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Instantly, the wind snatched the door, swinging it wide and making her stumble, frigid spray buffeting her, knocking her sideways. Her boots skidded, and she crashed to one knee. Warm, iron-tasting blood washed across her bitten tongue.
She ignored the ache in her leg and pushed on, fighting her way to the engine room. Her breath came in short gasps that misted in the salty, water-logged air. After climbing down the wall ladder, she dropped into knee-deep flooding.
Pete labored over the cracked pipe. She shoved through the brackish swirl toward Everett and spotted three mostly submerged bilge pumps. A dark ring scorched their tops. They’d overheated. Beyond fixing. Her mouth vacuumed itself dry.
“Tell the guys to put on their life jackets if they’re not on already and bucket this out while you replace those.”
Everett frowned fiercely. “We’ve only got the one spare.”
She swore under her breath. Not enough. Not even close.
“Hook it up fast.”
Everett grunted, then clambered topside.
She thought quickly. Without enough operating bilge pumps to stop the rising water, and the pipe still spraying, the engines wouldn’t reboot, leaving the floundering Pacific Sun at the mercy of the relentless sea. Buckets wouldn’t do much.
Still. She wouldn’t quit. If she lost this eight-million-dollar boat on her first time at the wheel, she might never have another shot at captaining one and leading the independent life she’d worked hard to achieve.
But even more important, the safety of her men came first. They counted on her, as did their families. Even as another wave tilted the wet world sideways, sloshing frigid water past her knees, Nolee couldn’t help thinking about them. Everett had a newborn son. Pete had postponed his honeymoon until the opilio crab season, which they’d gotten special permission to fish early, ended. They all needed this run.
She wouldn’t let anything happen to them.
Back in the wheelhouse, she snatched up her radio, her eyes meeting Stu’s. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is the vessel Pacific Sun. We’re taking on water.”
White noise crackled through the speaker. “Roger. Pacific Sun, this is United States Coast Guard, Kodiak, Alaska, communication station. Over.”
She relayed rapid-fire specifics. “The seas are pounding us,” she concluded, her voice hoarse. “Not sure how long before we capsize.”
Speaking the words made it all the more real. She’d never been seasick a day in her life, but right now, she knew a whole lot about heartsick.
“Roger that. Jayhawk is on the way with ETA of twelve minutes. Swimmer and pumps will be deployed.”
Bittersweet relief washed through her as she left Stu at the helm and joined the bucket line. On one hand, she didn’t want to be rescued. Never had. But on her life’s balance sheet, the US Coast Guard owed her big-time for the life-gutting sacrifice she’d made to them nine years ago when she’d given up the person who mattered most to her. They could damn well pay up with some help today.
She passed heavy pails among her crew, fighting a losing battle against water that wouldn’t stop coming. Half the buckets spilled or sloshed most of their contents before making it over the rail, the deck pitching so fiercely below their feet they could barely maintain balance. She worked fiercely, doggedly, and thought she’d weep with relief when she finally glimpsed orange as the Jayhawk passed over the ship. Keeping her head down, she continued to pass slippery, frigid buckets until Tyler pointed out that the rescue swimmer was on his way down.
She stared up at the dangling rescue swimmer descending onto her bucking deck. The mountain-sized man, clad in a bright orange suit, unhooked himself and strode her way, his step sure and nimble despite the heaving boat.
She blinked, suddenly feeling more off-balance than ever, fooled into thinking she knew him. It was just the outfit. Just that cursed Coast Guard swagger. Yet there was something about the broad-shouldered shape, the assured step and the bone-deep confidence visible in the green eyes behind his clear mask as he drew closer.
It couldn’t be.
“Dylan?”
He’d sworn never to come back to Alaska, had left without a goodbye. Her legs and arms went slack, and for a second she thought she might smack the ground.
The worst mistake of her life flipped up his visor. Spoke. “Hello, Nolee.”
* * *
NOTHING IN PO1 Dylan Holt’s military training had come close to preparing him for this.
He peered into Nolee Arnauyq’s fierce brown eyes, recognition 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 sea receded and Dylan shoved his way along the slick deck, propelling himself forward across its steep slant. “Roger that.”
He would get Nolee out. End of story.
Descending as fast as he dared, he fought the wind and dropped down into the hull again. Icy water made his breath catch even with the benefit of the dry suit. Nolee should have been out of here long before now.
