Page 9 of Touchdown

In any case, the shirtless man—now well within the breakwater—was gliding with ease through the protected harbor. He'd be here in minutes.

Seconds.

It was decision time.

“Let's agree we don't need to be afraid of a guy in a dugout,” I said softly.

“One hundred percent,” Noah said.

When our incoming glanced ahead to his final destination, he easily spotted us in our togas.

Even from here, even half-dazzled by whitecaps on bright water, we could see him crack up laughing.

Chapter 6

The guy in the dugout wasn't the only one laughing. A couple of gulls blasted ear-piercing shrieks of the kind of laughter I hadn't heard since the time I stumbled into one of my mother's wine-soaked book club meetings. From the way the chunky seabirds circled above the dugout, they recognized him as somebody they associated with food.

A local fisherman? In a dugout? How big of a haul could you carry home?

I was already concerned that it might not hold two men if Noah and I needed to grab it for a quick getaway.

Yet, from our visitor's point of view, a dugout might be the most practical option for the present situation. It didn't need a marina or even an anchor. It glided right up onto the beach.

In the interest of making a good first impression, he tried to swallow his laughter as he landed steps away from us. But his smile was still pretty ear-to-ear.

Noah and I tried to smile back.

Like us, he was barefoot. Unlike us, he was beach-ready in loose boardshorts. They were the color of faded denim but cut from a modern quick-dry swimwear fabric—the first evidence we'd seen that this guy came from our century.

Not a fisherman, though. We were close enough now to see there were no fishing poles or crab traps in his boat. Nothing except a bulging backpack. Like his shorts, it was faded but made of modern technical materials.

Lightweight, I thought. Easy to hump up a mountain.

Our delivery guy. Had to be. Well, we'd been due—out of OJ and getting low on everything else.

He's here to help the guests. That's got to be a good thing. Right?

“Hey,” I said.

He smiled and nodded.

“English,” I said. “You speak English?”

He smiled and nodded some more. I didn't read that as a yes—and neither did Noah to judge from the worried look on his face.

The guy was just a guy being all friendly and pleasant. Maybe he worked for tips.

“We're trapped here,” I said slowly and carefully. “We want to go home. You understand? Home?” I pointed out to the horizon. “America. We're from America.”

Still smiling, he cheerfully sighted down the line of my finger. His smile wobbled and his eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what I might be pointing at. After a beat or two, he shrugged.

Excuse me for being one of those guys who thinks America is the center of the world, but come on. Who didn't understand the word, “America?”

Same guy who doesn't understand the word, “English.”

One of the gulls circling overhead was tired of waiting. It darted at the back of the straw hat. Unperturbed, the man under the hat unzipped one of the backpack's outer pockets.

The gull knew what that meant. With a shriek of victory, it circled around for the next approach.

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