Page 155 of Her Reluctant Hero
“I don’t know. Maybe they had a boat.” He motioned toward the beach. “Get your gun and come with me to the truck. I need a cigarette.”
She was only a few steps behind him when he walked down to the water’s edge, to the debris scattered there.
The cigarette could do nothing to ease the rising panic in his throat. The white and red chunks on the sand were fiberglass pieces of theMiss M. He crouched beside one, picked it up, looked at the ragged edge. It had possibly struck a reef somewhere and gone down. Or it could have been destroyed by the same people who may have killed Robert.
His brother, his people, might have been on it at the time. Because he hadn’t remained vigilant, his brother might be dead.
He tossed the cigarette aside and gripped Mallory’s arm to turn her around, lead her to camp.
“We’ve got to get our dive gear.”
“What? Why? Adrian, your arm—you can’t dive. You won’t be able to swim.”
He stopped, glared, her words barely penetrating the roaring in his ears, the need to know the truth. “I don’t have a choice. I think someone blew up my boat.”
They found bits and pieces of gear in the camp—most had been kept on the boat or the barge, including the compressor for the air tanks. They found two half full tanks in the rear of one of the trucks, a pair of fins in Toney’s tent, another pair in Jacob’s. No scuba suits, but the depth off the coast wasn’t much, and the water wouldn’t be too cold.
Tension built in Adrian’s chest as he strapped the tanks across it. He didn’t want to dive and find the bodies of his brother, his friends. He was not built for shit like this. Burying the professor last night had used the last of his reserves and he couldn’t take anymore.
But he couldn’t leave them, either.
He grasped Mallory’s arms before they jumped off the edge of the dock, forced him to look at her, forced himself to comprehend the worry and fear in her eyes. He needed to keep her safe too. “We don’t know what we’ll see. We have no clue where they are. You shouldn’t go.”
She met his gaze steadily. “You need me down there. I’ll be all right.”
He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip, then bent down and kissed her, hard. He didn’t know how he’d manage without her here.
The water was quiet beneath the surface, almost as calming, as mind clearing as the cigarette had been. They had no idea where the boat had gone down, had only a little air. Their first search would have to yield something. They wouldn’t get another chance until they returned with equipment.
The wreck wouldn’t be right off the dock. The structure itself hadn’t been damaged. They had to swim, and his guess was to swim in the direction of the cove entrance, where the boat would have come in from the barge.
He and Mallory didn’t have enough air to make it to the barge itself.
The water was clear; they could see to the bottom without having to swim along it. The closer they stayed to the surface, the less air they used. If he could just calm himself, he could make the half-filled tank last. He was an experienced diver. He could do that.
Mallory, who swam slightly ahead, motioned to him. Ah, hell. What did she see? He approached and saw bits of red and white on the seafloor below. He pulled a dive buoy out of his pocket, used his regulator to inflate it and sent it to the surface. When they came back with help, they’d be able to find the site more easily.
He kept an eye on his gauge as he descended. They had to conserve air for decompression stops, and they’d already used nearly half of what they’d started out with. Shit. They were going to have to do a quick discovery dive and get out.
Mallory watched as he set his alarm. Five minutes was the most they could spare.
They had definitely discovered the site of the accident, and from the scattered looks of things, it had been no accident. The boat had exploded.
Yeah, possibly the compressed air had blown and foul play hadn’t occurred, but Adrian couldn’t get the image of Robert’s body out of his head. He didn’t want to bury more friends, but he had to know.
With a disdain he couldn’t show on an archaeological dig, he tossed pieces aside, looking for bodies, for anything that would let him know what had happened to his people. He kept an eye on Mallory and said a silent prayer that she wouldn’t find anything grisly.
His alarm went off too soon, and he was tempted to ignore it, but they were alone in this wild place. They couldn’t risk the dangers of staying down too long. He signaled to Mallory and they slowly rose to the surface.
They didn’t have enough air to spend the full time allotted at the last decompression stop, so both were gasping for breath when they broke the surface. He looked into Mallory’s eyes, then out over the water.
Where the hell was his brother?
They lay side by side on the beach, panting as they stared up at the sun. Mallory hadn’t had to swim that distance in years. Fortunately, the tide had been with them. She didn’t think Adrian had the strength to pull her back to the beach. She needed to check his injured arm, but he probably wouldn’t allow her yet.
“We need help.”
“We have to wait. Being stuck in the jungle would be worse than being stuck here.” His voice was strained, as if he was holding on to the last of his own sanity.
