Free Windswept by Anna Lowe

sensitive around the snout, but where the hell was the snout? He couldn’t see a thing.
    “Wait! Look!” Mia grabbed his arm.
    Phosphorescence flashed again, all along the sleek back disappearing into the water, illuminating a fin and, a second later, a tail.
    He blinked as it disappeared in the water. Not the vertical tail of a shark, but the horizontal tail of—
    “A dolphin!” Mia squeaked. “Dolphins!”
    A second splash followed the first, and he saw it then, too. The perfectly round blowhole on its head, the crooked smile of a mouth. Two — no, three dolphins were running laps around them. He could hear them clicking in dolphin Morse code.
    “Dolphins,” he managed, then laughed out loud.
    “Dolphins,” Mia cried, spinning in a slow circle to watch them glide by.
    They watched in stunned silence for a minute, and he willed his heart rate to settle down.
    “Want to give us a ride to
Serendipity
, Flipper?” Mia called.
    Flipper didn’t answer, but that was okay. As long as it was Flipper and not Jaws, he wouldn’t complain.
    “Bye, Flipper.” Mia gave a little wave as the phosphorescence moved away and faded.
    He let out a slow breath. “Bye-bye, Flipper. Just don’t give me a heart attack next time, please.”
    Mia chuckled, and that wave of tickling heat rolled through him again. There she went again, finding the bright side in everything. Keeping her nerve when it counted most. Looking at him like maybe there was a bright side in him too, and all she had to do was look hard enough.
    “Not far now,” she murmured after another quiet second ticked by.
    And just like that, she was off again.
    He could finally make out what she was aiming for: three boxy yellow lights, topped by a white one higher up. Every time he raised his head up high enough to look, they drew a little closer until the boxes became the windows of a cabin. A cozy cabin, from the look of it, on a cozy little boat.
    A couple more strokes and he had the rung of a swim ladder tight in his hand. Mia was there already, looking back the way they’d come with big eyes that couldn’t quite believe it was over. Then she dipped her head back to get the hair away from her face just like she did at the pool in that move that was guaranteed to turn a dozen heads, and clambered up the ladder, giving him a perfect view of her perfect ass.
    Not that he was thinking about
that
at a time like
this
. Not in the least.
    He came up behind her, dripping all over the deck.
    Mia hopped from the aft deck into the cockpit and called inside. “Meredith?”
    Right, the sister. He looked down at his dripping shorts, the shirt clinging to his chest. He looked like a drowned rat.
    “Mia? Is that you?” A voice a little higher than Mia’s called, and her sister appeared in the companionway.
    “Yeah, it’s me,” Mia said, grabbing a towel off the lifelines strung around the cockpit.
    “Oh my God, are you all right?” Meredith jumped out and caught her sister in a huge hug.
    Ryan felt like he ought to look away, but he couldn’t quite do it. The little Mia had ever told him about her sister didn’t make it sound like they were particularly close, but that hug said differently. That hug said they were family.
    It showed, and not just in the hug. They looked a lot alike. The same narrow chin, the same slender face. The same build, if he took away Mia’s swimmer’s shoulders. Meredith’s long hair was darker than Mia’s but just as straight, and she had that same could-be-nobody, could-be-a-secret-superstar kind of poise that kept a guy guessing every time he peeked.
    “Why are you all wet?” Meredith asked, breaking off the hug. She kept one hand on Mia’s shoulder exactly like a mom would do. The caring older sister, through and through.
    “Wait, where’s the dinghy?”
    Mia looked at her feet. “You don’t want to know.”
    Meredith’s right eyebrow arched as she glanced his way, a little wary. “And who is this?”
    Mia shook her head and