Troubled Waters

by Susan May Warren

  “Pete Brooks,” Pete said. He introduced the rest of them. “We’re looking for Hayes Buoye?”

  A door opened from behind them, and Jess turned to see a handsome, heavily muscled black man enter carrying a popsicle. He wore a clean white T-shirt and a pair of drawstring medical scrubs.

  “Sorry, Noelly, this was all I could get.” He glanced at Jess, then Pete and finally Shae and Ty. “You must be Ian’s friends.”

  “Hayes Buoye?” Pete said and held out his hand.

  Hayes nodded, shook his hand. “I left word with the desk in case someone with Ian’s search and rescue team showed up.” He handed the popsicle to Noelly. “Nessa is just finishing up with X-rays. Kelley went to call the Coast Guard again.” He turned to Pete. “They haven’t found them yet.”

  Pete gave a grim nod.

  Noelly wore a stricken expression. Her eyes had filled with tears. “We haven’t seen Ian since before the wave hit. He came out to talk to Sierra, and we told him we’d changed course to the Bahamas. He went to the bridge, I think, and then . . .” She looked away.

  Hayes took up the story. “It happened pretty fast. Noelly, Nessa, and I were going to take a dip in the hot tub. Kelley had covered it for the day and was folding off the cover when the wave hit. Next thing I knew, we were all in the water. It was dark and I got my hands around Noelly and pulled her in. Nessa was hit with the cover and she went down, but Kelley managed to grab her. And then we climbed on top.”

  “I thought I heard Ian yelling, but it was chaos,” Noelly said. Hayes came around and sat in the chair next to the bed. “And then the next wave hit.”

  “It pushed us away from the ship.” Hayes said. “We called for the others, but we were too far out. Once we thought we saw Dex in the water, but . . .”

  “It was so dark.” Noelly wiped her hand on her cheek. “We nearly drowned with the third wave. By then we were so far away from the boat we could barely see it. We just kept trying to stay on the cover . . .” Quiet settled around the room.

  “Do you know if they got the life raft off?” Ty said. “On those big boats, it’s attached to the back.”

  “I don’t know how they would. Ian was up on the bridge. Maybe Dex could have, but I don’t know where he was. And Sierra . . . no, I don’t think so,” Hayes said. He glanced at Shae. “But maybe, right?”

  Right. Shae nodded wordlessly.

  Behind them, the door opened, and an orderly pushed a gurney through. Under a blanket sat a woman, skin the color of caramel, her beauty accented by her deep brown eyes. She too wore a hospital gown and frowned at the crew assembled around Noelly’s bed as they pushed her in. “Hello?”

  Jess stared at her, and something shifted inside her.

  “These are friends of Ian’s,” Hayes said. He got up as they made way for her to access the second bed in the room. The nurses helped her onto the bed from the gurney, then tucked the blankets in around her. “So?”

  “Two broken ribs,” she said. “But the bleeding has stopped.”

  Hayes touched her hand, a gesture of affection that caught Jess’s eye.

  Maybe because of the tenderness on his face.

  She couldn’t help but glance at Pete. But Pete’s face held anything but tenderness. She’d peg it more as grim agony.

  “You don’t remember if the life raft might have deployed, do you?” This from Shae, who approached her bed.

  But Jess’s gaze had stopped on Ty, who was looking at her with an almost wide-eyed, pained face. What?

  “I don’t know. Sorry. Who are you?” Nessa asked.

  “I’m . . . I’m Shae Johnson, um, Ian’s niece. And this is Pete Brooks and Ty and—”

  “Oh my gosh. Selene Taggert. Is that really you?”

  The name came out of the past and grabbed Jess by the throat. Rocked her back as if she’d been punched. She caught her breath and looked at . . . oh no . . . “Vanessa?”

  Vanessa White. Former classmate at Collegiate Prep. Society darling, charity organizer. And most likely to keep up with page-six society news. Of course she would be on Ian’s private, posh trip for the ultra-wealthy.

  Oh boy.

