Page 21 of Honor Code

This guy risked his life to save others and was still doing it even though he'd left the Navy.

"How are you doing?" Phoenix asked.

"Me? I'm fine. I wasn't the one thrown in the Gulf. Or the ones saving him," she replied, touched by his concern. Even though she felt wrung out, her entire body drained of adrenaline, weak and shaky, she was a hell of a lot better than Billy.

"I know, but you nearly went in. What happened?"

"The railing was broken. Suzi and I were trying to tie it down. We were worried it would break loose and hit someone in the storm. Then Billy shouted for me to get back. He pushed me out of the way, just before that thing came out of nowhere and hit him."

"What thing?" Phoenix asked.

"I don't know what it was. A piece of debris or part of the rigging. It had obviously come loose and turned into a projectile as it shot across the deck. It narrowly missed me but hit Billy and sent him flying over the edge." She squeezed her eyes shut. "It was an awful moment. I thought we'd lost him."

"That's why it's important to stay below deck during a storm," Phoenix said firmly, but his eyes were kind.

She knew she was being reprimanded and fair enough, as she'd broken the rules. After two years working on rigs, she should have known better.

"I know," she said, feeling guilty. We shouldn't have gone topside. It's my fault he was knocked over. If we hadn't tried to help…" She petered off, grimacing. That was the ugly truth of it. They'd broken the rules and someone had almost died. If not for Phoenix and Boomer.

"It's not your fault," Phoenix said quickly. "That's not what I meant. You couldn't have predicted that would happen."

"Still, if we hadn't?—"

"Forget it, Ellie." He reached out and wiped a wet strand of hair off her face. "I'm just glad you're okay." His touch was electric, and she froze, unsure what to do. Here he was telling her off, and rightly so, and the next moment, he's touching her, his fingers brushing against her skin. It felt… intimate.

Ellie swallowed and cleared her throat. "Thank God you guys knew what to do. You were incredible. You went after him and got him back. You saved his life." Okay, she was babbling again, trying to cover her reaction to his touch.

It was then she noticed Boomer had left the med center, presumably to go get cleaned up, and the medic had taken Billy into a treatment room. They were alone in the reception area.

His eyes, like dark blue lasers, cut through her inner turmoil.

Please don't look at me like that.

He was drawing her in, and she felt powerless to resist. The fluttering in her stomach turned into crashing waves of anticipation. Her pulse raced, and she felt the heat in his gaze—consuming her.

Oh, hell.

When this happened, she completely forgot what she should do and gave in to what her body wanted to do. Right now, she was ashamed to admit, that was Phoenix.

She tried not to think of the way his broad shoulders hunched when he was brooding, or the way his impossibly blue eyes fixed on her face when he was listening to what she said, trying to understand why the sample results were such a problem. Even then, he'd been trying to help, trying to problem solve.

She definitely didn't want to think about how he'd sprung into action when the crane had come down, or the speed in which he and Boomer had launched that inflatable boat in the raging gale and gone after Billy, calculating the drift pattern based on her coordinates.

Phoenix cleared his throat and said, "You did good, Ellie. You kept it together and fed me the information we needed to find Billy."

"It was nothing." She'd been reading meteorological data since college.

"It wasn't nothing. I've met lots of people, better trained in these types of situations than you, who’ve fallen apart when the going got tough." Phoenix gave her a strange look.

Ellie realized it was pride. Her heart fluttered.

"We make a good team,” he added.

We. Team.

The words echoed in her wind-swept brain, but it didn't stop a warmth spreading through her body. He thought they made a good team.

"You're shivering," Phoenix said softly.

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