Sea of Love(18)

“Frigging beast,” Rob said.

The more Rob grumbled, the more it rode Dane’s nerves. Ever since Hugh had mentioned a hangover, he’d been watching Rob, and after seeing his bloodshot eyes, Dane wasn’t so sure Hugh was wrong.

“Damn, they’re so close. Look at that big one. When will they take the hook?” Hugh asked.

Rob leaned against the rail. “When they’re damn good and ready,” he snapped.

“He’s having a hard time,” Dane said to Hugh.

“Hey, whatever. I’m just glad I get to be here. I looked for you last night. I thought you left the resort early,” Hugh said.

Dane gritted his teeth. The last thing he wanted to talk about was the previous evening. He was trying to keep his mind off of the fact that Lacy was ignoring his calls.

“Where’d you go?” Hugh asked. “I saw Lacy in the hall at the resort.”

“You did? At midnight?” What the hell?

“Yeah. I asked her where you were, and she said she thought you turned in early but that you might be with someone else.” Hugh shrugged. “I figured some kind of shit went down between you two.”

“With someone else? Who does she think I—” The clicker on the fishing reel ticked repeatedly as the line was drawn out, catching Dane’s attention. “Bite. We’ve got a bite.”

Rob jumped to his feet and helped Dane strap the harness around his waist and legs. Dane scanned Rob’s face. Whether it was the adrenaline rush that came along with tagging or the fresh sea air, Rob looked much clearer than he had moments before. The color had returned to his cheeks. They were done in seconds. Then Dane strapped himself into the fighting chair, or what Dane jokingly called the death chair. The death chair was constructed of wood and metal and secured to the boat deck. It had a foot plate that Dane used to further gain control while he reeled in the shark. The chair rotated with the movement of the fish, and Dane’s legs strained against the pressure.

“You sure that’s safe?” Hugh asked.

“It better be.” Dane pulled back on the line until it was tight, then yanked three or four times—hard.

“Let him run with it,” Rob said.

Dane was used to this part of the game. He could tell by the feel of the pull that this would be about a two-hour ordeal of wrestling to maintain control while tiring out the shark and finally bringing it in for tagging. He readied himself for a long, hot afternoon. Good. It’ll keep me from thinking about Lacy.

An hour and a half later, the veins in Dane’s arms and legs strained against his skin. His hands were locked to the reel and rod, his biceps bulging. Sweat drenched his forehead as he wrestled the rod and brought the eight-foot great white toward the boat.

“Rob!” Where the hell is he? “Shit. Tim, grab the tail line. Hugh, where the fuck is Rob?”

“I’ll get him. He was taking a piss,” Hugh said.

Dane kept his eyes trained on the shark. “What?” No one takes a piss when a shark is on the line. He couldn’t bitch about it now. He had a shark to tag. “This is the hardest part, Tim. Grab the tailer.”

Tim picked up the long metal tool by the handle and scanned the flexible cable and strong line. Dane watched him run his hand quickly along the line and follow the loop back on the cable to the handle, checking the security of the D-shaped flexible loop. “Got it,” Tim said.

Dane unhooked himself from the seat, working to keep the shark close to the boat. “Rob!”

“Right here,” Rob said. His lids were heavy, and his cheeks were once again flushed.

“You okay to do this?” Dane asked.

“Hell yes.” Rob carried the hand tools for tagging the shark.

Dane grabbed Rob’s arm. “Dude. No risks. If you’re not up to this, do not touch the shark.”

Rob pulled his arm from Dane’s grasp. “I got this. We’re gonna have a good run.”

“What can I do?” Hugh asked.

Dane watched Rob out of the corner of his eye. He recognized Rob’s reaction to the shot of adrenaline that Dane knew all too well when a shark was finally within their grasp. Rob moved more confidently, and Dane wondered if—and hoped that—Hugh had been wrong after all. “Tim’s gonna hook his tail, and I’ve got the head. While Rob’s securing the tag to the dorsal fin, you hold on to the fin too and hold him as still as you can,” Dane said.

“What about that thing I read about…tonic immobility?” Hugh asked.

