by Jamie DeBree
He laughed. “No way. You were serious about that whole prescription thing? Did your doctor actually tell you to go have sex? That is awesome. I really do want the name of that guy, just so I can go shake his hand.”
She stood up, clearly agitated. “Why do you even care? We talked about this already. You don’t want to have sex with me, and for your information, I don’t want kids, now or ever. So why are we even talking about this? It’s ridiculous, and when I get back home I’m going to tell Candace just that.” She paced by the fire, her hands punctuating each sentence sending shadows scattering across the rocks. David considered stopping her, but sensed the most interesting part was yet to come, so he waited while she continued.
“I should have known asking her for advice was a bad idea. ‘Don’t be so uptight,' she said. 'Go on vacation, get laid, relax. Then you’ll be able to sleep at night.’ Yeah, right. I haven’t slept a whole night since I left my house, and my nice, routine life. So far I’ve managed to make an idiot of myself several times, about got eaten by sharks, nearly drowned, and now I’m stranded on a damn deserted island. With the one guy on earth who doesn’t want to sleep with me. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll just go throw myself in the ocean now.”
David couldn’t help it. He laughed, earning a rather mean glare as Kat stalked off into the dark trees. He waited for her to come back, but when she still hadn’t reappeared a couple minutes later, he sighed and got to his feet. She’d gone in the direction of the stream rather than the beach, and he found her leaning against a tree on the bank, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed.
He stood just behind her, knowing she wouldn’t welcome his touch just then.
“Your friend was right about one thing,” he said, noting her muscles tense up at his voice. “You do need to relax, but you don’t need a vacation or a fling to make that happen.”
She shook her head. “Don’t pretend you know me. You don’t know anything about me.”
He shrugged, unable to keep from reaching out and stroking her back with one hand. She flinched, but didn’t pull away, and he noted how cold her skin was. She should have taken the blanket.
“I know you’re feeling out of control right now. And I’m guessing you aren’t a big ‘go with the flow’ type of person, right?”
She nodded, relaxing just a fraction under his touch. He stepped a little closer, giving her a little more of his heat.
“So maybe your friend thought getting away would help you let go a little easier. I take it that’s not working?”
Kat nodded again, with a sniff. “I’ve been trying, but nothing works. I can’t relax, I can’t sleep, and I’m just...so tired...”
“I’ll tell you what.” David curled his hand around her waist and pulled her into his side. “Come back to the cave and warm up. Whether you sleep or not, at least you can get some rest. Did you know that studies have shown a twenty minute nap can sometimes be more restful than a full night’s sleep? And our normal sleep cycles are an hour and a half each, on the average. So if you can sleep for either twenty minutes, or an hour and a half, you’ll probably feel better.”
“How do you know all that?” she asked, not resisting when he pulled her back toward the campsite. “I nap a lot.”
He chuckled. “I hate mornings, and my boss was tired of me being late, and being groggy when I did manage to make it on time. She did the math and started telling me when I should go to bed to get up on time feeling decent. I don’t always follow her suggestions, but I’ll admit I do feel better when I do.”
They reached the camp and he released her long enough to let her get settled just inside the cave, behind the fire. Picking up one of the warm blankets, he wrapped it around her and then sat beside her, using a small boulder as a backrest and wrapping himself up in the second blanket.
“Here,” he said, reaching out to put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward him to lie on her side. She tensed, but didn’t fight, and laid her head down on his leg as he stroked her arm with his fingers.
“Now just relax. Close your eyes, and rest. It doesn’t matter if you sleep or not, just focus on the warm fire, the crackle of the flames, and how peaceful it is here.”
Kat nodded, adjusting her head and shoulders until she seemed comfortable. David kept up a gentle, slow stroke as she settled in, letting his own body relax and soak in the heat as he felt her drifting off to sleep in his lap.
***
Katherine woke to the now familiar sound of crackling flames and wondered how long she’d slept. Opening her eyes, she blinked and then frowned at the daylight surrounding the fire. She pushed up to a sitting position, glancing at the blanket that had been under her head. The last thing she remembered was David pulling her down to lay her head in his lap...
“Good morning. Sleep well?”
She looked across the fire at David as he stood staring down at her. Expecting a mocking smile at least, she was surprised and a little uncomfortable to see the genuine concern in his eyes.
“I think so, thanks to you. I...don’t really know what to say, except to apologize for falling apart last night. Not one of my finer moments.” She looked down at her hands, embarrassed.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, moving closer to drop one of the imitation cardboard meal replacement bars in her lap. “I filled the canteen with fresh water too. When you’re done, we’d better get moving. It’s a decent size island, and we need to be on the other end by late afternoon to catch our ride back.”
Grateful that he didn’t want to make a big deal of it, Katherine washed down her breakfast with cool stream water, wishing for eggs and toast with juice instead. Getting up off the ground, she rolled up her blanket and put it in the emergency bag. Feeling vulnerable in just her bathing suit, she tied the lone towel around her waist and kicked dirt over the last few ashen embers.
