I pull her up as much as I can, straining, using every inch of my underused abs and muscles for balance and strength.
Then, just when I think my legs are going to give out, Richard is behind me, pulling me back by the waist. It gives me enough momentum to pull Lacey back on board and into the cockpit.
“Are you okay?” I ask her, even though it’s obvious none of us are okay right now and that all looked rather painful.
She nods, giving me a meek, grateful look. Then she looks over at Richard in surprise.
One of the lenses in his glasses has cracked, blood pouring out of his mouth.
He smiles at her in relief.. He’s missing a front tooth.
“Get in, get in!” Tai yells from the back of the boat, distracting us from Richard’s face, and motioning down into the water. “Now!”
Oh my god.
No.
I can’t do this. I can’t leave this boat and get in a raft. I can’t!
But then I get a good look at the boat.
We’re no longer moving forward which is good, but we’re twisted enough to the side that the waves keep crashing over.
Then there’s the matter of the inside.
I stumble over to the stairs leading into the cabin. There’s at least two feet of water down below, sloshing to the level of the couches, cushions starting to float. The water seems to be coming from the fore cabin, the door twisted off.
Oh god, it’s sinking.
We’re sinking.
“Come on!” Tai yells. “Abandon the fucking ship!”
Lacey pulls at my arm and it’s enough for me to snap out of it.
I follow her and Richard down the cockpit to the back where Tai has unfastened the railing. The life raft sits on the water, fully inflated, a little canopy over it. It looks like a cheap floating house that kids would play in, albeit with a flashing beacon on the top.
How the hell is that going to protect us?
“Get in!” Tai says, reaching forward and grabbing me by the arm, pulling me to the landing at the back of the boat, where once upon a time I would sit on calm days and watch the water pass beneath my dangling feet.
Seems like a lifetime ago.
The raft is tied up against the ship, but with the waves threatening to tip us all over, I’m scared to death to try and jump in it.
“Jump!” Tai yells. “You’ll be okay, you have your life jacket.”
I almost want him to push me but I don’t think he would.
Instead, I take in a deep breath, conjure up all my courage, and leap.
I miss, of course.
Half of me lands in the water, so much colder than I thought it would be, but most of me (my boobs) lands in the raft, so I’m able to work that weight load to my advantage and tumble inside.
Some of our bags are already inside, so Tai must have some pretty good aim. I wait under the plastic tarp, the bottom of the small enclosure moving violently with the waves, and then Lacey manages to get inside the raft, then Richard.
It’s tight in here and smells like chemicals, and I hold hands with Lacey, more me wanting to be comforted than the other way around, as Tai starts throwing the rest of the bags to Richard.
Then one doesn’t make it. Richard’s bag. It bounces off the raft, just missing the opening and lands further away in the water.
“Fuck!” Tai yells. “Sorry Richard!’
“It’s fine!” Richard yells back.
Tai quickly climbs down to the bottom of the boat’s platform, with the fishing rod in one hand, and the rope attached to the life raft. Then he ties the rope around his waist, tight.
He closes his eyes and jumps straight down into the water, sinking beneath the waves, only the top of the fishing pole visible.
“Tai!” I scream, as his life jacket pulls him back up the surface. “What are you doing? Get in!”
He shakes his head and shoves the rod in the raft, then starts to swim up alongside the boat, away from us.
“What is he doing?” I cry out.
“This raft is only for four people and we have too many supplies,” Richard says grimly. “If you haven’t noticed, Tai is all muscle. If he came in here, we would sink.”
Oh, I noticed all right, but now’s not the time to dwell on it.
“He’s trying to swim to shore,” Lacey says. “Pull us all in.”
“A modern-day He-Man,” Richard comments.
“But that’s crazy!” And yet, that’s what Tai is attempting to do, he’s swimming, making powerful strokes and we’re actually moving away from the boat a little, I guess because the boat could suddenly collapse on us, or we could be bashed against it.
The land in front of us is getting closer and when I chance a look over the side into the water, I think I can see the coral reefs just below the surface. No wonder we ran aground, the reef is so close to the surface, I—
A scraping sound fills the raft cavity, then a hiss. The raft seems to stop moving for a moment, then we’re lurched forward as Tai pulls us.
“Shit!” Richard swears. “I think we punctured on the reef.”
He leans out of the raft and Tai is swimming back to us.
The raft starts to deflate in one corner, water starting to seep in right behind Lacey.
“Stay where you are,” Tai yells at us, spitting out water as we bob up and down in the waves. “Stay in the raft until you can’t.”
He starts swimming again, trying so hard to get us closer and closer to land.
It works.
We’re about fifty meters from the beach.
But the raft doesn’t have enough buoyancy anymore.
“Time to get the fuck out,” I say, grabbing my bag.
Lacey and Richard do the same, grabbing the rest of the stuff.
One by one, we awkwardly, reluctantly pile out into the water.
I think this is the point where my adrenaline runs out.
The moment I’m floating in the water, I barely have enough strength to hold onto my LV, let alone swim. All of us are struggling. We’re just slaves to the life jackets at the moment.
