WICKED LUCK
By:
Shannon L. Maynard
THIS book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
NO part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Wicked Luck
Copyright ©2015 Shannon Maynard
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63422-067-5
Cover Design by: Marya Heiman
Typography by: Courtney Nuckels
Editing by: Cynthia Shepp
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Acknowledgements
About the Author
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For my five beautiful girls who amaze and inspire me every day.
1. DAY ONE: THE ARRIVAL
Dax
I add another stick to the fire and lay close to the flames, wondering what other nineteen-year-old guys with a normal life are doing at this very moment, or what I’d be doing if an ocean didn’t separate me from modern civilization. Eating cold pizza for breakfast? Maybe downing a Coke before heading out to catch some early morning waves? Or if I were lucky, I’d be sitting on the beach in San Diego next to a beautiful girl, waiting for the sunrise.
It’s fun to imagine for a while and then the thrill becomes unpleasant, like riding a roller coaster over and over until you make yourself sick, so I shove those thoughts aside to conjure up my favorite memory and the one that usually puts me to sleep. But tonight, it’s no use because the storm has left me restless. I grab my guitar and step outside the cave into the cool night air.
Black clouds smothered the sky earlier like angry, clenched fists, but now the moon peeks through the softening billows and an eerie calm settles over the island. Propping myself against a rock, I inhale the crisp scent of wet sand, seaweed, and salt, a refreshing change from the suffocating atmosphere of most days. I manage to strum only one verse of a song before something in the distance catches my eye.
About two-hundred yards out in the water, a faint, yellow light blinks every few seconds. For a minute, I stop playing and stare to be sure it’s really there, then my guitar is abandoned to the side of the cave and I stumble over the rocks in a rush to get to the beach. I stand at the water’s edge to study the light, and a burst of excitement catches fire inside my chest before I quickly extinguish it.
No one is coming to rescue me.
The floating object is too small to be a boat, and I decide the best thing to do is sit in the sand and wait for the mysterious, flashing light to get to shore.
The minutes tick by at an annoying pace, and I can’t take the suspense. The surf is lapping at my toes and in the dim light of the moon, I can now make out a small mass bobbing with the rhythm of the swells and realize it might be a person. Instinct kicks in, and I’m gone. My legs thrash through the tide before I dive into the water and swim out to get a better look.
A surfboard floats on the surface of the water next to a girl. Her hair covers and mutes the flashing beacon in the life vest, but she’s not moving and my stomach rolls. She’s probably dead.
I lift her chin and check for a pulse. She’s unconscious but alive, and now a new worry unfolds. The sun will be coming up soon, and I have to get her to shore and inside the cave where she’ll be hidden from view. I position the surfboard between us, pull her on top from the opposite side, and then paddle as fast as I can to push the board to shore. Using the surfboard like a spine board, I drag it across the sand to the rocks before I notice the leash tangled around her leg. It takes a minute to set her free and when she moans, I glance up to see her eyes flicker open and then close.
She feels light when I pick her up in my arms. There’s a hint of a smile on her lips as I carry her to the cave and lay her down near the fire. I drop to my knees beside her and brush the hair away from her face. Other than the massive contusion on one side of her forehead, I don’t see any other visible injuries.
“Hey. Can you hear me?” I ask, but she’s not responsive.
I check her pulse again. Ice grips at my chest until I find her heartbeat, slow and steady but faint compared to when I’d first felt it in the water. I lean down and put my ear to her mouth to check for breathing. Nothing. Did she just stop breathing or is it so shallow I can’t tell? Damn it!
Yanking the life vest off with trembling fingers, I fumble to remove the chain of a necklace twisted so tight around her neck that a chafe mark is visible. I listen for her breath again. Still nothing. She’s so limp—so fragile and delicate that I worry I found her too late. Noooo…. don’t freaking die on me.
I’m trained to ignore the adrenaline coursing through my veins and I start mouth to mouth, pausing to place my shaky hands on her chest and stomach for any signs of movement. Come on. Breathe. I repeat the process, trying not to think too hard about my lips touching hers. It’s been so long since I’ve been around any girl other than my stepsister Roxy.
The girl’s eyes flutter and she coughs up a small amount of water. She’s managed to keep her eyes open and she’s trying to speak, so I lean closer, but no words come out. Blinking, she then focuses on me with the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen—green with flecks of blue—and the color reminds me of the water in the lagoon that glistens in the afternoon sun. I smile at her and sigh with relief, but I’m so fixated on her eyes that I don’t pay enough attention to the confusion and alarm spreading across her face. She tries to scream, her voice hoarse and desperate, and I reach up to gently touch my fingers to her lips.
