AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Like those other girls?” I fill in wryly.
“Yeah.”
“Girls like me?”
He gives me a puzzled look. “She wasn’t anything like you, Daisy.”
Then he dives under the water, swimming past me, heading for shore.
I decide to stop being a pervert for once and not watch him get dressed. Besides, my mind is tripping over what he just said. I don’t know what any of that meant.
What I do know is that he thinks I’m a distraction, and apparently not in the right way. Not a distraction he wants.
You’re not what he wants, I tell myself. Part of me thinks that maybe that’s just because we’re on this island. Maybe when we get back to Fiji…
And then what? Even if he gives into you in Fiji, he’s going back to New Zealand, to his life there. And you’re going…who knows where.
Besides, he didn’t just drop the marriage bomb on me for no reason. That was his way of saying not now, not ever. As if the reason before wasn’t enough.
I can’t help but feel completely deflated and disappointed. I kissed him. What the hell was I thinking?
I get out of the water and get dressed, while Tai fills up water bottles from the stream, popping in some purification tablets.
“Should we head back and tell the others?” I ask him when we’re ready to go.
“I think we should follow this stream, see where it leads. If there’s anything on this island, people will take advantage of a water source.” He peers at me. “You up for it?”
“Up for anything,” I tell him, though really I just want to get back to camp and have some alone time, try to make sense of everything that just happened.
Even though more time to dwell on the rejection will just make me feel worse.
He nods and I follow him down the stream for about twenty minutes or so, the refreshing dip in the pool undone by sweat and grime, until the forest seems to open up.
Suddenly we find ourselves on a beach.
Another side of paradise.
“Bloody hell,” Tai says in awe.
I have to agree.
The lagoon on this side is much bigger and is peppered with islands. Some of them look like tiny little outcrops of sand and a few palm trees, the water shallow enough to walk to, others are larger and further away. It’s like a whole new world over here, with a million shades of blue.
“This is incredible,” I say, looking down the beach. There are plumeria flowers everywhere here, pinks and whites and yellows, their beauty and fragrant smell peppering the beach. I stop by one of the trees and take a deep whiff of a blossom. Heaven.
“Daisy,” Tai says with urgency. “Daisy, come here.”
I turn to where Tai disappeared in the opposite direction, behind a grove of palm trees.
I duck around them and see what he’s staring at in disbelief.
My god.
It’s a building.
Fourteen
Tai
The building that Daisy and I are gawking at looks like it was erected in the 1970s and never used again. It’s a bungalow, raised a few feet off the ground with a short flight of stairs heading up to a deck, the wood gray and faded from the elements.
“It’s a leftover from the Dharma Initiative,” Daisy whispers from beside me.
She might not be far off there.
“We should look around for a hatch,” I tell her, “see if there’s a Scottish guy down there pushing a button.”
She gives me an impressed look.
“You’re not the only one who watched Lost, Gingersnap,” I inform her, walking toward the building.
“I’m surprised you’re not calling me Freckles,” she notes. “Considering.”
“Have to be original with my nicknames, don’t I, Gilligan?”
I can practically feel her roll her eyes from behind me.
I’m glad we’re back in this space again, where we can talk and poke fun at each other. I hated being mad at her, and I really had no reason to. I knew she had made a mistake, I knew that the boat running aground was an accident. At the very least, she didn’t do it on purpose.
I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to grapple with my anger, most of it directed at myself, some at Daisy, and some at the ocean itself, for trying to take more lives that matter to me.
I’ve been in rough shape, to say the least, even though I’ve done my best to hide it. I have to. I feel responsible for my crew, for my friends…for Daisy. Now that we’re on land, I feel it’s my purpose to keep everyone safe until we get rescued. My job as captain isn’t over yet.
“Who wants to go inside first?” Daisy asks, before she quickly adds, “Not it.”
I stare at her for a moment, at the cheeky smile on her peach-colored lips.
Lips that I tasted, lips that left me hungry, starving for more.
Kissing her was probably the highlight of my year, if I’m being honest. I can’t remember the last time I felt so ravenous for someone, not just physically, but emotionally. On another level. Like I’ve had this cage built inside my chest for far too long, rusted shut from the sea, and someone has finally found it. She hasn’t made her way in yet, but I think she’s trying, and I desperately want to let her.
