Stranded With Her Ex

At least the wind would make their conversation impossible to overhear. It blew her hair in every direction, whipping the shoulder-length strands against her cheeks.

She stared out at the horizon, collecting her thoughts. Although she disliked being at Sean’s mercy, she’d have to suck it up and make nice. There was so much riding on this project. Her career, the cause…her peace of mind, even. In a way, she’d come here to find herself.

She’d been lost for so long.

Spending time on a deserted island with her ex-husband wasn’t going to be easy, but she was a survivor. She’d lived through worse than this. Compared to some of the other challenges she’d faced in her life, his presence was a minor roadblock.

They’d been married for more than five years; surely they could put up with each other for a few short weeks.

“You look good,” he said, after a long moment.

Surprised by the compliment, she turned to face him.

“Your hair is longer,” he added unnecessarily. “And you seem…” His gaze dropped to her breasts, which were impossible to hide, even in a boxy windbreaker. “Healthier,” he muttered, a flush creeping up his neck.

If he meant to flatter her, he was off base. After the accident, she’d cropped her hair short, and in the following year she’d lost a lot of weight. She’d overheard him telling his best friend that she resembled a scrawny boy.

One careless remark, never discussed, never repeated, but it had damaged their already strained relationship. The last thing she needed was a reminder that he liked long, luscious hair and generous curves.

Sexist pig.

He was looking a bit rawboned himself, but she didn’t say that. Lean or not, he was the picture of health. Shedding a few pounds only made his shoulders appear broader and his face more angular. Underneath his clothes, she knew he would be perfectly cut, all lovely muscles etched into sun-bronzed flesh.

Beautiful bastard.

His hair was longer, too, curling at the edge of his collar, as if he’d been too busy to have it trimmed. He hadn’t bothered to shave in a few days, either. His whiskers appeared thicker than ever, but she knew from experience that they would feel soft to the touch. Her fingertips tingled at the memory of exploring his stubbly jaw and hard mouth. Both were deceptively rough-looking.

She resisted the absurd longing to lift her hand to his face. “I need this,” she said in a low voice.

Sean shook his head. “You don’t belong here, Dani. It’s too harsh, too volatile. You’re…not equipped.”

“That isn’t fair,” she said. “You haven’t even seen me since—”

“When’s the last time you had an anxiety attack?” he interrupted.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she studied the horizon instead of him. Breathe, she reminded herself. Just breathe.

“A month ago? A week?”

“I can handle it.” He’d witnessed her worst breakdowns, so she couldn’t blame him for being concerned. She could, however, resent him for treating her like an invalid, and for thinking she was weak. “I’m stronger now.”

His eyes wandered over her face. “Are you?”

“Yes! You really think that teenybopper you were playing full-contact with is tougher than I am? After all I’ve been through?”

“She’s twenty-four.”

Jealousy burned within her, hot and bright. “Did you interrogate her this way, too? Make sure she was mentally fit?”

“I didn’t have to. She’s very…easygoing.”

Daniela choked out a laugh. Nothing he could have said would hurt more. Compared to her, everyone seemed easy. “How perfect for you.”

He didn’t disagree.

She pushed the pain of his betrayal aside, searching for the right words to convince him. “I’ve been on the waiting list for over a year, Sean. Don’t take this opportunity away from me because you came out here on a whim. Please.”

He shifted from one foot to the other, his face taut. “There’s been an incident.”

“What kind of incident?”

“Someone skinned a seal pup.”

The breath rushed from her lungs. “When?”

“A few days ago. We found it on the north side.”

Daniela blinked a few times, struggling to understand. “The body washed up?”

“No. It was fresh.”

“That’s impossible! The island is virtually inaccessible.”

He inclined his head in agreement. “Virtually.”

“Who would do that?”

“Maybe a disgruntled fisherman, or a member of the cage-diving crew. Either way, it’s been damned odd around here lately. We’re all on edge. The last thing I want is for you to come across some crazy…anti-environmentalist.” He was quiet for a moment, his gaze searching hers. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

A lump rose to her throat. She swallowed hard, thinking she’d much rather deal with his criticism than his tenderness. “I won’t,” she promised, her voice huskier than usual. “I appreciate your concern, but I can’t run away at the first sign of trouble. I need to face my fears, Sean. I came here to move on.”

