Even the deepest love needs an air supply…
Dive shop manager Marina Hernandez is carrying a heavy load as she tries to save the family business. On one shoulder rides a bucket of red ink. On the other, her father’s age-old cultural belief that women belong in the kitchen.
Now that a cutthroat competitor has pushed her to the brink of bankruptcy, any chance she’ll ever win her father’s respect is fading fast. The last thing she can afford right now is the complication of a tempting man.
After years of building his practice, pediatrician Brett Sutherland has changed his focus. He seeks a more well-rounded life, including a woman who’ll devote herself to caring for a family. Workaholics need not apply. Then he signs up for scuba lessons, and Marina’s luminous eyes and spirited personality turn his neat, logical plan upside down.
Brett’s dazzling looks heat her blood, and his compassionate nature makes her yearn to build her own life—but not if it means letting the business collapse. A little harmless flirtation couldn’t hurt, though.
Yet with every kiss, she’s stretched thinner between the promise of Brett’s love and her father’s expectations. Until a critical decision pushes them both to the breaking point…
Product Warnings Contains a hunk in a swimsuit. May lead to spending your entire summer at a beach or pool ogling the male scenery.
Copyright © 2010 Kathleen Mix
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication
The little bell over the dive shop door jingled.
Marina locked the cash drawer and turned toward the tall man pushing open the door and coming inside.
Ay caramba. Why now?
“I’m sorry, we’re closed.” She huffed out her breath, hating the idea of sending away a customer. But she had no choice. She was already running late.
The man ignored her warning and let the door swing shut behind him. “I’m here to sign up for tonight’s introductory SCUBA session. Has it started yet?”
She glanced at the clock: two minutes after seven. “No. And it can’t start until I get to the pool area. I’m the instructor.”
Worried someone else would come in and delay her schedule more, Marina rushed to the front door and slid the deadbolt across. When she turned back toward the man, her gaze met a pair of mesmerizing blue eyes.
He flashed a smile. “Does the fact that you’re locking me in mean I can stay?”
Without any time to stare at his gorgeous eyes, she blinked and considered his question. To remain in business, she needed every student she could get. “Yes, you can stay.”
“Great. What do I need to do?”
She scanned his chestnut brown hair, the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and the thick eyelashes that were too perfect to belong to any man. She had no idea what he needed to do, other than sweep her into his arms and whisk her away to the Caribbean.
“Ah…a liability waver, you need to sign a liability waver.”
After a long silence, his expression turned puzzled. “May I have one, please?”
He slipped a well-manicured hand inside his suit jacket and removed a gold-trimmed pen from his pocket. Meanwhile, she stole another look at his face.
Earth to Marina, the logical half of her brain yelled. Escúcheme. Listen to me. A liability waver, get one!
Her cheeks heated. She rushed behind the checkout counter and grabbed a registration packet. She wondered why he made her feel short of breath like she’d just finished swimming a marathon and why she wanted to stare at him as if she’d never seen a man before. But her brain failed to supply a reason.
Get your mind back on business, she scolded herself. There’s no time in the schedule for you to act like a giddy teenager. You have people waiting to start a class.
She turned back toward him, and her mouth went slightly dry. She drew in a huge breath, straightened her shoulders, placed the registration packet on the counter and removed the top form.
“Please read and sign this liability waiver, then you can participate in the introductory session. If you decide to continue with lessons, you can fill out the rest of the registration packet later. Right now, I’m short on time, and I’d like to get started.”
He bent his head over the paper, was silent for half a minute, then scrawled a signature.
She squinted at the bold, but completely illegible, signature at the bottom of the page and searched for letters in the dips and spikes. Unable to decipher the hieroglyphics, she asked, “Would you print your name under your signature please?”
His printing was slightly more legible. Marina watched him spell out Brett before she glanced up. The overhead lights reflected off his hair, and her fingers tingled with the desire to find out if the strands felt as silky as they looked. She interlocked her fingers behind her back to keep them under control.
“Thank you, Brett. Did you bring a swimsuit?”
He held up a blue gym bag. “Right here.”
“Good.” She pointed toward a doorway at the far corner of the showroom. “The locker rooms are through there. If you’ll change, then go out to the pool area and join the others, we’ll begin.”
He nodded and strode away.
For a few seconds, Marina watched, imagining him undressing and wondering what it would feel like to help him remove his shirt. If he looked so fabulous fully clothed, he’d probably look phenomenal in a swimsuit.
