Taken by Storm

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Authors: Angela Morrison

Tags: #Social Issues, #Dating & Sex, #Christian, #Friendship, #Juvenile Fiction, #Sports & Recreation, #General, #Religious, #Water Sports, #Death & Dying

BOOK: Taken by Storm
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Table of Contents
 
Taken by Storm
RAZORBILL
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Young Readers Group
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,
Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre,
Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India
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(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,
Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offfices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2009 Angela Morrison
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Morrison, Angela.
Taken by storm / by Angela Morrison.
p. cm.
Summary: When Michael, a deep sea diver whose parents have just died in a hurricane,
arrives in town, Leesie, a devout Mormon, falls in love with him as she tries to help him
overcome his grief, and then they must see if they can reconcile their very different beliefs.
eISBN : 978-1-101-02847-6
[1. Grief--Fiction. 2. Deep diving--Fiction. 3. Mormons--Fiction. 4. Dating
(Social customs)--Fiction. 5. Conduct of life--Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M82924Tak 2009
[Fic]--dc22
2008029000
. Please
purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage
electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for
author or third-party websites or their content.

http://us.penguingroup.com

To Allen,
my storm forever
 
prologue
 
LEESIE’S MOST PRIVATE CHAPBOOK
 
POEM #24, WHAT DOES It MATTER?
 
What does it matter if
another jock pinches me
as I walk down the hall to physics
and high-fives troy, celebrating
like he just scored
the season’s first touchdown?
 
 
as I stalk past
the architect of my torture,
I’m frozen, a block of ice—
not a single drop melts.
 
 
All hail the Mormon Ice Queen.
 
 
What does it matter?
 
 
I know the commandment,
 
but I don’t even consider
turning the other cheek.
 
 
and yes, it hurts, but
life without pain
isn’t much of a test.
 
 
this feeling can’t be lonely—
I’m not alone.
 
 
I walk with His hand on my shoulder,
His voice whispering in my soul,
His love soaring in my heart,
His suffering
my
salvation.
 
 
What else could possibly matter?
 
chapter 1
 
BEFORE
 
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8
 
The dive starts perfect. Perfect water. Perfect sky. Perfect wall. The ocean, warm, flat, perfect. I leave my wet suit drying on the
Festiva
’s dive deck. Salt water slips silky over my skin like Carolina’s caress.
 
Jeez, I miss her.
Caroleena.
She insisted on Spanish pronunciation. I thought this trip would help, but I can’t forget lying in the sun, curled together, my face lost in her thick black hair, holding on. Three months. Every day. More when she felt like it. I always felt like it, but I didn’t want to use her.
 
She dumped me on my butt when I took off to dive all summer at the condo. I wanted to bring her to Florida. Keep her close. Keep her safe. But she had to stay in Phoenix and work. Her family’s got nothing. And Mom flipped when I mentioned it was a shame the sofa bed in the living room would be empty. Dad was cool with it. He’s cool with everything. It should have been Carolina and me all summer, diving.
 
The creep b-ball jock she’s with now is after one thing, as much as he can get. Possessive, too. Freaked when I called her from the Keys. And when we were all back at school, she wouldn’t even look at me. Dad knew something was up, let me cut a week for the club’s annual “hot deal” hurricane season trip. So, I’m scuba diving my brains out, free diving whenever I can get a spotter, trying not to think about that jock pawing my Carolina.
 
Love. Makes me crazy. All of it. You get so close, like she’s part of you. And then she’s gone. You ogle the smiling waitress on the boat, who has your girl’s hair and wears a loaded bikini top and a sarong slung dangerously low. You appreciate the view while she serves you a virgin piña colada, but you still ache inside because now you’ve got a hole in your rib cage that won’t fill, a gash that heals way too slow.
 
Salt water’s my therapy of choice.
 
I swim my makeshift free-dive raft, Dad’s old scuba vest packed with everything we’ll need, out to the wall. Mom’s late.
 
Lame. I know. Diving with Mommy. But she’s missing her scuba dive with Dad this a.m. to lie facedown on the water all morning watching a breath-holding fanatic sink headfirst into the ocean. I got to give her props for that.
 
Spread out, Dad’s BC, the scuba vest, makes a decent place to hang between dives. I blow air into it until it bounces on top of the water and wonder if I’ll get that dive kayak I want for Christmas. I tie my diver-down flag to the BC raft and hook it all up to the buoy marking the edge of the reef. The ocean floor drops off hundreds of feet here, forming a sheer coral wall. Still no scary pink slashed shark bait wet suit jumping off the
Festiva
and finning toward me. It’s okay. We’ve got all morning.
 
Good old Mandy in Florida used to spot me. That was in no way lame. I faked shallow-water blackout all the time so she’d have to swim down, wrap her sexy body behind mine, pull me to the surface, and resuscitate me. Mandy. Another hole in my guts.
 
Suddenly, I’m tired of waiting. I sling my weight belt around my hips and cinch it tight. A few more pounds of muscle mass to my core and I won’t need the weights. I’ve got my body taut and toned. I can hold my breath forever. My heartbeat even goes slow-mo when I free dive. Total control.
 
I pop a quick sixty-footer down to the reef, bop with the juvie fish—yellow and black, blue, purple. Wish I could shrink down to their size and dart in and out of a coral mound happy, careless, flitting, free. Easy to be a fish. I wouldn’t make a freak of myself like yesterday when I finally talked to that waitress. She looks eighteen, twenty tops.
 
I took my drink to the bar for a refill. “You want to hang out with me on your break?”
 
Chicks usually say, “Yes.” Babes hit on me way more than I hit on them. Even the older ones. I think it’s the hair. Boring brown, but it went wavy post-manhood. I keep it long. Girls can’t resist. I don’t take up their offers as much as I could. Mom’s got this thing about respect.
 
But my waitress didn’t say, “Yes.” She pushed her own thick, black, sexy hair that whispered, “Carolina,” out of her eyes and smiled to let me down easy. “I don’t think so.”
 
“Come on. There’s nobody up on the bow. You could work on your tan.”
 
“Tan?” She’s Hispanic, gorgeous golden all over.
 
“Pretend.” I ran my finger down her arm. We both felt it. That charge when it’s right.
 
She didn’t get uptight and jerk away from me. I was getting to her. “And what will you do?” She blinked slow. Her mouth opened slightly as she exhaled.
 
I traced her fingers. “I’m pretty good with lotion.”
 
She laughed again, throaty, teasing. “Sorry.” She pulled away then. “Next break the captain lets me call my kids.”
 
No lie. She handed me a picture. Three brown faces tumbling over each other. They stay with her mom up in Belize City. She misses them pretty bad. I felt sorry for her. Wanted to do something. I mean here’s this young, beautiful girl stuck serving drinks to creeps like me until her looks go. I wish I could get Dad to hire her, but I don’t think she types. I laughed it off, hung out with her while my drink melted. The whole thing made me feel useless.

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