Chapter 16

The cruise ship groaned and listed to the right. Dare gripped the brass railing inside the atrium and watched as anything not fastened down slid.

Canned music was at a near standstill as instructions from the captain were piped through the vessel in an effort to keep everyone calm.

“Pity the poor slobs outside.” The old man hunkered down next to Dare, gnarly hands around the railing too, bumping against his. “Not fit for man nor beast. We’re lucky to be inside.”

Dare nodded, as his gaze combed the wild breakers outside. People hung on to the tiniest bit of human connection in uncertain conditions, forged bonds they never would otherwise. “Damn straight.”

“She’s building,” the old man pronounced, as the world inside the cabin tilted again. “You have family, son?”

“Um, no. Not anyone on board.” Though a weird tingle flew through him as he’d almost said yeah.

Yeah. But she’s not here.

She’s out there in that garbage.

“My wife’s here. Below.” The old man sighed. “Mouthiest thing this side of the international date line, I tell you.” The lines of his face deepened. “I couldn’t stand listening to her yapping up here about everything going wrong, ya know? Sent her downstairs, put my foot down.” He mimicked his wife’s voice. “Why did we come now. Why did you pick this cruise. Call them, Charlie, get us a refund. I’m not spending good money on this. Yap, yap, yap.”

He shot a quick look to the man’s grizzled face, searched his rheumy eyes but somehow the words didn’t fit the expression. He must have stared a few seconds too long because the old-timer glanced up at him sharply. “What?”

“Nothing. Just…nothing.” Oh hell. Now the old dude was calling him out. He peeled his eyes back outside, trying to see, but the door was closed and the tiny window was lashed with water and blurry.

Charlie snorted. “You’re just as bad as she is. Always on my case. Always, god, always…” His voice faded and he went silent.

The ship listed again, and the old man heaved up against him. The scent of tobacco and medicine filtered over him, mingled with the ever-present smell of fishy seawater. Everything was being tossed up, out there in that storm.

Suddenly, even though they listed back to the left, the old man didn’t leave his side. Dare looked down at him, just in time to see the old hands grip the fabric of his jacket and suddenly he was concerned. “Pops?”

The abrupt sheen in the old man’s eyes wasn’t from old age.

His words were barely recognizable, hushed out as a whisper, and Dare had to bend to make them out. “If anything happened…to my Clara…”

The cacophony inside mounted, passengers worried, the wind screaming. He had to bend close to hear him, but the old man was talking, and he knew intuitively, it was important. “Yeah, Pops?”

“…I wouldn’t want to live.”

A lump rose in his throat, and he got him. Regardless of feeling he was standing beside some weird caricature of the Old Man and the Sea, he got him.

Dare trained his gaze on the old man’s face, clamped his hand over his. Strong. Definite. “Nothing’s going to happen. We’re at a Beaufort 7, maybe 8. We’re in a clunker of a tub, she’s heavy and she’s fit.” He squeezed. Hard. “You and your Clara will live to fight another day.”

The old man’s gaze fastened on his face as he searched it for half a minute, more. Then he drew in a steadying breath, and he could see the strength build, moment by moment. And things righted.

“Damn woman. I still have to win that last one. She’s going down, though. Thinks she can have her own damn way all the time. Not happening.”

“Exactly. Win one for our side, right?” He saw as Charlie’s hand relaxed, then left his arm and again curled around the railing. Held on. Could. “There are standards to be maintained.”

“And…makeup sex is hot.”

He snorted. “Hey, this is where I cut out. TMI, ya know?”

Seemed like everything was all right, suddenly.

“Sure, sure. Youth is wasted on the young, and all that. But me and Clara are making up for lost time. Notice served. Right here, and right now.” His gaze stuttered away from Dare, jumped to the staircase leading up from the lower level, his ancient body suddenly enlivened. “There.”

Dare tossed a glance over, saw an old woman in a frumpy dress standing still at the top, anticipation and a strange light in her wide face, gaze trained on Charlie.

“Okay, pops. Be safe. Both of you. I’m going out for a bit.”

But the old man had eyes only for Clara.

Something pained in his heart and he went out to face the tempest.

