by Lena North
I looked around the room once more, and then I walked out of there.
“Shit place to grow up, sweetie. You’re better off in Croxier,” Dupree said coolly and raised a hand when a tall black-haired man waved us over to the side.
He indicated that I should roll down my window, so I did, even though the man scared the crap out of me.
“We’ll keep an eye on the place,” he said in a gravelly voice.
“Okay,” I squeaked.
“This is yours,” he said and held something out to me.
I would have taken a snake if he asked me to, but it was the shell I’d lost on Sebastian’s boat, hanging from a silver chain.
“Thank you,” I whispered, and stared at it.
When I looked to the side again, the man was gone, and then Dupree hit the gas.
“He had yellow eyes,” I said weakly.
“Yup.”
By the time we got back to Prosper, I’d found my anger again which resulted in an argument with Joao in front of my father, Nicky, and Snow. Joao refused to apologize for keeping me safe, his words, and I ran out of arguments eventually.
“Sunshine,” he murmured.
“I really want to be angry with you,” I informed him haughtily. “You’re ridiculously bossy, and you told Papi about the visit, which I explicitly asked you not to do.”
“Did not,” he protested, and when I raised my brows, he pointed at Nicky.
“Didn’t know it was a secret,” Nicky murmured with a shrug when I glared at him.
“We need to order pizza,” Dupree cut in calmly. “What?” he asked when I rounded on him. “Get over it. I promised Ban we’d have mainland pizza and I’m hungry.”
I stood there, watching them order pizza, bring out plates and in general ignore my anger. Then I ate pizza and somewhere between my second and third piece, my anger faded away.
Joao and I made up that night, and doing it quietly was no fun so I informed him that the next time we fought, it should be in our home. He laughed so loudly Nicky roared at him to shut up.
When we got back home, life settled into a slow, sweet pace. We worked, partied with our friends, started scraping off one side of the house and swam with the dolphins each morning. And life was good.
“Sunshine,” Joao murmured, and I jolted out of my thoughts.
He was dripping wet, and then he put a pair of scissors down in front of me with a thud.
The bar went completely silent, and I felt Dupree moving next to me.
I stared at the scissors and wondered if he’d lost his everloving mind. Then I knew what he’d seen in the waste bin in our avocado colored bathroom and had to press my lips together to contain what would have been very loud laughter. What he wanted to do was sweet, and I loved him so much for it.
He was also wrong, so I leaned forward and whispered, “I’m not pregnant.”
“It’s okay, we’ll –”
“I’m not pregnant,” I insisted.
“But I saw the test,” he whispered back, eyes full of confusion.
I twitched my head to the side once and moved my eyes to Thea, who was smiling happily. He turned toward her, and she raised her glass of soda in a silent toast. Tina was suspiciously quiet, and when I glanced at her, I saw how she struggled with laughter.
Joao turned back to me and murmured, “I might feel a little bit like an idiot right now.”
He looked so cute, watching me with happy eyes and a look on his face that told me he had no clue how to get himself out of the situation he’d put himself in. I knew, though, so I took the scissors and stretched them out to Thea.
“Cut the dreads, Joao. It’s their baby, but it’s your child too.”
His eyes followed the scissors, and then he looked at Thea.
“You don’t have to,” she said quietly.
Something passed between them, and a grin spread slowly on Joao’s face. He looked at Tina and stated calmly, “This is your child, but he or she will be a sibling to my children, so it’s time.”
I moved out from behind the bar, grabbed a chair, and saw how Dupree walked over to lock the door. A few tourists sat in a corner, and they were looking around with wide, confused eyes, but I decided to ignore them. Someone would explain, or else they’d probably just watch in silence.
“I’m so gonna tell my grandkids how ridiculous their grandfather can be. Probably repeatedly and with relish,” Tina said, but I saw the happiness shining in her eyes when Joao squeezed her to his chest.
“Over the moon for you,” he murmured and sat down.
His eyes were on me when Thea cut the first dreadlock and handed the scissors to Tina. She cut the next, turned toward me and stretched her hand out.
“You do the rest, Charlie.”
I was wiping furiously at the happy tears on my cheeks and shook my head, so she stepped in close.
“Want it to be your child too,” she whispered. “Sister or brother to your children.”
My eyes widened. Joao and I hadn’t talked about starting a family and had taken precautions to ensure we didn’t. What we had was still new, and with everything that had happened, we simply enjoyed being us, without any drama. The way we were together, I didn’t doubt we’d get to the point where Tina’s child would have siblings, though.
“Cut them, Sunshine,” Joao murmured.
I took the scissors and started cutting his hair. A loud cheer erupted in the room, and I paused to look into his eyes.
“You do realize this is the second time in my life I cut off someone’s dreadlocks, without being pregnant either time?”
He started laughing, and I put my hand on his head to keep it still. Tina and Thea watched us, but I heard someone sniffle, so I turned.
“Are you crying, Uncle Lippy?” I asked curiously.
