Unbound (15 page)

“
Now,” I said, “we wait for help.”

15—Mac

Women have been lied to. We have been told that the key to romance is spontaneity and adventure. Stupid movies and poorly conceived novels have indicated these things. If women were to believe everything they see in movies or read on printed (or digital) pages, then surely I should have been excited about crashing on what appeared to be a deserted island with a hot, mysterious man.

But that’s all bullshit. Instead, I’m furious and, if I’m being honest, pretty damn scared.

I’d been sitting on a piece of driftwood for the last fifteen minutes, watching Jack as he tries to figure out what’s wrong with the plane. I stared at him with a certain sort of detachment. It’s the sort of situation where you almost want to laugh just to keep from screaming in frustration.

After getting out of the plane, I came directly to this piece of wood. It was sitting about three feet away from where the ocean lazily slapped at the shore. Even without getting up to venture around the place, I had a pretty good idea of what our situation was.

The island might be one hundred yards across. There was thin crop of trees behind me, Douglas fir, I was pretty sure. To my right, about fifty feet away, a rocky cove looped around before it headed back out to the ocean. On my left, a thing strip of beach stretched out pretty far, reaching out into the cold Pacific. I could just barely make out the place where it stopped and the ocean took over. Maybe in the daylight, it would be pretty. But for right now, in the miserable dark with angry feelings bubbling up in my guts, it’s Hell. We could have crashed on that island from
Lost
and been better off as far as I was concerned.

Of course this was happening to me. Why not?

Enjoying your pity party?

It was my dad’s voice, echoing something she had once said to me as a teen, over and over. H had been dead for nearly ten years now but I got this little question in my head from time to time. It had remained there, nailed to my brain, in the months following the divorce. And here it was again.

I sighed and got up from my little driftwood bench. I walked down to the edge of the water. When it lapped at my shoes, I was reminded of how cold it had been when I had been placed knee-deep into it after Jack had helped me off and tied the plane down to a tree on the beach.

“
Is there anything I can do?” I asked, hoping he’d say no.

“
No.”

I nodded. “Are we stuck?”

“
For now,” he said. He was looking at something on the underside of the plane’s left wing. He had a hatch popped out and I did not like the fact that he looked as if he had no idea what he was doing.

“
Don’t most planes have little beacons or something? I mean, can’t we radio for help?”

“
We
could,
”
he said. “If the radio worked.”

“
It
doesn’t
?”

“
It did when we left your grandpa’s place. I think something came dislodged during the crash. I’m not sure.”

“
Didn’t you have it checked before you went flying?”

“
Yes,” he said, clearly getting pissed-off. “I did. I had everything checked, right down to making sure the seats had plenty of cushion.
Everything.
And it all passed with flying colors.”

“
Then your mechanic sucks.”

“
Well, it was the only mechanic in Sitka that works on planes. So I had no choice, now did I?”

I took a step back to my driftwood seat. He had started to raise his voice and I had never heard him like that. So I resumed my place along the natural bench, hoping that the fact that he wasn’t freaking out yet was a good sign.

I couldn’t help the next question that came out of my mouth. I needed to know the answer so I could know whether or not I should start being scared. I didn’t think there would be any creatures on this tiny little island that would eat or otherwise kill me, but the idea of starving to death in the middle of the ocean wasn’t exactly appealing.

“
Can you fix it?”

He stopped what he was doing and looked out to me. He had a toolbox sitting on the float closest to him, and he held a wrench in his hand. He was slightly greasy from whatever he was doing under the wing. He looked at me like he might rush to the beach and brain me with the wrench.

Still…

Crap,
I thought.
He looks hot when he’s mad.

“
I think so. But it will take time. And I can’t see a damned thing.”

“
Ok.”

I wanted to apologize for repeatedly bothering him, but also didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. I picked up a small stick from the ground and etched out a tiny SOS. I rolled my eyes at it and then rubbed it out with my foot.

I sat there for another ten minutes before I heard Jack curse loudly. This was followed by a thudding sound ten feet away from me as he threw the wrench onto the rocky beach. I looked over to him and saw that he was even madder now. More than that, I saw that his shirt was soaked. It was a light colored shirt and even in the dim moonlight, I could see the definition of his body beneath it. He was even more well-cut under that shirt than I had imaged.

No…

I shut the thought out as quickly as I could.
Stupid romantic movies…
I thought.

“
No luck?” I asked, making sure I pushed my anger ahead of the parading dirty thoughts in my head.

“
No,” he said. “It’s fixable, but I can’t see anything.”

