A Star to Steer Her By

by Beth Anne Miller

  My whole body went cold—as cold as his voice. He’d caught us wrapped around each other. We were dressed—I was in a T-shirt and shorts and Tristan was in the shorts he slept in—but I didn’t think that would matter to the captain. “Get your asses down to the salon. Now.”

  He stalked away, leaving us no choice but to follow. Tristan got to his feet and helped me up. He brushed a strand of hair off my face and kissed my forehead. “It will be all right.”

  Somehow, I didn’t think so. Holding hands—no point in hiding it now—we picked our way around the sleeping bodies of our shipmates and down the ladder to the salon. The captain awaited us there, his arms folded across his chest.

  “What’s going on with the two of you?” he asked. A tiny ray of hope flickered in my heart. Maybe he didn’t know?

  There was a brief pause, and I could imagine the wheels spinning frantically in Tristan’s head as he tried to figure out what to say. “What are you talking about, Dad? We were chatting last night, and we both fell asleep.” Technically, it was the truth, but…

  “Don’t lie to me!” the captain roared, and that ray of hope shattered. It had been a rhetorical question.

  “I saw the way you looked at each other last night during the ceilidh. That was no casual glance between a crewmember and a student. Or even between friends. And I know it wasn’t the first time. I told myself you were just friends. ‘Maybe Tristan’s helping her get over her fear of the water, and she’s helping him deal with the loss of his mother,’ I thought when I saw you sleeping side by side that one morning.”

  “It was exactly like that—” I began, but then he turned his icy glare on me and I shut my mouth.

  “It may have been like that then, but it’s not like that now. I knew you’d gotten closer since then, but I thought one of you would have the sense to end it. Clearly, I was wrong. I’m disappointed in you, Tristan. And in you, Ms. Goodman. You seemed to have a good head on your shoulders—until now.”

  I stifled a cry, nearly doubling over from the sharp pain that knifed through me at his harsh words. The captain’s opinion of me had mattered so much. Each time he complimented my steering or an answer I gave in class, it would always send a rush of pride through me. But to know that he was disappointed in me—and rightly so—was shattering.

  “You know what, Dad?” The captain turned his glare on Tristan. “Life’s too short to waste even one second of it. You should know that better than anyone. And sometimes things don’t happen the way you want them to. You should know that better than anyone, too. I’m done tiptoeing around you. It’s time for me to be getting on with my life, and that includes being with Ari.”

  Not helping, Tristan. I wrapped my arms around myself, wishing I was anywhere else.

  “Oh, aye?” asked the captain sarcastically, “and what of your lass, here? You know the students are forbidden from getting involved with the crew. You know I can have her put off the ship.”

  My heart plummeted to my feet. It was the one thing that had held me back from giving in to my feelings for Tristan, the one thing I’d started to let myself think would never happen.

  “Dad, please don’t do that.” Tristan’s tone went from heated to pleading. “It’s my fault, not hers. I hit on her, and I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Fire me if you have to, but let Ari stay and finish the term.”

  “Tristan, no!” I couldn’t let him take the fall for me.

  The captain scoffed. “You would never seduce someone who was unwilling. Ms. Goodman, you signed that form at the beginning of the term. If I let you break the rules, it undermines my authority in front of this entire ship. I can’t do that.”

  Before I could say anything—plead, if I had to—Tristan slammed his hand on the table. “Are you fucking kidding me? Do you know what it’ll mean for Ari when Marine Classroom finds out? It’ll mean a failing grade for the semester, and she’ll lose her scholarship—not to mention what it could do to her career!”

  “She should have thought of that before messing around with you! And this is your fault, too. You of all people should know how important rules and order are to running a ship like this one. I should fire you. That will go on your record and make it a hell of a lot harder for you to pursue a career as a captain. But I can’t fire my own son.”

  Fury radiated from Tristan’s eyes, the same fury that was there when he chased off those thugs in the Dominican Republic so long ago. “You won’t have to fire me, Captain MacDougall,” he said quietly. “If you do this, I’m out of here with Ari. And you won’t see me again.”

