She gave Brad a wry smile. “‘Let’s go sailing,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve been sailing since I was a boy,’ he said.” She playfully wagged her pointer finger at him. “If we get stuck on some godforsaken island because of your bright idea, I’m not going to let you live this down, you know.”

Brad’s blue eyes sparkled, reflecting the bright sun overhead as he laughed. He was nearly forty, but his boyish smile and adventurous attitude made the fifteen years that separated them inconsequential.

He turned his gaze toward her and ran his fingers through his pale-brown hair. “I seem to recall that we discussed these plans and you thought it was a great idea too. And besides,” he unclipped from his waistband a satellite phone, “at least we’ve got this, so even if we have trouble, we can always call the maritime cavalry.”

“Well, let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.”

A brilliant flash of lightning streaked from one cloud to another, and seconds later came the long, rolling thunder. Kathy felt a shiver as she glanced at the autopilot screen and then up at the advancing dark clouds.

For a brief moment, Kathy wished she were back home. She’d grown up as a cattle rancher’s daughter in Nevada, and never intended to go back, but as she felt a growing sense of foreboding about their surroundings, her thoughts briefly fled to the familiarity of home.

“Kathy,” Brad yelled over the wind and the echoing boom of thunder. “Let’s get down in the cabin.” He climbed below deck, motioning for her to follow him. “It’ll take us about two hours to get there, and though we should beat the storm, it’ll get pretty windy topside.”

Hopping off the captain’s chair, Kathy ducked into the cabin and gave Brad a quick kiss on the cheek. “No shipwrecks, you got that, Mr.?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A shipwreck would give me more time with you all to myself.”

Brad pinched her rear, and she shrieked with feigned outrage as she hopped toward the bow.

He grabbed a pillow from a cabinet and tossed it to her. “Why don’t you get some rest? I’ll keep watch over things.”

“Sounds good to me.”

As Brad sat in front of the controls of the in-cabin navigator’s station, Kathy climbed into the V-shaped bed in the front of the sailboat and tucked the pillow beneath her head. Brad was a captain for a professional fishing outfit, and she had full confidence in his ability to get them safely where they needed to go. So she lay back and enjoyed the rocking of the boat, and when her eyelids began to droop, she didn’t fight it. The next thing she knew, she was awakened by Brad’s shout from above. “Honey, can you get up here?”