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He’d tried. He truly had. Being nice wasn’t his thing. And if he’d ever met anyone who was less adept at living with the rest of the human race than him, it was her.I made her fucking crutches, for God’s sake!The floorboards of his cabin creaked and groaned beneath his feet as he stomped inside the single room. Winston screeched when he slammed the door, using the cot as a springboard to escape out the window onto the palm treeoutside.
She was the most stubborn, suspicious, obstinate, guarded, powerfully compelling, beautifully resilient piece of work he’d ever seen. “Ahh!” Grant laced his fingers behind his head as he paced the one-room retreat, trying desperately not to punch something. He of all people understood why she pushed herself so hard. She was on her own, or at least he thought she was. He got that. When you have no one to pick you up after being cut down, you have to push yourself ten times harder. He’d lived by the laws of singularity for the last thirteen years. Hell, he’d thrived on them. He admired her for the strength and fortitude it took to push herself thathard.
What he didn’t understand was the sudden, gnawing need driving him to help her. When he wasn’t sitting on the floor beside the cot watching her sleep, he was sleeping on the floor beside her, determined to make her as comfortable as possible. He’d stayed up the night before, weaving her a makeshift belt out of some spare five-fifty cord he’d stashed away. He’d managed to fold up the length of his shorts to fit her better, but they were so big she had to hold them up around her waist to walk. She needed both hands to hold onto him forbalance.
He’d added extra pepper to their soup because she’d said she liked spicy things. He was already planning a trip over to Rodrigo Island to pick her up some clothes that fit and a pair of reef shoes. Her boots would take a week to dry out, and they weren’t any good for beachlife.
He didn’t do needy or helpful, or evennicefor that matter. The strange part was, he liked doing those things. He wanted to do nice things for her. All evidence to the contrary, considering her reaction to his attempts, he was good at helpingher.
Then there was the constant ache in his groin. That alone was enough to drive any man insane. He’d turned his jack shack into a private port-o-let for her, so he’d found himself a giant banyan tree a little farther down the beach and set up shop between two tall root walls. During the two days she’d been conscious, he’d already visited it enough times to cause suspicion if he offered any more excuses to walk to that end of the beach. It didn’t help anyway. By the time he’d blown his wad and made the walk back to the cabin, all it took was one look at her bare legs and he was as hard as granite.Again.
He wasn’t going to spend another infuriating second trying to understand what was going on inside his head or hers. He’d pack her torn clothes, her boots and a few staples into one of his cargo sacks and send her on her way. No matter how good she felt or how much his body was pulled to hers, he didn’t need the kind of trouble she waspeddling.
Resigned to cut his losses and regain some of his solidarity, he stomped to his storage trunk, turned the dial on the lock in the correct order until it opened, and reached for his sat-phone. Powering it up, he opened the cabin door and walked outside, every ounce of his resolve draining away into the sea at what he saw in Thalia’s eyes as she hobbled towardhim.
Six
“What is it? What’s wrong?”Grant strode to the edge of the woods as she stumbled out, her eyes focused behindhim.
“A boat,” she whispered as she picked her way across the ground, any pain or mistrust she’d felt taking a back seat to her survivalinstincts.
Her thoughts echoed the curse Grant grunted when he’d turned to see the small speck on the horizon. Judging by how quickly the speck grew, it was headed straight for them. And fast. “I need to get inside.” She pushed past Grant, praying he wouldn’t hand her over to whoever was on that boat to get rid ofher.
Grant caught her arm and pulled her to the side, blocking her body from any binocular view their visitors may have. “No. It’s too obvious. If they beach, and if there’s more of them than I can stop, it’s the first place they’llsearch.”
Thank you.She couldn’t make herself say it, but hoped he could read it in her eyes. Thalia shrugged out of his hold, casting an assessing glance behind him. With the sudden rush of adrenaline, her mind worked hastily to process her options. “There’s no time. I’m not going to hide in theshithole.”
“Wait over here.” Her leg throbbed with the pulse of her racing heartbeat as he picked her up, moving her so the cabin was between them and the approaching vessel. He sat her on her feet before he quickly retrieved her crutches and handed them to her. “I’ll be rightback.”
Thalia watched as he retreated to the cabin and crept along the side until he disappeared around the front corner.What is he doing?Every second he was gone was time she lost to get herself hidden away inside. He was right. It wasn’t the best solution, but given her lack of firepower and a glaring deficiency in mobility, it was her onlyoption.
The sound of the boat’s motor came into range and Thalia decided she was out of time. She’d taken her first step towards the cabin when Grant rolled around the corner and ran towards her, a resilient confidence flashing in his eyes. A familiar calm washed over her rioting nerves as he pressed the cold steel into her palm. She looked down at the .45 in her hand, everything else disappearing around her. He was giving her agun?
