Stuck in Paradise with You

Chapter 36

36

LUKE

I’m still reeling about what Joe just told me. This whole damn thing, Carrie being here, my soul being in tatters, again, is his doing.

Yet, somehow, Carrie and I are going to play chess, as if my mind isn’t whirring at a billion thoughts per hour. I’m not sure why I suggested it, whether I saw the box and the memories of us playing together made me want to be right back there, to remind her of great nights we spent together, or if I just wanted to distract her from the storm that I can see is scaring her, making her increasingly anxious. She was great with Noah and Toby, amazing. I’m not surprised everyone loves her. She’s extremely lovable.

Now, it’s my turn to take care of her, try to put her at ease, to the extent she’ll let me. After all, isn’t it my fault she’s here in the first place? My idiotic friend playing creator of the universe and delving into things he has no business messing with to get her here?

I have a lot of questions about Joe arranging Carrie’s being here on Charithonia – like why, after all these years, did Joe think it was necessary to force Carrie and me to spend a week together on his island? What did he possibly think this could achieve except more heartache for one or both of us?

But I can’t focus on that at the moment because I need to concentrate on Carrie, getting her through this storm calmly and safely. Getting her back to New York in one piece physically and mentally.

Shit , she’s going to think I was involved in this whole thing. That I’ve set her up somehow. She’ll never believe that her being here has all been constructed by Joe and his ludicrous ideas and I had no idea it was happening.

Then I go and sleep with her. Double shit . She’ll think I was in on it all and then I conned her into going to bed with me.

No . Far from it. She came to my pod.

But as she sits across from me at this table, looking up to me through her eyelashes, smoldering, I won’t be sorry for what happened last night. I can’t be. Even though she ripped out my fucking heart, again, and I’m pissed beyond measure at Joe for this entire thing, I can’t be sorry about the way it felt to be with her again, to have her in my arms, in my bed. To be inside her, connected to her. To be us again.

I’m playing white and I choose to move the pawn in front of my king forward two squares. Carrie scoffs. ‘Of course, move your pawn first. You do love a pawn in your games, don’t you?’

Animosity is literally dripping off her. If I had any doubt as to whether there was an ulterior meaning to her words about playing this game, it’s gone. She put her resting bitch on ice for the sake of the kids and now, it’s back with extra zest.

‘It’s the safest first move in the game book,’ I tell her.

‘Ah, yes, because you always play by the rules.’ She doesn’t even look at me as she speaks. Not until she moves her knight to F6.

I tsk. She’s bold. ‘There’s a fine line between confidence and recklessness, Carrie.’

The lids of her eyes partially cover her bright irises as her jaw stiffens. ‘Don’t I know it,’ she says. ‘I’ve crossed it too much recently.’

I’m fairly certain she means just hours ago. She thinks what happened between us last night was reckless. She’s probably right. Yet her words hurt. Irrationally so. I shouldn’t care if she thought last night was a mistake. It was. I knew that the moment I woke up alone in my pod.

And this is all the fault of my supposed best friend, who, for the record, I’d like to loathe right now, but he’s cuddling his scared kids and I don’t have the capability.

I should tell Carrie about it. Come clean on Joe’s behalf. But she’s going to be livid. Her client set this whole thing up and who knows who else was in on it. She’ll think I was and I know how much her career means to her, how much it has always meant to her. So much more than me, evidently, and I don’t dare tell her the truth she deserves.

I move my rook to E3. As I do, there’s another fierce gust of wind, more hurtling of debris outside, and the pressure in the air climbs.

Carrie brings her hands to her ears, wincing with discomfort I know she’s feeling because I feel it too. Jessie and Woody start howling, crying at either the noise or their own ear pain. Carrie gets out of her seat like a lightning bolt, rushing to the dogs and hugging Jessie, who’s a willing recipient of her affection. I’m not a dog lover the way Carrie clearly is but the dogs’ distress is making the kids’ tears worse, so I follow Carrie’s lead and hold Woody in the same way she’s cradling Jessie.

I don’t know how long the four of us – Carrie, me and the two dogs – sit on the floor like this until the pressure finally dissipates. The noise outside subsides.

