Page 21 of Austen

And right then, Margo’s face, her eyes, found Austen’s and drilled into her soul.“Don’t give up!”

She put her head down, tried not to sob.

And somehow, in the swirl of confused ocean, she heard it.A horn.

Aboathorn.

She looked up but didn’t see anything, the shadows deep, the waves tossing her.Maybe they couldn’t see her, either?—

Grabbing her sausage, she held it in the air, kicking hard to stay afloat.Please, see me.See me.

Another horn, then two more.

A flare arched over the water, turning it ablaze with light.

She wanted to weep when she spotted the boat, sleek, white, the setting sun turning it to flame, cruising through the water toward her.

Ayacht.Large, with three stories, at least a hundred feet long, with a coms tower and deckhands shouting.One of them threw her a life ring and she swam toward it.

Please let Bertha be long gone?—

Then, a motor.Someone had launched the rescue boat in the stern, and now it sped through the waves, a man in the bow, leaning over as if to pluck her from the water.

Dark hair, white shirt, tall, broad shoulders, holding onto the sides of the boat.

Declan?

He wore such a dark, fierce look—it thrummed through her and stole her up even before he reached out for her.

His hands gripped her arms.

The man hauled her from the ocean like she was weightless.

Except he fell back then, still clutching her to himself, collapsing onto the bottom of the boat.

She just sank into his chest, gripping his shirt, shaking.

“I got you,” he said, his voice cutting through the roar of the engine, the terrible screaming inside.“Igotyou.”

She didn’t care what Stein said.

Criminal or not, her heart might already be a goner.

* * *

A miracle.

That’s what Declan decided to call the providence of plucking Austen from the sea just at the edge of sundown, the night hot on his tail.

His brain kept that moment when he’d seen the inflated orange pike protruding from the water.Then the look on her face when she’d spotted him—surprise...joy?

“When we lost your PLB signal, I thought...”He shook his head and gave her a grim look.They sat in the sky lounge, in the upper level of his yacht, her showered and wrapped in a thick bathrobe, wearing a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt that Elise had loaned her.

Jermaine had also given her a once-over.A former military corpsman, the man suggested that Austen suffered from dehydration and exhaustion.

Definitely, although she’d bounced back, it seemed, her auburn hair wet and falling in waves around her face.She sat curled on the sofa, holding a mug of hot lemon water, sipping it slowly, her green eyes betraying her hours in the sea.Tired and a little traumatized.

And he really just wanted to go back to that moment when he’d pulled her from the water and she fell into his arms.

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