Dangerous Waters

by Radclyffe

  “That woman has some stones,” someone muttered.

  You have no idea, Dara thought, silently urging Catherine to forget the story and retreat to higher ground.

  “Hurricane Leo has just made landfall here in Miami,” Catherine shouted into her microphone, eyes nearly closed against the stinging pellets of rainwater propelled by a force so strong she barely managed to keep her feet. Her cameraman clung to the door handle on the media van, gamely filming what he probably couldn’t even see at this point. She only hoped he didn’t let go or come to his senses, jump in the van, and leave her stranded out here. “As you can see, ocean water has already breached the seawall and is beginning to flood the streets. If you are in the area, do not try to drive. The major thoroughfares are already impass…”

  Catherine’s words seemed torn from her throat and the camera wavered, panning madly over buildings that were quickly becoming islands in the rapidly rising storm surge. A studio anchorman could be heard yelling in the background, “Catherine, Wade—get out of there now!”

  Dara held her breath, watching Catherine’s form flicker as the live feed faded in and out. The water was already up to Catherine’s hips—higher than many adults, and certainly a small child, could survive if pulled under. And yet Sawyer had jumped into those waters to help save her family. Dara pictured a seven-year-old Sawyer trapped in a flimsy mobile home as the floodwaters rose around her, scrambling for safety with two younger children and a terrified mother. She knew without a doubt Sawyer would be out in those waters in seconds if another’s life hung in the balance. That’s what Sawyer did—risked her life to secure the safety of others. Dara’s heart hammered wildly. “Come on, Catherine,” she whispered, “haul your butt out of there.”

  The TV feed switched back to the studio, where an anchorman who was trying hard not to look worried sat at the ubiquitous curved console in front of a projection of a map of Florida covered by a huge red circle that encompassed the whole lower two-thirds of the state.

  “You’re watching up-to-the-minute live updates from Channel Ten Storm News Central. Our on-the-scene reporter Catherine Winchell will be back with further updates as they unfold.”

  Penny leaned over and murmured, “Bet she wins awards for this gig.”

  “She ought to,” Dara said. “If this is the beginning, we’re in for an ugly time.”

  “Sampson said not to expect any word from him, maybe for days,” Penny said quietly. “I made him promise to check in whenever he could, but he said they expected cell service to go out when the power did, and the power company’s saying it could be weeks before they get the grid up again.”

  “I hope they’re all wrong.” Dara’s stomach dropped. She hadn’t been able to sleep after Sawyer’d left the night before—the kiss alone would have kept her awake, and their debate over keeping Miami Memorial open for business just added a shot of adrenaline to her already humming system. Her body wanted one thing, and her head warned her to reverse course. She was letting her attraction to Sawyer get out of control—kissing was all well and good, and damn, that had been good, but kissing for her did not usually lead to a near-simultaneous desire to drag a woman off to her bedroom and stay up all night exploring her admittedly fabulous body while offering herself up like the main course at an all-you-can-eat banquet. Which she had most definitely wanted to do—and still did, even if Sawyer was the wrong woman at the wrong time and might not even be the right woman at the right time. Sawyer was used to being in charge, used to giving orders, and used to assuming responsibility for everyone and everything that crossed her path. She’d been indoctrinated to put herself at risk for the greater good when she’d been just a child, and despite how valorous that might be, it did not necessarily make for smooth relationships. Not with a woman like Dara, who needed to be firmly in charge of her own decisions and her own destiny, right or wrong. No, she’d met Sawyer in the midst of a crisis when every interaction, every action and reaction, was heightened by the tension and danger, and that went a long way toward explaining why she was acting so out of character.

  All of that rolling around in her head while her body was amped up to the point of exploding was not conducive to falling asleep. Since trying to rationalize away the disturbing need to hear Sawyer’s voice, to know where she was and what she was feeling, did not make for a restful night, she’d stopped trying to sleep shortly after midnight. She’d emptied what little food remained in her refrigerator and dumped it along with the leftover Chinese down the trash chute, checked that all her electronics were unplugged, packed a go bag with necessities, and returned to the hospital. She’d slept fitfully and every time she’d surfaced, she’d checked her texts. Nothing from Sawyer. Finally at six a.m. when she’d figured Sawyer had to be awake too, she texted, Be careful out there. Call if you can.

