“No suspicious strangers near my boat?”
“No one came near your boat. No one even walked past it. I even kept an eye on the water in case someone swam up to it. Nothing. No one. Guaranteed.”
Lulu relaxed, relief flooding through her veins. Her heart was still beating fast, but that was probably because of the impromptu dance. “Thank you so much for keeping watch, Bo.”
He swept into a bow. “Anything for Captain Del Rey. He saved my life.”
At first she thought he was being dramatic, but he looked much too sincere for that to be the case. “Does that mean I can trust him with my life?”
“Oh yes, just don’t fall in love with him. Believe me, I’ve seen it happen and it doesn’t end well. There’s a bar in Dutch Harbor with his face on a dartboard—”
“Okay okay, that’s enough of that.” Tristan’s frown had grown even more stormy. “You can stand down, Bo. We’re good. Thanks for the help.”
“If there’s anything else you need, just text me.” He hopped off the glider and slung a feather boa around his neck. “I’m off to my new gig at the library. Story hour.”
“I wouldn’t mind some story hour,” Lulu told him with a wink. “I’m sure that dartboard’s just the tip of the iceberg, right?”
But Bo’s first loyalty was obviously to Tristan, because he made a zipping gesture across his lips, then stood at attention to salute his former captain.
Rolling his eyes, Tristan gestured for Lulu to follow him back down the rickety stairs to the weathered planks of the boardwalk.
“Was he really one of your deckhands?”
“He really was.” They trotted down the ramp that led to the floats. The corrugated metal made a tinny sound with each step. She looked down into the murky harbor water and wondered how cold it was. Extremely, she imagined. “I took him on as a favor to Chrissie Yates—my ex-girlfriend. He’d never been on a boat before, but he did well when he wasn’t either throwing up or filming the crew. Then we got into a bad—”
He broke off and shifted the subject with a wave of his hand. “Long story, not relevant.” They reached the Desperado, with its black hull and red stripe at the waterline. She glanced around nervously, getting the sense that eyes were on her.
“Do you feel that? Someone watching?”
Tristan turned toward the boardwalk, then waved at someone on a bicycle. “That’s Boris Clancy. Another one of our guardian harbor-rats. That’s what we call people who work on the boardwalk,” he explained. “It’s a compliment. Rats are survivors.”
“I suppose I should channel my inner rat, then.”
Tristan gave the scraggly-bearded man on the bicycle a thumbs up, then turned back to help Lulu climb up the ladder into the fishing boat. When they were both onboard, he did a careful survey of the deck.
“I left a camera recording as a last line of defense. If someone came onboard, I’ll know.” Outside the hatchway that led to the wheelhouse, he crouched next to a plastic bucket that held a coil of thick bristly rope. He pulled out a digital camera and scanned through it for a long moment.
Lulu held her breath. Please no, please no.
“Nothing. We’re safe.” He slung the little video camera over his shoulder and gestured for her to come inside.
She urged her heart to start beating again. “That’s a pretty word, safe.” Nothing more than a word, of course. At any moment, everything could fall apart. She knew that from personal experience.
They stepped into the cabin belowdecks. She did a rapid-fire survey of the tidy space and saw nothing out of place. Another moment of relief.
“Do you want to take a shower?” he asked. “I have to do one more thing.”
“What?”
“It might be overkill, but I’m going to put on a wetsuit and some goggles and check out my hull.”
She nodded as he opened a tote that held a pile of Gore-Tex gear. “I suppose you want me to turn around again while you change?”
“Or go take a shower.” He rummaged through the gear, then pulled out a hooded wetsuit.
“Can we talk about this situation, because being on the run from a bad guy has very few perks. Seems as if this could be one of them.”
“What could?”
“Watching you strip down to your undies again.”
When he glanced over his shoulder at her, she tossed him a saucy wink. “Just a thought.”
“Suit yourself.” With swift motions, he stripped off all his upper layers—blazer, shirt—and bared the magnificent expanse of his torso.
That was the point at which she realized that seeing him bare-chested on a beach was a lot different than in the confined space of a fishing boat cabin. “Shower?” she squeaked.
He pointed to a narrow passageway behind her. She knew it led to the sleeping bunks. “Door on your left. It’s small and the water heater’s even smaller. You have about five minutes before it gets tepid.”
“That’s all I need.” She fled toward the little corridor. By the time she got out of the shower, Tristan would be in the water examining the hull. Hopefully, that would give her all the time she needed.
Fourteen
Using the last light of day, dressed in full wetsuit, hood and flippers, Tristan scoured every inch of his hull to make sure no one had attached an explosive of some kind. He found some barnacles that would need to be scraped off this winter, and an interesting clump of kelp.
But nothing that looked like an explosive. Of course his only knowledge of that sort of thing was from movies. But he was pretty sure no one had yet invented a bomb disguised as a barnacle, so he felt confident that the Desperado wasn’t going to get blown to smithereens when they left the harbor.
Which would have sounded like such an insane statement up until a few hours ago. Someone had blown up his fucking truck! The reality of that still stunned him.
What was he doing? Why was he putting his beloved boat at risk to protect a stranger? Talk about insane. Maybe his brain surgery had done something to his common sense.
But he knew that wasn’t it. He’d always had a protective side, which was why the accident that had sent him and Ralphie to the hospital had struck such a blow to his self-esteem. His boneheaded error had given Bo a concussion, Ralphie an impaled shoulder, and Tristan a brain bleed. People had gotten hurt because of him.
Which was why he should step away from this situation. Yes, that was exactly what he should do.
“Lulu, or whatever your real name is, because who the hell is named Lulu, I’ll take you back to the police station and let them handle this. You don’t want to be under police protection? The hell with that. I’m going to handcuff you to Maya’s chair if that’s what it takes. Hell, let’s lock you in the holding cell. Got a problem with that? Call the British embassy. I can’t keep you safe. I can try, but I can’t promise anything. I can’t promise anything to anybody.”
New mantra, who dis?
I can’t promise anything to anybody. And I’m not going to try.
Yes, that was exactly what he should tell Lulu, and yet even thinking the words left a bitter taste behind. Something about Lulu wouldn’t let him be.