Deep Waters

Prologue: Charity

    The sea lures the unwary with the promise of freedom, but it harbors great risk.

    - "On the Way of Water," from the journal of Hayden Stone

    The panic attack struck as Charity Truitt swept through the glass-paned French doors of one of the most exclusive business clubs in Seattle. It hit her with the force of a stiff jolt of electricity. Her pulse pounded. She could scarcely breathe. Perspiration suddenly threatened to ruin her outrageously sophisticated red silk dress. Luckily, she hadn't paid retail for the overpriced scrap of designer whimsy. Her family owned the store in which it had been on display in the couture section.
    Charity came to a halt in the doorway of the private lounge that had been reserved for the occasion. She struggled to take a deep breath. She put up an even more valiant fight to conceal the fact that she had a major problem on her hands. It occurred to her that those in the well-dressed crowd who noticed her hovering there on the threshold probably thought she was making an intentionally dramatic entrance. The truth was, she was on the verge of panicked flight.
    With the iron-willed discipline of a woman who had been running a corporation since the age of twenty-four, she forced herself to smile while anxiety shredded her insides.
    It wasn't the first panic attack she had endured. They had been striking with increasing frequency during the past four months, destroying her sleep, making her edgy and restless, and, worst of all, raising dark questions about her mental health.
    The attacks had driven her first to her doctor and then to a therapist. She got some technical explanations but no real answers.
    An unprovoked fight-or-flight response, the therapist had said. An evolutionary throwback to the days when we all lived in caves and worried about monsters in the night. Stress was usually a contributing factor.
    But now, tonight, Charity suddenly knew the real reason for the attacks. She realized at last what, or, rather, who, triggered the surges of panic. His name was Brett Loftus, owner of Loftus Athletic Gear. He was big, well over six feet tall, and, at thirty, still endowed with the body of the varsity football star he had once been. He was also blond, brown-eyed, and good-looking in an engaging, old-fashioned, western hero sort of way. Just to top it off, he was hugely successful and a really nice man.
    Charity liked him, but she did not love him. She was pretty sure that she could never love him. Worse, she had a strong hunch that her stepsister, Meredith, and the easygoing, good-natured Brett were perfect for each other. The recent panic attacks had not diminished all of her near-legendary intuition.
    Unfortunately, it was Charity, not Meredith, who was supposed to announce her engagement to the heir to the Loftus empire tonight.
    The merger was to be a business move as well as a personal union. In a few weeks, Loftus Athletic Gear, would be joining with the family-owned Truitt department store chain to form Truitt-Loftus.
    The new company would be one of the largest privately owned retailers in the Northwest. If all went well, it would begin expanding into the exciting Pacific Rim market within two years.
    For the sake of the family and business responsibilities that she had shouldered so early, Charity was about to marry a man who gave her anxiety attacks every time he took her into his arms.
    It was not Brett's fault that he was so big that she got claustrophobic when he kissed her, she thought wildly. It was her problem. She had to deal with it.
    It was her responsibility to solve problems. She was good at that kind of thing. People expected her to take command, to manage whatever crisis happened to present itself.
    Charity's hands tingled. She could not get any air into her lungs. She was going to faint, right here in front of some of the most influential and powerful people in the Northwest.
    She had a humiliating vision of herself collapsed facedown on the Oriental rug, surrounded by bemused friends, business associates, competitors, rivals, and, worst of all, a few chosen members of the local media.
    "Charity?"
    The sound of her own name startled her. Charity whirled, red silk skirts whipping around her ankles, and looked up at her stepsister, Meredith.
    A long way up.
    At twenty-nine, Charity was five years older than Meredith, but she was only five foot four inches tall on her best days. Even the three-inch red heels she wore tonight did not put her at