His face had leeched of color and his dark eyes were fixed on a point over her shoulder. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help craning her head around to see what’d caught his attention.
Her lungs froze in her chest when she saw another rogue wave headed their way.
Only this one was ten times bigger than the one that’d briefly lifted the Otter while they were trying to make their escape.
“Dear god,” she breathed, goose bumps erupting up the length of her arms despite the heat of the sun beaming down. It was like her brain was having trouble fathoming the enormity of the rogue wave. And in its efforts to compute, it didn’t allow her to rip her gaze away from the malevolent wall of water barreling toward them.
“Any way we can avoid that?” she heard Doc ask.
“Nope,” was Romeo’s one word reply before he quickly added, “Hurry! Secure everything you can!”
That was all the impetus Mia needed to drag her terrified eyes away from the rogue breaker. She quickly began stuffing water bottles down her shirt. The granola bars made their way inside her blouse too. But when she went to try to find some room for Romeo’s flip-flops, he told her, “Forget them.” And she watched as he wrenched the oars from the oarlocks and secured them back inside the raft.
Cami had looped the strap of her purse over her head and shoulder and grabbed the flare gun case. Doc had latched onto the first aid kit with his good hand and was in the process of trying to find a way to hold onto it as well as the safety rope lining the inside life raft.
“Here,” Cami said. “Let me help.”
The lawyer scooted next to Doc. With one hand, she held onto the flare gun case and the safety rope. She used her other hand to reach across Doc’s body and latch onto the rope beside him, effectively making herself a human seat belt.
“Come here,” Romeo commanded Mia, hitching his chin that she should join him.
She didn’t hesitate.
Scooting between his legs, she pressed her back flat against the warm wall of his chest. He snaked one arm around her waist and twisted the other around the safety rope.
She followed suit, grabbing the nylon cord on each side of her and trying not to pass out as her vision tunneled down to a pinpoint of light.
“Breathe,cariña.” Romeo’s breath was warm in her ear. “We’ll make it. You just have to hang on.”
And just like that, her heart settled from a rapid, erratic flutter to a fast, but steady, beat. It was amazing how he could do that, comfort her and calm her with just a few words.
When she sucked in a breath, her visual field broadened. Although she wasn’t so sure that was a good thing, because the only thing to meet her wide eyes was the wave looming above them.
She thought it should roar or moan orsomething. But it was strangely silent as it finally reached them and gently tipped the end of the life raft skyward.
Maybe she was imagining things, but it felt like the air around them suddenly cooled by ten degrees. It was like when the sun moved behind a cloud, except there wasn’t a white puff of cumulus in the sky. And she would swear the scent of sea life and salt water grew stronger as the wave bore them higher.
Higher.
Higher still.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the sandbar come into crystal clear focus. But she didn’t have time to give it a good look because, suddenly, they rode the crest of the wave. The life raft seemed to teeter-totter for a few seconds. Enough time for Mia to lock eyes with Cami and see the fear in the lawyer’s stare that she knew was reflected in her own.
Then they were falling.
That was really the only word for it.
It was like that ride at the state fair that jacked you up high in the sky before letting you freefall into nothing. The only difference was that there was a gradual slowing at the end of the fair ride, and Mia knew the only thing waiting to stop their decent here was the hard, unforgiving surface of the sea.
It felt like it took them an eternity to slip down the back side of the giant wave. But it could only have been a handful of seconds.
Somewhere in the middle, her stomach had floated up into her throat. But when they finally found the trough at the bottom of the wall of water, it thudded back into place.
Her stomach and everything else in the boat.
Seriously, she’d always thought the phraseteeth-rattlingwas figurative. But she literally felt her molars crash together and then jostle around in her gums when the life raft slammed into the ocean.
Cami squealed.
