SOMETIMES LOVE IS LIKE THAT

Gentle swells rocked the fifty three foot sport fisher -DIXIE DANCER- that lay at easy anchor off Key Largo, just east of the John Pennekamp reef. Johnny MacGill, rolled onto his back and opened his eyes to the dawning morning. Vague headache dulled his waking. He tossed back the comforter and sat up on the edge of the king sized bed, his feet touching the carpet that covered the stateroom decking.

"Shit," MacGill muttered. And like shit was exactly how he felt. He looked over his shoulder to the rumpled covers on the other side of the bed. MacGill gave a negative headshake, remembering the circular, frustrating words that they had exchanged the night before; remembering their unresolved status; remembering the too many glasses of Merlot that had accompanied their goddamn fight. He'd been drinking heavily for most of the past year but he still maintained an apparent sobriety when they were together. He still hid the self loathing. He still hid the soul deadening depression that consumed him. He still hid the dark suicidal urges. He still believed that they could find a new life together; maybe.

She had told him that she wouldn't marry him, pointing out that first he and then she had postponed the wedding date. She said that she had finally, reluctantly, concluded that marriage just wasn't in the cards. Maybe they did love each other. But she also said that love wasn't enough.

He had disagreed. They had argued.

He got up, pulled on swim trunks and flip-flops. In the head he tossed down three aspirin. He stumbled forward to the galley, poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot she had brewed and left on the burner and went topside.

On deck, MacGill stood next to the custom built fighting chair. He scanned the surface of the turquoise sea until he spotted telltale bubbles. He watched. A minute passed. Then, water diamonds sparkled in shafts of the early morning sunlight as she broke through the ocean's surface from the reef below. She pushed the black rubber mask up from her face to the crown of her forehead and swam with strong, even strokes toward the cruiser.

MacGill watched as she effortlessly cut through the water.

She reached the cruiser, grasped the transom handhold, and pulled herself from the green, semi-tropic water to the teak dive platform. She flopped a small grouper aboard. Breakfast perhaps if last night's misery was past.

She mounted the boarding ladder, swung herself up and into the cockpit. She kicked off swim fins and removed her dive mask with its attached snorkel tube. Her bronzed skin glistened in the early morning sunlight. She toweled off briskly. She slipped into a multi-colored caftan that had lain draped over the stainless steel gunnel rail.

MacGill reached out. "Last night..."

She moved away, turning from him to wring water from her hair. "No, Johnny, it's not last night, or the night before. It's our entire history and this trip can't help." Her words came in a staccato rush, clipped, as if they wouldn't be said if she didn't get them out immediately. "This pitiful attempt to work out our differences failed."

"I hoped time together would be enough."

"You hoped wrong. Face facts. Again, she spoke rapidly, as if she had memorized the lines. "I won't spend my life waiting for you to return or, worse, waiting for that horriblel phone call."

"You knew what my business was from the beginning."

"Yes, and I went ahead and agreed to marry you. But, I was wrong, Johnny. I tried to fool myself into believing that what you do doesn't matter. It does matter. And nothing I can say or do will ever mean a damn. You'll keep on playing soldier. It's not as if you have to do it to make your living, it's that you need the thrill of it. You live for it."

"So you walk away like nothing happened?"

"No, Goddamn you; we happened." She still faced away from him, her voice low drifting across the empty, silvery Florida waters. "But that ends now. I can't live with the fear." She picked up the grouper by the tail fin and flipped it overboard.

"Victoria." His voice, reflecting his hurt, cut like razor edged steel. She stood for a long moment, not responding, allowing his heartbreak to wash over her. Finally she said, "Johnny, it's for the best."

MacGill, shouted desperatly, "Best for who, Victoria?"

Hands covering her face, she answered, "For both of us, Johnny, both of us."

She paused and drew in a breath; momentary pain, stress induced, seared beneath her ribcage. She looked out across the morning still sea, shoulders rigid, the muscles of her throat working convulsively as she fought to stem the tears. "I love you, Johnny MacGill," she said, her voice soft, a half whisper. "Like I have never loved another man. I wish to God that was enough. But, it isn't and I won't marry you." Taking another deep breath, she moved to the companionway and disappeared below.

MacGill looked after her for a moment, then hauled anchor and climbed to the fly bridge station. He kicked over the cruiser's twin diesels and swung the big boat ninety degrees westward into the channel that led toward the distant green of the mangrove forests that lined the Key Largo shore. To portside he watched a huge brown pelican dive and splat ungracefully into the sea. Minutes later he brought the cruiser around and began the full throttle run north through the Straights of Florida toward Miami. From there, he'd keep the Dixie Dancer outside for the day long run to the Amelia Island marina where he'd stop to refuel and rest before the long run northward from that Florida barrier island to home at Beaufort South Carolina.

He busied himself synchronizing the engines, setting the interface between the GPS and the chart plotter, and setting the radar's forward alarm. He watched ahead as the boat plowed the water at a fast thirty-eight knot cruise speed.

He remained standing at the wheel, rigid, his lean, muscular body heavy with the weight of depression. Bullet scars on his right pectoral, one the size of a dime, jagged edged and pink-white, the other, larger, smoother and more faded, marked contrast to his sun darkened skin. Another scar, a thin line from sternum to navel, looked like a careful surgeon's incision mark. It wasn't. It was a now fifteen year old remnant of a slash mark that had netted him a bundle of money for a difficult job completed and an appreciation, never forgotten, of why mercenary contracts paid so well. A fourth scar zig-zagged across his left bicep.

The scars, hash-marks of his warrior trade, were also visible evidence of the source of his troubles with Victoria. A year ago she had been in the line of fire and shot and wounded off the coast of Trinidad the destination of one of MacGill's gun running trips. She recovered and plastic surgery eliminated the bullet scar, but MacGill was convinced her being shot was a core reason behind her decision to break up. They'd discussed this over the months and in the end even she hadn't disagreed. But, she had insisted that it was not actually fear for her person but her constant worry over him and his work that constituted the real impediment to their relationship.
Maybe she was right. Maybe his work was everything and it would be best if they split.

Don't be a fool, MacGill, he said silently. You don't want her to leave and she doesn't really want to. Go below and straighten this out.

But, his state of mind wouldn't allow him to do that; he stayed at the helm, scanning the waters, listening to the throb of the twin 1200 horsepower engines, stymied by the knowledge that it was her fear, not lack of love, that had come between them. Knowing that her fear was not something that could be simply straightened out.

He knew that he had tried every way that he could to allay her terror of the fact that he or she could be attacked, or worse, killed because of his work. And he wanted now to go below and try again. But, he also knew that he didn't have the words to ease her mind.

The sea stretched out before the prow of the big boat, endless, placid, mocking the black turmoil in MacGill's soul. Then he saw it, off to the west, toward landfall. A hulk of a downed ship exposed by low tide. He brought the cruiser around. He jammed the throttles forward and took dead aim. The radar unit's forward alarm screamed. MacGill ignored it. Seconds passed. Seconds before the explosion that would tear the Dixie Dancer from the sea; or seconds before the demons of dispair that were struggling for possesion of MacGill's soul faltered.