Page 16 of Impossible Thrills

“Yes, senorita.”

“No stress for me,” Jagger told her. “I’m a Frogman.”

“A Frogman who’s going to get squished.” Nick smiled at her. “I’ll be fine.”

“Good, good.” Paul clapped his hands together. “Raoul and I will also be mounted with the video cameras to capture the challenge. Ready?”

The three men all looked at Darcy. She raised her hands. “Honestly, no, but let’s get it over with.”

Nick squeezed her hand. “You’ll do great. Raoul and Hays will take you down slowly to equalize and then you just have to breathe nice and easy through the regulator and watch for your heroic Marine to come. I’ll be to you quick.”

Jagger chortled at that. “Your heroic Marine,” he mocked. “Whose body will be spinning the wrong direction while I dive to you and win this challenge. When I win tomorrow too, I guess we call the entire show off.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Only a SEAL would fight instead of save the lady.”

Darcy wanted Nick to save her, and not only for the money.

“All’s fair in war,” Jagger said.

“What about love?” Darcy burst out, then couldn’t believe she’d brought that up. The only time in her life that she’d thought she’d known love, she’d been tricked and ripped apart. She loved all the babies and her missionary friends, but it wasn’t the same as having a spouse and companion to love.

Nick turned to her with a becoming smile and a deep look in his irresistible gaze. Hays smiled too. Jagger scowled.

“Love’s never been part of the equation,” Jagger said. “Let’s do this.”

“Just when we thought he was warming up,” Nick whispered in her ear, making her giggle.

Jagger only pumped his eyebrows, obviously not offended.

They climbed into the boat with Paul and Raoul and motored closer to the lush green island. A few resorts lined the beach, random walkers or joggers in view, and a couple of flat boats with red flags were out in the ocean. Paul said they were scuba boats. All was peaceful and fairly quiet this time of morning.

They all shrugged into tight-fitting wetsuits. Paul and Nick helped fit her with a scuba mask, showed her how her regulator worked, and got a scuba tank on her back. Nick slid into the water with her. The boat had a ladder down off the side. He hooked one elbow and leg through the ladder and supported her in the water. They spent some time making certain her mask didn’t leak and practiced breathing underwater with the regulator.

Nick taught her how to clear her mask if water got in it, tilting the bottom of the mask and blowing hard. That freaked her out; surely more water would creep in that way. It did work when she tried it, but she prayed she wouldn’t have to try it sixty feet down. Then he taught her how to clear her ears and ‘equalize’ the pressure that would build in her head by wiggling her jaw, pinching her nose and swallowing, or pinching her nose, pushing her jaw forward, and blowing out.

None of it seemed too hard, except the clearing mask trick, but then she let her mind wander to being under all this water, with sharks swimming by, sting rays poking her, salt water leaking in and stinging her eyes and nose, drowning, certain death…

She started hyperventilating, and they hadn’t even gone down a foot.

“Whoa, whoa, lady,” Paul said. “You must calm.” He looked at Nick. “Help your lady, mi amigo.”

She wasn’t Nick’s lady. She wouldn’t be anybody’s lady after she drowned. She’d tried to shut out the fear, but she shut her eyes and screamed out, “I’m a horrible swimmer! You saw how I almost drowned that first day and you had to dive in for me.” Her chest tightened. She couldn’t breathe above water. How was she going to breathe below it? “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Darcy.” Nick’s voice was calm and patient. He turned her in the water to face him. She kept her eyes resolutely shut behind the mask. Nick gently lifted the mask onto her forehead. “Darcy, you don’t have to swim to complete the task. At all. I’m sorry you were worrying about that.”

“It’s not your fault.” Her eyes popped open, and she stared at him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before this moment. Not that we could’ve done anything about it. Am I going to fail?”

“No.” Nick studied her with determination. “You’re going to do great. Remember, Hays’s job is to help you down there and Paul will be right with you too. You won’t have to swim one stroke. All you have to do is keep breathing through the regulator. You don’t even have to watch for me to come. You can close your eyes and pray and then I’ll be there and we’ll slowly ascend together.”

“How can we slowly ascend? You won’t have any oxygen. What if you pass out or die? You really can’t share my breathing thingy?”

“No, and I won’t need to.” He smiled reassuringly. “As long as I follow my bubbles up, my lungs will expand and I’ll have plenty of oxygen to rise up to the surface slowly with you.”

“Oh.” It sounded logical, and she tried to steal his calm.

“Shall we pray together?” Nick asked.

“Oh, yes, please.”

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