rusty-over-beige, bore few traces of the sun they must have survived. She looked like a model, taller than most women, utterly at ease with her body. “Wow, thank you SO MUCH for picking us up. That was so scary.” She plunked a beach bag down beside herself.
Her boyfriend frowned slightly. “It’s not like we were going to drown.”
“We were an awful long way from another boat,” she said, pointing down at the Whaler, “to be carrying so much water. You take too many risks.”
“Jude,” the young man said suddenly, extending a hand, turning everyone’s attention away from the boat. He smiled again. Tom shook, then Carolina.
“Shauna,” said the girl, her eyes less friendly, her teeth less prominent than Jude’s, though no less bleached. They shook hands.
“Thirsty?” Carolina asked, after Jude and Tom tied the Whaler to the yacht.
“Got beer?” said Jude.
Carolina handed him one. Jude sipped, grimaced. “What is this?” He examined the label. “Hey!”
“Sorry,” Tom said, taking it from him. “I’m in recovery.” He found another, similar-looking bottle and handed it to Jude. “This will suit you better.”
Jude drank. “Recovery. No offense, but have you ever considered that that is a fad promoted by dull people to dull people down?”
“How ‘bout you, Shauna?” Carolina asked before Tom had a chance to respond.
“Anything cold.”
Carolina handed her a beer.
“Where to?” Tom asked, starting up the yacht’s motor.
The two younger people looked at each other. “The dock at Cane Garden Bay. Imagine someone renting someone a leaky boat with a bad engine!” Jude said.
“Seems unusually stupid. You sure it’s leaking?” Tom asked.
“We don’t know that for sure, although the water got deeper, it seems to me.” Shauna adjusted the ties on her bikini. “See, the guy who rented it told us to let ‘er rip if we wanted to reach the Spit in a small boat like that. So we were going fast, but Jude got distracted when this huge yacht breezed by us…”
“The engine sucked. Weak piece of crap.” Jude said.
“Jude says the engine got wet. Anyway, we lost power.” She shrugged. “I guess that’s what happened.”
“You didn’t call for help on the radio?” asked Carolina, looking over the side of the yacht into the small, swamped boat drifting astride.
“Of course. Bum radio. Big surprise,” Jude said.
“And forget mobile phones out here,” Shauna added. “No reception.”
The sky darkened suddenly, cotton-ball clouds fluffing over the sun.
“What time does your rental-man close?” Tom asked, hand over his eyes scanning the bumpy brown island in the distance.
Jude looked toward Tortola. “No rush. He lives right next to the dock. Someone can find him.” He leaned back, one hand stroking the cushion. “Let’s face it, your ride beats our ride.” He looked around. “Nice.”
“Ha,” Shauna said. “That’s for sure.” She finished her beer quickly. He finished his.
“Thanks for picking us up,” said Shauna.
“Where have you been staying?” Carolina asked.
“Smuggler’s Cove,” Jude said.
“Is that also on Tortola?”
“Right,” said Shauna. “The far side. Past Long Bay? We have friends there with a house. Not air-conditioned, if you can believe that. Hot. But there’s a teeny-weeny pool.”
“Which fruit bats love in the evenings,” said Jude.
“They swoop down to drink,” said Shauna.
“We’ll have to see it sometime.” Carolina squeezed Tom’s arm. “We don’t know that part of Tortola.”
“A hidden gem of the Caribbean, the travel writers say.” Shauna reflected Carolina ’s motion, squeezing Jude’s arm.
“There used to be smugglers and pirates all over,” said Jude. “ Norman ’s Island? In those caves.” He moved away from Shauna, splashing fresh water from a jug over his sweating body. “They brought down European ships and stole their booty. They hid in the caves until the heat was off, then sailed away, totally rich.”
The conversation stalled. After Carolina offered him another beer and he took it, Jude sat down and lay back against the cushions, eyes closed, catching the last bit of sunlight.
“How ‘bout some wine, Shauna? We have some cold white. California. Prize-winning,” Carolina said, with a private smile for Tom.
“Sounds good, but first, where’s the head?”
“Down the stairs to the right of the galley,” Tom said.
Carolina took her below, then rummaged around the galley. After Shauna finished, she returned to the deck and Carolina lingered below. Tom appeared. “You gave him near beer?”
“I stink as a host, yep.”
