Midnight Sun (8 page)

Brylie appeared at his side and he spun on her, defensive, and mad at himself. He hadn’t even heard her climb down.

He scowled. “You’re going to get caught. Get back up there where it’s safe.”

She said nothing, didn’t even acknowledge that she heard him, just handed him some wadded toilet tissue. She took the bottle of water from him and poured as he scrubbed the endless blood from the creases of his hand. He resisted the urge to grab another bottle when the first was empty, but they needed to conserve, just in case. He scrubbed his hands until the toilet tissue fell apart, then he stepped back.

Brylie crouched to mop up the clumps of tissue and the wetness around the drain with more toilet tissue. She straightened and tucked the pinkened paper away before leaving him standing there at the drain, wondering what the hell he’d done right in his life to be stranded here with her.

Marcus woke from a dream where he was falling, sliding off his bed. He opened his eyes in the darkened room and realized it wasn’t a dream. The ship was listing, and he and Brylie were sliding off their perch on the top shelf.

He wrapped one arm around her and reached out with his other hand, spreading his legs at the same time, hoping some part of his body would catch some part of the shelving before they slid the fifteen feet to the floor below. Just when he felt his feet dangle over the edge without catching anything, the ship rolled in the other direction, sending them tumbling into the wall. Brylie twisted and flung her hands out. He felt the jolt in her body as a case of God-knew-what slammed against her.

“Okay?” he muttered. “What is it?”

“I think we’ve hit the Drake Passage. The seas get rough here. We need to get down.” She broke away and moved toward the edge of the shelf. “The shelves should stay, and most of this stuff is secured but—.”

He got it. Too many projectiles.  He snatched up the walkie and the guns, tucked them in his clothing, and followed her down the shelves, feeling his way in the dark. Another pitch of the ship and his feet slipped out from under him and he gripped the upright pole with both hands.

“Brylie!”

“I’m okay. I’m down.”

He felt her hands on his legs, guiding him to the next shelf. He balanced himself with a quick touch of the sole of his foot to the shelf and jumped the rest of the way to the floor as the ship rolled. He stumbled and she caught him. The supplies shifting on the shelves made him nervous.

“Let’s go.” He closed his hand around her arm and guided her toward the door.

She dug her feet in. “Where?”

“Someplace where shit won’t fall on our heads. Someone’s bunk should be nearby, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“Surely they won’t come looking for us in this.” Behind him something crashed to the ground and skidded across the floor. His shoulders tightened as he waited for the next projectile to land on him. “Come on. Let’s go.”

They pushed through the door of dry storage and into the hall. Even the dim hall lights hurt his eyes after straining to see in the darkness of the hold.

She turned to the first door on the right and used her master key card. He braced his legs apart and pressed his hand against her back to steady her. She pushed the door open and they staggered in. He turned quickly, shut the door quietly and applied the safety lock. When he turned back, he saw Brylie bent over the full-sized bunk, pulling straps from the wall beside the mattress.

“Did we walk into the fetish room here?” he teased.

“Keeps you from rolling out of bed during rough seas,” she retorted. “Feels like this may be more than just the passage. I think we’ve run into a storm.” Once the straps were in place she leaned over the bed to look out the rain-and-wave-lashed windows. “I wish we could see the radar, to see how big it is.”

“Yeah, I’m not going back on the bridge.” He sat on the edge of the bed

and removed his boots with a sigh. “We can just pretend we’re living a hundred years ago and ride the storm out.”

“What are you doing?” she asked when he stood and unbuttoned his jeans.

He shoved the stiff fabric down his legs. “Going to take a shower. Can’t bear having this blood on me anymore.”

“It’s not really safe to shower in the middle of this.”

“You don’t have a strap in there to hold me to the wall?” He grinned and stood to strip off his sweatshirt. “See if whosever room this is has some pants I can wear.”

“Oh, please let them be pink.” She stumbled two steps to the closet.

He opened a drawer and dropped the walkie, the sat phones and the gun inside before closing it again, securing it. “You’ll be okay?”

She glanced toward the door and swallowed. “Sure.”

He got the feeling she wanted to say something else but though he waited, she didn’t add anything, just gave him a nervous smile, so he slipped into the bathroom.

