Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong - By Nikki Logan Page 0,60
her sweat-damp head and spoke against her scalp. ‘Then tomorrow I’ll go.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘THERE ya go, love.’
Mark, the boatman, passed the last of the supplies from The Journeyman onto the reef, where Honor received them absently. The waters were rougher today and waves splashed relentlessly onto the reef where she stood.
‘Thanks, Mark.’ She didn’t know his last name, she realised. Even after four years, he was still just Mark-the-Boatman. She’d never asked. In truth, she’d never even wondered. He was simply the guy who got her here and brought her food and got her home again eight months later, just before monsoon season hit.
He didn’t need a second name.
‘Hey, Mark?’ Honor looked at him from the reef, conscious of how fragile and pale she probably looked to him. It was how she felt. ‘How’s your family?’ A tiny voice whispered that he might not even have a family. She didn’t care. It seemed worse never to have asked before.
The burly boat-operator paused in the midst of what he was doing and looked at her with surprise. ‘They’re good, love. My little one starts school after the holidays.’
She waited for the sickening lurch, the inevitable immediate image of Justin as he might have looked on his first day of school. It didn’t come; or, if it did, it fled again, realising there was no more room at the Inn of Self-Pity.
‘Congratulations.’
She surprised herself by meaning it. She turned away, ignoring the furrow creasing Mark-the-Boatman’s brow. Further along the reef, Mark’s Malay deckhand worked with Rob repairing the damage to The Player’s hull. He stood on deck monitoring the air that fed down beneath the surface where Rob welded over the hull. The young deckie’s thick curls blew around his face in the stiff breeze coming off the icy ocean. Behind him, she could see billowing, grey soldiers amassing on the horizon. The choppy water around the boat flickered iridescent orange from the underwater welding and a large shadow moved gently within the glow.
Rob.
Honor knew she’d have to get used to not saying his name. Not thinking it. As soon as his repairs were finished, The Journeyman would be heading back to Cocos, shepherding The Player safely back to dock. Then he’d get his permanent repairs and set course to the south and his home in Perth.
She guessed she had about ten minutes left before she never saw him again. Unable to bear the wait, she turned and pulled the first of the three buoyancy sacks filled with replacement supplies over her good shoulder.
‘Ms Brier?’ Mark called as she turned. ‘There’s a letter from Parks Australia in one of the sacks—came in on yesterday’s Q-Star flight. It looked important so I just shoved it in one of the bags as we left. Hope that’s okay?’
What? She rarely got mail at home, let alone out here.
‘That’s fine, Mark. Thanks for letting me know.’
She slipped gently into the lagoon, turned and dragged the buoyancy sack into the water behind her, towing it slowly back to shore. Intentionally taking her time. The coward part of her hoped that she’d get to land and see the two boats heading out to sea, to avoid the inevitable awkward farewell with Rob. After everything they’d said yesterday, what more was there to cover? It had been hard enough watching him swim out to The Player to spend their last night together apart.
Her breathing came heavily and not from fighting the choppy lagoon waters. Her pulse had been racing ever since she’d seen The Journeyman plough towards them around the far edge of the island earlier that hour. An anxiety she was too frightened to name crouched in her stomach, pushing on her diaphragm and robbing her of air.
Loss. She easily picked out her old adversary from amongst the confusion and despair. That, at least, she knew she could deal with, but she also knew with nauseating certainty how she was going to feel tomorrow, and the next day.
And the next.
She’d been on this train a long, long time.
As she pulled herself upright and out onto the shore, she realised that she was tired of feeling that way. Sorrow was exhausting. She hadn’t noticed until just then how light she’d felt these past few days. It wasn’t until the old familiar weight settled back in that she realised she’d been living without it for days. Since Rob crashed into her life.
Honor lugged the sack up the shore to the high-tide line and quickly opened it to check the contents. Two