“Bad enough we drink the stuff,” Carolina muttered and put together a plate of goodies on a platter that resembled a big green leaf. “Shouldn’t you be steering?”
“Gave Jude a turn.”
“Is that wise?”
“Don’t worry.”
They returned to the deck. Tom and Carolina stayed close to each other, a lingering look or touch between them here and there. Tom took the wheel from Jude, who settled back beside Shauna.
“Honeymooners?” Shauna asked, looking first at Tom, then Carolina.
They nodded, tightening their grips on each other.
“Told you,” she said to Jude. The sun continued to sink; the deck darkened. Carolina lit night lights, which twinkled like the night sky, hugely, doubled by their reflections, across the windy sea and beyond.
“Why not switch to sail?” Jude asked. Islands twinkled in the distance, at least three close enough to shine crisply. Tortola, which had appeared so faraway, now loomed close and dark, with only a few spots with many lights. “Something wrong?”
Tom laughed. “Only that I’m a lazy sailor.”
Shauna refilled her wineglass for the third or fourth time, wobbling from the cooler to the bench.
“You cold?” Carolina asked.
“Yeah, but I’ve got a sweater.” She reached into her beach bag and found one.
The silvery gray sky wavered between day and night.
“A sunset to die for!” Shauna raised her wineglass to the ever-changing froths that lit the sky.
They all watched in awe as the sky trembled between red, peach, orange, gold, violet.
“Like flames.” Shauna settled herself against Jude, who put his arm around her.
“Not long, now,” Tom said.
Darkness, with the slim smile of a moon, starlight, and glowing sea, descended.
Suddenly, Jude sat up straight. A gun sprang from his pocket and into his hand.
Carolina and Tom blinked at the sight. “What have we here?” Carolina asked, the remaining half of her sandwich, chicken with avocado and a slice of tomato, in one hand, limp. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing personal,” said Jude, not high, not the least bit affected by the multiple alcoholic beverages he had previously appeared to suck down.
Shauna, a little less on the ball, eyes a bit blurred, stood up, knocking back her last glass of wine. She tapped the empty glass against a bench, then watched it break. “Sorry,” she said.
Carolina stood up.
“We’ll give you a fighting chance,” Shauna said. “Yours for ours.”
“You’d put us on that piece of junk?” Tom asked. “You survive and we drown?”
Jude said nothing, just nudged them to stand.
“We walk the plank and drown,” Carolina said. “You play pirates.”
“We do what we hafta,” Shauna said.
Walking Carolina toward the leaky, tethered Whaler, Jude pressed a gun to her back. A scrim of water shined in the bottom. “I’m grateful to people like you. Do-gooders.” After opening several bins and searching quickly, he found rope.
“Tie us up?” Carolina said. “You want us to die?”
“Here be dragons. I guess when you booked your honeymoon, you didn’t consider that.” Jude tried to wrap her wrists but since he was holding a gun, couldn’t. He motioned Shauna over to help.
“You’re smugglers. You steal boats. You kill people for drug money,” Carolina said.
“You have a fighting chance!” Shauna said.
Jude pushed the gun hard into her back. “Rich bitch.”
Shauna offered up an apologetic shrug, then looped nylon rope around Carolina ’s wrists.
Carolina twisted quickly and kicked Shauna’s knee out from under her. Shauna fell.
Jude, startled, momentarily lost position, then aimed at Carolina. Behind him, Tom lunged. Smoothly, he grabbed the gun out of Jude’s hand and turned it on him.
Carolina wrestled free of the nylon ropes holding her wrists. She jumped up and pulled Shauna into a headlock.
“What the hell!” shouted Jude, staring down the barrel of his own gun, held by Tom, pointed at his face.
Sirens sounded.
Tom swiveled the younger man around, then pulled Jude’s hands behind his back, locking them in cuffs.
Shauna, quicker to recover than expected, stood, smacking Carolina ’s head with a tightly balled fist. Then, while Carolina reeled, ignoring the gun pointed at Jude’s head, Shauna threw herself toward Tom.
Tom’s right arm struck her on the fly. She collapsed heavily onto the deck, panting, looking up at him, teary-eyed with pain.
Carolina jumped onto Shauna. Shauna wriggled and fought until Carolina pinned her like a wrestler to the deck. She cuffed her.
Tom and Carolina sat the two down on a bench a few feet apart from each other, where they drooped unhappily in the brilliant moonlight.
