Page 86 of Swept Away

I point to her. “The nice compartment,” I say, before pulling her into my arms.

“Oh yeah, I am so puppies and rainbows. Really, though, you’re processing something huge, and you’re having to do it in very…”

“Damp conditions?”

“I was going to say stressful conditions. Youdidjust flee from a burning oil rig.”

“Excuse me. I justsetfireto an oil rig.”

“Well, yeah, that, too. But now you’re back on a smelly, leaky houseboat with a big crack in the roof, so I get it if you don’t feel like you’re coping right now, given everything. I mean, I’m not sure I’m coping, and I didn’t just find out something massive about my family. I’m purely dealing with the fact that I hate this bloody boat, and that’s hard enough.”

I kiss the top of her head, bun-dodging. “You don’t mean that. You called this boat a hero two days ago.”

“OK,” she says reluctantly. “I don’t hate her. But…”

“Go on?”

“No. It’s embarrassing.”

“Is it as embarrassing as tying a houseboat to itself?”

“Is anything that embarrassing?”

“Well, then.”

She sniffs. “I just miss Eugene a bit,” she says, lifting her chin. “That’s all. It’s not the same on here without him.” She whacks my arm. “Don’t do that face.”

“What face?”

“The ‘I knew you had a heart of gold all along’ face.”

“This is my ‘I set fire to oil rigs’ face, thank you very much.”

“No, your ‘I set fire to oil rigs’ face is much more regal.” She adopts a serious expression to demonstrate. “See? It’s akin to but subtly different from your ‘this houseboat fridge still smells’ face.”

I love you, I almost say.I love you even though I have only known you for eleven days, and I know that’s mad and I don’t even care.

“I miss Eugene, too,” I settle for, as the oil rig shrinks away.

Three hours later and the wind’s picked up.The Merry Dormouseis rising and falling now—I have to grip the railing. The rig isn’t even a gray smear on the horizon behind us. It’s gone.

Lexi and I stand on the deck, quiet and tense. There’s so much more noise when the wind is blowing. Tarpaulin rattling, sail slapping against its ties, contents of the kitchen cupboards clashing like cymbals. I’ve had to borrow a couple of Lexi’s hair clips to hold my hair back from my face. The sea’s sparkling and creased like crumpled tinfoil. If you stare at each wave at a time, they don’t look likemuch at all, but the boat’s already creaking and shaking, and we’ve had to bail out the shower twice.

“We should have stayed on the rig,” Lexi says, voice small.

“This weather isn’t bad. If we weren’t so used to being on the water when it’s really still, we wouldn’t even notice it,” I say.

“You mean, if we weren’t in a rickety, leaking houseboat, then we wouldn’t even notice it,” she says dryly.

I hug her close. I feel like if I keep hold of Lexi, I can keep steady.

“We should get inside,” she says. “We need to do as much storm-proofing as we can before it gets dark.”

“Don’t say the S word.” I kiss the top of her head. “It’s just a bit windy, that’s all.”

“Do you think we might get rescued this time?” she asks after a moment, looking out at the water. The sun’s just dipped into the sea. The world’s turning grayish, still tinged with the sunset’s red. I don’t want darkness to fall.

“Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

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