How could he know that she’d just gotten angry? She stared up at him. “What is what?”
He moved his thumb up the bridge of her nose, tracing the skin between her eyebrows. “These two almost-imperceptible lines. Most people don’t control them well, but since you’re a journalist, you’ve probably had practice maintaining a relaxed face. Your eyebrows dip just a fraction when you’re upset.”
She pushed his hand away. “What? You think you know me now?”
He looped his hand around her wrist and gently pulled her hand to his chest. “My family … we were taught to read body language. Whether it’s a team member or someone I’m rescuing, I need to know what they’re going to do before they do it. People in peril do crazy things. And people who are upset, show it all over their face so, besides our obvious predicament, what did you think of just now that upset you?”
Irene stood and Alex followed, not allowing her to break the connection between them.
“See,” he said. “I knew you were going to stand before you did it. You shook your head ever so slightly because you didn’t want to hear what I was going to say, then pushed your right shoulder toward me, trying to create a barrier between us.”
“What are you doing, Alex?” She stared at him as the wind lapped her damp hair against her face. Sitting on the ground, she’d been warmer. Now she was cold. She hadn’t realized the wind had picked up and the clouds had started to roll in.
He lowered his head and stared at her from beneath his long lashes. “What do you mean, What am I doing?”
“I mean … why do you care what upsets me? I know your goal is to get me home safely, but what happens after that … when you decide you still want to kill yourself?”
He sighed long and deep, rested his head against hers. “Irene … I don’t want to kill myself. I promise you, I’m not suicidal.”
She stepped away from his too-warm embrace. “But you said it … your problems will still be there when you return home, and if you thought that killing yourself was the way out, then what’s to keep you from thinking that way again?” Besides, she reminded herself, you can’t be there for Alex. You can’t be there for anyone. Just what he needs: a woman who has a fifty percent chance of dying in the next five years.
Alex’s brow lowered, but he didn’t reach for her again. “I’m not suicidal, Irene. I just wanted what was best for my family, and I thought I was brave enough to pull it off, but I’m not. Is that what you want me to admit? That I’m weak? You’re right. I am weak. I want to live. I didn’t realize it yesterday. I thought I was a hero, but I do want to live. As unfulfilling as my life is, I like my life.”
Irene thought of a hundred things she wanted to say, but she held her tongue. It was better this way. She’d always hated soap-opera drama. While she’d been in the hospital, her hospital roommate had watched one soap opera after another, and Irene had found that the stupid shows were sucking her in, too. But mostly she’d just wanted to scream at the characters, Tell him you’re pregnant! Tell him you love him!
Now she understood the vital importance of shielding her secret from Alex. She couldn’t tell Alex that there was a fifty percent chance that she’d die in the next five years, because then he’d want to save her. She didn’t want his warm embrace if it came with a side of pity. And she didn’t want Alex to care about her only to lose her. She knew the grief of loss, and she wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Chapter 13
~ Irene ~
Irene stared up at Alex. “You said that you’re not suicidal, and yet you set it all up, so what am I supposed to think?”
Alex blew out a breath and headed back to the beach towel. “I don’t know. The same thing everyone thinks about me, I suppose. That I’m a screw up. My own brother doesn’t even trust me to run the business. When he leaves, he puts Vince in charge.” He looked back at her, then plopped down on the ground. “I told you I get everything I deserve. I make my own bed, so I have to sleep in it.”
Irene crossed her arms and stared at him. “I don’t understand. Sam doesn’t know, right?”
Alex shrugged. “He suspects. But mostly, he just holds it over my head that I ran off after my father’s accident. I couldn’t deal with it, so I just left for the coast, stayed out of sight for a few months. I bartended at night, slept and drank all day.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “And yesterday, you were going to run away for real … forever, because you’re upset that Sam holds your running away over your head?”
“That’s about right.” He patted the towel beside him. “Would you sit down, please? Your beautiful bronze hair is like a beacon in the wind. No way would those men miss it if they come back now.”
