Going All In

by Alannah Lynne

  Please, God, let me figure out how to work the radio. And let there be someone on the other end.

  Emulating what she’d seen on television and in the movies, she pressed the button on the side of the microphone and yelled, “Mayday, mayday, mayday.” She released the button, waited ten seconds, and when nothing happened, tried again. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. Can anyone hear me?”

  Panic crept in and began feeding her worst fears.

  What if they were out too far out to be heard?

  What if no one ever heard them?

  What if Wade didn’t come back up?

  A broken, crackly voice came through the radio. “This is… Coast… Guard…”

  Overwhelming relief buckled her knees and she collapsed into the chair. Trying to recall what Wade told her, she said, “I have an overdue diver, a diver down searching for him, and a diver on board with… the bends.”

  It was such an odd term she half-expected them to laugh at her for being so gullible. But that was okay. They could laugh all they wanted, just as long as they offered assistance.

  “Are… on board… ma’am?”

  She only got bits and pieces of their communication, but she thought he’d asked if she was the only other person on board. “Yes. Which means we’re all in trouble. The diver who went down to search told me to wait fifteen minutes before calling, and it’s only been about ten. But the diver on board is in a lot of pain and… well, sometimes I don’t follow orders well.”

  “Yes, ma’am… your location… Do you know… GPS coordinates?”

  She’d watched over Alex’s shoulder all morning while they dragged the mini-torpedo back and forth, so she felt confident in her ability to not only give them GPS coordinates, but accurate coordinates.

  “How long… overdue diver… missing?”

  She wanted to scream that he wasn’t missing, only temporarily misplaced, but rather than squabble about semantics, she looked at the clock on her phone and did some quick calculations. “About forty-five minutes. He was with another diver and they got silted out?” Again, the terminology was like speaking Greek, but she was pretty sure she had it right. “His dive partner only had one tank of air and had to resurface. The rescue diver has been down… thirteen minutes.”

  As tears stung her eyes again, she squeezed them shut and dug deep in her gut for an iron will that would keep her from breaking under the pressure and becoming paralyzed with fear. There’d be time for falling apart later. For now, she would pull it together, keep it together, and do whatever was necessary to get them out of this.

  *

  While swimming to the bottom of the ocean, Wade refused to think about the penetrating cold chilling him to the bone or the heavy cloud cover making it impossible to see, even without a thick silt field, or Callie’s wide brown eyes, screaming with fear. None of those were productive thoughts, and rather than allow himself to be distracted, he needed to keep his focus on the task at hand.

  He needed to find the same entry point Tyler and Alex used so he’d be in the right area. He needed to figure out a way of judging the halfway point of the hallway. And he needed to sweep the rooms as quickly and efficiently as possible, finding Tyler with enough time left to haul their asses outta there.

  Gee… should be easy enough.

  When he reached the anchor lying on the ocean floor, he tied the end of his line to it and attached his reel to his belt. They’d dropped anchor so close to the ship they were practically on top of the thing. The hatch directly in front of him was open, and the silt cloud filtering through the opening, being swept away in the ocean currents, let him know he was in the right spot to enter.

  He squeezed through the rusted-out opening, pressed his hand to the side of the hallway, and made his way along the narrow passage. The farther he went, the thicker the silt cloud became, and visibility dropped to zero. Going on nothing but a gut feeling, he bypassed the few rooms at the edge of the thickening cloud, figuring Tyler could’ve made his way out of them easy enough, then began a steady in and out of the rooms in the thickest part of the silt.

  Down to the right… up to the left… down the hallway until he found the next one… down to the right… up to the left…

  He entered the fifth doorway, ran his hand along the edge of the wall, and began his circle. He’d been working on the theory that Tyler would make his way to a wall or the hallway to try and find his way out, and he hoped like hell he hadn’t missed him in one of the other rooms by only sweeping the outer edges of the room.

