Candle in the Wind

  Sally Wentworth - Candle in the Wind

  Every word of his might well be a lie!

  Adrift in the Caribbean, wrecked against a reef, stranded alone on an island with someone who called himself Mike Scott—Samantha tried desperately to recall the events that had brought her to such an impasse.

  Samantha couldn't remember anything—not her name, nor even this tall, suntanned stranger who had saved her from death and who claimed to be her husband.

  But Samantha had no proof: no papers, no ring, no recollection of those deep blue eyes that kept staring intently into her own. She wanted to believe him—but how could she?

  CHAPTER ONE

  The first thing she remembered was pain—a sharp, tearing pain that shot through her head and made her clench her teeth in agony. It continued for some time, but gradually lessened to a persistent, throbbing ache so long as she lay very still and didn't try to move. Slowly other senses began to return and she realised that she was lying on something hard and wooden, something that seemed to be moving slightly of its own volition. It was a long time before she tried to open her eyes, and when she did so she was gripped with sheer, overwhelming panic. Because she could see nothing, there was only impenetrable blackness all around her, suffocating her like a blanket, and she knew with sickening realisation that she must be blind. Desperately she turned her head, eyes probing for even a pinprick of light, of colour, to break up the darkness, anything to prove her wrong. Turning her head gave her light and colour all right, great shooting, spiked rockets of them, but inside her head, not outside, and the pain made her cry out in anguish.

  Immediately the floor began to heave and tilt beneath her and she gave a gasp of fear. Then, for the first time, sounds came to break the enveloping silence, sounds that came nearer as the floor rocked more violently. A hand touched her ankle and then moved up her body, and she could hear someone breathing softly. Her eyes probed the blackness, wide and frightened. If only she could see! The hand found her shoulder and then touched the cold skin of her face. With a cry of sheer terror she dropped back into the blessedness of oblivion.

  When next she came to she was afraid to open her eyes at first, afraid that there would only be blackness again, but eventually hope that she might have been mistaken overcame her fears and she lifted her lids. Immediately a great wave of relief swept over her; no longer was everything pitch black, now it was grey, a dark, uniform grey, admittedly, but the upsurge of hope it gave her was tremendous. For a few moments she lay still, too thankful to think of anything else, but then she became aware of the throbbing ache in her head. Tentatively she lifted her hand to touch it and then stopped in surprise as she felt the dressing just above her right temple. Slowly her fingers explored it. She must have hurt her head and someone had dressed it for her. Who? Who was it? She tried to speak, to call out, but her throat felt dry and parched and she only managed a feeble moan.

  But it was enough. The floor began to move as it had before and the sounds came again. She remembered then the hand that had touched her and she grew rigid with apprehension, waiting. But the sounds were surer this time, less fumbling, and suddenly the greyness above her was lifted and for a moment her eyes were dazzled by brilliant sunlight. Instinctively she closed them against it, but then the light was blotted out as someone leaned over her. She found herself being lifted gently into a sitting position and then a voice said, 'Here, drink this.'

  It was a man. He was holding a water bottle to her lips and she bent to drink it greedily, bat he made her take only a few sips at first, until her throat was lubricated and she could swallow properly, then he let her drink as much as she wanted. Afterwards he laid her down again and checked the dressing on her head and felt her pulse, his fingers hot against her skin. He seemed satisfied and moved away. Then the greyness came down again and she realised that it was a cover he had spread over her to protect her from the sun.

  She slept again then, a deep, reviving sleep, and when she woke the pain in her head was almost gone, leaving only the aftermath of a severe headache. It was much cooler now, the heat seemed to have gone out of the sun, and when she looked up she could see the pale grey of the sky above her. Gingerly she lifted her head and with a shock of surprise realised that she was in a boat, a wooden dinghy that moved gently with the waves. The blanket had been wrapped round her, but despite its warmth she shivered. The air was cold and she realised that it was very early in the morning, the sun not yet having risen.

