She nodded. “Freelance. But mostly of barns and forests. I’d like to move into different subjects. Live action stuff. This is supposed to be an adventure designed to get me out of a rut.”
Jack and Thora—now in the running for the “couple most likely to interrupt at the worst possible time” award—clambered onto the boat chattering about the first clue, and it was a toss-up whether Fitz was going to throttle his buddy or kiss him on the mouth.
If Lilah wanted a passionate adventure of epic proportions, Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Theodore Fitzhugh was precisely the man for that job.
Boats weren’t Lilah’s first choice of transportation. As Jack revved the engine and glided away from the dock, she gripped the slick waterproof material covering the bench and tried not to topple over against Fitz’s chest. She’d accidentally felt him up pretty good earlier, and concrete was softer than the man’s torso. It would definitely not cushion the blow if she lost her balance. Again.
At least he’d moved his arm. The heat of it around her waist had almost caused her to break out in a sweat.
The wind picked up, riffling her hair and blowing it across her eyelashes until she pried her fingers from the cushion and swept it away. Which made her stiff-backed perch on this bench seat precarious again.
“You’re allowed to relax,” Fitz said, and she glanced at him lounging back against the seat as if he was having the time of his life. He’d slipped dark-lensed sunglasses over his gorgeous eyes, which was a tragedy of the highest order. Coupled with the overnight growth of stubble on his jaw, he was by far the most devastating man she’d ever met.
And dangerous. He just had to breathe on her and all sorts of alarm bells and whistles went off in her head. So not safe. But her fingers itched to capture him forever in the lens of her mind. Photographs were worth a thousand words, and she might never get tired of the story called Fitz.
“Easy for you to say. You’ve done this before.” Curiously, she glanced at him. “Navy? Were you a SEAL like Jack?”
“Still am,” he said with an eyebrow waggle. “I don’t bail when we haven’t yet eliminated all the baddies out there in the world.”
Fascinating. She’d seen a couple of the movies they’d made about SEALs, because hello Bradley Cooper and Mark Wahlberg—she’d watch either one of them read the phone book. But the side benefit was that she had a good appreciation for the realities of his job. What he did was legendary. Heroic. And it put Fitz ten times more out of her league.
None of which stopped her from blurting out, “You’re mad at him for quitting.”
He flinched, his expressive face professing the affirmative. “Nah. He’s entitled to live the life that makes sense to him.”
She didn’t call him on the lie because it wasn’t exactly. Obviously, both were true and he hated the conflict. Transfixed, she watched him smile, but it didn’t erase what she saw in his expression. Or the burning desire to dig through her bag for her camera.
Eventually, she was going to have to pull it out. The whole point of this trip was to shake loose the ability to take a decent photograph of a live subject. She wouldn’t find a better one.
But honestly? Photographing him scared the mess out of her. Oh, she didn’t mind fantasizing about it; what he’d look like, how he’d turn his head, what she’d tell him to do in order to get that smolder out of him.
Fantasy was not reality. What if the pictures didn’t come out like she imagined in her mind? What if that was the moment when she realized she sucked, she couldn’t take her career to the next level, and nothing she could do would fix it?
“We’re heading for Green Cay,” Jack shouted over his shoulder as he steered the boat across open water. “Trying to beat all of the others is a trick and a half.”
“Is that the goal?” Fitz yelled back over the rush of the wind.
Seemed like they should have spent more time strategizing before they’d tried to have a conversation at one hundred and eighty-seven miles an hour. But what did she know?
“Yeah. First across the finish line with all ten of the items wins.” Thora’s hair had lost some of its style as the wind tore it apart, which meant Lilah’s must look like a bird’s nest.
But the sun was bright, and the cloudless sky nearly matched the beautiful blue of the water. Land masses rose in the distance like green elephant backs in a row, and behind them, Duchess Island disappeared at a rapid clip. Beautiful. Especially with the man in the foreground. Maybe she could take a picture of both, all casual-like, with the excuse of needing a memento.