Windswept Page 2

  Yeah, he’d been that dumb. Thinking that a couple of weeks with Mia would be enough, just like a couple of weeks with any one woman had always proven to be enough. But if Mia had been just any woman, he wouldn’t be in Bonaire right now.

  In Bonaire, fucking up completely. Again.

  For all that he’d planned out his apology, he still hadn’t gotten it right. He looked over the side of the boat, wondering if dolphins ever found themselves in his position. They probably kept things simple, though, like he thought he could do when he first met her.

  So, what do you do? she’d asked, that first brunch they went out to after a week of swimming laps beside each other at the local pool. A week of her kicking everyone’s ass, including his, then climbing out of the pool like it was any other Sunday. And hell, the way she swam, maybe that was her average Sunday: starting off with ninety minutes of churning laps, making the local boys look like doggie paddlers before hopping out of the water, dripping from every lean curve of her body. Never had the five-to-six a.m. time slot drawn so many eager swimmers to the pool.

  He’d dragged his eyes from her animated face after that innocent question and stared into his coffee for a while. Did he really want to dwell on his job?

  Work has been a little…all-consuming lately. I’d rather talk about other stuff.

  It’s not that he was burned out or anything. Just that he wasn’t exactly… not burned out.

  When Mia reached a hand across the table and put it over his, a little electric zing ran through his body like she’d just closed a high-voltage circuit and let the juice flow. And instead of starting off on some sappy girl talk about how important it was to talk things through, she’d let her summer blue eyes go soft while she started a discussion of the misadventures of a long line of basset hounds she’d grown up with. Made him grin and chuckle and laugh and all the other things he hadn’t done enough of lately.

  We had Sherlock first, and he got skunked the very night we had to rush to my sister’s ballet recital…

  Over the next hour, his facial muscles had gotten the kind of workout he whipped the rest of his body through six times a week.

  Then we got Bella, and she had puppies, but she was the worst mother ever. Good thing she was low to the ground, because she’d get up and walk away while the puppies were nursing and they’d all drag along…

  And damn if that hadn’t spurred him into talking about the time his scrappy mutt King had run off with the neighbor’s poodle and a lot of other stories he hadn’t thought about in ages. Funny things. Lighthearted things. Good things he’d somehow forgotten.

  And just like that, an unspoken pact was born. They’d meet, swim their laps together, go to brunch on days they had off, and never, ever discuss work. Not his, not hers. Even when they started wrapping up brunch with a kiss instead of a wave goodbye, they didn’t talk about work. And definitely not once they started taking brunch to her place. And when brunch at her place turned into sex at her place, well, why talk shop? There was so much else to talk about, and so much else to do other than talk.

  Like gazing into those bottomless blue eyes that could cycle through the seasons in a single day. Like watching her lope through each hour as if it might hold a wonderful new adventure. Like wondering if some things weren’t too good to be true.

  They’d gone a month like that, and it was perfect. Getting to wake up with her snuggled up close. Touching her silky hair. Listening to her breathe quietly, then watching her wake up and look at him like it was perfect for her, too.

  Until the morning he turned up for one of those required dive refresher courses with the squad, and surprise, surprise. Guess who was the instructor?

  Mia. Mia with her long eyelashes and pink cheeks and way of tilting her head that could drive a man crazy in the very best way. But stupid him — one offhand comment and everything had fallen apart.

  In the weeks that followed, he’d pushed the boundaries of police regulations to track her down, but finally, he’d figured out where she’d disappeared to. And here he was in Bonaire, trying to deliver an apology. Maybe even trying to win her back. But doing that on a dive boat with nine other people crowded around… Okay, not one of his better ideas. He puffed out a long breath.

  Sorry was really not cutting it. So he’d have to try harder, right?

  “Oh, look!” Brenda called. “I think there’s a baby dolphin back there!”

  Everyone in the boat came rushing over, and in the excitement, Ryan managed to work his way to a new spot across from Mia, behind Lucky the driver.

