Tides of Hope Page 17

  The brilliant sunlight suddenly dimmed, cooling the air, and she scanned the sky. A few clouds were scuttling across the blue expanse while their grayer cousins gathered on the horizon. Good thing they were more than halfway through this excursion, she concluded. It looked like Nantucket’s notoriously capricious weather was about to change. But they’d be okay for a little while.

  Kate checked on her passengers. They were lounging in the deck chairs, feet propped up, slugging back the bottles of water they’d brought on board and sharing some rowdy laughs. They still held their fishing lines, but it was apparent their attention was elsewhere.

  Turning away from the trio, Kate swung the Lucy Sue to port and drank in the view of the cerulean waters ahead. The hue was a perfect match for Craig’s eyes, she thought dreamily. Maybe she was a little old for schoolgirl fantasies, but around him she felt—

  The sudden sound of a reel spinning out of control refocused Kate’s attention and she swung around. One of the college guys vaulted to a standing position, his feet hitting the deck with a thump.

  “Hey! I’ve got a fish!”

  Putting the engine in neutral, Kate was preparing to join the threesome and talk the lucky angler through the landing when a larger-than-usual swell rocked the Lucy Sue. Kate had no trouble keeping her footing, but the next thing she knew the fisherman standing in the stern lost his balance, staggered toward the rail—and went into the drink headfirst.

  The turn of events was so fast—and so unexpected—it took Kate a couple of seconds to process it. Never, in all her years of charter fishing, had she had a customer fall overboard.

  His two companions reacted with hilarity. Hooting with laughter, they, too, rose and leaned over the edge of the boat.

  “Hey, Marcus, you’re not supposed to go in after the fish!” one of them called.

  The wind had picked up, and the deck of the Lucy Sue tilted as another swell rolled by. Still laughing, the two guys staggered and grabbed the rail.

  Snagging a life preserver, Kate elbowed them aside. Their friend was flailing in the water, bobbing up and down, and she heaved the preserver in his direction. “Is he a good swimmer?”

  “Sure,” one of the guys responded. He swayed toward her and grinned. “In the country club pool anyway.”

  As his breath hit her in the face, a chill ran up Kate’s spine. She didn’t have a lot of contact with alcohol, but she could identify the smell.

  Snatching up one of the nearly empty water bottles, she sniffed. One whiff was all it took to confirm the clear liquid inside wasn’t H2O.

  Her customers were drunk.

  Kate had a rule on her boat—no liquor. Alcohol and the sea didn’t mix. Period. She was up-front about that with her charter customers, but she hadn’t mentioned it to these three. The trip had been impromptu, and she’d assumed their water bottles contained what the label indicated.

  Big mistake.

  Another swell rocked the boat. As the college kids tottered again, panic washed over her.

  “You two, sit down! Now!”

  “We can see the fun better from here.” His words slurring, the sandy-haired guy gave her a stupid grin.

  She looked out at their friend in the water. He was still floundering. Still trying without success to grab the buoyant ring. If he was as drunk as his friends were, he was in big trouble. The water was cold, the wind was rising and, based on his inability to grab the life preserver, she figured the alcohol had seriously impaired his coordination.

  Moving in close to the other two, Kate drew herself up to her full five-foot-three inches. Her short stature was no match for their six-foot-plus frames if they balked at her orders, but she hoped her authoritative manner would convince them to comply.

  “Look. I can get your friend back aboard. But if one of you falls in, too, you could drown. That’s what happens to drunk people in the water. They drown. Is this the day you want to die?” She enunciated each word.

  Her serious, intent demeanor seemed to register with the dark-haired customer.

  “Come on, Stephen.” He pulled his friend back from the railing and tried to push him into a chair.

  “I wanna stay and watch the fun.”

  “Come on!” Pulling harder, he forced him down. Then he took his own seat.

