“This cove is protected, so the current shouldn’t be an issue, but stay close, just in case. The abalone will be out in the rocks beyond the point,” Blake says, pointing at the outcrop.

My heart is pounding as I tug my dive mask over my forehead. “I don’t like the sound of ‘just in case.’ ”

He gives me half a smile. “You heard the guy. No sharks here. You’ll be fine.”

He gets me all strapped into my mask and snorkel, and we leave the fins on the towels and head for the water. He’s right. It’s freezing, even through my dive suit, and it takes me a while to work my way in.

“The first thing you need to learn is to purge your mask and blow out your snorkel,” he tells me once we’re waist deep. “You’re going to want to dive to get a closer look at stuff on the bottom, and anytime you resurface, you’ll need to purge the water.”

He takes me through all the basics, and I try everything out in the waist-deep water, but I can’t stop my eyes from darting around for anything moving under the surface.

“Got it?” he asks.

“Seems pretty basic.”

He trudges to the sand for our fins and comes back with those, a small flashlight, and two metal things tucked into his dive belt.

“What are those?” I ask, pointing.

“An abalone gauge and iron. They can grab pretty tight to the rocks.” We slip our fins on over the neoprene booties. “If your arm gets sore, or you need to head back to the beach for any reason, just give me the sign. Thumbs-up means you’re good.”

I nod.

“Ready?”

“No.”

He laughs, probably at my terrified expression. “No sharks, Sam. I promise.”

I plant my hands on my hips. “How can you possibly promise that? Jaws could be waiting right out there,” I say, throwing my hand at the ocean, “licking his chops and saying, ‘Welcome to my lair.’ ”

“Sharks don’t have lairs,” Blake says with a smirk.

I splash him. “You know what I mean.”

“Come on,” he says, venturing deeper.

I can’t stop the cringe as I follow. He dives under, then surfaces and blows out his snorkel. “You’re not going to see much from up here,” he says.

I glare at him, though with my face strapped into the mask, I’m sure he can’t tell that’s what I’m doing. Finally, I get brave enough to stick the snorkel in my mouth and float out on the surface of the water. As I anxiously peer around under the waves, even though I’m on the edge of hyperventilating I get the hang of breathing through the snorkel pretty quick . . . mostly because I realize I can see much better through my mask when my face is in the water.

There are stalks of kelp floating lazily in the waves, and the water is clear and blue. Blake dives deeper and I stay on the surface and watch as he points at a big green flower-looking thing. He pokes at it and it closes all its “petals.” Behind it, attached to the rocky wall, is a large orange starfish, which he brushes his fingers over.

He kicks back to the surface, pops his snorkel out of his mouth and grins. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“What was that first thing?” I ask, spitting out my mouthpiece. “The flower thing?”

“An anemone.”

I grin back. “Definitely cool.”

He swims us out toward where I can see waves breaking around some underwater rocks. “This is our best bet for abalone,” he says.

When I realize we’re not going in water much deeper than I could stand in, I feel better. I mean, sure, Jaws could probably swim up here and eat me, but whether it’s illusion or reality, it just feels safer in the shallow water close to shore. I float on the surface and watch as Blake dives to the rocks a few feet below and points to some urchins and a scurrying hermit crab. He looks up at me and points to something that looks like part of the bigger rock, but then I see it’s ovalish with a line of holes. He takes the metal thing from his belt and holds it up to the oval, then gives me the thumbs-up.

When he comes back to the surface, he spits out his snorkel. “You should come get a closer look. There are tons of starfish and abalone, and I think there’s a giant Pacific octopus in the crevice of that rock.”

“Oh my God!” I say, scurrying back.

“It’s not a giant giant Pacific octopus,” he says with a sideways grin. He tugs my arm. “Come on.”

I take a few deep breaths to get my heartbeat under control. “Giant octopuses eat people.”

“In the movies,” he says with a shake of his head. “It’s only like a foot long.”

“That’s not so giant,” I say warily, looking at the rocks below me.

“Give it a try,” he says, tugging my arm again.

I fix my snorkel in place and look at him through my mask, eyes wide.

His slips his mouthpiece in and gives me a nod and a thumbs-up.

