No.
She crawled to the compressor and hauled herself up. Sam’s dive hose was unspooling freely as he wandered further away from the boat. She lunged forward, her legs trembling, and gave the hose two quick tugs to tell him something was wrong.
He surfaced after a minute and quickly closed the distance between her and the boat. He got himself onto the deck and ripped off his mask.
“Eve,” he said, kneeling where she lay frozen and hyperventilating on the deck. “Tell me what’s going on. Talk to me.” He took off his gloves and grabbed her hands.
Looking at him in panic and trying to get control of her breath, she gasped, “Anxiety attack.”
Sam gripped her arms and got her sitting up on deck. “What are you feeling?”
“Afraid,” she managed. Her eyes unfocused for a moment and in the blurred edges appeared the black shadow of the tsunami, the rising water that took her grandparents and destroyed her town. It was a beast. It folded up concrete buildings as though they were camping tents. It destroyed bridges. It carried fishing boats and deposited them on hillsides miles inland. It swallowed up entire beaches of sand and tore trees from their roots, leaving the land bare.
No. This isn’t real.
She was halfway up the hill to the school when the wave tore her grandmother from her grasp. The water rose up over her head, and she was swept away, lost in the darkness.
“Is this real?” she said to Sam, grabbing his arm. “No, Eve,” he said. “Come on, baby. Come back to
me now.”
Her lungs were drawing less and less air.
Back in the university library, Eve read a psychology article saying that distraction might lessen the effects of an anxiety attack. Frantically, she scanned the boat, trying to think of some way to distract herself from the tightening hold of her fear.
Half the deck was covered with heavy bags of spiny urchin. The other half was strewn with Sam’s gear, lying where he had tossed it in a rush to get to her. Her heart was pounding a horrible staccato in her chest cavity, pumping the blood into her ears, making it hard to hear.
She looked desperately at the sky. At Sam. At the surface of the water.
That’s it.
She yanked herself up using Sam’s arm, then turned around and threw herself headfirst over the deck of the Bravado.
The cold water swallowed her with a roar and at once the powerful current dragged her toward the stern of the boat.
It’s working. She broke the surface.
The sudden temperature change broke the chokehold of her anxiety attack. Lucid at once, she took one deep breath and with all of her strength, swam against the current toward the bow. Kicking and beating at the water, she managed to move forward a few feet.
With white knuckles, she grabbed hold of the side of the boat. Like manacles, Sam’s enormous hands wrapped around her forearms. He plucked her out of the
water and dropped her onto the deck like a wet cat.
Eve lay in a puddle of cold ocean water. “Can you breathe now?” Sam asked.
She nodded, gulping down breaths.
Sam stared in disbelief. He sat down, too stunned to say anything more.
“The water,” she sputtered. She was trembling with cold. She couldn’t feel her hands. Her teeth chattered. “I had to…the water.”
****
Sam’s first aid training told him that Eve hadn’t hurt herself. But she certainly wasn’t okay.
He stood up and with a reluctant sigh, picked up the radio.
Eve was wrapped in clean towels and tucked up under Sam’s arm when a gleaming, brand-new Bayliner
335 named the Shocker pulled up alongside the Bravado. Black and white and shiny all over, the cruising yacht made Sam’s working fishing rig look like a rust bucket.
Dr. Jesse Randall waved from the railing. He was dressed in khaki shorts and an unbuttoned linen shirt. Having built a wildly successful private practice, the plastic surgeon now spent all his time privately practicing the shocker on the Shocker with any number of enthusiastic female fans. To make matters worse, the fucker was preternaturally handsome and unfailingly nice to boot.
Sam waved, but didn’t let go of Eve. “Come on board. You’re gonna want to get your shoes on. We’ve been pulling in urchin all day.”
“Oh, yeah. Right, bro.”
A red-haired supermodel appeared on the deck of the yacht and handed Jesse a pair of white topsiders. Jesse got his shoes on, ran a hand through his mop of blond curls, and stepped onto the Bravado. “So what’s your emergency?”
Sam gave Jesse a quick run-down of the situation. As he did so, a sideways glance told him that Eve was openly staring at Jesse as—to Sam’s horror—the good doctor was staring at her.
“Eve?” asked Jesse, kneeling down. “I’m Dr.
Randall. I’m here to help you out today.”
“I called him. For you,” said Sam, feeling lame. “Before I take a look at you, let’s get you on my
boat where you’d be more comfortable. How’s that?”
Eve nodded and took the hand that Jesse offered her. In a smooth movement, he plucked her out of Sam’s arms and led her onto the Shocker.
