Windswept (8 page)

“There’s a bright side to being marooned in the water at night?”

She nodded. “There’s a bright side to everything, dummy. You just have to look for it.”

He looked at her like she was nuts, then made a show of looking right, left, up, and down. “Uh, the moon is giving us some light?”

“No. The police took our passports, so those are nice and safe.”

He laughed out loud, and it did her good to hear that, to see his smile.

“And dry.”

“Drier than us, at least.”

He looked at her like he was going to say something, but he didn’t say anything at all. Just looked and looked until she wanted to tap him on the side of the head to tip the words out.

“Drier than us,” he agreed at last, shooting her a little smile. Then he flipped a switch and went back to serious again. All cop. All soldier. All Ryan, for lack of a better word.

“Where’s your sailboat?” he asked, scanning the anchorage.

She pointed. “All the way at the far side. We’re about halfway there. About another mile to go.”

He muttered something, then took a long, steadying breath. Under normal circumstances, neither of them would bat an eye at that distance, but tonight…

She looked around. Tonight, she wouldn’t be above borrowing someone’s dinghy, but there was nothing in sight. It was swim or nothing.

“Easy,” he lied, obviously trying to bolster her nerves.

“Easy,” she lied back, trying to bolster his. “We did three times that in a single workout in New York.”

“Right,” he murmured.

“Right.”

Neither of them moved for a long time.

“If it gets to be too much, we can always detour to shore,” she tried.

“Sure.” He sounded about as enthusiastic about it as she did.

“Right. Ready, Eddie?”

His lips quirked at the line she’d used to challenge him back in the pool.

She waited for him to echo with his standard reply.
Born ready.

But he didn’t. He went all serious again, intent on something on her face. He leaned closer and pulled lightly at the same time, making her wonder what he was going to brush off her skin. A piece of seaweed? Her hair?

But he didn’t brush. Didn’t move a hand. He only moved his lips, pressing them against hers in a kiss very much like their very first one, back in New York. A kiss that barely had any motion to it but still managed to roll fireballs through her nerves.

That short, sweet kiss lasted forever — the best kind of forever — in her mind. They could have been in her favorite brunch place in Brooklyn, kissing for the first time, or Central Park, or on the stoop outside her apartment. It didn’t matter where or when or why. It only mattered that he was there.

Then Ryan let go and nodded, like he was satisfied he’d gotten it right. Which he absolutely, positively had, because every panicked nerve in her body had settled down and was now happily humming along.

“Born ready,” he murmured and nodded across the bay.

Just like in the pool,
Ryan told himself, stroking along through the water at Mia’s side. Right arm, left arm, kick-kick-kick, just like in the pool. Making his body long and lean, rolling with every stroke to cut through the water like a fish.

His right arm twinged a little, reminding him that this was not in the least bit like the pool because it was goddamn dark, above and below, and the water was as endless as the night sky. And if the current set in any time now, they’d be royally screwed.

But other than that…just like the pool, right?

He’d done this kind of swim in the Navy, so he sure as hell could do it again. And even nighttime in Bonaire beat noon in the East River, so he’d manage just fine.

Fine. Perfectly fine. He repeated the words like a mantra with every stroke.

He was running on empty, and he knew it, but that kiss worked as fuel. A fringe benefit he hadn’t been thinking about when he did it, because the kiss kind of just happened, just…just because. He played it over and over in his mind. How good it felt. How right. For Mia, too. He replayed her tiny gasp of surprise at the start and her little moan when they’d broken apart. The way her hands tightened around his back like she never wanted to let go. The way he’d clutched her, like
he
never wanted
her
to let go.

When she’d left him in New York, it had taken three weeks to realize how bad he had it for her. But now… Crap, he didn’t just have it bad, he was in deep. In more ways than one.

Focus, man!

Mia was getting ahead; he needed to keep his head in the game. She swam like she knew exactly where she was going, which was a damn good thing, because he had no idea. No idea what they’d do when they got to her boat, or what they’d do after that, or after whatever came next.

But they’d cross those bridges when they came to them. Eventually. Right now, he’d better concentrate on catching up.

