Page 56 of Between Hello and Goodbye

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

We made our way down the gently swaying dock toward a boat withLucky 13painted 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.

The morning was golden, the sun rising high in a sky of perfect cerulean, while the ocean was a rich midnight blue. Once we arrived at the destination, Captain Gary shut off the engine and explained over his loudspeaker that there was an old sunken barge just under the water.

“The old tanker is more than seventy years old,” Captain Gary said. “The sea has reclaimed it, turning it into a new coral reef habitat. You should be able to see a lot of our local marine and maybe even some sharks.”

I shot Asher a look. “Sharks?”

“Nurse sharks, mostly,” he said. “Only one or two great whites.”

I smirked. “Only.”

Asher’s lips hinted at a grin and for once, the perpetual furrow between his brows was absent. “A dozen, tops.”

The other couples began putting on wetsuits they’d rented from a local shop. I stared helplessly until Asher pulled a women’s wetsuit, short-legged and short-sleeved, from inside his magic duffel bag.

“Where did you get that?” I asked.

“Rental shop.”

“And you didn’t think to consult me first?”

“It saved me the time I would have spent taking you down there and watching you try on a bunch of different suits when I knew this one was going to be perfect.”

I crossed my arms. “There’s a fine line between being helpful and being insufferably presumptuous.”

“Was I wrong?”

I rolled my eyes. “Give it to me.”

I snatched it out of his hands, trying to hold onto my irritation. A pathetic barricade against my attraction to him, but it was useless.

I glanced over just in time to see him remove his shirt in order to put on his own wetsuit. It was the first time I’ve seen him bare-chested. His tight T-shirts had promised that every chiseled ounce of him would be spectacular, and they delivered. Pecs, abs—all highly defined and tanned to a beautiful bronze. A light smattering of hair along his chest—not too much—was the proverbial icing on the cake. I quickly averted my eyes, but the damage had been done.

Damn him. Damn damn damn damn…

I yanked off my sundress. Underneath, I wore a yellow and white striped bikini. Now I felt Asher’s eyes onme, igniting little fires along my skin everywhere they roamed. Instead of hurrying to cover up, I took my time with the wetsuit. I found myself wanting to be sexy for him, to be alone on the boat with him, to let him strip off my suit one piece at a time and put his hands on me wherever he wanted…

Jesus, woman! Snap out of it!