Jesse followed his new patient onto his yacht. He glanced over his shoulder at Sam, who was still dripping in his wetsuit.
“Come on deck, bro. Have a drink while you wait.
Oxana makes a mean Bloody Mary.”
Thirty uncomfortable minutes later, Sam found himself sitting on Jesse’s pristine white upholstery, an admittedly excellent Bloody Mary sweating in his hand.
Oxana adjusted her Gucci sunglasses. She was gleaming in her white bikini. “So. You’re fisherman? You know, one time my father caught a fish, almost thirty kilograms. Sixty pounds. Inside he found a human finger with a ring still attached. Can you imagine? He gave the ring to my grandfather. A big rubin. How do you say this? Red jewel?”
“Ruby.”
“Yes. Ruby.” She sipped her red drink, talking
about a red jewel, her red hair shining in the sun.
Jesse came out of the cabin with Eve. He’d dried her off and she was wearing a white terrycloth robe, the kind Sam had only ever seen in movies after the hero and heroine had sex in some glamorous hotel room.
Sam stood up. “How is she doing?”
Eve looked up at him. She was no longer pale or frightened, and her smile was so luminous that his heart tripped over itself in his chest.
“Much better,” said Jesse. He handed Sam a plastic bag holding Eve’s wet clothes. “Definitely an anxiety attack, some call it a panic attack. Eve did exactly the right thing—distracted herself enough to stop the symptoms. It’s hard to know what sets off an attack like this. Sometimes it’s nothing. We went over her options, and Eve will see her regular doctor to discuss them further. Right, kiddo?”
Eve and Jesse smiled at each other five seconds too long for Sam’s taste.
“So, are we square?” asked Sam, tamping down the flare of jealousy in his gut.
Jesse came to. “Yeah, totally. You two want to stay on board for dinner? I hooked a bitchin’ whitefish earlier. Margaritas and ceviche?”
Before Eve could reply, Sam said, “We’d better get going. The hold is full.”
“What about your robe?” asked Eve.
“Just keep it,” said Jesse, a twinkle in his eye. “I’ve got loads.” He gave Eve a very friendly hug. “You take care of yourself, okay? I hope we meet again.”
Sam couldn’t scuttle Eve off the Shocker fast enough. As the cruiser pulled up anchor and powered away, the doctor and his Russian supermodel waved
languidly, taking their shiny chunk of heaven with them.
****
The delay on Santa Rosa meant a sunset crossing over the channel. Eve tried to stay awake in the wheelhouse, but her eyelids drooped and Sam ordered her down into the V-berth to get some rest. She crawled down into the cabin, curled up on a folded pile of clean blankets, and fell asleep.
Then it was daytime. She was standing on the deck of the Bravado as she and Sam waited for the truck from the processing plant. It was the end of her first day as his tender.
Using a tap on the dock, Sam filled a clean bucket with water. He grabbed his openers and shoved the pointed end of the tool into the keyhole opening on the underside of one of the urchins.
Sam’s hands were big and strong looking, with long fingers and neat, squared-off tips. The backs of his hands were rough and peppered with scars. His movements were deliberate and exacting—almost like a chef’s.
He split the shell, pulled the bright yellow roe, and dumped the spiny shells into the marina. After rinsing a lobe of delicate roe in the clear water, he held it up for her to taste.
Instead of taking the uni from his hand, Eve lowered her lips to his cold fingers and sucked it up.
For a split second, the rough edge of his thumb brushed against the tip of her tongue. At once, desire surged through her, pounding through her bloodstream like a drug. She almost didn’t notice that he was staring at her as she ate, heat flooding his eyes.
“Well?”
“Sweet,” she said quietly. “Firm.”
He shifted his stance. “I’ve heard that some Japanese people believe uni has aphrodisiac qualities.”
Instead of answering, Eve leaned forward and touched his arm where his tattoo peeked out from under the sleeve of his T-shirt.
“Lamont,” she said.
Sam took a step forward and rested his hands on her hips. He pulled her against him as he leaned back against the closed door of the wheelhouse. She ran her palms against his chest, solid as a rock wall through the thin cotton of his T-shirt. He dug his hard-on against her, rubbing against the soft mound between her legs, summoning all of her body heat to the aching point where they touched.
She ran her fingers through his hair; soft and thick and wavy, it contrasted with the hard edges of his unshaven jaw, the cleft in his chin, and his cheekbones. He cupped her buttocks in his hands, lifting her onto his erection so that she could feel the rigidity of him through her jeans.
“I want you, Eve,” he whispered.