The larger person jumped down after her and they both scrambled to get into the lifeboat as the third figure leaned over the rail above them, shouting something indiscernible. The lifeboat started moving and I realized that it was moving directly toward me. A few moments later it bumped into my boat and I heard the soft metallic clang as the two people clambered up the ladder hanging from the side. I ran to the other end of the boat and watched as a small woman caught her foot on the top of the ladder and stumbled onto the deck. A man followed seconds later, catching her before she fell.
"What the fuck just happened?!" I asked, dumbfounded. “Who the hell are you?”
"We need to get away from this ship. Now!" the man demanded.
I shook my head looking, between the two. This wasn’t happening. I didn’t have time for this shit. I had somebody to find and I wasn’t going to be able to do it if I was playing Junior Coast Guard with these two. The longer that I looked at them, though, the more I knew that I couldn’t just pitch them off of the deck into the cold water and go about my business. The woman's wet clothing clung to her and her hair stuck wildly over her face and her arms. She was barefoot and her makeup was running, but by the look on her face I was sure it was more than just the unintended swim that had caused her to be so disheveled. Despite all of that, it was evident that she was one of those women who only got better with age and now that she had tipped the calendar over into her forties, she had a confident, well-polished beauty about her. At least, she would when she wasn’t dripping saltwater onto the ground around her. She was obviously going through something difficult and I had the immediate human compulsion to help her in any way that I could. I’d figure out what to do about the job later.
I turned back to the angry-looking man who accompanied her. He had looked much larger than the woman when he tossed her over the rail into the water, but now that I was seeing him this close, I realized that he was an average-sized man. Glasses had somehow miraculously remained perched on his nose during the ordeal and he glared at me through them with an intensity that looked as though he somehow thought that I was responsible for the other man who had been chasing them on the cruise ship.
"Who are you?" I asked again. "What are you doing on my boat?"
I heard the muttering of voices that were dulled by the wind around us and looked back up at the ship. I saw that several more people had gathered at the railing, one with a large light that they were trying to set up so that they could shine it down on the water, and a shot of panic went through me. I couldn't risk someone seeing me and possibly being able to recognize me later.
"I'm Hunter," the man in glasses said as if it were some kind of password that would instantly make me willing to help him. "Now get us out of here."
I didn't move and Hunter took two long strides toward me, shoving past me toward the wheel.
"Get the fuck out of my way," he said, "I'll do it myself."
I followed, grabbing at Hunter's shirt as he started the engine again and forced the boat in a sharp turn away from the ship. The turn went smoothly, but I had the distinct impression that he was not well-versed in the ways of steering a ship. Considering we were far away from shore and the only other vessel that I had seen capable of providing us with any type of assistance should he capsize us or destroy the equipment was the very ship that he had just escaped from, this didn’t bode well for any of us aboard.
"What do you think you're doing?" I asked, stepping up to him.
Hunter reared back to shove me away from him and accelerated the boat even faster. I grabbed at him again and he turned to me, reaching out and grabbing me by the front of my shirt with a ferocity that I wouldn’t have expected to come from someone who looked like him. This man should be in an office somewhere or hunched behind a desk in a library, not jumping into the ocean off of a cruise ship and playing Pirates of the Caribbean stealing other people’s boats.
"This woman is about two minutes away from becoming the topic of a Dateline Special Edition about mysterious disappearances at sea. If you don’t cooperate with this, they’re going to be rolling credits on you, too, and some struggling actor who looks nothing like you is going to be playing your corpse. If you don’t want that to happen, I suggest you get off of me and let me get us away from that ship."
I felt like someone had punched me in the chest. I turned away from Hunter and toward the woman, who was now sitting on the deck, her knees pulled up and her head rested against them. I crossed to her and crouched down beside her.
"What's your name?" I asked.
She looked up at me.
"Eleanor," she said softly, her voice sounding weak and exhausted.
Shit. Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit.
I drew in a breath. I didn't know what to do. I had no idea who the man now driving my boat was or why he was here, but I did know who this terrified woman was – and that she was the one I was after.
Chapter Four
Hunter
I looked back over my shoulder to see how far we had gotten from the cruise ship, but what caught my attention was the man who had been driving the ship now crouched down talking to Eleanor. She looked tiny and vulnerable curled against the side of the boat, her eyes darting around her as though she would rather jump overboard and take her chances in the water again than continue to listen to the two of them argue. It was a look that I would never have expected to see on this woman’s face. There was something about her that had struck me as strong and powerful from the first moment that I encountered her at Noah and Snow’s wedding, and it was disconcerting to see her suddenly looking so fragile. I could see the sheer terror in her expression and the thought of what must have happened to her during her marriage to not only instill that fear in her, but also to make it linger even after the marriage ended made my stomach turn.
My mind wandered to that first night at the wedding and how our encounter had gone downhill so drastically and so rapidly. Then my thoughts went to earlier that evening when I grabbed her and kissed her to distract the men who were chasing her. It had been an impulse, something that I hadn’t though all the way through before I did it. I had no idea why those men would be pursuing her the way that they were and what type of danger they might pose to her, and I wanted to do anything that I could to protect her, even for the next few seconds. Of course, that had meant getting us into much the same uncomfortable situation that we had been the last time that we saw each other, and as soon as our lips touched I felt a flicker of regret at my decision. I couldn’t deny the attraction that I felt for Eleanor, but the same reservations that I had had at the wedding were there and I couldn’t put them behind me. Whatever was happening with her, I wanted to help her, but that had to be it.
Suddenly the boat lurched, startling me out of my thoughts. The engine fell silent and I felt my heart sink into my stomach.
That can’t be good. Boats aren’t supposed to just turn themselves off on a whim.
The other man appeared beside me and shoved me out of the way unceremoniously. Unfortunately, that wasn’t something that I was entirely unfamiliar with. High school had not been particularly kind to me. Being less than athletic and needing glasses just to breathe had not endeared me to the football players or even the slackers. I was kind of an island in and of myself. Working out and trading out my hand-me-downs for clothing that actually fit in the years after graduation had helped give me some confidence, but most of the time I still felt like that skinny, outcast nerd navigating the hallways like I was running the gauntlet just to get to chemistry class. The way that this man was treating me was bringing those memories back with a vengeance and I suddenly felt like I could commiserate more with Eleanor. I wondered who was still living inside of that beautiful, polished shell and how that person was still affecting her.
"What did you do?" he demanded angrily as he flipped switches, trying to get the engine to turn over so that we could continue on away from the ship.