Mortified at her unprofessional thoughts, she knocked her fist twice against her forehead to make her brain behave and hurried out to the pool.
At the edge of the pool, the participants in the night’s introductory program clustered around her. She felt a giddy sense of elation seeing the anticipation on their faces.
“Welcome to Paradise Dive Center and our free Introductory SCUBA Session,” she said. “I’m Marina Hernandez. Tonight I’ll be showing you a little of what SCUBA diving is about. Afterward you’ll have the opportunity to join my next Open Water diving class. We’re going to get into the pool so you can experience the thrill of breathing while underwater. You’ll need to wear wetsuits and buoyancy compensating devices, which I’ll refer to as BCDs. So to begin, let’s move over to the gear area and suit up.”
She asked each participant their height and weight and found them an appropriate wetsuit. They started to don the suits, but before Marina had a chance to assign BCDs, one woman brought her wetsuit back.
Brett strolled out of the men’s locker room wearing his swimsuit. Marina’s thoughts veered to his sturdy shoulders, corded bare arms and broad chest, and she lost track of what she’d been doing.
“Miss Hernandez? Miss Hernandez?” a female voice prodded.
Marina tilted her chin and gave herself a mental shake. This was ridiculous. The business had too many problems for her to let her mind wander. She had to concentrate on her financial survival and ignore all distractions. Brett was a fantastic-looking distraction, but he was here to learn SCUBA diving, and she had work to do. She needed to sign up all of tonight’s participants for regular classes. Lessons brought in a few dollars, but more important, they certified new divers. New divers usually decided to purchase equipment, and equipment had a better profit margin. Making a profit on gear was her only prayer of keeping the shop out of bankruptcy.
Stick to teaching and forget his abs. There’s no time in your life for any man but Papa.
Marina turned toward the woman. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Evans. What were you asking?”
“He certainly is an attractive man. If I was thirty years younger…”
“I’m just glad he’s finished changing so we can get on with the class.”
The woman lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You can admit it. You were looking. But that’s okay, you’re young and pretty. And I think he’s looking at you too.”
Marina felt another blush creeping up her cheeks. “Really, Mrs. Evans, could we concentrate on the class?”
The older woman sighed. “I need a larger wetsuit. The one you gave me must be marked wrong, it’s way too tight.”
Brett watched Marina shuffle through the wetsuits on the rack. She pulled one out and held it in front of a middle-aged woman with gray-streaked hair and a pear-shaped torso.
Taking full advantage of the opportunity to study Marina, he crossed his arms loosely over his chest, leaned against the wall and admired what he saw. She was about five-four, he guessed. She had a slender build, perfectly proportioned breasts and well-toned muscles, probably from exercising in the water. Her thick, ebony hair was cut in an appealing layered style, and the ends swayed and brushed her honey-skinned shoulders.
She turned, and his gaze followed a smooth back downward to curvaceous hips accentuated by her French-cut, hot pink swimsuit.
A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. Her body, her face and her mellow, intriguing voice all cried out sexy. She was like an oasis, a lush place where a desert-weary man could be refreshed by beauty.
He wondered what bit of good fate had made him choose this shop to take SCUBA lessons and brought him here tonight.
Watching her kindled a desire to break his long stint of celibacy and decisively complete the re-invention of his life. She was distinctly different from the women he usually dated. But his previous strict criteria had gotten him nowhere. Now that he’d decided to expand his interests and stick with fun, casual relationships, she’d be the perfect partner.
The pear-shaped woman took the wetsuit Marina handed her, and Marina turned his way. A dazzling smile curved her full lips.
He fantasized about tasting those lips, slipping the swimsuit straps off her shoulders, slowly kissing his way down the graceful column of her neck, and then lingering around the swell of her breasts. Blood rushed to his extremities. He jolted himself out of the wanton fantasy, stepped to the rack, grabbed a size large wetsuit and held it in front of him, hoping his lustful thoughts weren’t physically obvious.
“This one will do fine.”
Her dark, luminous eyes opened wide. Embers of mutual attraction glowed in their exotic depths. Embers he’d like to ignite into flames.
“Well, a man who makes quick decisions,” she said. Her tongue slipped out and moistened her bottom lip.
His heart pounded. “No point in wasting time.”
“Yes, you’re right.” Her gaze skittered away.
She turned toward the rest of the class. “Go ahead and suit up, and we’ll start the fun part of the class.”
Brett made another slow scan of her body. “I thought we already did.”
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