She shot him a big, blue, neoprene-covered bird, and got a grin in response. Life wasn’t fair; the man even looked sexy in a bulky drysuit covered head to toe in diving gear.
He held one hand out to her and motioned with his other for her to take it. He pointed to himself, to her, and then back over his shoulder. He wanted to show her something.
Well, it was better than having him pissed off at her for diving alone after him, which she’d more than half expected. She reached out and grasped his wrist, and he pulled her away from the line.
Okay, you can do this. No holding your breath. No hyperventilating. She gave him an “okay” sign, swimming beside him. Progress was slow. They’d swim a few feet, then get swept back by the current. Rinse and repeat. Finally, he pointed ahead at a long, kelp-covered object.
A cannon barrel! She nodded at Shane as he watched to see if she understood, and he grinned again. He pulled her past the cannon to a big assortment of boulders that had what looked like concrete between them at the bottom. Shane pointed to some kind of metal object wedged inside the material but she couldn’t tell what it was.
Gillian let go of his hand and fanned the kelp from the area. She still couldn’t make out the metal object but spotted something on the ocean floor, moving past them with the current. She got Shane’s attention by banging on his tank, and pointed to the spot. It looked like a coin, and she wanted to see it.
A cannon and a coin and an unidentified metal object had to mean a shipwreck. No way it could be The Marcus Aurelius—that would be too easy. But Chevy McKnight had left them instructions to dive in this spot, and there had to be a reason.
Gillian descended to the ocean floor and reached for the coin, lost it, and finally grabbed it, along with a handful of marine growth. She turned back to Shane and held it up, not understanding his sudden expression of alarm and his outstretched hand until the current swept her sideways and straight at the rocks.
She tried to reach out her arms to break her crash, but they might as well have been pinned to her sides. Twisting her body at the last second to shield her head, she looked stupidly at the pattern of cracks in the safety glass of her mask, wondering what had happened. A split-second later came the pain shooting through her temple, then darkness.
EPISODE 7
CHAPTER 25
Shane’s body grew as sluggish and frozen as the water pressing in on him. He gulped down big breaths of gas he couldn’t afford to use trying to lunge toward Gillian.
She was too far away, and he was too slow. At the realization that he couldn’t save her, the damaged part of his heart, the fractured, rusted part that had begun a fragile healing over the past few weeks, cracked like the crevice-riddled bedrock beneath the North Atlantic.
He was useless as he watched her hit the jagged boulder headfirst. Numb and detached, as the safety glass on her mask spread into an intricate web of cracks before crumbling into diamonds around her. Unable to hold onto a rational thought when the regulator fell from her lips, whipping in the current like a black and silver eel.
His dinosaur brain told him to kick for the surface. To run, and to keep running. He hadn’t asked to get involved in this shit. He’d been minding his own business, living on the water in Cedar Key. He’d been happy.
Wrong, asshole. You were drowning in self-pity, and she threw you a lifeline.
He reached for her again, and this time, the current that had propelled Gillian into the rocks swept Shane toward her, moving him far better than his cumbersome arms and legs.
Breathe. She has to fucking breathe.
Trying to ignore the blood washing from her temple, staining the water around her head, he grasped the regulator, forced it between her teeth, and clamped his hand over her mouth and jaw to hold it in place. He prayed like hell she hadn’t swallowed a lungful of salt water. How long had it taken him to get to her? How long had panic held him immobile? Five seconds? Ten? Thirty? The larynx’s first reaction to immersion was to spasm, keeping water out, but then she’d instinctively breathe it in and suffocate.
Shane struggled to pull gas into his own lungs and knew if he didn’t get his short, panic-driven breaths under control, he’d run through the last of his tank in no time.
Fighting the current, he rolled Gillian to her back. His gaze kept straying to her face, slack and ghostly white where his diver’s light penetrated the green darkness. He wrapped his left arm around her back, under her left arm and up, clamping her tightly enough to swim and keep the regulator clamped over her mouth at the same time. At least that was the plan.
