Chapter 8
“I see a flare.” Dane said the words unnecessarily loudly inside the small bridge. Then he dashed for the door. He hoped to hell that red streak was a flare. And he hoped to damn hell it was a flare from the lift raft holding Shana.
“I see it—we’re on it. Starboard side,” Tony Vendi shouted after him.
“Shit.” He didn’t want to think about Shana out there in that. Instead he watched for the boat and prepared to climb over. Cap appeared at his side.
“You see it.” He had a giant flashlight casting a small beam into the blizzard and waves below.
“I’m looking. We could really use that Jayhawk about now with the Nightsun searchlight.”
“I’ll find out from Tony what the ETA—”
Dane heard the familiar sound of whipping rotors even above the roaring ocean. “Don’t bother—I hear it.”
At that instant the sky lit up and it felt like he and Cap were on stage instead of the deck of the 47.
He raised an arm and gave them a thumbs-up.
They were less than a hundred feet up and wobbling in the wind.
He gestured his arm over the starboard side and the lights aimed that way covering from the side of the boat to what looked like the horizon.
Dane strained his eyes, looking for any spot of anything besides whitecaps and snow hurling sideways through the light.
He spotted the raft and swiftly climbed down to the cutout on the starboard side of the 47, close to the water line. The low slung well was designed to rescue people from the water. It was not designed to block the weather and the wind.
Cap climbed down beside him and tried to throw a line to the raft but he missed.
Dane yelled to Tony, “Can you anchor us?” He stood above at the rail.
Dane knew it would be dangerous, that anchoring the boat in the waves could cause it to take on water.
But it would be equally dangerous to allow the 47 to be tossed so that it could easily hit the raft and capsize it.
Tony left the rail and headed for the anchor.
Cap handed the line to Dane as they felt the boat strain against the anchor and the waves and ice cold spray hit them.
Hanging from the side with the life raft still 15 feet away, Dane threw the line.
One of the crew caught it and they used the wench to pull the raft close.
As soon as the raft bumped alongside the cut out of the 47, Dane climbed in and headed straight for Shana.
She lay on a bench wrapped in foil and he was about to ask why until he saw her blue lips.
Without thought, numb from the cold and the fear, he lifted her and hauled her into the cutout of the 47 and then carried her up to the deck.
His muscles burned while the icy water lashed him and he thought of nothing but getting Shana to warmth and home again.
Dane held Shana in his arms on deck and Vendi was at his side as he carried her toward the cabin and the stairs to go below.
As soon as they stepped inside the wheelhouse cabin, Vendi said, “The helo can lift her and take her to the hospital on the Cape or I can get her to Vineyard Haven to the hospital there in about the same time.”
Cap and the crew had gotten Father Pedro aboard and they pushed inside the cabin behind Dane, heading for the stairs below. The 47 was ready to take off.
“Let’s not waste time getting them on the helo here at sea,” Dane said.
“I’ll radio it in,” Vendi nodded. “We’re heading into station. We can get them to the Vineyard Haven hospital from there. The helo can meet us at the hospital in case we need them.”
Dane carried Shana down to the survivor cabin where the others had taken Pedro.
The two crewmen from the raft helped, but they need treatment almost as badly.
The cabin was warm enough to be called hot and well equipped to treat exposure.
Dane laid Shana on a bed and ripped off all her wet clothes while Cap and Andy worked on Father Pedro.
He dried her and wrapped her in warm blankets and rubbed her, patting her face and caressing it. She lay implacable, taking shallow breaths and fluttering her eyes for what seemed like forever.
When she finally kept her eyes open and on Dane, he lowered his face to hers and covered her blue lips in his. She was so cold. He massaged her lips with his until he felt some warmth return. And he heard a cough from across the room.
“They need oxygen,” Cap pointed to a plastic cup with a tube hooked up to a cylinder. Dane had seen them operated in ambulances and hospitals often enough. He wasn’t sure of the level, so after he placed the mask over Shana’s nose and mouth, he proceeded cautiously.
“They’re all in various stages of shock due to exposure,” Cap said. “I’m not sure Father Pedro is going to make it.”
Dane left Shana’s side after she nodded at him to go.
He went to where Pedro lay, blue and stiff with his oxygen mask in place.
