“Right, McKenna.” Harrington grinned. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”
It’s practically mine, McKenna thought. And I don’t want to lose anyone. She rummaged in the dinner bag. Jason Parent had made sandwiches, thick ones, roast beef and big hunks of bread, and he’d somehow rustled up fresh lettuce and tomatoes, to boot. McKenna took a bite and savored it. Drank her coffee.
High above them, the wind howled through the access hatch and up the stairway to the deck. Pitch-dark up there now, the only light the cold blue from the LEDs in their headlamps. They were alone here, might well have been the only people left alive on the planet, and McKenna couldn’t shake the sense of awkwardness. She hadn’t been this alone with Harrington, with so little to say, since she’d told him she thought she was falling in love.
And that hadn’t exactly gone over well.
“So we got this thing licked, or what?” McKenna asked after a beat. “You think you can save this wreck?”
Harrington nodded. “I’m reasonably confident.”
“‘Reasonably?’” McKenna arched an eyebrow. “Okay, but once we get all the fluid levels, you’re going to be sure, right?”
Harrington laughed a little, the kind of laugh that made McKenna feel like she’d just asked something dumb. Like she was reading the situation all wrong yet again.
“It’s not just the numbers,” he said. “We’ll get everything we can use, but there’s no guarantees.”
McKenna stared at him. “You said if we input all the fluid levels into your models, the models would show us what to do. Are you saying that’s not true?”
“It’s not as simple as that, McKenna. This isn’t some video game. There’s thirty-three tanks on this ship, and a million other variables. I won’t give you a clean, precise solution to a really messy problem.”
“But that’s what you do,” McKenna said. “That’s your job, Court, to clean up these messes.”
Harrington sighed. “I can give you odds,” he said. “The models give us odds. We decide whether the odds are worth the risk. That’s how this works.” He paused. “Your dad understood that.”
“Yeah, so why can’t I; is that what you mean?” McKenna said quickly. “I’m sorry, Court. I thought I had the best scientist in the world for this job, and you’re telling me it’s a freaking game of poker?”
Harrington started to reply. McKenna beat him to it.
“I need a solution, Court,” she said. “I don’t need odds, or excuses. I need a plan to save this ship, and I need it fast.”
“You’ll get your plan, McKenna,” Harrington said. “Just let me do my job, and you worry about yours.”
I’m the freaking captain, McKenna thought. My job is to worry about you and your job. But she kept her mouth shut. Screwed the top on her thermos and peered down the bulkhead to where the pump rumbled away.
Harrington was watching her. Those green eyes, she could feel them. “What happened to us, McKenna?” he asked when it became apparent that she wasn’t going to meet his gaze. “How did we get here?”
You know how we got here, she thought. You know damn well.
She kept that to herself, though, didn’t say it to Court. “It doesn’t matter, Court,” she said instead. “What matters is how we get home.”
“I really liked what we had together. I hate that it ended how it did.”
“You mean with my dad dying?” she said.
Harrington made a face. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “Before that, when you said all that stuff.” He paused. “I was young, and you were young, and I thought we were just having fun. And then, with your dad, and everything fell apart—I guess I just never got a chance to say sorry.”
This was a mistake. McKenna wished she were topside. Heck, wished she were underwater. Anything to dodge this conversation.
“Yeah, well, no apology necessary, Court,” she said. Then she stood. “I’m going to check on that pump. Get some sleep. I’ll wake you up when it’s your turn.”
She dropped through the bulkhead and climbed down to the pump. It wasn’t quite a walk of shame, but it kind of felt just as crummy.
48
By sunrise, McKenna could almost feel the ship righting itself. The water level in the hold had dropped noticeably, and the pumps were still working hard. Up the stairway, the skipper could see the little patch of gray sky, hear the wind roaring. The ship rocked even harder now, the swell more pronounced, and between checks of the pumps, McKenna climbed to the access hatch at deck seven to survey the weather.
It was a grim sight. The wind had intensified overnight, and it was tearing the tops of the waves to foamy shreds. It blasted into McKenna’s face, rocked the ship hard, and, far below, she could hear the waves crashing against the ship’s keel. The ocean itself was a mess of white water and confused seas, the waves gunmetal gray and haphazard. They built seemingly at random, crashed and died and disappeared again, reappearing as big rumbling masses that steamrolled across the water to collide with the Lion. The gale was in full force, the Lion in its direct path, the waves reaching for the vents every time the wreck plunged into the swell. McKenna stared across the water and cursed Christer Magnusson. Knew he’d wasted good time, and she and her crew would pay for it.
Harrington awoke shortly after dawn. He wiped his eyes, sat up, groggy. “Is it my watch yet?”
McKenna didn’t answer right away. She’d stayed awake all night, watching the pump, watching Harrington sleep, dreading the moment she’d have to wake him up and rehash the night’s conversation.
So she’d let him sleep, avoided the issue.
“I figured you’re the brains of the operation, you could use the rest,” McKenna told him. “Anyway, it’s still early. You can spell me for a while.”
Harrington looked at her. Looked ready to ask a question, but didn’t. “It feels like it’s getting rougher out there,” he said instead.
“Supposed to blow forty knots,” McKenna said.
“Are you tired?”
“No more than usual.”
“I was thinking, I could start surveying the ship. Check the levels in the ballast tanks, start plugging in numbers. If you don’t mind watching the pump a little longer.”
McKenna considered it. The way the storm was building, the earlier they could get started, the better. And it would be nice to get some distance from Harrington for a while. But she shook her head. “I can’t let you wander around this wreck by yourself, it’s too risky. Give it an hour or so, then we’ll go together.”
Harrington hesitated. Then he nodded. “Sure, McKenna,” he said. “Okay.”
THE COAST GUARD SENT a helicopter over just after seven in the morning. McKenna and Ridley met topside and guided the basket down—supplies from the Gale Force. Fresh sandwiches, hot coffee, fuel for the pumps. Then McKenna left Ridley with the amidships pump and took Harrington to the Jonases, who’d built their own nest to babysit their pump.
“How’s she looking?” McKenna asked the divers.
“Still sucking water,” Stacey told her. “And the noise almost drowns out Matt’s snoring.”
“Just thought you might be homesick for those big Gale Force diesels,” Matt replied, laughing. “You love me, don’t lie.”
He moved in for a kiss that Stacey pretended to deny, and then she gave in, and it was gooey and romantic and awkward as all hell, given the conversation McKenna and Harrington had endured the night before. From the expression on Court’s face, he must have felt the same.