Heat Wave (24 page)

‘I'm so glad you two love-birds found each other,' I said, checking the time. The competition would be kicking off soon, and as much as I didn't need to win, I'd actually found myself excited about competing, showing off in front of Tanner in my tight pants.

‘Maxine rang me when she was casting this show. She said had a job for me. She wanted me to “become” someone, the first love of the star of her show, or as close to it as possible. She sent me a stack of research on a girl named Amanda Keane, the high school bimbo who popped Beau's cherry.'

I hadn't heard the name on my birth certificate for years; I'd forgotten how different it was to the moniker I used professionally as an adult. ‘You were hired to pretend to be
me?
'

‘I went all out with it
—
flew to Texas, spoke with all his high school buddies about you, dyed my hair, changed my name to something that ended in “i.e.”, invented a dog.' She barked in laughter. ‘Imagine how pissed off I was when Tanner said he wanted to bring my dog on board! I had to email a fucking dog shelter and pay them to deliver a dog to my house.'

My fingers tightened on the railing, turning white with tension. ‘Why?'

‘Because Maxine wanted another success story like
Erotic Island
. They got lucky there, with so many couples and spin-offs, but on this show, there was only Beau, and she wanted to be sure he'd fall head-over-heels with someone so the ratings would be phenomenal.'

I shook my head, staring at the woman in front of me, wondering if she even had a soul. ‘No, why do you care so much? You'll get paid no matter what. Maxine knows who I am now
—
the show is still going to get its happy ending, and the whole world is going to watch. Why not just let it go?'

‘You still don't get it, do you?' she snarled, stalking towards me. ‘I
always
win. I want to bang a sheik? I bang a sheik. I want to steal a business idea? I steal the idea. I want to win this show? I'm going to win.'

She had closed the gap between us, mere inches between our noses. ‘You
can't
win this one,' I told her, speaking slowly and hoping it might actually penetrate her thick skull. ‘He's not going to choose you over me.'

‘Of course he won't. But if you're not in the running anymore, I win by default.'

The dread that oozed through my heart came a second too late. I released my grip of the railing behind me to gesture in frustration. ‘What are you talking about, you crazy
—
'

She was fast. In one swift movement, she rammed me with her shoulder, and locked her hands around my thigh. As I flailed in surprise, tilting backwards, she lifted my leg and forced me over the railing, my height making it easy for her.

For a moment, I thought I'd managed to catch the metal rail with one hand. But it slipped through my fingers as I fell hopelessly from the side of the ship. The world slowed, allowing me to stare into Callie's hate-filled eyes growing smaller above me, with plenty of time to think,
Tanner was wrong. He couldn't catch me every time.

Chapter 19

Greg's deck had been the lowest outdoor bow on the ship, four stories above sea level. As I fell, I remembered how I'd stood with Greg on the bow, thinking how close the water looked. Now, with the seconds stretching into decades from when Callie threw me over the railing, it seemed like a long way down.

Hitting the water was going to hurt
—
a lot. I knew that much. As I kid, I'd never even liked leaping from the two-metre diving board at our local pool because of the way the water slapped me from that height.

I wish I were drunk,
I thought absently as I dropped past balconies and portholes. My stomach was already rising up and threatening to empty itself out of my throat, and I was experiencing a head-spin the likes of which would have made a stunt pilot dizzy. If I were going to have all the symptoms, it would have been nice to also have the sense of peace that came with total inebriation.

Peaceful … Floppy … Relaxed!
‘God looks after drunks and small children' wasn't just a saying. Intoxicated people were more likely to survive crashes and falls because they were totally loose and their bodies absorbed shock better.
I need to relax.

Not an easy thing to achieve when my system was flooded with adrenaline. Closing my eyes, I gave myself over to the helplessness of my situation, feeling the wind rush past my face. I pictured Tanner's eyes, the soft brown I could marinate in forever. I thought about how I felt when he kissed me how my entire body went boneless at his touch, and my limbs loosened, falling limp and light.