  Tristan’s harsh language earlier hadn’t affected the captain, but this did. He looked devastated. “What would your mother think if she heard you speak to me like this?”

  “Well, she’s not here, is she? And if she was, she’d tell you to shut up and stop being a heartless bastard!”

  Crack! The captain backhanded Tristan across the face, snapping his head back. Oh my God. I clapped my hand to my mouth to keep from crying out.

  There was a stunned silence, and then the captain raised his hands beseechingly. “Son, I—”

  “Fuck you, Dad. Come on, Ari,” he said, taking my hand. I followed him to the ladder, wincing as the captain’s door slammed shut behind us.

  I ascended the ladder on leaden feet. Everyone was standing around, looking shocked. Davey glanced at me and then headed down below, probably to try to calm his friend.

  Tristan led me through the crowd to midships. He turned to me, his face expressionless. “Get what you need for the day and meet me back here. I’ll gather our dive bags.”

  “What?” I felt sick to my stomach, and my legs were shaking. My college career and his relationship with his father had just gone up in flames, and he wanted to go diving?

  His vacant eyes turned pleading. “I can’t be here right now, Red, and neither should you. Let’s do what we planned to do today.”

  I reached up to his cheek, where a bruise was starting to form. He caught my hand before I could touch him. “Let’s just go, aye? I’ll call a taxi. Meet you on the dock in a few.”

  He vaulted the rail and strode down the dock, leaving me staring after him.

  I went to my bunk, numbly grabbed my bathing suit, and went into the head to change. When I came out, Kevin was there. “Ari, are you okay?”

  I shook my head, feeling my face crumple. He pulled me into his arms and held me as I cried.

  Ten minutes later, feeling as if I’d been hit by a truck, I met Tristan on the dock, where he stood with our dive bags, a backpack slung over his shoulder. He looked at my empty hands. “Where’s your stuff? I figured after we dive, we’ll have our picnic…”

  No longer caring who saw us together, I buried my fingers in his hair and pulled his head down, kissing him with all the regret, sorrow, and love I felt for him. Love? You haven’t even known him for two months! Yes, I knew without a doubt that I loved him—kind, sad, passionate Tristan.

  He drew back and looked deeply into my eyes. “Why did that feel like good-bye, Red?”

  I laid my hand against his cheek, careful not to touch his bruise. “Tristan, you and your father are all either of you has. I can’t come between the two of you—if we go off together now, it’ll make things so much worse.”

  “I don’t give a shit about him and what he thinks.”

  “That’s not true, and you know it. You’re here on the Meg because he needed you—and you needed him.”

  “I thought he did, too, which is why I turned down a mate position on another ship to be here. I was in bad shape, but he was a total wreck. He had to watch my mother go from seemingly fine to dead in a week. I couldn’t leave him.

  “But once I was here, he barely acknowledged me. I’ve wondered if he resented me for not being there. I’ve certainly hated myself for it.”

  I shuddered. What a horrible thing for him to think. “You don’t really feel that way, do you? What could you have done?”

  He shrugged, a sad smile on
his face. “I could have shared the burden with him.”

  “I think you’re wrong about him resenting you. The morning after her birthday, when you were asleep next to me in the bow, he was looking at you, completely gutted after your argument. That’s not the behavior of a man who resents you for anything.”

  “That may have been true then, but after this morning…”

  “Just because you fought doesn’t mean you don’t love each other. Please, talk to him today. Try to work things out, even if it means admitting you’re wrong. No, don’t argue,” I said, placing my fingers over his open mouth. “His heart was broken once, don’t break it again. Maybe if you can patch things up, it’ll open the door for a conversation about us. And if not, then at least you’ll have your father back.”

  After thinking about it for a few minutes below deck, I didn’t really think the captain would put me off the ship. He was furious, but he wasn’t cruel. I was way more worried about Tristan.

  “I won’t trade you for him.”

