Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
“I’ll bring you every day if it helps.” Gavin shoved my hat at my chest, keeping perfect balance as the boat heaved.
“Thanks.” I knew better than to take him at his word. He had the best of intentions, but follow-through wasn’t his strong suit. “The practice is probably a little overkill, but it gives me something to work for.” Goose bumps rose along my arms with the breeze as I set my hat on backward. Sixty-four degrees was a high for this time of year, but it was still fucking freezing right out of the water.
“Which I respect.” He turned the key, starting the engine but keeping it in idle as he looked past me. “Is that a rowboat?”
“Out here? No way.” My head whipped to follow his line of sight, and I quickly spotted the small vessel about a hundred meters west, with what looked to be a small outboard motor and two people . . . ducking?
“What the hell are they doing?” Gavin asked as the boaters blinked in and out between the swells, repeatedly leaned down in what had to be their seats. “Bobbing?”
My stomach sank like a boulder thrown overboard, and I grabbed the binoculars from the glove box and peered through the lenses at the other boat.
Damn it. Two girls about my age sat in the middle of what looked to be a fourteen-footer with a tiny outbound motor that had seen better days, scooping out water with their bare hands. “They aren’t bobbing, they’re bailing.” And neither of the brunettes was wearing a life jacket. I handed Gavin the binoculars, and he lifted them to his eyes. “We have to help.”
“Well, shit.” Gavin threw the binoculars into the glove box and slammed it shut. “Hold on.”
I braced one hand on the edge of the windshield and the other on the dashboard’s handrailing as Gavin punched the throttle.
The front of our boat kissed the sky before Gavin adjusted the trim, and we nearly planed as the boat came level, but there was no softening the swells’ blows against the hull. After the third bone-jarring hit nearly threw us sideways, Gavin swore and adjusted our approach.
“We’ll have to come at them—” he started.
“With the current,” I finished. Spray drenched the windshield with every wave. I kept my eyes locked on the vessel, and fear shot through me, quickly chased by adrenaline as the little boat tipped downward with the next swell and water rushed over the bow.
If they’d been in trouble before, they were in imminent danger now.
I moved to starboard behind Gavin and flipped up the back passenger seat as he pulled back on the throttle and slowed our approach. Boats didn’t exactly have brakes. You had to be kidding me. “There are only two life jackets?”
“Only two of us on board,” Gavin called back as we slowed to idle about twenty meters off the vessel’s port side.
I yanked on one of the bright-yellow vests and fastened the three clips across my torso, then reached for the second and did the same, yanking on the tabs to expand the size to fit over the first. “Can you get us closer?”
“Not without drifting right into them or past them,” he answered, taking off his sunglasses. “Fuck, I think they’re—”
“Help!” the girl in the pink shirt shouted, standing at the bow of the violently rocking boat and waving her hands frantically as if there was some chance we hadn’t seen them.
My eyes widened. “Sit down!” What the hell was she thinking?
“Give me a jacket.” Gavin stuck out his hand.
The girl sitting in the back lunged for the other one, but the damage was done, and the next swell came over the side of the already destabilized boat and capsized it.
The girls disappeared into the water, and my heart lurched.
“I’m going.” I climbed onto the passenger seat. There was no time to wait.
“Like hell you are. I’m not letting you—”
I dove.
With a wet suit, the water had been barely tolerable. Without it, the temperature hit like a punch to the gut, and I fought to keep the air in my lungs. The life jackets tugged me upward, and I drew in a full breath as soon as I broke the surface, salt stinging my eyes.
“Damn it, Hudson!” Gavin shouted from somewhere behind me, but I was too focused on swimming to answer.
Please, God, let them both be alive.
I moved faster than ever, even encumbered by the jackets, fueled by adrenaline and terror at what was waiting for me.
My heart pounded as I approached the bow of the capsized boat and found the two women clinging to the side. Their hands gripped the ridge along the bottom of the shallow hull, and relief stole my words. They were fine. In a precarious but deteriorating situation, but alive and . . . arguing?