Ride the Tide (Deep Six #3) - Julie Ann Walker Page 0,114

and sad, and I’m so sorry she did that. But I’m even more sorry you seem to have believed her.”

He had nothing to say to that. Mostly because his mind was spinning around, trying to find a flaw in her logic.

“The simple truth is I didn’t know you before,” she continued. “I know you now. And I love you now. Just as you are. A man who’d rather grunt and growl than have a conversation.”

He found a place to jump in. “I talk more to you than I do to anyone.”

She ignored him. “A man who likes to sit in a quiet spot and paint pictures of the sea and sky. A man who hates crowds but loves dogs. A man who understands how dangerous the world can be and is always ready to guard himself and everyone else around him against it. Somehow you’ve convinced yourself this last thing is a bad thing. But I don’t see it. What I see is you, Mason. All of you. The good parts, the bad parts, and the parts you think aren’t worthy. And I’m here to tell you I love it all.”

Her words landed like hand grenades on his heart, hard and hot and painful.

There’s a flaw in her logic. Find it, a voice whispered through his head. Only this time, he thought he might recognize it as his ex-wife’s.

Was it possible Alex was right?

No. No, she couldn’t be. He wasn’t—

Before he could finish the thought, Alex lifted her chin and added, “You go on and do your thing. Find Gellman. And while you’re out chasing the bad guy, I want you to think about what I’ve said. Then when you come back home, if you’re still convinced you don’t want to take a shot on seeing where this thing between us will go, fine. We’ll find a way to be friends. But if you do feel like taking a shot, then I’ll be there. Waiting. Hoping. Get it? Got it? Good.”

With a decisive dip of her chin, she turned and strode down the hall, leaving him standing there like a spare prick.

For a couple of seconds, he didn’t move. He couldn’t move. There was too much confusion in his head. Then, without conscious thought, his feet began inching forward of their own accord. They carried him down the hall to the elevators.

When he stepped out of the hospital three minutes later, he couldn’t feel the brush of the breeze through his hair or the warmth of the sun on his skin. He couldn’t feel the beat of his own heart inside his chest or the rush of air through his lungs.

He couldn’t feel anything because Alex’s words had stunned him, leaving him completely numb.

Chapter 29

Eight days later

“This car is a POS,” Doc grumbled. “It couldn’t outrun a dairy cow.”

From his position behind the wheel, Mason glanced over to find Doc’s haggard face covered in a week’s worth of beard stubble. His hair was lank and listless from the wind and salt spray. And his nose was peeling from the sunburn he’d received the first day of their hunt when they’d landed in the Bahamas and spent twelve hours in the subtropical sun running from one boat rental shop to the next until they’d finally found the one Gellman had used to rent a forty-foot catamaran.

Since that first day, they’d barely stopped to eat. They’d slept in shifts. And the islands they’d visited while closing in on Gellman’s trail were so numerous they were nothing but a blur.

In short, they were running on fumes. And Mason felt as bad as Doc looked.

Probably look as bad too, he thought, and then winced when he tried to shift into third gear and the transmission on the little Nissan hatchback they’d rented from the guy in port put up a fight. After a few seconds of grinding, he found the gear and told Doc, “Not like we had a lotta choices. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Mmph” was all Doc allowed before pointing. “Hang a left. The bar the dockhand said he told Gellman to hit should be on the next corner.”

Mason did as instructed and was gifted with a view of the mountainside. Pastel-painted houses climbed up the incline. They looked cool and crisp compared to the dirty streets and brightly colored umbrellas shading the carts of the street vendors lined up and down the avenue in downtown Port-au-Prince.

The last time Mason had been in Haiti, he’d still been in the navy and working a