My eyes peel open, each lid heavy as an anvil. My surroundings are unfamiliar, but I’ve been on enough boats to recognize the inside of a wheelhouse, partially shielded from the pelting rain. Someone has propped me against the port-side wall of the cramped space. That someone is standing with his back to me — one hand on the wheel, the other adjusting the frequency knob of a corded VHF radio. My mind feels sluggish as it works to catalogue his details.
Dark hair, slicked with rain.
Thick rubber boots.
Orange neoprene coveralls.
A lobsterman.
“This is the vessel Ebenezer,” he’s saying into the receiver, his voice barely audible over the steady drumbeat of rain against the deck. “We have responded to a MAYDAY call from the vessel Cupid. One sailor rescued from the water. She needs immediate medical attention.Over.”
There’s a murmur of static across the line, followed by a muffled response from the Coast Guard operator monitoring the channel. I can’t make out the individual words. The lobsterman lifts the radio to his bearded mouth again.
“We’re tied-off to a day-mooring in Cocktail Cove on the north side of Great Misery Island at the moment, but we can’t stay here for long — it’s not going to hold in this weather.Over.”
I catch only fragments of the operator’s response — words likehurricane-force windsandtake shelterandwait for rescue— as a large swell rocks the boat sideways. Water crashes over the rail, sluicing across the flat bottom of the boat, draining out the scuppers. My heart, which has only recently resumed beating, quails within my chest.
I cannot go back into that dark ocean.
I will not make it out a second time.
My eyes fix on the man at the helm. My unknown rescuer. His knuckles are white with tension on the wheel. His tone is thick with impatience as he barks a response into the radio.
“Wait it out? That’s your grand plan?” His head shakes, sending water droplets flying all directions. “That’s not good enough. She needs medical attention now, not in two hours when you finally get your asses here. You’re the fucking Coast Guard!” He sighs, then tacks on a terse, “Over.”
The hair at my nape prickles, standing suddenly on end. For a second there, beneath the frustration, the stranger almost sounds…
Familiar.
In fact… he sounds a bit like Ar—
No.
No, that’s not possible.
I must be delirious from my brush with death.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm my jagged nerves.
“CPR was performed,” the lobsterman tells the operator. “She’s breathing but unconscious.Over.”
“I’m conscious,” I say, my voice thready. Just getting the words out takes monumental effort. My throat aches like — well, like it’s had half the Atlantic swallowed down and then forcibly regurgitated, I suppose. I try to sit fully upright, but every muscle in my battered body protests at the effort.
Who knew drowning would be so damn painful?
At the sound of my voice, the man at the helm goes stiff, the broad planes of his shoulders contracting beneath the fabric of his rain-soaked t-shirt. The receiver falls from his grip as he turns to me, swinging on its cord like a yo-yo, all answering transmissions abandoned. I suck in an involuntary breath as soon as I catch sight of his face.
That face.
Despite the thick beard, despite the sharp gauntness that has hollowed out his handsome features… the man staring back at me is instantly recognizable. Heartbreakingly recognizable. Seeing him hits me like an uppercut; knocks the wind from my tattered lungs. The world goes quiet, pounding rain and flashing lightning and churning sea no match for those burning hazel eyes, that aristocratic nose, the dark slashes of two furrowed brows. Suddenly, even simple things like breathing and blinking are utterly impossible.
Archer Reyes.
Is standing.
Five feet from me.
I never thought I’d see him again under any circumstance — let alone here, in the most unfathomable of places. Shipwrecked in a storm. For a moment, I think I must be dreaming. Perhaps all of this is merely a nightmare conjured up by my bored subconscious. Perhaps I am safe at home in my bed, and any minute I will stir awake surrounded by throw pillows and a down feather duvet.