by J. Haymore
Ethan moves over me, pushing a lump of wet hair out of my face. The cold is so pervasive, I can’t even shiver anymore. Every inch of me is wet to my bones.
“Hey,” he says gruffly.
He’s gorgeous, even now, with his hair slicked down with seawater and a slight gray pallor to his skin. His five-o’clock shadow is well on its way into the beginnings of a beard, and his eyes look incredibly, impossibly blue in the dim light. “Hey,” I say, so hoarse, the word sounds like little more than a scratchy breath.
He helps me sit up. I’m shaky, not from the bone-deep cold, but because I seem to have lost all use of my muscles during the night. My chest hurts inside—probably from inhaling seawater. The skin of my chest and side throb from where my body scraped against the hatch when Ethan pulled me out. My limbs feel rubbery and weak.
He lifts a silver packet with a straw sticking out of it like one of those juice packs. “Water,” he explains.
He pushes the straw between my lips. The liquid is hands-down the most incredibly delicious water I’ve ever tasted. It’s like drinking strength. It goes smoothly down my throat, seeming to heal whatever it touches in its path.
I suck the whole thing down, and when he draws it away, I’m able to take in my surroundings in a new light. There is a bit of water in the crevices in the floor of the raft, but it’s nowhere as deep as it was last night. Ethan must have bailed it out.
An open box filled with various items rests on the rubber floor—a first-aid kit, flares, flashlight, etcetera. A fishing rod and two wooden paddles lie beside the box, as well as a few extra packets of drinking water.
The door flap is open, and I turn my gaze there to see there’s still nothing out there but gray sky and grayer seas.
I think of Kyle and close my eyes. But I mutter, “Will they find us?”
“Yes. Sometime today.”
“How do you know?”
“The Temptation had an EPIRB with a built-in GPS.”
“Right.” Some distant part of my brain remembers Nalani telling me about the EPIRB—the radio beacon that, when immersed in water, sends out a distress signal along with GPS coordinates. I think of the Temptation, how it is now most certainly at the bottom of the ocean, and I close my eyes.
If Mick didn’t take it, if it was working, the EPIRB is submerged in water right now. It would have definitely sent out its signal.
That’s what I need to believe happened, because I can’t think about the alternative, about how long Ethan and I would last floating on a life raft in the Pacific Ocean.
“We’re not far from Hawaii,” Ethan continues, “so I’m guessing they’ve already sent the coast guard. They’ll go to the origin of the beacon first, then search the surrounding area. They’ll know the wind direction, speed, and currents, so they’ll be able to chart our most likely position and find us.”
He seems very sure of that, which is a small relief. “Did you see Kyle or Nalani at all after the explosion?”
He shakes his head. “I was dealing with a line that came loose on the starboard bow just above Mick’s bunk when it happened. Kyle was back on the bridge, steering.” Ethan speaks quietly, and his eyes are full of sadness and remorse. “The explosion… It originated in your cabin, Tara.”
A deep shudder runs through me all the way from my toes up to my scalp. “So Mick really was targeting me.” My tone is without inflection, without emotion.
“Yes,” says Ethan. He looks away, but I can see that telltale twitching muscle in his cheek.
“What happened after the explosion?” I ask him softly.
“I was thrown back—slammed into the cabin window—and I’m pretty sure I passed out for a few minutes.”
He was lucky he wasn’t knocked overboard. But then again, he was certainly using a safety harness.
Since Kyle was on the bridge, he probably hadn’t been in a harness like Ethan had. He could have been blown overboard with the sheer force of the blast.
No. I can’t think like that. Because I’ll fall apart again if I do.
“When I woke up,” Ethan continues, “I heard you calling out for me and Kyle. It was hard to pinpoint where you were at first. It was hard to make sense of anything. I couldn’t see Kyle—I couldn’t see the bridge at all. I think the explosion tore the boat into two or three pieces.”
I blow out a shaky breath.
“But I followed your voice to Mick’s bunk.” He pauses, frowning. “Why were you in Mick’s bunk?”
“I was searching for clues.”
He seems to mull over this. “Did you find anything?”
“Nothing.”
“We don’t need clues. We know he was the one who did all that shit.”
