Tempest Tossed: A Love Unexpected Novel (25 page)

Chapter 16—Dylan

God, I hate being told what to do. I hate it even more when I’m told I’m not capable of doing something. When Rene copped that ‘you’re too fragile/it’s too dangerous’ attitude I saw red. Why couldn’t she understand how badly that tripped my trigger?

Okay, I admit I’ve got some psycho baggage, but it’s not like the baggage was a big secret. I couldn’t understand why the woman didn’t have the sense not to poke the bear. She had to go and get a big stick and just keep jabbing until I roared.

I didn’t like losing it with her. Of course, I understood that her concern sprang from her love for me. But something snaps in me sometimes. She was right. The old demon was a good name for it. Unless you wanted to give it a real name . . . like Francesca Cruz.

The bar didn’t have any Grey. I swirled my second Stoli and watched the few members of my crew tuck into some beer and what looked from a distance like fish fingers. I’d seated myself at the farthest, darkest end of the bar and tried to give off unapproachable vibes. It worked.

Eventually I gave into my hunger and ordered up some seafood soup. Mrs. Da Silva had promised that Azorean ‘sopa’ was heaven in a bowl. She wasn’t exaggerating. But I’d have happily traded that delicious dinner for a shared peanut butter sandwich with Rene any time. She didn’t earn the crappy treatment I just handed to her.

I was feeling a little guilty when I went back to the room. I half wondered if Rene would still be there. She was, but she was asleep (or pretending to be) in the bed away from the door. Her back was to me and the room was dark except for a small light she’d left on in the bathroom.

The other bed looked terribly uninviting, but there wasn’t a choice. I could barely squeeze myself into it and it would have been impossible for me to share one with her. The lumpy pillow couldn’t do the job even when I folded it in half. I tossed around and ended up staring at her through the darkness. She never turned. It was my first lesson in going to bed mad. It sucked. Big time. No wonder every old timer who’s ever given advice tells you not to let the sun set on your anger.

I woke up several times during the night. She never moved. I wondered how anyone could stay balled up in a knot like that all night long. It made my legs feel crampy just watching her.

Of course I owed her an apology. I could have made my point the night before without being rude. But when she woke up and acted the way she did, my stubborn pride kicked in. She wouldn’t look at me at all. She went straight to the bathroom, came out fully dressed and asked, “What time does the plane for Ponta Delgada leave?”

“At nine,” I answered.

“I’m going for a walk. The flowers may do my head some good.” With that, she left. It wasn’t exactly the silent treatment, but it was close.

The balcony of our room looked out over a field carpeted with hydrangeas. I watched her slowly pick her way through the bushes, stopping now and then to admire the blossoms. There was a light breeze coming off the sea and it picked her hair up gently, almost in cinematic slow motion. The light caught the gold amongst the darker strands as she tucked a lock behind her ear.

I wanted to go to her and pick her up off her feet in the fresh morning and ask her to let me try again. Maybe if I hadn’t tried to hide my plans to personally salvage from El Loco she wouldn’t have started off angry. Maybe if I had let her in and asked her opinion she wouldn’t have turned all ‘Nanny Rene’ on me and I could have held my temper.

I sadly realized just what a newbie I was at the game of love. I didn’t know the first thing about being half of a couple and it showed. I’d spent so many years hiding who I was that it almost seemed unnatural to be open with someone. But, I also knew that this is what love required. And what love deserved.

***

I paid the hotel bill and left a generous tip for Mrs. Da Silva for all her kindness to us. With nothing to pack, we all ate a leisurely breakfast and hung around the dining room until it was time for the short hop to the airport.

When Rene showed up, she found the first mate, Stu and I at a table killing time over some coffee.

“Good morning, Stu.” She greeted him with a smile. “Do I have time to grab a bowl of cereal or something?”

I wasn’t sure who she was directing the question at, so I answered her. “We don’t have to leave for another fifteen minutes.”

