Island Promises (5 page)

Riley was on her feet before she thought about it. Mitchell threw out a hand to stop her but she veered out of his reach. Behind the bar she found a stack of clean aprons, a broom, and a dustpan. She began sweeping up the broken glass until Henri stopped her by placing his hand over hers just as she noisily dumped a dustpan full of shards in the trash.

“I need a job.” Pushing humid curls from her forehead with the back of her hand, she propped the broom against her hip. “Looks like I’m stranded here for a while. My luggage is lost, I have no passport, and my credit cards are out in the sea somewhere. Even my cell phone is dead.” Henri hadn’t said anything so she took that as a promising sign and continued. “I waited tables in college. It’s been awhile, but it will come back to me.”

Rosa came up and put a large arm around her son’s shoulders. The eyes were the same but otherwise there was little resemblance between mother and son.

“Seems like you need someone right away. I can start right away.”

Henri looked at his mother, who nodded slightly.

“All right,” he said after pausing to look her up and down. “We’re casual. But not that casual.” He was staring at the salt-stained shirt and the baggy shorts.

“I’ll need to borrow some clothes. Just to get started.” Riley was talking fast, getting it in before they changed their minds. “Oh, and I need a place to stay. Know anywhere?”

Big Rosa let go of her son and drew Riley into an embrace. She was soft and safe. She smelled of flowers and spices. Hers was the comforting embrace of a mother and Riley felt for the first time in a long time that she was where she was supposed to be.

“You are one of us now,” Rosa said. “Welcome.”

“Riley, darlin’, you have a job.” Mitchell approached the group. “What will I tell Joe?”

“Tell him that I wouldn’t work for him if it were the only job in the western hemisphere.” Riley pasted on her sweetest smile. “Tell him he’s a thief and a liar and a coward for running away.”

“I’ll tell him. But you know he’s never been much for sweet talk and flattery.” He put his hands on Riley’s shoulders and looked her square in the eye. “You sure about this? It’s a big, nasty world out there and a sweet, innocent thing like you might fall prey to bad influences.”

Riley laughed. On some level, she was touched by his concern, however much he couched it in sarcasm. “I’ll handle it. If I can handle Chicago mob bosses and corrupt officials, I can handle a few tourists.”

Kissing her on both cheeks, Mitchell picked up his bags, twirled around, and was gone.

Rosa and Stanley had been welcoming and thoughtful. They put her up in a small, unadorned room under the eaves at the top of the hotel. It was stuffy and had plain wooden floors and stucco walls, but the windows opened out onto the peaceful green of the jungle. The first few nights she’d struggled to sleep, missing the honking horns and shouts of busy Chicago. Her days were filled with hours of physical labor—carrying trays of food, sweeping, mopping and cleaning, prepping vegetables and fish. Rosa was fanatical about cleanliness, one of the reasons the cruise lines put Rosalee’s on their suggested list.

The cruisers filled the restaurant until they spilled out onto the patio. For the most part they were spoiled and demanding. They criticized the spices in the food, complained because they couldn’t get “real American cheeseburgers,” and whined because there was no air-conditioning. The worst ones treated Riley and the rest of the staff as though they were dumb, quaint natives. More than one flashbulb went off inches from her face as she was trying to balance a tray full of drinks.

The nights were the hard part. She was tired and her muscles ached from the physical labor but her mind wouldn’t shut down. Alone in the little room, she looked out to where she could hear the ocean, a dark, heaving beast in the night, and thought about how her life had changed and what she had lost. At times she mourned what she had left behind. At other times she refused to believe that the life she’d had would not come again when everything was cleared up.

The best part of the day came after they had all gone, when the cruise ships had left, and Rosalee’s was once again an island place, with island guests. When Riley’s shift was over, she took a seat on the patio in the evening breeze, with her feet on a chair, Stanley smoking a cigar, Rosa and Henri sipping sweet rum drinks. The remnants of dinner, a pork dish with chunks of island fruits and sweet bread with a crispy crust, lay before them.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Riley said. “They can be such jerks. I just wanted to smack them.”

“It doesn’t matter what they think,” Rosa said. “It matters what we think.”

“But they treated us like we were stupid backwards islanders from the dinosaur age who’d never seen a digital camera or a cell phone.”

Stanley laughed. “They don’t know about my Rosa. And now my Henri. They surely don’t know.”

“Give it up,” Riley said as she rubbed her feet together. They had scrounged her up some clothes—a flowing black skirt that fell just below her knees and a blouse blazing in bright flowers. When she was working she wore her sneakers, which she had kicked off.

