“And when we went to look over the rail, we couldn’t find her,” Lena said.

Stephanie checked the people in the room. Everyone was accounted for, including Ace and the first mate. They’d both come in with Mr. Kramer. No one looked as if they’d been stabbed with a carving knife. “Maybe we should have a look around anyway,” she said to Ivan.

“Okay, who gets pie? Who gets coffee?” Ace asked, taking over.

Stephanie and Ivan slipped away and walked the deck in silence while Ivan played the searchlight over every nook and cranny, along the gunwales, up the tall masts.

“You think Lena and Loretta were into the sherry?” he finally asked. “That part about the wild blue hair doesn’t play.”

“It’s a little bizarre, but Loretta Pease doesn’t strike me as a person who would make up stories.”

Ivan skipped the light across the oak water casks and mahogany planking. “I don’t like having some ghoul running around on my ship. And I like the part about the bloody carving knife even less.”

“I don’t like it either. I think, until we know otherwise, we have to assume she’s dangerous, although my own personal instincts lean more in the direction of it being a prank. Of course, it could always be Aunt Tess. Or maybe it’s a new ghoul? Ghosts in your bedroom, ghouls on your ship. You must be popular when Halloween rolls around.”

“You think it could actually be a ghoul?”

Stephanie looked at him sideways. “Are you serious?”

“Does the thought of having a ghoul on board frighten you? Does it make you want to throw yourself into my strong arms for protection?”

“The thought of you believing in a ghoul frightens me. It makes me want to call the Coast Guard.”

Ivan curled his hand around her neck, stroking the nape with his thumb. “I bet you go to horror movies and never scream. You’re one of those people who sit there and say it’s all done with special effects.”

He had great hands, Stephanie thought. Warm and strong and clever. “It is all done with special effects.”

He pulled her closer. “Hmmm. Do you believe in Santa Claus? The Easter bunny? The tooth fairy? Jaws?”

“Maybe Santa Claus…”

He leaned forward and kissed her. He’d intended the kiss to be light and provoking, but it immediately turned serious, devouring whatever good intentions he’d had up to that point. He set the flashlight aside and pulled her to him, needing to feel the length of her against his body.

Stephanie had wanted to be kissed. Ivan Rasmussen made her feel sexy in a wonderful way, and she wanted to explore that feeling. She liked the way his mouth moved over hers, coaxing, demanding, exciting. He wasn’t stingy with his emotions, and he wasn’t afraid to put himself on the line. She liked that, too. Their tongues touched, and her hands roamed his smooth, muscled back.

She was losing it. Losing control, losing perspective. It happened when you fell in lust, and she knew she was in lust. No big deal, she told herself. People fell in lust all the time, and it was all right as long as you didn’t mistake it for something more serious.

She leaned backward to look at him. “So this is what I’ve been missing all these years.”

“This is nothing. It gets better as you go along.”

She didn’t doubt him for a second. “How far along do you think we should go?”

He studied her for a moment. “I’ll let you decide that.”

“My original plan was to save myself for marriage.”

“Is this a proposal?”

Stephanie laughed. “No. Marriage seems a little drastic. I’m thinking of changing my game plan.”

Her hand strayed to the rope rigging at her side, and her fingers closed around a coil that felt oddly sticky. She brought the hand forward and stared at it. Curiosity was replaced by horror, crawling along her spine and knifing through her stomach. It was blood, she thought. Dark and fresh, staining her palm, seeping between her fingers. “Oh Lord,” she whispered, her voice hoarse with revulsion. “It’s blood.”

Ivan took a closer look and smiled. “No. It’s blueberry.” He put a finger into his mouth and sucked on it. “Yum.”

Stephanie put her hand to her head and closed her eyes until her heartbeat returned to normal.

Ivan stood beside her. “Are you okay?”

“We’ve got to stop kissing like that. It stops the oxygen flow to my brain. I thought it was blood.”

