Chapter 11
Adam’s hands clung to her upper arms—warm beneath his fingers, yet trembling “I thought you wanted space,” Adam said, voice tight. His gaze flicked over her face, as though he might read forgiveness there.
Lucy raised her voice against the churning wind.
“You didn’t even check to see where I was.
” Her pulse pounded. She remembered every moment she spent climbing rocks for rainwater, fashioning a lean-to of torn tarp, coaxing coals back to life under a sky thick with clouds—all while he was safe on the ship.
Adam swallowed hard. “Karina told me you didn’t want to be on the same boat back as me—” He paused, blinked. “—you didn’t come back with the others.”
Lucy turned to watch the two rescue techs trimming away the makeshift bandage from Steven’s ankle.
He sat on the edge of the crumpled shelter, half in shadow, one hand covering a grimace as he flexed his foot.
The metal rain basins and the snapped poles of her shelter staked the sand like monuments to the wild night they’d endured.
She envied those rescuers the precision with which they assessed wounds—knowing exactly where to cut, what to unwrap.
“You believed her,” Lucy said flately. “Why would you believe that?”
“I don’t know.” Adam’s jaw clenched. For a moment he glanced at Steven, then shifted back to her.
“After I had dinner, I went to the cabin and tried calling. Karina’s bag started buzzing on her desk, and when I asked, she told me you’d taken the second launch back—said you were too annoyed and frustrated with me to see me right then. ”
Lucy pictured that phone: sealed in plastic, pulsing from inside Karina’s tote while Adam hovered at her side, confused.
Karina would have smoothed over questions with that habitual smile, concocted any excuse to keep him calm and unthinking.
She knew the phones were in the excursion bag—knew that meant Lucy and Steven were still on the trail.
“What did she say?” Lucy demanded.
Adam ran a hand through damp hair. “That you’d forgotten the phone in the bag by mistake. When I pressed, she said the second launch—you were on it. Then the second captain told me you were on the first, and the first captain said everyone was accounted for because Karina had checked you off.”
Lucy waited as the wind tugged at her hair, as the marine scent of salt and burning wood filled her lungs. When the noise of radios and rotor blades dropped away inside her head, she spoke again. “She checked us off.”
Adam closed his eyes, as though the admission pained him more than the night’s ordeal. “I didn’t have any reason to think she was wrong. Karina said you were safe.”
He glanced at Steven once more and she saw a stab of guilt go through Adam’s expression. Lucy’s anger bubbled hotter. He’d watched her go, then carried on as if her absence were a trivial clerical error.
“You didn’t even come looking for me?” Lucy said, counting hours in her head. “The launches got back before four.”
Adam shifted, eyes darting. “Daniel pulled me into a meeting. I went to the pool, then dinner. Karina said you were okay—so I didn’t dig any deeper.”
“You didn’t come looking for me,” Lucy repeated softly. It was a statement now, not a question.
Before Adam could reply, a shore-patrol officer in gray approached.
Officer Joseph introduced herself, asked Lucy about head injuries or swallowed seawater, and draped a warm blanket over her shoulders.
When Lucy said she felt fine, the officer offered a gentle nod.
“You made good choices out here—water catchment, shelter, signal fire. Keeping those embers alight through last night’s storm probably avoided hypothermia.
People underestimate how cold it can get on the beach at night. ”
Adam glanced up at the battered tarp and the tin basins, eyes widening as if suddenly unseeing the physical evidence of Lucy’s resourcefulness. “You—you built all this?”
Lucy turned to Steven, who twisted to face them in mock modesty. “I supplied the water-bottle and the ankle injury. The rest was Lucy’s doing.”
Adam’s face softened, fear giving way to awe as he took in the modified lean-to. “Lucy, I?—”
He didn’t need to finish. Lucy allowed him to take her hand as they walked over the wet stones to the waiting launch, though she let go once they were aboard.
Officer Joseph seated Lucy beside Steven, tucked another blanket around his shoulders, and after a few more questions, settled into the driver’s seat.
As the launch pulled away, Lucy described the empty cove, the shattered remains of her shelter, and the ghostly passage of two lights above the trees. Steven supplied timestamps from his camera, the tiny numbers on the files giving structure to the long hours they’d lived through in darkness.
Officer Joseph scribbled notes into a waterproof log. “Who knew you took the lookout trail?” she asked.
“Karina.” Lucy and Steven answered in unison.
The officer paused, pen poised. “Adam?”
Lucy glanced at him. He held up his hands, guilt written in every line of his posture. “I saw you leave,” he admitted. “But I didn’t know where you were headed.”
Officer Joseph looked to Lucy. “Who handled the passenger manifest?”
“The excursion operator and Karina,” Adam said, leaning forward. “Karina checked everyone off. She told both captains everyone was accounted for.” He stared at the receding island. “When I realized you weren’t on the boat, she said maybe you’d decided to stay behind on purpose.”
The silhouette of St. Lucia grew against the horizon: sugarcane hills rolling down to turquoise bays.
Lucy had imagined the Celestial Dawn looming safe and large, a refuge of lights and warm beds.
Instead, the ship drifted below her line of sight, indifferent, packed with hundreds of people who had eaten, slept, played and never suspected she and Steven were missing.
Lucy pictured herself waving a scrap of silver mylar under the storm-struck clouds.
“Why on earth would we stay behind deliberately?” she asked, shock and anger coiling inside her.
Adam glared down at his clasped hands, the fingers that made her feel safe just hours ago now locked in self-recrimination. “She said you were angry with me and might want some alone time.”
“That’s why you listened to her,” Lucy said, voice low and cutting.
Adam looked up instantly. “No—once I realized your phone was still in her bag, I knew something was off.”
Lucy leaned forward, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Before then, did you ever consider Steven and I might truly be lost?”
He flinched as if struck. The question burrowed into him. “I—I thought you were punishing me. I didn’t?—”
Lucy let him struggle in the silence. Let him feel how hollow it sounded.
“How long did you indulge that doubt?” she pressed. “Twenty minutes? An hour?”
Adam’s throat worked. “I was angry and confused. I messed up.”
Lucy felt the last fraying strands of their bond click loose.
“Yes,” she said quietly, turning her face to the sea before she could give him solace.
The island faded behind them, its trees swallowing the battered shelter and the coals that had refused to die.
Smoke trailed off into the evening mist.
Ahead, the Celestial Dawn filled the frame, stern and luminous.
Crew members waited on the pier, some in scrub-stained uniforms, others in crisp cruise attire, watching the launch come in.
At the rail above, faces appeared: friends who whispered her name, strangers who thought she was Adam’s sister, his fiancée once removed—a catalog of misconceptions.
Karina stood behind the security barrier, her crisp white polo now rumpled, ponytail loose, eyes rimmed with tears.
Two security officers flanked her—silent sentries to her fracture of composure.
She scanned the passengers, saw Steven’s bandaged ankle and covered her mouth, stepping forward until an officer guided her back.
Then she spotted Lucy—blanketed, guarded by Adam’s quiet presence—and relief unfurled in her expression.
Lucy watched that relief bloom. Karina had tears in her eyes, her body trembling with relief that Lucy and Steven lived. But she’d also been the architect of their danger. Sincerity, Lucy understood in that moment, could mask any betrayal.