Page 18 of Storm over the Caribbean (Storm and Silence Saga #8)

I swallowed and, looking at him, couldn’t help but believe it. I knew I had been on top of this man last night. But, meeting his icy eyes as he stared me down, that was really, really hard to remember or believe.

“Oh? Is that so, Sir?”

“It is indeed.”

I licked my lips. “Then…how are you going to make my day today?”

He cocked his head. “Naturally, there’s only one way.”

“Y-yes?”

“By making breakfast.”

Huh?

Mr Rikkard I-Live-Off-Bread-And-Water Ambrose, cooking breakfast? Why would he—

Just then, my stomach rumbled. It was impressive how, without moving a single facial muscle, Mr Rikkard Ambrose could manage to look so insufferably smug.

“Perhaps…perhaps you might be right.”

“Is that so, Mrs Ambrose?”

“Yes!” I confirmed, sounding more certain. “After all, I am your beloved wife. And pregnant to boot.” Seductively, I batted my up at him. “Don’t I deserve breakfast in bed?”

“You aren’t in a bed.”

Darn! Why did he have to be so bloody observant?

“Breakfast on the beach, then, Mr Ambrose, Sir.” Reaching out, I gently stroked the top of his pectorals, which were still visible through his unbuttoned shirt. “Doesn’t that sound romantic?”

“Hm.” He gave me a cool look. “Well…I suppose we would have to consume a meal at some point before discussing our next step. I might as well get to it.”

I grinned. Being a strong, independent woman was fun. But ordering around men was somehow even more fun. Especially my man.

Hm…maybe Patsy has a point after all. Establishing a matriarchy might not be such a bad idea.

Hastily banishing all hints of those thoughts from my face as Mr Ambrose looked over at me, I gave him a brilliant smile.

“Why, thank you, dear! Whatever would I do without you?”

He considered that for a moment. “I shudder to think.”

“You…!” I threw a shell at his head. The bloody son of a bachelor ducked out of the way without even looking. In a blink, he was out of range, heading down the beach in search of food.

“I hope the crabs bite your nose off!” I shouted after him.

He didn’t appear to have heard.

Grumbling, I pushed myself to my feet and, picking some coconuts off the pile of still unopened fruits, I pulled out my makeshift tool from yesterday to start puncturing eyes.

Greedily, I drank the contents of two coconuts, then set two more aside.

Just in case I would be thirsty later, of course.

It had nothing whatsoever to do with wanting to have something cool to drink for my stupid iceberg of a husband once he got back from having his crab-hunt.

It only took about half an hour for him to return and, to my severe disappointment, he did so without a crab dangling from his nose.

He did, however, have several crabs in the palm leaf he was using as a makeshift bag.

They seemed to have already met their demise.

9 I spotted a limp crab leg dangling out of one side of the palm leaf.

Right then and there, I was very happy my husband was going to prepare breakfast.

My stomach rumbled again. Making my way over to the campfire, I stirred the ashes, and found some embers still glowering at the very bottom. Great! Seems like it wasn’t going to take long till I got something to munch on!

“How did you get that thing started at all?” I enquired. “I doubt any matches survived being shipwrecked.”

Reaching into his pocket, Mr Ambrose fished out two dark grey, almost black, stones. Were those…?

“Flintstones,” he told me curtly. “After…”

He cut off. Something about his tone of voice, though, made me think it was because of more than a simple lack of loquaciousness. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him tense ever so slightly.

“Yes?”

“After I ran away from home, it only took one night, alone, out in the dark, almost freezing to death. After that, I started always carrying those with me.”

I froze. My gaze flicked over to where he stood. His face was hard and unmoving as ever, but…

“Come here.” I reached out. “Let me take care of those.”

He glanced down at the bloody crabs. “Are you sure? It isn’t very…”

My hands closed around his, and I met his eyes. “I’m sure. We’re in this together, aren’t we?”

He gazed at me for a long moment—then nodded. “Yes. Yes, we are.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Then, would you mind bringing me some water from the ocean?” My finger pointed at the crabs without touching them. “I don’t fancy eating those things without cleaning them first.”

He nodded. “Coming up here, I saw a cracked-open coconut that had fallen from a cliff. I should be able to clean one and use it as an improvised bucket. Or maybe I can use a banana leaf.”

“Great. You’ll do that. Meanwhile, I’ll…” I looked down at the crabs with a less than enthusiastic look. “…get cracking.”

That morning reaffirmed a belief I had held ever since I was old enough to be conscripted for kitchen duty by my aunt: cooking was not for me. Most definitely on a deserted island without any oven, cooking implements, and ways to prepare food that didn’t make me look like a serial killer!

“If you ever ,” I told Mr Rikkard Ambrose the moment he reappeared, “tell me to go to the kitchen and cook like a good little housewife, I will murder you!”

The statement was probably lent a bit more weight by the various slimy, unpleasant liquids splattered over the front of my dress, and the mangled remnants of crab clutched in my hands.

“I shall take your words into consideration, Mrs Ambrose. Now, shall we finish making dinner?”

My eyes narrowed. “That was a yes, right? You agreed just now, right?”

Silence.

“You…come here, you! Give me an answer! Hey, don’t you dare sneak off!”

Suffice it to say that it took quite a while till we got to eating breakfast. Unfortunately, chasing your husband around the beach doesn’t work quite so well when you’re more than twenty weeks pregnant.

For some reason though, I didn’t particularly mind.

Somehow, we ended up cuddled together in our little hut, slightly out of breath and nibbling on roasted crab.