She lowered herself next to him, pulling the shawl she’d found in the cabin tighter around her shoulders. “If you suspect he knows anyway, why don’t you sit down and talk to him?”
Alex tilted his head and peeked up at her. “This coming from the woman who hasn’t been home in seventeen years?”
“That was different, Alex. I wasn’t the one who lied. I wasn’t the one who took a non-family member’s word that I’d gotten pregnant and had an abortion. My parents didn’t even ask me if it was true; they just blasted me. So yeah, I left. I was leaving anyway. I just left sooner than I’d planned and never looked back.”
He dropped his head against his hands and rested his elbows on his knees. “Sam will never forgive me. My mother will hate me. My baby brother grew up without knowing our father because of me. He’d never look at me the same.”
Irene traced the lines of the sweater he wore. “Would you forgive Sam? Would you hate your mother? Would you look at your brother differently?”
“I don’t know.”
“Alex …” She grazed the new stubble on his face. “You said yesterday that my sister would appreciate my forgiveness. I think that’s because you know it’s what you want … what you need. You can never be forgiven if you don’t tell them the truth. I know you blame yourself, but … couldn’t the accident have happened even if he’d had an ax? Didn’t you try to save him?”
He nodded slightly. “Yes, but I’ll never know the truth.”
“We never know the truth … Not really. Every action has a different reaction. We can torture ourselves with what-ifs, but it doesn’t matter. What will be will be, right?”
He turned to her, a small smile playing on his lips. “Sounds like a song.”
“It does —”
Curses came from the other side of the dune, followed by, “You better run! If that boat goes out any farther and we’re stuck here, I’m gonna eat your ass like one of those rugby players who crashed in South America.”
Alex pulled her down so they were both horizontal. He inched on his belly toward the edge of the cliff face.
“That’s sick, man,” a second man replied. “You’d really eat me?”
“Nah. Probably not. You’ve poisoned your body so bad with that crap you smoke. But I’d use you as bait and catch me a fish.”
“Damn, man. You’re as cold as ice. What the hell’d they teach you in the Marines?”
The other man harrumphed. “To stay alive when punk asses like you screw up.”
“Whatever, man. I didn’t pick that pilot; you did.”
“Maybe so, but if your mother hadn’t mortgaged her property to bail you out of jail, I wouldn’t be running drugs to save her and your sorry ass.”
“Nobody asked —”
“Just get the damn boat!”
Irene watched as a head finally came into view as one of the men jogged onto the beach and into the surf. The man was right. The boat looked a lot farther out than it had been when she and Alex first spotted it. The young man, mid-twenties, she guessed, dove into the surf and came up with long strokes, making short work of the distance.
At the boat, he latched an arm onto a ladder. Only then could Irene see how high the waves were. Every few seconds, the man’s body disappeared as the boat rocked up
and down.
The other man came into view. Older, early to mid-fifties, she assumed. From their conversation, he was the younger man’s stepfather, though he obviously didn’t claim that title. He was just involved with the young man’s mother, it seemed.
She’d always thought of drug dealers as users themselves, who supported their habit by selling, or someone who just wanted to make money off the weaknesses of others. She never thought about someone selling drugs because they were desperate to save a loved one. Not that it mattered; it was still wrong. The repercussions of selling drugs went way beyond selling to degenerates; it left a path of destruction miles long, often with innocent children in its wake. She’d definitely seen the ugly side on the streets.
The older man waded into the water, checked his surroundings. He obviously wasn’t as confident diving into the surf as the younger man. He backed up into the wave, ducking his head as the wave crashed around him. Past the break, he swam on his back until he reached the large speedboat. The man in the boat offered him a hand, but he swatted it away.
Seconds after entering the boat, the engine roared to life and the boat sped away. The young man stood behind the wheel while the older man spoke into a handheld speaker. She couldn’t hear, but his hands told a story all their own as he waved his hand at the beach, the boat below his feet, and even the air.
