Ride the Tide (Deep Six #3) - Julie Ann Walker Page 0,61

one better than him. Put simply, he was a warrior. And she could relax knowing he was beside her.

“Wolf?” she said as she clicked off her own lamp. She was no longer scared of the dark.

“Yeah, darlin’?”

There it was, that endearment that should’ve piqued her annoyance but didn’t. She’d have to think long and hard about why that should be. But she’d leave it for tomorrow. Tonight, she was too tired.

“Thank you for this.” She scooted her foot under the pillows until her toes found his warm shin. She waited to see if he would pull away, and was relieved when he didn’t. Settling more comfortably into the mattress, she closed her eyes and was gratified when no terrible scene bloomed with Technicolor clarity on the backs of her lids.

Then his voice sounded in the darkness. “Of course, Chrissy. And I know I told you earlier, but it bears repeatin’. I’m crazy proud of how you handled things today. You were one iron-spined marvel behind the wheel of that catamaran.”

She snorted sleepily, oblivion trying its best to tug her under. “I was scared shitless.”

“Courage isn’t about bein’ unafraid.” His voice was hypnotic in the cool blackness of the room. “Courage is about bein’ afraid and still doin’ what needs to be done.”

“I thought we talked about that whole fortune cookie thing.” Her yawn was so wide her jaw cracked.

She thought she heard him chuckle, but couldn’t be sure. Sleep had taken her.

* * *

9:02 a.m.

Alex climbed out of the cab and waited for Meat to join her on the sidewalk. He took his sweet time, disembarking from the vehicle like a little hippo slowly sliding into a river. Once he was safely sitting on the ground by her feet, she lifted a hand against the glare of the morning sun and scanned the tarmac, visible through the chain-link fence.

There was the de Havilland Otter, the single-engine amphibious plane that was Romeo’s pride and joy. And there was Romeo right along with Wolf, Doc, and Uncle John.

But where was Mason?

She’d asked that question so many times, she was beginning to sound like a broken record.

She’d asked it around 5:00 a.m. when she’d been jolted awake by Meat horking up a gut full of water weeds. After cleaning up the mess—all while trying not to hork herself—she’d tiptoed to Mason’s door, hoping there was something she could give Meat to soothe his belly. But Mason hadn’t answered, and she’d assumed he was already down at the hotel gym.

The man loved his early-hour workouts. She suspected all that lifting and pressing of iron was a way to exorcise his demons—she knew he had a few. Probably more than a few. But the times she’d tried to ask him about them, she’d been met with a grunt and a stony stare.

The second time she asked the “Where’s Mason?” question had been at breakfast. The entire Wayfarer Island crew had been eagerly partaking of the hotel’s buffet and listening to Wolf explain what he’d learned during his a.m. phone call to Special Agent Albus Fazzle.

“The FBI doesn’t know any more than they did last night,” he’d said while slathering jelly onto a biscuit. “There were no matches for the prints or dental records in the databases. Fazzle says the feds are still workin’ the angle that it was the Baitfish Bandits.”

“What about the third guy in the speedboat?” Doc had asked.

“Coasties are sendin’ out drones to scout the seas around where the assault occurred. Fazzle hopes maybe somethin’ will pop on the boat or the third body once they locate it. Barrin’ that, we’ll have to wait for the DNA results to come back before gettin’ any real answers,” Wolf had finished around a mouthful. “Fazzle says it’s safe for us to get back to our lives and chalk this whole thing up to a case of bein’ in the wrong place at the wrong time with the right weapons and the right kind of luck.”

“That’s it?” Chrissy’s face had been full of disbelief. “We act as if nothing happened?”

“Pretty much.”

Alex had heard most of this as an aside, her mind strictly focused on one thing, one man. And when there had been a lull in the conversation, she’d demanded, “Where’s Mason?”

“Who knows with that one.” Wolf had shrugged unconcernedly. “We said last night we’d leave for the airport at oh-eight-thirty. He’ll meet us in the lobby when it’s time to go.”

Then, before Alex could sputter any objections, the conversation had turned to the details