firing through him even as another swell sent him teetering sideways. Thick black hair dripped onto cheekbones that jutted so high and sharp her eyes turned to almond slivers. In the arctic air, Nolee’s full lips trembled slightly, pale against tawny skin.
Someone he used to know; someone he damn well should have forgotten.
Right.
Get the job done, idiot. And get the hell out of here.
Kicking his ass into gear, he tore his gaze off her beautiful face and assessed the on-scene conditions. The Pacific Sun listed now to port at thirty degrees in high seas. Without propulsion, they could sink in minutes. No time to lose. He hoisted one of the two dewatering pumps dropped behind him on deck and turned back to Nolee. “Lead the way,” he shouted over the rise and hiss of the sea, cursing his luck at being the swimmer on duty today.
He’d once promised himself he’d never see her again.
She nodded, hefted the other sixty-pound pump, and turned, as economical and tough as ever. Captain of her own ship, apparently, and how impressive was that? But then, he remembered well what it was like to crew with her on a fishing vessel. She never expected anyone to cut her any slack, an attitude that had always won over the crustiest of seadogs.
And it was no different on the Pacific Sun, he could tell, as she led him past a line of life-jacketed men passing buckets from the keel. She’d had the foresight to ensure they’d all geared up in preparation for the deadly waters. She’d protected them, but hadn’t let them quit, either.
He and Nolee handed the carbon-monoxide-emitting pumps over to crew members to secure topside where they wouldn’t endanger lives, and descended down into the engine room, unreeling the hoses to vacuum up the flooding. The whoosh of incoming water filled his ears.
Shit.
This looked worse than reported.
Water sprayed from a pipe that a man, standing in thigh-deep water, was attempting to wrap with rubber. Another fisherman secured what appeared to be a replacement pump, their movements clumsy in the arctic flood, their efforts futile given the size and pressure of the leak. The Pacific Sun was past the point of no return.
“We’ve got to abandon ship,” Dylan shouted to Nolee.
She shoved back her hood and squinted up at him. Her dark eyes flashed, ink. “No!”
Damn that stubborn, reckless streak. Age hadn’t tempered it. She was every bit the spitfire who’d rocked his world as his first love, the only woman to whom he’d ever given his heart. And he’d gotten it back in pieces.
“We’ve only got enough fuel for fifteen minutes on scene. I need to get you off this vessel.”
Her mouth worked for a moment, and she peered at her laboring crew members. She nodded slowly, her expression inward, then shoved back her shoulders. “Get everyone to safety, but leave me be.” She turned to the guys working on the pipe and pump. “Everett. Pete. Tell the crew they’re abandoning ship.”
“The hell we are,” one of the guys swore.
“That’s an order.”
The man shook his head and dropped the wire into his pocket. “Roger.” He and the other crewman climbed up and out.
Nolee squinted back at Dylan for a moment then held out a hand for the hoses. He cursed under his breath. He’d left her before, once, when she’d given him no choice, but history would not repeat itself today.
Not under these conditions.
Not a chance.
Still. She was a civilian and captain of the vessel; he couldn’t compel her to follow his orders, much as he wished otherwise. After he got the crew off, he’d return for her and make her see reason.
“I’ll be back,” he vowed. He handed over the nozzle, snapped down his visor and headed topside. It took every ounce of will and training to leave her in the belly of the doomed ship. He’d learned to live his life without her, but that didn’t stop his instinct to protect her at all costs from surging back to life.
On deck, the fishermen continued bailing as the guy Nolee had called Everett lugged the dewatering pumps’ outtake lines to the rail and dropped them over the side of the unstable boat.
“6039 this is Holt,” Dylan spoke into his headset. When a wave swelled off the port side, he grabbed an oblivious guy, a young kid barely out of high school by the looks of it, and scrambled for cover by the winch. Water buffeted them for several seconds as they huddled and then he tried again. “6039 do you copy?”
“6039 copy,” his Jayhawk pilot and mission commander, LCDR Chris Abrams, said in the flat monotone they adopted in even the worst situations. “What’s your onboard assessment? Over.”
The wide-eyed teenager stared at him, his skin pale. When one of the men hollered, “Tyler!” he jumped to his feet then trudged back to the line.
Dylan stayed behind, listening hard. “They’ve got three feet of water in the hull and rising fast. Vessel is listing heavily. Structural integrity severely compromised with inadequate time to attempt repairs. We’re abandoning ship. Basket requested. Over.”
“Roger that,” Chris said, his voice crisp. “Basket is being deployed.”
Another oceanic blast tipped the vessel so that the rail drove to the surface before righting itself. He pictured Nolee below. He needed to get moving to return to her.
Inside his neoprene suit, his slick skin flushed hot, his blood humming with adrenaline. He emerged from cover and joined the crew who now held on to lines as the boat rose and dipped violently.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered, “We’re abandoning ship. Who’s coming first?”
The fishermen eyed him, then one nudged an older crewmember forward. The man, with white hair and a craggy face, glared at him with red-rimmed eyes, uneven teeth bared between cracked, flaky lips. “I ain’t going first.” He pointed at the young guy in the blue slicker. “Take the kid.”
“Right.” Dylan nodded, understanding that it’d be a waste of time arguing with a sailor who’d rather risk losing his life than his pride. “Let’s go.”
For the next several minutes, Dylan toiled as the storm refused to lessen its grip, placing survivor after survivor into the basket until only he and Nolee remained on board.
“We have one minute,” he heard his commander say through his helmet’s speakers. “Is your captain ready? Over?”
“She will be,” Dylan answered, his back teeth pressing together hard. He slung an arm over a rope line and held fast when another swell lifted him off his feet, dragging. The ship groaned as sheets of metal strained against each other like fault lines before an earthquake. The lashings clanked. “Send down the strop. Over.”
Given the helo’s low fuel state, he had barely enough time for the dangerous hypothermic double lift.
“You have fifty seconds and then I want you on deck, Holt,” barked his commander. “Over.”
The
