Pausing, she shielded her eyes with her hand. She could no longer see the man. She held up the binoculars. There. His head was still above water.
She freed the mooring and clambered inside the boat. It rumbled to life and she took off toward the man’s position as fast as the aging boat could go. Not fast enough.
The weather had taken a metaphorical eggbeater to the water, forming choppy peaks. Overhead, charcoal-tipped clouds rolled toward her angrily.
She leaned forward, willing the boat to go faster.
Twice she lost sight of him and panicked, thinking he’d slipped under the waves for good. Both times she idled the motor and, bracing her legs apart, rose to her full height of five foot seven. Both times she spotted him and continued forward.
Islehaven’s residents served as the local emergency rescue force. She’d helped retrieve people from the water a few times in the past. Once after a boating accident and once after a small plane with engine failure had landed on the water. Those times, she’d assisted others.
This time, Remy was it.
She neared the man’s position and slowed her speed. “Don’t worry,” she called in a highly worried tone. “Everything’s going to be okay.” This situation was not okay.SOS! SOS! Emergency situation, her mind shrieked. “Can you put on a life jacket?” If he could, that would keep him afloat and face-up even if he lost consciousness.
He didn’t respond. He continued to swim for shore but was so exhausted, he made no progress. Life-preserver ring it was, then.
“I’m going to throw this to you.” She brandished the ring. “Hang on to it until we get you on board.”
He gave no sign of awareness.
“Sir!”
Still nothing. With shaking hands, she knotted the ring’s rope to the metal cleat on the side of the boat, then heaved the ring toward him.
He didn’t appear to notice.
“Grab it!” she yelled. “Grab it!”
He paused his swimming motion, which caused him to bob more upright. He was maybe in his mid-thirties. Skin very pale. Short, brownish hair slicked to an angular head.
“Grab the ring!”
At last, one of his arms streaked out of the water and came down on it.
Remy killed the boat’s motor. The sounds of sloshing water, squealing gulls, and her harsh breathing filled the void. She towed the rope in, hand over hand. He’d need to enter from the back of the boat via the ladder at its lowest point.
“Sir, can you hear me?”
Apparently not.
Once she’d pulled him close, she leaned her upper body over the boat’s edge and gripped the cold fabric of his white windbreaker. “Look at me.”
He tipped his face to her profile. His expression was blank. However, his glazed eyes did meet hers. All around him, churning water threatened to suck him down, down, down.
“There’s a ladder right in front of you. Climb up. I’ll pull as you climb.”
No response.
If he couldn’t climb, they were going to be in serious trouble. He was much larger than she and she didn’t think she could haul his dead, wet weight into her boat.
“Climb!” she ordered, tugging upward on his windbreaker.
He tried to climb, more in a dreamlike state than a conscious one, but his arms and legs refused to work as a team.
She looped the ring’s rope around his back.You are going to survive, she thought fiercely, the desperation to save herself that had once driven her to this island tangling with her desperation to save him. Remy threw all her body weight up and backward.
One of his feet found the lowest step of the ladder. He straightened that leg, which pressed his body higher.
