Page 47 of Falling Overboard

“Would you let me catch one if I was?”

“You are not the kind of man who needs to be complimented.” He had a mirror. He knew how he looked.

“Everyone needs that, Lucky. Like you should know that you have one of the most beautiful smiles I’ve ever seen.”

I was simply going to ignore the way my heart was currently flopping around wildly inside my chest, like a gasping fish on land. I couldn’t acknowledge him saying kind things to me. I knew where we would end up. “Georgia says that constant compliments turn guys into raving egomaniacs.”

“Do you think that about me?”

“No, which is why I said the nice thing.”

The waitress brought our check and Pieter grabbed for it. I guessed he was trying to impress Georgia but she didn’t even notice.

With dinner done I knew exactly how the rest of the evening would go.

“Let’s go to a club!” Emilie said.

Right on cue.

Everybody was standing up and I got my purse and followed the group out. I hung back, creating some distance between myself and the others.

Hunter noticed and slowed down to walk alongside me. “Where are you going?”

“Back to the ship,” I said. I registered that he was the only one who’d figured out what I was up to. Nobody else seemed to have even realized that I was gone.

“Can I walk with you?”

“I’m a big girl. I don’t need you to watch over me.” Then I remembered Georgia’s advice that this was a country full of Françoises and took his offer. “But if you need to go back, we can walk together.”

“I have to get to bed,” he said. “I’ve got a hike in the morning.”

That made me smile and I saw that had been his intent. “Okay. But it’s not a hike. Just a walk in nature that will end up back in the main part of town.”

“You don’t want to say goodbye to anybody?” He nodded toward our crewmembers, who were getting farther and farther away.

“I already told Georgia earlier that I was going to duck out.” We took a left at the corner, walking toward the docks.

“So you’re a fan of the Irish goodbye and the Irish hello.”

I blinked in confusion. I knew what an Irish goodbye was—leaving a party without saying anything. “What’s an Irish hello?”

“That’s where you don’t even go to the party.”

I laughed. “You’re right, I am a fan of that. I’ve always been a bit of a homebody, and currently the yacht is my home. Plus, I know how this night will end up for the rest of the crew.”

“Oh?”

“Dinner and drinks, then off to a club to drink the place dry, and then stumbling back to the yacht, where they will finish off that champagne in the hot tub while playing drinking and kissing games. Like they’re still in middle school.”

It had never held any appeal for me, and even less so now that Hunter would be in the mix. Even if I couldn’t date him, I also didn’t want to watch him make out with Georgia or Emilie because someone had dared him to do it.

Not only because my newfound jealousy might prompt me to do something possibly felonious but also because I didn’t want to be party to the crew so flagrantly breaking the rules. I had no desire to be in a position where I would have to lie to the captain if he ever asked me about it. It was better for me not to know.

Hunter turned the conversation to more neutral subjects—asking my opinion on the pub, what was (or wasn’t) happening between Pieter and Georgia, about past charter experiences that I’d had.

And when he closed the cabin door behind him, and despite the fact that this thought should have occurred to me before, I realizedthat I wasn’t going to be alone tonight. He wouldn’t have anchor watch because we were docked. I was used to him not being here in the evenings.

“What’s the plan now?” he asked.

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