Troubled Waters

by Susan May Warren

  He got up and tossed the blanket back on his bed. “What do you think?”

  “Actually . . .” And maybe it was his story, maybe the sense that he was still a little shaken, maybe even less guarded, but she let the question unravel from where she’d tucked it tight in her chest. “I’d like to know why you call her the Montana Rose.”

  Silence, and then he turned and looked at her.

  It reminded her a little of how he’d looked so many times when she’d seen him staring at her across the Gray Pony Saloon, especially that summer she’d dated Sam Brooks. Or even further back, when she’d look up and spot him across the office, his gaze on her. He always covered it with a tinge of a smile, one that curled forbidden warmth through her.

  Now his face bore so much raw, unhidden emotion, she couldn’t move.

  Couldn’t breathe.

  “Why do you think, Sierra?”

  Her heart thundered, banging hard against her ribs. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  He blinked then and gave a sort of nod. “Wow. Really. Hmm.”

  A knock at the door made her jump, and he blew out a breath, looked away. “Can you get that?”

  Uh, sure.

  She opened it, and Erica stood there holding a tray of bottled water and towels tucked under her arm. “Kelley asked me to bring Mr. Shaw—”

  “Thank you,” Sierra said and took the supplies.

  But when she turned, Ian had already slipped into the bathroom and locked the door.

  9

  I DON’T KNOW? That’s all she had for him?

  Sierra’s words left Ian spinning. She didn’t know?

  Ian had fled to the bathroom, locked the door, and braced his hands on the sink, staring at himself in the mirror.

  She had to know, right?

  Had to know that the first thought he’d had when he’d come to was, Sierra. Where is Sierra?

  And the way she hid her face in her hands, shaking, little sounds of horror erupting from her—okay, call him a fool, but certainly that meant she still had feelings for him.

  It occurred to him, however, that she didn’t realize he had feelings for her. After all, he had fired her, had kept his distance, hadn’t said a word when she dated Sam, and hadn’t exactly asked her out last year after they broke up.

  He just assumed . . . well, he hadn’t actually given up his search for Esme, and Sierra had been pretty clear about her feelings. “As long as you are searching for Esme, you’ll never have room for me in your life.”

  But Ian wasn’t searching for Esme any longer. And that reality hit home as he lay in his cabin, rolling around his options in his head.

  He could sell the ranch, yes, buy something smaller, and after he helped Dawson get on its feet, he could use the rest of the capital to get PEAK back up and running, maybe even expand their services.

  Stick around Mercy Falls, and . . . and . . .

  He fell asleep with that thought, and he slept so hard that when Dex’s voice outside roused him, he thought he might be back on the Crawford Triple C. But the motors from the boat had kicked in, as if they were underway back up the coast, and it only took a moment, the shift of the boat on the waves, to remind him.

  At sea. Aboard the Montana Rose.

  Night filtered into the window, and he fought the temptation to sink back into oblivion.

  Then he heard Sierra laugh, and the combination with Dex’s voice had him suddenly very awake.

  He showered, pulled on a pair of track pants and a T-shirt, and emerged into the hallway.

  Past dinner—he could hear voices in the kitchen, the rattle of dishware being washed. He wandered out to the sitting area outside, past the dining room, and found the group lounging under the stars. The deck swayed under his feet, but the shoreline seemed too far away to make out in the darkness. The starlight twinkled against the inky sea, the air fresh and warm.

  He couldn’t quell the urge inside him to find Sierra, to shake free of the past, take her in his arms—

  “Hey there,” Dex said. “You feeling okay? Sierra told us to leave you alone, but . . . well, Kelley wasn’t the only one who wanted to go in and make sure you were still breathing. Didn’t want his hard work to go to waste.”

  “I’m still breathing. And hungry.”

  “We ate, but there’s probably leftovers in the galley.”

  Noelly had gotten up and walked over to him. She pulled him into an embrace, held on. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s fine, Noelly,” he said and held her away from him. “I promise.” Then he kissed her cheek, and she seemed to pull together.

