Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
It’s wild how quickly a person adapted to extreme situations. Like being stranded with a hot stranger, then, segueing to searing, mind-altering sex with said stranger, and realizing, you are quickly becoming addicted to the hot stranger’s presence in your life.
Lily noticed the energy of the room was off the minute she opened her eyes. Usually, she woke to Alex’s arm draped across her waist, the steady rhythm of his breathing against her hair, the warm press of his body against the curve of her backside. And always the morning sex that followed.
But today she found the bed empty, the sheets beside her cool to the touch.
She sat up, blinking away sleep, and spotted him hunched over the small kitchen table. His back was to her, shoulders curved over what looked like his field journal, but something about his posture felt off.
"You're up early," she said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
“Some of us still have work to do.” Clipped. Dismissive. She knew that voice. She'd heard it on her first day here, when he'd tried to leave her on the porch in a monsoon. It was his go away, I'm handling this myself voice, and it immediately put her on alert.
She padded across the cabin, deliberately ignoring the coffee maker—a sacrifice that should earn her actual sainthood—and rounded the table to face him. Immediately, she saw his left hand wrapped in a bandage that definitely wasn’t there yesterday.
"What's wrong with your hand?"
The white gauze was spotted with something yellowish that definitely wasn't seawater.
“Don’t worry about it.” He tucked it against his chest like a kid caught stealing cookies. “I’ve got it handled.”
"A scrape that's oozing mystery goo?"
"It's not oozing—"
"Let me see."
"Lily, I'm fine."
"You're a lot of things, Carmichael. Fine isn't one of them.
" She crouched beside his chair, putting herself at eye level, and that's when she saw it—the sheen of sweat on his forehead, the slight glassiness in those blue eyes that usually looked at her with such sharp focus.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me. You have a fever. "
"I don't—"
She pressed her palm to his forehead before he could finish.
"Jesus, Alex." She yanked her hand back like she'd touched a stove. "You're basically on fire."
"It's the humidity."
"The humidity doesn't make you sweat through your shirt at seven in the morning." She gently grabbed his wrist—the left one, the one he was guarding—and felt him flinch. "Show me the hand. Now."
"You're being dramatic."
"And you're being a stubborn jackass. Show me."
For a long moment, he didn't move. She watched the war play out across his face—pride versus pain versus the dawning realization that he couldn't actually hide this.
Finally, with a sigh that seemed to deflate him entirely, he extended his hand.
Lily unwrapped the bandage and immediately wished she hadn't.
"Holy shit, Alex."
The wound was ugly. A deep gash across his palm, edges ragged and swollen, the skin around it an angry red bleeding into purple. Something yellowish wept from the cut, and when she leaned closer, she caught that particular smell—sweet and wrong—that meant infection.
"The ghost net," he said quietly. "When I was documenting the damage. I wasn't paying attention."
Yesterday. The dead turtle. The devastation on his face when he'd seen what the net had done to the reef he loved.
He'd hurt himself and hadn't said a word.
"This happened yesterday? And you just—what—decided to keep it a secret?"
"I cleaned it. Applied antiseptic." A defensive shrug. "It should have been fine."
"Well, it's not fine. It's the opposite of fine. It's—" She stood abruptly, her mind racing. "Why am I explaining coral infections to the marine biologist? You know better than this."
He scowled. “I said I’ve got it handled.”
“Men,” she muttered, crossing to the first aid kit, yanking it open. "Your hand looks like a horror movie prop and you're pulling the machismo card? Typical. I swear, you’re all the same. Won’t ask for directions, won’t ask for help, won’t admit when their hand is about to rot and fall off.”
“It’s not that bad—”
“Shut up. I'm trying to figure out how to fix this."
She heard his chair scrape back.
"Sit down," she said without turning.
"I need to check on—"
"You need to sit your ass in that chair and let me help you." She turned, arms full of supplies, and leveled him with a glare. "I mean it. Sit."
"I'm not a golden retriever, Lily."
"Golden retrievers are trainable. Jury's still out on you." She pointed at the chair. "Sit. Drink water. Let me work."
He sat.
Small victories.
Cleaning the wound was awful.
Alex stayed rigid while she worked, jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth. He didn't make a sound—not when she flushed the cut with antiseptic, not when she picked out the debris still embedded in the wound, not when she pressed fresh gauze against raw flesh.
