Page 35 of Deadly Waves

“Then stay alive and safe,” Ally suggested. “You can’t control the world. You really can’t control my brother. I know he’s struggling, but at some point he’s going to break out of this. I have faith.”

“I hope so,” Mandy said, her expression thoughtful. “It hurts my heart to imagine him unhappy.”

“And it hurts his heart to imagine you being hurt by Clint,” Ally said. “Do you want to know what your real problem is?”

“Probably not,” Mandy said dryly.

“I’m going to tell you anyway,” Ally said. “Your real problem is that you both have martyr complexes. You want to give everything you have to make the other happy. You’re both willing to fall on your swords, so to speak.

“The truth is, you don’t need to even have swords,” she continued. “The swords in your head are imaginary. If you focused on working together to be happy instead of one person sacrificing everything for the other, you’d be a lot happier.”

Mandy wanted to scoff at the notion, but it held some merit. “I need another drink.”

“And the night is looking up,” Ally said, grinning. “Blue tongues all around!”

“HELLO,ladies. You all look delightful on this fine and balmy evening.”

Mandy frowned when she caught sight of Jon Peterson ambling in their direction an hour later. They were four drinks into their night and most of them were a little tipsy (and yet no one thought they were tipsy, they only recognized the condition in others). They were fine on their own but conversing with someone else was an entirely different matter.

“Mr. Peterson,” Mandy said, licking the blue sugar off the rim of her cup. It wasn’t very ladylike, but her head was full of liquor instead of manners. “What are you doing out here?”

“I’m about to retire for the evening,” Peterson answered. “I heard voices down the deck and thought I would check and see that no one is in distress. You guys don’t look to be in distress, but I have to make sure.”

“We’re not in distress,” Ally said. “We have blue tongues so everything is good in our world.”

Peterson barked out a laugh. “I see. Well, that sounds fun.” He turned his attention to Sophie. “Do you have a blue tongue, too?”

Sophie nodded. “Yup. They’re terrible enablers. I wanted one drink and now I’ve had three.”

“Four,” Emma corrected.

“Really?”

“I’ve been counting,” Emma said. “I can’t drink when I’m around the baby because I’m breastfeeding, but now I’m officially hammered. I think I’m going to have a hangover tomorrow.”

“Yes, well, I don’t care if I have a hangover,” Ally said, waving her empty glass. “I need another.”

“You’re done,” Mandy said, her expression thoughtful as she watched Peterson stare at Sophie. “You’ll thank me tomorrow because you’ll be able to enjoy the sun without a headache.”

“You ruin all of my fun,” Ally complained. “You do it all of the time. You know that, right? When you’re not ruining my fun, my brother is ruining my fun. You’re quite the couple.”

“I’ll tell him you said that,” Mandy said dryly.

“You do that.” Ally lost her train of thought and stared at the sea while Mandy took advantage of the conversational lull to study Peterson up close and personal while he was fixated on Sophie.

“Speaking of your husband, where is he?” Peterson asked, smiling as he glanced at Mandy. “I was under the impression that he very rarely spends more than a few minutes away from you. That’s the rumor around the ship, that is.”

Mandy didn’t like his tone. “I didn’t realize we were the talk of the boat,” she said. “As for spending time together, this is sort of a vacation, so I’m not sure what harm there is in it.”

“There’s no harm in it,” Sophie said. “We’re all practically humping each other’s legs.”

Mandy bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d witnessed Sophie this drunk. It was kind of funny … and worrisome thanks to Peterson’s presence.

“That’s delightful,” Peterson deadpanned, rolling his eyes. Sophie missed the expression, but Mandy did not.

“James and the others are checking out the room of a missing girl,” Mandy supplied. “She’s been gone for more than twenty-four hours now and they’re starting to worry that the blood on the deck belonged to her.”

Peterson appeared legitimately surprised at the news. “Who is missing?”