Wicked Nights

by Anne Marsh

  Daeg and Tag ripped cleanly through the water’s surface. They swam hard and fast, pushing underwater until their air ran out, then popping to the surface and dropping into the combat sidestroke. He’d bought the beer every night since Tag had named the stakes.

  At least he was in the water. He looked down. Up to his ankles. He compromised with his head and waded in. There was no point in agonizing over a dive he couldn’t make. Plus, if he hung back much longer, Daeg and Tag would definitely notice his absence.

  Pushing off, he started swimming, pulling hard against the current. He kept his head up (chicken, his brain accused), his hips sinking correspondingly lower in the water. He was in, he reminded himself. The sooner he touched those rocks on the point, the sooner he could head back, and this would be over for today. The ocean dragged at his lower body. If he dropped his head even a few inches into the water, the resistance would ease up, but not even Armageddon would get his head underwater voluntarily today.

  Twenty minutes later, he neared Daeg—who’d started his return trip—as he pulled close to the point. The other man had already touched and turned, switching sides to pull for the shore.

  “Don’t you get tired of buying?” Daeg’s gaze swept over him, but he didn’t stop. He was a neat swimmer, almost no splashing from his feet. Cal had a bad feeling his former teammate knew far too much about Cal’s predicament. They were both pretending everything was okay, however, which counted for something.

  Cal kicked hard for the point, turning in a smooth arc. It would have been faster to somersault and push off the rocks like a competitive pool swimmer but yeah...turning underwater was apparently off-limits to him, as well. As soon as his head went underwater, all hell broke loose in there and he panicked. Pushing down the self-disgust—he had hours of non-water time in which to revisit it—he slowly turned and headed for shore.

  It looked as though he’d be buying the beer again tonight.

  8

  PIPER KILLED THE motor and coasted toward the dive buoys scattered across the surface of the water. A good dive would clear her head, and yesterday’s bombshell from the good folks at Fiesta had certainly gone a long way toward making things muzzy. She needed to focus on the game because there was too much at stake not to give it 100 percent. Or 200 percent. She grinned. Cal wouldn’t know what had hit him.

  Rose Wall wasn’t one of the better-known dive sites dotting the ocean around Discovery Island, but it was one of her favorites. Nice and shallow, the location didn’t have a whole lot of currents to trip up a novice diver, and the colors here were gorgeous. The site had earned its name from the gorgeous kelp forest stretching floor to surface. Bright pink-and-orange anemones peeked out through the green fronds, like flowers in an underwater garden.

  And...go figure. Her arch nemesis had beaten her to the punch. The Dive Boat I bobbed lazily in the water, already tied up to one of the buoys. She’d sent Cal a brief text announcing her intentions of working this dive site into their joint demo. When he hadn’t shown up at her boat slip at the time she’d mentioned, however, she’d left without him. Happily and without giving him so much as an extra second, but she’d made the offer.

  Working with Cal ranked way down on her to-do list, right there with having a root canal or filing her taxes. He’d want to be in charge. He always did, and if she was being honest, he was good at it. Cal always had a plan, and he had a way of issuing orders that made other people happy to comply. Unfortunately for him, she wasn’t other people. Unfortunately for both of them, however, the Fiesta guys had been perfectly clear on one thing. The two of them had to put together a diving demo. Together.

  Apparently, Cal wasn’t taking the grade school approach of one group member doing all the work and the rest simply scrawling their names on the project when it was time to turn the work in. His being here wasn’t a surprise, but as far as she could tell, he was alone. The cardinal rule of diving was no one dived alone. Cal treaded water on the surface, although the dive marker was in the water, indicating a submerged diver. She did a quick scan of his boat and all of the dive tanks were present and accounted for. Something was off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it, so she fell back on her old standby. Fighting with him.

  “Trying to get the jump on me, Brennan?” She brought the boat in, and Carla snagged the mooring line, tying them up to the buoy and dropping the anchor over the side.

  He slicked the water back from his face. “Do I need to define the word partners for you?”

