Captain Rourke

by Helena Newbury

  We swam faster, Mom helping Katherine along, but it didn’t do any good. My arms grew tired and then my legs and we still weren’t any closer. I stopped and put my feet down for a second to rest—

  And felt my toes search in vain. And remembered that we were way, way out of our depth. We couldn’t rest.

  Katherine was exhausted now, her little arms limp. Mom hustled her onto her back and we swam like that. I gritted my teeth and kept up but soon both of us were panting and exhausted and we were still getting further away. Oh no. Oh no….

  Mom stopped, took Katherine in her arms, and treaded water. “Okay, don’t panic,” she muttered. “Someone’ll see us.” She raised one arm above her head and waved. “Help! Hey! Help!”

  But the cove had been deserted and now the sun was sinking below the horizon. Immediately, the temperature started to drop. And as we were pulled further out, the waves were getting bigger. I looked at Mom. No one knows we’re out here, I thought. And then, this is my fault. I made her take us swimming.

  I couldn’t even see the cove now over the tops of the waves. We were sliding down into the troughs and then rising up with the next wave and it wasn’t fun like I’d imagined, not out here, not in the almost-dark. It was terrifying.

  And then, quite suddenly, the sun went down completely and it was black. I couldn’t see the waves properly and they took me by surprise, crashing over my head. “Hannah!” I heard my mom scream.

  Somehow, she made it over to me and we all joined hands, treading water in a circle. “Stay together!” she told us, panting. She was exhausted: we all were. But she kept hold of our hands and hauled us up each time our legs failed, grunting with the effort. She tried to keep our heads above the waves, powering us up the sides of them so they didn’t break over us. The lights were coming on the shore, now, and they were just tiny pinpricks in the distance.

  The waves got higher and higher, pulling at us, trying to separate us. We were helpless now, the waves too big to swim over. We’d drop sickeningly into a trough and then the next one would crash down over us. Mom was almost sobbing with tiredness now, her arms on fire from hauling Katherine and me up. And then a huge wave broke over us and I felt her hand tear loose from mine. I coughed and choked and, when the water cleared from my eyes, she was sliding down one side of a wave and me down the other.

  “Mom!” I went to let go of Katherine’s hand to go after her.

  “No!” she screamed. “Keep hold of her! Keep hold of your sister! Don’t let go of her!”

  I gripped Katherine’s hand harder than ever and struck out towards Mom, towing my sister behind me. But Mom had already disappeared. It was too dark. “Mom?!”

  Another wave broke over me and I pulled Katherine in close, wrapped my arms around her, and used my legs to keep us afloat. And even though I shouted again and again, tears streaming down my face, Mom didn’t answer.

  It was utterly black, now, and I couldn’t tell where the water ended and the sky began. I only knew what was happening from the feeling in the pit of my stomach as I was lifted into the air and then dropped sickeningly down. The only warning I had of a wave breaking over me was the sound, a crescendo roar that filled my ears and burrowed deep into my brain. I’d hear that noise and then I’d be choking and drowning, coughing up water, desperately holding Katherine up. Time stretched out: I had no idea how long I’d been out there. I only knew I had to hold onto my little sister, no matter what.

  15

  Rourke

  After Edwards, I found I couldn’t sleep in my cabin anymore. I’d wake in the middle of the night fighting the sheets, the metallic taste of aqualung air still in my lungs. I’d race across the boat to Edwards’ cabin, convinced I could still save him, only to find his bed empty.

  After barely sleeping for weeks, I started stringing a hammock up in the main room instead and the nightmares retreated, though they never went away. The rum helped, too. Later, I packed both our cabins with equipment, telling myself it was because I didn’t like wasting the space.

  But outside, on the deck, I always sleep like a bairn. I’d sleep there every night, if I had the excuse. Something about feeling the wind on my face and looking up at the night sky...I’m off in seconds. And tonight was perfect.

  There was almost no light pollution, this far from shore. I’d turned on a few running lights just to make sure some cruise liner didn’t smack into us in the dark, but other than that it was just darkness and about a billion stars above. The deck was rocking slowly, just the way I liked it.

