The Sothards were all something else.
In retrospect, that should have been a green flag back in the day when shit had gone down. She should haveknownBuck wouldn’t have done anything to hurt her, but she’d been young, and her mind had been constantly poisoned by her brothers’ vitriol.
She blurted out her thoughts, now.
“Buck didn’t scuttle my boat fifteen years ago,” she spouted spontaneously as she and the chief watched the water where the Sothard men had disappeared.
“Yeah. I knew that,” the chief returned easily. “Iknowthat.”
“You do? You did?” Bobbie took a step back, her balance faltering as she concentrated on the man next to her.
The chief sent out a firm hand to steady her as she spluttered.
“Then… Why did you let him take the blame for it? Why…?” Bobbie had so many questions, but she wanted to hear what the chief had to say.
“It was Buck’s idea,” Chief Ildavorg revealed with a sigh. He gazed solemnly into her eyes. “The boy didn’t want to draw things out; prolong an investigation that may or may not have turned up the actual culprit or culprits. He decided to take the blame publicly, but those of us who knew him well? We always understood he was not at fault.”
“But… You let him pay me. Pay Mr. Jerlins,” Bobbie babbled, completely confused.
“It probably isn’t my place to say anything, but at the time, that boy was head-over-heels smitten with you. He wanted nothing more than for you to get out from under your brothers and go off to college where you could be your own person. He knew that without some kind of concrete proof, your insurance company wasn’t going to pay up on your sunken boat, so he decided to take matters into his own hands.”
“So… he paid, and all of you let him.”
Chief Ildavorg shrugged. “It was his money. Nobody could stop him once his mind was made up.”
Bobbie was having trouble catching her breath. This was all very unexpected. “So, he…sacrificed his future for mine?”
The chief shrugged and sent back a query of his own. “Which leads me to a question of my own. One that a bunch of us have had for years. Why didn’t you buy a new boat, or head off to school like Buck wanted?”
“Because—”
Her revelation, and the additional information she needed from the chief was instantly put on hold when voices raised on the shore in a cheer.
She and the chief both turned to the water.
The three Sothard men’s heads had emerged, and they were hoisting a very large suitcase between them.
They began towing it to shore.
Bobbie’s conversation could wait.
Whatever was in the case, at least for the moment, was far more important.
CHAPTER 13
Buck couldn’t have been happierto see his brothers.
He’d located the suitcase fairly easily—it was gigantic, after all—and he’d managed to drag it to the surface. Once. But its enormous size had quickly become a problem.
It was fucking water-logged, and heavy.
It had begun dragging him back down when the load inside shifted; like there was someone or something moving around in there.
Buck had tried to give some reassurances for the few seconds his head was out of the water.
“I’ve got you. You’re going to be okay,” he soothed, speaking the calming words gently, around his regulator.
His strength, however, had seriously flagged after that. Which probably had to do with the cold seeping into Buck’s exposed skin. It had sucked, because he’d had to go back underwater with his cargo to take the strain off.