“Whew!” Alex rolled to his back. “That was close.”
“They didn’t even look our way. They were so pre-occupied with yelling at each other that they didn’t check their surroundings.”
Alex nodded, allowing that. “Yeah … but I kept waiting for one of them to suggest that Kevin had dropped the bags into the wreck, thinking it’d be safe there.”
Irene scurried to her knees. “Then why did you have us wait here?”
“Because it was the best place to watch. I knew we could get away before they saw us if they circled back.” He rolled to a seated position, his legs stretched out. “Now we know we’re alone again, so we can relax. At least until the next wave of drug runners arrives. I just hope my family gets here before they do.”
“Do you think there will be more?”
Alex laughed, and not his normal goodhearted laugh; this one was condescending. “Did you not hear that calculation earlier? One point eight million, and that’s based on the value in my little town. Cities like Seattle and San Fran probably pay twice as much.”
“What do we do?”
“Same thing we just did. Stay out of sight and hope my family gets here before they send in the muscle.”
“We can’t stay here forever, Alex. As you said, 1.8 million is a lot of money. They obviously won’t wait until the weather clears up to comb the island, and there aren’t too many places for us to hide.”
~ Alex ~
Alex hopped up, pulling Irene with him. He wrapped his arms around her waist. “What happened to surviving on a deserted island with me for a few months?”
She stared up at him. “That was when I thought you had a strong will to survive.”
He shook his head and dropped his arms, but scooped up her hand to lead her down the dune. Her words had stabbed him deep. His heart ached, his stomach felt like an empty pit, even more hollow than when he’d taken off on his fateful flight the previous day.
At least she didn’t fight him on helping her down the mound, but maybe that’s just because she didn’t want to topple head over heels through razorblade seagrass.
Head over heels … He’d never thought he could fall head over heels for a woman, but he was pretty sure this was what it felt like — Her foot lost traction and she started to fall, so he thrust his hands beneath her arms and pulled her back up.
“Sorry.”
For breaking my heart before I even knew it was yours to break? he wanted to ask, but instead he just said, “It’s okay. I’m used to walking on uneven ground. I’ve done it almost as long as I’ve known how to walk.” And it was true … He’d always been accustomed to treading lightly, physically and mentally. He’d been tiptoeing around the family as long as he could walk, too. Even before he screwed up, his father had always looked to Sam. True, Sam was five years older than he was, but he’d been twenty-three when his father died. Yeah, he would party at night, but he’d never not shown up for work. He’d never made a mistake that had cost a life.
Not until the day he’d lost his father …
They’d made it to the road and Irene allowed his hand to fall away. But maybe not because she didn’t want to hold his hand. He’d realized he’d broken into a sweat as he’d thought about his father and Sam … even his mother. No one had ever trusted him like they did Sam; they’d always just looked on in concern. Why? He wasn’t the baby; Daire was. Why had his mother and father always treated him like he was the baby? Even yesterday, his mother had voiced her concerns about him taking out the plane. She never would have done that to Sam. He’d always just brushed it off, but now he wondered.
Maybe he’d been wrong when he told Irene that Sam being the oldest and always in charge didn’t bother him.
“I was thinking …” Irene’s soft-spoken words broke him from his thoughts. “For dinner, maybe I’ll make us some canned beans and black coffee.”
Alex stopped walking and looked down, saw the corners of Irene’s lips turn up. He laughed and shook his head. “That sounds good. Can’t wait. Maybe when we get back to the mainland, I’ll take you out on the town, show you some of the places you didn’t get a chance to see in Anchorage —” Her expression cut off his words.
The look had only lasted a second, but he recognized it: sadness … regret … Her lips had turned down quickly, the fine lines framing her mouth deepening. But then she’d hidden it. As he’d suspected, she knew how to mask her feelings. But some feelings were impossible to hide, and sadness or remorse was the hardest. He’d seen the look a hundred times. He’d seen it when they’d been called too late to a rescue and someone had already died. And he’d seen it on his brother’s face more times than he cared to count.
