RISKY ATTRACTION (PAPERBACK)

Chapter 1
Piper

“I hate you!” Scout yelled until the tendons in her neck bulged.
“Scout, please,” I begged half-heartedly. I didn’t have the energy to continue the pointless argument anymore.
Despite being just fourteen, my daughter already matched me in height. She flared her green eyes at me, then stomped up the stairs from the galley and disappeared through the hatchway onto the top deck of our sailing yacht.
It wasn’t the first time my daughter had yelled that she hated me, but just like all the other times, I wished it would be her last. I opened a can of coconut milk and stirred the contents into the red curry paste, onions, ginger, and garlic sizzling in the base of a heavy pot on the stove.
I flicked away a tear, furious that she still evoked overwhelming sadness in me.
It had been eighteen months since my husband had died, and Scout still blamed me for her father’s death.
His death wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Lewis died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and there was absolutely no explanation why an extremely fit thirty-four-year-old professional football player, in the prime of his life, succumbed to such a brutal incurable disease.
Lewis and I had planned to do this trip around Australia as a family.
But his diagnosis, and the following eight months of hell that ended in his life being cut short, crushed our dreams of sailing away together.
A brisk breeze blew into the cabin, and I shut the porthole over the sink. As Thai curry aromas filled the galley, I added my secret ingredient, crunchy peanut butter, to the pot and stirred until it melted.
I had hoped that by dragging Scout away from our home, where memories of the man we loved were everywhere, her self-destructive habits and anger would abate. It had been three months since we left Perth, and out here on the ocean, we were at the mercy of the waves and the crisp breezes . . . and I was at the mercy of Scout’s fiery personality.
Some days with my daughter were beautiful and memorable, and then there were days like today when I couldn’t do or say anything right. I longed for the amazing family life we’d had before Lewis had been diagnosed.
Lewis had been the buffer between Scout and me. From the moment Scout had started school, we clashed, and she’d made it well known that she loved her father more than me. Maybe it was because Lewis had taught her fun things like sailing and fishing and how to kick a football, while I had to force her to do her homework and wash the dishes and remind her to look after herself all the damn time.
Being a mom was hard work.
Being a widow and a single mom when my daughter hated me for all the wrong reasons, broke my soul.
As Dreamcatcher dipped and rocked with a wave, I added prawns and chunks of snapper to the simmering red curry. I’d caught that fish earlier today. Catching fish in these abundant waters was easy. The hard part was landing them before the sharks stole the meal off my line. I’d lost three decent-sized fish before I’d caught the snapper simmering in the pan.
From the oven, I pulled roasted pumpkin pieces and added them to the pot, along with green beans and boiled carrots.
Mild Thai red curry was one of Scout’s favorite dishes. Not mine though. But that was what I did as a mom. I sacrificed to make her happy. Fat lot of good that did.
Maybe this trip was a big mistake.
Maybe I should turn around, rather than finish the remaining six months circumnavigating Australia like I’d planned.
No, like Lewis and I had planned.
Then again, this trip was nothing like we wanted.
Not when he was dead, I was grieving, and Scout was making my days pure hell.
Sighing, I spooned cooked rice into two bowls, topped them with the seafood curry, and added a sprinkling of fried shallots we’d bought in bulk after we’d discovered them at a fun Asian food market in Darwin six weeks ago.
“Scout,” I called up the hatchway. “Dinner’s ready.”
“Go away.”
I groaned. I couldn’t go away even if I wanted to. We were sailing in the Coral Sea, a vast body of water off Australia’s North Queensland Coast. The nearest shore was thirty miles away.
Clenching my jaw, I carried one bowl of food and cutlery up the galley stairs. At the top, moonlight danced off the ocean swell, and I frowned at the black clouds on the horizon. They hadn’t been there when I’d stepped down into the cabin earlier to shower and prepare dinner.
Making a mental note to check the weather after we ate, I crossed the deck to the teakwood seating area at the aft, where we usually ate our meals together.