“An easy mistake to make in the dark. Some-body’s been by here with your pie.”

Stephanie looked at him. “How did it get on the rigging?”

Ivan retrieved his flashlight. “I’d say the pie thief was also a slob. Hold on, Watson! I think I’ve got something.” He reached behind the rope and found the carving knife. “The murder weapon,” he said. “I can guarantee that this knife was used to murder your pie. As anyone can see, it’s covered with blueberry blood.”

“Gee, I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed. I was sort of hoping it would turn out to be Aunt Tess.”

“The blue-haired woman from hell must have ditched the knife when she jumped overboard.” He flashed the spotlight over the side, sweeping it over the water and the yawl. “Now, that’s an interesting piece of maritime equipment,” he said, shining the beam on Stephanie’s panties, draped across the yawl seat.

Stephanie felt a blush creep up her neck. “I was in a hurry.” She swung a leg over the gunwale and quickly scrambled down to the boat. She’d retrieved the scrap of pink lace and had started up the ladder, when her eye caught a flash of movement through a cabin window. She carefully edged closer to get a better look and found herself staring into two large, black-rimmed eyes in a face framed by blue-and-green spiked hair.

Ivan leaned over the side. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve found the woman from hell, and she’s not dead-she’s just punk. The ladies didn’t hear a splash, because when Ms. Blue Hair jumped, she grabbed hold of the ladder and swung herself through the open cabin window. Was this cabin supposed to be empty?”

Ivan nodded. “We had a last-minute cancellation.”

Stephanie pulled herself up to the deck and looked for a place to stash her panties. “I don’t have any pockets,” she said, examining her sweats.

Ivan took the panties from her and stuffed them into the front pocket of his jeans. “First we’ll go belowdecks to meet our stowaway, then I think we’ll have a talk with Ace.”

“Jeez,” the young woman said when they opened her cabin door, “you scared the bejeebers out of me. What were you doing out there? Don’t you know it’s rude to peep in people’s private windows?”

“Ship’s security,” Stephanie said. “You’re under arrest. You stole my pie. Do you know how long it took me to make that pie?”

“I needed it. You get scurvy when you’re on a ship if you don’t eat pie.”

“What were you doing in Mrs. Pease’s cabin this morning?” Ivan asked her. “And how do you get your hair to look like that?”

“I went up to the ice chest to get some mayo for my sandwich, and when I came back, I accidentally walked into the wrong cabin. Man, can that old lady scream, or what?” She touched her hand to her hair. “You like my hair? I did it with spray paint and starch.”

The stairs creaked, and Ivan turned in time to see a sneakered foot hastily withdrawn. “Ace!”

“Whoops,” Ace said with a guilty smile. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Ivan motioned him forward. “Your friend, I assume?”

The girl moved next to Ace. “We’re engaged. Hey, you’re a ship’s captain! You could marry us! Wouldn’t that be great, Ace? We could get married right now.”

Ace took his glasses off and looked at Ivan. “You couldn’t do that, could you?”

Ivan grabbed him by the shirt, marched him down the hallway, then yanked him into the captain’s quarters and closed the door. “You brought that girl on board and promised her you were going to marry her?”

“Not in the beginning. In the beginning I just promised her a sandwich. But then things got… involved, and I needed a better promise. Hell, I couldn’t help it. I’m a hotbed of teenage hormones.”

“How old is she? Do her parents know she’s with you?”

“She’s old. Twenty-three. She plays second guitar in a rock band, but their bus broke down in Rockland, and they had to cancel their tour.”

“You do this again, and I’m going to cancel your tour. I’m going to give you thirty seconds to apologize to that woman, then you’re confined to quarters for the rest of the night. And at the crack of dawn I want her set ashore. And I expect you to provide her with cab fare back to Rockland.”

Ace adjusted his glasses. “Do you think I could have a partial advance on my wages?”

Ivan reached into his pocket and, without thinking, pulled out the panties.