  Every eye had turned to her—at least Pete’s, Ty’s, and Shae’s. But Shae was one to talk, wasn’t she? Still, Jess couldn’t move.

  “Wow—I thought . . . I mean, some people said you’d died. The whole world—or at least our world—is looking for you. What are you doing here?”

  She wanted to run, but Pete had bumped up behind her. Put a hand on the small of her back.

  Pete, I choose you. I choose this life.

  “Um, I . . .”

  “She moved to Montana to hang out with me,” Ty said, swooping in. “You might not remember, Vanessa, but we met at a charity event for the March of Dimes a few years ago in New York City. Ty Remington.” He stepped up to her bed and smiled, all charm and enough deflection for Jess to find her voice.

  “You don’t know everyone?” Pete whispered in her ear. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

  He raised an eyebrow, and for a second, she heard his words. “You long for that life back—I see it in your eyes.”

  No, she didn’t!

  Except, somehow, she moved forward. Found a voice she hadn’t used in a very long time, something of New York in it. “Hey, Vanessa. It’s good to see you. I didn’t recognize you.”

  Mostly true.

  “I can’t believe it. Selene, your family has been so worried. Your mother, she still volunteers for the March of Dimes event. Probably her way of redeeming . . . oh. I mean—”

  “It’s okay,” Jess said. “We’re all trying to redeem my father’s mistakes, somehow.”

  Probably the truest thing she’d ever said.

  “Wait until Felipe hears. Oh my gosh. He’s never gotten over you leaving him!”

  Jess stiffened. “Um, Vanessa, could you maybe . . .”

  “Guys, look at this.” Noelly picked up the remote and popped up the volume on the Weather Channel.

  A meteorologist stood in front of a huge screen, and they all watched in silence as she described a weather front surging in from the Atlantic.

  “Hurricane Walter looks to hit the Bahamas sometime tonight. It could come ashore in southern Florida by early morning tomorrow.”

  Silence descended around the room as the reporter continued her report. Then, Noelly muted the television, a wretched expression on her face.

  “If they’re out there, we’re running out of time,” Ty said quietly.

  Jess looked at Pete. For a long moment, he just stared at her, something so dark, so broken in his expression that she wanted to weep.

  Then, in a voice she didn’t recognize, he said, “This is not over yet.”

  12

  I PROMISE, I’m going to find a way to keep us alive.

  With everything inside him, Ian intended to keep that promise.

  Sierra had clung to him in the sand as if she might never let him go, and for a long moment, he’d just wanted to stay there.

  Safe, in their surreal paradise.

  Except, they weren’t safe, as evidenced by the still-red welts ringing Sierra’s leg. She’d been fighting hard against the pain, but he heard her whimper when he’d carried her up the shore to the protective rocks he’d chosen for their temporary camp.

  On the very end of the island, the rocks formed a natural wall, protecting them from the surf. He climbed up on the outcropping, found the rock dry. A safe place to build a signal fire, perhaps.

  He then salvaged the raft, dragged it to shore, and took inventory of their supplies.

  Three flares, a mirror, a rope, an MRE packet, two water packets, and a blanket, along with the contents of his cooler. He’d hoped for a PLS, but he guessed the personal locater, along with the knife and all the other supplies, had fallen out when the raft flipped in the water.

  Still, he could start a fire, build a shelter with the tarp, and feed them.

  He rigged the tarp from t
he rock down to the sand, a very temporary shelter where Sierra could get out of the sun.

  “I’m not an invalid,” she’d said as he helped her inside.

  “Humor me,” he said, eyeing her swollen leg. “If that gets any worse, I just might listen to the old wives’ tales and—”

  “Please don’t . . . that’s so gross.”

  He grinned, and she rolled her eyes.

  “Stay put. I need to get the lay of the land.”

  “Aye, aye, Crusoe.”

  He shook his head but knelt next to her when he noticed that her smile seemed forced. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”

  Another promise. They were piling up. But he intended to keep them all.

  Once he’d settled Sierra and their supplies into the nook under the tarp, he left her there long enough to do a quick reconnaissance of their situation.

