EDGE (33 page)

Cache wanted a high five and a silly grin from Mel directed his way.

Sergei turned to him, the silly grin still on his face. “Anything?”

“I had a nibble and did what you said, but nothing.”

Mel snickered. “Sounds like your fish got a free lunch. Reel in your line. You’ve lost your bait.” She picked up her pole.

He did as she said. The hook was bare.

“Need to rebait,” Sergei said, as he did the same.

Cache swallowed as his stomach bubbled. If he touched another dead, stinky fish he’d lose his breakfast for sure. He caught Mel’s knowing look.

Hell. Nothing about this fishing trip was turning out like he’d planned.

First of all, he’d expected Sergei would be driving the boat so he’d have alone time with Mel. He shouldn’t have assumed, but he had. Now Mel was proving she was more of a man than he was.

As she watched him, with that smirky look on her face, he reached in and grabbed another fish head. It squirted through his fingers, making a sucking sound, leaving slimy scales in its wake. The putrid smell of decaying flesh assaulted his nose and his stomach rolled with the boat. He swallowed and reached for the bait again. He hooked his fingers in the bleeding gills in order to get a grip. Clenching his teeth, he hooked it, and threw his line overboard. Then he doubled over the side of the boat and retched into the churning sea.

Again and again, he heaved. When he was finished, he straightened.

“It’s about time.” Mel laughed and threw him a bottle of water. “The real fishing begins when someone chums the waters.” She gave him a smile, one with no smirk, and he felt the stirrings of hope. Then like someone pulling down the blinds on a window, she shuttered her expression, and the woman who hated him was back.

Sergei slapped him on the back. “No shame in—how you say—tossing your cookies. Many time, I have run for side of boat,” he said, nonchalantly reaching for another rotten fish head and baiting his hook.

The day went on and Cache still hadn’t mastered the technique of snagging a halibut. Many a fish had received a free lunch because of him. Mel and Sergei were throwing halibut back for one reason or another. The limit was two per person. They’d caught their limit and were stowing halibut in what he’d heard Sergei refer to as champagne tanks—holding tanks that continued to circulate ocean water, keeping the fish alive. The tanks were filling fast as they waited to land that elusive big one.

Sergei explained that when they were through—which Cache took to mean when he’d finally caught something—they’d pick the biggest of the fish and throw back the others.

Cache felt another tug and waited a breath. Another tug and he jerked the line. Then a pull. “I think I’ve got something,” he said.

“Reel her in,” Sergei said.

Cache thought he heard Mel mutter, “Finally.”

Sergei reeled in his own line and joined him. “Looks like you hooked something.”

His pole arched with the drag.

“Mel,” Sergei hollered. “I think Cache landed big one.”

Cache’s arms strained with the effort of reeling. Whatever was on the other end was bigger than anything he’d ever caught before. This was no trout. He forgot about his stomach, forgot about the wild pitching of the boat, and the drowning ocean surrounding them, and concentrated on reeling in his fish.

Mel joined them, having discarded her pole. A very large dark shadow appeared under the water. “Holy shit.”

“‘We’re going to need a bigger boat’,” Cache said, quoting the famous line from “Jaws.”

Mel gave a rusty laugh. Cache returned her surprised grin and they shared a moment. One with shared humor instead of mistrust and hate.

“Bigger boat?” Sergei asked. “Where ve going to get bigger boat?”

Cache gave a strained laughed as he struggled with the pull on his line. “From the movie Jaws. Remember?”

Sergei shrugged. “Must be one of your American things.”

Just then the fish must have looked up and didn’t like what it saw and began to fight. Cache pitched forward from the pull of the line and would have fallen over the side of the boat if Mel hadn’t grabbed him, anchoring her arms around his middle. Cache knew if the fish didn’t land him in the brink, he’d enjoy every minute of Mel wrapped around him.

“Plant your feet, brace your legs, and give that line some slack,” she ordered in rapid succession. “Let her run and then reel her back up to the surface.”

Mel released him once he’d recovered his balance. Cache immediately missed her heat, but had other things on his mind to mourn it for long. He was fighting the biggest damn fish, and it wasn’t going to give in easily.

Reminded him of someone else he knew.

Sergei and Mel both barked instructions at him. Minutes ticked like seconds as he reeled in the halibut, pulling her up to the surface just to watch her dive again, and again. The muscles in his arms quivered and burned with the effort.

“Hang in there. She vill tire soon,” Sergei reassured.

“Like hell she will,” Cache muttered as he pulled the halibut up to the surface again.

“What’s the matter, Cache. Not man enough to reel in your own dinner?” Mel taunted.

“When I’m finished, I’ll show you whose man enough,” he said with a promise in his eye.

Hers returned with an answering promise for a moment and then that damn curtain fell again. “Dream on, shutter boy.” She turned and headed for the stern of the boat. Grabbing another gaff hook, she returned.

“Make room,” she said, pushing Sergei aside.

“Let me do that, Mel,” Sergei said, reaching his hand out for the gaff.

“No. It’ll take all three of us to pull her aboard. Grab that harpoon gaff.” She took her spot. “Cache, listen up. When you bring her back to the surface, hold her there.” Mel nodded to Sergei as he flanked her other side, gaff hook in hand. “Sergei, use the harpoon so we don’t lose her and I’ll hook her, then we all pull her into the boat. Whatever you do, Cache, don’t let go of the pole. We don’t want her taking it back to the ocean floor if she does get away from us.”

“Got it.” He nodded.

“Oh, and another thing.” Mel looked him right in the eye. “Make sure your feet are planted. I have no desire to take a swim to save your sorry ass if this fish pulls you in.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Cache reeled in the line and then as the shadow of the halibut appeared through the dark angry waters, Mel slashed the hook just as Sergei aimed with his. The harpoon shot through the body of the fish trailing a rope. The halibut slapped out of the water, fighting for its life. Working as a team, they wrangled it aboard, where it flapped on deck in a fishy version of an epileptic fit.