His eyes darkened with a sharp, indefinable emotion. She knew the situation was difficult for him, too. Much of what had gone wrong between them had been her fault; she’d given up on their marriage long before he had.

And when she realized her mistake, it had been too late.

The radio under his jacket crackled with disturbance. “Shark attack, southwest side. Near Skull Rock. Looks like a big one.”

It was a man’s voice, one she didn’t recognize. Sean unclipped his radio and responded with an affirmative, glancing up toward the lighthouse. Beside it, there was a lone figure, waving his arms in the direction of the attack.

Jason flew out of the house, a digital video camera in his hands, his open jacket flapping behind him. There was no more time for negotiation. “Who’s with me?” he said, heading toward the landing.

It went without saying that Sean was. He lived for this.

He started after Jason, following him away from the house. Daniela had to jog to keep up with his long strides. The man at the lighthouse tower also hurried down the path, eager to accompany them.

“Sure you want to see this?” Sean asked over his shoulder. “It’s a bloody mess.”

As soon as he spoke those words, she was assaulted by images from another disturbing scene. Shrieking metal and shattered glass. The warm, wet rush of blood and the agonizing pain spreading through her belly.

“Yes,” she said anyway, fighting to clear her mind of memories. This was a test, like jumping from boat to boat, and failure was not an option. Heart racing, she scrambled along behind him, her feet seeking purchase on the rocky soil.

He should have checked the roster before signing on.

It had never occurred to Sean that his ex-wife would be on the list of researchers. Southeast Farallon was the last place on earth she should be.

He was glad she’d decided to return to the world of the living, but this wasn’t it. In fact, native Californians had called the Farallones “The Islands of the Dead.” The conditions were too extreme for someone who’d gone through what she had.

It was like tossing a soldier with PTSD into a battle demonstration. Only, this was no demonstration.

Maybe after witnessing a twenty-foot shark decapitate an elephant seal, she’d go back to the mainland on the next charter. He hoped so. It wasn’t as if he didn’t wish her the best. It was just that the best thing for her was to be somewhere else. Somewhere peaceful.

She didn’t need to rub her face in carnage to prove to him, or anyone, that she could handle the sight of blood again.

When they all loaded into the whaler, Jason passed the handheld camera to Sean and got behind the wheel. Brent, who’d managed to grab his own video equipment, settled in across from Daniela, and Sean took the space beside her.

Elizabeth operated the crane, lowering them down to the surface of the water.

“You must be Daniela,” Brent said, offering her his hand. “I’m Brent Masterson.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

Although her smile was bland, he scanned her face with undisguised interest, recording every line and angle. Sean knew he was thinking that Daniela would look great on camera. Her big brown eyes and captivating features made her spectacularly photogenic.

As soon as the boat touched the surface, Jason unhooked the chain and revved up the engine, speeding toward Skull Rock.

Sean passed the handheld camera to Daniela. “Film.”

Her cheeks paled. “What?”

“I tag,” Sean said. “Jason drives. You and Brent can film.”

“You’re going to tag it?”

He nodded. “I need my hands free.”

Tagging was a quick, easy process, and Sean could have filmed himself, but getting Daniela behind the lens would be good for her. It was a task to focus on, a small insulation, one step removed from the horror.

“B-be careful,” she mumbled, lifting the video camera to her face.

Even in a state of shock and uncertainty, she was breathtaking. Being with her again was a jolt to his system, as powerful and disturbing as the first time he’d set eyes on her. He remembered that day with perfect clarity.

She’d been hurrying toward the parking lot at San Diego State, a stack of textbooks under one arm, a sleek leather tote bag in the other. With her stylish clothes and arresting good looks, she was a world apart from the granola girls he usually gravitated toward.

One glimpse of her, and his heart had stalled in his chest.

He was a post-grad student, teaching his first class, and if he hadn’t already been late he’d have followed her. As it was, he’d turned to watch her go, ogling her in a way that was gauche and obvious and embarrassingly impolite.

