Nora Roberts - Risky Business - the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down

“Miss Palmer…” He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say to her, or why he was uncomfortable having completed a successful maneuver. In the end, he pocketed his receipt. “If you change your mind about dinner—”

“I won’t.”

“I’m at the El Presidente.”

“An excellent choice.” She walked through the doorway and onto the dock to wait for her crew and clients.

By seven-fifteen, the sun was up and already burning off a low ground mist. What clouds there were, were thin and shaggy and good-natured.

“Damn!” Liz kicked the starter on her motorbike and turned in a little U toward the street. She’d been hoping for rain.

He was going to try to get her involved. Even now, Liz could imagine those dark, patient gray eyes staring into hers, hear the quietly insistent voice. Jonas Sharpe was the kind of man who took no for an answer but was dogged enough to wait however long it took for the yes. Under other circumstances, she’d have admired that. Being stubborn had helped her start and succeed in a business when so many people had shaken their heads and warned her against it. But she couldn’t afford to admire Jonas Sharpe. Budgeting her feelings was every bit as important as budgeting her accounts.

She couldn’t help him, Liz thought again, as the soft air began to play around her face. Everything she’d known about Jerry had been said at least twice. Of course she was sorry, and had grieved a bit herself for a man she’d hardly known, but murder was a police matter. Jonas Sharpe was out of his element.

She was in hers, Liz thought as her muscles began to relax with the ride. The street was bumpy, patched in a good many places. She knew when to weave and sway. There were houses along the street with deep green grass and trailing vines. Already clothes were waving out on lines. She could hear an early newscast buzzing through someone’s open window and the sound of children finishing chores or breakfast before school. She turned a corner and kept her speed steady.

There were a few shops here, closed up tight. At the door of a market, Señor Pessado fumbled with his keys. Liz tooted her horn and exchanged waves. A cab passed her, speeding down the road to the airport to wait for the early arrivals. In a matter of moments, Liz caught the first scent of the sea. It was always fresh. As she took the last turn, she glanced idly in her rearview mirror. Odd, she thought—hadn’t she seen that little blue car yesterday? But when she swung into the hotel’s parking lot, it chugged past.

Liz’s arrangement with the hotel had been of mutual benefit. Her shop bordered the hotel’s beach and encouraged business on both sides. Still, whenever she went inside, as she did today to collect the lunch for the fishing trip, she always remembered the two years she’d spent scrubbing floors and making beds.

“Buenos días, Margarita.”

The young woman with a bucket and mop started to smile. “Buenos días, Liz. ¿Cómo està?”

“Bien. How’s Ricardo?”

“Growing out of his pants.” Margarita pushed the button of the service elevator as they spoke of her son. “Faith comes home soon. He’ll be glad.”

“So will I.” They parted, but Liz remembered the months they’d worked together, changing linen, hauling towels, washing floors. Margarita had been a friend, like so many others she’d met on the island who’d shown kindness to a young woman who’d carried a child but had no wedding ring.

She could have lied. Even at eighteen Liz had been aware she could have bought a ten-dollar gold band and had an easy story of divorce or widowhood. She’d been too stubborn. The baby that had been growing inside her belonged to her. Only to her. She’d feel no shame and tell no lies.

By seven forty-five, she was crossing the beach to her shop, lugging a large cooler packed with two lunches and a smaller one filled with bait. She could already see a few tubes bobbing on the water’s surface. The water would be warm and clear and uncrowded. She’d like to have had an hour for snorkeling herself.

“Liz!” The trim, small-statured man who walked toward her was shaking his head. There was a faint, pencil-thin mustache above his lip and a smile in his dark eyes. “You’re too skinny to carry that thing.”

She caught her breath and studied him up and down. He wore nothing but a skimpy pair of snug trunks. She knew he enjoyed the frank or surreptitious stares of women on the beach. “So’re you, Luis. But don’t let me stop you.”

“So you take the fishing boat today?” He hefted the larger cooler and walked with her toward the shop. “I changed the schedule for you. Thirteen signed up for the glass bottom for the morning. We got both dive boats going out, so I told my cousin Miguel to help fill in today. Okay?”

“Terrific.” Luis was young, fickle with women and fond of his tequila, but he could be counted on in a pinch. “I guess I’m going to have to hire someone on, at least part-time.”

Luis looked at her, then at the ground. He’d worked closest with Jerry. “Miguel, he’s not dependable. Here one day, gone the next. I got a nephew, a good boy. But he can’t work until he’s out of school.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Liz said absently. “Let’s just put this right on the boat. I want to check the gear.”

On board, Liz went through a routine check on the tackle and line. As she looked over the big reels and massive rods, she wondered, with a little smirk, if the lawyer had ever done any big-game fishing. Probably wouldn’t know a tuna if it jumped up and bit his toe, she decided.

The decks were clean, the equipment organized, as she insisted. Luis had been with her the longest, but anyone who worked for Liz understood the hard and fast rule about giving the clients the efficiency they paid for.

The boat was small by serious sport fishing standards, but her clients rarely went away dissatisfied. She knew the waters all along the Yucatan Peninsula and the habits of the game that teemed below the surface. Her boat might not have sonar and fish finders and complicated equipment, but she determined to give Jonas Sharpe the ride of his life. She’d keep him so busy, strapped in a fighting chair, that he wouldn’t have time to bother her. By the time they docked again, his arms would ache, his back would hurt and the only thing he’d be interested in would be a hot bath and bed. And if he wasn’t a complete fool, she’d see to it that he had a trophy to take back to wherever he’d come from.

Just where was that? she wondered as she checked the gauges on the bridge. She’d never thought to ask Jerry. It hadn’t seemed important. Yet now she found herself wondering where Jonas came from, what kind of life he led there. Was he the type who frequented elegant restaurants with an equally elegant woman on his arm? Did he watch foreign films and play bridge? Or did he prefer noisy clubs and hot jazz? She hadn’t been able to find his slot as easily as she did with most people she met, so she wondered, perhaps too much. Not my business, she reminded herself and turned to call to Luis.

“I’ll take care of everything here. Go ahead and open the shop. The glass bottom should be ready to leave in half an hour.”

But he wasn’t listening. Standing on the deck, he stared back at the narrow dock. She saw him raise a shaky hand to cross himself. “Madre de Dios.”

“Luis?” She came down the short flight of stairs to join him. “What—”

Then she saw Jonas, a straw hat covering his head, sunglasses shading his eyes. He hadn’t bothered to shave, so that the light growth of beard gave him a lazy, vagrant look accented by a faded T-shirt and brief black trunks. He didn’t, she realized, look like a man who’d play bridge. Knowing what was going through Luis’s mind, Liz shook his arm and spoke quickly.