Waiting... On You (Force Recon Marines) (13 page)

Nat informed Nick and Hanna that he
had talked to quite a few residents at the lower end of the bay, and that many
of them had experienced the same problem.

Nick asked if any of them had seen the
boat that Dylan stopped to ticket the evening he had disappeared. Only Nat
Simms had, and his story was the same as it had been before. He hadn’t been
able to think of any other information that might help.

Hanna asked if anyone had seen Lance
diving in the bay the day he had disappeared. One of the neighbors said she and
her husband had seen him and waved to him.

Before they left, Nat pulled Nick
aside and told him that he thought there was some kind of smuggling going on.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense
to me. I’ve seen it before, years ago,” the old man went on to explain. “People
don’t normally boat after midnight. And I’ve seen too many late nighters these
past several months. Besides, this region is somewhat remote, off the beaten
path most of the year. It’s a perfect place for sneaking stuff into the country
that ain’t legal. Hell, the Canadian border is only a few miles away, and it’s
in the middle of the strait. Lots of opportunities, don’t you think?”

Nick rubbed his jaw. “It’s something
to consider, Nat.”

After thanking him for the information
and the hospitality, Nick and Hanna returned to the Zodiac.

“At least I understand more clearly
why the complaints were made,” Nick commented as he pulled away from Nat’s dock.
“Simms might have something with his theory about smuggling, too. It fits the
late night scenario of strange boats. I can’t figure out how the damn crab pots
fit in, though. Who’d go to all that trouble for a few Dungeness crabs?”

Hanna shrugged and shook her head. “I
don’t know. I thought it was interesting that the sheriff never sent anyone out
on those complaints until the next day. I know Dylan did at least one late
night stake-out. We all teased him about looking for crab thieves.” Her
expression turned sad at the memory. “But he was torn between feeling the complaints
were frivolous and feeling ticked off at the sheriff for not responding to
them. Whatever was going on was making the elderly residents along the
coastline uneasy. Dylan figured if Thomas would just listen to them, they might
feel someone at least gave a darn.”

Nick smiled at her version of
swearing. Hanna rarely said more than darn. “Well, we need to take a look at the
area around these pots. You ready to do a little diving. We can start in the
cove, head south, then motor up the other side of the bay.”

“All that today?”

“We should see how many we can get to.
Nat is going to call the rest of his friends who have been having the same
problem, so they’ll know we’ll be in the area diving and investigating.”

Nick steered the Zodiac into the
middle of a cluster of brightly colored buoys that bobbed up and down on the relatively
calm surface of the water. They marked the crab pots resting on the silty
bottom.

As soon as he cut the motor, he threw
the anchor over the side. Then he went to the square compartment in the center
of the Zodiac, lifted the lid, and dug his scuba gear out.

Hanna peeked over his shoulder to look
inside. “Wow! What is all this stuff?”

“My toys.” Nick grinned, pointing to
various things. “Night vision goggles and a pair of infra-red binoculars. A
couple of spear guns. A GPS. An underwater camera. My Ka-Bar knife. My 9mm
handgun. And a couple of new Draegr’s, on loan from the Naval base. Ever use
one?” Hanna shook her head no. “It’s an underwater rebreathing device that
recirculates and filters air, without leaving any trace of bubbles. I can
program the right amount of chemicals and oxygen in a Draegr to allow us to go
as deep as we want or stay down a long time, without any negative effects.”

“Sounds pretty fancy.” Hanna was
impressed with his array of sleek military diving equipment.

“It’s one of the perks of the job—
getting to use all these things.”

“So high tech.”

“That’s the way of it nowadays.”

“So I’ve read in the newspapers.”
Hanna stepped back to pull off her sweatshirt, then step out of her white
shorts. Underneath she was wearing her bathing suit.

Nick continued to pull out the gear he
needed. “You haven’t read the half of it. Much of the newer stuff we use is too
classified to mention.”

