Page 61 of Building Courage

Tucker shook his head. It wasn’t a good idea for him to encourage the connection, but she’d definitely piqued his curiosity.

“Where’s the card?”

She retrieved it from her desk and brought it to him.

He had a bad feeling about this. “All right, I’ll call him, but not tonight.” Tonight was theirs…for as long as she wanted him to stay.

“Do you want something for that headache?” she asked.

He started to ask how she knew, then mentally shook his head. “Yeah.” Otherwise, he wouldn’t sleep. “It’ll be gone in the morning.” He threw back the pills and washed them down with the last of his tea.

She ran her hand down his arm, and he read concern in the way she focused on his face. “How long did you go without sleep?”

“Long as I needed to. I’m okay. Show me some of the photos you took while I was gone.”

She hesitated. “Okay.” She went to her desk and raised the lid of her computer. She turned on the television above it, and the desktop of her laptop appeared on the screen. She clicked on the file, and a photograph of a yacht came up on the screen.

“This is the Aurora. She berths twelve passengers and has a small crew of two stewards, one cook, and the captain.

“She’s large enough to host a small wedding or reception while docked, but only twelve passengers can sail on her.”

The slide show ran, showing the models in the hot tub, the dining hall, sunbathing on the deck in lounges, and a couple reclining in one of the berths sharing a glass of wine. A group of four watched television in the salon, where electronic amenities such as television, computer access, and a small snack bar were available. A photo of the awninged space outside the dining hall where a table was set up popped up. A bucket of ice cradled a champagne bottle, and a plate of sliced fruit that accompanied it looked cool and delicious.

“She’s a beautiful ship. I don’t think I missed taking pictures of a single inch of her. The owner fed everyone a meal and furnished drinks while we did our thing.”

“Drinks?”

“He opened a couple of bottles of wine for the models. Jess and I stuck with soft drinks and water.”

“You don’t drink at all, do you?”

“No. I have no tolerance for alcohol. One glass of wine makes me want to find someplace to curl up for a nap. And I don’t like the feeling of being out of control.”

He chuckled. “The guys and I share a beer now and then at McP’s, or we’ll sit around my pool, shoot the breeze, and drink one or two. In my earlier SEAL days, we partied harder, but that gets old when you have to haul ass and run five miles hung over the next morning. We’ve all left that behind.”

“So, you sewed some wild oats as a new SEAL.”

“A few, but even that wore thin. It’s a hard lesson when you get home to find someone moved on while you were gone and shuts you down like you were never in the picture.”

“I can’t imagine anyone forgetting you that easily, Tucker.”

He shrugged “It happened a couple of times.”

She fell silent for a moment. “I have a rule. If it doesn’t mean something, you shouldn’t do it.”

His heart rate surged into a quick step. “Good rule.”

“You gave your dad my number.”

“If something happened, I wanted you to know I wasn’t ghosting you, especially after everything we talked about that last night.”

She bit her lip and looked away for several seconds.

A crying woman was more terrifying to him than an armed terrorist. He at least knew how to deal with the latter. He changed the subject to distract her as she seemed to struggle with her composure. “Why is there a blue fishing vessel following the yacht?”

She looked back to the screen. “I don’t know. I first saw it at the pier when I did the photos for the charter company. I kept having to change angles or perspectives to exclude it from the shots. Then, when I did this shoot, it was always there again, and I had to do the same.

“I read somewhere that the propellers of a big ship can churn up algae in their wake.

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