Page 42

Chapter 42

Shore Leave

Sam

“How’s your foot?” I’m on the back deck with Calvin. We’ve got what I hope are most of the cut wires spliced back together. Getting the major systems from the portside helm reconnected would be a win, as none of those wires were sliced. But we need to get the generator and the engines up and running. Calvin’s eating breakfast, and Dante’s taken the VHF into the galley to listen while he finishes cleaning up the dishes from last night.

“It’s good. Easton took the stitches out last night before he went back to camp.”

Dante strolls in. Calvin and I stare at him. “What? There hasn’t been a sound on the VHF for ten days, and what we heard then was barely anything. It can hang in the galley for a minute. I want to talk to the two of you.”

My eyes flick to Calvin and back to Dante. “Okay, shoot.”

“We need a day off.” He sits and leans back in the chair. “Not even a full day off. We can go on a fucking hike and collect pomelos. Or brainstorm on how to get the power grid strong enough to run more current. But we need to be together all in the same place. And that place needs to not fucking be here. Because here we’re all going to be thinking about how the hell to get the ship up and running.”

“Like spending the night in the treehouse?” I ask.

“Yes, we need bonding. We haven’t done anything but focus on getting the Rock Candy running since Haley’s birthday, and that was what? Like three weeks ago?”

“Twenty-seven days—almost a month,” Calvin says.

“I know you’re worrying about Penny on the tender. Or is it something else and you’re using your dog as an excuse?” Dante leans forward.

Penny, of course, picks that moment to stand up from where she was asleep next to me and walk over to Dante. She drops down on his feet.

My chest expands, and my vision focuses on the horizon off the back of the yacht to the ocean. It’s high tide, and waves crash against the alcove wall. I’m slow to respond. I want to get us all out of here. I want Haley safe. I’ve been pushing us all to get as much of the ship fixed as fast as we can. We have some things complete—not enough but some. The crash patch is perfect now. The engine room is dry. The wiring is pinging current traveling through it. When we get the engines up, we should have limited operations routing it to the port controls on deck.

But we’re not machines. It’s something my mom used to tell Charlie and me in school. We’d be signed up for every activity, sport, and club. Then we would fall asleep on our textbooks at night—she hated that we were both so driven. Now, I’ve been pushing too hard. “You’re right. We’re not machines. There’s a lot to do, but it will still be there tomorrow.”

“You’re going to skim right by my other question, aren’t you?” Dante raises his eyebrows at me. Damn the man. I might be older than him by a few years, but he’s wiser in a way and fucking cocky as hell.

“Are you sure you’re not a therapist?” I ask.

Dante smirks. “I was a bartender for a while.”

“That counts,” Calvin says. “We should go now.” He stands, and while he says his foot is good, you can see the effort he makes with each step to keep from limping. When Haley’s around, he tries a heck of a lot harder.

“Now?” I turn to Calvin, who’s already at the door to the main salon. “As in, to the beach, now?”

“Yeah, it’s high tide and not raining. You know Penny would like to have a good run. If we wait until tomorrow, it could be raining. And fuck me, I don’t want to have a repeat of the time I took her to land when we were anchored off St. Lucia.”

I shudder. That wasn’t a fun night. Logically, what Calvin’s saying makes sense, but I’m not being logical. My throat tightens. Penny does great on the yacht, but she hates water so much. And the tender gets bumpy. “Sure. Let me get things for her and stuff for tonight.” I haven’t been back to the beach. It just didn’t make sense for me to go. My stomach flips.

“It will be fine, Sam. The yacht will be here when we get back,” Dante says. “And better than that, we’ll all be with Sassy. That’s something we’ve been missing out on.”

I’m not a flincher. That’s the thing with being a captain or a leader of any type—you have to keep your opinion to yourself.

Dante huffs out a half-laugh-half-scoff. “You still don’t get it. But you will.”

He’s right. I don’t get it. If the lot of them bowed out, I’d be thrilled. Yes, that one night during her birthday and the next day, I liked watching her with them. I’m still processing it. But I’d much rather have her all to myself. And part of me has been wondering what the plans of the other guys will be when we get back to land. Because we are getting back to land. We’re going to make it happen. Sure, we can take a break tonight, and it won’t hurt us too much. But we can’t get lost in our lust. I’m not even sure if that’s what’s causing me... “Has she said something about it to you?”

Dante shakes his head. “This isn’t high school. I’m not inserting myself into your relationship with Haley. Plus, you’re not stupid. We’re all busy. Even Easton’s become a pro at splicing cable and grinding on that damn corroded wheel in the generator. But Haley...” He raises his eyebrows at me.

