HIGH TIDE (26 page)

Echoes.

Briana lumbered to her knees and cupped a hand against her ear to try and clarify the reverberations. She shook her head and saw Keo’s face float in front of her amidst a cloud of black smoke. For a bewildering moment she thought she was at a luau.  Following the movement of his lips, the sound ensued—slow and distorted.

“
Are you alright?”

Mutely, she nodded. Once the echoes
faded her wits returned.  Propelling towards the rail, a wail of protest bubbled from her throat.

Flames danced across the water, spurred on by the expanding slick of oil
—a nebulous shadow on the shimmering surface. The trawler was still afloat, but now a gutted shell of its former self. The deck on which five people once stood only moments ago no longer existed.

“
Nick
!” she screamed. “
Nick
!” she repeated, choking on a lungful of acrid air.

Power seeped from her legs
. She teetered with vertigo.

Keo used his forearm to shield his face and maneuvered the searchlight mounted atop the
Inquiry’s
bridge. That beam spanned across smoldering water, where flotsam filled the black sea.

A facemask floated by. Briana shuddered at the desolate image. She clutched the rail, terrified of the melee below. What if the dark slick had consumed
Nick? What if he suffered an injury in the blast that rendered him unconscious, and set him adrift in the ocean—
sinking
.  

Leaning forward, she passed the point of balance.

“Bree-
no
.” Naoki caught a fistful of her shirt and yanked, though she struggled against him.

“We’ve got to save him,” she sobbed. “Naoki, Nick is out there—”

Briana saw movement in the water. Was it an oxygen tank bobbing in the agitated surf? She broke from Naoki’s grasp and leaned over again.

A tarnished forearm sliced through the chaos, and beneath the strobe a stark face was highlighted for one moment and then absorbed in deep shadows the next.

Nick
.

There was no deliberation. She
yanked free of Naoki’s grasp and climbed over the balustrade, plunging into the water. Surfacing, she gasped for air. Stricken by the heat, she choked against the pungent scent of fuel. Cautiously, she opened her eyes to mere slits, but the intensity of the fumes forced them shut again.

“Nick,” she croaked.

Something scraped against her calf. Debris from the wreckage?  A jagged chunk of metal that could snag on her clothes and haul her down?  Or a shark, looking for an already well-cooked meal? Briana kicked at it, but her efforts propelled her into a rusted barrel nearly twice her size. Her arm flailed to shove against the behemoth canister and met the sharp sting of fire. Terrified, she yelped and choked on an intake of water.

Debris crowded around
her, boxing her in, disorienting her to the point that she wanted to cry out for her mom.  A hand fastened about her waist and Briana jolted with the demented thought that her mother had somehow manifested to help her.

Another gulp of brackish liquid severed
her yelp of panic as she struggled for freedom.

“Easy—Br
ee—it’s me.”

***

Nick averted his head each time Briana’s arm thrashed his way. Her next punt connected with his thigh as he deftly ducked under her frenzy of limbs and tread close enough to corral her. This only intensified her panic.

“Briana,” he called.

The bleak conjecture in her eyes made his breath hitch. Repeating her name in a calm intonation, he sensed her gradual response as she began treading water on her own. Clarity returned to that wild glare.

“Nick,” she gasped.

“I’m right here, baby.” He used his arm to shove away shattered panels of the hull, their edges serrated and deadly. “What do you say we get out of the water?”

Briana nodded and tore her gaze from his long enough to locate the research vessel in the acrid cloud of smog. Not daring to lose his grip on her, Nick felt the demons in her limbs, but she
was keeping them under control now.

“The others—Joy?”

His brief twitch of the head said it all. “They didn’t make it, Bree.” There was regret in his voice.

Nick concentrated on clearing their course to the
Inquiry
. He brushed aside a dive light and herded Briana closer to the hull.

“The coast guard will be here soon, they’ll—”
Retrieve the bodies he was entwined with when he regained consciousness.

Try as he might to shed that image, Nick knew it would join several other sinister apparitions that haunted him at night. Even now, the intensity with which he scoured the surface was meant
to secret any glimpse of the crew from Briana.

“Boss man!”Keo knelt at the top of a rope ladder unfurled from the deck of the ship.

Nick grabbed onto the knotted cords and urged Briana with his free hand to ascend. White fingers clutched the sodden mesh as she hauled herself up, always looking back over her shoulder to confirm he was there.

“Keo, grab her.”

“Got her, Nikolo.”

***
  

Atop the deck of the
Inquiry,
Briana gripped the rail for support and shivered despite the heat of the fire tapering down to intermittent pockets of flames. Watching Nick’s ascent, she held his eyes as he slowly advanced on her and halted a foot away. She explored his body and cringed at the trickle of blood that began to stain his abdomen. Charcoal smudges scarred his cheekbones, and above that, intense eyes never wavered from hers.

It was a struggle to
keep the tears from hindering her sight. If she did weep, though, it would be sobs of relief. Instead of sobbing, she inclined her head so that the tears could slip back behind her eyes.

“Nick,” she choked.

It was the hoarse gravity with which she said his name that spurred Nick. He was there instantly, his arms around her, his mouth against her damp hair, whispering words of encouragement, and soft murmurs of admiration.