His dive computer sent a warning vibration tingling across his arm. He had to get them to the surface, and fast, but he was still pulling too hard off his emptying tank, each breath more labored than the one before. He had to slow down his breathing.
He closed his eyes and thought about The Evangeline, envisioned himself atop the flybridge hearing the gulls and the soft slap of water against the hull. Visualized himself warm and safe, with his skin soaking in the warm Florida sun. The sensory memories penetrated his nervous system, slowed his heart rate, calmed his breathing.
With it came a clarity he hadn’t felt in a long time. He could save Gillian. This wasn’t California, and she wasn’t Kevin. He was the only one panicking here, and that panic he could control.
Tightening his hold on her, he reached down with his right hand and, after a few seconds of fumbling, unfastened her weight belt and let it fall to the ocean floor. They began rising immediately, but the more they rose, the worse the whiplash effect of the current became. Another ten or fifteen feet, and they’d be at the full mercy of the waves.
He fought the instinct to rip off his own weight belt and barrel to the surface and, instead, adjusted his BC to control their ascent. Keeping her in a firm grasp, he swam with the current and let it take them back toward the anchor line. Finally, he spotted the yellow line through the whipping, leathery kelp. The weather up top must be deteriorating fast; even the line was lashing back and forth, pulling at the anchor.
He’d staved off the panic that had almost caused him to hyperventilate, but he couldn’t do much about the exertion of carrying an extra person. Breathing heavily and holding Gillian in place with his left arm, Shane paused at the anchor line long enough to rip out his heavy regulator and unhook the one attached to his pony bottle. It would buy him an extra fifteen minutes of air. Shoving it in his mouth, he made sure Gillian’s regulator was still functioning, the bubbles from her breathing still escaping. So far, so good.
Pulling both of them up the dancing anchor line drained energy from his aching arms and shoulders. It was excruciating business. Slow business. Shane extended his right arm, grasped the line and doubled it around his fingers, kicked with his fins and strained his biceps to drag them upward. He timed their progress between waves, only letting go of the line to move his hand higher when the waves ebbed. Every few feet, he adjusted his own BC to keep their progress steady.
Repeat.
Repeat.
The muscles in his right arm and shoulder twitched and burned as if someone had set a match to them and his veins carried gasoline. But they were making progress. He could see again, the dim light from above finally penetrating the waves. The dark hull of The Evangeline rested overhead.
Now he hoped like hell Jagger could get them out of the water.
He let go of the line and pushed for the surface at an angle from the boat, finally breaking through a few yards off the starboard side. He spat out his regulator and promptly got a mouthful of seawater, but he had Gillian in such a headlock they’d have to pry his fingers apart to get them unclenched from her mouth and jaw.
Jagger spotted him almost immediately, raised his binoculars, and Shane saw him mouth a few curses as he threw the binoculars aside and ran for the gangway hatch. It was already open, the ladder already down, but the boat was pitching wildly. Jagger hit the rail, then the side of the wheelhouse, careening like a pinball on a tilted machine until he
finally reached the opening.
He yelled something, but Shane couldn’t understand. The wind and waves and slashing rain had their own voices, and their chorus was deafening.
A sharp pain shot through his calf, and only when Gillian tried to twist out of his grasp did he realize she was conscious and kicking him, instinctively trying to break free.
Shane hadn’t prayed in a long time. He figured he had no right. Now, though, he sent up a relieved message of thanks. She was disoriented, but she was breathing and moving and awake.
Her elbow smashed into his gut, reinforcing that diagnosis. He let her go for a moment, but when he was sure she could stay afloat, he put a hand on either side of her head and forced her to look at him, keeping them both afloat with his legs. Her glazed blue eyes didn’t see him. They were fixed on The Evangeline, on the clouds overhead, on the waves knocking them aside.
Finally, her gaze skimmed past him, then snapped back to his face. “You’re okay,” he shouted. “Do you understand? We’re okay.”
