Hot as Hell (Deep Six 0.5)(34)

When they finally made it to the ranger’s station, the quiet shuffle of feet scurrying up the stone steps sounded behind him. “Got you covered,” Mason said. “Up and in.”

When Bran turned to make his own way into the ranger’s station, it was to see two things. The first was Mason on the little porch, leaning against the rail that could really use a coat or two of paint—the salty sea air was hell on exteriors—M4 raised and at the ready to provide cover fire should Bran need it. The second was Maddy’s luscious ass at eye level. Had Bran not already been sporting a battlefield boner—adrenaline tended to make a man’s stick and stones perk up—he would have sprung wood at the sight. Her hips swung back and forth with an enticingly feminine tick-tock when she hustled through the front door.

“Bran?” She spun around in the threshold. “Hurry!”

To jostle his brain around enough that it could tell his eyes to stop bugging out of their sockets, he had to shake his head like a dog shaking off water.

Oh man. He was in so much trouble. And only some of it was from the dick-lickers in the fort.

*

7:23 p.m.…

Alexandra Merriweather didn’t know which was worse. The horrifying sound of a real, live, honest-to-goodness gun battle, or this. This oppressive, almost malignant silence that seemed to be spreading with each passing second.

“The silence is worse,” she said aloud, just to hear her own voice and not feel so alone.

When Mason and Bran had armed themselves to the teeth before diving overboard, she’d thought she’d be fine on her own. But now, in the midst of the eerie quiet, the solitude was starting to get to her. The vastness of the sea was daunting. The soft clink, clink of the rigging lines against the steel mainmast sounded strangely sinister. And the warm, humid air had become oppressive, pushing in on her until it felt like her lungs were caught in a vise.

“You wait here,” Mason had told her before donning a pair of swim fins, his huge back flexing as he bent at the waist. “The minute we know what’s happening and take control of the situation, we’ll send up this flare.” He’d shown her the flare stick before shoving it into a pocket of his cargo shorts. Then he’d slipped two large…er…what she thought were called magazines full of bullets into another pocket. Just…easy-peasy, as-you-pleasey. No biggie. Gulp.

I mean, come on. I knew they were Navy SEALs. But the relevant word here is were.

“When you see it,” he said, straightening, “you sail on over and get us. You got me?”

She nodded vigorously, unable to talk. Which might’ve been a first.

He searched her eyes then, seeming to hesitate. In those few seconds, she was able to locate her voice. “I got you,” she told him, her tone full of bravado she certainly didn’t feel.

“But if you see another boat,” he continued, his South Boston accent dropping the r sound off the end of the word another. “And I mean any boat headed your way, you start the engines and sail straight back to Wayfarer Island. On account of we don’t know who’s out here, and who’s friend or foe. You don’t take any chances—”

“But you and Bran—”

“No buts,” he insisted, his eyes like flames. “You don’t worry about us. We can handle ourselves.”

She wanted to argue, unable to stand the thought of turning tail and running, leaving them all alone to face whatever fate waited for them on Garden Key. But arguing wasted precious time. Time when who knew what horrors were being perpetrated on that island. So she nodded and squared her shoulders. But inside she was saying, This can’t really be happening. This can’t really be happening. This can’t really be happening.

When Mason chucked her on the chin with a scarred knuckle, she was forced to admit, Okay, so it’s really happening. Crap on a cracker!

He pitched himself overboard. And she was left with nothing to do but watch him sink beneath the surface of the waves and contemplate the fact he’d willingly touched her for the very first time, and that their conversation had been the longest and most cordial of their acquaintance. Both struck her as unaccountably sad. Why did it take fully automatic weapons fire and a true life-and-death situation to make them stop taking digs at each other?

It was a question that filled her with a million conflicting emotions. On the one hand, Mason McCarthy was sullen and cantankerous and prone to growling at her like a lion with a thorn stuck in his paw. On the other hand, she couldn’t ignore the appeal of his handsome face.

Oh, not handsome in the traditional sense. His forehead was too heavy, not to mention perpetually furrowed. His nose was too wide and listed slightly to the left—evidence of a break he had never bothered to fix. And his jaw? Well, his jaw was a mile wide. And if it were any harder or more angular, it’d need to be carved from granite.

But then there are his eyes. They were crystal blue. Like the water around Wayfarer Island on a sunny, windless day. And his hair. She sighed just thinking about it. It was thick and shiny and inky black.

And that’s before you get to his body. Whoa, momma, what a body. He was so roped with muscle he could’ve been a contender for the WWE. She could easily imagine him throwing an opponent against the ropes or choking out an adversary with his beefy forearm. In short, Mason McCarthy cut a hard, forbidding figure. It was like he’d been built for destruction.