Falling for Rachel
Page 37

No time to think. Pure instinct had Zack grabbing a flotation device and diving into the face of the storm.
Falling, falling, endlessly, while the gale tumbled his body like dice in a gambler’s hand. Black, pitch-black, then the white flare of lightning. Hitting a wall of water that felt like stone. Having it close relentlessly over your head. Like death.
Zack awoke gasping for air and choking against the nightmare water. Sweat had soaked through to the sheets, making him shiver in the chill. With a groan, he let his head fall back and waited for the first grinding ache of nausea to pass.
The room tilted once as he staggered to his feet. From past experience, Zack knew to close his eyes until it righted again. Moving through the dark, he went into the bathroom to splash the cold sweat from his face.
“Hey, you okay?” Nick was hovering in the doorway. “You sick or something?”
“No.” Zack cupped a hand near the faucet, catching enough water to ease his dry throat. “Go back to bed.”
Nick hesitated, studying Zack’s pale face. “You look sick.”
“Damn it, I said I’m fine. Beat it.”
Nick’s eyes darkened with angry hurt before he swung away.
“Hey, wait. Sorry.” Zack let out a long breath. “Nightmare. Puts me in a lousy mood.”
“You had a nightmare?”
“That’s what I said.” Embarrassed, Zack snatched up a towel to dry off.
It was hard for Nick to imagine big, bad Zack having a nightmare, or anything else that would make him sweat and go pale. “Uh, you want a drink?”
“Yeah.” Steadier now, Zack lowered the towel. “There’s some of the old man’s whiskey in the kitchen.”
After a moment, Zack followed Nick out. He sat on the arm of a chair while Nick splashed three fingers of whiskey into a tumbler. He took it, swallowed, then hissed. “I can’t figure out how he had a liver left at the end.”
Nick wished he’d pulled pants over his briefs. At least he’d have had pockets to dip his hands into. “I think when he started to forget stuff, it helped him to blame it on the whiskey instead of—you know.”
“Alzheimer’s. Yeah.” Zack took another swallow, let it lie on his tongue a moment so that his throat could get used to the idea.
“I heard you thrashing around in there. Sounded pretty bad.”
“It was pretty bad.” Zack tilted the glass, watched the whiskey lap this way and that. “Hurricane. One mean bitch. I never understood why they started naming them after guys, too. Take it from me, a hurricane’s all woman.” He let his head fall back again, let his eyes close. “It’s been nearly three years, and I haven’t been able to shake this lady.”
“You want to—” Nick cut himself off. “That should help you sleep.”
Zack knew what Nick had wanted to ask. And he did want to. It might be best for both of them if they talked it through. “We were off of Bermuda when we got the distress call. We were the closest ship, and the captain had to make a choice. We turned back into the hurricane. Three civilians in a pleasure boat. They’d been thrown off course and hadn’t been able to make it to shore before the storm hit.”
Saying nothing, Nick sat on the arm of the couch so that he was facing his brother.
“Seventy-five knot winds, and the seas—they must have been forty feet. I’ve been through a hurricane after it’s made landfall. It can be bad, real bad, but it’s nothing like it is when it’s at sea. You don’t know scared until you see something like that. Hear something like that. The lieutenant took a rap on the head, it put him out. We came close to losing some of the crew over the side. Sometimes it was black, so black you couldn’t see your own hands—but you could see that water rising up. Then the lightning would hit, and blind you.”
“How were you supposed to find them in all that?”
“We had them on radar. The quartermaster could’ve slipped that ship through the crack of dawn. He was good. We spotted them, thirty degrees off to starboard. They’d tied the kid—little girl—to the main mast. The man and woman were fighting to keep it afloat, but they were taking on water fast. We had time. I remember thinking we could pull it off. Then the mast cracked. I thought I heard the girl scream, but it was probably the wind, because she went under pretty quick. So I went in.”
“You went in?” Nick repeated, wide-eyed. “You jumped in the water?”
“I was over the side before I thought about it. I wasn’t being a hero, I just didn’t think. Believe me, if I had…” He let the words trail off, then swallowed the rest of the whiskey. “It was like jumping off a skyscraper. You don’t think you’re ever going to stop falling. It was end over end, forever, giving you plenty of time to realize you’ve just killed yourself. It was stupid—if the wind had been wrong it would have just smashed me against the side of the ship. But I was lucky, and it tossed me toward the boat. Then I hit. God, it was like ramming full-length into concrete.”
He hadn’t known until later that he’d snapped his collarbone and dislocated his left shoulder.
“I couldn’t get my bearings. The water kept heaving me around, sucking me down. It was so black, the searchlight barely cut through. There I was, drowning, and I couldn’t even remember what I was doing. It was blind luck that I found the mast. She was all tangled up in the line. I don’t know how many times we went under while I was trying to get her loose. My hands were numb, and I was working blind. Then I had her, and I managed to get the flotation on her. They said I got the tow line secured, but I don’t remember. I just remember hanging on to her and waiting for the next wave to finish us off. Next thing, I was waking up in the infirmary. The kid was sitting there, wrapped in a blanket and holding my hand.” He smiled. It helped to think about that part. Just that part. “She was one tough little monkey. A damn admiral’s granddaughter.”
“You saved her life.”
“Maybe. For the first couple of months, I jumped off that deck every time I closed my eyes. Now it’s only once or twice a year. It still scares the breath out of me.”
“I didn’t think you were scared of anything.”
“I’m scared of plenty,” Zack said quietly as he met his brother’s eyes. “For a while I was scared I wouldn’t be able to stand on deck and look out at the water again. I was scared to come back here, knowing that once I did, my whole life was going to change. And I’m scared of ending up like the old man, sick and feeble and used up. I guess I’m scared you’re going to walk out that door in a few weeks, feeling the same about me you did when you walked in.”