  “Looks like it’s gonna be a hell of a day!” Lucky said, waving a hand over the bay.

  “Yeah,” he murmured. “Sure does.”

  Chapter Three

  Mia counted every dragging minute up to the moment Lucky throttled down and approached the dive site. A good thing, too, because another second of Ryan’s imploring eyes on her back and she might just lose her mind.

  “Stanley, get some footage of that Neptune boat.” Brenda nudged her husband. “Maybe we’ll see them on TV someday.”

  Mia gave the environmental activists’ flagship a passing glance. The converted freighter had been anchored there all week, a familiar feature of the landscape by now. Just like Serendipity, floating serenely on the far side of the bay. If she strained her eyes, she might just be able to make out the mast. The temptation to jump overboard and swim for home was hard to resist, even if it was two miles away. She could curl into a ball in the cabin and wish Ryan away.

  The distance didn’t deter her; only her pride did. That, and she had a job to do. She leaned over the side and made short work of catching the mooring ball and making the dive boat fast, trying to collect her scattered nerves.

  Hans was about to start the dive brief, and all eyes jumped to him. All but the emerald green pair fixed firmly on her. Eyes that said, Listen, Mia. Hear me out.

  Except Ryan wasn’t saying anything, and she wasn’t about to listen even if he did. That tortured warrior look on his face was probably just for show, right?

  Please, his eyes begged.

  She turned her back and checked the mooring line. Again.

  “Okay, folks!” Hans clapped for attention. “We’ve got a hell of a dive for you today!” He took out a small whiteboard and started narrating in his light Dutch accent. “We dive here and proceed slowly to the bow end of the wreck of the Henry Aalders, twenty-five meters down. That’s eighty feet for our American friends.”

  Stanley leaned over the rail and pointed his camera into the clear water. Even at this depth, Mia could see the faint outline of the wreck.

  “We’ll follow the mooring line down and explore the deeper end of the wreck — as deep as forty meters, or one hundred and thirty feet.”

  The Swiss couple checked their matching dive computers.

  “That’s deep, folks. It’s critical that you stay with your divemasters — that’s me and Mia. You can’t miss us. I’m the handsome one in black neoprene, and she’s the homely one in pink.”

  That drew some laughs, along with looks from the male guests that assured Mia she was anything but homely. She zipped the upper portion of her pink-and-purple wetsuit up. Way up. Yeah, she had an okay body, but that feeling of people looking — really looking — made her skin crawl. Too many bad memories from a long time ago.

  And some from not so long ago, too. Her gaze slid to Ryan then vaulted away.

  “We’re at slack tide now, but as soon as it starts to turn, the current will set in, and we don’t want anyone to wander away. Okay?”

  “Okay!” The guests nodded. All except Ryan, who studied her with those earnest eyes.

  “After diving to those depths, we’ll have to make decompression stops on the way up. Serious stuff, folks.” Hans’ face went grave, as it did every time he emphasized the point. “If you come up too quickly, you can get hurt.”

  Everyone went silent.

  “I’ve seen a man die of the bends, and I never want to see tha
t again,” he added, looking each guest in the eye. “So, safety first. We come up nice and slow, all right?”

  Eight somber heads nodded in unison. Even Ryan. Especially Ryan, who’d never seemed as serious as he did right now.

  Lucky was the only one who didn’t seem to be listening. Mia followed his gaze to another dive launch moored not too far away. A small boat carrying two men, one of whom was going over the side, kitted out like he was going to the center of the Earth. Another camera junkie, probably.

  “All right, everybody buddy up and follow me.” Hans pointed. “Stanley and Brenda, check?”

  “Check!”

  “Marc and Bruno, check?”

  “Check!”

  “Dirk and Anna, check?”

  “Check!”

  “Pete, you’re with me.”

  Pete gave a double thumbs-up.

  “And Ryan…”

  Mia felt her stomach sink. She made chopping motions in the air, hoping Hans would catch on.

