Page 101 of Hard Luck (Blackstone House)

No, no, no, no, no. I didn’t love Cole. Absolutely not. He had a great ass, that was all. Plus he was kind, and protective, and generous, and calm, and patient, and supportive, and he made me feel like a better person when I was with him. But I couldn’t love him. I wasn’t capable of that, not anymore.

The buzz of the boat was getting quieter. The vessel up there was departing, but had they left anyone behind?

My spidey senses were still tingling.

Pirates?

Turtle poachers?

Maybe I could accidentally-on-purpose pull Cole off the ladder if he tried to board theCrosswindfirst? I only had a dive knife—my gun was still taped under the sink in the head—but thanks to Priest, I was a weapon in my own right. If I maintained the element of surprise, I could easilytake out half a dozen two-bit criminals. Hmm.Surprise.What if I darted past Cole and climbed up the anchor chain?

Four potential hostages threw a wrench into the works, and as I swam, I laid out my priorities. Number one, protect Cole. Keeping Dr. Blaylock safe came next, then Jon and Clint. Witt had the best chance of taking care of himself. But I’d also have to watch my back because in the panic of a fight, it was all too easy to act first and think later, and he wouldn’t be expecting me to appear from the bow.

Okay,nowmy heart was thumping. So much for a relaxing vacay. What would Demelza do next, send me to Antarctica?

Cole was keeping up with me easily, which made beating him to the bow tricky and escalated this situation into a fucking nightmare. At least a polar bear’s motives were predictable. Actually, weren’t polar bears from the Arctic? Antarctica was penguins.

I reached into the pocket of my BCD and palmed my knife, just to check it hadn’t somehow fallen out because wouldn’t that have been?—

Oh.

Never mind.

The knife, the entry point, Cole’s swimming abilities…they were irrelevant.

Where was the fucking boat?

CHAPTER 36

JEZEBEL

Guts clenching, I spun to check my surroundings. Had we swum too far? Not far enough? No, we were in the right place. That banana-shaped rock was the first thing I’d seen when we jumped into the water, and Cole looked as confused as I felt.

The shadow of theCrosswind’s hull should have been right above us, but instead, there was only blue. Where had she gone?

We got our answer when we surfaced, kind of. I glimpsed her in the distance, heading north, almost at the horizon and about to disappear out of sight. Well, fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Yes, I’d wished I could spend more time with Cole in San Gallicano, but not like this.

He spat out his regulator.

“My boat! What the hell?”

“A remake ofPirates of the Caribbean?”

“Someone stole my damn boat!”

“I can see that. The question is, who? We should get to the beach.”

No point in hanging around in the water. We couldn’tcatch up with theCrosswind. When Cole didn’t move, I took hold of his BCD and began towing him toward the shore, kicking hard with my good foot. Of all the islands we’d visited, this was the smallest. The most barren. Had this been planned deliberately? We’d been abandoned here to die? My fins hit sand, and I pulled him into the shallows.

“My boat,” Cole said again. “She’s gone.”

“Relax, we’ll get her back.”

He threw his dive mask onto the beach. “How? How the hell will we do that, Bella?”

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