  “The semester is almost over. What did you think would happen then?”

  “I…don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

  “I haven’t stopped thinking about it these last few days. I’m going back to Miami, and you’re going off to work on some other ship. What else is there to say? Work things out with your dad, Tristan. Please. Talk to him.” He and Tristan were so alike, and just like Tristan after the last dive, I hoped that the captain just needed to cool off.

  He looked so defeated, and it tore at my heart to see him that way, to know that it was my fault. He touched the bruise on his cheek and winced. “You know, that was the first time he’s ever hit me?” he whispered. “I think he was more shocked by it than I was.”

  “Tristan—”

  “Shh,” he murmured. He kissed me softly and then drew back, the corner of his mouth turning up in a sad half-smile. “I’ll talk to him. But not ’til tonight. We have the whole day to spend together, and I won’t let him ruin it. Go get your stuff.”

  A couple of hours later, Tristan and I were in a small, fast motorboat, zipping along the coast. We’d taken a taxi to a marina in the eastern part of Nassau, past most of the touristy places, where we rented the boat and the rest of our dive gear. The boat had a swim platform and an awning, and was similar to the boats I’d been on back home. We’d bought sandwiches, water, and a Styrofoam cooler full of ice and stuck it as far under the awning as possible to keep it in the shade.

  We were heading around to the southeast side of the island, where the guy who’d rented us the boat had told us there were some secluded coves with pristine reefs, since the main dive sites were off the southwest coast. The plan was to drop anchor in one of those coves, do the dive, then head into the beach for our “picnic.”

  I shared the bench seat with Tristan, who steered with his right hand on the wheel, his left arm around my waist. We didn’t talk about his father. I tried to put everything out of my head. If this was my last day to spend with Tristan, my last day on the ship, I wanted to make it count.

  It was about thirty minutes before he throttled down the engine and made a right turn into a cove. He checked the GPS coordinates against the boat guy’s instructions and then dropped the anchor.

  He looked at the notes the man gave him. “Okay, so just off our bow, the bottom starts to slope downward. The top of the reef is at about twenty-five feet or so. If we follow it to the left, we can come around the far side of the reef into a bigger cove, where the water is deeper. I figure we can explore over there as well, then come back and have our picnic on the beach here. What do you think?”

  The “beach” was a small area of sand surrounded by palm trees, and very deserted. “I think it’s perfect,” I said. He smiled, the first real smile I’d seen from him all day.

  We geared up, working quickly and efficiently. After connecting my regulator to the tank and laying out my fins and mask, I shrugged into my wetsuit and reached for the zipper pull.

  “Let me.” He came around behind me and pushed aside my long braid. His lips pressed against my neck, then behind my ear. Clearly, he was doing his best not to think about his fight with his father.

  I tipped my head back and twisted so I could kiss his mouth. He ran his hands down the front of my body, and I melted against him, wishing I wasn’t covered from head to toe in neoprene.

  “Tristan,” I breathed, “if we keep this up, we won’t make it to the dive.”

  “I know,” he murmured, his breath tickling my ear. “Would that be so terrible, a leannan?”

  “No, it would be the opposite of terrible. But we have all afternoon. Let’s dive first, and then we can continue this…conversation over lunch.”

  “Deal.” He kissed me hard, then tugged up the zipper and stepped back. “You’re all set.”

  We finished getting ready, then Tristan pulled a dive flag attached to a small buoy out of his bag and clipped it to a reel of line. Once we were in the water, the reel would pay out the line as we descended, and the buoy would float above us, signaling to boaters that there were divers below. It was an important piece of safety equipment to have, especially since we weren’t with a proper dive boat. There wasn’t even a ladder, just a swim platform.

  I shuffled to the stern and stepped down onto the low platform. I settled my mask over my face and popped the regulator in my mouth, then jumped into the water, proud of myself for going in first this time. Tristan waited for me to get out of the way, then followed.

