The shout tore through Faith’s attention and she glanced over to where Lara was already waist deep in the water.
Darcy grinned. “Ready?”
Her body definitely needed a cool down. To distract herself from his sexy body, she called, “Race you,” and dashed for the water.
Lara yelled, “Go Dad!” and her delight made Faith grin as she raced into the water. Her foot hit a hole and Faith shrieked as she tripped and plunged into the cool, clear ocean.
When Faith surfaced, Lara was laughing. “She beat you, Dad.”
Darcy grinned. “She cheated.”
Faith brushed her wet hair from her face. “I didn’t. You were just too slow.” She winked at Lara.
“She’s right, Dad.” Lara fitted her goggles and submerged.
While Lara swam circles around them, Darcy helped Faith fit her goggles. His gentle fingers brushed the side of her head to tighten the goggles a smidgen.
Faith cleared her throat. “Thanks for letting me win.”
“I didn’t,” he said. “You caught me by surprise.”
The goggles made her feel ridiculous and helped to smother her rampant attraction. “What do I do?”
“The snorkel rests inside your mouth like a mouth guard, but don’t bite down on it.” He showed her and breathed through his mouth, puffing through the snorkel.
Faith followed his instruction, and though the rubber felt weird, it wasn’t uncomfortable.
“Lower your head under the water and keep breathing,” he said.
She bobbed down to her knees and the underwater life came alive below the water. Such incredible clarity, she could see the whale shark pattern on Lara’s bathers as the girl circled her and waved. She waved back.
Darcy tapped her shoulder, and she surfaced, taking the snorkel from her mouth.
“If you want to dive under the water, you need to hold your breath as you would normally and then when you surface, blow it out in a big puff,” he said.
He demonstrated, and the water flew out the end of his snorkel.
She tried it, blowing hard when she surfaced but not hard enough, and she swallowed seawater on her next breath. She coughed, surfacing and spitting the snorkel out. Darcy hurried over and rubbed her back in firm circles and her coughing subsided.
“You all right?”
“Yeah, let me try again.” The next time she blew harder and took a small experimental breath in to make sure she’d cleared her snorkel. It worked. She surfaced, smiling.
“Ready to explore the mangroves?” Darcy asked. “It’s not deep over there so you can stand if you run into any problems.”
“OK.” She couldn’t wait. The water was a perfect temperature and fish darted in and out of the trees’ roots. Another world to explore.
Lara squawked and pointed to a sting ray which swam lazily along the bottom of the ocean.
Magical.
They swam around the mangroves in less than two metres of water, but the array of fish life was incredible. Lara kept grabbing her arm and pointing out things in case Faith had missed them. Faith glanced back to see how far they’d come and froze. Sleek grey fish, tiny eyes, sharp fin, and far, far bigger than the other fish around them.
Shark!
Her immediate thought was of the great white sharks which lived in the waters around Perth.
Faith screamed—or did her best attempt with a tube of plastic in her mouth. The shark’s tail continued a slow back and forth movement as it grew closer. She took her eyes off it momentarily to search for safety. The mangroves were too dense to escape the water through them. Her heart pounded. Darcy’s hand on her arm made her jump and whirl towards him, arms raised in defence. He stood, taking the snorkel out of his mouth. “It’s all right. It’s just a baby reef shark.”