Maybe it was fate, because she showed up in his classroom a few minutes later. Apparently, she’d forgotten the syllabus and had gone back to her car to retrieve it.

He was sure he’d babbled nonsense for most of the hour, but she hadn’t seemed to mind. In fact, she’d approached him after, claiming to have enjoyed his lecture. Every time the class met after that, she sat closer to the front of the room.

During the final exam she’d been in the first row, wearing a low-cut top so distracting he’d stuttered whenever his eyes tripped over her.

That was ten years ago.

He didn’t know how they’d arrived at this painful juncture, and it hurt too much to retrace the steps. Trying to live without her the past year had been agony for him, but it hadn’t been as bad as living with her, watching her slip away.

Was she truly on the mend?

He hadn’t lied when he’d told her she looked good. She was lovelier than ever, to be honest. The new hairstyle worked for her, framing her heart-shaped face and feathering out against her cheeks, drawing his attention to her mouth.

He wished he didn’t remember all the things she’d done to him with it.

Pulling his gaze away from her, he searched the horizon, looking for a seal carcass or a boil on the surface of the water. The tearing motion great whites used while feeding, tails whipping back and forth, created a unique disturbance.

Skull Rock, the islands’ most striking natural feature, loomed in the near distance. While most of the rock formations were jagged, jutting toward the sky like a row of wicked teeth, the Skull had a rounded shape and two distinctive, cavernous indentations. One went all the way through to the other side, giving the impression of a gaping eye socket.

It was a fitting place for a kill.

Jason saw the body before he did. “Starboard side, twenty meters,” he said, cutting the boat’s speed to a crawl.

Daniela turned her head, doing a visual sweep of the area.

Sean placed his hand on her shoulder. “There,” he said, pointing her in the right direction. She was trembling, and that would affect the video, but it hardly mattered. He’d taken some shaky footage himself.

A certain amount of fear was normal. Hell, if you weren’t scared of a lightning-quick predator with razor-sharp teeth and the striking power of a Mack truck, something was fundamentally wrong with you.

Of course, the shark was nowhere to be seen at the moment. Only the headless body of a California sea lion was visible, floating in a slick red bath. The water wouldn’t keep the color long, for the Pacific Ocean was a vast expanse, but while the animal bled out it was surrounded by a shock of crimson, pure and dark and undiluted.

“Wh-where is it?” Daniela whispered, camera focused on the corpse.

“Close by,” he said, dropping his hand from her shoulder. He wanted to keep touching her, to make sure she stayed put. Which was foolish, as no one in their right mind would leap from a boat in this situation. “Zoom in.”

She fumbled with the camera for a moment, familiarizing herself with the controls before she resumed filming. Her face was pale and drawn, her eyes stark.

Brent attached his underwater camera to a pole with a crooked arm and lowered it into the water. He didn’t talk much while he was filming, claiming that the man behind the lens shouldn’t be seen or heard.

Next to him, Jason Ruiz was silent at the helm. Although he was more loquacious than Brent, he knew shark behavior as well as Sean, and kept his comments to a minimum while they were out here. He was a good scientist, if a little overeager, and they got on well.

When Jason glanced up at Sean now, his eyes narrowed for a split second before he looked away.

The younger man’s disapproval wasn’t obvious, and Sean was almost convinced he’d imagined it. Over the past few days, Jason had treated him with deference and respect and damned near adoration. It was kind of annoying, actually.

Less than an hour with Daniela, and he’d switched sides.

Jason hadn’t known about their marriage, but perhaps he’d heard a few random details about the divorce. They’d separated after she almost died in a car accident, which didn’t cast Sean in a very positive light. His ex-wife also had a singular effect on people, especially men, and Jason had a weakness for the ladies.

He’d never met a beautiful woman he didn’t want to sleep with.

Sean could practically hear him thinking, “You dumped her? Are you insane? She’s hot.”

She’d dumped him, not the other way around, but almost everyone assumed the failed relationship was his fault. They were right, in a way. He’d been unable to protect her, incapable of comforting her and at an utter loss for the right words to say to her.

