“Ahhh.” Dar nodded solemnly. “How about we figure out breakfast first?” She arched her back and stretched. “For one thing, thinking requires my brain to boot up, and for another, I’m not sure I want to waste the synapse firing on them.”
“Even after what happened the other night?” Kerry asked.
Dar shrugged. “They ended up grounding their boat,” she reminded Kerry. “We won. Why push it?”
Kerry eased up onto an elbow and studied Dar. “You’re not curious as to why they did it?” Her voice rose in surprise. “Or what they’re after?”
Another shrug indicated Dar’s ambivalence. “Yes, I’m curious, but I don’t know that I’m curious enough to waste part of our vacation on tracking it all down and sorting it out,” Dar answered honestly. “If I really wanna know, I can find out when we get home and make their lives miserable retroactively.”
Kerry ran her fingers through her hair as she considered that.
“Well, yeah,” she said. “I can see your point, but what if they do something else?”
Dar half turned on her side to face Kerry, and perched on an elbow, mimicking her posture. “I’d say they’d be stupider than I thought they were, but if they do, then we’ll have to deal with whatever happens,” she said. “But I’d rather forget about them until then.”
Kerry’s brow puckered. “I don’t like it,” she admitted, thinking about the angles as Dar waited for her with commendable patience.
“I want to know what they were up to, and why they were chasing us, and what’s so important about that patch of water.”
Dar relaxed onto her back and put her hands behind her head.
“Okay,” she said. “How?”
“Hm?”
“Aside from chasing them down and demanding they tell us what they’re up to, how do you figure on finding out what’s going on?”
Kerry sat up cross-legged and rested her elbows on her bare knees. “Well…” she began, then stopped.
“We planning on following them around?” Dar inquired, with the barest hint of a twinkle in her eyes.
“No.” Kerry shook her head. “I guess you’re right. Unless they Terrors of the High Seas 111
approach us again, there’s really no way to do this.” She looked up at Dar, who was gazing back at her. “You already figured all that out, didn’t you?”
Dar pointed a finger at herself. “Me?”
Kerry poked her in the ribs. “Yes, you, little Ms. Ice-Cream-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth.” She sprawled across Dar’s middle, pinning her to the bed. “It just bites my shorts to let those scurvies mess with us and walk away.”
“They didn’t,” Dar reminded her. “They’re probably laying out ten grand for patched fiberglass right now, remember?”
“Mm,” Kerry grunted. “But won’t that make them want to get back at us?”
“Maybe,” Dar conceded. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Kerry gracefully bowed to the logic of it. Dar’s points were good ones. Unless they were willing to get the local authorities involved and press charges—of what nature she didn’t know—there really was no investigating they could do outside of direct confrontation or some back alley skulking. She didn’t feel like skulking, and while she had every confidence that they could present a very effective direct confrontation, she understood Dar’s reluctance to engage in conflict. “Okay,” she agreed. “Now, weren’t we discussing breakfast?”
Dar grinned.
“How about we toss on some clothes and go foraging?” Kerry suggested. “I think I saw a little place out by the beach we could try,” she said. “Right next to the windsurfing area.”
“Ah ha.” Dar chuckled good-naturedly. “I sense an ulterior motive.” She took hold of Kerry’s hand and held it, for no particular reason other than wanting the contact. “I don’t want to hear you complaining tonight about getting bounced off the ocean the whole day.”
Kerry smiled. “Yeah, but if I whine enough, you’ll give me a massage,” she countered. “Besides, maybe I’ll have better luck than I did last time. I’ve been doing some upper body work at the gym.”
Dar’s eyes wandered over Kerry’s upper body and a cheeky grin appeared. “I’ve never had a problem with that part of you,”
she drawled. “To hell with windsurfing.”
“Wench.” Kerry laughed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
She sat up and flexed both arms, showing off her biceps. “See?”
An even bigger grin creased Dar’s face at the view. Kerry’s arms and shoulders had gotten more defined, but the expression of uninhibited pride on her face was what really made Dar smile. “I surely do see,” she agreed, giving Kerry’s leg a pat. “Maybe you’ll be pulling my butt out of the water this time. C’mon.”
They rolled off the bed together in a tangle, only barely getting 112 Melissa Good their balance before they ended up crashing into the wall. Taking advantage of their positioning by the windows, they peered out.
“Gorgeous day,” Kerry observed, seeing the bright sunlight and the breeze blowing the branches nearby. “But we’re gonna need sunscreen.”
“Waterproof,” Dar agreed, picking up the bottle from the dresser. “I slather you, you slather me?”
“You’re on,” Kerry replied. “Then let’s go find some biscuits.
I’m starving.”
“With or without clothing?”
“Dar.”
“Heh heh.”
KERRY FOLLOWED DAR out onto the beach, feeling her stride change as they moved from the wooden boardwalk into the sand.
“Ah, nothing like coming out to the islands to get some really exotic cuisine,” she commented.
Dar chuckled. “I thought the bagels were pretty good.”
“They were,” Kerry agreed. “I just never figured on coming to St. Johns, AVI for bagel and lox.”
“Playing to the marketplace.” Dar guided her down toward where the windsurfing boards were stacked. “You want to stretch out for a few minutes, or start the torture now?”
“Tch.” Kerry bumped her. “Hey, if you really don’t want to do this, we don’t have to.”
Dar’s lips quirked into a smile. “Nah,” she said. “I just like spending time under the water more than skating on top of it. I’ll live.”
Kerry eased in front of her as they reached the kiosk, meeting the friendly grin of the man behind it with one of her own. “Two.”
She indicated herself, then Dar, then handed him her credit card.
“We’ve done this before.”
He took them through the safety drill anyway, Kerry noted.
Possibly because he’d heard tourists claim bogus experience before.
She listened attentively, checking out the rig to make sure there wasn’t anything new or unusual on it. They’d windsurfed several times before—at the island, and the last time they’d gone to Key West. Kerry had really enjoyed it, though it had only been the last time that she’d been able to truly master the mast without getting pulled butt over teakettle by the wind. “Thanks.” She acknowledged the end of the instructions and took hold of the crossbar. “Ready?”
Dar finished inspecting her board, then nodded. “Ready.” Side by side, they moved into the shallow, crystal clear water and headed for the deeper sections. “Not that much wind today,” Dar Terrors of the High Seas 113
observed.
“Enough.” Kerry felt the breeze flutter her hair. They were both dressed in shortie wetsuits, and she was looking forward to getting into deeper water because the neoprene was getting pretty warm in the sun. It had taken her time to get used to wearing the substance, and to the smell of it. The wetsuits fit snugly, zipped up the back, and after she’d taken the time to break hers in, it had gotten pretty comfortable. They did tend to squeak a bit when dry, though, and unless you were in the water, they were capable of sweating pounds off you if you weren’t careful.