around the still gushing pipe.

His eardrums banged with his heartbeat.

She was losing motor function. Hypothermia was already setting in. With only thirty seconds left, he made an executive decision.

“It’s over, Nolee. Come with me now.”

He would haul her out by force if necessary. Braced himself for just that.

Yet when she opened her mouth, her head lolled. Her eyelids dropped. Reacting on instinct, he grabbed her limp form before she crumpled into the freezing water.

His throat closed, and he had to make himself breathe. He hauled her up and out of the hull and across the deck where a rescue strop dangled. Damn, damn, damn. His hands weren’t cooperating, his own motor function feeling the effects of this cursed sea. Once he’d tethered them together, he gave his watching flight mechanic a thumbs-up for the hoist. The boat flung them sideways, careening over the rail.

Swinging, their feet skimmed the deadly swells. The line jerked them from harm and sped them up through the stinging air. He tightened his arms around her. Imagined them made of steel. With only a tether connecting her to him, he couldn’t lose his grip. It was the difference between saving her life and causing her to fall to her death.

As they rose, he forced himself not to look at her. He’d dreamed about that face too many times, even after he left Kodiak to forget her.

But he wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t hold her close. And heaven help him—no matter how much she’d gutted him nine years ago—he couldn’t deny she felt damned good in his arms.

2

NOLEE WAS LYING on warm, gritty sand, water circling around her toes, breathing in the Alaskan summer fragrance of salt water and dense cedars. There was a delicious, decadent taste in her mouth—berries and chocolate, and possibly wine. She lifted her head and the afternoon sun glinted off the blue ocean so brightly, she had to squint through sparkles of light to see her feet in front of her.

Her toenails were painted a deep rose. Girly and sweet. Not her style at all. And the nail polish had even been applied well. No smudged cuticles or bumpy surfaces. Someone was lying next to her, propped up on his side. Someone she cared about, who made her laugh, with big feet, nails unvarnished and clipped.

Dylan.

He stroked her bare stomach with a firm hand, the circular touch languid, deliberate, filling her with teasing heat, a pleasant ache beginning between her thighs.

Somewhere in the distance, gulls cried and the cool ocean thundered as it crashed ashore, swirling up and over her calves, then suctioning her skin as it receded. A throaty chuckle sounded beside her. She curved toward it, her body fitting against Dylan’s instinctively, her toes curling in delight when his hand skimmed lower still, sliding along the edge of her bikini bottom.

“Nolee,” he whispered in her ear and she tipped back her head at the rich sound of his voice.

“Dylan,” she murmured, but could not be sure whether his name was flooding her thoughts or she had spoken it aloud.

“What are you thinking?”

She pressed her lips together. Stopped herself from revealing how she really felt and explaining why she’d been quiet on their summer outing. If Dylan left her, her heart would break, but he couldn’t know that.

She started to say something flippant, and then he reached around to cup her ass, bringing her hips to his, the heat of him emanating through the thin nylon of his shorts. Her skin burned fiercely against his everywhere they touched, and she was incapable of speech, or of thinking anything at all. Shivering hunger took hold. She craved more.

Skimming her hands up the curves of his strong arm, she absorbed the tension of the muscles beneath his hot skin. She glanced at his handsome warrior face. Reached to trace the straight bridge of his nose, to touch the scar just above his arched right eyebrow and the tiny dimple in his square chin. She met his scorching green gaze. He had that way of looking at her. Intently. Passionately. With heated promise, as if he knew all of her erotic fantasies and intended to make each one come true.

It undid her.

He lowered his face. “You’re driving me crazy,” he whispered directly into her ear, his warm lips grazing the sensitive lobe.

“Me, too,” she gasped as he continued stroking her, slowly, tantalizingly, eliciting a lush heady response to his touch so that her heart clattered.

“Tell me what you want,” he rasped, his voice an edgy growl.

“You,” she groaned, a dizziness taking hold as her hand smoothed along his ridged abdomen. “I want you, Dylan. Always.”

She felt him brush the hair back from her temples. His unsteady fingers conveyed the same need that licked through her.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, his voice insistent. Husky. Then he slid across her, inch by inch, like a tide, and she lay back so that she was flat on the sand, sinking into it.

In the sizzling afternoon, she could smell the sea on him, feel the faint grittiness of the salt on his skin as his muscular body shifted over hers, firm and solid. And then, she could feel his breath, the shocking, numbing firmness of his mouth a moment later as Dylan’s lips melted into hers.

He kissed her, slowly and tenderly, his weight easing onto her so that she was overwhelmed with lust, the hardness of his body against her. His lips lingered and sampled. Tasted and nibbled. When his tongue glided over hers, the sensual contact triggered waves of pleasure that rippled to her toes. Her fingertips.

She nipped at his lightly bristled jaw, his ears, her fingers brushing over his dark, close-cropped curls. He cradled her head as his mouth whispered along the sensitive length of her neck. The delicious caress stopped at the birthmark at the base of her throat. Lingered. Nerve endings short-circuited, flash-bang, beneath her skin.

She couldn’t possibly get enough of the feel of him.

“Dylan,” she moaned, her voice loud in her ears.

* * *

“NOLEE,” SHE HEARD him answer, his voice rising as if it were a question. Her lashes fluttered. Lifted. Dylan’s face swam into focus. He peered down at her, his pupils dilated, the black blotting out most of the green. His face pale.

She reached for him, needing him to anchor her when she suddenly felt so loopy. The effect of their incredible sexual chemistry, she supposed. She drew his face close and pressed her lips to his again, inhaling his sweet breath, feeling the heat of his skin as he responded to her, kissing her deeply. Ardently.

Adrift on this blissful current, her lashes fell to her cheeks. She felt Dylan tunnel his fingers through her damp hair and its weight surprised her. Took her aback.

They hadn’t gone swimming. Not yet. Or had they? Why couldn’t she remember?

She caressed his smooth jaw.

Smooth.

Her fingers stilled.

Then she noticed something else that wasn’t right. Something thick and heavy separated them.

A blanket. No. Blankets.

And the automated sound of beeping machines filled her ears, not the ocean, the salted air now smelling of antiseptic soap and disinfectant.

The dream or memory or whatever it was dissolved and vanished, like a reflection on water. Nolee’s thoughts sharpened, and she willed herself to open her heavy eyes.

