"Mermaid?" Darcy snorted. "Try to be a little more PC, Doc."
"I stand corrected." He waited for her to send back a snappy response, anticipated it.
Darcy smiled and clammed up, her standard mode for the afternoon, then turned her back to him and gathered her dive gear.
What the hell was wrong with her today?
Shrugging off nagging unease, Max slipped into his own gear by instinct, tracking Darcy's every move to ensure she didn't misstep. Her NAVI and PADI diver certifications reassured him somewhat, but he was leaving nothing to chance when it came to this woman's safety.
With precision, she checked her pressure gauge, then slipped on the vest and tank. Weight belt next, she buckled it well clear of her vest so it could be popped off fast for an emergency rise.
Darcy spit in her mask, then swiped her finger around the seal to keep the mask from fogging up. Max grinned at the ritual. Yeah. She knew her stuff. No one had ever been able to explain why the spit-factor worked. It just did. One of life's great mysteries.
Like why opposites attract.
He pitched that thought overboard before it could tempt him.
Darcy strapped on her fins and slipped the regulator in her mouth. One more glance at her pressure gauge and she taste-tested the air.>He could tell what two clicks from Lucy or a head bob from Ethel meant. Darcy, however, constantly defied logic, and he was the poorest candidate on the planet for dealing with things outside his factual realm.
He was right not to call her and to keep his distance from this woman who'd already been hurt enough. "Thanks for the heads-up, Baker, but you're off base. If you're done, I'm going to call it a night."
Max shoved to his feet and stomped the sand from his skin. Too bad the cutting nicks of shell shards and memories weren't as easily shaken free. And when Darcy left, he would be adding the slice of new regrets to the old.
Darcy shifted restlessly in the base dive shop as she waited for the attendant to bring her diving gear. She hitched a hip against the wooden counter in the sprawling hut and let her gaze wander to the window. The bay beyond the dirty panes tempted her as much as the man who called those waters his second home.
Two days and she would be leaving. Max had invited her to say goodbye to Lucy and Ethel. She understood well enough the goodbye was for him as well.
Her dog tags burned a reminder against her skin of his touch with every gentle sway when she walked. He could have his goodbye, but there wouldn't be any more chitchat with tempting glimpses into the real Max and playful afternoons with Lucy and Ethel.
He'd gone out of his way not to abuse her friendship the past weeks. Which made her want him all the more, damn his honorable soul and cute tush. She wanted a distraction but had found more than she'd bargained for or could handle. In a week she would be sitting in the Squadron Commander's office discussing her chances of shipping out to Cantou.
A rogue thought slapped over her like a wave tearing sand from beneath her feet. She'd accepted the possibility of dying in combat, but she'd never considered how it would affect anyone other than her family.
Max had already lost someone special to him. Was she? Special to him?
Sure it might be overconfident to think she could lure him in for something more. Yet if she did, how would he hold up under the stress of sending her off into danger? Because, damn it, she was not going to spend the rest of her career sitting on the sidelines.
Regret crept up and pricked at her like the sand crab scuttling across the gritty wooden floor to nibble her toes. This really was it for them.
Darcy nudged aside the nipping crab. She intended to make this a farewell to remember, while keeping them busy. No chitchat. Definitely no more touching. Part of her wanted to forgo the farewell altogether, but their time together the past weeks demanded a better end than that.
Darcy waited while the beach bum attendant swiped her credit card and tallied up the day's rental fee for dive gear. The young man with bleached-blond dreadlocks passed her her receipt while his mother scurried behind him in her magenta muumuu.
Flipping the pressure gauge in her hand, Darcy checked the reading for her tank. "Thanks for hooking me up with gear on such short notice."
"No problem, hon." The muumuu mama leaned past her son and over the counter, hoop earrings swaying. "You're not going alone, are you? Vinnie here can dive with you. He's always looking for ways to clock out early, right son?''
The guy was already rubbing zinc oxide on his nose.
"No need." Darcy hefted the gear onto her shoulder. "I'm meeting up with Doc Keagan."
"Good enough, then." The older woman angled back. "Enjoy the day."
"Bummer." Vinnie dropped the tube and whipped a boxed underwater camera off the display hook. "Here. Take one of these. It's on the house if you show me the pictures later."
"Deal." Darcy hitched her gear over her shoulder.
Jogging down the steps, she tore the wrapper off the camera and arced the garbage into the industrial-size trash bin. Her hand clenched around the camera. Apparently, she would be making her own stack of Kodak memories with Max after all.