Uncharted (23 page)

“I’m not sure we should leave the beach.” Kevin looked at Mark. “What if a boat passes by? Someone needs to be a lookout. We should gather some dry things and build a signal fire. That’s our best hope.”

“We won’t live to be rescued if we don’t find water,” Mark insisted. “We have to look for bromeliads, bamboo—any plants that retain moisture.”

Kevin scratched his chin. “I don’t remember you being interested in plants.”

Mark tossed him a wicked grin. “I’ve expanded my interests beyond beer and babes, Kev. A few years ago I took up hunting, and now I’m downright deadly in the woods.” He pointed to the interior of the island, where several leafless trees raised bony arms toward the sky. Around them, dozens of slender green palms stood amid clumps of bamboo and palmettos. “See those plants? They wouldn’t be alive without fresh water. We need to find it.”

Lisa’s mouth twisted in bitter amusement. “Those skinny trees don’t look like they’re exactly
thriving
.”

Kevin nodded. “Where there’s life, there’s hope. Go on and see what you can find. I’ll try to start a signal fire while the ladies look for materials.”

Still holding the clump of seaweed to her cheek—what was she covering, a bruise?—Susan regarded the overcast sky with one blue eye. “Do you really think someone will notice the smoke?”

Kevin set his jaw. “Absolutely. We’ll be heading back to civilization in a day or two, tops.”

At the mention of civilization, Karyn thought of the restaurant in Majuro and felt her stomach clamp in the first honest hunger pang she’d felt in years. “We’re going to need food,” she called to Mark. “If you find anything edible, even berries—”

“I’ll keep my eyes open.” Mark grinned at her like a boy about to play Tarzan. “If there’s anything useful out there, I’ll find it.”

“Shoes!” Lisa called, wincing as she tiptoed over the rough sand. “Some of our stuff is washing up, so if you find shoes, clothes, anything, bring it back!”

Mark stepped carefully toward the jungle as Lisa moved out to search the shore. Susan mumbled something about going with Lisa, so Kevin helped her up, then sank to Karyn’s side as Susan minced her way along the beach on feet as scraped and raw as Karyn’s.

Karyn found herself watching Kevin as he slid his hands into his pockets and studied the rustling jungle as if it would teach him how to build a fire. Before today she hadn’t known he could be uncertain about anything. While they were married, she’d witnessed his eagerness to play dutiful dad, swaggering salesman, and corporate cutthroat, but the boardrooms and offices of Atlanta lay a world away from this forsaken place.

She smiled, realizing that here she might yet learn secrets about her ex-husband.

As a thin ribbon of sweat wandered down her backbone, Susan realized that the stationary cloud bank that had moved in to veil the sun acted more like a blanket than a shade. On a beach like this, they should have enjoyed a cool breeze, but the increasingly heavy cloud cover put her in mind of Texas thunderstorms.

The thought had no sooner formed when a breeze rose without warning, sliding off the sea and picking up bits of sand, flinging the grit at those walking on shore.

“Good heavens, what is this?” Susan turned, hoping the back of her skirt and blouse would bear the brunt of the assault, but the wind continued to scour her legs. Lisa, cowering beside her, was wearing jeans, but her forearms were bare under rolled-up sleeves.

Lisa pointed to a boulder farther up the beach. “Run!”

With her hands lifted to protect her eyes, Susan dropped everything and followed. A sudden slash of lightning stabbed at a pallid palm tree, blackening a streaming frond and lifting the hairs on her arms.

She was so grateful to reach the sheltered side of the rock that for a moment she forgot to cover her wounded face. Fortunately, she recovered before Lisa turned.

Lisa pressed her back flat against the boulder, then looked down. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Susan answered, though she felt a long way from
okay
. “We get sudden storms like this in Texas all the time.”

She peered at Lisa, who had crouched on the ground with her bent knees close to her chest. Her blond head was down; her forearms glistened with clumps of dark sand. Lisa had never been beautiful, but she’d recover from this trip without scars.

Susan rested the wounded side of her face against the huge rock and closed her eyes. Hot, moody winds continued to blow from the darkening sea, attempting to flay the skin off anyone stupid enough to venture out in them.

She cleared her throat as the gale howled behind the boulder. “Lisa, will you tell me the truth?”

Lisa turned, her eyes wide. “About what?”

“About this.” Slowly, Susan lifted her head, revealing her entire face.

A tremor passed over Lisa’s face, and a sudden spasm knit her brows. “Good grief! What happened?”

Susan closed her eyes and covered her cheek with her hand. “It’s that bad?”

“It’s not good.”

Susan let her head fall back to the rock. “You don’t have to spare my feelings. I haven’t seen it, but I know. It’s hideous, isn’t it?”

Lisa hesitated. “I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have blurted out my reaction. I wasn’t prepared.”

Susan’s mouth twisted with irritable humor. “Nobody will
ever
be prepared for this.”

Lisa tried to smile, but the corners of her mouth only wobbled uncertainly. “Does it hurt a lot?”

