by Wood, Vivian
His pulse is thready, his heart rate high but not outside the realm of what I expected. He’s warm to the touch, but I just came in from the cold weather.
“I’m Luna,” I say, releasing his wrist. Wrangling my stethoscope from my bag. “I’m going to need you to be really still, okay?”
“Okay,” he says, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“What’s your name?” I ask. I notice that he’s sweating just a little bit.
He stares down at me, his brown eyes filled with pain. “Hank.”
“And Hank, what day is it?”
He licks his lips. “Uhh… Tuesday?”
“And who is the president?”
“Justin Trudeau.”
“Great.” I listen to his breathing and his heart for a minute. Then I pull the stethoscope around my neck. “Everything sounds good. Where do you feel pain? Can you show me?”
He makes a quiet sound of distress. His hands go to his ribs again, hovering there. “Right here hurts the worst.”
“Okay. No problem.” I look up, finding Gabe’s eyes. “Do you mind giving us some privacy?”
Hank’s aunt starts to wail as Gabe opens his arms, starting to shoo everyone out. “We’ll be right outside.”
Once the door closes behind him, I look at Hank. “Do you mind if we take off your shirt? I’d like to get a look at your injuries…”
Hank flushes but peels off his t-shirt. I wince at the large red marks all over his torso.
“I’m going to have to touch your torso, I’m afraid.” I palpate the red marks, being as gentle as I can. Hank still cries out a couple of times but overall is a trooper.
I finish, standing up. “Okay. I have good news. Even though it’s painful, I think you’ve just cracked a couple ribs.”
Hank looks surprised. “Yeah?”
“Mmhm. Do you want to put your shirt back on? That way I can let your family back inside.”
He nods, reaching for his t-shirt. After he gets it on, I open the door and urge everyone to come back in.
“Alright. So despite it being very painful for Hank to cough or laugh or even breathe deeply, it is my best guess that he isn’t in any immediate medical danger. It seems like two or more of his ribs are fractured, which… ouch! But they should resolve themselves, given time.”
Hank’s aunt bursts into tears. I smile, trying to keep things professional.
“It would be best if someone were to drive Hank to an emergency room, where they can X-ray his ribs and check more thoroughly for a punctured lung. But aside from doing that, he just needs rest and some ibuprofen.” I blow out a breath. “And make sure that you take lots of deep breaths the entire time your ribs are healing, Hank. We wouldn’t want you to catch pneumonia, okay?”
Hank nods, wincing. “Okay.”
“All right.” I pack up my medical bag.
“Do we owe you anything?” a solemn-looking older man asks me.
“Oh, no. I’ve barely done anything. You should take him to the ER though… Get those ribs x-rayed.” I give him my practiced, professional smile. “Goodbye, Hank.”
Stepping back out of the building and into the cold, I shiver a little. Malkia is nowhere to be seen but Gabe does follow me outside.
I glance up at him. His expression is neutral, his gaze roving over my face.
What is he thinking just now? I wish I knew.
And why do I find his terseness to be an invitation?
“I guess I should go back to the boat,” I say, looking briefly into the brightness of the midday sun.
He shoves his hands in his pockets, looking down at the ground as he kicks a rock away from his foot. “If you want.”
“Oo-kay…” I say awkwardly. “I’ll see you around, then…”
I start toward the docks again, but Gabe’s voice stops me in my tracks. “Thank you for coming.”
I turn around, a little frown on my lips. “You don’t have to thank me. I’m a healer. If anyone calls, I come running.”
One corner of his mouth bends downward. “I wasn’t sure you would. You aren’t responsible for anyone who isn’t a passenger of the yacht.”
I lift my brows. “By whose definition?”
He just shrugs but he pins me with that eerie green-blue gaze of his. “I don’t know. I just figured that you only care about people who can pay you for your services.”
I pull back, fully scowling at his words. “That’s horrible, Gabe. We may not be from the same set of circumstances, but I can’t believe you thought so little of me.”
He dips his head. “If it helps, I feel like a fool now.”
I look at him, tall and dark, his short hair blowing in the wind. His expression is dark, his lips set in a firm line.
“You should work on that,” I say. “People aren’t only out for money, Gabe. You should really try to see that people are mostly good.”
He just nods noncommittally, looking off into the distance. After a second more of staring at his face, I turn and continue down toward the docks.
Chapter Fifteen
Gabe
The next couple of days go by extremely slowly. I spend it mostly alone in the pilothouse, chewing over what Luna said to me the other night.
You should try to see that people are mostly good.
I mull over her words, trying to understand their context. Luna is a little rich girl with an undercurrent of daddy issues. That much is obvious. But will that have affected how she sees this issue?
Looking out the windows before me, I frown. The weather is getting colder as we sail north, although it won’t be nearly as cold once we anchor and head inward to hike along the coast.
It is beautiful here. The gray sand beach looks bleak, but just beyond that I can make out greenery. The land is very much alive right now, being that it is summer and all.
I continue to mull things over even as the yacht approaches the beach cove where I will drop the anchor. The waves are pounding violently against our hull; I’m certain that the wind outside is fierce too.
