Gone to Dust

by Liliana Hart

  “Bedrooms are down below,” Elias said. “Take your pick. I’d like to put a little distance between us and the mainland. There’s a little cove that’s close that backs directly to the mountains. Anyone approaching would have to do so by water. It gives us a little extra time to prepare.”

  “We’re going out there?” she asked, wide-eyed. “Now? What about the storm?”

  “We’ve got twenty-three minutes,” he said. “We should make it just in time. Then we can enjoy dinner and see how bad that four-dollar bottle of wine is going to be.”

  “I’ll let you test it first,” she said. “That’s why I got the beer. It’s almost impossible to screw that up.” She took her new clothes and toiletries and squeezed herself down the small staircase. She caught her balance and held on to the stair rail as Elias slowly guided them away from the dock.

  The downstairs area was huge. There was a common sitting area and game room, and there was a bedroom suite on each side with a private bath. The king-sized beds each faced windows that looked out onto the water, and other than the color scheme—one in blues and golds and the other in purples and silvers—they looked identical. She hoped there were blinds because she’d never been a morning person, and she had no intention of becoming one.

  She chose the purple and silver bedroom and put away her new clothes—mostly long pants and layering pieces, along with a few loose dresses like the one she was wearing, and then she realized she hadn’t needed to do much shopping at the market. The closet was fully stocked with different sizes and brands of clothing. And the shoes …

  “Oh, man,” she whispered, eyeing an entire wall of the closet. “I could get used to this.”

  She checked the drawers and saw lingerie and underthings, all with the tags still on them, and she selected some and then went into the bathroom. After the last twenty-four hours, she was never going to take hot running water and soap for granted again.

  If she was being honest with herself, she needed some time alone—to reevaluate things. The Elias she’d gotten to know over the last several days wasn’t what she’d expected from the man who’d left her so sexually frustrated a couple of months before. She still didn’t understand why he’d done it, but she’d come to understand him a little better, and she realized he wasn’t the kind of man who would hurt her on purpose.

  He had a strict moral code, and she could tell by the way he talked about his mom and sisters that he had an appreciation and respect for women. He was funny, and wasn’t afraid to laugh at himself, and she loved talking to him. She liked him. And good grief, did he turn her on. If she believed in the happily-ever-afters she wrote about, he’d be exactly the kind of man she was looking for. But she didn’t believe. And she wasn’t looking. But that didn’t mean the physical need for him wasn’t there. In fact, the more time she spent with him, the harder it was to resist. Especially if he kept kissing her.

  Thinking about his kisses wasn’t helping. Her skin was sensitive, her nipples rigid, and her body primed. Even the water droplets sluicing across her skin were too much. It would be so easy to slide her hand down to the damp folds between her legs. To take the edge off. And she realized if she did, it would be Elias’s touch she imagined. The substitution would never match up to the real thing.

  She turned the water off with a flick of her wrist and stepped out of the shower before she could give into temptation. The towel was soft, but it was still too much against her sensitive skin. Maybe she should just let things happen. It was sex. A physical release. It’s not like he had to declare undying love. All he had to do was follow through and not leave her hanging.

  It was best to just let nature take its course, like a mature adult in charge of her own sexuality. The bathroom was fully stocked with toiletries, and she found creams to smooth on her face and body. She’d gotten some sun walking to the market that morning, and her skin had a nice healthy glow to it by the time she’d moisturized.

  She put on the panties and then walked back out to the bedroom to the large closet. If she helped Elias make up his mind by slipping on something a little sexier than she’d normally wear, then who was anyone else to judge. It’s not like she’d be holding a gun to his head. The choice was his to make.

  There was a white sundress that caught her eye, and when she slipped it on and looked in the mirror she knew it was exactly right. It draped loosely, all the way to the floor, and just skimmed her body.

  She took a deep breath and headed back upstairs, and she watched him for a second at the helm, completely at ease and in control as they cut through the water.

  “Have you ever seen that movie Overboard?” she asked, coming up behind him.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “You saw the shoe closet.”

  “I might have had a small orgasm. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Pour yourself some four-dollar wine, and get comfortable. I’m trying to move us into a safe location to wait out the storm, and also keep us from getting ambushed in the night. There’s a little inlet up ahead, and anyone wanting to board us will only be able to reach us by water.”

  She took the wine from the refrigerator and unscrewed the top, pouring herself half a glass of the pink liquid and then moving to the windows to see the view. She saw what he meant when he’d said they’d only be reachable by water. There was a small inlet that butted up to a steep cliff, and there were no other boats docked there. She didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad sign.

  Elias expertly maneuvered the yacht into the inlet, and immediately the cliffs protected them from the wind.

  “Where’d you learn to drive a boat?” she asked. “As a SEAL?”

  She saw him wince, and then he cut his eyes in her direction, his mouth open as if he were going to say something. But he just froze and stared at her.

  “What?” she asked, knowing exactly what he was thinking. It was written all over his face.