* * *

The storm was a bitch, approaching gale force.

Dare leaned into the railing around the hurricane deck, his fingers white knuckling the cold metal, the relentless wind buffeting him and forming his jacket and pants so hard against his body they were like a second skin.

Freezing. He was so damn cold.

The wall of wind, unyielding.

He sucked in a breath through his nose, lips clamped together. He’d opened his mouth a moment ago, and airborne spray and some marine concoction had hurtled in as the torrent of air had whipped his breath away. No, thanks.

He stared, gaze narrowed, at the boiling sea. Watched the waves dancing crazily, froth bursting into life then gone from existence the next second as new sections of briny ocean reared. Strained to see the island he’d left just a few short hours ago, and made out the grey shapes of palms in the distance bowing in the ferocious wind.

“A mess.” One of the crewmen appeared at his side, and he felt strangely comforted by the presence of another human. “Captain wants everyone inside.”

Dare didn’t answer, just kept his eyes straight ahead. A thousand possibilities cycling through his mind. Considering.

The relentless storm. What the gale force winds were doing to the water. Heaving it, slashing it into sharp lines that could cut.

How a bunch of tiny humans could protect themselves on land against Mother Nature’s evil bitch stepsister.

His cellphone dinged, and he turned, huddled away from the conflagration. He palmed his phone protectively within the confines of his slicker, checked.

A text from Mack.

Keeping his lower half pressed against the bulwark, he made his way to a tiny, shielded section and ducked inside. While he could still hear the wind, its effect on him was momentarily reduced to zero. Except for the cold. He was still so damn cold.

Everywhere.

Inside and out.

He peered at the screen, drew the configuration to unlock it and was greeted by Mack’s latest communiqué.

-How’s paradise, asshole?

Mack Stone, buddy extraordinaire, and another Jack’s Bay Delta North man. One of the best, on their tour.

And back home? He’d recently gone to Mack for help with increasing his cash flow for unexpected equipment for the latest job he’d taken on. Mack had given him sound advice that had taken into consideration his current need while barely adding to his mounting loan. Smart as hell with numbers, the man was. Dare swore he got it by osmosis. His dad made big money in export/import and the Stones never lacked for the latest European roadster or designer vacation.

But it didn’t change who Mack was. The truth was, whatever he could do to help a buddy, it was done. The guy was often a pain in innumerable ways and he certainly couldn’t help it if every woman within ten kilometers of him went ape shit for his good looks, and dropped her panties on command. Made him the world’s lousiest wingman.

But if you needed him, it was done. Without fanfare. Mack didn’t want accolades. Just knowing you were his buddy seemed to be enough, though he’d never say it or even hint at it. Just a clipped, brief, “I’ll get back to you,” followed by him getting back to you with what you needed, no embellishment. With not another soul knowing about it, and the understanding that you were to keep your mouth shut, too.

All Mack wanted was your friendship.

And yeah. All the hot pussies. Which he always got. Damn babe magnet.

He thumbed his response.

-Storm. A mess. You?

-Saw that, in the news. Nathan said to tell you sorry, he’s out of range for the next few days, but I’m checking in with you instead. ‘Bought time, anyway. U safe?

-Yeah.

A long pause, where the wind howled around him, blew past him like a deranged bat out of hell.

But his eyes were fastened to the screen as his gut wrenched in anticipation. Wait for it, he told himself. And it came. Bastard.

-She good? Safe?

A sigh expunged from him as something deep in him pinched razor sharp.

I don’t know would be honest, but he couldn’t—wouldn’t—admit that. It would cut him into tiny bits that would never heal, bits that, though they were bleeding, wouldn’t let him feel. Couldn’t.

Bleeding, yet numb. His new normal.

He couldn’t very well say Dunno. I blew her off for a job.

His breathing accelerated, and he forced himself to put the reality out there. He always forced himself to face the truth, or at least, he tried. He texted the awful acronym.

-IDK.

A pause, then the rest of the text came, damning in its brevity.

-WTF?

Abruptly, the vile taste in his mouth overwhelmed him and something jolted through him.

