“Not attracted to him? Or you just don’t like him? Because you can totally have sex with him without liking him.”
True. “Yeah. About that.”
“You already did!” Carla fist-pumped. “You go!”
She shot her friend a look. “Absolutely not. There has been no sex. But I may have made a teeny tiny bet with him.”
Carla stared at her expectantly. “Don’t stop there. Keep talking.”
“I may have suggested that the person who loses the Fiesta contract takes orders from the winner for one night. In bed.” She thumped her head against the counter. “When will I learn to think before I speak?”
Carla grinned. “Probably never. You might want to plan on winning.”
Piper threw her cup at Carla. Unfortunately, she’d done nothing but think about Cal and getting him into bed.
* * *
“DID YOU KICK butt and take names?” Daeg didn’t take his eyes off the trail as he asked his question. When Cal had brought his two former teammates over to the island, they’d vowed to work out together five times a week, putting their bodies through their SEAL paces. They might not be active duty anymore, but they’d stay in fighting form. That was one thing Cal could still control.
Now, four miles into their eight-mile run, he was mentally counting down the seconds until they got to the swimming portion of the day’s workout. So far, he’d managed to keep his fear of submerging under wraps. Or, rather, he’d worked around it well enough that Daeg and Tag were pretending they hadn’t noticed anything. Eventually, however, they’d point out the obvious. Cal didn’t dive. Ever.
Daeg had come back to Discovery Island at the beginning of the summer when Cal had put out his call for help and now, two months later, it looked as though the man wasn’t going anywhere. He’d rescued Danielle Andrews from the tropical storm that had passed near the island; she’d rescued him from some inner demons of his own. Cal smelled wedding bells in the not-so-distant future. Cal was glad his former teammate had signed on to the dive business permanently, and he was looking forward to bringing more former SEALs out to the island just as soon as he could.
“I made a few calls,” he said, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the path in front of them. “To see if there was anything for sale on Discovery Island. When we bring the new guys on board, we’re going to need more gear and possibly a second site to gear up the divers. With the contract, we’d definitely be in the black, and we could expand and start a second dive shop.”
He mentioned the name of a business brokerage firm, and Daeg nodded, but didn’t slow his pace.
“Did they have anything for you?”
“Yeah. There’s at least one place on the island where the half owner is looking to sell his share. I’ve made an offer, contingent on our getting the Fiesta contract.”
Daeg whistled. “Which shop?”
He’d read his email twice to make sure he hadn’t misread. “Dream Big and Dive,” he admitted.
“Piper’s place?”
“Apparently it’s only half hers.” Although he had a pretty good idea how she felt about it. “The broker said she has first position to buy if she can line up the funding, but she hasn’t managed to do so, yet.”
“Does she know we’re bidding to buy out her business partner?”
“Hell, no. I didn’t know until today myself,” he pointed out. “Plus, there’s already another offer on the place that we’d have to beat. Fiesta also wants a hands-on demo in the field before they’ll finalize the contracts. I’ll tell her when it’s a done deal. If she wins, she’ll exercise her option to buy anyhow, and it’ll be a moot point.”
Cal focused on the ground in front of him. The trail was rocky, small pieces of gravel crunching underneath his feet. One misstep, and he’d go over the edge and down the bluff into the horseshoe-shaped bay below. In another hundred yards, the trail would bend back toward the sand, but from here he could still see the southernmost end of Pleasure Pier.
“Four-mile marker,” Tag barked, pounding up behind them. Tag ran the way he’d flown rescue choppers, going all out and then coaxing still more speed from some unseen reserve, right when Cal was sure his friend would crash and burn. Every day had gone the same way when the three of them had been part of the Spec Ops rescue team stationed in San Diego. Fighting, swimming, flying—they’d done it all together, and there were no other guys Cal trusted more to have his back.
These guys were the heart and soul of Deep Dive. Sure, there was friendly rivalry, but they’d had each other’s backs since Hell Week and their induction into the Navy SEALs. When he’d left the unit and started the dive program on Discovery Island, he’d wanted to bring his team with him. They got the importance of diving and diving well. If he expanded Deep Dive, he could bring in more veterans. To do that, however, he needed more business and more shop space, hence the offer he’d put in through the broker. Without the Fiesta contract, however, his cash flow would be so tight it would squeak.