by J. B. Hawker
Max came down to the galley, raised his eyebrows when he saw Bunny and asked, “What’s up, Buns? You don’t usually do your writing the old fashioned way. Is your computer broken?”
“Nope. I’m just working on a little light entertainment for tonight after dinner. A surprise.”
“Oh, I love surprises, especially at night, after dinner.”
“Not that kind of surprise…and besides, how surprising would that be, really?”
“Maybe not surprising, but entertaining, for sure.”
“You’re sweet. But, I’m not telling you anything else until tonight.”
“You are a hard woman, Bunny Banks, but I love you, God help me,” Max teased as he went topside.
“I pray that God will help us both this evening,” Bunny murmured after he left.
Chapter Eight
…and the two shall become one flesh; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. ─ Mark 10:8
While Max cleared away the dinner things, Bunny retrieved the plastic bucket from up on deck. She smiled at this reminder of her miserable first days on the sloop. No longer necessary for medical emergencies, she decided it was just perfect for her newly invented game.
“What are you doing with that?” Max asked when he saw her place the pail in the center of the table.
“It’s for this evening’s entertainment. I promised you a surprise, and this is it. If you’re through there, come and sit down.”
With an indulgent smile, Max joined Bunny.
“So, what’s this game you’ve made up? Is it a grown-up version of spin the bottle...or the bucket, in this case?”
“Just be patient and I’ll tell you. I think you might even like it, but you’ve got to promise to at least give it a chance, okay?”
“Hmmm, sounds ominous. You’d better spit it out, before you scare me away.”
“It’s nothing bad. Now, promise you’ll play.”
“Oh, all right. Cross my heart,” Max responded, matching his gesture to his words.
Bunny took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and began to explain.
“In this bucket are slips of paper. Each one has a question and a date. We will take turns choosing the questions and answering them. I thought we might each do one or two in the evenings after dinner.”
“You are a cunning minx. I can see this is just another not-so-subtle attempt to dredge up the past…right?”
“Come on, Sweetie. It will be fun. You did promise to at least try.”
Max looked at his wife with exasperation, then shrugged and pulled a slip of paper from the bucket.
With a triumphant grin, Bunny did the same.
“I’ll go first, if you like,” she offered.
“Be my guest. What is your probing question?”
“The year is 1995 and my question is ‘where did you live?’ You see, I told you it was harmless. Let’s see, in the mid-nineties I was married to Eustace and we were living in southern Idaho, in a little town called Bliss, not far from Wendell, where my sister lived.”
“Really? I didn’t know you lived in Idaho before you went to stay with your sister...and was it as delightful as the name implies? What in the world could you find to do in Podunk, Idaho?”
“I did all the things a pastor’s wife is expected to do in a small town church. I ran the women’s group, taught Sunday school, published the church newsletter, cleaned the sanctuary, directed the choir, typed up Eustace’s sermons and generally tried not to offend anyone in the church or community.”
“Wow! You sure make that sound like fun.”
“It wasn’t always grim. I actually liked a lot of it. Your turn, now.”
“This one asks what kind of house I lived in.”
“What year?”
“Oh, yeah, 2001.”
“So, tell me what kind of place you lived in back then.”
“That’s easy, just look around. By then I had taken early retirement and lived on a sailboat cruising around the Caribbean.”
“How long did you live on a boat? That was just before you came back to Northern California and we met up again, isn’t it?”
“Yep. We spent six years on that boat.”
“Who’s we?” Bunny asked softly.
“I was married to Laura, then. When we split up, I had to sell the boat and I decided to buy that newspaper in Clark’s Hallow. If I hadn’t done that and needed to advertise for office help, we wouldn’t be here today, would we?”
“Not if I hadn’t answered your ad. That was the start of everything.”
“I almost didn’t hire you, you know.”
“And I almost didn’t take the job. It’s hard to believe it, now, but we really didn’t recognize each other, at first. It had just been too long, I suppose. I’m not surprised that I was unrecognizable after all those years, but you look just the same even now, except for that beard you’ve been growing on this trip.”
“Hunny Bunny, whenever I look at you, I still see the same perky cheerleader who used to cuddle with me in the backseat of my dad’s old T-bird convertible on those balmy summer nights.”
This unexpectedly romantic reminiscence caught Bunny by surprise and touched her deeply.
“Oh, Max,” she sighed and slipped into his arms.
“Hmm, this game of yours might not be so bad, after all,” Max murmured.
Standing at the railing gazing out across the waves, Shimbir was not seeing the spectacular sunset reflecting upon the water. He was peering into the future and seeing himself living in luxury and having all the money he could ever want, along with the respect and fear of everyone who heard his name. It was a heady image he felt was soon to become reality.
He had finally made his decision and was prepared to send the ransom demands.
He would send his message to the head of this failing cruise ship line, but he was certain his demands would be met by the governments of the passengers he held captive.