I bunch up my mouth, returning to my thought about Luna. Coming from the opposite side of the wealth spectrum, I am inclined to think so. Then again, my own childhood, growing up with so little… that defines my own views as well as her growing up with everything does.
I sigh. Does that add the context that I am looking for?
The rolling door behind me squeaks a little. I glance back to find Malkia standing there.
“Hey,” she says. “Everyone is prepped and ready for the trip to the shore.”
I nod, piloting the yacht into a little cove. “That’s great. Thanks.”
Malkia doesn’t move. When I glance back again, her expression is unreadable.
I narrow my eyes. “What?”
Her lips twitch. “You have been quiet for the last bit. It makes me nervous when you get all stoic.”
I don’t answer right away. I cut the engines instead, pushing a lever up all the way to drop the yacht’s anchor. “I’ve just been busy working, I guess.”
She squints at me and makes a mmm sound of judgment. “As long as you are not worried about Michelle…”
That makes me turn around and cock a brow. “Michelle has been the last thing on my mind over the past few days.”
Her eyes scan my face for a second, then Malkia gives me a relieved nod. “Okay. Good.”
“I’m ready to head to shore,” I say with a sigh.
She nods and vanishes. I head out of the pilothouse onto the main deck. The engineers have been busy, because they’ve already lowered all the inflatable skiffs into the water. Two of the little boats are already starting their engines, loaded down with yacht passengers. As they start pulling away toward the shore, I see Luna struggling to carry her medical bag and another clunky messenger bag. She’s so tiny and what she’s carrying is obviously heavy. Hurrying to lift the medical bag from her grip, I surprise her a little.
“Oh!” she says, losing her balance.
I reach out
and grab her by the waist, steadying her. She looks up into my face as we hover there for a second.
Her clear blue eyes examine my face. The tiniest of frowns wrinkles her brow.
Then I turn her loose again.
“Thanks,” she says, blushing. She brushes a strand of hair away from her face and nods to the bag. “I have to bring extra supplies. You know, blankets and rolls of bandaging tape…”
One corner of my mouth quirks at the way she defends her supplies that are a medical necessity.
“Great,” I say. “Go ahead. I got this bag.”
She looks at me with relief, then turns around and scales down the ladder that leads off the side of the boat. I follow her, lifting my chin at Malkia when I reach the bottom.
Luna scurries to find a seat. I look around at the skiff’s other passengers, Emma, Alex, Sam and Luke.
“Is that everyone?” I ask Malkia.
She nods. “Yep. I mean, aside from the guys that took the other two skiffs to shore. Everybody else wanted to stay on the yacht.”
“Okay.” I nod, moving carefully to sit down beside Luke. After being on the yacht, this little plastic skiff seems like a toy. “Let’s go.”
Malkia pulls the motor’s starter rope and it roars to life. I look toward the beach where the engineers are already pulling the skiffs onshore.
I frown at how furiously the waves pound against the little boats. The waves are violent here, tossing our boat back and forth a little, making the engine work harder.
When we finally land on the beach with a soft thud, I move forward and hop off the boat. I set the medical bag down a few feet up the shore so that it is out of the reach of the wild ocean.
Malkia cuts the engine and I call over my shoulder to her. “Here, I got it. I’ll hold it steady while you guys get off.”
Once everyone is off the little boat, Mal helps me to drag the skiff up away from the water.
“Do you think we need to tie it to the trees?” she asks, wincing into the wind. The wind whips around us, cutting right through the fleece I’m wearing.
“Yeah,” I say, wincing. I trudge along the pebble-strewn beach, Luna’s medical bag in one hand and the other hand hauling the skiff. “God, it’s too cold to be nice today. Thank god we’ll be more protected when we leave the beach…”
She nods. “Yeah. I can see the tops of the trees from here. We should be fine.”
We hustle up the steeply sloping beach, cresting the top of the sand dune. There grass begins growing sparsely; a little further ahead, the two engineers have tied their skiffs to the trees.
When we finally tie our skiff down, I tuck Luna’s medical bag under my arm. The rest of the party is waiting in the shelter of the first few trees.
Walking over to them, I look around. “There will be a fire pit where we are headed. Don’t worry, we are freezing too.”
Everyone laughs and hugs their warmest layer a bit closer.
I nod Mal and she takes up the lead, weaving her way through the trees. “This way, please! We only have a quarter of a mile to go…”
I follow up the party’s tail, making sure that everybody else makes it there okay. Mal leads the party to a base camp, which is basically a house in a clearing with four walls. There is a hole cut in the top of the makeshift building and a fire pit in the middle.
Everyone hustles inside. I follow and stack the logs left there for us into the fire pit. Mal rubs her hands together, blowing her warm breath onto them.
Without the wind blowing inside the shelter though, it’s actually relatively pleasant. There are several large logs serving as seating near the fire. After I get the fire going, I look around at the group.
“It’ll be warm enough in a minute that you’ll wish it was less so,” I promise everyone.
Mal comes up to whisper in my ear. “I think the weather means we had better keep today pretty short.”
I nod to her. “Works for me. I think it’s going to rain before long anyway.”
The clients are already looking around the shelter, curious about their surroundings. I imagine they are glad to be off the boat.
