“Wedding cake flavor.” Marilyn stretched her arm as it cramped painfully. “What did y-you decide on? Fair warning, if you say vanilla, I’m sw-swimming out. You’re on y-your own.”
There was no response from Annie for a long time. Marilyn thought she’d passed out or had fallen asleep.
“C-coffee and cognac,” Annie finally said.
“Th-that is the most delicious thing I’ve ever heard. We’re going to drink a gallon of hot coffee when they get us out of here.”
“You need to go, Marilyn,” Annie’s voice was barely more than a whisper. They could both feel the water lapping at their faces.
“I’m not leaving you. N-not until the very last breath.” She wouldn’t die here, she had two children to think of. But she’d be damned if she left Annie here alone one second earlier than she had to. “You’d do the same f-for me, Annie. You know you would. You s-saved my life back in that hospital. I-if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here to enjoy this n-nice wade in the ocean.”
Annie didn’t respond.
“Annie? Wake up, Annie!”
Nothing. Marilyn reached up to check for a pulse and thought she felt one. But her fingers were so numb, she couldn’t be sure.
Please, Noah. I need you.
If it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t have the strength to be doing this right now, mentally or physically. They hadn’t stopped their sparring or training just because Jared was dead. It had kept her in shape.
All the sex had, too. Massive amounts of hot sex had kept her in shape. And evidently, every mind-blowing orgasm had been for a greater purpose.
She laughed and it gurgled in the water.
Oh God, this was it, the water was going to rise past their heads. She needed to hold the emergency scuba tank mask over Annie’s face. She wouldn’t be able to do it herself if she was unconscious.
And when she let go to save herself, Annie would drown. She couldn’t think about that. She kicked in the water to push herself up, struggling to hold Annie’s torso and the mask against her face. She wouldn’t be able to keep this up for—
“Marilyn!”
Noah.
He was at the top of the cave. He’d come for her. She’d known he would.
Other men were yelling, too. Zac was yelling for Annie, but she was already under water.
Marilyn was going under, too. It was too deep, she couldn’t keep her head above the water line any more if she wanted to stay where she could reach Annie. She could hear more vague shouting, but in order to keep the mask against Annie’s face, she had to let herself go under. She used one hand to hold the mask to Annie and stuck her other arm straight up out of the water so they would know where to find them.
It had to be enough.
She kept the oxygen pressed over Annie’s nose and mouth and held her breath.
Noah would not let her drown. He hadn’t let her drown emotionally when she was going under, and he wouldn’t let her drown physically. She trusted that fact with every fiber of her being. She would keep Annie alive and he would get her out.
She was down to her last seconds of air when bright beams of light shined into the water and someone’s arms reached around her to take the mask and keep it pressed against Annie’s face. Another set of arms wrapped around her and propelled her to the surface and life-giving air.
Noah. She didn’t even have to look to know it was him.
Four or five guys—former Special Forces training evident—were rappelling down from the cave opening to help rescue Annie.
Everything was fuzzy for Marilyn against Noah’s chest as he climbed her out of the water and on to higher rocks. It wasn’t long before the men had freed Annie’s leg and pulled her from the water, too. A few seconds later, emergency blankets were thrown down from above and Noah wrapped her securely in one. Everything was going to be okay.
Zac had Annie in his arms in a similar blanket. She was conscious and even smiling.
“Coffee and cognac,” Marilyn said to her. “Can’t wait.”
Noah looked back and forth between the two of them. “Should I even ask what that means?”
“You’ll see tomorrow at the wedding.”
The team above lowered rope knotted in a way that provided her a place to sit. Noah got on the rope next to her.