“So, you’d get sent to the brig if you
told me about it, huh?”

Nick turned around to laugh with her
and froze. She was wearing a coral red, one-piece swimsuit that outlined all
her female curves in luscious detail. The stretchy material plunged to a deep
vee that revealed the swells of her beautiful breasts. She damn near killed him
when she bent over to unlace her tennis shoes.

The movement gave him a view of her
that made his mouth go dry. Her long slender back, partially exposed by her
swimsuit, tapered into slim hips and a round curvy butt that he remembered fit
his big hands perfectly.

Shit! Keeping his hands off her wasn’t
going to be easy.

When she turned to face him, his gaze
drifted from her bare feet, up her long legs, over her slender hips, to her
very nicely delineated breasts. By the time his eyes met hers, he could see his
candid stare had flustered her. Her face was flushed, and she was tugging
self-consciously at her swimsuit.

Hanna wanted to reach for her
sweatshirt to pull it back on, Nick’s slow perusal had been so disturbingly
intimate. Under his ardent gray-eyed stare, she felt hot and agitated. To
occupy hands she didn’t know what to do with, she reached behind her to retie
the neck strap of her bathing suit.

“Want me to do that for you?”

She rejected his offer of assistance
nervously. “No, I’m just making sure it’s okay before I put on my wet suit.
Guess I should have just worn it, huh?”

His glittering silver gaze swept her
figure one more time. “Hell, no. That bathing suit looks great on you.”

“Oh.... Well… thank you.”

Her shy smile and stuttered reply made
him take pity on her. He yanked his own sweatshirt off over his head, then
reached for his wet suit, which was draped over some equipment.

Hanna stepped into her thigh length
wet suit. The stretchy diving garment was black and purple with short sleeves
and a high neck. She was wiggling into the top portion when Nick stepped up to
her.

He hadn’t put his own diving gear on
yet. He was in his swim trunks, bare-chested. Nick shirtless was way too
tempting to ignore, especially since he was standing directly in front of her,
close enough to see each dark hair on his torso. It had been three years since
she’d seen him bare-chested. Her eyes traveled over every well-defined curve of
muscle. The power and strength in his upper body was striking. He was all male.
Behind her dark sunglasses, she devoured every solid inch of his torso,
relieved her hands were occupied because she was so very tempted to touch him.

Instead he startled her by touching
her. He caught the tab of her wet suit zipper and pulled it up from her waist
to her throat. It was a task he took his time with, a task that required him to
put his hands over hers to accomplish. As they passed over her breasts, his
wide knuckles brushed against bare skin and swelling curves. The contact
lingered long enough to be a caress.

Hanna tried to steady the rhythm of
her quickened breathing. Nick noted her agitation and stepped back with a wink.

“Nice wet suit, too,” he commented,
stepping into the long pant legs of his one-piece, solid black wet suit.

Hanna had never realized how revealing
diving gear was. It fit like a second skin, outlining very distinctly all of
her curves and his. She felt uneasy beneath Nick’s arousing looks, but she was
just as aroused looking back at him. And she had to admit, she definitely liked
the fact that he was noticing her physically.

She sat down on the floor of the big
rubber boat to pull on her diving fins. Nick was zipping up his own suit, and
when Hanna looked up at him, she wished she had the nerve to do for him what
he’d done for her. Instead, she chose to stare at the long ripples of muscle
that his sleeveless suit exposed, and from shoulder to wrist, his arms were
much more tanned than his chest had been.

“Guess Afghanistan didn’t allow you to
work on your tan much.”

“Noticed that, did you?” The wicked
glint in his eyes made her blush. When he bent over to pull on his own fins, he
unintentionally gave her a very provocative view of his tight buttocks.

“Ready for your air tank?”

His question snapped her eyes back to
his face. “Ah... yes.”

“Come here. I’ll put this on you.”

