Devil and the Deep (The Deep Six)

by Julie Ann Walker

  At night the sea smells like the secrets it holds, her father told her when she was eleven and commented on the phenomenon. Like lost souls and fantastical creatures and the sunken treasure of millennia.

  Maddy had always fancied that explanation.

  She breathed deep and thought of the treasure that Bran and his friends were hunting. The Santa Cristina. The holy grail of sunken Spanish shipwrecks. It was so romantic. So exciting. So…Bran-like.

  She blinked as the lighthouse made its revolution, momentarily blinding her. But when her eyesight returned, she located Rick at his post atop the west wall. The barrel of the machine gun rested against his shoulder, and he marched back and forth in a tight pattern, reminding her of an old-timey soldier.

  Biting her lip, she started in his direction. Not once since this whole hellacious night began had she stopped to ask him how he was doing, if he was okay—probably because he’d been such a trouper about everything—but she planned to remedy that right now. Except, when she stopped beside him, he beat her to the punch.

  “Are you okay?” The moonlight showed the concern in his eyes.

  Lord, he’s adorable. If I were ten years younger…

  You wouldn’t have a chance at Bran, her conscience reminded her.

  Right-O. Plus, you couldn’t pay her to repeat her early twenties. She’d been so young and silly, caught up in college and sorority functions and her boyfriend who, although he’d been a really nice guy, was more interested in going to see local bands play than he was in going to class and making sure his parents’ money was well spent. It wasn’t until she went to work for her father that she came to realize the true meaning of life, which, as far as she could figure, was about living each day to its fullest and helping your fellow man along the way as best you could.

  “Shouldn’t I be askin’ you that?” She gave Rick a self-deprecating smile.

  “Why?” He frowned.

  “Well, because you’re a park ranger, not a commando. Yet here you are on guard duty with a machine gun in hand.”

  “Says the oil heiress who swam through an underwater tunnel and withstood two standoffs at gunpoint.”

  “Touché.” Her smile turned genuine.

  Of course, it dimmed a bit when she saw that look come over his face again. Not wanting to give him the wrong idea, she shook her head and said, “Well…I guess I better finish my rounds and check on Bran.”

  Rick’s expression fell. “I’m sure he’s fine. After all, he is a commando.”

  “All the same,” she said, skirting by Rick and giving his arm a companionable squeeze along the way. With that one touch, she hoped to convey her thanks for all he had done and at the same time let him know that friendship is all that would, all that could, ever be between them.

  She didn’t check his expression to see if it worked—not really wanting to know if it didn’t—and instead turned her gaze to Bran. He was leaning against the side of the lighthouse, one knee bent to take the weight off his wounded leg, his arms crossed over his spectacularly bare chest. He’d stopped to grab one of the sleeping bags off the beach. It was folded in half and acting as a pallet for his mean-looking rifle and the rifles of the two men who were stranded out on their fishing boat somewhere. The starlight reflecting off the surrounding waves seemed to make love to his skin, kissing it and caressing it in undulating patterns until it looked alive and healthy and vibrant. And the medallion he wore around his neck caught the moonlight and glinted, a beacon calling her to him.

  Triple threat indeed, she thought as she picked her way toward Bran. The ground atop the fort walls was uneven. The years had deposited sand and soil over the bricks, allowing grass and a few sticker bushes to take hold and grow.

  On the subject of sticker bushes…

  She had one stuck in the base of her thumb. Well, not a sticker. A splinter. The irritating little foreigner burned and itched, and she absently tried squeezing it out. But that only seemed to anger the thing.

  Then the last thing she was thinking about was her impaled hand. Because suddenly, she was standing in front of Bran, and there was a warm, wicked gleam in his eyes when he turned away from the sea. It punched the breath right out of her.

  It really should be illegal.

  Chapter 15

  9:04 p.m.…

  “The girls okay?” Bran asked.

  “Full of piss and vinegar,” Maddy managed, disgusted at how breathless her voice sounded.

  “They are quite the trio.” A lock of hair fell over his brow, but he didn’t brush it back. Just stood there looking big and hot and completely, quintessentially male. She tucked her hands into her pockets to keep from touching him.

  “So, now that we’re alone,” he said, getting right to it, “there’s something I wanna talk to you about.”

  Here it comes.

  He rolled in his lips, hesitating, then, “I owe you a blanket apology for…a lot of things. But mostly for giving you the wrong impression about me.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “About us.”

  His words might have cut into her like knives had she not just had that conversation with the girls. Now she was armed with rope and was determined to give him just enough to hang himself.

  “And what impression would that be?” she asked curiously.

  “That we’re more than just—”

  “Pen pals?” she finished for him, batting her lashes.

  He pulled a face. “Okay. So that was a total asshole thing to say.”

  “Total asshole,” she agreed.

  “And you’ve already proved your point. No need to keep busting my balls.”

  “Aw, shucks.” She pouted playfully. “And here ball-bustin’ is one of my favorite pastimes.”

  He grinned. Then the light in his eyes dimmed, like dark clouds suddenly boiling across a sunny sky. “I shoulda told Ranger Rick the Prick the truth. I shoulda told him we’re friends. I mean, I—”

  “I’m sorry.” She cut him off and cocked her head. “What has he ever done to deserve that nickname?”

