Read Windswept for Free Online

happened?”
    Blurry images flooded her mind. The diver. The struggle. The flashing knife. It all welled up until she was gasping as much as when she’d surfaced seconds ago. She shook her head. Not going there now. Definitely not going there.
    Her body felt like lead, and her gear seemed twice as heavy as it had been at the start of the dive. She had to get out of the water, fast. Where was Lucky with the dive boat?
    “This way,” Ryan grunted, tugging her arm.
    The small dinghy moored off to the right wasn’t the dive launch, but it was the closest thing afloat, and it sure would do for now. She forced her arms into a weak paddling motion. God, if her swim coach saw her now…
    Those hundred yards seemed like a thousand, and she had to stop to float on her back twice along the way, but she made it. She grabbed the oar strapped along the side of the dinghy and hung on like her life depended on it. Pressed her forehead against the rubber and made a little cave where she didn’t have to see, feel, think, or do anything but breathe. Everything was okay. She was okay.
    Ryan was shoulder-to-shoulder with her, a solid, safe mass. Whether it was his proximity or sheer exhaustion that kept her from losing it completely didn’t matter right now. Only that she was okay.
    His arm circled her shoulders, and that helped, too. The sound of his breath, the warmth of his touch. Him rubbing her back and whispering,
Thank God you’re okay.
Touching her, making sure she was all there.
    She looped one arm around him and hid her face in his shoulder. Held him tightly and wondered what it was that had ever driven them apart.
    A little wave splashed in between them, and she looked up. Right into his eyes, which were filled with a logjam of words that couldn’t quite make their way out.
    “Where’s Lucky when you need him?” he finally murmured, looking around.
    She kept her head down, reluctant for Lucky or anyone else to come roaring in right now. Another minute of breathing in Ryan and she just might forget what had her so mad at him. Forget that little bit of bad and remember all the good.
    “There he is.” Ryan lifted an arm to wave.
    She looked up, scanning the area.
Neptune’s Revenge,
the environmental activists’ ship, was the biggest thing in sight, and the next nearest thing afloat. Hans’ dive launch was a few hundred feet to the right, where she could make out the first guests clambering up the stern, wondering, perhaps, where she and Ryan had wandered off to. Hans would joke it off in front of the guests, but he’d have a stern word with her later. What would she say? Would anyone believe her?
    I got mixed up and swam off after a stranger who turned on me with a knife…
    The image flashed in her mind, so near and real, she gasped. The man had been face-to-face with her, all anger and frustration. What had she ever done to him?
    “Did you see the man?” She gripped Ryan’s arm.
    His face clouded. “The one who cut your air? I did. And if I’d been a little closer, he’d have had that knife stuck between his ribs.”
    He meant it, too; she could see it in the flash of his eyes.
    “What the hell was he doing, attacking you like that?”
    “I don’t know. I just swam up, thinking he was one of the guests, and he pulled a knife on me!”
    “What kind of guy pulls a knife on another diver?”
    She was wondering the same thing. “What kind of guy dives alone at those depths?”
    “What was he up to, anyway?”
    The words were barely out of Ryan’s mouth when a blinding yellow-red flash filled the sky, together with a clap of thunder. Mia was slammed against the dinghy, shaken nearly senseless. Which way was up? Where was Ryan? What was going on?
    A strong hand grabbed her vest and pulled her underwater, and she kicked hard, imagining the attacker back for another try. But it wasn’t the other diver. It was Ryan, dragging her under the dinghy before letting her pop up on the other side. Keeping an arm over her