Page 81 of Hard Luck (Blackstone House)

“Oh, I’m not coming on the boat.”

“You’re not? Such a shame. Cole brought his friend Frankie one year, and she made Key lime pie in the middle of the sea.”

Did he realise women did more than cook?

And did Delroy realise that if he “accidentally” brushedhis hand against my thigh one more time, he was going to lose a limb? Our seats weren’t close enough together for it to be an accident. I smacked the offending fingers away and scowled at him, but he just gave a cocky smirk.

Big mistake.

“Are you heading home?” Dr. Blaylock asked. “You’re from the United States, I presume?”

“I’ll be doing the tourist thing on shore. I hear there’s a pirate museum on Ilha Grande?”

“Indeed there is. Jon’s writing his thesis on the pirates of the Caribbean, so if you want to know about any of the old legends, he’s the man to talk with.”

“Can I take your orders?” the server asked, and Delroy took the opportunity to stare at her cleavage instead of mine.

“Ladies first,” Dr. Blaylock said, and the server turned to me.

“I’ll have a six-ounce ribeye with a baked potato.”

“Which sauce would you like with your steak?”

“Surprise me.”

I didn’t care about the sauce. I didn’t even care about the steak. What I wanted was the nice sharp knife that came with it.

I bided my time.

Delroy squeezed my thigh while we were eating breadsticks, but I just took a sip of water and listened to an animated conversation about sea turtles. Apparently, the dude who ran the turtle sanctuary on Valentine Cay did his own surveys, and he shared the results with Dr. Blaylock. Turtles—hawksbills especially—had been declining at an alarming rate, but nobody had been able to pinpoint the reason yet.

The food was served, and in between bites, I held my knife against my thigh, the tip pointing toward Delroy. If he tried his shit again, he’d get a nasty surprise.

Even I hadn’t anticipated quite how nasty.

I’d nearly finished my entrée when he leapt up, shrieking, blood dripping everywhere. Wow. That was alotof blood. Somehow—presumably because he’d been trying to get his handrightbetween my thighs—he’d managed to run his palm along the blade, and the cut had to be two inches long. Damn, that steak knife was sharp.

Oops.

I wiped the blood off the blade with my napkin and made my eyes go wide. “Wow, what happened?”

Now he had a choice. Nobody had been focused on us when the incident occurred, so he could either admit he’d been touching up the boss’s girlfriend or accuse me of stabbing him. And who would believe a polite little female would randomly attack a man at the dinner table?

He gritted his teeth and wrapped the napkin Cole offered around his hand.

“I must’ve picked up my knife wrong.”

Good move. Maybe he’d live to work as a deckhand another day.

“Looks bad,” I said. “I think you might need stitches.”

The server came running over, eyes bugging out of her head. “What happened?”

“He accidentally cut himself. Is there a hospital nearby?”

“Uh, yes? Yes, a half mile away. Should I call an ambulance?”

“I’ll take a cab,” Delroy ground out.

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