From behind the lenses of her glasses, Alex stared at Mason with eyes the size of monkfishes. And even though her mouth was open and her throat was working, no sound emerged.
Then she shook her head and picked up her book so she could whack Mason’s arm with it. “No, we most certainly arenotfinished! If you think you can say something like that and then just walk away, you’re out of your chowder-eating mind!”
“Chrissy.” Mason ignored Alex and pointed to the binoculars Chrissy had clutched in her hand. “You sure everything’s okay?” His thick New England accent made the wordsuresound more likeshah.
She grimaced at Alex, her expression sayingI suck! I know!
The look Alex sent in return said she was imagining setting Chrissy’s right eyebrow on fire with nothing more than the power of her mind.
Chrissy mouthedsorrybefore answering Mason. “It’s probably nothing. But there’s a speedboat following in our wake. I thought it was…you know…weird.”
After her conversation with Wolf, she’d taken herself out to the swim deck at the back of the boat to try to untangle the many feelings she had surrounding his admission that helikedher. Apparently it was a day for confessions…Yay, team!But before she could do that, she’d become distracted by tiny plumes of white in the distance.
A quick glance through the binoculars brought the plumes into sharper focus. The boat creating them was too far away to make out clearly, but she recognized the rooster-tail effect.
A speedboat.
She’d lived in the Florida Keys her whole life. She could name every kind of shell there was, could identify which way the currents were running just by studying the wave action at the surface, and could recognize a good cluster of oysters from a bad one. Shealsoknew that sailboats, ocean liners, and cargo ships were built for the open sea. Speedboats, on the other hand? Thanks to their shallow hulls and relatively small fuel tanks, they fared better in the calm waters around the islands.
For one of them to be this far out was like finding an Easter egg under your Christmas tree. In a word,strange.
Her first instinct had been to go to Wolf with her concern. But she hadn’t been ready to face him again so soon after their tête-à-tête. She could only be around him for short periods of time before she forgot why they weren’t permanently attached at the mouth. She supposed that was partly due to the fact that, like everyone else on the islands, he ran around in shorts and tank tops that showed off all those lovely muscles and all that lovely tanned skin. But it was also because his eyes were strangely intense, so dark and shiny that every time she looked at him, they threatened to suck her in. Like a black hole.
Hewas a black hole. And it was better to stay hell and gone from him, because she knew if she ever allowed herself to get sucked inside his gravitational pull, she was done for. Finished. He’d crush her like one of the eggs the feral chickens of Key West seemed to lay around the island willy-nilly.
She’d decided getting Mason’s opinion on the speedboat was the safer option.
But the look in Alex’s eyes told her she should’ve stuck with door number one.
Sorry, she mouthed again when Mason stood. Given his bulk, it was amazing he could move with such grace.
“Let’s go get a look.” He motioned for her to pass him the binoculars.
She hesitated, thinking maybe she could convince him to sit back down and say more lovely, sweet, flowery things to Alex. But then he frowned—and truly, he had one hell of a frown—and stared at her with those shocking blue eyes. Her arms turned traitorous. They handed him the binoculars of their own volition.
Alex jumped to her feet then, too, dropping her book onto the trampoline before quickly falling in step behind Mason when he made his way around the cabin and headed for the stern.
“See,” Chrissy said under her breath, giving Alex a poke in the small of her back. “Itoldyou.”
When Alex glanced over her shoulder, her expression said she still hoped for a way to singe Chrissy’s eyebrows off. “Told mewhat?”
“Chocolate syrup.” She gave Alex a knowing wink.
Alex opened her mouth to respond, but quickly closed it again because they’d made it to the swim deck and Mason immediately lifted the binoculars to his eyes. His massive biceps bulged, and Chrissy thought she heard Alex swallow noisily. When she turned to look, sure enough, Alex was staring at Mason like he was an all-you-can-eat shrimp boil.
It was an expression Chrissy recognized well. She’d seen it on her mother’s face often enough, and it had usually resulted in a ring and a trip to the justice of the peace. Josephine Szareck had fallen in love as easily and as often as Chrissy filled her scuba tanks.
Unfortunately, themenJosephine had fallen in love with weren’t the faithful-until-death-do-us-part types, so Josephine had fallenoutof love easily too. Chrissy suspected if her mother hadn’t gotten sick, she’d have been on husband number seven or maybe even eight by now.
“Well?” Alex prompted Mason, her voice a little scratchy. “What do you think?”
He didn’t immediately answer. And the apprehension Chrissy had felt when she first saw the rooster-tails began to sneak back in, raising the baby hairs on the back of her neck.
That apprehension quickly morphed into stone-cold fear when he turned to them, his expression like a hurricane. “Call in a Mayday to the Coasties. Tell ’em we got three unfriendlies packing assault weapons and headed our way in a speedboat.”
“What?” Chrissy squeaked. Now it wasn’t only the hairs on the back of her neck standing stick-straight. It was every hair on her body.
She snatched the binoculars from Mason and held them to her eyes. It took her a moment to locate the speedboat amid the vast expanse of sea and sky. When the boat snapped into view, it was still so far back she could barely make out the figures on board. “How do you know they have guns?”
