“The water’s thicker than usual this morning,” the diver said. He stood on Obsession’s new teak swim platform and fitted his diving mask’s strap around his head.
“Is it still bad after the spills last year?”
He shrugged. “Couldn’t go in for a long time, but it’s cleared up some. I’ll feel around for a while, see what I can find.” He leaned over to the dock and switched on the air compressor, adjusted the mask over his face, then unceremoniously dropped from the platform.
Chris leaned over the aft rail, watching the diver’s flippers flutter the water, bubbles hurling themselves to the surface.
“I wouldn’t have that guy’s job for the world,” Smitty said over the compressor’s rhythmic clatter. “I saw what swims down there once and I ain’t goin’ back.”
“I thought you got wet occasionally, ex-Coastie.”
“Yeah, but out there where it’s safe.” He nodded toward the gulf. “Too many stories about two-headed turtles around the coast. Especially after the brew kicked up by hurricane Katrina.” He shuddered dramatically. “McLellan’s looking for two-headed birds.”
“Bird watching?”
“Up on the bow.” Smitty leaned his shoulder against hers and smiled into her eyes. “He’s got a sissy streak a mile wide, darlin’. Keep that in mind when he gives you the bedroom eyes, okay?”
“You mean like the bedroom eyes you’re giving me now?”
He heaved a sigh. “Guilty as charged. I wear my heart on my sleeve. But only for you.” He batted his baby blues at her. “I’m a real man, baby.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.”
“But you don’t believe me.”
Before Chris could answer, the diver surfaced, blowing thick, broad bubbles in the green water. He stripped off his mask and swept his hand back over his platinum-tipped brown hair. “There’s a gouge in the hull, but it doesn’t feel deep. I’ll get a light down there and have a look.”
“How are the props?”
He shrugged. “You got some dings and a bent blade where the rig hit. Lowest part of the boat, props always hit first.”
“And the prop shaft?” Chris asked. “She took on a lot of water after we hit. I need to know if it’s out of alignment.”
The diver blew water off his nose and considered. “Let me get a look.” He hoisted himself easily onto the swim platform and dug through his gear bag, coming up with a battery-powered waterproof lamp. “Be right back.” A splash, and he was gone.
“The gouge will be expensive,” Chris mused.
“Depends on the length and depth,” Smitty said. “Maybe it’ll just be a scratch and can wait until we get back.”
When we get back, Natalie will be home and Obsession will be totally restored. Just in time to run from Jerome Scintella.
“Hey,” Smitty said, looping his arm over her shoulders. “We’re gonna get your sister, okay? Don’t ever doubt that.”
She nodded. “I’m just worried about what’ll happen when I get her home.”
“How do you mean?”
“What if Jerome comes after us? He’s a drug smuggler—”
Smitty burst out laughing, his light tenor echoing under the aft deck roof. “Sweetheart,” he said through a chuckle, “they ain’t comin’ after you.”
“Natalie thinks he will.”
“That’s one little problem that’ll take care of itself.” At her startled glance, Smitty said, “He’s going to be in prison, darlin’, put there by yours truly. Besides, it won’t be worth his while to off her. Too risky. I don’t care how good she is in bed.”
Chris opened her mouth to reply but he went on, “Look, you know and I know that your sister is a good woman. But guys like Scintella see their women as just this side of property. She causes trouble, he’ll be glad to see the back of her as long as she doesn’t make off with the family jewels.”
“Wouldn’t it make sense for us to change her name or something?”
He shrugged. “Records are pretty open. You’d have to put her in the witness protection program or something like that—”
He broke off as the diver exploded from the water.
“The hull’s okay!” the diver called. He shimmied onto the platform with a seal’s ease, leaned over, and shut off the compressor. “What you’ve got is a surface gouge, nothing serious. The fiberglass is how thick on the bow? Half-inch?”
“Three-quarter,” Chris replied.
The diver shook his head. “This is cosmetic. I took a little longer this time and checked the rest of the hull. You’ve got dings here and there. The prop is definitely bent, but the shaft looks straight as an arrow.”