I thumbs-up him back and then he’s gone, leaving a ripple on the surface as he dives under. I stick my face in the water and see him below, shining his flashlight into a crack in the rock. Taking a deep breath through the snorkel and setting my resolve, I kick and drop below the surface. I beeline for Blake’s side and press against him, where he’s peering into the crevice.

There’s something wiggling in there for sure, but I can’t see what it is, and I don’t dare get within tentacle reach.

Blake looks at me and I shrug. He tucks the flashlight back in his dive belt and reaches for the flat metal thing with a green handle. He slips the blade under the big oval shell attached to the rock and pries it loose.

When we break the surface, he spits out his snorkel and hands the oval to me. Underneath the rough brown shell is soft, white . . . something.

I poke it. “What is this?”

“A nine inch abalone,” he says with an amused smile.

“Fine, but what do you do with it?”

He grins. “It and a few more of its abalone friends will be dinner tonight.” He takes it back and slips it into a small mesh bag hanging off his belt at his hip, where his holster usually is, then positions his snorkel and dives again. I follow, looking toward the open ocean on my way to the rocks below, just to be sure no one from out there is crashing our party. Blake swims us around the rock, and it’s amazing: starfish and urchins, fish and crabs.

We dive again and he hands me the knife and points to an oval shell. I try to slip it between the shell and rock like he did, but I find the abalone is stuck tighter than I would have thought. It takes a bit of wrestling, but I’m finally able to pull it loose. He pries up another one and we slide them into his bag, then surface again.

“Three is our limit,” he says. “But those are all nine or ten-inchers, so we’ll be feasting tonight.”

Something tugs at my ankle and I scream, picturing giant octopus tentacles. When I yank, my leg doesn’t come loose and I scream again, my heart leaping into my throat. “Get it off me!”

Blake dives under and I feel his hand on my calf. I kick hard, trying to free myself, but he holds my leg steady. And when he lets go a second later, I’m free. I’m already kicking back toward shore as fast as I can when he catches me.

“Kelp,” he says when we drag ourselves out of the water.

“Kelp eats people too?” I say, my heart still racing.

“No,” he says, tipping his head at me. “But people can drown in it if they get tangled then panic.”

“I wasn’t panicking!”

He laughs and pulls off his mask and hood.

I rip off my mask and storm back up the sand to our towels. But considering I’m still in my flippers, it doesn’t feel very stormy. I spread a towel and sit, pulling off the rest of my gear. Blake peels out of his dive suit, and I try not to notice how his wet T-shirt hugs every contour of his chest.

But then he pulls it off over his head and I can’t help staring. “So . . . we defied death.”

“That was amazing,” I concede, peeling off my T-shirt.

He pulls two bottles of water, a bag of grapes, and some crackers out of his backpack, and we nibble. When I’ve had enough, I lay back on the towel with my arms overhead, soaking up the warmth from the sand below and the sun above.

The sun feels so good, and the warmth lulls me into a drowsy half-dream where I can almost forget everything that’s happened over the last few months. I can almost pretend that I’m more to Blake than just his job.

“Sam,” he whispers in my ear.

“Hmm . . . ?” I answer lazily, without opening my eyes.

“We should head back. The tide’s coming in and the dive shop closes in an hour.”

When I open my eyes, the sun has moved across the sky. “Was I asleep?” I ask, propping up on to my elbows.

“For the last hour.”

I sit and realize my suit is dry. “It’s so peaceful here.”

He looks around and something a little mournful passes over his face. It makes me wonder again about his dad. “It is. It’s one of my favorite places.”

He stands and reaches for my hand, pulling me up. We pack up and trudge back to the parking lot with all our gear, and Blake loads everything into the back of the Escalade.

The gunshot comes out of nowhere, and Blake has me on the ground in a heartbeat, his body over mine. He swears under his breath as he looks wildly around the parking lot, and I realize, in nothing but his swim trunks, he has no gun.

But then the bang comes again, and an ancient Volkswagen Beetle rolls into the parking lot, a plume of black smoke in its wake. It backfires again as the engine chugs to a stop.

“Christ,” Blake says, rolling off me. “Are you all right?”

My left hand feels sticky, and when I sit up and look at it, I see the gouge in my palm. My knee’s scraped too, but not bleeding. “Yeah,” I say as he pulls me up by the hand. “I’m okay.”