Chapter 2 #2
Rad had already seen them. He adjusted the throttle and brought the bow around, timing the approach between wave sets.
The boat bucked hard on a steep piece of frothy sea foam, and Margo grabbed the gunwale with both hands, holding on without making a sound as she weathered the beating the sea was giving them.
“I’m going to bring us alongside and then kill the engine,” Rad said. “When I say ready, you reach in to grab them, but don’t lean past your center of gravity.”
“Understood,” Margo said. She was already moving to the side of the boat and already braced for action.
Rad brought them in.
The next thirty seconds were not elegant.
The boat moved on the water in ways that had nothing to do with what he told it to do, and he compensated and overcompensated and compensated again.
The wave that came through just as they reached Ace and Willa lifted the hull and slammed it down again close enough to them that his heart stopped for a half second.
Margo had both hands around Willa’s arm, pulling with everything she had, and Ace was pushing from below, and then Willa was over the gunwale and into the bottom of the boat, a heap of wet clothing, salt water, and ragged breathing.
“Ace,” Rad said. “Come on.”
Ace got a hand on the side, and Rad leaned down, grabbed his shirt, and pulled, as a wave came through mid-pull and lifted them both awkwardly.
For one genuinely terrible moment, Rad thought he was going to go over the side with Ace.
But Ace managed to get a knee over the gunwale, then rolled into the boat, which rocked violently and then settled.
There was no asking how anyone was as Rad hit the throttle and headed toward the island.
The engine screamed, and the bow lifted as they moved.
He pushed the boat as hard as he dared through the choppy water, keeping the island in sight, timing the sets as best he could, and behind him he could hear Margo’s voice low and urgent, asking Willa something, and Willa’s answer coming back in short, clipped sentences that told him she was conscious and functioning, making Rad breathe in relief.
He brought them in as close to the dock as he could manage and killed the engine.
“We can’t tie off,” Ace said from behind him, already reading it. “The dock’s moving too much, and the wave sets are coming in at the wrong angle. We have to go over the side, and we can pull her up onto the shore.”
“Okay, let’s do it.” Rad nodded.
They went over the side.
The water was shallow enough this close to the dock that Rad found the bottom immediately, although the surge tried to take his feet twice before he got his balance.
He got a hand on the dock and pulled himself alongside it, and Margo was right there, and together they got the bow line and held the boat steady against the dock’s edge while Willa climbed out, her movements slower now, her body paying the debt that the adrenaline had been covering.
Ace came over the side last, and they were all on the dock, all four of them, soaked through and breathing hard in the full force of the wind. Willa and Margo were already on the shore when Rad heard the wave.
“Jump onto the shore!” Ace’s voice cracked across all of them like a starter’s gun.
Ace moved without thinking. His arm came across Rad’s chest and drove him sideways off the dock edge, and they hit the solid ground together just as the wave broke across the outer edge of the dock where they had been standing.
The wall of white water missed them, but some of the cold spray spat at them.
Then it was past. Rad lifted his head and cursed beneath his breath when he saw that the boat was gone.
He could see it thirty yards out, already sideways, and being taken by the current.
“Everyone up,” Willa said. Her voice was steady but commanding. “We have to move.” She glanced toward the sky. “This weather is about to get a lot worse.”
The trail was harder in the dark and the wind than it had been in the afternoon and the comparative calm. Rad stayed close behind Margo the whole way, close enough that when she stumbled once on a root, he had her arm before she went down.
“Thank you,” Margo said, pulling herself straight.
“Are you okay?” Rad asked.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Margo answered with a tight smile. “I just can’t wait to get to shelter. This wind feels like I’m being slapped in the face.”
“How much farther?” Rad asked.
“Not long,” Willa answered.
As Willa turned to say that to Rad, shock spread through him as she reminded him of a picture he’d seen of his grandmother when she was a lot younger.
For a moment, the breath left Rad’s lungs as he stared at Willa, and the feeling he’d had since speaking to June a few nights ago resurfaced.
But before he could ponder further on the thought, they arrived at the cave, and he filed it away to look into as soon as they got back to Sandpiper Shores.
Willa
The cave entrance was set into a low limestone outcropping on the eastern side of the island, partially screened by a dense stand of saw palmetto that had been battered sideways by the wind but was still standing.
From outside, it was barely visible. From inside, it was large enough to hold all of them with room to breathe and solid enough overhead to make the howling of the storm outside sound like something happening to someone else.
The teens had done everything right, and Willa smiled with pride at all they had accomplished.
The fire was small and correctly positioned, built with the kind of care that said someone had remembered exactly what they had been told and then done it rather than guessing.
The entrance was partially blocked with a section of tarpaulin weighted at the base with stones, which was breaking the wind without trapping the smoke.
The emergency packs were stacked along one wall.
Grace had organized the space with the natural, undemonstrative authority of someone who had been waiting her whole life for the moment her competence would actually matter.
She was on her feet before they were fully through the entrance.
“Mom.” The word tore from Grace, all the control she had held for the past hour dropping away entirely, and she crossed the cave in three steps. Willa’s arms were around her before either of them spoke again.
Andy was right behind her, and he was not trying to hold anything back at all, and Willa held both of them at once in the firelight, her wet clothes pressing against their dry ones, her chin over Grace’s head, her eyes closed.
Over her children’s heads, she saw Tyler fly towards his father and watched Rad’s eyes darken with emotion as they embraced.
“Dad, you came?” Tyler said, his voice resonating with joy.
“Hey, bud,” Rad said. “Of course. I had to get here as soon as I heard you were all stranded.”
Across the cave, Margo was already crouched beside the fire, helping Katey organize the emergency blankets from the packs, speaking quietly to the other teenagers with that unhurried, practical warmth that Willa had long understood was one of her greatest gifts.
She made people feel capable. Not by telling them they were, but by simply assuming it and treating them accordingly.
Margo looked up and found Willa’s eyes across the fire.
Margo was just as soaked as Willa was. Her hair flattened against her face, a graze along her forearm where she had caught the gunwale coming out of the water.
She looked as exhausted as Willa felt, and it hit her hard in the heart.
Her eyes traveled to Rad. They had come to help them despite the danger, and Willa had to fight back the tears, especially because she knew how much Margo hated sailing or being out on the ocean.
It must’ve been terrifying for her. Yet she’d done it.
For her, for the teens, for Ace, and Rad.
That was what a true friend looked like.
Margo smiled at her, and Willa mouthed the words thank you, making Margo’s smile broaden before she turned back to the teen she was talking to.
In the far corner, Ace had found a space near the wall and lowered himself down against it, his head tipped back, his eyes briefly closed.
He was shivering. Willa, now with an emergency blanket draped across her shoulders by someone who had thought to bring it without being asked, moved toward him.
The fire was doing what it was built to do, pushing warmth into the enclosed space, and outside the cave, the storm was making itself fully known.
The wind dropped in pitch for a moment and then rose again higher.
The rain was audible even through the limestone and the tarpaulin barrier in hard, driving sheets.
Willa sighed. They were safe for now while the storm was still building outside.
But they were together, sheltered and warm inside.
There also seemed to be no injuries, and while the teens looked stressed, they were more tired than scared.
Willa dropped down beside Ace and offered him part of her blanket.
They huddled in close and sat in silence, letting each other’s body warmth stop the chills, not saying anything.
Right at that moment, words weren’t necessary as they sat watching the group chatter around the fire, all safe, as they were.
Willa didn’t want to think about what would have happened if Ace hadn’t found her or Rad and Margo hadn’t braved the storm to come get them.