Blue Forever (Men in Uniform) (14 page)

“Nice. When’s the happy day?”

Darcy made a face. “I can’t decide. Bobby Lee’s about ready to get out the shotgun and drag me to Vegas.”

DeAnne smiled . . . and tamped down a twinge of jealousy. “That would be romantic.”

Darcy wrinkled her nose. “Gawd. Quinn, romantic? That’ll be a cold day.” But she didn’t seem displeased by that. In fact, she kind of glowed. “I just wish . . .” She shook her head.

“What?”

“I don’t know. The idea of marriage . . .” Darcy’s body gave a little shudder. “It’s just so . . . I don’t know . . . permanent.”

DeAnne chuckled. “Well. Not really. There is such a thing as divorce.” She realized what she’d said and slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, jeez. Sorry! I didn’t mean—”

Darcy gave a strained laugh and waved a hand. “Believe me, I know. But . . .” She made a wry face. “I’m still terrified.”

Their eyes met in perfect understanding. “Yeah. I get that,” DeAnne said quietly.

Just then, Quinn appeared in front of them, taking up every square inch of open space. “What are you two talking about that’s so funny?” he asked with a smile, and plopped himself down on the narrow banquette next to Darcy, scooping her onto his lap as he did so.

“Hey!” She swatted at him and wriggled in protest at his casual manhandling, but her eyes were sparkling with love and laughter as he kissed her on the temple.

“Well?”

“If you must know, we were discussing our wedding date.”

“Yeah?” His expression softened, and for a moment he looked like a hopeful little boy at Christmas. “You finally decided?”

Her gaze slid to the diamond on her finger as she fussed with his T-shirt pocket. “Um. Not exactly. Soon, though. I promise.”

He blew out a long breath. “Good thing I’m a patient man.”

She kissed his cheek. “One of the many reasons I love you so much.”

DeAnne watched their interaction with a bone-deep envy. She didn’t know what the deal was with the wedding date, but it was obvious they were both completely in love with each other.

What would it feel like to have someone love you that much, and that openly? She couldn’t even imagine. She’d only ever seen love like that in books and movies. Apparently it existed in real life, too, for a lucky few.

She slid her gaze to Kip, and was surprised to see him watching the affectionate couple, too. Before she could look away, his unreadable gaze met hers. She smiled, and his eyes narrowed, then closed.

Shut off again
.

She wanted to cry.

The sound of a phone buzzed through the room. Bobby Lee jumped up after setting Darcy aside, and strode to where he’d left his jacket. “That’s the sat phone.”

Which apparently meant something to everyone else, because they all sat up and listened as he answered the call. Even Kip opened his eyes and rearranged himself on the banquette.

“Quinn.” The big blond man listened for a long moment. “Roger that. We’ll be ready.” He clicked off and sent a grin around the room. “There have been developments, people. Be ready to roll in ten.”

DeAnne watched several of the others get to their feet, gather their gear, and disappear up the companionway to the deck. She glanced out through a nearby porthole and saw they were still surrounded by water. She wasn’t sure what she should do, and didn’t relish fighting the motion of the boat pitching to and fro as it sped over the waves, so she stayed where she was.

Clint ambled over to her on legs that didn’t even notice the rocking.

“What’s going on?” she asked him.

“Not really sure.”

“What kind of developments could Quinn be talking about? The Chinese Coast Guard or something?” She’d started getting nervous again. Had they made it into international waters yet?

“He didn’t look too worried, so I doubt it. My guess is our transpo’s here.”

It turned out he was right.

When they went up on deck with the others a few minutes later, Clint didn’t seem the least bit surprised by the sight that greeted them.

But she was. Shock slammed into her full on.

“What the heck?” she murmured under her breath.

Master Chief Edwards chortled. “
Oh
, yeah.”

The others actually cheered.

DeAnne just stared.
This
was their transportation? Somebody
had
to be kidding.

Breaking the surface of the ocean with an explosion of black antennas and spumes of white spray was a huge, gray submarine.

22

“We need to make this quick,” Bobby Lee Quinn said to DeAnne, Kip, and the others as the fishing trawler’s crew lowered a dingy over the back end of the boat. “It’ll be a squeeze with us and the equipment, but I don’t want to make two trips.”

DeAnne looked in horror from him to the submarine as it dawned on her what was happening. They weren’t going back to USS
Impeccable
. That
submarine
was their new transportation.

Okay. This was
way
outside her comfort zone. They were literally out in the middle of the ocean with swells as big as skyscrapers, and that lunatic wanted her to get into a teensy little dingy and cross the open water to the waiting submarine.

Oh, yeah, and then she had to climb up a flimsy rope ladder one of the submariners was now tossing over the side, figure out how to walk across the slick metal deck without getting swept overboard by a rogue wave, make her way to the porthole-sized hatch, where she’d then have to climb down into the bowels of the submarine—in a sarong—and then—

God, she had no idea what came after that.

She didn’t really
want
to know. And she definitely didn’t want to do any of this.

But DeAnne’s new motto was
never let ’em see you sweat
, so she lifted her chin, swallowed her fear, and joined the others so she could be handed down into the dingy.

