Shaking himself out of his stupor—had he hit his head?—Logan forced himself to move. He unbuckled his seatbelt and got to his feet, ignoring the dull pain in his ribs.
The plane was quiet. Too quiet. He had expected that there would be panic and people’s screams, but there was nothing. When Logan parted the partition that separated the first-class cabin from economy class, he found out why: part of the plane was gone.
Logan glanced at the cloudy sky and then at the beach nearby. It seemed the plane—what was left of it—had crashed into the shallow waters of some island, far enough from the storm the plane had been caught in. Or perhaps it had been hours. How long had he been unconscious?
No locals. No houses anywhere to be seen. No sign that there was anyone but them on the island. Probably uninhabited, then. Wherever the other half of the plane was, he couldn’t see it. It was possible it had already been swallowed by the ocean. Speaking of the ocean, it looked like the tide was coming in soon.
He returned inside and went to the cockpit. He didn’t have much hope that anyone inside it was alive, and his expectations turned out to be correct when he found the bodies of the pilot and co-pilot.
Sighing, Logan carried them out of the plane, one by one, then carried out Tom’s body. At last, there was only the bigot left. Him and his dead wife.
“Come on, carry her out,” Logan said gruffly. “We can’t leave the bodies here. The plane is going to flood when the tide comes.”
The guy lifted his head and blinked at him dazedly. His wide eyes were very green. Strange. Logan had thought they were blue.
He frowned and waved a hand in front of the guy’s face. “Did you hit your head? Do you understand what I’m saying? Come on, the tide is starting to come in. There’s no time to lose. Carry the body out.”
“The body,” the man repeated, looking lost. “She’s—she isn’t dead. She’s just unconscious.”
Logan looked away, his jaw clenching. He didn’t want to feel sorry for that bigoted dick, but it was impossible not to. “She’s dead,” he said, a little softer, glancing at the unnatural angle of her neck. He pressed his fingers to her throat, just to be sure, and wasn’t surprised not to find the pulse. “I’m sorry for your loss, but we have to move. You can’t stay here. Carry her out.”
He didn’t wait for the guy to follow his instructions. There was no time to babysit him: judging by the height of the waves, they had very little time left. So Logan busied himself with getting the carry-on bags out of the plane, and then all the food and water he could find. He had no idea when rescue would come, so it was better to be prepared than not.
At some point, the other man must have moved, because he wasn’t in the plane when Logan returned after putting the bags on a higher point of the beach.
Rubbing his aching ribs, Logan looked around the rapidly flooding plane, searching for anything that might be remotely useful. He grabbed a handful of blankets, pillows, and some tools, and glanced at the cockpit. The plane’s communication system didn’t seem to work. He could only hope the plane had sent a distress signal before crashing and that rescue would be coming soon.
The water had already reached his waist, so Logan left the plane, figuring he’d done all he could.
He deposited everything next to the bags and pulled out his phone. No signal, as expected. That would have been too easy.
Running a hand over his face, Logan sighed and turned toward the bodies. He hesitated. If they were rescued soon, burying the bodies would be pointless, but he didn’t like the idea of leaving them unburied in such heat. So he went to work.
Digging three graves with rudimentary, limited tools proved to be long, exhausting work, and by the time he was done, Logan was sweating profusely, his bruised ribs aching. He pulled off his drenched shirt, washed it in the ocean, and left it to dry on a rock.
Then he grabbed a bottle of water and went in search of the other guy. As much as he didn’t like that dick, he didn’t want him to die of dehydration.
He found him around the bend of the island, by a tall palm tree. Andrew was kneeling in front of a shallow mound of sand. A grave. He was covered in sand, his hands dirty and bloodied.
Logan frowned. Had he dug the grave with his hands?
“Hey,” he said. “You should get some water into you.”
The guy didn’t move, still hunched over the grave. He was breathing raggedly, his breath coming out in harsh gasps. Or sobs.
“Are you hurt?” Logan said, eyeing him with mixed feelings. As much as he hated the thought of being stranded on some godforsaken island with a bigot, the guy had just lost his wife. A nice, lovely woman who had spent the flight trying to defend her homophobic husband. If Logan remembered correctly, she had mentioned that they’d been married for nine years. Nine years with one person was a long time. Logan couldn’t hope to understand the enormity of losing one’s spouse of nine years. Although he did feel sad about Tom, they’d barely known each other. Tom was—had been—another tourist Logan had hooked up with on Bora Bora; it could hardly compare to losing one’s wife.
There was no reaction.
Logan’s lips thinned. He’d never exactly been known for his patience, and unfortunately for Andrew, he was too exhausted and stressed to make an effort now.
He dropped the bottle at Andrew’s feet and strode away. The guy was a grown man. He wasn’t going to babysit him.
If he wanted to die of dehydration, it was his own choice.
***
Logan spent the next few days exploring the island.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to explore. They were stranded on a tiny piece of land barely one square mile big. The island probably didn’t even have a name. It probably wasn’t on any maps, just one of thousands of small isles in the Pacific Ocean.
The only piece of good news was that there was fresh water: a tiny creek. The water tasted a little metallic but was good enough to drink. At least he hadn’t been poisoned after drinking it.
There was no animal life, and no sign of humans ever being there.
In light of this, and considering that rescue still failed to appear, Logan spent a day making a fishing net from the clothes he’d found in Vivian’s carry-on bag. He felt a little bad for destroying a dead woman’s belongings, but he figured she wouldn’t mind her clothes being used to feed her widower. It was only practical: out of all the clothes, hers weren’t something they could wear—unless they got really desperate, but Logan tried not to think about that option. If they got desperate enough to need to wear Vivian’s clothes, that would mean they would have been stranded on this island for a very, very long time.
He actually sort of wanted Andrew to get angry over his wife’s clothes. The silence was starting to get on Logan’s nerves. The guy walked around the island like some kind of ghost, his gaze listless and lost. He barely touched the water and food Logan left for him several times a day. He didn’t speak at all. It was a stark contrast to the confrontational guy who had been glaring at him and Tom with disgust only a few days ago.
Something had to give; it couldn’t go on like this.
Chapter 3
Andrew wanted to get drunk.