After blowing out a deep breath, he turned and asked the other two, “You both okay?”
“Define okay,” Doc grumbled as Cami carefully let go of the safety rope, dropped the flare gun case, and once again situated herself on the side of the raft. Before Romeo could answer, Doc added, “Let’s get to that damned island before another one of those suckers rolls by.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Romeo dipped his chin, grabbing the oars and resuming his position at the front of the boat.
Mia realized just how shot her nerves truly were when she began emptying her shirt. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t contain the tremor in her hands.
Cami must have been feeling the same way, because she blew out a deep breath and said, “Okay. I was serious about needing a distraction. Only now I need a distraction from thoughts of enormous, man-killing waves as much as I need a distraction from thoughts of giant, toothy sharks and from the toast that’s sitting in the bottom of my stomach like a soggy loaf of...erp.” Her hand jumped up to cover her mouth.
Mia waited for Cami to hang her head over the side of the boat. But after a second or two, the lawyer lowered her hand and took a deep breath.
“Let’s get to know each other,” she said. “I’ll go first. I was born and raised on Staten Island. My favorite color is green. I enjoy a good Old Fashioned. My mom forced me to take piano lessons when I was a kid even though what I really wanted was to become a ventriloquist. My sister broke this tooth”—she tapped one of her front teeth—“when she threw a rock at me in middle school because I told Jimmy Russo she liked him. So now I have a crown. I got my undergrad in political science from NYU and—”
“Aha!” Doc pointed at her nose, and Mia was gratified to hear his voice was a bit scratchier than usual, proof that hers weren’t the only nerves that’d come a little unraveled.
They said bad luck came in threes. So far, they’d survived a plane crash and a rogue wave. She didn’t even want to think what their third trial might look like. And she was glad Cami had offered up a distraction.
“I knew it!” Doc added. “You do have political aspirations.”
“I did have them,” Cami corrected with a lift of her chin. A chin that was a little wobbly. “And then I volunteered one summer for a councilwoman and realized I’ll never have what it takes to make it in politics. I’m not bloodthirsty enough. And that’s when I applied to law school.”
“I bet your dad was disappointed you switched gears,” Doc speculated. “Given what he was involved in, I’m sure he’d have liked nothing better than to have a New York politician in his pocket.”
Cami bristled at his assumption. “I wouldn’t know if he was disappointed or not. I haven’t had anything to do with him since I turned twenty and found out where he got the money for my ballet lessons. And believe me, I have the student loan debt to prove that.”
Mia watched Doc’s eyebrows arch. Cami’s admission obviously surprised him. Although Mia couldn’t say she was all that shocked. In the little time she’d known the lawyer, she’d gotten the impression Cami had a strict moral and ethical code.
“Anyway,” Cami continued, “after law school, I was offered a position at Leeman and Lester in Miami. It was there I began to specialize in property conflicts, especially disputes between individuals and state and federal governments.” Without missing a beat, she turned to Doc. “That’s me in a nutshell. What about you? What’s your story?”
“Not much to tell.” Doc’s expression went instantly enigmatic. “Grew up in Montana. Won a scholarship to Yale. Then the Navy. And now I’m here.”
Cami’s mouth flattened. “There you go being all succinct again. I’m having a flashback to this morning’s apology letter.”
Doc gave a grunt. Which Mia had learned was typical of a man when he didn’t have anything else he wanted to say.
Cami sighed, having come to the same conclusion. She turned to Romeo and asked, “And you?”
He lifted one shoulder. “West Coast kid here. Did a stint with the Mexican Mafia in high school until I ran into trouble. Jumped out of the gang and joined the Navy. And like Doc”—he hitched his chin toward the opposite end of the life raft—“now I’m here.”
Cami blinked. “I swear, you two are more disappointing than an unsalted pretzel. Is this whole closed-mouthed schtick a holdover from your time in special operations? Like, you’re so used to things being top secret that now you don’t know how to talk about yourselves?”
When neither man bothered to respond, she sighed again and focused her gaze on Mia. “Come on. Surely you can give me some good stuff. Like, why did you decide on marine archeology? Who was your first boyfriend? If there was one thing you could go back and redo, what would it be?”
Mia had the oddest urge to burst forth with nervous laughter. That last question? Talk about a doozy. No way was she answering that.
“Um.” She cleared her throat. “Like I said, I’m from Chicago. My brother and I were mostly raised by my grandmother.”
She thought back to what Cami had shared about herself and took her cue from that. “My favorite color is blue. My adult beverage of choice is a gin and tonic. I got my undergraduate degree and my graduate degree from the University of Chicago. I got into marine archeology because my grandmother enrolled me in a diving camp one summer when I was ten, and at the end of the camp we got to dive down on a wreck at the bottom of Lake Michigan. I was immediately hooked. It was just so peaceful and calm under the water. So different from the hustle and bustle of the city.”
She squinted her eyes and looked into the middle distance. “My first boyfriend was Patrick Marshal. He kissed me on the bridge over the duck pond in Lincoln Park, and then he broke up with me the next day because he liked Felicity Harper better.”
She stopped there, hoping she’d shared enough that Cami would forget about the last question she’d asked.
“See?” Cami glanced back and forth between Doc and Romeo. “Now that’s how it’s done. Also,” she added, looking directly at Mia, “Patrick Marshal was an asshat. You’re better off without him.”
Mia let loose with a covert sigh of relief. Then she grimaced. “You have no idea. Last I heard, he was living in his parents’ basement and spending most of his days trolling St. Louis Cardinals fans online.”
Cami’s expression was commiserating. “See? I knew it. You dodged a bullet and then traded up.” She gave Mia a nudge with her elbow and then hitched her chin toward Romeo.