She was in a small white box of a room lying on an uncomfortable mattress.

A hospital.

Not on the beach.

Not on her boat, either, because...

A strangled noise escaped her and she shoved Dylan in the chest, forceful enough to make him stumble back, hard realizations knocking through her.

...Because in this reality, Dylan no longer loved her.

* * *

“YOU!”

Dylan shoved his hands into the pockets of his olive-green flight suit and stared wordlessly at a furious Nolee. Sporadic bursts of noise filtered in from the corridor of Dutch Harbor’s medical clinic. A squeaky wheel, and the aroma of roast chicken, heralded the delivery of the evening meal to the small unit’s patients. Stale air hung as still and heavy as a tomb.

Why the hell had he just kissed her? He shouldn’t have angled in so close when she’d called his name. Tempted himself.

And had she meant it when she’d said she wanted him? Granted she wasn’t fully conscious...but she’d said always.

Not that he cared.

Shit. He cared.

He wanted her. The driving need to haul her back into his arms, feel the press of her lush curves through her thin hospital gown, thrummed inside. Made his stomach clench.

He drew in a ragged breath. Raked a hand over his hair. “I’ll get the doctor.”

“No!”

He halted at the door. Turned.

She leveraged herself up on her elbows and then sat up. The pallor of her skin alarmed him, and snapped him back to the bed where he gathered her small, rough hands in his.

“What are you doing here, kissing me? Why am I here?” In the room’s quiet, her soft voice, always at odds with her tough words, slid around him like a caress.

Good questions, both. At least he had an answer for the second one. As for why he’d kissed her, frustratingly, he’d been as unable to resist her as ever. He should’ve left with his flight crew after dropping her here and enjoyed his upcoming time off after a long shift. But he hadn’t been able to leave until he was assured of her recovery.

“You don’t remember the boat?”

Beneath the flicker of humming fluorescent lights, her dark eyes sparked. “I fixed the leak...” Her words trailed off like the last air from a deflating balloon and confusion crossed her face. “Right?”

He shook his head. “You were too late.”

She snatched her hands back. “No, I wasn’t.”

“You fainted. Hypothermia.” He gestured to the thermal heating blankets that concealed her gorgeous shape, the feel of her body imprinted on his muscle memory as clearly as the last time they’d made love on Summer Bay beach, nine years ago.

Her teeth appeared on her bottom lip. Worried it. Black brows slanted toward the small proud nose he’d always found sexy. “So the boat...” She swallowed the last of her words. Hard.

“Gone.”

She dropped her head in her hands. Moaned. It took everything in him not to gather her close and hold her as he had moments ago. Suddenly her lashes, thick and black, rose. She peered up at him. “My crew. Are they...?”

“Safe. Still pains in the ass, though. They’re in the waiting room and refuse to leave until they hear you’re okay.” He bit back a rueful smile as he recalled the ongoing battle between the boisterous fishermen and the nurses threatening to toss them out. If not for his military credentials, and his persistence, he might not have been allowed back here, either.

“They’re assholes. But they’re my assholes,” she said affectionately. She rolled her eyes at him, and in an instant their old connection slammed into him. He pictured the gritty young woman he’d worked alongside on his Uncle Bill’s crab-fishing boat. They’d gone from friendly rivals to friends, and then much more.

What were they now?

He wouldn’t stick around long enough to find out.

Her amused expression faded slightly, and she seemed to give herself a small shake. “Thank you for saving them.”

He rested his hip on the narrow bed and fiddled with the green plastic hospital tag around her wrist, turning it over and over, unable to resist skimming his thumb along the satin flesh there. Her pulse jumped against his fingertip. “Not you?”

“I told you to leave me be.” Her words escaped her in a breathy rush.

He caught and held her eye. “Not easy to do, Nolee.”

Her nostrils flared, and the small diamond stud he’d given her when they’d graduated high school glinted. “That wasn’t the case nine years ago.”

“You think that was easy?” He strode out of the way of a food service worker bearing a dinner tray and breathed in the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee and chicken broth. Braced himself.

Get it together, man.

If you weren’t in Kodiak, you wouldn’t give her another thought.

Liar. If that were true, how the hell did he explain his nonstop thoughts of her over the years? The memories that refused to let him go, no matter how many miles he put between them. How hard he worked. The risks he took.

The squeak of the staff member’s sneakers grew muffled and then disappeared. Dylan crossed his arms over his chest, willing himself to follow the cafeteria worker out and away from the tempting woman who messed with his hard-won peace of mind.

“Why are you here, Dylan?”

“Transfer.” He turned to face her again. Knocked the emotion out of his voice. The hunger. Kept his tone crisp. “But it’s temporary. I’m shipping stateside as soon as my out-of-rotation-year assignment request is approved.”

“Of course you are.” A bitter note entered her voice. She raised her chin and pinned him with a look. “How long have you been in Kodiak? Have you seen your parents? Bill?”

“Three months and no.” He rocked back on his heels at her accusing expression. It wasn’t like he was to blame for his decade-long family estrangement.

She dipped a spoon into her soup, eyes still on his, and lifted a steaming mouthful to her lips. When her sexy mouth pursed, he felt himself harden. “So they have no clue you’re here.”

He cleared his throat. Dragged his wild thoughts back under control. “Wouldn’t make any difference if they did.”

“For who? Your parents love you.”

“They had a funny way of showing it.”

“You know they couldn’t help that. The business...”

“Was more important. Got it,” he said, thinking of the wilderness expedition touring company they ran that’d overtaken their lives and overshadowed his childhood.

His older brother, Robbie, had taken to exploring rugged terrain like a mountain goat, his father had proudly proclaimed, praising their golden child at every opportunity. As for Dylan, after an unforgettable viewing of The Guardian, he’d known on the spot he wanted to be a rescue swimmer and travel the world helping those in need. He and his old man butted heads nonstop about his reluctance to toe the line in the family business, about his attitude, about the way he tied his shoes, the way he breathed...about anything it’d seemed.

After one blowout fight too many, they’d palmed him off on his uncle, who’d given him a place to stay during school and a job on his crab-fishing boat. Since they hadn’t made one of his swim meets, missed his graduation, hell, just about everything, he’d decided to stop wasting his time missing parents he’d never really had and left Kodiak without another word when he’d gotten the call from the Coast Guard.