Scout was at the rear of the yacht, dangling her legs over the side.
“Dinner’s ready.” I placed the plate on the table.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I made your favorite red fish curry.”
“I said I’m not hungry! You never listen.”
“I am listening, Scout. You’re yelling loud enough for everyone to hear.”
“There is no one else, Mom. You made fucking sure of that.”
“Don’t swear at me.” I glared at her.
She turned to face me, and in the moonlight, her squared-out jaw reminded me so much of Lewis my heart sagged.
The tension between us hung heavy in the night air, and the rhythmic creaking of the yacht’s rigging added to my mournful emotional state. Scout’s defiance cut deep. She would never talk to me like that if Lewis was here, and her anger added to my grief which was like an anchor dragging me into a bottomless ocean.
Waves lapped into Dreamcatcher’s side in a lovely symphony that was at odds with the turmoil tangling my thoughts. “Scout, please, can we just have dinner together?”
“Oh, my god. You don’t listen. I. Am. Not. Hungry!” She spread her fingers like they were claws that she wanted to scratch down my face.
I heaved a breath. “Fine.”
We’d had this argument over her not eating so many times it was almost comical. She would dig her heels in, adamant that she wouldn’t eat, then come the middle of the night, she would wake me with her rummaging through the galley in search of food.
Our limited Tupperware supply got a constant workout with my meal leftovers.
Sitting at the table on cushions that I’d sewn by hand to custom fit the seating nook, I ate a forkful of curry.
I’d held back on my favorite spicy paste to make the meal mild for Scout. After eating another mouthful, a wave of anger washed through me. The Thai curry was bland because of her.
Our argument was because of her.
Yet it was up to me to calm her rage. It always was. I was already out of my depth with her. She needed her father, not me. But it was a pointless acknowledgment. I was all she had, and I had no choice but to keep trying. “Scout.”
“What?” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, revealing a vulnerability behind her tough exterior.
“I know you miss your father. I do, too. Every single day. Every hour of every day.”
“Then what are we doing out here, Mom? It’s not helping you. It sure as hell isn’t helping me. I hate it out here. I hate the ocean. I hate this stupid yacht. And I hate—” She sucked in a shaky breath.
“I know. You hate me, too. You told me.”
She glared at me, clenching her teeth so hard her head trembled. “I can’t pretend everything is fine like you do.”
I put my fork down. My appetite had gone anyway. “I can assure you, Scout, I don’t think everything is fine. I miss your father more than you will ever know.”
“This stupid trip isn’t going to bring him back, you know. So stop pretending that you’re enjoying it.”
I slumped in my seat. “I’m not pretending. This was a trip we’d been planning as a family for—”
“Exactly. As a family. We’re not a fucking family anymore!”
My chest caved.
Thunder rumbled in the distance as if Mother Nature’s heart also ached.
I picked a fried shallot off my plate and ate it. “I wish you’d stop swearing.”
She threw her hands out in frustration. “Fuck. Fuckety. Fuck.”
“Well, that’s very mature.”
She drove her hands through her cropped blonde hair. “Oh, and lying is mature?”
“When did I lie?”
“When you told me Dad wasn’t dying.”
A knot wedged in my throat. “That’s not fair, Scout. We didn’t know Dad’s diagnosis when I said that.”
“You told me he’d be with us for years.”
Heaving a calming breath, I stood and crossed the deck toward her. “When I said that, I believed it to be true. None of us knew how quickly he’d pass away.”
I sat a few feet from her and dangled my legs over the side, too. Dreamcatcher’s gentle sway gave the illusion that everything was perfect.
It wasn’t. Not much was perfect at all.
But I had to continue with this trip. Backing down would make me look weak to my daughter, and I needed her to know that I was just as capable as her father was.
Although, many times out here on the ocean my determination was tested to the limit. Like today.
It didn’t help that Scout reminded me of Lewis so much that sometimes just looking at her hurt me to my core. She’d inherited his height, athletic build, and wild blonde hair. And her green eyes were the color of freshly podded peas, mirroring Lewis’ eyes exactly. Scout also had his sense of humor . . . when she forgot to be angry at me, that was.