“You know…we should play on the beach more often. That was fun.”

Reaching up, Mr Rikkard Ambrose removed an offending grain of sand from his top hat. 10 “Your definition of ‘fun’ leaves something to be desired, Mrs Ambrose.”

I noticed, though, he didn’t remove his arm from around my shoulder or move away from me.

We finished our breakfast in a silence that was, despite Mr Ambrose’s best efforts, companionable. When the last bite was finally gone, we simply sat together, my head on his shoulder, watching the ocean.

“So…what now?”

The silence suddenly turned grim. That told me more than I really wanted to know.

I swallowed. “We…we could just stay here on the beach and go on like this until we’re found, right?”

Again, grim silence.

“So…no relaxed holiday on the beach, then?”

“I’m afraid not.” Taking a deep breath, he rose and strode out of the hut. I followed, and found him standing at the shore, staring out onto the ocean. Cautiously, I came up behind him.

“Mr Ambrose?”

Silence again. Then, after a moment…

“There are only so many crabs on the beach,” he said, not looking at me, instead still staring at the open water.

“But the real problem is that most of the trees around here aren’t coconut palms, and the coconuts aren’t going to last long.

Once they run out and we don’t have any drinking water any more… ”

He trailed off. But he didn’t really need to continue. If there was one thing I had learned from my time with Mr Rikkard Ambrose, it was that, sometimes, silence said more than a thousand words.

“We could light a larger fire. Maybe the smoke will attract our escort ships.”

“Maybe,” he agreed. “Or maybe it will attract any of the dozen or so pirate ships infesting the region.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that. You didn’t need to be a maths genius to know which was more likely.

“So…what are we going to do?”

In answer, he turned around. Away from the ocean. Away from the beach. His gaze went right past me, towards the opposite direction from the sea. Turning my head, I followed his eyes to where he was looking.

The jungle. The steaming, wild centre of the island, where, from among the shadows of the trees, rustles and other disquieting sounds originated. For one moment, I thought I saw a pair of yellow eyes, staring at me unblinkingly.

“So…” I swallowed.

He nodded. “We must head inland to find a stream or pond. If we don’t, we won’t last longer than a few days.”

I glanced at the forest again where, just a moment ago, the yellow eyes had been. “But if we go, we won’t have access to food anymore. We might not even last that long.”

The icy look in Mr Ambrose’s eyes told me he had already realized that fact.

Or it just told me he was being his usual arctic self. But I was pretty sure it was the former.

“Quite correct, Mrs Ambrose.” He gave a curt nod. “The moment we step into that jungle, we risk our lives just by being there.”

“Also, if our escort ships come searching for us, and we aren’t at the beach anymore…”

“Yes. They will pass us by.”

“We have no idea what kinds of predators or poisonous animals are inside that jungle.”

“Indeed.”

There was a moment of silence. Those were pretty prevalent recently, weren’t they?

“So…” I cocked my head, one corner of my mouth quirking up. “When do we go?”

He met my eyes. There wasn’t a hint of surprise in his gaze. Instead, what I saw there was a mirror image of my own steely determination.

“An hour. I’ll gather all the food I can.”

“What about water?”

His face hardened. “We should take some with us, but…” He gestured to the remaining heap of coconuts.

I understood. We didn’t exactly come equipped with bags or knapsacks, so taking more than one or two each would be nearly impossible. But without water we wouldn’t even last two days! What could we—

Ah!

I snapped my fingers. “I think I’ve got an idea.”

“Mrs Ambrose?”

“I’ll have to thank Ella for this,” I muttered, striding towards the coconuts. “Never thought this would come in useful!”

“Pardon, Mrs Ambrose, but how does your little sister relate to surviving on a deserted island?”

“Easter decorations, of course!”

“ Easter decorations? ”

“Yep!” Tearing a thin strip of cloth off my dress, I used my shell shard to punch through two of the eyes of a coconut, and nimbly threaded the cloth strip through the holes. Then I did it with a second coconut, and a third. “Never thought I’d do this with coconuts instead of painted eggs, though.”

Mr Ambrose stared for a moment—then cocked his head. “That was actually an…adequate idea.”

“Oh, I know,” I told him and, finished with my string of a dozen coconuts, hung it over his neck. He nearly buckled under the weight. I beamed at him. “I’m a genius, aren’t I?”

“You…!”

Sweetly, I batted my eyelashes up at him. “You wouldn’t ask your poor little pregnant wife to carry heavy weights, now, would you?”

A muscle in Mr Ambrose’s jaw twitched. “No. Certainly not.”

I hugged him tightly. “You’re such a gentleman!”

“Indeed.” He gave me a look that told me exactly what this “gentleman” would do once I was back in his office and under his command. Or in his bedroom.

For some reason, that made my smile only widen.

“Shall we?” Releasing him from my embrace, I held out my hand to him.

He cast a last, grim look at the jungle towering in front of us. Other than me, I could guess that he, having travelled halfway across the world and back, actually had a faint idea of what awaited us in there. And he didn’t seem to like it in the least.

“Well, look at it like this,” I told him. “At least things can’t get any worse, right?”

“Famous last words.”

I smirked. “Except for you, because you wouldn’t say anything.”

Silence.

I lifted my hand a little closer towards him. “Together?”

He looked at the jungle again—then nodded and linked my fingers with his own.

“Together.”

And, hand in hand, we strode into the trees.

Only a few minutes after the beach had once more become silent and empty, a ship appeared on the distant horizon. At the top of its highest mask fluttered a flag in black and white, with a grinning skull in the centre.