  “Nice dress,” he said, his gaze lingering on her breasts. And then he blinked and focused his attention back on the water. “First of all, you don’t drive a boat. You sail a boat.”

  “Oh, my apologies,” she said, brows raised. “I hope the mariner police don’t arrest me.”

  “Smart-ass,” he said, grinning. “But to answer your question, I could handle one of these babies long before I was a SEAL. I grew up on the water. Like I said, I’d have much rather spent my days fishing than going to school. Of course, I didn’t get to captain anything like this, but learning on something not quite so nice helped me understand the workings of boats from the inside out.

  “I’ve always been comfortable on the water. So being a SEAL seemed like the natural course I’d take. I couldn’t ever imagine myself doing anything else, really. When I take vacation time it’s always the first place I go. I’ve got a boat down in the Keys.”

  He got them settled and shut down the control panel. “The security here is set up to let us know when anyone is approaching, so we’ll be fine. Plus, we’ve got a great view of the show.”

  The way the interior of the boat was designed made it look like you were part of whatever was happening outside. And at the moment, Mother Nature was putting on a hell of a show. The rain came down in sheets and visibility was limited too far out, but they could still see the waves crashing violently against the rocks.

  “It does this every day?” she asked.

  “Afternoon storms. But this one seems a little out of the ordinary,” he admitted. “I checked radar and the forecast and it looks like we’re in for something a little stronger than usual, but it should all clear off sometime during the night. Why? Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m feeling really good, actually,” she said, surprised any medication could’ve been that effective. Especially considering the hell she went through the last time.

  “Good, then watch this,” Elias said. “The cliff is blocking the wind, so we should stay dry.”

  “What?” Miller asked, confused.

&
nbsp; He hit a switch, and the row of windows slowly started to slide open. It was a surreal feeling—the sway of the boat made it seem as if she were standing on the water, the precipice of the storm at her fingertips.

  The air was cool and she felt the sea spray against her face. “That’s incredible,” she said.

  “Such power. And we’re part of it. At least for a time.

  “We might as well start dinner if you’re hungry. We’re going to be stuck here for a while if the radar is anything to go by.”

  She was surprised when he joined her in the kitchen, and not just to hand her a beer, though she took it gladly. They’d bought fresh shrimp at the market, along with pasta and the ingredients to make a lemon butter sauce, and she set everything out, letting her mind wander as the storm blew in.

  “This could be a problem,” she said, watching the lemons roll from the counter to the floor. She was still trying to find her sea legs, shifting her weight to find her balance.

  “Put them in the sink until you need them,” he said. “The boat is equipped with a stabilizer for the pot on the stove. Just be careful not to fill it too full so the water doesn’t slosh out. I’ll put the bread in the oven.”

  They worked with ease, and it wasn’t long until the smell had her stomach rumbling. The temperature had cooled things off, but she was warm in the kitchen, and a fine mist coated the all-weather seats beneath the open windows.

  “I spent the flight trying to pinpoint various landmarks your brother notated in his letter to you,” he said. “We’ll need to start out early in the morning, catch the tide so we can get there a little quicker. Time is of the essence.”

  “Okay, but I can’t promise to be awake or fully functional. I’m used to working night shift. I usually only see the times before ten in the morning if I’ve stayed up all night.”

  “I’ll make sure the coffee is on a timer for you,” he said, moving things to the table. It had transformed again, and in the center were indented areas to hold the bowls of food so they didn’t slide off the table. Holes appeared next to each place setting indention that were just the right size for drinks.

  “I really need to get one of these tables,” she said.

  “It’s a supercomputer, plus a lot of other things,” he said. “But at the core she’s a computer.”

  “She?”

  His lips twitched. “Her name is Elaine. She’s a patented design, and there aren’t any other organizations in the world who have technology like her.”

  You are correct … Elaine said. I am one of a kind.

  “She listens all the time?” Miller asked, slightly freaked out by the thought.

  “When she’s activated,” Elias said. “But she can be put in sleep mode and still have the full capability to know what’s going on around us. She also has the ability to answer questions at her discretion, using the data given. Elaine, what’s your favorite movie?”

  I have thousands of movies in my database, but I have to say, my personal favorite is Rear Window with Jimmy Stewart. We should watch it sometime.

  “It’s one of my favorites too, Elaine.” He looked at Miller and asked, “What kind of music do you like to listen to?”

  “Depends on what I’m writing at the time. Usually movie soundtracks or the old standards—Nat Cole and Billie Holiday.”

  “Elaine, play Billie Holiday and form a soundtrack with similar music.”

  Good choice, Elias. I enjoy the standards. It seems we have quite a bit in common.

  Miller raised her brows, certain that she detected a flirtatious tone in Elaine’s voice. Elias winked at her and grinned. “Thank you, Elaine,” he said as Billie Holiday came on and asked where her lover man could be.

  “That’s incredible,” Miller said. “And kind of terrifying. I’m not sure I like the idea of a computer that has that much thinking capability.”

  The expression on her face must have given her discomfort away because Elias said, “Elaine, go to sleep mode. I’ll control manually for the evening.”

