Read Online Beyond the Sea by Keira Andrews - Free Book Online Page A

Regardless, we should start a signal fire.”
    Troy sipped a bottle of water and finished his protein bar. His stomach still rumbled. “I guess we can use this chainsaw thing to cut logs?” He glanced around the beach. “There’s a tree down over there. That’s as good as any.”
    Brian was staring out to sea. After a few moments, he blinked and looked at Troy. “Sorry? Yes, yes. That tree’s good.”
    “ I’ll get started on it.” Troy hopped to his feet, attempting to appear as capable and confident as possible. “You drink some more water and rest.”
    “ No, I’m fine.” Brian pushed himself up, then swayed.
    Troy grabbed his arms. “You hit your head. Just sit, okay? You can supervise.”
    Brian opened his mouth before closing it again with a sigh. “Okay.” He obediently sat back down on the sand.
    “ Now where should we light this fire?” Troy gazed around, peering up at the cliff towering above this end of the island. “Up there would be great, but I dunno if there’s anywhere to climb. We should probably start one here on the beach first, I think?”
    “ Definitely. We can explore later, but for now we should set up here.” Brian stared at the rock face. “We almost made it,” he murmured. “She did such a great job getting us down at all. But we had too much speed coming in. Nowhere to go. She…”
    In the silence that followed, Troy swallowed hard. “I’m really, really sorry. I’m so grateful to her for saving my life. So grateful to both of you.”
    “ No,” Brian bit out sharply. He shoved items back in the pack, arranging and rearranging. “I didn’t do anything. Paula was the pilot. She saved us.”
    “ From where I’m sitting—well, standing—you did a hell of a lot. So thank you.” Before Brian could argue, Troy squared his shoulders. “Okay. Where should we put the fire? If we’re too close to this end with the cliff, it’ll be hard to see the fire from that direction. Maybe we should move down the beach?” He didn’t add that it would be good to get away from the place the plane had crashed.
    It was incredible what little sign there was left of it. The waves had been so violent, and the storm had sent so many trees and plants scattering. The tracks the plane must have made in the sand had been wiped clean. It was like he and Brian had simply been dropped there.
    Brian looked left and right. “Yes. We’ll move down. Not too far—the cliff might give us some shelter if there’s another storm.”
    They shifted their gear, and Troy made sure Brian was sitting again before he took the chainsaw pouch and set off across the sand. It was warm and fine between his toes, almost white.
    Being careful of the chain’s ragged teeth, Troy took the strap handles in each hand and sized up the small tree that lay on the beach. It wasn’t a palm, and had several branches. There were others down the beach, as well as a ton of fallen palm fronds that would probably be good for…he tried to remember the word. Right—kindling. They’d be good for kindling. He hoped everything would be dry enough.
    “ I can do this,” he muttered. “It’ll be like CrossFit or some shit.”
    He bent and went to work sawing through the first limb, yanking the chain back and forth. At first he didn’t keep it taut enough, and the teeth got stuck in the wood. But after a few tries he started to get the hang of it and removed a limb a few inches thick.
    The fact that he was actually on a desert island in the Pacific like someone in a movie was so beyond weird he couldn’t really wrap his head around it. He’d survived a plane crash. And now he was going to build a signal fire and look for water. He was on a desert island . It was too freaking crazy.
    As he sawed, sweat gathered on his brow and dampened the collar of his dirty tee. He rolled up his sweatpants to his knees. His throat was dry and arms aching by the time he finished. The trunk of the tree was too thick, but he sawed the limbs and