Chapter 6
A bird squawked. Leaves rustled in the wind. Dan shifted on the soft mattress. Another squawk. Another tree murmuring in the breeze.
Sshhh, sshhh, sshhh, sshhh…
And then a piercing shrill.
His eyes flew open. A blinding white ceiling. Sun streaking into the room.
Where the hell was he?
He sat up with a jolt, his heart racing.
A little boy giggled at the foot of his bed.
Pukey Kid.
Dan rubbed his eyes. By the time his vision cleared, the child had been lifted into his mother’s arms.
“I’m so sorry he woke you,” she said.
Motormouth.
“You’re still here?” When her face fell, Dan hung his head.
He hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but damn if he knew what was going on.
The flight. His bath. Chucking up in the toilet.
He scrambled to piece together his life since he’d left England.
“What time is it?” And why was it so bright?
Where were the gray clouds and the storm? “Shit, what day is it?”
“It’s Wednesday, eight a.m., and you really need to watch your language in front of my child.”
“Sorry.” Dan scrubbed his face. His cheeks were rough, his mouth dry. “I’m just so…just so—”
“Hey, I get it,” she said. “You’ve been sick, and it’s affected your sunny personality.” She put her child down and quickly filled a cloth bag with a ball, towels, and the same red toy truck that Dan had seen on the counter earlier.
No, not earlier. Yesterday. What the hell had happened to yesterday?
And seriously, why hadn’t Motormouth moved out? What had he missed?
“I’m sorry if this comes across as rude,” he said, “but didn’t you say something about having found another place to stay?”
“Sure, we were all set to leave, but then you got sick.” She lowered her bag and cocked her head. “You don’t remember, do you?”
“Remember what?”
“That I called a nurse for you? She checked you over, gave you some anti-sickness stuff.”
“Wow, a nurse? I was that bad?”
“It wasn’t like we had to call an ambulance or anything. As luck would have it, the nurse was Mr. Hehu’s other daughter. She lives in the house across the street.”
A woman’s hands, wiping his face. “Yeah, I remember something… And I certainly remember having my head in the toilet. I’m just hazy about the details. I must’ve had a fever.”
“You did.”
Well, no wonder his memory was shot to pieces, then. “Fevers always make me go a little cuckoo,” he said. Then add in his lack of sleep and the amount of pain medication in his system… He was surprised he remembered anything at all.
“The nurse said you’d be okay, unless you were sick again, which you weren’t. She didn’t like the thought of you being alone. Someone had to keep an eye on you.”
“So you stayed?”
Motormouth nodded, her gaze flickering to his left shoulder, where the scars of his injuries deformed his skin.
Instinctively, Dan’s fingers curled around the sheet to cover himself up, but there didn’t seem much point now.
She’d already seen the damage. Loosening his grip, he patted the sheets around him, then—wait a minute…
This wasn’t where he remembered sleeping.
His gaze shot to the empty sofa bed. “How did I end up here?”
“It’s where you crawled to after you were sick.”
Ugh. He’d crawled? “You saw me…?”
“Yeah. You were hurling big-time when we got back.”
Wonderful. Dan’s insides shriveled, exposed and embarrassed. It was bad enough to have had months of Isabella and his family seeing him weak and helpless, but a stranger? He rubbed his eyes. “I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Libby. Libby Jones. No relation, you’d be pleased to hear.” She picked up her child again. “And this is Karim. Say hi, honey.”
The little boy squealed something, kicked his legs and brushed his head against his mother’s neck.
He was wearing red inflatables around his arms and some sort of bathing-sun-protection suit, in bright green with blue turtles blowing bubbles across the front.
A matching sun cap flapped over the back of his neck.
“Hey, Karim. You feeling better now?” Despite everything, Dan pushed up a smile. “You’re looking ready for action.”
“He’s kind of obsessed with getting wet, so we’d better go do some splashing before it gets too hot.
” Libby lowered the boy to the ground and held on to his hand.
“I was actually halfway through writing you a note when you woke up. Your mom called the reception desk last night, said her flight gets in at three today so she should be here by four. She couldn’t reach you on your phone.
She sounded worried, so I told her you were okay, but that you’d been sick—and I told her about your phone, too. ”
“My phone?” Fuck. The last time he’d seen his phone, it had dropped to the bottom of the bath. He’d accidentally knocked it in when he’d been spewing.
He flung the sheets back, the brightness of his orange shorts reassuring him that he wasn’t naked—thank god.