“I didn’t see that,” Ace said, accepting a twenty-dollar bill while Ivan stared at the dainty piece of lingerie dangling from his finger. “I swear, I didn’t see a thing,” he repeated. “And I won’t tell anybody about what I didn’t see. You can count on me,” he said, slipping out the door and gently closing it behind him.

Chapter 5

Stephanie braced herself against the counter and took a firm hold on her bread dough. According to Lucy, Wednesday was turkey dinner with all the trimmings. But Lucy didn’t know about the storm that was off the coast of Atlantic City and moving north. Lucy didn’t know the stowaway, Melody, would refuse to set foot in the yawl and would insist on helping out in the galley. Lucy didn’t know any of those things because Lucy had run off to get married. Stephanie shoved her fist into the dough. This was going to cost Lucy. This was not just a toilet. This was a whole new kitchen.

“Jeez,” Melody said, “that’s a lot of dough. And you put your hands in it. Gnarly.”

“It’s for crescent rolls. All we have to do is follow Lucy’s recipe.”

Melody studied the directions. “Looks like origami.”

“You know how to do origami?”

“No.”

Stephanie blew a wisp of hair from her forehead and grabbed the rolling pin. “I’ll do the first batch, and then once we get it figured out, you can take over.”

“Cool.”

The ship plowed through heavy seas, and Stephanie took time to wedge the coffeepots behind an iron bar to keep them from jiggling across the stove.

Mrs. Pease looked up from her solitaire game. “What was that creaking? The boat isn’t falling apart, is it? Do you think we’re going too fast? Is there a speed limit out here?”

Mr. Pease sipped his coffee and grinned. “Now this is what I call sailing.”

“Okay,” Stephanie said, returning to the dough, “it looks like we roll a lump of this flat, and then cut it into strips, then triangles.” She took one of the freshly cut triangles and made an attempt at shaping it into a rolled crescent. She looked at Melody. “What do you think?”

“It doesn’t look like the picture.”

Stephanie stared at it. “It sort of does. You have to use your imagination.” She wiped her hands on her jeans. “It’s all yours.”

Ivan ambled down the stairs and took a clean mug from a hook on the ceiling. “What a terrific day,” he said. “Fantastic wind.”

Stephanie glared at him. Easy for him to say, she thought. He was up there with his nose in the salt spray pretending to be a Viking. She was down here getting seasick, trying to keep Melody from slipping banned substances into the turkey dressing.

Ivan poured himself a cup of coffee and looked over Stephanie’s shoulder. “Haven’t seen you all day. You’re not avoiding me, are you?”

“I’ve been cooking!” The ship lurched, lanterns swung on their hinges, and coffee splattered and hissed on the hot stove. “I don’t know how much you’re paying Lucy, but it’s not enough.” She bit her lip against the wave of nausea and decided she’d smelled enough brewing coffee to last a lifetime.

“You look a little pale,” Ivan said. “Maybe you should get some air.”

Mr. Pease smiled at them. “I think it’s real nice that you two are getting married. Love on the high seas. That’s romantic.”

Ivan’s left eyebrow cocked a fraction of an inch. “Getting married?”

Mr. Pease blinked. “Aren’t you getting married? I heard you were getting married.”

Mrs. Pease rolled her eyes at her husband. “You always jump to conclusions. You didn’t hear they were getting married. You heard they were-” She stopped and flushed. “You heard they were very close friends.”

Mr. Pease winked at Ivan. “Must be something to have pirate blood in you, huh?”

Ivan forced a tight grin. “Mmmm.”

Melody looked up from her rolls. “So are you two sleeping together, or what?”

“We’re just ‘or what,’ ” Stephanie told her. She took a deep breath. “I really do need air.”

Ivan followed her up and put a steadying arm around her while she hung on the ropes. When the color had returned to her face, and he could see she was taking some interest in the whitecaps skidding past them, he kissed the back of her neck.