When Scout hit puberty and developed womanly curves that were well beyond her years, she’d rebelled against everything. That was when I’d lost control of her.
I tried damn hard to turn that around.
Five months ago, I’d rushed to Scout’s bedside in the same hospital where Lewis had lost too many hours of his life. I hadn’t noticed that she’d snuck out of her bedroom in the middle of the night and had been found unconscious at the house of a seventeen-year-old girl who I didn’t even know. At fourteen years old, my grieving daughter had accidentally overdosed.
I was devastated. She would never have touched drugs if Lewis was around.
If I’d lost her, too, I would not be able to claw myself back from my already overwhelming grief.
Two months after her overdose, I dragged Scout away from the school she hated, the friends she hated, and the home she hated and made her come with me on a sailing trip around Australia that we should be doing with her father, my husband, the love of my life.
“Scout. I know you think I pretend everything is fine, but I assure you, it’s not.
“I know it’s not. It’s shit.”
I swept my gaze to the twinkling stars, praying I would find the wisdom to help my daughter.
Silence grew between us, and as the waves slapped against the boat with perfect repetition, a bolt of lightning lit up the thunderhead cloud that drifted toward the moon. “Looks like we’re in for a storm.”
“We already have a fucking storm, Mom. You and me.”
I tilted my head toward her. “You like saying fuck, don’t you?”
“Fuck yeah.” She shot me a defiant look that added five years to her age.
“Interesting.” I wrapped my fingers over the aluminum handrail.
She shifted her position so she could glare at me more thoroughly. “What’s interesting?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
That was a word she threw at me all the time. It was nice to use it back at her for a change.
“Don’t say nothing.”
I giggled and had no idea why. None of this was amusing.
“What’s so funny?” she hissed.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, great. You’re hilarious.” She rolled her eyes.
“Thanks.” I flashed a fake smile. “You are, too, when you’re not trying to be mad at me.”
“I was being sarcastic. And I’m not trying to be mad. I am mad at you.”
“Yes, and why is that? Oh, that’s right, because I cooked your favorite meal which I deliberately made with less spice than I prefer, just so you would enjoy it.”
Her dark eyebrows drilled together. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“No, that’s right, Scout, you didn’t. But I do lots of things for you, hoping they will make you happy.”
“Taking me home will make me happy.”
“You weren’t happy at home.”
Her eyes flared. “Of course not. You made my life hell. And Dad pissed off and left me.”
“Hey! Don’t say that.”
She scrambled to her feet.
“Scout!”
“Leave me alone,” she screamed so loud it must have hurt her throat.
I flopped onto the deck, and breathing through the knot in my throat, I studied the Milky Way that stretched from one horizon to the other. The blinking blue light of a satellite was directly overhead.
“What do I do with her?” I asked the stars.
A crack of thunder boomed across the water, and I sat up as two streaks of lightning blazed from the sky to the ocean.
“Damn.” The drifting cloud had nearly reached the moon. That storm was coming our way, and it was moving fast. That was usually a good sign because it should blow away just as quickly.
I dragged myself upright, and while I watched the thunderstorm in action, I finished my curry and then made sure everything on the upper deck was secured. We had endured four massive storms since we’d set sail from Perth. The worst one was as we sailed around the top of Australia’s Cape York. That storm had the devil behind it, and the wild seas and ferocious winds had tested my sailing skills to the limit.
But it had been good to go through that wild weather because it showed me what I was capable of. If Lewis had been with us, he would have controlled the yacht. Without him here, every decision was on me. Making the right ones for our boat came easy.
For our daughter, not so much.
I returned downstairs and checked the barometer. As I expected, the atmospheric pressure had dropped significantly in the last hour. The storm was definitely heading our way.
I divided the uneaten meal into four Tupperware dishes, two of which I put into the freezer. As I washed the dishes, I was treated to a lightning show that blazed across the night sky in a dazzling array of lights through the porthole window.