Fuck him, fuck Mack. Fuck the lousy job he needed, the mountain of bills. Fuck the asshole that left his mom after promising her the moon.

Mostly, fuck himself.

He clicked off the cell with a flourish, was just about to jam it into his inner pocket, when he heard the querying ding. What the hell did he want now?

We’re thousands of miles from each other and a few words can still split me open.

-Customer. Gotta go. Hang in there, bud. You’ll do the right thing. You always do. DNT forever.

And just like that, relief spilled into him, and the cell was cloistered away.

He turned his face back to the crazy that was in motion all around him, the wildness that he’d had a brief and somewhat unwelcome respite from him. Stepping into the wind, his clothes suddenly streaming behind him in weird lines, the harsh air blasted the sudden moisture from the rims of his eyes.

Damn it all, the internal voice yelled within him. You need this job. You need the money. Not just for the pay. With the connections, you could expand your crew, take on work internationally, for the guys. You could take great care of your mom, your sis, if she happens to need it, again. Set yourself up for…

The wind suddenly punched him with a wicked blast he couldn’t have foreseen and he almost let go of the railing. Almost fell backwards to smash into the iron bulwark behind him.

The question echoed in him, the punctuation of everything he’d been mulling, that had been roiling around in his gut.

Set yourself up for…what exactly?

The echoing emptiness inside clawed at him with ragged strokes. And he no longer had a defense against it all. And finally…

…felt. With Mother Nature screaming around him.

As fucking bad as when she’d first left. When he thought there was supposed to be oxygen in the air, but somehow he’d fallen into a part of the world where the parts per billion had been drastically reduced. To a part of the world where color had been sucked out of the universe, and his own cells were no longer properly aligned—at least not in the configuration they’d been in before. Suddenly, they didn’t fit, and everything bumped up against everything, abraded raw. It hurt just to look at their living room, when he’d loved it before, their clumsy bohemian approach to what they laughing called decorating obvious. To walk in the park. To order a cup of coffee at the diner, alone.

Nothing made any damn sense anymore.

And that feeling swirled around inside him again.

You have a life, the responsible dude inside him screamed. She left you, asshole. You had no choice but to claw your way into a new thing you then called life. Try it on, make it fit. And some parts of it had been okay, had fit some. Not great, but ok.

But nothing fit in that one part. It was like the room was barred off, closed, boarded up. The furniture covered with dust piled on it, frozen in time like that old hag’s room in that so-called classic he’d been forced to read back in school. Haversham? Something like that.

He’d tried to build a new room, God knew he had. Tried to open it to prospects but it hadn’t felt the same, had felt like shit and he’d shut that down. Lost himself in taking care of himself and his crew, his DNT buddies. His new family. And Ralph. Their mutt.

Ralph, who loved her as he did, and would go crazy protecting her.

And a thought flashed into his mind, as a particularly nasty, high wave broke onto the deck, a few meters away. Crashed into a million dirty jewels, breaking around him, then gone, as if it had never existed, in the next wild second.

Ralph would eat his nuts if he knew he’d left her on an island, in a storm.

What the hell was he doing here?

Protecting a business so he could be…alone? So she could possibly—and terror seized him by the throat—never come back?

“Enough. I’m done.” He strode off to find the crewman he’d so roundly ignored a few minutes earlier. Found the dude, made him talk to him. Was taken to the captain, made his case. Signed the release for them to let him go on a shifting bar.

If the storm had been any fiercer, it would have meant the loss of life and limb almost certainly, and he would have been shut down. But something, somewhere, held for him. Even though all hell was breaking loose around him, the elements held themselves in stasis, didn’t wind up further until he was lowered onto the boat and slapping the cruiser through the rough seas at a demented horsepower, still too slow for him.

He didn’t know where he’d land. He’d been advised to go to a cove he’d seen briefly, but he hadn’t really paid attention and wasn’t really sure quite how to get there. Rocks to watch out for. Stuff like that.

But hell.

And though an errant monster of a wave could wash him over and he be lost, and she’d never know he was coming—something in his heart clenched, yet, incredibly, sang at the same time. All those cells within his ravaged body came back into alignment.

He was on his way back for his girl.