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Keeping a low center of gravity, I turn in my seat right next to the boat’s navigation. “The latch wasn’t connecting or something. I fixed it.”
Sav sits down on the only other seat and smirks at me. “I see that.”
“I was raised here on the water, the same as anyone,” I tell her.
Savannah rolls her eyes and clutches her big white sun hat. “Uh huh. Are we going to go or what?”
“We’re going,” I say, still salty. I guide the boat away from the dock and out on the marshy water. “Have you got the map and the coordinates of the last survey flag?”
“Right here.” She pats the black backpack that sits at her feet. “It’s wild to me that this is the only way to reach the survey flag. I would think that the people who did the original survey would have made roads that went to all four corners of the proposed football stadium.”
“The surveyors probably didn’t have the permits to make any permanent markings on the land. They just planted their boundary corners as high up as they could. The high metal posts were the only reason we were able to find the first three corners.”
She nods, shading her eyes as she looks into the bright sunlight.
The sluggish water trails in the opposite direction as we head up the tributary. My eyes are on the shining black mirror that stretches before us, constantly scanning the surface for signs of underwater obstructions.
But if I’m honest, it’s difficult to think about anything other than her ass. The way she smiled at me and took my offered hand when I helped her into the boat isn’t far behind that, though.
My head is swimming with thoughts of Savannah.
“Do you have the geotag marker thingamabob?” she asks.
I realize that I’ve been staring at her for a couple of minutes. I blink, give myself a shake, and nod.
“Yep. It’s in my backpack.”
Thunder suddenly crackles overhead. I look up for the first time since we left the dock, and I’m surprised to see that the sky has darkened considerably. Overcast skies have turned into a blanket of darkness spread across the sky.
“I hope it doesn’t rain on us.”
Sav pokes out her bottom lip thoughtfully and then shrugs. “We’ll be fine. I brought an emergency shelter.”
I grunt. “For a little rain?”
She eyes me but doesn’t respond to my question. Instead, she changes the subject.
“How’s Charlie feeling today?”
A gator blinks at us from twenty feet away. I jerk and steer the boat to the other side of the waterway, avoiding him like the plague. One of the first things I learned living out here was that you don’t mess with gators if you don’t have to.
“Charlie’s fine. Actually, he woke me up this morning by jumping on my bed and telling me about a shell he found on the beach. He’s back in action as if he was never sick in the first place. It’s almost miraculous.”
Savannah favors me with a grin.
“Oh, that’s great. Kids are so resilient.”
A great arc of lightning sizzles through the sky. I look up as the thunder sounds only seconds later.
“Should we go back?” she asks. “We can try again later.”
Frowning, I jerk my chin toward her backpack. “Check how far away we are.”
She pulls out a gadget that looks like an old brick phone and powers it on. Turning to point it in the direction we are headed, she scrunches up her face. Then she pulls out the matching map.
“According to these, we’re about ten minutes from a dock with a boat house. And it’s about a twenty-minute hike inland to get to the marker.”
“I don’t think we should turn around yet. It might not even rain.” I study the sky, feeling a gnawing sensation growing inside my chest. “We’ll face these conditions anytime we come out here. If we can just get to the dock, we can hang out in the boat house until the storm passes. You know how storms are down here. They never last long.”