“I wasn’t searching for clues to implicate him. I was trying to find something that would tell me why he did it.”
Ethan sits back, leaning against the side of the raft and gazing to the outside. “Being in his cabin saved your life.”
We lapse into silence, and, eventually, he turns to me. His eyes are glassy. “I saw you,” he says hoarsely, “struggling to open that damned hatch. I couldn’t open it.” He holds out his hands, and I can see, even in the dim light, that his nails are torn and his fingertips are bloody. “It was latched from your side. I tried, but I couldn’t.”
He looks down, pressing his forehead to his knees, and his shoulders shudder.
For a moment, I feel empty, like a rusty gas can. But then I fill up with emotions so rapidly, they overflow. I lurch toward him, making the whole raft bend and shudder under my weight, and I wrap my arms around him. “You saved me,” I tell him, kissing his damp shirt, his neck, the scruff on his jaw. “You saved me. I thought I was going to die, and you saved me.”
I would be dead twice over without him. Dead. Lying faceup in the water with my eyes open and staring blankly at the sky, my hair fanning in long blonde strands all around my head.
I would cry, but there aren’t any tears left. They were all used up last night. Instead, I kiss him and kiss him and kiss him until he turns and cups my face in his hands and gives me a long, passionate, salty kiss full of such intensity it leaves me breathless and moaning.
“I can’t lose you, Tara,” he whispers against my lips. “I can’t.”
Does this mean he wants to continue things beyond Honolulu?
I can’t ask him. It seems a silly, stupid, meaningless question when we’re drifting aimlessly in the Pacific Ocean waiting to be rescued and while Kyle is out there somewhere. Maybe he’s the one floating on his back, his green eyes staring up at the sky…
No.
I pull back from Ethan, and for the first time, I notice he’s bleeding down the front of his shoulder. A wound gapes under the ragged, long tear in his shirt, still oozing blood. “What happened?” I gasp.
He gazes down at it as if just noticing it for the first time, his eyes widening. Then he gives me a one-shouldered shrug.
God, he looks wrecked. Still beautiful, but wrecked. His blue, blue eyes are set in hollow sockets. Behind his stubble, his face is pale. A deep crease carves the skin between his brows. And his lips are white. He’s either utterly exhausted or in shock.
God, I’m so selfish. He comforted me all night, but he’s gone through the same thing I have. I haven’t comforted him at all.
“I don’t know,” he says raggedly. “When I woke up after the explosion, it felt like a scratch. I haven’t really…seen it until now.”
I grab the first-aid kit and rifle through it. Gauze, tape, antibacterial ointment. “I’m going to clean it up.”
He shakes his head, draws his shoulder back as if he’s a child afraid of the sting. “It can wait until after we’re picked up.”
“No. It can’t,” I say flatly. Then I add, quietly, “Let me do this, Ethan. I want to feel like I’m doing something useful. I want to help you.”
I want to make him feel better, and I want to make up for being so selfish…
“I…” His voice trails off,
and his throat moves as he swallows.
Again I’m struck by his hesitance. Maybe he has an aversion to people touching his wounds. “Don’t worry,” I murmur, “I’ll be gentle.”
I push him back so he’s resting with his head propped up on the side of the raft, and I study the wound for a minute. I’m not that good with medical stuff, but given my basic first aid, it’s pretty obvious what needs to be done here. There’s enough gauze to wrap all the way around his chest, and that seems like the way to go, because the wound gapes enough that it’s probably going to need stitches once we’re in Hawaii.
Once we’re in Hawaii. That seems like such a foreign concept. What’s going to happen, exactly, “once we’re in Hawaii”? Certainly not the trip to the hotel, the warm freshwater shower, the fancy dinner out I was imagining.
“Take off your shirt,” I tell Ethan.
He grimaces. “No, it’s all right. Really. I don’t need—”
“Ethan.” My voice is sharp and stern.
“Fuck, Tara,” he says softly, and again his eyes are shining. I don’t understand why.
“It’s okay,” I say in the most soothing tone possible. “I promise.”
