“What are you—?” Clearly, she created brain fog for him because it took a beat to understand what she was doing. When her shorts hit the deck and she kicked off her shoes, he couldn’t do anything but stand back and watch as she stepped up to the edge of the boat and, after a quick wave and grin at him, dived over the side.
She disappeared into the depths like a mermaid. He moved closer, heart in his throat, until he saw her surface a few feet away from Blue Blood. She slicked back her hair and bobbed to the surface, a contented smile on her face.
“It’s glorious in here!” With the calm water and the clear sky, he could hear her without trouble. “I couldn’t stand being cooped up on that boat for another second.”
David grinned. He’d never been seduced into stopping his boat before.
She swam effortlessly until she twisted, tucked and dived back under. When she popped up again, she was reaching for the ladder at the side of the boat. “Are you coming in or not?”
“Not sure I can beat the view I have now,” he replied.
She gave an approving nod and launched herself into the water once more.
She’d been beautiful, David thought, that first moment he’d seen her, wearing those ridiculous clothes and wandering around that bar, the messy hair and big brown eyes and her skin glowing. But seeing her now, in the simple, pure image of nature that surrounded her, he could admit he’d never seen a more gorgeous sight in his life. He didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to breathe. He just wanted to stand here, for the rest of his life, and watch her in the water for the ethereal creature she might very well be.
A fantasy. That’s what she’d created for him, making him see things, feel things he didn’t think he ever could. Emotions he couldn’t entirely trust.
Falling for a woman like Bonnie, who was so deep in flux she’d be lucky to find the horizon, would be an error of gigantic proportions. And yet here he was, wanting nothing more than to join this woman who was struggling to find her place in the world, if only for a few minutes, in the bliss that was his chosen office.
He kicked off his shoes, emptied his pockets and tossed off his shirt. A heartbeat later he stepped to the side of the boat, and before he thought too long or hard about it, dived in with her.
If there was one thing Bonnie could identify blindfolded, it was someone who thought entirely too much. It had started the second he’d broken off that delicious kiss they’d shared in the kitchen; a kiss interrupted by a traitorous parrot and probably common sense on David’s part….Okay no, if she was being honest, it had started from the day he kissed her way before they got on the boat.
She wasn’t a fan of common sense. Not currently, anyway, which was why she’d thrown both it and caution out the porthole and jumped into the ocean. Blue Blood had indeed become suffocating, and not just because of their forced chitchat and pleasantness. David clearly regretted the kisses. Never had a solitary day passed so excruciatingly slow. She treaded water as she watched him kick off his shoes and dive into the water. A surge of exhilaration had her hiding her smile beneath the surface. She cut through the lapping waves easily and swam toward him, her eyes drawn up to the pilot cabin, where Duchess was watching them as if she’d just found her favorite TV show.
“We have an audience,” she said once David surfaced. Her heart caught and skipped a beat as he smoothed back his wet hair. He reminded her of one of those models in the fragrance ads, where the men launched themselves off cliffs and into the ocean as if chasing after a siren. She hadn’t thought those men were real. Now she knew better.
“We’ve found the one place she can’t or won’t go.” David reached out a hand, brushed against her shoulder as if to confirm she was safe and secure. “Do you do this often?”
“If you mean swimming in the open ocean? Only at the beach at home,” Bonnie confessed. “Until I got on Blue Blood, I…” She paused, wanting to choose her words carefully. “As much as Grams loved cruising and boats, when she was sick, she couldn’t take the motion. We settled for sitting for hours next to the shore-line of the Seine, eating bread and cheese and all the things she wasn’t supposed to have.” The memory was one that lightened her heart, even as it tipped into sadness. She angled her head. “She would have liked you. A lot. She’d have probably called you a pirate.”
“And fulfilled my childhood dream,” he countered, sounding a bit sad himself. “The pirate and the princess.”
She laughed and turned to dive, only to jump in and yelp.
“What?” David grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. It took her a moment to blink the salt water out of her eyes. What she thought was a jumble of seaweed was actually a tangled mess of fishing line and debris clinging to a struggling sea turtle.
“Oh, no.” She pulled free and swam for-ward. “David, we need to help her.”
She moved around the creature, and she had to duck down a bit to see its face. “She’s all tangled.”
The turtle blinked slowly, as if exhausted. Bonnie was careful when she touched one of its flippers. The line had tightened so much that it had dug into the turtle’s skin.
“Don’t usually see this breed so far north this time of year.” David swam up behind her. “Let’s get her to the boat.” Together they gently maneuvered the sea turtle. “You go first. Easier for me to lift her up.”
“I don’t want to hurt her.”
"She's already hurt. I’ve got her. Don’t worry.”
Bonnie pulled herself up the ladder and into the boat, returning immediately to take hold of the beautiful and bigger-than-expected rep-tile.
“Work it, work it.” Duchess’s commands barely registered as David tried to steady the turtle as he climbed up the ladder.
“I’ll get a knife to cut away these lines. See if you can loosen the other stuff,” he said.