“Yes . . . and no. I feel it when the wind blows, when something touches it, and . . . when you look at me like that.”

Lisa looked away, pretending to find something fascinating in the surface of the boulder. “Aw, honey, don’t worry about it. As soon as we get home, a doctor will take good care of you. They’re doing incredible things with plastic surgery these days—in fact, you might as well get a face-lift while you’re under the knife. Not that you need one, but hey, we’re in our forties, right?”

Susan listened numbly, her ears ringing with truths she hadn’t wanted to hear: her face was wrecked,
and
she had begun to show her age.

She wrapped her arms around her head and tried to swallow the lump that had risen in her throat.

“Are you all right?” Lisa’s voice was solicitous, her eyes grave. “You don’t look—I mean, you look sick.”

“I’d rather be sick than maimed.”

“You want to lie down? When this wind stops, we can go back to the others; maybe the guys will have found a place where you can get some rest—”

“I can’t face them. Not like this.”

Lisa hesitated, then faced Susan head-on. “Listen, hon, in case you haven’t noticed, we are not a bunch of social snobs. We were once your closest friends, and we happen to be in a life-or-death situation. We’ve seen you at your best
and
your worst, so you can trust us not to care that you don’t look like a movie star anymore.”

Susan closed her eyes, amazed that a woman could be so bright and so dull at the same time. Did Lisa really think this was about
vanity
?

“I know you care,” she whispered, “but I’ve
never
looked like this. I’ve never been . . .” She wanted to say
ugly
, but how could Lisa, who at her best would be considered plain, comprehend what she had never known?

She picked up another clump of seaweed and pressed it to her cheek, wincing at the sting of salt and sand against her jagged skin. “I’ll be fine. But I don’t want the others to see me like this.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’ll find something—some material, maybe, and cover my face. I should probably protect the wound, anyway.”

They waited in silence until the wind began to calm.

When the palm branches drooped and again hung motionless, Susan followed Lisa out from behind the boulder and continued their exploration. Amazed, she stared at the next stretch of beach, which the storm had turned into a wind-whipped field of debris.

Lisa gasped. “Where in the world did all this junk come from?”

Susan shook her head. “Looks like somebody’s using this place as their private dump. That’s shameful.”

“Maybe”—Lisa moved forward—“but if someone’s dumping here, they’ll be back. Until they show up again, we might be able to use some of these things.”

Lisa attacked what looked like a jumble of old clothing while Susan investigated a mound that contained ruined books, an infant’s tennis shoe, an empty can of shaving cream, a wet clump of typed pages, and a roll of duct tape. She slid the duct tape over her hand like a bracelet while Lisa picked up a waterlogged book.

“Look at this!” A note of wonder filled her voice as she opened the cover. “It’s John’s book!”

“What?”

“
Happily Ever After
. Listen: ‘In a kingdom far away, a mighty king looked over his empty realm and invited his people to live among his lands and plant his fields . . .’”

Susan tilted her head as the words filled her with remembering. “That’s it, all right. I haven’t read it in years.”

“How strange.” Lisa closed the book and nudged a baby rattle with her toe. “Hard to believe one of John’s books could find its way to the Marshall Islands, but I guess anything’s possible.”

Susan pointed to the roll of tape around her wrist. “I’m wondering if some of this stuff didn’t come from our boat. One of the others might have had a copy of John’s book. For all we know, John had a box or two on board. And we know Mark had duct tape.”

Lisa nodded. “Maybe we hit a reef or something. Other ships could have wrecked off this coast.”

“If so, the captain should have known about it. He never should have ridden into a dangerous area with a storm on the horizon.”

Susan’s voice caught in her throat when she spied an iridescent shimmer in the wave wash. Curious, she crept forward and scooped up a garment rippling in the shallows. Water streamed from the hem as she held up a golden formal with a fabric bow below an empire waistline.

A shiver of disbelief rippled through her limbs. “It can’t be.”

Lisa pushed at her hair. “What? It’s a dress.”

“It looks just like my junior miss pageant gown.” Susan’s voice cracked as she met Lisa’s gaze. “I know it sounds crazy.”

Lisa’s smile became patronizing, a silent signal of skepticism. “How can you remember that far back? It’s probably the same color or—”

“The dress was an original, made especially for me.” Susan tugged at the neckline, then pointed to the tag at the back zipper. “See that? Handmade by Sal Vittidore.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“I don’t care.” Susan held the dress at arm’s length and studied it again. “Wow. I never thought I’d ever see anything like this again.”

Lisa pressed her lips together, then sighed. “Fine, whatever. We can put that fabric to good use. We can rip the lining up for bandages and use the sheer material for straining water—”

“I don’t think so.” Susan clutched the gown to her breast. “You find your own dress.”

“Susan.” Lisa’s voice hardened to the stern tone she probably used with unruly children. “Be reasonable. Your dress is thirty years old and half a world away. That dress belonged to some island woman, and its fabric may save our lives. So we’re going to take it back to Kevin and see how he wants to use it—”