Rescued II

by M. K. Elliott

  Everyone nodded obediently.

  “So the first thing everyone needs to do is find yourselves a buddy.”

  Lucy felt as if she was back at school and was about to be the last one picked for the team. Everyone else already had a buddy; they had arrived at the resort with friends and Lucy was the only one on her own.

  She glanced over at Stacy and Leanne, and they both gave her an apologetic half-smile and a shrug. No help there.

  “Oh,” Rachel said, looking Lucy up and down. “You don’t have a buddy. Not to worry, you can buddy up with me.”

  “Great,” she said, feeling she would quite happily have stripped naked, rather than buddy up with Rachel.

  Rudy stepped in. “That’s okay, Rachel. You concentrate on teaching the group. I’ll buddy up with Lucy.”

  Rachel opened her mouth to protest, but then shut it again. Instead, she forced a smile.

  “Of course, I’d be happy to,” she said.

  He approached Lucy, carrying the diving gear he wanted her to wear. Self-consciously, she stripped off her skirt and vest top, aware she was the only one in a one-piece, when all of the other girls were in bikinis.

  Screw it, she thought. She hadn’t exactly had time to shop for this holiday.

  There was a lot of equipment: buoyancy vests, air tanks, face masks, weight belts. Luckily, they didn’t need to use fins in the pool, so she was at least excused of one humiliation.

  Rudy helped Lucy put on the dive gear, his hand reaching across her stomach to fasten the belt in place, his body close to hers. He helped her holster on the air tanks, before donning his own. Just the proximity of that gorgeous body so close to her own, made her catch her breath.

  “Are you ready?” he asked her.

  Lucy nodded and placed the mouth-piece between her lips, gripping its rubber with her teeth, as instructed. She took a couple of deep practice breaths, the nitrous oxide mixture sounding hollow, like a bad imitation of Darth Vader.

  Feeling awkward, Lucy headed down the shallow steps of the pool, Rudy supporting her arm so she didn’t lose her balance. The cool silk of the water crept up her thighs and she gasped a little as it hit her chest. Then she acclimatised and sunk into the water, relishing the sudden weightlessness of the equipment.

  Rudy gave her the thumbs down, the signal to go down, and she lowered her head under the water, instinctively squeezing her eyes shut as she went. She fought to continue to breathe in and out, slow and steady, but her whole body tried to rebel, and she desperately wanted to hold her breath. Though she was only a couple of feet beneath the surface, she could feel herself starting to panic. She had never even liked putting her face in the water before. Her heart raced and her arms started to flail, wanting to push herself up to the surface.

  Rudy’s fingers touched her arm and her eyes flew open. Beyond the mask, water swam before her eyes. But Rudy suspended directly in front of her and his brown eyes focused on hers, his impact managing to pierce through the panes of Perspex glass.

  Her breathing slowed and she followed his lead, breathing with the flow of bubbles filtering through his mask.

  He pointed to his own mouth piece and then to hers, indicating for them to swap. The idea of having something that had been pressed up against his lips, moved to hers, was enough to give her palpitations, but she held it together. Sucking in deep, she held her breath. Carefully, she took the piece out of her mouth, slowly blowing bubbles as she did so, and took Rudy’s mouthpiece from him. She put the regulator in, breathing as she had before.

  He put his thumb and forefinger together, the sign to ask if she was okay.

  Automatically, she gave him the thumbs up, but then realized she was signaling to him she wanted to go back up and changed it to an ‘okay’ sign. Lucy laughed through her mouth piece, creating a whole flurry of bubbles, and realized she was actually enjoying herself. Even around the mouthpiece, Rudy managed to smile back at her.

  There were people all around them, but they were in their own little bubble, focused only upon each other.

  Together, they practiced the different hand signals she needed to know and pretended to lose their mouth pieces, so Lucy would know what to do in an emergency. He showed her how to equalize her ears, so she wouldn’t feel the extra pressure and pain caused by compressing the air in her sinuses. By the end of the session, Lucy had lost her self-consciousness and worries about panicking, and didn’t want to go back to the surface.

