“What do we do now, Dathan? How long do you think it will be before someone comes to see about us?”
When she glanced at him, he looked quickly away. He pulled a canteen from the sack and handed it to her.
“I don’t know,” he told her. “I think it depends on how soon your father is missed. Since I have no idea how extensive the damage is in Apalachicola, I’m not certain what to expect. Eventually someone from the Lighthouse Board will come, but that could be some time.”
“And what about us?” Her cracking voice spoke of her agitation.
This time he looked at her. His stormy gray eyes were filled with an intensity she had never seen before.
“We’ll survive,” he told her inflexibly. Rising to his feet, he moved quickly up the stairs to care for the light, effectively ending any further conversation.
* * *
The next morning Adrella awakened to azure blue skies and the sudden surety that God was in His heaven and all was right with the world. A soft breeze blew against her face when she finally stepped out of the tower to the drying sand.
The scattered debris that covered the island, however, reminded her that things were not as peaceful as they might seem.
Dathan was nowhere in sight and Adrella felt a brief moment of panic. So much for her earlier thoughts about God’s surety in caring for them. Berating herself for her cowardice, she strolled down to the water’s edge and stared off toward the mainland. How long would it be before someone would come?
The gulf looked tranquil today. If not for the effects of the storm around her, one would never have thought there had been a hurricane here on this peaceful little island. Already the birds had returned and were scavenging among the waves.
Her Da would have loved it today. The thought brought with it the anguish she had been trying to hold back. She quickly shied away from the possibility of her father being in the water with the fish.
Something her father had once said came to her mind. As a child she had asked her father what became of those who died and were buried at sea. He had quoted from the book of Revelation. “And the sea gave up the dead.” It was a calming thought.
Shaking herself out of her morbid musings, she went searching for Dathan and found him not far away gathering armloads of wood.
“What’s that for? I thought you said it was too wet to make a fire?”
He glanced at her briefly before resuming his task. “Right now it is, but since it’s dead wood, it’s drying quickly.”
Adrella hastily crossed to his side. “Here, let me help.”
Dathan looked as though he were about to deny her help, but then he shrugged. “Okay, but be careful to watch for snakes.”
Jerking her hand back from the tree branch she had been reaching for, Adrella gave him a somewhat suspicious glance.
“Are you joking?”
He continued to gather armloads of debris, always turning the piece with his foot before picking it up. “No, so be careful.”
Adrella mimicked his style, and before long they had a substantial amount of wood stacked near the light tower. The sweat dripped in rivulets down both of their faces by the time they were finished.
Then Dathan began dragging large palm fronds that had been stripped from the towering trees by the hurricane’s wind and loaded them into a pile. Adrella followed in his wake, curious about what he was doing.
“What are you doing now? Green palm fronds won’t burn.”
He lifted one dark eyebrow at her, but continued retrieving more fronds. “I’m going to build us a shelter for tonight. We can’t continue to sleep in the tower. It’s too uncomfortable. This way we’ll be able to stretch out, and hopefully get some sleep.”
Adrella was dubious. “What about the mosquitoes?”
Although the little critters were hiding in the heat of the day, Adrella knew they would be out in full force come evening.
Dathan grinned. “They don’t bother me.”
She settled an accusing glare on him. “How gallant of you,” she told him sarcastically
The grin turned into a full-throated laugh. Adrella’s heartbeat quickened, her eyes going wide. Never had she heard Dathan laugh. Truth be told, she had rarely even seen him smile. His dark features were lightened by his humor, and Adrella noticed for the first time just how devastatingly attractive Dathan could be.
“Don’t worry, Adrella.” He chuckled. “I won’t let you be carried off. Not by mosquitoes, nor any other thing that resides on this island.”
Adrella swallowed hard.
His laughing gaze met hers, but the laughter quickly faded as his look continued to plumb the depths of her suddenly frightened eyes. Frowning, he quickly looked over his shoulder to see what had caused her sudden trepidation.
“What is it?”
Adrella shook herself from her mental state, pushing her fanciful imaginings to the back of her mind. She had been listening to too many tales of the pirates who had frequented this area in times past.
“N-nothing. I was just wondering what other creatures I might have to contend with.”
He returned his look to her face, his eyes narrowing dubiously. For a long moment neither one said anything. Finally Adrella cleared her throat nervously and gave him a tentative smile.
“What can I do to help?”
Readily accepting her change of subject, and her help, the two worked together in companionable silence, intermittently interrupted by one or the other voicing some thought aloud. The day passed quickly, and by midafternoon there were two rough shelters on the beach.
Although Adrella was rather skeptical about sleeping out in the open, she suddenly felt exhilarated by the idea. This was much like the book she had read by Daniel Defoe. She giggled at the idea of playing man Friday to Dathan’s Robinson Crusoe.
Dathan dropped a load of wood in front of her shelter, jerking her out of her thoughts.
