Chapter 28
Marshall
One moment I’d been beside my daughter exploring the exterior of the shipwreck.
A nanosecond later, she been swept away from my side.
Every reaction after that had been automatic.
I’d been diving most of my life, and I’d run into almost every conceivable emergency.
But there wasn’t a damn thing that could have prepared me for losing sight of my young daughter under the water.
I’d motioned to Seth on autopilot to go call for help, and then I’d allowed the current to carry me in the same direction as my daughter.
It hadn’t been a particularly strong current, but it had been enough to sweep Wren away because it had probably taken her by surprise.
Fuck! It had been incredibly calm when we’d entered the water.
Relief flooded over me as the current started to dissipate and I saw Wren struggling at the bottom of the lake.
She’d somehow ended up wrapped in a shitload of rope that was coming from an anchor at the lake bottom.
Thank fuck that she hadn’t gone into a full-blown diver panic and ripped herself out of her gear.
I’d seen diver panic. When a diver got disoriented, it could lead to potentially erratic and irrational behavior.
I grabbed Wren by the shoulders and forced her to look at me.
Her eyes were wide, and I knew she was a little confused, but she stopped struggling frantically with the rope around her body.
I flashed her the diver’s sign for okay, hoping she’d understand that everything was going to be alright.
She slowly nodded and let me work on getting her free from the rope.
As I slowly untangled the rope from her body, I could understand why she’d been struggling.
Her arms were almost immobilized, and she couldn’t really kick with her legs tangled up in the heavy rope.
She was going to be alright.
We had plenty of air.
And I’d get her loose.
But I still couldn’t quite let go of the sheer horror I’d experienced at the thought of my daughter drowning under my watch.
Wren was a good diver, but she was still a kid, and a junior diver.
She hadn’t been exposed to some of the crazy shit that could happen to a diver.
Seth had been extremely careful with Wren, but what had just happened was proof that things could happen even when a diver was cautious.
Wren looked relieved when she was finally free of the rope.
I flashed her the okay sign again, and she immediately sent it back to me.
I released an emergency sausage to the surface so Wren and I could be found easier and wrapped my arms around my daughter’s body.
I wasn’t fucking letting her go again.
I didn’t think we’d been swept that far away from the boat, so I started propelling the two of us to the surface.
Both of us removed our mouthpieces the moment we surfaced.
“That was kind of scary,” Wren said, keeping her hand on my shoulder.
Fear was still clawing at my gut, and my daughter thought the experience was kind of scary?
“I know I panicked a little,” she said woefully. “I think I was a little disoriented. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t move.”
“That wasn’t a little scary, Wren,” I ground out. “It was fucking terrifying for me.”
I usually watched my language around Wren, but the words had come out of my mouth before I could stop them.
“Why?” she asked. “You’re an expert diver, and the current wasn’t horrible.”
“I wasn’t worried about me,” I said angrily. “I was worried about you.”
Fuck! If I never saw Wren in danger again, it would be too damn soon.
“I’m okay, Dad,” she said in a calm voice.
“Yeah, well, I’m not,” I rasped as I looked around for the boat. “You could have died down there after you got tangled up in that anchor rope. And there are worse emergencies and a hell of a lot stronger currents that could have carried you away.”
“We don’t dive when the weather is bad or when there’s a possibility of bad currents.”
“We were careful today, and look what happened,” I replied harshly.
“It was a freak accident,” she argued. “What were the chances of me getting tangled up in that rope?”
“I don’t care. No more scuba diving. Ever. You might be smart, but you’re still a kid.”
“You’re being unreasonable,” Wren said.
Hell, I knew that, but I couldn’t stop myself.
I wasn’t about to see Wren in any kind of danger again.
“Whoa!” she said as she looked around us. “I think somebody called out the Coast Guard.”
I looked behind us and saw that there were several search boats nearby, but it was Seth’s boat that was closest.
