Storm Watch(27)
Coming right at them was an old metal fishing boat, sans engine, looking as if it’d seen better days. Packed in it like sardines were four men, two women and several teens. Two of the men were rowing, with the guy in the back yelling directions. “Right, Lenny! Right! Jesus, your other right!” When he caught sight of Jason and Lizzy, he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “You two need help?”
The small boat wasn’t meant for more than two, three people max. It was straining, seeming wobbly and unsteady in the relatively shallow water. Even if they found Cece in her condo just down the street, there was no way they could fit a nine-months’-pregnant woman in that boat. “We’re good,” he told them, waving them on.
“It wasn’t steady enough,” he told a silent Lizzy. “If she’s there, we’ll find another way to get her out—Oh, shit.” He lunged after the metal boat as it headed nose-first toward the huge steel traffic light on the corner. He could hear the shocked screams of some of the occupants, including the guy still yelling, “Right, Lenny! Right—”
But he couldn’t catch it in time. The boat hit the pole and people went flying.
Jason shoved Lizzy the rest of the way across the street, then headed for the closest two splashes, managing to snag a woman in his right hand and a teenage boy in his left before they were washed downstream. “You okay?”
They both stood up, gasping and coughing but nodding. Jason waited until they had their feet beneath them to let go, then turned to the others.
The guy doing the yelling had caught the boat. Everyone else scrambled back into it, still griping at one another.
Jason helped them hold it steady while the woman and her son got back in. “Take it easy on the steering,” he said.
“We will, thank you.” The woman reached out to squeeze his hand. “You’re an angel.”
No. He wasn’t. Because he didn’t catch them all…And as he thought of Matt, and all the people he hadn’t managed to save over the years, he locked eyes with Lizzy, who was holding on to a sidewalk parking post, watching him as if he was a superhero.
Too bad he was nothing close.
Yeah, he had training in survival and rescue, but that was pretty much his only claim to fame. The rest of life—the emotions, the heart, the real stuff…ever since Matt’s death, it’d all eluded him.
Lizzy sent him a half smile, clearly worried, leaving him no doubt that she felt real affection for him. And when he touched and kissed her, that affection smoked and burst into a heat neither of them seemed able to resist. Just looking at her caught something deep in his chest.
Yeah. Most definitely feeling again, which was something he could think about later, after he’d figured out what the hell he was going to do with himself. Leave…or stay. Leaving was easy. But for the first time in recent memory he wanted to stay right where he was. Wanted to fit in right here….
He headed toward her and her expression warmed further, and hell if that didn’t do something to his insides, as well, telling him that leaving might not be the easy thing after all. “You okay?”
“Yes, I—Jason, watch out—”
That’s the last thing he heard before he was plowed over by something hard and unforgiving. Before he could process anything except maybe “fuck” and then “ouch,” he was underwater and down for the count.
8
“JASON.” HEART in her throat, Lizzy leaped into the water toward where the fishing boat had run him over. “Jason!”
The occupants of the boat were an elderly couple who had no more control of the vessel than they had of the weather. The woman was staring at the water where Jason had gone down. “Oh, dear!” she cried, slapping her hands to her cheeks.
Jason didn’t surface. Lizzy swam like hell toward where she’d seen him go down.
“So sorry, honey. I can’t seem to steer like I used to,” the man called out, dropping his oar and leaning over the edge to look for Jason.
Which was little to no help as his boat kept floating away. “Do you see him?” he called back. “Anywhere?”
“No, I—”
Just then, Jason surged out of the water, shook his head and whipped around to look at the boat that had just hit him. “What the hell?”
“They can’t steer like they used to,” Lizzy repeated, swallowing her half-hysterical laugh as she grabbed him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” His eyes narrowed on the boat as it continued its merry path down Third, mostly because neither of the occupants could stop it. “They’re going to kill someone.”