  And yet I couldn’t sleep.

  Part of it was being on the trail of treasure again. I had that buzz, that throb of excitement that never quite leaves you. I hadn’t felt it since Edwards and my usual remedy would be to stay up half the night talking to him: planning, dreaming of the haul....

  My stomach tightened. Edwards was gone. I had no one to share the excitement with.

  I grunted and pushed the thought out of my head. But there was something else keeping me awake and it was harder to get away from. It was lying in my hammock, not ten feet away.

  I kept thinking about her eyes. The delicate curve of her jaw. The way she stuck her lower lip out when she was being stubborn. I still couldn’t believe she was doing this. She was so far out of her comfort zone: she was obviously scared of the sea and yet she was out here, trying to save her sister.

  I cursed and turned on my side but sleep still didn’t come. Why can’t I stop thinking about her?

  And then I heard something. Only a tiny noise: I wouldn’t have heard it if I hadn’t been lying there, silently fuming. A whimper, coming from below deck.

  I got up, stumbled over to the door, and cracked it open. I could hear Yo-Yo’s snores and the sound of Hannah breathing. As moonlight spilled into the room and struck her face, I saw her eyes were closed and I relaxed. God, she was beautiful. Blonde hair spilling over the side of the hammock like a sleeping princess. Sexy as hell even in my outsize clothes, her soft curves making me catch my breath.

  But then she frowned and whimpered again and I saw that primal fear you only glimpse when someone’s facing death. I crossed the room in two quick steps and stared down at her. A nightmare, a real bastard one. I knew the sort: I’d had plenty. What happened to her? Is this why she’s scared of the sea?

  She was shaking her head in her sleep, her eyes moving frantically behind their lids. My chest closed up tight. I had that same urge I’d had when I’d seen her in McKinley’s and when I’d seen her with Ratcher: a need to protect her, stronger than anything I’ve ever felt. I wanted to scoop my hands under her and lift her out of the hammock and into my arms, whisper in her ear that it was alright….

  Then I caught myself. I wasn’t her husband or her boyfriend. If she woke in my arms, she’d scream her heart out. Damn it, what’s she doing out here? Why isn’t she safe home, with someone who can look after her?

  It all rose up inside me, the need to protect her and the frustration that there was nothing I could do. I squatted down beside the hammock to get closer to her, even though holding that position made my leg howl in pain. I watched her face twist and her eyes grow wet and I cursed myself over and over that I wasn’t that sort of man, the sort she needed—

  And then, before I knew what I was doing, I reached out and took her hand, closing my big fingers around her slender ones. She squeezed back in her sleep. I stared at my hand, aghast. What are you doing, man? For a heart-stopping moment, she seemed about to wake. But then she slipped back into sleep...and the tension in her face started to ease.

  After a minute or two, my leg felt like a garden hose with a knot tied in it, the pain building and building with nowhere to go. I wanted to throw back my head and scream with it, would have given a hold full of gold just for a second’s relief.

  But I wasn’t going to let go of that hand. I stayed there for twenty minutes while her breathing slowed and her frown faded. Until she slept peacefully again.

  I finally eased my hand f
rom hers and stood up, the pain from my leg making me gasp. Her blanket was on the floor: she must have thrown it off during the nightmare. I carefully replaced it and then limped outside.

  As I closed the door, my gran’s voice came back to me again. You’re smitten, Billy.

  Yeah. Yeah, I was.

  16

  Hannah

  As the nightmare reached its peak, I felt something...or thought I did. I was still clinging onto Katherine but there was a hand holding mine, big and warm, helping me through it….

  Suddenly, a blinding light lit up a circle of ocean around me. A man all dressed in orange plunged into the water next to me and then he was trying to get Katherine and me into a metal basket. I was so terrified that I didn’t understand we were being rescued, at first. Then they winched us aboard the helicopter and I collapsed on the floor, my legs too weak to hold me.

