Romance on the Edge 01 - Hooked

and shivering. She’d rustled up some baby blue scrubs, with little black bears on them for him to wear, and he’d promised to get them back to her. He still held the sleeping bag around him and was forever grateful that the rain had ceased to fall. For once in his life, he had no wish to be wet again any time soon.
    “Wow,” Peter commented, standing straighter in the bow as they came into shore. “Looks like we’re having a party.”
    Sure enough the place was lit up like a carnival. Troopers canvassed the area, flood lights becoming less effective with the weak sunrise coming up over the bluff. Garrett gingerly stood, holding onto the rail, and took in the scene, fighting the wave of dizziness that threatened to swamp him.
    The RHIB was beached next to Aidan’s skiff, and Corte and Foster where bagging the body. Farther up the beach, Garrett made out Aidan, Nikolai, Judd, and Skip.
    No sign of Sonya.
    Bet Sonya was cursing him loud and angry about now, with troopers invading her camp. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about. Luckily it was still considered middle of the night and there wasn’t a fishing period until later that day, leaving the beach empty of spectators. At least Cranky’s dead body didn’t have the audience that Kendrick’s had.
    Wes brought the skiff to shore, and Garrett climbed out into the surf, leaving Peter to help Wes tie up to the running line. He trudged toward the group sitting around the fire pit. He had a job to do. Something he should have been concentrating on instead of letting his emotions for Sonya cloud the reason he’d come to Bristol Bay.
    Funny that he’d signed up for this assignment to clear his head of one woman only to have it muddied up over another.
    “Nice outfit,” Judd smirked as Garrett took a stump between him and Nikolai.
    Garrett ignored him and addressed Nikolai, “How’s Sonya?”
    A look of worry traveled over Nikolai’s craggy face. “No news is good news. She’s with the women and if I know my Maggie May, Sonya will be just fine. Maggie wouldn’t settle for anything less.”
    Garrett breathed a sigh of relief. If anything had happened to her—
    He closed his eyes as the pain in his chest flared. He opened them and regarded Judd and Skip. “Where’re we at?”
    “Ready for your version of the evening’s events,” Skip said.
    Garrett met his eyes, and tried not to flinch at the condemnation in his. He’d sure fucked up. “Where do you want me to start?”
    “The beginning.” Cops always started at the beginning.
    He began with being jerked awake by the first bomb, leaving out where he’d been sleeping at the time. Nikolai flinched when Garrett recounted tossing Sonya overboard, and he lost himself for a moment in the fear she must have felt being pitched into water black and cold as death. His heart burned with the knowledge of what he’d put her through.
    A slight breeze drifted by and an eagle screeched above, while waves lapped carelessly at the shore. The sky flushed pink with promises of a stunning day to come. It all seemed so surreal that the short black hours of the night had been filled with death and confessions.
    “I just remember fragments after that.” Fighting to stay conscious, struggling to stay afloat, fearing he wouldn’t be able to save Sonya, and then the bitter reality that he hadn’t saved her. She’d saved herself. Along with Aidan. She hadn’t needed him. All Garrett had been was dead weight.
    “We need to hear anything you remember,” Judd said, settling into the role of good cop while Skip was deep in the role of bad cop. Garrett bet Skip couldn’t wait to cut him down, but he was professional enough to wait until they didn’t have an audience.
    “I remember Earl admitting that he’d caused the sinking of the Mystic .”
    Nikolai glanced away at his words and Garrett knew this night had to be incredibly hard on the man. He’d fished all these years next to the Hartes and hadn’t known the part Earl had played in his family’s tragedy.
    “Did you witness Aidan shooting Earl?” Skip asked.
    “Yes. It was self-defense. Sonya and I would be dead if Aidan hadn’t reacted as quickly as he had.” He met Aidan’s eye, knowing he owed the man not only his life but Sonya’s. He’d be forever in his debt.
    Didn’t that suck?

    Sonya threw back the mountain of covers and sat up. She’d awakened feeling like she’d been baked too long in an oven. Crispy around the edges and hard as a