But his breathing changed. Faster. Shallower. And his good hand had a death grip on the water bottle she'd shoved at him.
"You can swear if you want," Lily said, carefully applying antibiotic ointment. "I won't tell anyone."
"I don't need to swear."
"Your knuckles are turning white."
He glanced down, forced his fingers to relax. "I've had worse."
"That's not the brag you think it is." She began wrapping his palm in clean gauze. "It just means you've been hurt before and handled it alone. That's not tough. That's just... sad."
"Wow. Thanks."
"I'm serious." She secured the bandage with medical tape, smoothing the edges with more care than strictly necessary. "When's the last time someone took care of you when you were sick?"
The question landed wrong. She saw it in the way his expression shuttered, the way his shoulders went tight.
"I don't get sick."
"Everyone gets sick."
"Then I handle it."
"By yourself."
"Yes." The word came out sharp. Final. A door slamming shut.
Lily filed that away—another piece of the Alex Carmichael puzzle she was slowly assembling. Jesus, this man was so intent on shutting himself off and away he couldn’t help but flinch from kindness like it might burn him.
When's the last time someone took care of you?
She had a terrible feeling she knew the answer.
"Okay," she said, keeping her voice light. "New plan. You're going to rest—"
"I can't rest. The turtle nest—"
"I'll check on it."
He stared at her like she'd suggested tap-dancing on the reef. "You?"
"Don't look so horrified. You've walked me through it. I can handle taking notes and observing from a safe distance.”
"It's not just looking at sand. The signs of imminent hatching are subtle. You have to know what you're—"
"Then tell me what to look for." She planted her hands on her hips. "Write me a list. Draw me a diagram. But you are staying in this cabin, drinking fluids, and letting your body fight off whatever's trying to kill you. End of discussion."
"This isn't a negotiation."
"You're right. It's not. I'm telling you what's happening." She grabbed his water bottle and thrust it back at him. "Drink."
"Lily—"
"Drink the water, Alex."
He drank. Grudgingly. Glaring at her the whole time.
"Good boy," she said sweetly.
"I will throw this water at you."
"You'll miss. Your depth perception is probably shot from the fever." She started cleaning up the supplies. "Now. Tell me exactly how to check on your turtle babies, and then you're going to lie down and rest."
"I don't lie down and rest. I don't know how to do that."
"Then you'll learn. Consider it a growth opportunity."
For a long moment, he just looked at her—frustrated and feverish and something else underneath. Something that looked almost like wonder.
"You're not going to let this go, are you?"
"Nope."
"Even if I pull rank as the actual scientist here?"
"Especially then." She smiled, but it was softer than she intended. "Someone's got to save you from yourself, Carmichael. Might as well be me."
"Why do you care so much?" he asked as she steered him toward the bed.
Lily planted her hands on her hips. "Because without a functioning hand, you can't do that thing I love—you know, when your head's between my thighs. Good enough reason to shut up and rest?"
Alex went quiet. Settled against the pillows without another word of protest.
That's what I thought.
She tugged the blanket over him, stuffed her notebook in her bag, and blew him a kiss on her way out. His eyes were already closed.
The nest was exactly where Alex had described—a subtle depression in the sand that she would have walked right past a month ago.
But she wasn't the same person she'd been a month ago. Alex had taught her to see differently. To slow down. To notice the small things that revealed the big picture.
She crouched at a respectful distance, scanning for the signs he'd described. No cracks in the surface. No breathing movements. Just sand, patient and still, keeping its secrets.
But there were tracks. Fresh ones—wide sweeping marks from the water's edge to the nest and back again. The mother, checking on her babies.
She keeps coming back, Lily thought. Crossing an entire ocean to make sure they're safe.
Something about that image stuck in her chest like a splinter.
She stayed longer than necessary, watching the sand like it might reveal something if she was patient enough. The sun climbed higher, warming her shoulders. The waves kept their rhythm. A tropicbird screamed overhead.
This is what he loves. This patience. This faith that something miraculous is coming if you just wait long enough.
She understood it now, in a way she hadn't before.
She just wished he'd have the same faith in them.
When Lily returned to the cabin two hours later, the only sound was Alex's steady breathing.