God, it felt good to get the crusty blood off his skin, though he had to resist the urge to scrub until his skin was raw. He felt it everywhere, could see it every time he closed his eyes. But after being jostled around the shower like a ball in one of those kids’ toys that toddlers pushed around—one of the pitches of the ship sent him slamming into the nozzles, ow—he shut off the water, toweled off and opened the door to see Brylie sitting on the bed, clutching the window ledge as she watched the tossing sea. He studied her for a moment, her expression peaceful, which surprised the hell out of him, considering the way the boat tossed.

She turned to him with a smile, different than the one she’d sent him into the shower with. This was more the Brylie he’d known before all this shit went down.

“I found you some sweats, pants and a shirt.” She nodded toward the chair at the end of the bed, then turned her attention back to the sea. “They might be too big.”

“No problem.” He dropped his towel, with no reaction from her. He reached for his shorts, then the gray sweats. “Must be some storm.”

“It’s pretty incredible.” She looked over her shoulder and her eyes widened.

He stopped with his shorts halfway up. “Should I stop?”

She flicked her gaze to the door. “No. I wouldn’t be able to relax.”

“Oh, yeah you would.” But he got it. Not the right time. He pulled the pants up the rest of the way. They were a little loose and long. He searched for the string to pull the waistband tight. “Once this is over, I’m taking you back to that hotel and keeping you there for a week.”

“What?” She tucked her hair behind her ear as she turned to face him. “What?”

He sat beside her and drew that same lock of hair free to rub it between his fingers. He loved her hair, soft and floaty. “I want to keep you in a room, to myself, no one looking for us, for a week. Maybe two.”

She laughed and drew away, sitting with her head against the wall, that same Mona Lisa smile playing on her lips as she looked at him. “You would get bored.”

“I don’t think so.” He grabbed his sweatshirt and drew it over his chilled skin. Then he edged further onto the bed and wrapped his arms around her so they could watch the tossing sea together.

“The passengers are going to get seasick,” she murmured. “I hope the gunmen let Joan distribute the medicine.”

He passed a soothing hand down her hip. “I’m sure they will, or they’ll be the ones dealing with the puking.”

“Maybe we should listen to know what’s going on.” She twisted to reach for the drawer.

He tightened his arms around her. “Nothing you can do about it anyway. Why torture yourself?”

“It’s wrong that I’m safe and they’re not.”

“They are. They’ll be safe as long as these men want their money. They might not be comfortable or happy, but they’re safe.” He smoothed her hair against her temple and she dropped her head against his shoulder. “When the storm passes, the patrol will be here and this will be over.” He didn’t voice his own fear that the storm would delay their rescue further. She’d figure that out for herself soon enough.

The ship pitched and rolled violently. Marcus felt like a giant hand was picking them up and dropping them down, sometimes so far on the side he thought they might capsize. He tightened his grip on Brylie, as if he could protect her if that happened.

“Are you okay?” he asked, as his stomach did a tumble rivaling the time he did a 1080 rotation on the half-pipe.

“Ugh, that was a bad one.” She reached behind her for the strap and pulled it across them. “Buckle us in.”

“I liked it better when I thought these had another purpose.” He found the connection and made it so the strap pinned their hips to the bunk. She handed him the next strap and he buckled it over their chests. “Shit. I feel like a bug on a board at a science fair.”

“Now you can fall asleep without worrying about falling out of bed. You can face this way.”

He turned, but couldn’t keep his gaze on her, not when she tilted at crazy angles. “Oh, geez,” he groaned, and shifted onto his back to stare at the ceiling. “Have you been in a storm like this before?”

“There’s always a chop when we pass the 50th parallel, but no. Not like this.”

He turned his head to look at her. “So you have a gut of iron, then.”

“I’m trying to impress you.” She couldn’t hide her smile.

The ship nosed into a trough, practically standing them on their heads and he bit out a groan. “I’m impressed.” Much more of that and he’d disgrace himself. “How long do these things usually last?”

“Hours. Sometimes a lot of hours.”

He rested his forearm over his eyes. “That was just mean.”