Henry opens the shutters on the windows, jumping back up on the tabletop to look out. The sun is shining for the first time in what feels like days.

‘We’re in the eye of the storm,’ Henry says, and I follow his lead to see out of the narrow window. ‘I’m going out to take a look.’

‘Is that wise?’ Roy asks.

‘Are you crazy?’ Alisha adds.

‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience; I can’t not go,’ Henry tells them. ‘I’ll close the doors behind me and I’ll only be a minute or two. The eye is so wide, we’ve got a while before Isabel comes back full strength.’

I don’t want to be a fool but the guy’s got a point. I wish there wasn’t a hurricane. I wish none of us were stuck down here and afraid, that these stunning Caribbean islands wouldn’t be hit. But since it is happening, I sort of want to see it.

Whether it’s adrenaline or excitement, or just morbid curiosity, I follow Henry to the staircase to leave the basement.

‘Mom, can we go?’ Noah asks.

‘One hundred percent no!’ Ella replies. ‘Uncle Luke has a death wish.’

‘I won’t be long, buddy,’ I tell Noah, unwilling to relent.

Dave types in the code to open the door at the top of the stairs and Henry moves up first. As I climb, Carrie follows. I turn to her. ‘Absolutely not. You’re staying.’

‘Excuse me?’ she says, looking like she might actually slap my face. ‘As if you have any right to tell me what I can and can’t?—’

‘Damnit, Carrie, I can’t be doing with this. You’re exhausting.’ I sigh. I really am tired of this back and forth with the woman I can’t stop goddamn thinking about.

‘ I’m exhausting?’ Nostrils flaring, she pushes past me. ‘You should listen to yourself, Luke. All chivalrous and caring. Which, by the way, actually comes across as domineering on you.’

‘I do care whether you get hurt, Carrie. I’m not a monster.’

She spins so fast to face me that I walk right into her on my next step up. ‘Seven years too late.’

‘You think I didn’t care?’ My words lose all their strength. I cared. I cared so much, it ripped me to pieces. How could she fail to see this?

I wait for her next retort, the one that opens my final wound and has me as injured as I was back then. Instead, I see the fight drain from her, her shoulders drop and her face soften. I think she’ll speak. Maybe tell me she knows I cared. Of course she knows.

Silence.

She sets back up the stairs and into the lounge of the main house. I’m amazed it looks intact. That the windows haven’t broken.

I look beyond the glass and I’m speechless as we make our way outside. The landscape looks wholly different. The lush green of the hills, the palm trees, the blooming frangipanes, they’re all gone, replaced by what looks like barren land. The terrace has been destroyed – the wood frame and the roof that used to be decorated in tea lights are halfway down the rockface to the beach.

The beach that was , because I can’t see the beach for the grey, brown murky sea water that’s covering it entirely. The steps that led down to the sand are gone without trace and some of the pods – Carrie’s included – have partially lost their roofs.

‘Jesus,’ is all I can say.

‘If it’s like this here, imagine what it’s like on the other islands,’ Henry says. ‘Local homes aren’t built like Charithonia. They’ll be destroyed.’

The three of us look around in silence at the devastation, a strange contrast to the chirping birds, blue sky and beaming sun. It’s a trip, completely.

‘There’s still the other half to come,’ I say in disbelief.

‘The worst half,’ Henry adds.

I watch Carrie now, observing everything I can see in silence, her eyes wet. I want to go to her, to put an arm around her, but despite the enormity of what’s in front of us, I can’t forget her words of minutes ago. She doesn’t think I care or that I ever cared.

‘We should probably head back inside,’ Henry says, moving to Carrie and putting his arm around her, where mine ought to be. ‘People get caught out in the eye of the storm. She’ll come back with vengeance.’

‘All right, Dr Meteorology,’ I mutter for my own ears.

‘I’ll follow,’ Carrie says, her voice hoarse. ‘I just want another minute.’

Henry nods and walks back into the house. I linger behind her, out of her view but with her firmly in mine. There’s no chance I’m leaving her out here alone.

I give her minutes, wondering what she’s thinking, wanting to ask but also knowing she doesn’t want me to be here with her. Eventually, she speaks, as if she knew I would be right here the whole time.

