Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 811 & 812, March/April 2009

She took them and squinted. “Two people. A girl and a guy, I think.”

“In trouble?”

“Pretty long way off, but I’d say so.” She handed them back.

“A Boston Whaler.” He watched. “Engine sputtering.”

“If they need help, they’ll signal us somehow.”

“The guy’s looking at us through his binoculars.” He put his arm around her and held her close. “I say we ignore them until they let us know they want us involved. What do you think?”

“Maybe they’re waiting for help from someone they radioed already,” Carolina agreed. She popped open a couple of bottles, handed him one, and nuzzled his neck.

He set the powerful binoculars down and pulled her into a long, slow, showy kiss.

After they parted again, she drank from her bottle, turned away from the approaching boat, and made a face. “Ugh. What crap.” She set the bottle down.

“Won a prize in a blind taste test.”

“You mean a tasteless taste test.”

“We’ll crack out some champagne later, and that’s a promise.”

She ran fingers through the hair on his chest.

He nibbled her ear. “They’re heading our way. He’s pretty stuck on those binoculars. What a voyeur.”

She pushed in close to him.

“You’re trembling. Nervous?”

“Actually, I’m excited. Tired of sitting out here with nothing happening, no offense to you. You can be entertaining.”

He laughed, and kissed her again. “It’s just two kids on a rental boat that’s running out of gas or something.”

They watched the boat approach, its motor roaring intermittently. The pair chugging toward them in the boat, now more visible to the naked eye, appeared youngish, twenties.

“They need bailing.”

“The nearest island is Jost Van Dyck, and that’s got to be, um, seven miles away?” She accepted a long kiss, which took place more on her cheek than her mouth, and took the binoculars, studying the couple. “Tom, he’s got two arms up, trying to get our attention. They want help.”

Tom stepped up to the yacht’s shiny wooden wheel. He turned on the motor, and aimed for the Whaler.

A bead of sweat on Carolina’s forehead dribbled down her cheek. She brushed it away and turned her face into the wind, watching the little boat get bigger. Her hat flew off and she rushed to retrieve it before it went overboard.

“Careful there!” Tom said.

“Be right back,” she said, disappearing below. Moments later, she returned wearing a sarong high over her swimsuit.

“Hey, get over here. Snug your hot body closer,” said Tom.

“Stalker.” She nuzzled, then ruffled his hair, looking toward the little boat. “Better slow down.”

He nodded, slowing.

“Don’t want to drown them.”

Tom cut the engine. The small boat cautiously approached the yacht. The couple on board waved. Tom waved back.

“They were going toward Sandy Spit,” said Carolina.

“Lots of big yachts stop there.”

“But their engine’s failing and we’re closer.”

“And isolated,” said Tom, smelling the skin on her shoulder and sighing. “We could ignore them.”

“Don’t get weird on me, okay? That might make me nervous.”

“Too late.”

“Sorry for the grease,” she said, laughing as his fingers stalled in a tangle of her hair. “Three days at sea and everything goes to hell.”

“Speaking of that.” He squinted through the binoculars. “The sea’s rough right now. They’re rocking.”

“Closer, closer.”

“Drink,” he said, handing her another brown bottle, “then come back and cuddle. Keep in mind we’re on our honeymoon.”

Carolina tossed her old, half-finished bottle, then drank. Tom picked up a new bottle and drank, too.

Silvery-pink clouds blew in the western sky, the indigo sea churning below. The boat pulled up beside them so quickly that the pounding on the side of their yacht startled them both.

“Permission to climb aboard?” asked the muscular young man, smiling. “Always wanted to say that.”

“Sure,” said Tom. He hung a ladder down the side. The young man and his partner, a young woman in a bikini only partly covered by a shirt, grabbed the ladder and nimbly ascended.

“Got a cigarette?” the young man asked immediately upon dropping onto the deck. He wore a sleeveless tee over a pair of bulky, flowered Hawaiian trunks with multiple pockets that enhanced the fit legs that thrust out of them.

Carolina rummaged and extracted a lighter and a pack from a pocket in the bin beside her.

“Cool,” the young man said.

She threw the pack and lighter at him.

He caught with easy grace, lit his cigarette, inhaled, and exhaled. “Oh, what a killer.”

The girl sprawled against the rail beside him, her damp, white cotton shirt tied above a flat, pierced navel. Autumn gold hair floated around her head as light and thick as feathers. Her skin, rusty-over-beige, bore few traces of the sun they must have survived. She looked like a model, taller than most women, utterly at ease with her body. “Wow, thank you SO MUCH for picking us up. That was so scary.” She plunked a beach bag down beside herself.

Her boyfriend frowned slightly. “It’s not like we were going to drown.”

“We were an awful long way from another boat,” she said, pointing down at the Whaler, “to be carrying so much water. You take too many risks.”