But even good swimmers can misjudge distances and get tired, especially in frigid water.
Shit.
Now I’m pulling the binoculars out again and resting them on the console in front of me. She hasn’t even stepped on the property for the day, and she’s already adding to the mile-high list of things I need to worry about.
Of course.
“Keep an eye on her, just in case,” I tell Kenny.
Some of the worry eases from his forehead. “She seems nice,” he remarks, palming the binoculars. “Smiles and says hi to people when she walks around.”
I grunt as I strip off my sweatshirt and start pulling on my wetsuit.
Eliza sure as hell doesn’t smile and say hi to me. Andmaybe it should bother me that I’m the only exception to her kindness, but it doesn’t. At all.
Makes it easier to keepencouragingher to leave.
The imageof Eliza smoothly gliding through the water invades my thoughts more than it should for the rest of the morning. It was an unexpected deviation from the picture I’d painted of her. That picture being an echo of Mackenzie—squeaking at seaweed and avoiding sea water like the plague so her hair doesn’t dry out. Not the type to get down in an unfiltered body of water that’s still cold enough to freeze your balls off.
I’ll admit it impressed me. Just a little.
Couple that with the fact that she hasn’t caused any issues yet, and the possibility that I’m being too tough on her is starting to emerge.
That whisper of doubt is tracking through my mind when I open the door to our oyster pick-up room and see her inside one of the massive refrigerators, tip toes on the bottom shelf, hand reaching toward the temperature gauge.
Panic and anger crash into me, and I can’t think straight. Can’t see anything except her fingers aiming for that metal knob. The same fucking metal knob that nearly got us shut down last year, when Mackenzie cranked it to illegal storage temperatures, took a photo, and sent it to her father—who passed it, along with other false allegations, on to a local regulator—all because she’d mistaken texts to Amanda for me cheating on her.
This fucking lady.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I bark, barreling toward her.
She jumps and shrieks at the same time. Her head twists, and I catch a flash of wide, startled eyes before her hand slips from the shelf that was holding her in. She tumbles back, tripping down from the shelf.
I’m already there. Quick reflexes have me catching her under the arms before she hits the floor. I set her upright and yank my hands away like her skin is hot coals.
The second she turns, though, I get right up in her space, the tension in my muscles so explosive I feel like the fucking Hulk.
The bewildered fear in her eyes pierces me for a second before slipping into outrage.
“What thehellis your problem?” she shrieks, red spiraling across her cheeks. “You could’ve killed me, coming up behind me like that!”
Her playing the victim only winds me tighter. “Why are you messing with the temperatures?”
“Messing with the—” she repeats in disbelief. The red from her cheeks is flooding her neck, which is craned back so she can meet my eyes. Eliza’s not short, but I still have a few inches on her. “I’m grabbing a bag ofoystersto takephotosto show people what pickups look like, because that is myjob.” Her voice is breathing fire, a vein pulsing on her forehead, like a little pissed off dragon.
“There are plenty of pickups on the bottom shelves,” I fire back.
“Believe it or not,Grayson, I have eyeballs.” Her pitch rises with her volume, each word working her up more and more. “And these eyeballs are trying to find the best-looking pickup, because this is going out as apaid ad. But you wouldn’t understand the importance of that or what it even means, because you only think and speak in shellfish!”
Her chest heaves on rapid breaths, drawing myattention right down to where it shouldn’t be. To the smooth olive skin dotted with freckles above small, perky breasts that I absolutely willnotlook at.
The mere temptation only pisses me off more. “I told you not to touch anything.”
“And unless you’re down to two working brain cells—” she shoves a finger into my chest— “you’d know that’s impossible when I’ve been hired to work here.”
Trying to rein in my temper, I look down at the finger digging into my sternum. Technically, I was the one to make contact first, when I saved her from knocking herself unconscious, but Little Miss Professional just broke a boundary.
I’m getting to her.