“Can I see?”
The diver stared. “You mean you want to go down?”
“You said it was safe enough these days, right?”
The diver scratched his ring-pierced eyebrow with his forefinger and frowned. “Never had anybody want to do that, but okeydokey.”
The cool water soothed her sun-warmed skin as she slipped beneath the boat. The diver, using snorkeling gear while she had the compressor, shone his searchlight on the gouge. She ran her fingers, yellow-green in this water, over the wound. It wasn’t deep. She could barely feel the glass matting beneath. No worse than scraping a concrete piling. Good girl. Chris patted Obsession’s hull as if she were a huge and placid sea mammal.
The diver motioned her aft, pointing out chips where the rig pipes had passed under the hull. Then he splashed the light across the prop, one of its blades twisted and another bent almost in half. But the shaft, from what she could see with his big light, looked straight. That was a minor miracle. She’d know for sure when she started Hortense and felt for vibration. She ran her thumb over the bronze blade, then shuddered. The water was cooler than she liked for an extended dunking. Her royal blue racing wet suit, meant to be used above the surface, didn’t cut it for long. She stroked for the surface and climbed onto the swim platform.
Smitty and McLellan leaned on the railing above her, gazing down. McLellan had changed into shorts and had one foot propped on the lower rail. His thighs and calves looked like a triathlete’s and were covered with fine black hair.
“Should we give her a towel or just enjoy the view?” Smitty remarked.
Chris glared at him through the diving mask and tried not to be aware of McLellan’s evaluation of her cleavage, or lack thereof, in the half-unzipped wet suit.
“What’s the verdict?” McLellan asked as Smitty shoved away from the railing.
She tugged off the mask and laid it on the teak platform for the diver. “I think it’s okay. The prop’s mangled and will have to be replaced. That’s a quick haul, just a couple of hours in the sling. After that we can start Hortense and see how she behaves. If she vibrates we’ll need to get the prop shaft realigned, but it looks good so far.”
“I like the sound of that.” Smitty dropped a folded towel on her head. “Three days and nights here to finish up the amazing restoration and then showtime.”
Chris shook out the oversize towel and rubbed her arms. “We need to talk about Isladonata tonight.”
“Can’t,” McLellan said. “I’m taking you to dinner.”
“Hey, you makin’ moves on my woman?” Smitty growled.
McLellan grinned. “Just making up for a bad trip. The lady deserves a night on the town.”
She armored herself with the towel. He was being way too nice. And that T-shirt was just too damn tight over his shoulders. “Smitty can come if he wants.”
“No, he can’t.” McLellan clapped Smitty on the shoulder. “He’s going to be scrubbing the bilge with a toothbrush, aren’t you, champ?”
“The hell I am,” Smitty shot back. “Bring me back some jambalaya, will ya? Consolation prize for the night shift.”
“Night shift?” Chris asked. “You guys are serious about guarding me, aren’t you?”
“Ma’am, it is our pleasure and duty,” Smitty said.
“Then I guess if I wa
nt to take a sail,” she said, nodding toward the little wooden sailing tender sitting upside down on the flybridge, “I’ll have to take one of you with me.”
“Afraid so.”
Chris sighed. “Then who’s going?”
“Why, I’d like a sail with a pretty little thang like you.” Smitty’s eyes twinkled.
McLellan’s glare could’ve melted stone. “I’ll go.”
“What?” Smitty spread his hands like the unarmed man he wasn’t. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Whoever’s going,” she said as she headed inside, “uncover the tender while I change and get my tool bag.”
In her cabin, Chris changed into shorts and a tank top, pausing long enough to comb out her wet hair properly and tie it back. When she got back up top, McLellan had already neatly folded the sailing tender’s canvas cover. In the midmorning sunlight, the little boat’s gleaming varnish was almost too bright to look at.
“What are we up to?” he asked, abandoning his thoughtful caress of the gunwale.