  That problem taken care of, Kate redirected her attention to the man overboard. He was treading water, but his efforts were slowing. If Chester was aboard, she could have had him maneuver the boat much closer to the victim while she shouted directions. As it was, she couldn’t risk moving in too tight for fear of hitting him. And the two jerks sitting in the stern would be of no help in guiding her. For all she knew, they were seeing double. The best she could do was try to position the boat a few feet away from the victim.

  Kate accomplished that maneuver as quickly as she could and put the engine in neutral. Yanking a life jacket out of the bin, she slipped her arms through and pulled the straps snug, struggling to stem her rising panic as she kept an eye on Marcus. It was obvious he was tiring.

  Unlatching the fish door in the stern, she dropped to one knee.

  “Marcus! Marcus, over here.” She waved her hands to catch his attention. “Grab the life preserver. It’s to your left.” If he could latch on to it, she could tow him back with the nylon rope that secured it to the boat. Please, Lord, let him be able to grab it!

  He tried. But when she pulled on the rope he lost his grip. And disappeared under the gray swells.

  Kate’s heart stopped.

  By the time his head reappeared three seconds later, she’d already kicked off her shoes and slipped into the cold water.

  The breath-stealing shock wasn’t unexpected. The Nantucket sea was never warm, but in mid-May it still retained much of its winter chill. She knew she had to move fast—before the numbing water impaired them both.

  Striking out toward the figure in the water, she covered the distance in less than a dozen strokes. When she reached him, his desperate thrashing warned her to proceed with caution. He was a lot bigger than she was, and driven by panic-induced adrenaline, he could easily overwhelm her as he struggled to save himself.

  Approaching with care, Kate positioned herself out of arm’s reach—but close enough to grab him if he began to sink. Shoving the life preserver in his direction, she tipped it up. “Put your arms through the hole,” she instructed.

  Marcus lunged for the lifesaving doughnut. But he missed the hole, flipping it over—and away—instead.

  As Kate reached for it, Marcus grabbed her arm. She wasn’t too concerned, figuring if he couldn’t hold on to the life preserver, he couldn’t hold on to her with one hand. But as she prepared to yank free, his other arm swung around and landed a wild blow to the side of her face.

  Stunned by the searing pain that radiated through her head, she gasped. Bright lights exploded behind her eyes, obscuring her vision.

  The next thing she knew, Marcus had climbed on top of her and shoved her face in the water, using her life-jacket-clad body to keep himself afloat.

  Surrounded by blackness and locked in a death grip, Kate’s tenuous hold on rational thought tottered as the danger slammed home.

  She could die.

  Right here.

  Right now.

  At the hands of a drunken college student, whose self-preservation instincts were about to cut her life short and rob Maddie of her mother.

  No!

  The silent, vehement denial ripped through Kate’s mind. She wasn’t going to let this happen!

  Lord, give me strength! she cried in silent anguish. Please! Maddie needs me!

  Summoning up every ounce of her energy, Kate twisted and kicked and bucked. At first her efforts had no effect. But just when her lungs felt ready to explode, she jabbed her elbow into Marcus’s midsection with as much force as she could muster, loosening his grip enough to give her the opening she needed. With a powerful shove, she kicked away from him and shot to the surface.

  Sucking in air, Ka
te took a few seconds to regroup as she treaded water and kept a wary eye on Marcus. Once she could breathe again, she retrieved the life preserver and moved back into position, ready to back off at the slightest indication he was going to lunge for her again.

  But he was spent. He was barely keeping his head above water now, and his pupils had gone glassy.

  Time was running out.

  Shoving the life preserver next to him, she again tipped one end out of the water. “Marcus. Put your arms in the hole.” She called out the words, speaking slowly.

  Please, Lord, let him cooperate!

  She repeated the instruction once. Twice. On the third try, he managed to comply.

  The first hurdle passed, Kate let the preserver drop back into the water, over his head. Snagging the attached nylon rope, she issued one more instruction as she began towing him toward the Lucy Sue. “Hold on tight.”

  Buoyed by her life vest, Kate didn’t have to expend a lot of energy getting him back to the boat. But no way was she going to be able to haul Marcus through the fish door without assistance. And he was in no shape to climb back on board himself.

