Escape (19 page)

He wasn’t apologizing on Rudy’s behalf. He’d just been told off for abandoning her at the port. Finding her bag and apologizing was his punishment.

Lucy shrugged, “Don’t worry about it.” She reached out and took her bag. The case was about twice as heavy as before, and water-logged. “I think I’ll leave it out here for the moment,” she said. “The sunshine might help my stuff dry.”

Yang gave her an awkward smile and turned and headed back down the steps, probably happy to be let off the hook so easily.

Lucy turned her attention to her sodden suitcase. Though the two sides of the suitcase were a hard resin, the zip was only material so water had gotten in. One side of the suitcase was cracked, but it hadn’t split right through.

With a heavy heart, Lucy cautiously undid the zip, spilling her wet things out onto the small balcony.  Her clothes were damp, but otherwise unharmed, and Lucy set about hanging them out on her balcony chair and table to dry. Her few books were sodden and swollen to twice their normal size, and totally unreadable.

Lucy sighed and dropped them to the ground. They were good for nothing but the bin, or possibly a couple of doorstops.

She came across her mobile phone. It didn’t look damaged. Lucy pressed the button to switch the phone on. The screen lit up and it beeped at her twice before dying again.

“Great,” she said out loud. Despite not wanting to switch the phone on earlier that week, the last thing she wanted was for it to not work altogether. She hoped she would be able to get all her phone numbers off the SIM card.

Hoping it might have a new lease on life once it had dried
out,
she placed the phone on the wall of the balcony.

Luckily, all her travel documents were tucked safely in a plastic Ziploc bag in the inside pocket of her case. At least her passport had gone undamaged. She couldn’t imagine the nightmare sh
e would have trying to get a new passport
sorted out.

The thought of her passport reminded her that she was due to leave in less than a week. Despite Rudy’s irritating behavior, she wanted to spend more time with him. Even though the storm had effectively brought them together, it was now tearing them apart. Rudy was clearly preoccupied and would be swamped with the workload he now had to shoulder. There would be little chance for romantic rendezvous and long, sexy nights.

Suddenly sad and exhausted, Lucy went and lay down on the narrow bed. After all the excitement of the past few nights, she needed rest more than ever. So, with thoughts of Rudy still at the foref
ront of her mind, she drifted
to sleep.

Chapter Twelve

Rudy could barely even
bring
himself to think about where to start. There was simply too much to do and the sheer enormity of the situation overwhelmed him. Overnight, he had seen everything he’d worked for over the past six years destroyed. The amount of time, work and money needed to bring the resort up to scratch again would be immense, and
,
in the meantime, the resort wouldn’t be bringing in much money because they wouldn’t be able to take in the tourists.

On top of everything, he had to think about Lucy. He desperately wanted to spend time with her but that was going to be impossible for the next couple of days. At least he knew she would understand. She was an intelligent woman who had a career and she’d be fine entertaining herself for a couple of days.

He would have to figure out some time to go and see her though. He didn’t want her to think he didn’t care.

Later
, he promised himself,
I’ll go later
.

But the day flew past, and as they headed toward the late afternoon, he received a call from the port. Boats were going to start bringing people over from the mainland first thing in the morning. Rudy had no idea what he was going to do with more tou
rists. Though the rooms were inhabitable
, he still had a back log of people staying because no one had been able to leave the island for the past few days. Although they would get rid of one boat load of people first thing, there were still more who should have left by now.

The kitchen was being cleaned up and they should have it working by that evening, so at least he was able to feed people, but the bar ar
ea still looked a mess, and most
of the furniture had been smashed up and dragged out to sea by the power of the waves.

There was no point in even trying to dive for the next few days, at least. The bottom of the ocean would be so churned up; visibility would be down to nothing.

Rudy started to make calls around the neighboring resorts, trying to persuade some of them to take a few of the tourists. However, Rachel’s idea of asking other resorts to take some of their guests wasn’t going to work. Most of the other resorts had also suffered damage of some degree (though none as bad as Turtle View) and couldn’t take any extra guests who might refuse to stay at the resort.

Caught up in the drama of the resort, he barely had time to think about Lucy. When he eventually got off the phone and finished trying to organize things, he looked up to find it was almost eleven o’clock at night. The quietness of the resort had caught him off guard. He was so used to every evening being filled with the sounds of parties and people having a good time. This evening, however, people were too shell-shocked by the storm to think about partying, and even if they had wanted to, the bar wasn’t even open.

Rudy considered going up to Lucy’s room, but then decided against it. As much as he wanted to be with her, he needed to have a good night
’s
sleep so he could cope with the drama that would hit when the new tourists saw the state of the place. If he went up to Lucy’s room, he doubted he would get much sleep.

He smiled to himself at the memory. She would probably be asleep herself by now anyway, and he didn’t want to disturb her. No doubt he would be able to catch up with her in the morning.

