Chapter 9
Doyle didn’t know what was riskier—his crazy plan, or the impulse to simply drop into the ocean and swim for their lives.
The waves still threw themselves, foamy and furious, against the rocks, and he couldn’t exactly look down to see if his prediction about the tide proved right.
Please, God.
The night arched overhead, a million stars watching the folly playing out on the cliffside.
He couldn’t let his brain circle back to his words about the fire in the mountain.
Nope.
His grip burned against the metal cable, the frayed, rusty edges ripping at the flimsy gauze he’d tied around his hands. But Tia fought to do her part and hold herself up as he worked them down the edge of the cliff.
One terrifying step at a time.
In his arms, Tia also trembled, but she hadn’t cried, hadn’t gotten angry?—
He should also get out of his head the impulsive kiss she’d given him. “Don’t let your brain get tangled up with this. I just... panicked.”
He could get behind panic if that was how she handled it. Because for that moment, everything in his head had shut down—yes, panic, but also fear and maybe anger and even grief—and he’d simply kissed her back.
No, it had been more than a kiss. A surrender, perhaps, to the what-ifs. To hope and trust and the fresh start that suddenly felt so tangible that it swept him up like the waves below and carried him away.
Too late. His brain was way tangled up.
“How much farther?” Tia asked, and he glanced down.
The light illuminated the cliffside, and from his guess, they’d traveled almost thirty agonizing feet. “About halfway.”
She turned to look and her foot slipped. “Oh?—”
Thankfully, it caught on his, and she moved it back to the rock face.
But she’d nearly dislodged his stance, and the very last thing he needed was to lose his footing and have to carry their entire weight by his hands. The slick, rusty rope would slice through his grip and?—
Yeah, they’d end up in the ocean. Then the waves would carry them inland to smash them against the rocks.
He stilled, his arms around hers, his stance tight. “You good?”
“Sorry.”
“Slowly.”
“Mm-hmm.”
He moved his foot down, then his grip on the cable, then his other foot, and she moved with him, almost like a dance.
“You really used to rock climb?”
“I took it up the summer Juliet broke up with me. A buddy of mine was headed out west to climb, so I went with him and took some classes in the Tetons, spent about a month climbing every day. Practiced at a few climbing gyms in Minneapolis and then at Taylors Falls and even Palisade Head in northern Minnesota.”
He moved again after she’d settled herself, and she followed.
“I’ve been up there. Beautiful.”
“Yeah. You start by rappelling down the cliff face, then climb back up. There’s no room for failure. After Juliet and I got back together, we worked with a youth camp that took kids up there, climbing. I once held a girl on belay for two hours as she tried to conquer the cliff.”
Tia seemed to relax into his movements. He let go of the cable, stretched one hand, switched and stretched the other.
The waves sounded less ominous.
“Juliet liked kids?”
“Wanted a big family. And she wanted to adopt. She was...”
“A good person.”
He made a sound deep in his chest. “Kind. Soft-spoken. Sweet. And yes, she wanted to be a mom of many. Probably the perfect missionary.”
Tia had also relieved the tension in her hands, regripped the cable. “So, completely different than me.”
He stilled, not sure what to say. “Um?—”
She stiffened. “Please forget I said that.”
“Tia—”
“For the love, Doyle! Just... Let’s get off this cliff. The fumes have gone to my head.”
Right. His too, because the answer stirring in his head was... Not different at all. And yet yes, completely different too.
Tia was bold and outspoken and determined and a visionary.
But, just like Juliet, beautiful and brave.
“Forgotten.”
He eased them down another step, not sure why that word landed in his head. Except—“Why did you say you were the forgotten sister?” His question seemed lost in the breeze.
Or not.
“I told you—I was the second choice.”
“That’s not the same as forgotten.”
She moved her hands down the cable. “Yeah. Um. Okay. It feels like the same thing. After my sister was rescued, my parents... they were overwhelmed with relief and... anyway?—”
“You felt forgotten.” He glanced down. Twenty feet, perhaps.
“She slept in their room for about three months. And I would lie in my bed, terrified that I’d be kidnapped next, and I... Anyway, it was a long time ago.”
And in his mind, he saw a terrified young girl, wide-eyed in the darkness. “No wonder you refuse to be afraid.”
She let out a laugh, bold against the darkness. “I’m plenty terrified now, Spider-Man, so let’s get moving.”
The urge to kiss her again shook through him.
Later.
Maybe.
For now, his descent plan was working, because his next step hit slick and wettened rock where the tide had crested earlier. Except his foot slipped and his knee slammed into the rock.
He held in a grunt, even as Tia yelped, stiffening to help him get his footing.
Then his other foot slicked off, and his weight slammed them into the rock face.
Her legs gave out.
And then they were sliding, The cable shredded the gauze as he tried to kick out from the rock, to slow their ascent, to stop them from?—
Tia screamed, and they dropped into the churning ocean with a deafening splash.
Cold. Stinging. Chaos.
They’d landed in the well of a wave, and it caught him up, Tia struggling against him.
The wave slammed them into the rocks. He took the hit on his shoulder, his arms around Tia, fighting to protect her.
Then the current pulled them back out.
He had to set her free because kicking together would only drown them. Even now, her boots landed in his shins, and despite her paddling, they sank in the water.
And then his feet touched rock. Approximately six feet down—his boots scraped the top of the lava tunnel.