  Painfully she raised herself a little further, her limbs stiff and cramped from having lain still for so long. The man was at the other end of the boat, half lying, half sitting against the side, his head pillowed on his arm, asleep. Because of his position she couldn't see his face very well, and it was impossible to tell whether or not he was tall, but she got the impression that he was a big man, his broad shoulders making the boat seem too small for him. On the horizon the grey sky began to turn to a rich pink as the sun slowly crept towards them. Pulling herself upright, she settled herself as comfortably as she could and waited for the man to waken.

  He did so as the first rays of sunlight caught him, stretching his cramped muscles and putting a rueful hand to his unshaven face. Then he became aware that she was watching him. For a moment he studied her, and she saw that his eyes were deep blue like the sea. Easing himself forward, he Sat on the seat opposite her. His eyes crinkled into a smile. 'Hi, how's the head?'

  'All right.' She looked at him anxiously. 'Please— why are we on this boat?'

  'Don't you remember? The boat we were on capsized in a storm. You banged your head against something and were knocked unconscious. There was just time to get you into the dinghy before she went down.'

  She looked at him in bewilderment. 'What about the other people?'

  He frowned. 'There were no other people—just the two of us.'

  Her eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. 'But I…' She paused, then said questioningly, 'Who are you?'

  He stared at her, completely taken aback, and he didn't answer for what seemed a long time. Then he leaned forward and looked at her searchingly.

  'I'm Mike. Mike Scott. Don't you remember? We were on my boat together, the Venturer.'

  Slowly she shook her head. 'No, I'm sorry, I—I can't seem to remember.' She lifted her hand to the wound on her temple as the pain began to come back. 'My head, it hurts so!'

  He put a hand on her shoulder. 'Don't worry about it now, Sam, you'll probably be…'

  She raised her head to look at him. 'Who's Sam?'

  His eyes flew wide in his suddenly taut face and the hand gripping her shoulder tightened so that his fingers bit into her flesh and she winced.

  'Don't you know?' His voice was sharp, urgent.

  'No.' She was bewildered and a little frightened by his tone.

  He continued to gaze at her for several minutes, then he said curiously, 'Can't you remember—anything?'

  And then she knew. Tear? filled her eyes and she cried out. 'No! Oh, no!' Desperately she pressed her hands against her head and tried to go back, back. But there was nothing there, only a deep impenetrable black void that left her without name or identity. She balled her hands into fists and began to beat them against her forehead, trying to force herself to remember.

  'Sam, stop it. You'll hurt yourself!'

  He grabbed hold of her flailing wrists and the next second she was pulled roughly against him arid held close in his arms as he knelt in the bottom of the boat. Tears of anguish and fear ran down her cheeks and her body shook with emotion. Putting up a hand, he held her head against his shoulder.

  'Cry it out, sweetheart. Let it go.'

  And he just held her for a long time, until her sobs had quietened and she wasn't shakin
g quite so violently. Then he loosened his hold a little so that he could look down at her.

  Gently he said, 'Your name is Sam. You've been hit on the head and it's made you forget who you are for the moment, that's all. Nothing unusual about that, it often happens with bangs on the head. It will probably all start coming back to you in a day or so, when you get better. But not if you keep worrying about it.' He gently put up a hand to cup her chin. ‘So promise me you'll try not to worry.'

  Still held within the circle of his arm, she answered falteringly, 'All—all right, I'll try. But I….’

  He put a finger against her lips. 'Hush, that's good enough for now. You'll make your head hurt again.'

  'But, please, I have to know who I am. Who you are?'

  He hesitated for a moment, and his eyes darkened. Then he said firmly, 'You're my wife.'

  He let her go then and made her sit in the prow of the boat while he rigged the blanket over her as a shelter from the sun again, then he gave her a drink of water.

  'Not too much this time,' he warned her. 'It's all we have and we don't know how long it will have to last us.'

