Chapter 49
FORTY-NINE
X anthe helped Blaine gather another load of branches and dry fir cones. It was getting harder and harder to find anything that wasn’t wet. Most of what they were burning now was damp enough to create more smoke than flames or any real heat.
Charlie had roused twice more but drifted off soon after. He hadn’t woken since. She was worried sick about him.
Blaine built up the teepee shape higher and added more kindling at the base. The wind howled through the treetops, bringing occasional large branches crashing down around them. Another surge of it slapped Blaine in the face with a column of smoke.
He stepped to the side, coughed, and waved it away from him. “I’m gonna head to the beach, see if I can spot any boats out there.”
“Okay.”
He stuck the end of a damp branch into the fire until it caught. Cupped his hand around it to blow gently and ignite the flame. “I won’t be long.” He walked away from the glow of the fire, his makeshift torch extinguished the moment he stepped out of view.
A sinking feeling took hold. Now that she’d warmed up enough to stave off hypothermia, her body was a mass of aches and pains. She shook her head at herself, pulled in a steadying breath.
Don’t fall apart. You can fall apart later. Charlie needs you.
She’d already mentally prepared herself for being stuck here through the night. At least. People would be out searching for them, but this place was remote and the weather would make a rescue effort treacherous. The storm was forecast to abate around daybreak. They had to sit tight until then.
She brushed her hands clean on her damp, clammy jeans and knelt beside Charlie. “Charlie, can you hear me?”
He grunted. Struggled to open his eyes.
“Help is coming,” she said, hoping he could understand her.
Hope was all they had left to give him at this point, other than the meager warmth from the fire and whatever comfort their presence and words could offer.
She laid down behind him, curled up snug against his back to try and warm him more, and pillowed her head on her curled arm. His socks were mostly dry now, so she’d put them back on his feet. The cotton flannel shirt he’d been wearing was still wet, so all he had on was his jacket and wet jeans.
The wind continued to whistle through the trees. More branches snapped overhead, crashing onto the ground and drowning out the crackling of the smoldering fire beside them.
Exhaustion rolled over her like a dark wave. She allowed herself to close her eyes a moment. Jerked awake later when cold raindrops hit her face and realized she’d dozed off so long the fire was nearly out.
Bleary-eyed, she jumped up to add more sticks to the flames. Rain fell harder between the trees and the branches forming the little canopy Blaine had built them, threatening to extinguish their only source of heat.
She dragged drier sticks from the bottom of the pile and built it back up as best she could. Little flames licked at the wood sullenly, like a picky toddler turning its nose up at a food they didn’t like.
She glanced at her watch. Blaine had been gone more than forty minutes now. “Another close call, Charlie, but I managed to keep the fire from going out, don’t worry.” She went back to him. Paused just before she knelt next to him again.
Maybe it was the diminished light from the fire or because of the smoke. But his face looked gray. And he was so still, not a whisper of movement as she stared at his chest.
“Charlie.” She dropped to her knees, took him by the shoulders. “ Charlie .”
Nothing.
“Oh, shit, no,” she breathed, patting his cheek to rouse him while she set two trembling fingers under the angle of his jaw. “Hey. Hey, come on.”
She couldn’t find a pulse.
A cry of denial locked in her throat. He couldn’t have slipped away now. Not after surviving everything else.
She flipped him onto his back and started chest compressions. Uncaring about possible internal injuries at this point, her only thought to try and keep his blood circulating and get the dwindling oxygen to his brain.
“Blaine!” Her shout was snatched by the wind, probably didn’t even reach the edge of the trees. “Blaine, get back here now!”
Fear and grief clogged her throat as she continued the rapid compressions. Charlie couldn’t die.
Blaine raced out of the darkness, his makeshift torch missing. He took everything in with a single glance. “How long since his heart stopped?”
“I don’t know,” she gasped out, a film of tears stinging her eyes. “I nodded off, and when I woke up to feed the fire, he…”
He knelt at Charlie’s other side and took over the compressions.
She dropped back on her heels, arms aching. “Did you see anything?”
“No. I thought I did, for a minute.”
Charlie’s skin was gray, and his face had that awful slack look. It was hollow and unmistakable, as if the spirit had taken all signs of personality with it. Exactly the same as when her stepdad died.
An awful helplessness took hold as she watched Blaine fight to keep Charlie’s blood circulating. She knew it was pointless. He needed a defibrillator and emergency surgery to give him a fighting chance.
Blaine valiantly kept going anyway. Five minutes. Ten.
She reached out to place a hand atop his. Their gazes connected.
Blaine stopped, breathing hard, the sheen of sweat on his face glistening in the low fire. His jaw tightened, and he reached across Charlie’s torso for her, pulling her into a hug. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
She could only nod, because there were no words. Nothing she could do or say to make this any better. Charlie had a wife and two young children. They were going to be utterly devastated.
Blaine stiffened. She looked up into his face. He seemed to be listening intently. “I hear something.”
She eased back on her heels again, listening. At first she only heard the roaring of the wind. Then something else. Faint at first. It sounded like…voices.
