“You and me both. Especially since I have no idea if anyone heard my mayday.”
Doc’s hands stilled. “What do you mean?”
“I think whatever took out the tail section shorted the electrical system and the radio too. Everything went haywire for a bit, and then we lost power altogether.”
“Shit.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“But surely LT and the others on Wayfarer Island will alert the authorities once we don’t arrive,” Mia said. Her fare skin was already turning pink from the sun. Cami automatically dug into her purse for her travel-size bottle of SPF 30.
“Even olive-toned girls need protection from UV,” Cami’s mother had lectured her and Carlotta from a young age. “And I know everyone wants a tan but get a spray one. The real thing only leads to wrinkles and cancer.”
By the time she and her sister had turned fourteen, they’d been on a strict skincare regimen.
As she sifted through the mound of water bottles in her purse, her hand landed not on the SPF, but on her cell phone.
What are the odds?
She thumbed on the device and sighed heavily when it showed zero bars. “Damn,” she muttered. Then she shrugged. “Well, at least we can play Candy Crush until my battery runs out.”
The toothpick made a slow journey from one side of Doc’s mouth to the other. “Look at you, all Silver Linings Playbook.”
“Comes with the territory,” she joked. “Haven’t you heard? Lawyers are perpetual optimists.”
“The only thing I know about lawyers is how to tell them apart from jellyfish.” When she cocked her head, he lifted a finger. “One is a boneless, poisonous blob, and the other is a form of sea life.”
She rolled her eyes. “We’ve moved on to the lawyer jokes, have we? Tell me, is this animosity you have for the legal profession personal or just a general disdain for people who interpret and argue the law?”
Something flickered across his face right before his expression blanked.
Hmm. Curious, indeed.
Dalton “Doc” Simmons was an enigma wrapped in a mystery covered in beard stubble. And there was nothing Cami liked more than putting together a puzzle. Especially a big, tall, golden one.
Except she could tell he’d chosen to treat her question as if it’d been rhetorical, so she dropped the subject and tossed the sunscreen to the marine archeologist. “You’re going to want to put that on”—she pointed to her own nose—“before you burn to a crisp.”
Mia glanced at the bottle and then offered Cami a smile so big and radiant, Cami found herself blinking stupidly at the woman.
Normally, Mia was sweetly pretty. But the instant she smiled, she became dazzlingly beautiful. Really, Cami almost gasped at the transformation.
“Thank you,” Mia said in that strangely quiet voice of hers.
“No.” Cami shook her head. “Thank you. For cleaning me up after the crash and for keeping me sane while we were crashing. Although, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to John Denver again.”
“I thought that was a dream.” There was a line between Doc’s eyebrows. “‘Leaving on a Jet Plane,’ was it?”
Since Cami wasn’t all that hyped to know he’d heard just how horrible her singing voice was, she changed the subject. “Not sure my vote counts. But I third the motion that we head for dry land. Now’s probably as good a time as any to tell you all I get seasick.”
The look that slid over Doc’s face said he thought she was a particular kind of idiot, dumb in ten different ways. “And you took a job representing guys who spend their lives on the ocean?”
“I wasn’t supposed to be on the ocean. I was supposed to be filing paperwork and arguing your case on terra firma.” She gave a haughty shake of her head that was ruined because her bun had slipped during the crash, hanging drunkenly off to one side, and the sudden jerk of her chin caused it to smack her in the ear.
She thought he was going to come back at her with something appropriately snarky. Then his lips—those lips she knew were devilishly talented even when he was sky high on giggle juice—curved into a smile. “You’ve got quite a mouth on you. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“My sister used to say if running off at the mouth counted as exercise, I’d be ninety pounds soaking wet.”
“It would be a crying shame if you only weighed ninety pounds,” he said lowly. Slowly.
When her belly flipped, she tried blaming it on seasickness.
“And on that note,” Romeo intervened. “Let’s head for land.”
As gently as a man transporting a breakable and priceless treasure, he lifted Mia off his lap and placed her in the bottom of the raft. Then he unhooked the short oars that came strapped to the sides of the watercraft.
“Little help, eh?” He handed one of the oars to Mia, who was suddenly looking rather...aghast? Dismayed? Or maybe she’s still in shock, Cami told herself.
“Fit it into that oarlock behind you.” Romeo pointed to the black ring of plastic on the side of the life raft. When he bent to do the same with the other oar on the opposite side of the watercraft, Cami’s eyes landed on the gun tucked into the back waistband of his wet jeans.
“What the hell?” Each of her syllables was clipped. “Why do you need a gun on a life raft?”
She knew the Deep Six Salvage guys were former military men with enough medals between them to sink the Staten Island Ferry. That much had come up during her brief research on them when she was deciding whether to take their case.
But the key word is former, she thought warily. Why does he have a gun now?
“Is that what you went back to the cockpit to get?” Doc asked Romeo.
“Yeah.” Romeo had an oar in each hand, but he dropped one so he could dig in his front pockets. “Well, the Glock and these.”
Three smashed granola bars appeared from his jeans. He tossed them into the bottom of the raft where the water bottles, the first aid kit, and the flare gun case already rested. A pair of wet leather flip-flops joined the growing pile of crap.
Romeo’s jeans are like a clown car, Cami thought. What’s next?
Nothing apparently, because he repositioned the oars and began rowing them toward what she hoped would be their salvation.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Doc asked him.