  As you wish … And Miller would have sworn she sounded hurt at the dismissal. I will look forward to being woken in the morning. Good night.

  They brought the food to the table and dished it into their bowls, breaking off pieces of crusty bread and making small talk, enjoying the music on low in the background. It seemed so … normal. Like they’d done it a thousand times before. And she guessed they had, though it had never been just the two of them. There was always a group.

  “What I was saying before we started talking about computers,” he said, “is that I’ve located at least one of the markers your brother wrote about. There’s a cleft rock the locals call Corazón Roto. Or ‘broken heart.’ We can use that as a starting place and venture out from there. The waterfall angle is a little more difficult. Waterfalls are pretty prevalent on the Triangle Islands, but I’ve marked out the ones that are tourist attractions.

  “We’ve got to remember that during the course of your brother’s journey, he stumbled across the wreckage of your parents’ plane. We can assume it was untouched and that it’s in a remote location. There are two waterfalls that fit this description that I was only able to see from the satellite map imagery. There’s no documentation of them otherwise that I can find. But it looks like the terrain is pretty treacherous, and it’s at least a day hike from Corazón Roto.

  “I’ll get the boat as close as I can to the coordinates, and then we’ll have to take off on foot and try to re-create your brother’s steps. The bad news is the waterfalls are in opposite directions, so if we choose the wrong one it’s going to add at least another day to our journey.”

  “And if neither of them is what we’re looking for?” she asked.

  “Then we’ll go back to the drawing board.”

  “What about the pillar he mentions?” she asked.

  “I’ve got no clue on that one,” he said. “The mountain areas are pretty dense with jungle, but it could mean anything. A felled tree or something else resembling a pillar. The Galápagos Islands were discovered by the Incans some sixty years before the Spanish ever got here. There are ruins on the main islands, but it’s possible there might be some around here.”

  “Part of me hates him for this,” she confessed. “As much as I love my brother, I hate that he’s brought this back to the surface. I’ve spent my whole life trying to forget my childhood. Trying to move past the grief of their death.”

  “I hate to say it,” Elias said, “because God knows he and I rarely saw eye to eye the last couple of years we were SEALs together. But maybe he really does have an explanation worth listening to, like he said in his letter. Maybe there’s something bigger that he has no control over.”

  She shook her head. She was just so angry. Angry at all of them.

  “You’ve got to let it go,” he said. “You can be angry at them and still forgive them for what they did to you. It’ll eat you up inside if you don’t.”

  “You know this from experience?” she asked.

  “I know what it feels like to be eaten up with anger and the need for revenge. And I know you reach a certain point where it gets harder and harder to become the person you were before. Until you become a person there’s no coming back from.”

  She looked away, giving him time to be lost in his own thoughts, and went back to her dinner. It didn’t take them long to eat. “I’ll clean up the dishes,” she told him.

  “I’ve never actually heard anyone volunteer to do that before,” he said. “When I was growing up we took turns. My sister Janelle always managed to have band practice, too much homework, or a stomach bug that kept her from getting to experience her turn.”

  “Smart girl,” she said. “And where is Janelle now?”

  “She’s a schoolteacher down in south Texas,” he said. “She’s got three kids. She’s the middle child, so she has the syndrome. I expect she’ll have a fourth kid before too long so she doesn’t give her own middle child the same endearing personality traits s
he had growing up.”

  “You have a second sister?” she asked, wanting to know more about him. He rarely talked about his personal life, and she could understand why now that she knew they were all considered dead to everyone who’d ever known them.

  “Yeah, Katie,” he said. “She’s just finishing up her last year of college. She’s going to take over the world. She was always the bossiest little thing, but she was cute. I was in high school when she was born.”

  “I bet that made things interesting,” she said, imagining how a teenage boy would react to the fact that there was physical proof his parents still had sex.

  His eyes laughed as they met hers. “It was mortifying. But not surprising. My parents never could keep their hands off each other. Now that I’m older, I realize how nice that was to see growing up. They love each other like crazy.”

  The sadness in his eyes kept her from asking any more questions, even though she instinctively knew he’d answer whatever she asked. Miller watched him from her periphery as he cleared the table. When he was done, he grabbed another beer, taking her at her word that she was fine doing the dishes by herself. She appreciated that. Most men would try to impress by insisting on helping. But she could tell Elias had been raised well. He did things without having to be asked, and he did them without fanfare or looking for praise. It was refreshing to see. She’d dated some really interesting “men” who needed constant praise.

  She’d always enjoyed mindless tasks where she could let her mind wander. It was the best way to work out a problem or a plot. He grabbed another beer and then turned off the lights over the table, which had transformed back into a flat surface now that they were finished eating, and it cast the front half of the yacht into darkness and displayed the brilliance of the storm to its full potential.

  The group of seats were moveable, and he arranged them so there were two pressed together like a chaise, and then he put two more together for her. He dropped back onto the first one and propped his feet up. She’d never seen his bare feet before, though she’d never really had reason to.