Force of Nature. Dana Mentink

morning.

      * * *

      Reuben went through the motions mechanically; downing a glass of orange juice, trying unsuccessfully again to persuade Silvio and Paula to leave the island, compiling a mental list of things to purchase on the mainland when he dropped off Antonia. Nails, more water, extra batteries, and then back to the island to secure the boats as best he could. None of the preparations dispelled the discomfort he felt at his brother’s visit. Trouble was coming from all fronts. He could not protect his brother; Hector would find a way to take care of himself. But he could, at least, deliver Antonia out of the battle zone. She would never understand why he supported Hector. It cut him. She, like everyone else, would forever believe the Sandoval boys guilty of their father’s sins.

      He knew Hector, knew his faults and weaknesses, but he also knew how his brother defended him when they were teens, stood up for him against a crowd of people who believed him guilty of taking advantage of a local girl. The hatred of the community who was all too willing to accept that he’d done it. The sideways looks and sneered remarks of peers who believed the girl’s story. Cops with an eagerness to convict him glittering in their eyes right up to the moment when they decided they had no evidence to hold him. All because his last name was Sandoval. And when the half dozen boys cornered him at his uncle’s orchard and began to beat him, it was his brother who stood there beside him, taking the punishment, knee-deep in the melee until the cops arrived and broke things up.

      That was the real Hector. Wasn’t it?

      “Enough,” Silvio said.

      Reuben jerked from his thoughts to find Silvio pointing at the water jug he was filling to overflowing in the sink. He turned off the tap. “I’m taking her back now.”

      “Good,” Paula said.

      Silvio chided his wife. “She doesn’t deserve that.”

      Paula didn’t answer as she brushed a kiss on Reuben’s cheek. “Hurry back. Don’t want you caught in the storm.”

      “Yes, ma’am,” Reuben said. He gestured to Silvio to follow him outside and told him about Garza’s threat. “You should take Paula away.”

      “I’ll tell her, but she won’t budge.”

      Reuben experienced twin pangs of both tenderness and worry. The emotions quickened his pace as he hurried to the Black-Eyed Beauty, his breathing edging up a notch when he saw Antonia waiting there, black hair ribboning around her like wings.

      Gavin joined them and stood uncharacteristically quietly on the dock a few paces behind. He’d have to be blind and deaf not to pick up on the tension between the two of them. He merely whistled to himself and looked at the birds wheeling above the water.

      Hector’s boat was gone, and Reuben felt a surge of relief. His brother was a distraction he could not afford. He marveled at the thick wall of black clouds, massed like soldiers on the horizon. This hurricane would not retreat until Florida had experienced the full weight of its power. There were no leisure craft to be seen out in the open. The water empty of the usual ocean lovers. Normally he relished the early morning quiet, but now it bothered him. He thought about calling Silvio to make sure he’d locked up, but was annoyed to discover he’d left his cell phone at the hotel.

      “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.