PARKER WOKE UP ON SOMETHING HARD, with pain shooting through his left shoulder and a cold chill swirling around his body. He reached for his blankets. Not there. Was he on the floor? He opened his eyes and blinked. That’s exactly where he was. He rubbed his shoulder. Must have landed on it when he fell out of his bunk. How’d that happen?
He glanced around the room, half expecting Logan to have tossed him out of the bunk before his alarm clock went off. But the true reason he lay there became evident a second later as the floor went from horizontal to almost vertical, then reeled back to almost vertical the other way. They were in the heart of a storm.
As his mind screamed for him to stay in his cabin, Parker pulled on his clothes and staggered out the door of his room and onto the deck. Torrential rain drenched him. Ocean spray shot over the side of the boat and pounded his face.
The deck shifted violently as the front of the boat dipped down at forty-five degrees, reached the bottom of a trough, then seesawed back up so the tip of the boat pointed at the lightning that flashed through the sky. Parker clutched at the nets just outside the wheelhouse door and searched for the others.
Dawson was in the wheelhouse wrestling with the wheel of the boat like it was a bull. Abraham was checking the fish holds to make sure they were locked down. Fredricks and Logan were nowhere in sight.
Parker stumbled toward Abraham, trying to figure out how he might help. As he did, Parker heard the groan of metal against metal and glanced up. No! The ship’s boom had come loose and streaked toward Abraham and him.
“Look out!” Parker dropped to the deck and whipped his gaze up toward Abraham. In that moment Parker realized crying out was the worst thing he could have done. If Abraham had stayed bent over, the boom would have gone right over him. But Parker’s call brought Abraham upright, and the boom cracked into his forehead the instant he stood and turned. He dropped to the deck like a cold-cocked heavyweight boxer. The boat heaved, and the boom lurched back and forth like a whip.
“What the—” A shout came from the front of the boat. Logan. He stumbled along the starboard side, gaze riveted on Abraham. He pointed at Parker, then Abraham. “Check him!”
As Parker scrambled on his knees over to Abraham, Logan’s low voice boomed, “Fredricks, get out here!”
Parker reached Abraham and squinted at his forehead. Cut and bleeding, but the injury wasn’t deep. Parker set his ear next to Abraham’s mouth. Thank God. He was breathing. A wave crashed over the boat and buried both of them.
“Get him over here!” Logan shouted as he staggered over the deck.
Parker nodded and tried to lift Abraham, but his boots slipped on the deck and he crashed onto his backside as Abraham slipped from his hands.
Logan’s voice again sliced through the rain. “What is your problem? Get him over here! Now!”
Dawson’s faint voice floated down from the wheelhouse toward Logan, but Parker caught the words. “Want me to help?”
“Do not leave that spot!” Logan jabbed his finger at Dawson. “Stay on the wheel.”
“Aye!” Dawson blinked rapidly, his face white.
Not good. Dawson was seasoned. If this storm scared him, they were all in serious trouble. Again, Parker grabbed Abe, but the man’s deadweight made him feel like he was made of concrete. Then Logan was beside him, lifting Abraham like he was a bag of foam. “Get below, Rook! You’re just a liability.”
Logan dragged Abraham back toward the wheelhouse. As Parker watched, the scene seemed to shift into slow motion. The sound of the waves and the stinging rain and the screams of the boat straining against the ocean all melded together into a rush of noise that made Parker’s head spin. He tried to steady himself to keep from being tossed back and forth across the deck. And he stayed low.
The boom. Oh no. Had Logan seen it was loose?
He whipped his head up just in time to see the boom streaking toward Logan’s head. At the last instant Logan threw up his arm to ward off the blow, but it was far too late to duck. Abraham fell to the deck as Logan was knocked across the boat. Momentum carried his body over the edge, his hand groping for the railing. He snagged it. Yes! He hung there as Parker sprinted toward him, his hand and forearm the only things now visible. Then Logan’s fingers slipped and the captain was gone, over the edge, into the ocean.