  We dropped beneath the surface and swam to the reef, which was teeming with life. Tristan wagged his fingers at a large, spotted beige fish, causing it to puff up. His eyes crinkled behind his mask. The fish drifted over the reef like a hot-air balloon.

  We explored the shallow side of the reef for a while. Tristan scooped up a tiny crab, which scurried across the palm of his hand. He held it out to me, and it stepped onto my hand and stopped, probably wondering where the hell it was.

  Just as it stepped off my hand back onto the coral, Tristan’s hand closed around mine. I followed his gaze…and froze, clutching his fingers in a death grip.

  A number of torpedo-shaped gray bodies cruised directly over us, heading to the deeper water on the other side of the reef. Caribbean reef sharks, maybe a dozen of them. What was the term for a group of sharks? A school? A herd? A murder—no that was crows. Maybe a slaughter of sharks? That seemed appropriate…

  Tristan turned me to face him and stared into my eyes. He pointed to his regulator, took an exaggerated breath, and then pointed to me. Breathe.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then another. He nodded in approval and held up the “OK” sign. I signaled “OK” back. I could handle this. After all, no one was spearfishing, and reef sharks, unlike tiger sharks, were not known to bother humans.

  Usually.

  Ignoring the frisson of terror running down my spine, I forced myself to look at the sharks, remembering how I’d always admired them before. They were graceful and streamlined, cutting confidently through the water, their yellow eyes constantly scanning back and forth. There was something terrifyingly beautiful about them. They ruled these waters, and they knew it.

  Tristan squeezed my hand again, and I tore my gaze away from the sharks overhead. He pointed at me, then gestured toward the other side of the reef, cocking his head to the side. Do you want to keep going?

  I nodded. I did want to keep going. There was nothing to be afraid of. Really. We turned the corner of the reef. The water was a darker shade of blue here, the bottom still visible, but much farther below us now.

  We swam along the reef for a bit, peering into holes and under ledges, and I forgot my fear. We swam around a finger of coral and then Tristan stopped so abruptly I banged into him. I looked up to see why he’d stopped.

  The reef was empty.

  While the other side had a flurry of fish darting in and out of holes, nibbling on coral, and meandering about, this side was eerily silent.
The underwater world was generally silent (because fish don’t make noise), but this was different. It was desolate, abandoned, an underwater ghost town. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a tumbleweed drift by.

  What the hell?

  We started forward slowly, Tristan’s hand still holding mine. I was grateful for the contact. The water was oddly murky now, whereas on the other side of the reef it had been as clear as glass. We swerved around another coral head.

  And found ourselves staring at a scene out of a horror movie.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The water was red.

  Something drifted down in front of us, sinking slowly toward the bottom. It was a dead shark with its pectoral fins missing, streams of blood trailing from the wounds.

  Its gills suddenly opened and closed, its tail made a feeble swish. Oh no, it wasn’t dead! And that was even worse, because how could it survive like that?

  There was a flash of movement in my peripheral vision. I turned my head slowly to the right.

  Just in time to see a bigger shark with dark stripes on its back and sides charge past and sink its teeth into the dying shark’s head. Holy shit, that’s a tiger shark!

  Panic welled up inside of me. I kicked for the surface, but Tristan pulled me back down. I struggled against his grip. What’s he doing? We have to go!

  He pointed to the surface. I looked up and saw the hull of a boat about fifteen feet away. Oh good. They’ll help us. And then I noticed something—a few somethings—dangling off the side of the boat into the water.

  My gut twisted. I was an avid watcher of Shark Week—or I had been until I’d starred in my own “Shark Attack File.” That was bait. And the sharks that had passed over us were tearing at those chunks of fish. One of them was suddenly yanked from the water. A few moments later, it hit the water with a splash and began sinking slowly, blood trailing behind it.

  Maimed, finless, helpless.

  Dead and dying reef sharks lay scattered across the sandy bottom. There were a few who were somehow still swimming, even as blood poured from their gaping wounds. But they were weak and disoriented. Without their pectoral fins to provide balance and direction, they sank toward the bottom, where they would suffocate.