But she kept going, mounted the seawall and crouched there, looking down at the monster waves. It was near to freezing. In spite of the hood and slicker she was already soaked and trembling so badly she was afraid of losing her grip on the flashlight as she crawled over boulders. Looking down into crevices where he might have fallen, to slowly drown at each long roll of a massive wave.
Thought she saw something—something alive like an animal caught in discarded plastic wrap. Then she realized it was a face she was looking at in the down-slant of the flashlight, and it wasn't plastic, it was Ransome's white shirt. He lay sprawled on his back a few feet below her, dazed but not unconscious. His eyelids squinched in the light cast on his face.
Echo got down from the boulder she was on, found some footing, got her hands under his arms and tugged.
One of his legs was awkwardly wedged between boulders. She couldn't tell if it was broken as she turned her efforts to pulling his foot free. Hurrying. Her strength ebbing fast. Bat-ding him and the storm and sensing something behind her, still out to sea but coming her way with such size, unequaled in its dark momentum, that it would drown them both in one enormous downfall like a building toppling.
'MOVE!'
Echo had him free at last and pushed him frantically toward the top of the seawall. She'd managed to lose her grip on the flashlight but it didn't matter, there was lightning around their heads and all of the deep weight of the sea coming straight at them. She couldn't make herself look back.
Whatever the condition of his leg, Ransome was able to hobble with her help. They staggered toward the house, whipsawed by the wind, until the rogue wave she'd anticipated burst over the seawall and sent them rolling helplessly a good fifty feet before its force was spent.
When she saw Ransome's face again beneath the flaring sky he was blue around the mouth but his eyes had opened. He tried to speak but his chattering teeth chopped off the words.
'WHAT?'
He managed to say what was on his mind between shudders and gasps.
'I'm n-n-not w-worth it, y-you know.'
Hot showers, dry clothing. Soup and coffee when they met again in the kitchen. When she had Ransome seated on a stool she looked into his eyes for sign of a concussion, then examined the cut on his forehead, which was two inches long and deep enough so that it would probably scar. She pulled the edges of the cut together with butterfly bandages. He sipped his coffee with steady hands on the mug and regarded her with enough alertness so that she wasn't worried about that possible concussion.
'How did you learn to do this?' he asked, touching one of the bandages.
'I was a rough-and-tumble kid. My parents weren't always around, so I had to patch myself up.'
He put an inquisitive fingertip on a small scar under her chin.
'Street hockey,' she said. 'And this one—'
Echo pulled her bulky fisherman's sweater high enough to reveal a larger scar on her lower rib cage.
'Stickball. I fell over a fire hydrant.'
'Fortunately. . . nothing happened to your marvelous face.'
'Thanks be to God.' Echo repacked the first aid kit and ladled clam chowder into large bowls, straddled a stool next to him. 'Ought to see my knees,' she said, as an afterthought. She was ravenous, but before dipping the spoon into her chowder she said, 'You need to eat.'
'Maybe in a little while.' He uncorked a bottle of brandy and poured an ounce into his coffee.
Echo bowed her head and prayed silently, crossed herself. She dug in. 'And thanks be to God for saving our lives out there.'
'I didn't see anyone else on those rocks. Only you.'
Echo reached for a box of oyster crackers. 'Do I make you uncomfortable?'
'How do you mean, Mary Catherine?'
'When I talk about God.'
'I find that. . . endearing.'
'But you don't believe in Him. Or do you?'
Ransome massaged a sore shoulder.
'I believe in two gods. The god who creates and the god who destroys.'
He leaned forward on the stool, folded his arms on the island counter, which was topped with butcher block, rested his head on his arms. Eyes still open, looking at her as he smiled faintly.
'The last few days I've been keeping company with the god who destroys. You have a good appetite, Mary Catherine.'
'Haven't been eating much. I don't like eating alone at night.'
'I apologize for—being away for so long.'
Echo glanced thoughtfully at him.
'Will you be all right now?'
He sat up, slipped off his stool, stood behind her and put a hand lightly on the back of her neck.
'I think the question is—after your experience tonight, will
