armour of self-assurance, Anet ran the rejected towel over her own fine hair, pushing the soot-coloured salty strands back off her face.
‘All part of the service,’ she said lightly.
After an uneasy glance Scott interposed, ‘If you want to change there’s a cabin below that’s—’
Switching a thousand-watt smile onto him, Georgia said blithely, ‘Oh, I don’t think so, thanks.’ And with an arch look at Anet she finished, ‘I’ll dry myself down and put some more sunscreen on, though.’
Forbearing to point out that the stuff she’d applied was waterproof, Anet said with serene good humour, ‘An excellent idea.’
‘Oh, yes, you mustn’t get sunburned.’ Tenderly, Scott escorted the other woman into the shade cast by the canopy.
Anet stood back, but Lucas waited for her to go ahead of him, his cold, beautiful eyes narrowed and intent. The salt water stains made on his cotton shirt and trousers by Georgia’s body were already drying quickly in the sun.
As Anet made her way towards the bow she thought she felt that steady, strangely inimical gaze right through to her bones, and chided herself for her stupidity.
Scott caught up with her almost immediately, accompanied by the newcomer.
‘Annie, this is Lucas Tremaine,’ Scott said enthusiastically. ‘Lucas, this is my cousin, Annie Carruthers, who’s helping me out for a while. Lucas sailed his yacht down from Hawaii last year, Annie, then left it at the marina here when he had to go to New Zealand.’
‘How do you do?’ As she held out her hand Anet produced the right sort of smile—pleasantly impersonal. And was appalled at her swift, rapidly suppressed thought. Why am I not five foot three and curvy and redheaded, instead of six feet tall with more muscles than your average prizefighter? Why can’t I show off in a bikini that makes me look like a seductive bird of paradise?
Shamefully ridiculous questions! Long before she’d left high school she’d come to terms with her Amazonian build.
Lucas Tremaine’s hand was bigger than her long-fingered one, and certainly much stronger. Over the years Anet had been faced with quite a few men compelled by ego and insecurity to prove their power to a woman almost their size, but although this man’s grip was firm he made no attempt to wring her fingers off.
‘I thought your name was Anet,’ he said, his eyes lingering on her wet T-shirt.
She wondered whether she had seaweed in some strategic place and looked down, but it was still pristine white, with the logo of Scott’s company gleaming across her breasts. And beneath it her decent blue swimsuit prevented any sort of exposure. Withdrawing her hand, she shrugged. ‘My family call me Annie.’
‘A very mundane name for an unusual woman. I watched you win your gold medal at the Olympic Games,’ he said, those brilliant eyes strangely oblique. ‘I thought you looked like Atalanta.’
She had long ago forced herself grimly past that memory. ‘Atalanta was a sprinter,’ she said with a light lack of emphasis.
His mouth tilted into a smile. ‘Of course. Like an Amazon, then—or better still Hera in majesty.’
Surely he was taunting her? However, her startled glance discerned nothing in his expression but an aloof self-possession. She smiled. ‘I rather like that image,’ she said, ‘although the mind boggles at the thought of the queen of the gods in a tracksuit.’
‘I imagine she’d have found one very useful,’ he said gravely. ‘Why did you drop out of sight so quickly?’
Although there was no blatant curiosity in the deep, intriguing voice, Anet chose her words carefully. ‘All I ever wanted to do was win an Olympic gold. Once I’d accomplished that I had other things to do.’
‘Annie’s just finished training as a physiotherapist,’ Scott said proudly. ‘She’s damned good. She got my shoulder going really well.’ He flexed it experimentally. ‘Yep, just like new. What are you doing here, Lucas? Are you planning to sail off into the unknown again? Not in the hurricane season, surely?’
Before Lucas could answer either of his questions a flash of movement from one of the paying clients recalled Scott to his surroundings. ‘Hell—we’ll talk later, OK? I’d better get this show on the road before someone reminds me we’re supposed to be diving.’
He disappeared to the wheelhouse. Feeling obscurely tentative, Anet nodded at Lucas Tremaine and said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, I have to let go forward...’
‘I’ll do the aft line,’ he said.
At her doubtful look his wide, hard mouth lifted in a fascinating crooked smile. ‘I’ve spent most of the last five years at sea,’ he said gently, and went through the crowd of tourists like—like a hot knife through butter, she thought, half amused, half bewildered.
Whatever charisma was, he possessed it—and the kind of self-assurance that came close to arrogance. It didn’t seem fair that as well as size and looks and presence he had, if the clothes and watch he wore indicated anything, a substantial bank balance. A darling of the gods, she thought ironically.
Hera in majesty! Really!
Scott’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘Ready?’
Embarrassed, she hastened up to the bow, thankful that there was no one around to see the rush of colour to her skin.
Today, besides the well-being that came from fitness and health, something else ran through every cell in Anet’s body—a kind of primitive excitement she ascribed to the sheer delight of being alive in the sultry golden heat of a tropical morning, with the scent of coconut and frangipani and salt in her nostrils and the sunlight glittering and dancing over a sea as brightly coloured and much more transparent than Lucas Tremaine’s eyes.
And where, she wondered, grabbing the heavy loop of rope from the islander who slung it down into her hands, had she heard that name before? If he’d been an athlete she’d have remembered him. He wasn’t the sort of man you forgot. Not if you were a woman anyway.
She squinted down at the stern. Yes, he knew exactly what to do. The group of divers stayed respectfully away from him while he dropped the rope loop into its place and straightened to fend the boat off from the piles. Beneath the cotton shirt, muscles moved across his back and down his arms. Something tightened inside her; hastily she transferred her gaze across to the white line of the reef.
The engine increased its noise as they swung away from the wharf. Lucas stepped back into the cockpit and smiled down at one of the women. Anet reminded herself that she had to entertain this group until they reached the coral gardens where they’d anchor to dive.
Back in the cockpit, she picked up the microphone and began to expound on the sights as Scott headed the craft towards the gap in the reef formed by the flow of fresh water from the river.
Ahead was a busy day. They’d dive, then call in at one of the small motu—the Polynesian word for island—on the reef, where they’d eat a barbecue beneath the coconut palms. After that this group would be brought back to the town to be replaced by a load of snorkellers who didn’t want to venture beyond the silken aquamarine waters of the lagoon.
She was glad she’d been able to answer Scott’s call for help three weeks ago. Although she found some tourists rude, and others foolish, most were very pleasant. And she loved Fala’isi. The island, its green mountain spine and lush vegetation forming a beautiful backdrop to the sea and the blindingly white beaches, epitomised the South Sea paradise embedded so deeply into the fantasy life of those who lived in colder climates. Scott was her favourite cousin, and the social life was fun too—a vigorous mixture of expatriates, locals and tourists.
All in all, she thought, looking across the glinting waters of the lagoon, life probably couldn’t be more perfect.
The cool, challenging speculation in a man’s sea-blue gaze meant nothing.
Although