“I’ve almost got it.” Her strained voice emerged from blue lips. Her movements were jerky as she twisted wire around the still gushing pipe.
His eardrums banged with his heartbeat.
She was losing motor function. Hypothermia was already setting in. With only thirty seconds left, he made an executive decision.
“It’s over, Nolee. Come with me now.”
He would haul her out by force if necessary. Braced himself for just that.
Yet when she opened her mouth, her head lolled. Her eyelids dropped. Reacting on instinct, he grabbed her limp form before she crumpled into the freezing water.
His throat closed, and he had to make himself breathe. He hauled her up and out of the hull and across the deck where a rescue strop dangled. Damn, damn, damn. His hands weren’t cooperating, his own motor function feeling the effects of this cursed sea. Once he’d tethered them together, he gave his watching flight mechanic a thumbs-up for the hoist. The boat flung them sideways, careening over the rail.
Swinging, their feet skimmed the deadly swells. The line jerked them from harm and sped them up through the stinging air. He tightened his arms around her. Imagined them made of steel. With only a tether connecting her to him, he couldn’t lose his grip. It was the difference between saving her life and causing her to fall to her death.
As they rose, he forced himself not to look at her. He’d dreamed about that face too many times, even after he left Kodiak to forget her.
But he wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t hold her close. And heaven help him—no matter how much she’d gutted him nine years ago—he couldn’t deny she felt damned good in his arms.
2 (#u4e77c8ca-1a5e-5f53-a738-345f52fe0fa6)
NOLEE WAS LYING on warm, gritty sand, water circling around her toes, breathing in the Alaskan summer fragrance of salt water and dense cedars. There was a delicious, decadent taste in her mouth—berries and chocolate, and possibly wine. She lifted her head and the afternoon sun glinted off the blue ocean so brightly, she had to squint through sparkles of light to see her feet in front of her.
Her toenails were painted a deep rose. Girly and sweet. Not her style at all. And the nail polish had even been applied well. No smudged cuticles or bumpy surfaces. Someone was lying next to her, propped up on his side. Someone she cared about, who made her laugh, with big feet, nails unvarnished and clipped.
Dylan.
He stroked her bare stomach with a firm hand, the circular touch languid, deliberate, filling her with teasing heat, a pleasant ache beginning between her thighs.
Somewhere in the distance, gulls cried and the cool ocean thundered as it crashed ashore, swirling up and over her calves, then suctioning her skin as it receded. A throaty chuckle sounded beside her. She curved toward it, her body fitting against Dylan’s instinctively, her toes curling in delight when his hand skimmed lower still, sliding along the edge of her bikini bottom.
“Nolee,” he whispered in her ear and she tipped back her head at the rich sound of his voice.
“Dylan,” she murmured, but could not be sure whether his name was flooding her thoughts or she had spoken it aloud.
“What are you thinking?”
She pressed her lips together. Stopped herself from revealing how she really felt and explaining why she’d been quiet on their summer outing. If Dylan left her, her heart would break, but he couldn’t know that.
She started to say something flippant, and then he reached around to cup her ass, bringing her hips to his, the heat of him emanating through the thin nylon of his shorts. Her skin burned fiercely against his everywhere they touched, and she was incapable of speech, or of thinking anything at all. Shivering hunger took hold. She craved more.
Skimming her hands up the curves of his strong arm, she absorbed the tension of the muscles beneath his hot skin. She glanced at his handsome warrior face. Reached to trace the straight bridge of his nose, to touch the scar just above his arched right eyebrow and the tiny dimple in his square chin. She met his scorching green gaze. He had that way of looking at her. Intently. Passionately. With heated promise, as if he knew all of her erotic fantasies and intended to make each one come true.
It undid her.
He lowered his face. “You’re driving me crazy,” he whispered directly into her ear, his warm lips grazing the sensitive lobe.
“Me, too,” she gasped as he continued stroking her, slowly, tantalizingly, eliciting a lush heady response to his touch so that her heart clattered.
“Tell me what you want,” he rasped, his voice an edgy growl.
“You,” she groaned, a dizziness taking hold as her hand smoothed along his ridged abdomen. “I want you, Dylan. Always.”
She felt him brush the hair back from her temples. His unsteady fingers conveyed the same need that licked through her.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, his voice insistent. Husky. Then he slid across her, inch by inch, like a tide, and she lay back so that she was flat on the sand, sinking into it.
