Page 26 of Priceless (Return to Culloden Moor #7)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I f time couldn’t stop, I hoped we were a long way from where we were headed.

But twenty minutes passed in a blink, and Jess got to her feet.

At the end of her row of seats, she tapped a little screen, then let out a shrill whistle that got Mason’s attention.

He slowed the boat and the wind dwindled to a breeze.

She pointed toward a patch of mildly rougher water. “Here,” she said. “We’ll try a drift. Current’s right.”

When we reached the edge of that patch, the engine cut altogether. Gulls gathered above us, crying for fish or scraps we didn’t yet have.

Jacob reluctantly let go of me, then stood and helped me get steady before heading for the back of the boat.

Banner joined him. While I waited for instructions, I turned in a circle.

The little hills were barely visible on two sides.

Behind us, nothing but water. Ahead of us, blue, terrifying desolation.

We were all alone. Floating, by the grace of God, on top of a world teaming with things that wanted to eat us. Just like the seagulls, waiting impatiently for scraps of me that hadn’t yet fallen overboard!

The North Sea wasn’t a smooth sheet like a lake, and I couldn’t pretend it was solid. It created its own layers and folded onto itself, dark under light, light under dark. How could anyone watch it and not imagine what lurked beneath? How were these people so calm?

“Breathe,” Jacob said, close behind me. “If Christ could walk on it, we certainly can float on it, aye?”

In my present state of fight or flight, I could no longer say what Christ could or couldn’t do. I only knew what I couldn’t do, which was stand there. But there was nowhere to flee—except for into the mouths of monsters.

Come on! Get a grip! You’re unworthy of him if you can’t handle a little boat ride!

And I so wanted to be worthy. So I pretended I had done this a million times.

This was just a play and I was playing a role.

A woman who wanted to catch a fish, who wanted to play the game, who wanted to see what the ocean had to offer her.

The gifts would be living and slippery, but how big would they be?

Banner passed rods forward, and Jess and I moved to the railing where she slipped a half-inflated life jacket over my head.

I gave her a hundred percent of my attention while she talked me through the gear.

Tug here to inflate the rest. How to work the reel.

Where to cast. Thankfully, she baited my hook for me.

“Cod if we’re lucky,” she said. “Maybe pollack. Mackerel will hit fast if they’re about.”

“I just don’t want to catch anything too ugly,” I said. I figured if I could be funny, it might pass for being brave.

“Jacob, over here!” Banner was setting up on the other side of the boat. “Men against the women. Let’s show these lassies how it is done, aye?”

Jacob looked at me, worried. “What do ye say?”

I shrugged. “I want to know what I’m playing for!”

Jess grinned. “If the women win, we get…drinks served to us in our hot tub!”

That sounded good to me, especially if that hot tub was back in Inverness and we could go there as soon as possible.

I tried to ignore the fact that hot tubbing was probably the first choice of date activity for those on dating sites.

There was also the minor detail that I hadn’t brought a swimsuit.

Who expects to go swimming in Scotland in September? I would just have to dangle my feet in.

Although, I was interested in what Jacob looked like under all those layers…

Jess shouted at her husband. “And what do ye want for a prize, my favorite Jacobite?”

He laughed. “We get to serve ye those drinks in the hot tub!”

She rolled her eyes. “Not much of a competition, then, is it?”

I shrugged. “It’s hard to want anything if you already have everything you want.” I glanced pointedly at Jacob.

Jess groaned. “Ye’re hopeless, and no help a’tall.”

I tried again. “How about money? I’ll put in a hundred dollars.”

The others agreed to do the same, as long as hot tubbing was included.

The pot would be split either between the men or the women.

I’d already saved more than a hundred bucks since I hadn’t paid for a meal since I arrived in Inverness.

I didn’t know if there would be a fee for pushing back my departure flight, but I decided that, if we won, that’s what it would go toward.

If we lost, it was a sign that I needed to go home when I’d promised.

Though, to be fair, I’d only promised myself and Whitney…

Now that the race was on, and I actually wanted to win, I turned around and faced the open sea and concentrated on getting my hook in the water.

One look at that planet-sized pool of monsters, however, and I suddenly didn’t care who won.

I just wanted it to be over as fast as possible.

How long could it take for four people to catch a fish anyway?

A half hour? Maybe we’d be back on dry land before it was time to see what Trenton had packed for lunch!

I started by keeping my attention on the birds, the sky, the banks of clouds in the distance.

But I always ended up looking for the spot where my line met the water, waiting for tension in the line, dreading how hard these Scottish fish would fight.

The only thing I’d ever caught in my life was rainbow trout and a perch or two.

I’d seen others struggle to land a salmon, but I’d never had anything that large on the end of my line.

