Desire in the Sun (15 page)

I
t could have been hours or days that they huddled in that lifeboat. Lilah didn’t know. She knew only that the fury of the storm seemed to increase with every minute that passed, and that she had never been more sure of anything in her life than she was that death would soon claim them. The men, except for Kevin, who was still too weak from the cholera, took turns manning the oars, though it did little good against the raging sea. The boat went where the wind and waves took it, climbing crests as high as mountains before plunging down into deep troughs. Lilah’s teeth chattered with the cold. Her clothes clung to her like an icy shroud. Her knees shook with fear. She muttered the prayers of her childhood over and over. Around her she could see the others’ lips moving, and guessed that they were doing the same.

There was no measure of time. The tiny lifeboat was jerked about at the whim of the sea. Lilah resigned herself to drowning. The question was not if, but when. They were all alone in the terrible black vastness of the storm. She had caught not a glimpse of the other lifeboats since each had been dropped into the sea. They had been borne away like corks in a whirlpool. She doubted that any of them would see land again.

It must have been morning at last, because the blackness that surrounded them lightened just a bit to a fearsome
charcoal gray. Lilah lifted her head from where it had been resting wearily on her lap, frowning at a sound that did not seem quite part of the roaring wind and waves. A more rhythmic kind of pounding. …

“God’s bones!” The expletive came from Joss, and brought Lilah bolt upright with terror. “Breakers! We’ve got breakers ahead!”

The exact meaning of the warning was lost on Lilah until she saw the white froth of breaking surf through the blackness of sky and sea. At first she was glad to find land so near … but then she saw the rocks. Huge gray rocks that rose from the sea like teeth.

It was too late to turn back. The telltale line of surf was just ahead; they had been almost on the breakers when Joss saw them. With the wind blowing them before it like a child would a paper boat, there was no power short of heaven that could have kept them off those rocks.

“Pull! Pull, damn your eyes!” Joss shouted.

They tried. They pulled at the oars like men possessed, muscles bulging against soaked shirts and breeches, oaths and prayers falling from their mouths interchangeably. But the sea came along with a mighty curling hand to scoop the lifeboat up and throw it at the jagged line of rocks with a spear thrower’s deadly accuracy. Lilah watched with horror as they hurtled straight toward a huge dark shape towering out of the sea.

“Hang on!” Joss screamed.

Lilah ducked, grasping the edge of the seat so hard that her hands hurt. She closed her eyes—and at that moment they hit.

The lifeboat struck the rocks with a scream like a dying horse, her belly ripping away at first impact. The sea picked the boat up again and hurled her back down against the rock with another shuddering crash. A vast wave of surf poured over them.

Lilah saw the huge wave towering above them and
threw her arms up over her face. The wave crashed down into the boat and caught her up with it, carrying her over the side. She had no time, or breath, to scream.

Down into the icy black depths of the ocean she went, fighting and kicking as she tumbled through the churning cold. She had never been a strong swimmer, and she was hampered by her sodden skirt, but she kicked and clawed for the surface, fighting for life-giving air. That she succeeded was no credit to her. The sea, having dragged her down, simply spewed her out again. She popped up on the surface like a bottle.

Waves crashed over her, nearly sinking her. She choked, her head going beneath the surface of the water. At last she managed to gulp a breath of air, and then cried out. The others must be nearby, floundering in the sea just as she was. She thought she heard a faint voice answer, but she couldn’t be sure. Then she was caught by another wave and carried under and away.

When she surfaced again she was gasping. Her shoes had come off, and this small loss gave her a slight added buoyancy. An undertow dragged at her, pulling her out to sea. She fought it with all her strength, struggling toward the shore that could not be too far away.

She must have cried out again, because a voice answered. She was sure of it this time, though the sea was crashing all around her and its tremendous roar filled her ears.

“Lilah!”

Gasping, she turned in the water to see a seal-black head swimming up strongly behind her—and a huge dark mountain of a wave towering behind the swimmer. Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to cry a warning. The wave broke before she could make a sound. The torrent of water slammed down on her with the force of a collapsing brick building. She was hurtled again into the depths.

She kicked and clawed and fought, but this time the
sea seemed inclined to keep her. Just as she thought her lungs would burst from lack of air, the sea spit her out again. She choked as she reached the surface, knowing that she could not hold out much longer. She had reached the end of her strength. It was easier not to fight it, just to sink down beneath the surface of the sea. …

Then, out of nowhere, a strong arm hooked itself around her neck, towing her out of the deadly grip of the undertow.

XV

“I
t’s all right, you’re safe now,” Joss yelled in her ear. Lilah wanted to laugh, wanted to cry, wanted to scream and rage at the fates that had brought them to this, but could do none of those things because another wave broke over them just at that moment, plunging them both under water. For a moment she feared that she would be pulled away from Joss, but he would not let her go, swimming strongly for the surface with her in tow, her feeble paddling little help.

