Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
We were all stunned silent.
Then my focus returned to the screen in front of me.
“Bryan, we’re approaching!” I unclipped my belt, grabbing onto the handles that aided me on my way to him. A look at the onboard cameras and the drone footage we had of the shoreline made my stomach plummet. “There’s no way we can get close enough to the fishing boat without being pulled into the current ourselves! We’re going to have to tow them!”
“Agreed!” He radioed down to Forde. The boat began to slow.
As I made my way to the crew, I realized Isla and Grant were helping Shona, who had vomited and was barely responsive.
“Seasickness,” Isla assured me. “Extremely bad. As our medic, I’ll need to stay with her.”
Worry flickered through me, but I had to focus. “Grant and I need to go out and throw a tow to the fishing boat while Bryan communicates with the crew!”
Grant’s bleak expression matched my own as we braced ourselves to go out on deck.
Heather’s, Angus’s, and Taran’s faces flashed before my eyes as Bryan reached for the door.
Please. Please let me come home to them.
39. Taran
Even though we all knew to hunker down and stay inside during a storm, it wasn’t long after Quinn left that the doorbell rang and a shivering, soaked Cammie stood on the porch. She’d gotten drenched just walking from her car to the front door.
The wind whistled through the trees around Quinn’s house as Cammie hurried inside, and the wind pushed forcefully against the door as I closed it.
It was unimaginable that Quinn was out in the North Sea in this.
“I heard.” Cammie shrugged off her raincoat, blue eyes dark with fear. “Forde and Quinn are on the lifeboat. There’s a fishing boat in trouble down by Islay.”
My gaze darted toward the living room. “How do you know?”
“They asked Ramsay to man the station. Tierney’s with him. She called me. I said I’d tell you. Taran, the winds are raging at a hundred miles per hour.”
“We can’t.” My stomach was sick with dread. “The kids … we can’t worry them.”
Cammie nodded. “Okay. Then we need to distract them instead.”
Two hours later, I didn’t know how much more acting I could do in front of Heather and Angus. There was no word. The storm had grown more violent. And it was too much. After everything I’d lost … it was too much. The only thing tethering me, stopping me from racing out of Quinn’s house in a flight of sheer panic, were his children. Heather and Angus had grown quiet, and I knew they weren’t paying attention to the comedy movie Cammie had put on.
“It’s really bad, isn’t it?” Angus said suddenly, his lower lip trembling.
“No, my darling, it’s not.” Cammie put her arm around him, far better at acting than I was as she cuddled her nephew into her side. “The electricity hasn’t even gone out.”
That was true.
I clung to that.
For a whole hour.
Until the house abruptly plunged into darkness. Angus cried out seconds before machinery sounded and the lights popped back on.
The generator had kicked in.
“Is it bad now?” Angus whispered.
40. Quinn
Our data showed the waves had reached a height of eight meters while we were out there. Grant and I had managed to throw the fishing boat a line. The plan was to tow them into safer waters and then have them board the lifeboat. We were only doing around two and a half knots with the fishing boat attached to us. Then Forde had appeared at the stairs from the engine room, sweaty and frantic. “We just suddenly hit five knots.”
Fuck.
It could only mean one thing.
Grant and I rushed out onto the wet deck, our hearts sinking when we realized the tow line had snapped with the violent pull of the waves. Battered by sea spray and winds, we somehow managed to throw a second tow before we made it safely back inside.
Bryan called to us. “Wind speed is starting to drop!”
“Then call the coast guard! We need urgent helicopter assistance! There’s no way we can keep this up. We need that crew off that boat—now!”
Bryan nodded and picked up his radio.
I took a few steps down below deck to where our medical bay was. “How is she?”
Isla sat with Shona who lay on the single bed, eyes closed.
“Extremely disoriented. We need to get her on land, Quinn.”
“We’re calling for helicopter assistance for the fishing crew. We should be able to move a bit faster once they rescue them.”
It felt like hours passed before the helicopter arrived. Our visibility was still poor, but we stayed in communication with the coast guard as the pilot hovered above us with tremendous skill, and their team winched all three crew members to safety. It was an unbelievable rescue. One I’d never forget.
Our relief was palpable as the helicopter took off with the crew.