The chances of recovering all of them, or even most, were slim, at best.
It shouldn’t have come as a shock to Tia, or any of them sitting there in that station, that Zeke had come up with a different plan. A mad, dangerous plan. But a plan that only a coxswain of Zeke’s skill could even hope to pull off.
And exactly the kind of stunt she’d been talking about back at his house, when she’d said he defined himself by how much he was risking of himself, in order to save another life.
He was going to manoeuvre his lifeboat into such a position that he could take a run up to the stricken ship—a vessel thousands of tonnes heavier than Zeke’s own, and which could easily be lifted by the seas only to smash down on top of the smaller lifeboat—and get close enough for the terrified crew to leap from their deck onto his.
The nausea rushed Tia all over again.
It was sheer insanity.
But it was the other crew’s only chance of surviving. No wonder Zeke was determined to try. Always the hero. But never to himself.
Cramps sliced through Tia’s hands as she realised they were locked onto the countertop, clinging on as though it was the only thing keeping her upright at this moment.
It probably was.
When she’d told Zeke earlier of how terrified she’d been that each time he’d walked out of the door of their home, it might be the last time she ever saw him—she’d failed to convey exactly how paralysing that fear had been.
How each day, each night, when people knocked on the door or called her, she would momentarily freeze, a part of her wanting to run away just in case they were bearing news she wouldn’t want to hear.
Being on tours of duty of her own had almost been a relief. They had been challenging and exhausting, occupying her mind and giving her something else to focus on. Something to stop her from worrying about her husband.
In fact, she hadn’t had to worry about Zeke’s well-being for five years—although a part of her couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t thought about him every single day. Every time she’d looked at Seth and seen her son’s father.
Now here she was, practically hurtling back in time. Only this was worse, far worse, because now she knew what it felt like to lose him. And however much she told herself she didn’t have him to lose any more, the idea of breaking this fragile reconnection they’d just made was almost unpalatable.
Which only confirmed one thing. As soon as Zeke got back safely tonight—and he had to, she couldn’t accept any other option—she was going to have to find the courage to answer his questions. To try to explain about Seth.
She wouldn’t hide behind the argument that he wasn’t going to believe her because so what if he didn’t? She could hold her head up high and say she had tried. The way she’d always imagined doing.
The way she would have done if her weakness back at the lifeboat station hadn’t allowed that... intimacy to occur between them. The way she would have done if he hadn’t then followed her home and seen Seth before she’d had a chance to explain.
The radio crackled, making her jump, and everything in her clenched painfully.
How immeasurably cruel would it be that the moment Seth and Zeke had finally found each other, Zeke was taken away from his son again?
And what about you?
Tia hastily crushed the whispering voice, but it was too late. The words, the implications, were already coursing through her entire body as if she herself had toppled into those inky-black ice-cold waters that churned outside in the darkness.
‘If you end up killing yourself and leaving Seth broken-hearted, Ezekial Jackson,’ she muttered so silently that no one else could hear, ‘I swear I’ll never forgive you.’
And she told herself it meant nothing when her own heart felt as though it were ready to fragment into a million pieces.
* * *
One more practice run at it to make sure he fully understood how the two vessels were likely to interact, Zeke thought, and then he would make the first full attempt to rescue the first crewman from the Queen Aetna.
The port side of the cargo ship was now fully submerged, an invisible hazard every time he brought the lifeboat too close. But there was nothing else for it. The crewmen would surely perish if he didn’t try something.
His men were harnessed up as per his instructions and each were in their positions, whilst the Delburn Bay lifeboat was holding as steady as they could a little further out, their searchlight trying to illuminate as much as possible for his team.
He always felt the responsibility of getting his guys home safely from shouts, back to their families. And it wasn’t always a guarantee when you were in a lifeboat crew—the sea could be a fickle, dangerous mistress. But tonight, it felt as if there was another edge to it. A sharper, more brilliant one.
Tonight, he had someone he had to make it home for, too.
He had his son.
And Tia.
No, not Tia. Zeke instantly thrust that thought from his head, ignoring the voice that whispered that it was too late to pretend he didn’t still care about her.
But certainly Seth.
Thank goodness they were back home where he knew they were all right. Safe.
Icy cold reality raced back in to douse him, to drag him back to where he was. The conditions were atrocious, the noise of the crashing water drowning out anything else. They were all going to need to be flawless in their hand signals, but he trusted his team. Hadn’t he trained most, if not all, of them? Not to mention the very real danger that if he overshot his mark, even by a few metres, the cargo ship could crash down onto the lifeboat’s bow.
There was no choice. Lives were on the line.
Then, as the storm blasted around them, Zeke made his first real approach only for the sea to open up in a great, unpredictable, menacing yawn. Both vessels rolled.
Then collided.
It took all of Zeke’s skill to extract his lifeboat without any serious damage. A lesser coxswain might have bottled it. But that wasn’t him.
