Page 31

Within minutes, they were pulling up behind the enormous yacht. If there was such a thing as a sleek, sexy, sinful boat,Midnight’s Mistresswas it.

She twisted around to ask Boone about it when a movement just to the right of the boat caught her eye. She could have sworn something moved just under the surface of the water.

Her heart kicked the center of her chest when it happened again. Was that a fin?

It couldn’t be a fin in water this cold, right? At least she didn’t have to worry about it being a shark. Sharks didn’t bob in and out of the water. She’d watched all the Jaws movies. Shark fins stayed up once they broke through the water until just before they attacked.

“Um, Boone, I mean, Daddy?” she called out.

“Yes?” He kept his attention on the horizon.

There it went again. The fin popped up, this time attached to a curved black back, only now there were two of them. They were multiplying.

“Daddy?”

“What is it, Bluebell? What are you looking at?” His gaze followed her line of sight.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I think it’s a dolphin, and there’s more than one.”

The closer they got, and the lighter the early morning sky grew, the less they looked like Flipper. They actually looked like Orca, only smaller.

Her breathing sped up, drying out her mouth. She wasn’t going to drown. She was going to be breakfast for two killer whales. Pushing off her place cradled between Boone’s thighs, she rose to her knees.

“Tildi, sit back down,” Boone yelled.

She ignored him. She needed to be on her knees to scan the water for more fins. “There!” she screamed, pointing to the water only thirty yards away from the Zodiac. Or what Tildi liked to call way, way too close. “See, Daddy? They’re over there!”

“I see them, Bluebell. They aren’t going to hurt us. Now, sit your ass down in the boat before I cut the motor and make the rest of this trip much more uncomfortable for you.”

She knew what that meant. The last thing she wanted was for him to spank her again. If she did as he said, though, she wouldn’t be able to keep track of the fins. She compromised by sitting on her heels. “What are they? Are they killer whales, Daddy? Are they sharks?”

“No, babygirl. Those are called Dall’s porpoises. They won’t hurt us, and if you watch, you might see that they are swimming alongside a?—”

He didn’t get to finish that statement.

Without warning, the most gigantic creature she had ever seen shot out of the water. It was as big as a cruise ship, maybe bigger. Spreading its fins out like wings, it bellyflopped backdown, shooting water in every direction and making huge waves that rolled out in every direction.

Tildi couldn’t help it. All she could think to do was run. Screaming, she shot to her feet, but the first wave hit the side of the boat, tipping it up high. With nothing to hold on to, she stumbled backward, flailing her arms to find anything to grab hold of, but there was nothing but cold air.

She lost her footing and tumbled back. The small of her back hit the low side of the boat. Fingers of freezing water pulled at her hair and slashed across her scalp and neck. She was going to land in the water right beside the giant sea monster.

Clawing uselessly at the rubbery side of the boat, she prepared herself to meet her fate. At the last second, a band of iron clamped around her ankle and reeled her back inside the safety of the boat. It turned out to be more of a hand of iron, she decided, when her Daddy flipped her over his knee and delivered ten stinging swats to her bottom before planting her on the floor of the boat.

She’d seen him angry before, but this was the first time his fury was directed at her. “If you lift your butt off the bottom of this boat again before I tell you to, I will bust your tail so hard you’ll wince when other people sit down. Do you hear me, young lady?”

“Yes, Daddy. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, darlin’. Now we can put it behind us unless you move again. Being sorry won’t keep you from drowning. So, when I say do not move, I mean it. Do. Not. Move.”

She didn’t think it wise to move, so she settled for nodding.

Once they got back on their way and the fins had disappeared, she braved his wrath to ask, “I was running from the sea monster earlier. What kind was it, Daddy?”

He stared at her, and she wished she’d stayed quiet. He’d probably changed his mind about wanting her to go to his ranchwith him. Her breath hitched at the thought. She’d been looking forward to seeing it and meeting his family.

Not that she blamed him. She was a lot of trouble. Maybe if she could just stay out of his way until they made it to Seattle, she could find a waitressing job and scrape together enough to start over.

“Whatever you’ve got going on in that brain of yours, Bluebell, just shut it down. I can tell it’s not anything good. Look at me, baby. Did you mind Daddy?”