A wave knocked them apart, but Shane saw with relief that Gillian had removed her regulator on her own and was trying to swim back to him.
“Let me tow you.” His shout sounded weak and thin against the gale. “Save your strength for the ladder.” He used his hands to mimic climbing. When she nodded, he reached out, got washed away, started over. On the third try, he managed to hook an arm around her from behind and begin swimming toward The Evangeline as hard as his legs could work against the current.
Once he finally reached the boat, he said another prayer of thanks. Jagger held up a knotted line and threw it out lasso style. It sailed over Shane’s head in a wild spray of wind and rain, but he was able to grab hold of it in the water. “Under your arms,” he shouted to Gillian, slipping the loop over her head. She pulled her arms through, and Shane gave Jagger the “okay” sign.
Jagger was strong, but he wasn’t a big guy. Shane held his breath until Jagger hauled Gillian against the side of the boat, then Shane swam for the ladder. It hit him in the head on his first few approaches, but eventually he jerked an arm through the bottom rung, and hung there, whipping against the side of the boat while he maneuvered out of his fins.
They were damn fine fins and he’d had them a long time, but there was no way he could carry them up. He let them go and grasped the ladder with his right hand, maneuvering himself into position to climb. By the time he finally pulled himself to the top rung, he barely had enough strength to heave his body over the rail onto the deck. The pitch was so bad, he rolled halfway to the pilothouse hatch before making it to his knees and shucking the bulky buoyancy vest.
Jagger still hadn’t gotten Gillian onto the boat, so Shane slipped and slid his way aft, took hold of the line behind Jagger, and tied it around his waist. Leaning into the wind, he took one laborious step after another until the line slackened behind him. He twisted around enough to see Jagger helping Gillian out of her BC and finally gave himself permission to collapse.
The rain pelted his drysuit like drops on an umbrella and sent icy rivulets running off his hood into his eyes and mouth, but he didn’t care. No feather pillow had ever given him as much comfort as the worn wood of the wet deck against his cheek. He lay on his stomach and let it rain, only moving when the pitch of the boat threatened to send him sliding back toward the rail. He couldn’t remember ever having been this exhausted, mentally and physically, but Jagger might need him to navigate back to Main-à-Dieu or Scaterie, whichever looked safest. He’d rest for just a few seconds more…
* * *
“Ow.” A pain shot through the back of Shane’s head; it felt suspiciously like being hit with a baseball bat. He opened his eyes to an expanse of white steel that, when he turned his head at an awkward angle, looked like the top of The Evangeline’s entry hatch. Another shift and he could see the storm raging outside the open door. And he was moving.
He tried to shift his legs, but they weighed at least two tons apiece. His skull took another brain-jarring thump, and he craned his neck upward to see Jagger with his hands hooked under the shoulders of Shane’s inappropriately named drysuit, dragging him up the steps toward the pilothouse. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Trying to haul your wet, shaggy ass out of the storm so I can get us out of here, since you decided to take a nap.” Jagger panted from the exertion. “Man, you need to go on a diet.”
Shane’s head bounced on another step, and he decided he’d better try to make it on his own, or else he’d end up with a concussion. “I got it from here. How’s Gillian?”
Jagger stepped around him and closed the hatch against the weather. “She’s shaken up, but I think she’s okay. Go in the master suite and do whatever people do for head injuries. You know. Keep her from going to sleep or something. I have a boat to rescue.”
He wheeled, trotted up the remaining stairs, and closed the pilothouse door behind him.
Not a single Rolling Stones reference. Guess Jagger’s day hadn’t gone any better than Shane’s or Gillian’s.
Shane climbed to his feet, only to be knocked on his ass again when The Evangeline took a sharp roll. When the world stopped tilting, he tried again and made it upright. Walking up the remaining two steps to the crossover landing convinced him mountain climbing was not in his future. His body parts were competing to see which one could cause the most misery. His shoulders had a narrow lead on his thighs, but many more stairs and the thighs could make a last-second surge for the win.
