“Dar.”

Dar turned and looked her in the eye. “Yes?”

Kerry knew that look. She knew Dar didn’t like to be challenged, especially when she was off balance and scared. Kerry could see the jangled nerves in her lover’s eyes, and by the short, restless motions of her hands on the controls she knew that Dar’s temper was very much on edge. “We’re all he’s got,” she said very gently. “Can we try for a few more minutes?”

Dar very much wanted to say no, Kerry could read it. “Let me call him one more time and see if he can at least give us a click. If Terrors of the High Seas 73

not,” she watched the rain plaster Dar’s hair to her forehead, half obscuring her eyes, “at least we tried.”

A deep breath preceded her capitulation. “Okay,” Dar said briefly. “Then, please, Kerry, go below.”

“Okay,” Kerry agreed, flexing her hand around the mic. She hesitated, set it down, then reached out and caught Dar’s hand, squeezing it. “Thanks.”

“Grumph.” Dar adjusted the throttles and started the boat on a long, shallow curve to cut across the swells. She didn’t want to turn too sharply and get caught inside them, since the waves were cresting up to around twenty feet.

“Siren of the Sea… Siren of the Sea…if you can hear this, please key in twice.” Kerry requested, speaking clearly. She listened intently to the hiss. “Siren of the Sea, please key in twice if you receive this. We are trying to locate you.”

The hiss broke, returned, and then broke again. Kerry grinned, then looked up at Dar.

“Could be coincidence.”

“Siren of the Sea, please key in twice again.”

Two clicks answered her again, and then a voice crackled through. “I’m here! Help!”

Dar sighed and shook her head. “We still don’t have a chance of finding him,” she said. “All I’ve seen on radar for the last half hour is…” Dar stopped, leaned closer to the small scope. “Wait.”

She increased the magnitude of the pulse and studied the screen, unsure. It might be a tiny blip, but then it might not. “Could just be wave return.” But she was already swinging the wheel around and gunning the engines. “Either way, if that’s not him we’re going back.”

“Right.” Kerry put the mic down and stood. “I’m going to go up on the bow.”

Dar’s eyes widened. “Not without a safety belt,” she stated flatly. “I don’t want you launched overboard.”

“Aye, Aye, cap’n.” Kerry patted Dar, then made her way to the stairs, carefully climbed down them and stepped onto the pitching deck. Charlie and Bud were standing in the cabin doorway. “We think we see him,” she said.

“’Bout time.” Bud picked up the rope and floatation gear and slung it over his broad shoulder. “Seems like a lotta trouble for some jackass who didn’t have the sense to get out of the rain.” He got up onto the railing and walked around to the bow.

Kerry counted to ten under her breath as she got a double clipped safety rope and hooked one end onto the rail, then followed him. The wind hit her as she went around to the front of the boat, driving rain right into her eyes. Kerry gamely struggled forward, careful to keep her footing as she edged around the large cruiser 74 Melissa Good cabin and emerged onto the sloping bow of the boat. It was pitching up and down, and seawater was crashing over the rails, chilling her even through her jacket.

She got to the very front of the boat and knelt, peering into the darkness. The swells rose and fell, making it hard to see anything at all. All Kerry could see was ruffling waves and rain.

“There.” Bud was standing next to her. “To starboard.”

Kerry strained her eyes. “I don’t see anything… Oh. Wait!” In a break in the waves, she spotted a flash of white, then it disappeared. Her mind tried to resolve it as part of a sailboat, and failed. “Wh…”

Dar, apparently, had also seen it. The Bertram altered course to starboard, and the engine speed diminished.

Kerry leaned forward. Then the waves broke again, and she got another look. “He’s capsized!” she yelled, recognizing the white flash as an overturned hull.

“Yeap.” Bud didn’t seem surprised. “Jerk probably didn’t bring the sail in.”

Kerry stood up, biting her tongue to keep back the sharp words. Their boat worked itself closer, and she could see the upended boat more clearly. “He’s on the back!” She pointed at a dark, forlorn-looking figure clinging to the hull.

Then her eyes almost came out of her head as the sea in front of her dropped, and they were looking downslope at the shipwreck from twenty feet up. Kerry’s stomach almost came out of her nostrils as the wave crested, then she hung on as the Bertram rode the wave down, its forward motion slowed.

The wave picked up the sailing boat and lifted it, then a cross wave unexpectedly tossed it to one side. As Kerry watched in horror, the small figure on the back flew off into the water and disappeared. Without really thinking once, much less twice, she unclipped her safety rope and jumped to the top of the railing, then leaped out into the darkness.

Hitting the water was a total shock. It was cold, and it grabbed her mercilessly and whirled her around. Kerry fought her way to the surface and realized she’d probably just made a really big mistake. A wave nearly swamped her, but she rode through it, then felt something hit her on the shoulder. She whirled to find the floatation ring next to her and grabbed it.

The storm was too loud for her to hear any shouting, but she knew it was there. A dagger of hot fear hit her in the gut, and she got an arm around the ring, glad for its buoyancy. Trying not to swallow the seawater constantly washing over her head, she turned and started for the last place she’d seen the hapless boater.

At first, it was hard to make any headway. Then Kerry discovered if she found the right waves, they’d take her where she Terrors of the High Seas 75

wanted to go. She waited for one, then swam into it and let it carry her down and across the bow of the capsized boat.

The searchlight suddenly penetrated the rain, blazing across the choppy water. It tracked over Kerry, pausing a moment before it reluctantly moved on. Kerry’s eyes followed it, then she lunged forward as she caught just a glimpse of a hand near the back end of the boat. She struggled toward it, hearing the rumbling roar of the big diesels behind her as the Bertram fought to hold its position in the water.

