A woman your age.
Right that instant the attraction that I had felt for Hunter from the first moment that I saw him faded a bit. There was nothing like feeling like a man thought your hoo-ha was as dried up as the floral sachet tucked in your lingerie drawer to take the edge off of your sex drive.
I shot him a glare and continued along the sand. I wasn't aware that I was approaching the edge until it gave out from under my feet and I slipped all the way into the water. Panic rushed through me again and I shot upwards, screaming as I broke through the surface, positive that this was going to be the moment that my life ended. After everything that I had gone through, death was going to come at the cold hands of the bitter bitch of the ocean.
"Swim!" Hunter shouted. “Stop flailing and swim!”
I could hear his voice and knew that I should be following his instructions, but I was paralyzed. My old fear of water, the very one that I had ironically overcome with repeated cruises, had rushed back in all its glory and I felt like I couldn’t get myself under control. The water pressed around me and I felt like I couldn't stay above the surface. Something was dragging me down, pulling me away from the air and threatening to pull me into the depths.
I knew it. I fucking knew it. Myth, my ass. My obituary was going to read ‘Death by Sea Monster’
I felt like I couldn't fight anymore. I had been fighting for so long, and for so long it seemed that the harder I fought to climb up out of the darkness, the harder the fall when I couldn't fight any longer. Before now, though, I was the only one that could be hurt. This time I had pulled two men who had absolutely nothing to do with this down with me. I had a flicker of feeling as though I was trading them for myself and I didn’t like that thought.
I felt the sand beneath my feet again and realized that I had gotten toward the surface. I collected all of the strength and energy within me and pushed against it to force myself up. As I got closer to the surface, I felt a strong arm grab my waist and pull me up. We broke the surface and I turned to see Hunter holding me, paddling us both toward the strip of pale beach ahead. I heard a splash and turned to see Gavin coming up out of the water, apparently having leapt off of the side of the boat.
Well, good. Now we’re even.
Hunter released me as we came to within a few feet of the shore and I crawled forward for a few feet. My mind went to the image of slim, beautiful women in movies strolling out of the ocean and compared myself in that moment to them. I felt like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I stood and walked until the sand was dry against my skin before dropping down to sit. I turned and watched Hunter coming out of the water, my breath catching in my throat as my eyes fell on the section of chiseled chest and stomach I could see through the tear in his shirt.
Oh, he was definitely being wasted on the advertising industry.
Chapter Six
Gavin
I climbed to the top of the rocky ridge, muttering as I went as if that would somehow convince the jagged edges to smooth out, or at least for the steep incline to have the decency to lessen for me. When I finally reached the top, I pushed aside the palm fronds that crossed my path, and discovered that I most certainly had not reached the top and that the trees had been concealing an even more treacherous path ahead of me. At the back of my mind I had been expecting to see a hotel in the distance, or at least the rope fences and small wooden signs that companies used to gently guide tourist exploration of the islands so that they could feel as though they were being wild and adventurous but didn’t become insurance liabilities. Instead I saw only more thick, untouched jungle.
Dammit all to hell. This is not what I signed up for.
I had been exploring the island since moments after we had first arrived, and so far, I had found no signs of human life. Hunter’s assumption that this island was one of the trail of little day stops on the cruise line tours had given me some hope. I figured he must be right. That storm couldn’t have jostled us so far away from the cruise ship that we would end up on an island that was totally uninhabited. There had to be at least a juice bar or tiki torch somewhere. But, no. Nothing. I had stalked my way through the jungle and along the rocks for what felt like hours and I hadn’t found anything but just more jungle and rocks.
Concerned that I would get myself lost if I tried to venture any further without something to mark my way, I turned around and started back toward the beach. I had the strange compulsion to thank the palm fronds as I walked away from them, thinking it was almost as if they had tried to protect me by shielding the view of how much further the ridge rose ahead.
Holy shit, I’m losing my mind already.
I was nearly back to the sand when I noticed that Hunter was back on the deck of the boat, moving toward the cabin. I ran toward it, shouting Hunter's name as I went.
"What are you doing?" I demanded.
Who did this man think he was climbing onto my boat uninvited not once, but twice? He was the reason we were stuck on this --- I can’t believe these words are even coming out of my mouth --- desert island, and now he was poking around on my boat trying to find…. what the hell did he think that he was going to find? Did he somehow know who I was and what I had been doing floating around in the dark water near the cruise ship?
Hunter stepped back away from the cabin door and glared down at me as if I had no right to be asking him about his actions. The fire in the look surprised me. My first impression of him had been that he was nothing but a nerdy little guy whose greatest concern was probably color coordinating his pens with his belt. Between the struggle with the storm and the way that he was looking at me now, though, I was wondering if there was actually more to him than just that.
"If you haven't noticed,” he snapped at me, “there is no one else on this island. Not a tourist. Not a researcher. No one. We have quite literally gotten ourselves stranded on a deserted island, and with a trashed boat and no communication system, we are essentially screwed for the foreseeable future."
"What does that have to do with you rummaging through my boat?" I asked as I crossed the water again and was climbing onto the deck to face Hunter.
"I was hoping to find some supplies that we could salvage to help us get through however long we are going to be here."
I forced my mind to calm and my heart to stop racing.
He didn’t know.
My papers were hidden far enough in the recesses of the cabin that no one would be able to find them without my help, and if Hunter knew about them, he would have already confronted me. All he was trying to do was find the things that we would need to help us through this situation. I gave a short nod.
"I'm sorry. You're right. Go ahead."
Hunter ducked into the cabin and reappeared a moment later with a large black trunk on his shoulder.
"What's in here?" Hunter asked.
"Clothes," I told him.
"That's it?" Hunter asked.
He sounded suspicious, but not as though he actually knew what was hiding in the cabin. It was more likely that he could feel the heft of the bag and didn’t believe that it was twenty pounds of underwear and socks.
"A couple of knives. Some cash."