Grace
New pod of Orcinus orca followed us today. Residents, not transients.
You can tell them apart?
Grace
Even without radio tags. Look at this.
He zoomed on the photo she sent. The fin protruding from the killer whale’s black back had a white patch resembling a check mark at its base and two notches on the side.
What takes a nick out of something that big?
Grace
Bullets.
Her answer flushed his system with images of men with scopes, ships running without lights and Grace on night duty. He saw a red dot on her fleece, and his hands shook. The adrenalin dump was so unexpected that he hadn’t prepared to regulate his breathing or find his zone, and he mistyped. His heartbeat increased and his quad muscles stiffened with the need to sprint or jump, but he was in bed, not in the gym where he could work this out.
Grace
Still there? Is this boring?
No. Told you, I like new info.
He hated this info. He hadn’t known that she and her scientist buddies with their computers and sonar were targets.
You have guards on board?
Grace
Are you freaking about the bullet holes? Don’t worry!
Became gun control fan at 9:06 pm.
Grace
Should have been before this!
Those scars are twenty or twenty-five years old. Now the fishermen cooperate with us in self-interest because of tourist money.
Sort of already was.
Nobody needs to carry the stuff I used into a grocery store. And no one needs ten of them sitting around their living room.
Nothing but holding her would be enough to make him feel secure, but with 4,000 miles between them, he had to trust her judgment. And he had to change the subject.
Shared your sunset photo with my speech therapist yesterday.
Grace
It sets at 11 pm here and rises at 4:45.
I get to see both on my shift—makes time fly.
I imagined sitting to watch with beers. Cold out?
In his fantasy, they’d warm each other under a blanket while watching the sun slip beneath the horizon. In the glow he’d kiss her. This time would be vastly better than their first kiss, when he’d been tethered to tubes and unable to hold her fully.
