Chapter 10
“Release the tail rope, Monte,” Mac called out after she finished putting the tracker on the new shark they’d found. Mac brought her hands up to the side of the boat, out of the way. She didn’t want her hands trapped between the boat and the shark.
“Okay.” The tail rope came lose, and the six-foot shark slapped up against the boat before it dove into the water.
It weighed a couple hundred pounds and could crush her without even trying. In her early research days when she’d been a student, she had made that mistake. Not anymore.
“I can’t believe we found a new one,” Missy, one of her students, said excitedly.
Mac was just as elated. She had feared the sharks were disappearing, but perhaps they were moving grounds. Something was scaring them out of the bay. That didn’t mean she didn’t want to continue her search along the coast next to the hotel. There was a reason they were leaving.
“I’m happy too.” All of them were happy to find some sharks. It had been a few days, and Mac was starting to get worried. Not just because her financer would pull funding when there were no sharks to research, but the ecosystem would be destroyed without the sharks.
“We even found Bruce,” Monte said, just as happy.
Bruce was a tiger shark that had been coming to the bay for the past seven years. He was twelve feet in length and had a jagged scar along his left gills. It was one of his distinguishing features that let Mac know it was him.
Features like that were how they recognized some of the sharks. Most had scars from encounters with other sharks. The females had the worst from mating.
“Maybe they’re just finding new grounds with all the development on that side of the island,” Monte suggested.
“Perhaps,” Mac replied, not believing it. They were being driven out, but it wasn’t because of construction. Miles bought that area of the island and prohibited anyone from going to that side. There was a reason.
Mac gazed up at the sky; the sun was starting to get lower.
“Burt,” she called out. He stuck his head out from his perch at the helm.
“Let’s head back. The sun is starting to go down.
” It wasn’t that Mac didn’t like to be in the water at night.
They did do night dives sometimes since that was when sharks were more active, but it was harder to see and a lot more dangerous.
Sharks were much more aggressive at night since that was their feeding time.
She had done a few night dives in the cage and hated it. Visibility was nil, and sharks came out of nowhere. She preferred day dives where visibility was better.
“Otaybes.” He mock-saluted and started the boat.
Mac made her way to the front of the boat and raised the anchor. As soon as it was clear, she lifted her thumb, and Burt put the motor into drive. Mac adjusted her stance as the boat sped through the waters.
She made her way to the inside cabin with Julie; another student was inputting the data they had collected on the four sharks they’d found today.
Three of the four had trackers. One was a hammerhead, and the other two were reef sharks.
The newest one they’d found was another tiger.
A female. Perhaps Bruce and this new one might mate.
Most of the sharks weren’t named but cataloged by their information and their tag number. Some of Mac’s students had named Bruce, and the name just stuck. Only Bruce was so easily recognizable.
“How’s it going in here?” Mac asked, taking a seat next to Julie.
“It’s good. The three with trackers, I’m adding their newest information. A few of them have new scars I want to add in the system.”
As they had brought the sharks to the boat, Julie had been in the water photographing them.
Julie took excellent photos and had an eye for detail.
She wasn’t afraid to get too close to these magnificent creatures, just like Mac.
Only Mac preferred to simply swim with them instead of photographing them.
Mac opened her laptop and typed in the first tracking number at the top of the paper they had been written on. It was one of the reef sharks. A male. He had been tagged a year ago. Mac input his tag number into the system to follow his satellite signal and where he had been in the past few months.
Since these were known sharks and were still here, maybe they could give clues as to why they were here now instead of on the southeast coastline.
This shark had been all throughout the Caribbean but always came back to the southeast coast until two months ago where it stayed in their area where they’d found it.
Mac looked up the hammerhead shark. Her migration pattern was much wider and stretched halfway down through South America and as far up as to North Carolina. It didn’t stay in the Caribbean for more than a few weeks each pass as it moved on.
There was a large fish population here that many species of sharks fed on through their migration pass.
“Hopefully we’ll have some new reef sharks again next year. I can’t wait to see if the pups follow their mother here.” Julie bounced up and down in her seat excitedly.
