Caribbean Rescue (Coastal Fury Book 16) by Matt Lincoln (i can read books txt) 📕

Olivia reached down as if to pull something from her bag, but I intercepted her before she could.

“I’ve got it.” I smiled at her before pulling several bills from my wallet and handing them to the man.

“Should be ready in about fifteen minutes,” he informed us before moving on to help the next customer.

“Looks like all the tables are full.” She frowned as she looked around at the patio around the outside of the building. That was an understatement, as people were sitting on the curb as well as leaning against walls or just plain standing as well. It looked like this was a pretty popular place.

“Let’s just go eat on the beach after we get our food,” I suggested. We were only a few steps away from the sand, and it would be an infinitely more romantic dining location than the crowded and noisy patio.

“We still don’t know what conch fritters are, though,” she laughed. “What if it’s something messy? Won’t it be difficult to take it all the way over there?”

“Well, I don’t know what ‘conch’ is.” I shrugged. “But fritters are little fried balls of dough, right? Seems like the perfect finger food.”

“Good point,” she replied as she slipped her phone out of her pocket. I watched as she stared at it for a moment, typing something before her eyes suddenly lit up. “Aha! That’s what they are.”

“What?” I asked as I stepped close behind her to peer over her shoulder at her phone.

“Conch fritters,” she explained triumphantly, “are made of queen conch meat. They’re like little sea slugs that live inside conch shells.”

“Slugs?” I deadpanned. “Awesome. I’m so glad we looked that up after we’d already ordered them.”

“Oh, stop,” she admonished me playfully as she turned around to look me in the eye. “I’m sure they’ll be good. According to this blog, they’re a delicacy in the Caribbean.”

“I hope so,” I muttered, making no move to step away from her even after she put her phone away.

“This place is so gorgeous,” she hummed as she looked out along the shoreline. The sun had already dipped halfway below the horizon and was casting rays of warm pink and orange across the sand. “I wish we were here on vacation instead of to catch a bunch of sex traffickers.”

“Well, we have some time to relax now,” I murmured. “We should enjoy it while we can. If the rest of our time here is anything like today, I have a feeling we won’t be getting a lot of downtime in the coming days.”

“You’re right.” She nodded. “Might as well make the most of it. Let’s go see if our food is ready.”

We collected our dinner from the same window we’d ordered from and then headed down the beach toward the shore. The sun had completely set by now, but there was plenty of light spilling out of the restaurants behind us to illuminate us while we ate.

The beach was still full of people, but it wasn’t so crowded that we weren’t able to find a semi-secluded spot for the two of us to sit down on the soft sand to enjoy our dinner.

The conch fritters turned out to be a lot better than I was expecting.

“They kind of taste like scallops,” Olivia remarked as she popped another one into her mouth.

The lobster, too, was delicious. It wasn’t the kind of fancy seafood dish I might have found at a ritzy, upscale restaurant, but it was still good. Grilled and marinated in a rich sauce, its taste was completely unique to any lobster I’d ever had before.

After we’d finished eating, we returned to the restaurant where we’d bought our food and disposed of our trash in a large plastic bin set outside just for that purpose.

After that, at Olivia’s suggestion, we began to walk along the beach.

“I’m so full,” she sighed contentedly. “I wish I could taste more of this stuff, but I don’t think I could handle it, to be honest.”

“There’s always tomorrow,” I replied, hopeful that she’d be up to spend the evening together again the next night.

“You’re right.” She smiled up at me. “I can’t imagine we’ll have the entire case solved by tomorrow.”

As selfish as it was, I found myself hoping that we wouldn’t solve it for several days yet if it meant that Olivia and I would be able to spend more nights like this together.

“Oh, what’s that?” she asked curiously as she pointed at a building a little way down the beach from us.

There was music coming from it, and as we got closer, I realized that it was a small outdoor bar set up right on the sand. It was the kind of place that was definitely marketed to tourists, with overpriced drinks and decor that was a touch on the tacky side, but it worked. The convenience of being able to have drinks right at the water’s edge under the night sky was undeniable, so it wasn’t surprising that the place was bustling despite the fact that they were clearly overcharging on their drinks.

Still, the atmosphere was nice enough that I didn’t mind splurging a bit. After we got our drinks, we settled into a small table set just outside the bar on the sand. I had to hand it to whoever owned this place. It was an excellent idea. The ambiance was so romantic, it was no wonder people came here.

Olivia and I spent another half hour or so talking about whatever occurred to us, and it wasn’t long before the topic of conversation moved on from the details of the case and into more personal matters.

“So, what are you going to do when you find it?” Olivia asked as she took a sip of her cocktail. As it tended to do around me, eventually, the conversation had circled back to the Dragon’s Rogue.

“I don’t know, actually,” I replied as I thought about it. The goal had always been to find the ship.