Page 224 of Out of Left Field

Willa pressed against me, her hand still in mine.

I held in a groan.

Roan’s dark brows shot up. “They left you? Shit.” He dragged a large hand over his face and chin like he used to have a beard like mine—one he’d grown used to stroking. “That’s going to be a problem.”

Willa stiffened beside me. “What kind of problem?”

“Well, we’re kind of in a period of transition…and we currently only have one boat. A boat that’s at the marina on the mainland until morning.”

Of course it was.

“Can you call your friends to come back and get you?”

“I’ll try Kate.” Willa let my hand go and walked away.

“I’m sorry, man. Give us a few more months and we’ll be operational here, but until then, I’m afraid we’re kind of a shit show.” Roan threw his towel into a bin and groaned.

I wanted to ask why the restaurant was open if they weren’t fully operational, but the last person I wanted to upset was the same person we might need for room and board for a night.

“I’m sure the resort can send a boat back for us.” The Calusa Key Resort was a high-end hotel with guests from all over the world. This couldn’t be the first time a guest got themselves stranded somewhere.

“And navigating in the dark between the islands isn’t hard. We’re at high tide in an hour.” Roan’s words sounded confident, but the look in his eyes wasn’t.

Especially when Willa returned white as a sheet, holding her phone in her hand like she forgot it was there. “The retreat has started. I can’t get a hold of anyone. Not Kate. Not Jeri. Not even the front desk!”

Fuck. Kate warned us they were going full silent treatment from dusk tonight until dusk tomorrow. No social media. No phone calls. Nothing.

“What about emergencies?” This was insane. I was going to wring Jeri’s neck when we got back.

Willa shook her head. “I heard Kate say that the staff would be able to contact emergency services, but to honor the twenty-four-hour break, the only way to contact the resort is to call the emergency hotline. We’d have to get the police involved, Everett.”

“Oh shit, you do not want to do that,” Roan replied. “Not for a boat.”

That left my parents. “I’ll see if my dad can come pick us up.” I shuffled away as my phone started ringing. I knew Jeri could be extreme, but this was extremely extreme. Did she really just hope we’d be safe here and take off?

“What’s wrong?” My mother never beat around the bush.

“You’re never going to believe this.”

Her chuckle made me smile. “You and Willa are stuck somewhere?”

Everyone called my mother Megan, Mama Megan, or Moms. Even Rosie called her Megan more often than not. “How’d you guess?”

“Anytime you two are within five miles of each other the Universe will conspire. Where are you, I’ll come and get you.”

“You see, that’s the problem. We got abandoned by our crew at The Fighting Conch.” I braced for her reaction.

Moms did not disappoint. “What? That dump? I didn’t even know it was open!”

I was really glad I walked away from Roan. “Any chance Dad could run over and pick us up? Kate’s got the resort locked down and we can’t get a hold of anyone.”

“Oh honey I wish he could, but he can’t go out at night anymore. Not that he was ever good navigating in the dark,” she muttered that last part.

It was true that Dad had run the boat aground more times than I could count. And all but one of those times was at night. Mostly because he refused to use a depth finder. But even with all the gadgets and GPS in the world, I didn’t want to put my dad at risk just because Willa and I missed our ride.

“I’ll call Chief Mitchell. She’ll get a hold of the resort and send a boat over.”

“Moms, you know she’s going to send her boat over if you do that.” The island gossip tomorrow would be epic. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see if they can put us up here. I’ll call you in the morning to let you know we got back safe and sound.”