Ho. Boy.

“You look a little green around the gills,” Clint said with a sympathetic smile at her unease. He was standing next to her waiting his turn. Kip was in front of her, wearing his backpack.

“Big ocean, little boat,” she said nervously. “Not my thing.”

“Not to worry,” Clint said. “If you fall in, I’ll jump in and save you. I’m a former SEAL, you know.”

“I remember,” she said. “I also seem to recall you enjoy playing with sharks. Something I’d just as soon avoid.”

One time—after several glasses of wine—his wife, Sam, had told her a story about when she and Clint were under siege on her hijacked ship. At one point he’d had to take a freezing swim in the Bering Sea to escape the bad guys, and Sam had feared the worst when he came back covered in blood. Turned out it had been shark’s blood, not his, and Clint had been grinning like a fool. Afterward, the sex had been amazing, Sam had confessed sheepishly.

Clint shot DeAnne a suspicious glance. “You know about the shark?”

“Oh, yeah. I know
all
about the shark,” DeAnne said, feeling a tinge of heat in her cheeks as she recalled Sam’s blissful expression. She turned away in embarrassment, and her gaze collided with Kip’s stony visage. Quite a contrast. He did not appear the least bit amused or embarrassed.

Wordlessly, Kip grabbed hold of the rail at the back end of the trawler, bent his knees, and leaped over the edge, making a light, perfect landing on the bench of the dingy below. It barely rocked.

He turned and indicated she should hand him her shoulder bag. After setting it down, he stretched his arms up toward her. “Jump. I’ll catch you.” No encouraging smile. Or hint of concern.

She hesitated, and for the briefest of nanoseconds thought he was so darn granite-faced he’d probably catch her only so he could toss her overboard.

Silly.

Clint was about to offer her a hand instead, but at some silent, primitive male communication with Kip, he backed off, palms out.

Great.

They were choosing
now
to have a pissing match?

For Pete’s sake, Clint was happily married.
Blissfully
married.

Instead of rolling her eyes, she squeezed them shut, took a deep breath along with Kip’s hand, and let herself be tugged down into his arms.

He caught her easily.

The shock of warmth and the dark male scent of his body surrounding hers made her want to moan in pleasure. And stay there tucked against him forever. But he eased her feet down to the bottom of the dingy and held her steady as he helped her to a seat toward the back, then let her go.

He squeezed into the seat next to her, forcing Clint to find a place in the front of the dingy.

Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked Kip as the last of the team climbed on board.

“Nope,” he said, passing her shoulder bag over to her.

“Then why are you ignoring me?”

For the first time he looked her square in the eyes. “I thought that’s how you wanted it.”

“No,” she said. “That’s not how I—”

But she didn’t get a chance to say any more, because Bobby Lee Quinn started calling out instructions to his team for after they were on board the submarine. It was all Greek to her. Something about birthing compartments and equipment and boomers and diving.

After a few thankfully short minutes of braving the huge waves, they bumped against the hull of the sub and made fast. Alex Zane scurried up the flimsy ladder first, followed by Darcy and the master chief, each carrying a large duffel bag. When it was DeAnne’s turn, she gathered her courage and stood, and found herself once again enveloped by strong arms helping her to the ladder.

A hot wind whipped through her hair and her dress as she secured her shoulder bag. Foolishly, she hadn’t changed out of the pretty sarong outfit they’d bought at the market. Had it really been just four short hours ago?

“I’ve got your back,” Kip said. “Grab the ladder and go.”

Easy for him to say.

Ascending was harder than it looked, mainly because the fluttering fabric of her skirt kept getting tangled in her legs, and the submarine’s deck was a lot higher up than it had appeared. Somehow she made it up the never-ending rungs. True to his word, Kip remained right behind her the whole way. There was no chance she could fall off. He’d catch her before she plummeted two inches.

When they reached the top, he put a sheltering arm around her waist and jogged her over to the main hatch, where he guided her to the solid metal ladder descending into the belly of the submarine.

Halfway down, she realized he hadn’t followed after her.

Darcy was at the bottom, waiting alongside a handful of submariners dressed in blue, gray, and black camo uniforms. “Welcome on board, ma’am,” she was greeted by the men, along with friendly handshakes. They eyed her long skirt, but didn’t comment.

They were Americans, but she’d noticed there’d been no identifying markings on the sub. She got the distinct feeling she was now on a U.S. Navy vessel that didn’t officially exist.

She was dying to ask what the heck she was doing on a ghost sub in the middle of the South China Sea. But so far nobody’d given her a straight answer to any of her questions—except Bobby Lee Quinn, and she figured if he wanted to tell her anything, it would only be when he was good and ready.

Darcy hefted a small duffel in one hand, and slipped the other through DeAnne’s arm, pulling her toward a round-topped metal doorway in the solid wall of instrument panels and maze of hanging pipes that crowded nearly every square inch of the claustrophobic space.

“They bunked us together,” Darcy said. “Come on.”