“Why isn’t it…eating?” she whispered, her voice wavering.

“A pause between the first strike and a feeding isn’t unusual. We think they’re making sure the prey is in no condition to fight back.”

This sea lion wouldn’t put up a fuss—not without a head. White sharks often attacked by ambush, rocketing toward the target from underneath and incapacitating it in one fatal blow. The current victim had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, swimming too far from the shallows and too close to the surface.

Although blood no longer gushed from the wound, the animal’s exposed vertebra was a grisly sight, and the air was thick with the smell of death. Seabirds waited on nearby perches, feathers fluttering, ready to snap up a meaty scrap.

Sean watched Daniela’s throat work as she swallowed back her nausea. She was holding up well, considering. As a marine biologist, she’d interacted with dangerous animals before. They’d worked in the field together on a regular basis, so he knew her level of expertise.

He’d seen her reach out to stroke the slippery back of a stingray, grin with delight when visited by a school of blue sharks, stand up to a braying Northern seal and get bitten on her pretty little backside as she beat a hasty retreat.

Daniela had a way with animals, a confidence gained from experience and a natural ease that couldn’t be taught. She wasn’t a shark expert, however, and the great whites at the Farallones were like no other predator on earth.

With her unsteady nerves and devastating personal history, she wasn’t the best candidate for this kind of research.

The sight of a white shark breaching, or propelling its massive body above the surface of the water during the initial attack was heart-stopping. There was also no way to predict this occurrence, so footage of it was rare. Unlike in the movies, most sharks didn’t advertise their locations by flashing fins before a bite.

Feeding frenzies were also unusual. After the kill, whites ate with economical efficiency, and they weren’t the most dexterous of fish. If their movements caused the surface of the water to bubble like a pot of seafood gumbo, it was because they were powerhouses, not because they were doing underwater gymnastics.

Sean knew what to expect, but the wait always created tension. Anticipating Daniela’s reaction made the situation more uneasy.

The whaler was only fifteen feet long, and it seemed to shrink as time dragged on. A patch of coastal fog settled over the upper half of the island, bringing with it an eerie quiet, a silence charged with dread and unholy glee.

At Skull Rock, beady-eyed scavengers shuffled their clawed feet.

When the shark broke through the surface of the water, Daniela startled, almost dropping the video camera. She took a series of short, quick breaths, fright apparent on her fine features, the rapid beat of her pulse visible in her slender neck.

Sean didn’t need a Ph.D to diagnose her anxiety, or any special intuition to realize she was reliving the trauma of the wreck. Her face was so pale, he feared she would faint. He considered dropping the tagging equipment to offer her his assistance. Brent, whose attention should have been focused on directing the underwater camera, seemed concerned by her distress. And it went without saying that Jason was enraptured.

Just as Sean was about to call off the shoot, Daniela pulled herself together. Spine straightening, she held the video camera in a steady, if white-knuckled, grip.

The evidence of her courage caused a strange welling of emotions within him. Pride, and sadness and regret. His eyes watered and his throat closed up. How ironic, he thought, if he turned out to be the one who couldn’t hold it together.

After a moment, the pressure in his chest eased and he was able to drag his gaze away from her. The white had moved in and was nibbling a big chunk of flesh from the decapitated sea lion’s side. By the looks of it, the shark was an adult, and good-sized, too. At least eighteen or nineteen feet.

“It’s Shirley,” Jason said, a grin lighting across his face.

“It sure as hell is,” Sean replied, returning his smile.

Shirley was a breeding female, and that was always a welcome sight at the Farallones. She had a crescent-shaped scar above her left eye, small but easy to recognize, and she was often spotted with her full-figured friend, Laverne.

The pair had been named by Sean a couple of years ago. Jason had seen them both last year, but hadn’t been able to tag either. The number of great whites in the world was ever-dwindling, and the circle of shark researchers was small. Although Jason and Sean didn’t know each other that well, they knew a lot of the same sharks.

They studied Shirley in reverent silence while she tore and chewed and swallowed. A flurry of greedy seagulls dogged her every movement, snatching up stringy bits of gore, wings flapping. While the effect wasn’t aesthetically pleasing, the mood on the boat was no longer sinister, and any hint of animosity from Jason was gone.