It never had been.
Maybe Tia saw it as a flaw, his so-called pig-headedness, but he saw it as a fundamental part of his psyche. He would never willingly leave a man behind.
Checking his crew were ready, Zeke manoeuvred himself back into position and set about a second approach.
* * *
It was three hours, more than seventy approaches and a lifetime of exhaustion before Zeke and his crew—and the Delburn lifeboat—finally turned and headed back for shore.
Twelve of the fourteen crew from the cargo ship were safe on his boat, whilst the other two, who had missed the jump from their sloping deck to his, had been fished out of the water by Delburn’s crew.
Not a single man had been left behind, and for that Zeke gave silent thanks. When one of the crewmen had got caught up in a rope as the ship had begun to sink, and all the containers had shifted, both crews had thought he was dead.
If two of his lifeboat crew hadn’t taken their lives in their hands and taken out the inflatable lifeboat, he certainly would have drowned.
Even launching the inflatable in those conditions had been hair-raising. But now they were facing a new problem—their main casualty needed emergency medical attention that went way beyond the ability of any of his crew.
‘Contact the station, see if they can patch us through to emergency services,’ he yelled, his eyes not leaving the churning water, still fighting to cut through the heavy swell and get them home safely. ‘Maybe they can advise something we can do to help him.’
He focussed back on his own task of piloting the boat; the last thing he expected was to hear his men say that Tia was at Westlake. Fear and something else he couldn’t name bit cruelly into him. Like the tentacles of jellyfish hooking into him, locking him in place, stinging painfully every moment. More than they had any right to do.
And then the pain began to recede as a thought slid, unbidden, into his brain. Had she stayed for him?
If so, was it because she cared? Or because she wanted to finally explain herself?
It shouldn’t matter to him either way, and yet something crested inside him, like one of the dark, towering waves out there.
* * *
Tia listened as the young first aider relayed how the patient had become caught up in some kind of winch rope during the rescue, which had whipped him around causing him to sustain severe chest and arm injuries.
The lad detailed fractured ribs, bleeding and severe lacerations, which they appeared to be stemming. But it was the tachycardia, breathing issues, hypotension and hypoxia that concerned her most.
‘I think you’re looking at tension pneumothorax. You’re going to need to perform a needle decompression, and you’re going to need to act fast.’
‘I can’t.’ The voice held a tinge of panic. ‘I don’t know how to do that.’
‘I understand,’ Tia soothed, her mind racing over the equipment he might have available to him on the lifeboat. ‘But if you don’t then he’s going to go into cardiac arrest. So I’m going to talk you through it. You’re going to be fine. Okay, so first you’ll need something that will reach fully into the thoracic cavity. I would suggest a ten-gauge catheter—it’s stiff and it will be long enough.’
She waited whilst he shouted out to his colleagues, the noise on the line only giving her the briefest hint at what it must be like for them on the boat, still slamming through the stormy sea.
‘I have it.’
‘Good, so now you’re going to go back to your patient—he’s on the floor, right? Okay, clean the area with whatever sterilising solution you have in your kit and then you need to locate the second intercostal space on the same side as the tension pneumo. So find the clavicle and then move down and that will be the second rib. The soft space below it is your second intercostal. Got it?’
She spoke calmly and slowly, trying to keep the kid as confident as possible. It wasn’t ideal, but they were hours out to sea. Without the procedure, there was no way the injured man was going to make it back to shore alive.
‘Now, you need the mid-clavicular line. Okay? Good lad. Right, I’m going to talk you through it, but, just so you’re prepared, you’re going to go in perpendicular to the chest wall, and make sure you push in deep enough before you pull the catheter off the needle. You’ll know you’ve succeeded if you get a rush of air. And there’s often also a degree of spray as well so just make sure you’ve got protective gear on.’
Tia heard the crackle on the line, and then he told her to proceed, her whole body tensed up on the kid’s behalf. Clearly, brightly, she began, only able to imagine what was going on at the other end of the connection.
It felt like an eternity. And she heard his exclamation of relief at the rush of air. Not long after, the signs of hypotension and shock she had diagnosed began to be alleviated.
She sagged back onto her chair. All that was left now was for them to get back to Westlake.
And for Zeke to come back safely.
CHAPTER SIX
‘WHAT THE HELL is wrong with you? You could have been seriously injured. Killed.’
‘This is why you never left Westlake last night, even though I sent you home?’ Zeke kept his voice remarkably calm and even, knowing it would only irk her all the more. ‘So you could stay here to berate me?’
But the truth was, he wasn’t just keeping calm for Tia. It was the only way to keep at bay the storm of emotions churning inside himself right at that moment. It was why he didn’t even bother to turn around as she slammed her car door and stalked up the drive behind him, her heeled boots crunching hastily on the gravel.