“That’s not true,” Nolee insisted. Her large extended family had always been a big part of her life. She’d never accepted his estrangement, a point of contention they’d had in their otherwise perfect relationship, along with her daredevil antics and unwillingness to leave Kodiak.

And her need to lock lips with his former best friend Craig.

He cleared his throat and his voice, when it emerged, sounded gruff. “Can I get you anything before I go?”

“A boat?”

One corner of her mouth lifted slightly, a grin-through-pain expression he’d glimpsed many times before. Nolee was the type to smile through a setback, laugh at an injury. It’d been the only way he’d known when she was really hurting. Despite everything, it bugged him that after growing up sleeping on family members’ couches and in shelters with her health-challenged single mother, she’d finally gotten what she’d always wanted—a place to call her own—and he’d played a part in her losing it.

Then again, if she hadn’t gambled on outrunning an unpredictable storm to take advantage of what he supposed had been an approved preseason run, she’d still have her boat.

Odds.

Nolee sure liked to play them. When she won, she won big, but when she lost...

He shoved the image of her sinking boat away. She was here now. Saved from her own worst instincts.

But who would be around to catch her the next time?

“Would you settle for Jell-O?” He pulled the clear wrap off the green, wiggling square on her tray. “And captain, huh? What you always wanted.”

Her eyes searched his. “Why are you really here?” She gestured with a sweep of her hand to the room around them, frowning.

Because I needed to see your eyes open.

He squashed that thought, along with the temptation to climb into that bed and warm her up in a way that would be much more enjoyable for both of them.

“Professional courtesy.”

She snorted. “My ass. Try again.”

“Want me to call Craig? Maybe you’d rather have him?” he asked instead, then nearly bit his tongue off.

Her mouth dropped open. She stared at him for a moment in charged silence. “Get out.”

He stepped forward, knowing he’d sounded like an ass, like the jilted boyfriend she’d turned him into, not the man who’d moved on with his life.

“Look, I’m...”

“You’re what, Dylan? You saved me and my men. Thank you, but your mission is done and I don’t need you anymore.”

He hung his head for a moment, then lifted his eyes to search hers. “No. You never did.”

Her gaze narrowed. Whatever she’d been about to say, however, was interrupted by a knock on the open door. A nurse bustled in and smiled at Nolee. “Ah. Good. Now I can tell your crew to hightail it out of here.”

“Goodbye, Nolee.” Dylan tipped his head to the nurse, cast a last look at Nolee and strode out the door.

Job done. Survivor’s health ensured. Now he could get on with his day. His life. And get it back on track, starting with putting in his transfer request to leave Kodiak ASAP before thoughts of Nolee wrecked his head again. He’d moved on, damn it. Today was a minor setback. A brief reminder of what could have been. Nothing more.

Three hours later, after catching the ferry back to Air Station Kodiak, he hung from a diving board at his base’s pool. He snapped off ten more pull-ups to complete his last set then let go, sinking to the bottom of the twenty-foot-deep end.

His body ached like he’d been hit by a truck and his chest burned. Sixty minutes of wind sprints, pull-ups and sit-ups. Another thirty jogging the track. An hour swimming. He should have exorcised his craving for Nolee by now. He gritted his teeth and pushed back against the instinct to surge to the top and drag air into his lungs. He stared up at the waving blue surface and envisioned the way she’d kissed him, her passionate response. She’d wanted him.

And he’d wanted her.

A swoosh sounded to his right as the shape of another service member plunged in beside him. Without missing a beat, the man shot him a quick middle finger then zipped to the surface, churning up the water with a lightning-fast crawl.

Anderson.

The newbie swimmer whose high-profile jeopardized mission three months ago had put the air station on alert and prompted them to assign Dylan to Kodiak to prevent more mishaps.

Sure. The commander had fed Dylan a line or two to sweeten the raw deal he had no choice but to accept. Claimed they needed his expertise on these treacherous waters. Felt he could impart that knowledge to Anderson and rebuild the guy’s shaken confidence. Promised they’d approve Dylan’s transfer request after Anderson redeemed himself.

So now, three months in, the cocky FNG was interrupting his solo workout and challenging him? The hell with that.

Using his thigh muscles, he shot off after the greenhorn, his elbows jetting out of the water, his pointed fingers reaching, driving, cleaving through the pool. Feet and legs kicking powerfully behind him. His fatigue dropped away and he raced, pushing hard, until he caught up to Anderson on the third lap. They swam side by side for twenty minutes, then pulled up.

Anderson shook his head, sending droplets flying, and reached for the water bottle he’d left on the side of the pool. “Shit. Thought I had a chance of beating you since you’d been in here awhile.”

“I was just warming up, asshole.” Dylan drained the last of his own water.

“Heard about the Pacific Sun. Seven survivors.” Anderson whistled. “And they have that hot female captain, right? Is she single?”

“No,” Dylan said through his teeth. Nolee hadn’t mentioned her relationship status and, of course, it was no damn business of his whether or not she’d stayed with Craig. But even in Anderson’s wildest dreams, Nolee was out of his league.

“Hey!” Anderson threw out his hands as if to ward off the blow Dylan contemplated landing on him. “No offense.”

“Just keep it professional,” Dylan snapped, hating the surge of possessiveness he had no right to feel. That damn kiss had kicked off all the wrong instincts in his brain. “How was patrol?”

Anderson hopped up on the side of the pool and dangled his legs in the water. “Northern Lights set a string in restricted waters. They were already correcting it when we came upon them. No excitement.”

Dylan joined him and together they performed dips, lowering themselves, triceps flexing, into the pool, then pushing up again, and again. “You’ll get plenty more once I’m gone,” Dylan grunted as he repeated the move.

Now that Anderson was back in his fins with several successful rescues under his belt, and another swimmer had joined their SAR team as well, they could afford to approve Dylan’s transfer request. Despite the promise from the higher-ups, however, he knew better than to count on it until he saw the damn thing.

“You have leave coming, right?” asked Anderson through gritted teeth, a vein appearing at his temple as he muscled through this set of twenty.

“A month. After that, I’m hoping I get a new assignment.”

With this being an out-of-rotation-year move, he’d have to wait until a stateside RS position opened up.