Lucy woke up with
a
horrible feeling of dread sitting on her shoulders. Rudy still hadn’t been to see her, despite all his promises.

Hunger gnawed at her stomach. She had to go down to the bar and see if they had started serving food yet. Yesterday’s meals had been something tinned from their supplies, and hadn’t been good.

But Lucy didn’t want to go down to the resort. Though she desperately wanted to see Rudy, part of her was terrified of seeing him. She worried he would be awkward around her, that he would tell her he wasn’t interested.

The night at his house seemed like just a wonderful dream. She was certain he’d changed his mind about her and seeing him again was going to be a heart-breaking experience.

Despite her fears, Lucy needed to eat. Her stomach clenched with nerves as she headed down to the bar area, but Rudy was nowhere to be seen. A few people sat around eating and chatting among themselves. The atmosphere was subdued as people tried to figure out what they were going to do with themselves for the following few days, trying to change their travel plans.

Serving behind the counter, stood Yang. He looked up as she approached and offered her a smile.

“The kitchen is open again, then?” she asked.

“Yes.
But no fresh bread or fruit.”

Lucy forced a smile back, “I’ll have whatever you’ve got.”

“Pancake and bacon?” he offered.

Her stomach growled in appreciation
.“Sounds great.”

She took a seat at one of the tables and Yang brought her over a bottle of water and a coffee. Though she hadn’t ordered the drinks, she appreciated his kindness. He clearly still felt bad about dumping her at the port, particularly since the storm ended up being so bad.

Part of her wanted to ask him if he’d seen Rudy, but she kept her mouth shut. She hadn’t seen Rudy since the previous morning, and she refused to ask after him again. He knew where to find her if he wanted to.

Time ticked by. She only had a few days left on the island and every hour not spent with Rudy felt like a waste.

But she couldn’t shake the horrible, sick dismay that her fears may have come true. However busy, she didn’t understand why he didn’t take five minutes to come by and say hello. His boss at the resort couldn’t possibly make him work that hard. Lucy had seen Rachel flitting about, yet Rudy had all but vanished. She only had one explanation; he didn’t
want
to come and find her. He had slept with her and now he couldn’t even be bothered to speak to her.

Rudy had just used her.

At least the staff at the resort had managed to set up the restaurant again—though the roof was missing—and the kitchen was functioning at a basic level. Lucy hung out, drinking coffee and flicking through some magazines one of the other guests had left. She found herself constantly glancing around, keeping an eye out for Rudy. She was pathetic; he obviously wasn’t interested in her any more, but she couldn’t help herself.

As she sighed and flicked to another page of the mind numbing magazine, one of the resort’s SUVs pulled into the car park. Lucy glanced up, interested. Maybe Rudy would be driving?

A young couple climbed out first, excited and wary about what they were getting themselves into, followed by the long legs of a tall man. He reached up and used the roof of the vehicle to pull himself out.

Lucy’s heart stopped; her eyes wide.

The man straightened and brushed himself off in the dusty heat. He walked around the back of the taxi and hauled a suitcase out of the trunk. Wearing smart, cream slacks and a collared shirt, he looked as if he had been transported from a posh London hotel to this Mecca for backpackers.

He looks like I did when I first arrived,
she thought.

He pushed his glasses further up on his nose and peered around, squinting against the bright sunlight. He was exactly as Lucy remembered him.

With a pounding heart, Lucy stood up and walked over to Max.

His face lit up when he saw her and she smiled back. But beneath her smile, her heart was black and heavy with guilt.

What was he doing here?

“Lucy!” Max exclaimed, holding out his arms to her.

Still stunned, she obligingly walked into them. He pulled her close in a hug and kissed her on the mouth.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” she managed, breaking away from the kiss. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to surprise you, of course,” he said, his eyes wide in surprise. “I tried to call you on your mobile, but it was always switched off and I sent you numerous emails. After your mother called and said she’d emailed you and hadn’t heard back, I started to get worried.”

“But how did you know where I was?”

“You’d Googled the place on your laptop. It was easy enough to track you down.”

“Great,” she said, her voice sounding forced, even to her own ears.

She suddenly realized they were standing here together in the middle of the resort—anyone might see them together.

Guilt worked in both directions. She couldn’t have Max meeting Rudy, or Rudy meeting Max, but part of her almost wanted Rudy to see them toget
her. At least then
he might realize he couldn’t just pick her up and drop her again whenever it suited him.

“You must be exhausted,” she said, her brain whirring, only wanting to get him out of view. “Come up to my room. You’ll feel better after a shower and some sleep.”

He pulled off his glasses and ran a hand across his face. “I am kind of beat. It’s a long, old journey.” For the first time, he properly looked around. “Wow, this place is a wreck. You could have chosen somewhere with at least a few stars, Lucy.”

She felt herself bristle, feeling strangely protective of the resort. “It didn’t look like this a few days ago. You must have heard about the storm?”

“Of course I did. Damn boat wouldn’t leave the mainland.”