A cruise. Lord help her, she was on a cruise. Out in the middle of the ocean, the deep, dark, shark infested ocean.

Never mind that, or the fact that she was on, quite possibly, the biggest boat she'd ever seen in her life, but she was on it with her mother.

The woman who under the best of circumstances drove her crazy, and under the worst...she sighed, right now she couldn't bear to think about the worst.

Though she was sure to have to before the ten days from hell, as she'd begun to think of them, were up. Heck, knowing her and her mom, they probably wouldn't make it past twenty-four hours without having one of their infamous blowouts.

Why, oh why, oh why had she let her brother talk her into this? He was going to pay, big time, when she got back to Ft. Lauderdale. Oh yes, he was most definitely going to pay.

Okay, so her mother really wasn't all that bad...most of the time. It was just that she'd always been a daddy's girl, so whenever she'd gone home she'd tended toward spending most of her time with him. His death a year and a half ago had changed that, abruptly and finally.

She'd been forced to deal with the mother she'd never, truly, understood.

They were so different, almost worlds apart really, in how they thought, lived, dealt with their lives.

Mom was content to let life go where it may, following along wherever it led her, almost as if she didn't have a care in the world. Holley, well Holley, took life by the scruff of the neck and took it where she wanted to go.

Her mother was constantly telling her to lighten up, she was constantly telling her mom to take things a little more seriously. With most people, head banging would normally follow, except that her mom wasn't normal. Nope, she never yelled, just sat back, and calmly eyed her daughter when she went off on one of her tangents. They had blowouts, all right, and they were, almost, always one sided.

Monica didn't believe in raising her voice, it disturbed her karma.

Holley groaned just thinking about it, her karma...God help them all when her mother started talking about karma.

Yes, Holley, was definitely her father's daughter. Serious, studious and goal oriented. How he and her mother had ever hooked up, never mind stayed married for 28 years was beyond her, but they had. And, she sighed, she knew her mother missed him terribly. Even after eighteen months, she was still a little too pale, a little to quiet, and more than a little lost.

Which was why, when her brother had suggested this mother/daughter thing, she'd gone along with it.

Leaning over the railing, she shuddered at the inky water below.

"You know, don't you, that if you jump I'm going to have to do the gentlemanly thing and dive in after you. Which," the dark haired stranger moved closer to her, "while I don't mind water, I do hate heights, so I'd really appreciate it if you could move back from the railing," he held his hands about a foot apart, "just a little."

His sigh of relief when she complied was quite clear. "Thanks." He studied her, his brown eyes somber, before holding out his hand. "Hi, I'm Chris." He indicated the railing and dark sea beyond with his hand, "It can't really be that bad, can it?"

"Hi, I'm Holley. I wasn't going to jump." She grimaced at his skeptical look. "Really."

"Then why were you leaning over like that?" He shivered just thinking about it.

"Being out in the middle of all this water gives me the creeps," she shrugged, "I keep thinking the more I look at it the better that'll get?"

He laughed, "Well, I don't know about that. Just do me a favor, okay?"

"What's that?" She asked.

"Stop."

They both laughed.

"I'll try, how's that?"

"Good enough." He took in her sparkling blue eyes, the long dark hair dancing in the wind, and her petite frame. "So, Holley, what's a pretty lady like you doing out here all alone, trying not to jump off the ship?"

For several, long, silent seconds she eyed him. "As far as pick up lines go, that one was pretty lame, you know that right?"

"Well, you know," They both turned to the voice coming out of the darkness, "Chris isn't exactly known for his way with women."

God, there he was, the man of her dreams, the one she'd spent more hours than she cared to remember fantasizing about and the one she'd almost squealed over upon seeing him board the ship with Chris this afternoon.

Yes, she was well aware of who they were; though she hadn't confessed that to Chris yet. She wasn't sure she would get the opportunity to if she didn't do it soon.

"Holley, this is my friend J..."