He was only slightly galled to realise that, after all that had been said between them less than six hours ago, he still wanted her. He had to fight the urge to stride up to her and haul her body to his. To remind himself that he was alive. That he’d made it back to land safely.
There had been moments out there, during that shout, when he’d found it impossible to shut out the niggling doubt that—this time—his crew might not make it home. He knew that over the years there had been several times when members of his crew had been concerned. Worried. But he’d never been one of them. He’d believed in fate.
Tonight had been different. Images of Tia, of Seth, had crept into his brain, and with them had come the first tentacles of fear. He’d let himself consider, for the first time in five years, that there was someone worth making it home for.
Two people, in fact.
It was an odd sensation, not exactly unpleasant, but...strange.
Why had he never felt this fear back when it had just been him and Tia, off on their own missions? Because there was no doubt that he’d wanted to be with her back then. Yet that worry about not making it home had never existed in the past.
Had Tia been right earlier, when she’d accused him of feeling invincible back then? It was a question that had been circling in the back of his mind ever since she’d said it.
He’d always been so sure of his ability, so proud of his tight-knit squad, that even though he’d known logically that missions could go wrong, in his heart he’d never believed it could happen to them.
For the first time, he began to consider how that might have impacted his young wife. But not for long. Tia’s voice quickly cut across his musings.
‘Well? Did you even think about how dangerous what you were doing was?’
‘What kind of a question is that? Close the door behind you, Tia, you never know if some raging harridan might follow you in from the street.’
‘Very funny. I’m not a raging harridan.’
‘I never said you were,’ he replied mildly, not even slowing down as he made his way along the corridor, unbuttoning his shirt as he went and hearing her furious, hurried steps tapping down the hallway behind him. ‘I merely observed that I wouldn’t want one to do so.’
‘Of course you did,’ she answered snippily, still hot on his heels.
He could pretend it was the adrenalin still racing through him, but he knew that wasn’t it. Tia had stayed. For him. And now she was bawling at him because she was concerned.
It should be too little, too late. Yet he was letting her carry on as if he were some starving man and she were throwing him scraps from the bin.
Life was so damned short. It was a fact he already knew well, but tonight had reminded him of it. As if he needed the reminder.
Tia was right: he had pushed her away five years ago. He had made cruel, devastating, accusations, to drive her from him. Of course, he hadn’t known she was pregnant, and he couldn’t forgive her for not telling him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t determined to be a part of his son’s life now that he finally knew Seth existed.
He just hadn’t worked out the finer points of how, yet. And until he did, all Zeke could do was to keep moving, not stopping long enough for Tia’s words—her concern—to get under his skin. To have any real effect.
He just needed to unsettle her long enough to buy himself time to think.
Evidently Tia didn’t realise where he was heading until he strode into his en-suite bathroom, dropped his shirt and tee into the laundry basket, and had his hands on his open jeans waistband.
She pulled up sharply as he’d anticipated. Just the way she had less than a day earlier in the lifeboat station. Her eyes lingering a fraction too long, pooling a fraction too dark, before she tore them away and scanned behind her to realise they’d just walked through his bedroom.
‘I take it that you intend to join me.’ His tone was deceptively conversational. ‘I must say it isn’t the reaction I’d anticipated, but I guess I’m not complaining.’
For a
moment her forehead furrowed in a way that was achingly familiar, then realisation crossed her features and then, oddly, anger.
‘Is this seriously a joke to you?’
Her tone was sharp, but her tongue flickering out over her lips betrayed her.
And fascinated him.
Which made it almost more dangerous than being out in that rolling sea. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so wise after all. Damn her for always finding a way to creep under his skin. Irritation slammed through him.
‘Not in the least. So if you don’t want to join me, I suggest you get out.’
If he hadn’t been ready, hadn’t steeled himself against it, it might have got to him when she flinched as she did. It might have felt like a weight on his soul.
Then, wordlessly, she turned and left the room, leaving him to shower in what he told himself was peace.
He half expected her to have left when he emerged. Told himself it was irritation he felt, not exhilaration, when he saw her still there in his living room. He was glad he’d thought to slip on black jeans to cover the limb. He’d never taken pains to hide it in front of anyone else.
Only Tia could make him feel so irrationally conscious of it. As though he was worried it might make her see him as anything less than fully competent to step up to the role as father to his own son. It was disability he’d spent years proving to the world it didn’t have to be. At least tonight had proved him as capable as any other volunteer on that lifeboat. More so.
Though it was galling that he should need to prove anything to her.
‘Had your fun?’ she asked pointedly, jerking her head up as he approached.
Did he imagine that flicker of weariness in her voice? Perhaps he did. Perhaps not. Either way, he knew he was done with them taking potshots at each other.
‘I’m sure we could go on for what’s left of this night firing questions at each other, until that hint of light on the horizon out there stretches into fully fledged morning, but I’m not really sure it’s getting us anywhere. Are you?’
The Army Doc's Baby Secret Page 8
