Page 10 of Courting Danger

“Most of you know what happened this afternoon,” Mark began. “Thanks to Ocean’s quick thinking in memorizing the license plates of the cars who caused it, we know who to deal with about the damages. As fucked as the whole thing was, in the middle of all the bullshit, Ocean provided a first aid kit and helped patch up fallen riders. Figured that earned him the right to ask all the questions about his old man he wanted the answers to. He’s Riptide’s son.”

“Those of you who still keep up with the competitive surfing scene might recognize him,” Pope said, filling the silence that followed Mark’s words. “Since he’s currently ranked number three in the world. Meet Oceanus Monroe.”

“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Dalton said, leaning closer, before digging around in the pocket of his flannel shirt. “Confounded things, never where I put them.”

He finally located his glasses and slid them up his nose, amid the rumbling of other voices in various stages of recognition.

“Where’s your old man, son?” Jester asked. “Is he still kicking around California?”

“No sir,” Ocean replied. “He passed away when I was seven. Got caught in a riptide in Malibu and didn’t make it out.”

“Son of a bitch,” Mark muttered. “Could just as easily have happened the day he rescued my kid.”

“He was just a kid himself when that happened,” Dalton said. “No more than, what, fourteen or fifteen?”

“Fifteen,” Mark replied. “Outswam me to get to the boy and kept him safe while they were swept along for half a mile before he could swim clear of it.”

“I remember when he headed out to California,” Sunshine said, elbows propped on the table as she studied him. “Knew then and there that he’d never be back.”

“Mom loved it too much to ever agree to leave the beach house he’d built for her,” Ocean explained. “She passed away last year, in her chair on the deck. She’d been sick for a while. After they told her there was nothing more they could do for her, all she wanted was to go home, watch the waves, and wait for my old man to come back for her.”

“Was she your only other family?” Jester asked.

“Yeah,” Ocean replied. “I had a brother, but he was born with a heart defect and passed away when he was three. It wasn’t long after that Dad drowned, so it was just her and I. Pops had a bunch of scrapbooks though, of growing up out here. There were a ton of photos of the club and guys on the beach surfing together. He talked so much about the Outer Banks and thesurfing there that when I had the chance to sign up for the Duck Pier Classic, I jumped at it so I’d finally have the chance to check out his hometown and see if I could learn more about him than what’s in those books.”

“You’ve come to the right place, then,” Dalton said. “Though I thought the Classic was three months away.”

“It is,” Ocean replied. “But showing up a day or two before the opening to test out the waves for the first time sounded about as stupid as waiting until the day of an event to surf the North Shore.”

There were a couple chuckles around the table before Sunshine nodded. “Sound thinking, if not a little surprising seeing the way you surf.”

“My old man used to say that there was a thin line between calculated risk and insanity,” Ocean replied. “I might toe that line, but I never cross it.”

Pope chuckled, knowing the saying well. “You know where he got that, don’t you?”

“No sir,” Ocean replied. “But it’s embedded in my soul.”

“He got it from my gramps,” Pope explained. “He and your grandfather were tight before your grandparents passed away. Your dad and I spent a lot of days on the beach together with Jester’s daughter and Sunshine’s twins.”

“Wait, so you grew up together?” Ocean asked.

“Ran wild up and down the coast,” Sunshine said, a fond look on her face. “Gave me more than a few of these gray hairs in the process too. He used to drive your grandmother crazy the way he’d burst into the house after school, the screen door hitting the side of the trailer so hard it rattled the place. He’d dump his backpack in the middle of the kitchen floor on the way to the fridge and track crumbs all the way to his bedroom before changing and rushing for the beach. She’d move that bag so no one tripped over it but waited to sweep up the crumbs until theend of the night, when he’d added a trail of sand to the mix. My two weren’t much better. Born with waves on the brain, those two were.”

“And we know who they got it from, too,” Joker replied, cackle ending in a harsh cough.

“Sure do,” Sunshine replied, squeezing the hand of the woman seated beside her. “Their mother.”

Beside them was their kitten, Kermit, who was never far from one of their sides.

Chuckles followed, while the woman in question’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse you. Who used to wake me up before dawn just to listen to the wave report over a cup of chai tea and a slice of strawberry bread?”

“Guilty,” Sunshine admitted, her laughter blending with all the rest.

For thirty-two years those women had ridden side by side and raised a set of twin boys and a badass daughter who was off the coast somewhere on a research vessel, putting trackers on animals and gathering data to help preserve the ever-threatened species of the world’s ocean. Not only had she gone off to some fancy college, but she’d come home with a master’s degree in marine biology and a knowledge of coastal legends that rivaled Pope’s own.

His twice-monthly conversations with Juniper were often filled with wonderful leads as he sought to gather information on the old smuggling routes and the interesting ways the biker and surfer subcultures had become intertwined up and down the coast.

“So, my grandfather was a member of the club too?” Ocean asked. “I never met him. Dad said there was an accident and he and my grandmother were killed.”