“You read about that?” Dane asked. Dane could hardly believe his brother had read up on what he did for a living. Tonic immobility was a technique used by several taggers—by flipping the shark upside down, they put the shark into a natural state of paralysis, or a trancelike state, for fifteen minutes, after which time the shark would right itself and swim away, unharmed.

“My life is more than racing and women,” Hugh said.

“I never would have guessed,” Dane said with a wink. “We use tonic immobility occasionally, but it’s not our go-to measure.” The shark fought and lashed from side to side, arching to one side and then the other. Tim struggled with getting the tailer on the shark.

Impressed with Hugh’s knowledge, and trusting his strength and intelligence, Dane hollered to him, “Hugh, help him?”

“Got it.” As if he’d been catching sharks forever, Hugh timed the action perfectly and secured the loop over the shark’s tail on the first try. He pulled back, and the cable slid down and tightened around the shark’s tail. “Ha-ha!” Hugh yelled. “That’s a Braden for you.”

Rob went to work tagging the shark. He positioned the hand tool on the dorsal fin and injected the one-inch tether, attaching the tag.

“Usually we like to get blood work, approximate weight, length, girth, but today we’re just tagging,” Dane explained to Hugh as he huffed and puffed, wrestling with the line to keep the shark reeled in close. “I hate to not get this sucker’s length and girth.”

Rob looked at him and smiled. “I got this.”

“What?” Hugh asked, looking from Rob to Dane.

“Your brother wants to jump in and get a good feel for this monster’s girth,” Rob said.

“You wanna jump in?” Hugh asked.

Dane looked past his adrenaline and really studied Rob’s face. “Man, you don’t look too good.”

Rob finished tagging the shark and wiped his eyes. “Go, will you?” he snapped.

“You look sick. Let’s skip this one,” Dane said.

“I’m fine,” Rob said. “You gonna do this or what? We got about seven minutes. Tops.” They always kept their tagging and tests to less than fifteen minutes for the safety of the shark. “Fuck this. Get your ass in there. I’m fine. I told you—I was tired, but I’m fine now,” Rob said.

“Tired doesn’t equate to safe,” Dane said.

“Fuck this.” Rob stripped his shirt off and jumped off the boat a foot from the shark’s tail.

“Goddamn it. Hold that sucker tight, Hugh. Tim, gimme the tailer.” Fucking Rob. What the hell are you doing? Dane’s heart slammed against his chest as he searched the water for his friend while gripping the tailer with all his might. He knew Rob would swim under the shark and use his arms to estimate the shark’s girth, but the water was too murky to see him.

Rob popped up beside the shark. “Got it.” He had a grin on his face as he swam to the side of the boat. Just as he started to climb into the boat, the shark flailed, and Rob lost his balance and sank back into the water.

“Shit. Tim, get him in this fucking boat!” Dane hollered.

Rob swam over, and Tim helped him into the boat. Dane began the process of freeing the shark from the line and the tailer.

“What the hell was that? Rule number one: Never fucking do anything unanticipated. What the hell, Rob? What was that shit?” Dane yelled.

Rob sat with his elbows on his knees, wiping the water from his shit-ass grin. “A girth of about five feet.”

“You son of a bitch,” Dane said.





THEY PULLED INTO the slip around four in the afternoon and docked the boat. While Dane was pleased that they’d tagged a shark, he was livid. He watched Rob step off the boat and run the crook of his elbow down his face. For the first time in ten years, his faith in Rob faltered.

“What was that shit out there?” Dane asked.

“Hey, you know what? You only go around once, and living safe did me no good.” Rob shrugged. “I needed a little adventure.” He slapped Dane on the back. “We had a good run.”

“A good run, my ass. You’re worrying me, Rob. Wanna go grab a bite and talk for a bit?” Dane asked.

“Nah. I’m tired. I’m hitting the shower, then calling it a night,” Rob said, waving to Tim.

Rob’s trouble with Sheila and his behavior on the boat weighed heavily on Dane’s mind. He needed to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. He didn’t think Rob was drinking again, but he also had never seen Rob do anything that could jeopardize a mission—and today he was just plain careless.

Dane grabbed Rob’s arm as he walked past. “Listen, I know you’re having trouble with Sheila, but you can’t do that shit. You sure you don’t want to talk about this?”