Mason shot him a burning glare. “Ya-huh. And I’m owning it.”
Wolf took over piloting duties and expertly motored the little craft next to the man who had left off calling for help because he was in the process of coughing up a lungful of seawater.
The tinge of pink in the ocean told Mason that while his last shot hadn’t managed to kill the bastard, it’d still done some damage. There was satisfaction in that.
“Who the fuck are you?” He swung his M4 around to his back so he could grab the man under the armpits and haul him aboard. But he’d barely lifted Hotel Guy’s torso out of the water when he felt the cold bite of steel.
A second later, a sharp report cleaved the air in two and Hotel Guy’s head exploded in a cloud of blood and brains. Mason glanced over his shoulder to see the end of Wolf’s Colt silently smoking.
“Don’t pull it out!” Wolf barked, his complexion ashen.
That’s when Mason realized his hand had instinctively gone to the hilt of the hunting knife protruding from his flank.
Chapter 8
1:30 p.m.
The edges of Chrissy’s thoughts were jagged and cutting, and she felt like she was moments from bleeding out mentally.
So far today, she’d been involved in a high-speed boat chase, shot at by machine-gun-toting strangers, and stranded on a crippled catamaran surrounded by dead bodies. Oh, and she’d watched in horror as a man she admired and respected took a knife to the gut.
Luckily, the Coast Guard had arrived not long after that and the captain had hustled the four of them on board the cutter. Unluckily, Chrissy had no idea how Mason was faring because he and Alex had been taken belowdecks to the ship’s medic. Wolf had followed the captain up to the bridge, and Chrissy and Meat had been escorted to a small cabin by a young man who looked barely old enough to shave, much less wear a uniform.
He’d introduced himself as Ensign Watts and had been kind enough to fetch her a steaming cup of coffee despite it being eighty-five degrees out.
After settling herself at the cabin’s small built-in desk, she’d tried to take a fortifying sip. But she’d nearly spilled the cup’s entire contents down the front of her shirt because poor Meat, who’d been traumatized by the gunfire and the smell of his master’s blood, chose that moment to prop all fifty-five pounds of himself against her legs and whine up at her pitifully.
She’d reached down to give him a reassuring pat, and that’s when she’d realized the nearly spilled coffee might not have been entirely Meat’s fault. Her hands had been shaking so hard it looked like she’d touched an underwater high-voltage power line.
How long ago had that been?
Her java was long gone. Meat was sprawled at her feet, only letting out a snuffle of unhappiness every few minutes. And if she wasn’t mistaken, it sounded like the ship’s big engines were gearing down.
Are we back to Key West already?
She took out her cell phone and blinked in astonishment when she saw she had cell reception and then realized two hours had passed since the shootout.
Shootout, she thought a little crazily.Makes it sound like we were at the OK Corral and—
“Sorry!” Wolf burst through the door, his face contorted in a grimace.
Meat jumped to his feet with a growl. Then, seeing it was Wolf, the dog belly-crawled toward his master’s best friend, seeking comfort.
Wolf obliged, rubbing Meat’s rotund little belly. And only when Meat seemed sufficiently placated did he return his attention to Chrissy.
“Sorry,” he said again, straightening to lean a hip against the desktop. “Time got away from me.”
Everything in the little cabin went out of focus when he bent to take her hand in his. Well, everything except him. He was crystal clear and filling up her entire visual field.
“It took longer than I’d hoped to lay out the timeline of events for the captain,” he explained. “Then I called the authorities on Key West. They’re goin’ to meet us at the docks and take our statements. I also checked on Mason and Alex to—”
“How are they?” Chrissy cut in, glad for something to focus on other than the feel of his warm flesh against her own. She was acutely aware they werealone. In a tiny room. With a bed not two feet away.
Would it really be so bad to let him lay her down and make her forget this wretched day? If she asked him to, he wouldn’t hesitate.
The problem would be what happened afterward.
Because she was fairly confident that if she gave him her body, her heart would blithely follow. She had enough of her mother in her to recognize the warning signs. And he’d proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that while he was exactly what a gal needed if she was looking for some afternoon delight, he wasn’t a man who could be depended upon to offer much more than that.