“Stanley and I met at University,” Rosa said. “I was teaching philosophy and he was the head of maintenance. Such a gentle soul he was.” She reached over and took his thin, pale fingers in her large, mahogany hand. “He was the most kind man. Understood so much of the world. Had truly lived in it. Unlike many of my colleagues who knew nothing but books and classrooms and schedules.”

“You taught at a University?” Riley felt like one of the tourists, marveling that this native could actually read. She was ashamed of herself. Rosa must have noticed because she patted Riley’s hand.

“I am a Doctor of Philosophy,” she said. “It was not a bad life. But empty until Stanley came along. Then we were blessed with Henri.” She beamed, they both did, when they looked at their only child. “Stanley’s parents became ill and we came home to help them with their business. This is a wonderful place and we have been very happy.”

The rum and the work and the food performed their magic. Riley felt pleasantly sleepy and at peace. The reporter in her, though, knew a good story when she heard one. “But you gave up your career.”

“I gave up nothing. I teach once in a while at the Community College on the next island. I have my husband, my son, my friends. I have this beautiful place where I can read in the sun.”

Riley stood up and hugged Rosa, who held her gently.

“I’m going to watch the stars from the beach,” she said, letting her sneakers dangle from her fingers as she left the patio.

It was one of those evenings you’d die for in winter in Chicago. The air was warm with just enough of a breeze to keep it from being stuffy. The sun had gone down in a riveting show of color, leaving the sky deep and clear, scattered with stars and planets. The sea was a black mass, the surf washing softly against the sand.

Riley left the bar and headed for the beach. The day had been long and demanding. She was tired in a physical way, a good way, not the muscle-cramping, anxiety-ridden fatigue she’d felt after a day in the newsroom. She strolled down the beach, trying to use her cell phone. For the past two days, she’d left it on the windowsill in her room, trying to dry it out. All it did when she turned it on was beep at her. Rosa had offered her the use of her office phone, but the few times she tried, Riley couldn’t get through to any of her old friends or colleagues in Chicago. So much for living in a hi-tech, everybody’s-connected-all-the-time world.

Putting the phone away, she tilted her head toward the stars and the moon and opened her arms to the ocean breeze. For a few minutes she let herself drift into the atmosphere, practicing the meditation she had learned, breathing evenly, closing her eyes, blocking out the world, listening only to her inner voices.

Something brushed her arm, closed tightly around her waist.

“Looking for company? Pretty lady like you shouldn’t be alone.”

Riley turned quickly, her hair swinging out as his arms tightened around her. In the dark, she could make out strength, teeth flashing, one of them gold. Long heavy hair, a ragged beard. He smelled of diesel oil and something primitive and dark.

“Take your hands off me.” Riley wasn’t scared. Living in Chicago, working the streets for stories, she’d run into her share of thugs.

He let go of her waist but caught her hand. “We seen you,” he said. “At Rosa’s. You look like the type who could party.” Silver earrings caught the moonlight. But what drew her attention were the bodies moving in the shadows. At least two.

Now she was scared.

Chapter 4

Riley tried to breathe as slowly and as deeply as she could to calm her brain and her body. This wasn’t the concrete jungle where she knew how to fight. She was isolated here. All the more reason to be strong.

But strong was tough to summon. She took another deep breath. Some instructor had said that when she did a story on self-defense.
Outwit, outthink your attacker
, he’d advised. At the time, in a safe gym, it seemed like a good idea.

Here, in the dark of night, on the lip of the jungle, with the smell of a strange man in her nose, the touch of him on her back, deep breathing wasn’t worth squat. Instead, she decided to get mad, really mad. Riley Santey wouldn’t go down without a fight. She’d wait for her chance and then she’d strike.

The grip on her hand tightened and his other arm went to her neck, yanking her toward him until she felt his breath on her cheek. The shadows moved closer. Two men stepped out of the palm trees and into the pale moonlight reflected off the water.

One was unnaturally skinny and moved in nervous, jerky zigzags. The other was built like a defensive lineman, a solid block of muscle with a crew cut and stunted features. They all wore bandanas and earrings.

“Maybe we should take her partying with us,” the square one said.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s party. Party all night.” The skinny one punched his arms in the air and danced a jig.

“I don’t want to party and I don’t want company. So beat it. Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of!” Riley spat out the words.

“Think you’re too almighty effing good for us? Too uppity? We don’t like that attitude none,” said the leader who was nearest to her.

“Let go or I’ll scream.” Riley willed herself to be strong, to not show the fear she had started to feel.

