For a moment, the horror of knowing people had been hurt paralyzed him. Would he ever be able to avoid this kind of loss? He got control of himself and began to bark out orders. The crew scurried to rescue as many as possible.
Jesse blinked the salty spray from his eyes and then blinked again at the sight of a young woman battling the high seas. Her exhausted face was surrounded by long black hair that floated behind her. The girl seized a dolphin’s dorsal fin with one hand and grasped a female victim with the other. The dolphin nimbly managed the waves and had the women alongside Jesse’s boat in moments.
Jesse shook off his shock at the unusual rescue and reached down to help. He tried to pull the injured woman onto the deck, and a medic rushed to care for her. But the young woman clung to the dolphin, and her gaze met Jesse’s. He saw exhaustion in her eyes.
“I think you’re done for,” he said. “We’ll take over now.” He held out his hand to help her aboard.
Her face was strained with fatigue, but she gave a stubborn shake of her head. “There are still people out there. My cousin—” Her eyes filled with tears, and she turned to paddle back out. A wave rolled over her head, and she came up sputtering.
“It will do them no good if you drown in the process of trying to get them. My men will haul in all they can find.” He wished he could reassure her about her cousin, but the death count today was likely to be high. He set his lips in a determined line. “Give me your hand,” he told the young woman.
Another man surfaced next to the woman. Hawaiian like her, he flung his wet hair back from his face. “Kaia needs to get out of the water,” he gasped. He grabbed the young woman’s arm and pushed her toward Jesse.
The mermaid—for that’s what she looked like—shook her head and started to push away from the boat again. There was no time to argue with her. Her olive skin was paler now. Jesse reached down and grabbed her arm. The man in the water pushed her toward him, and Jesse easily lifted her into the boat.
She struggled briefly then sagged. “I’ll just rest a minute,” she muttered. “Bane and Mano need to rest too. They’ve been in the water as long as I have.”
“I’ll get them too,” Jesse promised her. He helped her sit on the deck and went back to grab the man in the water, but one of the boat’s crew had already helped him aboard.
Dressed in dripping shorts and a T-shirt, the man squeezed water out of his thick black hair. “Lucky for us you got here. I don’t think I would have been able to get Kaia out of the water until we’d gotten all the victims out.” He turned and looked across the water. “Stay there, Mano!”
Kaia. Pronounced the Hawaiian way as “KIGH-yah,” meaning “the sea.” How appropriate of this Hawaiian who had thrown herself into the sea with no thought for her own safety. The island spirit of aloha meant uninhibited love and affection freely given. She’d certainly shown that today, as had the two men.
Jesse heard a shout and turned back to the ocean. A man in the boat loaded with victims waved toward the one who’d insisted Kaia get out of the water. Jesse wondered if one of them was her husband. He ordered some of his own men to go help the overloaded boat.
He crouched beside the water nymph. “You okay?”
Kaia struggled to sit up. “Bane, what about Laban . . .” she began.
“No sign of him,” Bane said. He turned and scanned the water. “Your dolphin is having a fit. She’s not letting this boat out of her sight. Whistle to her so she knows you’re all right.”
Obviously still shaky, Kaia wobbled to the port side of the boat. Nani chattered from the storm swells. Kaia pulled the whistle dangling from a chain around her neck up to her mouth and blew a series of short and long blasts. The dolphin chattered again then turned to slowly circle the boat in a calmer manner.
“You can talk to them?” Jesse asked, pulling a chair forward for her.
Kaia sank into it. “I’m working on it. I’m studying mammal intelligence at Seaworthy Labs. Nani is the best I’ve ever worked with.”
“She’s phenomenal,” Bane put in. “I’ve never seen anything like the bond between Nani and my sister. They’re soul mates. Kaia found Nani as an orphaned calf. She doesn’t belong to Seaworthy.”
So these two were related, not married. Jesse turned and checked the progress of his men. Most of the victims were now out of the water. “We’ll have everyone to shore soon,” he said.
As the boat rode the waves to Barking Sands Naval Base, Jesse’s gaze wandered to the dolphin that followed them. He’d never seen a dolphin act that way.