Hastily she interrupted him. "JC...I know who you guys are." She shrugged sheepishly when Chris looked back at her, one eyebrow raised.

"Sorry, I know I should have said something. We were just talking about me jumping and..."

"Jumping? You were going to jump?" JC looked from her to Chris. "What did you do?" He demanded of his friend.

"ME! I...what?" Chris sputtered.

"He didn't do anything." Holley laughingly explained. "It was just a simple misunderstanding. Chris was actually," she looked from summer blue eyes to warm brown ones, "coming to my rescue."

Which was, now that she thought of it, very sweet.

Chris misunderstood the smile hovering over her mouth. He'd seen the way she looked at JC when he'd first walked up, had known then and there any hope he'd had of getting to know her better over the course of the next ten days, had gone from slim to none.

"Listen," Holley interrupted his train of thought, "I need to get in to dinner or I'll be in the dog house with my mom for sure."

"Your mom?"

"Yeah," Holley shifted uncomfortably, "We're doing a bonding thing, I guess you could say."

"That's nice." JC smiled at her, before turning to Chris. "I was just coming out to tell you they were starting to seat people, too. Why don't we all walk in together?"

Holding his arm out to Holley, he turned towards the wide double doors leading into the main deck area. Chris was left with no choice but to trail along behind the pair.

"Lord it's hot." JC groaned, rolling from his stomach to his back. "I think I'm gonna jump in the pool. Anyone else want to come?"

"Oh, I will." Holley swung her legs off the chaise lounge, then grinning down at Chris held out her hand. "How about you lazy, you coming?"

He'd been lying in the same spot for the last hour, never once moving, or saying a word.

"No, you guys go ahead, I'm going to stay here and bake some more."

From behind the dark lenses of his glasses he watched the pair walk away. He'd love nothing more than to wash the stickiness off his body by jumping in the pool, but he'd be damned if he was going to follow behind the two of them like a puppy anymore. He'd been doing it for the last four days and he was sick of it.

They'd been surprised that first night to find that they were sharing a table in the dining room, along with a middle aged man, his daughter, her husband and their son.

They'd all gotten along well, especially Holley's mother Monica and Daniel, the older gentleman in the group. So much so in fact, that Holley hadn't seen much of her mother in the last several days.

One of the reasons he and JC had decided on this cruise was because it spent all but two days at sea. They hadn't wanted to hop from island to island. All they'd wanted to do when the tour was over was, as Chris had put it, veg.

They were getting their wish, and Chris was enjoying himself, for the most part. He'd be enjoying it more if Holley had fallen for him instead of his friend.

He'd noticed her as they were boarding that first afternoon, but had figured the odds of running into her on a ship this large weren't good, so he'd put the pretty brunette out of his head.

Until he'd seen her leaning over the railing that night on deck.

There'd been a few times since then that he'd wanted to toss JC over it, shifting he watched them frolic in the water, but he couldn't gather up the enthusiasm for it.

It wasn't JC's fault that nine out of ten women picked him over Chris. Hell, if Chris were female, he'd probably pick JC over himself, too.

JC, Justin, Lance, Joey and then Chris. That was the way it usually went, and he'd thought he'd gotten used to it. Until now, until Holley.

He really liked her, a lot. She was serious, sure. She was also sassy as hell, and as much as she might grumble about her mom, she really looked out for her. He knew it must bother her to see her mother with another man, she'd told them about her dad one night while they were out lounging on the deck, looking at the stars, yet she was genuinely happy about Daniel because her mom was.

There was just something, special, about her.

Huffing he flopped over onto his stomach so that he could no longer see them. He really needed to get over this infatuation with her. JC obviously liked her and she him. Mooning over her wouldn't do any of them any good. Closing his eyes he willed himself to think of anything, or anyone but them.

"Hey, what ya thinking about?" JC had swum over to join Holley who was lazily treading water near the edge of the pool.