“Can’t say I’ll miss you,” Anderson said before disappearing beneath the surface and shooting along the bottom for the underwater swim portion of the workout.

“Me, neither,” Dylan said to himself, thinking of Nolee, wondering if that were true.

Seeing her again messed with his mind, but she’d been right about one thing. He would seek out his family before he left Kodiak, just not the family she was thinking of. His parents had never had much use for him. His uncle, however, who’d nurtured his love of the sea, was on his list of people to see before he spent another decade away from Alaska. Dylan missed the old guy.

And, as an added benefit, spending a weekend with his uncle would ensure he wouldn’t be tempted to cross paths with Nolee anytime soon.

3

“SO YOU’LL GIVE me another chance?” Nolee leaned forward on one of The Outboard’s pub tables the following evening, nearly toppling a couple of the empty beer bottles littering its sticky surface. Restless energy tap-danced in her veins. Made the balls of her feet bounce.

Rick Dunham, one of Dunham Seafoods’s owners, signaled for another round, then shrugged.

“I’m considering it.” He raised his voice above the din of the chattering crowd that filled the Kodiak dive favored by local fishermen. He popped a pretzel into his mouth and shot her an assessing look as he crunched. “These are the best quota numbers we’ve ever received and we need to fill them.”

Over his shoulder, white lights blinked above a long, garland-wrapped bar where bearded men jockeyed for the best spot to watch the Seahawks game. A Christmas tree glowed red then green in the corner. Metal fishing lures dangled from its branches and reflected the light.

Rick’s partner and younger brother, Sam, whistled. “Four hundred K. That’s a lot of clams, eh?” He elbowed his brother. “Get it?” When Rick only glared at him, he continued. “But is she man enough for the job?”

“Of course,” Nolee insisted, keeping her voice firm. Squashing her doubts. Captains didn’t second-guess themselves. Her jaw was clenched so tightly it ached. She needed this to happen.

A waitress appeared and slid three dark ales across the table, foam sloshing down their sides. She pocketed the credit card Rick handed her, then hustled off.

“Fish and Game gave us special permission to start fishing preseason.” Rick raised his glass and met Nolee’s eyes over the brim. “Now that’s wasted.”

Regret bit deep, but she kept her face impassive. She tightened her grip around the cool glass to hide the slight tremble in her fingers and the exhaustion she felt after her close call. She hadn’t expected the bout with hypothermia to take so much out of her, but she wasn’t about to back down from a second chance.

Something too damn rare in her world. “Pacific Dawn needs a lot of work,” Sam said, referring to another boat in their fleet. One in need of repairs, but possibly seaworthy with some elbow grease. He swiped foam off his moustache with the back of his hand while a cheer went up around a nearby pool table.

“I’m not afraid of hard work.” She swigged back the malt. The smooth, mellow taste dissolved on her tongue. She blinked gritty eyes. Ordered her aching muscles to relax. Moments ago she’d expected an ass-chewing (which she’d gotten, understandably), followed by a kick out the door. Now she might have another shot at her dream. She wouldn’t screw it up.

Rick gulped more beer, then lowered the half-drained drink to the table. “You’d need to bring her up to code before the regular season starts. That’s only twelve days.”

“No problem,” she said with more confidence than she felt, given she had no clue how much repairing the vessel needed. No matter what, she’d make it work.

Please give me this chance.

Sam jabbed a finger in her direction. “And we need that quota met.”

As did she. Rick and Sam didn’t need to spell out that her career was done if she mucked this up.

It was hard enough to become a captain, something she’d only done because Bill had taken her under his wing and taught her when he could. Yet even if she succeeded in getting to captain again, with a bad record she might have trouble getting a crew to sign on to work with her. She had to turn this around. No matter the odds, she had to take the gamble.

“I’ll top those tanks.”

“With crab this time, not water,” guffawed Sam, cracking himself up. Suddenly his smile fell and his thick eyebrows knitted. “No more screwups. Our insurance might cover one lost boat. Not two.”

A waitress bearing a steaming plate of chicken wings passed the table and dropped off their bill. Nolee’s nose twitched at the spicy aroma. How long since she’d eaten? Slept? She was used to the punishing mental and physical demands of each crab season. But the anxiety that’d dogged her every thought since she’d woken in the clinic, minus one ship and plus several unwanted feelings for a certain swimmer, had taken its toll.

Rick signed the slip and pocketed his pen. The flat line of his mouth suggested he wasn’t crazy about taking another chance on her. She’d be willing to bet he was hard-pressed to find another captain with any experience if he was willing to roll the dice with her.

“I’ll get my crew and begin work tomorrow.” She stood and extended a hand. Took charge of the situation. What did her Aunt Dai always tell her to do? Lean in? If she angled any farther, she’d topple over.

Her bosses shoved themselves to their feet. They exchanged a long look and then Rick grasped her hand. Pumped it up and down. “You’ve got yourself a boat.”

“For now,” Sam interjected, clapping her shoulder, sealing this last-ditch bargain she had to keep.

She grabbed her fleece off the back of her chair and yanked it on. At the far end of the bar, the live rock band swung into a guitar solo that squealed and whined, the sound blasting from wall-mounted speakers. Some of the milling plaid-and-jeans-clad men and women lifted their drinks and hooted. Their ball-cap-covered heads bobbed approval.

When a bouncer tossed a couple of tussling men outside, a gap appeared in the throng and Nolee’s eye landed on Dylan, sitting in a dark corner across from his Uncle Bill. She glimpsed Dylan’s chiseled jaw and noted his eye-popping body in a fitted green thermal shirt that she imagined did great things for his sexy eyes.

Buoyed by her win with the Dunham boys, she was on her feet and heading for Dylan before she had time to think it through. But she was drawn by the attraction that’d flared to life yesterday in a kiss she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about.

She wove through the crowd just as Bill stood and pulled on a lopsided winter hat that looked to be the work of one of his six daughters. He never left port without having them sing him “Eye of the Tiger” for good luck and their drawings and pictures festooned his wheelhouse.

As she neared, she overheard Dylan saying, “I’ve got this.”

“Hey, Captain Bill.”

The older man looked up from zipping his coat and a broad smile creased his weathered face. “Nolee!”

Dylan’s eyes swung to hers and the flare of heat in them made her pulse speed.

