by Jean Thomas
“Would you believe this kid, this child, had a gun hidden down at his side? We didn’t see it. Didn’t know a boy that young we assumed was another kidnapped victim could act so fast, be so accurate. Whipped out the gun and shot the girl in the chest. Turns out he was the son of one of the kidnappers. Now you know why I’m on suspension. Mental distress, the whole thing.”
Brenna could manage nothing more than a stunned “Dear God.” That and the fierce wish she’d never asked Casey to explain his suspension.
Even in this weak light she could see the anguish in his eyes. The blame he must be suffering at times like this for the death of the judge’s teenage daughter. But how could he and the agent who’d been with him in that room have possibly anticipated such a swift, shocking outcome?
Brenna longed to go to him, put her arms around him, hold him in comfort for as long as he needed. But she knew him too well to try that.
This wasn’t the first time she’d listened to him tell her, and always in a vague way, about assignments that hadn’t gone well. Nothing as horrific as this one, but a few of them bad enough.
He’d always been ready for her to lend a sympathetic ear, but beyond that he was never willing for her to go. A masculine pride? She never knew, and she never trusted herself to ask. Those were the days when she began to fear for his safety in the field, not long after her father died and she started to question the wisdom of marrying Casey.
The two of them sat on in a long silence, neither of them stirring from their deck chairs. Brenna still wanted to do something for him that would demonstrate she cared. Something ordinary but thoughtful. That’s when she remembered what she had noticed in one of the lockers when she had been checking through them earlier.
Getting to her feet, she crossed the cabin, crouched down and opened one of the locker doors. When she returned to where Casey was still seated, she bore a plastic bottle in either hand.
“What have you got there?” he questioned her. “Is that water?”
“Are you thirsty? I’m afraid it isn’t cold.”
She held one of the bottles out to him. He didn’t hesitate to take it from her.
“Who cares, as long as it’s wet. I’m dry as dust.”
He had the bottle open, tipped back and was gulping from it while Brenna was still in the act of twisting the cap off her own bottle. She didn’t get there. Not then. Not when she was suddenly distracted.
“Do you feel that?”
He lowered the bottle from his mouth. “What?”
“We’re moving.”
Brenna supposed she had sensed it first because she’d remained standing. But it took Casey only a few seconds to feel it, as well. “Damn if we aren’t.”
“We’re picking up speed, too. What’s happening?”
Casey was on his feet now and headed for the stern deck. She followed him out of the cabin and to the rail. Together they peered over the side.
“I don’t see a friendly dolphin down there pulling us along,” Brenna said, “but whatever it is we’re getting a smooth ride out of it.”
“You wouldn’t see it, not even in daylight, unless you were very observant and knew the signs to look for.”
“All right, since you’re so smart, explain it.”
“It can only be one thing,” he said. “A current has picked us up. A very strong current.”
“Carrying us in what direction? Can you tell?”
“Let’s have the gyro answer that.”
They went back inside, moving up to the helm station to consult the compass.
“Looks like we’re headed northeast this time,” Casey said.
And that, Brenna knew, could be very bad if this powerful current drove them out into the open Atlantic. Without an engine they would be helpless in ocean waters a boat like this wasn’t constructed for.
They were both too restless to return to their chairs. Carrying their bottles of water with them, they went back onto the deck. They could better monitor the current out here.
This they had to judge by feeling the rate of the boat’s velocity since measuring it by sight was out of the question. Or was it? Brenna wondered.
It began to seem to her after a bit that the night wasn’t quite so black anymore. Imagination or reality? Stretching her head back, she scanned the sky overhead, searching it from horizon to horizon. There! A single star winked at her off to one side.
“Casey, look! I think the cloud cover is breaking up! No, not that direction. Over this way,” she corrected him, pointing with her bottle.
That lone star had been joined now by another. As they continued to watch, sipping occasionally from their water bottles, rarely talking, more and more stars emerged until eventually the sky was clear of any overcast.
The stars were so brilliant, so numerous they provided a surprising illumination. Or was it the result of having had virtually no light before this except the little in the cabin, and so by contrast...
Casey must have been reading her mind, because he weighed in on it. “The night skies in the tropics away from the glow of towns and cities are like this, especially out at sea.”
He would know, having had so many assignments in different climate zones.
They continued to stand at the deck rail, able now to distinguish the waters if not the current itself but continuing to feel its effect on the boat.
It was Brenna again sometime later who first sighted what lay directly ahead of them, and didn’t know whether to welcome it or be alarmed by it. Either way, it was excitement that impelled her to clutch Casey’s arm.
“Do you see what I see?” she said, referring to the sizable black mass that had suddenly loomed in front of them, seemingly out of nowhere.
“Both see it and hear it. Those are swells breaking on a shore, and if they’re rocks and not sand we’re going to be driven onto them.”