***

With a blanket slung across her shoulders, Briana stood on the deck and studied the smoldering remains of the trawler. Nick was beside her with his arms crossed, his shoulders tense, and his profile grim. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Dark hair hung in damp waves over his ears, just above a thick smudge of grease. It was that smudge that drew Briana’s fingers as she reached for the patch and gently rubbed it with the pad of her thumb.

The gesture broke Nick from his reverie. He turned into her palm and dusted a kiss across it.

“How are you doing?” he asked in a husky voice.

“Given the events of the day, I’d have to say I’m remarkably calm right now.” She slid her hand behind his neck and he instantly drew her into his embrace.

Strong
.  Nick’s body was so strong. In this haven she felt a peace of mind that had eluded her for a very long time.

“The explosion—
did it kick off a wave?”

“It was a surface explosion, and it was just the engine
apparently struck from stray gunfire.  It was not the detonation they had planned.”

Somewhat pacified, Briana’s head dropped against his shoulder.

“You scared me today.” Nick uttered hoarsely.

“If I could put into words how I felt when I saw that boat explode,” Briana rasped, “well, terrified would fall in there somewhere.”

“Why did you go in the water, Bree? You could have been burned. You could have been caught under debris—it was safe up on deck. You know that I would have wanted you to stay safe above all else.”

With her face pressed up against his shirt, she smelled fire and saltwater. “Because
you
were down there, and that—that— “
Deep breath
, “—that was all that mattered.”

Hooking a fi
nger beneath her chin, Nick tilted her head back and delved into her eyes. “That’s a pretty strong declaration.”

“Which is why I’m scared too.”

The corner of his lip curled up in response. “I bet you are,” he chuckled quietly. “My independent Land Contractor—ever the source of control and reliability, suddenly afraid that she’s falling in love—and absolutely terrified by it.”

The analogy was accurate, Briana thought, but Nick didn’t have to be so smug
about it. Of course, it was with that self-satisfied smile that he looked his sexiest. She fought the temptation of it in order to pitch her feeble case.

“Well, let’s talk about what you were doing on that tr
awler with a spear gun in your hand. Let’s talk about how you got there, swimming and scaling the hull like a Navy Seal. All for what, McCord?”

The grin dissipated, and even in the soft glow of the bridge, Briana witnessed the gravity settle into his expression.

“You know why.”

If she hadn’t already, the solemn tone and the intense gaze gave her a good idea. It wasn’t fair to bait him, but nonetheless she needed to hear
it. She needed to hear him say the words. “No,” she whispered, “Why?”

His kiss caught her off guard. It was a swift consumption of her mouth, a
clench of his embrace, a need to believe that she was his. Nick’s hands traveled up her arms, cupped her throat and then cradled her head in his palms as he continued to savor her.

Caught up in the urgency, her lips parted with a soft gasp beneath his. Her nails dug into the bunched muscles of his shoulders, anchors in a raging sea of emotions. As she kissed him, she felt tears escape the corners of her eyes and trickle down her cheek. But she would not stop this kiss—
not for anything.

Affirmation was there in the way he caressed her mouth. Her name was a tormented whisper lost in that intense velvety trade. Tears now continued unchecked as
she wept.

Nick dusted his lips across her closed eyes and brushed away the trail of tears.

“We’re safe,” he whispered, “and we’re together.”

His mouth dropped to the corner of her mouth, where she sensed his soft smile. Without opening her eyes, Briana responded in kind. With a feline purr of satisfaction she felt his tongue dust skillfully across
her lip, and realized that this erotic sensation—more than anything—would heal them both.

“Uh-huh.
Uh-huh
!” Naoki coughed, cleared his throat and finally wrapped his knuckles against the wall behind them.

***

Only when he was good and ready did Nick ascend from that kiss. He kept his arms wrapped around Briana’s waist, uncertain whether she was trembling from fear, or passion. Looking into sultry eyes that flashed with suggestion, he was certain it was the latter.

“We’re kind of busy,” Nick stated h
oarsely.

“I—uh—I see that.” Naoki shuffled and reached to push his glasses up. “It’s just that Keo said we’re almost there, and that there’s a rather large w
elcoming
committee that would like to talk to you.”

That declaration captured
Nick’s attention. Beyond Naoki’s fidgety silhouette he caught a glimpse of the pier. An ensemble of pulsing red and blue lights congregated at its rim, and only the soft head that rested against his collarbone heard the growl of dismay deep in his throat.

With the
Inquiry
drawing closer to port, away from the encumbering smoke, he could better distinguish the crowd that now began to assemble. Recognizing a couple of white utility vehicles from the Geological Survey, he grunted.

Looks
like I’ll be in trouble
. Utilizing government property, jeopardizing it to chase after pirates—
But I’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant saving Briana.

Briana tipped her head back and he could feel her watching him. He gave her a brief encouraging smile. Using her hand
s for leverage against his chest, she reached up on her toes and dusted her lips against his cheek.

Why did a kiss on the cheek feel so good?

It felt good because it felt real. It felt natural. It felt like the future and history all rolled into one.

“They’re going to pry us apart soon,” he
murmured, not even noticing that Naoki had graciously retreated.

Briana
squeezed tighter and molded herself against his body.
Damn
. He folded his arms around her back, and over a groan of satisfaction, said, “You’re not going to make it easy for them to do that are you?”

“No,” she whispered.

The
Inquiry
shuddered to a halt in its slip, but it was a long time before the couple at its aft broke from their embrace.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN