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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Haina
For the rest of the day, Zane and I danced around each other like two sparring partners, neither of us willing to throw the first punch or exit the ring.
He seemed to be conflicted over what had transpired between us in the woodshed, and even though the thundercloud above his head was gone, his mood remained darker than I would have expected after sex like that. But because it’d been sex with me. And I was someone he hated and didn’t trust. So he was probably mad at himself for giving in to temptation and probably even more mad that he enjoyed it.
Ugh!
I didn’t need those mood swings bringing down my energy, so I avoided him.
Which wasn’t exactly easy, since he insisted on helping Rix, Jorik and I make repairs to the boat.
We patched the outside of the holes to the hull, then had to wait for them to dry. Since I was the smallest in stature of the four of us, I climbed into the boat, which was on its side on the dock, and started patching up the holes from the inside, but nothing was particularly dry, so the goopy stuff we were using—I was told it was epoxy resin but not the right stuff for fiberglass, since we couldn’t find that in the cabins—wasn’t adhering very well to the walls and hole.
We still hadn’t even inspected the port side of the boat, which was lying against the dock, but my guess was there would be several holes on that side, too.
“I’ve done all I can do right now,” I said, taking Rix’s offered hand and clambering out of the side-lying boat. “It’s too damp in there. Nothing is sticking.”
The guys all nodded like they expected that answer.
“We just need to give it more time,” Jorik said, scratching the back of his neck. “But in the meantime, we also need to mend the sail.” While I’d been inside the boat trying to repair the holes, they had apparently dismantled the mainsail and pulled the canvas down, spreading it out over the dock to reveal several large holes.
“Should I go get the first aid kit to sew it up?” I asked, my hands on my hips as I made a mental tally of how many bullet holes marred the sail. From where I was standing, I counted twenty-eight.
“I snagged the sewing kit from the last cabin,” Jorik said, wandering over to where we were keeping all of our tools and supplies in one spot on the deck, away from the edge enough that we didn’t have to worry about one of us accidentally kicking an important tool into the water.
“Good thinking.” I accepted an already threaded needle from him.
Just as I was making my way to the top of the sail to begin on the first hole, a foreboding and deafening rumble rolled across the sky, echoing through the narrow, high-bluff inlet so loudly I had to press my hands to my ears.
All four of us exchanged looks.
I glanced upward at the fat, black clouds that seemed to have rolled in from out of nowhere, blocking out the sun and casting the day and the trees into premature dusk.
“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Rix said just as a big fat drop of rain landed on his nose. And then another, and another.
“Fuck!” Zane roared before he scrambled to collect everything in our tool pile.
“We need to get the tarp across the boat,” Jorik said. “Rix, help me.”
Rix nodded and sprang into action, grabbing the gray tarp we’d found in the woodshed yesterday and assisting Jorik in covering the sailboat to protect the wet epoxy and keep the boat from getting wetter than it already was.
The wet slap of boots on the ramp drew my attention, and I saw Zane, his arms loaded with stuff, running up toward the cabin.
Quickly, I gathered the sail, bundling it in my arms.
We could wait out the rain by sewing the sail inside. At least then we’d still be productive.
Leaving Jorik and Rix to finish covering the boat, I dodged plump raindrops and carefully ran across the dock and up the ramp toward the cabin.
Zane was already inside when I got there, the tools and supplies from his arms dumped on the kitchen counter while he paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, his fingers tugging roughly on his hair.
The sail was a little wet, so I draped it over the chair by the window. I had yet to remove the blanket from where I’d tossed it over the stuffed raccoon when we first arrived.
The sail was massive, so draping it over the chair didn’t do much good, and it pooled in a heap on the floor.
Zane was still pacing.
