Mistletoe Mine by Emily March

no unexpected repair bills or skyrocketing insurance costs or increasing rents to fret over. Of course, he’d had no family to support then, either. At least, no family who wanted his support.
    The ghosts of his youth flitted into his mind once again. Sarah, her head thrown back in infectious laughter. His father, belt in hand and meanness in his eyes.
    His mother, lying in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor.
    Cam shuddered and gave his head a hard shake, trying to flutter those images right back out again.
    Today he needed to keep his thoughts centered on Devin. The boy would be the death of him yet. He landed in one scrape after another these days, and reminded Cam of himself at sixteen too much for comfort. Cam wanted better for Devin, so yesterday, when his son walked into the tour office sporting a black eye and brandishing a school suspension slip for fighting, he had just about lost it. Where had this self-destructive streak come from? What had changed for the boy in the past six months?
    Cam suspected the source might be the new group of friends Devin had taken up with last summer. They were polite young men from good families, the kind of youngsters most parents wanted their children to befriend. Not Cam. Something about the group of boys bothered him. They were almost too polite, their handshakes too firm. They definitely had too much money to throw around.
    Most telling of all, they rarely looked him in the eyes when they spoke to him. That made Cam’s trouble-coming antenna quiver.
    He glanced up at the clock on the wall. Devin would arrive at the marina in thirty to forty-five minutes. Maybe he should put the paperwork on hold and go out on the boat with his boy today. Better yet, he could call in a sub for Devin, and they could both play hooky from work, leave the tourists to the rest of the crew, and take the Freedom out, just the two of them. Maybe a little father/son time would help Dev remember to make good choices next time the opportunity for stupidity reared its head.
    Cam liked the idea. He was overdue for a day off. This paperwork could wait. He picked up the phone and made the arrangements. Ten minutes later, he boarded the Bliss to grab his personal diving gear. He’d just hauled it topside when he saw the owner of the Wanderer , the cruiser that occupied the slip next to Cam’s, standing at the stern, scowling fiercely down into the water. “G’day, Martin. Got a problem?”
    “Yes, I’m afraid so. Looks like there’s a line tangled in my propeller shaft. I have a banker on board and a tight schedule. Wasn’t planning to get wet, but …” He started shrugging out of his suit coat.
    Cam set down his gear on the deck of the Bliss . “Hold what you’ve got. I’ll check it out for you.”
    Martin sighed with relief. “Thanks, man. I’ll owe you.”
    Cam tugged off his T-shirt and toed out of his deck shoes. He pulled on his mask, then grabbed his diving knife and a flashlight and slipped over the side of the Bliss into the water. The harbor water was murky. He switched on his flashlight and swam to the cruiser’s stern. He spied the problem immediately. Unfortunately, a simple slice with his knife wouldn’t get the job done.
    He surfaced and called up to his friend. “ ’Fraid it’s a little more complicated than a snagged line. You’re dragging trash, but I can handle it. I’ll need a bolt cutter.”
    Cam grabbed hold of a dock line and treaded water while Martin went to get the tool he required. Above him, on the nearby bridge, he spied the Adventures in Paradise Tours van arriving. Good . When Martin handed down the tool he’d requested a minute later, Cam said, “Our van is pulling up. Would you please tell Devin I want to talk to him?”
    “Sure.”
    Cam clamped his diving knife between his teeth, then, with the bolt cutters in hand, submerged himself again. He went to work on the tangle around the prop shaft. The wire cable the cruiser had picked up somewhere dragged