  With no other option, Kate tried to remember the black-haired kid’s name. He seemed the least inebriated of the bunch. Jack, she recalled.

  Hauling herself out of the water, she remained on her knees, reeling in Marcus as she issued instructions over her shoulder.

  “Jack, I’m going to need some help. Tell Stephen to stay in his chair. You get down on your hands and knees and come over here.”

  To her relief, the kid did as she instructed. When he crawled up next to her, she noticed he’d gone a few shades paler. Maybe the gravity of the situation had finally registered in his alcohol-fogged brain. She hoped.

  “Okay. I need you to grab one of his hands. I’ll grab the other. Stay off to the side of the fish door.” The last thing she wanted was another headfirst tumble into the ocean. “On the count of three, pull.”

  Somehow, between the two of them, they managed to drag a spent Marcus back on deck, where he lay like an oversize bluefish—but with far less flopping about. Kate closed the fish door, feeling as if she’d run a marathon. Every muscle in her body ached. And now that the sun had disappeared under a blanket of clouds, the wind cut through her sodden clothes, chilling her to the bone.

  Gripping the railing, she pulled herself to her feet.

  “Okay. I want everybody below. Jack, there are some blankets down there. Do what you can to warm up Marcus. I’ll get us back to the wharf as fast as I can.”

  After shepherding the trio into the cabin, Kate grabbed her slicker, slipped it on and revved up the Lucy Sue’s engines. Turning hard to starboard, she pulled back on the throttle and set a straight course across Nantucket Sound, heading for the entrance to the harbor.

  As the wind whipped past, she began to shiver. Partly from cold and exposure. Partly from reaction. But mostly from anger.

  Thanks to irresponsible behavior, lives could have been lost today. Including hers. And drowning at the hands of a drunk wasn’t in her plans.

  But if the incident angered her, it also reminded her that God made the choices about when and how a life ended. And they didn’t always mesh with human plans. He’d taken Mac in a way no one had expected—and far sooner than anyone would have chosen. Today, He could have called her home. Instead, He’d spared her. Perhaps because there was more He wanted her to do. More He wanted her to experience.

  And maybe part of that more was Craig, she speculated as Brant Point Light and the Coast Guard station came into sight. Maybe today’s incident was a wake-up call. A reminder that fear and worry don’t change the future; they only rob today of joy.

  As she eased into her slip on Straight Wharf, Kate mulled over that thought. If she let fear hold her back, she could avoid the pain of loss. But she would also eliminate the transforming grace of love that made life worth living.

  She’d known that grace once, with Mac. And despite the hole his death had left in her life, if she had it to do again—knowing her time with him would be short—she’d still marry him. He’d enriched her life in immeasurable ways.

  Shaking from the cold and fumbling with the lines as she secured them to the cleats on the pier, Kate reached a decision. She was going to vanquish fear and remain open to the possibilities with Craig.

  And she intended to tell him that.

  Just as soon as she got out of these wet clothes, downed some aspirin to dull the throbbing pain on the right side of her face and put some ice on the eye that had swollen half shut during her enlightening ride home in the Lucy Sue.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As Craig exited the Hy-Line Cruises office after a meeting to discuss new passenger safety regulations, he paused to scan Straight Wharf. With the high season poised to begin in earnest, the slips were filling up and far more people were milling about than the day he’d first come down here a few weeks ago to tell Kate he was rescinding her safety citation.

  The thought of her brought a smile to his face—for two reasons. First, he just liked thinking about her. But second, the irony of their situation struck him as humorous. If someone had told him a few weeks ago that he was going to find himself falling in love with the red-haired spitfire who’d stormed into his office, he’d have laughed.

  God, it seemed, had a sense of humor about such things.

  As he started to turn away, his smile still in place, a glimpse of red hair caught his eye. Kate. She must have taken a spin in the Lucy Sue, he assumed as he watched her secure a line to her finger pier.

  But something didn’t look quite right.

