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“Adventures?”
“I did mention the boat blowing up, right?”
Shae’s eyes widened. “I thought you were kidding—like the motor went kaput or something. You mean itblew up? With fire and smoke?”
“And left us stranded at sea. And then there might have been bullets.”
She didn’t know why she felt the sudden need to confess all this to Shae. Maybe her inner competitor—topping Shae’s escape-from-gulag story. Or maybe she just needed to air it out, get a good look at it.
Decide for herself if the feelings that had consumed her that terrible night were real or just adrenaline.
“Someone wasshootingat you?”
“I don’t know, but Hudson grabbed my hand and pulled me under, and then he practically pulled me to safety in this coral reef. We hid there for a while and then kept swimming. We were too far from Santorini to swim, so we took shelter in this cave for the night. It sort of faced the island, and we could see the lights, but then the tide came in. We were sitting on this ledge, but with the tide, it was a good ten feet under water. And by this time, the opening was completely under water, and it was dark, and we couldn’t see anything, even if we wanted to swim out and…I was pretty scared.”
“Water. Darkness. Yeah, I get it.”
“There was this little pocket of air near the surface, about a foot, maybe, of space, and the walls were brutal—coral, or maybe lava, I don’t know, but it hurt to hold onto them. And it was hard to get a hold. Hud managed to get a grip on something above him, but I couldn’t reach it. I was exhausted, treading water, scared, and then this swell just hit the cave, and for a second, we were underwater. The current took me, and if it hadn’t been for Hudson grabbing me and holding onto me, I might have been bashed against the rocks. But he did—he just reached out and pulled me against him, and I was terrified, so I…held on.”
“To all that manly muscle.”
“I was thinking more about not drowning.”
“What a shame.”
She laughed. “Well, after the swell died down and we found ourselves breathing again, I did notice the manly muscle. The bad part is that the swell had slammed him against the lava and scraped open his skin on his shoulders and back. So he was bleeding and trying to hold on to the rock, and I was holding on to him, and the salt water was in his wounds…it wasn’t romantic.”
“Sounds a little romantic. If you were writing it in a book. Or watching it on the big screen. His strong arm around you, saving your life—”
“Six hours. That’s how long it took for the tide to go down. Six hours, and that wasn’t the only swell.”
Shae nodded, took a sip of her wine.
“Okay, after a while it might have been a little romantic. I mean, he refused to let me go—not that I wanted him to—but then we just hung out there, trying to keep each other from drowning, talking in the night. He told me about his favorite plays, and I told him about epic calls. He talked about his future and how he wants to play for the NFL. I told him about my house in Lake Como and the remodel I did. We talked about the winery, and I told him about how I got into officiating—at least, most of it. And he told me about his life in Australia.”
“Oh, that’s the accent. I wasn’t sure.”
“He moved to Montana when he was ten. His mom got sick and his dad lost their farm in the outback, so he moved them back to Montana, to live on his grandfather’s ranch. Only his grandfather died heavily in debt, so they had to sell it, and now his dad works as a cowboy on some cattle ranch. He has a brother named Harry—Harrington—who is some search and rescue guy and works for a team in Glacier National Park.”
Shae had turned silent, watching her, lifting her glass now and again. The sunset glinted off the golden wine.
Iris reached for a slice of cheese. “Manchego. Good choice with the wine.”
“Your dad suggested it.” She met Iris’s eyes. “You more than like him.”
Iris looked at her glass, swirled the wine. “I’m an official. He’s a player. Any fraternization between us would be the end of our careers.”
“And you’ve worked too hard to give that up.”
She leaned back. “Hud wants to play for the NFL. It’s his dream. I can’t compete with that.”
“So, you’re out before he has to make that choice.”
“Seems easiest.”
“Except for your poor heart.”
Iris gave her a look. “My poor heart is fine. There’s no room for romance with a football player in my world. And yes, for a whole minute there, I did let myself hold onto him. But that was panic and desperation, and I’m back to myself now. I got this.”
