4. Billie

CHAPTER 4

BILLIE

F rom the second I spotted him on the horizon, I could tell that this guy was a moron.

With some people, it’s hard to know whether they would be any good at surviving in the wild.

Some people, you can tell straightaway that they spend a lot of their time camping or sailing or hiking. It’s written into their features and the way they hold themselves when they’re outdoors. It’s in their shoes and clothes.

And even if you can’t tell their skills from their appearance, you can tell whether a person knows how to work by looking at their hands.

This guy is one of those people you can tell immediately is not designed for this kind of environment.

He waves at me with his paddle and a frantic grin, then immediately falls over. For a minute, I’m worried that he’s fallen overboard. But he manages to sit back up and wave at me again, slightly more sheepishly this time.

He calls something out, and the last of the red-footed boobies spooks and launches off, taking to the sky in what would usually be a spectacular sight to me. But I was getting some really great shots of them on the beach, and now they’re gone. They very rarely collect like that in the open, so I’m just going to have to hope that the photos I got will be good enough.

When this guy lands, I’m going to kill him.

“What are you doing?” I shout as he gets closer to shore.

With a grunt, I get to my feet. I probably shouldn’t be so cold — the guy clearly isn’t in a life raft for fun. He might have been stranded for days. For all I know, him surviving at sea might be nothing short of a miracle.

That doesn’t mean I’m not furious, though.

I wave again, hoping that some encouragement might bring him in. The guy starts paddling with renewed excitement, splashing around frantically as he tries to get the boat to go in the right direction.

Just as he seems to finally be getting the raft to head to shore, he stands up again, shouts something unintelligible at me and grins. He must be feeling so accomplished with himself for not dying.

And then the raft hits a hidden rock under the water, and he topples right overboard.

“God help me,” I mutter, kicking my shoes off. Looks like he needs more rescuing than I thought.

He surfaces, splashing around like a panicked goldfish, and though the water isn’t that deep where he is, he’s clearly not in his right mind. The guy might have ruined my shoot, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to drown.

I put my camera down in its case, then call out, “Hang on, I’m coming!”

As fast as I can, I run to the water’s edge and splash into the shallows. At least he’s stopped thrashing about as much. He must have realized he’s not in as much danger as he thought.

“Hey!” I shout as I get closer. “Who are you? How did you get here? Are you okay?”

I don’t get any reply.

The water is up to my knees now, and it makes hurrying hard, seaweed tangling around my toes and the waves lapping against me. I have to swim a little as I approach him. When I get there, I grab hold of him, dragging him towards the shore and lifting his head above water. He fights against me — or maybe it’s him trying to swim — and gasps for air, choking on it like he really might be drowning.

“Hey, calm down!” I snap, too harshly considering he may have nearly died.

But in my defense, he did ruin my day.

He flounders again, but as our feet hit the sand and we can stand freely, he pushes me away. He takes a stumbling step, then wipes water from his eyes, slicks his once-perfect hair back on his head, and blinks up at me, his brilliant blue eyes glinting in the sunlight.

We stare at each other for a moment, neither of us sure what to say next. Then he glances behind him, and his shoulders slump. “Oh, my boat,” he groans sadly.

The life raft bobs merrily away off into the ocean, and all we can do is watch as it goes. My eyes flick down to his wet T-shirt, and I tell myself off for noticing his abs underneath it. Really, how am I meant to not notice, though? They’re not exactly inconspicuous.

“I’m going to be in so much trouble,” he says, mostly to himself, his eyes fixed on the now distant inflatable.

“Who are you?” I ask again.

He frowns at me like that’s not a question he was expecting me to ask. After an almost uncomfortably long pause, he says, “Call me Jens.”

“Okay, Jens,” I say. “What are you doing on Isla Mostaza?”

He splutters, “Isla what?”

More proof of his cluelessness, then. I wonder where he came from. Our eyes meet, and I feel myself being drawn into them, like he’s exerting some magical pull over me. Frowning, I force my gaze away from his eyes and notice the gash on his shoulder.

“You’re bleeding,” I say, pointing at his arm.

“Oh,” he says softly, staring down at it like he just realized. Maybe he got stranded more recently than I thought.

“Did you just survive a wreck?”

“Yeah,” he says dopily.

Dammit. I want to be angry with him, but the more I look at him, the more of a mess he seems. He’s clearly dehydrated and has had too much sun exposure. I need to get him out of here and into the shade at the very least. There’s no way I have the right stuff here to deal with full-blown heatstroke.

So, I have no other choice but to drag him back to my camp. “Can you stand?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says uncertainly, holding out his arms like he’s testing his balance.

I’m not fully certain I believe him, but there’s no way I can carry him, so for both our sakes he’d better be telling the truth.

Shakily he takes a step forward. I let him hook an arm around my shoulder to steady his balance, and that’s when I know I must have been alone for too long.

As we make our way out of the sea, I notice the strong muscles in his arms and the firmness of his chest. I also notice his hands — despite the way they’ve been torn up from his ordeal, he clearly had a perfect manicure before he set sail.

Where has this man come from?

The second we get back to camp, I deposit him by the fire pit, and he flops down in the shade. “Wait here,” I say. Not that he’s going to be going anywhere.

This island is only ever inhabited for the purpose of scientific research, and there are three bases set up. I’m camping at the cabin to the far east of the island, my favorite one. I stayed in the north cabin last time, and it was too windy for my liking. It creaked so much I thought I might blow away.

