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.
Yet, if I were asleep, I would not hear the desperate thudding of my own pulse, a mad tattoo in my veins. I would not feel the painful press of fiberglass digging into my spine. I would not shiver so violently in the cold breeze, or struggle to pull in each breath like a marathon runner passing the twenty-sixth mile mark.
I am here.
This is really happening.
I stare at the boy who smashed my heart into pulp, unable to say a single word. A million questions tumble inside my skull — infinite hows and whys and what the hells jumbled together into a confusing mental slurry. My tongue is lodged stupidly inside my mouth, refusing to function. I don’t know what odd twist of fate has brought our paths crashing back on course… all I do know is, in this frozen moment, I cannot form even one coherent sentence.
He seems to be at an equal loss-for-words, because he doesn’t make a sound. I watch his throat contract, Adam’s apple bobbing roughly, and wonder if he’s also having trouble breathing. I wonder if the sight of me haunts him, too — a ghost of the past, made present.
Once our eyes catch, they hold with magnetic force. Time seems to slip into slow motion as we stare at each other in silence. Tension builds, charging the air with an electric energy that rivals the lightning splitting the sky above our heads. The atmosphere practically crackles with it. Still, we do not move, or speak, or even breathe. We are a point of utter stillness at the center of the still-raging storm. The eye of an emotional hurricane.
Deadly quiet.
Endlessly still.
One move in any direction could be catastrophic.
The sharp beep of the radio makes us both flinch.
“Ebenezer, do you copy?”
Our eyes finally break contact as Archer bends to grab the receiver. He does not look at me as he raises it back to his mouth and replies to the Coast Guard. I watch his lips moving, forming words about our position and the state of the storm, but they barely register through an impenetrable fog of shock wrapped around my mind.
Taking a shaky breath, I climb slowly to my feet. My legs are unsteady beneath me, my bare heels pressed hard against the cold wheelhouse floor. I grip a nearby handrail to keep my balance and glance through the windshield, where two sets of wipers work double-time to clear the glass. The outline of Great Misery Island looms directly ahead, only a dozen or so yards off our bow. Even here, hooked to a mooring in the relative protection of the anchorage area, the sea churns like a pot set to boil. The lobster boat spins wildly on its tether in the ever-shifting tides.
One look at the bobbing white mooring ball tells me Archer was right — it’s not going to hold us for long. The thin lines aren’t designed for a boat of this size. Certainly not in conditions like this. They’re going to snap under the pressure. It’s only a matter of time until we break loose and are sent careening toward the rocky shoals that ring us on three sides.
Archer seems to realize the same thing. When I peer over at him, he’s staring worriedly at the half-submerged mooring ball. There’s a deep furrow between his brows. I can’t seem to look away from it.
How many times have I smoothed that same wrinkle from his face? After he had a grueling baseball practice or lost an important game… when his brother Jax got arrested for drug possession or his father Miguel broke his arm falling off a ladder… Sitting at our spot up in the old boathouse rafters, I’d lean over and swipe at it with the pad of my thumb.
If you don’t stop frowning, one day when they put your face on a baseball card, you’ll be covered in wrinkles. Cheer up, Reyes.
I push the memories away with a painful mental shove. It’ll do me no good to remember how things used to be.
How we used to be.
Feeling the weight of my gaze, Archer glances over at me. Our eyes lock instantly. The air goes stale, like someone’s sucked out all the oxygen molecules.
“How are you feeling?” he asks lowly.
Confused.
Disoriented.
Scared.
Shocked.
“I’m fine,” I say, my voice just as low.
He nods. Breaking eye contact, he clears his throat. “Fine enough to make for shore?”
My heart skips a beat at the thought of getting back in the water. “We should wait for help—”
“The Coast Guard isn’t coming,” Archer says bluntly. “Not until the sea calms down and the storm passes. That could take hours. We’re on our own.”
“Don’t you have a cellphone?”
“There’s no service this far from the main land. And even if there were, who do you suggest I call? StormChasers?”
Ignoring his sarcastic comment, I grit my teeth. “I don’t think abandoning ship is the answer.”
“We can’t stay here. Even if the pendant lines hold — and that’s a big if — we’re dragging the mooring’s anchor along the bottom every time a wave hits. We’ve drifted a dozen feet in as many minutes. At this rate, we’ll be on the rocks long before help arrives.”
“Then we should try to reach a harbor — Manchester isn’t that far. The storm seems to be dying down—”
“There’s another band of thunderstorms moving this way. We’re just in a lull right now.”