  The island was shaped like a boot, with the foot up, forming a steep rise. Entangled with bamboo, the mountain seemed nearly impassable, thick with vegetation and perhaps even animals—wild boars and no doubt bats. If they weren’t found within a day, he’d climb to the top and get a good view of the sea, but from his vantage point, he saw no other islands.

  More, it felt like they’d landed on the only habitable place on the island. Steep, razor-sharp limestone cliffs barricaded the heel of the boot. If they’d washed ashore on the other end, he couldn’t imagine pulling himself out of the water without needing stitches.

  He discovered, back from the shore and near the rise of the boot, a cave with a wide mouth, but it seemed too far from the beach to be useful. In case they saw a boat, he’d need to scramble to light a signal fire.

  Towering palm trees allowed for cool pockets as he hiked back to the beach area. He noticed a few coconuts, some dead and littered on the ground, others green and alive. He picked one up and heard the sloshing of liquid. Coconut water. Probably full of nutrients, if he could get one open.

  More, stands of bamboo gave him a few ideas for shelter. But first, he gathered an armful of dead bamboo stalks and hauled it back to their camp, dumping the supply on the rock near their campsite.

  “What’s that for?”

  “A signal fire. There’s a lot of dead coconut husks laying around too. Good for kindling.”

  He’d already found a supply of loose boulders, and now made a ring with them on the rock. “If there is a shipping lane out there, then this is the best place for someone to see a fire.”

  “Will this help?”

  She’d come out of the tent while he worked, and had created a pile of coconut husks.

  He glanced at her leg, still reddened, still swollen. “Sierra—”

  “We’re a team, right?”

  Oh, those words found soft soil, burrowed in. He managed a nod.

  She sat on the rock, her injured leg outstretched, and pulled the fibers from inside a coconut, forming a pile.

  He stood up and set a bamboo shoot on a rock, then broke it with another rock. Taking the tinder pile, he set it in the center of the fire ring. Then he added dried sea grasses, brown and curly palm fronds, and finally made a tepee with the bamboo shoots.

  Then he retrieved the pile of discarded flip-flops he’d scavenged from the beach. “This should create black smoke and alert someone to our presence. And if we really want to create attention, we’ll build three fires . . . that’s the universal signal for distress. But . . .” He glanced at her. “The sun’s going down. We need to choose between a fire at night or the smoke at dawn.”

  “We can’t have both?”

  “We’ll need to tend it, if we want to keep it going.”

  “Tomorrow, then,” she said, offering a smidgen of a smile.

  “Okay. Then I’m going to build a shelter.”

  “What’s wrong with the tarp?”

  “That’s just temporary. We need something off the ground, away from the sand bugs.”

  He couldn’t help the strangest sense of satisfaction when she nodded, so much trust in her eyes it made him feel—well, not unlike those early days, when she looked at him like he could do anything. Fresh from his success designing his patented oil pressure system, he’d come to Montana, bought the old ranch from Ruth and Chet King, and restarted his life.

  A life that took on sunshine the day Sierra arrived for an interview and stayed. She’d helped him build his empire, made sure he ate and slept and packed the right clothes and kept his emails from overwhelming him and . . .

  He would build her a freakin’ palace.

  “I’ll be back,” he said and tromped off again toward the mouth of the forest.

  He’d seen a place just beyond the beach where a palm tree had fallen, splintered at shoulder height and held parallel by the debris of the trees it took with it.

  He just needed a floor, another wall, and he’d have a cozy lean-to.

  How he wished for a knife—he’d never longed for anything more in his life.

  He did, however, have lashing cords, a rubber base, a tarp, and paddles.

  After clearing out the debris beneath the downed palm tree with a nearby rock, he hiked back to shore, picked up the raft, and dragged it to the staging area. The roof had fallen, torn along one side, but he could drape the tarp over the palm tree, carry it down along one side, and secure it to the ground to make a lean-to.

  Okay, maybe not a palace, but the rubber bottom would protect them from the bugs, and the tarp would keep them out of the sun and rain.

