Darkness(10)

They had only a moment or two of relative calm before another series of waves hit. Letting go of the seat, she braced her feet against the side nearest him, and held on to the paddle with both hands and every bit of strength she possessed as he put what felt like a thousand pounds of force on the other end.

His head shot into view as he levered himself partway out of the water. Then the pressure lessened suddenly, and Gina exhaled with relief as he hooked a hand over the side of the boat.



“CAN YOU climb in?” she shouted. Suddenly the top half of his drenched, haggard face came into view. He was maybe midthirties, she saw. His brows were thick, straight black slashes above dark eyes that were narrowed to slits. Their eyes met for an instant through the flying droplets of water that warned of yet another approaching wave, and she saw grim determination in his.

“Get out of the way,” he growled. The words were uttered in a thick, hoarse voice that she could barely hear over the roar of their surroundings. They were accompanied by a flexing of the muscles of his shoulders and arms that was a warning in and of itself. She got out of the way, scooting backward while still retaining her precautionary hold on the seat. He seemed to explode out of the water, landing across the fat sausage rolls in a mighty dive that sent the opposite side of the boat flying upward.

Squeaking with alarm, Gina threw herself back toward the rising edge. Hooking both arms outward over the rolls, she flattened her back against the inflated tubes, hoping to counteract his weight with her own. With a groan he heaved himself inside the boat. The impact of his body hitting the deck was enough to make the precariously tilting side drop back down toward the water.

Heart thudding, Gina unhooked her arms from the sides and let her head slump forward in relief.

He shifted onto his back beside her, stabilizing the boat still more, and started coughing and wheezing like he’d swallowed half the ocean. His eyes were squeezed shut, his hands rested palms down on his chest, and his legs were bent at the knee. He’d lost his shoes. His feet, in drenched black socks, were long and wide. Water poured off him in streams, adding to the puddle in the bottom of the boat. His skin was leached of all normal color. Even half-drowned and frozen as he was, though, Gina couldn’t help but notice that he was way handsome in a rough-hewn, ex–prize fighter kind of way: broad cheekbones, square jaw, with a meaty, slightly crooked nose and a well-shaped mouth turned blue with cold. A shadow of stubble darkened his cheeks and chin: from the looks of it he’d shaved sometime within the last twenty-four hours. He was big enough that he took up almost the entire deck, and obviously fit, with broad shoulders and a wide chest above a flat abdomen, narrow hips, and long, powerful-looking legs. There was something dark staining his shirt on his left side around his waist, she observed with a frown, and the stain seemed to be growing as she watched.

Blood?

Gina barely had time to register the possibility before another wave snatched them up.

His eyes opened, and he grabbed on to the nearest strap as the water rose furiously under them.

“Don’t move,” Gina cried, because the last thing they needed was for him to start flailing around and destabilizing the boat again. Throwing an arm over the seat, she hung on as they reached the crest of the wave amid a shower of spray, then bumped at what felt like warp speed down the rough spine into the trough.

As soon as the boat leveled out she scrambled onto the seat and reclaimed the wheel and throttle.

“We’re out of here,” she said to him with a palpable surge of relief. At least she once again had some degree of control. A quick glance at the approaching weather confirmed what she already knew—time was running out fast. The waves were coming in furious bunches now and seemed to be gathering size and speed by the minute. A harbinger of what was on the way, the wind blew relentlessly, driving heavy bursts of snow in angry gusts across the water. The bulk of the storm filled the horizon as far as the eye could see. Paler gray clouds mushroomed out of the billowing charcoal central mass in a way that made her pulse pound with alarm. Flickering glimmers of lightning deep inside the storm lit up various sections ominously. The whole thing seemed to be heading their way with the approximate speed of a runaway train.

Gina came about, opened up the throttle, and started heading in. Forget trying to reach camp. They needed to get to shore now.

A look around at her passenger made her frown. He still lay on his back. His head was near her seat; his feet touched the stern. Awash in the inch or so of icy water sloshing around in the bottom of the boat, he shivered violently. The front of her hair was damp, and water beaded on her coat and pants, but inside her clothes she was dry. Still she was cold to her marrow even in her insulated outfit. He had to be literally freezing to death.

At the moment, though, the only thing she could do for him was get him off the water.

“Are you badly hurt?” Her sharp question was prompted by the movement of his hand to press gingerly over what she was sure now was an injury to his side. Diffused by the saturation of his shirt, the stain was spreading steadily. It looked more brown than red, but still she didn’t think it could be anything but blood.

He grimaced. His eyes opened a slit. “No.” He took a breath. “Where are we?”

Since any except the most urgent, lifesaving treatment was going to have to wait until they were ashore anyway, she moved on from his physical condition to answer his question.

“Just off the coast of Attu.”