The man in front of her threw back his head and laughed.

“You’ve got guts. I like that.” He drew the outline of her lips with his index finger, a gesture that was soft but filled with the possibility of menace.

“They’ll be looking for me.” Screaming wouldn’t work. He knew it, that’s why he’d laughed. No one would hear her, and they could stop her anyway.

“Let’s go. Let’s go. I want to party. Love to party.” The skinny one jumped from foot-to-foot.

Riley had done stories on self-defense, on protecting yourself from an attack. The first thing was to stay calm. She forced herself to breathe in unison with the waves. She needed to keep her instincts and her senses sharp. No way in hell was this over yet. If she had to claw out all their eyes, she would.

They surrounded her and began to pass her from one to the other, laughing. So far they hadn’t really hurt her, but there was a menace to them and she could smell the rum on their breath.

Block guy grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms. She struggled hard, tried to bring a knee up, but the leader was in front of her, his weight pressing against her.

“You know you want it.” The leader caught her, brought her closer to him, then began to run his hand down her arm. He was smiling. She could see his tooth glinting. “I like women when they act all hard to get. But not too hard.”

Something in the breeze, in their attitudes, changed. All her senses on alert, Riley could feel it. Suddenly, the pressure of his arm on her back eased. No longer being held up, Riley slipped heavily into the wet sand. Above her there was a dull thud and then a low moan.

“I ever see you within a hundred yards of her again, I’ll kill you.”

Joe
.
Joe was here.

“We wuz just havin’ some fun. She liked it, she did.” The nervous one scampered to stand behind the leader, who was doubled over in the sand.

Steel caught the moonlight and Riley caught her breath. Block guy had a knife. He circled around Joe like a bullfighter, waving it in the air. Two more shadows came into view. Anthony and Mitchell were standing behind her, Joe in front of her, shielding her from the knife.

Joe stood his ground. The block guy became still and the standoff was on. The leader, after retching in the sand, broke the deadlock with a laugh, his long, greasy hair flipping back from his face.

“She ain’t worth it tonight.” He struggled to his feet and pushed the knife away. “Maybe another night. She’s got some learnin’ to do about manners.” He looked down to where Riley knelt in the sand. “We have hot rum and even hotter women waitin’ on us. You don’t know what you’re missin’, darlin’.” Turning to Joe, he said, “This ain’t done. Not by a long shot.”

As quietly as they had come, they melted back into the shadows.

Mitchell knelt down beside her while Anthony and Joe stood guard, making sure they were truly gone.

“Come on,” Mitchell said gently, patting her hair, “let’s get to Rosalee’s where it’s safe and they have a lot of liquor.”

“I’m fine.” Riley slapped Mitchell’s hands away from her face.

“But you have a little bit of sand right in the corner of your mouth.” He reached out and a game of patty cake ensued; Mitchell trying to wipe the sand away, Riley trying to bat his hands away.

They were sitting in the deserted bar at Rosalee’s. Only a small lamp over the bar was turned on. On the way there, Riley had done most of the talking, aware she was babbling on and making little sense, but unable to stop herself. Mitchell had answered with a few short sentences, but Joe and Anthony, one in front, one in back, had marched on in angry silence. When told what happened, Rosa had held her close and Stanley set a steaming drink before her that smelled of strong whiskey and island spices. Henri wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.

Despite the warm night, Riley was cold and her hands shook as she reached for the mug. She was grateful for the chance to sit down, grateful that the others, except for Mitchell, who had obviously drawn babysitting duty, were talking quietly at the far end of the bar. She needed the whiskey, needed to collect herself. She couldn’t have gotten out of the chair right now if she wanted to; her legs had turned to quivering gelatin. It took both hands to raise the mug to her lips without sloshing liquor all over the bar.

“Who were those guys?” The whiskey burned her throat.

“Pirates,” Mitchell answered, matter-of-factly.

“Right. And I’m the long-lost fairy princess come to claim my kingdom on the island.”

“They say”—Mitchell leaned in, whispering—“they’ve robbed so many visiting sailboats that no one can keep track. That there’s a place on the other side of the island where they keep the loot in a cave guarded with a ring of hot lava, and that unless you have a map telling you exactly where to step, you’ll burn your foot off. One day, a few years ago, a writer from a fancy magazine came down to investigate. He didn’t believe the stories, said he was going to find out for himself. Went off one night, never came back.”