  He reached the Feelin’ Free in a few swift strokes, the muscles in his arms flexing as he pulled himself out of the water. Water ran down his chest and over the muscles of his abdomen. How was any woman supposed to ignore all the gorgeousness? Piper herself lacked the willpower. Her brain was too busy trying to imagine him in one of those barely there Speedos favored by the island’s European guests. She’d bet it would be a good look for him. Almost as good as the wet look.

  He popped his fins off. “The deal was we worked together.”

  “Which is why you’re making yourself at home on my dive boat?”

  She yanked her zipper up on her wet suit. She shouldn’t be looking at him. So what if he’d turned into a hottie sometime between the age of ten and thirty? He was still Cal, the eternal pain in her butt and the man who thought he could snag the contract she’d worked so hard for.

  “You told me to be here,” he pointed out, all Mr. Logic.

  “At the slip in the marina.” She slapped her dive harness on. “Thirty minutes ago.”

  “You didn’t wait for me.” Now he sounded amused.

  “You were late.”

  The amused crinkles at the corners of his eyes said he wasn’t so sure. “Did you time me?”

  Carla snorted behind her but kept her mouth shut. Wise woman.

  “You’re not in charge, Piper,” he said softly.

  “Neither are you.” Finished gearing up, she switched her attention—or as much of it as she could, at any rate—to checking the gauges on the steel tanks.

  He shrugged. “We have to figure this out.”

  He sounded so calm. So logical. While she, on the other hand, wanted to knock him overboard with one of the dive tanks. He’d been like that for as long as she could remember, always the golden boy, so responsible and mature.

  “You coming in?” She made a show of checking his boat. “Oh. Too bad. You seem to be missing a dive buddy. I guess I’ll have to get started without you.”

  He grinned. “Ladies first. I thought we’d established that.”

  Dive checks complete, she rolled backward over the side of the boat, keeping a hand on her mask. Knees up, she floated to the surface and flashed Carla the okay sign.

  * * *

  AS SOON AS Carla entered the water, Piper bent at the waist, then drove her arms over her head, straightening her legs as she stroked downward with her arms. Her fins flashed briefly and then she slipped beneath the surface. No splash. Just here and then gone. Damn if that wasn’t Piper all over again.

  She was a force of nature.

  She’d also made it perfectly clear how she felt about working with him. He didn’t know how he felt about it himself, but it was a prerequisite for winning the Fiesta contract, so he’d do it.

  He eyeballed the water. Recreational diving had nothing on combat diving. He’d led covert missions to scope enemy beaches and catalog the ocean floor for natural obstacles and land mines that might impede the navy’s landing craft. Executed midnight rescue swims that had ended in gunfire. Rappelled out of choppers, and, yeah...there’d been one memorable occasion when he’d almost planted fins first on a shark in the Indian Ocean. A site like Rose Wall shouldn’t pose any problem.

  But...it did. The smooth surface taunted him. He didn’t want to get in and he definitely didn’t want to go under. If he couldn’t do it, however, he wouldn’t win the contract. And that was hardly the worst problem. Nope. Something in his head was broken beyond all repair, and yet he was under the gun
to fix it.

  Piper’s shadow disappeared from his line of sight. The boat suddenly seemed a whole lot emptier now with her gone. Which was what he’d wanted, he reminded himself. He didn’t need an audience for this next part. He was a U.S. Navy SEAL: he got in the water and he went under and he did his job. All too often, life and death had ridden on the success of his ops. He’d spent his life rescuing other people from the ocean.

  Too bad he was the one who needed rescuing now.

  Damn it.

  He stood up, tugging his mask down and into place. The boat rocked gently, mockingly, as he took one large step off the side of Piper’s boat and let go, exhaling sharply. One second. Water rushed over his head as he went under. Don’t think. BUD/S training included drown-proofing. Arms and legs tied together, he’d voluntarily dropped down into a thirteen-foot pool only to release his air and power back to the surface. Over and over. Two seconds. If he could do that repeatedly, he could do this once.

  Three seconds.