  They all appeared dressed for dinner, out of their beachwear and into sundresses and polo shirts.

  “Did I miss something?”

  “Sierra gave us her presentation about PEAK,” Dex said. “We told her she didn’t have to, but she’s nothing if not determined to end well.”

  “We don’t want it to end, however,” Vanessa said. “We talked her into extending the trip by a couple days.” She was sitting beside Hayes, and he had his arm around her.

  “What?” He looked for Sierra, but she was nowhere in sight. “Are you serious?”

  “We didn’t want it to end on a sour note, so . . . yeah, actually,” Dex said. “We’ll all pitch in, pay the captain and the crew for a few more days at sea. What do you say?”

  “I don’t need you to pitch in, but . . . um . . .”

  “Bahamas, baby!” Hayes said.

  He didn’t know what to say, except, “Where’s Sierra?”

  Dex got up. “I’ll find her.”

  Uh—

  “We’re going to change and hang out in the whirlpool, under the stars,” Hayes said, getting up and holding out a hand to Vanessa.

  Noelly followed them, her hand lingering on Ian’s arm as she passed by him.

  Dex had headed down the gangway, toward the back deck.

  Ian stood there, his stomach pitching a little with the roll of the yacht. Yes, they were most definitely moving, and Ian headed up to the bridge.

  Captain Gregory sat in his elevated captain’s chair before an array of radar screens, navigational devices, communications receivers, a compass, and a number of other pieces of blinking, digital equipment Ian should probably know.

  He couldn’t read radar well, but judging by the map, it looked like they were north of Cuba, coming up on the Florida Keys.

  “So, we’re really going to the Bahamas?”

  The captain turned. “Miss Rose ordered the trip extension. You said to follow her orders, sir.”

  Yes, he had. Still, the decision to suddenly change course felt so out of Sierra’s character.

  Felt, really, like a decision influenced by Dexter Crawford. And it turned a knot in Ian’s gut.

  That was just it. Whatever Dex was up to, it wasn’t going to work.

  Because there was only one man for Sierra. Maybe she should have the right to decide that, but he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

  So, despite Dex’s plans, a couple extra days on the boat might be exactly what Ian needed. Because he had a feeling the moment she returned to Mercy Falls, she’d figure out new and creative ways to avoid him. “Yep, to the Bahamas we go.”

  Ian exited the bridge and headed down to the main deck, down the back stairs.

  That’s when he spotted them, bathed in the backlight of the ship, on the deck by the Jet Skis.

  Dex, leaning against the back railing, one foot looped around a rail for balance, wearing a white polo shirt and linen pants. Sierra stood with her back to Ian, her dark hair blowing in the wind, listening to something Dex was saying.

  Dex reached out and took her hand. Tugged her toward him.

  Sierra took a step closer.

  Dex reached out, touched her cheek, curled a hand around her neck.

  Stop! The word raked through Ian, grabbed his chest. Instead, he stood frozen, a voyeur, watching his worst nightmare play out.

  Again.

 
; Because he’d been here a year ago. Watching from a distance as his best friend in Mercy Falls, Deputy Sam Brooks, had kissed Sierra right in front of him on the dance floor.

  And sure, he’d been dancing with someone else at the time, but his gaze kept slipping over to Sierra wrapped in Sam’s arms. His gut hurt with every beat of the music, and he nearly surrendered to the urge to go over and—what? Separate them?

  Tell Sierra that she was killing him?

  He had no right—except . . .

  He was tired of putting his life on hold when what he wanted was right in front of him. Tired of propriety and regret holding him back.

  Tired of not getting his happy ending.

  “Sierra!”

  He could hardly believe he shouted, her name ringing out from him as he stood on the stairs.

  She startled at his voice. Turned.

  That was all he saw.

  At least the only clear image he could recollect, because everything after that merged into one confusing, panicked sequence.

  The boat rocked hard to port, pitching into a deep trough. He slammed against the rail and held on as water sprayed over the bow, soaking the back deck of the ship.

