Maybe it was her obvious bravery. Or how she’d kept her lighthearted sense of humor throughout this entire ordeal. Laughing in the face of fear. He respected that. He admired it. Also, face it, she was cute as hell. He missed the buttery locks she’d had the first day he saw her, but the mousy brown did nothing to take away her appeal. Her mouth was still wide and generous, her eyes kind of merry and expressive, as if she was always on the edge of a laugh.
But behind that laugh lay much more than a sunny soul. He sensed that she’d been through something hard, just as he had. She’d made veiled references to being a caregiver, but hadn’t gone into detail. Maybe that was one benefit of suffering a trauma; you recognized it in others.
He had a lot of questions for Lulu, and no intention of abandoning her before he got answers. That’s what this was about. She’d invaded his boat with all her drama and cost him his truck, and damnit, he deserved answers.
The fact that she made him laugh with her saucy quips and valiant smile had nothing to do with it. Neither did her loose-limbed gracefulness when she danced, or her endless legs, or her flirty teasing. Nope. All that was completely irrelevant.
With water streaming off his wetsuit, he climbed back up the ladder he’d dropped over the side. He used a freshwater hose on the deck to rinse off his suit, then peeled it down to his waist as he stepped into the cabin.
It was so quiet that a thought flashed through him—maybe Lulu had left. A kind of cold emptiness followed. It might be easier if she left, but he didn’t want her to.
But when he peeked into the cabin, he saw that she was sound asleep on his bunk, curled on her side, her mouth half-open, her breath stirring his old plaid blanket that came with him on every trip. She held her cell phone in one hand, as if she’d been in the middle of checking it when she’d simply fallen asleep.
The vise around his heart loosened. Keeping as quiet as possible, he changed out of his wetsuit and into comfortable sweats. He went back on deck, then climbed the two steps into the wheelhouse and started the engine. Normally he would check in with Lucas or another fisherman to let someone know where he was headed. There were no regulations about that, but the Lost Harbor fishing fleet was tight-knit and always watched out for each other.
But this time, he didn’t. He wasn’t sure where he was headed, for one thing. For another, he couldn’t be entirely sure who was monitoring communications.
He listened to his engines, the two powerful Volvo Pentas that could drive the Desperado up to speeds of almost twenty knots an hour. The Volvos were fairly new—he’d recently upgraded—and didn’t need much time to warm up. In a few minutes, the initial roughness had smoothed out.
He stepped onto the deck, ready to climb down and untie the Desperado from the float. This was why he rarely operated the Desp on his own. It was a lot easier to do this kind of thing with a deckhand instead of a sleeping tap dancer.
“You forgot this.”
He jumped as the voice of Lucas Holt sounded from the float. In the descending darkness, the harbormaster held up the line he’d just unwound from the cleat.
Tristan nodded to him to toss it on deck. “Thanks.”
Lucas, bless him, didn’t ask any more questions, just moved to the aft cleat. “I’ll be monitoring the usual frequencies,” he said. “You reach out if you need anything.”
“You got it. Thanks.”
Lucas tossed him the line, then stepped back, hands in his pockets. “One more thing. For what it’s worth, I think you would have been a good mayor.”
Tristan let out a snort. “Famous last words?”
“Fuck that. Of course not. See you when you get back. Oh, another thing.”
Tristan paused on his way back to the wheelhouse. “Yeah?”
“Being mayor isn’t the only way to lead around here.”
Irritation scraped across his nerves. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Lucas, but I’m not looking to lead anything. I’m just a fisherman.”
“Sure. Is that where you’re going? Fishing? Seems like there’s something missing. Oh yeah, your crew.”
Tristan flipped him a middle finger, then grinned. “Call it a cruise.”
“Thought you hated cruise ships. Especially the cursed one.”
“Maybe they’re growing on me. Catch you on the flip side.”
He went back to the wheelhouse and took the boat out of idle. He eased away from the ramp and glided through the harbor, past the dark hulks of the other big trawlers in port today. Not all were based in Lost Harbor. He spotted Big Booty’s boat out of Unalaska, and the Ryan brothers from Kodiak Island.
He didn’t even stop at the gas pumps at the mouth of the harbor, because he’d fueled up a few days ago and hadn’t gone anywhere since then. He didn’t want to risk any more slowdowns, or have any more chats. Leaving at night like this wasn’t unheard of, although usually he’d set out before dawn instead of after dusk. The fewer people who knew he was leaving the harbor, the slower word would get out.
The beauty of the night ocean took his breath away. A crescent moon already hung in the sky like something from a child’s imagination. It cast a limpid trail of silver across the ripples on the surface of the water. He loved this part of a trip, when you were just setting out and unknown adventures lay ahead. All was possible out here on the open water. Wild hope flooded his heart—he didn’t even know what for, just…hope.
Maybe everything would be okay. Maybe he’d manage to keep Lulu and his boat safe. Maybe he wasn’t going to fuck up every single thing in his life.
“What are you doing?” The furious yell came from the lower hatchway that led to the cabin. Plexiglass windows offered him a clear view of Lulu’s panicky face.
“We’re getting the hell out of dodge,” he called down to her.
“We can’t…we can’t do that!”
What was her problem? Hadn’t she talked about hiding out in Lost Souls Wilderness? “I’m doing what you wanted,” he shouted over the hum of his engine. Then he gestured for her to climb into the wheelhouse.
When she did so, she was practically vibrating with some combination of fear and fury. He didn’t understand either one. “Didn’t you say you wanted to hide out in Lost Souls? That’s what we’re doing.”
“Why did you just leave without telling me?” Her hair was tousled from sleep and she had a red mark on her cheek, probably left by her makeshift pillow.
“You were completely out. I didn’t want to wake you. You obviously needed your sleep.”
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I need to…shit.” She dropped her head into her hands, shoulders slumped. “This is bad. Very bad. We have to go back.”
“Why? We’re safer out here. We’re halfway to Lost Souls already.” He gestured at the dark outline of the mountains on the other side of the Misty Bay. “We can disappear into one of the coves over there. I know them all. No one will find us, not even an overflight could spot us. We’ve got supplies, a warm place to sleep on the Desperado. It’s the perfect solution until the FBI can get Antonov into custody.”
She shot him a glance full of so much panic that he threw up his hands. “Seriously, you want to go back? We can go back. But you have to tell me why. And what you want to do instead.”