Surviving Raine 02 Bastian's Storm (5 page)

The life raft is behind me, and the rope is wrapped tightly around my wrist. I reach out for the dark hair floating in the water, but I can’t quite grasp it. Someone’s suitcase floats in front of me, and I shove it out of the way. I can’t see her anymore. She’s slipped under the waves, and it’s so dark, I can’t find her…

I woke gasping for air, but the warmth of the tiny body next to mine was enough to remind me where I was. I tightened my fingers around Raine’s T-shirt for a moment and tucked my face into her hair to breathe in her scent. It calmed me a little.

Initially.

It wasn’t enough.

Not wanting to wake her yet again, I pushed myself out of bed and moved into the living room. I found a pack of cigarettes on the table next to the couch and headed out to the balcony. I smoked two down to the filters before I managed to calm myself enough to get the worst of the images out of my head. Leaning back in the patio chair, I closed my eyes and inhaled the nighttime sea breeze.

It didn’t feel right to sit in a chair, so I got off of it and sat on the mat by the door. I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around my knees. With my eyes closed again, I listened to the surf and told myself that none of the fucked up shit in my head was real.

The real part was sleeping in the next room.

Reminding myself that being with her was more important than anything else, I pushed off the balcony floor and went inside. I crawled back into bed and wrapped my arms around my Raine. I held her back against my chest and tossed my leg around her thighs. With her pretty much trapped underneath me, safe from dark waves, I finally relaxed. I didn’t get back to sleep at all, but focusing on her body lying beneath mine was enough to get me through the night.

Breakfast, however, was a disaster.

“
We’re out of milk,” Raine announced. “We also need dinner stuff for tonight. I was hoping you would grill out.”

“
Sure,” I said over the rim of my coffee cup. Black coffee, nothing added to it. I tried to forget the way it tasted with half the mug full of Kahlua as I thought about Raine’s friends coming to dinner. They were coming from Hollywood for the evening to celebrate Lindsay’s success at work, and grilling meant less talking to Nick Sinclair, Lindsay’s boyfriend.

“
Steak, then?”

“
Sure,” I said again. I tried not to show how much it pissed me off that our Friday, usually the only night of the week Raine didn’t spend on homework, was going to be invaded by those two.

“
Can you get to the store today?” Raine asked. “I have a study group after class, and they’ll be here around six.”

“
Will you make a list?” I looked up at her expectantly and found myself completely distracted by the way her hair moved as she turned her head to look at me. She’d blown it dry this morning, and it was perfectly smooth. I wanted to run my hands through it. I wanted to wrap it around my wrist and hold her down on the bed while I rammed…

“
Of course.”

I blinked a couple of times as I tried to remember what we’d been talking about.

Oh yeah—grocery lists.

“
Okay, then,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

There was no way I was going to go shopping without knowing exactly what she wanted—been there, done that. Never again. As it was, there would be something major missing, and I’d have to go back out again, but at least it wouldn’t be my fault. Not that I minded going back—a crowded market was somehow better than intimate company in the small condo.

Raine kissed my cheek.

“
Thank you,” she said with a smile.

“
You know, if we were still on the island, I’d already have everything we needed all gathered up,” I said. “I’d grill for you every night if you wanted. You could make that chowder out of mussels and crabs that went so well with those little sweet potatoes.”

Thinking out loud was rarely a good move for me, but my mouth just continued on its merry little way.

“
We could maybe plan a vacation there sometime,” I suggested. “You know—just you and me for a couple weeks. Maybe even for your spring break. It would be good to be away from here before all the crazies get to town. Then in the summer, we could go a little longer, a month, even-”

“
Bastian.” Her tone stopped my words, and the look on her face nearly stopped my heart. “You can’t be serious.”

I felt a little cold but opened my mouth anyway.

“
Why the fuck not?”

“
You’re talking about going back…back to that same island where we were stranded?”

“
Well…yeah.”

“
That’s hardly a…a
vacation
!” she said, her voice rising.

“
It’s not like we’d be
stuck
there,” I argued. “We could fly into St. Maarten and rent a boat. I can sail a small one without help, and I could even teach you how to do it. It wouldn’t take long to get there, and we could-”

“
No!” Raine snapped. She glared at me for a moment as her chest rose and fell with her breath. “Bastian, I was terrified when we were there! I was attacked by a bunch of human traffickers, and I never knew when some hurricane was going to come through and throw us into the ocean! I hated it! I hate that place!”

I tensed.

“
All of it?” I asked quietly. It was a low blow, and I knew it, but I didn’t fucking care.

Raine sighed and moved over to where I sat at the island table that separated the kitchen from the living area. Her eyes still held some anger, but she brought her hands up to cup my face and then run into my hair. She sighed again and shook her head as I reached up and gripped the sides of her shirt to hold her closer.

“
Of course not,” she said. “I wouldn’t trade finding you for anything, but we don’t have to be there anymore, and just being this close to the ocean is hard enough for me.”

“
I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” I insisted. I tightened my fingers around her T-shirt. “I’d keep you safe, just like I did before.”

