Stuffy-O fart, she thought with affection.
Of course, some of that affection waned when he said, “I may be overstepping my bounds here, but are you sure you aren’t letting your bleeding heart influence your head in this decision? It would be far better to—”
“Just because I oversee the charitable enterprises of my father’s businesses”—her old man was one of Texas’s wealthiest oil tycoons—“doesn’t mean I’m a bleedin’ heart. There’s a difference between folks who genuinely need a helpin’ hand and those who are just lookin’ for a handout. Believe me, I’ve gotten real good at spottin’ the difference over the years. And these guys?” She gestured out the window at the turquoise ocean. A golden ray of sun happened to catch the dinghy just right, spotlighting the heartbreaking plight of the men. “These guys need a helpin’ hand.”
Captain Harry seemed to hesitate a second more, then said, “We mustn’t tell anyone we did this. Ever.”
She pantomimed zipping her mouth shut. “My lips are sealed, oh captain, my captain.”
“And we mustn’t involve Nigel and Bruce in this business,” he continued. “I’ll tell them to remain belowdecks. They’ll know something is off, of course. But they have enough training not to ask what it is.”
“You’re the boss,” she told him, winking saucily.
“Hmph.” He frowned at her, his cornflower-blue eyes narrowing. But he grabbed theBlackGold’s throttle and pushed it up without further argument. The yacht’s big engines responded with a well-tuned purr, and they soon halved the distance to the men in the boat.
Maddy kept an eye on the dinghy through the binoculars until they were close enough for her to make out the black hair and dark skin of its inhabitants—definitelyCubans, poor souls.Captain Harry hailed the two deckhands via their shipboard walkie-talkies. Just as he’d claimed, the men didn’t make a peep of protest. They simply replied with a couple ofAye, aye, Captainsand headed to their cabins.
“Former Royal Navy men like myself,” Captain Harry boasted. “Very disciplined. Very stoic.”
“So I see.” Maddy curled her lip, knowing she was neither of those things. Lifting the binoculars again, she could now make out the holey T-shirts and grubby appearance of the men. “I don’t suppose you speak Spanish, do you?” she asked.
“I speak French.”
“Well, that won’t do us a piddlee-O bit of good,” she grumbled, setting the binoculars on the console and turning for the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Out on the back deck,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ve picked up a littleespañolhere and there. Hopefully I know enough to get across the point that we’re friends and not foes.”
“I—”
Whatever Captain Harry’s objection might have been was lost when she let the bridge’s rear door slide shut behind her.
The afternoon air was warm and welcoming. It smelled of salty sea and the stainless-steel polish that Nigel used on the yacht’s endless metal accoutrements. Lifting her face into the breeze, Maddy breathed deeply, letting the wind tunnel through her hair to caress her scalp. Then she turned to make her way down the stairs to the back deck, reaching up to twirl a strand of her ponytail and realizing, quite shockingly, that it was gone. On impulse she’d had her stylist give her a pixie cut—her father wasn’t the only one given to whimsy—right before she hopped the plane to Bermuda. She was having trouble getting used to the new ’do.
Makemelookchicandsupercute, she’d told her hairdresser.LikePinkorMichelleWilliams.Unfortunately, after having studied her reflection in the mirror a time or two over the last few days, she was a little worried that her stylist had missed that whole Pink and Michelle Williams mark and instead saddled her with the Justin Bieber.
“Serves you right for leapin’ before you looked,” she scolded herself as she pulled the two halves of her robe closer together and skipped across the deck as theBlackGoldsliced through the seas like a greased torpedo, all sleek and sure. She chided herself for not taking her father up on his offer of some time spent alone on the yacht before now. But for the last seven years she’d needed all of her waking hours—and some of her should-be-sleeping hours—to get to the point where Powers Petroleum Company’s myriad charities were staffed by good, upstanding folks and running smoothly enough for her to take a break.
Andwhatabreakit’s turnin’ out to be!
Her heart beat with happiness at the thought that she was here this morning to help these unfortunate men. And even though she didn’t believe in destiny or kismet or any of that other woo-woo hoopla-hoo, she couldn’t help but think it awfully coincidental thatshe—a bona fide professional philanthropist—happened to be making the ocean crossing with Captain Harry the one time he came upon a boatful of stranded would-be immigrants.
Captain Harry pulled back on the throttle when the dinghy was still a good way off the bow, deftly maneuvering the big yacht parallel.
“Hola!” she called when the men were within ear reach, leaning over the rail and trying to see into the bottom of the dinghy. She hoped they carried fuel cans that she could fill with gasoline from theBlackGold’s mammoth tanks, because the only other containers she could think to use were the pots from the yacht’s kitchen. Unfortunately, the men were still too far away and the angle wasn’t right for her to see inside the little boat.
“MellamoMaddy! Uh…we…havelagasolinaand…I meany…uh…” She made a face and murmured to herself under her breath, “Damnit, Maddy! What’s the word for ‘food’?” She snapped her fingers and started over. “Lagasolinaylacomida! Sí?”
The men blinked at her, then glanced around at each other. They were bone-thin with scraggly beards, and she couldn’t help but wonder if, in fact, theywereescaped convicts, just like Captain Harry had said. They certainly had the air of a group who’d been on the run or in hiding for a while.
A niggle of apprehension skated up her spine, but the sensation was short-lived because one of the men yelled back in broken English. “Thank you! Please throw rope!”
“You speak English!” she hollered delightedly, the smile returning to her face. Common Cuban street thugs surely wouldn’t know English, would they? Maybeshewas the one who was right before. Maybe these men were political dissidents.Howcoolwouldthatbe?
“Yes!” the man yelled again. “Rope?”
“Of course!” She ran down the edge of the deck until she came to one of the bright-white life-preserver doughnuts attached to the railing. Pulling the floatation ring off its peg, she took a step back, wound up, and threw the sucker with all her might. The attached rope sailed out after the ring, creating a pristine alabaster arc over the turquoise water.
