Chapter 11
Katie brought Julia a cup of the hot tea she liked, with a shot of bourbon and a squeeze of lemon added in deference to the circumstances.
She took the mug from her twin. “Thank you.”
Katie sat next to her on the sofa, where Pupwell was curled up in Julia’s lap. He’d refused to even go outside to pee unless she went with him, seeming to know she needed him more than usual.
As she ran her fingers through the dog’s silky hair, she took comfort from him and the knowledge that Deacon would do whatever it took to get home to them.
“I wish there was more I could do,” Katie said.
“It helps to be here with you and Shane.”
“Mom called again. She was worried when she couldn’t reach you, but I told her you were napping.”
“You didn’t say anything about Deacon, did you?”
“No, I didn’t see the point in getting them more upset than they already are.”
“That’s good.”
Julia’s phone rang, and she grabbed it to check the caller ID. “It’s Deacon’s mother.” She pressed the green button to take the call. “Hi.”
“Oh, Julia. Blaine just called us. I’m out of my mind with worry. I can only imagine how you must feel.”
Hearing that Blaine had informed their parents that Deacon was missing only made her more nervous than she already was. “I’m trying to stay calm, but it’s not easy.”
“Blaine reminded us that Deacon is very well qualified and knows how to handle just about anything out there.”
“I’m clinging to that.”
“I won’t keep you. If you hear anything…”
“I’ll call you right away. And you’ll call me?”
“Of course, honey. I just want you to know… Seeing my Deacon in love with you has just been so wonderful.”
“Thank you,” Julia said softly. “He’s the best thing to ever happen to me. I can’t bear to think about what I’d do without him.”
“Don’t do that. He’ll be home soon. I know it.”
They agreed to keep in touch and ended the call.
Julia checked the phone and found there were no messages. “I wish we’d hear something.”
“I’m sure the Coast Guard will find him soon.”
“They’re probably close to calling off the search as the storm gets closer.
They won’t want to endanger a bunch of people looking for one.
” But that one… He was one in a million, the man who’d stolen her heart and changed her mind about true love and happily ever after. He was the other half of her soul.
“I know you’re thinking the worst and probably trying to prepare yourself for it, but I’m betting on Deacon. He loves you so much, Jules. He’d swim back to shore to get to you if that’s what it takes.”
Thinking of him swimming in the turbulent ocean broke her.
With Katie’s arms around her, she sobbed her heart out.
Pupwell whined and nudged her leg.
Julia pulled back from Katie to tend to her sweet boy. “I’m okay, buddy.”
He licked the tears from her face.
“He’s trying to remind you that he was found swimming, and Daddy will be found, too,” Katie said.
For the first time in hours, Julia laughed. “Thanks for that, sweet boy. Mama needed to hear that.”
Shane came into the living room, carrying a tray that he put on the coffee table. “I thought it seemed like a soup-and-grilled-cheese kind of night.”
Julia’s mouth watered when the scent of the soup wafted toward her.
“Thank you, Shane. It smells delicious.” She hoped she could eat it.
At times like this, her throat closed, making it nearly impossible to eat.
Eating disorders had been the legacy she’d brought from her violent childhood.
It’d been a long time since she’d had trouble eating, long enough that she’d nearly forgotten what it was like to be so upset that she couldn’t eat.
She leaned in to take a sip of the soup, hoping she’d be able to swallow it. The savory flavors exploded on her tongue as her stomach growled with interest. “This is delicious, Shane. Thank you again.”
He sat on the floor on the other side of the coffee table and reached for the third bowl of soup on the tray. “You’re welcome. I wish there was more I could do.”
“It helps to be here with you guys, and thank you for going to get Pupwell’s food and toys.
We’d be going crazy by ourselves.” After she heard that Deacon was missing, Katie had invited Julia to come to their house.
They’d sent Owen home to be with his own family, with promises to keep him posted on the search for Deacon.
“You’ll never be alone in our family,” Katie said. “Everyone is texting to ask how you are and if there’s any news.”
It was so surreal. She expected to get a call from him any second telling her it’d been a big misunderstanding, that he’d been working and hadn’t heard the phone or radio calls. But deep in her heart, she knew he’d never be out of touch with her this long unless something terrible had happened.