  Shouting came from the bridge, and perhaps he should have recognized the panic, but his gaze had gone to where Sierra stood—

  Or had been standing.

  Then it hit. Whatever swell had sucked them into the trough between the waves gathered beneath the yacht and lifted it toward the crest, and the boat keeled hard to starboard.

  Ian slammed against the bridge bulkhead and managed to get his arm up just as the wave crashed over them. A crushing wall of white foam and dense black seawater.

  Ian held his breath, closed his eyes, and grappled for anything to hang on to as the force lifted the vessel and pushed it over.

  Ian hit the roof of the stairwell just before the wave scooped him up and out, tugging him toward open water.

  He hung on to the edge of the bridge doorway, still holding his breath, the night black in his eyes.

  Then the wave freed him, rushing past him into the sea, and for a moment loosed its grip on the ship.

  The yacht settled back into the next trough, and Ian fell back onto the bulkhead, slick with the lick of the ocean.

  But in a second of blinding shock, Ian realized the Montana Rose lay capsized to starboard, pushed by the successive waves in the darkness.

  Ian scrambled to his knees on the bulkhead. The yacht lit the water, the lights eerie under the depths of the sea, the waves thunderous around him—or maybe that was his heartbeat. “Sierra!”

  The back deck lay halfway submerged and rolled with the waves. No sign of Sierra or Dex. Shouting came from the bridge.

  “Sierra! Dex!” Ian grabbed the rail above him and pulled himself over it, holding on as the yacht rode into the next trough, not nearly as deep as the one pulled by the rogue wave.

  “Sierra!” He scrambled toward the stern, searching the inky, foamy water. The Jet Skis had loosed, and one of them floated just inside the rim of taillights. It seemed the sea had settled again, but he’d heard of rogue waves coming in threes . . .

  “Ian!”

  Maybe he imagined her voice, but he scanned the water beyond the stern, to the starboard side and—maybe. Yeah, just inside the glow of the submerged lights, a body.

  Waving, struggling toward the yacht.

  “Sierra!”

  Please let it be Sierra.

  But he couldn’t exactly dive out into the waves to grab her—he’d kill them both. Why hadn’t he learned how to swim? But he’d helped Kelley check the lifeboat, and he knew an inflatable raft was secured to the end of the yacht in a detachable box. And, next to the raft, life jackets.

  He’d discreetly made sure they were securely lashed yet accessible.

  Because he’d feared exactly this moment.

  Sometimes he hated being right.

  Ian held on to the railing as the boat rocked, then he crawled down to the lower deck. The vessel thrashed in the water, and Ian prayed it wasn’t actually sinking.

  Couldn’t think—not yet—about Hayes and Nessa, Noelly, and even the crew trapped in the submerged cabins.

  Another wave, this one just a meager swell, lifted the boat and attempted to yank the rail from his grip, but he fought it and the shiver that worked its way through his belly to his muscles.

  Not this way. He wasn’t going to lose another person he loved to the sea.

  He threw himself at the fiberglass box affixed to the end of the stern railing. A red release cord dangled from the front, and he grabbed it and yanked.

  The cradle opened. Inside was the valise encasing the life raft. He grabbed the rip cord and yanked out enough mooring line to wind it around the rail.

  “Hang on, Sierra!”

  He glanced up for her but didn’t see her in the ring of light. Panic gave him the strength to grab the valise with one hand and with a shout throw it out into the pitching sea.

  “Inflate!” He grabbed the mooring line and tugged it, hard. Again.

  Behind him, he heard shouts, but he didn’t have time to look. “Please!” The third yank released the plug, and in a second, the raft filled.

  It bounced on the sea, rolling in the waves but not upending.

  He held on through another succession of waves, then scrambled back and hooked his foot on the mesh holding the life jackets. In a second, he’d grabbed one out, slung it over his shoulders.

  He was reaching for another when he felt the boat keel again to port, a deep rocking into a trough that made him look up.

