Wicked Nights (Men of Discovery Island 2)

Piper raised an eyebrow.

“Two,” Cal mouthed. Of course, not diving with Sal was probably worth at least a week, but some things a man didn’t admit.

* * *

DIVING WITH SAL was a nightmare.

Piper made a mental note to kill Cal when she surfaced. Two nights were nowhere near enough compensation for Sal’s boorish behavior. First, the guy had rechecked all of his gear after she’d done a buddy check on him. He’d insisted on adding more weight to his belt and then he’d taken issue with the gauge on his tank, insisting the device was faulty and blustering loudly until Carla switched it out.

Things hadn’t improved once they were in the water, either, when at least talking became impossible. Instead of sticking near her, he’d swum all over the place, checking out whatever interested him and completely ignoring her. He desperately needed a refresher course in dive safety, but fifty feet down was not the classroom she had in mind.

The site was as gorgeous as Cal had promised. In addition to the caves dotting the underside of the cliff, colorful gorgonians and anemones covered the rugged underwater slope, and a spectacular kelp forest sheltered hundreds of bluefish. She’d also spotted at least five different kinds of starfish, including sun stars and blood stars. Schools of bright orange garibaldi flashed around them. Since it wasn’t nesting season, they didn’t have to worry about overly aggressive daddy fish attacking them. She’d always appreciated their sense of family, but she and Cal needed today’s dive to be perfect.

Thirty-five minutes of show-and-tell later, and it was time for Devil’s Slide. Divers had to time their approach to the rocky ledge to correspond with the incoming waves. The added push would send them shooting over the lip and into the calmer interior bay. Then it was a simple swim to the boat. Cliff jump, admire the anemones, explore the underwater caves and then shoot the pass. Cal clearly liked a good adventure dive.

Daeg signaled as they huddled together, pulling out his dive slate. Margie, the Fiesta exec, was going to pass on shooting the chute. She’d take the longer surface swim over the adrenaline rush of the quicker exit. Piper nodded. Better to go the long way ’round if Margie wasn’t confident about the approach. After a quick air check, Daeg and Margie swam off, leaving Carla, Piper and their two divers.

She signaled for Carla to go up first with her diver and go through the chute, while she and Sal remained on the bottom. Cal, she had to admit, had picked a lovely site, all pink, cream and gold fans and strands of kelp. The waves coming in and going out created a graceful ballet, everything dancing around them as they waited for their turn to ascend.

The Fiesta team had to be eating this up.

Ben disappeared into the chute overhead, riding the waves over the ledge. Carla flashed a thumbs-up and then circled around to time her ride. Eyes intent on the action overhead, Sal bumped into a patch of fans, startling a young horn shark hiding inside. The shark was a nice specimen, almost three feet long, brown-and-white speckled with the trademark fin. Its tail cut through the water, propelling the shark away from them at lightning speed.

Nice. Cal’s dive had produced sharks, too. Good thing she’d had all that sea lion cuteness or she’d be seriously worried right now. This dive was good stuff. Just in case Sal had missed the shark sighting, she pointed, but Sal had clearly already seen. He scrambled backward, hyperventilating.

Horn sharks often hung out in the algae beds off Discovery Island, and Cal had briefed them about the remote possibility of seeing the sharks during the dive. Since horn sharks preferred to hunt for shellfish at night, they hid out during the daytime, resting. Divers formed no part of their dining menu, so Sal had nothing to worry about. It wasn’t like he’d just come face to snout with a Great White.

Either he hadn’t been listening, however, when Cal had walked them through what they might see at the site, or he’d forgotten. He was also going to empty his tank if he kept sucking air in so hard. As if he’d read her mind, he reached behind him, clearly having decided he wasn’t getting enough air and twisted the valve on his tank, cranking hard.

An enormous spray of bubbles exploded from his regulator as she reached his side and laid a hand on his arm. She could hear him gasping for breath and then there was a second explosion of bubbles, followed by a third as Sal started to hyperventilate. Grabbing her arm, he made a panicked, twisting motion with his hand, signaling he was out of air.

Not good.

The first rule of diving safety was to calm down and assess. She looked up. Carla’s diver disappeared into the chute, driving hard with his fins, but Carla circled, clearly torn between descending again to assist and sticking with her dive buddy. Piper had been so focused on an oarfish once, that she’d accidentally held her breath and hyperventilated. What Sal was experiencing was no fun. Because he wasn’t exhaling completely, his lungs were holding on to stale, used air. Then, when he inhaled, he only got part of a breath.