The supply boat was a red-and-white affair sixty feet long. The platform produced its own power and water, but food supplies, all sorts of products that were needed on a daily basis, arrived by boats out of Galveston.
Kenzie stepped onto the deck and immediately lost her balance as a heavy wave lifted the vessel several feet into the air. Reese’s strong hand wrapped around her waist to steady her, and she smiled. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” His hot glance said his mind was already on the night ahead. Kenzie felt a rush of heat, but Reese’s attention had returned to the job at hand.
He followed Tony along the deck toward the bow of the boat, where a big metal crane was offloading supplies to a deck that circled the base of the rig. An elevator lifted the goods to the various decks, where they were unloaded.
Reese was busy asking questions, but as the boat pulled away from the lower deck to circle the four massive pillars supporting the rig, Kenzie was absorbed by the beautiful day, the clear blue sky, and foamy white waves breaking against the hull.
She watched a seagull circling above her and smiled at the warmth of the sun on her face. She noticed Reese moving farther away as Tony explained something about the crane.
It took a moment to realize something in the atmosphere had shifted. She turned at the sound of shouting and running feet. The engine stalled and a wave washed over the bow. Then the big boat shuddered and erupted in a fierce explosion, pieces and parts flying into the air with murderous force.
“Kenzie!” Reese raced toward her. He was still several yards away when a second explosion ripped through the air, lifting the center of the boat out of the sea and flipping the deck onto its side.
Kenzie screamed as she hit the cold water, the shock taking her breath away. Kicking her legs, she pushed toward the surface, broke through, and dragged in a deep breath of air. The sea was littered with huge chunks of wood and pieces of plastic, some of them on fire, but the boat itself seemed to be holding together in some kind of tenuous bond. But where was Reese?
Treading water, she turned in a circle, madly searching for him, determined not to panic, fighting to stay calm until she found him. He had been farther away, somewhere past the crane on the bow of the boat. Half the crane remained on the deck, but the rest had been blown apart. A huge piece of metal attached to a slab of wood floated in the ocean a few yards away.
“Reese!” More and more frantic, she swam toward the bow but saw no sign of him. She’d been the best swimmer on her high school swim team and she used that skill now, diving beneath the surface again and again. Still, no sign of him.
Her pulse was pounding, hard and fast, and fear threatened to overwhelm her. She dived again, swam toward the bow, and dived again.
Her heart jerked when she spotted him, ten feet below the surface, struggling to free himself from the heavy piece of metal holding him under the sea.
Kenzie went up, took a deep breath, and scissored through the water, swimming back down as fast as she could. She came up beside him, reached out, and touched him as he struggled to free himself. His eyes met hers and she read the resignation. He didn’t believe she could free him. He thought he was going to die.
Terror hit her so hard, her mind spun. Her eyes burned and it wasn’t from the salty water. No way was she letting him die!
Her throat tightened and her chest clamped down as she tugged on the rough strip of metal pinning his leg against the heavy submerged chunk of wood. It didn’t budge.
His eyes were closed now and she saw the breath he’d been holding drifting in small bubbles toward the surface. Kenzie yanked frantically on the metal strip, but there was no give. Reese had kicked off his sneakers in an effort to free himself, but his pant leg had snagged and was caught tight.
Her air was gone. She shot to the surface, dragged in a quick breath, and dived again. Forcing herself to concentrate, to find a solution to the problem, she spotted a smaller piece of metal sticking out of the wood and managed to pull it free. It was sharp on one edge, perfect to use as a blade. She began sawing back and forth, trying to cut through the denim pant leg trapping below the surface.
Her breath was almost gone when she realized the whole section of wood and metal was slowly sinking, pulling both of them down. In moments, it would be too far to the surface for either of them to reach.
Griff’s sweet face appeared in her mind. She couldn’t die. She had to think of Griff! A few more seconds were all they had. Chest burning, she reached for Reese, pulled as hard as she could, and the last of his pant leg tore free.
Determined now, kicking as hard as she could toward the murky sunlight, she was almost there when two bodies surged into the water beside her. One of them pushed Reese to the surface, the other grabbed her arm and pulled her up beside him. She broke through the surface and dragged in a lifesaving breath of air.
“Reese!” Coughing and sputtering, she felt herself lifted into a lifeboat and saw Reese lying on the bottom, one of the rescuers giving him artificial respiration.
She started to shiver. Her eyes burned. “Please, God, don’t let him die.” A blanket wrapped around her shoulders as she knelt beside him, reached out, and touched his cheek. “I love you, Reese,” she said. “Please come back to me.”
They worked over him for several more terrifying minutes before he coughed, coughed some more, dragged in a breath, and expelled what seemed like gallons of seawater.
“Reese...” His name came out on a whisper of air and the tears she’d been fighting slid down her cheeks.
“He’s gonna be all right,” Tony said with the widest smile she had ever seen. “He’s gonna be okay.”
Kenzie started crying.
After that, everything seemed to blur. A Coast Guard chopper arrived and airlifted Reese and two other injured men out of the lifeboat. Reese refused to go unless they took her with them.
Inside the chopper, he held on to her hand, his eyes on her face. “I remember some of it, not all. Did I imagine you swimming underwater toward me? Was it real or some kind of delusion?”
She could still recall her terrible fear. “I couldn’t find you. I kept swimming. Then I saw you—trapped by a piece of the crane.”