When Lewis and I had first met, whenever a storm was coming, he often drove me to Lesmurdie Falls National Park where we would hike up to the top of the waterfall and sit for hours overlooking the Perth city skyline to watch the storm roll in. Many times, we’d left our departure too late and got drenched to our core as we walked back down the hill.
But we always laughed at our mistakes.
Scout had also been a mistake. A delightful one, though. We hadn’t planned to have a baby. We’d only been dating for a year, and we had both been just twenty-two when I’d fallen pregnant. We’d been overjoyed. My parents, though, hated Lewis. They were adamant his wild partying ways would end in heartbreak for me.
They were wrong about him. Lewis and Scout were the best things to ever happen to me. Now he was gone, and my daughter hated me.
I have never felt so alone in my life.
A thunderbolt clapped so loud overhead I jumped. That storm was almost upon us.
I need to get my shit together.
Shoving aside my endless misery, I finished cleaning the galley and then sat at the computer nook to assess the storm. The weather radar displayed one large cloud mass forming to the east that swirled in vibrant blue and pink. I examined the extent of the storm and lightning activity on my live satellite feed.
This storm was a baby compared to the storm we’d experienced at the top end of Australia.
I noted our position in the logbook and put away all the loose items on the table. As the clouds smothered the moon, darkness ebbed into the yacht, adding to the emotional downer already crushing me.
Working my way around Dreamcatcher’s cabin, I ensured everything was secured, including the cupboards that Lewis and I had custom-built with our own hands.
Scout’s sleeping quarters were just off the kitchen and seating nook. Her room was a compact yet comfortable space where she slept on a narrow bunk with a much better mattress than mine. She was lying on the bed, wearing her headphones, and had her feet up on the rail at the end. A pile of clothes was on the floor that hadn’t been there when I’d passed this area before dinner.
“Hey, Scout.”
Either she ignored me, or her music was blaring so loud she couldn’t hear me.
I stepped into her room and clicked my fingers above her face.
She rolled her gaze toward me with a what-do-you-want expression, and I glared at her until she removed her headphones.
“What?”
“Clean this stuff off the floor. There’s a storm coming.”
She waggled her head and reached for her headphones.
I gripped her wrist. “Now. Scout.”
“Okay.” She yanked her arm free. “Don’t panic.”
I left her quarters and strode to my cabin. My double bed wasn’t much bigger than Scout’s bunk. If Lewis and I had made this journey together, sleeping in that bed with his big frame would have been an adventure. Then again, everything with him had been an adventure. I missed our adventures. I missed him. Lewis had a way of caressing me that made me feel so complete, so loved.
I wriggled off my diamond engagement ring and wedding band and put them with Lewis’ wedding ring in the cupboard beside my bed. Wearing rings while handling ropes was never a good idea. I smiled at Lewis’ mantra. He hardly ever wore his wedding ring. Between football and sailing, his only piece of jewelry spent more time on a gold eagle statue he’d had beside our bed than it had on his finger.
I glanced around my beautiful wood-paneled cabin, ensuring everything was secure. Every piece of timber on this boat had been lovingly restored by Lewis and me. It had been a form of therapy for him. Football was a brutal profession that required strict diets and rigid training regimes. Dreamcatcher had given him a sense of freedom. It broke my heart that he wasn’t able to fulfill his dreams when our yacht was finally ready to sail.
I pulled my long hair into a ponytail, changed into black Lycra shorts and a pink T-shirt, put on a raincoat that I zipped up to my neck, and pulled on my rubber-soled shoes.
As I walked past Scout’s quarters, she was still on her bed wearing her headphones, but the clothes that had been on her floor were gone. She’d most likely just shoved them into her tiny wardrobe.
I shouldn’t be surprised. When I was her age, I would have done exactly the same.
My return to the top deck was met with a rumble of thunder as if the low growl was coming straight from the heart of the storm.
