Born Wild

heavy.”

“Let me—”

“No.” She shook her head, her sopping hair swishing across the thick orange fabric of the life vest. “I’m the one who knows how much sail to bring in. You need to stay here and man the wheel.” She pointed at the compass. “Try to keep it at this heading. That should ensure we’re still going in the right direction for Ludington, but it will also keep up from sailing directly into the waves or having them hit us abeam.”

“Eve, I—”

“You got this?” she asked, taking a step back, indicating he should take control of the vessel.

What could he say but, “Yeah, I got this.”

When he grabbed the wheel, he was surprised by the way it bucked in his hand. It took strength to hold them on the correct course.

Strength…

Not something he’d ever really equated with Eve. But he was learning just how misguided and misinformed he was in that department. Still, the knowledge that she was one hell of a tough lady behind that delicate, fancy, cupcake exterior did nothing to mitigate his anxiety as she exited the wheelhouse and began inching her way across the slippery deck toward the mast. He realized he was holding his breath, trying to squint through the gray haze of rain to watch her every little movement, when his brain began to buzz.

Forcing himself to rake in much needed oxygen, he sent a prayer of thanks skyward when she quickly furled a tiny bit of sail before turning to make her way back to the cockpit.

Boooooommmm!

A blinding flash of bright white light accompanied a bone-rattling, ear-splitting crash that rocked the boat. The main mast lit up like a roman candle, and the hair on the top of Bill’s head and the back of his neck lifted in warning. The metallic smell of electricity burned through the air and tasted like a new penny when he dragged in a harsh breath.

Jesus Christ! They’d been struck by lightning!

“Eve!” he yelled, turning toward the starboard side of the boat where he’d last seen her. But she was… gone.

* * *

Cold…

That was the first thing Eve noticed when she blinked open her eyes to find herself staring up into a frightening canopy of cruel, gray clouds. She was cold right down to the marrow of her bones. The second thing she noticed was a feeling of weightlessness, of being born up into the air and sinking back down again.

And then, suddenly, her stunned synapses began firing, and she realized she was adrift. She was adrift in the lake and—

A huge cross-wave rolled over her head, filling her mouth with acrid-tasting water, trickling down into her lungs before her life vest bobbed her to the surface.

“Uhhhhh,” she raked in a breath, coughing and sputtering, trying to orient herself in the water, trying to keep her head above the swells that lifted her aloft before slamming her down.

Oh, God. She was going to die. People set adrift in the vastness of Lake Michigan in the middle of a storm didn’t survive. They just didn’t.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh—

“Eve!”

At first she wasn’t sure if she’d heard correctly. She thought it was the wind howling and screaming and playing trick on her ears.

“Eve!”

Okay, and that was no trick. She turned—struggling to tread water—just in time to see Billy throw an arm over her shoulder. He hooked his fingers into her opposite armpit in the traditional lifeguard’s hold.

“B-Billy!” she choked, coughing up gritty water from her lungs. She’d never been so happy to feel the weight of another human pressing against her back as she was right at that very moment.

“Don’t worry,” he yelled, sputtering as a wave slapped him in the face. “I’ve got you!”

Yeah, he had her. But…but who had him?

And then she saw he was using his free hand to pull on the safety line he’d wrapped around himself, trying to haul them through the heaving waters back toward Summer Lovin’. The sailboat bobbed atop the waves some forty feet away.

Turning in his embrace, she grabbed the line. And, hand-over-hand, they managed to slowly, so frustratingly slowly, halve the distance to the boat as the wind and waves tossed them about like waterlogged scraps. In less than a minute, hypothermia was setting in. Eve could feel it in the stiffness of her muscles, in the numbness of her limbs, in the way her strength was ebbing, drifting out of her with each crashing wave.

“Hurry, B-Billy,” she sputtered. “W-we…” Her teeth were chattering so hard, her jaw was locking down. “We h-have to get o-out of th-this water.”

“I know,” he coughed. “Wrap your arms around m-my neck and hang on. I can get us there f-faster—” Another wave rolled over their heads, filling their ears and mouths. And Eve wondered, as the frigid water swirled above her, whether or not they could actually make it. Any relief she’d felt upon seeing Billy beside her leaked from her to sink down to the pitch-black bottom of the lake. If he died while trying to save her, she’d never forgive herself…

Of course, she’d be dead, too. So yeah. There was that…

They bobbed to the surface, buoyed by their life vests, hacking up lake water. “I’ll get us there f-faster on my own!” he yelled.

And though she hated the fact that he was right—because he was right—hated the fact that, in this instance, she really did need saving, her ego wasn’t so big that she let it keep her from doing as he instructed. Releasing the lifeline, she wrapped her frozen, numb arms around his neck. In the next instant, they surged through the chop, his big shoulder muscles and sleek back muscles working beneath her as he pulled them through the turgid water toward the rolling boat.

She didn’t know how long he worked as she did nothing but hang on. It felt like hours but could’ve only been a minute. And then, suddenly, Summer Lovin’ rode the swell directly in front of them. And with a strength Eve would later marvel at, Billy hauled them the last few feet, managing to hook an arm around her waist and boost her up onto the swim ladder bolted to the back of the sailboat.

“Climb up!” he bellowed. And, yep, that should’ve been easy. There were just three measly rungs, after all. But her entire body was frozen.

He must’ve seen her trouble as she clung to the back of the boat, unable to move, unable to feel the fingers wrapped around the top wrung. With a curse, he grabbed the sides of the ladder when the boat sank into the bottom of another swell. Then, somehow he managed to climb over her and into the vessel. Hooking his hands under her armpits, with a grunt and mighty heave, he hauled her aboard.

And the only thing better than feeling Billy pressed against her in all that freezing water? Feeling the slick slats of the sailboat beneath her feet. Well, in all honestly she couldn’t actually feel them. But when she glanced down at her pink, polished toenails, she knew they were there.

Holy moly! We actually made it!

She couldn’t believe it!

“Come on!” Billy yelled, half dragging/half stumbling with her into the covered cockpit just as the rain picked up in intensity. “Sit!” he ordered, pushing her into the captain’s chair and tossing a towel over her shoulders, chafing her arms until her skin began to sting. But that was a good thing, wasn’t it? Stinging skin was reheating skin.

“W-w-what happened?” she asked through chattering, clenched teeth.

“The main mast was struck by lightning,” he told her, moving his chafing to her sides. “The force of it knocked you off the deck into the water.”

“Lightning?” She couldn’t believe it. Boats weren’t often struck, but when they were, it was usually catastrophic to the electronics on board.

“The navigation system?” she asked, and he moved slightly to the left so she could see the electrical panels on the console. The dark electrical panels. Not one light glowed on the entire vessel