For what could have been hours or days they battled the sea together, Lilah ready to give up more than once but Joss never faltering. If it had not been for his tireless strength she would have drowned countless times. Once the black depths almost claimed her, wrenching her away as she rested tiredly back against his hard body. She was tumbling in the dark quiet world beneath the waves when he found her again, snatching her back up into the horrible reality of the storm with his hand in her hair. After that he stripped off his shirt and tied one sleeve around her wrist and the other around his.

Somewhere during those hours he found a plank, and hoisted her up so that she could cling to it with both arms. He held on to it with one hand, and supported her with the other. They were taken far out and back at the whim of the waves, whirled around and up and down
until Lilah lost all track of time or place or even circumstance. The only reality was the brutal fury of the storm.

Then she heard the pounding of the surf again.

“Kick! Damn it to hell, kick!”

She had no idea how long he’d been yelling the order in her ear, but at last the words penetrated. She kicked, and he was kicking beside her, until at last they saw the foaming white spume of waves breaking over a shore. A different shore this time, without the deadly rocks to guard it from all comers. Lilah could make out nothing but a dark mass beyond the breaking waves, but she knew land was there. Land! The knowledge infused her with a last bit of strength, and she kicked frantically as did Joss, but in the end it was no effort of theirs that saved them. A giant wave caught their plank and hurled them toward the shore. Lilah lost her grip on the plank. More waves broke over her, tried to drag her back into the maelstrom again, but the water was shallow here and she was able to wriggle forward on her belly on the sandy bottom until at last she was totally out of the water, free of the deadly pull of the breaking waves. Then she collapsed and lay unmoving. More water washed over her, but it was rain. She barely had time to register the fact that she had not drowned after all before utter exhaustion claimed her.

XVI

T
he heat of the sun on her face woke her. For a long moment Lilah lay still, basking in the blessed warmth, not remembering where she was; not aware of anything other than how very good it felt to lay there soaking up the sun’s healing rays. Gradually she sensed the gritty nature of the surface beneath her cheek, and the fact that despite the warmth above and below her she was decidedly damp. Frowning, she opened her eyes.

A long, sparkling expanse of white beach greeted her. Lilah blinked at it, lifted her head to look around. The beach seemed to stretch on for miles, until it curved out of sight as the land did. In front of her, some dozen yards away, palm trees and undergrowth marked the end of the beach. Behind her, less than two feet from her bare toes, lapped the gentle blue waters of a bay. Beyond that lay the sea, as serene as if the recent nightmare had never occurred.

Joss! What had happened to him?

Lilah sat up, her body protesting every movement, and looked around her. In either direction, as far as she could see, stretched nothing but white sand, pristine, undisturbed. There was no sign of Joss, no sign of life save for a pair of crabs who scuttled toward and then back from the sea, and a single wheeling tern overhead.

Her heart contracted. Had he saved her only to drown himself?

The thought brought her to her feet to find that her legs were unsteady beneath her. She stood still for a moment, unexpectedly chilled despite the beaming sun. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself and looked down. The front of her once sky-blue dress was covered with sand, and her skirt and petticoat clung clammily to her legs. Her stockings had apparently come off sometime during her battle with the sea. First she brushed off the sand, then she shook out her skirt and petticoat as best she could. The thin muslin of her dress would soon dry on its own, but she knew that if she wanted to get dry she should remove her underclothes. She could not possibly disrobe on a public beach, or walk around in only her dress without the modesty-protecting undergarments beneath. So she would have to stay damp and musty smelling until the sun dried her garments from the outside in, or until she found a safe haven that offered privacy.

Taking stock, Lilah lifted her hands to her hair to find that the silken mass hung in a huge damp tangle down her back. Twisting the thick mass into a knot would be impossible even if she had not lost her hairpins. She could do nothing but leave it hanging untidily. Brushing stray grains of sand from her cheek, pushing back the wayward strands of hair that straggled in front of her eyes, limping, wet, and bedraggled, she started off down the beach.

She could not be the only survivor. The notion horrified her. She had to find Joss; it was impossible to imagine that he might be dead. And what of the others in the lifeboat? What of Kevin? If she had survived, he might have too. Or Captain Boone or Mr. Downey or … But she had the feeling that the rocks that had doomed the lifeboat were a long way from where she had washed up. There was little chance that the others
had made it to this deserted expanse of beach. Joss had been the only one with her at the end. Joss had saved her life.

Stumbling occasionally as her tender feet made the acquaintance of sharp shells half buried in the sand, Lilah headed in the direction of a small promontory at the far end of the beach where the land turned in on itself again. This outcropping was nothing more than a sand dune covered with scrub grass, she discovered as she climbed it to stand at the top looking around. It afforded an excellent view of the beach in both directions, and a sea so calm in the aftermath of the storm that it seemed to be made of azure glass. A tremor of anger shook her as she stared at that treacherous expanse of blue. How many lives had been lost in those somnolent depths just the night before, to be swallowed up and gone forever? Gritting her teeth, shaken by a terrible surge of anger, Lilah shook her fist at the sea.

The gesture appalled her. By nature she was calm, serene. She should rather be giving thanks for her own survival than cursing the fates for the loss of the
Swift Wind,
But gratitude seemed a little much to ask of herself on this falsely shining morning, when so much had been taken away.