by Jill Jones
Taylor turned to look behind her in the direction the boat was traveling and drew in a sharp breath. “What the hell?”
Behind her, the scene she had just described was vanishing before her eyes. A heavy mist, suddenly rolling in from nowhere, clutched its vaporous tentacles around the Ladysgate, and it disappeared in a thick fog. Just like that. She’d never seen anything like it. For the first time in a very long time, fear dropped into the pit of her stomach. Not bothering to disengage from the audio cable, Taylor scrambled back to midships, where Fergus McGehee gripped the wheel with white knuckles, his face pale and distraught.
“What’s happening?” she demanded.
“Looks like we’ve got a bit of a spring fog droppin’ in on us,” he replied easily enough, but Taylor sensed his deeper concern. “It’s best we be gettin’ on back now.” He steered the boat to the left, and she saw his lips move in a curse just before a large wave hit the ship broadside, almost swamping it. The young men in the stern yelled and grabbed for the gunwales, and Taylor heard the thud of their equipment cases striking the side of the boat even as she lost her footing and landed butt-first on the craft’s hard sole. Fergus held tightly to the wheel and rode the wave through, at last turning the boat toward the open sea. He gunned the engines, but the vessel seemed to make no headway. Indeed, it appeared to Taylor, who had pulled herself up onto the bench seat, that the craft was moving steadily backward instead, as if of its own volition. It was swirling slightly from side to side, like a leaf bobbing in a rapid stream, caught in the current of the strong incoming tide.
And then Taylor realized to her horror that no one on board wore life vests. In their eagerness to get to the site of the Ladysgate, no one, not even the captain, had given a thought to safety.
“The life jackets!” she called. “Where are they?”
Fergus pointed to the bench in front of him where she sat. “In there. Quick. Get them!”
Seeing that both young men were frozen in terror, Taylor jumped up and lifted the seat. Inside, several orange life vests were lined in a neat, dry row. How could she have been so stupid?
Quickly, she pulled the clumsy vests one by one from the box and handed them to Fergus who passed them back to Barry and Rob. The Scotsman held the wheel and revved the engine for all it was worth, but the force of nature was stronger than the motor’s power, and the boat tossed and bounced helplessly through the fog, heading ever closer toward shore. Cursing her carelessness, Taylor grabbed a life jacket for herself, then dropped the cover of the bench and sat on it again, fighting to keep from being slung from one side of the pitching vessel to the other.
“Can’t you do something?” she yelled, unable to believe that she had allowed herself to end up in such a precarious situation and angry with the doltish captain who had assured her they would be fine. She wished she’d paid more attention to that Master Mariner, Duncan Whatshisname, last night. She had no time to reflect on her poor judgment, however, and her anger turned to terror as she felt a sickening scrape, and Fergus McGehee’s fishing boat sliced its hull on a submerged boulder. “Oh, God,” she uttered.
But a large wave picked up the boat, now completely at the mercy of the sea, and thrust it forward, lifting it off the first rock and crashing it onto another. Please, Taylor prayed, oh, please get this damned boat close enough that we can make it to shore if it breaks apart.
The sky turned suddenly darker, the way it does when a cloud passes in front of the sun, and Taylor looked up to find herself in the jaws of a monster, a voracious sea-creature with a mouth that gaped from the surface of the water to someplace high above, its upper teeth hidden in the dense fog. She never knew if she screamed as the great sea demon flung her from the boat into the icy waters of the North Sea and prepared to devour her alive.
Duncan Fraser had a gut feeling that something was wrong. He’d been in rescue work for two decades, and he had learned to trust his instincts. In times past when he’d had this sensation, the radio had crackled shortly with a call for help.
He pulled up the blinds that covered one of the windows of the RNLI shack and studied the boats moored in the harbor or tied to the docks. A shroud of fog hung barely above the weatherbeaten hulls, threatening to drop at any moment. He scrutinized each boat, mentally ticking off the name of its captain, taking roll of the vessels that belonged in Stonehaven harbor. He stopped and went over them again.