  Dad had been worried when we didn’t show up for dinner and Mom didn’t answer her phone. He’d got his friend to drive the route we’d taken and, after many hours, they’d spotted the car down in the cove, realized what must have happened and called the coast guard. Dad was there to meet the helicopter when it landed and his face, when he realized that Mom wasn’t with us, was the most heartbreaking thing I’d ever seen.

  They found Mom’s body the next day, a mile down the shore. We’d been caught in a rip current. We’d missed all of the indicators because we hadn’t known what to look for. And we hadn’t known how to get out of it because this wasn’t our world: we didn’t belong there, should never have been anywhere near the ocean. Every time I closed my eyes, I could hear the waves, feel them lifting and dropping me. I never wanted to see the ocean again. I just wanted to be back in Nebraska, far away from the sea. Dad agreed and the three of us flew home that evening.

  That night, there was a moment when I realized that things would be different, now. My dad was in his armchair, eyes squeezed closed, phone pushed tight to his ear, telling my mom’s relatives what had happened. So I got Katherine unpacked and got her changed for bed. But she wanted milk to help her sleep and we were out because Mom had emptied the refrigerator before we went on vacation. I bit my lip. Dad was still on the phone.

  So I went through Mom’s things, found her purse and got a five dollar bill, pulled some jeans over my pajamas and snuck out of the back door. It was late and, except for the lights of passing cars, it was almost completely dark. I was terrified. But Mom was gone and Dad had enough to do. So I walked the half mile to the store, bought a carton of milk, brought it home, and gave it to Katherine. When she’d drank it, I saw her eyes go to the book on the bedside table. Mom read a chapter to us every night.

  My heart twisted and crumpled. Mom used to read a chapter to us every night.

  “Can you read some?” asked Katherine in a fractured voice.

  I picked up the book, my hands prickling and numb. “I don’t know if I can do it like she does it,” I said, my voice strained. My eyes were getting hot and I was determined not to let them spill over in front of her.

  “Can you try?”

  I swallowed hard. Yes, I decided. I can try. And I opened the book.

  My life changed direction that night. Like a train that’s jolted onto an adjacent line, things ran in parallel for a while but as I got older they diverged more and more. Dad needed help on the farm and I made a decision: Katherine was the smart one, already acing math and science; all I was good at was English. So I started helping him in the fields after work, leaving Katherine free to focus on her homework. At night, to help me sleep, I’d bury myself in a book: when I was deep in a story, I wasn’t missing Mom or imagining dark, towering waves crashing over me.

  As I got older, it became obvious that there was no way my Dad could afford to send both Katherine and me to college. So as soon as I graduated, I took a job at the local library: I could walk there, so I didn’t have to spend money running a car, and I could be home in time to help Dad before the sun went down. I took over the admin work Mom used to do. My ability to tease information out of thick, impenetrable texts came in useful for taxes and all the government red tape, or when I was scouring tractor manuals trying to help him solve a problem. I saved every penny I earned from the library and, between that and the farm, we scraped together just enough to pay Katherine’s college fees.

  By that point, Katherine had really come into her own, with crazy-good math skills. She majored in computer science and got a job with a software company in Omaha. The day she moved out to start her new life, I breathed a deep sigh of relief. I did it, Mom. She’s okay.

  I settled into quiet, small town life, helping my dad and fighting to keep the library open. I didn’t date, had no idea how to date. I’d sort of missed all that stuff, growing up. Katherine kept attempting to set me up with men when she visited and I loved her for trying, but who’d want the pale, curvy girl who still lived with her dad?

  The fear remained: I never once went near the ocean again. I couldn’t even watch one of those disaster movies where a tidal wave sweeps over New York without wanting to throw up.

  I didn’t care. I didn’t care that I was single or that I was still stuck in the same small town or that I was screwed up. I’d kept Katherine safe and I was a long way from the sea and that was all that mattered.

  But now another dark monster was threatening to snatch my sister away from me. And I wasn’t going to let it, even if it meant facing the ocean again.