That made another cheer echo in the room, and I chuckled while I worked. Dupree took Joao away to shave off the last bits, and when they returned, I froze and stared. I’d always loved it when Joao tied his dreads back but this? He looked so hot I thought I’d go up in flames.
“Sunshine?” he murmured.
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “You can’t ever let your hair grow again.”
“It won’t.”
“You’ll shave daily,” I breathed out.
“No. It’s weird, but when we cut it off because of a child, it simply stops growing.”
“Compared to all other weird things out here, baby, I would probably only classify that as mildly unusual,” I mumbled, still staring at him.
“It feels strange,” he admitted and slid a hand over his head.
“It’s unbelievably hot,” I said and moved in closer to him. My hands went up his chest, and then up over his head, and I shuddered. His eyes darkened, and I tilted my head back even further to whisper, “I should have made sure I got pregnant immediately.”
“Sunshine?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll get to that part.”
“Yeah,” I repeated.
“Now,” he said, picked me off the floor and placed me over his shoulder, which made our family and friends cheer loudly again.
Then he walked out of the bar.
Continue reading
Curious about some of the characters in Seaborn?
The story is loosely linked to the Birds of a Feather series, where Hawker Johns and his white-haired daughter are introduced in book #1, Wilder. Domenico, Nicky, d’Izia is the hero in book #4, Black Snow, but his girl Snow is introduced already in book #2, Sweet Water. The big man with muscles and tattoos is the Reaper, from book #5 with the same name.
The history legends were made from are in the Dreughan series, a trilogy about the adventures of three friends, living a thousand years ago.
The story continues after Seaborn in Sea swept – released back end of 2018
Sea swept is also loosely linked to the Birds of a Feather series where Jamie played a part in books #2, 3,
4 & 5.
Option 1 - Find a way to survive.
Option 2 - Die
Bella is a wimp. She knows it and can’t seem to find a good enough reason so stand up for herself, neither with her overbearing family nor with her colleagues. She reluctantly agrees to go on a family cruise, and ends up a castaway, all alone on an island in the middle of the ocean.
Jamie. That’s the name echoing in his mind and he can’t make it stop. He’s living all alone on an island and he doesn’t know much, but everything inside him screams at him to stay away from the water. Stay away from people. Above all, he knows one thing.
He doesn’t deserve to live.
Deciding to go for option one was the easy part for both of them. Everything that comes after is difficult.
Turn the page to read the beginning of Sea Swept…
Sea swept
Prologue
The Island
He heard their voices and stepped back into the trees like he had done countless times before, prepared to move further away from the beach. The island was small but still big enough to hide him.
His head started pounding like it always did, his pulse quickened, and he counted the beats. It calmed him down in a way nothing else could, and he’d done it repeatedly, ever since that morning when he opened his eyes and saw the small stretch of sand far away.
He should have died.
Most things didn’t make sense, but he knew this with a certainty which overrode everything else.
He didn’t deserve to live.
And yet, he’d fought through the waves, clawed his way up on the beach and into the shadows of the trees. Built a small hut. Found food and water.
Survived, when he didn’t deserve to. Lived when he should be dead.
“Come here, Sunshine.”
He twitched when the deep voice reached him and realized that he hadn’t moved. He’d stood there watching the couple as they walked out of the water. There was something about the man that cut through him, and the woman had been there before. She’d crawled up on that beach too, just like him. Exhausted and crying, scrambling for firm ground. Several others had followed, and he’d not been to the beach since that day. Hadn’t dared to. There had been a boat and loud voices.
People.
He had to stay away from people. Had to stay out of the water.
“Why are we here, Joao?”
A flash went off in his head, and he crouched down silently.
Joao.
Through the leaves, he watched the girl walk up toward the man.
“It has to be here.”
Her eyes were happy pools of laughter, and something snapped in his chest.
Dupree.
Joao.
Oh, God.
Josie.
His head hurt so bad he wanted to scream, but he locked his jaws and kept breathing slowly.
The tall man suddenly sank down on his knees.
“I love you, Sunshine.”
“Joao…”
“You are my whole life. Please marry me.”
He heard a soft sob and had to close his eyes. Couldn’t watch that smile, shining so brightly it cut through the fog in his mind and blinded him.
“I love you too. Yes, Joao, I’ll marry you.”
Slowly he crept backward, and a small twig snapped, but the couple on the beach were not paying attention. When he was far enough away, he let go of his control and allowed the tears to come for the first time since that day when he should have died.
Voices and images flashed in his brain, faster and faster.
Black hair.
A small town by the beach.
I will kill you for this.
Angry dark eyes.
You are nothing to me.
I’ll never forgive you.
The hurt pushed a soft wail through a throat clenched so tightly he couldn’t get air into his lungs. Then he pressed all thoughts back and started counting his pulse again, sitting on the grass with his arms around his legs so tightly the scar on his shoulder stretched out in a way that hurt. Rocking slowly and focusing only on the beat in his ears.