  And yet the panic was there. Some part of him wasn’t convinced he wasn’t neck-deep in the Indian Ocean, diving in churned-up, debris-filled water while he looked for Lars and came up empty-handed. He’d failed that day.

  Hell, he was still failing.

  Four seconds.

  He broke the surface, tearing the snorkel from his mouth and sucking in long gasps of air. The sunshine and the ocean’s flat surface mocked him. No Blackhawk chopper hovered overhead, its rotors churning the water’s surface into a blinding froth. No basket. No rope ladder up. Just him and a beginner’s dive he couldn’t cope with.

  He needed to dive. Once he got back into the saddle, everything would be fine. If he had even one good dive under his belt, he’d be closer to fixing the mess he was in. He had to hold it together. Too bad his body hadn’t gotten the memo.

  He inhaled slowly, pulling salty air deep into his lungs. Boat oil. Neoprene rubber. All good things. Unfortunately, cataloging the scents and smells of the ocean didn’t distract his mind from where he was. Worse, the earthy, pungent scent of loose strands of sea kelp floating on the surface reminded him he wasn’t really alone in the water. Debris from a tsunami might not choke the slice of the Pacific surrounding Discovery Island, but there was still plenty of stuff to bump into out here.

  He dipped his face into the ocean, tipping his head back to drain the water out of his mask. When he looked down through the mask, he spotted Piper and Carla moving gracefully down the anchor line toward the bottom. Rose Wall was a beautiful dive. The site description included a kelp forest and schools of yellowtails. The question was, did he join Piper or did he sit the dive out, bobbing around on the surface like an old woman?

  Before he could overthink it, he took another long breath, focusing only on the push of air through his lungs and his rib cage expanding. He dived at a slant, the water pressure on his back driving him down toward the bottom. Seven feet. Eight. Then a piece of seaweed brushed his leg. Or a shark. A goddamned tree. He didn’t know what it was, but he felt the electric shock of the unexpected touch through the three-millimeter wet suit. Hell. This time, the flashback rolled over him, impossible to ignore. He sucked in water through his snorkel, no longer sure which end was up and which down.

  * * *

  PIPER SANK SLOWLY, feet first, dumping air from the BC as she exhaled. Pinching her nose closed, she breathed out gently until her ears equalized and then started mentally mapping the corals and underwater formations. Getting lost on her way back to the boat wasn’t part of her plans. Overhead, an explosion of bubbles marked Cal’s entry into the water.

  She paused, waiting to see if he’d be joining them. He hadn’t indicated any intentions of doing so, but she didn’t want to leave him behind or swimming to catch up if he’d changed his mind. What she didn’t see, though, was a tank or diving fins. He dipped below the surface briefly, diving in a smooth, clean arc. At seven feet he slowed. At twelve...something happened. She wasn’t sure what, but Cal’s body jerked and flailed. Grabbing her dive slate, she scrawled a note for Carla.

  He okay?”

  Carla pointed toward Cal in silent question, and Piper nodded. Both women watched Cal for a moment. He clawed his way to the surface and then his big, powerful body cut through the water away from her boat in a familiar combat stroke. In the water, Cal had always been all raw power, a sure, confident swimmer. Piper had no difficulties imagining him doing the SEAL thing. His hands never rose above the surface, his legs methodically propelling him through the water and away from the Feelin’ Free.

  Huh.

  So, okay, no law said Cal had to dive. He could have brought a dive boat out here because he felt like a swim or wanted to check out the currents firsthand or any number of a dozen things. Despite what she’d said to him, she didn’t really believe he was trying to get the jump on her or intended to cut her out of the contract competition. Cal didn’t operate that way. He was blunt. He didn’t mince words.

  His straightforward attitude had also been what had driven her crazy in the past, because he’d never held back with her. He’d called her irresponsible, impulsive, dangerous.... He’d slapped labels on her so fast that she’d never considered being anything but what he’d called her. Headfirst, feetfirst, any way, as long as she was all in.

