Love inspired suspense s.., p.32
Love Inspired Suspense September 2015 #2, page 32
She looked at him and felt her stomach dip, but she wasn’t sure she could tell the conflicting emotions apart anymore. Worry over what might happen mingled with anticipation. And even though the magnetic pull she felt toward him seemed dwarfed by her own fear, she couldn’t deny the way he affected her. And it went beyond the spicy scent of his cologne and his nearness at the moment.
Which was also making it very difficult to shove aside the resolutions she’d made when it came to guarding her heart. After Ben, she’d convinced herself she didn’t want a rebound relationship. That she wanted a chance to focus on her humanitarian work. And that she was perfectly content being single.
Which she had been. Until Grant had waltzed back into her life.
Somehow he’d begun to make her wonder if all of her excuses were simply that. Excuses.
“You okay?” he asked.
“It’s been a challenging day,” she said finally. “Okay…a challenging week. Do you really think this ferry could sink?”
“I’m not sure, but at least we’re still afloat, which is good news.”
“Right. She leaned back against the rail, liking his optimism. Liking the way he had a habit of going against the odds. And winning.
She tried to ignore the murmur of voices from the deck below and tried to concentrate on what was okay.
The warm sun that was finally out. The fact that they were still afloat. That Reid Johnson had no idea where they were. And that Grant was here with her.
“What I do know,” he continued, “is that I’m impressed with the way you handle things. Even with your medical preparation, today hasn’t been easy. You have this knack of taking the knowledge you were trained with and making do with the few resources you have.”
“I’ve only done what’s needed.” She turned back toward the sea, trying to brush away the compliment.
“Maybe, but you’ve managed to step outside your comfort zone, one where you have almost unlimited resources, to a place where doctors are in short supply and diseases are rampant, and make it work. It’s been…it’s been a long time since I met someone who possessed the inner strength you have.”
She stared out across the sea, knowing she was blushing. “I’m not the only one. You can’t tell me you do your job just for the money.”
“No, but I’m not always sure my reasons are very noble, either.”
She took a chance and searched his expression, wondering if guilt from losing Darren played a part.
A drop of rain hit the tip of her nose, and he leaned forward to brush it off.
She couldn’t move. He was close enough she could feel his breath on her face. Close enough he could almost make her forget everything that was going on around them. And he definitely made her want to kiss him. She turned away from him finally, so he couldn’t read her expression, and let her gaze settle back on the gray-blue waters beyond them. Because one kiss and she knew she’d never be the same again.
*
Grant wanted to ignore the unexpected moment that had just passed between them. Because what if he’d misread her? Or misinterpreted her body language. But he’d seen something in her eyes as she’d looked up at him, and knew he couldn’t just walk away this time.
Settling down with a good woman is a good thing. And worth it. It’s time you got married and had a couple kids. It will quickly show you what’s important in life. Things like family.
Antonio’s words replayed in the back of his mind. Running was easy. He knew how to do that. Putting himself in a position of vulnerability was hard. He’d been using his job as a sort of wall he’d erected around himself. The one guarantee that he’d keep his distance and protect his heart.
Somehow, though, Maddie had continued to chip her way through the weak spots of those walls.
The boat jolted again beneath them. He pulled her against him and steadied them both. He had to find a way to keep her safe. Not just from their current situation, but from Reid as well.
“It sounds like they’re trying to get the engines working,” he said, “but we still don’t seem to be moving.”
She rested her hands against his chest, making no attempts to pull away from him. “What if we don’t manage to make it off this boat alive? What would be your one regret?”
“That I missed the chance to get to know you better.” He spoke before he had a chance to think through his response. But Antonio had been right. She was the one thing that made sense in this situation.
A smile played on her lips, melting through another corner of his heart. “That would be your one regret?”
He hesitated, knowing it was probably foolish to even go there right now.
He took a step backward, needing to put some space between them. “I don’t want you to get the impression that I’m the kind of guy who falls for every pretty girl I meet, but I did have a crush on you back then. And if I’m honest, not much has changed.”
The blush was back in her checks. And he was being far too forward.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She shook her head. “No… I admit I had a bit of a crush on you as well.”
“Really?” He hadn’t expected that.
“But you were always hanging out with Darren and my dad. Talking cars, and football and politics… I never thought you noticed me.”
He smiled. “Trust me, I did.”
“But then our lives went different ways.”
“What about now?” He was stepping on rocky territory. Just because she’d felt something back then didn’t mean those feelings were still there. A lot of time passed. She was a different person and so was he.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Our lives have managed to overlap again. Completely unexpected.”
Am I off on this, God? Am I trying to force something simply because of the crazy situation we’re in?
“You did sweep in like a knight in shining armor,” she said, “but once this is all over—if this is all over—I don’t know. These past few days have been a bit surreal for me. I was convinced I was going to die and then you showed up, and now you’ve been there each time I needed someone to lean on.” Maddie looked up at him, her brown eyes wide with question. “But the truth is, we live in two different worlds. So yes, I do feel something. I just don’t know how things could ever work between us.”
