“Uh huh.” Dar blew out a breath. “Might as well get out of the rain.” With a slight grunt, she pushed herself to her feet and gazed out past the marina entrance. It was hard to fathom what had just happened. One moment they’d been getting somewhere with DeSalliers, the next minute she’d found herself in an almost dangerous situation. Which, she considered thoughtfully, she’d actually handled damn well.
“Dar?”
Dar turned, to find Kerry holding up a hand with a wry expression.
“Mind giving me a tug up?”
Dar clasped her hand and leaned backward, pulling Kerry to her feet. “Wonder who he took off after?” she mused as they moved toward the cabin door and she fished in her pocket for the key.
“Damn, if we’d only had a minute more.”
“Yeah,” Kerry agreed. “We were close. Did you hear what he said, about his reputation? What was that all about, I wonder?”
Dar paused, holding the door open. “Want to go find out?”
Kerry looked up at her. “You mean, go out there after them?”
She watched Dar nod. “That’s totally insane, Dar.” An eyebrow quirked wryly at her. “Let’s do it.”
“Go in and change. I’ll cut us loose.” Dar gave her a pat on the behind, and then disappeared up onto the deck.
“Aye aye, cap’n.” Kerry entered the cabin, shaking her head and chuckling bemusedly. “No one’s gonna believe this,” she told the empty room. They’d brought their things down from the hotel before they’d gone for lunch; their bags and Dar’s laptop were resting on the table where they’d left them.
Kerry stripped off her soaking wet shirt as she continued through the cabin and into the head. She hung it up on the shower rail then added her shorts to it, tossing her sneakers into the shower itself, along with her socks and underwear. The rumble of the engines starting thrumming through her bare feet, and Kerry slipped out of the head and into the bedroom, giving herself a cursory glance in the mirror on her way to the dresser.
Terrors of the High Seas 163
“Wow.” She pointed at her reflection. “Check out the drowned rat.” Her skin showed a few light scrapes and the red mark where she thought she’d been stung by a jellyfish. It still throbbed, and she winced as she pressed lightly against the spot.
The boat moved and she grabbed quickly at the dresser, holding her balance. She waited for the turn to be completed and the bow to straighten out, then she tugged dry clothes from the dresser and slid into them. She grabbed a rain slicker from the closet and pulled it over her head, pausing to chuckle when the garment fell all the way to her knees. “Whoops.” She started to remove it, then stopped in mid motion and resettled the rubberized fabric around her.
Without really stopping to think about why she’d done that, she walked to the galley and grabbed a bottle of water from the small refrigerator. Twisting the top open, she sucked down a few gulps to get the taste of the sea from her mouth, then headed for the door.
Dar settled soggily into the captain’s chair, wincing at the uncomfortable dampness of her clothes. She adjusted the throttles and guided the boat away from the dock, reasoning that she could get Kerry to take the helm long enough for her to change once they were out into open water. The rain beat steadily down on the roof covering her, and Dar leaned forward to see better through the plexiglas as she guided the boat out into the channel. She turned at the buoy and nudged the engines forward, setting off after the disappearing speck that was DeSalliers’ craft.
She’d barely had time to relax when she heard Kerry climbing up the ladder. Dar turned to see her lover appear on the flying bridge, dressed in a blue slicker obviously not her own. “Nice jacket,” she commented as Kerry scooted under the bridge cover and pushed back the hood on her raincoat, exposing disheveled blonde hair.
“You like it?” Kerry presented her with the bottle of water and then draped her arms over Dar’s shoulders. “I think I got stung by a jellyfish, Dar.”
“Yeah?” Dar set their course and then turned her attention to Kerry. “Where?”
Kerry pulled up her overlarge jacket and then her shirt, exposing her belly. “There.”
Dar peered at it, gently touching the angry red mark. “Does it hurt?” She looked up at Kerry’s face. “Not just sting, actually hurt?”
“A little,” Kerry admitted. “It’s sort of throbbing. Otherwise I wouldn’t have even mentioned it, Dar. I mean, I’ve gotten hit by men o’war before.”
“Did you clean it off with anything?”
164 Melissa Good Kerry shook her head. “Didn’t think I needed to; do I?”
“I don’t know.” Dar frowned. “Did you see what kind of jellyfish it was?”
“No.” Kerry sat down next to her. “It’s okay, I think. It hurt a lot when it first happened, but now it’s just annoying.” She scanned the horizon. “What’s the plan?”
Dar opened the small cabinet under the console and removed a brown bottle and a small packet of gauze bandage. “Pull that jacket back up,” she ordered, opening the bottle of alcohol and wetting the gauze.
“Shouldn’t you be watching where we’re going?” Kerry teased gently, “instead of playing with my navel?” Nevertheless, she hiked up the fabric and the shirt underneath, sucking in a breath as the gauze touched her skin and burned. “Ow.”
“Some of those stupid things leave stinging cells,” Dar told her.
“Hold the wheel while I do this.”
Kerry curled her fingers around the metal, keeping them on course as she felt Dar carefully clean the still-painful spot on her belly. The throbbing seemed to be getting a little worse, but she figured that was because Dar was touching it. “What are we going to do when we catch up to them?”
Dar finished her task and gently pulled Kerry’s shirt down, then arranged the rain jacket over it. “Just watch,” she said, giving Kerry a little pat on the side. “Maybe we can maneuver him into revealing what his game is.”
“I hope so.” Kerry sat down with a sigh.
Dar glanced at her. Kerry’s profile seemed tense, and she could see tiny creases around her eyes. “Hey.”
Kerry looked over, her green eyes visibly bloodshot. “Hm?”
“We don’t have to do this.”
The blonde woman cocked her head. “Huh? I thought you wanted to go after them.”
“You don’t look so hot.”
Kerry swallowed, her brow contracting. “I’m fine,” she insisted.
Dar looked doubtfully at her.
“Dar,” Kerry’s voice took on a hint of impatience, “I’m not a little kid.”
“I didn’t say you were.” Dar fiddled with the controls, fidgeting over the throttles. “I’m just wondering if being out here chasing down a nutcase in the rain is such a good idea,” she said.
“Maybe we should just drop it, Ker.”
Kerry propped one bare foot against the console and studied it.
She could hear the upset in Dar’s voice and knew she was at the root of it. “I think…” She paused, and really considered her words. “I think if we’d dropped it at the very start, that would have been okay.”
Terrors of the High Seas 165
Dar watched her out of the corner of her eye.
“But now, I think we have to see this through. You know?”
Kerry said. “I don’t like the idea of running away, and if we just ducked out now, knowing what we know, then that’s how I’d feel.”
“Mmph,” Dar grunted grudgingly. “This was supposed to be a relaxing vacation,” she grumbled. “For both of us.”
Kerry reached out and circled Dar’s arm with her fingers. “Do you want to stop?” she asked with quiet sincerity. “Sweetheart, if that’s what you want, we’ll do it.” Her hand tightened slightly.