In Too Deep by Tracey Alvarez Page B

quarter, show no
weakness. Shark or no shark, bolting right now was not an
option.
    More shouting. This time she
deciphered a few words—Piper, goddammit, and get-your-ass, before
she tuned out.
    Piper looked for the shark, but it
had since disappeared into the gloom. The shifting of shadow and
light and the motion of the water dampened down her pulse rate to
almost normal.
    No sharks. No dead bodies. Just
the ocean she’d always loved.
    Always had loved.
    She was unsure what her feelings
were toward it at the moment. Or toward the man above—and she
couldn’t avoid dealing with him for much longer.

Chapter 5
    Once she
estimated a good five minutes had passed since West threw up his
hands and walked away, Piper swam over to the cage hole. Point
made—she was no coward. Quitting because panic nipped at her heels
was unacceptable. If she left the cage when West ordered, she’d
find it twice as hard to go back in next time.
    And really—a police diver losing
it because of a big, dumb shark that couldn’t even get to
her? She confronted more danger patrolling the streets of
Wellington city on a Friday night shift.
    Breaking the surface,
    Piper spat out the regulator and
pulled off her mask and hood. The sunshine striking her face after
the chilly water was bliss. She climbed onto the boat and dropped
her mask into the bin with the other spares.
    West lounged on one of the
cushioned benches, feet propped on an overturned fish bin, his
fingers wrapped around an open bottle of Coke. He drank deeply,
then placed the bottle on the table in front of him. “You
done?”
    “ Yep.” She sat on a plastic stool
and peeled off the neoprene booties, wriggling her toes. “I can see
why the loopies like it. It’s an adrenaline rush.”
    “ An adrenaline rush.”
    “ Oh, yeah. Shark must’ve been a
thirteen-footer.”
    “ More like eleven.” Sunglasses
still covered his eyes and he kept them directed at the horizon,
his thumb hooked all casual-like in the pocket of his shorts. As if
the catching-some-rays act could convince her he wasn’t seething on
the inside.
    Piper yanked on the wetsuit’s pull
tag, dragged the neoprene off her arms and chest, leaving it to
flop down around her hips. Adjusting the straps of her swimsuit,
she directed another covert glance at West. He still stared out to
sea, but this time the twitch of his Adam’s apple and the
white-knuckled fingers around the bottle neck indicated an imminent
blowout.
    “ Must’ve been my lucky day to see
one without any bait.” She stood and grabbed a towel off the nearby
stack, rubbing it over her damp skin.
    “ Scared the crap out of you,
didn’t it?” He dropped his feet off the fish bin and slid the
sunglasses to the top of his head.
    Her temper sparked at the smirk
coloring his gaze, fanning to flame by him being right. A more
accurate description of her reaction was
terrified-to-a-whisker-of-a-meltdown. And the shark’s sudden
appearance couldn’t explain the sick apprehension that choked her
before the dive. Not a comforting admission, when the ability to
think clearly and cope under stress would affect her future career.
“It startled me, at most.”
    “ Startled? You leapt two feet
backward— it was a wonder you didn’t swallow your
tongue.”
    “ I wasn’t expecting a shark to
just be there , that’s all. My reaction was completely
understandable and no big deal.”
    West stood, muscles bunching under
his thin tee shirt as he crossed his arms. “It could’ve been a big
deal if you’d knocked the regulator out while you were
panicking.”
    Trust West to select the one word
guaranteed to trigger a response. Seabirds wheeled in the air
currents, their cries slicing through the only other sounds—waves
slapping against the hull and her teeth grinding together as she
counted to ten. Counting didn’t help.
    Piper threw down the towel,
balling her hands into fists. “I don’t panic.”
    “ You did that time,
baby.”
    “ Bull. Shit.”
    West