"Oh, nothing." She'd been watching Chris, was still, and JC followed her gaze to his friend.

"He's a great guy you know. Sure, he can be a tad overwhelming at times, but he's the best."

Holley smiled over at him. "You don't need to convince me of that." She rested her chin on her folded hands. The last four days had been eye opening for her. Not only with her mom, but in regards to Chris and JC as well. She liked JC, very much, and she still thought he was one of the best looking men she'd probably ever meet, but he hadn't made her heart pound, or her body melt, not like she'd expected him to should they ever meet. Not like Chris had.

JC, she knew, felt the same about her. They'd gotten to be friends, and she enjoyed hanging out with him. In a great many ways, they were a lot alike, but Chris...oh man, was she incredibly, surprisingly attracted to Chris.

"You know I saw you guys boarding that first day, and I remember thinking that you were hot..."

JC blushed. "Oh please."

"Well," Holley eyed his slicked back hair, and glistening torso, "you are." She giggled at the face he made at her, "Anyway, I remember thinking that about you and then looking at Chris and for the first time it hit me how cute he was." How unbelievably cute, he was. She'd thought so, even more, the night he'd thought to "rescue" her from jumping. She and JC had become friends, but Chris, who she'd really wanted to get to know...she frowned, had remained somewhat distant.

"I don't think he likes me all that much sometimes." She mused, then tossed a startled glance at JC when he burst into laughter.

"You've got to be kidding me?"

"No, I'm not kidding. Everytime we do something and I ask him to join us he says no."

JC tapped the top of her head. "Duh. That's because he thinks you and I are..." He wiggled his eyebrows, "Ya know."

"He does not."

"Oh, yeah he does. Holley," JC looked down at the water, it was confession time. He'd always hated confession. "He doesn't know about Cindy."

Cindy was a cute, sexy blonde that JC had run into their second night onboard at the Casino. They'd taken an instant, heated, liking to each other, but that was all there was to it. They both knew that once they left the ship, they'd never see each other again.

JC was cool with that. Though he was the least unlikely of all the guys to pick up a woman for a week, he wasn't totally opposed to the idea. Especially when the woman was as sexy as Cindy was, and as sweet.

She was also here with her family and though she had bribed her sister into not saying anything about what time she finally came crawling back into their shared cabin, she couldn't spend the entire night with JC.

That was how Holley had found out about the two of them, she'd run into Cindy sneaking out of JC's room one morning when she couldn't sleep and had been heading out for an early morning jog.

"Well, then who does he think you're hanging the "do not disturb" sign out every night for."

His look was pointed.

"OH! No way. He thinks you and I...that we...Jayyyyyceeeee." She punched his shoulder, "How could you let him think that?"

Ducking his head, JC tried to look contrite. "Cindy didn't want me to tell him, she made me promise not to." Plus, he'd thought a little dose of jealousy would do Chris good. Only instead of making him compete for Holley's attention like he'd hoped it would, it had made him retreat inside his shell.

"Well, I don't care what you promised Cindy. You're telling him we're not sleeping together, and you're doing it now." Grabbing him by the arm, she began to drag him out of the pool. "I don't even believe you. I've known you for four days. Four days! I don't sleep with men I've only known for four days. Even if they are superstars."

"Holley." JC tried to stop her from pulling him, as people were beginning to stare, but she was on a roll.

"Though super idiot is more like it." She stopped so suddenly he plowed into the back of her, rapping his nose against the back of her head.

"Ouch!"

"Good, I hope it hurt." And just to make sure Holley reached over and tweaked it for good measure...hard. "You're just...ahh!" Holley gave up trying to describe how angry she was and started dragging him to the pool ladder again. That was when she spotted her mom.

She and Daniel were sitting, facing each other on lounge chairs they'd placed side by side. Whatever he said to her had her mother's eyes widening. Her hand went to her mouth next, and then to Holley's amazement, her normally unflappable mother was up and running, tears streaming down her face.

