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Headed straight for them.
“Tia—”
“Here! We’re here!”
The boat motored toward them, throttle high, splashing through the waves.
“Tia—”
“They’re not slowing!”
Nope.He grabbed her pack. “Big breath!”
“What—?”
He glimpsed the boat plowing toward them just as he pulled her down into the water, kicking hard toward the bottom.
She must have caught on, because she followed him down. Overhead, the motor churned up the water.
His lungs burned, but he didn’t want to surface into the path of another boat.
She, however, tugged at him, and he followed her up.
He surfaced just as a wave thundered over him.
“Doyle!”
Her shout cut out as the water yanked his hand from the strap and pummeled him against the rocky bottom. His shoulder scuffed against the rock, then his feet scraped, and suddenly the current had him.
He tumbled over and over, the waves pushing him down, his lungs burning as he lost his bearing in the darkness.
And for a second, he was back in a frozen lake, fighting his way out of a sunken car?—
Hands.They grabbed him, dragged him up, and he came back to himself. His feet hit rock and he planted them.
Surfaced. And of course, Tia was right there, standing in water up to her chin. “Gotcha,” she said.
He stared at her, gasping, and ran his hands over his face. Then he reached out and pulled her to himself, shaking. “You all right?”
“I would like to leave the ocean now.”
He closed his eyes and let out a laugh. “Let’s go to shore.”
She stepped away from him, met his gaze, and then hers moved off him, toward town. The light flickered in her eyes even as her mouth opened.
“What—?”
He turned, and his chest hollowed out, his hand finding hers and tightening.
The town of Esperanza was on fire.
* * *
“At least you have pants.”
She got a smile from Doyle as they walked, soaked through and barefoot, down the boardwalk, having dragged themselves out of the ocean.
Tia might, just a smidgen, regret shucking off her canvas pants in the dark depths of the sea, but maybe that had kept her from drowning, so...