Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
She couldn’t go on like this.
Her body temperature hovered somewhere around completely numb. Water gnawed at her, dragging her down, fighting to tug her under. Her life jacket kept riding up around her chin, sending another arc of panic through her weary body.
“Relax,” Scottie whispered for the zillionth time. “Float on your back. Breathe.”
When she let it, the life vest kept her face up. But the waves kept rising, like ominous monsters. And the wind slammed rain into her face. And then she bobbed back up, gasping, blinking, salt water stinging her eyes.
“Okay, make like a starfish.” She tried to lie flat, spread her arms out, stared at the gray sky, fat with clouds.
The wind nipped at her cheeks, raw from the elements.
What was she going to do? The current, the waves, or maybe a wicked combo of both, carried her away from the cluster of seiners and skiffs.
What had happened to Keegan? Where was the rest of the crew of the Tenacious Hope?
And the Esmeralda J? That captain needed to go to jail.
He had jeopardized, and perhaps taken, the lives of innocent people.
And Damian needed to take responsibility for his reckless choices.
Tate had been right all along. And she’d ignored him. She’d put herself in danger. Again.
Oh, why hadn’t she listened to him?
“Okay, don’t go there. Don’t go there right now,” she said into the darkness. “Focus. Think. Pray.”
Another swell lifted her, like a hand under her spine, and then dropped her just as quickly into a hollow trough.
Something tugged at her ankle. Fear sluiced through her.
She kicked hard—well, as hard as she could with her fatigued muscles.
The tug just tightened. She tried to pull her legs up, tried to bring her feet toward her hands, but the life jacket, bulky around her shoulders, hampered her movement.
She finally wrapped her numb fingers around something coiled around her ankle. Purse-seine mesh? Slippery. Strong. The same stuff she’d watched flex and expand on the deck of the seiner. Now it wrapped around her, cunning as a snake.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, I can figure this out.”
Cold water splashed up her nose. She coughed, spit. Panic tightened its grip on her lungs and squeezed. “Relax. You know what to do.”
Another wave sloshed across her face. She closed her mouth, but it was too late.
Salt water flooded in. She started to feel like her whole body had been dipped in concrete.
She searched under the surface, found a slimy, tight piece of rope, and followed it down to her ankle, where it was knotted in the mesh. She yanked, but nothing happened.
“Help!” she yelled desperately at the sky.
The wind picked up her word and hurled it into the deep.
A boat engine throbbed somewhere out of sight.
She could see land—little glimpses of it—when the ocean offered her a brief reprieve, but there was no way she could swim that far.
The hull of a boat, with its running lights like tiny beacons in the dark, taunted her.
Or maybe she’d imagined it? A spotlight scanned past, but the next wave carried her farther away.
“Hey, I’m over here!” She waved. The boat angled away and the sound faded into the rain.
You’re alone. A cruel voice in her head taunted her.
“No,” she said as her teeth chattered. “No, no, no.” The life jacket lifted her up and the net tugged her down.
She hooked two fingers under the mesh and tried to pull it over her heel.
The motion knifed a muscle and white-hot pain shot through her.
“Breathe,” she panted, small, shallow breaths. Her jaw trembled.
“Mom,” she said. The word surprised her.
When she was younger, she used to speak to her mom all the time, but as she’d grown up and the cavernous void of living without her mom settled into a dull ache, she’d kind of stopped.
And then when Lainey’s mom divorced her dad and moved away, she’d slammed the proverbial door on having a healthy mother-daughter relationship.
It just hadn’t worked out for her. Why call out for help when there was no one to respond?
Rain sprinkled across her face as she floated in the sea. She blinked hard and found the net again and wrestled with it one more time. “Okay, not going to freak out. I can do this.”
From somewhere in the depths of her memory, her mother’s words floated to the surface.
God is good. He is for you and He is with you. Always.
Oh, wow. More tears stung the backs of her eyes. She’d banished those words years ago. Shoved them deep down. But now they settled over her.
Scottie repeated them out loud through chattering teeth. “G-God is g-g-good. He is f-f-for me. H-He is with m-m-me. Always.”
Clinging to the reminder, she pushed against the net still wrapped around her, trying desperately to work it over her heel.