Bill engulfed her in a musk-scented bear hug that squeezed the breath out of her and lifted her off her feet. When he set her back down, she put a hand to her hair and felt Dylan’s gaze. Her heart hammered in her chest.

“Heard about yesterday. Hell of a thing.” Suddenly Bill jerked as if stung, and yanked a cell phone from his back pocket. He muttered under his breath then shoved it away. “Shoot. That’s the wife again. Gotta go. Stop by Easy Rider when you can. Sure I can find some work for you.”

Without waiting for an answer, he waved and disappeared through the crowd.

She spun a chair around backward, straddled it and beamed a full-blown cheeky grin meant to blast away the concern darkening Dylan’s eyes. Pity. Growing up poor, powerless and dependent on others’ charity, she’d had more than her share of it. She wouldn’t let anyone feel sorry for her. Wouldn’t let herself.

Besides, there was no denying it felt damn good to see Dylan. Seeing him in the hospital, feeling the old connection had melted away some of her reservations... And since he’d be leaving town soon, it was safe to bask in his sexy hot glow. She hoped. “You’re off the hook.”

The beginnings of a wry smile teased up one side of his gorgeous mouth. His shirt molded to his sculpted chest when he twisted around to search for a wallet. Her mouth watered. “How’s that?” he asked without turning.

“Got another boat.” She lifted the mostly empty tumbler in front of him. Sniffed. “So I’ve got the next round.”

“You what?” He straightened and his eyebrows rose. In the dim light of the pub, shadows gave his symmetrical face dangerous angles that caught her eye. Turned the blood in her veins warm.

“Two Jim Beams, Sheryl,” she called to an approaching waitress, forcing herself to look away. Act unaffected. She cracked open a peanut, tossed it in the air and caught it neatly in her mouth.

She needed to stop her runaway thoughts of Dylan. The devastating effect of his arousing kiss yesterday hadn’t lessened. Not a bit. In fact, it’d seemed to intensify as she’d lain awake in her small apartment over her cousin’s garage, staring at a neighbor’s blinking Christmas lights, imagining him in bed beside her, distracting her troubling thoughts in the most erotic way possible.

And now that he sat only feet away from her, the effect was devastating. She couldn’t stop staring at his hands. Recalling the strong feel of them on her yesterday in the clinic. His lips on hers. Electric. She’d thought the sensual side of her had died when he left Kodiak. But apparently he was the only man she’d met who could light that particular spark for her. Turned out, she’d missed it.

Warm, she stood and pulled off her fleece. When her head emerged, she caught Dylan staring at her, his eyes intent. His body still. Her jeans had ridden a little down her hip, revealing a small red-white-and-blue anchor tattoo.

“When’d you get that?” he asked, his voice hoarse. Without taking his eyes off it, he raised his glass and bolted back the rest of his drink.

“You like it?” She arched an eyebrow at him and sat again, enjoying the normally übercontrolled man’s discomfort. Besides, it distracted him from any proceed-with-caution speech he looked like he’d been about to make. Tonight, riding high on her newly resuscitated career, she didn’t want doom and gloom to rain on her parade. “I’ve got a couple more you might appreciate.”

“I—I—” He swallowed hard, reminding her of that serious, earnest boy she’d met on Bill’s boat who’d rarely spoken a word to anyone, who’d never smiled or joked around, but worked like a man possessed.

It’d become her mission to break his concentration back then, to make him laugh, get him riled, just feel something. Her daredevil antics had finally worn him down until he’d loosened up, then opened up, prompting her to lower her guard, too.

The old wound on her heart throbbed, a phantom pain, like a missing limb. It’s not there, she reminded herself. Those feelings. Gone now. Poof.

“What’s going on, Nolee?”

“Dunham Seafoods is giving me another boat.” She tapped her fingers on the tabletop along to the beat of the band’s Lynyrd Skynyrd cover and raised her chin a notch.

He frowned. “They just happen to have one they hadn’t bothered putting out this year?”

She shrugged, looking as unconcerned as possible. “It needs a few repairs.”

“How many?” he asked heavily.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, unable to hold out when he looked at her so directly.

He rubbed the back of his neck and gave her that squinty look she’d always found so sexy. “You have no idea how much work the boat needs to be seaworthy?”

She took a deep breath. “I’ll know tomorrow when I inspect it.”

“So you just accepted, sight unseen?”

“Yes.” She stabbed the cherry in the bottom of Bill’s glass with a toothpick.

“Why would you do that, Nolee?”

Sheryl returned with their drinks. At the shake of Dylan’s head, she trotted off with a quick wave, leaving Nolee’s money on the table.

“Because I’m a captain minus a boat,” Nolee insisted. “In case you forgot.”

“How could I?” His eyes searched hers and she dropped her gaze, uncomfortable with all that worry. “Look, you could work for my uncle. Take a breather. Figure things out. You’re a first-time captain. You shouldn’t be taking a boat out unless it’s been proven.”

“I’ll get it up to code.” She raised her glass, refusing to let his worries get into her head when she had enough of her own. “Cheers.”

“By when?” he asked, ignoring her toast. Placing his elbows on the table he leaned closer and his distinctive, clean male scent, a blend of soap and sea, sand and sun, rose around them. She breathed deep. After he’d left Kodiak, she’d fallen asleep clutching one of his old hoodies, her nose buried in the worn fabric, until eventually his smell had disappeared.

Not so her attraction, it seemed.

“The regular season starts in twelve days.” He swirled his whiskey.

“I know,” she said, firm, not letting his doubts burst her bubble. Or the tantalizing nearness of him sway her. “But I’ve got to fill my quota.”

“What is it?” he asked, sounding wary. A throaty howl rose from the game-watching crowd at the bar, accompanied by a hail of insults for the Seahawks’ opponents.

“Four hundred K.”

Dylan leaned back in his chair, fiddling with the top of a leftover beer bottle. He shook his head. “That was taking into account the preseason. Your time’s cut by a third.”

“I’ll make it.”

“Be reasonable, Nolee. Who are you going to hire this late in the season?”

“My crew.” Though, oddly, four of her six men hadn’t returned her calls today when she’d checked in to see how they were doing.

“Bill told me he’d heard some of them got hired already. You know experienced hands are hard to come by.”

