Beka shrugged tanned shoulders. “We’ll see.” She looked past him to where Chico and Kenny were standing, watching the show. “If it’s too rough to dive, Fergus and I will just help around the ship.” She cast Kenny a particularly sunny smile, and the poor kid almost fell overboard. “I’m a pretty quick study; you guys just point to where you need me, tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
Marcus watched in amazement as Chico’s weathered face split into a grin. Kenny he understood; the kid was young, and Beka looked like a mythic goddess risen from the sea. But Chico was a grandfather, slow moving and even tempered. He sent most of his wages to his family back in Mexico, and Marcus had never seen him even so much as glance at any of the half-naked women who decorated the beaches and piers of Santa Carmelita. But one smile from Beka and the ugly old bandito just twirled his long mustache and cleared off a place for her to put her gear as they motored slowly out of port.
If he didn’t know better, he’d say she’d cast a spell on all of them—his crabby father, the taciturn old Hispanic, and the starry-eyed young twerp currently gaping at her with a face like a guppy. Thank god Marcus was immune, or they’d all be in a world of trouble.
*
TWO HOURS OUT of port, the seas were rougher, the skies were darker, and the rain had turned from drizzle to deluge. Marcus tried one more time to convince his father to turn around and take them back in, but the stubborn old man had only said, “You catch more fish in bad weather than good, boyo,” and went off to sit in front of the sonar screen, glaring at it grimly as it continued to reflect an empty ocean. At least that way he was in the cabin, out of the chilly rain, Marcus thought, and went to deal with his other problem.
Surprisingly, Beka hadn’t put up much of a fight when they’d reached her proposed dive site and Marcus had insisted that the water was too wild for her to go in. She’d just raised an eyebrow at Fergus, who had taken a long, hard look over the side and slowly shaken his head.
“Well, crap,” she’d said with a shrug. “At least I tried.”
Marcus tried not to be put out that she’d paid more attention to one headshake from her pal Fergus than to a whole slew of reasonable arguments from him. And then he’d tried not to be even more annoyed by the way she and Fergus had both pitched in as promised, helping to batten down everything on deck and prepare the nets in case a school of fish miraculously appeared out of the wind and mists. As with her diving, her movements were controlled and efficient, and she seemed to have no trouble keeping her footing on the slippery, wave-swept deck.
She and Fergus finished up the last of the tasks he’d given them and came over to join Marcus in the bow of the boat. He caught another whiff of strawberries and sunlight, although it should have been impossible to smell anything but sea and salt and fish guts. As always, it made his heart race, and he had to take a deep breath of briny air to clear his head.
Fergus gave him a piercing look accompanied by a wry smile, and then gazed out over the churning ocean. “Does your father really think we will find fish out in this tempest?”
Marcus sighed. “I don’t know if he believes it, or if he is just too stubborn to give up. Anyone with any sense either didn’t go out today or went back early, so if we catch anything, we’ll get prime dollar for it. I suspect he needs the money.” He eyed Beka, who wore a slightly guilty expression. “Either way, the fish haven’t been running in their usual patterns or showing up in the places they would normally be at this time of year, so I don’t know why he thinks bad weather is going to change anything.”
Under his red hair, slicked back with rain until it looked much darker than usual and currently dripping down the back of his neck, Fergus’s face was thoughtful as he gazed at the watery surface before them.
“There is truth in that, undeniably,” he said in the slightly formal way he had of speaking. Marcus thought it sounded like he came from some foreign country, except he didn’t have an accent. “We have noticed that as well. The fish are not where they are supposed to be, and they are turning up in the oddest spots instead.”
“We?” Marcus asked, a little suspicious. “I thought you said you didn’t fish much.” Could the man be spying out his father’s fishing routes for some rival?
Beka and Fergus exchanged wordless glances; Fergus blinked wetness out of his eyes with absurdly long lashes. “Er, us divers, I mean.”
Uh-huh.
Beka stirred restlessly beside him, distracting in her nearness. “If I can find us some fish, do you think your father will agree to go back in?”
Marcus snorted. “Sure. Why, do you have some hidden up your sleeve?”
Fergus rolled his eyes, gesturing at Beka’s skimpy attire. “And where in that ridiculous getup do you think she could hide so much as a pea?”