Nerd In Shining Armor Part 12

Both she and Lincoln wore orange life vests, although she noticed that Lincoln had unfastened his so that he'd look cool. He hadn't wanted to wear one at all, but Matt had said they weren't leaving the harbor until everyone had on a life jacket, only Matt had called them something else, a set of initials that sounded like BVD but probably wasn't.

The boat was gorgeous, all gleaming wood and sparkling white paint and s.h.i.+ny bra.s.s fittings. Quite a step up from Rufus's smelly old rowboat with the outboard motor that hardly ever worked. This was what Annabelle thought was called a pleasure craft. If only she and Lincoln could be going on a pleasure trip. But they weren't, so the wonders of the boat were lost on both of them, which was a shame.

Before they'd left the dock, Annabelle had stored the groceries she'd brought in the boat's tiny kitchen. Matt had called it the galley, so she would try to remember that. And the tiny bathroom, not much bigger than the one in the airplane they'd flown in eleven years ago, was the head. She thought, considering what it was mostly for, that the name was backward.

Their sleeping arrangements would be tight. She'd get the only real privacy-both Matt and Lincoln had insisted she take the little s.p.a.ce in the bow, the one sleeping area with a door. The other two beds in the main cabin doubled as bench seats during the day. There'd be no sleeping in for Lincoln, not that she thought he would with his sister missing. Annabelle didn't think any of them would sleep much, but they needed the beds in case someone was ready to drop.

Annabelle didn't care about the close quarters. She'd put up with a lot worse during her years in the Hollow. And although she wondered if Matt minded being crammed in cheek-by-jowl with a strange woman and her teenage son, she didn't really care if he minded or not. By being business partners with Nick, he'd put himself right in the middle of this mess of trouble, and she didn't plan to let him wiggle out of his responsibility.

Now that they were moving out into open water, she needed to focus on Genevieve and establish a mental connection. If she didn't achieve that, she wouldn't be able to tell Matt which way to go once they left the harbor. Lincoln would be a help with that, too. He didn't like to admit that he had a touch of psychic power, but he did. Besides that, he had a powerful bond with his sister.

Lincoln unhooked his earphones and dangled them around his neck. "This is an awesome plan, Mom. I'm glad you talked this Matt guy into renting the boat and going out to look for Gen."

"Call him Mr. Murphy, Lincoln." "But he told me to call him Matt." "I know, and I'm telling you to call him Mr. Murphy." "Don't get all mad at me, just because you're worried bout Gen, okay?"

She glanced at him, but he wasn't looking at her. Instead he was staring at the boat's wake, and his jaw was set that stubborn way that reminded her of Granny Neville.

Nothing would be served by the two of them barking at each other.

Yet she didn't want him calling Matt Murphy by his christian name. He could dye his hair any color he wanted, wear T-s.h.i.+rts with mouthy sayings on them, pierce his ears, and let any music he wanted filter through those earphones. He could do all that to his heart's content, but none of hers would be disrespectful to his elders. I am worried about Genevieve," she admitted. "I m you are, too. But we will find her." He continued to study the churning water. "Yeah, I hope it's soon, though." nnabelle wanted to reach up and touch his cheek, right where a little downy growth had started coming in. But he wouldn't appreciate that, so she didn't. "Me, too. Lincoln, about what you should call Mr. Murphy, I-"

Lincoln's sigh of protest was loud and dramatic, like most of his behavior in the last couple of years. "If it bothers you that much, I'll call him Mr. Murphy, but he's pretty cool, and he's gonna be all. Why are you calling me Mr. Murphy? That makes me feel old. And I'll be all Don't blame me. My mom made me call you that. He is old, of course, but I don't think I should be the one reminding him about it."

She smiled a little at that. If she hadn't been so weighed down with worry, she might have laughed. She thought Matt was a fine-looking man, very much in his prime. He had the sort of handsome face that she'd learned to steer clear of.

If she hadn't desperately needed his help, she wouldn't have had a thing to do with Matt Murphy. With those big brown eyes and great smile, he was much too pretty, and she'd promised herself never to fall for a pretty face again. But all Lincoln saw was a guy with a touch of gray in his hair, a guy on the far side of forty, which made him old and creaky.

"I'll take the chance he'll feel old when you call him Mr. Murphy," she said.

"Annabelk," Matt called above the sound of the boat's motor. "Could you come here a minute, please?"

"Be right there!" She turned to Lincoln. "Want to come with me while I see what he wants?"

"No, that's okay. I'll just stand here and concentrate."

This time she couldn't resist putting a hand on his arm, even if he was four inches taller than she was and thought he was too cool for hugs from his mama. "Are you concentrating on Genevieve?"

"Yeah." He glanced down at her. "You know when we first moved here, and Gen used to play hide-and-seek with me?"

"I don't remember that."

"Probably because we quit playing. I always found her right away, so she got all bent. She couldn't find me, but I could always find her."

Annabelle squeezed his arm. "That's nice to know. You concentrate."

"I will. I'm listening to that Harry Connick Jr. garbage she likes so much."

"You are Annabelle liked that music herself, but Lincoln always said he wouldn't pollute his ears with it.