She blinked at him, thoughts scrambling. “Oh.” To cover her confusion, she gulped her drink and fought off a cough when the back of her throat caught fire.

“Right.” He raised his voice when a pack of boisterous locals swarmed close to play darts. “You don’t have enough help.”

“I’ll hire some.”

One of the players landed a bull’s-eye and a deafening roar erupted.

“This late in the season?” Dylan asked once the noise died down. “The only guys you’ll get won’t have much experience, or references. Going out to sea, this time of year, with a green crew, is suicide.”

“Cod season’s over.” She drained her glass, needing the boost. “Some of those guys might be looking for work.” Dylan had a point, not that she’d heed it. Catching fish instead of crab wasn’t the same thing at all. Not even close.

“Why are you doing this? Taking these chances?”

She shrugged. “It’s not chance when you know what you’re doing.” All the confidence she’d gained from her accomplishments filled every syllable, full and weighty. She wasn’t the same woman he’d left nine years ago, not that he seemed to recognize that.

“You shouldn’t have been out in that storm yesterday.”

“Weather reports didn’t predict it’d jog that far west.”

“You gambled.”

“To get ahead, you have to.” Seeing him revert back to the by-the-books, all-work-no-play guy bugged her. “You know, you and I aren’t that different,” she added, when he didn’t speak. There was a brief silence. She looked at him, but was discomfited by the intensity of his gaze.

“What do you mean?” Their fingers brushed each other as they searched for unshelled peanuts in the bowl, the contact making her skin tingle in awareness.

“We both like living on the edge—we just went after that in different ways.”

He stared at her for such a long moment, she wondered if he’d heard her. The crowd around the dart game swelled and a few pressed close to their table, jostling Dylan’s elbow, making his drink slosh onto the surface.

He threw a couple of twenties on the table, stood and extended a hand.

“Let’s go,” he said. It was more a command then an invitation. Maybe his sense of humor had slipped lately, but not that air of authority, that strength that’d always drawn her. Challenged her. Turned her on.

She jammed on her knit cap, slipped a hand in his and let him lead her through the crowd, the group parting, making way for his broad-shouldered march. “Where?”

He paused at the door outside, lifted their hands and rubbed hers lightly against his chest, sending sizzles of excitement shooting through her. His voice deepened.

“Somewhere I can actually talk some sense into you.”

* * *

OUTSIDE, THE CHILL shimmered off the frozen ground but did nothing to tamp down the heat Nolee’s nearness stoked inside Dylan. Dressed in a blue fleece and faded jeans that outlined her delectable curves, and work boots that underscored her tough-girl persona, she drew his eye. Kept him looking as they tramped across the icy parking lot.

A ragged plume of air escaped him. Being this close to her, alone, was playing with fire. He was having a hard time keeping his hands to himself. Yet he needed to make her see reason.

And satisfy the drumming hunger to have her to himself for a few moments, one last time, before he shipped out of Kodiak.

“My truck’s over here.”

Nolee spotted a red pickup that must be his, and she looked at him directly. The wind lifted and tossed long dark strands of her hair across her lips, luring his attention to their fullness, making him remember the soft feel of them against his yesterday. Driving him to want another taste.

“Okay.”

A moment later they were seated on the plush seats, the ignition purring to life. Heat blasted from the vents and an old-school thrash band tune thumped in the dark, intimate space.

“I remember this song,” Nolee mused, shooting him a sidelong glance.

When she rubbed her gloveless fingers together, he raised his hands to hers, touching them, and then, more firmly, enclosing them within his own. He brought them to his mouth and blew on them, unable to resist the impulses pounding through him.

Her liquid eyes rose to his and the challenge in them made his stomach muscles tighten, his whole body respond.

It took every ounce of strength to tamp down his desires and focus on what he’d brought her out here to say. What he needed her to hear.

“There’s a difference between calculated risks and recklessness,” he began. His voice emerged husky, low. She was so close he could feel her breath. Her body was rigid, listening, her fingers now laced in his. Her cool skin was blistering.

“We both like putting everything on the line. Admit it.” Her mischievous smile kicked up his heart rate by several blood-pounding notches. She smelled like an ocean sunrise and he breathed deep.

“Not true.” He lowered their joined hands to her lap. She was wrong. He wasn’t the wild risk-taker his parents saw him as—she really was that way, not him.

“Come on,” she scoffed in that tone that’d always called him on his bullshit. “Remember the time we jumped from Jagged Rock Falls? You took my dare.”

He nodded mutely, recalling that twenty-foot leap into churning waters, her body pressed to his afterward, behind the roaring falls. The material of his jeans tightened around his swelling groin. “I could never say no to you.”

He brushed a thumb along her knuckles and a visible shiver passed over her skin.

“You should have,” she whispered against his cheek, straight into his ear. His whole body hummed with unleashed hunger for her, not heeding the warning reminder in her words when he damn well should have. He forced himself to let go of her hand.

The music shuffled to another one-hit wonder hair band tune and she tensed beside him. “Is this the...”

He gritted his teeth to keep the telling admission from escaping. Then she snapped her fingers beneath his nose and shot him a knowing look. “It’s the playlist I made for you for your nineteenth birthday. Why are you still listening to this?”

“Some things have a way of sticking with you.”

The teasing look in her eyes faded and she blinked a little too swiftly before she dropped her gaze.

They sat in silence for a moment and he stared out the windshield at the point where the black sea met the sky.

“You didn’t object when I dared you to jump in our ice fishing hole, either,” she said after a moment.

“We nearly froze to death.”

“We warmed each other up,” she countered.

The buzz of blood in his veins at that wicked memory seemed to throb along to the thumping beat. “We made good use of that fishing shack.”

He caught the quirk of her lips in the gloom. “Though we didn’t catch a single fish. Not that we cared.”

No. He’d only cared about Nolee back then. Had insisted, over her objections, that he would give up everything, his dreams of joining the Coast Guard, of leaving Kodiak, because she’d been what mattered most.

And she hadn’t felt the same way.

The windshield began to fog and he flipped the heater to defrost. A couple of snowmobiles whined in the distance and a memory resurfaced. “We stole that ski-doo.” He felt himself smile at that crazy day that’d nearly landed them in the ER and jail.

“Borrowed,” she clarified, shifting, her knee bumping his. He was aware of the press of her against his side, hip to hip, leg to leg, arm to arm.