“I’m going inland to fill our canteen with water. We’re out. I’ll be back in a little while, but don’t go into the ocean, whatever you do. There are jellyfish in these waters, and if they sting you, it won’t be pleasant.”
“Can’t I come with you?” The thought of being alone was a daunting one. What if something happened to Dathan? What if there were wild animals on this island that even he didn’t know about?
She heard him sigh. “Adrella, rein in that imagination of yours. I can read you like a book. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
Remembering her earlier thoughts, Adrella’s face paled. Could he really read her face so easily?
“I don’t want you along,” he told her, “because the fresh water is in the woods, and the woods are infested with mosquitoes.”
Wrinkling her nose in distaste, Adrella settled back on the sand.
“Fine by me. I’ll stay here. Is there anything I can do to help while you’re gone?”
Dathan motioned with his hand. “Yes. Stack this wood in front of your shelter so that when I get back I can light it. The smoke should help keep the mosquitoes away.”
Adrella was all in favor of anything that would protect her from those voracious insects. Nodding, she watched him move away and disappear into the woods.
* * *
Dathan headed into the interior of the forested island. Having lived here for the past two years, he knew where the fresh water pools were.
He had fashioned himself a walking stick from a piece of flotsam he had found washed up on the shore. Using it to carefully move the brush before him, he made his way to where a small pool had grown into a small lake with the heavy rain. Moccasins frequented this pool so he kept careful watch as he filled his canteen.
He hadn’t wanted to let Adrella come with him because he intended to search farther in the interior to see if he could find any sign
of Mangus’s body. He knew the likelihood was minimal, but he had to at least try.
The island was over twenty miles long and the vegetation grew thicker the farther he traveled west. The westward side of the island was more protected from the violent weather that constantly inundated these parts.
Even here though, the storm had managed to wreak havoc, mostly with branches torn from the trees and scattered around.
He paused to watch a water moccasin slither through the brush, its undulating body gliding through the thick greenery with more ease than he was accomplishing. A raccoon scurried to get out of its way.
He grinned. Adrella had not been fond of the raccoon meat he had provided the day before. She’d said nothing, but he could see it in her face as she’d tried valiantly to chew the meat and swallow without making a face.
He chuckled at the memory. She was really being a good sport about all of this. The humor fled as quickly as it had come. Adrella’s pain was never far from the surface. It was there in her eyes, a sadness that she tried for his sake to hide. He could empathize with her grief to a certain extent because he had loved Mangus as well, but he knew that his own grief could never touch the depth of despair Adrella was feeling at her loss.
Something in their relationship had changed subtly. Was it being confined with her the past several days that had increased his feelings of protectiveness toward her? The feeling that something was there between them, something they were both trying hard to ignore?
In reality she had been on his mind often since he had first met her. Although their contact had been minimal, she was a hard person to ignore.
He had at first noticed how she treated the customers at her father’s store. She was always kind, even to him, although he doubted she liked him very much. At least not in the beginning. He would admit that he hadn’t been the easiest person to get to know. No matter how rudely he had treated her, in the end her cheery disposition brought a smile to even his tough demeanor.
When she was happy her face lit up like the gulf on a bright spring morning. Her emerald eyes sparkled with a joy that came from deep within. It made her seem almost pretty. That spark had been missing lately, and it had hurt him to see the joy gone from her life.
What must she be thinking? Was she wondering how a girl on her own would make it without the father who had taught her everything she knew? He had wondered that himself, to his own detriment. His thoughts circled round and round in his head until he always wound up at the same starting place. He had promised to care for Adrella Murphy.
Funny, but he had never planned on getting married. He had not met the woman yet who had managed to change his mind on remaining single. Until now.
What kind of marriage would he have, wed to someone like Adrella? Was friendship a good enough basis for a marriage? He had seen numerous unions come to naught without it. Money, status, position—these were things that had been the basis of most of the matches he had known.
He supposed he liked Adrella well enough. Hers was definitely not the face that would launch a thousand ships, nor her fiery personality something that would inspire a poet’s pen, but there was something about her that didn’t easily allow her to slip your mind. Although she wasn’t exactly pretty, her features were still pleasant enough.
Could he bring himself to actually marry her? He wouldn’t say he was consumed by passion for her.
There was the time he had sat mesmerized as she combed her fingers through her hair and he had wondered what it would be like to do the same. The warmth he had felt as he watched her entrancing movements had left him feeling suddenly vulnerable.
Adrella’s eyes at the time had suggested that maybe she was feeling the same kind of feelings. It had taken great will power to rein in the desire to lean forward and kiss her rosy lips. He could not take advantage of her vulnerability.
A rattle in the underbrush snapped his mind back to the moment at hand. Lifting the leaves with his long stick, he saw a rat scamper out from beneath and race off.
Taking a deep breath, Dathan admonished himself to keep his mind on his mission or he likely wouldn’t live long enough to worry about what would happen to Adrella in the future.
