The tail section looked like a banana peel. But the poor Otter was so mangled it was impossible to tell the difference between the damage that’d occurredbeforethe crash and the damage that’d occurredbecauseof the crash.
For a long moment, he followed the old girl on her final journey into Davy Jones’s locker. Paying tribute to her for all the glorious hours of freedom and flight.
You were a good bird,he silently told her, watching more debris float through her exit.I’ll miss you.
The sea was a curious creature. It didn’t cool at a continuous rate. Instead, its temperature dropped at noticeable intervals. It was layered, like one of Bran’s lasagnas. And each of those layers was called a thermoclime.
The instant he hit a new thermoclime, when the warm water nearest the surface gave way to an icy coolness that had goose bumps erupting over his skin, he knew it was time to kick toward the light. He realized he’d sunk farther than he’d planned when he saw the sun rippling on the waves far overhead.
Using his arms and legs in tandem, he propelled his body through the water, his ears attuned to the subtleclickingandpoppingsounds that could always be heard around the Florida Keys. The sea life was so abundant, the parrotfish, pistol shrimp, and grunts so numerous, that they filled the ocean with their noise until it sounded like swimming through a bowl of Rice Krispies.
He was about halfway to his destination, aiming for a patch of water close to the rectangle of orange drifting overhead, when he saw Doc plunge into the ocean.
The big man was a spectacularly graceful swimmer, his long arms and legs displacing water as easily as a dolphin slicing through the drink.Usually.Doc’s broken arm interfered with his downward strokes, and it was obvious each movement was agony.
Damnit, Doc!
Kicking harder, Romeo met Doc in the water about twenty feet from the surface. Doc grabbed the collar of his T-shirt to haul him up, but then grimaced and let out a lungful of bubbles when the move caused him additional pain.
Romeo ended up latching onto Doc’s elbow and using his legs to catapult them both skyward, his muscles aching with the effort and with the lack of oxygen. By the time the two of them burst into the sun, his lungs were on fire and his eyesight had tunneled.
Raking in a desperate breath, he filled his chest cavity until the rush of O2 made his head spin. As soon as he could manage a word, he turned to Doc. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Saving your miserable life, you stupid asshole!” Doc sputtered.
Romeo opened his mouth to come back with something appropriately macho like,Please, I could’ve stayed down for another two minutes—SEALs were nothing if not arrogant pricks, and they wereespeciallyarrogant about near misses—but he snapped his jaws shut when he heard a soft wail coming from the life raft.
Spinning in the water, he saw Mia sitting on the edge of the watercraft, her hands over her face as her shoulders shook with heartrending sobs.
“Mia?” He scissor-kicked in her direction. His heart, which had been metronome steady while treading water up from the deep, went into overdrive. When a seat cushion popped up in front of him, he shoved it aside, annoyed at anything that blocked his path to the life raft. “What’s wrong?” he demanded, spitting out a mouthful of salt water when a wave slapped him in the face. “Are you hurt?”
She lifted her head and he saw her bottomless, golden eyes were filled with tears. Never in their entire acquaintance had he heard her raise her voice, so he was shocked to his core when she yelled at him, “I thought you were dead, you asshole! What were youdoingstaying down there so long?”
Two assholes in the span of ten seconds. I’m really winning hearts and minds today.
“I’m sorry,” he swore, realizing he’d scared the shit out of everyone. “I wasn’t thinking.”
She reached for him when he pulled even with the raft. Even though he didn’t need her help, she gave it to him by tucking a hand under each of his arms and yanking.
She was stronger than she looked—all that diving and digging, I guess—and he was over the edge in an instant.
“Move back so I don’t get you wet,” he told her, sitting on the round rubber side of the life raft and swiping the salt water out of his face.
“Screw you,” she croaked.
His chin jerked back and he blinked at her in shock. Before he knew what was happening, she was in his lap with her arms wrapped tight around his back.
He could feel the heat of her breath where her face met his neck, smell the sweet nectar of her expensive skin lotion, made stronger because she was warmed by the sun, and appreciate how firm and round her butt was since it was cushioned against his thighs.
He was in heaven. He was in hell. He was...notthinking of her as a friend.
Chapter 6
11:56 AM...
Never thought I’d come to the point in my life where I’d need a stronger word than “fuck,”Camilla D’ Angelo thought as she watched Doc tread water toward the life raft.
Then again, she’d never been in a plane crash before.