“Shhhhh. Don’t scream,” I tell her. “It’s okay now, you’re safe. And alive.”
I’m not sure if the last part is to reassure her or myself, but my words don’t seem to comfort her because she’s still crying. Why is she still crying?
“I know you’ve hurt your head, but are you injured anywhere else?”
She doesn’t answer me, and now her breathing is short and rapid. If she doesn’t calm down, she’s going to hyperventilate and pass out again.
“Can you hear me?” I ask again.
She’s pale, her lips are chapped, and her fit of crying is taking more energy than she can spare. I know she’s dehydrated and weak—possibly in shock, and she must have a concussion. If only I can get her to calm down and drink some water. I start to ask if she’s thirsty, but something about the way she’s glaring at me makes me stop.
She looks horrified, and I can’t figure out what could cause her to look so repulsed by me. I used my knife to shave yesterday and
convinced Roxy to cut a few inches off my hair, but now I wonder if her less-than-perfect trim left me looking like some sort of mad scientist. I self-consciously run my fingers through my hair and smile at her again, but the look she’s giving me is twisting my insides. I’m used to that look of disgust from Roxy, but not from a complete stranger. Especially a girl.
She won’t stop crying and for the first time since being on this island, I feel totally helpless. I don’t know what to do. She’s inconsolable, and I’m positive if she had the energy, she’d hit me and then run away. She stops long enough to try to say something, but then her eyes close and she’s quiet. I curse under my breath and check her pulse. It’s faster and stronger, and now I can see the steady rise and fall of her chest, but she’s cold. I add some wood to the fire and take off her Vans and socks to place them close to the flames. Very carefully, I roll her onto her side in a recovery position and scoot against the wall to watch her.
There’s an uncanny resemblance to Roxy, but this girl is much prettier. She’s the kind of girl most guys dream about. She has thick lashes that fan high cheekbones, and her features are arranged in such a perfect way that makeup might cheapen her natural beauty. My eyes follow the length of wet waves of brown hair that cling to her shoulder and arm, but then I can’t stop my eyes from gliding down the rest of her—along the curve of her hips and across her long, bare legs.
I close my eyes and sigh. She reminds me of a girl I met at the beach when I was nine; the one I can’t seem to stop thinking about. I remember how the ocean breeze blew her long, wavy hair back from her face to expose cat-like eyes that watched me intently and hung on my every word. She didn’t talk much, just acknowledged my words with a nod of her head or a smile. That smile. It was genuine and warm as the sun, conveying all the words her mouth refused to say.
The memory of that day has kept me sane and puts me to sleep almost every night. My eyes open to study her again and I laugh quietly to myself, because I’ve imagined a million times in my head what that girl would look like now. And if I could create someone to fit my fantasy, this girl would be it. I’m fighting the primal urge to touch her—but not as a necessity like before. I want to run my fingers across her skin to see if it feels as flawlessly smooth as it looks. Being stranded on an island for three years has left me too much time to fantasize, and my thoughts wander out of control. Irritated, I jump up and walk outside to clear my head.
The sun has managed to chase away the clouds, so I comb the beach for signs of other people and spot a large, orange trunk. I discover it’s an inflatable life raft, and I can barely contain my emotions because I’m exploding with excitement. I want to jump up and down—whoop and holler—scream at the sky. Of all the times I’ve attempted to conjure up an escape plan, one important element has always been missing from the equation. A boat. Because venturing out in the Pacific Ocean with a canoe would be a suicide mission, so this life raft is a dream come true. If only something catastrophic would happen to leave the points of the inlet unguarded, maybe it would be possible to take Roxy and this girl and leave the island. Then I could finally go home.
‘Go home and do what?’ my subconscious asks, poking fun at the thought. I could sell the story of my time spent stranded here to anyone willing to pay, and then find somewhere to live and even finish school. But I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t admit a good part of my time would be spent searching for her, even if it meant living homeless under the San Diego Pier.
The lifeboat case is heavy, but I drag it through the sand and up to the cave. After checking to make sure she is still breathing, I decide to walk along the beach and see what else I can find.
I come across a briefcase and another surfboard and then see something else on the shore in the distance, so I leave them and jog to retrieve the other item. It’s a backpack. I sling it over my shoulder, picking up the briefcase and board on my way back to the cave.