"Yeah. It sucks, but maybe it'll help me think of where she is."

"Thank you, Lincoln. You're a good boy." Before he could see the tears in her eyes, she turned and climbed up the stairway to where Matt was. That part of the boat, where Matt steered, was called the helm. Annabelle liked learning new things, but she would rather be learning under different circ.u.mstances.

Matt had one hand on the wheel and the other fiddling with the dials of whatever instruments the boat had. He wore the kind of wire-rimmed sungla.s.ses she'd always liked on a man, and a blue golf cap with "Ha.n.a.lei Bay Resort" embroidered on the front.

"We need to talk about something," he said.

He was going to bring up the bad weather. She braced herself to hold her ground. "What?"

"The Coast Guard just notified me that they plan to postpone the air search because of the weather. In fact, the weather may interrupt most of the rescue efforts until the storm blowing in pa.s.ses over the islands."

Annabelle took a deep breath. "I wasn't putting much store in their help, anyway."

He motioned to the swells ahead of them. "Besides that, they've issued a small craft warning."

"We're not so small. This is the biggest boat I've ever been on."

He flicked a glance in her direction. "Trust me, we're still considered small."

"We're not going back. I don't give a care what the weather is doing. We can't go back."

"Hang on. I didn't say anything about going back. I just wanted you to know. We have Lincoln with us."

She turned and looked down at her son bobbing his head in tune with Harry Connick Jr. Surely she wouldn't be expected to risk Lincoln to save Genevieve. "Are we in danger yet?"

"Not yet." Matt leaned over the wheel and peered at the clouds. "But we need a plan. We're headed toward Maui, but I think maybe we should put in at Molokai instead of going all the way to Maui. I should be able to make it there before the water gets too rough."

"I need to ask Lincoln."

Matt's jaw dropped. "Excuse me?"

Too late she realized that wouldn't make any sense to him. Even explaining might not do any good. She had to be careful how much she talked about intuition and psychic connections, or Matt would take her right back to Oahu and call the men with the b.u.t.terfly nets. "What I intended to say was, I need to ask Lincoln if he wants us to go back to the harbor or not."

Matt shook his head. "You need to decide that for him. A fourteen-year-old won't know whether it's safe to go on. They think they're invincible."

"I meant whether he feels seasick."

"Oh." Matt looked nervous. "Uh, do you feel seasick?"

"No." And even if she did, she'd wouldn't let a little thing like that stop her. "Let me go check on Lincoln, though."

"Listen, if you think there's any chance that he's gonna get seasick, then I think we should take him right back to the harbor. Matter of fact, maybe we'd better all go back. The storm will probably pa.s.s over in no time, and then we can-"

"Never mind about Lincoln getting seasick, then." She began to panic at the idea that he might seriously think of turning around. "Just head toward Molokai."

"Look, we're closer to home than to Molokai, and I don't want to be fighting through heavy seas with your kid puking his guts out down below. For all I know both of you are p.r.o.ne to seasickness."

"We're not. And Lincoln will be just fine." She wished she'd never brought up the subject. Come to think of it, her stomach was feeling like she'd just eaten a spoiled batch of crawdads.

"But you just said-"

"He's never been seasick." Which was absolutely true. You couldn't get seasick if you'd never been to sea. She made a shooing motion with her hand. "Let's just go. Pedal to the metal. Or whatever you do with a boat. Just goose it."

He mumbled something under his breath. She figured he wasn't happy, but that was just too bad.

"Hang on," he said as the engine roared and the boat shot forward.

She grabbed hold of Matt because he was the closest solid thing. And he felt wonderful, all warm muscles and broad shoulders. Plus he smelled good. After all her years in a beauty parlor with the perfumes and lotions women liked, she'd forgotten the pleasurable scent of a crisp aftershave. Maybe a vibrator and a good mechanic didn't cover all her needs, after all.

But that wasn't what this boat ride was about. She let go of Matt the minute she found her balance. "Excuse me," she said. "I'll just go talk to Lincoln."

"You do that." He sounded like a bear with a sore paw.

"I will." She hurried down the steps, eager to get away from him. He didn't like her and she didn't care. Just because he felt nice and smelled good didn't matter a hill of beans. All she needed him to do was drive this boat.

Matt had made some dumb moves in his life, but letting Annabelle talk him into renting a boat so they could search for her daughter was the granddaddy of all dumbness. He should just turn the boat around and head for the harbor, no matter what she said. As he considered doing that, a picture of Annabelle staging a mutiny flashed through his head. Yep, she'd be up for that.

She was a fiery woman, and he was inappropriately excited by that. Now wasn't the time to be thinking about s.e.x, and he felt like a first-cla.s.s sleaze because whenever he looked at Annabelle, that's what he thought about. She was one luscious woman. When she'd grabbed him by the shoulder just now, he'd reacted instantly to her touch. He hadn't wanted her to take her hand away.

Well, he'd better put a lid on those thoughts immediately. If he couldn't, he'd be obligated to take her back to Oahu and find her someone else to ferry her around. He didn't want to do that, couldn't trust that someone else would see this from her perspective and understand why she needed to be out here.