  A look that very closely resembled jealousy flashed across Bran’s face, proving his whole “friends” argument was a big-O load of horseshit that belonged right alongside the stinking pile of cow patties that was his “pen pals” proclamation.

  “Nothing,” he admitted. And was she imagining it, or had his expression turned churlish? “He just rubs me the wrong way.”

  “Is that because he’s cute and sweet and funny and—”

  “Young and dumb and full of—”

  “Do not finish that sentence.” She held up a hand and curled her lip in disgust.

  “But it’s true,” he insisted.

  “Let’s get back to the point.”

  “That we’re friends?” He tilted his head against the lighthouse and watched her from beneath hooded lids.

  “Mmm.” She nodded. “The point that we’re friends”—she made air quotes—“who can’t seem to keep their hands or their tongues to themselves for more than ten minutes at a time.”

  “And that’s where the apology comes in,” Bran insisted, his tone as sharp as broken glass. “’Cause I should keep my hands and my tongue to myself.”

  “Why?” She reckoned she’d just about given him all the rope he needed. It was time to fashion the noose. “It’s not like I want you to keep them to yourself. In fact, I’m pretty partial to you not keepin’ them to yourself.”

  He shook his head and chuckled, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck again. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

  “I was raised on a steady no-bullshit diet,” she informed him. “Just a whiff of the stuff turns my stomach.”

  “Gotcha.” He nodded. “No bullshit. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Maddy’s heart was running around like a wild mustang, because they were ab
out to get to the crux of the issue.

  He pushed away from the lighthouse to stand at his full height. It forced her to tilt her chin way back. “The honest-to-God truth of the matter is I like you,” he said. “Like, really like you. As a person.”

  She blinked at him for a good three seconds. It was the second time tonight he’d said that. But this time felt different. It was as if liking her was something that caused great confusion, or great discomfort.

  “Well…” she said slowly, “I guess that’s better than likin’ me as a zucchini or a roll of dental floss or—”

  “I’m being real here, Maddy.”

  She studied the determined set of his jaw, the earnest light in his eyes. “I can see you are. But I guess I’m failin’ to grasp your point. You like me. I like you. So what’s the problem?”

  His jaw sawed back and forth, his dark beard stubble an undulating shadow across his cheeks. “The problem is I want you too. Whenever I’m near you, I’m aware of every breath you take, every move you make, every—”

  “Bond I break?” she cut in. His words were exactly what she wanted to hear, but his tone told her they shouldn’t be. “Are you about to break into song? Because if you are, there are better ones in the Police’s catalog. I’m partial to ‘Roxanne’ myself, but you could always go with—”

  “Damnit, Maddy!” His deep voice thundered over the fort and had them both glancing surreptitiously at Rick and the girls.

  “Everything okay over there?” Rick shouted, his question carrying on the warm breeze, his concerned face momentarily spotlighted as the lighthouse made a revolution in his direction.

  “Mind your own fu—” Bran managed to get in before Maddy yelled over him, “We’re fine!” She turned to gift Bran with her very best stink eye. He cleared his throat and yelled, “Yeah! We’re fine!”

  Rick hesitated for one second, two. The lighthouse passed by him, plunging him into a silver shadow of moonlight. Then he nodded and went back to his pacing.

  “Remember, Miss Maddy!” Louisa called, popping her dark head over the top of the old cannon. “When in doubt, take Paula’s advice!”

  Maddy felt her cheeks heat.

  “Who’s Paula?” Bran asked.

  “Never mind that.” She waved him off. “Where were we? Oh yeah.” She snapped her fingers. Ow. Note to self: no finger snapping. It angers the splinter. “You were talkin’ about that crazy physical attraction that crackles between us like a lightnin’ strike from the clear blue sky every time we touch.”

  He screwed his eyes shut and shook his head. “You’re killing me.”

  “You don’t agree?”

  “No,” he said, opening his eyes to pin her like a bug to corkboard with his dark, marauding stare. “I absolutely agree.”

  A fat sense of vindication filled her, stretching her skin. She hadn’t been crazy. She hadn’t been imagining things. What she was feeling wasn’t one-sided. “So I ask again, what’s the problem?”

  He blew out a breath, glancing over at Rick. Then he made an impatient sound and motioned for her to follow him around to the back of the lighthouse. She picked her way over the ground and settled into the shadow of the small structure.

  “So the problem,” he said “is there’s this mutual like and this mutual lust and…well…never the two shall meet.”

  Her chin jerked back. “In what world? Because in this world you pretty much described what happens at the beginnin’ of a beautiful relation—”

  “In my world,” he interrupted.

  Frustration simmered inside her. “You’re goin’ to need to explain yourself a little better, bucko. Or else give me your copy of the Bran Code Talk Translation Manual because it seems I inadvertently left mine at home.”

  “You really are a smart-ass, you know that?”

  “So my brothers tell me.”

