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“How was Florida?” Mama D came around from behind her desk to give Tara a hug. She was a petite lady in her fifties, with
a sun tan and freckles that spoke of a lifetime spent out on the water.
“It was heaven. And fun. More like a vacation than work.”
Holding her by the arms, Mama D smiled, her gaze running over Tara’s face like she was making sure Tara was okay. “That sounds real good, hon. I’m glad. Well, a few of the boys are already back there. And I brought in some Dunkin’ for y’all so you better go before they eat all the good donuts.”
Tara laughed. Both at the lady calling her teammates ‘boys’ when most of them were older than Tara, and at the reality that you had to act fast when free food was available around here. “Oh, damn, I better hurry then.”
With a wave, Tara hiked her duffle higher on her shoulder and pushed through the swinging door that led past some offices to the conference room where they held their all-hands meetings.
Commercial diving teams varied in size, depending on their members’ credentials and skill sets, and the four men she found already gathered around the donuts probably represented most of the team. “Hey, save some for me,” Tara said, smiling as everyone turned around and called out greetings.
One by one, she said hello and returned hugs. There was Delores’s husband, Boone Macon, owner of CMDS and their supervisor on all their diving ops. Next to him, there was Jud Taylor, another navy guy who was one of their primary working divers who handled the brunt of the team’s underwater work. Together with herself, Bobby Flannery was one of the standby divers who also doubled as bellman—operator of an underwater bell platform. Finally, Mike Henson was a former Coastie who handled all things tech, equipment, and systems—without whom their underwater work was neither possible nor safe. He’d been a new addition at the end of last diving season, so Tara didn’t know him well.
“You ready to get wet?” Jud teased. As he always did. Incessantly.
She smirked as she grabbed a frosted donut. “You sure you want to harass the diver responsible for rescuing your cowboy ass when you get in trouble?”
“I like to live dangerously,” he said with a wink as he passed her a truce in the form of a perfectly made cup of coffee.
“You’re forgiven,” she said as she accepted it and took a sip.
Boone gathered some files and sat with his breakfast at the far end of the conference table. “We’re just waiting on Jefferson and Anderson and then we’ll get started.”
“I’m here,” George Jefferson said as he walked into the room wearing a big smile. “Now the party can start.” A round of singing—of the theme song from The Jeffersons, naturally—greeted the man who assisted Mike on all things systems but, more importantly, served as their medical tech.
George shook his head at the lot of them as he dumped his duffle, put his coat around the back of the chair, and waited for them to finish, which didn’t take long since they only seemed to know the first few lines of lyrics. “After all this time, you’d think you people would’ve learned the words to that damn song.” Laughter filled the room, and a new chorus of sarcastic barbs got flung back and forth, the kind that revealed what good friends they all really were.
This was the kind of community Tara had enjoyed in the navy, and it meant a lot to her to find it here, too. Everyone was still catching up when she took her seat, but then she popped back up to snag a second donut because, after not sleeping, sugar was pretty much life.
As the others found their own seats, Mama D’s voice echoed from out in the hall. “And here’s where the team meets. Boone and the others will show you around from here,” she said as she stepped into the doorway.
A tall man with dark hair shook her hand. “Thank you, ma’am.”
Ooh, those good manners aren’t going to last long around here, Tara thought as she sipped at her coffee, eager to meet their newest teammate—and glad to not be the newbie this time.
And then the man turned around.
Jesse?
Jesse!
Coffee got stuck in Tara’s throat, because of course it did, and then she couldn’t stop coughing.
Which was when Jesse’s gaze swung from George and Mike, whose hands he’d just been shaking, to her. He blanched.
“You okay there, T?” Flannery asked.
“Yeah,” she said around a choking gasp. “Wrong hole.”
“That’s what she said!” at least three of her asshole teammates guffawed, sending everyone into hysterics. Everyone except for her and Jesse.
Jesse. Jesse Anderson. Apparently the new working diver on her team.
Heat roared over Tara’s face, which of course brought more teasing her way, but it was better that everyone thought her embarrassment was over the stupid softball teasing opportunity she’d tossed them than because she’d screwed their new teammate eight hours ago.
The coughing fit finally passed, but still her heart raced and her face burned and those two freaking donuts turned sour and heavy in her belly. How could this be happening?
