He waved two fingers and a thumb in front of her face. “Number three—”
“Wait!”
He stopped talking.
“What are you doing?” She stared at his fingers.
He scowled at her, then popped off with, “I’m counting off the reasons I’m right and you’re wrong.”
“You’re not counting correctly.”
“One, two, three.” He held up his thumb first, then his index finger, then his second finger. “You know some other way to count? Two, nine, seven?” He flicked his thumb, then his fingers up again.
“The index finger is standardly used to signify one, two is the second finger, and so on. The thumb is number five.”
His eyes narrowed for a second, then he flipped up his middle finger and held it in front of her face. “Andthisis number three.”
If he thought she’d offend that easily, he could think again. She gave a small sigh and looked away.
“Number three,” he continued. “Because I run a monarchy.”
She’d love to crown His Majesty, except that if an anchor hadn’t knocked some sense into him nothing else would.
“Number four, because you,a woman, haven’t got a vote...”
She could feel her jaw tighten. Her foot was tapping with impatience. She pulled it back so he wouldn’t see her reaction.
“And number five, because I’m a man and what I say goes.” He turned back to the trunk, dismissing her because he must have believed his words were absolute—his final argument.
It was worse than talking to a brick. She watched his broad back as he tried to unhook the other end of the mooring chain from a trunk handle. “And to think I insulted bricks everywhere,” she muttered.
He stopped and glanced up. “Huh?”
“Nothing. Just an observation.”
“Good idea, Smitty. You observe. That means look, not talk.” Then he chuckled.
At that same moment, the goat looked up. Its gaze shifted to Hank. A second later it charged.
She really should warn him, she thought. She looked from the goat, its head lowered and its hooves eating up the sand. She looked at the target: Hank bent over the trunk, laughing obnoxiously.
Yes--she sighed and looked up at nothing in particular--she really should warn him.
She closed her eyes instead. A second later she heard the smack. Then the curses. There was a distinct echo to his vitriolic language, she thought, her eyes still closed, as she tapped a finger against her lips. Yes, it was almost as if his swear words were slowly flying away.
The words stopped abruptly.
A new sound. Muffled, yes, that was it. Definitely muffled. She opened her eyes.
He lifted his face out of the sand. From his forehead to his whiskered chin, pearly white sand clung to him. His eyebrows were dusted with it and looked like two plump sand caterpillars. It clung to the scab where the anchor had hit him. A thick mask of it cupped his jaw and turned his lips ghostly pale. His eyes were narrowed, the sockets the only places on his face free of sticky sand.
The goat, however, couldn’t have cared less. It just belted out a bleat and moved down the beach where a long rope of kelp held more interest than Hank’s backside.
Hank pushed himself up.
“Wait!” Margaret held up her hand.
He froze, his body taut, his forearms supporting his weight. He started to say something but spit sand instead.
