Chapter 2

Morning came with a brilliant sunrise that painted the sky in fiery reds and oranges. The storm had blown itself out sometime in the night, leaving only a fresh, salty breeze and the steady crash of waves on the reef.

Taylor woke stiff and sore, his flight suit still damp and crusted with salt. The girls were curled together under the one dry blanket they’d managed to salvage, looking small and fragile in the pale light. Kimberly’s blonde hair spilled across Brittany’s shoulder; Jennifer had one arm flung protectively over both of them. For a moment he just watched the rise and fall of their breathing and felt something primitive stir in his chest.

Then hunger and reality kicked in.

He crawled out from under the leaky lean-to and stretched, working the kinks out of his back. The beach stretched away in both directions, empty except for scattered debris and the occasional coconut bobbing in the surf. No helicopters. No ships on the horizon. Just them, this island, and whatever they could make of it.

He kicked the ashes of last night’s fire and got it going again with some dry palm fronds he’d stashed under a rock. The crackle of flames woke the girls. Kimberly sat up first, pushing hair out of her face with that automatic centerfold grace.

“Is someone coming today?” she asked, her voice husky from sleep and salt water.

“Not today,” he said. “Maybe not tomorrow either. We’re a long way off the regular flight paths, and nobody filed a plan. We’re on our own until we figure something else out.”

Brittany groaned. “This is so not how spring break was supposed to go.”