She gave me a forced little grin that was more like a grimace. “Great.”  She went over to the breakfast bar and seemed to have a big
genuine
smile for everyone else. I heard her saying what a beautiful day it was to Angelo and asking the first mate how his breakfast was. All small talk, but it was irritating. She was trying to show me what a good mood she was in and how little of it I was going to share. I thought I remembered one of my shrinks labeling that kind of thing ‘passive-aggressive’. It was irritating to say the least.

The plane ride to Ponta Delgada was just over an hour. The prop plane was bigger than I expected. It had been forever since I had flown on anything but a jet and I rather enjoyed the hum of the engines and the unique feeling of a prop’s take off. Rene seated herself beside me, but immediately withdrew the in-flight magazine from the seat pocket and became utterly immersed in it. There wasn’t going to be any small talk and it wasn’t the place to continue our argument. That would have to wait.

I hated to leave it up in the air, but I had business in Ponta Delgada that couldn’t wait. Stu was to take the crew and most of what was left of my cash to the hotel that Mrs. Da Silva had booked ahead for us.

We were all standing on the curb ready to catch taxis into town. I turned to Rene who looked like she was waiting for instructions. “Look, I know we have some talking to do,” I said to her. “But right now, could you just go with the rest of the crew get us a room?”

“Us?
A
room?”

“Yes,” I said under my breath. “
A
room. Please. And, if it’s not too much trouble, I really need some clothes. I told Stu to give everyone some cash for necessities. These shorts are almost obscene they’re so torn. I hate to show up at the bank like this.”

“You do look like some kind of refugee,” she agreed.

“Do you thing you can find me something? Jeans, khakis, whatever.”

“I can handle that.”

“Need my sizes?”

“Hardly,” she finally cracked a smile, “I think I’ve pretty well got the size of all your parts committed to memory.”

“Find something for you, too. Maybe we can have a nice dinner in town tonight.”

“Maybe.” She pursed her lips in a kind of ‘I’m doubtful, but okay’ expression. It was enough. I would take it as enough. I put her in a cab and gave her what I hoped was my most charming, you-can’t-resist-me look and hoped she bought it.

I did get a few side glances when I walked into the stuffy old bank building in torn shorts, an oil stained shirt (in spite of Mrs. Da Silva’s best effort) and a pair of too small flip-flops provided to me by one of the many folks who came to our aid. Most of us had left or lost our shoes during the wreck.

Documents and clothes were the biggest losses for everyone except me. I had to swallow hard when the image of my sweet Lady D. sprang into my head. I missed her every hour of every day. If she had to die, it was a blessing El Loco died with her. I wouldn’t have wanted to live on that bucket without her.

Mr. Paredes, the branch manager, was expecting me. I was greeted in his outer office by a cute young woman who introduced herself as Marisa. She told me she would be interpreting for Mr. Paredes who spoke no English. I decided to upgrade her from cute to hot when she started talking to me. The accent was a killer. But my assessment of the girl was downright clinical. She had zero effect on me.

I was impressed with Spencer’s efficiency in getting things done for me so quickly. I kept thinking of him as my father’s lawyer but I guessed he was really mine.

Mr. Paredes explained, via Marisa, that I had a more than sufficient line of credit to accomplish my immediate goals in the Azores. I’d be able to pay my crew and their travel expenses and send them on their way.

My next stop was the American consulate. I cornered the top consular officer and explained our situation, including the fact that we had several on board who were foreign nationals serving on an American vessel. Thankfully, none of my foreign crew members were illegal. Each one had a visa to work and live in the U.S.A.

The consul assured me that he could process temporary document within no more than 48 hours for all of them. The foreigners could deal with more permanent solutions with their embassies or consuls in Miami. Things were going so well that I was already boarding the next plane to Corvo in my head. I hoped Stephen had done as good a job on his end as the lawyer had done on mine.

Possessions have never meant that much to me. I grew up surrounded by the best ‘things’ my father’s guilty dollars could buy. No amount of money could purchase what I really wanted—a normal life. The kind of life where a scraped knee was doused with peroxide, covered with a Band-Aid and forgotten with a mother’s kiss.