One of the engineers has a pack full of canned wine and sodas. He cracks that open and passes them out.
I take a seat at the plain wood table in the corner. Now that everyone is relaxing and chatting again, I feel less pressure to stay alert.
Luna sits down across from me with a gentle smile. “Hey.”
I glance at her. Other than being a bit windblown, she looks perfect, the apples of her cheeks reddened. “Hey.”
To my surprise, she pulls out a long, thin box made of light colored wood. “Want to play chess or checkers?”
Arching a brow, I shrug. “Sure. Why not?”
She smiles, unpacking the board. Her fingers stir over the pieces. She glances up at me. “Why don’t we start with checkers? I get a little bit too competitive over chess.”
Her cheeks darken a little as she starts setting the flat round pieces on the checkerboard pattern. For some reason, that makes me smile.
A part of me is very curious what Luna looks like when she’s really trying to win.
“Okay,” she says, straightening a checker. She looks up at me. “Are you all right with being red?”
I nod. “That’s fine by me.”
We start to play, each of us moving fairly quickly through our opening gambits.
Luna dampens her lips, looking up at me with those blue eyes of hers. “What do you do when you’re not captaining a ship, Gabe?”
She catches me off guard, asking the question just as I turn a wary eye toward the sky above. If I’m not mistaken, the sky has darkened even in the half an hour that we’ve been here. It takes me a second to process her question.
“Umm…” I sit back, making a face. “I don’t know. I work on my other boat a lot. It’s kind of a piece of junk, but it feels good to work on something.” I sigh. “I don’t know. Sometimes I go to the movies with my sister.”
Luna looks down at the chess board before her, moving a piece. “So you don’t hit the clubs in Las Vegas regularly, then?”
A huff of laughter escapes me. I look over to make sure Mal isn’t within earshot, then I shake my head. “Definitely not. That was bizarre behavior on my part, not to be repeated.”
A corner of Luna’s mouth curls up. “Yeah. The fact that we… you know… met back there… and then we work together now…” She shakes her head. “It’s a total fluke.”
I shift in my hard wooden seat, just a little uncomfortable with the topic. “Yeah. A fluke. I definitely never thought that I would see you again, that’s for sure.”
Luna looks up at me, her gaze seeming to go right through my flesh. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing, Gabe?”
Before I can answer that, Mal calls to me. “Hey. The guests want to look around outside. You were right, it is warm in here.” She flashes a smile. “We’ll be within shouting distance, okay?”
I nod at her, watching everyone else leave the shelter. Luna shivers, glancing back to where they filed out the door.
“I guess we don’t have to worry about being overheard now.”
I just slide a checker piece forward, unsure how to answer that. “I should check on the fire,” I rumble, getting up.
“Oh! Let me just—" Luna says, standing up.
As I go, I catch a delicate scent… not perfume exactly… but definitely feminine. Unable to help myself, I lean closer to Luna, curious.
She turns her head at just the right moment, her lips brushing my cheek. Her eyes widen.
“Oh, I’m sorry— “
For a second, I can’t hear her excuse. I see her lips moving.
I remember how they felt pressed against mine when we were in that club in Vegas. I’ve never kissed anyone quite like Luna before or since; sinuous, weaving herself all around me, sucking at my air.
I want to have that again. Without thinking it through, I slide a hand behind her back and press her close.
I forgot how electric things between us were. Just standing here, we throw off sparks.
I lean down at the same time as she tips her head up. Our mouths meet, hers so sweet and hot that for a second I am seared through.
This.
This energy, bouncing back and forth between us.
This is what I still crave.
She makes a soft sound, pressing up onto her tiptoes. I growl into her mouth, deepening the kiss and closing my eyes.
Suddenly a clap of thunder breaks through into the haze. My eyes shoot open and I look up at the sky.
With another crackle of lightning, a hard rain starts falling. A few drops at first, but only half a minute later it’s pouring.
“Oh!” Luna says, stepping back from me.
Mumbling a curse, I help her pack up the chess board. “We have to get back to the boat. We could be stuck here otherwise.”
“Do you have my medical bag?” she asks.
I nod, my jaw tensing. “I’ll bring it.”
Hurrying her out the door, I see Mal running back into the clearing. “Back to the boat?”
I nod. “As fast as we can go.”
We herd everyone up and drive them back to the sea. I follow last, letting Mal go first.
Luna hangs back and watches me like a hawk. “We’re okay, right?”
I glance up at the sky as we rush through the woods. “We should be fine.”
If that lightning stays away while we are loading the boat, anyhow…
When we break out of the trees, Luna stumbles. I pick her up, holding her hand in mine.
In a moment of crisis, it just feels natural. I don’t give my grip on her hand much thought because soon we are rushing down to the beach and getting on the skiffs.
As I’m helping Luna on board, there is a quick moment between us. Our eyes meet. That same electricity cracks in the air between us, as potent as lightning.
“Thanks,” she says softly.
I nod, jumping in the little boat right behind her. We waste no time in hightailing it back to the yacht.
Once the last person has boarded the ship and headed downstairs to ride out the storm, I finally feel like I can breathe again.