She raised her hand to his arm. “Alex —”
“It’s okay, Irene,” he cut off whatever excuse she was going to give him. He was the king of excuses for why a relationship wouldn’t work; he didn’t need any new suggestions. “I understand. We’ve been thrown together these last couple days. That doesn’t mean we have to prolong it once we get to safety.” He shrugged off her touch and walked toward the cabin.
She jogged to catch up to him. “It’s not that … I just …”
He stopped again, stared down at her. She was too good at masking her feelings. If he was going to have to endure an excuse, he wanted to make sure he heard the real excuse, not the one she made up. “You just …” he offered as she stared up at him.
Irene inhaled deeply, then spoke quickly, “I have a lot to handle with my family.” She blinked repeatedly before continuing, “I can’t … I’m not … ready —”
“For a relationship?” He forced a smile. “That’s my line, honey! What makes you think I’m looking for a relationship? I was just trying to be nice. No worries. I get it. I’ll still get you home safely. You don’t owe me anything.”
He walked off again, this time faster than before. She didn’t try to keep up, just tromped behind him as if she were angry. What reason did she have to be angry? She was the one who insisted she’d only wanted a one-night stand, and then practically seduced him with her little question game the previous evening. She’d gotten him to open up to her today, and then had dumped on him. And when he tried to take their … whatever they were doing … to the next level, she’d rejected him.
Maybe he hadn’t been mistreating women all these years. Maybe it’s what they wanted. They sure seemed to flock to him, even though he’d never hidden what he was. They’d call him a scamp, but then show up on the tailgate of his truck. He’d never had to beg.
He sighed. Irene didn’t seem like the type, though. Yeah, she’d slept with him, but he could tell it wasn�
��t the norm for her. She smiled and danced seductively that first night, but he could see the pain in her eyes. Someone had definitely hurt her. Is that what she was trying to do … hurt back? Make him suffer the way someone had made her suffer?
That was hard to believe too. Maybe she just didn’t like him. That was easier to believe. She studied people for a living, so as much as he perceived about her, she probably saw through him too. What does she see? he wondered. A man who easily snapped when he got frustrated? A man who was willing to throw his life away because he was weak?
He wasn’t weak. He was tired. Tired of the fighting and the nightmares. But for the first time in forever, he’d been imagining a life. That’s why he’d asked if he could show her the town. He wanted to, he realized. He wanted a future. How could he convince her of that?
At the last bend before the cabin, he stopped and waited. Not that there was anything dangerous on the island, but he didn’t want to take the chance and let her out of his sight.
After all, the owner of those drug-laden duffle bags knew they were missing now, and he’d be ticked. Obviously, the older man had been telling someone on the radio that the cargo was missing. Based on the men’s conversation, they couldn’t afford the gas to run that powerboat, let alone buy it. Even used, a Fountain 47 Lightning probably sold for half a mil. He understood why a drug runner would want it. It could outrun most Coast Guard boats and power through waves like a tank through a card house.
Irene looked up from the road and caught his eye. “You don’t have to wait for me, Alex. I know you feel responsible for me and will get me home safely.”
He resisted rolling his eyes. You started it, he wanted to say, but that would be even more childish than rolling his eyes. Even though it was true. He’d not come on to her the first night … or really the second night. He turned and walked toward the shack. She was close enough, and she certainly didn’t have a light foot. He’d hear her coming from a mile away, he was certain.
In the event another one of the drug runners had managed to creep onto the island unseen, he carefully opened the cabin door. He doubted it, though. They had to come by air or boat, so he’d hear them either way. Still, he peeked in, making sure it was safe, then pushed the door wide, leaving it open for Irene.
Alex's Atonement (Midnight Sons Book 2) Page 14