Free Wiser Than Serpents by Susan May Warren

their leash, would destroy ten years of friendship, so carefully carved out and honed. She needed David as her friend. Her best friend, sometimes.
    Yet longing stirred within her, the one she’d buried over and over. David. Her David. The man who took her breath away.
    The man who had saved her life. She smiled up at him, the kind of smile that told him exactly what was on her mind.
    He didn’t flinch. But he swallowed. And wet his lips, an invitation….
    But even as she opened her mouth, even as she considered touching her lips to his, the dinghy rocked. Seriously rocked, as if it had had enough of both of them and wanted to dump them in the drink.
    Yanna jerked out of David’s arms, grabbing the side.
    David steadied her and sat up. “Oh no.”
    “What?” Yanna searched the darkness for anything that might match his tone.
    Her blood turned to ice in her veins. Not fifteen feet away cruised an oceangoing freighter, churning up a wake that could overturn their rubber raft. And behind it, maybe a mile behind, she made out the outline of yet another ship.
    “I drove us into a shipping lane!” David climbed to his knees. “What was I thinking?”
    “That you wanted to save us from the bad guys?”
    Apparently that wasn’t a good enough answer, because he turned away from her and grabbed the outboard motor. He affixed it to the back panel, sat back and gave the ripcord a yank. “I obviously left my brains in the States, because this op has been one stupid mistake after another.”
    Like saving her?
    The motor sputtered, died.
    “C’mon!” His outburst shook her. Never, in all her years of knowing him, had he raised his voice in anger.
    Then again, maybe she didn’t know David anymore. The real David.
    He yanked it again. The motor coughed and again refused to engage.
    Another wave rocked the dinghy, throwing its passengers to one side in a tumble.
    “Get over to the other side, even out the weight. This thing could flip if we both land on the edge.”
    Yanna crawled to the opposite edge, holding on to a rubber handle. Please. She didn’t want to go back into the water.
    David unscrewed the primer and pumped it. “Please have gas, please have gas.” Then he closed it and yanked on the cord again.
    The motor gave another feeble effort and then died completely.
    Silence preceded another wave. This one she rode by throwing herself across the side, counterbalancing David’s weight.
    See, she was an asset.
    Except David wouldn’t even be in this mess if it weren’t for her, would he?
    David sat back on his haunches. “We’re going to have to paddle.” He didn’t look at her when he said it, almost as if he were talking to himself. He reached under the lip of the dinghy, into the folds, and surfaced with a folded paddle. Snapping it open, he turned and braced his knees against the bottom. “Hold on. This might get bumpy.”
    He turned the dinghy into the next wave and Yanna held on to the front as seawater sprayed her face, running down her shirt.
    In the distance, lights from shore mocked them as the next ship bore down, on course to run them over.
    Whoever had decided to lean on Vicktor’s doorbell at two in the morning, driving shards of noise into his sleep-hazed brain had better be bleeding from his or her ears and in dire need of help, or they soon would be. Vicktor’s bare feet froze against his cold linoleum floor as he yanked open his door. Roman put a hand on his chest and pushed him back inside.
    “Don’t…hurt…me.” He drew in heavy breaths, as if he’d run all three kilometers from his apartment to Vicktor’s.
    “You do have a telephone at your place, right?”
    “Get…your…gear…” Roman leaned against the wall, his breath less fierce now. “Yanna’s in trouble.”
    “What?” Vicktor turned on the hall light, bathing the foyer in harsh luminescence. Roman wore a pair of black jeans and his leather jacket. Vicktor felt a little stupid bare chested and in his sweatpants.