Dana Mentink - Force of Nature

“Look there,” Gavin said, jerking his chin toward the expanse of sea between Isla and the mainland. Just past a clump of black mangroves, a sixteen-foot skimmer tossed up and down on the waves. His gut tightened. Garza had an arsenal of men and boats. Had he decided to start his campaign of intimidation already?

“Whose boat is that?” Gavin asked.

“Not sure.” Reuben sent up a prayer that he would be able to deliver Antonia out of the nasty business. She’d been entangled in his family long enough. Their love was irreparably ruined, but he did not want to see her hurt. He would not allow it.

He blew out a breath when he realized the boat was anchored against the heaving waves. Ridiculous to be out in such weather, but the captain was certainly not one of Garza’s men poised to pursue Reuben. Not yet, anyway.

Reuben sucked in a deep breath full of humid air. Exhaling slowly, he tried to summon up a sense of calm as he strode toward the Black-Eyed Beauty. The smell hit him, pungent and foul. Gasoline. Moving closer he could make out the puddles on the bottom of the boat, filming the seats, dampening the wooden boards under his feet.

“Gas?” Antonia said, around his shoulder.

The crack of a gun cut through her words. He had time to look up and see the incoming flare as it arced gracefully across the sky, splaying a shower of sparks in its wake. Time stood still, freezing him with terror for one endless second before adrenaline propelled him into action. He turned and shoved Gavin off the dock and into the water.

“Swim, both of you,” he yelled, grabbing Antonia’s hand and yanking her to the edge of the dock.

She opened her mouth to scream or shout a question, but there was no time. He pushed her off the dock, her slender body neatly cleaving the water.

When she surfaced, he yelled, “Swim away from—”

The boat exploded behind them as the flare ignited the gasoline, fiery splinters spiraling around, painting golden arcs in the chaotic wind.

FOUR

Antonia felt bits of wood raining down, knifing into the water around her. She could not understand at first what had happened. Hot embers landed on her shoulder, burning through the wet fabric of her shirt. An eerie, orange glow lit Reuben’s face, and she could see lines of grief there, illuminated for a moment by the remnants of the Black-Eyed Beauty that crackled behind her. The sadness there took her by surprise, the naked sorrow now turning to something else before her eyes, something harder, something dangerous.

She swiveled in the water to get a look at the burning boat, which glowed like a torch floating on the restless sea. Another flare sailed through the sky and ignited the other boat docked there, a smaller motorboat that caught fire with a whoosh.

Acrid black smoke blossomed around them. Reuben grabbed her wrist and tugged her away, his grip so strong it hurt. He hauled her until they were out of range of the falling debris.

“What happened?”

Reuben’s expression was impossible to read in the weak light, but the intensity of his command was not. “No time now. Swim hard. That way.”

Gavin spat out a mouthful of water. “He’s right. Do it.”

She struck out in the direction he’d pointed, away from the dock and back toward Isla, headed for the gap in the mangrove fringe that proved the most direct route. Waves crested over her head leaving her breathless. The lightening sky proved a small measure of help, silhouetting the island against a backdrop of steel gray clouds, obscured here and there by the heavy foliage.

Part of her mind wanted to mull over the loss Reuben had just experienced. She’d been on or around boats all her life. Her father, a fisherman by trade, was on the ocean nearly every day until his death, and she’d been toted along with him from the time she was a toddler. She knew boats like she knew the vibrant colors of an ocean sunrise or the sound of the beach at night when there was no one around but the scuttling crabs. They were more than wood and engines. They were beloved by their owners, cherished, nurtured...and mourned.

Just swim.

It took all her strength to fight through the water, and even with every ounce of determination she found herself slowing against the storm-strengthened surf.

“Hold on to me. I’ll tow us.”

She turned off the arguments materializing in her brain and clung to the waistband of Reuben’s pants as he charged through the surf. Against her fingers, she felt the muscles of his back working, strong from hours of hard labor in his orange fields and hotel restoration. He’d always been strong. She’d never beat him at arm wrestling, not once besting him on their sprints around the island. She paddled as best she could to help propel them forward.

When she could feel the water shallowing out around them, she let go and began forging her own way toward the beach. Wind plastered her hair to her face and left her shivering as they slogged out of the surf; Gavin reaching out to help her. She longed to throw herself down on the sand, just for a moment, to allow her lungs to catch up, but Reuben grabbed her cold hand.

“Come on.”

He was nearly sprinting, and she marveled that he still had so much stamina after their frantic swim. Something was fueling him with an unnatural energy. Fear? Sorrow? Anger. The realization scared her. She scrambled after him, past the packed sand and through the ripple of ornamental grasses and clustered palms thrashing in the wind. Charging under the stately oaks dripping with Spanish moss and finally across the green lawn, they made it to the graveled path to the hotel veranda. Slamming through the front door, Reuben locked it behind them.

Silvio stood there with a phone in his hand, mouth gaping and eyes agog.

His wife ran into the room holding a pair of binoculars. “What happened? We heard an explosion. Silvio was trying to call you.”

“Someone blew up my boats,” Reuben snarled.

Antonia had seen Reuben angry before only a few times. Anger was not an emotion to which he succumbed to often, but now rage flickered in his eyes like a wakening giant. Snatching the phone from Silvio, he stabbed in the numbers. “I’m calling the cops. The guy doused the dock in gasoline and fired a flare from out there on a skimmer.”

Paula’s face went slack with horror. “What?”

“Who would do that?” Antonia finally managed around her chattering teeth. His eyes locked on hers, but he did not answer.

“I’d sure like to know the answer to that,” Gavin said.

A sinking feeling flooded Antonia’s stomach. Hector’s mob connections. Crime swirled around his family like a dark, fetid wind. Reuben must have read her thoughts because his mouth twisted.

The cold took over her body, leaving her shivering in the Isla Hotel lobby for the second time in as many days, the lazily turning ceiling fans cooling her even more.

Gavin absently picked up Charley and cradled the cat to his chest while staring at Reuben. “This kind of thing happen to you often, Mr. Sandoval? Pretty dramatic for a guy who grows oranges and runs a hotel on the side.”

Something glittered in Gavin’s eyes, a calculating look that surprised Antonia. Then again, the kid had a right to be suspicious after nearly being blown up right along with them.

Reuben paced as he waited, muscles in his clenched jaw rippling. “This is Reuben Sandoval. I need to talk to an officer about an attempted murder. Someone just blew up my boats. No, no one is injured. I am positive it was not an accident.” He paused. “Myself, an employee and...a guest I was ferrying to the mainland.”

Antonia didn’t know why the word hurt. They were not anything more than that, two people thrown together by chance. She was a guest on his island, an unwanted one.