Part of my nonchalance toward the precious objects surrounding me had to do with the fact that I owned none of them. I used them and certainly had allowed others to assume they were mine, but I knew the truth. Consequently, I didn’t value them. My father’s passing had done more than simply transfer all of his ‘stuff’ to Dawn and me. His death had made me suddenly and irrevocably responsible.

Not knowing Dawn’s whereabouts or anything more than she was alive also weighed on me. Until she and I could work out how to divvy up the spoils our father had left behind, I was the only one in a position to safeguard them for us both.

And there was another final and more personal reason I wanted to save what I could from El Loco. She’d been my home for several years. In fact I had no other. In the tumult and upheaval I had gone through, part of me wanted some pieces of the familiar. I needed something to hold on to. I knew so little of where I was going, that I desperately wanted to remember where I’d been.

Chapter 17—Rene

Stu handed out envelopes of cash to everyone when we reached the hotel. There’s was no point in going up to the rooms. We were all rested, fed and had nothing to stow away in them anyway.

A couple of the guys and I shared a cab to a mall recommended by the concierge and split up after we got there. I’m not normally a big shopper, but I was sort of looking forward to wandering around looking for clothes for Dylan. After the night and morning we’d had, this was at least something personal I could do to feel close to him.

I’m pretty good at the silent treatment. I had heard Dylan come into the room the night before. I just pretended not to.

He’d said he knew we needed to talk. That we did. I had to make it clear to him that my idea of a loving relationship meant that I was allowed to be reasonably concerned about his welfare. I wasn’t going to baby the man, but I wasn’t going to pretend I didn’t care about his well-being, either. It was going to be very difficult to have a relationship that didn’t allow me to express my perfectly justifiable fears without him going ballistic on me.

I also didn’t like the fact that he lied to me about his plans. Okay, my father would label it a ‘sin of omission’ but ten-dollar words don’t change the facts. Dylan deliberately deceived me because he knew how I’d react. He was right, I reacted as he’d feared. That wasn’t an excuse.

I found some good looking faded jeans, a shirt with a subtle check, some new shorts and a couple of T-shirts. I found some expensive flip-flops like the ones he lost and picked up a three-pack of boxers. Being miffed didn’t keep me from imagining how nicely he’d fill out that underwear. Real shoes were something he’d have to find for himself. There was a pair of Euro-dude style canvas espadrilles that were on sale, so I threw them in the basket along with a pair of white drawstring pants.

For myself, I picked several gauzy cotton dresses. I guess they would fall into the ‘folksy’ style category. I wasn’t usually the dress type. Dylan made me a lot more feminine than I had ever felt before. I guess my new taste in clothes was a reflection of that.

I got a pair of espadrilles for myself and found a stunning hand-woven shawl that picked up all the earth tones of the yellow, rust and topaz colored dresses I had chosen. Without really planning it, I put together a mini wardrobe that was tailor-made for my beautiful necklace.

I got some shorts, too and a couple of cute tops. Then, like a magnet, the lingerie department pulled me into its seductive clutches. Several sets of panties and bras later, I was finally finished.

Dylan was on the bed watching TV when I got back to the hotel. I dropped the shopping bags beside him on the bed and said, “Hope these things are okay.  There wasn’t a terribly large selection in your sizes. I’ve noticed there aren’t a lot of tall mean in these islands.”

“Thanks for getting them.” He pulled the bags toward him and started pulling out my purchases. “Things went very well with the bank today. I’ll be able to send everyone on their way as soon as the consulate sorts out some emergency travel documents.”

“That’s good.” We were talking, but not. I was still avoiding eye contact. Not a word had been spoken about the argument. I wasn’t going to let him just sweep it aside. “Dylan, about last night . . .” He looked up from the pile of clothes and met my gaze. The dark lashes that framed his fabulous deep-sea blue eyes looked almost unreal. I loved those eyes. I got lost in them and wanted to stay lost.

“Rene, I’m sorry I blew up at you.”

