Read Online Island Promises by Joy Connell - Free Book Online Page B

listening to a young woman lose the contents of her stomach three boats down. In the still night, the sound carried a little too well on the wind. There was barely a chop in the harbor so it wasn’t seasickness that affected her, but rather the beers her companions were waving in the night air.
    “I’m not much of one for drinking and barfing,” said Mitchell. He was lying on the settee on the other side of the cockpit, watching the crowd parade before them on the docks. They were playing a game, making up stories about the various characters. And characters they were. So far they’d seen everything from a dashing gentleman to a skinny woman dressed all in feathers.
    “Time to do dinner. All galley slaves front and center.” Mitchell ran toward the cabin as she reached out to swat him.
    After dinner and trips to the local bars for the college boys, everyone else was below, sleeping or reading while Riley stood watch. Reluctantly, Joe had agreed to let her sit in the cockpit for four hours in the middle of the night while the boat was firmly anchored in the harbor about a mile off shore. When the frat boys returned, holding each other up, singing, and waving bottles, Joe had moved Reprieve off the dock area and into the harbor where she swayed now with the gentle rhythm of the water.
    “Riley can call for help if anything goes wrong.” Mitchell had pleaded her case. “She’s totally hopeless in the galley.” He glanced at her. “Sorry, darling, but it’s true and you know it. We need someone between midnight and four. Why not? She can earn her keep. I’ll even loan her my whistle.
    “I bought it during Mardi Gras last year. In that hell hole, believe me, a man needs to protect himself.”
    Riley didn’t want to stand watch in the middle of the night. It sounded boring and lonely and maybe even a little scary. After her experience with the pirates, she was gun shy, which was a new experience for her. She was used to charging in anywhere, asking anything of anyone, and using the mike and notebook as her protection. People either hated or loved journalists, depending upon the slant their story was taking. But for the most part, they got out of the way and let her do her job. But, even though she was nervous, since Joe had taken the position that she would be useless on watch, she dug in her heels and insisted she could do it.
    Sleepy and cranky, she had been dragged out of her bunk just before midnight. Joe shoved a cup of coffee in her hand, pushed her toward the cockpit, whispered not to touch anything and not to do anything except yell if she needed help, and then disappeared into his own cabin. At first the darkness seemed threatening, but as she settled in, the anxiety eased and she was mesmerized by the night. Far from bored, she was entertained by the inky black sky with its stars slowly shifting, and the marine life that sometimes broke the surface, just to let her know she wasn’t alone.
    Suddenly, a noise on the ladder caught her attention. One of the college boys, Darren, took down the screening and plopped in the settee next to her making the boat rock and the halyards ring out as they banged the mast.
    “Couldn’t sleep,” he said. “Too much damn rocking. I told my dad to book us a hotel but he thought he was pulling one over on us sending us on a rinky-dink-assed boat into the middle of nowhere. Hell, half my friends are partying on the beach on one of the islands right now.” He popped the top off a beer can and chugged half of it in one swallow. “Want some?” He removed another beer from his shorts pocket and offered it to her. She shook her head, annoyed at having her solitude interrupted, especially by a snot-nosed college boy who thought he was God’s gift to the female population.
    “On this island we were on tonight,” Darren continued, not noticing or not caring that she had moved away from him and was not interested in what he had to say (college boys were not good at picking up