“We didn’t have permission.”

She sighed. “The real crime was Mr. Strout never riding the damn thing. Plus, I didn’t hear you complaining when you did donuts with it. You had us going fifty miles an hour.”

“That was kid stuff. This is real life.”

“Exactly, Dylan. It’s my life. I call the shots in it. Only me.”

“You came way too close to losing it yesterday,” he growled.

She reached a hand to his cheek. Laid her palm flat against it. His breath lodged in his chest and his mind went blank. “But I didn’t.”

No. He was acutely aware of just how alive she was here beside him, short-circuiting his brain. His defenses against her were running low. God knew, he was trying his damnedest to do the right thing and save her from her worst instincts before he left Kodiak.

“What if you hadn’t been rescued in time?”

“Then I would have died doing what I love. Isn’t your motto So Others May Live?”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?” She angled her head and her dark eyes met his in the dimness.

“I risk my life to save other people’s lives. You’re risking yours for profit.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Then what?” He stroked a hand through her mane of straight, glossy black hair, the strands running through his fingers like a silken waterfall, her eyes closing in pleasure.

“I want to be independent. Free,” she murmured.

He watched her breath quicken and he felt the barrier he’d erected between them start to crumble.

“We’ve both always wanted that,” she added.

Something inside him shifted. Loosened. “Nolee. I don’t want anything happening to you.”

She raised her face, lips parted, as if in a question, and put her hand to the scar above his brow, tracing it with her fingertips. “The worst thing that could happen to me is nothing.”

He groaned at the brush of her mouth against his jaw. In an instant he had her in his arms, his heart pounding against hers. It was only a few seconds, but it was as much as a man on the edge could take. He stripped the hat from her head and tossed it on the dashboard, while his lips descended to hers.

And he kissed her with all the longing that had been plaguing him since he’d laid eyes on her again.

4

DYLAN KISSED NOLEE with a hunger as fierce and edgy as her own. She’d waited so long for this—this man. This night. She’d dreamed of it. Fantasized. Practically wished upon a freaking star...a star that would lead him back north to her. But how long would he stay?

She shoved aside the troubling thought, wanting to focus only on him, on this moment. His touch woke her dormant body, tingling and aware with a stinging, rushing need. For the first time in ages, she was warm. More than warm. Heat burned through her, chasing away the cold.

He slid from behind the wheel toward her and she threw her knee across his lap and straddled him, the move automatic, her body remembering him instinctively. She felt his familiar, well-muscled legs against her thighs and the long hard length of his erection. Her mind grew foggy from passion and desire, chasing away coherent thought. Right now, all she knew was that she wanted to be close to him, held by him.

Dylan threaded his hands through her hair and met her eyes for one blistering-hot second, his gaze raking over her intently. Her heart pounded at his sexy perusal. It seemed as if his guard had been stripped away and the emotion remaining was something frightening and thrilling at the same time.

“So damn sexy,” he breathed, his voice hoarse. Fervent.

Then his mouth landed on hers again and she forgot to think. His kiss teased her with a hungry quality that robbed her of reason so that she could do nothing but cling to Dylan’s broad shoulders. Covering her lips with his, he tasted her with the confidence of a man who knew her. Knew what turned her on, what drove her crazy. What left her overwhelmed and powerless with lust.

She savored the familiar way their mouths merged and melded, the heat intensifying with each stroke of his tongue as he teased his way inside. Tipping her head back, he exerted more pressure over the kiss, the effect drugging her. Then he cupped her cheeks, angling her face to kiss harder, deeper.

A light-headed sensation spun the world around Nolee and she wrapped her arms around his neck, holding on tight. Her fingers combed through the short curls at the base of his scalp. Soft, she thought hazily. Thick.

Her breath stuck in her throat and she sat utterly still when Dylan released her hair to run his hands down her sides. In one swift move, he freed her jeans’ front closure. Then he cupped her bottom, fitting her to his groin. Sweet, hot, delicious friction. She nearly groaned aloud, desire building, air now hissing between her teeth. He edged her low-riding denim down her hips slightly, the warm air teasing her skin, making her ultra-aware of the tiny patch of flesh he’d just bared.

The purring vent was no match for the fogged windows that insulated them, making this intense moment private. Intimate. The hard, thumping rock song that poured from the sound system pounded along with her erratic pulse.

Her fingers grasped ineffectually at his jacket zipper, her hands incapable of making progress when his kisses consumed her. His hands stroked a hot path up her rib cage to palm her breasts through her coat, then spanned her ribs with his fingers. She arched against him and whimpered, a keening sound that didn’t begin to express the desperation now clawing inside. When her fleece provided a soft, thick barrier to his touch, he slid it off her body with hands now clumsy, shaking with the same hunger that gripped her. An electric current within sizzled double-time. It ignited a fire low in her belly.

He delved deeper into her mouth as his kisses turned more deliciously aggressive. The wicked intent she sensed behind the wet mating of mouths thrilled her on a primal level, stripping away the need for anything other than raw, scorching sex that would leave them both gasping for breath.

She tugged down his jacket zipper at last, needing to feel his body against hers, his hot, naked muscles against her hypersensitive skin. With fumbling touches, nerves buzzing, she eased it open and he shrugged out of it, his magnificent chest rising and falling against the thin thermal fabric of his shirt, their ragged breaths mingling. Fast. Urgent.

She wanted every erotic act she knew he had to offer, and she wanted it now. She wiggled her hips against him to be sure he knew how much. His primal growl rolled right through her, strengthening her determination to simply enjoy the searing chemistry between them for as long as it lasted.

Hoots and hollers erupted in the distance as customers exited the pub. An engine fired to life and then headlights whisked across the space before disappearing, tires spinning through icy snow.

Alone again, she melted into his arms, collapsing against him, her hips grinding with more urgency. The warmth between her legs made her damp with want. He swept her hair to one side and his lips traced the side of her neck, then the hollow of her throat. Their breaths came shorter and then shorter still. Beneath his rapidly rising and falling chest, his heart thundered along with hers.

Thick, steamy air settled on her bare midriff as he slid up the hem of her shirt. Never one to bother with a bra unless strictly necessary, Nolee delighted in Dylan’s string of appreciative oaths as he discovered that fact with his hands.