  “Have you heard from the colonel?” Penny asked.

  “Not since a quick text this morning. She said one of the designated shelters had flooded from a backed-up sewer line and they were moving people to another facility on airboats.”

  “She probably won’t have much more in the way of communication access than Sampson once we really get hit.”

  “I know,” Dara muttered.

  Penny cocked her head and pursed her lips. “Uh-oh. Something’s up.”

  “What? No, nothing,” Dara said way too fast.

  “Oh, don’t even try that with me.” Penny poked her arm. “You weren’t even gone very long last night—what happened?”

  “Just as I said. Nothing.” Dara sighed. “Much. We were having dinner and—”

  “Wait—what dinner? Where and how?”

  “Sawyer brought Chinese over—”

  “To your apartment?”

  Dara shot her a look. “If you want the story, you’ll have to be quiet.”

  Penny made a zipping motion over her lips.

  “Yes—she called and offered to bring takeout. I said yes—we could eat and catch up at the same time.”

  Penny rolled her eyes and made snorting sounds.

  “Stop.” Dara grinned. “We got the alert and never ended up eating much.”

  “What else happened?”

  “There might have been a kiss.”

  Penny sat up straight, the same predatory glint in her eye Catherine Winchell got when she smelled a story. Dara wondered why she’d never noticed that before. That probably explained why she could never keep a secret from Penny. Relentless. Before Penny could pounce, Dara added, “A long, very nice…exceptionally nice…brain-melting…kiss.”

  “Nice,” Penny said on a long exhalation.

  “Yes, well, we all have too much to do to dwell on that,” Dara said.

  Penny snorted again. “You just keep telling yourself that.”

  “No choice.” Dara knew better than to expect Sawyer to keep in touch in the midst of a developing crisis, but she could still hope.

  An ER nurse stuck his head in the room. “We’ve got a drowning and a blunt force trauma coming in. ETA five minutes.”

  Dara jumped up. “Like I was saying, no choice.”

  Halfway to the door, the room plunged into darkness.

  Landfall plus 22 minutes

  National Guard Crisis Command Center

  Sawyer grabbed for her phone as the lights went out. While searching for a cell signal, she counted the seconds in her head. At twenty the emergency generators kicked in and the perimeter lights below the ceiling in the warehouse came on. Her computer monitor flickered back to life and she keyed in the URL for the FPL power grid. Everything for hundreds of miles surrounding Miami was dark.

  “Major,” she called to her XO.

  “Ma’am,” Rodriguez said, appearing in the door of her cubbyhole office. He was a slender thirty-year-old who’d been activated for the current crisis and assigned as her executive officer due to his experience with disaster response in his civilian role as a Florida department of environmental conservation officer. So far he’d managed to keep track of
all the various state and local civilian responders and their military counterparts while updating Sawyer on traffic on the emergency channels.

  “Secure communications with the county and local law enforcement. If they’re offline, reroute all emergency calls to us.”

  “Yes, ma’am. What about medical 9-1-1 calls?”

  “I’ll contact fire-rescue dispatch and confirm readiness.”

  “Miami Memorial is in the blackout zone,” Rodriguez pointed out.

  “They’ll have backup power, and unless or until they can’t handle any new patients, they will be our primary delivery point.” Sawyer shunted aside the twist of worry in her gut. Dara would be fine. She involuntarily glanced at her phone. No text from Dara. No time. That’s all that meant.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Rodriguez halted, pulled out his phone, and frowned. “Charlie Company reports structural damage to the evac center at the Tamiami Fairgrounds. Part of the roof went.”

  “Casualties?”

  Rodriguez pressed his phone to his ear. “Say again,” he shouted. “Roger that.” He looked to Sawyer. “No troop casualties. Minor civilian injuries—cuts and bruises mostly. Several possible extremity fractures—Charlie Company is transporting.”

