Okay, I live on the island by myself. There’s one other guy, a retired fisherman who was hired by the rescue organization years ago, who stops by a couple of times a week to monitor nesting sites. Raul left for the mainland this morning. So there aren’t people depending on me. But the endangered turtles that nest on this beach depend on me. And the two permanent residents of the turtle rescue station I run—Noah, a fully-grown loggerhead, and Jenny, an adolescent green sea turtle—need me here.
I can’t abandon them. Hell, I wouldn’t even if I could.
So while Sylvia stirs up trouble off the coast, I take advantage of the calm to clear debris off the beach near my cabin, change the filters on the water pumps, and gas up the generator. I haven’t needed it since we installed solar panels last spring, but I doubt we’ll be getting enough sun over the next few days and our wall batteries will only last so long.
I’m out doing a few repairs on the dock that I’d been putting off when I notice a boat drawing closer. I’d been tracking it on the horizon for a while but assumed it would pass. It doesn’t.
If there’s one good thing about living on a mostly deserted island, it’s that strangers never stop by. This isn’t suburbia. No one stops by to say hello or borrow a cup of sugar. Sure, people are nice enough. And when it comes to permanent residents on the atoll, most everybody knows everybody else.
Which means I’ve already developed a reputation as a mean son of a bitch who doesn’t like strangers. Or people.
Rather, that’s what most people who don’t know me assume. The truth is, I don’t mind strangers. Or most people for that matter. But I’m big and quiet. I don’t mind being alone and I’ve never had much use for talking just to talk. Most people who don’t know me well read that as rude, which is fine by me.
Besides, I’ve been a grumpy since moving here. I like to pretend it’s the injury, but I suspect has something to do with pining away for my damn wife.
When it’s obvious the boat is not going to pass, but is going to pull up to my dock, I straighten and slide the portable drill into the pocket of my cargo shorts. I squint through my sunglasses as I take in the boat, The Gambit, and her captain.
Fuck me.
Clara.
I should have fucking known that a hurricane wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to me this week.
Clara coasts up to the dock, letting the gentle waves nudge the boat against the dock’s bumpers. She just stares at me, her expression masked by her own sunglasses, the brim of her wide hat, and the shade of the boat’s bimini top. If I didn’t knowThe Gambitwas hers, I might not have even recognized her.
No, that’s bullshit.
Even though I can’t see her face, I know it’s her.
First off, there’s that sinking feeling I get in my gut every time I so much as think about her. Second, she’s got her long blond hair in two braids draped over either shoulder. She’s the Heidi of the Caribbean.
I would recognize that damn blond hair anywhere.
And those damn braids.
Every night since the first day we met, I’ve dreamed about those braids. I want to wrap them around my fist while I fuck her mouth. I want to hold them in my hand like reins while I fuck her from behind.
I never knew I had a kink until I saw those braids for the first time. But apparently I have a braid fetish.
More to the point, I have a Clara’s braids fetish.
Or maybe I just have a Clara fetish.
Whatever kind of fetish it is, the intolerable, soul-crushing weight of it has been bearing down on me since the day we met.
Even though I’m a self-proclaimed asshole who barely tolerates the company of other people, I can actually be civil when I need to. To everyone but her.
The fact that I haven’t seen her in person since the wedding has been pure agony, made tolerable by the fact that, at the very least, she doesn’t know how I feel about her.
Thank fuck she doesn’t know.
I can stand solitude.
I can stand having a bum shoulder and enough nerve damage in my dominate hand that I’ll never again hold a gun, let alone a sniper’s rifle.
I can stand that every member of my former SEAL team can’t look at me without pity.
You know what I can’t stand?