Chapter 14
It was the current that saved them from disaster. As mercurial in its moods as a living being, in one moment it held them tightly in its control and in the next moment, as though bored playing with them, it threw them away.
Although cast now into friendlier waters off to the right, they continued to drift slowly but inexorably toward the land.
“Rocks or sand?” Brenna asked, trying to make out this section of the shore they would land on.
This time Casey’s vision triumphed over hers. “Neither. Unless my eyes are playing tricks on me, that’s some kind of channel ahead of us. A narrow channel.”
Brenna could see it now, too. An inlet leading to...well, who knew what. “Is this going to be good or bad?”
“I’m making myself think good. It looks like we’re definitely going to be sucked into the mouth, but if we should get hung up... Brenna, the poles! You grab the one on this side and I’ll take the other! If it’s necessary, we can use them to lever our way through.”
For a few seconds she didn’t know what he was talking about. And then she remembered. He was referring to the poles attached to the gunwales that were sometimes used to hook onto docks.
Leaning over the rail, Brenna took hold of the pole assigned to her. By the time she’d worked it free of whatever had it locked in place, the bow of the boat was already nosing its way into the opening.
“If you have to use it,” Casey called to her from his side of the boat, “make sure you shove with the blunt end. You try with the hook end it’ll just break off.”
“Aye, aye, Captain Bossy.” She didn’t know whether what she heard in response was a laugh or a snort. Best not to ask.
It was a snug fit but not so tight that, if they’d had the engine, a good pilot like Casey couldn’t have squeezed through the passage without contact. As it was, the boat, with no control, kept bumping and scraping, first on one rocky side and then the other.
The two of them were kept busy chasing from starboard to port with their poles and back again, helping each other to keep their craft free and moving. It was only in one place where the inle
t turned, threatening to wedge them behind an outcropping, that it was necessary for both of them to exert considerable force digging and pushing to swing the bow back on course.
Once past that obstacle, they floated without further resistance into what they could tell by the starlight seemed to be a small, natural lagoon. There the boat came to rest. And so did Brenna, dropping her pole with exhaustion onto the deck.
Casey rid himself of his own pole, but he wasn’t ready to rest. There was a strong-looking tree that extended itself from the bank over the tip of the bow. Going forward, he picked up the end of the bow’s curled up mooring rope.
Brenna was just able to make out his form as he used the rope to lash them to the tree. A wise action to prevent them from getting caught by some other undertow that might tug them out to sea again.
When he returned, she had a question for him. “Are you laying any bets on just where we are?”
“You’re funny.”
“Meaning you have no more of a clue than I do. I don’t suppose we can ask the natives.”
“Could if there were any, but I don’t see any signs of habitation. Like lights. Lights would be nice. How about you?”
She shook her head.
“Guess we’ll just have to wait until daylight to know anything for certain.”
“Casey,” she said, getting serious, “when I knew back in Chicago that I was coming to the West Indies, I tried to educate myself. I read a lot and looked at maps, and one thing I learned was there are a gazillion islands in the Caribbean.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Just that a lot of them are populated, but even more of them are too small to have ever been inhabited. Not just small either but sometimes so remote they hardly ever get visited. What if we’ve landed on one of those islands? What if we’re stranded here for weeks, even months, and without any supplies...”
He groaned. “You would mention food.”
“I didn’t. Not specifically. But I imagine there would be fish in the waters here and maybe edible plants. Why? Are you hungry?”
“Hollow after our workout with the boat hooks. It feels like forever since dinner was delivered to us at the hotel. I don’t suppose you spotted something to eat in one of the cabin lockers.”
“Just the bottles of water. If you’re starving, though, I can oblige you.”
“You telling me you’ve got food?”
“Follow me.”
She led the way back inside, where the light was sufficient enough for her to find her way to her pair of totes. She crouched down beside them, digging through the contents of the nearest tote.
“What have you got in there?” he demanded with that boyish enthusiasm she never failed to appreciate. “What is it?”
“Now don’t get excited. It’s just bread left over from our dinner. I didn’t want to throw it away, so I wrapped it up and stuck it down in the tote.”
“Just bread, she says. Woman, right now that’s a meal.”
Brenna got to her feet with what was probably half of the loaf Tonya had sent to them. She expected Casey to grab it from her. He grabbed her instead. Or her face, anyway, framing it between both hands and leaning in to kiss her briefly but gratefully.
“Rembrandt,” he said, “you keep getting better and better.”
“Are you referring to my art or my food service?”
“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of your mouth. But the food service is good, too.”
He took the bread from her, tearing the piece in half and handing the rest back to her. They settled in their deck chairs, alternately eating and drinking from their bottles.
Halfway through her share of the bread, Brenna found herself yawning. How many hours had it been since she’d last slept? Or, for that matter, since she’d been relaxed enough to acknowledge to herself she was tired?
Finishing the last of his bread, Casey got up from his chair without a word and began to forage through the lockers.