Usually, the weather and the isolation don’t bother me, but it really got to me on that trip.

As a photographer, I’m closely associated with a couple of scientific teams, and when the guys asked me to come back here, I was over the moon. I love this island. I’ve been here three times, and every time it gets harder to leave.

The cabin is big enough for a team of three to live comfortably with a room each, though often more people will stay at a time. Once, I came with the conservationists and I had a great time — they even let me help with some of their work.

I wished I never had to go home.

All alone, the cabin does feel a little big, but it means I get full run of the pantry and first pick of the expensive sun hats, so I can’t complain too much.

I head inside to get the first-aid kit, and as I open the door, I glance back at Jens, who is still lying on the ground. Fortunately, the weather is good, so I don’t have to worry about keeping him warm after his exposure to the water. I grab the kit but linger in the doorway to watch him for a second before heading back out.

His hair is a light brown; almost blond but without being muddy or dull or looking like it’s dyed. He rolls over, spreading his hands on the ground like he’s happy that it’s solid beneath him, and I notice his perfect skin again, his long fingers, his blemish-free complexion. He has a chiseled jaw and high cheekbones, which, when paired with his dazzling blue eyes, make him look quite Scandinavian.

If that’s true, I wonder where he came from. Mostaza is about as far away from Scandinavia as it’s possible to get.

Then he notices me looking and smiles a wide, easy grin, which annoys me all over again. This guy has rocked up without any warning on my island, disturbing my peace and quiet and my job, when he clearly has absolutely no ability to live like this. And he’s expecting me to patch him back together!

Pressing my lips into a thin smile, I walk back over to him and crouch down. “Give me your arm,” I demand. He blinks at me like he’s not used to being spoken to like this but then relents, sitting up and turning his shoulder to me.

As I start cleaning his wound, I ask again, “So, how did you get here?”

“Shipwreck,” he says blandly.

“Yeah, I got that. But where did you come from?”

“Miami.”

“Are you just going to keep giving me one-word answers?”

“Yeah.”

I take a sharp breath, not wanting to lose my temper with him. “Look, I just dragged you out of the ocean and rescued you. The least you could do is say thank you.”

“Thank you,” he echoes. He winces as I wrap the bandage tight around his bicep, then turns his head to look me dead in the eyes again. “I don’t get why you’re so mad,” he says, speaking the most words I’ve heard him say since I picked him up “What are you doing here?”

Now he’s said a full, lucid sentence, I can hear it. He does have a European accent, though one that’s incredibly well polished, almost like he does a lot of public speaking. Which just raises more questions about where he comes from and what he’s doing here.

“Photography,” I say, deciding that if he isn’t going to give me answers, I’m not going to give him any either.

“Cool,” he says dismissively and I don’t even bother pretending to smile. “What’s your name?”

“Billie.”

“How did you get here?”

“By boat.”

“Look, why are you being so pissy with me?” he snaps. “I haven’t done anything wrong. In fact, I was just in a really tragic accident, and I’m grateful you rescued me — but all you’ve done since is yell at me, and I think I deserve a little bit less of that, actually.”

“Pissy?” I scoff, my eyes widening as I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I tie the bandage off more roughly than I should, then sit back on my heels. “Okay, whatever. Just stay out of my way, all right? You can stay here, but I have an important job to do.”

“Important?” he says. And that’s the final straw.

“Yes, actually!” I say, slamming the first-aid kit shut. “Just leave me alone, okay?” I jump to my feet and march over to the cabin, slamming the door behind me. The front door doesn’t actually lock, so I just hope he doesn’t realize that and try to follow me.

It’s hot inside, so I have no choice but to turn on the fan. I try to save the generator for when I really need it, but its solar panels have no problem getting a charge at this time of year, so I’m unlikely to run out of electricity. And anyway, I think this counts as an emergency.

I can’t believe this guy.

I slump down onto the sofa and stare up at the thatch ceiling. Sure, I told him that he could stay, but I’m not actually certain I have the supplies for him. If I were really mean, I’d go and get the spare tent and sleeping bag I keep on my boat.

But I’m not quite that vindictive, and I’m pretty sure Jens will never have slept in a tent before. Plus, it’s not like there aren’t enough spare rooms in here.

Eventually, I’ve taken enough deep breaths to calm myself down, and I pace over to the door, steeling myself to face him again. When I open the door, he’s still sat exactly where I left him, picking grass out of the ground like he can’t think of any other way of entertaining himself.

“Oh, there you are,” he says mildly, looking up at me with a smile.

I ignore him and tell him I’m going to my boat. I don’t have much of a reason to, but I’m too wound up to work now, and it’s an excuse to be somewhere he’s not. “Just stay here and stay out of trouble, okay?”

“Your boat,” he says, his eyes lighting up with an idea. “So, you can take me home!”

“Absolutely not!” I scoff. “These are protected waters, and they don’t like you to take too many trips out here, for a start. Plus, it takes two days to get back to land in Puerto Rico — let alone Florida. I only have two weeks left on my permit. There’s no way I’m ruining that by ferrying you around. You’ll just have to lump it.”

He stammers some nonsense in response, and I ignore him, marching off towards my boat.

If he thinks I’m giving up earnings and time to look after him or to provide a taxi service, he could not be more wrong. They don’t give out these licenses for free and it’s a hard process to get one. In two weeks’ time, he’s coming back to Puerto Rico with me and then he can find his own way home.

If you can just stay out of my way until then, everything will be fine.

But somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.