It felt wrong, to walk with him guarding my back, but to argue about it on the street was a risk I could not take.
I led him to the beach where I had bought the ten-bag that had led him to me. Juan was already lurking on the sand, but he did not make eye contact, and I didn’t make him.
In my boots, the sand was too soft for my angry hip. I moved closer to the water and wished my life were different. That I could spin around and see Ranger walking barefoot as the waves lapped his toes.
He caught me up, keeping pace just a beat behind. “This already feels dodgy.”
“You can feel eyes on you?”
“On us. I’m thinking it might be cos you’re fit as fuck, though.”
Fit.It took me a moment to translate that he didn’t mean my aerobic capacity. That he meant I washot.
Then I laughed. “You make strange assumptions.”
Ranger nudged me. “What’s strange about it?”
“Jake said I looked homeless last time I saw him.”
“Jake’s an idiot.”
He wasn’t. Because Ranger washere, and for the first time in months, I could breathe without wishing I hadn’t bothered. I could laugh without my throat feeling like I’d swallowed cut glass. How had he known?
I never told you.
Jake did not answer my weak attempt at telepathy.
“Do they have boats?”
Ranger had moved close enough that his breath feathered my cheek, his bare arm brushing mine.
Boats.
Assassins.
Focus.
“Probably. But they would not get this close to the shore on this side of the island.”
“Why not?”
“We own the waters.”
“Then how do they get here at all?”
“In plain sight. It is not a guerrilla on a runaway jet-ski who will reach me. It is the tourist with a blade in his pocket. The damsel in distress with a Glock in her bag.”
Ranger growled, like he often did when my answers did not please him. He scanned the horizon and then the beach. “This is the cuntiest thing you’ve made me do so far.”
“I have notmadeyou do anything.”
“I can still taste that fucking orange.”
“You did not like it?”
“No.”
Despite the unseen threat tingling my skin, I allowed myself to look at him, catching the same mistruth in his face that I heard in his voice. “You would eat it again?”
