“Hey!” he complained. “Head injury, remember?”
“Serves you right for grabbing my ass, you big pervert,” she sniffed peevishly while scrambling over the round rubber side of the raft. She wouldswearthe skin over her lower stomach tingled where it’d been pressed against his hardness.
“You can’t blame a man for what he does when he’s high on pain meds and half asleep!” he protested to her back because she was already running for the beach with Mia hot on her heels.
Again, the sand did her no favors in her effort to cover ground. By the time they splashed into the surf next to Romeo, she was completely out of breath.
“What the—” Romeo flinched at their sudden arrival. Then his eyes traveled down to the flare gun case in her hands and he automatically lifted his gaze skyward.
“No,” she said, or ratherwheezed.She really needed to renew her gym membership. A thirty second run through the sand shouldn’t make her feel like there was an elephant sitting on her chest. “It’s not...”Pant, pant.“A plane...”Pant, pant.“It’s a...”
“It’s a boat!” Mia finished for her, pointing in the direction they’d seen the watercraft.
Romeo lifted a hand to shade his eyes. “Where? I don’t see it?”
Neither did Cami.
Damnit!It probably sailed away while Doc was—
“There!” Mia pointed, and Cami followed the archeologist’s finger until—oh thank goodness!There it was, the flash of the white hull and the glint of sunlight reflecting off glass.
“I do too.” Romeo nodded quickly. “Here. Trade me.”
He thrust his rod into Cami’s hands at the same time he snatched the flare gun case from her. He had Mia hold the case while he flipped the latches and grabbed the flare gun from its foam cutout. His movements were so quick they were nearly a blur as he armed the thing with a cartridge and pointed it in the direction of the sky above the boat.
Cami winced, expecting a loudboom.When he pulled the trigger, the flare gun made more of acrackingsound, followed by asqueeas the flare flew out over the water.
She watched their bright, sparkly cry for help arc across the blue sky and had the urge to laugh with glee.We’re saved!
“They saw it, didn’t they?” she said once the flare flamed out.
“Give them a second,” Romeo murmured.
When one second stretched into two which stretched into ten, Cami couldn’t stop herself from looking at him expectantly. Her heart sank when he cursed and ran a hand through his hair.
She turned her gaze to the open water and searched for the glimmer of the white hull or the flash of sunlight on glass. No matter how hard she strained her eyes, all she saw was wave after wave after wave.
“They didn’t see it.” Her voice was almost as quiet as Mia’s. Louder, she added, “Quick! Use another flare!”
“No.” Romeo shook his head. “If they were too far out to see the first one, then they’re definitely too far out now to see a second one. And we only have one flare left. We should save it for when a plane or boat comes closer, eh?”
Her shoulders drooped. “I guess that’s that then.”
“No.” Mia spoke up. “That’s not that then, because...” She grabbed Romeo’s wrist so she could see the face of his big diver’s watch. “We’re officially more than four hours late for our arrival on Wayfarer Island. Surely LT and the others have raised the alarm by now. Surely the search is underway.” She looked at Romeo. “Don’t you think?”
He smoothed his goatee. “Not necessarily. I’ve been late before because of weather or a mechanical issue or because I just got held up picking up supplies or whatever.”
When he saw Mia’s expression fall, he was quick to add, “But LT is definitely getting worried by now. My guess is he’ll be putting in a sat phone call to air traffic control soon. And when they tell him our plane left on time, he’ll do more than raise the alarm. He’ll have everyone and their dog out looking for us.”
“I suppose that’s something,” Cami sighed, hanging onto the reassurance she saw in his face as hard as she hung on to the memory of her sister. Then she saw something else flicker in his eyes, and once again she heard herself asking, “But?”
He looked uncomfortable. “But this time of year, we’ve only got about three more hours of daylight. I don’t know how much looking the search crews will do after it gets dark.”
Before Cami could respond, Doc sauntered up on the beach behind them and said in his deep, scratchy voice, “I take it the flare didn’t work?”
It was on the tip of Cami’s tongue to blurt,Thanks to you!If he hadn’t delayed her from getting to the case, maybe the boat would’ve been close enough to see their signal for help. She swallowed the words, however, because holding up the weight of her disappointment meant she didn’t have the energy for another verbal battle.
“They were too far out,” Romeo told Doc. “They didn’t see it.”