  But the session had to end and Lucy clambered back out of the pool, the weight of the tanks suddenly apparent now that she was out of the water. Rudy helped her struggle out of them.

  She turned to him, a big grin still plastered on her face.

  “That was amazing,” she said. “It was so weird, breathing underwater. I can’t believe I did it!”

  He laughed at her excitement and his eyes sparkled in the sunlight. “Wait till you go in the ocean and you get to see more than an old band aid floating at the bottom of the pool.”

  “I can’t wait. I want to go now.”

  “Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to, but the starter dive leaves here at eight-thirty tomorrow morning, so I suggest you come then.”

  “I’ll be there,” she said.

  “Great, but I hope to see you tonight, at the barbeque?”

  She smiled shyly as she wrapped herself in her towel. “Sure.”

  Chapter Two

  As the last of the light bled from the sky, the party on the beach was just getting started. Loud dance music blared from several big speakers, the bass vibrating through the sand. All around, people stood or sat in groups, talking and laughing and drinking. Some people danced and others waded into the ocean, paddling and even swimming under the moonlight.

  The atmosphere buzzed with vibrant excitement. Young people filled the beach, either on holiday or traveling, with no more responsibilities than deciding where to eat the next day.

  Rudy stood behind the bar, helping out. Though busy enough, he couldn’t help but be distracted. His gaze scanned the different groups of people, but none of them was the girl from the dive lesson today.

  Lucy.

  He couldn’t explain how those eyes had stayed in his memory, but they had. He hoped she would show.

  “Hey, boss,” Jai, one of the local Thai guys who worked behind the bar called to him. He held up the crate of beer clasped in his hands. “Where do you want these?”

  Rudy nodded to a spot on the sand, behind the bar, and Jai dropped them down. Everyone at the bar was being served, so Rudy crouched down and started loading the bottles into the fridge.

  It was probably a good thing Lucy hadn’t shown up. He shouldn’t have any kind of interest, other than a professional one, in one of the guests. He thought he would have learned his lesson by now; getting involved with another woman was the last thing he wanted to do. But something about this girl made him want to be near her.

  The warm night kissed his skin, but in the four years Rudy had been on the island, he’d become acclimated to the heat. However, the women at the party had not. The place was awash with girls in strappy tops and short skirts, but Rudy wasn’t interested. Was it possible to become anesthetised to all the naked limbs and tanned skin?

  Ever since his last relationship two years ago, he thought he had hardened his heart. He tried to keep women at an arm’s length, metaphorically speaking. Of course he’d had some dalliances, but he always knew the woman in question was in it for the same reason as him; purely physical.

  And so far, this had worked for him.

  Until now. Now a woman on the island interested him in a more than just physical way and though his brain told him to keep away, he couldn’t help but feel drawn.

  Rudy smiled to himself. This woman wasn’t like the usual people they got on the island. Pale-skinned and free from any tattoos or piercings, she looked as though she had just been plucked from city life and dropped into the wilderness.

  She fascinated him. With her impossibly lon
g limbs and wide, strange colored eyes—somewhere between blue and green, reminding him of the ocean—she had made an impression on him that he couldn’t seem to shake.

  Laughter from behind him caught his attention. Those were the normal people the island attracted; young, carefree, out to have an adventure.

  Adventure seemed to be the last thing on Lucy’s mind. To Rudy, it looked more like she wanted to run and hide.

  She’d roused his curiosity and it wasn’t just because of the long legs or the big aqua eyes.

  It was the story behind those eyes that had him drawn.

  “Hey, Rudy!”

  Rudy looked up to see Rachel’s head peering over the top of the bar, looking down at him. He got to his feet, brushing sand from his knees.

  “What’s up, Rachel?” Though he addressed her, his eyes flicked across the throng of partying people, checking to see if Lucy had arrived yet.

  “I need to talk to you about something. You got a minute?”

