Redemption Island (Island Duet Book 1)

by L. B. Dunbar

  “I’ve read,” I lied. “And I’ve written a little.” Actually, I’d worked out quite a bit in between my interactions with Juliet. Colton eyed me in disbelief but Garvey nodded his head, the only hint he was pleased.

  “Are you still angry?” Garvey asked and the question startled me.

  “Of course, I’m still angry,” I snapped, realizing too late, the question intended to trap me. The truth was, I wasn’t as angry as I had been. I had done some soul searching, mainly about Rick and what kind of friend he had been. I couldn’t say I was in his shadow, as we equally craved the limelight, but I’d come to realize he was always one step ahead of me in pushing the envelope. And he went too far with Juliet. I shuddered when I thought of him with her, the gleam in his eyes as he took her, the loss in hers as she felt his violation. I can’t believe I watched, thinking it was something I wanted to do.

  “You need to dance,” Garvey broke into my thoughts.

  “What?” I snorted.

  “You need to become one with nature. Pick an animal. Reenact its behavior and reflect on what you can learn from it.”

  “I am not fucking dancing,” I said aloud this time, adding a humorless chuckle.

  “Suit yourself,” Garvey said, slapping his thighs as he stood.

  “Still hallucinating about the girl?” Colton mocked.

  “I’m not arguing about the girl with you,” I growled. Garvey’s brows rose in response, and a small smile twitched his flat lips. A rustle from behind the bushes to my left brought Garvey and Colton’s attention in that direction, providing an out for any further discussion of Juliet. My focus shifted back to the tent. My fists clenched when I heard a thump.

  “What was that?” Colton asked, shifting his feet from the direction of the shore to my tent. I stepped before him, cutting off his path.

  “I’m sure it was nothing.”

  “What are you hiding?” He narrowed his jet-black eyes on mine.

  “Nothing.” My voice caught as the bushes rustled again. Releasing my focus from Colton, he circled me and headed for my tent. A small flock of birds flew from the trees to our right, distracting us all and bringing relief as it offered an explanation for the movement in the foliage. Colton opened the flap to my tent, though, before I could reach him. He remained outside the entrance, peering inward. As I approached, I looked over his outstretched arm holding open the flap. My shoulders slumped in relief when I didn’t see Juliet. There was no sign of her sickness as the bed was made tidy and neat. No article of her clothing remained on my floor. The cup of water didn’t rest on the crate I used as a bed stand. I tensed with concern. Where had she gone?

  15

  Day 30 – Juliet

  I smiled at Lillian, hoping the tremble to my hands and the quake of my smile didn’t alert her to anything. She’d already been concerned for my nutrition. I was beginning to worry about my sanity. Letting her know I’d had a jungle fever could end the experiment. One stipulation of the process was not to deprive me of modern amenities. There was no reason not to have a supply of acetaminophen for a fever or a headache. Tack must have found my stash, as that’s what he forced down my throat in order to help me. The thought softened my forced smile as Lillian stood under my tree house.

  “We missed you at the dock. Where were you?”

  “I’d gone for a soak,” I lied, realizing the most obvious sign would be wet hair, which I didn’t have. Tack’s too-large shirt hung off my shoulder, falling just above my knees. I smelled like him—man and sunscreen.

  “Whose shirt is that?” Her eyes narrowed and a thin-lined smile crossed her lips.

  “My uncle’s,” I said, too quickly. Lillian knew me well enough to know I’d own nothing of his. I didn’t even want to see him at the hearing or the restorative trial, but I had to have a family member present as a witness to my acceptance of the program. I didn’t want him there any more than he wanted to be there, but as my only living relative, he fit the need. If I died, I needed a family member to claim the body. I laughed at that stipulation in the contract. He’d rather let me rot than collect me.

  Her eyes questioned my response but refocused on my face.