I’ve been trying to keep everyone safe, but mostly Haley. It’s not a feeling I’ve had before, but I’m not the only one. And keeping her safe means keeping her off the boat as much as possible. Sure, we haven’t heard anything on the radio for a long time, but her being on the island is a hell of a lot safer than her being on the ship. The Rock Candy is a beacon for anyone who knows how much she’s worth to salvage. Haley not being on the ship is the best thing.

But when she’s on the boat, she takes the lead on listening to the VHF, which has meant listening to nothing for a long time now. She helps Dante with food and has taken Penny to the strip of sand out front of the ship, when the tides line up right. But it’s not fulfilling, and I’ve been... I’ve been avoiding her without even realizing it. I’ve always thought I was great at the big picture, but lately I’ve been hyper-focusing for sure.

Calvin’s holding on to the door. “Sam, it’s one night. Pack your shit, get the stuff for Penny, and meet us on the swim platform in ten minutes.”

I don’t move.

“Fuck, Sam. The ship will be here when you get back tomorrow.” Calvin pivots and moves into the salon. “Of course it will. The motors aren’t going to start themselves.” Green shoots me the middle finger and disappears around the corner to the main stairs.

We’ve been using mainly the WaveRunner to get back and forth. We’ve got lots of fuel, but it uses less. And since we have no idea how long every?—

Those words echo through my head a thousand times a day. I’m fucking sick of them. When will we run out of water, food, fuel...? I nod at Dante, who’s still glaring at me. “I’ll pack some stuff. If we’re taking the tender half full, we should bring more canned goods too.”

“Yup, I’m on it,” Dante says.

I set my bag down and walk up to Penny like nothing’s amiss. But her ears dart back immediately. She knows. “It’s all right, girl.” I’ve got Penny’s life vest behind my back, but she already knows. She hates lots of things, but this vest is top of her list. “Sit down, Penny.”

Penny drops to her haunches and takes a few steps away.

“Do you want to go see Haley?”

Penny cocks her head to the side and then drops down on to all fours. She’s not making this easy for me, but I wrestle her into the vest the way I imagine a toddler has to be wrestled into a snowsuit. A sixty-pound toddler with an attitude and odd haircut. I’ve never been great at cutting her hair, but I’ve had to do it. Otherwise, she’d be looking like a sheep by now.

I pull up the zipper on the back and attach the leash. “Let’s go,” I say as I pick up my backpack. Calvin has the tender ready. It’s not that hard to drop into the water by yourself. Pulling it out, though? That’s a pain in the ass. Dante has two medium containers of canned goods and other things on the dock.

I hop into the tender, and Dante helps Penny. It’s more of a push as she whines. Her amber eyes glare at me. She’s not happy. Dante pulls the ropes and we’re off.

It’s the first time the Rock Candy’s been empty since we left port. Sure, I went to the beach once, but Penny stayed behind. Not that she would have protected the ship. She would most likely have licked the pirates into submission. The waves are rough, and Penny lies on my feet, her head tilting up at me with each wave. Like, why in the hell did I choose to be a captain, anyway? There are moments I wonder whether I should have left her with Jenifer. Then I remember what a horrible, selfish woman Jenifer is and push the thought out.

We pull up onto the beach. There’s no one waiting for us. But then, why would there be? They had no idea we were coming. The WaveRunner’s not in sight. Which is good. I have to scour the tree line to find it covered in palm fronds.

“We’ll come back down and move the tender later,” Calvin says.

“No, let’s move it now.” I lift Penny from the tender, and she freezes. She looks back at me like this must be a dream. Then she levitates, jumping straight up, barking over and over again. “Hold on. Let me get your vest off.” I set my backpack above the tide line in dry sand and wrestle the life vest off her. She glares at me and then shakes, sending the small amount of water on her fur all over me. I glare back and toss her vest in the tender. Calvin’s got the motor. “Let me help you.” It’s at least eighty pounds.

“I’ve got it,” he says.

“I’ll just run up ahead and let Haley?—”

“Fuck, here, take half.” He twists, letting me grab the housing. We walk it up to the WaveRunner. Penny zooms up and down the beach, away from us until I can barely see her behind the big rocks and back. She’s prancing. And damn if it doesn’t make my heart lighter. She needed this.

Calvin and I grab the tender and pull it next to the WaveRunner. Once the palm fronds are spread over it, I turn, but Penny’s not zooming back. “Fuck, where did she go?”

“She followed Dante.” Calvin grabs his bag from next to mine. “Up the path to the treehouse. This way. We’ve been working on camouflaging the path better.”

It hasn’t been that long since I’ve been here. At least, it doesn’t feel like it to me. But if I wasn’t following Dante’s tracks in the sand, it would take me a while to find it. The trail goes into the forest but cuts to the right and then zigs again, creating a blind. We head up the path, and that’s when we hear the commotion.