But then I see Tai coming back for us, walking, lit from behind by the light of dawn. He grabs me underneath my shoulders and hauls me up onto land until he leaves me on the beach.
He does the same for Lacey and Richard.
Then he goes and collapses on his back further up on the sand.
The waves are breaking on me now, so somehow I manage to get to my knees and then crawl up onto the shore, away from the water, collapsing on my side.
It’s hard to breathe. I spit out water. Everything aches and burns.
I don’t know how long I lie there, but eventually my breathing slows and the sky lightens enough that I can make out the colors in the shadows.
A white beach.
Dark green jungle.
Clear blue water.
We made it.
But where?
“We need to take shelter,” Tai says, helping Lacey to her feet. “Just over here.”
I get to my feet and stagger forward, following, Richard behind me.
The sand gives way to coconut palms and flowering bushes and ferns and a dark, earthy smelling jungle beyond.
I collapse again to my knees, finding a soft spot in the sandy dirt, laying my head against my bag.
“Everyone okay?” Tai asks.
We all make sounds that either sound like yes or no, but obviously none of us are dying.
Yet.
“What do we do now?” I ask, my voice sore and hoarse from screaming and swallowing salt water.
“We wait for the storm to die down a bit,” Tai says, leaning against a palm tree, watching the horizon.
Watching where his boat is.
Or what’s left of her.
My heart sinks for him. As glad as I am to be alive, what happened to Atarangi is all too much to handle.
“Then,” he says, “I’ll use the satellite phone to call for help.”
“Will
that work?” I ask, thinking of the VHF.
“It will, as will the locator beacon that activated when the raft opened up. No matter what happens, people will know where we are. People will find us.”
“Do you promise?”
He turns his head ever so slightly, though I can’t read his expression in the shadows.
“I promise. Get some rest.”
Twelve
Daisy
I wake up with my face pressed against wet dirt, my eyes focusing on an ant that is hurriedly crossing in front of me, heading somewhere on a mission.
I’m also drooling. I guess some things don’t change, no matter where you find yourself.
And where am I, anyway?
I blink, my eyes burning from the dried salt water on my lashes, and I slowly, carefully sit up, my head woozy. My muscles ache like I’ve been passed out on the hard ground for a few hours, which isn’t a lie.
The sun outside this thicket of ferns and bushes is bright and I have to shield my eyes for a moment before I focus on Lacey and Richard. She’s sleeping with her back against a coconut palm, Richard is on the ground with his head in her lap. Both of them are snoring.
My first thought is that I am so happy that they’re alive.
Things could have gone so much worse than they did.
My second thought is that Richard snores like a banshee, and Lacey is drooling on his forehead. My god, it must run in the Lewis family.
And Tai…
I look around, slowly getting up.
He’s nowhere in sight.
I try not to panic, looking around.
The jungle behind me is thick with foliage and the sound of birds and buzzing insects. The air is so humid that it takes me a moment to realize my clothes are still wet from the ocean and my skin is damp. The jungle looks like a dangerous place, and by dangerous, I mean full of insects and gross things that I don’t want any part of.
I walk past the row of palms and fragrant flowers between the jungle and the beach, and step out into the sand.
Holy crap.
In the burning light of what must be mid-day, it’s apparent that not only is the storm completely gone, but it’s dropped us off in the lap of a quintessential deserted island.
The sand is blindingly white, the water the palest of blue. To the right of us, the land slopes upward until it forms steep rock cliffs. To the left, the beach continues in a flat track, on and on.
In front of me is Tai, sitting on the sand where it meets the water, gentle clear waves lapping his feet, as if a storm never passed through here at all.
His back is to me and he’s looking out across the blue lagoon, toward the reefs.
Toward Atarangi.
She’s still there! She’s on her side and the sails are ripped to shreds, but she hasn’t sunken into the depths. She’s still there.
Something about that warms my heart.
I want to go and say something about that to Tai, but I think he’s probably still mad at me, since this thing is pretty much all my fault.
At the very least, I need to use the washroom.
I quickly turn around and start looking around where we slept. Lacey and Richard are still snoring away but a quick search of our bags proves that nothing stayed dry.
I’m looking for tissue, to be precise, since none of us had the smarts to bring toilet paper.
Who knew it was one of the essential items?
So I head into the bush, trying not to go too far because, got to admit, it’s kind of scary being on an island like this. Maybe people do live here, which is great, but I don’t want them to watch me pee. Or maybe there are some crazy lizards that bite your butt or something. I don’t know.
What I do know is I squat and go about my business and…
I feel eyes on me.
Hear a snuff of air.
From the side.
You know that scene in Jurassic Park, when Robert Muldoon, the sexy Australian warden, is hunting for the raptors and the raptor suddenly appears from the side and he’s all “Clever girl”?
Well, yeah. I just looked over and there’s a fucking pair of eyes looking at me.
A motherfucking goat.
I scream and fall over, scrambling to my feet and yanking up my pants and then I’m running, I don’t know in what direction but I don’t care, I’m so disoriented.
