Between Here and the Horizon(48)
“I’m sorry, ma’am. This man’s dead. Can I check you over? Have you been in the water?”
“No, no, I’m fine. I—” My brain wasn’t working. Everything was snapshots, stills, shunting and jumping around, hard to focus on. The EMT wrapped a blanket made of a silver, crinkly material around my shoulders and sat me down on a bench by the pier.
“Stay here, ma’am. Someone will be over to check on you in just a moment, okay?” The young EMT raced off, and I sat, trying to piece together what was happening.
It was a long, long time before the boat came back again.
When it did, I watched as Sully and Linneman dragged another five men from the boat, through the break, and onto the beach.
“I can’t f*cking believe it,” one of the EMTs said. “The guy in the white shirt swam out for all of them. He went in after every single one of them.”
“That’s Sully Fletcher,” another said.
“Ronan Fletcher’s brother?”
“S’right.”
“Huh. I guess heroics runs in the family.”
I didn’t hear anything else. I watched as Sully raced back and forth up the beach, trying to coordinate everyone, brushing his wet hair back out of his eyes, ripping his wet shirt off over his head to hold the drenched material to an elderly guy’s forehead, applying pressure. I watched him secure the boat, pulling it into shore, the muscles in his back straining and popping as he worked—he was hurt pretty badly, his skin scraped and red and bloody. I watched as he helped lift a guy onto a stretcher, and then I watched as he buckled at the knees and fell to the ground, his eyes rolling back in his head.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Good Samaritan
“It’s nowhere near as bad as they thought, apparently. Just a simple case of hypothermia. They’re bringing him back to the medical center later on tonight.”
“God, it’s crazy that there isn’t a proper hospital on the island. Crazy.” It had been even crazier watching Sully being choppered off the island with the three surviving crew of the Sea King. In total, Sully had actually dragged eleven men from the water, but eight of them had either been dead already or died on the beach.
Rose was making chicken soup, and I was teaching the children arithmetic and English at the dining room table. Amie was completely oblivious to the events of last night. Connor had slept through Sully’s arrival and hadn’t woken up until the chopper arrived, so he’d only caught a part of the rescue. He hadn’t seen Sully at all, thank god. A guy tearing up and down the beach, the spitting image of Ronan? That would have raised more than a few questions, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to handle the monumental task of explaining Ronan’s twin brother just yet. Connor kept asking if he could go and look at the wreckage of the Sea King that was still washing up in pieces on the beach. I was too scared to let him. Six men were still missing, presumed dead, and the last thing I needed was to take him down there, only to have a bloated, mangled corpse roll up onto the sand.
“I’m still kicking myself that I didn’t come down to the dock,” Rose was saying. “I saw all the lights and the cars zipping down the road, but it was just so cold. I couldn’t face it. Everyone’s still talking about it. Most excitement we’ve had around here in a very long time.” Rose paused, shooting me a sidelong glance that I felt burning into me rather than saw. “I also may have heard that you were quite upset about you know who,” she said slyly. We were being careful not to mention Sully’s name in front of the children. “Any truth in that?”
“Yeah, sure, I was definitely upset. He’d just risked his life out there in that tiny boat. He’d been in and out of the water so many times. I think everyone was worried about him.”
“Hmm. That’s not how Michael Gilford said he saw it. He said you were hysterical. Started screaming at the EMTs to do their jobs. Running up and down the beach like a woman possessed. He said you looked like you were on the verge of picking up our belligerent friend and carrying him off home yourself.”
“Psshh. Ridiculous.”
Rose laughed softly under her breath, pinching salt out of her hand and dumping it into the bubbling vat in front of her on the stove. “Poor Michael. Every time a woman steps foot on the island, he takes a shine to her. And then she ends up falling in love with you know who, and that’s that.”
“I am not in love with you know who.”
Amie’s head snapped up, eyes shining, distracted from the piece of paper in front of her, where she had been diligently practicing copying the letters of the alphabet over and over again. “You’re in love?” she asked, mouth hanging open. “That’s really gross, y’know. That means you have to kiss a boy with your mouth open.”
“You’re right, that does sound gross,” I agreed. “But don’t worry. Rose is wrong. I’m not in love.”
“Good. Because I don’t think boys and girls should kiss. I think they shouldn’t even hold hands really. It’s not hygentics.”
“Hygienic?”
Amie shook her head. “Hygentics. Big germs grow all over boys. When you touch them, they get their germs all over you.”
“I see.”