Cave Rescue Courtship by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks, Inc.

11

Something had changed.

Vera could feel the Dolphin hesitating, hanging there above them as the RB-S rode up and down the big ocean swell close behind the first line of breakers.

Suddenly, their boat was being dragged forward, riding the back of a wave at exactly the same speed as the water. It was a good move. When the wave broke, they’d be able to ride the leading edge of the trough…the deepest water that wasn’t under a breaker.

“You’re watching that helo hard enough to make a man jealous, sister,” the rescue swimmer was teasing her again.

“That’s my man up there.” She didn’t know why she said it. The change in control had probably been Sly taking command from Hammond, which meant that was Hailey’s man doing the flying up there. But she didn’t care.

“Shit. Why are the hot ones always taken?” He made it sound like a compliment and tease rather than grumpy and chauvinistic.

“Guess I’m just lucky.”

He snorted a laugh then turned his attention to the fast approaching sea mount. Suddenly he was all business. “You ready?” he shouted at the coxswain sitting back by the small engine. He nodded rather than trying to shout against the rain and wind.

“All you two have to do is get this boat nosed as far into the cave as you can. I’ll be off before the second wave breaks. My goal is to load one person between each breaker and be out of there by the fifth wave. I figure that’s about four times longer than our luck is likely to hold and I get itchy when I push my luck by more than a factor of ten. So, we aren’t gonna go there. Clear?”

“Clear.”

The crest before them started to shatter. She sat in the frontmost seat, where the gunner’s mate would normally sit when an M2 .50 cal machine gun would be on the forward swivel mount. She felt a little naked with no gun and just a bow rope in her hands.

The seat itself was like a narrow horse saddle without stirrups. The horn and cantle were curved bars to provide secure handholds fore and aft. She could clamp her knees on the side and still have both feet firmly on the deck. It allowed her to sway back and forth like a bronc rider as the RB-S slammed through the waves.

Her nerves were moving faster than the waves though.

“You think this is going to work?” Vera shouted to the swimmer though he sat just in the next seat back and to the side.

“Crazy as shit, but it’s the best chance these people have. If we survive, I’m gonna have to shake the hand of whatever crazy bastard thought this up.”

“Why wait?” She held out her hand. “And that would be crazy bitch.” She didn’t know what had come over her, but she liked the way it felt.

He shook her hand hard and grinned before nodding aloft. “Does he know how goddamn lucky he is?”

She didn’t know. But if they lived through this, she was certainly going ask.

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