“Mitchell”—the whiskey was making her lightheaded—“you watch too many movies.” But in the back of her mind, she was retrieving what she had heard or read about a writer for a New York magazine who’d disappeared in paradise. Was that here? Had they ever found a body or convicted a killer? Or was it just an accident? She couldn’t remember.

“Ask anyone,” he said, insulted.

“Come on. If that was the case, which I’m not saying it is, the authorities would have busted them a long time ago.”

“Have you learned nothing? Do I speak into a void? Geez, I’m beginning to sound like my ninth grade algebra teacher. God, deliver me. But that’s another story. Anyway, you’ve seen the authorities on this island. Do you really believe they’d risk a molten ring of fire and an arsenal to bring a handful of pirates to a court that is so slick with bribes that nothing will stick?”

Riley thought back to her own encounter when she’d tried to get Joe kicked off her boat. Mitchell had a point.

“Joe seemed to know them.” The drink was finally starting to quiet the shaking in her hands.

“Oh, yeah, he knows them all right. They’ve had their run-ins.” Mitchell sipped his own drink, hard whiskey, straight up. “Those guys are scary.”

The group at the bar glanced over, talked softly among themselves, and then broke up.

“You’re coming with me.” Joe towered over her.

“Like hell. I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

“On the
Reprieve.
” It was a command. “We decided you’d be safer there.”

“You decided? I’m a big girl. I can decide for myself, take care of myself.”

“Like you did tonight?”

“You can’t tell me what to do. I’m not swabbing the decks, or polishing the planks, or whatever it is you think you’ll order me to do on my own boat. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .” She wanted to make a grand exit, hold her head high and stomp out. But her legs betrayed her and she found herself falling into Joe’s arms.

“Do you have to be told everything twice?” He gathered her up in the blanket and carried her out of the bar, nodding to Rosa, Stanley, and Henri as they went.

“This is not happening.” Half-heartedly she pushed at him. “Are you for real?” Aware she was being watched, she struggled against him for about a minute, just enough to make it look good. The truth was she was tired, physically, emotionally, and mentally. She was scared and she’d had maybe one island drink too many. She should be ashamed of herself for giving into this fairy-tale heroic epic but she didn’t care.

For the first time since the pirates had approached her on the beach, she felt safe. She nested her head into his chest where she could feel the strong muscles working and hear his heart beating. The release of having been through an ordeal and coming through in one piece, the deepness of the night, and maybe a little extra island potion in the whiskey drink made her tired and weak. She was asleep in Joe’s arms before they reached the car.

Even on the bouncy, short ride to the marina, she only roused occasionally, but fell back asleep. She woke for a moment when Joe carried her onto the boat and tucked her into the bunk. His hands were roughened by work, but gentle.

The way he touched her made her weak and excited at the same time. She kept her eyes closed, afraid to open them, afraid to even breathe. If she moved, he would know she wasn’t asleep and the spell would be broken. In her mind, she knew this couldn’t happen. A one-night stand was the last thing she needed to complicate her life. But her body wasn’t paying any attention to her mind; it was reacting on its own. Her heart was beating out of her chest, her skin was warm, and deep within her a core of need was bubbling like a volcano.

Unable to stand it any longer, she reached up and encircled his neck with her arms, ran the strands of his hair through her fingers. His breath quickened and his body stiffened, but he didn’t move away. Joe hesitated for a moment before lowering his lips to hers. The kiss was tentative at first, slight, exploring.

Then he groaned and kissed her harder. He tasted of salt and the purity of the sea. He smelled of canvas dried in the sun and island wind.

Breaking the kiss, he laid his head beside her and groaned again.

  When he lay there and made no further moves, Riley reached for him a second time, then massaged his neck, tracing the hard muscles on his back.

For a moment he lay still and let her touch him. Abruptly he rolled toward her, grabbing her hands and pushing them away. Propping himself on one elbow, he stared down at her. In the moonlight the gold glints dominated his brown eyes. She thought he would kiss her then, hold her, make love to her.

He unrolled himself from the bunk and instead of his warmth, a flush of cooler air enveloped Riley.

“Not now. Not tonight,” he said. And then he was gone.

A myriad of emotions shot through her. She felt shocked, mad, embarrassed. She sat up, blinking awake, trying to make sense of it. She had gone out on a limb, offered herself to the cretin who’d stolen her boat and he had the nerve to reject her?

She bellowed in frustration and searched for something to throw, to break. When she didn’t find anything, she settled for ripping the covers off the bed, slamming them on the floor and stomping on them until her anger was spent.

Damn him
. He’d pay for this. She’d get back her boat and her dignity if it were the last thing she did.