“What on earth are you looking for?”
“This,” he said, holding up a folded blanket. “Thought I came across one earlier. Actually, there are a couple more in here.”
He hauled out the others. She watched him as he squatted down, spread one of the blankets out on the floor and folded it over lengthwise to make a double thickness.
“Best I can do in the absence of a mattress. It should soften the hardness of the floor. Come on, stretch out here and let me cover you with one of the other blankets.”
“Casey, I don’t—”
“No arguing. That yawn either meant my company is beginning to bore you, which I’d like to think isn’t the problem, or you need a nap. We could both use one. After I tuck you in, I’ll tangle myself up in this last blanket and get comfy next to you. How does that sound?”
“Like heaven,” she said, although she wasn’t sure she should have admitted as much despite whatever wild sex they had engaged in back at the hotel.
She was too sleepy, however, to let herself think about it. Restoring the wrapping on what was left of the bread to keep it from getting stale, she left it on her chair and placed herself on his makeshift bed.
Making good on his promise, he covered her with the second blanket, tucking it in on all sides. Brenna found it a touching action. Wrapping himself in the last blanket like a cocoon, he settled down close beside her.
Was that a kiss he planted on her neck? She wasn’t sure. By then, she was already drifting off.
* * *
Brenna awakened to—well, she didn’t know. It sounded like water splashing. Were they sinking?
Propping herself up on her elbows, she looked toward the stern deck. The door had been left open. The sound was coming from outside in the lagoon. Casey was no longer at her side. And something else. He had turned off the dim wall lamp in the cabin. It was no longer needed.
She could see through the windows a faint, gray light in the sky. The first sign of daybreak.
Combing the fingers of one hand through her hair, which had to be a mess, she threw the blanket aside, scrambled to her feet and went in search of Casey. He was nowhere on deck, but his clothes were, discarded in a heap.
“Where are you?” she called.
No answer. Her gaze went out over the lagoon, where the light was strengthening. Unable to see him, she hoped she had no cause for concern. She didn’t.
The breath left her lungs in relief when a head suddenly bobbed to the surface out in the center.
“You scared the crap out of me!”
He laughed, arms and legs paddling slowly to keep himself afloat and facing her. The splash she’d heard must have occurred when he’d leaped into the water.
“Come on in and join me,” he invited her. “It’s as good as a warm bath, and frankly I was overdue for one.”
She leaned out over the rail. “Since every article of your clothing is accounted for up here on deck,” she said dryly, “I’m assuming you’re wearing a bathing suit. One you happened to notice in the locker where you found the blankets.”
“Wanna find out?”
“Please.”
He swung around and struck out for the rocky edge of the lagoon with powerful strokes. Reaching an enormous black boulder, he pulled himself up out of the water, upper arm muscles bulging.
That was a sight that was instantly trumped when, emerging from the sea like a primeval water god, he stood erect on the boulder’s flat surface, his magnificently sculpted body streaming water.
Brenna decided she needed back every bit of the breath she had expelled.
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“Impressive.”
He was not, of course, wearing a bathing suit.
“You ready to get nude and join me?”
“Think I’ll just watch.”
“There was a time when you weren’t so modest and didn’t mind parading around with me outdoors in the buff.”
“We were engaged then.”
“Ah
, no. Even before that when we were first dating.”
Oh, what the hell, she thought. She could use a bath herself, and if it meant stripping while he watched...well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
“Stop smiling like the cat who swallowed the canary,” she cautioned him as she added her shoes and clothing to the pile on the deck.
“And here I thought it was a lecherous leer. Ready?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Not that one was necessary since she was as naked as she could get. Launching himself from the boulder, Casey executed a neat dive back into the lagoon. Brenna didn’t attempt anything that fancy, instead climbing over the rail and lowering herself by safe degrees into the water. He was right. It was beautifully tepid. She sighed with pleasure as she swam out into the center where he’d surfaced and was waiting for her.
“Everything but a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo,” she said, using her arms like slow wings to keep herself suspended.
“Sorry the management can’t provide them.”
He began paddling in circles around her.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to admire you from all angles. Hold still.”
He was in another mode now, a frisky seal playing with her. Then he was no longer there. He’d disappeared beneath the surface again. Where was he? She wasn’t sure. Something brushed the back of her leg and was gone. A fish or Casey? She turned as rapidly as the water let her, but he was too fast for her. He was already behind her again, this time lightly pinching her buttocks.
Unmistakably, not a fish.
He startled her when he popped up directly in front of her.
So close in fact their noses almost touched. “Those contacts do anything for you?” he wondered.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Get you all hot and bothered maybe?”
“Oh, was that you down there? And here I thought it was a shark.”
He put his wet mouth against her ear. “They can be dangerous,” he informed her gravely. “Savage.”
“That’s what I hear. Anything else I should know?”