After an ultrasound, the team had discovered their reef shark was pregnant. She appeared to be several months along already. Mac had been able to see at least eight pups inside of her, but there could have been more.
“Depending how many survive, I wouldn’t be surprised.” It still amazed Mac that sharks could journey so far across oceans and find their way without ever having been to a location before.
Then Julie’s face turned sour. “I wish we knew where the birthing area was and could protect them for being eaten.”
“It’s part of life, Julie.” Mac didn’t like it any more than Julie did, but she refused to interfere in the circle of life.
Mac felt the boat slowing down. They must be getting close to the dock. “I’ll take care of this if you want to head up and help us dock.”
“Sure.” Julie pushed up from her chair and headed to the deck. Mac could hear the voices of her students calling out to others as they helped rope the boat to the dock.
Mac collected the laptops and joined them as Burt shut off the engines.
“U hapne na?” Burt asked her.
“Why, because we found a few sharks?”
“More n the pass few day.”
“That’s true.”
“But,” he prodded.
“We used to find more.” She was thankful they had found some, but normally they could find twenty reef sharks during one of their dives. These were the first two in almost a week.
“We’ll fin ‘em.”
“I hope so.” Mac looked down at her watch, wondering if Barry was at the bar already or still doing touristy things.
“Is ur ma waynin fer ya?”
“What?” Mac squawked then cleared her throat. “There’s no man waiting.”
“Why you cheg ur watg then?” he questioned with a gleam in his eyes and a wide grin across his face. He knew he had her there.
“I was seeing if it was too early for a beer.” She was lying, and Burt knew it. They always came back to shore around this time unless they were doing night dives. “I have to go,” she said, not meeting his eyes.
Monte was collecting the scuba gear when Mac left Burt. “Alright, team, we will not meet tomorrow. You all get the day off.” Several of them turned and looked at Mac as if she had said a hurricane was blowing in.
“What do you mean off? Is there something wrong?” Julie asked, her face suddenly pale.
“There’s nothing wrong. I just want to analyze this new data.” She held up the laptops. “See if we need to adjust where we do our research. We found some of the sharks today. Hopefully, we can start to find more again.”
“Alright,” they all grumbled. It was nice they were all dedicated to helping sharks like she was.
“Hey, you get the day off. Enjoy sleeping in. Maybe go surfing or enjoy the island.” One would think a day off was a jail sentence the way they were sulking as they walked down the dock.
Mac turned around to gather the rest of her gear and bumped into Burt’s chest. “Ur no donun anything raz is yo, bes?” Burt inquired, looking her over with a critical eye.
“No, like I said…research.” It wasn’t a lie, but the location was. Instead of doing it from her house, she would be doing it in the water.
“Jus be arfil,” he said as if he knew what she had planned.
“Always am,” she assured him.
Mac grabbed her bag and jumped off of the boat.
She headed down the dock at a brisk walk, her eyes scanning along the shore looking for Barry.
She didn’t know why she should be so excited to see him.
She hardly knew him. Most likely he’d already found another conquest and had already forgotten about her.
Mac’s breath caught, and she stumbled to a stop when she reached the end of the dock and saw Barry leaning against the wall of a building.
His one foot was crossed over the other with his arms folded over his chest. He wore sandals and khaki shorts and a dark blue button-up short-sleeved shirt with the top two buttons undone.
He wore sunglasses over his eyes, but she could still feel his gaze upon her. His lips pulled into a grin when he saw her staring at him. Who wouldn’t? The man was damn sexy.
Mac was finally able to get her legs working again and headed over to him. “Hi,” she greeted, sounding breathless.
Barry pushed off the wall and closed the distance between them. His hand snaked behind her back, and he claimed her lips in a toe-curling kiss as he dipped her back over his arm. Mac reached up instinctively to grip his biceps when she felt like she was going to fall backward.
Barry kept a steady hand on her lower back as his tongue dove between her lips. Mac opened eagerly for him and sparred as a deep grumble of approval rose from her throat.
She felt herself being lifted up, and Barry ended the kiss though he didn’t release her. “Hi.”
Mac heard footsteps coming up behind her.
“Tha kin ov reser?” Burt chuckled, stopping next to them.