Page 60 of Off the Hook

“So that you could use the boat that means the most to him, to take me here,” I said, handing him a folded paper that Spencer had given me.

Coulter’s brow crinkled as he looked at the paper. “GPS coordinates, but to where?”

“He said it was his special secret spot, where he always took your mom.”

The corners of Coulter’s mouth turned up in a smile. “How’d you get him in on this?”

“I went looking for you at the marina and asked his advice. This was his idea.”

He shook his head, chuckling. “Son of a gun.”

Coulter punched the numbers into the boat’s GPS. I snuggled next to him on the small seat at the helm. The little outboard hummed as we skipped over the light chop toward a mangrove island. The closer we got, I began to understand why the place was special. It was isolated in a shallow turquoise sea. The colors were sublime. Coulter pulled back on the throttle. The water was only inches deep ahead of us.A baby nurse shark not much more than a foot long swam out from under the boat while Coulter studied the GPS. “No wonder I never found this place. There’s no way to get in there.”

“There must be a way,” I said. “Unless he made a mistake on the coordinates.”

“Well the waypoint he gave us is right in the middle of this island, and there’s no way to get in there.” He squinted at the map while pressing buttons to zoom in. “There’s not even a foot of water around the whole damn thing.”

“We’re on the east side of the island. Didn’t your Dad say ‘Go west’ just before he left?”

Coulter’s lips spread in a wry smile. “You’re a pretty good detective.”

“I’d say we make a pretty good team.”

“I hope so. I’m gonna need you to be a spotter to find deep enough water to get us there.” He pressed the button on the throttle lever. I looked back at the whirring sound as the motor tilted upward, leaving the propellor barely in the water.

I grimaced. “That’s not my specialty. I don’t want to screw it up.”

“Would you rather drive while I spot?” Coulter grinned.

“Definitely not,” I conceded. “But don’t blame me if we run aground.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t get us into anything we can’t get out of.”

At least one of us was confident. I clambered up to the bow and scanned the sea floor as we rounded the northern tip of the island. Dozens of tiny fish darted in the water that was only a few inches deep for as far as I could see. As my gaze followed the sand toward the mangrove roots, I saw that it dipped down.

“That’s weird. It looks like it’s deeper right by the island, but I don’t think it’s wide enough for us to pass, and I can’t see a break in the mangroves anywhere.” Tears formed in my eyes from squinting so hard. “If we’re supposed to go in there, I’m afraid there must be a mistake.”

“Not weird. The current carves out channels around the mangroves. And there’s no way my old man gave me the wrong coordinates after going to all the trouble to get us here.” Coulter pointed the boat toward the mangroves and inched forward, expertly navigating the bow of the boat right up to the trees before making a hard turn into the narrow channel. We putted along the edge of the island, and sure enough, halfway down the western side there was a break in the mangroves barely wider than the boat.

“Can we get in there?” I squinted back at him, shielding my eyes from the sun behind him.

Coulter looked up from the GPS. “Looks like that leads to the spot.”

I pushed off the mangroves as we inched into the opening. The branches from either side nearly touched each other just a few feet above my head. After passing through thirty feet or so of mangrove tunnel, the blue sky was visible overhead and we coasted into a vast shallow lake inside the island.

“Oh my gosh, this is incredible,” I said with a wistful lilt.

When I looked back Coulter was eyeing my ass. “What’s incredible isyouin that bikini.”

“If you don’t pay attention, you’re going to get us stuck out here and no one will be able to rescue us.”

“Worse things could happen,” he chuckled, “but there’s plenty of depth in here, don’t worry.”

“Should we drop the anchor?”

Nah, we’re heading over there,” he pointed toward a clearing in the mangroves on the south edge of the lake. When we got closer, the weathered remnants of a wooden platform became evident. “Oh wow. It’s like a tree house in the middle of the ocean.”

Coulter laughed as the boat came to rest with a soft bump against the wooden edge. “I can’t believe they never brought us here.”

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