“Ready to go Kat?” David reappeared from the direction of the stream, leaning down to take the bag from her hands before he walked off the way they’d come the night before. She hurried to catch up, torn between annoyance and curiosity.
“Why are we going back to the beach? I thought you said--”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “We need to check on the boat, and see if there’s a ship somewhere out looking for us past the reef. Then we can go, okay?”
His longer legs were eating up ground and Katherine had to practically jog to keep up. By the time they reached the sand, she was glad she’d taken all those spinning classes.
“Why can’t we just take the boat around the island?” she asked. “Wouldn’t that be faster? And we’d be able to take the boat back with us too. Or will we come get it when we get picked up?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think there’s enough gas to make it there. Amy and I can come back to get the boat another day - we run diving excursions over here all the time. It’ll be okay here until then.”
She followed him out onto the sand, already warm in the late morning sun. Holding a hand up to shield her face, she scanned the ocean, seeing nothing but waves and the dark outline of the reef in the distance.
“Is that a fin?” she asked, pointing to the water as they walked toward the boat. “It’s awfully close to shore...”
He nodded. “There are some larger sharks that patrol the lagoon around here. Certain times of year are better than others, and they’re normally quieter now, but with the weather changes lately their time tables could be changing. Did you say you nearly got eaten yesterday?”
She shrugged. “I may have been a bit dramatic, but there was a school or pack or whatever of smaller sharks following me for awhile. They were on top the reef though, so I figured they were those reef sharks you talked about.”
He smiled as he checked the knots on the boat’s anchor rope. “Not all sharks on the reef are reef sharks, but you didn’t panic, and that’s the important thing.”
She frowned as he got a few more things out of the metal gear boxes.
�
��How do you know I didn’t panic?”
Standing up, he grinned at her. “You didn’t get eaten.”
No arguing with that. “No, I didn’t.” She followed him as he ducked back into the forest, following his lead as they hiked through the trees.
“Why doesn’t anyone live here?” she asked as they walked. It was a beautiful spot, so lush and green. Plenty of land and water too, it seemed. It would be the perfect place for a vacation hideaway, or one of those fancy resorts.
“Technically, this island is privately owned,” he said, looking around as if someone might be listening. “I don’t think the owner is here much, but I’m pretty sure if I owned a piece of paradise like this, I wouldn’t want to sell or lease to anyone.”
Katherine shivered. “I hope we don’t get in trouble for trespassing. Are there even laws on a private island?”
“I’m not sure,” David shrugged. “But I don’t think we’ll be here long enough to find out, so moot point.”
As they continued the trek over the wild terrain, Katherine thought about what it would be like to own an island. She wasn’t sure who could even afford to do that, much less how they would make enough money to buy an entire piece of land in the ocean. The idea of living in such complete isolation was both intriguing and terrifying.
And a little piece of her really wanted to experience it for herself. Only maybe not in the middle of the ocean.
David stopped suddenly at the top of a low rise and Katherine noticed too late. She ploughed into his back, making her struggle to keep from falling on her butt as he lurched forward with no choice but to jog down the slope that gave way to more sand on the other side. She stood at the top and watched as he skidded down the beach nearly to the tide line before he was finally able to stop.
“I’m sorry!” she called, going down more slowly to join him. “I was daydreaming, I guess. This place is so beautiful, but I can’t imagine being stuck here for very long. I’d think it would get lonely.”
“Depends on who you’re stuck with.” David wiggled his eyebrows and she knew she shouldn’t laugh, but she couldn’t quite hide a smile at the innuendo. As she looked over his shoulder, a bank of huge, angry looking clouds caught her eye. Her expression must have given her away as his own smile faded and he turned to look out to sea as well.
“Is that--”
He nodded. “Looks like a gnarly storm headed right for us. And it’s coming from the direction of the main island too. We’d better get off the beach and find some shelter.”
She started to follow as he jogged toward the trees, but then stopped.
“What about the boat? We’ll miss our ride back!”
He shook his head and came back, grabbing her hand and pulling her along.
“The boat’s not coming - Amy won’t risk coming out in the middle of that squall. We’ll have to try again tomorrow.” He stopped at the edge of the jungle to look back briefly. “The storm is moving quickly - we don’t have much time. Come on.”
Katherine followed him as he ran back the way they’d come, doing her best to keep up as he jogged at an easy pace. Endurance training wasn’t really her thing, and now she wished with all her heart she’d trained more.
As they raced over the dark damp earth, the sunlight glinted off of something to her right. Something big. She pulled out of David’s grasp and stopped, breathing heavily as she squinted against the sun and peered through the trees.
“David, come here!” She waved for him, pointing excitedly at her discovery. “A house!”
He came back and bent down beside her, hands on his knees as he nodded.
“Probably the owner’s place. It doesn’t look all that sturdy though. We’d probably be better off against the rock face somewhere.”