He wrapped his arms around her at the rush of another wave. “Big breath!”
Then he ducked them under the cresting water, kicking hard.
They came up behind the surge into the next roll, and he reached down, fumbling with the backpack strap. The swell caught them up, and again—“Under!”
He ducked with her, found purchase on the tunnel roof, and pushed to the surface. She sputtered, coughing as he released the strap.
She wiggled free, but he caught her hand as the water rose under them again.
“Down!” He took a breath and, next to him, felt her follow. This time, they came up farther from the cliff. He tore off the pack and shoved it at her. “Put this on!”
“I can swim!”
“It’ll let me hold on to you!”
She splashed, then shouted, “Duck!”
He took a breath, and this time she pulled him under. The wave caught them, tumbled her, but he grabbed hold and pulled her to himself, again launching himself from the lava base.
They surfaced.
“Listen! It’ll just get me tangled up. Let’s swim!”
But then he’d lose her in the darkness. “No—we have to stay together!”
She blinked at him, treading water.
“Okay.” She grabbed the pack, pulled it over her head and shoulder.
He grabbed the trailing strap. “Stay with me!”
“Go deeper!”
Good idea. Deeper, the current would be less furious. He took a breath and plunged into the water, sinking into the depths.
She swam beside him, using breaststrokes, and he sensed the waves rolling over them.
He surfaced after a minute and found her treading next to him. They’d swum away from shore, out of the breaking waves. “Turn onto your side and do a sidestroke.”
“Why?” But she turned over.
“You can save energy that way. SEAL trick that Stein taught me. But first—lose the boots.”
“I like these boots.”
“You like to breathe too, right?” He’d already started to unlace his boots, sliding out of them, the water chilly against his bare feet.
She did the same, and then she started to twist in the water.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m losing these heavy pants, too.”
He’d worn his lightweight Gore-Tex pants over a pair of snug trunks, so he’d keep his on.
Then she rolled over, facing the shore and starting to swim. He swam behind her, the waves carrying them up and down in the water.
He still held the unhooked strap.
The mountain rose dark and forbidding over the island, and he couldn’t make out any fires.
“There’s the beach,” Tia said, stopping and treading as she pointed to an indentation in the shoreline.
“We could keep swimming, all the way to town.”
She turned in the water, met his gaze. “That’s a half mile away.”
Right.
“If we get tired, we’ll let the waves carry us in. We can do this, Tia.”
She tightened her jaw but nodded. “Don’t let go of me.”
Never. The word pulsed inside him, jolting him. What ? —?
They kept swimming parallel to shore, slowly, sidestroke, riding the waves, the shoreline glistening under the moonlight. The water had turned cold in the night, and he shivered, but here in the Caribbean, he wouldn’t get hypothermia, at least, not unless he got pulled farther out to sea.
“Should we be worried about sharks?”
“Great whites? No, the water is too warm. If we were swimming up the eastern coast of Florida, perhaps, but not out here.”
Probably.
In fact, swimming out here, the waves moving them through the water, felt almost... peaceful.
All he had to do was breathe and stay afloat and ride the current as it took them toward Esperanza. And, of course, hang on to Tia.
No problem.
No problem at all.
The moon had started to fall, and dawn crested against the far horizon. He spotted tiny lights dotting the pocket of the mountain where Esperanza sat crowded against the harbor.
“I see the town,” she said.
Yeah. And along with it?—
Fishing boats. The motors rose across the surface of the water, buzzing against the waves and...
No one would see them in the water.
He tugged on her strap. “Tia, come here.”
She righted herself in the water, and he pulled her in, put an arm around her. “I can hear a fishing boat.”
Lifting her arm, she started to wave and shout. “We’re here!”
Aw. They didn’t have a hope of hearing her over the motor. And then he spotted it. A blue-and-white boat headed out to sea for the predawn morning catch.
Headed straight for them.
“Tia—”
“Here! We’re here!”
The boat motored toward them, throttle high, splashing through the waves.
“Tia—”
“They’re not slowing!”
Nope. He grabbed her pack. “Big breath!”
“What—?”
He glimpsed the boat plowing toward them just as he pulled her down into the water, kicking hard toward the bottom.
She must have caught on, because she followed him down. Overhead, the motor churned up the water.
His lungs burned, but he didn’t want to surface into the path of another boat.
She, however, tugged at him, and he followed her up.
He surfaced just as a wave thundered over him.
“Doyle!”
Her shout cut out as the water yanked his hand from the strap and pummeled him against the rocky bottom. His shoulder scuffed against the rock, then his feet scraped, and suddenly the current had him.
He tumbled over and over, the waves pushing him down, his lungs burning as he lost his bearing in the darkness.
And for a second, he was back in a frozen lake, fighting his way out of a sunken car?—
Hands. They grabbed him, dragged him up, and he came back to himself. His feet hit rock and he planted them.
Surfaced. And of course, Tia was right there, standing in water up to her chin. “Gotcha,” she said.
He stared at her, gasping, and ran his hands over his face. Then he reached out and pulled her to himself, shaking. “You all right?”
“I would like to leave the ocean now.”
He closed his eyes and let out a laugh. “Let’s go to shore.”
She stepped away from him, met his gaze, and then hers moved off him, toward town. The light flickered in her eyes even as her mouth opened.
“What—?”
He turned, and his chest hollowed out, his hand finding hers and tightening.
The town of Esperanza was on fire.
* * *