  “You look thin.” It wasn’t said as an insult, nor a compliment. Lillian was concerned. She knew I’d stopped eating after what happened. Starving myself was a sign of depression, and she worried at moments that the experiment was too much. As excited as she was to promote my case to the restorative circle, she was equally nervous I would relapse once I was alone. As I wasn’t alone, there wasn’t much chance of relapsing.

  “I’ve been a little under the weather,” I said, trying to assure her with a larger smile that all was well presently. Telling her about Tack was on the tip of my tongue. The information clawed behind my teeth. I had so many questions, so many emotions. I was confused by his attention to my illness, grateful for his rescue from the snake, but I still feared he’d retaliate against me. Rick had. Why wouldn’t Tack?

  One thing I’d noticed about Tack, despite his sense of entitlement and I’m-better-than-the-world air, was a sadness to his eyes, and a touch of panic. He didn’t like to be alone, but he didn’t trust himself to admit it. I wanted to believe his apology last night was deeper than simply saying he was sorry for forcing me to swallow pain medicine and demand I sleep next to him. However, I couldn’t be certain. I didn’t trust him.

  “Do you need to leave?” Lillian asked. “We could rethink your sentence.”

  “No,” I answered too quickly. I’d been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Ironically, Brandon came to my defense, exposing what he’d seen as my reaction at the bar. He’d walked in on Rick reaching for me, after asking if I liked what he’d done. When I stabbed him, Brandon immediately said it was self-defense, and I was convicted of the lesser offense.

  “That’s what I’m going to say,” he whispered, as he called the police while blood trickled down my arm. While I hadn’t planned to go in the bar and kill Rick that day, nothing stopped me from reacting to his presence—his nearness alone was a threat to my being. The tape mysteriously appeared during the trial, and the men were exposed. The defense wanted to prove I had the intent to kill. The prosecutor proved the tape showed a previous crime had gone unpunished. Two men were visible on the tape. The rest didn’t get their turn. Brandon’s interruption to that initiation party lasted long enough to distract Rick and deflate the intention of the gathering. I’d dulled my thoughts by then, resigned to what was happening.

  My body rippled, releasing the thought, chilled despite the heat. A fever could linger or spike again, and suddenly, I was exhausted. Lillian eyed me suspiciously.

  “Is everything okay here? Do you feel safe?” I found the questioning odd, considering Lillian assured me it was safe to be here. I nodded in answer. For some reason, I didn’t feel threatened. After all that Tack had done for me, taking care of me, I wasn’t ready to leave. Strangely, I felt protected on the island. Lillian was giving me an out, but I wanted to keep going with the experiment. I wanted to know where the island would lead me.

  “I’m fine, just tired and a little shaky.” My fingers did tremble as I held them out for Lillian to see.

  “Your tree house looked like a small disaster.” Lillian smiled, comforting me with her concern. “Franco and I cleaned it up. Let’s get you back to bed. I want to exam you myself.” With a tender hand, she reached out for my shoulder, prodding me toward the ladder and I followed her, allowing her to mother me.

  + +

  Lillian decided to spend the night. The driver of her boat, Franco, camped under the tree house while she perched in a seat next to my bed. She sponged down my body and gave me more fever reducers. She made me warm broth and fed me. At moments, tears came to my eyes, remembering my own mother doing the same thing when I was sick as a child. Then I thought of Tack and his attempts to make me drink water from a spoon. I smiled slightly at the thought.

  “Pleasant dreams,” Lillian asked, staring at me. “You
drifted off for a moment. Where did you go?” Again, the desire to tell her about Tack and how different he was from the man at the club fought within my mouth for release. I didn’t want to be fooled, though. Tack from the island and Tack of The Front Door were still the same person.

  “Just remembering my mother,” I said softly. Lillian smiled, her blue eyes sparkling with kindness and sympathy.

  “My mother called life an adventure,” she said. “She taught me to explore everything. And everyone.” She chuckled as she winked. I’d heard these things before from Lillian. While my idol was Margaret Meade, hers was her mother, another famous anthropologist who studied urban life instead of the lives of the Samoans. Both women were before their time, with open ideas about sexuality and the role of women.

