“Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” he added when Uncle John burst through the back door, drenched to the bone but with his hair and beard all wild and windblown.
A gust of warm, soggy air followed John into the kitchen, causing the paper calendar attached to the side of the refrigerator to flap like a dazed bat. Two of the four candles Dana had lit and arranged around the room were instantly snuffed out.
“Lord almighty!” John swore, and the sound of the door slamming tight against its frame was a small comfort considering the wind outside was absolutelywailing.
“I’m pantin’ like a lizard on a rock,” he added in his Southern-fried way while smoothing one hand over his flyaway hair and using the other to tame his salt-and-pepper beard. “Reckon I should cut back on the weed?” Before any of them could answer, he shook his head. “Nah. That’s just crazy talk. And speakin’ of crazy, there’s a ship out there. Saw its outline in the water when I was draggin’ the dinghy up the beach. Looks like a trawler.”
Doc handed the laundry basket to Dana so he could relight the smoking candles. “Why didn’t they put into port somewhere?” he wondered aloud.
“Beats me.” John shrugged one soaked shoulder. The rain hadn’t muted the colors of his shirt. Inexplicably, it’d made the pattern evenmoreeye-bleeding. “But we better radio out to ’em and offer a place to shelter. Soon everything that ain’t nailed down is gonna start flyin’.”
When John marched toward the living room, Doc grabbed the two newly lit candles and fell into step behind him. He nearly caught the back of Uncle John’s hair on fire when John stopped suddenly to place a work-roughened hand on Dana’s shoulder. “How you holdin’ up, darlin’?”
Doc glanced over his shoulder at Cami and moutheddarlin’?
She widened her eyes and shrugged.
Turning back, he caught Dana’s reply. “Don’t worry about me, John. I’m fine.”
“’Course you are. Never doubted it for a minute.” Uncle John nodded and took the loaded laundry basket from Dana’s hands to set it on the kitchen table. “There’s time for that later. For now, let’s find out what the hell’s wrong with those fishermen that they aren’t bellied up to a bar somewhere and havin’ themselves a good old-fashioned hurricane party.”
When Dana smiled and took the arm John offered her, Doc found himself blinking in consternation. At sixty-five, Uncle John still turned the heads of the women in Key West. They flirted and fluttered their lashes at him. And when John was in the mood, he took them up on what they were offering. But he wasn’t gooey about it.
And he definitely didn’t use endearments.
But maybe things with Dana are different?Doc thought curiously.Maybe he’s rethinking his stance on remaining single for life?
Of course, trying to picture Uncle John in a domestic arrangement required more imagination than Doc possessed. John Anderson was the bacheloriest of bachelors. The man lived on tuna salad, macaroni and cheese, and chicory coffee. His evening routine consisted of downing a Salty Dog or burning a joint filled with his own homegrown bud—sometimes both. And his favorite pastime was napping in the hammock in the front yard.
Doc was pulled from his musings when Uncle John pulled down the wooden chair stacked on top of the desk they kept in the corner of the living room. Usually the desk was highly sought-after property since it housed the island’s lone laptop, their main connection to the outside world—cell phone service was nothing but a dream this far out. But it wasn’t the computer John reached for. It was the small marine radio sitting next to it.
Doc set one candle on the desk and another on the windowsill and watched John fiddle with the knobs on the battery-powered radio before lifting the handset to his mouth. “This is Wayfarer Island callin’ the trawler off my west side. Do you copy? Over.”
When John lifted his thumb off the push-to-talk button, the radio’s speaker crackled with white noise. John frowned and tried again. “Wayfarer Island callin’ the trawler off my west bank. You pickin’ me up? Please respond. Over.”
Static.
“That’s weird,” John muttered. “Wonder if their radio’s out or—”
He was cut off by a tinny-sounding voice from the speaker. “Ayuh. We copy you, Wayfarer Island. We…uh…thought the place was deserted. Over.”
“Copy that,” John was quick to respond. “We probably shoulda deserted, but it’s too late now. What the hell y’all doin’ out in this mess? Over.”
For the third time, the speaker fell silent except for the hissing sound of open airwaves. John glanced over his shoulder to catch Doc’s eye. The look on his face said,You pickin’ up a weird vibe?
Doc nodded. The captain of the ship should’ve been overjoyed to hear a friendly voice. Instead, it sounded like whoever was on the other end of the line was surprised, and maybe a little unsettled, to be talking to them.
Finally, the captain answered. “We ran into some engine trouble yesterday. We were dead in the water for about ten hours. Just got her fixed up this morning, and we were hoping to outrun Julia. But she picked up speed and here we are. Over.”
Doc realized the muscles in his shoulders had tensed when they suddenly relaxed. What he’d thought was hesitation in the captain’s voice was obviously stress. Being stuck in an engineless fishing boat in the path of a Category 3 hurricane was enough to put the fear of god into any man. Even a seasoned seaman.
“Copy that,” Uncle John said into the handset. “Well, y’all got a workin’ dinghy? You should anchor away and come on to shore. We’ll put a roof over your heads until this bitch blows by. Over.”
“Uh, that’s a negative,” the captain came back immediately. “We can’t risk losing the boat. We’ll stay with her to make sure she makes it. But we’ll shelter as best we can here on your leeward side. Over.”
“Don’t seem like the smartest move, if you ask me,” John was quick to object. “If your engine’s already on the fritz, you’d best pack up and head on in. Over.”
“Appreciate your honesty,” came the reply. “But we’ve made up our minds. Over.”
