His gaze must’ve gone predatory, because her eyes widened. “Spiro, what—”
Before she had a chance to say anything more, his lips were on hers. He didn’t remember closing the distance between them. He didn’t remember shooting a hand around the back of her head to pull her forward. And he didn’t remember closing his eyes and puckering up.
But he’d done all three, working on pure instinct.
When he swept his tongue over the seam of her lips, his first thought was...soft. His second thought was...warm. He didn’t have time for a third thought because the sound of footfalls crunching through the sand had Mia pulling back.
“Woohoo!” Doc’s deep voice reached them a couple seconds before the man himself did. “Once you see what I found”—Doc huffed to a stop in the sand behind Cami, who’d been the first to arrive on the scene—“you’re going to want to kiss me.”
“I highly doubt that,” Romeo muttered, silently calling Doc every dirty name he knew in English and Spanish for having the shittiest timing on the planet.
His thoughts must’ve shown on his face, because Doc blinked and glanced from Romeo to Mia and back to Romeo. The toothpick in Doc’s mouth tilted up slightly, right along with Doc’s eyebrows. “Are we interrupting something?”
“Oh, yeah.” Cami nodded vigorously. “We definitely are.”
“What did you find?” Mia prompted and Romeo saw her cheeks flaming redder than usual. He nearly pounced on her when she lifted a hand to her mouth as if to hold in the heat of his brief—all too fucking brief—kiss.
The lawyer’s hands were behind her back, but a rod tip poked up behind her head. Which meant her dramatic flourish when she revealed the fishing rod was a little anticlimactic. “Ta-da!” she said. And then she frowned at Doc. “And just so we’re all clear, I found the fishing rod.”
Doc looked instantly indignant. And then he proved that a medical degree didn’t stop him from reverting to his former ten-year-old self. “Liar, liar, pants on fire!”
“I did find it,” Cami insisted. “I’m the one who dug it out of the sand. All you did was point and say, What’s that?”
Doc blinked. “So what, exactly, would be your definition of the word find?”
“I think the generally accepted definition, which is to lay hands on.”
“I beg to differ that’s the generally accepted definition. I think the generally accepted definition is to catch sight of.”
Cami fisted a hand on her hip. “Are you really going to argue semantics with a woman whose understanding of words is an integral part of her job?”
“Pfft.” Doc waved a hand. “Being a lawyer doesn’t automatically make you a word wizard. But it does make you a—”
“Okay!” Romeo clapped his hands. For real, though, if this was what the two of them considered foreplay, he’d hate to see what the ultimate act might look like. He envisioned a lot of jockeying for the superior position combined with loudly voiced instructions on the “correct” way to do things. “The real question”—he jerked his chin toward the rod and reel; it took everything he had to turn his mind from Mia and her soft, warm lips—“is does it work?”
“It does!” Cami hooted. She demonstrated that the line around the spool unwound when she pulled on it, and then rewound once she worked the reel. “But that’s not even the best part. The best part is...drum roll, please.” When no one made the drum roll noise, she sighed. “You guys are no fun.” Turning to Doc, she made a come-hither motion with her fingertips. “Go on then. Show them.”
From out of the folds of his sling, Doc withdrew a silver lure meant to look like a baitfish. It had a touch of rust in places, just like the reel, but its two treble hooks looked remarkably intact and sturdy.
“It’s a minnow crank bait,” Doc said unnecessarily since Romeo had done more than his fair share of fishing while living on Wayfarer Island. Although maybe it was necessary for the ladies’ edification. “And the rod and reel and this here lure are good news for two reasons. The first one being it means fishermen come to this island. Hopefully they frequent it. And the second one being we now have a way to catch fish that doesn’t involve making nets out of palm fronds.”
“Hey!” Cami whacked Doc on his good shoulder. “I still think that was a good idea. I mean, if they can make place mats”—she gestured with her chin toward Romeo’s creation—“then surely nets wouldn’t be too difficult.”
“They aren’t place mats,” Romeo was quick to insist. “Or at least they won’t be once we make five or six more of them and attach them all together. They’ll be a tarp.”
“Why would someone leave a perfectly good rod and reel on a sandbar in the middle of nowhere?” The thing about Mia being so closed-mouthed was that when she finally spoke, everyone stopped talking and listened.
“I reckon whoever was using it hooked into something big,” Doc said. “Probably had the thing ripped out of their hands. Then, whatever was on the other end of the line spit out the hook. The current eventually pushed the entire rig back onto the beach.”
“I don’t care why it’s here,” Cami stated emphatically. “I never look a gift horse in the mouth. This rod and reel are the first good thing to happen to us all day. Well...” She smiled cattily. “The first good thing to happen to me, anyway. The first good thing to happen to you guys was getting to know me.”
“Please.” Doc rolled his eyes. “You might be the reason we’re all in this mess.”
“This old argument again?” Cami huffed. “It’s far more likely you’re the reason we’re all in this mess and—”
Romeo sighed and shoved to a stand, having had enough of Tweedle Drinks Too Much and Tweedle Can’t Stop Rising to the Bait. Wiggling his fingers toward the rod in Cami’s hand and the lure in Doc’s, he said, “I guess I better get to fishing. Cami?” The lady lawyer looked at him expectantly. “Mia will teach you how to weave palm fronds. Doc?” His partner looked at him less expectantly. “How about you stay out of the way and try not to pick any more fights?”
“Me?” Doc blinked innocently. “Pick fights? Never.”
Romeo made a face before gesturing again toward the fishing equipment. Cami handed over the rod and reel no problem. Doc, who’d always been bad at following orders—for fuck’s sake, the man barely took suggestions—was less cooperative.