“Do you want me to lie?” She shifted onto her side and placed her hand on his chest.

He covered her hand with his, rubbed his fingertips over the soft skin, tapping her knuckles. “Maybe.”

“So I should have said it’ll be over in ten minutes and then everyone gets a cookie?”

“Crème brulee,” he corrected with a grin.

“All right then. You don’t puke on me and I’ll get you some crème brulee.”

“Maybe that Antarctica beer would be a better idea,” he muttered when the bed angled. “You think they’d let your dad out to pilot us through this? He’s been through shit like this before, yeah?”

“He’s been doing this for years, and was in the Navy before that. So, yeah.” She smoothed her hand over his chest, as if that would soothe him. “I would have thought a man with your adventurous spirit would like this. It’s kind of like a ride.”

He chuckled. “Never done something quite this insane.” He wouldn’t think about the ship turning over into the icy seas. He never should have watched that Titanic movie, even for the special effects. All he could see was Leonardo clinging to that damned chunk of ice. “Are there icebergs out there?”

“Not usually this far north. Relax. Try to get some rest.”

Funny how she was telling him to relax now, but he liked the sound of her voice, imagined it was pitched low for another reason than to avoid detection by any bad guys that might be lurking in the hall. “It’d be like sleeping on a damned roller coaster.”

“Tell me some of the crazy things you’ve done. They have to be worse than this.”

He let his fingers travel up her arm as he returned his gaze to the ceiling, needing a focal point that wasn’t moving. He understood what she was doing, and appreciated it. His mind needed something besides the storm and the pirates to focus on. And maybe if he remembered his wilder stunts, this might not seem so bad. Only he’d been the one calling the shots then. “Let’s see. I’ve surfed in Teahupoo, Tahiti, which has some of the most extreme waves in the world. I jumped out of a helicopter to ski down a mountain in New Zealand.”

“Oh, my God.”

He chuckled, feeling the air sucked out of his lungs even three years after the stunt. “Yeah, that was something I won’t do again. Oh, and I was in the delivery room with my sister when she had her first baby. That was pretty terrifying, especially when she damn near ripped my arm off.”

“And you’re scared of a little thunder and lightning?” She shifted closer and turned her gaze to him. “How did you happen to be in the delivery room with your sister?”

“Her husband was out of town. The kid was early by about three weeks. Mom and Dad were on a cruise, Jimmy was in San Francisco. I was all she had.”

“Surely not. She wanted you in there. Women don’t just invite people willy-nilly into the delivery room.”

“Maybe she wanted to scare me straight so I wouldn’t knock anybody up.” He dug tickling fingers into the soft flesh of her side.

She laughed and jerked away. “Maybe you made her feel safe.”

He snorted, but another roll of the ship had him reaching for the buckles. He dragged himself free from the straps and made it to the bathroom just in time.

No crème brulee for him.

A rustling by the door told him Brylie had joined him. He waved a hand behind him, not wanting to remove his head from the vicinity of the toilet. “Go away, Brylie. You’re going to get hurt.”

Why he thought she’d start listening to him now, he had no idea. She braced her hand on the wall beside him and ran the water in the tiny sink to his left. Before he could open his mouth to protest, she pressed a cool cloth to his head. Who knew such a gesture could feel like heaven? He pressed his hand over hers to hold it in place, and closed his eyes. A toss of the ship sent her lurching to the side. Moments later, she closed the door, then he felt her settle behind him, her legs folded around his hips, her cheek against his back, also amazingly soothing. Her fingers stroked the back of his neck until he felt his stomach settle.

“I feel like an idiot.”

“I won’t tease you until tomorrow,” she promised.

He groaned, and with extreme humiliation, puked again.

When Brylie woke the next morning, Marcus was no longer clammy under her hand, and his breathing was even, relaxed.  She wished this was a normal morning, that they could wake slowly, leisurely. But if this was a normal morning, they wouldn’t be here, would they? She stroked her finger down his back, then turned carefully so she wouldn’t disturb him.

The seas were decidedly calmer, though a glance out the window told her they were still plenty rough, and the clouds still appeared turbulent.

“Their ship is gone,” she said aloud as soon as she realized it.