  “Um,” he stalled, not wanting to miss Lucy, but knowing he owed Rachel his time. “Sure.”

  “Great,” she said. “Walk with me for a bit.”

  Lucy walked down the stone steps from her balcony, nervously smoothing down her yellow sundress. Music from the party drifted up to her, growing louder as she closed the distance to the beach.

  Padding down the path, her feet slapping against the stone in her flip-flops, she crossed through the trees and down to the beach. People dotted every inch of sand, chatting and laughing. In the middle of the beach, a bonfire roared, and in front of the restaurant and reception area, a bar and barbeque had been set up.

  Lucy scoured the groups of people, looking for Rudy. His invitation was probably nothing more than his way of letting her know the party was happening, yet she couldn’t help search the beach for him, hoping to see him.

  She caught the eye of a few different people who smiled politely at her, but she didn’t recognize anyone.

  Feeling like a spare part, she headed over to the bar and ordered a beer from the young Thai serving. She turned back around, leaning her back against the bar, trying to look as if she was having a good time.

  I should have stayed in my room with my book, she thought.

  She’d never been good in a crowd.

  Lucy scuffed her foot in the sand. She’d been silly to pin her hopes on seeing a guy who had only been doing his job. He’d obviously just been being polite and had probably forgotten all about the invitation as soon as he’d walked away.

  She sighed and took a swig of her beer. Cold, fizzy fluid flooded her throat and she gulped, grateful to have something to do.

  Well, if Rudy wasn’t here, she didn’t want to be either. She didn’t want to just hang around, watching everyone else have a good time.

  Her drink clutched in one hand, she walked away from the party and down across the beach.

  Pausing for a moment, Lucy slipped her sandals from her feet. Barefooted, the sand, still warm from the day’s sun, sunk between her toes and she looked out across the ocean. Moonlight glimmered off the waves and the stars stretched on endlessly.

  This place is beautiful, she thought. No wonder people came to places like this and never went back.

  She rounded the curve of the small bay and came to a sudden halt. A couple stood beneath one of the palm trees. The man had his back to Lucy, his hands held out on either side of his body. The girl had her fingers knotted in her own hair, the other hand held out to the man. As she watched, the girl shook her head and turned her back. In the moonlight, Lucy saw the dark mark of a tattoo down one of her shoulders.

  Rachel.

  With the realization, came the instant knowledge that the man was Rudy. Though Rudy had his back to her, she recognized his broad shoulders and dark hair. Rachel turned back to Rudy, keeping her voice low and controlled, as if trying not to be heard.

  Maybe they were together, after all.

  Guiltily, Lucy stepped back behind the trees. She knew she was being nosy, but she couldn’t help herself. She poked her head out just in time to see Rachel storm off in the opposite direction. Rudy ran a hand over his head and his shoulders sagged.

  A lover’s tiff, Lucy guessed. She hoped it didn’t have anything to do with Rudy stepping in to help her out today. Then a mean little thrill went through her and she hoped it did have something to do with her. It would serve Rachel right.

  Backing away, Lucy headed back to the party. Her stomach grumbled. She’d not eaten dinner. Though most of the food was being barbequed—chicken and fish and burgers—a Thai woman also flipped noodles on a flat griddle.

  Lucy ordered some noodles and the woman dished them up onto a paper plate. The heat seared through the thin paper, burning her fingers. Fragrances of garlic, soy, and ginger rose in the steam, making her mouth water. Tiny slivers of fiery red chillies poked through the flat noodles and Lucy picked up a plastic fork from a container, eagerly stuffing her mouth with food.

  The appetite she had lost over the past few weeks seemed to be back with a vengeance.

  Walking as she ate, juggling the hot plate from hand to hand, she headed back to her room.

  It was too early to go to bed, so Lucy put her food down on the small table on her balcony. Giant bugs flew in circles around the small lamp mounted on the wall beside her front door. The light was enough to read by. She unlocked her door and went into her room to change into something more comfortable.