When Shimbir looked at the ship’s passenger list he saw there were a number of US citizens aboard, as well as Germans, and several from the UK. These would provide the leverage needed to get world-wide notice along with the money. Ten million dollars seemed about right for this first effort. Shimbir did not want to be greedy this time. These wealthy countries could pay ten million without even thinking about it. A nuisance fee is all it would be to them. Once they knew and feared the name of Shimbir he could begin to demand real money.
Delivery of the funds would be no problem; there would be a wire transfer to an account already setup. During his time with the larger terrorist organization he had learned how to establish such an impregnable account.
The main difficulty Shimbir could see would be escaping from the ship undetected, after the ransom was paid… and before it was blown up, along with its pampered passengers.
He and his men would need to remain underground for a time before spending the money from the account. It would give them time to plan their next attack.
Shimbir entered his carefully composed text message on the untraceable International cell phone and pressed “send.”
Soon this time of inaction would come to an end and the excitement could begin.
With a satisfied smile he returned to his fantasies.
“You did a good job on this itinerary, Bunny. We should start your scuba lessons soon,” Max remarked as he left the table and headed topside.
They had been reviewing Bunny’s Australian research. Max had agreed to most of her suggestions, only adding a few diving and snorkeling activities here and there in place of some of Bunny’s more sedentary choices.
When Max left the cabin Bunny remained at her laptop catching up on the previous day’s emails and Facebook posts from friends.
She did this daily before posting her own updates and working on her column or blog and adding her self-imposed quota of one thousand words to her novel. It was a regimen that kept her focused and provided a framewor
k for the otherwise free-form days.
Bunny had discovered that she was very goal-oriented. She needed to feel that she was accomplishing something, even if it was simply crossing items off a daily “to do” list.
All this time spent alone with the more reticent Max often left Bunny conversing with her own thoughts.
She supposed it was not unusual for men to be less open with their feelings than women. It was one of those men-from-Mars-and-women-from-Venus issues. Still, it encouraged her naturally introspective, self-analytical tendencies.
When she became so obsessed with opening Max’s closed doors to the past, her inner dialogue led her to discover something else about her own nature: Bunny had big time trust issues.
Looking into her own history to try to find the source of her distrust, she had first focused on her early marriage with Max and his repeated infidelity. That had certainly undermined her faith in him, while strengthening her already existing insecurities, but it hardly seemed reason enough to explain the intensity of her feelings after all these years. She had forgiven them both for their youthful indiscretions, after all, and their remarriage had done much to increase her self-confidence.
So, why all this suspicion?
She remembered her formative years as being unusually stable. She lived in the same house with the same parents from birth to college. It hardly seemed like a breeding ground for wariness and doubt.
In the years after separating from Max, she had not been especially paranoid in her relationships with men. In fact, she was more often too trusting than not.
When all the soul-searching arrived at her marriage to Eustace she began to gain more insights.
Years of praying for the Lord to bring a God-fearing man into her life had prepared Bunny to greet the attentions of the Reverend Eustace Elder with open arms.
Although he was never her “dream man,” not her type at all, really, he seemed to be the answer to her prayers.
She felt compelled to accept his swift proposal after knowing him for only a few months. In her mind, turning Eustace down would have been rejecting God’s gift. It hadn’t occurred to her, if Eustace were truly God’s answer to her prayers, she would have been drawn to him and not needed to force feelings of affection.
Too late, she learned that the man she was bound to for better or worse was living a lie. Not until his death at the hands of a serial killer did she discover the depths of his deceit.
From all those years as a pastor’s wife, Bunny knew the Bible warnings against putting one’s trust in a man, rather than God. Her marriage to Eustace drove that lesson home with a vengeance.
She was determined not to let Eustace’s ugly shadow darken her marriage with Max.
After diagnosing the source of her skepticism, Bunny resolved to cut Max a little more slack regarding those lost years. She would trust God to bring the hidden things into the open if that was his will.
Max had been a good sport about her question game and Bunny planned to play again, if he was willing. She would not press, however. Whatever he wanted her to know would just have to be enough.
More than likely, if she let it be, he would eventually tell her everything in the years ahead.
She recalled her mother snapping, “Yes, yes, we’ve all heard it before,” when Bunny’s dad began repeating some story from his younger days. Trying to imagine someday being tired of hearing Max talk about his life made her shake her head and smile. If that day ever came, she hoped she would be more patient than her mother had been.
Bunny never expected to remarry after Eustace died and she sometimes grew wistful thinking of the many aspects of a happy marriage she would never get to experience. Speculating about growing old with Max, now, gave her a thrill of joy and gratitude.
Working on her novel that morning, she was describing her heroine as yearning for the hero to rescue her from the clutches of bloodthirsty pirates and carry her off to happily-ever-after on his baronial estate.