  He barely made out the wave against the dark pallor of night, but when the yacht yawed back the other direction, he landed on his chest and wrapped his arms and legs around the rail.

  Held his breath.

  And for the first time in years, considered praying.

  The water crashed over him, yanked at him, fighting to unseat him, but he hung on with everything he had, one thought on his brain.

  Sierra!

  Please, God, she didn’t want to die.

  Especially not at sea. Her body lost in the depths.

  Alone.

  It happened so fast, Sierra couldn’t get her brain around it—one second, Dex was telling her how he wanted her to come to Texas to be his assistant—the next she’d slammed against him so hard she’d knocked him backward. He’d just about righted himself and grabbed for her when the boat rolled the other way.

  She’d fallen backward and hit the rail, and before she could catch herself, the wave washed her out to sea.

  The force of it rolled her into the depths, turning her, and she fought the pull of the current to drag her away from the yacht, a scream trapped in her chest.

  Don’t panic.

  The words crested through her, a steel hand as she kept churning her arms, her legs, fighting.

  The wave finally released her. She popped above the surface, coughing, searching for the yacht.

  To her horror, the Montana Rose listed on its side in the waves, halfway submerged.

  Dex had vanished, swallowed by the ocean.

  “Help!”

  She kicked hard toward the yacht, but the swells in the aftermath of the wave fought her. Seawater burned her eyes, her nasal passages, the water suddenly frigid.

  Another wave crested over her head, blinding her.

  When she popped back up, she heard her name on the wind. Or maybe imagined it, but it sounded like Ian. Oh, please—

  “Ian!”

  She’d clawed her way back into the pool of light given off by the submerged vessel, and now she made out a form crawling over the boat, on top of the side railing.

  Ian! She recognized his form against the hue of light. And the fact that he wasn’t trapped in his room, drowning, turned her weak. As she watched, he reached the stern and released something into the water. In a moment, it inflated, and relief whooshed through her.

  The life raft.

  “Hang on, Sier
ra!”

  The waves had pushed her out of the perimeter of light, but she swam hard toward the raft, gulping in too much water, blinking against the stinging salt. She wasn’t going to die out here. She would get on that raft, and then she’d figure out how to get everyone else off the ship before it sank.

  She felt the next wave gather beneath her even as the lifeboat loomed large, bright yellow and orange, a beacon illuminated by the back lights of the yacht. The wave sucked her toward the raft, a great current that made her scream even as she rolled over, fighting the pull.

  The life raft slid by her. No!

  Then mooring rope slapped her hand, and in a second of panicked brilliance, she grabbed it.

  Held on as if her life depended on it. She managed to reach the raft, and she swam under it, looping her hands through the righting straps along the bottom.

  The wave hit. The force of it launched the raft forward, upended it, and nearly yanked the straps from Sierra’s arms. But she had the raft in a death grip and rolled over onto the top of it, clinging to it as the wave pushed her away from the yacht.

  Water blinded her, saturating her, drowning her.

  When it ran its course, she lay atop the raft, breathing hard.

  But alive.

  Oh, God, please! What about Ian?

  He’d been on top of the boat when the second wave hit. Now she turned, searching. The yacht had capsized even more, the hull almost completely visible in the waves.

  Ian had vanished.

  She had to get the raft righted, but she didn’t want to let go. The waves had died, but she’d read somewhere that rogue waves had sisters. Two, or three, she couldn’t remember, but . . .

  “Sierra!”

  The voice traveled over the surf, and she spotted Ian in the water, in the glow of the sinking yacht, wearing—thank you!—a life vest.

  He had hold of the mooring line to the raft and was pulling himself toward her. She scrambled around, hooking her legs around the righting line, and leaned over the edge.

  She caught his hand, pulled him closer.

  For a brilliant, life-changing second, he met her eyes. So blue, and so much relief in them she couldn’t breathe. His hair was plastered to his head, water glistening on his skin, the life vest floating behind him like a cape. Yes, in the water, holding on to the mooring rope, he looked like her hero coming to save her.