  As she rooted around her suitcase, her fingers touched the cool plastic of her mobile phone. Her fingers wrapped around it and pulled out the slim, black Nokia.

  She hesitated, but then forced herself to switch the phone on.

  The screen lit up and proceeded to beep several times. A text message from her mother flashed up, asking her to call home, and there was another from Max saying he understood that she needed some time, but please remember he was still part of her life. She also had about thirty missed calls from work. Someone had obviously forgotten to switch her from on-call doctor to absent.

  Lucy sighed and switched the phone back off, deflated.

  After that night at the hospital, Lucy had gone home to Max in floods of tears. She tried to explain to him how she thought she couldn’t do it anymore, how the job was making her depressed, but he just patted her on the back and went to make her a cup of tea.

  That was the sort of man Max was; simple, steadfast, and thought almost anything could be solved with a cup of tea. They had been together for more than two years now and he was the sort of man Lucy had come to think of as her type; tall, dark and slightly bookish. Everyone thought they were the perfect couple and Lucy would have been the first to say what a great guy Max was. But she was bored. Bored, bored, bored. Everything was so routine; from the times they saw each other, to the meals they ate, to the things they did in bed. Boring.

  She told herself boring was good; it meant they were comfortable with each other. Yet when she came home that night, he hadn’t understood a single thing she’d said. He saw her in the same way she saw him; stable, sensible, reliable, and suddenly that wasn’t enough. Things she’d seen at the hospital had changed her, and her morbid thoughts frightened her. Max’s inability to understand that dark, scary part of her, meant he never really knew her.

  She knew her leaving was unfair to Max; he hadn’t done anything wrong. Yet she couldn’t help feeling resentful at his message, annoyed that he had reached into this great place and dragged her back to earth.

  I should never have switched the damn phone on.

  Lucy threw the offending item into her case and covered it with clothes, promising herself that this was the last time she would look at it.

  The buoyant spirit she had found after her first dive lesson had been replaced with a horrible, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was the same feeling she got every time she left the house to go to work and it made her want to climb into bed and hide from the world.

  Leaving her food forgotten and growing cold,
that was exactly what she did.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning, Lucy was the first person to arrive at breakfast, eagerly waiting for the diving trip to start.

  She knew she looked too keen, but due to a combination of jet-lag and excitement, she had been awake since five that morning. For once, nightmares had eluded her that night. She’d grown tired of waiting out on her little balcony, however beautiful the sight of the rising sun over the water had been. Instead, she managed to disguise her over-eagerness by ordering breakfast and dragging out her meal with her chick-lit novel in hand.

  She sat, peeping over the top of her book, people watching. She tried to pretend to herself she wasn’t looking out for anyone in particular, but part of her kept her eyes peeled for Rudy. Those dark eyes and tanned, strong forearms had stayed at the front of her mind, lingering in her thoughts, despite what she’d seen the previous night.

  Though she ordered banana pancakes and they arrived, hot and sweet and delicious, she was worried if she ate too much she would end up either getting sick on the boat or somehow drowning during the dive. Her mother’s ever-cautious warnings of not eating before you went swimming rang in her ears.

  Of course, she had to rationalize to herself that technically you were supposed to sink when you were diving.

  Lucy waited until a small crowd had appeared outside of the dive office, before paying for her breakfast and getting up to join them. Rudy still hadn’t appeared and she could feel the disappointment already weighing on her. She wouldn’t have admitted it, but she had chosen her favorite casual clothes and spent a lot more time than she normally would have perfecting her ‘no make-up’ make-up. She didn’t expect anything to happen between them—after all, clearly Rachel and he had some kind of relationship—but spending the day in close proximity to such a good-looking guy made her want to look her best.

  But it looked like all her efforts were wasted. It would be just her luck to have to spend the whole day with the bitchy Rachel.

  Lucy stood up and wandered over to the small group gathering outside the office. Both Leanne and Stacy were there and they smiled at her as she approached.