Blaine shot to his feet. “Stay here.” He charged out of sight.
Xanthe stood on wobbly legs and walked to the edge of the glowing circle cast by the fire, straining to hear what was happening over the wind. Then she heard distant shouting.
The voices grew more distinct. Then Blaine appeared with Lachlan, Maddy, and Allistair.
Seeing her friends and the look on Allistair’s face as he spotted her first and then Charlie’s body by the fire, broke something inside her. Her face crumpled as Allistair hurried over to engulf her in a hug. “Oh, sweetie. God .”
She shoved her face into his flotation jacket, fighting back a sob. They were safe now. But help had come too late for Charlie.
“Hey, Xanthe. Glad you’re okay.” Lachlan put his flotation jacket on her before stepping back. It was huge, dangling off her frame, but the increased warmth was instant, augmented by the lingering body heat trapped by the fabric.
Allistair rubbed a hand up and down her back. “Let’s get you to the boat and into your own flotation suit to warm up, huh?”
She nodded, glanced behind her. Blaine and Lachlan were hunkered down beside Charlie, wrapping him in a mylar blanket.
She looked away, blinked as Maddy came over to hug her. Xanthe embraced her.
“So glad you guys are okay. Now let’s get you out of here,” Maddy said.
It felt like Xanthe was moving through dense fog on the way out of the woods, everything hazy and strange, as if it were happening to someone else. The instant they left the shelter of the trees, the full fury of the wind snatched her breath away.
Near shore, Lachlan’s fastest zodiac bobbed in the rough waves. It angled toward them, pulling into a tiny, sheltered cove. Allistair and Maddy carried her through the thigh-deep water. She scrambled into the boat. Recognized Grey standing in the pilothouse.
They got her dressed in her own suit, wrapped in a rescue blanket, and tucked her into the pilothouse with Grey. She watched as Blaine and Lachlan carried Charlie down the beach and over to the boat.
Blaine squeezed in beside her wearing his own flotation suit and pulled her to him. “We’re going home.”
She closed her eyes. Grabbed hold of a support handle and let Blaine brace her as Grey turned the boat and fought against the power of the waves.
The ride back was the roughest she’d ever experienced. Several times they caught big air over the crest of a wave, then slammed down into a trough so hard her teeth rattled and her spine compressed as the next wave crashed over the bow.
By the time they made it around the southwestern point of Skelly and into the relative, protected calm of Whalebone Cove, she was frozen and weaving on her feet with exhaustion. Her whole spine was stiff and sore.
But she and Blaine had survived despite the odds.
A large crowd of people were waiting for them when they docked. It seemed like half the town had come, standing in the pouring rain and brutal wind to welcome them. Rafe was there with a deputy. Mae, with Willow and Tripp, and Tripp’s dad. Earl too. And Samantha.
The blur of motion, questions, everyone wanting to talk to her and Blaine at once, was overwhelming.
Rafe steered them toward the paramedics standing by.
She was physically okay, just cold and sore and dealing with the aftermath of their harrowing ordeal as best she could.
But Blaine needed to go to the hospital for stitches.
As for the emotional and psychological toll… That remained to be seen.
“I’ll come with you,” she said.
“No, you go rest. Maddy,” he called.
Maddy hurried over. “Want me to take her home?”
“Yeah. Meet you there.”
Xanthe didn’t have the energy to argue and didn’t want to watch the medics zipping Charlie into a body bag there on the dock. She hoped his wife and kids weren’t here.
Allistair hugged her goodbye.
Maddy hooked an arm around her as they walked to the parking area. “Do you want to stop anywhere on the way?” she asked as she turned the car out onto the road.
“No. But I need to call my mom.” Because if her mom heard about this on the news, she would freak and assume she was dead.
“Sure, use my phone.”
Xanthe called her mom. Choked back tears a few times as she explained everything.
When she was done, she set the phone in her lap, frowned when she realized where they were. “You missed the turnoff. I’m staying up at Willow’s place.”
“Not tonight, you’re not. Blaine said to take you home, and that’s where I’m taking you.”
She didn’t argue. She wanted to be with him. Needed it, and there was zero chance she would stay out of his bed. It was only natural. Survival instinct.
“I know he hurt you by reacting the way he did the night of his mom’s crisis,” Maddy said after a moment of silence, “and then shutting you out. I’m not going to make excuses for him, but what happened wasn’t what it seemed?—”
“I know. He came to tell me this afternoon.” Was it only this afternoon? She couldn’t believe it was still the same day.
“He did?”
“Yes.”
“Wow, okay. Good.” Maddy sounded surprised. “I realize things haven’t been easy between you, right from the start. But Xanthe, he’s the best person I know. When he has your back, he has it for life. And I can tell he’s got yours.”
Her heart squeezed. She’d felt that the day of the mass stranding. And today through the crash and aftermath. That no matter what happened, he would be there for her. “You don’t have to sell me on him. I’m already sold.” God help her.
Things had been hard, but she needed him, and he would need her too.
They needed each other to get through this.