Still smiling, he eased the whaler in closer.

“Wh-what are we doing?” Daniela asked, one hand reaching out to grab the edge of the hull, steadying herself.

Sean’s blood turned to ice. “Keep your hands inside the boat.”

“Why? It’s over there.”

“One of them is over there,” he corrected, trying not to visualize Laverne breaching beside the boat, taking most of Daniela’s arm with her.

She snatched her hand back. And just like that, she lost her focus. Letting the camera sag, she searched the surface of the water with terrified eyes, pressing her palm to her lower abdomen in a way that was familiar and absolutely heartbreaking.

Sean wanted to kick himself. He didn’t know what he should have said differently, or what to say now to calm her down.

“Look at me,” Jason said.

Gulping, she met his steady gaze.

“We’re going in closer to tag her. It only takes a minute. And Sean’s a pro. You know that, right?”

Her eyes darted from him to Sean. “Yeah,” she said, moistening her lips.

“Good. You just keep filming. You’re doing a great job.”

Brent nodded helpfully. “You’ll be fine.”

Like a trooper, she put the camera back up to her face and resumed filming. Her movements were stiff, even robotic, but she was working through the fear, maintaining her composure and refusing to let the past overwhelm her.

He hazarded a glance at Jason, who merely shrugged and maneuvered the whaler into position. Sean should have felt grateful that someone had been coolheaded enough to help Daniela. Instead, he was sick with envy.

And Brent knew it. Sean could tell by the way he averted his eyes, turning his attention back to the surface of the water.

Unlike Jason, Sean didn’t have an easy way with words. He wasn’t suave, expressive or articulate. His inability to communicate his feelings to Daniela had played a major role in their breakup. And just now, his thoughtless comment had caused her panicked reaction.

By trying to keep her safe, he’d only put her in more danger.

A muscle in Sean’s jaw ticked as he located the tagging equipment, clicking the various components into place with swift, angry motions. This was what he knew. Scientific gadgets and cold-blooded animals.

Here, no words were necessary.

Chapter 3

Coming here had been a mistake.

Sean was right. Daniela knew that now.

Why had she thought she was strong enough to keep her cool on a tiny aluminum boat in turbulent, shark-filled waters? She wasn’t. Anyone who found this type of situation exciting, or even remotely safe, was certifiable.

The whaler they were sitting in was a joke. What would prevent one of those ferocious beasts from bumping it? One nudge, and they’d all be overboard, swimming for their lives in noxious, red-tinged water.

She almost gagged. The air smelled like a rendering plant.

What would stop Shirley from biting into the boat? A great white had some of the most powerful jaws in the animal kingdom. Those teeth could cut through the hull like it was a soda can.

Shirley had devoured a 500-pound sea lion in less than a dozen bites.

Jason and Sean had watched her chow down with identical expressions of pride on their handsome faces, grinning like the maniacs they were. Brent’s demeanor was more circumspect, but no less pleased. He was getting great footage.

As they moved in closer, Daniela’s unease grew. The shark was not only longer than the boat, she was wider. Her mouth gaped open, larger than the circle of Daniela’s arms, ringed by rows of serrated white daggers.

This shark could swallow her whole. And that toothy grin was less than two feet from the side of the boat.

It was all she could do to keep filming while Sean stood and leaned out, tagging the shark’s slippery back as easily as if he’d been giving a fellow surfer a high five.

Daniela had been fighting a breakdown for most of the day. The sight of him taking such a shocking risk, and doing it with ineffable nonchalance, almost sent her careening over the edge. Somehow, she continued to point the camera at the thing in the water, a now unrecognizable mass of shiny black flesh and red-soaked teeth. Birds swooped down around them from every direction, literally plucking strings of meat from the mouth of the monster.

Time seemed to slow down and speed up after that. One moment, they were out on the water, watching the brutality of nature, survival of the fittest in action, a violent blur of sound and motion and color. The next, they were sailing through the air, disappearing into a blanket of late-afternoon fog.