Free Rock the Boat: A Griffin Bay Novel by Lib Starling Page A

at him. He was so gorgeous, so captivating… so totally infuriating .
    Emily headed down to the galley to make the coffee and round up a few pastries for their breakfast. To Jordan’s dismay, Storm was quick to join her, and she was left alone in the cockpit with Davis.
    “Where to today?” Davis asked.
    She waved at the island. “Lopez.” As she spun off a few facts about the island and its unique culture, her mind drifted into a litany of Davis’s many physical attractions. Strong arms, scratchy face, bright blue eyes… She kept her gaze on the misty shoreline so she could avoid glancing down at his jeans. She didn’t want any excuse to add Intriguing package to his list of finer points.
    Davis cut off her bland recitation of Lopez Island Fun Facts. “Does this place have a town? With a—”
    “A bar?” Jordan guessed.
    Davis grinned at her, and the whole length of her spine tingled.
    “It does,” she admitted. “But you aren’t not going there.”
    “What?” His voice was flat, disbelieving. “Come on, Captain. It’s not like you’re my AA sponsor.”
    “Do you have one?”
    He laughed. The tingle in her spine turned to a lightning jolt along her limbs.
    “No,” Davis said. “I’ve never needed one. I may like to party, but I’m not problematic.”
    That’s debatable , she told him silently. “You’re not going there because we won’t have time. The bar doesn’t open until after 5:00 sometime—”
    “ Sometime? ”
    “That’s the way things are out here in the islands. Schedules are more like suggestions. Or vague hints.”
    “Well, why can’t we go over to the bar sometime after five?”
    “Because we’ll be gone by then. The tide’s on a funky schedule today, and if we stay past three o’clock our keel will get stuck in the mud.”
    “I thought you said schedules are more like suggestions.”
    The comment caught her so off-guard that Jordan couldn’t help but smile. It was a real smile, open, willing to give Davis one brief chance—not one of the pinched attempts she’d made at hiding her conflicted, half-irritated happiness over the past several days of their voyage.
    “That only applies to islanders,” she said with a little laugh. “Not to the gravitational pull of the moon.”
    “Right. My bad.”
    Davis fell silent, watching her for what felt like an eternity. Jordan glanced at him almost shyly; his blue eyes locked with her own, and Jordan found herself unable to look away. And she didn’t want to look away. In that brief moment of quiet, she thought she could finally make out what Emily saw in Davis—a certain mysterious vulnerability lurking just below his façade of unshakable cool, his mask of rock-star clichés.
    He is bothered by something , Jordan realized as she held Davis’s faintly troubled gaze. But what? What could possibly get past that unflappable exterior of perfect masculinity? In the quiet moment they shared—one of the only times she ever saw Davis without any accompanying noise or activity—all her annoyance fell away. She suddenly wanted to know what made him tick—what was inside the cavalier musician’s heart.
    Davis turned away with a shake of his head, barking out a coarse laugh. The gesture seemed dismissive, and the sudden brush-off flared Jordan’s annoyance instantly back to life.
    Six more days , she told herself grimly as Emily and Storm brought breakfast up from the galley.
     

 
     
    .8.
     
    A fter they had all eaten, Storm prepared the little runabout power boat that rode low on the Coriolis ’s tail. Jordan watched with grim satisfaction as Davis approached Storm to ask him just what he was doing.
    “Emily and I are going to the village to do some laundry and pick up more food.”
    Davis cut a quick glance in Jordan’s direction, then said, “Sweet. I’m coming with you.”
    “No you’re not,” Jordan called from the helm, where she fiddled with the GPS charts on her tablet.
    She knew if Davis made landfall he’d