“
Safe from hurricanes?” she asked incredulously. “I know you wouldn’t ever let anything happen to me, but some things you just can’t control. At least here, there’s advance warning and evacuation plans. There are police to deal with the crime.”

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, sure—there were police and shit around here, which made me totally superfluous. She didn’t
need
me here, which was where a lot of my issues seemed to originate.

“
What am I supposed to do around here?” I mumbled. “Just be the fucking errand boy? Got some light bulbs that need changing?”

Raine stilled her fingers on my scalp for a moment then resumed.

“
I heard some tourist was attacked on the beach the other day,” she said. “Some guy just punched him for no reason. There’s plenty around here for you to protect me from.”

I couldn’t help it; a laugh burst out of me.

“
I’m the most dangerous person around here,” I said as I looked up into her soft, brown eyes. The anger was gone from them, but the hard determination was still there. Apparently, she forgot who was living with her. “Who is going to protect you from me?”

I shoved myself away from her and out of the kitchen. My cigarettes were on the nightstand in the bedroom, so I grabbed them and opened the balcony door. I heard Raine come up behind me as I leaned on the rail and flicked ash towards the amoeba-shaped pool below.

“
Are you going to tell me what’s in your head right now?” she asked softly.

I thought about it a minute.

“
You don’t need me here,” I said.

“
I do need you,” she insisted.

“
No,” I replied, “you don’t.”

“
Sebastian…” Her voice held warning.

“
I know,” I said as I raised my hands in surrender, “you love me—I know that. I don’t get it, but I know it. You want me—I get that too—but you don’t
need
me. Not like you did there.”

“
I might not need you to find me fresh water or fish, but I still need you.”

I really didn’t want to fight with her over the fucking semantics. It was obvious we weren’t going to come to terms on this one. For a moment, I stayed silent and gathered my thoughts. I didn’t want her to leave for school with an argument behind her, so I decided to just drop it. I took one last pull on my smoke, tossed the butt in the bucket, and turned to face her.

“
Agree to disagree?” I suggested.

Raine sighed and pursed her lips. I gave her a lopsided grin and held out my arms. She came to me, and I wrapped myself around her, holding her as tightly as I could. She raised her hands to grip the backs of my shoulders and placed her cheek against my chest. Tucking my face into her neck, I reveled in the smell of her hair and the softness of her skin as they calmed me.

“
You mean everything to me,” she said. “I don’t like to see you hurting—you know that—but I can’t go back there. I don’t ever want to go back there.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to ignore the burning behind them.

“
I know,” I whispered into her hair.

Lindsay was Raine’s best friend from Ohio. She relocated to the Miami area when Raine and I were missing in order to be closer to where the search was, and Nick was the helicopter pilot who eventually located us and removed us from the island. For that reason alone, I hated him, but I tried not to show it.

Lindsay came from money, which showed in her demeanor more than Raine ever wanted to admit. Her mother was a judge or something on the state supreme court, and her father was an executive at some corporation. Lindsay didn’t flaunt it exactly, but the chick bought fucking everything that caught her eye and then usually tried to get Raine to buy the same thing so they could match.

I didn’t get that shit.

“
You have to see these shoes I found online!” Lindsay blathered as she dropped an insanely sized designer handbag next to the door and pulled Raine over to the couch. I wondered if there was a pair of Chihuahuas in the bag—they definitely could have fit. Both women leaned over the laptop on the coffee table and pulled up some bargain shoe site. The two of them giggled and pointed at the screen while Nick rolled his eyes.

“
Women, huh?” he said with a friendly smile. He placed a large, brown paper sack on the kitchen island and reached out his hand to shake. “How are ya, Sebastian?”

Totally ignoring his hand along with his efforts, I grunted, grabbed my smokes and a lighter, and headed through the sliding glass door. I closed it with a slam behind me.

Out on the balcony, I tried to find it in myself to feel bad about blowing the guy off, but I just couldn’t. Every time I looked at him, I heard the whirling blades of the helicopter as it landed on the beach and destroyed my world. I knew Raine and Lindsay wanted us to get along, and Nick certainly tried, but I was an asshole about it all.

I fired up the grill and laid the steaks out on the attached tray. They were nice and thick, so I knew they were going to take a while to cook, which meant more time for talking with Raine’s friends.

Fucking fabulous.

I finished my smoke and slid the balcony door open.

“
Seriously, Lindsay, what were you thinking?”

Lindsay and Raine were on the near side of the kitchen island with their backs to me, and Lindsay was holding a couple of wine glasses while Nick uncorked a bottle of Merlot at the counter by the sink.

“
It’s just a bottle of wine,” Lindsay was saying. “It’s been months. I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I want to celebrate my promotion, dammit!”

“
He’s going to act like a jerk whether we have a drink or not,” Nick muttered.

“
Stop that!” Lindsay smacked his arm and then turned back to Raine. She placed her hand on Raine’s shoulder and leaned closer. “You know he’s going to have to learn to be around it, sweetheart. I’m not trying to be insensitive, but you both have to know other people are going to indulge occasionally, and-”