  She hung in the water as she watched Cal. Hundred-foot-tall columns of green kelp waved lazily toward the surface, strands forming a soft backdrop for the schools of bright orange damselfish. The Rose Wall site was like being in an underwater forest. Plants covered the rocky bottom, clearly visible in the bright light filtering down from the surface. Her bubbles disappeared overhead.

  “Ladies first?” Carla scrawled on the tablet and flashed her a grin. Her dive buddy had the worst handwriting known to humankind. She should have been a doctor.

  Piper picked up the pencil. “Why didn’t he bring his dive buddy?”

  Cal’s boat sat low in the water, indicating the steel tanks lined up on his deck were full. Another twenty yards into her swim and she spotted his anchor line. He was at the boat now, and she ran her eyes over what she could see. Whatever had happened back there on the surface, he seemed fine now. She could make out the sleek black outline of his wet suit and diving fins. She didn’t know what to think. He wasn’t wearing a weight belt or harness, so he’d had no intention of diving?

  “Free dive?” Carla scrawled back.

  Piper shrugged. Maybe she should chalk it up to one of life’s little mysteries. Just because Cal usually had a plan didn’t mean the man always did. Perhaps he was human, after all. Beside her, Carla started taking pictures. Their plan was to pitch a “hike through an underwater forest,” followed by a swim with sea lions, and these pictures would seal the deal.

  And yet, as she worked to catalog the site and mentally mapped out the course she’d use with the Fiesta divers next week, Piper kept one eye on Cal, her curiosity killing her. What was he up to? He was a highly trained diver who specialized in extreme dives. This shallow site with its easy currents wasn’t his cup of tea, but he should have been down here, swimming circles around her and Carla.

  Nope. It was none of her business.

  He dived again, a shallow, graceful arc ending fifteen feet beneath the surface. His body bucked and jerked. Cal never panicked. A little water or a faulty snorkel tube? Those kinds of problems were merely a blip on his SEAL radar. She’d heard the stories about Hell Week, a training week all U.S. Navy SEALs went through. Stories included passing out at the bottom of the pool and near drowning.

  And yet Cal was in trouble.

  She tapped Carla on her shoulder and pointed up. When Carla nodded and flashed her the okay signal, she started her ascent, slowly rotating upward in a circle toward the surface. When she reached fifteen feet, she stopped for a safety check, hanging in the water. Overhead, Cal disappeared. He’d either grown wings or gotten back on board. She counted down three minutes, then moved steadily to the surface. Racing to the top would be a rookie mistake, and s
he’d already made too many of those around Cal.

  As soon as she broke the surface, she motioned for Carla to get back on the Feelin’ Free. And then hesitated. This had to be one of her stupidest ideas—and she’d had plenty of those. But, instead of getting back on her own boat, she was going to go stick her nose in Cal’s business. Make sure he was really okay.

  After passing her gear up to Carla, she swam over to Cal’s boat and hauled herself up onto the gunwale, kicking hard. Cal was sprawled in the captain’s seat, looking like a pirate. His board shorts rode low on his hips, exposing the tantalizing ridges and shadows of his abdomen. Despite the towel in his hand, water droplets slicked his face and his chest. It really wasn’t fair how good he looked.

  She swung her legs over the side and watched him.

  He didn’t look like he was in trouble.

  “I think I get to shoot unauthorized boarding parties.” He stood up in a smooth rush of power and padded toward her, all lazy, masculine grace.

  She made a show of looking around his boat, ignoring the gunwale digging into her butt and the Feelin’ Free’s motor sputtering to life behind her as Carla got her boat going. “Where’s your dive buddy, Brennan?”

  He held the towel out to her. “I came out here alone. Apparently, I’m giving you a lift back to the marina.”

  A free towel was a free towel. She took it and scrubbed at her face. “Way to go breaking the rules. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  He crouched, sliding his hand around her ankle and tugging off her fins. She felt the curl of his fingers right through her dive bootie.

  “What happened down there?” Because something had. She’d watched him jerk frantically toward the surface, and yet she hadn’t seen any cause for alarm.

  “Nothing happened.” His level gaze met hers as he pulled off the bootie and set it on the deck before reaching for her other foot.