Someone was missing.
McGehee.
Surely the fool wasn’t crazy enough to ignore the fog warnings that had been broadcast for the area today. Often after a spring storm such as yesterday’s, a fog would follow, a thick, soupy fog no sensible mariner would dare sail into by choice.
Irritably, he dropped the blinds again and picked up the phone. It took only a few calls to find out what Fergus was up to, and when he did, Duncan sat down heavily in his chair, rubbing his eyes and shaking his head. That idiot! That fool!
But he wasn’t sure to whom he was referring, whether to Fergus McGehee or to the woman who’d hired him.
They were in trouble. He sensed it, and yet, there was nothing he could do at the moment. No call for help had come over the radio. If they’d left sometime after daybreak, they had not been gone long enough to consider them overdue. His stomach knotted, and his frown deepened.
There was nothing he could do.
Nothing except wait, and hope his gut feeling was wrong.
Chapter Five
A cold wind shrieked down the barren hillside and struck Taylor squarely in the face, jolting her into consciousness. She opened her eyes to a sky filled with gray clouds scudding anxiously in the wind. She blinked, then tried to move, but every muscle seemed riveted painfully to the earth.
Memory trickled back, filling her with shock and horror. She recalled being thrown from the boat into the icy waters at the base of the Ladysgate. She remembered hearing the screams of the others on board. And then nothing. Closing her eyes again, Taylor let out a small, anguished moan.
She was alive, but what about the others?
With great effort, she raised herself to a sitting position and looked around, but she saw no one.
That’s odd, she thought instantly. How did I get here? Instead of being on the shoreline, she was sitting on the lower slope of the hillside. Not far away, the monstrous granite archway loomed, appearing even larger and more threatening than it had from Fergus McGehee’s boat. With sudden alarm, Taylor realized that the Ladysgate was no longer surrounded by water, but now stood squarely on dry land.
A dream, she thought immediately in an attempt to quell her panic. She was awake in a nightmare. Maybe she was in a hospital somewhere, rescued rather than drowned, doped up on drugs and hallucinating heavily.
“Barry!” she called, her weak voice lost in the wind. “Rob!” She stood on shaky knees and became aware that her clothing was soaked. Clammy jeans clung to her legs, and layers of shirts and sweaters hung in heavy, wet folds about her torso. But her discomfort was not her first concern.
Where were the others?
She cried out their names again and staggered down the hillside, stopping short of the formidable arch. “Oh, God, what have I done?” she croaked, scanning the desolate shoreline, searching for some sign of her film crew and the captain she had coerced into taking her on this dreadful misadventure.
She dug frantically into the bum-bag looking for her cell phone, only to remember she’d left it in her room at the inn. She uttered a silent curse. What time was it? Looking to the sky, she saw that the sun hung low in the west.
She guessed the ship had been wrecked around noon. Maybe the others had survived, but because she’d somehow ended up inexplicably so far from the water’s edge, they had been unable to find her and had gone for help. “Can anybody hear me?” She summoned strength to her voice and called in every direction. But the only reply was the cry of the gulls that dipped and swooped into the ocean as they fed.
Taylor tried to get her bearings. Sh
e knew that the ocean lay to the east, and Stonehaven was a few miles to the north. She scanned the countryside, hoping to find some less strenuous terrain for the hike back to town. She clambered up the hill again, which was strewn with bare rocks and looked curiously as if it had been wasted in the not too distant past, perhaps by fire. There were no trees, only a few scraggly shrubs and a covering of low grass. In the distance, she heard the bleat of a sheep, and her gaze followed the sound, coming to rest on a low, wattled dwelling further up the next hill.
Maybe there would be a telephone there.
Taylor reached what she decided must be a farmer’s cottage and knocked at the rough wooden door. Although she saw a trail of blue smoke rising from the chimney, no one answered her summons. She knocked again. “Anybody home?”