Crack!
Blowing air turned to shockingly cool water as I plummeted into the ocean, cracking through the surface and down, farther than I'd thought would happen. Opening my eyes, I saw I was at least two car lengths from the shiny surface. Because I'd made my body so floppy, I hadn't tried to hold my breath, and I was now faced with clawing my way to the surface without any oxygen to fuel me.

The lightweight water shoes on my feet helped propel me as I kicked hard, powering upwards. Stars had already begun to crowd my vision.
Not yet! Just a little farther …
My arms felt like lead as I tried to push aside the water between the air and me.

As the last bubble escaped from between my lips, I gave a final, brutal kick, so hard I felt my knees crack and my hips click.
Not enough!
My fingers still found nothing but more ocean as they floated down to my sides.

Lungs contracting, I knew I was about to take a breath, whether I liked it or not. Callie's smug face flashed beneath my eyelids;
I always win.
I wasn't competing against her anymore, just against the water around me and myself. Keeping myself together for one more second, I bucked and flapped, using the last of my energy.

And like a miracle, the surface broke around me. Sunshine on my face had never felt so incredible as I drew a breath of salty air, gasping and retching. Immediately, another wave slapped me in the face, rendering me blind just as I tried to open my lids, and it took another few precious beats to cough out the liquid and wipe off my eyes.

When I could see, I expected the ship to be right there, towering above me like a monolith; the terror-riddled part of my brain fully believed I'd be battling an under-current trying to suck me beneath the hull and into the massive rotors blades.

Instead, all I could see was open sea.
What the …?
I kicked and spun in the water, the rolling swell lifting above my eye-line and preventing me from viewing anything but waves. Then, as I rose up and over a crest, I saw the ship, already shrinking into the distance.

No!
No chance to scream for help, no chance to attract attention, no chance … The water was warm enough that I wouldn't freeze to death, but I couldn't float forever.
I'll tread water until I'm exhausted, then I'll drown out here, and no one will ever know.
Somewhere on the tiny shape disappearing over the horizon, my cowboy was waiting for me, a little crease between his eyes as he wondered where on earth I could be.

As if I'd crawled into his head, I followed his thought process.
Maybe she's late? Lost? Sick? Left me?
He'd search the ship, asking everyone. Callie would greet him with confused eyes and a concerned tone.
No, Tanner, I'm so sorry, I haven't seen her. Let me hold you, you shouldn't be alone at a time like this …

A sob burst out my lips, and I could feel a strand of my ponytail caught on their glossy surface. The sob turned into a hysterical giggle.
I might be lost at sea, but at least my lips are still pretty.

Child! Pull yourself together!
A voice that sounded suspiciously like Mama Ruby's thundered inside me. Okay. Time to at least look for another way out of this mess, which certainly beat floating and crying and laughing deliriously.

As I rode the swell up and down, I searched for something, anything
—
a sail boat, a gaggle of scuba divers, a buoy, a floating island of trash.
Come on, come on.
Craning my neck, I kicked up at the crest of the wave, giving myself an extra few inches of height.

There. A tiny flash, almost hidden behind another whitecap. Green. Land. I waited for the next lift and jumped as high as I could.
An island!

I couldn't judge distance for shit. It looked close enough for a gentle sail on a catamaran, but as far as swimming, it was farther than I'd ever attempted before. I was a good swimmer in high school, remembering the Olympic-sized pool in London I'd trained in while I was in my last year. I wasn't a great distance swimmer, enjoying the thrill of a fifty-metre sprint more so than a fifteen hundred-metre slog.

No time for preferences now
—
it was swim or perish. I put my head down and began to stroke through the swell.

The world fell silent as my ears were filled with water, giving me even more room in my head to contemplate dark thoughts. I kept my eyes open for a while, the clear tropical waters allowing for surprisingly good visibility.