  “Carry on.” Sawyer waited until he’d cleared the doorway and texted quickly. Keep me updated. S

  She hesitated, wanting to say more, but nothing she could condense into a text would say what she needed to say, or do anything to dull the gnawing fear building in the pit of her stomach as the wind howled and the metal sheets of roofing screamed and tried to break lose. Finally she added, Be careful.

  Words as impotent as she felt in the face of Leo’s wrath.

  Landfall plus 86 minutes

  National Hurricane Center Atlantic Ops

  Stan snatched his phone off his desk when it vibrated and he saw the number. “Anna? Is everything all right?”

  “My God, Stan, I’ve never seen anything like this. Even Andrew didn’t come in so hard.”

  His wife sounded more awestruck than frightened, which was like her and not necessarily a good thing. Knowing her, she’d try going outside to take photos. “Where are you?”

  “In the closet.”

  Stan covered his other ear and pressed the cell to his left. “Say again? This connection is iffy.”

  “I know—the lights went out here a while ago and we don’t have power back yet. I don’t know how long I’ll have a cell signal.” Anna huffed. “I have the battery backups to the computer I can use to charge my phone if the signal lasts.”

  “Did you say you were in the closet?”

  “I thought that was best after the hurricane sheets blew off the windows and then the glass shattered.” She laughed. “There are palm fronds in the living room. From the look I got outside, the water must be into the lobby, probably the stairwells.”

  Stan’s chest tightened. If the first floor flooded, the generators would be swamped too. No power, no food or water. “How many people are still in the complex?”

  “At least half.”

  Stan cursed under his breath.

  “You know a lot of them are seniors and wouldn’t want to leave. We’re okay above the first floor, I think.”

  “You might not get power back, Anna.” Stan kept his voice steady, but he had to sit down. “You’re going to need to evacuate—you and everyone there.”

  “I really don’t know how we can do that, Stan,” Anna said softly.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Landfall plus 13 hours

  Miami Memorial Hospital

  Dara finished wrapping the preformed fiberglass splint with an ACE wrap. “You need to see an orthopedic surgeon within the next three days. The break looks clean to me, but you’re probably going to need a cast for another six weeks.”

  The firefighter grunted, and she looked into his soot-smeared face. “Was that a yes, Lieutenant Julio?”

  He grinned. He must’ve been in his early fifties, a little salt-and-pepper streaking the stubble on his chin and cheeks, crow’s-feet from years of Florida sun radiating from the angle of his eyes, and creases circling the corners of his wide mouth. His shoulders were broad and his frame muscular looking even under layers of clothes that made Dara sweat just looking at them. His turnout coat was draped over a chair nearby. He still wore his heavy Kevlar turnout pants and flame retardant boots, and she pitied him needing to work in ninety-plus-degree weather in sweltering protective gear. Although the gear probably had kept his injury on the less serious end of the spectrum.

  She could tell he wasn’t listening. He wasn’t the first firefighter, cop, or other first responder she’d seen in the last thirteen hours, and every single one of them said the same thing.

  It’s nothing, Doc. Regulations require me to get clearance. So could you put a Band-Aid on it and sign off on me so I can get back out there.

  Every single one of them was eager to get back into the fray and seemingly unconcerned for their own well-being. Like Sawyer, she was sure. With most of them, their injuries had been minor enough she’d been able to grant their request with a clear conscience, but one paramedic had been swept under by a rush of water into a basement where she’d been assisting the apartment building manager in shutting off a gas leak. She’d hit her head on something when she’d been pulled below the surface, sucked in a lungful of muddy water, and nearly drowned. She was upstairs in the ICU on a ventilator. As soon as Dara got a minute she’d go up and check on her.

