Romance on the Edge 01 - Hooked

beach, settling on Grams. Judd’s voice came over loud and clear from the Calypso’s P. A. system. “Lay down your weapons!”
    Grams grumbled but laid Barbarella in the sand at her feet. Gramps had already dropped his shovel when he’d waded into the surf.
    “Sonya, we were radioed that you and Garrett were under fire,” Judd continued, his voice booming over the group. “That better not be Garrett in the bottom of that skiff.”
    “Head up to the cabin, Sonya,” Aidan said, still standing in the stern of the skiff. “I’ll explain to them what happened.”
    “I’ll go w-with you. Otherwise they’ll arrest you and ask q-questions later.”
    “I don’t care if they arrest me.”
    “Well, I do. Don’t turn m-martyr on me, Aidan.”
    “They can’t come ashore unless one of us goes and gets ‘em,” Roland sneered.
    “We aren’t hiding out from the t-troopers,” Sonya said. Besides, they had a dinghy. They could get to shore without any problems. “We didn’t do anything w-wrong.” Maybe Roland had. Earl didn’t do anything without Roland. Was Crafty as much to blame for this whole mess as Cranky?
    Roland must have read something in her expression. “I’m not waiting around to entertain a bunch of fucking fish cops.” He took off toward the Hartes’ camp.
    “Halt!” Judd’s voice rang out.
    Roland gave them the bird and kept right on moving. If anything, his gait increased.
    “Sonya, it’s in your best interest to get one of those skiffs out here and pick us up,” Judd hollered. “Now.”
    “Aidan, take your other skiff,” Gramps said. “Leave this one here. Lana, help me beach her on shore. Sonya, you’re staying here.” Lana handed Grams the lantern and waded into the water, while Aidan did as Gramps instructed.
    Sonya was rapidly getting tired, her limbs not wanting to respond, fingers numb. It had been a while since she’d felt her feet.
    “Come on, Sonya.” Gramps reached his arms up for her. “Let’s get you out of this skiff and up to the cabin. Maggie May, run up and heat some water. Lana, you go with her, we’ll meet you there.”
    “Your h-hand. I don’t want to h-hurt you, Gramps.” Sonya wanted to sink down into the bottom of the skiff, her muscles seeming to atrophy.
    “Fiddlesticks,” Gramps said, making her smile like the word always did. “The day I can’t help my favorite granddaughter out of a boat, they might as well put me in my grave.”
    Not a good day for analogies like that one. Sonya put her hands on his shoulders so that most of her weight centered there instead of on his injured hand. Her frozen booted feet landed on the rocky sand and felt as though she’d stood on a bed of sea urchins.
    Gramps put a hand around her waist to help her stand. “You’re in bad shape, Sonya.”
    She was afraid he was right. She indicated Earl left in the skiff. “W-what about him?”
    “He’s not going anywhere.”
    It was slow going up the beach to the trail with Gramps’s help, but once facing the trek to the cabin, Sonya knew she wouldn’t make it the rest of the way. Then Aidan was there, accompanied by Judd and Skip. He swooped her up into his arms, and she gratefully rested her head on his shoulder as he carried her up the bluff to the cabin.
    Heat blasted her when they entered. Grams had turned up the little propane heater and it was eating up the BTUs.
    “Aidan, lay her over there.” Grams indicated the curtained-off area where the bed sat. She bustled Aidan out of the room after he’d laid Sonya down. She didn’t bother with the questions Sonya knew she was dying to ask, just went to work with Lana’s help, getting Sonya out of her wet clothes and into dry ones. Then she piled Sonya high with blankets, stuffing hot water bottles around her. It was heavenly, and Sonya soaked it all up: the undemanding attention, the exquisite heat warming her bones, and the gracious postponement of the troopers’ interrogation.
    She crashed.

    Aidan’s interrogation started the moment he’d retreated from laying Sonya on her grandparents’ bed. She’d seemed so removed from what was happening. As though she’d somehow…left. He couldn’t lose her too. She’d been in that water too long, had felt like ice when he’d lifted her in his arms. He prayed they weren’t too late getting her care.
    They’d returned to the beach, along with Nikolai, after the fish cops had realized Sonya would be no good to them until she was warmed up. The cops had