Her leg bumped his, and he got a little rush, like he always did when she touched him. A minute later, she did it again, but it was more of a kick. He sputtered to a stop to give her a little space.

He looked up, and it struck him that she was a full length ahead. Too far away to have kicked him.

An itchy, crawling feeling worked its way down his spine. If Mia hadn’t brushed up against him, then…

“Stop!” he called. He treaded water with the smallest movements possible. “Stop!”

Mia splashed to a stop, and he winced, looking around for the fin he was certain must be cutting through the water.

He looked left. No fin.

Jerked his head right. No fin.

Looked straight down into the inky water. Couldn’t see a damn thing.

“What?” Mia called. “Why did you sto—”

A sleek form cut through the water between them, barely making a splash. It was too dark to make out any detail, but it was big. Plenty big. Phosphorescence sparkled in its wake, which might have been kind of cool if it weren’t for the shark-attack music playing in the back of his mind.

“Oh my God!” Mia whispered, following the shape with her eyes.

He swam over to her side and went back-to-back with her. “You see anything?”

Her voice wavered when she answered. “It went that way.”

He couldn’t tell which way
that way
was, but it didn’t sound good.

“Maybe we should swim to shore,” Mia tried. “Or climb out on the nearest boat.”

He looked. Shore was a long way away, and the nearest boat wasn’t all that near.

“Oh!” Mia jolted half a second after he did. “Did you feel that, too?”

Yeah, he’d felt it. Wished he could feel his dive knife strapped to his calf where he kept it whenever he dove in open water. Only he hadn’t been planning on going swimming tonight, so no knife. No weapon, no light.

“Probably just a fish,” he lied.

“Right,” Mia whispered. “A fish.”

And then it was back, sweeping right past them, brushing along his shoulder and hers, and he punched at the water. They said sharks were sensitive around the snout, but where the hell was the snout? He couldn’t see a thing.

“Wait! Look!” Mia grabbed his arm.

Phosphorescence flashed again, all along the sleek back disappearing into the water, illuminating a fin and, a second later, a tail.

He blinked as it disappeared in the water. Not the vertical tail of a shark, but the horizontal tail of—

“A dolphin!” Mia squeaked. “Dolphins!”

A second splash followed the first, and he saw it then, too. The perfectly round blowhole on its head, the crooked smile of a mouth. Two — no, three dolphins were running laps around them. He could hear them clicking in dolphin Morse code.

“Dolphins,” he managed, then laughed out loud.

“Dolphins,” Mia cried, spinning in a slow circle to watch them glide by.

They watched in stunned silence for a minute, and he willed his heart rate to settle down.

“Want to give us a ride to
Serendipity
, Flipper?” Mia called.

Flipper didn’t answer, but that was okay. As long as it was Flipper and not Jaws, he wouldn’t complain.

“Bye, Flipper.” Mia gave a little wave as the phosphorescence moved away and faded.

He let out a slow breath. “Bye-bye, Flipper. Just don’t give me a heart attack next time, please.”

Mia chuckled, and that wave of tickling heat rolled through him again. There she went again, finding the bright side in everything. Keeping her nerve when it counted most. Looking at him like maybe there was a bright side in him too, and all she had to do was look hard enough.

“Not far now,” she murmured after another quiet second ticked by.

And just like that, she was off again.

He could finally make out what she was aiming for: three boxy yellow lights, topped by a white one higher up. Every time he raised his head up high enough to look, they drew a little closer until the boxes became the windows of a cabin. A cozy cabin, from the look of it, on a cozy little boat.

A couple more strokes and he had the rung of a swim ladder tight in his hand. Mia was there already, looking back the way they’d come with big eyes that couldn’t quite believe it was over. Then she dipped her head back to get the hair away from her face just like she did at the pool in that move that was guaranteed to turn a dozen heads, and clambered up the ladder, giving him a perfect view of her perfect ass.

Not that he was thinking about
that
at a time like
this
. Not in the least.

He came up behind her, dripping all over the deck.

Mia hopped from the aft deck into the cockpit and called inside. “Meredith?”

Right, the sister. He looked down at his dripping shorts, the shirt clinging to his chest. He looked like a drowned rat.

