Page 29 of One Last Chance

“I think I am. I’d like to just . . . fall. And know that I’m going to be caught.”

“And if you’re not?”

“Maybe I won’t know?”

A laugh on the other side as she toggled her mic, and something warmed him to his bones. “Okay, fine. If you started a bucket list right now, what would be on yours?”

She sighed. “I think I might be willing to skydive.”

“So very Rose of you.”

“What?”

“Standing on the bow of the ship, believing she could fly?”

“Only because Jack was holding on to her,” she said.

“And we’re back to Jack.”

The boat had righted itself. At least he wasn’t upside down. But he might be going straight to the bottom.

“We’re always back to Jack. He believed in . . . everything. Hope. Tomorrow. That he could be anything, do anything.”

Something about her voice . . .

“You don’t believe that?”

Quietly, “I think I used to. Or maybe a missing part of me does.”

He hated how much he could agree with her. “Once upon a time, I think I used to believe that too.”

Oh, he wasn’t sure why that came out.

“So, who are you, Axel? Jack or Rose?”

“Neither. I’m the captain—going down with the ship.”

“More dark humor?”

Maybe just truth. He shook his head. “I should have dove into the sea when we were hit by the wave. Then my brother could have picked me up.”

He knew that made no sense to her, but he just had to voice it to someone.

“We all have would’ve and should’ve, but this is what is. So, how are you going to stay alive?”

Huh. “You sound like my Coast Guard instructor.”

“You’re with the Coast Guard?”

“I was. Rescue swimmer. Top of the class—” He wasn’t sure why he’d added that. “Got my pick of stations and came up to Kodiak. I could swim farther, last longer than anyone . . . Thought I was really something.”

Silence. Finally, “And then? Because it sounds like there’s an ‘and then’ at the end of that.”

She was dangerously easy to talk to. “And then I went out on a rescue. It was in October and the seas were high—like today. A fishing boat was taking on water, seven souls on board, all a family. By the time we got there, four were in a lifeboat, three in the water—a mom, dad, and one of their sons. Twenty-five-foot swells, water breaking over their heads. Thirty-two-degree water. I went into the water and got the mom—direct deployment with a sling. I put it around her and took her up, and by the time she was onboard, I couldn’t feel my hands, and ice blinded my face mask. But I went back into the water after the next two. I got my hands on the dad, but the waves kept washing over us and my hands wouldn’t work. He got away from me.”

Pressure started to build in his ears.Aw, yeah,he was going down, albeit slowly. The air pockets probably acting like buoys. Still, he was definitely sinking. He held his nose and blew out, popped them.

“Then what happened?”

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