  As he made the turn from wall two to wall three, he bumped into a solid object. He felt around to determine if it was a man or a part of the ship and nearly shit himself when the mass moved and grabbed his shoulder. Thank God, the bastard was alive!

  Emotion threatened to overwhelm Wade, but he still needed to get Tyler out of here and back on deck, and he didn’t have any way of knowing how much air Tyler had left because he still couldn’t see anything. Right now, they needed to get the hell out of here. There’d be plenty of time for celebrating later.

  Finding Tyler’s hand, he guided it to the line attached to Wade’s belt and tugged, letting Tyler know it was tied off and all he had to do was follow it out to safety. It only took a few minutes to swim out into the open water, but even there, visibility was poor.

  Wade couldn’t see much, but Tyler’s wide, wild eyes and terrified expression gave Wade a boost of encouragement and hope for the future. Tyler had thought this might be the end for him, and he’d definitely not been at peace with the idea. Wade wished like hell they could’ve skipped this little part of the adventure, but if this was what it took to wake Tyler the fuck up and realize life was worth living, then so be it.

  Wade didn’t know how long he’d been gone, but he was certain he was beyond his fifteen-minute time limit. Hopefully Callie had already called the coast guard, because a quick check of Tyler’s gauge indicated things were still critical and there was no time to do decompression stops along the way.

  Alex’s bends wouldn’t be any fun. Tyler’s were going to be severe. They’d gotten this far, but unless Tyler got into a decompression chamber, he still wasn’t out of the woods.

  Wade pointed to Tyler’s gauge, made a slashing motion across his throat, and pointed to the surface, letting Tyler know there wasn’t time to pass Go or stop on Boardwalk. He needed to scoot to the top as quick as possible.

  Taking a moment to pull his shit together, Wade untied the reel from the anchor line, then followed along in Tyler’s wake. As he neared the surface, the vibrating hum of a large boat motor filled his ears, and if he wasn’t mistaken, he also caught the steady whump-whump-whump of helicopter blades.

  He chuckled, as much as was possible with a regulator in his mouth, and shook his head as disbelief, pride, and admiration filled him, making him feel light enough to float right on through the surface of the water and into the sky.

  The woman who was terrified of going on a boat, who’d slammed on the brakes at the entrance and almost turned back for the safety of home, had saved the day. And possibly two lives.

  God, he loved that woman. She never failed to surprise or amaze him with her courage and tenacity. He might be a fool for making the leap so quickly, but life-and-death situations had a way of highlighting the important stuff—a big heart, caring soul, and generous spirit—while sweeping all the other, non-important bullshit under the rug.

  Chapter Twenty

  After establishing radio contact with the coast guard, everything sped up while at the same time slowing down for Callie. She felt as if she’d left the boat, left her life, and slipped into an alternate universe that was a crazy funhouse—minus the fun. It was like looking at the world through a series of distortions and mirrors while trying to find her way through a maze of ever-changing floors.

  The coast guard put out a distress call to any other vessels in the area, and moments later a large fishing vessel with a crew of five approached. Normally, she would’ve been terr
ified of her rescuers—a rugged group of men who didn’t appear to have showered or shaved in weeks—but under the circumstances, she forgot to judge them based on appearances and long held stereotypes.

  Two men from the trawler boarded the boat with Alex and her. One took over communications with the coast guard, while the other explained Alex’s condition to her—in useful terms, without metaphoric comparisons to soft drinks. The bends, slang for decompression sickness, got the name because it causes the person to bend over in terrible pain. Unfortunately for Alex, the only way to help him was by getting him into a hyperbaric chamber, aka decompression chamber.

  He also told her Tyler would most likely suffer as well, only worse because of the length of time he’d been at the bottom of the ocean. He would need long decompression stops while resurfacing but probably wouldn’t have enough air to do them.

  Taking all of that into consideration, the coast guard diverted one of their helicopters from a training mission to pluck Alex and Tyler off the boat and get them to Charleston and into decompression chambers as quickly as possible.