“And I’m sorry that I pushed the wrong buttons. But I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. To me, when a person loves another person, they have a right to be concerned about their well being.”

“To a reasonable extent, I agree.”

“So, you think it’s unreasonable for me to be afraid that you intend to board a partially submerged wreck teetering on a rock with smoldering engines that you admitted could blow up?”

“No.”

“Then why the explosion? Why the ‘take all my toys and go home’ attitude? Couldn’t you have just stayed and discussed my issues?”

“It was the crack about two good legs. Something snapped inside.”

“I don’t know how to tell when it’s okay for me to be concerned and when you’re going to go off about it.”

“And, unfortunately, I can’t tell you either. There are just certain things . . .and certain ways of saying things that just set me off.”

“I don’t want a relationship where I have to walk on eggshells all the time. I’ve got that T-shirt and I don’t want another one.” In my mind anger equaled Nathan and Nathan equaled bad news. Never again.

“I can’t promise never to lose my temper. I can only promise to try to keep myself under control.”

I sat on the edge of the bed next to his knees and took his hand. “No one can promise
never
to lose their temper. I’m not completely unreasonable, you know.”

He tilted his head and smiled. “Not
completely
.”

“Can you try not to just storm out or go all cold on me when something’s wrong? I know how deep the pain is. You’ve told me. But I don’t think we’re ever going to work through this unless you stay—physically and emotionally—with me.”

“You’re going to have to explain that. I’m a little thick headed.”

“Okay. The first time you tripped out was after we made love for the first time. You said you felt abandoned.”

“Okay, I remember that.”

“The second time you went off and ordered me out of the room was when I didn’t give you the immediate response you wanted when you told me your ‘story’.”

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?”

“I’ll grant you that I could have handled it better. But again, your reaction was to push me away. And you were kind of nasty about it, too.” He nodded and shot me a sheepish little embarrassed smirk. “Now this time, you walked away again. Can you see a bit of a pattern here?”

“Yes, I see it. So, you want me to stay and fight?”

“I suppose you can put it that way. What I want is to finish what we start. I don’t expect we’ll always agree, but when we don’t . . .”

“You want me to see it through.”

“Exactly. Don’t run away and don’t shut down.” I took both his hands in mine and told him, “I don’t always have to win, you know. Sometimes it’s enough to just say what I have to say. After all was said and done about going to the wreck, I knew you had every right to want to go there yourself.”

“You did?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes, I did. You just didn’t give me the time to tell you so.”

“It was a cold night in that room last night.”

“It didn’t need to be. That’s my point.” I sighed. “There was another way to avoid that argument, too. You could have discussed your plans with me. How would you feel if I’d done something like that to you?”

“Not great, I admit. And I should have told you. I just didn’t want a confrontation.”

“Which is exactly what you wound up with. Because when I realized you’d betrayed my trust I got angry and gave you the exact reaction you wanted to avoid.” I squeezed his hands. “Trust more. Talk more.”

He sat up toward me and brushed his lips against mine. “I was thinking earlier about how little I really know about being in love with someone. You’re the first woman I’ve ever trusted. It’s so brand new it feels foreign.”

“I’m kind of glad it does.” It felt foreign to me, too. It was the first time in my life I’d ever felt so . . . excited about a man and about the possibilities in front of me. Dylan had already taught me that physical passion didn’t have to hurt and that tenderness didn’t have to be boring. Those were two wonderful lessons. “Because that’s the way I feel, too. We’re lucky.”

“I want you to know that I’m going to leave for Corvo as soon as I can in the morning. I just have to ask you to trust me to take care of myself.”

“And I want you to know that I understand why you have to go. I also want you to understand that I’ll still be a teensy bit worried while I wait for you on the boat.”

“On what boat?” he asked me.

“The rescue boat, of course. You didn’t think I was just going to twiddle my thumbs in a hotel, did you?”

“Actually, I thought you might head home for Lauderdale and see about finding a place for us to live.”

I decided to let that one hang in the air. I wasn’t quite sure that living together immediately was a great idea. We needed some time to settle into ourselves. “You can’t possibly expect me to go home. I’m staying here with you.”