Reading over what she’d written, Bunny smiled condescendingly and shook her head at the naiveté of her young heroine, but then reflected that she was only able to describe this fictional woman’s attitudes so clearly because they had once been her own.
For many years, such fairytale daydreams prevented her from accepting Max for the real-life man he is, rather than a fantasy hero.
Fortunately, Bunny no longer cast herself in the role of hapless victim in her relationships. She’d save that, now, for the pages of her book.
She hoped she could create enough excitement to keep her readers interested in her writing, but she no longer felt the need to experience such drama in her own life.
After proof-reading her latest entries, Bunny saved and closed the files, stowed her laptop, grabbed her sun hat and joined Max on deck.
She wanted to give him a big hug of appreciation and see what his plans were for the rest of their calm, unexciting and undramatic day.
Chapter Nine
Everyone who is found will be thrust through, and everyone who is captured will fall by the sword. ─ Isaiah 13:15
“Max! Do you see that? Out there…is it a ship?”
“Yeah, looks like it. Here, use the binoculars and maybe you can read the name. Then we can look it up on-line and check it out.”
The couple had seen no ships or other sailing vessels for more than a week, so Bunny was excited, hoping this was a sign they were getting close to land, again, or at least into more well-traveled shipping lanes.
“Can you help me get focused, please? I don’t know why you don’t use a spyglass like a proper sailor. I can never get both eyes working together with these things,” Bunny complained, handing the binoculars to Max.
Max fitted them to his face and moved the dial to bring the ship into focus.
“I’m not sure it’s worth your trouble, Hun. That’s more rust bucket than ship. The paint’s peeling in spots, but I can just about make out the name. I think it says Mers Comtesse. Sort of a grand name for that old scow.”
“Let me look…oh, I see what you mean. It’s not as large as the other ships we’ve seen, is it?”
“Those were mostly tankers or container ships. This one looks more like a cruise liner….but certainly not a luxury liner. It looks more ‘carny’ than Carnival Cruise.”
“What do you suppose it’s doing way out here?”
“Let’s check the Internet and see if we can find out.”
Aboard the Mers Comtesse the Pristine Promise had just been spotted.
Shimbir was at the rail training his binoculars on the sloop only moments after Max and Bunny went below deck.
“Are they coming this way, Shimbir?” Guled, one of the men who had recently dumped Marki into the passenger holding pen asked.
“It would appear so.”
“What are we going to do? They may get close enough to name the ship and relay our location to others.”
“They are already close enough, if they care to train their glass on us. I think the best we can do is to invite them closer still.”
Shimbir turned without another word and went below, leaving Guled looking after him with a puzzled expression.
“Well, I finally found the ship, Max. But, it isn’t supposed to be anywhere near us. Do you suppose we’ve gotten off course?”
“Why would you assume we are the ones off course, Bunny? Don’t you trust my navigational skills?”
“Of course, I do. It’s just that those people are the professionals.”
“Well, those professionals are in the wrong piece of ocean, according to the shipping information here.”
“Would it be proper seafaring etiquette to contact them? They might be in trouble.”
“We can certainly try to hail them. If they have radio communication, though, I can’t see what assistance we could provide.”
With that, Max noted down the ship’s hailing frequency and went over to the radio. He made several attempts to
contact the ship, but received no response.
“What should be do, now, Max. They may be in serious trouble, if they can’t even use the radio. Should we call for help for them?”
“Now, don’t go jumping to conclusions. They may have a perfectly simple reason for not wanting to communicate with us. They won’t appreciate our sending an SOS for them, if all they want is to be left alone.”
“But it doesn’t feel right to do nothing. So, I’m praying, right now, for God’s will to be done. Amen.”
“That should just about cover it, my little Hunny Bunny. Now, let’s grab some lunch.”
Marki was sleeping in the sunshine on deck when a dark shadow fell across her face, waking her.
Celine was bending over her. When she saw Marki’s eyes open, Celine crouched close beside her and whispered, “Now can you tell me what the horrible men did to you and your friends?”
“What?” Marki sat up with a start, nearly colliding with her inquisitor.
“You didn’t want to talk before, but you are rested, now. Tell me everything. It will do you good to talk about it, you know.”
“Not now. I just want to be left alone.”
“Oh, but it’s not good to bottle things up, it really isn’t,” Celine urged.
“Please, just go away.”
Virginia Ambrose padded quietly over and placed her hand on Celine’s shoulder.
“Leave her alone, now, dear. The girl has been through a terrible ordeal. She may feel more like a visit, later.”
“But, I’m only trying to help,” Celine protested.
“Yes, I’m sure. Only she’s not quite up it, right now. You just go ask your friend, the nurse. I’m sure she will agree this poor little thing needs a bit of peace and quiet.”
“Sammy’s not my friend! She is my legal wife, you homophobic old cat!”
With that Celine flounced back to her partner in a huff.
“Oh dear, I seem to have upset her,” Virginia sighed.