My heart kicked up a beat at the swirling dark clouds overhead. It was like looking underneath an alien aircraft. I tugged on a life jacket and pulled the straps tight around my waist.
Fat, heavy raindrops splattered onto the deck, adding a monotonous drumbeat to the booms of thunder. The sea had transformed into a churning cauldron of frothy waves, and Dreamcatcher bobbed and swayed in erratic, jerky movements.
The ocean was letting me know who was in charge: Mother Nature.
A jagged fork of lightning streaked across the sky.
Damn. That was close.
Gripping the steering wheel, I clipped myself into the safety harness, and as my knuckles bulged white, I aimed Dreamcatcher into the turbulent waves.
The wind howled like a demon, tearing at the jib sail at the front of my yacht in unpredictable squalls that snapped and billowed the fabric, testing the quality of my rigging.
Loose strands of hair whipped around my face, and as the heavens opened, rain came down in torrents, drenching me to the bone.
A massive wave crashed over the bow, and the polished timber vanished beneath the whitewash. Gripping the wheel, I stood my ground as the yacht surged forward and rode up the crest of a massive wave.
Wind screeched with a ferocity that matched the ocean’s fury, and rain pelted my face like dozens of stinging needles, mingling with the salty sea spray that stung my eyes.
A burst of lightning lit up a ten-foot wave ahead.
Where the hell did that come from?
“Hang on, Scout!” I yelled, but I had no idea if she’d removed her headphones or even moved from her bed.
She’ll move in a minute when she feels Dreamcatcher climbing up that wall of water.
Gritting my teeth, I strangled the wheel and braced my feet on the side timber struts as the front of my yacht rode higher and higher, heading for the wave’s peak.
For one heart-stopping moment, Dreamcatcher teetered at the top, and then, with a bone-rattling crash, we slammed down the other side, carving into the wave and creating walls of water that burst out either side of the hull.
Another wave was behind the first. It was bigger. Much bigger.
Shit!
Dreamcatcher hadn’t recovered from the first wave. Her nose was still downward.
“Hang on, Scout!”
Letting go of the wheel, I crouched and gripped the safety rail as a wall of water barreled toward us. Squeezing my eyes shut, I leaned into the helm and as the wind screamed its fury, the wave slammed into us, devouring my boat in a wall of frothy, churning water.
Dreamcatcher bucked and shuddered at the brutal impact as the tremendous weight of the water threatened to tear my yacht apart.
But the water washed away as quickly as it came, and as I stood, a burst of lightning blazed overhead that was brighter than anything I’d ever seen over the ocean.
Another wave blocked our path, but Dreamcatcher was ready for this one.
We rode up the wave which was half the size of the previous one. The yacht’s bow aimed skyward as if defying the storm. We crested the top, tipped forward, and slammed down the other side.
A sickening boom thundered from the bow.
Crunching metal-on-metal screeched below my feet.
“Shit!”
We crashed into something!
Scout’s terrified scream carved through the chaos. “Mom! Water is coming in!”

Risky Attraction
Risky Desires
Risky Obsession

Two grieving strangers are thrust into a deadly chase, now both their hearts and lives at risk.

Ryder Westwood is still reeling from the revelation that the love of his life had lied to him before her shocking death. Now all he craves is solitude. But when the grumpy Border Force Captain rushes to rescue a yacht that's sinking after colliding with a mysterious object, his pain and anger are tested by Piper Harrison, the yacht's feisty skipper.

Piper, a single mom and grieving widow, was sailing around Australia with her rebellious teenager. But as their yacht vanishes beneath the waves, a gruesome discovery catapults them into the crosshairs of a sinister underworld.

When Piper's daughter is kidnapped, Piper and Ryder are drawn into a whirlwind of desire and danger. Bullets fly, and with the body count rising, they enlist the help of the Alpha Tactical Ops heroes to rescue Piper's daughter from ruthless enemies.

Will they save all that Piper has left?
Or will their shattered hearts remain broken forever?