He’d apparently seen the safety marker buoy.
“Seth called for help,” I told her as the boat approached.
“Mom’s going to be upset,” Wren said.
“Of course she’s going to be upset,” I said shortly. “She’s your mother.”
Seth stopped and I swam behind Wren as we breached the short distance to the boat.
Brock reached for Wren the moment she put her foot on the ladder.
By the time I got on deck, Wren was already in her mother’s arms.
It almost killed me when I saw that Emma was sobbing as she held our daughter tightly.
“You scared me,” Emma said tearfully to Wren as she hugged her.
“I’m fine, Mom,” Emma said as she hugged her mother back. “The current wasn’t bad, but I got tangled up in some rope. Dad found me and got me loose.”
I watched as Emma wrapped her daughter’s wet body in a towel and handed her some water.
Brock and Seth hugged Wren before Seth went to send a radio message to the Coast Guard to let them know that my daughter was safe.
Emma turned and suddenly threw herself into my arms. “I was worried about you, too,” she told me, her voice trembling with relief.
“I’m wet,” I told her, but held her against me anyway.
“I don’t care,” she said as she hugged me tighter. “You went after our daughter and made sure she was safe.”
“She’s my daughter, too,” I reminded her gruffly.
Emma pulled back and smiled at me. “I know. What happened down there? Brock and I noticed that the winds were starting to pick up, but we really weren’t worried about currents until we saw Seth.”
“It wasn’t horrible,” I admitted. “But it was enough to take Wren from my side. She did get tangled in some rope, and she was struggling. I never should have taken her down there.”
Emma stepped back and swiped the tears from her face. “This wasn’t your fault, Colin. It’s the first time anything weird has happened since the day she started diving.”
“Dad said I can’t dive anymore,” Wren said to her mother as she moved beside her. “He’s being completely irrational.”
“I don’t care,” I said grumpily. “There’s absolutely no reason to put you at risk by going back underwater.”
“I’m going to be a marine scientist. I can’t stop diving,” Wren said reasonably.
“You are being a little irrational,” Brock pointed out. “Diving is relatively safe. It’s just as safe as any other sport as long as you take all of the necessary precautions.”
“No sports of any kind,” I said hoarsely. “Nothing that’s going to put my daughter at risk. I think that incident just took ten years off my life.”
I saw Brock and Seth exchange surprised glances before Seth moved forward in the boat.
“I’ll get us back to shore,” Seth said carefully.
“We’ll discuss this later,” Emma said firmly. “This incident scared everyone, Wren. We’ll talk about it after everyone has a chance to calm down.”
Wren nodded reluctantly and went to sit in one of the loungers as the boat sped up.
Emma gripped the railing, and I stood behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist.
It was almost impossible to talk to her about anything over the sound of the boat’s engine without raising my voice more than I wanted to at the moment.
It was hard to tell if she was angry, but she probably had a right to be.
I’d definitely overstepped by telling Wren she couldn’t dive anymore without speaking with Emma about it first.
She was her mother.
Christ! How did anybody live through this whole parenting thing?
Emma had probably been through similar scares during Wren’s childhood and she wasn’t flipping out and telling her daughter she couldn’t do anything that was remotely dangerous again.
I knew I’d completely lost it with Wren, and nothing that had happened was her fault.
Yeah, she’d struggled with the rope, but she hadn’t gone into a diver panic.
She’d just been confused, which was perfectly normal considering the circumstances.
I was being unreasonable, but how did a parent protect their kid without overreacting?
Seeing Wren in trouble had terrified the hell out of me.
I was probably more rational than most people, but I was losing my shit about protecting my child.
Emma suddenly reached back and put her hand over mine on the railing.
She squeezed my fingers in a comforting gesture, and my tense muscles started to relax a little.
She was trying to comfort me even though I’d crossed a line with her today.
Fucking hell!
I didn’t deserve it, but I’d take it and apologize to her later.