The resistance was so great that a few minutes of reeling left April’s arms shaking. Gunner put his hands over hers and helped. The fish was getting closer to the boat, but it was still putting up a fight.
“It’s big,” April managed to say. “It’s…really big.”
One of the crew members grinned. “It’s a marlin. I can see him out there.”
Gunner squinted against the sun but couldn’t make out anything except the birds suddenly flocking toward them and the water. “That’s it,” he told April as she kept the line taut. “There you go.”
“That fish has got to weigh forty pounds,” Walt said.
April nodded and kept fighting the fish. After another few seconds, Gunner offered to spell her, but she wasn’t willing to give up. “I can do it.”
He chuckled at her determination and continued to help her, enjoying the feel of her against him even more than the thrill of the catch. Finally the two crew members who’d positioned themselves in the corner of the boat, holding giant hooks, hauled in the flopping blue fish with the long swordlike nose. Then April sagged into the seat.
“I did it,” she said, breathing heavily. “I caught a fish in Cabo. A big fish. A marlin.”
Gunner laughed and shook his head. She’d caught more than a marlin in Cabo. Whether he liked it or not, she’d caught him. And now he could only hope she didn’t throw him back.
APRIL WATCHED television while she waited for her mother to finish showering. She needed to get ready for dinner, too. But she couldn’t stop thinking about Gunner and how difficult it would be to go back to her regular life after this trip. He’d shown her what it was like to feel weak with desire, to crave his touch more than anything else, to hear his voice in a crowd no matter how many people were talking. Too bad she and Gunner didn’t have the slightest chance of making a life together. He wasn’t the type to settle down, and she wasn’t the type to prance around on his arm and smile for the cameras. After Cabo, she’d return to her laboratory, and he’d return to…whatever he did. Still, she was glad he’d come, glad he’d shown her that there was more to life than work and pragmatic decisions.
The water went off, and April heard the shower door open and close. “Mom?” she called, flipping off the television after giving Claire a few minutes. She wanted to speak to her mother about Walt, make sure Claire was being realistic and at least a little cautious where her father was concerned. Though Rod wasn’t much of an issue, thank God, Regina definitely was. April was terrified that her mother would be hurt all over again, and that she’d be to blame for setting her up.
“What, honey?” Claire replied.
“Can we talk about Dad for a few minutes?”
“What do you have to say about him?”
“You two seem to be getting close pretty quickly. I just want to be sure you’re looking at all the angles.”
“What angles?”
“Regina, for one. Getting back with Dad would mean forgiving him for Regina. That won’t be easy, will it?”
Silence, which was proof enough that her mother was struggling with this.
“It would also mean helping him decide whether or not to go through with selling the business,” April continued. “That has a lot of ramifications for both of you, as well as other people we care about.”
“We’ll keep the business,” she stated matter-of-factly.
“Even with Dad’s surgery?”
Her mother poked her head out of the bathroom. “What surgery?”
April stared at her. “You mean he hasn’t said anything?” Her father had insisted she keep quiet, but she’d assumed he would have told Claire himself by now.
“About what?”
April couldn’t imagine why her father was still hiding his condition from her mother, but she hesitated to tell what she knew, just in case he had a good reason. “Never mind.” She stood up and reached for her room key. “I think I’ll run down and take a swim before—”
“April?”
Hearing the gravity in her mother’s voice, April paused at the door.
“Tell me what’s going on. What surgery?”
With a sigh, April turned to her mother. “Dad’s been having chest pains.”
Claire covered her mouth with one hand. “No!”
“He needs surgery.”
“Heart surgery?”
“The doctor wants to do a triple bypass a couple of weeks after we get back.”
The color drained from her mother’s face. “Why didn’t