“A rescue mission. Help me launch this.”
They lowered the wooden tender by the rooftop crane. It took only a few minutes to rig the little mast and boom. Chris dropped her tool bag under the tiller seat and settled in. McLellan sat on the windward side, out of the way of the boom. The tender bobbed precariously with the mismatched weight of her cargo. She needed the wind to balance her.
“Raise her,” Chris said.
McLellan’s hands worked quickly on the main halyard, lifting the sail up the mast, stretching the sail taut and cleating off the line. He moved easily, showing how his few days on Obsession—dropping and raising the anchor, working the lines—had sunk in.
They eased away from Obsession, McLellan keeping watch for marina traffic until they gained the channel and headed out toward the open water of Lake Pontchartrain. As they passed out of the marina’s wind shadow, the tender picked up speed and put her shoulder in, knifing through the green water of the basin. The wind gusted, pitching the tender hard over, where she liked to be. Chris directed McLellan to lean far out to keep the tender at a good angle, his feet hooked under the coaming on the opposite side. She adjusted the main sheet and pulled the tiller to bring the little boat closer to the wind.
The tender was really flying now, skimming across waves and dappling sunlight, occasionally throwing a bow wave onto McLellan’s face and chest. Every time it did, he looked back at Chris and grinned. She found herself irrationally pleased by his boyish joy. Sailing a tender was such a little thing.
Then the shoreline was coming up fast and they had to tack.
“Prepare to come about,” Chris said. “We’re going to switch sides.”
“Right.”
“Helm a-lee.” Chris pushed the tiller away.
McLellan scrambled under the boom to take up his position on the other side. Chris ducked as the boom swung over her head. The tender paused as she pivoted, sail snapping violently in the changing wind.
“Drop the sail,” Chris said.
McLellan hesitated only a second, then nimbly uncleated the halyard and let the sail drop. The tender stilled, moved only by wind on her hull.
“What’s this about?” he asked with a smile. “Testing my ability to take orders?”
Chris ignored the gentle gibe. “It was right around here.” She scanned the bank. “I saw her on the way in this morning.”
Seconds later, she found what she was looking for. A few yards away, a seagull sitting in the water near the shore picked up as though to fly, but rose only a few inches before collapsing back.
“Fishing line?”
“Probably. I couldn’t tell when we came in.” Chris pulled a pair of leather gloves out of her tool bag and tossed them to him. “You hold her and I’ll cut her loose.”
“Won’t we scare her?” McLellan worked one hand into a glove.
“Better we scare her for a few minutes than her starve to death.”
Chris eased the tender slowly nearer the gull. As they got closer, the gull struggled, then subsided.
“She’s exhausted,” McLellan said.
“There’s no telling how long she’s been caught here. Are you just going to use the one glove?”
“I’ll offer her that hand to bite. If I’m going to hold her, I’d rather do it with my bare hand. I can almost reach her now.”
“Catch her feet if you can.”
McLellan leaned over as the tender drew close. He delicately grasped the bird’s feet. The gull’s wings swept up, fighting. His gloved hand grabbed the fishing line and pulled it out of the water so Chris could slice through it with a knife. McLellan brought the bird into the tender. It struggled, its head snaking from side to side, its beak snapping.
McLellan held his gloved hand in front of the gull’s beak. It bit his forefinger and held.
“Are you okay?” Chris sorted through the mass of fishing line hooked around the gull’s neck and back.
“Sure. She just needs to chew on me for a while.”
“There must be five yards of line here.”
It took Chris a few minutes to cut up the line and draw the pieces through the soft gray feathers. Twice while she was working, the gull flapped its wings feebly to escape. Chris wondered if McLellan’s fingers were too tight on the gull’s paper-thin legs, but after each struggle the bird settled back onto his hand. She looked up to gauge McLellan’s mood. He seemed perfectly content to let the gull bite him while she untangled things. More than that, his narrowed eyes and thoughtful expression suggested he was studying the bird.
