Leopard 04 - Wild Fire

you know I’m a safety girl. I follow all dive precautions and all my personal safety rules to the letter. I’m careful and I don’t panic.”
    She didn’t normally dive along the fault line running just above the Fort Bragg coast because the abyss was deep and great whites used the area as a hunting ground. Usually she worked on the bottom, along the floor. Sharks hunted from below, so she was relatively safe, but harvesting urchins along the shelf was risky. She’d be making noise and a shark could come from below. But the money . . . She really wanted to pay her sisters back all the expenses they’d covered for her, helping her with her boat.
    Blythe shook her head. “I’m not talking about your safety rules. We all know you’re a great diver, Rikki, but you shouldn’t be alone out there. Anything could go wrong.”
    “If I’m alone, I’m only responsible for my own life. I don’t rely on anyone else. Every second counts, and I know exactly what to do. I’ve run into trouble countless times and I handle it. It’s just easier by myself.”
    And she didn’t have to talk to anyone, or make nice. She could just be herself.
    “Why go north of Fort Bragg? You told me the undersea floor was very different and the sharks were more prevalent there and it kind of freaked you out.”
    Rikki found herself wanting to smile inside when just seconds earlier she’d been squirming. Blithe saying
    “freaked out” meant she’d been spending time with Lexi Thompson, the youngest of their family.
    “I found a shelf at about thirty feet covered with sea urchins. They look fantastic. The fault runs through the area so there’s an abyss about forty feet wide and another shelf, a little smaller, but still packed as well. No one’s found the spot. It’s a blackout, Blythe, uni spine to spine. I can harvest a good four thousand pounds and get out of there. I’ll only go back when no one’s around.”
    Blythe couldn’t fail to hear the excitement in her voice. She shook her head. “I don’t like it, but I understand.” And that was the trouble—she did. Rikki was both brilliant and reclusive. She seemed to take her talents for granted. Blythe could ask her to program something on the computer and she’d write a program quickly that worked better than anything else Blythe had ever tried.
    Everything about Rikki was a tragedy, and Blythe often felt like holding her tight, but she knew better.
    Rikki was very closed off to human touch, to relationships—basically to anything that had to do with others. She had allowed each of the other five women into her world, but they could only come so far before she shut down. She was haunted by her past—by the fires that had killed her parents and burned down her foster homes. By the fire that had taken her fiancé, the only person Rikki had ever let herself love.
    “You had another nightmare, didn’t you?” Blythe asked. “In case you’re wondering, I turned off the three other hoses around your house.”
    She didn’t ask how the water had gotten turned on. The entire family knew water and Rikki went hand in hand and strange things happened when Rikki had nightmares.
    Rikki bit her lip. She tried a causal shrug to indicate nightmares were no big deal, but they both knew better. “Maybe. Yes. I still get them.”
    “But you’re getting them a lot lately,” Blythe prodded gently. “Isn’t that four or five in the last few weeks?”
    They both knew it was a lot more than that. Rikki blew out her breath. “That’s another reason I’m going out diving today. Blowing bubbles always helps.”
    “You won’t take any chances,” Blythe ventured. “I could go with you, take a book or something and read on the boat.”
    Rikki knew she was asking if there was a possibility she would get careless on purpose, that maybe she was still grieving, or blaming herself. She didn’t know the answer, so she changed tactics. “I thought you were going to the wedding. Isn’t Elle Drake getting married today? You were looking forward to that.”
    Another reason why the ocean would be hers and hers alone. Everyone was invited to the Drake wedding.
    “If you won’t go to the wedding and you need to go to the sea, then I’ll be happy reading a book out there,” Blythe insisted.
    Rikki blew her a kiss. “Only you would give up a wedding to go with me. You’d throw up the entire time Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
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