Read Online Diver Down (Mercy Watts Mysteries) by A.W. Hartoin - Free Book Online Page B

her finger in his face. “Who the hell do you think you are? This is my daughter. Not some sort of thing to be purchased like a car.”  
    Colin stared at Mom. “There are two of you. This is awesome.”  
    “Boy, you better—”
    Mauro put his arm between them. “Mrs. Watts and her daughter are guests at the resort. They are not here for your entertainment.”  
    “I don’t know about that,” said Colin.  
    Joe slugged him hard in the shoulder. “Shut up, man. This isn’t APO.”  
    “I’m so sorry,” said Andrew with a faint tinge of pink on his cheeks. “Colin speaks before he thinks.”  
    “APO?” asked Mauro.
    “Our fraternity,” said Andrew, looking hard at Colin. “But those days are over. Long over.”  
    Colin put up his hands. “Sorry. Sorry. What can I say? When it comes to beautiful women, I lose my head.”  
    “You are about to lose something else,” said Mom.  
    The way Mom was looking at Colin, he should’ve been terrified, but he wasn’t. He just grinned at her in a way that was supposed to be charming, but it was making Mom want to neuter him.
    Andrew pushed Colin away into the shop and then stood between us and him. I smiled and he gave me a slight nod. I’d never been terribly fond of frat boys. My chest always seemed to cause a serious loss of critical thinking in their beer-addled brains, but I thought I could learn to like Andrew and Joe. They were working hard to keep their eyes up where they should be.
    “Well, we are all here now,” said Mauro. “Please come this way.”  
    We sat at several rickety wooden tables on the deck next to the dive shop and were forced to listen to a lecture that was one hour and forty minutes longer than I was prepared to sit through. My head started nodding after twenty minutes and Mom kept poking me with her sharp elbow. I did learn how not to die, which was important. Lucia seemed to be paying attention, but didn’t say anything about her inhaler during the medical portion.  
    “Okay,” said Mauro. “If we are all ready, we will put on our bay say days and go to the shore.”
    Bay say days?
    Nobody else looked confused, so I followed the crowd back under the dive shop overhang. Mauro and the woman from behind the counter, Marcella, started asking everyone their sizes for wetsuits. Lucia picked women’s small. When she stepped into it, her swim skirt slipped and I saw the bruises her brother Oz must’ve been talking about. Three large purple circles covered her hip and thigh, like she’d been slammed against something. Maybe a bannister or wall. Lucia hastily pulled the wetsuit up and I looked away, picking up a women’s medium. Wrong. I sat on the bench and yanked the thick foamy material up over my thighs, which until that moment I thought were fairly slender. I managed to get my arms in, but couldn’t get the zip in the back to go up. I was trying to get Mom’s attention as she struggled with her own suit, but Mauro saw me and came over. I think his swimsuit got smaller.  
    OMG. What is wrong with me? I have a boyfriend. A very nice boyfriend who I hardly ever see and has the body mass of an underfed greyhound. But he’s smart. And kind. Did Mauro just ripple? Ahhhh!
    “Problem?” he asked, his accent soft and musical.  
    “No. I’m good.”  
    Back away from the crazy girl.
    “I’ll help you.” Mauro turned me around, but didn’t try to pull up my zipper. “It’s too small. I get you a large.”  
    “But I’m a medium,” I protested.  
    “Not today.”  
    He came back with a large. A large! I’ve never worn a large anything in my life. Why did I drink all those Monkey Lalas? They must have a thousand calories a piece.  
    “Put it on,” said Mauro. “It’s not bad.”  
    But it was bad. He could zip it up farther, but it still wouldn’t go up all the way. Then he did it. The incredibly hot dive instructor did it. He got me an extra large. That would’ve been bad enough, but that one