‘It’s perspective getting, isn’t it?’ she says.

Yeah, I suppose it is. It makes me feel like this is no time to leave things unsaid.

On that note…

‘Come on, let’s get back inside.’ As I speak, I hear a distant rumble like thunder and I know it’s the return of Isabel. ‘Carrie, let’s go,’ I tell her, more urgently now.

She nods, eventually shifting to come inside. I hold open the door to the house for her as the thunder of the wind grows louder, the sky grows darker again, and hell, I confess that I’m afraid now too. But Carrie halts, staring at the storm, watching it draw closer, hypnotized by it.

‘Carrie!’

It’s as if she doesn’t hear my words at all. She’s lost to the storm, mesmerized.

‘Luke!’ Dave hollers from the top of the basement staircase, holding the door open for us.

‘Carrie!’ I yell louder, finally making her jump, startling her out of her transfixion.

‘It’s incredible,’ she says. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

‘And it’s a killer, Carrie! Inside, now!’

She nods, thank fuck , and steps toward the door, but her path is blocked as Jessie dashes out of the house as fast as I’ve ever seen her run. Terrified.

‘Jessie!’ Carrie shouts.

Before I have a chance to even consider my next move, Carrie is running after the dog.

‘Carrie, leave her! You need to get inside!’

I’m not even sure she can hear me now over the sound of the wind that’s almost upon us.

‘It’s my fault she got out!’ Carrie shouts back without slowing down.

‘Shit!’ I have to go with them.

I’m chasing her, closing in on her over the cliff top as the wind is back, almost bowling me over. I can barely keep running, and Carrie is struggling too.

She shouts something and she’s pointing down at something on the other side of the hill. I follow blindly over the peak, fighting the storm, as a small concrete building comes into view. At best guess, it’s some kind of pump house or utilities store.

As I see it, the wind blows Carrie off her feet. She falls in slow motion, the force of the elements keeping her from hitting the ground.

I’m right next to her and grab her waist with one arm as the hurricane fights us both. Together, we manage to open the steel slatted doors to the building and as we’re dragging them shut, Jessie bursts inside with us, barking.

It’s a utility room, with laundry machines, a heavy work bench and tools inside. Carrie and I wrestle the doors shut, pushing back against the wind, and pull down a steel slat to lock them in place.

I doubt that alone will hold in the force of Isabel, so I drag one of the machines out from under the counter and ram it against the doors. As I do, Carrie finds a flashlight in a drawer and shines it as I try to lift the worktop, which, unexpectedly, comes loose with ease. She helps me lean the heavy load against the machine and the doors.

Finally safe, she lights two chunky candles with matches and preserves the flashlight battery.

I move around to her. ‘Are you fucking crazy?’ I scream, grabbing her face in my hands. ‘You could have gotten yourself killed.’

‘I couldn’t leave her out here alone,’ Carrie says, gesturing to Jessie and bursting into tears that, despite my anger, make me pull her against my chest and hold on to her as tightly as I possibly can.

‘I only just got you back, Carrie, for fuck’s sake,’ I grind out through my teeth. ‘I only just got you back.’

Then I’m kissing her hair, her head, her cheeks, her lips, anywhere I can to somehow tell my mind she’s real and she’s fine. She’s here.

To somehow tell her that she’s safe and I’ve got her and I want to look after her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she sobs.

Behind her, Jessie is lying on the concrete ground, whimpering and scratching her ears. She’s in pain.

‘It’s okay,’ I say, still holding Carrie, saying the words to her, to the dog, and to myself. ‘We’re okay now.’

Carrie peels herself away from my chest, looking up to me. ‘I didn’t mean to put you in danger. I never would.’

I’m not sure which of us moves first but our lips meet. Long and steady, in a way that seems to calm us both and the situation. In a way that feels natural. As if there’s no question we’d be together through this.

And I have to tell her… ‘It’s me who should be apologizing. You wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me.’

‘It’s just work, Luke. You didn’t know we’d get caught up in a hurricane.’

I shake my head. It’s not that straightforward. Not since Joe told me the truth.