“Can you make it to that thicket?” She looked over her shoulder at the clumps of palms and sea brush about fifty feet into the woods. Speechless, she nodded and tucked the gun into her hand-made belt. “Good. Get there and don’t move. No matter what you hear or see, don’t give away your position. If the shit hits the fan, stay there until you can safely back away and get to the other side of the island. My boat is anchored there in a small cove. The keys are hooked to one of the life jackets stashed under the driver’sseat.”
“But…” She didn’t have time to ask about what he was going to do before he turned and sprinted back to the cabin. Casting off the thousands of questions screaming through her mind, she pushed her way towards her target. Her pain disappeared under the rush of fresh adrenaline-laced blood flowing through her veins. The vegetation grew thin as she neared the halfway point, and she dropped to her knees, crawling the last fifteen feet so she wouldn’t be spotted before reaching thethicket.
When she was sure she was hidden from view, she turned and reached for her makeshift crutches, dragging them behind the brush. She hoped like hell she wouldn’t have to flee to the other side of the island, but if she did, she wouldn’t be able to make it another ten feet withoutthem.
Aware of the boat approaching the shore, Thalia spit into her hand and grabbed up some of the dark sandy soil, smearing it into her saliva. She tore off a couple of leaves from the plants in front of her and popped them into her mouth, chewing rapidly to break them down. Spitting the leaves into the mud in her palm, she swiftly swirled the darkened sludge with her finger before massaging it onto the skin on her face. She couldn’t see if it was enough, but anything had to be better than her pale flesh reflecting against the densebrush.
Silent as a shark zeroing in on its prey, she watched as the boat slowed to a stop off the beach, the motor choking to a halt. One man stood behind the driver, another at the bow. Movement to her left told her Grant had exited the cabin, but she refused to take her eyes off the boat. They were thugs. No one wore black shirts and dress slacks if they were out on a Sunday fishingtrip.
She hadn’t spotted any weapons, but she knew it only meant they were well-hidden. The man on the bow jumped into the surf and waded towards the shore, no care for his fine dress shoes or slacks. The other two remained aboard, vigilantly watching as Grant stepped out from under the front awning of his cabin, exaggerating a yawn as he scratched his bare chest.What is he thinking?They exchanged a greeting and chatted back and forth, Grant shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders. The man gestured toward the cabin and Grant shook his headagain.
Thalia gritted through her frustration as the two men talked. She couldn’t hear a damn thing until Winston screamed from a nearby palm tree. Her blood ran cold. Would he give away her position? Her panic quickened when she saw him round the cabin and head toward the beach.Oh shit. This can’t begood.
The man talking with Grant reached behind his back and Thalia’s heart rate shot through the roof. With an ingrained instinct, her arm stretched out before her and took infallible aim at the man’s head. There was a lot of distance to cover, but she was confident her bullet would hit its mark. This was it. There was no way Grant was hiding a gun in those flimsy shorts; not one that would help him in this situation. She’d have to shoot all three before they could return fire or re-start theboat.
In the time it took her to blink her eyes away from the boat to the man in front of Grant, Grant had his arm around the guy’s throat, the man’s gun in his hand. Thalia didn’t hesitate. Two rounds left the barrel of her gun. A third shot echoed off the water as the driver flipped over the side of the boat into the surf. A red mist spewed over the boat’s white hull as thug number two’s neck exploded, her bullet tearing through hisflesh.
Grant dropped the lifeless man in his hands into the surf and ran toward the driver who was splashing helplessly in the water. His big fist tangled in the man’s hair as he heaved his head from the water and shouted something at him. The man struggled against his hold before Grant pushed him away and plugged two rounds into the back of hishead.
She watched as he walked to the boat and leaned over the side, firing another round into the passenger before pulling himself aboard. Reluctantly, Thalia lowered her weapon and dragged herself to her feet. Scrambling for purchase, she reached for her crutches, her leg screaming against the little bit of weight she had to balance onit.
Scanning the water, she searched for any other crafts which might have been on lookout for the point boat. Seeing nothing suspicious, she palmed the wooden poles and pushed herself away from the safety of the brush toward the beach. Winston barked out a warning, but Thalia ignored him, focusing instead on the man lying face down in the surf. Scarlet waters churned around his torso, flowing down the sand as each wave retreated back into theocean.
Using her toe, she pushed his hair from his face. She thought the man looked familiar, but she couldn’t place him. He had the typical henchman features; steroidal muscles in his arms and chest, a neck as thick as a tree trunk with a long, deep cut across the front of it dripping with fresh blood. She wouldn’t be surprised if his name was Igor, or something similarly typical of thetype.
