Chapter 16
Ashley
THE TEARS HAD COME out of nowhere, fast and furious and overwhelming. We’d been splashing in the pool, laughing—I was going to have to work on that one if Tri could actually laugh—and water taking care of the sticky, sweaty mess we’d become. And then, suddenly, my laughter had turned into a sob.
It had stuck in my chest at first, and I’d tried to ignore it, push it down, reaching for the lightness that had taken the place of the brutal heaviness that had taken up residence there over the past days. I wanted laughter, I wanted freedom, and I wanted to be free from the feeling that we would never get off this island. I didn’t want to think about the stakes in his race against a shadowy terrorist group’s goal to start a world war.
But somehow, we’d ended up in each other’s arms, Tri’s warm, wet skin pressed tightly against mine. His arms wound around my shoulders, holding me tightly as I shivered from the chill of the water and the air, my hair clinging in wet strands to my face and back.
Something about his arms felt safe, felt right. I could almost ignore that the world was going crazy and tipping towards cataclysm and Tri and I were the only ones who knew it.
Almost, but not entirely.
The safety of his arms and his body's warmth against mine was in stark contrast to the cold reality beyond them. Beyond us, whatever us was.
I was still laughing from our playful splashing, but the thick ball of misery worked from my chest to my throat. Like they had before, my eyes and nose started burning. And then the laughter turned suddenly to sobs.
Tri didn’t notice at first, I didn’t think, his arms still warm around me. But then the tears started, blurring my vision until I couldn’t see and had to shut my eyes tightly against the wall of emotion that threatened to drown me.
The sobs grew harder, rougher, stealing my breath, and my body shook with the effort of holding them in. But they wouldn’t stay quiet, and I had to gasp for air. That seemed to alert Tri that something was wrong, and he pulled me from him roughly.
The moon was even further down the sky, half-blocked by the rocky mound in the middle that made up the middle of the island. But even in the dim light, I could see the surprise and concern on Tri’s face, the way his eyes had opened wide and searched my face.
“Ashley, what’s wrong?” he demanded, voice rough and words clipped with alarm.
I could only shake my head—I couldn’t catch enough breath to say anything.
I’d thought I’d cried enough when I’d found the pears, but apparently, that had been nothing compared to this. My legs suddenly couldn’t hold me up, and I dropped like a stone to my hands and knees, Tri following to kneel in front of me.
“Are you hurt? Did you step on something? Did something bite you? Were you hurt earlier?”
His words were increasingly frantic as he began to search my body for anything that would cause such a reaction, including that I had been hurt during the firefight, and it was just now popping up like he wasn’t the one with the bullet wound in his side.
But my sobs were still taking all of my air, doubling me over as I curled around myself, arms wound around my sides so tightly it hurt. All I could do was shake my head.
Tri must have felt entirely out of his depth because when I finally sat up, wiping hair and snot and tears out of my face, he was staring at me wide-eyed, arms held out like he wasn’t sure what to do with them or me.
My sobs had quieted, but the tears were still rolling down my face, and I couldn’t get them to stop.
“Are you okay?”
If I hadn’t been crying, I might have laughed again. The Navy SEAL, who had taken down what seemed like an entire platoon of masked terrorists, then got us off the island, looked entirely lost and confused about what to do.
“It’s all so much. Everything that happened today .” I had to sniff to keep my nose from running as I said the words and buried my face in my hands to hide the mess that was me. He probably didn’t want to deal with a woman who was crying hysterically.
But to my surprise, I felt Tri’s arms come around me again. He pulled me into his chest, where I dissolved into more sobs from the simple, caring act.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. We’re going to be okay.”
I knew what he was saying was all lies—he had no idea if we would be okay or make it—but I appreciated that he was trying.
It was more than any of my previous boyfriends had done, including the one who’d broken up with me the day of my father’s funeral.
“Come on.”
Tri lifted me into his arms, surprising me with the sudden strength enough that I grabbed for his neck and held on tightly. He took me back to the blankets on the beach beside the rowboat, then laid me down on the one that had been mine. Settling behind my back, he reached over me and took up the blanket that had been his before laying it over both of us.
Then he lay down and curled around me.