The other woman seemed to know her way around. “You’ve been on a submarine before?” DeAnne asked, climbing through the opening after her. The watertight door’s sill was shin high and the top rim came down to her nose. A round metal handle like a steering wheel stuck out from the middle of the heavy, solid door.

“A few times. We’ve launched some of our ops from subs in the past. It’s been a while, but the smaller ones are all pretty similar.”

Smaller ones? This one had seemed huge to DeAnne. From the outside, anyway.

As they walked, Darcy gave a guided tour of her surroundings. “There are three decks on these old tubs,” she explained. “The control rooms are on the main deck. On the lower deck are the living quarters. The shallow deck below that contains batteries and other yucky things that power the boat. You don’t want to go down there.”

DeAnne wondered about that. The small size and the presence of batteries meant they were on a diesel electric submarine, not a nuclear powered one. She didn’t know a whole lot about the Pacific Fleet, but she did know that the U.S. had stopped using diesel electrics in favor of nukes a couple of decades ago. And yet, here she was on one.

Strange.

They went through two more watertight doors, passing several instrument-filled side compartments with a half-dozen submariners busy at various tasks, along with a kitchen and open dining room next to it.

“Up top,” Darcy continued, “the big tower thing that sticks up from the deck is called the conning tower, or the sail. Don’t ask me why.”

They came to a cylindrical opening in the floor containing another steep ladder.

“Down we go,” Darcy said. “Heads up below!” She tossed her duffel, grabbed the handrails, and slid down the metal ladder. “Try it!”

“You’re crazy!” DeAnne took her time and managed to make it down in one piece without tearing her dress or banging her knees too badly.

They continued along the lower deck, and when they got to a very narrow section of passage punctuated by three normal doors, Darcy said, “Here we are. Home sweet home.” She opened the first door wide. “You got lucky. This is officer country, so the cabin’s a bit bigger.”

DeAnne peeked in.
“
Bigger?
”
Good grief. She’d seen bungalow closets that were bigger.

She stepped inside. The room was microscopic, but they’d somehow crammed in a narrow bunk, two tall lockers on one narrow wall, a minuscule fold-down desk and a pull-down aluminum sink on the other. A conglomeration of communication devices was attached to the scant inches of bare wall space by the door.

She studied the layout for a moment, then suddenly realized—“There’s only one bunk.”

Darcy had remained standing just outside the door. She tipped her head to the space above it. “The other one pulls down.”

“Ah. Like on a train. That should be cozy.” Cozy like sardines.

Darcy’s thumb fiddled with the handle of her duffel bag, which she still held in front of her. She looked uncomfortable, and cleared her throat. “Yeah. Um. About that.”

DeAnne’s stomach pinged at her tone. “What is it?”

“The thing is, space on a sub is at a premium. You and I are supposed to share, and Quinn and Major Llowell are supposed to share. So, um, I thought we could trade, and I’ll bunk with Quinn.”

Which meant—

Oh, no
.

“I figured that would be okay with you. And judging by the dagger looks he’s been giving Walker whenever he gets near you, the major will no doubt be fine with the arrangement, too.”

“You c-can’t be serious,” DeAnne stammered.

“I know you’ve been roughing it away from civilization, so I packed you a bag with extra clothes and necessities.” She handed over the duffel bag she’d been carrying.

DeAnne took it, her mind still stalled back at the first part, about sharing with Kip. “Darcy, seriously, I can’t—”

Darcy pointed down the corridor. “The facilities are two doors down. Make yourself comfortable. Grab a shower. Get some rest. The team’s going to do some strategizing before dinner. I’ll come get you when it’s time to eat.”

“Darcy!”

But it was too late. The rat was already halfway down the corridor.

DeAnne swore silently, tilting her face to the ceiling with a loud groan. She’d have to talk to Bobby Lee Quinn and find some other place to sleep. Darcy was wrong. Kip was not going to like this arrangement. They were barely on speaking terms. Sleep together?

Hardly.

With a sigh, she set the duffel on the bunk, unzipped it, and rifled through the contents. A pair of yoga pants, shorts and a sweatshirt, a pack of bikini undies, a sports bra, two T-shirts and a tank top, flip-flops, a towel, and a cosmetics bag with a few items of makeup and personal essentials. And a small cardboard box.

Curious, she pulled it out of the duffel bag. But before she could see what it contained, she heard a deep voice behind her.

“DeAnne? What are you doing in there?”

She whirled, clutching the box in her hands. “Oh! Kip. Hi.”

He glanced at the metal sign on the door and frowned. “I could have sworn Bobby Lee said I was in this berth.”

She bit her lip. “Yeah, um, Darcy pulled a switch on us. She thought we wouldn’t mind sharing. But of course I’ll speak to Bobby Lee and . . .” Her words trailed off when she noticed his gaze had dropped to her hands.

His eyes had narrowed dangerously and his whole body shifted subtly. Slowly, his gaze lifted. The look in his eyes was pure predatory male animal.

Her pulse skyrocketed. What . . . ? She looked down at her hands. And almost died when she realized what she was holding.

Oh. My.
God
.

It was a box of condoms.