Page 89 of Ship Outta Luck

“Don’t curse at me.” She makes her way to the bow, smooth limbs glistening where saltwater still clings to them.

“I’m not cursing at—” A bullet whizzes by my head. “June, getdown.”

Fuck. She’s going to draw fire out there. June must’ve realized it too, because she flattens herself against the boat.Good.

“Brace yourself.” The motors drop into the water with a mechanical whine. “I’m gonna pull the boat around and give you some cover.”

“No! I’ve nearly got it.” She heaves once, twice, three times, and the anchor gives, the boat already drifting along the current out to sea. A bullet pings against the hull. Thompson’s boat roarsto life, the white wake rolling towards us promising to send us careening.

This is it. This is going to be how I finally lose it. With this woman determined to put herself in danger. Counting to ten isn’t going to fucking cut it. Counting to ten thousand probably won’t either.

She heaves again, bringing the anchor onto the ship, dark gobs of silt and mud plopping all over the white hull.

“Get out of there!” I hiss.

“No, I’m going to put it back right, otherwise we’ll regret it later. Just fudging drive, Dean, I can hold on. Keep the motors light on the water or you’ll dig us in.”

A muscle in my temple twitches, and I slam the prop switch, tilting so the dual propellers barely clear the surface. I shake my head.

June is out there on the bow, exposed, and telling me how to do my job.

My entire job right now is protecting her. So far, I’ve fucked that up royally.

“Screw it.” I dip the engines lower, reversing the boat as fast as I dare on the sandbar.

June’s hair streams around her, tugging loose from the thick braid I watched her plait while she sat, serene, by the makeshift bonfire. Now, the inferno on the beach silhouettes her and she hangs on easily, winching the anchor cable back in place.

After what feels like a lifetime, we clear the sandbar, the white surf crashing over the dark rocks of the jetty in the distance.

The clock on the control panel shows the whole thing, from explosion to anchor, took less than three minutes.

“Let me drive.” June hops down from the catwalk. Water slicking her formerly clean shirt, the wet fabric clinging to herbody. I drag my gaze back to her face, to the white pallor under the tan.

“You sure?” I almost add she doesn’t look so good—but even like this, clearly shaken, she is stunning. The wind tossing her hair around, a black halo in the night, her skin kissed by starlight and salt.

“It’s my boat.” The look she gives me would freeze hell over. But her hands betray her, still trembling. Something dark drips onto the deck, and I stare for a moment.

Blood.

June pushes past me, her hip grazing my upper thigh. She cradles her hand, using one to steer theBettyout to open water and the gulf.

“Bilge pump,” she mutters to herself, flicking a switch.

“You’re hurt.” The need to check her over, to tend to her overwhelms me. Catching me off-guard.

“Something’s bothering me.”

“Probably that cut on your hand.”

“It’s fine. Something on the anchor chain cut it.” Half turning toward me, her brow furrows in confusion. “What I want to know is how the hell they knew where we’d be? That wasn’t an accident, them showing up there.”

Even in the soft glow of the instrument panel, I can see how tight her uninjured hand is gripping the wheel. Her knuckles are white.

“Well?” Her voice has an edge.

“It’s the right question to ask.” A question I’ve been screaming at myself since the first rumble of the ATVs over the dunes. But the follow-up question, that’s the real problem.

Who betrayed our location?

---