  He shook his head and stared at the sand and bricks beneath his feet. “So here’s the deal.” He planted his hands on his hips and lifted his chin only enough to stare at her through the fan of his too-thick-for-a-boy-much-less-a-man eyelashes. “I’m gonna explain myself in no uncertain terms. But that’s gonna require me asking you a really personal question.”

  She blinked. “Okay.”

  “How many men have you slept with?”

  Plop! And that, ladies and gentlemen, would be the sound of Maddy’s jaw hitting the ground at her feet. “Wow!” Her cheeks were on fire. We’re talking five-alarm. “I’m not the only one who doesn’t beat around the bush.”

  “I warned you.” It was hard to tell for sure in the semidarkness, but she thought she saw him lift a challenging eyebrow. “So? How many?”

  She considered equivocating, but knew if she did, she might never get to the bottom of whatever had him hesitating to take their relationship to the next level. She thrust out her chin and blurted, “Three.”

  “Three?” He said the word like it was foreign to him.

  “Yep. Three.” She nodded, and started ticking off names on her fingers. “There was Jake Reynolds, who I dated my last two years of high school. Brent Thomas, my college boyfriend. And finally, Winston St. James, who worked for my father for a while, and who I nearly married until we both realized we were far better friends than we were lovers and decided to call off the engagement.”

  “Three,” Bran said again.

  “Yep. Three,” she repeated.

  “Three?” He shook his head really quickly like maybe a gnat had flown in his ear.

  “What?” she demanded. “You can count, right? Why do you keep repeatin’ the number?”

  “’Cause it’s worse than I thought.”

  “I beg your pardon!” She bristled. If she’d been a hen, her feathers would be puffed out a foot from her body. “In case you didn’t get the memo, you big Neanderthal, slut-shamin’ went out in the nineties. We millennials grant women the same sexual rights, privileges, and powers of choice that men have enjoyed since the dawn of time, and I—”

  “I meant only three,” he said, cutting her off. “That might as well be zero. And you’re nearly thirty.”

  “In eight months!” she squawked, taking the chicken bit to a whole new level. This entire conversation had gotten off on the exit to Crazy Town and was now circling the square. “And hasn’t anyone ever told you never to talk about a woman’s age? That’s rule number two right behind don’t bring up politics or religion in polite company!”

  “So in twenty-nine years and four months,” he said, ignoring her outburst, “you’ve only slept with three men.”

  “Well,” she huffed, “I mean you can’t really count the first couple of decades, right? So it’s like I’ve slept with three men in—”

  “And you were in long-term relationships with all of them,” he interrupted. His inflection made it sound like a statement instead of a question, but she answered him anyway.

  “Well, duh. Of course I was in long-term relationships with all of them.”

  He pointed a finger at her nose. “And that’s why we can’t act on all that crazy physical attraction that crackles between us, as you so aptly put it. ’Cause you have sex with men you’re in relationships with. And I don’t do relationships. Ever.”

  That’s what this was all about? If she rolled her eyes any harder, she was afraid they might get stuck backward.

  “Right,” she scoffed. “So says every commitment-phobic man right before he finds the right person and poof! Suddenly he’s in a relationship.”

  “Maybe so.” He shrugged. “But that’s not the case with me. Ever.”

  “You’re startin’ to sound like a broken record.”

  “Just trying to make sure what I’m saying sinks in.”

  She cocked her head, studying him for a minute. “You’re tellin’ me that you’ve never had a romantic relationship? Not once in all your thirty-four year
s?” She knew her tone was disbelieving. She couldn’t help it. She didn’t believe him. He was too handsome, too wonderful to have escaped all the hooks women must’ve thrown his way since the moment he passed puberty.

  “Nope.”

  “Not even a will-you-go-with-me, puppy love, hold-hands-at-recess thing back when you were in elementary school?”

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  “No first love in high school? A girl you still sometimes think back on with sepia-toned fondness?”

  “Not a one.”

  “How about a woman who you would visit for a little…um…R & R when you’d get leave from the Navy?”

  He pursed his lips.

  “Aha!” She pointed at his face. “I knew it! You have been in a relationship.”

  “Women,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Plural. As in a couple dozen different women I’d rotate through depending on my location and their schedules.”

  She began blinking so rapidly that the world looked like it was caught under a strobe light. “A couple dozen?” She nearly strangled on the last word.

  “Give or take.” He shrugged.

  “S-so…” She shook her head. “I guess…that begs the question: Just how many people have you slept with?”

  Even in the shadows, she could see the line that formed between his eyebrows. “I don’t know.”

  “S-so…” She had to shake her head again to make her tongue work properly. “You don’t know?”

  “I’ve never counted.”

  “S-so…” Okay, now she was the broken record. “You’ve never counted?”

  “Stop repeating everything I say in the form of a question,” he said, the line between his eyebrows deepening.

  “Can you at least… I don’t know…” She made a rolling motion with her hand. “Ballpark it for me?”

  He screwed up his face and seemed to be making a mental tally. Two seconds stretched to five. Five stretched to ten. Out on the pilings somewhere, a roosting seagull took offense to something its neighbor did, screeching its displeasure. The lighthouse overhead clicked mechanically every time it made a full rotation. Beneath them, the fort groaned, shifting with the sands like an old man trying to find a more comfortable position.