I put everything next to the other surfboard and my guitar, but she’s still asleep, so I sit down and unzip the backpack. I’m surprised at the condition of everything inside—dry and in one piece. The backpack and briefcase are both high end and obviously waterproof. I toss out a collection of empty plastic water bottles and shove random items to the side until I find what I’m looking for.
I pull the purse out to see what’s inside, hoping she doesn’t wake up suddenly and catch me snooping through what I assume is her property. There’s some gum, a phone, keys, sunglasses, a bottle of aspirin, an envelope, and a tube of some lip stuff, but I spot the wallet and open it. Her driver’s license is in plain sight, and a smile spreads across my face at her picture. She is beautiful. My eyes drift to her name and almost pop out of my skull along with the curse word that flies out of my mouth.
Ava.
That’s insane. What are the freaking chances of that? This girl—having the same first name as the girl I met on the beach when I was nine. The one I’ve spent countless hours thinking about and trying to find.
No way. No way! It’s stupid to even think this is anything but coincidence, because there are other people in the world named Dax, and they’re not me.
Maybe this is a sign. A pep talk from heaven in the form of a fluke accident to let me know I should just accept my fate, forget about risking an impossible escape, and then let my Ava go and try to be happy with a substitute. Because finding my Ava is really the only reason I want to leave this island.
Or maybe I’ve finally lost it, and this girl lying in front of me isn’t even real. It could happen. Just like a guy stranded in the desert that wants water so bad he imagines he really sees it. My stepmother was certifiably crazy and Roxy’s right there, teetering on the edge of insanity, so maybe I’ve lost it too, and this is what happens when people go mad. Their wildest dream becomes a mirage.
I look at her license again. She just turned eighteen, and she’s from some town in Colorado. I heard they do all kinds of extreme winter sports there, so maybe she paid a lot of money to fly halfway across the world and try extreme surfing. That would explain the surfboards, but not how she ended up here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Unless she was on a helicopter, and it crashed in the storm while trying to drop her down by a gigantic wave where she planned to surf into shore undercover to rescue me.
Ha! Leave it to me to turn this scenario into some twisted version of a James Bond movie. This girl looks the part—physically fit and stop-in-your-tracks stunning, but that’s where it ends. For some reason, I can’t picture her with a gun. But hey, a guy can always dream. She moves a little and groans, so I replace the wallet and shove the purse in the backpack before zipping it shut. I move to her side to tuck the life vest under her neck, worried that the cause of her discomfort is more than just the bump on her head.
After tending to the fire, I check out the surfboard. This feels like Christmas morning because I just got everything I wished for all in one day—a hot girl, a surfboard, and a life raft. A quick glance reassures me she’ll be fine, so I grab the short board and run to the water to try it out. I only go one time because the waves aren’t that good, and I’m worried she’ll wake up alone in the cave and freak out again. But judging from her reaction to me before, maybe her waking up alone would be better. I can’t help but smile on the way back to the cave. This is the best day I’ve had in over three years.
The briefcase is locked and I know I can probably break into it, but that’ll have to wait. The castle is too far away. It’s not a real castle, just a large cave with rooms hidden beneath a waterfall that I’ve turned into a secret hideaway. And the thought that I now have someone to share it with makes me smile.
As soon as she wakes up, I’ll run to the tree house and get some food and more fresh water, but not unless I’m sure she’ll stay put. Her being discovered by either one of the tribes that inhabit the island wouldn’t end well. How am I going to introduce her to Chief Anwai anyway? Tell him she’s a mermaid? Once again, she’s nailed the beautiful and enc
hanting part, and if I could convince her to walk into the village without any clothes, it would definitely be believable—if Chief Anwai had ever heard of mermaids.
I laugh quietly, but she doesn’t move.
Convincing the chief to let her stay might be easier than introducing her to Roxy. That conversation makes me cringe. What will I say? Look, Roxy, and point to Ava. God took pity on me and sent me a better version of you. She’s hot, she can surf, she has the same name as the girl of my dreams, and the best part is… she doesn’t hate me like you do.
At least, I hope she likes me better than Roxy does. I haven’t looked in a mirror for three years, but girls dug me in California so I’m not too worried. I know I was never the best-looking guy at school, but I definitely wasn’t a mutt.
A tune forms in my head that I hum to myself. I need to try it on the guitar, but it will have to wait until morning because a whole night without sleep is catching up with me. I tuck the backpack under my head for a pillow and close my eyes to ponder the possibility of a future with the beautiful girl that lies just a few feet away.