  The entire plan, however, hinged on Tyler and Wade resurfacing.

  Alex remained curled on the bench, so she sat in the floor next to him, took hold of his hand, then rested her head on her crossed arm and silently repeated her new mantra.

  They’re going to be fine. They’re going to be fine. Dammit, they are going. To be. Fine.

  After five minutes of constant repetition, she began to believe it but was still shocked and stunned and completely overcome with joy and relief when she heard a fisherman on the other boat start yelling, “There! Look! One of the divers is up.”

  Alex’s eyelids fluttered open and he locked gazes with her as he drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Neither of them could see which diver surfaced, and the fisherman said one, not two, but based on Alex’s sigh of relief and the tremor working through his body, he knew the same truth she did.

  Wade wouldn’t have surfaced without Tyler.

  It was within the realm of possibility that Tyler managed to get out of the wreckage on his own and back to the surface without passing Wade, but based on the information Alex had shared, that scenario didn’t seem likely.

  Giving Alex’s hand a reassuring squeeze, she said, “I’m going to check on them. I’ll be right back.”

  She stood and watched as the fisherman who’d been helping Alex fished Tyler out of the water, then searched for Wade. Flutters of anxiety and tendrils of fear blossomed in her gut as her visual search elicited nothing but rough, choppy water.

  Maybe she’d been wrong in her assumption that Wade was with him. Maybe Tyler had gotten by Wade without being seen. She gripped the railing and leaned over, as if getting closer to the water would somehow help her see better.

  Just as panic began to squeeze her throat, making breathing nearly impossible, she heard splashing and saw Wade shoot through the choppy waves. Her knees weakened and she sagged with relief, and when he climbed onto the platform and made eye contact, her emotional house of cards crashed.

  All the fear she’d kept bottled up erupted in a flood of big, fat, ugly tears, and her shaking became so uncontrollable she collapsed onto her knees. She tried to gather herself together, but she was too far lost in the maelstrom of the emotional storm to regain her grip and control.

  “Hey, baby. Shhh… Come here.” Her heart thudded wildly and she cried even harder as Wade knelt before her and pulled her against his bare chest. “Everyone is okay now, sweetheart. Shh… I’m here. Tyler’s here. You have the freaking coast guard here. You did good, baby.” He continued to hold and rock her while stroking her hair as the fragmented pieces of her mind slowly came back together.

  He’d taken off his tanks and rolled the top part of his wetsuit down to his waist. The sharp sting of his ice-cold skin pressed against her cheek finally penetrated her awareness enough to shock her out of meltdown, while at the same time bringing on a fresh wave of fear.

  “Oh, my God. You’re freezing.” She slapped her palms against his chest, then moved them up to his neck and onto his cheeks, checking to see if he was cold all over. Alex said the wet suit wouldn’t keep Wade warm, and based on his frigid skin temperature, he’d been right.

  She swiped her hands across her cheeks, sweeping away the tears, then shot to her feet and back into action. She’d been vaguely aware of the activity around her—it was hard to miss a helicopter circling overhead, creating a mini-hurricane—but the coast guard had taken over the care of Tyler and Alex, leaving Wade as her only concern.

  She grabbed the wool blanket Alex left lying on the bench as the coast guard crewman prepared him for liftoff, and draped it around Wade’s shoulders. “Get out of that suit, and I’ll get your clothes. They’re a little damp, but they have to be better than the cold, wet suit.”

  “Callie, I’m fine.” He tried to grab her arm to bring her back to him, but she shook him off and charged toward the front of the boat and his clothes.

  “I know you’re fine.” Reciting her mantra in the face of this new concern grounded her, so she kept it going. “You’re all going to be fine. Perfectly fine. But you need to get into dry clothes.” A tinge of hysteria crept into her voice, but she couldn’t keep it out. She was barely keeping herself together, and any thoughts of something else going awry would topple her into never-never land.