Julia shuddered when she tried to imagine what that terrible thing might be. When she pictured him alone on that small boat, bobbing in huge waves with no way to contact anyone… She put down her spoon and wiped her mouth with a napkin.
“We can heat it up later.” No one knew more about the challenges Julia faced when it came to eating during stressful times than Katie did.
When they were children, Katie used to sneak food into their shared bedroom and beg Julia to eat something.
But that damned lump in her throat often made it impossible, no matter how hungry she might’ve been.
She was always hungry, or so it had seemed, until one day she just… wasn’t. That’d been the start of a years-long struggle with maintaining a healthy weight. She’d come so far from there that she’d nearly forgotten how it had felt to be unwell.
“Do you want to lie down?” Katie asked.
“Maybe we could watch TV or something. I’m afraid I’ll just spin if I go to bed.”
“Sure, we can do that.” Katie reached for the remote and turned on the TV, which was set to one of the Providence stations providing coverage of the storm. Katie quickly changed the channel. Three channels later and there was only storm coverage. “Let’s try Netflix.”
Katie found a movie that looked good, but Julia just stared at the screen, unable to focus on anything other than wondering where Deacon was and if he was still alive.
The possibility that he wasn’t was just too big to process.
Joe had to admit that the ride was much rougher than he’d expected.
It was wilder than anything he’d ever experienced in more than twenty years as a ferryboat captain and during a lifetime of rides to and from the island with his grandfather while growing up on the island.
It took all his skill to navigate seas that topped fifteen feet by his estimation.
The roller-coaster ride was making him queasy, which rarely happened.
He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Seamus’s boat was still right behind them, and then he picked up the radio to call his colleague or stepfather or whatever the hell the Irishman was to him. “How you doing?” he asked.
“Hanging in. You?”
They had to be careful what they said, knowing Carolina was monitoring the radio and would read between the lines to get the true story. “Same. Should be through the worst of it any time now.”
“That’s what the radar says.”
When they got far enough east of the storm, the plan was to basically float at sea until it was safe to return to port, all the while trying not to make himself sick with worry about his children, mother and extended family on the island with a monster storm heading toward them.
Protecting the two primary assets of the company that supported them all was the right thing to do.
But leaving them on the island had been excruciating.
As soon as they reached calmer waters, he’d call home to see how they were doing.
He took a sip of the coffee one of the mates had gone downstairs to make and scanned the seas in front of them, lit by the massive spotlight on the bow.
He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him when he saw an upside-down boat with a man on top of it waving to him.
“Seamus, I’ve got an overturned boat in front of me with a guy on top.”
Attempting a rescue in seas this large would be ludicrous, but they had to try. It was too dark to be able to tell if it was Deacon Taylor. Because the boat was upside down, there were no distinguishing marks to tell him who it might be.
“What’s the plan?” Seamus asked.
“We have to at least try to get him.”
The ferries were huge compared to the small boat the man was clinging to. Getting close to him would be next to impossible.
“Toss him a ring,” Seamus said.
Joe looked to his mates, Colin and Keith. “I’m not going to require you to do this.”
“We’ll do it,” Colin said. “Of course we will.”
Keith nodded in agreement.
“Put on your survival suits first.”
As they were two of the company’s more experienced deckhands, he had faith in their abilities.
Joe slowed the vessel to a crawl while the three of them donned the suits that would keep them alive if they went overboard.
But that wasn’t going to happen. Or so he hoped.
He put on the tether harness and clipped a line to the hook on the front.
“I’ll head to the aft controls so I can see you.
” Before he left the wheelhouse, he said, “Listen, use your judgment. If it can’t be done, it can’t be done. ”
“We’ll get him,” Keith said. “We can’t leave him out here to die.”
Joe felt the same way, but as the big ferry bobbed in the huge seas, he had no idea if they could do this. “Bring a handheld radio and help me get close enough.”
Seamus positioned his boat behind them, casting additional light on the stranded boater.
Joe put up the hood of his foul-weather jacket and followed the others out of the wheelhouse.