After a few moments, she tested the latch. The door was unlocked. She pushed it open a few inches. “Hello? Anyone here?”
She felt like Goldilocks entering the home of the three bears, but any reluctance she felt toward being an intruder was quickly overcome by the welcome warmth of the fire crackling in the hearth. Taylor couldn’t resist the temptation and crept inside. Holding her hands to the flames, she rubbed her fingers briskly, restoring circulation to numb, cold flesh. Then she turned and gave her backside a chance to thaw while her gaze traveled the single room of the dwelling, searching for the telephone.
Through the gloom of the pale light that filtered in through two small, high windows, she beheld surroundings of extreme austerity. The shanty was crude, primitive almost, built of clay and whitewashed inside and out. A small cot covered with a sheepskin was placed along the wall immediately to her left, close to the fire. Opposite her was a rustic cabinet and a chair with animal hide stretched across the seat and back. Several wooden pegs were set into the walls, and from one, a woolen garment draped almost to the floor. It was a drab olive green or brown, with a faint pattern of plaid woven into the fabric. Along the wall to her right, a wooden plank mounted on legs that looked like tree trunks served as a table. On it were a tankard, a bowl, and a knife, along with a blackened cooking pot.
But no telephone.
And no other amenities, such as a bathroom.
Stretching her aching muscles, Taylor marveled that people still lived like this in the 21st century. Were the owners of this hut just painfully poor, she wondered, or was it their choice to live in the ways of their ancestors? She had visited other lands where country folk had made it clear they wanted no part of the complexities of modern civilization, and sometimes, just a little, Taylor had wondered if their simpler lifestyle wasn’t preferable to her own frenetic existence.
She brought her mind back to her immediate dilemma. She must get back to Stonehaven as quickly as possible. If the others had not been rescued, she had to get help to search for them. Oh, God, she prayed again, please let them be okay.
Her clothing, although warmer now, was still soggy, and she knew the moment she stepped outside into the wind, she would be chilled again almost immediately. Perhaps it would be better to wait in the protection of the cottage for the farmer to return. Maybe he would have a vehicle, and she could pay him to drive her into the village.
She felt for the pouch at her waist and unzipped it again, glad she’d bought a heavy duty, waterproof one. The camera was actually dry, as was her small coin purse and the photocopies of the letter she’d made at the lawyer’s office. That seemed like ages ago, although she knew it had been only a little over twenty-four hours. She retrieved a small hairbrush that she had also tucked into the bag, along with a compact and lipstick and a roll of breath mints. Never knowing when she might have to step in front of the camera, Taylor never traveled without at least minimal cosmetic supplies close at hand. She stroked her long hair vigorously, deriving warmth from the stimulation of the bristles against her scalp.
Deciding to wait for the owner of the cottage to return, she slipped out of her jacket and heavy outer sweater. She was tempted to remove the cumbersome jeans as well, but decided it would be inappropriate for her to completely disrobe in the home of a total stranger. Instead, she moved the solitary chair in front of the fireplace and hung the wet clothing over it to dry.
Outside, the wind gusted suddenly, whistling eerily around the windows. Taylor shivered. Her undergarments were still wet, she was starving, and her whole body ached with bruises and fatigue. She eyed the woolen blanket on the peg. She looked at the cot.
So she’d be Goldilocks. Quickly, she stripped bare and wrapped herself in the coverlet, then draped her underwear over the chair to dry with the rest of her sodden clothes.
If only she knew where they kept the porridge…
Duncan had spent the day trying to ignore his gut feeling, but by late afternoon, he was seriously concerned that the one boat gone from the harbor had not yet returned. Where in the name of God was that idiot McGehee? He knew Taylor Kincaid had hired him to take her to the Ladysgate, but they’d had plenty of time to take a scenic tour and be back by now. Even though there was no real emergency, Duncan had radioed every offshore rig and vessel passing within fifty miles of Stonehaven, but no one reported having seen or heard from the fishing boat. He hesitated to call the neighboring RNLI stations, not wanting to create problems where there probably were none. He stared out the window vacantly, trying to decide what he should do. There was no emergency, no call for help.
