Cinderella Search by Judy Griffith; Gill Page A

want to take out parties of photographers, painters, even just sight-seers on day cruises, and maybe overnighters. There has to be an alternative to killing things for entertainment, as badly as we need tourist dollars.”
    “I agree,” he said. “I have a career that takes me into oceans all over the world and I’m probably even more worried about conserving marine life than you are.”
    Lissa felt her jaw drop. “You have a career?” The words popped out before she could bite them back. She choked, then tried to control it with another gulp of coffee, which only made things worse.
    He laughed aloud as he rose and thumped her on the back. “Of course I do,” he said over the sound of her coughing. “What did you think I was, a dilettante?”
    Since that pretty much covered it, she had to do some fast backpedaling. “I meant a career that takes you into the ocean.”
    “I’m a deep-sea diver,” he said as the thumps eased off to gentle pats. “I just finished a contract working with a scientific team studying krill. We were working in Antarctica—the Ross Sea—since early January and just finished up a week ago.”
    “That must have been, um … cold,” Brilliant repartee, Lissa! What a scintillating conversationalist you are! Maybe she could do better if only he’d quit patting her back. He did, after a last run along her spine with the tips of his fingers.
    “Yeah, it was cold, all right,” he said, then grinned. “And nobody to offer me hot milk, or cover me up at night.”
    “Surely if you’d gone to one of your father’s resorts you’d have been pampered.”
    “To death,” he said wryly. “That’s why none of us ever go.”
    “Us?”
    “My older sister and younger brother feel the same way. We’re a great disappointment to Dad, in that we didn’t follow in his footsteps. My sister’s a doctor, my brother’s a stockbroker, and I just bum around the world on boats.”
    That reminder brought her to her feet. And probably to her senses. “Would you … would you like that tour of the boat now?” Anything would be better than sitting there with his hand caressing her spine.
    His eager smile did dangerous things to her heart. “Sure,” he said. “I’d love to see where you live.”

Chapter Five
    S TEVE FOLLOWED LISSA DOWN the companionway to the saloon, breathing in the scent of good wood polish mingled with the faint odor of diesel, and something else. He liked the way boats smelled, but this one was special. It had a distinctive aroma, a feminine one that he realized must be due to the fact that a woman lived here, sprayed perfume on herself here, lit scented candles here, used makeup and special bath soap and talcum powder.
    No, not just a woman. Lissa. Lissa, with her thick braid lying on her back where his hand had so recently rested. Lissa, minus her long skirt, dressed now in skimpy shorts that showed her long, slim legs to even better advantage than her jeans had. Bare and tan.
    Those were the legs he’d seen hanging through his ceiling, legs whose smooth skin he’d touched. He was almost sure of it.
    He wanted, suddenly, and with an intensity that shook him, to run his hands over them from thigh to ankle, to feel the silk of her skin under his palms. One such touch and he’d know. And if he was wrong, which he doubted, it wouldn’t matter. He’d gladly forget about the woman with the tattoo, if he could just slide his hands along Lissa Wilkins’s perfect legs. His breathing grew erratic, his throat tightened and he considered a swift retreat, but Lissa turned just then, gesturing toward a door half-behind the companionway they’d descended: He jerked his gaze up, meeting her eyes. It did little to improve his equilibrium.
    “There are four double cabins back that way,” she said, oblivious to his agony, “and the engine room below. Twin diesels.”
    She showed him into a narrow corridor, opened a door as she passed it and stepped aside so he could enter. The cabin