  “I’ve been doing some self-exploration.” I had been doing some deep soul-searching. Was I angry at Rick or myself? In many ways, there was no excuse for a man like Rick Fontaine, but I was angry with myself for being in a position to be captured like I was. Women are taught to never take the blame. No means no, and it does, unequivocally. But all my life, I’d been cautious of men and aware of my surroundings. My guard was down that night, and I knew why I was distracted.

  “Sometimes the things we learn about others come from looking at ourselves as individuals first,” Lillian said, patting my arm. The touch soothed me, and I smiled more genuinely at her words of wisdom. I admired her and appreciated her help with my case.

  “Get some rest, honey,” she said, but I’d slept enough lately. It was time for me to wake up and take charge of my life again. I needed to finish my sentence on this island and get back to reality.

  16

  Day 33 – Tack

  “Thank fuck,” I muttered as I crossed over the rocky ledge and found her wading in the pond below. She walked under the waterfall, disappearing for a moment, before returning to stand under the cascade. Brushing back her hair, her face rose to the filtered sunshine streaming through the trees. Just seeing her move without measured steps made my heart skip a beat.

  The water was only waist deep, exposing her breasts to me. The globes ripe and peaked at the nipple made my mouth water. I reached for my shoes and began undressing. Her eyes opened, sensing my hungry leer on her. Blood raced through my veins, the naked look of her becoming an addiction to me. She lowered into the water, watching me, meeting my stare. Hastily undressing down to my boxer briefs, I stepped gingerly down the remainder of the rocks and entered the pond.

  “Holy fuck! It’s cold!” I shrieked, noticing her eyes playfully gleam in the reflection of the sun. “How do you handle this?” I continued to lower myself incrementally, worrying my dick might shrivel and freeze from the frigid water.

  “You get used to it,” she replied, swishing her arms through the water, sending ripples around her shoulders as she crouched in the protection of the pond.

  I lowered deeper, taking full breaths to release the chilled tremor rippling up my body. Dipping to my waist, I bent at the knees and disappeared under the water. The cold shock took my breath, and I pressed upward, breaking the surface to find she stood close to me. I shook out my hair and she giggled. The sound stopped me. My lips curled in response. The din was sweet, and my body revived under the cool liquid. I mimicked her position, letting the water lap at my shoulders, arms outstretched to cause a subtle wake.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, noticing the faint purple under her eyes was not as prominent as it had been.

  “Much better, thank you.” She bit her lip, as if holding back a smile, and it forced another one from me. Pre-pubescent feelings of giddy awkwardness filled me, and I couldn’t take my eyes from her. We stared at one another for a moment before a question that had been burning inside me had to be asked.

  “I came to see you, but I saw someone sleeping under your tree house. Who was he?” The actual question came out harsh, a surge of jealousy nipping through my veins. Strangely, I didn’t like the idea of another man looking after her.

  “That’s Franco, Lillian’s driver.” She paused, and I waited, tweaking an eyebrow to suggest I wanted more details. “Lillian is my academic advisor and restoration guardian.”

  The title brought me up short. Was she not of legal age? She looked young, but not that young.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five,” she offered, looking over her shoulders as her arms gently pushed the water around her. I nodded in understanding.

  “Garvey is my restoration coach. He and his son, Colton, come for my regular fifteen-day visit. I’m twenty-seven, by the way.”

  We were silent a second, water lapping between us. I noticed we were closer to one another than when I initially entered the pond.

  “You didn’t tell them about me?” she asked, and I shook my head. Her eyes shifted to the rocky side of the pond. “I see.” She paused. “Why not?” The quietness with which she asked caught my breath. Did she think I was hiding her? Keeping her a secret?

  “I don’t want to share you with them,” I said without thinking, offering more than I had admitted to myself lately.

  “You did…” she stopped. Was she going to throw it in my face that I’d shared her before? The words would have stung, and I deserved the slap. I stepped closer to her.