  He didn’t, of course. “Ryan, you can buddy with Mia, who’ll bring up the rear.”

  Ryan’s lips barely moved. “Check,” he said, looking like a badass soldier about to march off on a heroic mission that defied all odds.

  Which fit, because as it turned out, he was a badass soldier, or had been before becoming a badass New York cop.

  She risked another glance in his direction, and damn it, his Mission Impossible eyes were still on her. The scary thing was, they said his mission was her.

  She steeled her shoulders just like she used to do, staring down a tough opponent before a swim start. You, mister, are about to meet your match.

  Or so she hoped, because her pride couldn’t afford to cave in to him again.

  Getting the guests in the water took forever, and Mia suspected the dive would feel torturously long, too. Stanley took ages getting the waterproof housing on his camera. Marc fiddled with the anti-fog in his mask. Pete checked everything three times, just as Hans taught him. Ryan pulled his wetsuit up, and even in skintight neoprene — especially in skintight neoprene — he looked like a sex on a stick.

  Hans moved around the launch, checking every regulator, every O ring. Lucky remained at the bow, his restless eyes roving the bay. One after the other, the guests donned their fins and splashed into the sea until it was just her and Ryan alone on the stern platform, squeezed into a tiny space.

  “Mia,” he started. “I meant it. I’m sorry.”

  She squeezed her lips into a thin line. She’d feel better when the regulator was in his mouth, because the bass in his voice could do wicked things to her resolve.

  “Ready for your dive, Mr. Hayes?”

  His cheek twitched. Yeah, he got the message.

  “Ready if you are, Ms. Whitman.”

  “Then jump in already.” Before I shove you in.

  He looked at her for another second — just looked, like he wanted to reach out and stroke her cheek like he used to do. Slow and tender, one finger would trace the curve of her face, then glide back up the length of her jaw to do it again, making her warm all over.

  She flushed and stepped back. Way back.

  A pained expression flashed across Ryan’s face before he went back to neutral. Then he turned away from her, covered his mask with one hand and the top of his tank with the other, and stepped expertly off the stern.

  Navy SEAL. NYPD dive squad. Recent lover.

  Mia shook her head at herself. Holy shit.

  She fiddled with her mask much longer than she needed to.

  “Everything okay?” Lucky asked.

  She didn’t need to look up to know he was watching her with concern.

  “Fine,” she mumbled into her mask. It was business as usual, right?

  She patted her vest in a last check, took the deepest breath of her life, and jumped in.

  Chapter Four

  The water was unusually clear for afternoon, and the sun slanted through the upper layer, splitting into a thousand fingers of light just like it would in a centuries-old cathedral. Mia exhaled slowly as she descended, creating a stream of bubbles that tickled her ear on their way to the surface. They popped among the silver-white wavelets rippling overhead. She spun in a slow circle, taking it all in. Even with the limited peripheral vision of her dive mask, the intense blues and the sideways light seemed endless, a universe of its own. Mia had logged hundreds of dives all over the world, but the sight never failed to fill her with awe.

  She continued her slow turn and found Ryan watching her from five feet away. Even underwater and through a dive mask, even with the intense aquamarine of the water, the green of his eyes stood out.

  Fine. It would be fine. He was just another dive buddy on just another dive, right?

  She curled her fingers in the “okay” signal, and he did the same.

  She used to have a fantasy that looked a lot like this, back when they were first getting to know each other. To take Ryan to a tropical island and share the wonders of diving with him. Little did she know he was a diver, too. And not just any diver, but a pro.

  This looked just like that fantasy, but it didn’t feel anything like it. There was no joy, no anticipation. Just a gnawing dread.

  The group was strung out ahead, some deep, others still working out the pressure in their ears. She caught up with Brenda and spent a minute in quiet support at her side. Usually, that was all it took: steady eye contact and a confident “okay” sign to settle a novice’s nerves. Stanley was wandering off to the right, but Ryan herded him subtly back in, sticking close to the man’s right side.