  I came groggily awake. Daylight was streaming in through the...portholes?

  It took me a few seconds to remember where I was: on board the Fortune’s Hope. And we were on….

  The boat bobbed and creaked. The hammock swung. Oh God! All I could see outside was endless blue. The fear closed in from all sides: the boat seemed to drop away under me.

  I dug my nails into my palms. No! If I let it win, I was finished. Katherine was finished.

  I closed my eyes for a second, remembering the nightmare. The same one I’d had many times except...something had been different, this time. When I was lost in the sea with Katherine, I swore I’d felt someone there with me, helping me through it. A big, warm male hand holding mine.

  I looked down at my hand and then at the door that led above deck. Rourke?!

  As if to prove how crazy that was, the door opened and he limped in, gruff as ever. “We’re underway.”

  I stared at him. “Great.” The sun was high in the sky: he must have been letting me sleep in.

  He ducked under the hammock, the top of his head passing a half-inch from the underside of my thighs. “You okay to eat some breakfast?”

  I thought about it and found that I was. The fear of being at sea was still there but the seasickness had passed. I nodded.

  He started messing with pans in the little kitchen: what was it called, the galley? I sat there in the hammock, staring at his back. No. No way. I must have dreamt it. I pushed back the blanket, preparing to get up….

  Wait. Hadn’t I thrown the blanket off before I went to sleep?

  I turned and stared at Rourke again, my jaw dropping. He had been in here. He’d held my hand.

  He must have felt my eyes on him because he turned. “What?” he grunted.

  I shook my head and looked away. “Nothing.”

  17

  Rourke

  I’d brought breakfast out on deck: now I was waiting for Hannah. She was below deck, changing into another one of my t-shirts. I’d dropped anchor for now but I was impatient to get going again.

  I’d been up early and I’d been studiously building my anger back up while she slept, telling myself all the reasons I needed to get her off my boat. All that hand-holding at three in the morning had put some stupid ideas in my head and I didn’t want them taking over. Just get her to the damn wreck and get the cure. Then I can be rid of her—

  Hannah emerged from below deck. A fierce sun was beating down, turning the surface of the water into a million twinkling diamonds so bright they hurt your eyes. An
d as the sunlight hit her, she—

  Well, she yawned and stretched. But that didn’t even begin to describe the magnificence of the move. The sun hit all that golden hair at the same moment as her back arched and her chest strained upwards and—well, Christ, she wasn’t wearing a bra. And she’d closed her eyes so I didn’t even have to avert my gaze unless I wanted to.

  There are times I’ve been a gentleman. This wasn’t one of them. I drank it in: every glorious curve of that fine body, every line of that gorgeous face. She really has no idea how bloody beautiful she is, does she?

  I got my eyes fixed on the mainsail a fraction of a second before she opened her eyes.

  “Thank you for letting me sleep in,” she said. “I needed it.”

  I grunted.

  Breakfast was eggs fried on a skillet and crusty brown bread, toasted with lots of butter, together with plenty of coffee. Yo-Yo devoured an orange next to us. Hannah ate hungrily: had no one been feeding the poor girl? But her eyes never left the waves around us.

  “You don’t like the water,” I said at last.

  She glanced round at me guiltily. For a moment, I thought she was going to deny it: that gorgeous lower lip pushed out defiantly...but then she dropped her gaze. “I don’t like the sea.”

  I wrinkled my forehead. What had happened to her? How could I put it right? Then I caught myself. What the hell am I doing? I’ve never been much good at understanding women, even before I became a recluse. I had no hope of figuring out one with...issues.

  And yet I wanted to. I couldn’t stop wanting to.

  Before noon, we neared the spot marked on the map: the bay of a small island. As we neared land, I could actually see the tension drain from Hannah’s face. The island couldn’t have been more than a half mile long and it wasn’t much more than rocks but she looked at it as if it was the Promised Land. Her words made more sense to me, now. It was being out at sea that scared her: that huge, empty horizon. Funny: the exact thing I loved.