  “Not like that,” I said.

  “I didn’t mean…” she faltered again.

  “You did,” I sighed, wiping a wet hand through my hair. “Anyway, what about you? Does this Lillian know about me? What about Franco?” I exaggerated his name, hinting at my jealousy. From his propped position under the tree, I could see he was a large man, meant for clearing jungles and wrestling alligators.

  She smiled slowly, and my breath hitched. She was so pretty. “No. I didn’t tell them about you either.” While I wanted to ask her, why not, I didn’t care about the answer.

  We tread close enough to one another that our arms could no longer extend before us without bumping into one another.

  “Tell me more about Lillian. You said, academic advisor. Are you a student?”

  “I’m studying to be an anthropologist. I’m working on my Master’s degree. Or I was…until…” The unspoken information hung between us. “Anyway, Lillian thought this situation would be good for field study. As well as reflective for me.”

  I nodded in understanding.

  “I work for our family company. Corbin Industries couldn’t have a mark against their name, though. My dad learned of this retributive process and decided it would be good for me. You’re too entitled, he says.” Sarcasm spat as I repeated my father’s words, but she burst into laughter. A trill sound echoed off the rocks and surrounded us.

  “You think that’s funny, huh?” I reached out to playfully dunk her and then decided against it. My fingers brushed through her hair, cupping the locks behind her ear. Her laughter faltered, and her eyes widened. Our faces were less than a few inches from one another. Our knees brushed under the water.

  “Tell me more about Lillian. Or your family? You mentioned you had no one. What happened?” Her eyes saddened before she spoke.

  “My parents died when I was in eighth grade. I spent my high school years living with my uncle. It wasn’t easy, and I worked hard to go to college.”

  “What wasn’t easy, living with him or working hard?”

  “Both.” Her eyes lowered, and my fingertips came to her chin. I could see she didn’t trust me with more information.

  “Why were you at The Front Door?” This question confirmed any doubt I had of her trust. Her lips clamped and the motion physically told me she would not speak. I let the question slide and tried to offer my own history.

  “I think things came too easily for me. I had anything I could ever want, which left me without knowing what I needed.” Her eyes squinted at me. “Sometimes it isn’t easy being at the top, either.”

  She scoffed.

  “I’m serious. Nothing I did was good enough for my father. Under his pressure, I rebelled. Wh
atever I could do, I did. And I got away with most of it. He didn’t stop me. He never stopped me.” I shook my head and looked off in the distance.

  “And what you wanted was someone to stop you?”

  I shrugged my shoulder. I didn’t know what I wanted. “In some ways, I thrived on the attention I received because I didn’t receive it otherwise. School was too easy. Athletics like a second nature. When I obtained my first merger, I crushed it into pieces because of the owner’s weakness.” I smacked the water.

  “Sounds like it was easy.”

  “But don’t you see, all I did was take, because it was easy. No one fought me. Nothing was…difficult.”

  “Until now,” she said, her voice lowered. I nodded.

  “I wanted someone to give me permission, instead of always feeling like I could take whatever I wanted.”

  My eyes shifted downward, and I could see the sharp tips of her nipples beneath the water line. Her hands had disappeared. We seemed to be circling each other as we spoke.

  “Sometimes, I think I’m dreaming you.” My voice was low, as I stroked the hair over her ear again, focusing my eyes on the motion. I couldn’t look her in the eyes as I spoke such things. Vulnerable to that violet glare, I was afraid she wouldn’t believe me.

  “I don’t want you to be a dream,” I muttered, a rugged timbre coming from my throat. We were even closer to one another, and her knees somehow came between mine. I no longer felt the cold liquid surrounding me, but warm heat radiating off her as I touched her. My knuckles skimmed down the side of her neck and lingered to her shoulder. A ripple of water caught the attention of my dick. I was hardening, despite the cold. I continued to gently rub a path from her shoulder, up her neck to her ear and back.