Of course. Smitty said he liked them. “Are you a birder?” she asked.
He smiled. “Not until now. What’s this one, do you think?”
“Bonaparte’s gull.”
“It’s not like the noisy ones I saw in Galveston.”
Noisy could only mean the ubiquitous black-headed gulls that perched on pilings all over the marina from dawn till dusk. When they weren’t trying to steal fish from the terns. “Those are laughing gulls.”
“Yes, they do laugh.”
“That’s the last bit. Hold her another minute and let me do a check.”
Chris carefully unfolded each gray-and-white wing in turn, studying the lay of the feathers. “Do you see anything I missed?”
He lifted the gull to look under its neck. “I think you got it all. There was one bit lashed around her throat.”
“Yeah, I got that one first. I think she’s done.”
McLellan held the bird for another moment, its feet still between his bare fingers, its belly nestled almost against his palm, its beak firmly gripping his gloved forefinger. Then he raised both hands as if to toss the gull into the air, as if it were a raptor.
The gull arced its wings for balance but didn’t move.
“She won’t let go of my finger.”
“Let go of her feet. She won’t stop biting until she’s free.”
He spread his fingers from the gull’s legs. The bird hovered, wings wafting gently, impossibly light, then it opened its beak and rose effortlessly into air.
They watched the gull arc steadily over the marsh. Sun glinted across dewy tall grasses and speckled the green water. Rich brine tinted the wind, which was starting to kick up with the day’s heat.
McLellan stared at the bank, his expression thoughtful. He’s gone away, Chris thought. Wherever he was, he looked like any other man, dragyne or not. More than that, he looked vulnerable, his face relaxed.
“That was great,” he said softly, looking after the bird. Then he turned and met her gaze, his eyes gentle and clear, accessible.
“It’s good karma.”
He reached out with his bare hand. She impulsively gripped it. He leaned forward, kissed her knuckles, then turned her hand to place his lips lightly against her palm. A thrill shot up her spine.
“Thank you,” he said, not releasing her.
She steadied her voice. “For what?”
“For letting me do this
with you.” Heat rimmed his eyes and his slow smile.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Not to you, maybe.” He slowly released her hand, his fingers trailing lightly across her palm, and looked off toward the marsh. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything that good. That simple.”
Chris studied his profile, clean and bright against the rippling green water. “When was that?”
He stripped off the glove and looked at his hands. “A long time ago.”
“Since your brother died?” she asked, half-afraid of what he’d say.
His eyes darkened, haunted even in the sunshine. “Was murdered. Threw his life away.”
“You couldn’t have changed him,” she said gently. “No more than I could have convinced Natalie not to do any of the stupid things she did.”
“Was she in trouble a lot?”
“Her fair share. Shoplifting once. It was a mystery. Our grandfather was wealthy and gave her anything she wanted. It seemed like fun to her, I guess. A challenge.”
“Did she get caught?”
“She did a few hours of community service when she was fourteen, yeah.”
His half smile held more than a tinge of sadness. “Sean was into a little more than shoplifting.”
“Did you know?”
“I saw the signs but they didn’t register. Stupid of me, but I was in denial. Not my brother. Not drugs.” He raised his head to look over the reeds where the fishermen had long since packed up their bait and gone home for the day. The stiffening breeze ruffled his hair. “Certainly not selling them. When I figured out what he was doing, it was too late.”
“You tried to get him out,” she said softly.
“After the damage was done.” His jaw flexed. “I know it was his choice. Antonio spent a good year pounding that into my thick skull. But I could have done more. I could have watched out for him better while he was growing up.”
Chris absently adjusted the tiller to keep the sailing tender out of the reeds as the wind swept along the hull, pushing the little boat farther east. “Was he much younger than you?”
“Five years. But I left home when I was eighteen.” A hard glint flashed in his eyes, then he said, “I wasn’t as good a brother to him as you are a sister to Natalie.” His lips pressed to a thin line, which Chris knew meant, Let’s not go there.
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