He was her North Star. Without him, she’d be left to scramble around directionless.
And yet you will lose him, that damnable voice whispered.No matter what happens tonight, tomorrow he stops being yours.
Chapter 25
9:55 p.m.
“Is it serious between you two?”
Chrissy’s voice was soft in the darkness. Alex could barely hear her over the noise of night insects and Meat’s deep, satisfied snores.
Mason was on watch duty at the back of the island, and Meat had chosen Chrissy to bless with his presence. He was flat on his back at the bottom of her trundle bed, airing his junk while he slept.
Alex envied the dog his oblivion. Even though she and Chrissy had turned in early, the sandman refused to visit them. Probably because, unlike Meat, they weren’t blind to what was happening on the island.
They’d swallowed their alarm while the men of Deep Six Salvage debated the merits of staying versus loading up the floatplane and heading back to Key West. They’d kept their opinions to themselves when the guys decided the island was safer and “far more defensible”—gulp—than any place else. They’d watched in dismay while weapons were oiled and press-checked and loaded. And they’d listened with their hearts in their throats while the men drew up a schedule for sentinel duty. Then they’d grumbled about the patriarchy when their help had been refused.
“I mean, seriously,” Alex had said at the time. “It doesn’t take six weeks of BUD/S training to use a pair of binoculars.”
“BUD/S training lasts twenty-four weeks,” Mason had informed her, and she’d thought,Sweet lord! What could they possibly be teaching them all that time? Oh, right. How to jump out of airplanes. How to dive to unimaginable depths. How to stealthily kill people.
He’d added, “And it’s less about using a set of field glasses than it is knowing what to look for.”
“Duh.” She’d rolled her eyes. “Anything that shouldn’t be there. Like a boat or a plane or a raft or—”
“Will you be able to make a visual assessment of the craft’s speed and trajectory so you can gauge how much time you have and warn the others?”
She’d glowered at him because…he’d had her there. Obviously, she needed to study up on how to calculate the speed and trajectory of an approaching watercraft.Do you suppose there’s a YouTube video on that?
That was the last time they’d had a chance to speak. He’d been too busy conferring with the guys the rest of the afternoon. And then in the evening, when she took him a paper plate heaped with the mac and cheese she’d made for dinner—she’d neededsomethingto keep her mind and body busy—he’d barely dropped the binoculars to thank her for the food.
Mason took sentry duty as seriously as he took everything in life, giving it 100 percent of his concentration. Not that she was complaining. Because when that concentration was focused on her?Whew, boy!
“You can totally tell me to mind my own business.” Chrissy broke into her thoughts. “I won’t take offense.”
“Is it serious between us?” Alex pondered the question. “I guess you could call it that. Or maybe ‘terminal’ is a better word for it.”
Chrissy rolled onto her side and propped her cheek in her hand. Meat voiced his disapproval at being jostled by grunting loudly and smacking his floppy lips. Then he immediately went back to snoring.
In answer, Li’l Bastard, who roosted on the porch railing just beyond the screen, clucked contentedly. The happy noise mixed with the clacking of palm fronds as they were tickled by a warm sea breeze.
“Why terminal?” Chrissy asked. “Because you’re in love with him?”
“More because he’snotin love withme,” Alex admitted wretchedly. The knowledge made something hard and sharp poke at the backs of her eyes.
“Give him time.” Chrissy’s tone was certain.
Alex made a rude noise. “See, that’s the one thing I don’t have.”
The moonlight streaming in under the roofline caught in Chrissy’s hair and made it shine when she shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“All Mason agreed to was one day. Today. Tomorrow we go back to being friends and pretending today never happened.” Saying the words aloud increased the sharpness of the pressure behind her eyes. “I thought something was better than nothing, you know? But now I’m not so sure. It’s killing me thinking of living and working next to him without being able to touch him or hug him or kiss him.”
“Why would he insist on something like that?” Even in the low light, Alex could see the deep line that appeared between Chrissy’s eyebrows. “Like I said, I’ve seen the way he looks at you, and it’s a far cry from a one-night stand and then let’s-be-friends.”
Alex didn’t tell her what Mason had said about never wanting to fall in love or have a family. She didn’t explain that he thought the navy had changed him, made him unfit to lead a regular life. Neither did she reveal her suspicions that some, or maybeall, of that had something to do with his ex-wife.
She thought, perhaps, she might have been the first person he’d ever shared those secrets with. She wouldn’t break his confidence.