It budged a little. She could do this. Her hands were so clumsy.
She was so weary. An engine—no, something else—farther away.
A different sound. Now she really was hallucinating because all she pictured was Tate’s face.
“Float on your back,” she told herself, and this time she blew out a breath and let the vest do its job.
Spread her arms. The net still tugged at her.
Not so ominous. She waited for the wave to carry her up, up, up.
She rode it to the top, scanned the horizon for a mast, a skiff.
Broken pieces of Tenacious Hope’s cabin now splintered.
She just wanted to close her eyes and sleep.
“Nope, nope.” The next wave hit and she worked with it, pushed the loop of the net over her heel. Finally, she was free. She kicked. Okay, it still had a hold on her, but not quite so restrictive now.
An air horn bleated somewhere off to her right.
She sucked in a breath, churning her arms and legs to spot its source.
Then a silver-hulled boat lifted on a choppy swell, its deck lights shining like beacons in the soupy fog.
The engine’s rumble grew louder as the vessel approached.
A figure in an orange Gumby suit stood braced against the railing.
She flung one arm in the air. “Here!”
A cone of light carved across the water, but it swung past her. She flung her arm up again, spreading her fingers wide, and yelled as loud as she could. The light kept going. Her lungs burned and her whole body ached. She let her arm flop back into the water, closed her eyes.
“Scottie, hold on!”
Tate.
She tried to swim backstroke. Tried to get to him, but she just couldn’t make her arms move.
The silver boat throttled down, keeping a safe distance. Someone on board must have lit a flare because a flame shot into the sky.
Tate disappeared from view. Oh no. Did he jump in?
Don’t jump. The thought flashed through her head, but he was already in the water, swimming for her.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “I’m right here.” He slid an arm behind her shoulders. “You’re doing great. Keep breathing.”
“I’m caught in a net,” she whimpered, her throat thick with emotion. “You can’t pull me free.”
“Coast Guard is two minutes out,” he said, turning them so he took the brunt of the next wave smacking against them. “We’ll let them hoist you up and get you to the hospital quickly, all right?”
She managed a weak nod.
“Scottie? Look at me.”
She turned her head and met his gaze. Something like relief filled Tate’s eyes.
He thumbed away the moisture clinging to her cheeks. “You’re so brave, and I am so proud of you. We’re going to get you warm and dry.”
The wump-wump-wump-wump rolled over them.
She and Tate floated, the water around them whipped into a frenzy as a glorious orange-and-white helicopter hovered overhead, rotor spinning.
She squinted against the spray needling her cheeks.
A rescue swimmer in his orange suit stood in the open doorway of the chopper.
“Hold on,” a confident voice boomed as the spotlight lit them up. “Hold on, we see you.”
“Thank you, Lord. You are with me. You are for me.” She held her palms open toward the sky. Complete surrender.
“Keep saying it, Scottie,” Tate said, his voice gruff. “Because it’s true.”
She managed another nod, but tears blurred her vision. Then her breaths came in pathetic, hiccup-y gulps.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Tate said. “You’re going to be out of here soon.”
She clung to him as fatigue and that blasted net battled to pull her under. Dark spots peppered the edges of her vision.
The rescue swimmer hit the water, then bobbed beside them, his piercing gaze already assessing Scottie’s condition.
“I’m T.J.,” he said, treading water beside her. “My friends are dropping your sweet ride.”
Scottie spotted the basket descending from the chopper.
“This is Scottie. She seems to be caught in a net,” Tate said. “Still responsive but perhaps hypothermic.”
Scottie tried to form words to protest his diagnosis. She wasn’t hypothermic. But no sound came out.
“Roger that.” T.J. acted quickly, his movements practiced. Confident. He freed the last bit of mesh, then maneuvered her into the basket. “Ma’am, cross your arms over your chest and let us do the lifting.”
Not a problem.
She sagged against the basket’s frame, then glanced back at Tate one more time. Beads of water clung to his hair and his eyelashes. Oh, he was so handsome. And he’d come for her.
The winch took the line and lifted her up. The water fell away. Tate shrunk to an orange dot, bobbing beside the silver boat.
God is good. He is for you and He is with you. Always.
She kept her arms crossed over her chest until the deck of the chopper and the crew on board received her.