“Maybe it is just the intensity of what’s happened, but I think you’re wrong.” Grant struggled for what to say. He’d been certain the interest he felt wasn’t one-sided. And now that he knew he was right, he wasn’t ready to simply drop the subject. “We both care about the world around us and are trying to make a difference in people’s lives. Why can’t we take a chance and see what would happen? No commitments or promises. Just time to get to know each other and see what’s there?”
Maddie leaned back against the railing. “We don’t even live in the same city, and what happens when they relocate you to another mine-infested country?”
“Email, phone calls.” He reached out and let his fingers briefly stroke her arm. “There are always ways to make things work.”
“I don’t know, Grant.” Maddie reached down and played with the hem of her shirt, rolling the fabric between her fingers. “You’re a deminer, and to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t know if I could live with that.”
Her words were like a punch in the gut. “I’m good at what I do, Maddie. Yes, there are dangers, but you can’t say your line of work is hazard-free.”
“My parents would agree with that assessment.” A grin played on her lips as her gaze rose to meet his. “I don’t think they’ll ever understand why I didn’t choose to play doctor in some nice, quiet town. But still, it’s not the same. You can’t even begin to compare the dangers of what we do for a living.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Because…because you can’t.”
“What if I can prove it to you?”
“Prove what to me?”
“The fact that we’re more alike than different,” he said. “Face it, neither of us would be happy working a nine-to-five job and coming home to our nice white picket fence in the suburbs. We both need something more.”
“Okay, so we have a thing or two in common. But I’m not that same girl you had a crush on, and I have a feeling you’re not the same man you were back then, either.”
“True, but I know enough to see that you have a heart for others, and you’re not willing to just go with the status quo. You’re willing to step out of your comfort zone—”
“That’s not enough to base a relationship on.”
“No, but it’s enough to start a relationship on.”
Maddie shook her head. “Even if we do get off this dilapidated cargo boat alive, there are still too many complications. There’s also Ben. I might be over him, but I’m not looking for a rebound relationship. And I’m going to be a lot more cautious the next time around.”
“Why did you break things off with Ben, anyway?”
*
Maddie hesitated at his question. It was personal, but the entire conversation had been personal. If she were honest with herself, Grant was everything Ben wasn’t. And everything she’d been looking for. Which on one level terrified her. Ben had thrived on structure. He rarely changed his familiar routine. And she’d never completely fit into his world. He’d called her a free spirit. Not to criticize her, but because it had been true. He’d told her she brought balance to his life. But while it might be true that opposites attract, in the end he’d only managed to smother her. Just like her parents had with their plans for her life. And as much as she’d loved all of them, she’d needed the chance to test herself and find out who she really was, both as a doctor and as a woman.
Moving to Guinea-Bissau had given her exactly that.
But the situation she’d been thrown into the past week had also managed to push her toward the edge. Adding Grant to that scenario could only end in disaster.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I never should have pushed. I had no right to—”
“No, it’s not that. I don’t feel…”
Didn’t feel what? Attraction? The desire to give a relationship a chance?
She tugged on the straps of her life jacket, a reminder of what was going on around them, and struggled for what to say. Struggled over the fact that a week ago life as she knew it had somehow changed forever, and now not only was someone trying to kill her, but she was falling for the man who’d swept in to save her.
She was falling for him?
The thought took her by surprise, but she knew it was true. A relationship between them wouldn’t work…couldn’t work. But somehow, all her excuses didn’t seem to matter at the moment.
Why can’t we take a chance and see what would happen? No commitments or promises. Just time to get to know each other and see what’s there?
What if he was right?
Grant took her hands, and brought them slowly toward his chest. “All I’m looking for is a chance to get to know each other. No strings attached, I promise.”
Maddie closed her eyes and breathed in the salty sea air, and knew that as wild as it seemed, that was what she wanted. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
She opened her eyes and nodded, wondering if she’d be able to find a way to deal with the fact that he worked as a deminer. And how could she spend every day worrying if he’d come home? Was she really willing to step out on a limb and trust him with her heart? There were so many questions—and the answers seemed as difficult to reach as the land they were seeking. But maybe this—maybe he—was worth taking a chance.
“Maddie…” His voice was tinged with a deep urgency.
Grant’s lips met her own with a passion that she hadn’t expected. For a moment, the desperate scene around them melted away. Maddie was aware only of the man who held her in his arms and of the growing feelings toward him she could no longer deny.
Shouts resonated from the deck below. She turned around and grabbed on to the railing. “Grant…”
The water level had risen significantly over the past few minutes and now covered a section of the port bow.
“Looks like they’re not able to pump out the water as quickly as it’s coming in,” Grant said. “And the extra weight of the water is destabilizing the vessel.”