  She could see Ryan’s experience as clearly as she could see Stanley’s lack thereof. Ryan floated sideways in perfect neutral buoyancy, his body completely relaxed. He might have been a lazy Roman, stretched out on a couch and nibbling on grapes. Stanley, on the other hand, bobbed up and down like a bath toy with every clumsy adjustment to his air vest. The bubbles that rose from Ryan’s regulator with each exhale were small and measured; Stanley’s erupted in great bursts, then trickled off.

  Hans waited for everyone to regroup at the wreck before giving them the okay to explore sign. Mia followed Brenda and Stanley while everyone else explored around the far side of the sunken freighter. Everyone except Ryan, of course. She wished she could shake him off, but he was her goddamn buddy now.

  Her sleek, muscled buddy who moved as effortlessly in the water as he did on land. Or in bed.

  Which she was absolutely, positively, not going to think about at a time like this. Or any other time, because it was over between them. Over.

  Over, over, over. She repeated the mantra as a parrotfish swam by in a flash of green and blue.

  Brenda slowly relaxed into the dive. Stanley doubled back to photograph the view through a porthole in the wreck. Ryan was two strokes ahead, honing in on a colony of pink and green anemones, so Mia backtracked to stay behind Stanley.

  She did a slow scan to make sure they hadn’t lost anyone, and a good thing, too, because one diver was heading off in the opposite direction. Bruno? Marc? She couldn’t tell who. Only that the diver was going the wrong way, fast. What had gotten into him?

  There was no time to alert Hans or anyone else; she had to act quickly to catch up with the diver and bring him back. She started kicking after the man and cursing inside. What was that idiot thinking, getting so far away from the group?

  Mia always prided herself on ending a dive with air to spare, using slow, steady breaths, but this errant diver was forcing her to work hard to catch up. She was going to have a stern word with Bruno or Marc or whoever this was once they got back to the launch.

  The bottom sloped away and the man followed it deeper and deeper. She followed with ever more urgent kicks, despite the pressure building in her ears. One hundred and thirty-five feet was fine for recreational divers, but this guy was pushing a hundred and forty-five. She glanced at her dive watch. One hundred and fifty. Christ, what was he after, thundering along like that?

 
The man was quick, probably thanks to those new model UltraFlow fins she’d been coveting in the pages of the latest dive magazines. She was faster, but it still took long minutes to pull within reach of those fins. About a minute too long, because he was breaking one hundred and sixty feet by then. Getting him back to the group was out of the question now. She’d have to lead him to the surface in a slow, controlled ascent and get him to the dive boat on her own.

  Diving is perfectly safe, her first divemaster used to say. Only stupidity makes it dangerous. Case in point: the diver in front of her now.

  She kicked into a sprint, grabbed the edge of his vest, and pulled back just hard enough to make sure he got the message. Yeah, she was pissed. Bruno or Marc or whoever it was totally out of line, and he should know it.

  A violent burst of bubbles showed his surprise as he spun to face her with wide eyes.

  Mia blinked.

  Those wide, angry eyes that didn’t belong to Bruno or Marc or anyone else from her group. Neither did the gray vest or blue hooded wetsuit. Who was this guy? What was he doing, diving so deep and on his own?

  The eyes flashed with surprise before narrowing on hers, and the stranger huffed through his mouthpiece. What the hell?

  She wanted to huff back. She had every right to ask him that.

  He shoved her away. Really shoved, and she was stunned by the brute force of it. Then he twisted, folding his body to grab something near his leg. When he straightened, something silver flashed in his hand.

  A knife. A knife slashing toward her in a terrifyingly slow-motion kind of way.

  Chapter Five

  A knife? A dive knife?

  Mia screamed into her mask, and it came out in a burst of bubbles. She clawed at the water in an attempt to back away.

  Too late — the man grabbed her shoulder with one hand and slashed with the other. A flood of bubbles exploded in her face as the regulator was ripped from her mouth, streaming a curtain of air into the water.