But I started seeing shadows below me, dark blobs that might have been seaweed or schools of clownfish or happy dolphins. Thinking about everything that lived in the warm sea was supposed to be comforting, but instead, it seemed threatening. The ocean wasn't my environment, and I felt it, felt the unknown lurking below me, ready to strike.

Soon, as far as my brain was concerned, every shadow was a hungry Great White.
That's a shark. And that. And definitely that. Oh God, I'm going to get eaten!
My breath started to grow faster as I panted in panic.

Close your eyes, foolish girl!
I did. I figured if I was going to get eaten, it was better not to know about it anyway. My exhaling evened out, my inhaling more controlled.
I can do this. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming …

While Ellen DeGeneres sang in my head, I made progress. Every five minutes or so, I'd pop my head up, checking to see if I was on course; the rest of the time, it was just Dory and me.

It could have been twenty minutes or two hours, but when I looked up again, my heart floated hopefully in my chest.
So close!
The island was long, stretching widely in a lazy curve. A building
—
a freaking resort! If it wouldn't have cost me precious breath, I would have laughed. Even from so far out, I could see the bure huts nestled along the shoreline and in the trees, and a main bungalow area, open-aired and luxurious with low couches and tropical flowers in vases.

I am going to sit in that bungalow,
I promised myself.
I'm going to get wrapped up in a fluffy five-star towel and someone will make me a cocktail with a tiny umbrella in it.
With that image in my head, I powered forward, more determined than ever.

But even as I drew closer to the beach, I sensed the suck of the current pulling me along faster, parallel with the island. If I didn't find some more speed, I'd be swept past the shore and out into the endless ocean again.

Must … push … harder …
My spirit was strong, but my limbs were weak, sapped from the endurance swim they'd already suffered through. My strokes faltered, and I made the mistake of glancing once below me again; there was a distinctive long shape only a little way underneath where I paddled.

No! Think happy thoughts.
The field on Tanner's land seemed like a faraway memory, a hazy half-forgotten dream. Concentrating, I forced it into clearer detail, seeing the last lazy afternoon I'd shared there with Tanner.

‘We'll go tomorrow morning, before dawn,' he says, smoothing my hair across my head and down my back. We've already made love on the ragged plaid rug, the old coverlet that has born so much of our passion.

I press my thighs closer together, enjoying the sensation that still remained of Tanner moving inside me. ‘I've got almost a thousand bucks; that should get us a pretty long way. Then, you can find work as a field hand, and I'll wait tables or something while I finish school online.'

‘We'll make our own home. We'll be our own family.'

‘You're already my family, Tanner.'

He kneels up. ‘You don't have to answer now, but I want you to know, Maddie-girl, I want to marry you. When we're old enough, I want to be your husband. I … you're everything to me.'

We're both crying as I throw myself on him. ‘You're my sunset, Tanner. I want to end every day with you.'

‘You're my sunrise, darlin'. And our life together begins at dawn.'

Only it didn't. That night, my dad announced that he'd booked an early flight for us, and literally manhandled me into the car. I called Tanner from the airport, frantic and weeping, and he'd been the strong one, convincing me it was going to be alright.

‘We can still have a life together, Maddie-girl. We just have to fight for it, hold onto it. Go to London, finish school and then we can spend the rest of our days together.'

I'd been a stupid kid back then, a girl that let the best thing in her life slide through her fingers like greased rope. Even just a few weeks ago, I'd been prepared to throw our love away because I was feeling inferior.
Not again.

My legs and arms were filled with new determination. I wasn't fighting the ocean or the tides; I was fighting against my own bad luck, against the hurdles that had plagued my relationship with Tanner. Pushing with every breath, every muscle, every thought, I ploughed towards the last corner of the island as it tried to slip past me.

I'm going to make it!
The sand was so close, the beach curving towards me and calling me into her gentle embrace. Kicking fiercely, I closed my eyes and I swam, elated at the knowledge I was going to survive.

Which is why, when cold hard teeth captured my ankle, I was too stunned to even react.