Between Hello and Goodbye(36)

“By the way,” she said softly. “When I said that I wasn’t suggesting you take me to the Canyon, that was a lie. I was one hundred percent hoping you’d take me.”

“I know,” I said in a low voice.

She toyed with her fork as her eyes rose to meet mine. “Are we in trouble, firefighter?”

I understood her meaning. Because I could read her, and she could read me, and neither one of us wanted to do much else besides figure each other out.

“Not yet,” I said quietly. “But we’re getting there .”





Chapter Nine



Asher arrived the next morning to take me snorkeling at the ungodly hour of six thirty a.m. Per his usual, he barged in, this time with a duffel bag in hand, just as I was about to smear sunscreen on my face.

“Stop.”

I froze as he crossed to me, took the lotion out of my hands, and scanned the label.

“Morning, sunshine,” I said. “Hey, what—?”

Asher strode over to the kitchen trashcan and chucked the lotion. “This is not reef safe. It’ll kill the coral.”

“Oh shit, I had no idea. I’m more of a pool gal, so I didn’t think about it. Forgive me?”

“It’s cool, I got you.” He pulled out a bottle from his duffel. “Use this.”

“Thanks.”

The man really needed to stop saying I got you. He’d noticed when he said it last night, but this morning it rolled off his tongue like it was nothing. It sent a little shiver down my spine and made me want to be…gotten.

“Welp, I hope the fish are awake and ready for me.” I took up my crutches. “Shall we?”

“Wait, I have something for you.”

Asher rummaged in his bag and pulled out a neoprene ankle sleeve. “It’s waterproof and will help keep you stable.”

I smiled at his consideration. “You think of everything, don’t you?”

Also, per his usual, the compliment bounced off him and he turned to practical matters.

“If at any time today you feel like it’s too much, or anything starts to hurt, let me know. Here let me…”

I’d sat back down on the couch to put on the sleeve, but Asher swiftly knelt and began unwinding the Ace bandage from my foot.

“The last thing you want is to re-injure yourself,” he said as he worked.

“You still haven’t told me how I’ll snorkel if I can’t swim,” I said, watching his large hands gently but skillfully slip on the neoprene sleeve over my lumpy ankle that was much less lumpy than it had been just a few days ago.

“You’ll see.” He finished his work, still holding my foot. “All set.”

“Thank you, Asher,” I said softly.

His dark eyes met mine and held for a moment. Then he blinked and abruptly stood up.

“Let’s go.”



Driving as if someone had put a bomb in his car that would detonate if we went slower than eighty, Asher took us to a little marina near a town called Poipu in the south of Kauai. In the parking lot, he pulled a small surfboard from the back of his Jeep and tucked it under his arm.

“I think your hopes for me are running a little high,” I teased.

“You’ll lay on top of the surfboard and put your face in the water. I’ll do all the swimming.”

“I guessed that was your plan, but can we still technically call that snorkeling?”

“You’re going to see everything. Trust me.”

Oh, I did, that was the problem. I trusted Asher more than I’d trusted any man for just about any reason, outside of Silas. What I did not trust was my stupid heart. My body lusted after Asher Mackey; that was to be expected. But I was beginning to want him in a way that had nothing to do with sex, and that was downright terrifying.

Asher had already taken a few steps down the wooden-plank dock. “You coming?”

I blinked out of my unsettling thoughts and crutched after him.

We made our way down the gently swaying dock toward a boat with Lucky 13 painted on her bow. There, we met a couple in their early sixties. Asher clasped hands with the man and kissed his wife on the cheek and introduced them to me as Captain Gary and his wife Cindy.

“You’ve been running charters for…what is it now?” Asher asked.

“About forty years.” Captain Gary turned to me. “Charters, fishing, whale watching, funeral services… We’ve done it all.”

“Funeral services?”

“Yep,” Cindy said, nodding with a gentle smile. “We’ve laid a lot of ashes in these waters.”

“Oh.”

Asher leaned into me. “It’s not a taboo subject around these parts.”

Captain Gary smiled. “But where are my manners? Aloha, Faith. Let’s get you aboard. Carefully, eh?”

He gave me his arm—wiry and tanned from decades on the sea. Asher offered the other—bulging with muscle and obscenely sexy wearing that black and white TAG watch. With their help, I hopped down the precarious two steps into the boat, where we joined two other couples and a mom and dad with their little boy.

Ten minutes later, Captain Gary guided the boat to open water while his first mate wife tied and untied rigging and climbed over rails and around posts with a casual agility that was awesome to witness.