“A dress,” she said with enough sarcasm that only a deaf man could miss it.
“Not much to it. Looks pretty thin and cool to me.” “It’s imported cotton. From France.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“I’ve been to Paris.” He gave her a lascivious grin. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, Smitty...” He waited for a moment. “That cotton thing you’re wearing sure didn’t cover much when it was wet.” He shook his head, then he gave a short, sharp cat whistle. “Helping you inside the boat was, well, it was almost like looking at a French postcard.”
Her back went ramrod straight. She was silent, her eyes looking anywhere but at him.
Before he had time to gloat, the wind picked up as quickly as it had died. It almost seemed to come out of nowhere. A small gust blew the tarp back and her hair from its topknot. Another stronger gust buffeted the sail. The boat rocked on a shallow swell, and the air began to cool a few degrees.
Frowning, Hank glanced around, then looked behind them.
Rolling into the horizon was a fast-moving cluster of dark storm clouds. He whipped back around.
Smitty was looking at the clouds, too. “That’s a storm coming.”
He grunted something noncommittal.
She folded her hands in her lap. He saw that she clasped them so tightly that her knuckles were white. She bent and lifted the blanket tented over the sleeping kids.
Theodore woke and sat up. He rubbed his eyes, then looked at Hank. He blinked a few times, then he pointed skyward. “Look! It’s a seagull!”
Hank glanced up, then turned back to Smitty just as she did the same double look. They stared at each other, then both said, “Land!”
He scanned the north.
She looked toward the south.
“There it is. Look!” She pointed toward the southeast.
Hank turned.
At first glance, the island looked like the dark edges of the oncoming storm, brooding purple and gray and misty. But as the winds picked up and the small boat cut through the rising swells, there was no doubt that there was land ahead.
Land. An island.
They could survive.
Hank stared at the horizon. Yes, there it was. He could see the high volcanic mountains rising from the sea like an angry bruised fist.
He looked up at the sky. Between the island and their boat was a storm—dark and roiling and high as the eye could see. That meant only one thing in the tropics. It was one helluva storm.
* * *
The lifeboat pitchedinto the air and slammed back on the wake of a swell. Margaret’s stomach lurched. Lydia screamed.
Margaret held her hand more tightly. “It’s okay. We’re okay.” But as the boat pitched again, she wondered whether she was reassuring the children or herself.
She, the children, and the goat lay in the bottom of the boat. Oilskins covered them, and the tarp cover was snapped closed over their section of the lifeboat, an attempt to keep the children as safe as possible.
She could see Hank’s knees just a few feet in front of her. He had tied himself to the plank seat with a piece of rope and was trying to keep the boat afloat with the oars. She couldn’t see his face, only a glimpse of his forearms jamming an oar forward as another big swell sent the boat into the air.
A barrel and the garbage can clanked together in the bow and some tin cups floated in the rain and seawater pooled in the bottom of the boat. There was enough water to slosh over her and the children and to slap repeatedly at the sides of the lifeboat.
