Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(21)
“I think political dissenters are convicts in Cuba.”
Captain Harry’s expression turned even more sour. “What would you have me do?” he asked. “If we leave them out there, they could float out to the Atlantic where they will die of dehydration or starvation, or both. But if we take them aboard the Black Gold, we will be forced to report the rescue to the authorities. And then they’ll be in the exact same boat.” He shook his head when he realized what he’d said. “There was no pun intended there, I assure you, Miss Madison.”
“How many times do I have to ask you to call me Maddy?” she said, softening her tone and her expression.
“Your father hired me for my unblemished record and my professionalism,” Captain Harry said, puffing up like a game hen. She figured now was not the time to inform him that the only reason her roughneck father had hired him was because he got a Texas-sized hoot out of English accents and thought it would be more fun than you could shake a stick at to have a stuffed-shirt Brit captaining his boat. Her father was nothing if not full of piss and vinegar mixed with a heaping helping of whimsy. “It wouldn’t be right for me to address you by a pet name.”
She punched the captain in the arm. The move caused his eyes to go round. “Lighten up, Harry.”
He cleared his throat, adjusting his navy-blue double-breasted captain’s jacket. “I am English, Miss Madison. I do not lighten up.”
She snorted, shaking her head at him. There was a sense of humor buried somewhere under that thinning coif of salt-and-pepper hair and that stiff upper lip. She was sure of it. And before they docked in Houston, she was determined to find it. But for right now…
“Can’t we just…I don’t know…give them some fuel and food and send them on their way? If they make it to the Keys—”
“Yes, I am well aware of your country’s wet-foot, dry-foot policy,” he interrupted, referring to the 1995 amendment to the Cuban Adjustment Act. It stipulated if a Cuban immigrant placed one foot, just one foot on U.S. soil, then he or she was allowed legal permanent-resident status and the opportunity for citizenship.
“Well, then?” she asked, tightening the sash on her knee-length terrycloth robe. She’d just hopped out of the shower when Captain Harry summoned her with a sharp knock on her cabin door after spotting the little boat. And given the circumstances as he’d explained them to her, she hadn’t taken the time to do more than throw on a robe over her bra and panties, which didn’t bother her a lick. Having grown up with four nosy and rambunctious older brothers, there’d been no opportunity for her to develop any sense of modesty. However, considering the way Captain Harry quickly glanced away from her bare feet and legs, her state of dishabille obviously discombobulated him.
Stuffy-O fart, she thought with affection.
Of course, some of that affection waned when he said, “I may be overstepping my bounds here, but are you sure you aren’t letting your bleeding heart influence your head in this decision? It would be far better to—”
“Just because I oversee the charitable enterprises of my father’s businesses”—her old man was one of Texas’s wealthiest oil tycoons—“doesn’t mean I’m a bleedin’ heart. There’s a difference between folks who genuinely need a helpin’ hand and those who are just lookin’ for a handout. Believe me, I’ve gotten real good at spottin’ the difference over the years. And these guys?” She gestured out the window at the turquoise ocean. A golden ray of sun happened to catch the dinghy just right, spotlighting the heartbreaking plight of the men. “These guys need a helpin’ hand.”
Captain Harry seemed to hesitate a second more, then said, “We mustn’t tell anyone we did this. Ever.”
She pantomimed zipping her mouth shut. “My lips are sealed, oh captain, my captain.”
“And we mustn’t involve Nigel and Bruce in this business,” he continued. “I’ll tell them to remain belowdecks. They’ll know something is off, of course. But they have enough training not to ask what it is.”
“You’re the boss,” she told him, winking saucily.
“Hmph.” He frowned at her, his cornflower-blue eyes narrowing. But he grabbed the Black Gold’s throttle and pushed it up without further argument. The yacht’s big engines responded with a well-tuned purr, and they soon halved the distance to the men in the boat.
Maddy kept an eye on the dinghy through the binoculars until they were close enough for her to make out the black hair and dark skin of its inhabitants—definitely Cubans, poor souls. Captain Harry hailed the two deckhands via their shipboard walkie-talkies. Just as he’d claimed, the men didn’t make a peep of protest. They simply replied with a couple of Aye, aye, Captains and headed to their cabins.
“Former Royal Navy men like myself,” Captain Harry boasted. “Very disciplined. Very stoic.”
“So I see.” Maddy curled her lip, knowing she was neither of those things. Lifting the binoculars again, she could now make out the holey T-shirts and grubby appearance of the men. “I don’t suppose you speak Spanish, do you?” she asked.
“I speak French.”
“Well, that won’t do us a piddlee-O bit of good,” she grumbled, setting the binoculars on the console and turning for the door.