“Thank you for your help.”She couldn’t reveal her feelings here.Not with so many eyes on them.She wasn’t certain how she felt anyway.“You’d better warm up so you don’t catch a cold.”
His indecision was clear in his furrowed brow, and she waited for him to say something inappropriate, something that would reveal the intimacy of their earlier talk.Her hands clenched on the steering wheel.
“I’ll see you when I’m back in town.”
She nodded.“Good luck with your expedition.”
Finally, he climbed aboard and she faced Sam’s stony expression.“You’re not coming,” she said.
He growled, but threw the rope back to her.“I’ll be in touch.”
She had no doubt, but she wouldn’t be bringing him further into this mess.“Have a nice night.”
She sped away.She had a boat to catch.
***
“What the hell happened?”Sam demanded as Dot sped away.
Oliver didn’t answer immediately.She was going after the boat, alone.The criminals hadn’t stuck around, or fired shots, but Dot shouldn’t be facing them by herself.Oliver hoped they’d made a clean getaway.
“Are you all right, Oliver?”Suzyn asked, her arms wrapped around herself.Tom and Rajesh stood next to her, but Andrew was not on deck.
Oliver was still dripping wet after his impromptu swim.He nodded.“Sorry about waking you.Everything’s fine.Go back to sleep.We’ll be starting early in the morning.”He wanted to get this dive finished and his students away from this mess.
He waited until the three of them dragged their feet back to their quarters and then turned to Sam and Sherlock.“Give me five to shower.Where’s my bag?”
Sherlock showed him and Oliver headed for the shower.
Swimming away from Dot was the hardest thing he’d done.It went against everything he believed in.A man was supposed to protect his family.He stilled as the realisation settled over him.She was his family.The reason no other woman could compare with Dot was because he was still in love with her.She had been his other half, the yin to his yang, the mask to his fins.OK, so he wasn’t a poet, but he recognised this emotion swirling around inside of him.He had never stopped loving Dot.
Now he only had to convince her to love him again.
He stared in the direction Dot had gone.
Dot thought Lucas, or Lucas’s colleague, might be involved somehow.He would review all his interactions with the man for any information that would help Dot.Something might point to who was behind this.
He dried himself and dressed, heading onto the deck to find Sam and Sherlock waiting for him.
“The cabin,” Sam said and closed the door behind them.
Sherlock poured three mugs of tea and handed Oliver one.“Noise carries at night, so keep your voice low.”
“What happened?”Sam asked.
Oliver hesitated.The two men seemed to know more about what was going on than he did.“We got stuck by the low tide,” he said.“The last barrel was under the reef so it took us a while to get it up.”
“And just now?”Sam prompted.
The man wasn’t normally this impatient.“We heard a boat.It wasn’t running lights, but it was going from spot to spot where the barrels were.Dot made me swim to the island in case they fired on the boat.”
Sam flinched.“Good idea.”
Oliver raised his eyebrows.“You’ve had experience?”
“My partner’s boat was shot up when she was trying to stop poachers on the reef.It sank in the middle of a shark feeding frenzy.”
Oliver’s blood chilled.Sharks didn’t normally bother him, because it was rare they were after a feed, but he’d seen some frenzies before and that was when all bets were off.