The other two men went downstairs to the lowest deck while Joe made his way to the back of the boat, clinging to the rail as the wind and rain beat down on him.
The conditions were so intense, he could barely see five feet in front of him, let alone maneuver the ferry close enough to rescue the man.
Seamus’s light was helpful, but Joe kept losing sight of their target.
After he secured his tether to the metal rail, he opened the aft controls and edged the ferry toward the boat, hoping he was heading in the right direction. He pulled the handheld radio out of his pocket. “Help me out, Seamus. I can’t see shit.”
“You’re about twenty feet from him.” Seamus calmly conveyed directions that helped Joe bring the ferry within a few yards of the disabled vessel. Over the loudspeaker on his boat, Seamus said, “Let it rip, boys. You might not get any closer.”
“Keep talking to me, Seamus. I can’t see them.”
“They missed on the first throw. They’re bringing it back.”
Damn it, Joe thought. Holding the position was next to impossible as they rocked from side to side.
Seamus directed him back into position. “They’re trying again.”
“Come on, come on, come on,” Joe said under his breath as he fought to stay standing on the deck.
“They got him,” Seamus said. “They’re hauling him in.”
Joe decided he was probably needed more downstairs than he was at the controls, so he closed the cover, unclipped the tether and headed for the stairwell, nearly falling twice as he held on tightly to the metal railing.
The stairway was somewhat protected from the elements, so he quickly descended the two flights that got him to the lower deck, where Keith and Colin were in an epic struggle to pull the man toward the ferry as the seas swelled to heights Joe had never experienced before.
After he clipped his tether to a chain on the deck, Joe grabbed the line and added his weight and strength to the effort while Seamus kept the light on the man with the life ring around his body.
The wild movement of the ferry bouncing in the seas made it difficult to stay upright as they pulled with all their might.
“He’s getting closer,” Colin yelled.
Joe could barely hear him over the roar of the wind. He doubled down, pulled as hard as he could, every muscle in his body telling him he needed to get back to the gym. Fatherhood had messed with his fitness routine, and he was feeling his age.
Time lost all meaning as they pulled the man closer to the ferry.
Colin edged his way forward, rope in hand, keeping his tether clipped to a metal loop. He dropped so he was lying facedown on the deck.
Keith followed, holding Colin’s feet.
Joe wrapped a line around Keith and secured it to a cleat. Later, he would try to recall the details, but he wouldn’t be able to say exactly how they’d managed to drag the man on board. But they did. Somehow.
The four men pulled one another to safety in the wide-open bay that normally housed cars and trucks. They crashed onto the deck, gasping from exertion and sweating despite the chill of the rain.
Joe wasn’t too concerned about immediately returning to the helm, because there was nothing out there to hit, and Seamus had an eye on them.
The man they’d rescued turned onto his back and removed the hood of his survival suit.
Deacon Taylor.
“Are we ever glad to see you, mate,” Joe said.
“Not half as glad as I am to see you,” Deacon said, gasping for air. “‘Thank you’ seems rather inadequate, but it’s all I’ve got.”
“What the hell happened?”
“I got swamped by a massive wave that swept away my phone, my handheld radio and shorted out everything else.” He wiped water off his face.
“The boat filled with water that I tried to bail after the bilge pump failed, but I overturned about three hours ago and was running out of strength to hang on when I saw you guys coming. Thought I was hallucinating because what kind of crazy bastards would be out in this shit?”
Joe laughed. “Blame it on the Irishman. It was his big idea.”
Speaking of the Irishman… The radio crackled to life. “Everyone all right over there?”
“Yep,” Joe replied. “We’ve got Deacon, if you want to get word back to shore.”
“A lot of people are going to be very happy to hear that news.”
“Anyone got a phone I can borrow?” Deacon asked.
Joe pulled the Velcro on his pocket, removed his phone, checked to see that they still had service even several miles offshore, entered the code and handed it to Deacon.
He punched in a number and closed his eyes as he waited for the call to go through. “Hey, baby. It’s me.”
From several feet away, Joe could hear Julia’s piercing scream and smiled, thinking of the relief Deacon’s loved ones would feel once word got out that he’d been found.
“Good work, guys,” he said to Colin and Keith. “Very good work.”