“You’re mine,” he breathed, just as he cupped her breasts fully, taking the weight of her aching flesh in his hands. Her breath seized in her chest at his possessive declaration. Oh how that was true.

Every atom of her being fired to his touch as if he held the key to turning her on, to winding her up this way. With slow deliberation he dragged his thumbs over both taut peaks. She practically convulsed with the sharp contraction of her feminine muscles when he tweaked them between his thumb and forefinger, at the same time nipping her lower lip between his teeth.

His rock-hard thighs beneath her only added to the spiraling heat. The equally solid length of his arousal gave her no quarter in that direction, either. Not that she wanted any. His body provided an erotic cradle for her hips, along with the growing knowledge things were only going to get hotter.

Nolee broke the kiss so she could simply look at the man in front of her. She touched his face, tracing a fingertip over his lips, up one cheekbone and then down. She smoothed the scar above his eyebrow and part of her relaxed. This was Dylan. He wasn’t a stranger but a familiar lover. A man her heart recognized, craved, dreamed of more often than not.

Looking at him now, it was as if she was seeing him for the first time all over again—the stinging rush of attraction, the need to glimpse his smile, the desire to hear his laughter and, even more, to be responsible for it.

Above all, though, was the yearning to touch him. So she did. She traced her fingers over the indents that defined each ab, each contracting, rock-solid plate, and he caught her fingers before they settled on his bulging groin.

Her lashes lifted and she peered up at him, the fog of desire unraveling slightly at the edges. His sculpted features swam into focus. They looked sharp enough to cut someone. A muscle jumped in his clenched jaw.

He ran a shaking hand over his short brown curls. When he spoke, each word emerged heavily. “I hope I’m not stepping on Craig’s toes here.”

She stopped breathing for one suspended minute. “Craig?” Her strangled voice shoved past her heart, which had leaped into the base of her throat and lodged there.

He stared at her gravely with unblinking eyes. “Craig.”

“You—you think I would kiss you like that if I was with another guy?”

His anguished eyes delved into hers. “You know why I might think that.”

His quiet words fired through her. They reminded her of her anger when he’d caught his friend manhandling her and had jumped to conclusions. Dylan always assumed the worst. Given his critical parents’ abandonment, she understood why he would expect life’s letdowns. Back then, she’d been naive, thinking she was the exception from that view. Stupid to think the years might have changed him.

Clearly, he was the same person. And so was she. It was the reminder she needed to steer clear of him. To be glad he’d be transferring from Kodiak soon.

“If you think that about me,” she said through shaking lips, “then you don’t know me at all.”

She threw off the hand he’d placed on her wrist, yanked down her shirt, flung open the truck door and hopped out, her fleece shoved under her arm.

“Nolee!”

She whirled. “What?”

“Tell me you’re not taking out that boat.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Have you heard the weather predictions? They’re expecting record-breaking temperatures. Storms.”

“So?”

“You’d be a fool to go.”

“Yep. That’s me.” She studied his familiar, handsome face then turned and spoke over her shoulder. “Always the fool.”

* * *

THE FOLLOWING EVENING, Nolee stretched her aching muscles. She’d spent the day retrofitting the Pacific Dawn’s crab pots for opilio and now dutifully stood behind a table laden with a variety of modern and traditional Alutiiq dishes, serving their community during the annual winter festival. The air was thick with smoke, fresh seafood and the occasional curse. Her stomach growled and she sighed with relief at the dwindling end of the buffet line.

“Do you want an extra scoop?” she asked as she ladled soup into a stooped man’s outstretched bowl. He shook his head and smiled, his skin exploding into lines that radiated from his eyes and mouth.

“That is enough.”

She nodded and rubbed her low back. She needed rest. A hot soak to relax her screaming muscles. And an aspirin. Her brain hurt worse than her body. Her spirit? Flatlining. The Pacific Dawn needed more repairs than she’d imagined. With only eleven days left until inspection and the opening day of the regular season, she wasn’t sure she and her remaining crew members would have the boat seaworthy in time. To fill the impossible quota she’d promised her skeptical bosses, she couldn’t miss even one day of the regular opilio season.

Making matters worse, she couldn’t stop thinking about Dylan. Last night’s kiss had shaken loose feelings she needed to keep locked down. It’d felt so right, so perfect to be in Dylan’s arms she’d almost forgotten all of the very solid reasons things hadn’t worked nine years ago. She’d made the right choice to let him go then, and she needed to steer clear now and focus on her career and her family.

“Take a break.” Her Aunt Dai squeezed her arm and nodded in Nolee’s mother’s direction. Kathy Arnauyq sat at the end of a long folding table that had been mostly cleared by hustling volunteers. She was small, dark and intensely serious, her gray-streaked hair in a braid she’d pulled forward over her right shoulder. A young couple and their three boisterous children occupied the opposite end. “It’s time you talked.”

Nolee bit back her sigh. Since losing her boat, she hadn’t dared visit her mother, unwilling to subject herself to a solid round of I-told-you-so’s. Tonight, though, she couldn’t put it off any longer.

The chair scraped against the tiled floor when she pulled it out and seated herself opposite her parent. “Hi, Mother.”

Kathy nodded as she toyed with the metal spoon in her empty coffee cup. Her neat, slightly sharpened features revealed none of the discomfort twitching through Nolee.

“Did you get enough to eat? Because I could—” She cut herself off at the shake of her mother’s head. “Okay. What would you like?”

“I’d like you to leave the Bering Sea and come back to Kodiak. Stop this foolishness,” Kathy said in the feather-soft voice that made others lean close and pay attention.

Old frustration flared inside. “Captaining a boat is not foolish.”

“A commercial boat.” Kathy’s hands were cool as she pushed a lock of hair away from Nolee’s eyes in a tender gesture that nearly brought her to tears. “They’re greedy. Taking more of the world than is needed. That’s not our way.”

Nolee sighed. “No. It’s not.” She’d grown up being taught the value of subsistence living, a part of her tribal culture that went back thousands of years. What others might consider poverty, they believed to be a revered, responsible way of living. For Nolee, however, it’d been a relentless childhood of scraping by on whatever family members could toss their way. Their poverty had made them powerless, her mother’s precarious health preventing her from holding down a lasting job. “But I need to pay the bills. And where is your oxygen tank?”

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