“Hog-tie her before she beats us to death,” Mel yelled. Sergei went for the rope and tried to loop it around the tail of the flopping fish. Mel—knife in hand—went for the head, but the fish slapped her back. She and the knife went flying.

“Mel!” Cache scrambled, trying to get to where she’d been thrown against the rail. She sat up and shook her head as though to clear it.

“That’s it.” Mel scrambled for her knife and dived for the fish that, by the looks of it, intended to crush the boat like an aluminum can. Cache was faster, throwing his body on the halibut, trying to keep it from slapping Mel back again.

Another first. He’d never rodeo-ed a fish before. He didn’t last eight seconds before he went flying into the side of the boat. The force stunned him.

A few Russian swear words, and Sergei snagged the halibut’s tail and hog-tied her, curving her back until she looked like an archer’s bow. She hopped and rocked back and forth on deck and Mel was able to give the killing blow. The halibut, teetered, twitched, and then settled.

Mel turned to Cache, where he still saw stars. “What the hell were you trying to do? Kill yourself?” She pointed to the trussed up halibut, her breathing as labored as his. “That fish could have pulverized you.”

Man, he didn’t want to be bitched at. He wanted the silly grin and the high five.

Ah, what the hell, it was either the thrill of landing the huge fish or the bump to the head, but Cache decided to give Mel a silly grin anyway. “Honey, you wouldn’t have let that happen.”

She got right up in his face, just inches away. Not an easy task, considering he was still sprawled on the deck. “Don’t you
honey
me. That was a stupidest thing I’ve ever seen anybody do. You got a death wish?”

He’d had one, but right now he felt more alive than he had in his life. God, he wanted to kiss her. She was a dragon breathing fire down on him and he wanted to burn up with her. “No more than you do. I wasn’t the only one jumping on that fish.” He thought flames were going to come out the top of her head and glorified in the evidence that she still cared about him.

“
I
knew what I was doing.
You
did not.”

“Oh, right.” He nodded as if her argument made all the sense in the world. “That’s why
you
ended up flying across the deck too. I see. Your flight was what…a professional move?”

Sergei choked on his laugh.

Mel swerved his direction. “You stay out of this.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Sergei bit his lip to keep from smiling.

Cache stood, not liking being under Mel’s feet. His head swam with the effort, or was that the pitch of the ocean? “Listen, we both weren’t thinking at our best. Let’s just chalk it up to the thrill of bringing in a mother of a fish.” He indicated the hog-tied halibut. “Would you
just
look at that?”

Mel’s lips twitched, and he felt his heart swell. “Yeah, she’s a keeper. Biggest damn thing I’ve ever brought aboard this boat.” He swore she’d been about to smile and give him a high five, but then she frowned at him instead.

“That
is
the biggest halibut I have ever seen,” Sergei said. “At least, one not mounted.” He turned his attention away from the fish and toward Mel. “How much you think she veighs?”

Mel focused on the halibut, which lay there, its tail still quivering every now and then. “Two hundred, maybe two twenty-five. It’s not as big as the one Clyde caught last summer in the Derby, but she’s sure decent size.”

Sergei slapped Cache on the back. “Good thing you chummed the vaters.”

Cache laughed. “The secret to every good fishing trip.”

“Very true,” Sergei said. “Shall ve secure our bounty, return to The Edge, and let Nicole and Linnet cook us dinner? Ve vorked hard for it, and I’m hungry.”

Cache’s stomach tossed with the idea of food. It would be a while, he feared, before he could eat again. Today had been great. He looked back at his catch.
Damn, he’d done that.
Reeled in a two hundred pound plus halibut. How he wished he had his camera. It wouldn’t do him any good without film and Mel had taken all his film. She didn’t seem all that happy with the results of the fishing trip. Probably planned to scare the shit out of him so he’d beg off The Edge.

All be damned.

It all made sense. She wouldn’t be out here, on this kind of ocean, with paying guests. Too much of a liability if someone got hurt. Weather like this begged for an accident. As it was, they’d had a few close calls.

Well, he would show her.

“That was
awesome
,” he said and smiled wider as Mel’s face darkened. “I thought for sure you guys were nuts for wanting to come out here on a day like today, but look at what I caught. Man, this was just
great
. Thank you. I’ll
never
forget it. I’ll be ninety in a nursing home and retelling this story over and over again.”

Now it was his turn to smirk as Mel whipped off her gloves and headed for the cabin without comment.

“Pull anchor,” Mel hollered and fired up the engines.

Sergei wiped his brow and joined Cache, where he watched Mel take control of the helm. “You my friend, are either very dumb or very smart man. Not many vould have braved seas like today to spend time vith voman.” He gestured to Mel getting the boat underway. “Or baited more than fish.”

Smart or not, he still hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to her. But she hadn’t gotten him off The Edge either.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
O
NE

According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them, and hide my face from them.

~EZEKIEL 39:24

Mel helped herself to a handful of cinnamon bears from the pantry in an attempt to humor her savage hunger. She’d just finished filleting halibut while Cache, Quentin, and Jonah had looked on bug-eyed. Quentin and Jonah had been helpful as carriers, delivering halibut to the kitchen to package for the freezer and cook for dinner. They’d also been instrumental in keeping Cache from trying to talk to her. The boys were handy to have around.

Linnet was cutting vegetables for a salad while Nicole stood watch over halibut fillets smothered in melted Gruyère cheese, sizzling on the skillet. She had a spatula in one hand, while fluffing lemon rice with a fork, in the other.