He paused next to the door into the pilothouse. He liked to be at the controls in bad weather, but “too many pilots ruined the navigation,” or something like that. As badly as he hated to admit it, Jagger was at least as good a navigator as he was. Maybe better. He’d trust his friend to take them to safety, either on Scaterie or back to Main-à-Dieu.
Holding onto the wall for balance, he staggered down the steps on the other side of the landing and eased open the bedroom door.
Gillian lay on his bed with her eyes closed. Jagger had spread a tarp over the mattress to keep it dry, but Gillian was soaked. Shane pulled a blanket off of the closet shelf, wincing at the pain that shot through his shoulders. He’d be lucky if he could even move tomorrow, much less dive.
But they’d found something, and he couldn’t wait to talk to Chevy McKnight and see why he’d directed them to that particular spot.
Gillian’s face was pale, like that of a china doll that might break if you looked at it too hard. Shane thought about getting her out of the wetsuit, but the layer of water in it would keep her warmer than regular clothes if they ended up having to take refuge on Scaterie. He spread the blanket over her and sat on the bed, wondering if he should wake her. Her breathing was steady, but she probably had a concussion. At least she’d stopped bleeding.
She’d scared the hell out of him, but not for the reason he would’ve expected. Sure, he’d panicked and endured a brief visit of a ghost from his past, but he’d been able to push that aside and act.
Bottom line: Gillian had been the one who helped him do that. Even a month ago, he would have frozen and then would’ve run away. That’s the fright he’d expected.
What had scared him about losing Gillian wasn’t the guilt he might carry with him but the lonely, empty hole in his life without her in it. She’d filled a role he hadn’t realized needed filling. He didn’t know if it was love; they hadn’t known each other long enough, and their whole relationship had been built out of a need to survive. Did foxhole love survive when the war ended?
All Shane knew was that whatever happened to him in the next two weeks, he had to come up with a scenario where Gillian survived.
He grasped her left wrist and stripped off the blue neoprene glove, rubbing her hand between his to warm it, noticing for the first time the raw skin on his own palms. That would teach him to remove his gloves, no matter what he’d found; one never knew when a hard climb up an anchor line might be imminent.
He didn’t notice until he
reached for her right hand that she’d opened her eyes. Smiling, he finished removing the second glove. “Hey there. You sure know how to finish out a dive.”
Her smile was brief, but it warmed her eyes. “Yeah, too bad I wasn’t around to enjoy it.” She squeezed his hand. “Thank you. Guess that’s the end of my career as a salver. Feel free to say ‘I told you so.’”
Shane stretched out next to her on the bed, stifling a groan at the burn that set up in his thighs now that his muscles were cooling. He was seriously slammed and wanted nothing more than to sleep. But now that Gillian was awake, he needed to keep her that way. He also needed to talk to her about the game plan he’d been pondering while he lay on the deck being hammered by rain so hard it put Florida to shame.
“Let’s talk about your diving.” He tried to figure out a way to eat a big old dish of crow without choking on it, because he was about to serve one up.
“I know, I know. I’m not qualified to dive here.” Gillian coughed, then groaned, and rubbed her eyes. “I got that message loud and clear.”
One big bowl of crow stew, coming up. “I was wrong to say that. I was wrong about the whole dive plan. What I should’ve done was get you ready for these conditions. You need to be diving with me.”
Gillian rolled onto her side to face him, pulling the blanket more tightly around her. “Could you repeat that? I thought I heard you say you wanted me to dive.”
Well, no, he didn’t want her to dive. She was way out of her depth, no pun intended, and they both knew it. But he did need her. “I realized today that it’s going to take both of us if we have any chance in hell of finding the Templars’ cross. Jagger’s no diver, plus we need him to handle the boat. Now that I’ve seen what it looks like down there, I can get you prepared.”
Lovely, Dark, and Deep (The Collectors) Page 22