“We’re shoving off first thing in the morning from Corvo’s port. Stephen will meet us there with the boat.”

“You’re not going to argue with me about staying?”

“What are the odds of winning?” Dylan asked.

“Absolutely zero,” I answered.

“I’m a quick learner.” He got up from the bed and pulled me up to face him. Then he lifted me off my feet and kissed me hard. My feet dangled a foot off the floor as he handled me like I weighed nothing. His arm muscles clenched under my hands; strong and sure. “I watched you walk through that field of hydrangeas on Flores and all I could think of was how I wanted to lift you into my arms like this so that the tips of your toes just tickled the tops of the blossoms. I was ready to run after you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I’m not sure. A little bit of pride. A little bit of fear. A little bit of anger.”

“Next time . . . don’t wait. I hated going to sleep like that.”

“I’m hoping there won’t be a next time.
I
hated watching your back all night.”

“There’ll be a next time. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t disagree once in a while.”

“Next time, I won’t wait,” he told me as he kissed up and down the side of my neck. “I hate waiting.” Dylan nibbled on my collar bone and lifted me high so that his face rested against my beating heart. "No waiting," he whispered. "Not ever.

***

Stephen had hired a couple of guys from Corvo to help with the salvage. He had the rescue boat ready and waiting when Dylan and I stepped off the little plane. A short ride and we were within sight of El Loco. God, it was an ugly picture. Even though I knew a cute little town was just minutes away, the wreck looked like it was at the end of the world.

She seemed to be tilting at an even more dangerous angle than when we left.  The rocks looked sharper and even though the sea was relatively calm, it crashed forcefully against the reef sending plumes of spray high into the air.

The plan was to tether the little boat alongside the yacht and get Dylan, Stephen and one of the hired hands on board via a rope ladder. It wouldn’t have been possible to board that way if the seaward side of El Loco wasn’t tilted nearly under water. The little rescue boat sat high in the water and wouldn’t run the risk of hitting the submerged rocks so all we had to do was throw some bumpers over the side to cushion us as the waves banged us into El Loco.

I was relieved to see that the fires were all apparently out. That was one less danger for me to think about.

Dylan had made one last ditch attempt to leave me waiting in Corvo, but finally had to admit defeat.

“I am not staying behind,” I had insisted. “I’ve come this far and I won’t be left here to worry all day.”

“Well your cute little body is going to be worn out at the end of this day; I can promise you that Miss Bossy Pants.”

“Sometimes you sound like a little kid.” I’d shot back.

“And sometimes I feel like one.”

He made good on his promise. The work began quickly and I was soon busy stowing the precious art work as safely as possible on my end. There were plenty of life preservers on board that I pressed into service as padding between paintings. I didn’t have to be told to be careful with them. My art professor mom was tsk, tsking in my ear the entire time.

Some of the frames were very heavy. Keeping my balance on the rocking boat was a challenge. I was grateful that Jackson Cruz collected paintings, not sculpture. I was relieved to see the Renoir I had first admired aboard El Loco passed down, apparently unscathed. That one would always be my sentimental favorite.

There were a couple of watercolors that looked like a complete loss but I put them away just as carefully as the others. Soon Dylan handed me a small frame and said, “That’s the last one I can get to. We lost a few under water, but none that were terribly valuable.”

“I’ve got them all tucked away and secured. Are we leaving now?” I wanted to get away from the rocking boat. Every wave that hit the little boat felt like a tsunami. My palms were wet with salt spray and nervous sweat the whole time.

“I’m going to go get my personal stuff. My stateroom is accessible and so is your cabin behind the galley. Where are your documents?”

“Oh, Dylan, it’s not worth it. Let’s just get out of here.”

“It’ll save us the hassle of getting new passports. Plus, I can grab all my credit cards. Just one less thing to worry about.”

I told him where to find my stuff and watched him disappear again over the side. It seemed like forever, but he finally came back to the ladder and descended into the lifeboat.