Page 1 of Pirates in Calusa Cove

PROLOGUE

A YEAR AGO…

Trinity Stevenson steppedfrom behind the protective windshield. Her ponytail smacked her face. The wind howled, and the seas kicked up angrily as if Poseidon himself was about to emerge from the depths of the ocean floor, waving his trident.

This storm had collided with another system, changed direction, and came at her so fast she’d barely had a chance to get her bearings. What had started as a few hours alone to collect her thoughts, to decide if she would believe him—again—had turned into a death grip on her survival instincts.

She squinted, searching and scanning the wild waters for the green and red bow lights. Or the white of the stern light. There had been another boat out there. She’d seen it. And they were charging into the storm, being tossed around by the raging waves like a rag doll. She suspected the small fishing boat to be eighteen to twenty feet long. Way too small to be out here in these conditions. Heck, her forty-footer, while built for theocean and to handle a good storm, struggled with waves this tall. But Trinity couldn’t, in good faith, just leave them out here to be swallowed by the sea gods.

Who was she kidding? She was about to be upside down if she didn’t point this vessel toward shore and head in soon. She blew out a puff of air, stared into the darkness, and waited for another flash from the heavens. All she needed was a few seconds of visibility. Something to give her a better gauge of where those red and green lights were bobbing up and down in the open waters.

Thankfully, those lights appeared through the wind, waves, and rain. It rolled down with a massive crest before turning up toward the sky. Once again, she squinted, focusing solely on the small vessel, which was struggling to stay afloat and quickly losing the battle.

She reached for the radio, glancing at the channel setting, which was already set to sixteen. “Pan-Pan, Pan-Pan, Pan-Pan. This isPrincess Afloat.”

Pushing down on the throttles, she cut through the top of a massive wave. Quickly, she eased up on the power of the engines, allowing the boat’s bow to rise, before giving it more gas to cut through another wave. Salt water splashed across the windshield. It sloshed over the top of the cuddy and landed right on her head. She wiped her face with her forearm and repeated the maneuver, ensuring her boat didn’t go sideways.

“This is the US Coast Guard. What’s your situation,Princess Afloat?”

She rattled off where she believed she was because she couldn’t take her eyes off the waves before her tocheck the exact coordinates. She knew these waters like she knew the back of her hand. She knew, within a quarter of a mile, how far offshore she was and in what direction. “There’s a boat in trouble about a mile and a half from my location… Oh my God. No.” The vessel in question pitched sideways with the wave and rolled. A bolt of lightning lit up the sky. A clap of thunder that sounded more like gunfire rattled her teeth.

A second clap echoed in the night.

Followed by a…flash? Or a spark.

She swallowed her pulse.

“Ma’am. Are you okay?”

“Um, yes. I think so,” she managed. “There’s a second boat. No lights, and the other one… It capsized, and it’s… Oh God, it’s sinking.”

“Ma’am. We’re four miles from your location. Flash your spotlight.”

She did as instructed.

“We can see you,” the man said. “Look to your port. You’ll see us.”

Bang!

“Oh my God.” She crouched behind the steering wheel but not too low. “The other boat fired a weapon,” she said as calmly as she could.

The vessel circled—danced—around where the white glow of a stern light disappeared into the dark ocean.

Pirates? This close to shore? While it was always possible to come across a pirate wanting to steal a boat’s navigational system and anything else of value in the open waters, she had never heard of one doing so this close to civilization..

Bang! Bang!

They must have seen the signal between her and the Coast Guard.

“Ma’am, are you okay?”

“Oh, my God. That was gunfire,” she said into the mic. She sucked in a deep breath, staring at the white water being churned up by the boat heading right for her.

“Ma’am, can you maneuver and head toward the island barriers?” the gentleman on the other end asked. Another voice—a familiar one—muttered a few expletives in the background.

“Yes. I can do that.”

“Trinity, get your ass back to the docks, now,” Dawson, the new chief of police, said with real bite laced to his words.

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