Hanna pushed to her feet and waddled
over to him, penguin-like, in her fins. He lifted one of his Draegrs and
slipped it onto her back, then secured the straps. After strapping on his own
air tank, he slipped his knife into a strap around his thigh.

Finally, he handed her one of the
spear guns. “Can you use one of these?”

“I never have.”

He gave her brief instructions. It was
powered by CO-2 cartridges. The dart it fired was about ten inches long. It
didn’t have a long range, but it was simple enough to use if they had to.
Considering Dylan had lost his life and Lance had disappeared near where they
were diving, Nick thought they should be prepared. Hanna agreed, although she
figured Nick would be more capable of defending them against trouble than she
would.

When they were completely suited up,
they went over the side of the anchored Zodiac and swam down to the bottom of
the bay. Nick was a more powerful swimmer than she was; he’d told her once that
he’d had to swim five miles to qualify for Recon, but he slowed his pace to
wait for her. They communicated with one another through hand signals. Hanna
had made enough dives with Lance to understand all of Nick’s.

When they reached the crab pots on the
bottom of the bay, Nick checked half, and Hanna checked the others. To her
disappointment, they found nothing but Dungeness crabs trapped in the cages.
Someone was going to have a good dinner, but there were no clues to Dylan’s
death or Lance’s disappearance. It had probably been a long shot anyway, Hanna
thought.

When they finally resurfaced, Nick
swung onboard the RBI first, then reached down, grabbed Hanna by the forearms,
and pulled her up and over the high inflated side. She tumbled in clumsily and
landed partially on top of him, then fell off him onto her back on the floor of
the boat to pull off her diving mask.

“Geez! How do you get over the side of
this thing without help?”

“Practice.” Nick rolled to brace
himself above her. He took her diving mask from her fingers. “Let me make sure
your contacts aren’t floating inside.”

“You know me too well,” she remarked,
on her back, staring up at him.

He was wet and dripping all over her,
so he ran a hand over his face and through his hair, sending the water droplets
away from her.

Hanna went absolutely still, wondering
if he was going to kiss her again. He was staring at her intently, his gray
eyes focused on her mouth, his big body mere inches from hers. In this
high-sided, 15' by 6' boat, they had a lot of privacy. Visions of him doing
that and more had her curling her toes.

“I’d like to know you a whole lot
more, Hanna Wallace.” He ran a single finger down her nose and over the center
of her lips, lingering for a fraction of a second on her lower lip, separating
it from the top one.

Hanna let the end of her tongue touch
and linger on his fingertip. She watched his eyes darken. The spell between
them was powerful, mesmerizing. Her teeth caught his fingertip for the briefest
of moments.

He sucked in his breath, then shook
his head as if to clear it. “Come on,” he said, pushing himself to his feet,
then pulling her to hers with a quick wink and a rueful grin. “We have more
crab pots to investigate.”

They headed south, to the lower end of
the bay. There were several smaller coves to investigate, which they did
one-by-one. An hour later, they stopped to eat the lunch Jessie had packed for
them, grounding their dingy on a sand spit so they could sit back against the
high sides, enjoy their picnic, and relax.

Afterward, they headed over to the
western side of the bay, and followed the coastline, toward Mynard. At Hanna’s
request, Nick navigated the Zodiac into the spit-protected cove where her
sailboat was moored.

The Mynard Marina was a modest-size
one, with a wide variety of boats anchored to its wooden docks. Most of them
were sailboats, and Hanna directed Nick to the far end. She hadn’t had her
sailboat the last time he’d been home, and she was anxious to show it to him.

Nick steered the inflatable in between
the network of wooden docks until Hanna pointed out her boat. Her
single-masted, twenty-eight foot sailboat sat at the end. It was painted white,
trimmed in dark teak wood with polished brass detailing.

Nick docked behind the boat, tied off
his Zodiac, then hopped out and helped her step over the high rubber side.
Standing on the pier, he inspected her wooden sloop, from stem to stern,
knowing the woman beside him was anxiously awaiting his judgment.