The man had stopped shaking, but that wasn’t a good thing in this case.
His eyes were closed and he looked dead already.
Dane took Father Pedro’s wrist to find a faint pulse.
And then the old man opened his eyes and met Dane’s.
For a blink of time they looked at each other. Then it was over.
Dane felt the man’s pulse falter and then disappear. He put Father Pedro’s hand over his chest and left his side.
He went to Shana and vowed he wouldn’t leave her side until she was a hundred percent or she pushed him away. Maybe never.
Bending over her again, Dane gathered Shana in. She’d been wet and frozen and blue, but was now alive and improving.
When he’d retrieved her from the water, he’d rescued his soul.
He felt it all now. The sadness and the joy were both there at once, cohabiting in his soul.
It was dark, but not empty. His greatest fears had come true and he still had more, still had a heart beating wildly, still had love, too much love to contain, to hide, too much hurt to ignore.
Her green eyes were wide open now and staring at him. She reached up and lowered the oxygen mask from her face.
“You saved me, Mr. Legend. Guess the hype was real.” Her smile was weak, but there was a spark of Shana, the spark he needed to see, in her twinkling green eyes and in her sassy quip.
“It’s what I do.”
“It’s what I do too. Don’t forget.”
He grunted. He swelled with pride and felt a prick of irritation that bloomed into fear at the same time. “Not for a while.”
“You going to play nursemaid now?”
He nodded. “I’ll be at your beck and call.”
She scoffed. Then she coughed and he squeezed her to him, willing his warmth to infuse her, willing his energy to regenerate her. Whatever he had was hers—all the life that he felt in him now had been a gift from her.
He looked over at Pedro—Pedro’s body—before Cap pulled a sheet over him. Dane wondered. The man had been tough for an old priest. He’d been sent, maybe by Oscar. Maybe not.
By the time they’d arrived at the hospital, dawn had risen up in a purple blue sky as the snow still fell, softly now. Glowing.
Shana looked out the window, following his gaze.
“I feel like we’re inside a damn snow globe,” Dane said.
“The way you talk—admit it. It’s magic.”
“Now who’s getting all fanciful?”
“It’s Christmas. Magic time if there ever was.”
Shana smiled and reached her hand up to his face. He took it. He hadn’t shaved in who knew how long. His face was in that in-between stubble and beard stage of unkempt. Shana didn’t seem to mind. She caressed and stroked and he felt her hands, warm now. And that warmed his insides.
“What do you say we get out of this joint? The hospital is no place to spend Christmas Day.”
She sat up with a big energetic Shana the Warrior Princess smile. “I was never one to worry about conventions like waiting to be discharged.”
Christmas Day
They gathered in the living room of Dane’s beach shack, which had mostly been used as his office with a desk holding his secure phone and a computer, a file cabinet, chair and couch. But someone had put up a real Christmas tree, decorated to the nines with lights and tinsel.
Shana lay on the couch. Dane had tucked an old afghan around her.
His mother’s. A family heirloom. She pulled it up close and nestled into the warmth.
Even though Dane had sprung her from the hospital prematurely, she doubted she’d have gotten more nursing attention there than she’d received from Dane all morning.
She looked around the room. This was better.
All her favorite people—her Martha’s Vineyard family—surrounded her in the small room, mostly standing. Dane perched on the end of the couch near her and kept his hand on her shoulder, tangled in her hair.
Sassy Stephens and Ronnie Ryan were there.
They’d brought food and set it out on the small scuffed coffee table.
There was a mince pie and Christmas cookies.
Cap and Vendi stood with drinks. Even Jim Evans from the deli and Tom Jones from the Lucky Parrot had dropped in.
They’d heard about the ferry incident. They’d known without being told that Dane and Shana would be involved, but they hadn’t realized how involved.
“What about Father Pedro?” she forced herself to ask. Another casualty on her watch. She swallowed hard.
Cap said, “They’re ready to send his body back to South America. We need to hear from Oscar about exactly where.”
“Speaking of the devil—the only devil more devilish than I am—let’s give him a call now.” Dane sounded cheery, especially considering the death of the padre, but a euphoric bubble rose in her chest knowing the reason for Dane’s mood was her.