on where his worth lay. His business acumen and his face. Not necessarily in that order.
The rest were optional extras in the Dalton household. Not valued and not required.
His only consolation was that, after last night, he and Honor were equal on the humiliation front. He knew she would be mortified to have broken down in front of him.
He wandered the island for three hours, exploring, examining, discovering. Honor was tucked up in her little tent sleeping off her night shift, so he didn’t have to worry about accidentally running into her. He took his seventh pass by the Emden memorial and looked out to the reef for evidence that the wind had shifted offshore. The seas would be too rough to dive in until they did.
He raised his binoculars and looked out beyond the visible reef. The whitecaps that had been steadily coming straight towards him had shifted east-west.
Perfect.
He’d waited half the morning for this. He turned and hurried back to camp, eager to get out in the water, back where he felt confident and in control. He’d already towed his diving gear back out to The Player in anticipation. But there was a catch.
Only an idiot would dive an unfamiliar wreck alone in a boat with a hairline fracture in its hull. He needed Honor’s help.
And asking would kill him.
* * *
He found her, just woken, at the campsite and he grabbed the bull by the horns. ‘I need a favour.’ Her single raised eyebrow told him he’d grabbed too hard. He swallowed some pride. ‘I need to ask your help.’
It wasn’t much better but at least she deigned to tilt her head in enquiry.
‘Would you come out with me on The Player and be my second while I dive the Emden?’
He prepared himself for what hurdle she would undoubtedly put in his way. Then she surprised him.
‘No.’
No excuse. No explanation. Just no.
‘Why?’
‘I’m working.’
Rob really couldn’t think of birdwatching as work but knew it would be suicide to say so. ‘Can’t you take a break?’ He needed this dive. ‘I’d be...grateful.’
She looked at him flatly. No, not entirely flat, he saw as he really looked. Carefully flat. Engineered flat. His eyes narrowed.
‘Can’t you go later?’ she hedged.
‘No. The wind’s perfect right now. I don’t know how long it will last.’ Come on, lady. I’m not going to beg.
She stared at him. Eyes empty.
‘Please.’ That shamed him, but seemed to be effective.
She looked out to sea between the trees and then back to him. Quiet and dignified but incomprehensible. ‘I don’t do boats.’
Rob’s pulse hammered out his confusion. ‘You’re living on an island!’
‘I take one trip in and one out again and that’s it.’
‘But you love to swim...?’
Her chin was determined. ‘Only the shallows.’
‘Honor, please. I may not get another chance to see her up close. You don’t need to dive, just monitor from up top. We’re talking an hour of your life.’ It galled him to have to grovel like this.
‘I’m sorry, Rob. No.’ She turned back to her breakfast, though it was lunchtime. Disappointment made his heart pound. Or was it anger? Then he turned and stalked away. So much for all the rapport he’d hoped they’d built last night.
She wasn’t going to help him and without a dive buddy he wouldn’t be seeing the Emden this trip. Maybe ever.
* * ** * *
‘How can it be safe to take The Player out to dive if it’s not safe to run the twenty-five kilometres back to Home Island?’
He was angrily stripping and repacking his gear on the boat when Honor appeared on the coral behind him and called her question out to him on deck.
He turned. ‘You changed your mind?’
She stared at him, desperately eager to swim back to shore but determined to face this demon. ‘I figured I owe you one.’
For last night. She didn’t need to spell it out—he’d sat with her half the night. And then held her as she’d blubbed her heart out. Her being his second today was a fair trade—as far as he knew.
Because he knew nothing.
He nodded and thanked her but the waves breaking on the atoll drowned it out. ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she called.
‘We’ll only be three hundred metres offshore. Even if she starts taking on water we can be back here long before things get critical.’ Honor knew that was not the case further out to sea. From experience.
‘What will I have to do?’ She shifted uncomfortably on the reef, a large rock in her stomach.
‘Just