He jerks his gaze away from me. Slowly, he peels off his shirt, and my blood begins to rush through my veins. I’ve never actually seen Ethan shirtless. The shirt moves up those gorgeous, rippling abs with the light trail of hair leading down from his belly button and disappearing into the waistband of his pants. I watch as the bottoms of his pecs appear. When he said he went to the gym, he really wasn’t kidding. His chest might as well be chiseled from stone.
My attention is momentarily distracted as he moves his hands to pull the shirt over his head. I’m overwhelmed by all the masculine beauty, but the gash is ugly, and it needs my attention, so I turn to it, studying it from where it’s thin and barely open at the bottom to the wide, gaping wound at the top, near his collarbone.
And then, I see something else. Squinting, I lean forward to peer at it more closely, and Ethan groans softly.
There’s a circular scar right next to the worst part of the wound, just under his collarbone. It’s covered in blood, but it looks like…it looks like…
A gunshot wound.
And it’s in exactly the same place where my Good Samaritan from the convenience store took his bullet. Exactly.
Slowly, as if I’m pulling my head through honey, I drag my gaze to Ethan’s face. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut.
“Where did you get that?” My voice sounds tight. Strangled. Because a part of me knows—it knows where he got that scar.
He’s quiet for a long time, and the only sound I can hear besides the waves sloshing under the raft is the sound of my harsh breathing filling the dank space. He seems to be waging an internal battle, and I know exactly what it is: Should I lie, or should I tell the truth?
“Tell me the truth,” I grind out. “Where did you get that scar?”
“In a convenience store,” he says quietly. “In West LA. I was shot by a guy trying to rob the place.”
I think back on that night. On the dark-haired man in the suit who fought Anthony—the robber. The man who lunged in front of me, who took a bullet for me.
“You…were there…? That night?”
“Yes.”
That was Ethan? How could that have been Ethan? I don’t understand this. I stare at him, trying to connect this information with what I thought I knew about him.
Why didn’t he tell me he was my Good Samaritan? Why would he let me believe he’d never seen me before we met in the marina three weeks ago?
“But how? Why?” I breathe.
“Because I was watching you.”
I scramble backward until my back slams into the soft rubber across from him. “You were…what?”
“Watching you,” he repeats quietly.
“Why?” I grate out. “Why were you…watching me?”
He appears to wage that internal battle all over again. He reaches up with one hand and thrusts it through his hair until he’s grabbing on to the back of his skull. He shakes his head, draws his legs toward his chest, and bangs his forehead on his knees several times. “Not now, Tara, okay? Not now.”
“Oh, hell yes, you are going to tell me now.” My voice trembles. My whole body is quaking. “Right now, Ethan. You’re going to explain this to me. Why the fuck were you watching me that night?”
He groans long and low. Then he opens his eyes, and the blueness of them pierces straight through me.
“Because Emily asked me to.”
To be continued...
***This Ends Volume 2 of Swept Away.***
Swept Away is a 4-part serial novel. Part Three will be available on November 17, but will be available for preorder on October 20. For more information about Swept Away, as well as sneak peeks, giveaways, and more, please sign up for J’s newsletter.
www.jenniferhaymore.com
About the Author
USA Today bestselling author J./Jennifer Haymore is the author of sexy historical and contemporary romance. Her books have been nominated for numerous awards, including five RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice awards and the prestigious RITAÆ award for best historical romance.
You can find Jennifer in Southern California trying to talk her husband into yet another trip to England, helping her three children with homework while brainstorming a new five-minute dinner menu, or crouched in a corner of the local bookstore writing her next novel.
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Also by J. Haymore
Coming Soon:
Swept Away, Volume 3 (November)
Swept Away, Volume 4 (December)
Now Available:
Swept Away, Volume 1
Never Let Me Go
Sugar Cay
The Remix
The Reunion
Highland Knights
A Highlander's Heart
The House of Trent
The Duchess Hunt
The Rogue's Proposal
The Scoundrel's Seduction
The House of Trent Novellas
Devil's Pearl
His For Christmas
One Night with an Earl
The Donovan Sisters
Confessions of an Improper Bride
Once Upon a Wicked Night (a short story)
Secrets of an Accidental Duchess
Pleasures of a Tempted Lady
The James Series
A Hint of Wicked
A Touch of Scandal
A Season of Seduction
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
About This Book
About the Author
Connect with J.