In fact, she was going to miss alotonce the boys and girls of Black Knights Inc. officially became civilians and she went back to piloting a desk at Langley. Like the smell of metal grinding as the Knights built the custom bikes that acted as their cover. Like the way they all teased and tormented one another, but when push came to shove, they banded together like family. But most of all, she was going to miss…Dagan.
It was as if the thought of him conjured him to life. He, Christian, and Ace crouch-walked out of the wheelhouse. The Border Agency cutter was still a good two miles behind them. Only if someone was out on her deck with powerful binoculars would they be able to see anyone aboard the catamaran. Still, no one was taking any chances.
Even all hunched over, Chelsea felt the impact of Dagan hit her smack in the solar plexus. She was mesmerized by the breadth of his shoulders and the way the wind caught his dark hair and ran loving fingers through the silken strands. He was a man who had danced with the Reaper and come out the winner, and it showed in the certainty of his movements, each one a lesson in economical grace.
“You ready for this?” His moonshine voice cut through the noise of the wind and waves as easily as a knife cut through her mother’s famous flaky crab cakes. That was one thing theyhadn’thad to give up after her father’s death when money became tight. The crab pots her father had left behind assured them that come crab season, they were well fed. “Anything I can do to help?” he finished.
Okay, so Emily was right. Before that scene down in the hold, Dagan wouldn’t have asked,You ready for this?orAnything I can do to help?He would have grumpily informed her that shewasn’tready for this, and then he would have outlined exactly what he was going to do to help her.
Everything had changed between them.
And, oh! The irony!
For years, she’d wanted him to treat her like an equal, like an agent who knew what she was doing. Now that he finallywas, she wanted things to go back to the way they were before. When they had snapped and snarled, poked and prodded.Thathad felt right. But this? Yeah. No.
Of course, she couldn’t tellhimthat. Instead, she forced a wry grin, added a saucy wink, and gave him one of her daddy’s Southern-fried favorites. “Am I ready for this? Does a farm dog have fleas?”
Rusty had managed to keep a good distance between his catamaran and the cutter. But he had assured them that wouldn’t last for long, not nearly long enough for them to sail back to Dover, and then dock and unload before the Border Agency ship was on top of them. Instead, he had turned them south, piloting them full steam toward Folkestone, the town he had called home since moving to England.
“There’s a long pier that juts way out into the water. It’s called the Folkestone Harbor Arm,” he had said, outlining his plan. “I can sail behind it, and you can all hop overboard. It’s perfect because while we’re back there, we’ll be out of the cutter’s line of sight.”
Sounded easy, right?
Wrong.
Turned out, the pier was a massive construction that didn’t have anywhere for a small boat the size of Rusty’s catamaran to pull up to. Which meant they were going to have toswim.
Now, usually swimming wasn’t a problem for Chelsea. Liquid locomotion was something she had mastered at the precocious age of three. Butthathad been in late June in the creek running behind her house with her father looking on. What Rusty proposed was a dunking in the freezing cold waters of the Channel in late March. And as if that weren’t enough, they were supposed to use the pier’s pilings as cover against any curious onlookers while battling the waves and the current on their way to shore.
When Rusty had told themthatpart of the plan, he had taken one look at the disbelief on her face and pointed a finger at her nose. “And see,” he’d said. “That’s why this plan is perfect. Those Border Agency boys won’t think for one minute anyone would have the cojones to hop into the Channel right now. So when I sail back to Dover and dock, and they find nothing but little ol’ me, they won’t be the least bit suspicious.”
Good. Great, Chelsea had thought.Unless, of course, we all drown.
“Is there nowhereelseyou could drop us ashore?” she had asked.
“The coastline around here is pretty straight and barren.” The look Rusty had given her was sympathetic. “Our only hope for a few minutes of cover is the Folkestone Harbor Arm.”
The massive shadow of that very thing suddenly loomed over the catamaran, dragging her back to the present. There was a lighthouse at the end of the pier. It towered above them as they made their way to the opposite side. She couldn’t shake the sensation that it was a giant smirking down at them, laughing at the audacity of their plan.
Fee-fi-fo-fum, she imagined it chuckled.I smell the blood of Americans.
The waves gently rocked the vessel as Rusty sailed the boat closer to shore. He turned the catamaran suddenly, darting between the harbor arm’s leggy pilings. Ten seconds later, he cut the engines and ducked through the wheelhouse door, then ran to the bow of the boat and tied a rope from the catamaran to a huge, rusted metal loop on one piling. After the boat was secure, he joined them on the far side of the wheelhouse.
“Everybody ready to get wet and wild?” he asked, surveying the scene around the boat. “I noticed the pier is empty. I was hoping that’d be the case.”
Right. Because March wasn’t a month for tourists, and the day had turned too cold and windy for the local folks to latch on to the idea of an afternoon walk onto the unprotected Folkestone Harbor Arm. However, the five ofthem? Yup, they were about to jump in for a swim.
Holy Moses. Had Chelsea been Catholic, she would have crossed herself.
“I’ve sailed us as close to shore as I dare.” Rusty glanced over his shoulder at the shoreline that looked to Chelsea to be about ten thousand miles away, through choppy waves and deep, dark shadows. The shade of the harbor arm turned what was already a cloudy day into full-on twilight. And the sound of the current pulling and pushing at the pilings created an eerie echo. “Thirty yards. Piece of cake.” Rusty nodded.
“Says the only one of us not about to swim it,” Chelsea grumbled, pulling off her boots and socks and handing them to Dagan to add to the waterproof bag. Her coat came next. The minute she shrugged out of it, she felt the bite of the breeze and refused to consider just how much harsher the bite of the water would be.
Watching Dagan shove her things into the army-green float bag, she wiggled her toes against the damp deck. Emily gave her socks, shoes, and coat to Christian to add to the second waterproof bag. Once they made it to shore, they would want to have dry things to change into.
If we make it to shore, Chelsea thought with uncharacteristic pessimism.
When they were ready, Rusty reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He handed them to Ace. “You remember the address I gave you?”
