Lovewrecked - Karina Halle Page 0,62
it.”
Oh. Well, jeez.
“You did make sure everyone is safe, Tai. We’re all here, we’re all alive. I know you didn’t save the boat but it’s still on the reef, it can be salvaged.”
“No,” he says angrily. “It can’t be. It’s gone. She’s gone.”
I’m not sure if he’s talking about the boat or his sister. It might be both.
I swim toward him, placing my hand around his waist.
“Please, Daisy,” he murmurs, closing his eyes. “I can’t…”
I ignore the sting of rejection.
“You did your job, Tai. You saved us. You got us off that ship. Now we’re here and we’re alive. Let yourself feel that. Let yourself be alive, too.”
I watch him closely, the way he’s breathing heavily through his nose, the pain on his brow. I’m probably making things worse. I should probably let go.
“I was married,” he says. The words come out heavy, sinking into the water.
I let go of his waist, shocked. “What?”
He glances at me briefly. “I was married. For three years. Her name was Holly. Is Holly. She’s still out there, married again, with kids. Which is fine, that’s something she always wanted. Can’t say I did.”
I’m so stunned, I don’t even know how to file this information into my brain. He was married? What else is he keeping from me?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
He shrugs with one shoulder out of the water. “Wasn’t important.”
“It’s kind of important.”
“Why?”
“Because…maybe it explains why you’re so grumpy.” One of the explanations anyway.
“Can’t a man be a grump? Does he need a reason?” he says half-heartedly.
“How long ago? I mean, when did you get divorced?”
“Four years ago or so? It was amicable.”
“An amicable divorce? That’s hard to believe. What happened?”
He sighs. “Nothing happened. One day she decided she didn’t love me anymore. She never cheated, I don’t think. She just decided I wasn’t worth fighting for. She wouldn’t do couples counselling, wouldn’t listen to my side of things. The side that told her I loved her. She just…suddenly didn’t care anymore.”
“God,” I whisper.
“I’m over it now,” he says. “But it took some time. Not only to get over her but to get over the damage she did. Makes it really hard to trust someone, you know?”
Yeah. I know.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
“Me too. But it’s for the best at any rate. You want to know the funny thing? I’d been screwed over before that. I thought Holly was different. Special. She worked at the marina with me, she was low-maintenance, she was one of the boys. She wasn’t…”
“Like those other girls?” I fill in wryly.
“Yeah.”
“Girls like me?”
He gives me a puzzled look. “She wasn’t anything like you, Daisy.”
Then he dives under the water, swimming past me, heading for shore.
I decide to stop being a pervert for once and not watch him get dressed. Besides, my mind is tripping over what he just said. I don’t know what any of that meant.
What I do know is that he thinks I’m a distraction, and apparently not in the right way. Not a distraction he wants.
You’re not what he wants, I tell myself. Part of me thinks that maybe that’s just because we’re on this island. Maybe when we get back to Fiji…
And then what? Even if he gives into you in Fiji, he’s going back to New Zealand, to his life there. And you’re going…who knows where.
Besides, he didn’t just drop the marriage bomb on me for no reason. That was his way of saying not now, not ever. As if the reason before wasn’t enough.
I can’t help but feel completely deflated and disappointed. I kissed him. What the hell was I thinking?
I get out of the water and get dressed, while Tai fills up water bottles from the stream, popping in some purification tablets.
“Should we head back and tell the others?” I ask him when we’re ready to go.
“I think we should follow this stream, see where it leads. If there’s anything on this island, people will take advantage of a water source.” He peers at me. “You up for it?”
“Up for anything,” I tell him, though really I just want to get back to camp and have some alone time, try to make sense of everything that just happened.
Even though more time to dwell on the rejection will just make me feel worse.
He nods and I follow him down the stream for about twenty minutes or so, the refreshing dip in the pool undone by sweat and grime, until the forest seems to open up.
Suddenly we find ourselves on