He didn’t have to say anything else. Beyond a certain point—if too much water was taken on—the ferry would capsize. There weren’t enough lifeboats for all the passengers and only a handful of buoyed rings.
“Do you really believe we’re going to sink?” she asked.
Grant squeezed her hand. “I don’t think it’s a question any longer of if, but of when.”
THIRTEEN
Panic was settling over the deck as Grant hurried behind Maddie down the metal steps. They needed to get to the other side, where the ferry was still out of the water, but cargo was shifting on the deck as waves crashed over the sides, making their progress difficult.
How had it come to this?
Reid Johnson had managed to set off a chain of events with Maddie’s abduction that had spiraled their situation completely out of control.
Grant paused at the bottom of the stairs, searching for the best route across the deck while some of the crew attempted to move cargo from the port to the starboard side. Antonio and Ana were somewhere where the crew was gathering the passengers. If this ferry sank now, the loss of life was going to be heavy.
“What do you think they’re doing?” Maddie shouted above the chaos.
Crewmen shouted orders, and babies cried, while goats and chickens were making a ruckus where they were tied up.
“Looks like they’re moving cargo and gear to the opposite side of the leak in hopes of tilting the leak above the waterline.”
“Do you think that will work?”
“I don’t know, Maddie.” He grabbed her hand. “But we need to get to the other side of the ferry.”
Because what he did know was that water was coming in fast. Antonio had mentioned they might have hit a sandbar. If that was the case, there was a chance it would keep their position fixed above the waterline until help arrived. Which might end up being their only way to avoid disaster.
They headed toward the rest of the passengers, still searching for Antonio and Ana. They were here, somewhere, amid a sea of weathered orange life jackets, but so far he hadn’t been able to find them. They’d almost made it to the railing when something caught his attention along the horizon.
“Wait a minute, Maddie…” He pulled her toward him and squeezed her hand. “I think the cavalry’s just arrived.”
Half a dozen fishing boats were making their way toward the ferry.
Thirty minutes later, Grant blew out a sigh of relief as he and Maddie took the last fishing boat. They’d found Antonio and Ana, who were on their way to the island in the boat ahead of them. Behind them, the ferry tilted at a forty-five degree angle, lodged against a sandbar: the only thing keeping a section of the deck above the water. The fishermen had made room for passengers with their boxes of palm wine, petrol cans and livestock. Sails made out of nylon food-aid bags fluttered in the breeze above them. With the afternoon sun sparkling against the blue expanse of ocean around them, he sent up a prayer of thanks. They might not have made it to the capital, but at least they were all alive.
He sat beside Maddie along with a couple dozen other passengers, trying to avoid stepping in the mixture of fish parts and mud at the bottom of the boat. Palm trees waved in the breeze, seeming to welcome them to the island. He was simply grateful they’d been able to avoid the ferry sinking completely.
Gripping the side of the rocking boat where they sat along the edge, he watched the ferry continue to sway in the distance with each wave that struck. “I don’t know about you, but once we get to shore, it’s going to be a while before I have any desire to get on another boat.”
“You’re not the only one,” Maddie said following his gaze out across the choppy ocean. “But it could have been a whole lot worse.”
Sobering thoughts of what could have happened hovered at the forefront of his mind. But now that the crisis was over, he couldn’t help but shift his thoughts back to Maddie. He followed the curve of her lips and wondered what she thought about their unexpected kiss. It wasn’t that he regretted his actions. Not at all. She’d managed to completely captivate him. And kissing Maddie had been everything he expected—and more. He did wonder, though, what she thought now that the intensity of the moment was over and their lives were no longer hanging in the balance. He needed to find out.
Staring out at the whitecaps rolling in, he tried to battle the uprising of nerves that had settled in his gut. “Maddie, I’ve never been one to mince words…”
He paused, still not sure what to say, because at the moment, the very opposite seemed true. Even deactivating a land mine didn’t have the overwhelming effect that she had on him. He cleared his throat and tried to start over. “Because I deal with deadly situations every day, I tend to grasp hard at life and what’s put in front of me. On one hand, it’s made me appreciate more what I have, but on the other hand, my way of ‘seizing the moment like a detonating time bomb’ has got me in a peck of trouble a time or two. What I’m trying to say is, if I offended you earlier…”
“By kissing me?” A soft blush splashed across Maddie’s cheeks.
“Yeah.”
And I sure would love to kiss you again right now…
“Don’t worry.” The corners of her mouth curled into a grin. “If I hadn’t wanted you to kiss me, you’d have ended up flat across the deck.”
“Ha-ha, ouch! Remind me to be more careful around you.” It was this same fire and passion that had drawn him to her in the first place. And the very thing that had him longing for the chance that something could develop between them.
“Yeah…you’d better watch it.”
He felt relieved at her playful reaction, because he didn’t want there to be any regrets between them. Regrets over the past, or regrets later over what might happen.
A couple of the fishermen jumped out of the boat in thigh-deep water.
