Authors: Marie Force
“Hey,” Mac said, “check out this dickhead.”
The others looked to the pond, where a large powerboat was steaming through the anchorage, making the boats in its wake bob and dip precariously.
Big Mac’s brows furrowed with displeasure. “Where’s the Coast Guard when you need ’em?”
“Oh great,” Mac said. “He’s coming here.”
Big Mac stood. “Allow me, boys.”
“This oughta be good,” Ned said as he got up to get a better view of the show.
Mac and Luke followed Big Mac down the main pier, hanging back to allow him to take the lead.
“Whatcha need, Skip?” Big Mac called to the boat’s captain.
“Looking for dockage for a night or two.” He slurred his words, which the women on the boat found hilarious.
“Drunk at nine a.m.,” Mac muttered to Luke as they leaned against pilings to watch.
“You’re lucky the Coasties didn’t see you pouring on the coal in the harbor,” Big Mac said, keeping it friendly even though he was pissed. Drinking and driving was a problem on the water, too.
The guy’s insolent grin infuriated Luke, who was painfully aware of how much a drunk driver had taken from Sydney. Judging by the stiff set to Big Mac’s shoulders, he was none too pleased either. He pointed the forty-foot boat to a dock close to the end of the main pier, away from where he usually put families.
Good call
, Luke thought. He’d have done the same, but then he’d learned from the best—party boats at one end, families at the other.
Big Mac loved to say that half these guys probably bought their boats yesterday, and since there was no operating license required, they could take to the water the next day with a hugely powerful machine and no clue how to operate it. This captain was the worst of the worst—all about showing off how much power his boat had.
Luke noticed that the action on the dock had come to a stop, and everyone was watching. Since it was low tide, the boat was far below the standing pier, which made for a more difficult landing. One of the women managed to get a stern line to Big Mac, who wrapped it around a piling while Luke ran up to catch the bow line. It fell short and dropped into the water. The skipper reacted by pouring on the coal. Unprepared for the boat to lurch forward, Big Mac tried to keep a grip on his line.
Luke watched in horror as Big Mac suddenly disappeared off the dock.
Mac let out a scream that chilled Luke to his bones as he watched his friend jump in after his father.
“Someone call 911!” Ned shouted.
“We’ve got guys in the water!” Luke yelled, but the captain was so caught up in showing off for the women, he didn’t hear Luke.
He again threw the boat into gear, engaging the propellers.
“
Shut it down!
” Mac yelled from the water.
Without a thought to possible implications, Luke threw himself onto the boat ten feet below, landing with a great thud on the back deck, which finally got the captain’s attention.
“Kill the power,
now
!” Luke lay on the boat’s deck, his left ankle at an unnatural angle. “We’ve got two guys in the water!”
The captain looked down at him sprawled on the deck and finally seemed to get the message. He killed the power, and all Luke could hear in the ensuing silence was Mac screaming for help for his father. Thank God at least one of them was okay.
The boat went silent just as Mac reached his father, who was facedown with a dark slick of blood surrounding him. The back of his head was wide open. With shaking hands, Mac turned him over. “Dad. Wake up.” He slapped his cheeks. No response. Mac plugged his father’s nose and began rescue breathing, all while treading water to keep them both afloat in water that was cold year round. “Where the hell are the paramedics?” he called to the onlookers above.
“I can hear the ambulance,” someone said. “Hang in there, Mac. Just another minute or two.”
“Oh my God!” Stephanie cried from the pier above them. “What happened?”
Mac cradled his father’s head against his chest. “Don’t you dare even
think
about leaving us, do you hear?” he whispered between breaths. “Don’t you dare.”
“I didn’t know he was in the water,” the captain said, his words slurred.
“Shut up,” Luke said. “Just shut the fuck up.”
Mac continued to breathe for his father and went weak with relief when Big Mac finally coughed up a huge load of water and began to breathe again on his own. But he still didn’t come to.
“That’s it,” Mac said, tears streaming down his face. “Nice and easy.” He pressed his lips to his father’s forehead. “You’re going to be just fine.” Finally, he could hear the sirens getting closer. “Rescue’s almost here.”
The next half hour was a blur. Paramedics entered the water, loaded Big Mac on a gurney and lifted him out while a second crew tended to Luke. Chief of Police Blaine Taylor, a high school classmate of Mac’s and Luke’s, carted the boat owner away in handcuffs. While running after the paramedics hauling his father, Mac asked Stephanie to call his mother.
“I’ll find her and get her to the clinic myself.”
“Thank you.” Even though the morning sun was hot, Mac shivered uncontrollably after spending thirty minutes in the water. He handed Stephanie his ring of keys. “Will you lock up?” As she took the keys from him, he noticed her hands were shaking. “Where’s Luke?”
“Cops took him to the clinic. I heard one of them say his ankle is badly sprained, if not broken.”
“Shit,” Mac muttered.
What a clusterfuck
, he thought as he got into the ambulance to accompany his father to the island’s small community clinic. He sure hoped it was equipped for whatever his father needed.
Mac took the blanket the paramedics offered and tried not to focus too intently on his father’s gray face as they worked to stem the bleeding on the back of his head. He wanted to call Maddie, but right now all his focus was on his father. “Can you tell if he’s hurt anywhere else?” Mac asked.
“His arm is clearly fractured, and his blood pressure is really low, so there could be internal injuries.” Mac watched them pull a warming blanket over his father, trying to raise his body temperature.
He squeezed his eyes shut and burrowed into his own blanket, hoping to stop the violent trembling.
Please, God. I’ll do anything. Just don’t take him from us yet. Not yet
.
