Janet Evanovich - Love Overboard aka Ivan Takes a Wife

Even though she hadn’t known the history of the house, it had conjured up images of black-frocked, bearded sea captains and their patient wives. She’d recently learned that it had been built in 1805 on the foundation of Red Rasmussen’s lair. It was a magnificent huge box of a house, with a handsome cupola surrounded by a picket-fenced widow’s walk. It had high ceilings with elaborate plaster medallions, black marble fireplaces, elegant moldings, and woodwork that had been carried by schooner from the mahogany forests of South America.

It sat on a hill overlooking Camden Harbor and was frequently wreathed in fog. It was a house that had weathered hurricane winds, sleet, and snow and had not succumbed to aluminum siding. To a nine-year-old from New Jersey, it had seemed very romantic and exciting. When Stephanie reconsidered it at twenty- nine, it was Haben’s endurance that impressed her the most. Haben was a survivor. It had been built with quality and pride. It felt stable to her at a time when her life was looking shaky.

Ivan stood watching Stephanie. She has secrets, he thought. She could be disarmingly candid, and yet he had the feeling she was guarding something. She reminded him of a cat that was always listening. Behind the good humor was a constant wariness. It wasn’t cynical, he decided, but rather a kind of mental and physical alertness, as if she continually waited for something to happen. He had a fleeting thought that he might be the cause of all that tension, but quickly discarded it. Don’t flatter yourself, Rasmussen, he mused, this woman’s been up against something a lot more dangerous than your pirate routine.

She was lying flat out on the deckhouse roof, but she wasn’t relaxed. Ivan felt his heart constrict with the suspicion that she probably hadn’t relaxed in so long she’d lost the ability to do so.

Ivan saw her eyelids flutter open and knew he’d been detected even though he hadn’t made a move or uttered a sound. The woman had radar. The man who married her would never get away with anything. It was a disconcerting thought. He’d known her for approximately ten hours, and he was thinking about marriage. It was Aunt Tess, he decided. She was getting even with him for selling the house. “I’m a bachelor,” he mumbled under his breath. “I like being a bachelor. Get off my back!”

Stephanie propped herself on one elbow and looked at Ivan. “Were you mumbling at me?”

“I was talking to Aunt Tess.”

“She always sails with you?”

“Never.”

Stephanie raised her eyebrows. “This is a special occasion, huh?”

“I’m beginning to think so.”

She sat up and swung her legs onto the deck. “This conversation is making me nervous. Is it leading up to something?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Hmmm,” she said, throwing him the cool, appraising look she’d cultivated for teenage con men and twelve-year-old drug dealers. “Okay, then we have an understanding.”

“Yup.” He eyed her with a critical squint. “Just exactly what are the terms of this understanding?”

Stephanie fidgeted. Darned if she knew. She just wanted to steer the conversation away from ghosts and sex. She didn’t feel especially brave or knowledgeable about either of those subjects. “I thought the terms were obvious.”

“No involvement?”

“Right,” Stephanie said, “no involvement. Physical or otherwise.” Then she smiled at him. It was too late. They were up to their armpits in involvement.

Ivan smiled back at her. “As the blood relative of Red Rasmussen, I feel it my cavalier obligation to lie once in a while to a pretty woman. What’s your excuse?”

“My father’s grandmother was a Hungarian Gypsy. My great-uncle Fred defected from the army. My great-grandfather’s brother was hanged for rustling.”

“That explains it.”

Stephanie woke up with a start and fell off the edge of her narrow bunk onto the padded bench seat and ultimately onto the cold wood plank floor. She instinctively rolled into a crouch and reached for her gun. When she didn’t find it tucked into the sweats she was using as pajamas, she stayed perfectly motionless while her mind scrambled to place her in the proper environment. The room was black as pitch and unfamiliar. She’d been having a nightmare, and now she was awake-almost.

“I’ve heard of people jumping out of bed before, but you’ve got them beat. I especially liked the way you reached into your pajamas. Dreaming about me?”

Stephanie groaned when everything clicked into place. She was on a boat. It was the middle of the night. And for some yet-to-be-explained reason, Ivan Rasmussen had awakened her. She pulled herself up and blinked at him. “Did you wake me?”

“Time to get up, Sleeping Beauty. Time to get the stove stoked up. Time to get the coffee going. Time to bake the pies.”

“You have a death wish? Is your insurance paid up?”

Ivan lit an oil lamp, casting the cabin in a soft glow. “Can I choose my method of death?”

She put her nose to the ship’s clock on the cabin wall. “It’s five o’clock!”

“Yeah. I let you sleep an extra half hour.”

“Ace told me Lucy got up early to bakes pies but I thought he was kidding.”

Ivan lit two more oil lamps. “Sometimes she bakes cheesecake.”

“Listen, Ivan, I’ve seen those people up on deck. They’re not in such good shape. They don’t need the calories. They shouldn’t have the cholesterol. There’s nothing wrong with having an apple for dessert,” she said, crawling back into her bunk.

Ivan grabbed her by the ankle but released it when she growled. She sounded as though she meant business! He considered his options. He could do the caveman thing and haul her out, or he could do the pirate thing and crawl in next to her, or he could do the cowardly thing and try to lure her out with a bribe.

Ten minutes later, Stephanie opened one eye and sniffed the air. Coffee. She pulled the covers over her head and burrowed under her pillow, but the aroma of coffee crept under the bed linens. “Crud.” He was playing hardball. “Coffee,” she croaked out. “I want coffee.”

Ivan threw another log into the woodstove. “You have to get up to get it.”

Stephanie dragged herself out of bed and lurched across the room. “Sneaky, aren’t you?”

“Yup.”

She brushed the hair out of her face and took a mug of steaming coffee from him. “Rasmussen men leave something to be desired, do you know that?”

Ivan poured himself a cup of coffee and grinned at her. “Most women find Rasmussen men to be irresistible.”

“Irresistible is different from less than perfect.” She looked over at Ace’s empty bunk. “Where’s my partner in crime? Did he jump ship?”

“He’s been up since four-thirty, like a good galley helper, but he was afraid to wake you. He says you talk in your sleep about shooting people.”

Stephanie lowered her eyes and sipped her coffee. “Guess I’ve been watching too much television.”

Ivan stared at her, wondering if she actually shot people. He remembered the way she’d rolled under the table, crouched, and reached behind her out of instinct, and he felt a chill race down his spine. She said she was twenty-nine, but she looked more like nineteen, her youthful appearance only adding to his un-ease, making him feel ridiculously protective. People shot other people in self-defense, but she didn’t look battered or persecuted. Criminals shot people. He knew she wasn’t a criminal. There was one other possibility. She mentioned earlier that she was sort of a teacher in a government program. Ivan thought that was a stretch. “You’re a cop, aren’t you?”

She felt her heart stop, then start beating again, very deliberately. Thud, thud, thud. Lord, when would the panic leave her? How many years would it take before that question didn’t make her whole life flash before her eyes? She took a deep breath and kept her voice low and steady. “I was a cop.”