"What the..." Holley quickly let go of JC's arm. Racing to the chair where she'd left her bag and towel, she grabbed them quickly then hurried after her mom.

"Holley..." Chris tried to stop her but wasn't quick enough.

"What's wrong with Holley." He demanded of JC when he hurried over.

"There's something up with her mom, I think."

"But, her mom wasn't in the pool."

"I know that Chris, but she was sitting over there," he pointed to a dejected looking Daniel, "with him until just a few minutes ago. Then she got up and ran and Holley went after her."

"Damn, I hope everything's okay." Chris looked worriedly in the direction that Holley had hurried off in. "Maybe I should go and see if they're okay."

"Chris," JC stopped him when he went to get up, "give them a few minutes first. Before you go, you and I need to talk."

Holley and JC weren't interested in each other. They weren't a couple. They hadn't slept together like he'd suspected they had.

They were simply friends.

That should have made him the happiest guy on this boat. It didn't.

All it had done was bring home to him that she hadn't been interested, not in him. If she had, wouldn't she have flirted or something with him, even a little?

In the three days since JC had told him the truth about who was sharing his nights, he'd seen her twice. The first time when he'd gone to her door to make sure everything was okay. She'd explained that her mom was fine. She'd just been a little overwhelmed by Daniel's announcement that he'd thought he'd fallen in love with her.

Holley had probably been overwhelmed as well.

Maybe that was why he hadn't seen her again until tonight at dinner. She and her mom had finally come back to the table after a two-day absence.

It hadn't surprised him that his heart had pounded at the sight of her. It'd been doing that since the first day. But it had surprised him that she couldn't seem to look at him, not at all.

He'd have never thought her to be shy, but that's what it had seemed like tonight. Bold, fearless Holley, had acted shy.

What he didn't know was why?

Walking over to the railing, he figured he'd probably never know. They'd be getting off the boat in two days. She'd done her best to avoid him up until now, and she most likely would for the remainder of the trip. So, the reason why she suddenly couldn't look at or talk to him would most likely remain a mystery.

Chris tugged at the bow tie he hadn't wanted to wear. It was the last formal night, and JC had insisted they wear the tux's they'd brought with them.

He really should go down to the lower deck, join the party that was in full swing there, but his heart just wasn't in it. All he wanted now was to go home and forget a lady he was fast beginning to think was unforgettable.

"You know, don't you," A soft voice spoke from behind him, "that if you jump, I'm going to have to do the whole rescue thing and jump in after you."

They both knew her words weren't, exactly, the same as the ones he'd spoken to her that first night, but they were close.

"I wasn't going to jump," he told her, "I was just trying to see if I'd lost any of my fear of heights."

"Have you?"

Shuddering he moved away from the railing. "No."

Silence settled over them, broken only by the sound of the band warming up for their second set on the deck below.

"So," she looked into his soft brown eyes. "What's a cute guy like you doing all alone on a night like this?"

Chris's eyes widened, as did his smile. "You know, as far as pick up lines go, that one was pretty lame."

"Well, you see that's a problem of mine. I never seem to know how to let someone know when I'm interested. I tend to get all flustered."

Her cheeks were turning pink.

"And quiet."

Like she'd been at dinner tonight.

"And before I know it they've gone away and I've missed my chance." Her normally sparkling eyes were somber when they met his.

"Chris?"

His voice was rusty when he answered, "Yeah."

"Don't go away. Please."

Gently, he cupped her face between his hands. He forgot to breathe when her hands reached up to cover his, and when their lips met, he forgot everything.

Her lips were as soft, no softer, than he'd imagined. Her body fit against his as if God had made her, just for him. And her skin, it was like satin when his fingers wafted over it.

He spoke only four words, but they were all she needed to hear.

"I'm not going anywhere."

The End

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Written by: C for Legal Ladies

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