Making a Splash. Joanne Rock

      His mother stopped short a few feet shy of the hardwood dance surface. Keith could practically see the wheels turning in her mind, her delicately arched blond brows furrowed in thought before they smoothed out again.

      Clearly, she’d reached the logical conclusion about Jack. The one thing he’d run from hard and fast—love, in the form of Alicia LeBlanc.

      “Don’t tell me Alicia is in Bar Harbor.”

      “Better yet, she’s on my boat.” Keith grinned, unrepentant. He tugged his cell phone out of his pocket and slid open the keypad. “But don’t worry. I’ll give Jack a heads-up…once I’m sure it’s too late for him to turn back.”

       1

      JACK’S CELL PHONE buzzed at least three times before he even got his brother’s sleek catamaran into open water.

      He knew it was nothing pressing, since the text messages had subject lines such as “quick heads-up” rather than “URGENT.” So he ignored them, figuring Keith wanted to share a lot of details about his high-end vessel—as if Jack couldn’t figure out how to steer a boat without the help of GPS gizmos. Jack had gotten this far in life by knowing when to tune out the rest of the world, a lesson his workaholic brother had yet to process.

      Keith the Corporate Mogul took every incoming call as if it were life or death, assuming the world couldn’t turn without his input. Jack had weathered enough storms to know plenty of problems blew themselves out without him lifting a finger. While Keith positioned himself for the Forbes list, Jack was content to invest some of his savings in local businesses, as he’d been doing since he returned home a month ago. Nothing big. He gave those struggling bars a hand up in a rough economy while he figured out what direction he wanted his career to take now that he was out of the service. Returning to the family business wasn’t a direction that particularly appealed.

      In the meantime, he’d started selling off a few of his personal possessions to consolidate his assets and simplify his lifestyle. Truth be told, he was glad not to be the one to hand off the vintage Pearson Triton that was full of memories for him. Alicia had helped him christen the Vesta back when his life had made more sense.

      Not that he would think about her now, damn it. His brother’s engagement party had messed with his head tonight, putting thoughts of her back in his brain.

      But you broke up with her because she was too young… . Some obnoxious voice in his head piped up. That problem no longer exists.

      The fact that they’d both matured, however, wouldn’t take away their bulldog personalities. Or erase the fact that she’d moved on since he’d been away. Every time he’d been home on leave in the past four years, she’d been dating someone else.

      If he had any sense, he would fall for someone softer. Someone who wouldn’t argue about his every decision. Someone a whole lot less like him. But first he needed to find a way to come to terms with a shared past he’d never really forgotten.

      Now, at about two-thirty in the morning, he had his ropes thrown off and he’d steered through the coastal traffic into open water. He’d checked out the chart plotter and the self-steering feature enough to feel comfortable moving around deck while the boat cruised along. No doubt about it, the catamaran had every cool innovation known to mankind—the Zeus steering system and GPS position-locking features both made handling a big vessel easy.

      He figured he’d put enough distance between him and the rest of the Murphy clan to settle down for the night. He was out of the main shipping lanes and his lights were burning bright, so he should be safe to get some rest.

      It would kill his mother to know it, but he hated trips home. Being there brought back too many memories of a time where he’d dreamed of a different life.

      Jamming the cell phone back in his jacket pocket, he tugged his tie off. The fact that, hours after leaving Ryan’s party, Jack hadn’t even changed out of his suit yet spoke volumes about his need to be under way, as far from Cape Cod and the possibility of bumping into Alicia as he could get. He needed to see her sooner or later, yes. But not until he figured out why her memory still affected him so strongly.

      He’d stopped at a convenience store for some supplies on his way to the marina, despite Keith’s assurance that the corporate toy was fully stocked. But other than the one brief pause, he’d been running nonstop since he walked away from the party.

      The boat was a beauty. Keith’s company owned the power catamaran and used it to entertain clients. But in between gigs to impress potential customers or long-term patrons, the top dogs passed the toy around amongst themselves.

      Now that he’d cooled down a bit, he could appreciate some of the features of Keith’s catamaran. Roomy as hell. Laid out by someone who’d been at sea before, with no skimping on practical stuff—although there were some fluffy add-ons such as a hot tub in the front deck. Jack switched on the night-light in the hall leading to the forward cabin. He’d done a quick inspection of the hull layout before he’d left the marina, tossing his bag into the cabin that looked as if it had been recently used, with the berth still rumpled and a duffel in one corner. Had to be the space Keith had used, and was therefore the one most likely to have sheets and an alarm clock at the ready.

      Yanking off his jacket and belt, Jack trailed clothes like a stripper, too wasted to hang things up. He didn’t even bother turning on the light before he slid into the queen-size bed, liking the dark just fine. Oblivion couldn’t come soon enough after the day he’d had.

      He was happy for Ryan finding The One. Truly, he was. But seeing that promise of a future on both their faces had poured acid in an old wound, reminding Jack of the way Alicia had started to think long-term with him when he’d been embroiled in a family drama that had needed his attention. Those days should have been too long ago for him to remember their breakup in such vivid detail.

      Unfortunately, he remembered all too well.

      On the plus side, he’d put some serious nautical miles between himself and the woman he’d walked out on, before he finally drifted into exhausted sleep… .

      ALICIA LEBLANC COULD almost swear Jack Murphy was back in her arms.

      An annoying rational voice—inescapable even in her dreams—told her that was because she was on board a Murphy-owned boat. Dealing with Keith had put his whole family back in the forefront of her mind after all these years, and that’s why her subconscious had concocted a delicious nighttime fantasy about her ex.

      “Jack…” She sighed his name in her half sleep, resenting the practical side of her that insisted she was just dreaming. Why couldn’t she simply enjoy sexy dreams like the rest of the population?

      Because dreaming about him makes you weak! her cranky ego shouted.

      Undaunted, she pressed her cheek to Jack’s broad, bare chest. Her dreams added muscle and weight to his younger body, altering her memories of him to account for the navy-hardened form he sported these days. She’d caught sight of him on the beach earlier in the week, when she’d been giving kite-surfing lessons to tourists—one facet of the water sports business she’d started to save money for her own coastal bed-and-breakfast. Nothing big like Murphy Resorts owned all over the Cape, but something small and personal, where she could entertain all the time and share her love of the water with travelers. She’d been hooking up the safety harness on a couple of college kids who wanted to catch big air on the water when she had heard Jack’s voice carrying from farther out in the surf.

      Sure enough, he’d sailed into sight on the Vesta. She might have taken a moment’s pleasure in knowing he’d kept the boat even though he’d dumped her. But he’d probably just been too busy saving the world to ditch the sailboat the second he’d ousted Alicia from his life.

      Damn the man.

      Still, he was hot and hard everywhere in this dream moment that would be over all too soon. She kissed his chest, her tongue darting along one flat pectoral to steal