Josh chuckled. “Just bring it over the side. I’ll do the dirty work.”
Thank God. She liked fish, but generally it came from the market, all nice and clean and, well, dead. She held the line and waited for Josh, but she had to wait a little longer as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and snapped a picture first. “Come on, you need a picture of you with your first fish,” he said, then took the line and gently removed the hook from the fish’s mouth.
“Are we keeping him?”
Josh laughed. “He’s only about eight inches. I promise, we’ll get more. This time we can both cast.”
They carried on that way for a half hour, and Lizzie managed to bring up three good-sized pollock as well as a darker, thinner mackerel, which Josh threw back. On her last catch, she insisted on handling the slippery fish herself, removing the hook from its mouth and slipping it into the water of the live well.
Josh’s line brought up an ugly, spinier fish, which he identified as an ocean perch and also threw back. Lizzie cast in once more but got a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. God, she wasn’t getting seasick, was she? She swallowed, but her mouth seemed full of saliva. “Uh, Josh?”
“Yeah?” He turned around, took one look at her, and reeled in his line.
“Look at the horizon,” he suggested. “Bring in your line, and I’ll get us moving. The problem with drifting is that you ride the swells.”
He took the lines and secured them and then started the engine again. Lizzie swallowed repeatedly, not wanting to be sick. How humiliating! And Josh looking as fresh as ever. Of course he’d grown up on the water and probably never got sick. She took desperate gulps of fresh air as he sped up, skimming the swells rather than rocking on them. “Better?” he called over to her.
She didn’t answer. The sick feeling also made her head feel funny and she wasn’t at all sure she was going to be able to hold out.
He slowed as they approached an inlet of the island, and Lizzie knew. She stood up and put her hand on his arm. “Stop,” she said, gulping. And before she could say anything more, she rushed to the side of the boat and heaved.
What a great date she was turning out to be.
CHAPTER 10
She gagged until there was nothing left to come up, then let out a breath and turned around, feeling more than a little wobbly on her feet.
Josh had stopped the boat and was waiting, holding out a bottle of water.
“Swish that around and spit it out,” he said gently. “And then take a drink. I’ll have you on dry land soon.”
She obeyed, cleaning out her mouth and spitting the water over the side. Josh started up and guided the boat into the inlet and to a small, ancient dock that leaned to one side but must be sturdy, since he pulled up next to it and tied the line to a graying post.
“It’s safe,” he assured her. He took the cooler and put it on the dock and then tossed up a rucksack beside it. He hopped out and held out his hand to Lizzie. She’d taken her tote from under the seat and was ready to step onto something firm that didn’t rock back and forth.
She put her fingers in his and let him pull her up. He grinned then and nudged her shoulder. “Don’t feel bad. It happens all the time.”
“Right,” she grumbled, adjusting her tote. “You don’t have to say that just to make me feel better.”
She watched as he put the ruck on his back and then hefted the cooler, the muscles in his arms flexing under the weight. Her vomit didn’t seem to bother him in the least, though perhaps that came from being a doctor, because it didn’t really gross her out anymore. It was the embarrassment more than anything. And feeling weak. She hated that.
“All right, let’s go. You need to get some food into you.”
“Food?” Gah.
“Did you eat breakfast?” Josh started off down the dock and she followed him, her sandals making flopping sounds on the old wood.
“I had yogurt and fruit, same as I do every morning.”
He nodded wisely. “Which probably ran out over an hour ago. It’s always worse on an empty stomach. And I should have thought to tell you to take an antinauseant.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.”
He laughed and kept leading the way, off the dock and down a narrow dirt path leading to a sandy beach.
“You were doing so well,” he continued, adjusting the weight of the cooler in his arms. “But you were really focusing on the water, which makes it worse. Your brain messages get all screwed up.”
“I know what motion sickness is,” she answered tartly, but he only laughed more.