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He left me sitting in the water and ran over to the helicopter. I watched him talk to the two men who jumped out, feeling furious. I was sure he was using this opportunity to spin his version of events. I’d tell everybody the truth, of course, but I’d be the second one to speak, so I wasn’t sure if I would be believed or not.
He couldn’t spin this. The helicopter had found us because of the fire, and I was the one who had started the fire. It was that simple.
The men went back into the helicopter and emerged with boxes in their hands. As they ran over to me, I saw that they were carrying first aid kits.
“Olivia?” one of them called over the sound of the chopper blades. “Olivia Montgomery?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Patrick Ligon. Mr. Wallace tells me you’ve injured your arm.”
Mr. Wallace.It was all I could do not to roll my eyes at that. “I’m okay.”
I was only trying to say that my burn wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t handle it, but apparently, that wasn’t an acceptable thing for me to do. “Olivia, for God’s sake,” Jake said. “Let him patch you up so we can get the fuck out of here.”
So we were back to this. We weren’t even off the island yet, and he was already treating me like an afterthought again. I couldn’t believe it. I had let myself begin to trust him while we were here. I had actually started to believe that things were going to be different now.
Abruptly, all the fury I’d ever felt for him in my life boiled to the surface. Maybe it was triggered by the stress of the situation we’d been in for the past several days, or maybe it was the fact that I was in pain, but suddenly I couldn’t stand the sight of him.
“Get him away from me,” I told Patrick Ligon. “I don’t want that asshole anywhere near me. Put him on the chopper, and then I’ll come out of the water.”
Jake stared at me.
Patrick turned to him. “Maybe you’d better get in the chopper,” he said. “We do need to treat her and get going.”
“She’s out of her mind. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
“Man, just go,” Patrick said. “There’s no point in causing an argument about it.”
He had that right. I wasn’t going to change my mind. So I was relieved when Jake turned and jogged up the beach to the chopper after staring at me for a few more seconds. Another man was waiting there to help him aboard.
Patrick turned to me. “Did he do anything to you while you were here? Hurt you or anything?”
“No,” I said quickly. “It’s not like that. He’s a friend of my brother’s. He’s an idiot, and I’m sick of the sight of him.”
Patrick smiled at me. “I understand,” he said. “Can I get a look at your arm?”
He knelt in the water beside me, not even worried about his clothes getting wet. It warmed me up to him a little more. Between that and the fact that he’d sent Jake away, I was ready to trust Patrick.
I lifted my arm out of the water. Exposing the burn to air made it hurt much more, so I gritted my teeth and pushed myself to deal with it.
“Yeah, looks pretty bad,” Patrick agreed, keeping his voice light so I wouldn’t freak out. Knowing that didn’t make it any less effective, though. “I’ve got a first aid kit on the shore. We can’t bandage this up in the water, but if you think you can come out, we can get you wrapped up and on your way.”
I nodded. “I can do it.”
He caught my good arm and supported me as I left the water, which sent a pain of an entirely different nature through me—I found myself longing for Jake all of a sudden.
No, don’t do that. You’re mad at him.
It was true. I was. And I didn’t want him to come back from the chopper—I was glad he was out of my way. But at the same time, Patrick’s strong, supportive hand on my arm made me think about how familiar I’d gotten with Jake’s touch over the past few days on the island and how comforting it had always been. I’d really started relying on him.
I don’t need him anymore. We’re getting out of here.
God, I’d been such a fucking idiot to think that anything had changed between the two of us. Of course, it hadn’t. We’d leaned into each other while we were here because we hadneededeach other, that was all. We’d both been frightened and desperate and had been all each other had. It had been impossible for us to stay combative with everything happening.
I should have known that being saved would snap us right back into our old feelings about each other.
But damn, couldn’t he even admit that my plan had worked? Couldn’t he even be man enough to thank me for having come up with the idea that had literally saved us? He should be thanking me right now. He should be apologizing for having yelled at me and acting like his stupid plan to fix the crashed plane without any tools was the better. That would never have worked.