“
What do we do now, then?”

He shrugged. “We’re stuck until the sun comes up. There’s a flashlight in the cabin, but it’s useless.”

“
Let me guess. No batteries.”

“
Oh, there are batteries…but my guess is that they stopped working sometime shortly after Mr. Tanner first brought this plane.”

“
Did you check
anything
on the plane?” I asked.

He was stomping through the water now. His hair was slicked back with sweat and ocean water. His shirt was clinging to him. And for a moment, he reminded me of someone. I could have
sworn
that I had seen him somewhere before.

“Jesus,” he hissed.  “Yes, e
verything on the damn plane was checked. I kept the invoice and checklist the mechanic gave me. I can show it to you when we get back.”

“
When
being the key word here,” I said.

He came up on the beach and stood directly in front of me. I saw that he was shivering, his arms broken out in goose bumps. The night had a bit of a nip to it and the water was cold. I’m sure he was positively freezing.

“You know,
I can’t help but notice,” he said through clenched chattering teeth, “that you appear to be mad at me.”

“
Well...”

“
My only question is if it’s because of something new or if it’s just a part of the spoiled little brat that is still pissed about not being able to get the new toy she wanted.”

“
That’s not fair,” I said, standing up meet him face to face.

“
Really? What’s not fair about it? That I paid for it before you did? That’s pretty fair to me. That’s how commerce works, you know?”

He was good with words. I had to give him that. Me… not so much.

“
God, you’re an asshole,” I said simply, and turned away, headed towards the scraggly trees behind me.

“
I’m an asshole with a pilot’s license. Which is more than you can say.”

I had a sigh of frustration, wanting to scream. I got up and turned my back on him, walking away.

“That's right, Mac.  Go pout
,” he said behind me.

I walked into the trees, not daring to look behind me. I walked aimlessly among the scrub spruce for a while, kicking up sand and debris. I heard him splashing back out into the plane, rummaging around inside of it. I so badly wanted to get back out there and yell at him. But I wasn’t sure what I could yell at him about.

I knew that even if I had have gotten the plane first, I would have done the same thing as he had. I would have taken it to a mechanic and had it serviced before flying out. But he had been right. Then what? It’s not like I could have flown the thing.

I really
am
being a bitch.

The thought hurt, but there it was plain and simple. I looked up to the sky, hoping to calm myself, but it did no good. The night was cloudy and only a few stars shined through. As I tried to gather myself, I heard the door to the plane slam shut. This was followed by more small splashes. I looked back towards the plane and saw Jack walking up to the beach with a duffel bag in his hand.

He had taken his shirt off and had it flung over his shoulder.
God, why couldn't it be a dark, moonless night?
  I watched him from the trees as he opened the duffel bag. He took out a small hand towel stained with grease and oil, using it to wipe himself down. He then pulled a dingy tee shirt out of the bag and slid it on. I watched closely, feeling slight depressed when his chest and abs were covered by the shirt.

It didn’t matter how much I hated him. The man looked good with his shirt off. He looked like a fitness model, almost. Watching him, I was again struck by the sensation that I had seen him somewhere before.

He continued to dig through the duffel bag and as he did, my curiosity (and, I like to think, my common decency) drive me out of the cover of the trees. I walked slowly to the area where he was going through the bag.

“
Can I do any—,”

“
No,” he snapped. “You keep pouting. I’ll make sure we stay warm.”  Jack motioned to the woods, not looking at me.

I bit my tongue at the remark I found wanting to creep out of my mouth. I watched as he took out a small kit with a lighter, bandages, and bottles of water. It looked like some crude little survival kit.

“
Did you pack all of that?” I asked.

“
No. Mr. Tanner did, a long time ago. He said he always kept it on board in the event of a crash.”

“
Smart.”

Jack said nothing. He was still shivering. Although he had swapped shirts, his pants were still soaked. The thought was in my head before I could stop it…wondering what he might look like if he decided to take t
hose
off to dry.

A spike of heat ran through my body at that. It was particularly prominent within an area of my body that had seen very little action in the last two years or so.  I shivered.  I wanted Jack.

“
You really want to help?” he said, pulling me from my erotic thoughts of us together.

“
Yes.”

“
Go back into the trees. Find some wood. Nothing big… just broken branches. Something to start a fire.”

I gritted my teeth.  “I know what sort of tender we need for a fire
,” I said flatly. “I own a sporting goods store.”

He shrugged and I thought I heard a mumbled
“
whatever,”
as I turned and headed back for the woods.