That was a goat, right? Goat eyes are so damn creepy, it could have been some demon!
“Daisy?” I hear Lacey’s voice.
I run toward her voice, nearly knocking her over when I crash through some bushes.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, holding onto me, her eyes wide. “What happened?”
“A goat!” I manage to yelp.
She frowns. “A goat?”
“Was watching me pee!”
“What? Where?”
I try to point where I came from but I have no idea anymore. “I don’t know but I was going to the bathroom and minding my business, and I looked over and a fucking goat face was staring at me.”
Clever goat.
“Well that’s a good sign,” Lacey says. “Means there might be people here. Goats are an introduced species.”
Even so, I get the feeling she doesn’t believe me.
“Come on, let’s go back to camp.”
“To camp?” I repeat. “It’s like we already live here now.”
She gives me a look that says, We do.
Back at camp, Richard is now awake, leaning against the palm tree and rubbing at his head.
“Are you okay?” Lacey asks, dropping to her knees beside him.
“I have an atrocious headache,” he says, slowly looking up at us. “And a face to match.”
Yeah, so Richard isn’t looking the best right now.
He’s pale, his tooth is missing, his one lens is still cracked, he’s got a spreading bruise under that eye, and a split upper lip.
“You look great,” I tell him adamantly, crouching down.
“Don’t be facetious. I look like a Benzite.”
“I don’t know what that is,” I admit.
“It’s from Star Trek,” Lacey says.
I shake my head. I guess when Richard gets stressed, he goes to his happy place.
“Can you see without your glasses?” I ask him.
“Blind as a caecilian.”
“Is that a Star Trek reference again?”
“It’s a type of amphibian that lives underground,” Lacey informs me.
“Can you give him your glasses?” I ask her. “You can see without yours.”
She pauses, brows coming together. “No I can’t.”
“You weren’t wearing them the other day and I saw you read the back of my book just fine.”
The book in question was a historical romance novel about a reformed rake I burned through in a day. I picked up a bunch of paperbacks in the airport gift shops, and managed to pack some last night since I wasn’t sure my Kindle was going to hold out. Kindle, paperback—it’s good to have your reading materials covered on all bases.
Before Lacey can protest again, I reach out and snatch her glasses off her face, putting them on.
I can see perfectly, which means there’s no prescription in these glasses.
Just as I suspected.
“You don’t need glasses!” I yell gleefully. “I knew it!”
“That’s preposterous. Of course she does,” Richard says adamantly.
Lacey snatches them back, slipping them on. “I do. Maybe you need glasses.”
Right. “I don’t and you know it. You had perfect vision growing up, you were always bragging about it. Then you graduated high school and suddenly you said you were nearly blind. I always figured you wore them just so you’d seem smarter.”
Lacey is turning red. She shakes her head and looks away.
Richard holds out his hand. “Give them to me.”
She shakes her head harder.
“Lacey Loo,” he says. “Give me your glasses.�
��
Reluctantly, she takes them off and hands them over.
Richard then takes off his broken pair and slips hers on.
Frowns. “Lacey…”
“Okay, okay, fine!” she suddenly cries out, getting to her feet. “So, I don’t need glasses.” She puts “need” in quotation marks. “I have to wear them. People won’t take me seriously if I don’t.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, getting to my feet. “I totally get it.”
“It’s not okay,” Richard says grimly. “How could you lie to me?”
Uh oh.
Time for me to skedaddle.
I grab my Speedy duffel and then head to the beach, ready to start unpacking it and drying stuff out.
To my complete surprise, Tai is in the water, swimming across the lagoon toward the boat.
“Tai!” I yell at him. “What are you doing?”
It’s not like it’s a casual swim out to the boat, the lagoon has to be at least three hundred feet across to the reef.
If he can hear me, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps going, his bronzed back and arms a contrast against the clear turquoise waters as he makes his powerful strokes toward Atarangi.
Now that the water is flat and the weather is calm, it does look like a beautiful place to swim, but I remember enough about marine biology to know that atolls aren’t immune to sharks. Great whites are rare here in the South Pacific, and we’re most likely to find hammerheads, nurse, and reef sharks, generally harmless, but that doesn’t mean tiger sharks aren’t lurking about, especially after a storm where the water beyond the coral reef might be murkier.
“Leave him be,” Lacey says from behind me.
I jump, whirling around. She’s not wearing her glasses anymore.
“I thought you were fighting,” I tell her.
“I’m done.” She shrugs. “He’ll get over it.”
I look back to Tai. “I saw him sitting on the beach earlier, just staring at the boat. Now he’s swimming to it. What’s he doing?”
“Probably going to see if he can salvage anything.”
“I worry about him,” I admit. “I know how much that boat meant to him.”
She eyes me carefully for a moment.
“What?” I ask.
“I don’t think you do,” she says knowingly.
I fold my arms across my chest, hating this game she plays where she knows something and doesn’t come right out and tell me. I’m awful at this game. I tell everyone everything, whether they want to hear it or not.
Lovewrecked Page 13
