Page 78 of Under Pressure
As Sean, Wolfe, Gray, and Knox made their way out to the wreck site the next morning, Sean couldn’t keep his eyes off the horizon. Dark clouds filled the sky, writhing, churning, and raging their way closer and closer. Large, black whisps of clouds reached out from an epicenter, like octopus tentacles searching for prey. Rain fell in streaks across the sky, and lightning lit up the darkness in bursts of fury. Over there was a storm like none they’d ever seen before. Here it was calm and silent as the grave. A physical representation of what was happening inside Sean’s mind and body.
Blue was getting married today.
Not to him.
She would wear that stunning dress that she’d doodled and designed one afternoon, her head on his stomach as they lounged under a tree on campus. She’d hummed nonsense and he’d dozed in perfect bliss with his woman within kissing distance. He was there when the dress was conceptualized, he should be the one who stood at the end of the aisle, brought to tears because of her beauty.
“How far off do you think that is?” Knox pointed to the storm.
Gray pulled out his binoculars. “Three hours, maybe. Four if we’re lucky.”
“So much for the national weather broadcast,” Wolfe muttered.
“We have, what? Maybe six hours before that thing hits Diamond Cove?”
“Maybe,” Sean said, trying to keep himself in the conversation—the last thing he wanted to do was worry his friends by being uncharacteristically glum. Fortunately, the nerves of the oncoming hurricane and the severity of their problem loomed over all of them like that storm cloud growing on the horizon. He hoped the broadcast system at least updated the townsfolk about the storm. They wouldn’t know out here if there had been an announcement; their cell service cut out about an hour ago.
Not too far in the distance, at their destination, Sean’s salvage boat sat over the wreck; an older boat with a brand-new paint job in blue. It had a cabin and a crane and crank attached. The Bluebell. A sense of relief fell over him. They were already here. After talking to Ryker and Aaron last night, they’d both agreed to come help. They didn’t have a lot of time, less than they’d originally thought, and they were at real risk of losing this boat if the hurricane hit it. And based on the current trajectory of the storm, it was going to happen.
As they got closer, they spotted Aaron and Ryker, Aaron in his typical cargo pants and t-shirt, and Ryker looking as regal as ever. And there were others.
“Who . . .?” Sean squinted and then grinned. Mack and Liam stood at the bow of the boat. Sean had never been so glad to see them in his life—they were the real diving experts and would be the most helpful to Sean of their group. Liam leaned over the side, reaching into the water and petting a—
“Is that a dolphin?” Gray asked.
“That’s our little Liam for you,” Knox laughed.
Yep, Liam had made friends with a dolphin in the middle of the open ocean. They should have been grateful it wasn’t a shark.
Mack stood in the middle of the bow with his arms folded over his chest. The brother’s reddish-auburn hair came like a beacon of fire in the darkening sky.
Knox let out a yell when he saw them, his voice carrying out loudly in the scarily quiet air. The men on the other boat all gave quick waves.
“They came,” Gray said, sounding as relieved as Sean felt. Things would be much easier with Mack and Liam here.
They pulled their speed boat up alongside Sean’s old salvage boat and tied them together.
“What are you doing here?” Sean asked the brothers.
“Wonderin’ if you were ever gonna bloody arrive, is what we’re doin’,” Mack said in a grumpy tone with his Scottish accent, though he couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he said it.
Liam pushed a strand of red hair that’d fallen out of his ponytail back behind his ear and spoke with his one-hundred percent American accent—the brothers shared a father but had different mothers. “Barrett let us go when he heard about the hurricane.” Barrett was their Commanding Officer. “Figured we’d want to get back and help secure things.”
“Not that you dropped any hints,” Aaron said with a laugh.
“Ach, we’d never.” Mack swatted a big hand through the air.
“Not unless they were the size of boulders,” Wolfe added. And that was the truth of it. The brothers weren’t exactly known for their subtlety and finesse.
That sent the team off chattering and harassing as though they hadn’t seen one another in years, instead of a couple of weeks.
Ryker didn’t join in the conversation, only stared at Sean. He circled a hand through the air in a regal manner that reminded Sean that Ryker was not only a talented barber but alsoa prince. “What is wrong with you? You seem to be . . . malfunctioning.”
Knox came up behind Sean, hooking an arm around his neck. “His girl’s getting married today.”
Sean slouched Knox’s arm off as the guys stared in his direction. He was so not up for this. Thankfully, the sound of motors closing in on the location called everyone’s attention off of him before he had to say something because he had nothing. How did you explain an ache in your chest so fierce, it made it hard to breathe, to think, to even see straight?
“Listen, before the others arrive, are you sure you want to do this?” Ryker asked, signaling to the water below and wreck under that. “We could just hand it over to the government.”