Much to Mac’s dismay, the clinic’s emergency personnel treated him like
he
was the patient. He struggled against their efforts to remove his wet clothes and get him into scrubs. “I’m fine! I don’t need to be seen. I have to know what’s going on with my father!”
“Mr. McCarthy, you’re hypothermic, and your pulse is weak,” the nurse said. She examined Mac’s eyes with a flashlight. “You might be a bit shocky, too.”
Mac’s chest began to ache the way it had during an anxiety attack a year or so ago, but he didn’t dare tell them that. “I’m not the patient!”
“You are now,” the formidable nurse declared after poking a thermometer in his ear. “Your temp is ninety-four.” She tugged a heated blanket up over him. “We’ve got to get you warmed up.”
Mac didn’t want to admit that the heat felt really good. “Can you find out what’s going on with my dad? Please? And Luke Harris? He was brought in, too.”
The nurse patted his arm. “I’ll go check. Try to settle down.”
“I need to call my wife. Can you get me a phone? Mine got ruined in the water.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Continuing to tremble under the blanket, Mac waited a long time for the nurse to return. He had plenty of time to ponder life without his father and for the ache in his chest to intensify. The whole thing had happened so damned fast! One minute his dad was standing on the dock, the next minute he was seriously injured and fighting for his life.
Mac shuddered as the images ran through his mind like a horror movie he couldn’t escape: his father disappearing from the pier, floating facedown in the water, the pool of blood surrounding him.
The nurse returned. “Since I don’t own a cell phone, one of the other nurses is getting hers for you. They’re taking your dad for some tests. He’s hypothermic as well, so we’re warming him up. His arm is definitely broken. That’s all I know at the moment.”
“Is he awake?”
“Not yet.”
“Is that normal?”
“Head injuries run the gamut. We’ll know more after we see the scan.”
“What if he needs a neurologist?”
She glanced up from his chart. “If necessary, they’ll fly one in.”
“Can’t we fly him to a trauma center?”
“He can’t fly if he has a brain injury, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We need to wait and see what the tests show, okay?”
No, it was not okay. None of this was okay, but what choice did he have but to wait for more information? “How about Luke?”
“Is he a relative?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“My, um, brother?”
She gave him a skeptical smile. “I can see the resemblance,” she said dryly. “Since he’s your ‘brother,’ I can tell you he has a badly sprained left ankle. But you did
not
hear that from me.”
“He probably saved my dad’s life—and mine, too.”
“Then I guess we’d better take extra special good care of him.”
“Please do.”
“So,” Maddie said as she and Sydney pored over baby furniture catalogs at Maddie’s house. They were sitting on the floor while Thomas played with trucks next to them. “Are you going to spill the beans on why you’re positively glowing this morning?”
Images from her amazing night with Luke flashed through her mind, heating her face.
“And
blushing
,” Maddie said, hooting with laughter.
“It’s incredible. I can’t believe it’s possible, but it’s even more intense now than it was before. How can that be?”
Leaning on the coffee table, Maddie rested her chin on her upturned hand. “Wow. As I recall, it was quite something before.”
Sydney nodded. “We have this unbelievable connection. I can’t even describe it. When you think about it, though, it shouldn’t even work between us. We’re so different, you know?”
“How do you mean?”
“I’m loud and outspoken, and I need to talk everything to death. He’s Mr. One-Word Answer. Less is always more with him.” Sydney paused and then added, “Except in bed, of course.”
“He can’t help that,” Maddie said, laughing. “He’s a guy.”
“True.”
“Will less be enough for you over the long haul?”
“That’s something I worry about. He’s very content with a smallish life on this island. I’m used to much bigger—lots of people and friends and stuff going on.”
“You’d definitely be downsizing if you lived here year-round. No doubt about that, but it wouldn’t be all bad. There’s something very cozy about settling in for a long, cold winter with the one you love to keep you warm.”
“You should know.” Sydney smiled at the blissful expression on Maddie’s face. “I’m tempted to try it for a winter.”
“Oh, yay!” Maddie clapped her hands. “We’ll keep you entertained. Don’t worry.”
“What if I try it and it doesn’t work out? What if I start to go stir-crazy halfway through the winter?”
Maddie thought about that for a minute. “I suppose you’d have to deal with that if—and when—it happens.”
“I’m afraid I’ll turn his life upside down—again—if I move out here only to decide later it doesn’t work for me.”
“No one says the only place you and he can be together is here.”
“His whole life is here. He has an amazing side business restoring boats. Did you know that?”
Maddie nodded. “I’ve been out on the Chris-Craft he did for Mr. McCarthy. It’s
gorgeous
. I’m always so afraid Mac is going to crash it or scratch it or something.”
“Luke does beautiful work, that’s for sure.”
“And there’s no reason he couldn’t do that same beautiful work on the mainland.”
“That’s true.”
Maddie reached over to squeeze her hand. “You’re getting ahead of yourself worrying about what
might
happen. All you can do is try it and see what it’s like. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. I’m sure he wants you to be happy, and if it ends up that he has to move, then I’m sure he would.”
“But that would make
him
unhappy.”
“If you ask me, you’re what makes him happy, and he couldn’t care less where he has to live to be with you. Remember what Joe did to be with Janey. He rearranged his entire life, and he’s blissfully happy. He loves her, so he did what had to be done so they could be together.”
“He hasn’t said it, but I know Luke loves me.”
“How do you feel?”
“Of course I love him, too. How could I not love him? He’s such a great guy.”
“Have you told him that?”
“Not yet.” Sydney fiddled with one of the catalogs. “I want to say it, but I get to the moment, and I just can’t get it out. I guess some part of me knows I’ll be making a commitment when I say those words, so I want to be sure, you know?”