“He was born in Denmark, but he went off to sea at a young age. He didn’t get along with his family, so he and my mom decided to use her name for me and Toni. I could have been Tristan Gammelgaard, imagine that.”
“I’d never have gotten into a sleeping bag with Tristan Gammelgaard.”
“Is that right? Thanks, Papí. I owe you.”
They both laughed, and he felt as goofy as a kid curled up in a blanket fort.
“The dream,” she reminded him.
Damn, she was persistent, and he wasn’t even sure why it mattered to her. “I’m working up to it. When’s your birthday?”
“The thirty-first of May. What’s yours?”
“February first. I’ll be thirty-three.”
“I’m thirty. I supposed I should figure out what I’m doing with the rest of my life one of these days.” Her light tone made a joke of it, but he knew that was a shield.
“You don’t want to keep dancing?”
“Dancing…well, I love it. It was the one thing always guaranteed to get a smile from my mum. But I have to be honest with myself. My position as a member of the Northern Princess entertainment staff was most likely the peak of my dancing career. That’s as far as I can go. And I was lucky to get that gig.”
He lifted a strand of her hair and tucked it back under her watch cap. “That’s rough.”
“Oh, I won’t miss the sore feet.” She tangled her feet between his. “Or the pulled muscles. Or the way my face ached from smiling all the time.”
“I have a special talent you might be interested in.”
“Oh, I’m very interested,” she purred. Her leg slid along his, silky and warm.
“Foot rubs,” he said quickly, before she got him all revved up again. “I’ve been told my foot rubs are second to none.”
“Tristán Izquierdo Antonio Del Rey!” she exclaimed. “You’ve been holding out on me all this time? I’ve known you, what, two days and you only now mention your talent for foot rubs?”
“My other talent wasn’t enough for you?” He wriggled his fingers at her with a leer.
She ran her fingers lightly across his chest, spreading warmth and pleasure. “I have no complaints about any of your talents.”
“I can also dance. Bet you didn’t guess that one.”
Propping her head on her elbow, she lifted her eyebrows at him. “What kind of dancing?”
“I’m the guy that stands on stage and lifts the girl over my head.” He caressed the hand that was still playing with his chest hair. “Trixie roped me into a performance of The Nutcracker one year, and every winter they hound me to do it again.”
For some mysterious reason, that information made tears come into her eyes. “That’s so sweet,” she whispered.
“What’s the matter? What did I say?” Alarmed, he rolled back onto his side and lifted her chin to examine her face. Yup—tears. One of them rolled down her cheek. What the hell had he said to upset her? “I take it back, whatever it was.”
“No. It’s nothing. It’s not you. It’s…me. And dancing. I think…” She blotted the runaway tear with the heel of her hand. “Dancing is…a way to stay connected to my mother. I used to dance for her. She loved to critique my technique. We used to fight about it, because she was quite the taskmaster. I can still hear her voice sometimes when I dance.”
He was searching his mind for the right thing to say—and coming up empty because he was a fisherman, not a grief counselor—when a low sound caught his attention.
“A plane,” he whispered. “Twin-engine. It’s a sightseeing plane, they fly low. Might be searching for us.”
She sat up and stared into the pearly sky. “What should we do?”
“Go belowdecks. I’m going to cast a line in the water. Hurry. Take the sleeping bag with you.”
They scrambled out of his bag and he bundled it quickly into her arms. She disappeared through the hatchway. He raced to the wheelhouse, where his hip waders and rain gear hung on a hook. Quickly pulled them on, grateful that he’d chosen a dark slate color instead of the standard orange or yellow.
He didn’t want to draw attention, and if someone spotted them, he wanted to look like a fisherman hoping for one last salmon.
He grabbed a rod and hurried out to the deck. Cast a line and let it sink down a few feet below the surface. With quick jerks that would make the lure flash, he reeled it back in.
In this stage of their lives, the salmon weren’t feeding. They wouldn’t bite the lure, but they might confuse it with another salmon. The goal here was to get one to come close enough for the hook to snag it.
Actually, the goal here was just to look as if he was fishing. Good thing, because this wasn’t his kind of fishing. He didn’t enjoy snagging, although the soothing rhythm of casting and reeling in the line always cast a spell on him.
Trails of mist drifted across the surface of the water and clung to the treetops. Here in Lost Souls Wilderness, the clouds didn’t seem far away, but close enough to feel on your face and marvel as they rolled through a valley or down a slope.
Maybe there was enough condensation in the atmosphere to obscure an overhead view of the lagoon. Maybe that plane carried guests for the Aurora Lodge, or bear-viewing tourists setting out on the adventure of their lives. Maybe he was panicking for nothing.
Not panicking. Just preparing.
He glanced up as the twin-engine plane came into view. It didn’t pause as it passed over the lagoon. In case someone was looking down at him, he lifted his hand in a wave, same as he would have done if were actually fishing.
And then, damn it all, he felt a tug on his line. He reeled it in, fast and steady, steering the thrashing fish away from the hull of his boat until he could pull it over the side.
It flopped on the deck, a nice-sized late-season silver Coho salmon. Good for breakfast.
“You caught a fish!” Raul ran from the hatchway, dodging past Lulu, who tried to snag his shirt and pull him back. “He’s so big!”
Tristan looked up at the plane again. Still in view, meaning they were still in view. But it didn’t turn back or show any reaction at all.
Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe it was just a tourist flight. Even if it was Seb Antonov, that didn’t mean he’d spotted Raul. The clouds, the mist, the distance, the fact that the plane had already passed by, all gave him hope that they’d escaped notice.
“It’s okay,” he told Lulu, who wore a horrified look as she dashed onto the deck after Raul.
“I’m so sorry. Raul was asleep, so I went to the loo and when I came out he was running out here.”
“It’s all right. I don’t think they saw.” But a knot in his stomach said otherwise. And they should probably accept that possibility, and act accordingly.
“Come on, kid. Let’s put this guy out of his misery.”
Fish didn’t “suffer,” per se, since they had no nervous systems. But gasping for air—or water—wasn’t fun for any creature. He showed Raul where to strike the salmon on the back of its head so it died instantly.
“Thank you, my silver friend,” he murmured to it. “I didn’t mean to catch you, but I’m grateful.”