  Treating the steady stream of civilians and emergency workers gave her a pretty good idea of how bad things were out there already, and they had days to go before Leo was done thrashing them. And then weeks of rebuilding and recovery. Knowing Sawyer was trained and experienced didn’t help calm her worries—she was an ER doc. She’d seen every kind of injury under just about every circumstance imaginable. And Sawyer was not the kind of commander who led from the rear. Oh no—she’d be at the front, no matter the risk. Dara tried her best not to panic when she hadn’t heard from her. She just kept working and checking her cell. Sawyer would get in touch soon.

  Right now, she had a reluctant firefighter to talk some sense into.

  “You realize, if you ignore my advice, you could convert what would be a straightforward fracture into something a lot worse.”

  “Not my first rodeo, Doc.”

  She rolled her eyes. “How about your first hurricane, Lieutenant?”

  He shrugged. “Not that either, but I’ve never seen a mess like we’ve got out there. Electric lines down, power out everywhere, cars sitting upside down on hotel patios—” He shook his head. “I’m surprised you don’t have people stacked twenty deep out there in your waiting room.”

  “Don’t we?”

  He snorted. “Looked like it might be getting close. Give it another twelve hours if the rain don’t ease off and you might. Still hundreds of people trapped in their houses who are gonna need help getting to shelters.”

  “Just try to use your judgment out there, and remember to go easy—and take care of that arm.”

  “Sure thing, Doc. Thanks for the quick work.”

  He hopped down, grabbed his bright yellow turnout jacket, and slung it over his shoulder. She realized he’d never taken off his helmet. Maybe he slept in it. He looked happy to be heading back out into miserable weather to face another emergency.

  “You’re welcome,” Dara called as he hurried out of the cubicle. “Don’t forget to sign out before you go.”

  Another grunt was her only answer. Shaking her head, she quickly checked the room to make sure all the sharps had been disposed of and pushed the curtain back. She jumped when she came nose to nose with Penny on the other side.

  “Don’t tell me—another critical?”

  “Not yet. Thought you’d want to know Sawyer’s on TV again,” Penny said.

  “Catherine?”

  Penny nodded wryly. “Yep.”

  Dara sighed. Catherine had obviously caught up with Sawyer
somewhere and was reporting on the National Guard’s rescue efforts with regular broadcasts. “I suppose I should watch. I need to know what’s going on out there.”

  “And it doesn’t hurt to catch a glimpse of the colonel, either.”

  “No,” Dara murmured, “it doesn’t.” She paused for a second and pointed at Penny. “And you—you need to get off your feet for at least six hours. I mean it. You’ve just worked a twelve-hour shift.”

  “So have you.”

  “Not pregnant.” Dara pointed to herself.

  “Just you wait,” Penny said peevishly. “Someday you’ll be in this situation, and I’m going to mother-hen you to death for revenge.”

  “That day is a long way off,” Dara said. “Now go.”

  Penny, looking pale and tired, said, “All right. Six hours. You need a break too.”

  “I will. Shoo.” Dara trusted that Penny would follow instructions. She was stubborn, but not reckless. As Dara hurried toward the break room to catch the last of the news report, she thought about what Penny had said. She’d never really considered the issue of children. She was single and had a demanding job and, if she was honest with herself, had never really pictured herself in the kind of relationship where children might be part of the plan. She’d need someone she could count on for the long term before she’d consider children. Someone she loved, and who loved her. Though maybe the pictures she’d been letting herself consider hadn’t been everything she wanted. Maybe.

  The break room was empty—everyone who wasn’t seeing patients was trying to catch some sleep.

  Catherine was in her now-familiar position of standing in the rain with some destroyed part of the city as a backdrop, a microphone held between her and Sawyer as the two of them leaned close together to form a windbreak around the mic. This had to be Catherine’s sixth or seventh live update since Leo made landfall, and each one played every few minutes until a new one took its place. Catherine had traded her civilian clothes for a camo jacket, one Dara was happy to see didn’t have Sawyer’s name on it anywhere. She would’ve been really annoyed if Catherine was wearing Sawyer’s clothes. Sawyer was in full uniform and looked as alert and energetic and in command as she had twelve hours before in her first news feed. If you didn’t know her, you wouldn’t see the strain in her jaw or the shadows in her eyes.