I laughed. ‘Not pretty.’
‘The sailors will be the last to show,’ Molly continued. ‘They’re down at the marina now, checking their anchors, adjusting their lines, and swearing up and down they’re going to ride out the storm on their boats. But, they’ll change their minds at the last minute, come staggering in, wet and wild, just as we’re about to bar the door.’
‘Except for Gator, I don’t see any of the locals, Molly.’
‘You really expect to?’
I thought about that for a moment. Right. After fighting Mueller’s development tooth and nail, if I were a local, I wouldn’t be caught dead under the rubble here either. I’d be up at the All-Age School settling in with my friends and my family. And the food would be better, too.
I reached in my duffle and pulled out a bottle of Myers Rum. ‘Recreational beverage.’
Molly pressed her hands together. ‘You are a love!’
I popped a can of pineapple juice, filled a plastic cup to the halfway point, added a glug-glug of rum, and handed the cup to Molly. She took a sip and melted into the cushions. ‘Ummm. You think of everything.’
‘Just conserving our water.’ I mixed an identical drink for myself and leaned back against my makeshift pillow to sip at it and wait.
I had closed my eyes and drifted off when my handheld radio crackled. ‘Scarlett, Scarlett, this is Rhett. Come in.’
My eyes flew open. Paul? What the hell?
I sat up so quickly that my head swam. I reached under my makeshift cot and dragged out my duffle, pawing through it looking for my radio which continued to say, ‘Scarlett, Scarlett, this is Rhett.’
Next to me, Molly struggled to sit. ‘Paul’s in radio range?’
‘Evidently.’ I finally found the radio in an outside pocket of the duffle where I’d put it so it’d be easy to find.
‘Scarlett…’
I mashed my thumb down on the talk button, stepping on his transmission. ‘Rhett, this is Scarlett. Over.’
‘Hannah, this is Paul. I’m with Henry Allen. We’re in his plane and we’re coming in for a landing.’
‘What? In this weather? Are you out of your freaking mind?’
‘Don’t argue with me now. We’re just north of Scotland and should be touching down on Hawksbill shortly. The crosswind’s pretty stiff, but Henry’s confident we can make it. Out.’
I tucked the radio into the pocket of my shorts. ‘Where’s Gator?’
‘Hannah, you’re not going out…’
‘Of course I am! What if he crashes? Oh my God! Gator!’
The wind blew hot, churning the water of Poinciana Cove into white froth like Armageddon.
I stood next to Gator on the muddy banks of the runway, panting after my hundred-yard dash, desperately scanning the sky, hoping for a glimpse of the bright-yellow speck that would be Henry’s Savage Cub. To the northwest, cirrus clouds were strewn like spun cotton across the blue sky, but dark clouds had settled over Man-O-War to the south, building layer upon layer of gray.
‘Can they land in all this wind?’ I shouted to Gator.
‘Henry’s done it before!’
Wind whipped noisily over my ears, but still I heard it, the drone of an engine, steady and strong. ‘There they are!’ I yelled as the plane came into view.
The Cub headed straight for the runway, flaps down, wings dipping right, then left. With its chrome yellow struts and black trim, the Cub reminded me of a giant bee. It lifted, then dipped, lifted then dipped; with each dip my heart thudded against my ribs. ‘Come on, come on!’
I watched, fingers tightly crossed as the Cub closed the gap between us. I could see Henry now, struggling with the control stick as the plane slipped right on a sudden gust of wind. Henry won, and the little plane steered straight for the runway again. The big tires skimmed the water, sending up rooster tails. It skipped, bounced, then touched down lightly at the end of the runway.
My arms shot up, and I started to cheer, but the cheer caught in my throat. As I watched in horror, another gust seized the Cub by a wing, spun it, flipped it, and sent it sliding sideways into the cove.
I ran forward, flat out, with Gator pounding right behind. We reached the end of the runway in time to see the plane, with Henry and Paul still in it, settle back in ten feet of water with a gurgle and a sigh, its wing lying broken on the starboard side. The propeller still spun.
‘The door’s on the port side,’ I yelled. ‘Help me get them out!’
I splashed into a sea as warm as bathwater. When it got to my waist, I started to swim, reaching the plane in a dozen strokes as the wind and the tide bore me out. Through a curtain of rain I could see Henry in the pilot’s seat, struggling with his seat belt.
When had it started to rain? The drops fell faster, splattering coldly on my face as I hung on to the fuselage and worked my way around to the port side. A wave broke full on my face and I swallowed a mouthful of salt water. Coughing, I braced my feet on the wheel support, grabbed one of the struts and pulled myself up until I was standing on it, trusting it would bear my weight. In the single seat behind Henry, Paul slumped. Blood oozed from a cut on his temple.
I grabbed the door and pulled, but I couldn’t get it open. ‘Help me, Henry! Where’s the handle?’
Henry moved, and suddenly the door was outside the plane. It slid past my legs and tumbled into the sea, which was strangely flat and calm where the fuselage sheltered it from the wind. I watched it sink to the bottom. With the door gone, I grasped one of the seat supports for balance, leaned in and spoke to my husband. ‘Paul! Paul! Are you OK?’
Paul squinted at me groggily. ‘I think so.’
‘Can you swim?’ I asked as I struggled to help him with his seat belt.
‘I think so.’
Gator had joined me by then, bracing one foot against a strut and the other on the side of the plane. As Gator struggled for balance, Henry tore out the pilot’s seat cushions to make room to work. Leaning over the auxiliary stick, he helped me extricate Paul. Together we handed him down to Gator who eased Paul into the water, holding on tight to his belt. I watched him float my husband slowly to shore, fighting the wind and the waves every stroke of the way.
‘What the hell were you thinking?’ I wanted to scream at Henry, but this didn’t seem like the time for it.
‘Are you ready?’ asked Henry.
I nodded.
‘After you,’ he said.
And I jumped in.
Getting back was much harder as the weather was against us. For every two strokes forward the waves would push me one stroke back. I wasn’t sure how strong a swimmer Henry was, so I kept checking to make sure he was still with me. Stroke, kick, stroke, kick. Turn, look back. It seemed like hours before my feet touched sand and I could stand up and wade on to the beach where Gator was sitting next to Paul. He’d propped my injured husband up against a piece of driftwood.
I fell to my knees in the sand, crying with relief, checking Paul’s wound gingerly with my fingers. ‘You scared me half to death!’
Paul looked at me, then closed his eyes. ‘Don’t cry,’ he said.
‘I’m not crying, you idiot. It’s the freaking rain!’
The corners of his mouth twitched in what might have been a smile. ‘I was worried about you, Hannah.’
Gator eased his hands under Paul’s armpits and urged my husband to his feet. ‘Let’s get him back to the resort.’
The rain stung my face, the wind slashed at my hair as I lifted my husband’s arm and eased under it. ‘Is this what it feels like to skydive in the rain?’
Gator snorted. ‘A few minutes later, Henry, and you wouldn’t have made it.’
Henry’s head wagged and water dripped off his earlobes. ‘That’s as close to death as I ever want to get.’