Read Online Ocean Burning by Henry Carver - Free Book Online Page A

Sunlight squirted through my small porthole and directly onto the head of the bed.
    Someone banged on the door. My eyes had crusted shut during the night, and I picked at them, finally settling on the band-aid solution. I pulled them open quickly, ripping free a couple lashes in the process.
    Someone banged again. The door rattled in its frame.
    “Coming!” I shouted. Someone shouted something back that sounded like vaguely like the word breakfast.
    I stood, expecting nausea, but was pleasantly surprised. I tested a few steps carefully, then slipped into a pair of well-worn jeans. Besides some muscle soreness, I felt great. And hungry.
    I made my way out into the galley, but no one was there. The smell of cooking meat wafted down the stairs toward me, and I bounded up onto the deck.
    All four of my passengers were tucked around the little fold-out table at the stern, the plates in front of them steaming. Carmen stood up and kissed me on the cheek, lingering just a bit too long. One chair was open, and I jumped into in, my mouth watering.
    My fingers on one hand maneuvered the fork, and I used the fingers on my other hand as a guide, started to shovel eggs and bacon into my mouth.
    “Sir, please, a moment,” Carlos said.
    My fork paused in midair, the chunk of egg speared there jiggling gently. I closed my mouth, chewed, swallowed. “Don’t call me sir,” I said.
    “I have to thank you. You saved our lives—I am in your debt.”
    “Oh hell yes, mate,” Rigger spoke up. “Here, let me shake your hand.” One of his arms had been tied up in a sling, but he extended the other, meaty and slick and covered in crude tattoos, and we shook.
    I studied his face. He was smiling hard, squeezing my hand, pounding me on the shoulder like we had been friends forever. Carlos had come off as humbly grateful, but Rigger’s eyes seemed dead back behind the irises, and I wondered about him.
    “So, tell us what happened already!” Ben had found himself in an adventure, and had no intention of missing the gory details.
    “Not much to tell,” Rigger said.
    “Come on,” Ben pressed him.
    “Well, it was a fishing trip,” Carlos said. “Rigger here and I are friends, from way back, and when I ran into him, and he found out I owned a fair-sized boat, we decided to catch up out here. The weather really snuck up on us.”
    “Looked to me like you were foundering before that,” I said. “That bow had been taking on water even before we showed up.”
    “Sure, I took us too close to the rocks, we hit something I guess. I would have been able to fix it, only the storm started brewing, and then we saw you. I guess you know the rest.”
    “How about that arm, Rigger?”
    “What about it?”
    “Dislocated?”
    “Yeah.”
    “How?”
    He eyed me. “Trying to fix the boat, mate. I slipped.” Those dark eyes of his narrowed a bit, and I tried my best to look blankly curious. I was asking too many questions, I realized.
    Carmen put a hand on Rigger’s shoulder. “You really were in a state last night. I hope we’ve managed to balance the pain and your awareness.”
    “Thank you, ma’am. It still hurts, but I’ll get by.”
    “And thank God,” I said, “that no one got seriously injured. Someone could have been killed.”
    Rigger’s face formed quickly into an expression of thankfulness flavored with the pain of my hypothetical, a perish-the-thought type look. I was impressed. “You said it, Captain. Thank God.”
    “Well, speaking of that arm, we’re a bit out of radio distance to call for help, but I think we can get you back on land by the end of the day.”
    “Please,” Rigger said, “that isn’t necessary. I understand this is some kind of early honeymoon for you two,” he gestured with his fork in the general direction of Ben and Carmen, “and we wouldn’t feel right ruining it.”
    “Nonsense. You’re hurt, and we’re happy to help,” Carmen said.
    “No, no, no, it just doesn’t feel right. Am I right,