  She obeyed him meekly and then sat staring out across the empty sea unseeingly. Her name was Sam— short for Samantha, she supposed. And this man was her husband, the man who shared her life. What had 'he said his name was? Mike, that was it. Mike Scott. She watched him as he took a small drink of water from the plastic container and then stowed it under the seat out of the sun. Taking a pair of oars that she hadn't noticed before from the bottom of the boat, he fitted them into the rowlocks and began to row, steering a course from the sun.

  The hands that held the oars were strong, capable, and his muscles rippled under the blue sweat shirt he wore as he rowed without apparent effort. Almost surreptitiously she studied his face. He was very tanned, his thick brown hair bleached to a lighter shade by the sun, and he had square, masterful features that made him look tough and immensely self-assured, but there was a slight ironic quirk to his mouth as if he laughed at himself and other people too much. Everything about him suggested a casual, easy approach to life, an 'I don't give a damn' manner. The blue eyes flickered over her for a moment and she looked away quickly.

  There was nothing to see all around her, only the deep blue of the sea and- the azure of the cloudless sky. For the first time it hit home to her that they were in a very small boat on a very big sea. She tried to think where they were, where the boat had been heading before it sank, but there was still nothing there, nothing before the pain she had woken to—like the pain of being born? she wondered. Hesitatingly she turned to address the man—no, not the man, her husband. She bit her lip. Oh, why couldn't she remember? Why?

  After a minute she said slowly, 'Please, where are we?'

  He grinned. 'I've been wondering when you'd get round to asking me that. We're somewhere in the Caribbean Sea and heading towards the Windward Islands. How far away they are I'm not sure exactly, we got swept along quite a way during the storm. But if we keep heading west we're bound to hit land eventually, even if it's the coast of America.'

  'Is there—is there anything to eat?'

  For a moment his eyes were shadowed. 'Sorry, Sam, but the boat went down so fast I didn't have time to grab more than the water and the first aid kit after I'd…' He stopped and gave her a reassuring grin. 'But don't worry, we'll make it—we haven't come this far not to survive the rest.'

  He bent to the oars and Sam was left to her thoughts. In the Caribbean, he'd said, heading for the Windward Islands. She was surprised to find that she knew what he was talking about. The Windward Islands were in the West Indies. So if she could remember something like that why couldn't she remember anything else? She tried, forcing her mind back to the brink of the abyss but finding only emptiness beyond it. It was as if someone had pulled down a blind and shut everything out. After a little while she gave up, it made her head ache painfully whenever she tried to concentrate too much and already there were red flashes before her eyes. She shut them and leaned back against the side 6f the boat. So they were adrift in a small boat with only a little water between them. And the sun beating down on them, its rays already so hot that they burned through the blanket that shaded her. It came to her then that she might die without knowing who she was.

  They rowed on in silence, Mike concentrating all his strength in pulling the oars like a robot. In, out, in, out. But as the day wore on, his breathing rasped in his throat and sweat trickled down his face and stained his shirt. She watched him, wanting to cry out to him to stop, to rest, but knowing instinctively that for all his reassurance their plight was desperate. How long could they possibly survive in these conditions unless they found land? Only when the sun was high in the sky did he at last stop, leaning on the oars, his breathing laboured. Slowly he shipped the oars and then pulled off his shirt to wash it in the sea. He was very strong, his shoulders wide and powerful, and there was a mat of hair on his chest which was tanned as brown as his face.

  He spread the shirt to dry and then looked over at her. 'Mind if I share your shade for a bit?'

  Bringing the water container with him, he let her drink first and then took some himself. No more than a swallow, although he must have been completely dehydrated. Then he lay down in the bottom of the boat and looked at her as she sat rather stiffly beside him.

  'Might as well try and get some sleep during the heat of the day. I’ll row again later when it's cooled down.'

  'What if we drift in the wrong direction?'

  A look of amusement appeared in the blue eyes. 'We won't. The current is carrying us the way we want to go all the time.'

  'But what if we go past an island while we're asleep?' she objected.

  'Look around you,' he instructed her. 'What do you ' see?'

  'Nothing. Nothing at all.'