One. Two. Three. Four…
Survive.
Through the fog in his head, one name kept repeating itself, so he closed his eyes and started counting again, but he couldn’t silence his mind this time. It kept coming, again, and again, and again until it echoed with his pulse.
Jamie.
Jamie.
Jamie.
Chapter One
Boating
Bella
“Come on, Maribelle! If you moved faster, I bet your metabolism would increase.”
I did not like my name. It killed me to admit it, but I did not exactly like my mother either and not only for giving it to me. My mother was Antoinette Morvielle-Jones, and she was a whole lot more pretentious than that silly name. The Jones part came from my father, Bob, and if he hadn’t been a gazillionaire, she would never have agreed to marry him. Not with that name.
My friends and colleagues call me Bella because that’s what I told them my name was
“Hurry,” my oldest sister, Jaqueline, snapped. “The boats are leaving, and I want to be on the first one.”
I didn’t want to go on one of the small boats taking us on a day trip from the large cruising ship to a group of small islands where we would spend the day snorkeling. My father had to work because that’s what he did even when we were on a family vacation on a luxury ship, cruising from Prosper via the Islands and further to a couple of our neighboring countries.
A whole day with a book and some silence seemed like heaven. We’d been on the ship for one day only, and I had already had enough. I was twenty-five years old, for Christ’s sake. Why hadn’t I just said no, to the stupid cruise altogether, and the stupid snorkeling, and whatever else they pushed on me?
Because I was a wimp, that’s why.
Except, I wasn’t one. Not on the inside.
I just didn’t know how to not be a wimp on the outside, and especially not when my family was involved. Perhaps it was a need to compensate for the long string of disappointments I’d presented my mother with? I was the youngest, but I’d never been the cherubic, happy baby she expected. I’d been tiny, and scrawny and colicky. I also hadn’t grown up to be pretty like my sisters, and to top it all off; I had a brain. Not a genius brain in any way, even though it seemed like it in comparison with my sisters. Just one that worked, which meant I hadn’t been very good at handling the shallowness of the country-club lifestyle my mother favored.
My father rarely said a word to us, although probably not because he didn’t want to. He just never seemed to have the time. He’d put his foot down when I announced I wanted to become a nurse, though. Mom had been livid and wailed about not being able to face her friends. Jaqueline had tried to calm her down by saying that it was good if I had a career since I’d never get married anyway. I’d smiled because it wasn’t the first time I’d heard that, and I didn’t care. I didn’t actually want to get married, so it wasn’t as if she was entirely wrong. My middle sister had chimed in that they had both gone to university, so it wasn’t so strange that I wanted it too, and I almost laughed. They had indeed gone to uni and neither had been there for an MBA. They had both gotten entirely useless degrees in something creative, but in reality, they’d been there for an MRS. To their complete shock, neither had achieved this, although to their defense; Jaqueline had been engaged twice and it looked like her current boyfriend would pop the question any day. He knew his future promotions were in the hands of our father, so it might stick this time. Ariette was still waiting for that blissful moment when she’d get to sob out a hitched ye-ye-yes with a hand on her chest and tears in her eyes. I’d seen her practicing so I knew she’d look fabulous.
“You’ll be a fine nurse, Maribelle,” dad had said and indicated with his hand that he wanted the scalloped potatoes. Then he’d turned a page in
his business magazine, continued reading, and the discussion was over.
After university, I’d gotten a job as a nurse in the ER at Prosper General Hospital, where my colleagues always said I was the sweetest creature on earth. I assumed this implied I was a wimp at the hospital too. I just didn’t see the need to fight about things that didn’t mean anything, and if someone needed to change a shift or had objections to what patients they got, then it made sense for me to make things easier, didn’t it?
“Are you coming?” Jaqueline pressed.
“You go ahead,” I said. “I’ll catch a later boat.”
“You need the exercise,” Mom chirped. “No sneaking off, you know what that does to my nerves.”
Ah. My mother’s nerves. Forged in steel and ruthlessly used to push her agenda.
“I’ll be there,” I mumbled.
I’d have to, or else the next few days would be a very long and whining road to walk on.
To my surprise, I had a good time. The people in my boat were middle-aged and hilarious. They joked about the way they would float better being a little bit overweight, how the sun had burned their noses, so they’d be easily found if they got lost, how one of them couldn’t swim very well and would be towed in a line by her husband, and a whole host of other things. I giggled with them and forgot to feel self-conscious, which I usually did when I had to go anywhere in a bathing suit.
I wasn’t fat. At least, not fat in the way my sisters thought I was. I was chubby in a way my hips bulged over any pants I bought, and my arms weren’t exactly toned. A former boyfriend had told me he liked it. “You’re like a soft pillow,” he said and squeezed my belly. I hadn’t liked that at all, although I never told him it was the reason I broke up with him weeks later. I’d murmured something about focusing on my career, and he’d been more interested in being connected to my father than me, so he’d been upset, but not much.
