Claimed by Her Alpha by Alex Anders

Now we have to ride into them, and the waves have picked up.”
    “Can we go around?” Saki asked, unsure what else to do.
    “No, unless we go all the way around Andros Island. We don’t have the gas for that. Once we get back into the Bahama Bank, the waves should drop a little. We just have to get there.”
    Saki tightly gripped the steering pedestal as the slow-moving boat kept slamming itself into the ocean below. A couple of times, the propeller on the outboard engine made a noise like it was leaving the water. It was a frightening sound. It sounded like the engine was struggling to stay running. So far everything about their trip home unnerved Saki.
    “Okay, I’m going to try something else,” Lane said with a more-than-worried look on his face.
    “What are you gonna do?”
    “I’m gonna tact. Instead of hitting the waves perpendicularly, I’m going to tact to the right and then tact back to the left, kind of zigzagging back into the Bahama Bank.”
    “Do we have enough gas for that?” Saki asked, concerned.
    “We should,” he said, unconvinced. “But we have to do something. I don’t like the sound of the engine.”
    Saki didn’t like Lane’s reply. She thought the engine was making an unusual noise, and he just confirmed it. Saki felt her chest clench as she considered what it would be to be stranded in the middle of the ocean. She didn’t want to go out that way.
    As described, Lane took the boat right for about 10 minutes, picking up speed. For the next 10 minutes, he drove the boat in the opposite direction. It felt like they were just moving left and right, but she trusted Lane.
    When Saki heard to the engine make the same gurgling noise without it leaving the water, she became concerned. “Should it be doing that?”
    “No,” he said, glancing back.
    “Should I be worried?”
    Lane took a moment to answer. “Yes.”
    A cold sweat covered Saki’s forehead. Her mouth dropped open as it got harder for her to breathe. “Can I do anything?”
    Again, he was slow to answer. “No.”
    The farther they went, the worse the engine sounded. It now seemed to be sputtering. At times, it struggled to keep up the speed, though other times it chugged along fine, giving Saki a false sense of hope. As the length of the sputtering increased, she could no longer remain quiet.
    “Do you think we should head back to Florida?” She said, trying to be as helpful as possible.
    Lane pulled his phone out of his pocket. Turning it on, he calculated the time back to the Keys.
    “If we go anywhere, it should be to Andros. We’re closer. But I think we should keep trying. It could just be water in the gasoline. If it is, then it will just work itself out.”
    “And if it doesn’t?”
    “Then we hope we hit Andros.”
    Saki could not sit easily after that pronouncement. She stared back at the engine as much as she could. Once she began to feel ill, she turned her head into the breeze.
    The sound was not getting better, however. With each minutes, it only got worse. When Lane abandoned his tact strategy, Saki got an idea of what was about to happen. With Lane pushing the boat full throttle, the engine sputtered one more time and then quit completely.
    Saki‘s heart pounded in her chest. She looked up at Lane for reassurance and found only a frantic look on his face. Quickly leaving the wheel, he removed the cushion over the gas tank and squeezed a black ball connected to the engine.
    “Try to start it,” he ordered, pointing at the key.
    With her heart in her throat, she turned the engine over. It’s made the sputtering sound again.
    “Okay, hold on,” he said, giving the ball three squeezes. “Okay, now.”
    Still nothing.
    Lane stopped squeezing and lowered his head.
    “What do we do?” She asked, trying to mask her terror.
    Lane struggled for words. “I think, maybe, there might be some, I don’t know, dirt in the engine or something.” Lane‘s fear was evident. It looked like he was putting