Page 13 of Merriment and Mayhem
Everleigh goggled, watching him strip. “What are you doing?”
“In fifty-degree water, cold-shock response sets in in less than a minute.” He kicked off his boots. “The fastest B-shift will be able to get here is in five minutes. And that’s if we’re lucky. That’s too long.”
Dressed in nothing but an undershirt and boxers, Griffin executed a perfect swan dive, disappearing beneath the surface of the dark, choppy water. Everleigh’s heart leaped into her throat.
“He’ll be fine.” Lana stepped out of her flats and reached for the button on her jeans. “Brantley’s a strong swimmer. We both are.”
Over the course of the next five minutes, Everleigh bit her nails to the quick, watching as Griffin and Captain Keegan swam back and forth between the burning yacht and land, single-handedly helping the boaters make it back to shore. Hands literally full, closer to the dock than the boat, they missed as a hand shot up from the water, disappearing beneath the surface a moment later.
Everleigh didn’t think.
The water pricked at her skin like needles, stinging. She’d swum the one-hundred-yard breaststroke and four-hundred-yard freestyle relay in high school, made a few extra bucks lifeguarding at a community pool every summer. But that had been a decade ago; she was by no means a weak swimmer, but she’d never swum in waters this cold. And unlike Griffin and Captain Keegan, she hadn’t stopped to strip down, diving instead into the water dressed in a cowl-necked sweaterdress.
A face surfaced from the water half a dozen yards away, a young woman fighting to keep her head above the waves.
Adrenaline crashed through Everleigh’s veins, and she kicked her legs harder. If only she had a life buoy, a rescue ring, something,anything. Griffin and Lana had made it look so easy, towing the victims ashore, hands wrapped under their arms, using their legs to propel them.
“Help! Help!”
Sucking in a lungful of air just in case, Everleigh wrapped her arms around the waist of the woman struggling to keep her head above the water.
“Hold on,” she panted. “You’re going to be okay!”
She kicked hard and fast, pinching her lips shut against the water that lapped at her chin. With the dock in sight, no more than ten yards away, the woman she was helping panicked, starting to thrash. The heel of her hand jammed into Everleigh’s temple, her fingers tangling in Everleigh’s hair, finding purchase, shoving Everleigh’s head under the frigid water.
Her chest burned. Thirty seconds. That was how long, on average, drowning victims had before their involuntary breath-holding failed, carbon dioxide building up inside the lungs, triggering an involuntary gasp for air followed by aspiration of water into the trachea. Not even that long in cold water.
Just when it felt like her lungs were going to explode, an arm banded around her waist, dragging her above the surface. Everleigh gasped, sucking in a greedy lungful of air, and blinked brackish water from her eyes.
Griffin stared down at her, hair plastered across his forehead, water droplets clinging to his long, dark lashes.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
Chapter Four
Shirt, sweatpants, extra-thick socks, and shower’s just down the hall.” Griffin pressed a bundle of clothes into Everleigh’s hands with a crooked smile. “Follow me.”
“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.” She wrapped the emergency mylar blanket tighter around her shoulders and padded after him, feet bare and skin clammy. “I would’ve been fine. Really.”
“You almost drowned, Everleigh.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “Humor me.”
His house was beautiful—a modified A-frame cabin, tucked away in the woods near the Olympic National Park, secluded yet still closer to town than her grandmother’s house by a solid twenty minutes. It felt a little like the tree house of her dreams, painted in shades of green—forest and hunter, basil and fern—the floor-to-ceiling windows along the back of the house bringing the outdoors in.
As much as she loved the city and everything it had to offer, this was the sort of house she’d always dreamed of calling home. A house in a town that wasn’t quite so small that everyone knew everyone’s business, but small enough that there was a real sense of community. It was a place where she could imagine putting down roots, raising a family. Should she ever be so lucky.
Griffin stopped in front of the last door on the left. “Shower should have everything you need, and the towels are all clean.”
“Thanks.” She held up the bundle he’d handed her, clothes that were soft and smelled like him, like fresh linen and peppermint. “I’ll be quick.”
“Take your time.” His eyes flickered to her lips and back to her eyes. “I’ll, uh, make up the guest room for you.”
He pulled the bathroom door shut, and Everleigh slumped over, elbows resting against the basin of the sink, her head cradled in her hands, mylar blanket sliding to the floor, forgotten.
Fuck.
People got hurt all the time. Either of them could’ve wound up in the hospital or worse tonight, and what would she have done then? Crawled into bed, reassured by the fact that she’d done a bang-up job protecting herfeelings?
Fuck her feelings, her fears, all of it. Everleigh opened the bathroom door and—