  His smile faded as he squinted at the distant figure, trying to determine what was wrong with the picture. Her movements were rather stiff, he noted, as she rose. And her hair was wet. Not damp and frizzy from salt spray, but dripping wet. As if she’d just been caught in a downpour.

  Since that explanation seemed unlikely, he came to the only other reasonable conclusion.

  She’d taken an unplanned dip in the ocean.

  Craig doubted she’d fallen overboard. Kate was experienced on the water. And she was careful. Besides, the sea was fairly placid, despite the dark clouds accumulating overhead. Could she have had another problem with the Lucy Sue?

  As he pondered her drenched condition, she shifted position, giving him a side view of her face. And despite the distance, he couldn’t miss the discolored skin.

  She was injured.

  His pulse tripping into double time, Craig changed direction and strode down Straight Wharf toward the Lucy Sue, keeping Kate in sight. He saw her gesture toward the cabin of her boat, and though he was too far away to hear what she was saying, the rigid profile of her jaw and her taut posture communicated anger.

  The situation looked volatile, and Craig lengthened his stride, watching as three figures emerged onto the deck. Two were attired in shorts and T-shirts, and the third was wrapped in a blanket. They started to approach the stern, and Kate waved them back. Now he could make out her words.

  “Stay on deck until I have the boat secure!”

  The underlying shakiness in her words unnerved him. She sounded close to losing it.

  As the three young men moved toward the stern again, she raised her voice. “I said stay back! I’m not fishing anyone else out of the drink, okay?”

  That explained her drenched condition. She’d taken these three guys out and one of them had fallen in, Craig concluded.

  But it didn’t explain her bruises.

  As she turned toward him to secure the last line, the straight-on view chilled him. Her right cheek was puffy and discolored, and her eye was swollen more than half shut.

  Breaking into a jog, Craig drew up beside the boat as she tightened her last knot and rose.

  “Craig!” She took an involuntary step back, and he reached out to steady her. “What are you doing here?”

  “I had some business on Straight Wharf and I saw you in the distance. What’s going on?” Wit
hout releasing her, he shot a narrow-eyed look at the three young men in the boat.

  She shoved her wet hair back with a trembling hand. “These customers brought along bottles of water. Only it wasn’t water. By the time I figured that out, they were drunk. One of them fell in. I had to go in after him.”

  “What happened to your face?” His stomach clenched as he examined her bruised skin and puffy eye.

  “He tried to use me as a flotation device.”

  As a rescue swimmer, Craig had dealt with more than his share of panicked people in the water. He’d seen otherwise-loving husbands practically drown their wives trying to stay afloat. He’d seen scrawny people develop superhuman strength when faced with their own demise. He’d had to fight off adrenaline-empowered victims who’d clung to him with such ferocity they’d put not only their life, but also his, in danger.

  Those situations were covered in rescue-swimmer training. Still, it was a dangerous situation. A terrorized person, no matter how puny, could sometimes overcome even a strong, well-trained swimmer.

  And the guy with the blanket draped over him wasn’t puny by a long shot, Craig noted. Topping six feet, he had the build of an athlete.

  Leading Craig to the obvious conclusion.

  He could have killed Kate.

  Based on the tremors his hand was absorbing, she’d come to the same conclusion, Craig deduced. Nor was her shaking being helped by the cooling air and growing wind.

  His training kicked in, and Craig switched to official mode. “Do you have a change of clothes in the cabin?”

  “Yes.” Her teeth were beginning to chatter.

  Stepping down into the boat, he held out his hand to her. “Put them on.”

  “I can ch-change when I g-get home.”

  “You need to do it now, Kate. You know better than to stay in wet clothes with the temperature dropping.” He gentled his voice, but he didn’t back down.

  To his relief, she didn’t argue. She placed her ice-cold hand in his and, with his support, reboarded.

  He waited until she pulled the cabin door shut behind her. Then, planting his fists on his hips, he leveled a cold, hard glare at the three offenders, blocking their exit.