AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I am so sorry,” I said, feeling somewhat responsible for distracting her, though she did admit she didn’t know what time she was supposed to be back.
I placed a hand on her back, trying to be reassuring. After a moment, she stood up and turned to look at me. I pulled my hand away, not wanting to creep her out. “Now what?” she asked.
“Now… that’s up to you,” I replied, grinning at her.
6
GEORGIA
Watching my cruise ship fade away into the distance, my lungs burning, I stood there next to the handsome stranger, trying to figure out what to do now. He’d said that was entirely up to me, but as far as I could tell, I didn’t really have a lot of options.
Visions of being trapped in small-town Alaska for the rest of my life filled my mind. Panic began to well up inside of me. All I could say was, “I’m going to kill Lucy!”
It was clear the handsome stranger was confused. One eyebrow arched as he stepped back a few paces, probably wondering if I was mentally stable or not. “Who?”
Shaking my head, I took a few deep breaths through my nose, trying to clear my mind and keep my body from shutting down from a lack of oxygen. Running was not something I did a lot of. I often joked that if people saw me running, they’d better run, too. This time, I’d had no choice.
Suddenly recalling he’d asked me a question, I said, “Oh, Lucy is my best friend. She’s the one who gave me the cruise as a gift,” I explained. “Well, she got it from a client at her work, and she didn’t want to go, so she gave it to me. Of course, she didn’t tell me the true nature of the cruise.” I rolled my eyes but then looked at him and saw that he was thoroughly confused. “Fuck,” I muttered. “Is there an airport in Sticka?”
My handsome stranger broke out into rich laughter. I looked around to see if anyone else was laughing, but thankfully, all of the people who’d been watching me make the run for the cruise ship had dispersed. Damn, I was going to be one of those people on a Facebook Reel video that everyone laughed at. I’d never make it on TikTok. Young people didn’t care about shit like this, but old people who looked at Facebook would think I was fucking hilarious.
“It’s Sitka,” the handsome stranger corrected me, probably the reason for his laughter. “And while there is an airport here, I don’t think it’s going to do you much good. What’s the next port of call?”
I stared at him blankly and blurted, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” he repeated. “You don’t know where the cruise ship is headed next?”
I shrugged. “No, I don’t know. Like I said, it was Lucy’s trip. I didn’t really want to come at all, but somehow, I let her manipulate my mind and trick me into it.” I had some choice words I wanted to shout at my so-called best friend at the moment. Granted, the reasonable side of my mind was fully aware it wasn’t even the slightest bit her fault that I had missed the ship, but if I hadn’t ever gotten aboard in the first place, I wouldn’t be in this mess now.
“All right, well, why don’t we go back to the bar, get another drink, calm down a little bit, and I’ll figure out where the boat is going? Chances are, it’ll be a lot easier for me to figure out where the ship is headed than for you to get to an airport that will fly you back to—where do you live…?”
The way he paused, I wasn’t sure if he was asking me just where I lived or if he actually wanted me to insert my name, so I said, “Georgia.”
“Georgia? Oh, either you flew somewhere else to get on that boat or this is one hell of a long cruise.”
I couldn’t help but giggle. I’d obviously misunderstood him. “No, I’m from Seattle,” I explained.
“Oh, that’s right.” Now he was even more confused. “You’re from Seattle, but you want to go to Georgia? The state, right? Not the country?”
Continuing to laugh, I wasn’t sure how to explain, so I tried again. “No, I live in Seattle. I want to go to Seattle.” He stared at me, both eyebrows raised. “My name is Georgia.”
“Oooh!” Now, he was with me. “Got it. I was going to say, we get ships from lots of places, but I’ve never seen one come in from Savannah. Are you ready?” He gestured for me to walk along with him.
“Yes, thank you. I didn’t catch your name, though.” The two of us began to walk back toward the bar. I could definitely use another beer—or ten.
“My name is Beau,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He glanced in my direction. “It’s nice to meet you, Georgia, even though I know you’re not happy with the circumstances.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too.” I meant it, even though it really wasn’t the best of situations.
As we approached the bar, he said, “Okay, so the next port is about ninety miles from here, in Juneau, but the boat is spending some time out to sea, probably looking at icebergs or chasing whales or something. It won’t dock for two days.”
“Two days?” I repeated, stopping dead in my tracks. Glancing around the town, whatever the hell it was called, I shook my head. “There’s no way I can stay here for two days. Are you sure I can’t catch a flight back to Seattle?”
“The best way to catch a flight back to Seattle would be to go to Juneau anyway,” he said with a shrug, pulling the door to the bar open. “You may as well not cut your vacation short. Just hang out here for a while, and I’ll give you a ride so you can get back on the boat.”
I thought about what he was saying for a moment as we took the same seats we’d been occupying before. Now that the boat was gone, it looked like several of the locals had come back out. A few people were sitting at the tables now, drinking and chatting. It seemed like a nice little town, but I wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know. I’d have to swing a hotel, and I hadn’t really budgeted for that.”
“Did you budget for a plane ticket to Seattle?” he asked. “It won’t be cheap. Nothing flying out of Alaska is cheap.”