  “Callie, please…”

  She saw Wade studying her from the corner of her eye, but conversation wasn’t getting him warm, and she refused to answer. When it became obvious she wasn’t going to respond to his plea, he began stripping off the rest of his gear. Alex had already been hoisted into the helicopter, and while one of the crewmen readied Tyler, the other evaluated Wade.

  Even though everyone agreed he had mild hypothermia, he refused to be transported to the hospital. He assured the coast guard he would stay wrapped up in blankets, use Callie’s body heat to supplement his own, and go easy on the return trip to keep jarring to a minimum.

  She had no idea how he planned to get through the inlet without being beaten to pieces, but she kept her mouth shut and didn’t argue.

  As soon as the helicopter lifted away and the fishermen who’d boarded the dive boat made their way back to their own vessel, Wade grabbed Callie and wrapped her in a desperate, nearly suffocating hug.

  “I’m so fucking glad to see you.” The words were broken and filled with emotion as he buried his face in her hair.

  Returning the hug with equal intensity, she allowed a shiver to run through her as she considered how badly things could’ve ended, but she refused to break down again. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. God, I knew you wouldn’t come back up without him—” Her voice broke on the crest of a sob, so she cut off the words and focused on the tight, strong arms wrapped around her and the solid mass of his body pressed against hers.

  They clung to each for what seemed like forever, afraid of letting go for fear the other would slip away—for good this time. After a while, when his trembling subsided and her nervous jitters waned, he leaned back and brushed her hair away from her eyes.

  Pressing his forehead to hers, he said, “I could stand here and hold you like this forever. But we need to get going before the weather gets us and we have to deal with that too.”

  Wade planned to meet up with the boat owner at the dock, turn over the keys and gear, then get in his truck and drive to Charleston. She, however, had different plans, and as soon as her phone picked up a cellular tower, she sent Jen a text.

  Emergency. Need Raul to drive us to Roper Hospital in Charleston. K?

  Thirty seconds later, she received a text back:

  OMG! Of course! R u ok? Where do u need him 2 b?

  Through a series of texts, she gave Jen the location of the marina, briefly explained the situation, and asked Jen not to tell anyone else so Wade wouldn’t have additional drama to deal with. For all of her faults, Jen was fantastic at discretion and keeping secrets… probably because
she had so many of her own.

  When they pulled into the marina, Wade glanced at the shiny black car, then did a double take as Jen started waving. He didn’t say anything about the unexpected welcoming committee, but the muscle in his jaw jumped a few times, indicating he had some pretty strong thoughts on the subject—none of them good. While he met with the boat owner, she grabbed their blankets, towels, and coats, then made her way to the parking lot.

  Raul was serious, as usual, and silently nodded in greeting from his post by the driver’s door. Jen was even more serious, definitely not the usual, as she gave Callie an appraising look, then charged and threw her hands around Callie’s neck, nearly knocking her off her feet.

  “Thank God you’re okay.” She stepped back and checked Callie again from head to toe, then pulled her into another quick hug. “Do you want me to go with you to Charleston?”

  Callie’s brain had a difficult time processing Jen’s question, since she was normally bossy and overbearing and never asked Callie what she wanted, but instead usually took control of every situation and told Callie how things would go.

  After a moment, Callie said, “I don’t know how long we’ll be, and we’ll be bringing Alex and Tyler back with us.” Plus, if Wade felt up to it, she had some life-affirming activities planned for the back of the car, and privacy was a must. “I’d rather go alone, if you don’t mind.”

  She held her breath and waited for Jen’s reaction to the rejection, but rather than getting ugly, she smiled and grabbed Callie’s hand, then gave her another hug. “I’ve never seen you like this over anyone.” She glanced to Wade, who was walking to his truck with his gear. “Not even Gavin. I don’t get it, but you obviously care a lot about him, so I’m glad he’s okay.” She returned her attention to Callie and grinned. “I can’t believe you called the coast guard and saved the freaking day.”