Karen Leabo - Man Overboard

With a sigh, Paige began undressing. This was a familiar scene. Aurora was always trying to turn her daughter into a clothes horse, and it never worked out. With her short stature and curvy figure, Paige simply wasn’t the high-fashion type. Whenever she took Aurora’s advice, she ended up looking like an overdressed doll instead of a sophisticated woman. But Aurora simply refused to understand that Paige’s personal style was quite different from her mother’s.

Well, what did it matter? Maybe if Aurora spent the next seven days dressing Paige and telling her how to behave on a cruise, she would be too busy to meet and fall in love with some freeloading bum.

Aurora had a real talent for picking the most inappropriate men to marry. The only exception to that rule was Aurora’s first husband, Paige’s father. He was the one who’d convinced Paige to brave the hated cruise ship in order to keep her mother out of matrimonial trouble. Bobby Stovall had bailed Aurora out of more than one disastrous marriage and continued to support her financially, although his legal obligation to do so had ended long ago. He was still genuinely fond of her—but he’d made it clear that if she married again, he would cut her off for good.

Paige didn’t want that. Aurora needed Bobby, although she would never admit it.

Fifteen minutes later, feeling rather foolish in the hat Aurora had insisted she wear, Paige walked with her mother onto the Lido Deck, where a lavish buffet of fresh fruit, cheese and crackers awaited them. A smiling waiter thrust a glass of champagne into Paige’s hand. Since champagne always gave her a headache, she set the full glass on the first empty tray she saw.

“Come on, let’s get in line for the food,” Aurora said as she surveyed the milling crowd with a practiced eye. Then, under her breath, she added, “Gawd, is there anyone here under seventy?”

There did seem to be a preponderance of silver hair and canes among the Caribbean Mermaid ’s passengers, but no shortage of male hormones, if the stares Aurora drew were any indication. Even in her clever new outfit, Paige felt like a plain brown duck next to her mother.

It had always been like that.

The two women found a table and sat down with their plates of fresh fruit. Aurora nibbled at a melon wedge disinterestedly as she continued to eye the crowd. “Where are all the good-looking men?”

“What about that one over there?” Paige said, nodding toward a distinguished, sixtyish-looking man with a head of thick, silver hair and a healthy tan. He looked pretty respectable.

“Oh, that’s Doc Waller,” Aurora said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “He’s a widower. I’ve met him on several cruises. He’s quite a nice gentleman, but...too old for me. They’re all too old. I hope this cruise doesn’t turn out to be a total waste of—wait a minute!” She grew very still, and her sharp blue eyes stared intently at some point in the distance. “Would you look at that?” she whispered.

“What?” Paige asked, squinting in the same direction. Then she saw him, and she wondered how they’d missed him before. Standing a good head taller than most of the people around him, he possessed the sort of lean, hard good looks one might expect to see on a man driving a race car or climbing a mountain. His hair, a rich, dark brown with slight silvering at the temples, was longer than conservative fashion dictated, and the wind rippled it like a woman’s fingers would. His impossibly wide shoulders stretched the confines of the cotton print shirt he wore, and his legs appeared too muscular, too powerful, for his tame, white twill shorts.

He was easily the best-looking man Paige had seen in months. Years, maybe. Unfortunately, there was a comely dark-haired woman clinging to his arm.

He was talking to another man, one of comparable age—late thirties, Paige guessed—and nice looking, but not in the same league as the tall, dark-haired one.

“Not bad, eh?” Aurora commented from the side of her mouth. “And there are two of them.”

“Mother! Aside from the fact that they’re both young enough to be your—”

“Bite your tongue,” Aurora whispered. “And stop calling me Mother.”

“All right, Aurora. But you talk like those two men are a couple of ripe plums we can just pick from a tree. What makes you think either of them will have the slightest interest in us?”

“Instinct, my dear,” Aurora purred. “And besides, I don’t see much competition.”

“You don’t see the large-breasted brunette in the halter top, breathing into the taller man’s ear?” Paige asked dryly.

“Oh, her. She’s too young to hold his interest for long. Now, a man like that, he no doubt appreciates a woman with a little sophistication, one who’s been around the block.”

“How about one who’s been around the world a couple of times?” Paige murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing. Oh, Lord, they’re coming this way.” Paige quickly pretended interest in her strawberries.

“Well, of course they’re coming this way. I gave them my look.”

“What look?”

“The one that says, ‘You interest me.’ Not too bold. Just a brief holding of eye contact, between one and two seconds. Oh, nuts, that bosomy brunette waylaid them again.”

Paige looked up. Her gaze immediately caught and held with the dark-haired man’s—one second, two seconds, three, four...

“Psst! Paige, that’s long enough,” Aurora hissed.

Paige reluctantly broke eye contact. “What?” she asked, feeling a little dazed. His eyes were dark brown, just like his hair. Even from this distance she could easily lose herself in those velvety brown depths.

“The look you’re giving him is saying a lot more than you want it to, I’m afraid. Watch it.”

“Watch what?”

Aurora threw up her hands. “How in the hell did I raise such an innocent daughter?”

“Just because I don’t play games with my eyes doesn’t mean I’m innocent,” Paige pointed out. “Anyway, what’s wrong with a little innocence?”

“It’s no fun, that’s what’s wrong.”

“Well, I may not be the most worldly woman, but at least I don’t get married at the drop of a hat.” The unfortunate words were out of Paige’s mouth before she could stop them, and she immediately regretted her pettiness. For all her seeming worldly sophistication, Aurora really was the naive one. Despite her checkered past filled with less-than-honorable men, she still would believe anything a handsome man told her. She had never developed that hard edge of cynicism so common among women of her age and circumstances.

“I may be divorced four times, but I’ve fallen in love and married four times, too,” Aurora said quietly. “And I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything. There is nothing more glorious than falling in love, even if you know it’s not going to last. And you, my dear, are going to be a dried-up prune by the time you’re thirty if you don’t find yourself a man.” She downed the last of her champagne in one gulp and banged her glass on the table so hard that Paige jumped.

“I’m sorry, Moth—I mean, Aurora. That was an ugly and hurtful thing I said, and I didn’t mean it.”

Aurora wiped her mouth delicately with her napkin. “And you’re a long way from being a prune,” she conceded gracefully. “If only you’d loosen up a little...”

“I’ll try. I promise.” And maybe she really would. That man with the brown eyes could certainly inspire her to try. Of course, that was probably just her neglected hormones talking. Her love life could definitely use some shoring up. It wasn’t that she didn’t want a man in her life. She just didn’t seem to communicate well with the opposite sex, at least not on a romantic wavelength. Most men tended to treat her like someone’s kid sister.