  'No, and even if there was land in sight it would take us hours to reach it and we'd be awake long before then. You don't have to worry, Sam,' he said quietly. 'I won't let anything happen to you, not now I've got you. Now come and get some sleep.'

  Slowly she slid down beside him and he put an arm under her head as a pillow. His other arm he put casually across her, just above her waist. He did it quite naturally, as if he was used to having her body close up against his like this. She could feel the hairs on his chest soft against her bare arm, feel his heart beating strongly against her shoulder. Sam lay there, rigidly still, unable to relax, let alone think of sleep. It felt so strange, so alien, to lie beside him like this, she was tinglingly aware of every place where his body touched hers: her shoulder, her arm, her hip, her leg. Why was it that she couldn't remember something that set her nerves jangling like this? Surely she should remember how it was when he made love to her, when he laid her slim body under his big one and possessed her completely?

  The thought made her quiver and his arm tightened around her.

  'Relax. Try and sleep,' he said softly in her ear.

  She tried, but it was no good. There were too many things she had to know. Taking her courage in both hands, she said falteringly, 'How long have we been married?'

  He didn't answer immediately, then said almost dismissively, 'Not long. Go to sleep.'

  But die persisted. 'Please—how long?'

  Again he hesitated, then, reluctantly, 'About a week.'

  'A week!' She turned startled eyes to stare at him.

  He sighed, a little exasperatedly. 'We were on our honeymoon. We were married in Barbados and were going on a cruise round the islands.' He bunched his hand into a fist and gave her a mock blow on the chin. 'Now will you go to sleep, woman, or do I have to knock you unconscious again?'

  So Sam subsided into silence, her thoughts chaotic. No wonder it felt strange, if they had only been married a week. And yet he acted so naturally. Perhaps it was different for a man. His breathing became rhythmic and even as he fell into an exhausted sleep and she sneaked a look at his face, so near her own. His features were hard, even in repose, only the
sweep of his long eyelashes giving any softness to his face. For a long time she studied him, trying to find within herself the feelings she knew she ought to have for this man. But there was nothing there, only her awareness of him as a man, and her shyness and embarrassment at being so close to him. She wondered miserably if amnesia made you forget not only memories but feelings and emotions as well. Surely if she loved him she would still feel it? She moved restlessly and he murmured in his sleep, tightening his hold on her and burying his face in her hair, so that she was afraid to move lest she wake him, and eventually drifted off to sleep herself.

  The worst of the heat had gone out of the sun when his stirrings woke her. Her first reaction on waking was to send her mind searching back into her brain in the eager hope of her memory having returned, but there was still nothing there and Sam hastily reverted to the present, away from the pain of deep concentration. Beside her Mike sat up and flexed his stiff muscles, rubbing circulation back into the arm she had been lying on. He glanced up at the sky and grimaced.

  'Not a cloud in sight, and no wind to speak of either, unfortunately.' He stood up, and to Sam's dismay began to unbuckle the belt of the jeans he was wearing. He glanced at her and said quite matter-of-factly, 'I'm going over the side for a swim.'

  Her eyes widened in alarm. 'But isn't that dangerous? What if you can't get back in again, or the boat drifts away?'

  'Don't worry, nothing's going to happen.'

  He kicked off his deck shoes and began to take off his trousers and Sam looked away, studying the horizon on the other side of the boat unseeingly. The boat rocked violently and she caught hold of the side to steady herself. Anxiety made her turn to make sure that he was all right and she felt a great surge of relief when she saw his head break the surface a few yards away. He splashed around for about five minutes and then swam back to where she knelt at the side of the boat, watching him.

  'Better hold on,' he told her. 'The boat will tip quite a bit.'

  Putting his hands on the side, he gave one heave of his powerful shoulders that lifted him high out of the water, and the next second he was safely back on board, the water running in rivulets down his broad chest and strong legs. His underpants clung wetly to him and Sam hastily averted her eyes, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. He turned to pick up his shirt and dry himself on it and several drops of water splashed on to her arm. They felt infinitely cool against her parched skin.