“Mia? Is that you?” A voice a little higher than Mia’s called, and her sister appeared in the companionway.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Mia said, grabbing a towel off the lifelines strung around the cockpit.

“Oh my God, are you all right?” Meredith jumped out and caught her sister in a huge hug.

Ryan felt like he ought to look away, but he couldn’t quite do it. The little Mia had ever told him about her sister didn’t make it sound like they were particularly close, but that hug said differently. That hug said they were family.

It showed, and not just in the hug. They looked a lot alike. The same narrow chin, the same slender face. The same build, if he took away Mia’s swimmer’s shoulders. Meredith’s long hair was darker than Mia’s but just as straight, and she had that same could-be-nobody, could-be-a-secret-superstar kind of poise that kept a guy guessing every time he peeked.

“Why are you all wet?” Meredith asked, breaking off the hug. She kept one hand on Mia’s shoulder exactly like a mom would do. The caring older sister, through and through.

“Wait, where’s the dinghy?”

Mia looked at her feet. “You don’t want to know.”

Meredith’s right eyebrow arched as she glanced his way, a little wary. “And who is this?”

Mia shook her head and murmured, “You
really
don’t want to know.”

He sighed a little inside. So they were back to that, were they?

“Ryan Hayes,” he said, leaning in to shake Meredith’s hand.

“Nice to meet you, Ry—” she started, before her eyebrows shot up. She turned to Mia.
“That
Ryan?”

He winced, because Meredith’s tone didn’t imply oh-my-God-is-this-that-sweet-Ryan-you-told-me-about? It certainly didn’t say, Ryan-who-made-your-toes-curl-Ryan? More like Ryan-rat-bastard-Ryan-who-betrayed-you-Ryan? Ryan-whose-nuts-you’d-like-to-put-in-a-vise-Ryan?

Mia sighed a heavy sigh. “That Ryan.”

Meredith looked at him, cocking her head. It looked like she was reserving judgment — for the time being, at least. “Well, welcome aboard, Ryan,” she said, then added a quieter, “I think.”

God, it had been a long day. And it sure looked like it might be a long night.

“We have to get moving,” Mia said, uncoiling the lines by a winch on the starboard side.

“Going? Where?” Meredith protested.

“It’s a long story.”

Meredith looked at him to embellish, but he kept his mouth shut. Mia told him not to say anything about the dive that day, right? And anyway, it was bad enough that Mia was in danger. The more they told Meredith, the more she’d be dragged into the mess, too. Okay, she was already dragged in, but still. He crossed his arms, sealed his lips, and became the audience to a two-woman show.

“It’s night. It’s dark.” Meredith gestured wildly. “We can’t go anywhere right now!”

“We have to go,” Mia grunted, moving to the other side.

“The engine’s out. You know that. Mia, what’s going on?”

Mia stopped and slumped over the winch. God, she looked tired. Really tired. “I saw the man who bombed that ship today.
Neptune’s Revenge.
”

“You what?”

Mia barely moved, though he sensed a tiny tremble. He nearly went to her side, but Meredith got there first, reaching a hand to Mia’s shoulder in one of those sister-sister moments a guy had no business barging in on.

“Don’t worry. My friend Celeste said they had the suspects in custody,” Meredith said.

Mia let out a bitter snort. “They had
us
in custody.”

“They what?” Meredith hit a high note.

Mia waved her hand like that wasn’t the point. “Listen, we have to get out of here. Whoever bombed that boat is after us now. And if they figure out I’m on
Serendipity…
God, Mer, they could come after us here. They could come after the boat!”

Ryan cocked his head at her. Someone had tried to kill her twice that day and she was worried about a boat?

“Serendipity?”
Meredith wrung her hands and breathed the name like it was holy or something.

“Yeah,
Serendipity.
We have to move in case they come looking.”

“Move where?”

Mia straightened and looked north, along the dark coastline. “You know that anchorage we stopped at one day? The one tucked under a cliff? Wilhelm’s Baai?”

“The one surrounded by reefs?”

“Reefs we made it through once before.”

“At noon, with the sun lighting up the pass.”