I assumed I was about to.

Jess handed me her pole and fetched us all a cold can of Coke. She popped the top of hers and raised it. “To never marrying eejits!” Then she and Banner shared a secret look.

He echoed her. “To never marrying eejits!”

“Amen,” I said.

Jacob waited until he caught my eye. “To big fish and hot tubs!”

We all laughed, and I repeated it, though with a small change. “To big fish on this side of the boat, and to hot tubs!”

I got used to the rhythm of the rocking.

The gulls complained, the firth rolled along oblivious to our presence.

I kept my smile, but it didn’t feel pasted on anymore.

It felt earned. I kept my attention away from the water at our feet, however, so I didn’t accidentally see something I didn’t want to.

Caffeine was the last thing I needed, but I drank anyway.

Soon after our toasts, Banner called out.

He had something on the line. I hadn’t put two and two together—the deeper we fished, the longer it took to reel all that line back in.

So it was a long wait to see how big a gift the ocean had given him.

“A haddock,” Jess said, when the still-fighting fish was finally in the boat.

It was really dark gray on the back and bright silver on the belly.

Pointed fins. Not ugly at all. When it weighed in at twelve pounds, Jess shook her head.

“Not to worry. We can beat that one easy with a pollock or a cod.”

With my drink in one hand and the other on my pole, something nearly yanked it clean away. I dropped my half-can of sticky pop and apologized for the spill as I struggled to hold on.

Jess whooped and hollered.

Jacob was beside me before I had a chance to panic. “Well done, Laira! Ye’ve got more than a haddock for sure!”

Though the end of my pole bent nearly in half, he never tried to take it from me, never offered to reel it in.

Paul wouldn’t have asked. He would have just taken it from my hands and told me he’d handle it, say that I wasn’t strong enough, imply that the fish would get away if he left it to me. And I would have let him.

Jacob had already praised me, and I hadn’t done anything more than drop my line in the water.

It took forever to reel in the line. And the more I wound it, the harder the fish fought back. Something broke the surface, but I missed it.

“Cod!” Jess shouted.

Cod? Cod was good. Cod might be a winner. Cod might mean I could stay in Jacob’s world a little longer.

“I don’t know,” I said. “My arms are?—”

“Ye can do it, lass.” He moved behind me and slipped his arms around my waist. “The beastie will rest, and so can ye. That’s it. Just hold the pole for a wee bit. I’m sure it’s well and truly hooked. Just as I am.”

Jess’s head snapped around to give him a look. I rewound his words in my head and listened to them again.

What had Jocko said?

Definitely keep the big ones, lass. Ye’ll be glad ye did.

A delicious shot of adrenaline sped through my veins, and I started reeling again. Mason started the engine and moved the boat a little closer to the fish, giving me some slack to make my job easier.

Suddenly, the cod showed me it had only been playing with me. With one massive pull, I nearly came out of Jacob’s arms and over the railing. I screamed, but I didn’t let go.

“Laira!” He caught my coat and pulled me back. We both took a step away from the rail. The end of the pole looked like it was going to snap, even though it was bigger and thicker than any pole I’d ever seen. I couldn’t believe the piano-wire line hadn’t already snapped.

Jess cursed. I didn’t recognize the words, but I knew a curse when I heard one.

I blinked furiously and found where the line went into the water, and just beyond it, something long and gray, like a long boney arm, sliced in a wide circle and disappeared.

“That…that wasn’t a fin,” I stuttered. “Too long for a f…fin. Right?”

“It’s a thresher,” Jacob said. His sober tone scared the crap right out of me.

Thresher? My brain scrambled. A thresher shark?

“Mason, bring me a knife!” he shouted, then lowered his voice again. “Hold on, lass. We’ll cut the line. Dinnae fash.”

It was Banner who showed up with a knife.

Jacob pulled me back and gestured to bring the pole sideways, so Banner could reach the end.

The shorter man was only inches away when the line went slack.

The end of the pole shot up straight. Without the need to pull, my momentum sent me stumbling back against Jacob.

“Must have spit out the cod,” Jess said, watching the water like a hawk. “Can ye reel it in?”

I resumed winding, still playing the role of Brave American, pretending I hadn’t just been physically connected to the biggest phobia of my life. Pretending I didn’t want to curl into a ball, hide under the seats, and wait for rescue like the girl in the movie.

“Auch, here we go,” Banner said, leaning over the railing and peering straight down. I should have known better, but I looked. I thought I was watching two flat white fish slowly rising through the water, headed for the surface. But the water all around them was inky black.

The millisecond I realized two killer whales were coming my way, already looking for me, I literally felt my heart stop.

And I was grateful.