Windswept by Anna Lowe

Author:Anna Lowe [Lowe, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Scuba diving, Bonaire, adventure, Caribbean, romance
Publisher: Twin Moon Press
Published: 2015-09-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Ryan watched Mia paddle back the same way he’d watched her paddle to shore: like a hawk, because all she needed now was another stroke of crap luck, like the inflatable kayak popping a hole or a submarine attack or God knows what other challenge might crop up in her day.

And man, it had been a hell of a day.

She’d hugged her sister goodbye like they were parting for a lifetime and not for a night. He knew that feeling well — that we’ve-been-to-hell-and-back feeling he’d always assumed only cops and military guys got after really close calls. That feeling of having run a gauntlet and barely making it out the other side.

But from the looks of it, civilians could get that feeling, too. Sisters.

He watched Mia glide silently back through the water, a dark splotch in the silvery bay, wondering the whole time how he’d ever been fool enough to let her out of his life. Wondering how the hell he was going to get her back into it, too, because what woman could climb into a kayak and flip her ponytail over her shoulder like she lived this kind of adventure — or misadventure — every day?

The kayak bumped the hull of the little sailboat, and he reached down for the line.

“You been here the whole time?” she asked, climbing up the stern ladder.

“Nah,” he lied.

Technically, he could argue that he’d spent most of the time pacing, or at least as much as a man could pace across thirty feet of deck. He didn’t like her being out alone in the dark, even with the moon providing some light. He’d popped into the cabin once, too, just to take it all in: the idea of two sisters living in a tiny floating home, thousands of miles away from everything familiar and safe. He’d thumped a couple of bulkheads, too, assuring himself the boat was sturdy. When you were used to hundreds of feet of solid Navy steel, a little boat like Serendipity seemed ridiculously fragile. His palm bounced back, though, telling him the little boat was plenty solid, all right.

The pictures hung around the cabin said the same thing. They were like a timeline that showed where the little boat had been and with whom. The wise old salt in the big picture hung in the salon must be the grandfather, and the couple of smiling guys in the more recent pictures must be the cousins who’d brought the boat down to the Caribbean. There was a capable-looking chick wearing a bikini under a half-zipped foul weather jacket, and though the waves in the background looked bigger than a house, she was grinning like it was the greatest day ever. It was one of those big smiles aimed not so much at the camera lens but at a special someone’s heart.

Kind of like the way Mia used to smile at him, once upon a time.

Right now, though, Mia was biting her lip, keeping her head down, and avoiding his gaze.

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