Kerry got her head above water and yelled. “Hey!” She flailed with her arms through the wave, feeling under the surface near the edge of the capsized hull. Three times and nothing, then suddenly her hand touched something that wasn’t water and wasn’t boat.

Her fingers closed, with a brief, heartfelt prayer to God that it was a person and not a shark she was grabbing onto. She felt cloth and pulled hard, heaving backwards with all the strength she could muster. It was like pulling at a wet, sand filled sack. “C’mon!”

Kerry gave another tug. An arm broke the surface, then a dark, wet head.

For a moment, Kerry wasn’t sure she’d been in time. Then the head lifted and the other arm flailed out, smacking against the boat.

The man coughed, spitting up a mouthful of water.

“Here!” Kerry got his hands around the life preserver. “Hang on!” It wasn’t easy, but she wrapped the device around him, then turned her head, searching for the boat on the other end of the line.

Her strength was draining out of her, and the chill water was starting to make her shiver. Warm though the seas were this far south, at night, in a rainstorm, they were no bathtub.

“Kerry!”

Dar’s voice through a loudspeaker was the last thing she’d expected. She blinked through the rain, hanging on to the rope.

“Clip on to the rope! We’ll pull you in!”

Oh. Kerry fumbled at her waist, finding the belt, then the big metal clip that hung from it. She clipped it onto the rescue rope and wrapped her arm around her rescuee, feeling the powerful tug as she began to be towed back to the Dixieland Yankee.

The waves swamped over them. Kerry felt her body aching from the strain of remaining upright, and she reached up and clasped her hand over a knot in the rope to get a better grip. They got closer and closer to the boat, and as they did, she realized how high the bow was over their head. She was used to coming aboard from the stern, and now she wondered how they were going to manage.

The Bertram lunged forward and Kerry crashed into the hull, slamming her shoulder into the fiberglass. It knocked the wind out of her, and she dazedly pushed off before the belt tightened around 76 Melissa Good her waist and she realized she was being pulled right up out of the water. “Hold on! Hold on!” she yelled, scrambling to make sure the straps on the preserver were tight. The man inside it seemed dazed, and he clutched at the rope with uncertain fingers.

Kerry felt her body clear the water, and she sucked in a breath against the painful grip of the single belt that supported her weight.

She kept one hand on the hull and tried hard not to kick out, her other hand tangled in the man’s sodden shirt as they were fished up out of the sea.

When they were about halfway up, lightning crackled and the boat rolled, pitching down so far her feet hit the water again. Kerry gasped as the wave rolled back the other way, slamming her against the bow with stunning force. In reflex, she reached a hand up, feeling for the railing and hoping like hell that didn’t happen again.

Her back thumped against the hull and she felt a tingling start below where the belt was wrapped around her, the edges digging into her ribcage and almost cutting off her ability to breathe. She tried to pull up with her arms, but it didn’t help, and she was on the verge of panic when suddenly hands were grabbing her arms and shirt.

The belt was released and Kerry was lifted over the railing, arms closing around her body and supporting her with a powerful strength she immediately recognized. She turned her head and buried her face against Dar’s shirt, knowing now she was safe and everything would be fine.

“Got ’im!” Bud’s voice broke through the rain. “Charlie! Get the hell outta here!”

Kerry felt the boat begin to move. The rain was still pelting her.

Now that it was over, the adrenaline rushed out of her and she felt too weak to move. It was easier to just sit on the deck, wrapped in Dar’s arms and half in her lap, limp as a dishrag. She could hear the man she’d rescued coughing, gagging up the seawater he’d swallowed. Her own mouth felt like she’d been sucking on caviar, and her throat was raw from yelling. “Buh.”

Dar’s arms tightened around her. “Let’s get inside. I think my little hero here needs some hot tea.”

Hero. Kerry blinked. ”What?”

“He-ro,” Dar whispered into her ear. “That’s someone who does something stupidly brave and gets away with it.”

Kerry frowned as she thought about what she’d done. Good grief. I just saved someone’s life, didn’t I? A tiny, incredulous smile crossed her face at the totally new sensation.

Wow.


Terrors of the High Seas 77

HAVING RESUMED THE con, Dar shut down the engines, reaching up and pushing the rain hood off her head before she stood up. They’d outrun the storm, and now its fury was nothing but a heavy rumbling and flashes of light on the horizon. Dar exhaled, leaning against the console and trying to summon up the strength to go down the stairs. She was exhausted. Moreso, she suspected, from the intense, emotional stress than from the physical activity. Her hands were shaking, she noticed, and she had a headache that started at the nape of her neck and worked upward from there.

It was well after midnight, and heading for St. Johns tonight was out of the question. Even if the weather wasn’t chancy, she didn’t trust herself to pilot the boat, and so further investigation into their mysterious pirate encounter would have to wait for the morning.

Ah well. Dar shook herself. Buck up, Paladar, and git yer ass moving. She walked to the ladder and slowly made her way down it, stepped onto the deck and pushed open the cabin door. Dar entered and closed the door behind her.

Inside the cabin, Kerry was curled up on the couch in her robe.

Bud and Charlie were sitting at the table, and their rescued sailboat owner was across from Kerry, swathed in a big towel.

Dar put a heavy clamp down on her immediate instincts, which were urging her to throw everyone off the boat so she could concentrate on her somewhat pale, and definitely ragged looking partner. Instead, she went to the galley and put on some water, fiddling restlessly with a spoon while she waited for it to heat.