Flashing his privates in front of this woman was all he needed after the state she’d seen him in.
Dan tried to swing his legs out of bed, but his body had seized up again, and his left leg felt like it had a knife rammed into it. His breath hitched.
She noticed. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” He swallowed back the foul words he’d been about to hiss and straightened as best he could. “I need my phone.”
Libby stepped to the side, revealing what looked like a bowl of rice.
“It’s in here,” she said. “The rice might draw out the moisture inside. I took the SIM out. You might be lucky and get it to work again. It depends how long it had been in the water.”
Until two minutes ago, Dan had no idea what day it was, so he’d be damned if he knew how long his phone had been submerged.
He stared at the SIM on a piece of kitchen towel.
Shit. He never got around to texting Femi and Gabrielle back.
They’d be pacing the walls with worry by now.
He could only hope Mum had messaged them after she’d spoken to Libby and told them he was okay.
He pressed the power button on the side of his phone.
“Is it working?” Libby asked.
“No.” Dead as a fucking dodo. Dan sighed.
“Mommy, splash!”
“Okay, sweet cheeks, we’re going now.” Libby’s son tugged at her hand. “This might give you déjà vu, but we can’t check in to our new place until after four p.m. Mind if I leave our stuff here until then?”
“Yeah, of course.” Without looking at her, Dan pushed his phone to the side and noticed her neatly packed rucksack by the front door, with his own next to it. “When did my bag arrive?”
“Yesterday afternoon. Someone from the airport dropped it off.”
Christ, how many more visitors did he have yesterday? And he recalled jack shit about any of it.
“So…um…I’m glad you’re feeling better now,” Libby said. “I’ve left some food over there, and there’s orange juice in the refrigerator. Help yourself. You slept sixteen hours on a very empty stomach, so I figured you’d be hungry.”
Dan clutched his stomach. It felt tender, but the thought of food was no longer making him heave. “You didn’t need to do that.”
“It was no problem.” She gathered her bags and toys, hooked them over the pushchair, and headed out the back door. “See you later.”
“Ka kite,” chirped the little boy.
“Oh, good job, honey!” Libby squealed, and they disappeared into the garden.
Dan let out a big breath.
Bloody hell.
What state of complete and utter mess had he been in yesterday? Crawling, spewing…and he’d slept for sixteen hours?
He noticed the fruit, bread, and cereal on the counter.
Hadn’t she said there was also orange juice in the fridge?
Dan checked, and—Hallelujah! He poured himself a glass and necked it back, tasting heaven.
Pouring himself another, he took it outside and breathed in glorious fresh air.
Virgin white clouds streaked against a bright-blue sky, and palm trees rose above dark-green bushes.
Here at last.
Dan sipped his juice, then slowly lowered the glass. His clothes were hanging on a washing line, flapping in the breeze next to tiny child-sized T-shirts and shorts.
Libby had done his laundry?
He eyed the juice and food, as well as his dead phone in the kitchen. Then his gaze shifted to the sofa bed, where she and her son must have slept last night.
Shame had the sweet taste of orange turning sour in his mouth.
Had he even thanked her?
No, he hadn’t. He’d only gone on about his phone and when she was moving out.
And he hadn’t yet apologized for what he’d said to her on the flight, either.
Dan sighed.
Wholesome Hero?
More like Total Loser.
The morning slipped away under a splendid tropical sky. Libby had hoped to do some writing while Karim played in the shallow waters of the lagoon—she still hadn’t made a start on her Parent and Child articles—but who was she kidding?
Almost three years of being a mom, and still she harbored the hope that she’d actually accomplish something while Karim was awake?
But as he splashed in the sun-sparkled water, laughing and squealing, Libby knew she’d never want to miss watching him play like this.
She took a photo of him to send to her parents, shot a few seconds of footage for her website—in case she ever got time to work on that one day—then put her phone back into her bag and sat in the water with him.
It was so beautiful here. Lots of pale blues and yellows across the sea and deep greens on land. The contrast was stark and wonderful. How could she ever capture this beauty in words, photos, and videos, and do it justice?
“Look at this one, honey.” Out of the sand, Libby picked up a palm-sized shell, its frilly edges tinged with red. “Isn’t that pretty?”
Karim picked up another shell waving it at her.
“Yes, that one too!”
They placed their treasures in a row at the water’s edge until a small shoal of silvery fish swimming in the slightly deeper water caught Libby’s eye.