Cowboy to the Rescue by Stella Bagwell Page B

Corpus tonight?”
    â€œDo you have a better idea? Or would you rather drive down here again next week?”
    He considered her questions for a moment, and then suddenly a grin spread across his face. “What the hell. I haven’t stayed on the beach in a long time. We can have red snapper for supper tonight or shrimp or whatever your heart desires.”
    Relieved that he was being so compliant about it all, she felt her spirits lift. “What about shell searching? I love doing that.”
    He curled his arm around her waist and urged her toward the truck. “Then we’ll find a whole load of them for you to take back to the ranch,” he promised.
    On down the bay-side street, they found a little coffee shack with outside tables, where they drank coffee and shared a danish before driving to the charter-boat place. Business there was hopping, but the personnel quickly waited on them, and in a few minutes’ time, they were on board a twenty-foot cruiser with inboard motors and a covered deck.
    The captain was Eric, a young man in his late twenties with jet-black hair and bronze skin. He was good-looking in a beachcomber sort of way, and in Lex’s opinion, he paid entirely too much attention to Christina. But then, Lex could hardly blame the man. She was like a wild rose with her red hair flying in the wind and her blue eyes sparkling brighter than the sea itself.
    Since the night of the roundup, he’d hardly been able to think of anything but her. And though he knew he was getting far too attached to her, he couldn’t seem to do a damned thing to stop it. The more time he spent with her, the more he wanted.
    â€œCan you tell us how far you think it is to the coordinates I gave you?” Christina asked Eric once they’d pulled away from the dock and headed out in the bay.
    Eric answered with a pleasant smile. “Not exactly. Maybe ten, fifteen miles.”
    â€œThat far?” Lex asked from a spot beneath the canopy, where he was sitting next to Christina.
    â€œI can’t be sure,” Eric answered. “But I’m guessing it will be that distance.”
    The young captain turned his attention back to maneuvering the boat. Lex looked skeptically over at Christina. “I used to come here with Dad to fish, and I’m a bit familiar with the area. If we go that far, we’ll be close to the islands.”
    â€œYou’re talking about Mustang and Padre?”
    He nodded. “But that wouldn’t make sense. If Dad fell off the boat while closer to the islands than to Corpus, then why would they bring him all the way back here for medical attention?”
    For the first time since she’d met Lex, she saw suspicion flicker in his eyes, and she understood the next hour was going to be hard on him. Laying a hand over his, she said, “Let’s wait and see where we are when we get there.”
    For the first half of the trip, the waters were full of all sorts of sailing vessels. Everything from small catamarans to commercial-sized shrimp boats to massive freighter ships could be seen bobbing atop the choppy water. But as they headed farther out to sea, only the larger vessels were visible, and they were few and far between.
    Lex raised his voice to speak to the captain. “Eric, is this area normally fished?”
    The young man glanced around at the open waters before looking over his shoulder at his passengers. “It depends on the time of the year and how the fish are running. Today is a slow day, but that’s probably because it’s Sunday morning.”
    Lex’s attention turned to Christina, who’d been listening intently. “I suppose on a Saturday it wouldn’t have been odd for my dad and his friends to be fishing this area.”
    Frowning, Christina nodded. “I’m still anxious to see where we’ll be when we reach the right coordinates.”
    â€œSo am I,” Lex grimly agreed.
    As the boat plowed