low already. The swells didn’t cause a problem but the wind was causing a chop on the top of the water. Meg was steering into the wind, minimising water resistance, but if one of those waves veered sideways...
He looked ahead and saw where she was steering.
A rocky outcrop rose, almost like a sentinel, straight up from the ocean floor. Maybe half a kilometre from them? Maybe less. It looked rough and inhospitable, but part of the rock face seemed to have slipped, forming what seemed a little bay. A few hardy plants must have fought their way to survival, because there was a tinge of green.
‘That’s where we’ll land,’ Meg said, watching his look, and then she had to stop and cough again. And again.
She buckled, fighting for breath. She’d copped so much smoke.
‘We’re swapping places,’ he said.
‘I’m not moving anywhere.’ Every word was a gasp.
Time to be brutal.
‘No choice. Your breathing’s compromised. Think about what happens if you collapse at the tiller.’
‘You can’t...’
‘I can handle a boat.’
And he saw her shoulders sag, just a little. Relief? She was only just holding herself together, he thought, and with that thought came another. She’d gone down below, to try to fight a burning engine.
‘The flames... Is your throat burned?’
‘Only...only smoke. Not...burned.’
‘Good, but you’re still moving. When I say go, move.’
She didn’t reply, fighting another paroxysm of coughing.
‘Meg needs help,’ he told Henry. He was torn. Henry needed to be held, but the tiller had to be priority.
Boof was on the floor of the boat, crouched low, almost as if he knew stability was an issue. He took Henry’s hand and guided it down to the dog’s collar. ‘I want you to hold on to Boof,’ he told him. ‘He’ll be worried. Hold him tight. Don’t let him move, will you?’
And to his relief he got a silent nod in response. Excellent. Not only would Henry’s hold anchor him to the big dog, it’d keep him low, as well.
Right. Meg. The tiller.
He watched the sea, waiting for his chance. The next swell swept by. No chop.
Now.
* * *
One minute she was holding the tiller, trying to stop the coughs racking her body, trying to keep control. The next...
Matt seemed to come from nowhere. Keeping his body low, he was suddenly at her end of the boat, though with enough sense to keep his weight back as far as he could. Crouching low, he tugged her hard against him, pulling her forward. For one long moment he held her still, checking balance, checking the waves.
Another swell passed—and then she was swung around and propelled onto the central seat.
And then Matt had the tiller and she was no longer in control.
His hold had been swift, firm to the point of brutal, a hard, strong grasp that had left her with nowhere to go. In any other circumstance it would have been terrifying, but right now she’d needed it. It was the assurance that responsibility wasn’t all hers. That she wasn’t alone.
It was a feeling that made her almost light-headed.
Though maybe that was the smoke.
She was still struggling to breathe. Matt might be in control, he might have reassured her that the boat was being cared for, but she needed air.
Smoke inhalation...
She’d done first-aid training. Grandpa had insisted and he’d also insisted on her updating over and over.
‘The bag...’ she managed and then subsided again. Oh, her chest hurt.
Matt was handling the tiller, watching the sea, but in between she could see him coming to grips with controls. He was also watching Henry, but he flashed her a glance that told her he was almost as worried as she was about her lungs.
He looked down at the bag. She’d seen his reaction as she’d tossed it down to him—what, you’re worried about luggage? Now, though... He wasn’t a fool. He had the bag opened in seconds, and, still with one eye on the oncoming sea, he started checking the contents.
The first-aid kit lay on top.
What she needed apart from a canister of oxygen—which she didn’t have—was a bronchodilator. Albuterol. It was in the first-aid kit to cope with possible asthma attacks.
‘Alb...alb...’ she gasped but he got it. He had the small canister clear, and she clutched it as if she were drowning.
‘You know how to use it?’
She did. She’d used it once on an overweight fisherman with a scary wheeze. She held it and inhaled, held it and inhaled.
Matt was steadied the little boat and turned her slightly away from the outcrop they were heading for, making a sensible adjustment to their path so it was more of a zigzag. It would stop the sideways swell.
He knew boats, then.
Maybe panic had as much to do with the coughing as smoke did, she thought. As she felt her breathing ease...as she watched Matt turn the tiller to avoid a cresting chop...as she twisted in the boat and saw Henry, crouched over Boof, holding his collar and even speaking reassuringly to him...her world seemed to settle.
For now they were safe. Moving on.
They needed help.
Radio...
‘There’s a radio in the bag, too,’ she managed. The coughing wasn’t over but at least she could talk. ‘And a GPS tracker. In the side pocket.’ She subsided and coughed a bit more while she watched Matt delve into the bag again.
And come up with nothing.
‘There’s nothing in the side pocket.’
‘There must be.’
No charter boat went to sea without an emergency radio and tracker beacon. It was illegal to leave port without them. Every boat in Charlie’s Marine Services therefore held a bag such as the one Meg had rescued. The presence of the bag was one of the things she checked, every time she boarded. She hadn’t checked the contents today, though. There’d been no need. The contents were standard, always in there.
But Bertha wasn’t usually used for charters.
No!
‘What?’ Matt went back to looking at the sea but she could tell by the rigidity of his shoulders that he’d sensed something was wrong. Seriously wrong.
‘My