And yet…
His gut feeling shouted at him again.
Damn it! He slammed his palm against the wall, shaking the window pane. He couldn’t stand by any longer, waiting. He had nothing more to go on than a hunch, but things just didn’t feel right.
He looked at his watch. It was six o’clock, but as it was late spring, the sky would stay light for several hours yet. Since there was no emergency, he would take his own boat, rather than one of the RNLI rescue craft, but with its powerful engines, he could easily make the trip down the coast to the area around the Ladysgate and be back before dark. Provided, of course, he found nothing and wasn’t delayed. The fog had lifted, although clouds still hung in a low ceiling overhead. There was a chance, always, that it would descend again.
Duncan rested his hand on the receiver of the telephone and drummed his fingers. One of his rules of sea rescue was never to go alone. Another was not to needlessly risk another’s life. Should he call in a backup?
Since there was no official emergency, he decided against it. He often took his boat out alone. The weather had calmed considerably, and checking the tide tables, he determined that he would get to the rock formation at slack tide, although he knew the current could still be strong. He did take the precaution of donning his heavy rescue gear, if for no other reason than it would keep him warm and dry. Exiting the Life-Boat station, Duncan headed toward his boat that was secured to the dock in the harbor. He hoped this was all in vain, and that before he got very far he would spot the other vessel returning to the harbor and could himself turn back.
Whatever the outcome, Duncan planned to make good on his threat to revoke McGehee’s license. Or at least suspend it for thirty days. The damned fool.
The late afternoon sun settled under the layers of clouds as Duncan stepped aboard the heavy crew boat tied to the dock. He started the two huge inboard diesels, and they thundered reassuringly in the engine well. He untied the lines, and with the ease that comes from long experience, he backed away from the pilings. He turned the boat toward the neck of the harbor and gathered speed as he reached the end of the jetties and headed into open water.
Taking action helped relieve Duncan’s anxiety, and the crisp ocean air cleared his thoughts. The weather had remained relatively calm all day, he reflected, looking for reasons not to worry. If McGehee had run into fog or a squall, perhaps he’d had had the good sense to take refuge in another harbor further south.
Yes. That’s likely what he’d done, Duncan tried to convince himself. But he set his course for the Ladysgate anyhow and gave the engines full power, quickly bringi
ng the heavy craft to maximum speed.
Thirty minutes later, he could see the dark outline of the arched stone looming ahead of him, silhouetted in the late evening sun. If it didn’t pose such a hazard to navigation, the area would be a popular destination for pleasure boaters, he knew, for it was a breathtaking view. But most sensible seafarers stayed safely away. Unfortunately, Duncan had never considered Fergus McGehee either sensible or safe, and certainly not much of a seaman.
Duncan drove the boat hard, wondering just why he was so determined to save McGehee’s ass, especially if he wasn’t sure it even needed saving. But he knew it wasn’t McGehee’s backside he was concerned about. The particular, rather appealing, backside he was worried about belonged to one of McGehee’s passengers.
One blonde female passenger.
One blonde female passenger he had no business being interested in, but one, for the life of him, he couldn’t seem to get off his mind.
Duncan Fraser had been a bachelor for four years. Or more exactly, a widower. He was determined to stay that way, even though he was a man to whom family at one time had meant everything, because he never, ever wanted to go through the pain again. The pain of losing those you love.
After the deaths of his wife and sons, he’d grown reclusive, dealing not very well with the guilt he felt for their accident. Guilt that pointed a finger squarely in his face for letting his wife drive that night, for allowing his sons to get in the car with her when she came to the Life-Boat station to pick them up the night of the accident. He knew she’d stayed too long at the pub after work and had had far too much to drink. He knew her tendency toward reckless driving. Why had he not taken them home himself and then returned to his vigil at the station?