Page 24 of Life, Love and the Pursuit of Happiness

He hummed the tune of Jaws, just to tease her. “Dun dun . . . dun dun . . . dun dun dun . . . dunnnnnnnnnnnnn!”

“Very funny! Not!”

“Actually, shark attacks are rare off the Outer Banks. Although I hear there’s been an odd boom in baby bull sharks this year in some of the bays, including Bell Sound. Probably due to climate change. But not to worry. The babies don’t bite, and, in fact, are really cute.”

“Pfff! Cute or not, if babies are being born, Mama and Papa have gotta be close by. Nope! I do not enter any water with sharks in them. Period.”

“Got it,” he said. “Delilah stays on the boat.”

While Delilah explored with her notebook and pen in hand, he went up on deck, where he could hear footsteps. Charlie was raising the floor hatch under the wheelhouse, accessing the engine room. She was obsessive about safety, with good cause, of course.

Gus and Famosa were pulling neoprene dive suits from built-in storage chests and laying them out on the deck for inspection. Although many divers liked to use their own equipment, there was standard gear for everyone on the boat. It was always good to have spares.

“So, is she off-limits?” Famosa asked right off.

Gus grinned.

Apparently “she” had been the subject of discussion between the two of them before he showed up.

“Who?” Merrill asked. After all, Famosa could be referring to Charlie or Bonita. But Merrill knew. He just knew.

“Blondie,” Famosa replied.

Why don’t you refer to her that way, to her face? Merrill was about to say, but stopped himself. Let Famosa learn the hard way. “Off-limits? I wish! But I have no first rights or anything. Go for it. A little advice, though. Delilah is shy. You might have to be a little aggressive. Hustle hard.”

When Merrill went down below again, he couldn’t find Delilah, at first. When he called out her name, though, he heard a muffled sound coming from the captain’s sleeping quarters. He found her on her knees, face down to the floor, her rear end in the air, running a broom or something under the bed.

For a long moment, he just enjoyed the view.

But then, he hunkered down beside her to see what was going on. “What the hell are you doing?”

Apparently she hadn’t heard him enter the room because her head shot up at the same moment his went down. They butted heads, hard.

“Son of a . . . ouch, ouch, ouch!” she hollered. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Me? I think you cracked my skull open.”

They both tried to rise at the same time and hit heads again. This time he went down, backward, with a crash.

He didn’t lose consciousness, but he was dazed. Not so much that he wasn’t aware of her kneeling over him, touching the rising bumps on his forehead with tentative fingertips.

“Merrill, are you all right? Do I need to call an ambulance?” Her face was so close, he could feel her breath on his lips. Like a kiss.

A breath kiss?

He liked the sound—rather, the thought—of that.

And so he did what he shouldn’t, but what he’d wanted to do since the first time he’d seen her. He put hands on either side of her face and tugged her the few remaining inches closer. Then he locked lips with her in a kiss that was sweet and seeking and innocent as a hello.

But, hello, her lips were parted in surprise . . .

Yay, me!

. . . and because fifteen years on the teams had taught him to grab any window of opportunity before it disappeared . . .

Seize the day!

. . . or because maybe she’d been wanting this as much as he had . . .