“It’s like Tony said, accidents happen, and we don’t know if Stonefish is still around.” He placed the esky into the boat. She wanted to be snarky about him always being prepared, but all the men on the station carried extra water and food in case something cropped up. And she hadn’t even considered that.
She sighed. They’d be in the water most of the time, and the boat’s engine was too noisy for conversation. She could suck it up for a couple of hours. She’d been doing it for years.
They both climbed aboard the small fibreglass boat, and Matt sat in the seat next to hers as she slowly headed out across the gulf. The water was still and glassy, so she pushed the motor faster, which had the additional benefit of being too loud to enable conversation. Not that Matt tried to speak. He stared out at the ocean lost in his own thoughts. When was the last time she’d been alone with Matt?
Last night didn’t count because her family were just inside the house, and the same when they went to the ridge earlier.
It must be years since they had travelled into town together or gone horse riding just the two of them. She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.
It took about half an hour to get to Retribution Island, and she slowed as she approached, knowing the reef wasn’t far below the surface. The last thing she needed was to get wrecked on the same reef as both ships. She motored around the back to the eastern side. There was a small chance her family might give up on the treasure hunt and decide to go swimming this afternoon.
Matt threw out the anchor in a clear spot where there was a sandy bottom. Georgie cut the engine and the sudden silence was startling. “You don’t have any bathers.”
“That never stopped me.” The insolent grin he gave shot heat straight to her core.
She swallowed and answered, “You’re not worried about getting burnt?”
“I’m fairly sure you’ll have sun cream in that beach bag of yours,” he replied. “And probably a spare set of goggles.”
Damn it, he knew her too well. She slipped off her T-shirt and into a rashie vest, and then handed him the bottle of sun cream.
He removed his jeans, exposing his underwear which were shorts rather than briefs, so not too revealing, but revealing enough.
Georgie focused on the contents of her beach bag, pulling out her set of goggles and digging a little bit deeper to find the old pair she kept for situations such as this when she had an unexpected friend along for the ride. Lara was the only one who’d used them.
“I don’t have any spare fins,” she said as she handed him the mask.
“I’ll manage.”
He kept his T-shirt on and rubbed cream into his arms and legs. “Hey, you never told me what your job interview was for.”
She glanced at him, surprised. “You never asked.”
He rolled his eyes. “What was it for?”
“Parks and Wildlife. They’ve advertised a couple of positions.”
He grinned. “You’d be great at that. Will you deal with the reef and islands?”
His confidence cheered her a little. “Hopefully. One role is land based and the other is ocean.”
“They’d be fools not to give it to you.” He handed back the sun cream. “Where did the journal say the ship was?”
She blinked at the change in topic. “Somewhere around here, the opposite side of the island from where the Retribution sank.”
“How do you want to do this?” Matt asked.
She shrugged. “I thought I’d go swimming and see what I could find.”
“You’ve never snorkelled this area before?”
“I have, but I wasn’t looking for evidence of a shipwreck,” she said. “I knew the Retribution went down at the other end. Chances are I swam right past something without knowing what it was.”
“All right. How about we go in a line working perpendicular to the island?”
It was as good an idea as any. She nodded. “Let’s go.” She jumped into the water and the underwater life sprung into clarity; fish, coral, and over there feeding on some weed was a turtle. She focused on the bottom looking for any evidence of a ship. Maybe a canon, an anchor, or even a cup. The ocean was three or four metres deep, but in places the reef was exposed at low tide. The ship would have easily been wrecked if they’d lost their anchor in a storm.
A splash as Matt joined her and they swam away from the boat and the shore until Matt tapped her on the arm. He removed the snorkel from his mouth and said, “You think we’ve come far enough?”
