Free Wicked Nights by Anne Marsh

their
    destination. Cal never got the details wrong.
    “Yeah.” He settled in on the other side of the elevator as if she’d never sat on his lap last night or made
    free with his body. “So, how is your knee?”
    “Better.” She owed him that much. “Stiff sometimes, and it can only take so much stress before it
    buckles. I appreciate what you did for me that day.”
    She did, too, even if she would prefer not to talk about it.
    This wasn’t the first time she’d thanked him—although, admittedly, it was only the second because, hey,
    she had her limits—and he once again shrugged off her thanks, as if she’d expressed her appreciation for a
    cut in line or a cup of coffee. Clearly, in Cal’s world, a rescue was just all in a day’s work, no matter how
    much his rescue had meant to her. He dropped his gaze to her knee. For one charged moment, she thought
    he’d reach out and touch her there.
    “So no more platform diving?”
    No, and the truth still stung. “The knee can’t handle the hurdle. As soon as I push off, it buckles. I
    couldn’t get the air height to be competitive.”
    “And being competitive mattered most?”
    Pretty much. Piper’s family competed. In the pool, on the ring or on the field, the Clarks competed and
    they won. Her parents didn’t know what to make of her newfound desire to own a dive shop. Her brothers
    were simply, fiercely, adamantly protective. Moving to the island and temporarily putting some ocean
    between her and them had been the only way to avoid suffocating. She’d had a career-ending injury, not a
    deathblow, but they had a hard time seeing it that way. While she appreciated the open offer of a job on the
    ranch, it wasn’t what she wanted for herself.
    “I didn’t want to climb the tower and dive, knowing I’d score dead last in every meet. Plus, I would
    have been cut from the team after one season anyhow.”
    So she’d left.
    “I tried,” he said abruptly. “I did everything I could think of to miss hitting the Jet Ski.”
    Cal had driven his motorboat into the breakwater, trying to avoid the crash. If he hadn’t... Well, the
    alternative was one more thing on the list of things she didn’t think about. She hadn’t known he blamed
    himself in any way for the accident. That was why these things were called accidents and not on-purposes.
    “I know,” she said, because she did.
    “Jesus, Piper. You shouldn’t have been out there. You knew better.”
    And there it was...the lecture he’d probably been storing up for the past five years. She didn’t want to
    hear it now any more than she had back then, when he’d shown up in her hospital room to hear her
    awkward if heartfelt thanks. She was an adult, not a child he could scold.
    “I did. What I did not know was that Lance had spent the morning at the bar taste-testing margaritas. If I
    had, I wouldn’t have gone near a Jet Ski with him. I’m not stupid.”
    The elevator dinged and the doors opened. She was taking the stairs after this meeting. He stepped
    forward, ever the gentleman, and held the door for her. Since arguing over his good manners would only
    point out her lack of the same, she started forward.
    “Piper.” Had his mouth brushed her ear?
    She kept on moving. That was the game plan, both for today and for her life.
    “I never thought you were stupid, okay? Just—” He ran a frustrated hand over his head.
    “Impetuous? Stubborn? Had a mind of my own?” She gave him the list over her shoulder, still heading
    toward the conference room. “Check, check and check, big guy. Don’t feel sorry for me, though, because
    I’m about to kick your butt in there and score your contract.”

    * * *
HE’D NEVER ONCE felt sorry for Piper. Not when he’d dived beneath the surface, searching
    desperately for her body. Not when he’d brought her up, bleeding and unconscious. Not when his mother
    had mentioned how sweet Piper Clark would never dive competitively again. He’d felt plenty of