Katherine frowned, moving a step closer. “It looks pretty sturdy to me. Don’t you think we should at least go check it out?”
He shook his head, grabbing her hand again. “You’re just going to have to trust me on this, Kat. We need to find a cave or a cliff, and soon. There’s no way to tell what that storm will bring, but I can’t guarantee that house will be standing when it’s over, so our best chance is to find the biggest rocks we can and shelter between them. We can come back and check out the house when the storm is gone.”
“You can do what you want, but I’m going down there. And don’t call me Kat, dammit!” She wrenched her hand out of his grasp and started toward the house. It was a house. Houses were solid. Houses were shelter. It was what they were meant to do, and the thought of being outside and exposed to the elements during a big storm was far more frightening than a house falling down over her.
A big gust of wind barreled through the valley and swooped through her path, nearly knocking her off her feet. When it was gone, David was there, standing in front of her with an apologetic look.
“I know you don’t understand, and you’re scared, but this could be life and death.” Then he bent down and put his shoulder into her waist, wrapped his arms around her legs and slid her over his shoulder.
Shocked, Katherine hung there quietly for a moment as he carried her away from the house. She looked up to see it disappearing through the trees and couldn’t stop the tears from falling as she pounded on his back.
“Let me down! Let me go right now! You can’t do this!” She flailed her arms and tried to break loose, but his grip was like iron.
The wind howled relentlessly, covering her cries. Without any leverage her fists barely made contact as they went farther into the interior of the island. Realizing she was only wearing herself out, she settled, her heart pounding as the sky grew darker and the rain began to fall.
Chapter 4
Relieved to finally reach the base of the high rocky cliffs, David stopped to set Kat on her feet, making sure she hadn’t passed out when she quieted down. She looked up at him, tired but resigned when he took her hand and tugged her forward in the rain. Moving along the face of the rock, he found a depression just barely big enough for the two of them sheltered by two huge boulders that must have fallen from the cliffs at some point. He tossed their bag into the depression and then scooted in after it, pulling her down to sit between his legs.
She shivered against him and he maneuvered a blanket from the bag to wrap around her, securing it with his arms. She turned toward the cliff with her face against his neck, and he barely heard the words she breathed across his skin.
“We’re going to die, aren’t we?”
Reaching up, he tucked a finger under her chin and forced her head back so he could look into her eyes.
“We are not going to die,” he said, placing a gentle kiss on her lips, lingering a moment longer than he should have when she responded with the slightest movement of her mouth under his. “I promise.”
He thought he felt a brief glimmer of hope spark between them in a lightening-lit moment before everything blacked out again. He held her tight, her head tucked under his chin as the storm raged on around them.
When the wind finally let up and the clouds cleared, it was moonlight that woke David from the light sleep he’d been falling in and out of for the duration.
“Is it over?” she asked, her voice groggy from sleep and misuse. He shifted, leaning out of their nest with one hand outstretched to feel for rain. Only a gentle breeze wafted over his skin.
“I think so,” he said as she shifted her position, turning between his legs. “Careful getting up. The ground is still wet and probably slippery.”
She braced one hand in his, grasping a depression in the rock with the other to pull herself up and out of the small cave. He watched her feet slide in the mud as she let go of his hand and moved to the side, barely keeping her balance.
“We should probably find a flat spot to spend the rest of the night,” he said, hoisting himself carefully up beside her. “It’s not safe to be walking around when the ground is so unstable.” Glancing around, grateful that the moon was so bright, he spotted a large, flat rock sheltered by a
circle of palm trees not too far away.
“Let’s go over there.” He pointed and then held out a hand as he began sloshing forward.
Kat’s fingers closed around his and she took a tentative step away from the wall. Behind them, the ground sloped down which made forward motion tricky. They were nearly half-way to the rock when David felt Kat’s arm jerk against his wrist. Then he was falling backward, landing heavily on the slick hill as Kat slipped away and gravity pulled him down after her.
***
Katherine flailed her arms to either side trying to find something to grab in the dark, her hands slippery and caked with thick mud. She turned to her stomach as gravity pulled her faster and faster down the slope, certain that when she finally stopped, it was going to hurt. A lot. Soon the ground beneath her fell away and she hung suspended for what seemed like several minutes before falling, falling, falling.
This was it then. When she hit the ground, it would all be over. She curled up into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest and praying that it wouldn’t hurt for very long.
The impact jarred her body, sending a spray of water all around as she plummeted beneath. Disoriented, she broke her position and started to kick before realizing she wasn’t sure which way was up. Forcing herself to still, she began to float, and kicked frantically in the direction her body wanted to go. As her head broke the water, she greedily gulped in air as she heard a second splash somewhere nearby.
“David?” She tried to swim towards the sound, the current fighting to drag her farther away. “David is that you?”
Something brushed her leg. Pulled. Her head dipped underwater and she panicked, kicking and flailing to reach the surface again. Fighting to keep her head above water, she felt fingers wrap around her wrist and the pressure on her ankle eased.