He continued his search across the width of the island in a zigzag manner. When he reached the shore at the far side of the island, he still had seen nothing of a body— Mangus’s or anyone else’s for that matter. He was surprised that with the intensity of the storm that had just transpired someone lost at sea hadn’t washed up on the shore of Cape St. George. It had happened in times past. That was another reason he hadn’t wanted Adrella along.
He glanced up and noticed that the sun was already beginning to set. He hadn’t much time if he was going to make it back in time to light the lamp. He would have to hurry.
* * *
Adrella sat for a long while watching as the sun began its slow descent. Gulls screeched overhead, and porpoises cavorted offshore among the rollicking waves. Time seemed to drag by.
With daylight beginning to diminish so rapidly, she began to worry in earnest. She knew it would soon be time to light the lamp in the tower, and she hadn’t the vaguest idea how to go about it. Gnawing on her lower lip, she wondered if something had happened to Dathan after all. And if it did, what exactly could she do about it? She had no idea where he had gone.
Her tense muscles relaxed as she saw him moments later coming from the woods, his long strides eating up the distance between them. He headed straight for the light tower, and a short time later the light began to glow in the lamp room.
Before long Dathan joined her on the sand. He took a cup of oil and poured it over the stacked wood, and then lighted it. Even though the wood was not completely dry, the oil helped it to burn quickly until there was enough heat to add even damp wood to the fire without quenching it.
Watching the fire slowly take and then quickly light, Adrella suddenly jerked to a kneeling position, her eyes wide, her voice animated.
“I’ve got an idea!” she told Dathan, not realizing that she had gripped his hand in her excitement. “We can use the oil to light a signal fire!”
Dathan allowed his fingers to twine around hers. His eyes were inscrutable when they connected with hers, his voice oddly husky.
“I thought about that, but it would take too much oil. The wood is still too wet without using the oil to help it dry.”
“But...but you still have two drums left in the tower.”
He began stroking her wrist with his thumb. The tingling feeling that swept through her at his touch brought her thoughts sharply into focus. Pulling her hand from his, she shied away from his mesmerizing gaze.
“I have to save that for the light,” he told her. “I have no idea how soon the boat will come with more.”
Adrella could hear the frustration in his voice.
“Frankly,” he continued, “I don’t have much idea about anything right now.”
It suddenly occurred to Adrella that Dathan had a large responsibility resting on his shoulders. It also occurred to her that of all the men she knew, she was glad it was Dathan that was here on this island with her right now. She knew she could trust him, but the question was, could she trust herself?
“Dathan,” she said quietly. “I haven’t thanked you yet.”
She heard him snort. “For what? Getting you trapped on an island during a hurricane? For losing your...your father?”
Adrella’s mouth dropped open. She’d had no idea that he was thinking such thoughts. Could he really be blaming himself?
“It’s not your fault,” she told him, her voice brooking no argument.
He sat, arms curled round his upraised legs, his whole body exuding the reproach he had heaped upon himself.
“You wanted to make for shore. I should have done so.”
Adrella was already shakin
g her head. “No. You were right. We wouldn’t have made it, and then we all would have died. Da...” The little catch in her throat stopped her momentarily. “Da wouldn’t have wanted that.” She finished with a rush.
She could tell he wasn’t convinced. “It’s not your fault, Dathan Adams!” she declared vehemently, once again gripping his fingers with her own.
The warmth from his fingers seemed to flow all the way through her body. She wanted nothing more right now than to throw herself into his arms and find the comfort she had felt once before.
Dathan cocked his head slightly, one eyebrow winging upwards. His look rested on their coupled hands briefly before a smile spread slowly across his face. Seeing his look, and remembering his comment about reading her like a book, Adrella dropped his hand as though it were a hot potato.
“I’m telling you, it wasn’t your fault,” she reiterated, her voice softening.
* * *
Adrella’s eyes were glitteringly alive with her emotions, her flushed face very becoming in the soft firelight. How was it that the more he was around her, the more his estimation of her looks was evolving? Seeing her now, he wondered why he had ever considered her plain in the first place. She was certainly no great beauty, but she was definitely growing on him.
“Your Irish is showing,” he told her with a rueful smile, his own eyes darkened by the descending night.
Dathan noticed her twitching lips. For the time being she was so concerned about his feelings that she had forgotten her own. In a way she was incredibly like her wonderful father. Mangus was always concerned for others’ feelings.
“You haven’t heard anything yet,” she told him, deliberately thickening her Irish brogue. “Now, I’ll hear no more of this foolish talk, or I’ll...” She stopped, thinking a moment, before her words spilled out quickly. “I’ll get the little people after you.”
Dathan realized that she was attempting to defuse an already volatile situation. Both were aware of escalating emotions surfacing between the two. At first, he had thought it his own imagination, but he knew now that he hadn’t mistaken that look in Adrella’s eyes earlier. She was attracted to him, and he was rapidly becoming more attracted to her.
There's Always Tomorrow Page 5