  The sun was falling into the far horizon by the time he finished tying off the tarp. He also ripped the tent off the top of the raft and, using the paddles, made a barrier from the wind, protecting a small ring he’d constructed for their fire.

  Dinner by the fire, the sunset turning the sky to striated lava . . .

  He carried the rest of their supplies, including the cooler, to their new digs, gathered bamboo and palm fronds for the fire, opened a power bar, grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler, and felt like a hero when he returned to Sierra, supper in hand.

  She sat with her back against the rock, her injured leg outstretched.

  “See any ships?”

  She shook her head.

  He sat down beside her, longing to put his arm around her as she stared out to sea with a forlorn look on her face.

  He wanted to pull her close, but he didn’t want to assume that the panic that had caused her to curl into him this morning gave him license. It might have simply been relief that made her cling to him. Besides, just having her sit beside him, her soft shoulder against his burned skin, seemed enough.

  “Power bar?” He split it in half and handed it to her.

  She took it, astonishment on her face. Especially when she eyed the shelter he’d made.

  “Nice,” she said.

  He felt more than a hero. He was Robinson Crusoe, and invincible at that.

  The tide had started to come in, and waves splashed up onto the rock. The finest haze of seawater drifted in the air.

  Sierra shivered.

  Oh man. He couldn’t help it—he lifted his arm, and yeah, she nestled right in beside him.

  Because they had to survive together, right? Only, it lit a blaze right through him.

  She smelled of the sea, and he closed his eyes, turned his face to her hair.

  “We’re going to be okay,” she said then.

  “Mmmhmm.”

  “Thank you, Ian.”

  He lifted his head and looked down at her. “I told you—I’m going to keep us alive.”

  “I know you are. I’m sorry I didn’t help.”

  “Are you serious? You’re hurt.”

  “But—”

  “For Pete’s sake, Sierra. You’re always rescuing everyone else . . . it’s your turn to be rescued, okay? Please let me.”

  She frowned. “But that’s not your job.”

  “Sierra, look around you. We’re not—I’m not your boss here. I haven’t been for a long time. And frankly I wish I never was.”
<
br />   Her eyes widened.

  He couldn’t believe his own words. Except, yes. That was exactly what he wanted to say. “Hiring you was the best thing and the worst thing that I ever did, Sierra.”

  Her eyes clouded. “I thought you . . . we worked well together.”

  He gave a dark, almost angry laugh. “Yeah, we worked very well together. And that was the problem.” Maybe it was the sunset, cascading gold and rose along the horizon, maybe the whisper of the waves across the shoreline, the smell of the sea.

  The fact that here, nothing stood between them. Not his wealth, not Dex, not even Esme.

  Just Sierra, tucked into his arms, her eyes luminous, wide, and breathtaking.

  His voice lowered. “You can’t seriously not know how I felt about you. How . . . how I still feel about you.”

  She swallowed, and he knew that probably he was bowling her over, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “I longed to ask you out—I would have, if it wasn’t for, well, the fact—”

  Her eyes widened, as if shocked. Maybe even horrified.

  Shoot. Somehow, even here on a deserted island, he’d managed to drive her away. “I’m sorry.”

  He closed his eyes, sighed.

  The he felt her hand on his face, turning him to face her.

  When he opened his eyes, a tiny smile played on her face. “Sheesh, Ian. Since when do you give up?”

  Then she kissed him.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  Because he’d dreamed of kissing Sierra—again—so many times, the reality came crashing over him with a jolt, and he just froze.

  Sierra. Kissing him.

  Then, his pulse, the heat inside kicked into flame. He turned, his other arm curling around her, and pulled her to him. With the roar of the ocean rising around him, wave upon wave crashing against the shore, sprinkling the air with the smells of the night, he kissed her back.

  He’d turned into a thirsty man, the kind who’d held his parched breath for so long, he’d forgotten the taste, the touch of water. He remembered her lips, soft and molded under his, but this time, he tasted an urgency in her touch, something he hadn’t quite felt before.