Quinn was already on the move, grabbing his car keys off the side table. “Can you stay with the kids?”
I jumped up off the couch. “Quinn, you can’t go out in this.”
He gave me a warning shake of his head, and I realized instantly me panicking in front of the kids would not help him. “I have to.”
“Dad?” Angus sounded scared as he sat up.
Heather leaned forward, eyes round with fear.
“It’ll be fine. I might not even have to go on a rescue. But I need to get to the station to see what the situation is. I’ll call you.”
Heather launched herself off the couch, past me and into Quinn’s arms. She hugged him tight, pressing her cheek to his chest. Quinn embraced her, kissing the top of her head. “It’ll be fine, flower. I promise.”
She reluctantly released him and stepped back.
I wanted to do what Heather had done. I wanted to throw my arms around him and feel his hard warmth against me. Feel him alive and breathing and … I wanted his reassurance he’d stay that way.
But my feet were frozen with internal panic.
“I’ll call when I can,” Quinn promised.
And then he was gone, disappearing into the nightmarish storm that howled outside.
38.Quinn
As we struggled to see anything through the lifeboat windows, I had to push my fear as a father whose children were depending on him to return home deep down where it couldn’t control me in this moment.
My stomach pitched with seasickness, something I’d never experienced before in my life, and I’d been on boats since I was a baby. Fishing was such a way of life on an island that it would shock me if there was any islander who wasn’t familiar with boating.
But unlike Murray and Laird who had been in storms, I’d never been in rougher waters than these right now. What worried me most was our pilot’s gritted expression. Bryan Weaver had been volunteering with the service since he and his husband Harry moved to Glenvulin to open their bakery. Growing up in Western Australia, the son of a fisherman, Bryan was as experienced on the water as any. More importantly, he’d been out in storms to rescue people.
The fact that he looked so concerned really prodded at my deep-buried fears.
As the mechanic, Forde was downstairs in the engine room, in contact with us via radio. Bryan was in the pilot seat, I wasin the navigator’s seat, the digital screen in front of me bobbing and weaving with the violence of the waves beneath us. Three other crew from the island sat across the aisle from and behind me. Grant Ure, Isla Cooper, and Shona McIver, who owned the fishmongers and smokery. All had more years than I under their belts with the service.
Shona looked green to the gills across the aisle, her fingers biting into the leather of the specialized seats that were supposed to protect our bodies from the impact of bad weather.
I tried to focus on the screen in front of me as Bryan called for an update. All that could be heard was the roaring wrath of the storm. Hundred-mile-per-hour winds battered against us, making our journey slow and brutal.
The coast guard had asked us to respond to a fishing boat that was taking on water just off the coast of Islay, one of the southwestern isles. Dead in the water, the boat was being pushed closer and closer to dangerous shoreline. There was a crew of three on board. I tried not to be angry at the fishermen for being stupid enough to go out with a storm on the way because they should’ve known better.
Just as I was about to inform Bryan we were closing in on the fishing boat’s location, the lifeboat suddenly tipped sideways and adrenaline hit my heart so hard it was like the organ launched up my throat.
In my fear, in my dread, I forgot the boat had capsize-righting ability.
It didn’t matter because as quickly as the boat hit its side, it was abruptly swept up in a massive swell that threw us into the air. Grant yelled behind me, and I didn’t know if it was because of the frightening event itself or if he was hurt. There was no time to turn, to ask. I could only hold on for dear fucking life as the boat slammed back down into the water and swayed almostonto its side again before listing in the opposite direction. It jostled us for a few seconds before it righted itself again.
We were all stunned silent.
Then my focus returned to the screen in front of me.
“Bryan, we’re approaching!” I unclipped my belt, grabbing onto the handles that aided me on my way to him. A look at the onboard cameras and the drone footage we had of the shoreline made my stomach plummet. “There’s no way we can get close enough to the fishing boat without being pulled into the current ourselves! We’re going to have to tow them!”
“Agreed!” He radioed down to Forde. The boat began to slow.
As I made my way to the crew, I realized Isla and Grant were helping Shona, who had vomited and was barely responsive.
“Seasickness,” Isla assured me. “Extremely bad. As our medic, I’ll need to stay with her.”
