Caribbean Rescue (Destination Billionaire Romance)
Page 18
“Did you see that?” he half whispered, and pointed for her to turn around and look in the other direction.
Following his gaze out into the water, at first Sophie didn’t see what he wanted her to see. The water looked the same as it had all morning: not at all still, but nothing out of the ordinary, either. She was about to ask the crewman what he’d seen, when a spout of water shot into the air about a hundred yards off the deck.
“Is that …?” She knew there were killer whales close to Sitka, and had witnessed some from a distance when she’d visited as a child. At a hundred yards, this whale was much closer, and she thrilled, thinking she could have a good view.
Sophie rushed to the edge of the boat, leaning forward so she wouldn’t miss the whale if it surfaced. The others were unaware, focused on working with the fresh catch at the boat’s stern, but she felt the scruffily-bearded young crewman join her at the rail.
“Do you think it will come back up?” she asked him eagerly, forgetting her initial unease at his appearance. “I’ve never seen a whale that close. Is that something, way over there?” She pointed to a distance much further than the spout had been.
“Could be,” the man said, “but just in case, you might want to stand back—”
There was no other warning, as out of the quiet water less than ten feet in front of them, a whale breached. Not a sleek, painted killer whale, as Sophie had been imagining, but a massive humpback whale, its mouth opened wide to take in fish, closing as it reached its peak and sank back down into the water.
Sophie hadn’t made a sound, other than a sharp intake of air. She didn’t move a muscle; she couldn’t. Had that really just happened? It was almost close enough to touch.
The others in the boat had reacted once the goliath sank back into the water, whooping, laughing, and—in the case of the tourists—cursing enthusiastically at the awesome sight.
A wave had rushed under the deck rail and the boat pitched sharply enough from the whale’s movement that Sophie didn’t realize she was falling until the young crewman grabbed her. She looked up at him, and saw concern in those sparkling eyes. She remembered that she was still a little woozy from the medicine as she caught herself leaning closer to those eyes. A sensation at her feet made her pull her eyes from his and look down to her tennis shoes, which were soaked through. She looked back up at him.
“Did you see that?” she asked, barely able to speak.
He chuckled. “Yeah, I saw it. Are you all right?”
“Yes! A whale, right there! I’m more than all right— Look!”
Further out, the whale had surfaced again, and this time was followed in close succession by two smaller humpbacks. As Sophie and the tourists exclaimed in delight, the young man, laughing, held her firm to the boat as she leaned further over the edge.
“You got her?” Rodger asked him in passing, somewhat hesitantly.
“Oh, yeah. I got her.”
As the whales’ breaching moved further and further away, Sophie’s excitement only grew.
“Did you see that?” she asked. “Did you see it?”
“Yes, I saw it,” the scruffy man answered again.
“Amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it. I think you could have driven a Volkswagen bug into its mouth, it was so big.”
“You’re probably right.”
“It was huge … and right there! I could have reached out and …”
She kept talking, beaming at the scraggly stranger. He wasn’t someone she would have normally talked to. In fact, he looked like one of the destitute men near her old bakery in San Francisco, the ones her mother had regularly given day-old baked goods to. And yet, over that tangled beard, this man’s eyes were dancing. Sophie felt a sudden warmth toward him for sharing this experience with her, and for keeping her safe. The others were busy reliving the breaching too, guessing why the whale had surfaced so close to the boat, wishing they’d had their cell phones recording. Sophie couldn’t stop talking, but glanced back and forth between the water—would the whale emerge again?—and her watchman, who still kept a firm hold on her arms.
Finally, her adrenaline settled down, and she ran out of things to say. She looked back at the captain, who hadn’t taken his eyes off of her. He was certainly rough-looking. She would have called him an old mariner—he had the look of one—but he couldn’t be any older than Rodger.
“What’s your name?” she asked him. “I’m Sophie.”
He grinned at her, and finally released his grip on her to offer a hand. “Jamie.”
“Nice to meet you, Jamie. A whale!” she half squealed.
“Yes, it was. And you have wet shoes. Come on, let’s see if we can find something dry in the cabin.”
About the Author
Cami is a part-time author, part-time exercise consultant, part-time housekeeper, full-time wife, and overtime mother of four adorable boys. Sleep and relaxation are fond memories. She’s never been happier.
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