He didn't have any kids, but after the first shock of discovering that the plane was missing, he'd been able to set aside his own fears and imagine hers, which had to be huge. Maybe he was especially sensitized after his night with Celeste. No matter how bold and brash young women like 132 Vicki Lewis Thompson Celeste and Genevieve pretended to be, they were more vulnerable than they knew. Vulnerability always tore down all his defenses.

So he was out here for Annabelle's sake, and for Genevieve's, but he also was out here because he felt more useful doing something. She'd been right about that-sitting around waiting for word would have been torture. Bucking eight-foot swells with two green-to-the-gills pa.s.sengers wouldn't be a picnic, but at least he'd have taken some action.

However, under the current weather conditions, they needed to exercise some caution or the Coast Guard would be adding them to the list of the missing. Matt was willing to risk his safety, and Annabelle had the right to risk hers, but neither of them should endanger a fourteen-year-old kid, no matter how obnoxious his hair color. They'd weather this storm in Molokai and then cruise around Maui to see what they could see. Maybe they'd chance upon something. Stranger things had been known to happen.

And he'd keep his libido in check. For G.o.d's sake, she even had her kid with her, and yet he still found himself thinking how he'd love to get her naked. He was a sorry specimen.

When it came to Lincoln, Matt thought Annabelle was too lax. Obviously the kid's father wasn't anywhere around or that hair color wouldn't be happening, and the earring wouldn't be winking in his ear, either. The black T-s.h.i.+rt that said You Got a Problem with That? was pretty typical-all the kids had att.i.tude these days. But if Matt had a son like Lincoln, the hair situation definitely would be under control and they'd find an alternate way to fly the colors of the flag.

He glanced over his shoulder to where Annabelle and Lincoln were deep in conversation. From their hunched posture Matt figured they had to be freezing their a.s.ses off, what with the wind and the spray. When you were out on the water, a summer storm could bring your body temperature down in a hurry.

Finally they must have had enough, because when Annabelle started up the steps toward him, Lincoln followed. The kid looked pale. n.o.body enjoyed being seasick, but Matt figured Lincoln would hate it more than most. Spending the first part of the voyage hurling would put a big dent in that macho swagger he had going on. Matt felt a moment of sympathy for him. Being fourteen had never been an easy job, and having your sister missing wouldn't make it a h.e.l.l of a lot easier.

"Lincoln needs to use the facilities," Annabelle said. "Is that okay?"

"Certainly that's okay. Is he sick?"

"No, I'm not sick. Definitely not sick." Lincoln sounded weak but defiant.

Matt was too busy handling the boat to study him more closely. "Go ahead down below, and just be aware that we're tossing around quite a bit, so hold on to something to keep steady."

"Well, duh.w "Lincoln Roosevelt Terrence! Apologize to Mr. Murphy this second!"

"Sorry, Mr. Murphy."

"No problem." That was some name Annabelle had saddled him with. The kid was supposed to run for high office, apparently. "And call me Matt."

"Yeah, but my mom said-"

"Lincoln, go on downstairs," Annabelle said. "Now."

"And help yourself to some Seven-Up if you want," Matt added. "That sometimes settles a queasy stomach."

"Thanks, but my stomach's good."

"Glad to hear it."

"See you guys later." Lincoln stumbled going down the steps, but that could have been due to the pitching of the boat.

"Maybe you'd better go with him," Matt said.

She lowered her voice. "He would never forgive me if I did."

Matt nodded. He'd been fourteen once, too. "Okay, but if he isn't back out in a few minutes, you'd better go tap on the door. I don't want him to hit his head and knock himself out in there."

Annabelle drew in a sharp breath. "Then I'll sneak down after I'm sure he's in there, and I'll listen. Oh, and Matt, I apologize for Lincoln's manners. I'll speak to him."

"Don't, Annabelle. He's a lot more polite than most kids I've seen. Don't ride him on my account."

She sighed. "I'm so afraid if I let things slide, he'll get mouthy like his friends, but today it's a little harder to be strict with him."

"Exactly. This is an unusual circ.u.mstance. And I can take care of myself. If I think he's getting too much of an att.i.tude, I'll tell him."

"Good. That's good." She hesitated. "Matt, I need to tell you something. Lincoln and I don't think Genevieve's in this direction."

"What do you mean in this direction Nick was on his way to Maui, which is definitely in this direction."

"I know, but we don't think that's where she is. We think we're going farther away from her, not closer."

Matt could smell her perfume mixed with the salty breeze that had been blowing through her hair. He wanted to nuzzle the side of her neck and sniff his fill of that combo. "And what are you basing this on?" He was afraid to ask.

She hesitated. "I don't suppose you'd just take my word for it that we need to turn around."

"Nope. And we're not turning around. Not until this storm pa.s.ses over. We'll hole up in Molokai. You can see what it's like out there."

"Yes."

He heard the sound of her swallow, even over the wind and the engine. He gave her a quick glance. "You're about to upchuck, too, aren't you?"

"No."

"Annabelle, go do it. Use the sink in the galley if Lincoln's still in the head. You'll feel better if you get rid of what's in your stomach."

"Will you ... go the other way once it's safe?"