Stephanie shifted. Lifted. He saw a brief flash of white hip and blue thong before she zipped up her jeans.
He closed his eyes, frustrated. Aching. “Why?” The word burst out of him.
He heard a rustle as she settled beside him on the rock. “You mean, why not?”
“I mean . . .” Why did she have to think so much? “I guess.”
“I like you, Zack. I really do. But I don‟t want to get pregnant, okay? I‟m only sixteen. I don‟t want to get knocked up and
have to take some dead-end job for my father and work on the island the rest of my life.”
That was reasonable. Not that he felt very reasonable at the moment. But he opened his eyes. “I could use a condom.”
“Do you have a condom?”
Hot blood swept his face. “No. But I could bring one. Next time.”
His mother kept a box in the bedside table. No.
He could buy them from the grocery store. But then he‟d have to worry about hiding his purchase from Mr. Wiley. And
Dot. And every other fucking busybody on the whole fucking island.
But he would do it. For Stephanie.
“Zack, that‟s sweet. But it‟s not just about the condom. I don‟t want to get involved, not all the way involved, with
anybody yet. I‟m not ready to be part of a couple. I‟m still all about me. I want to go to college. I want to travel. I want
options.”
Rejection was hot in his body, bitter in his mouth. “You want options more than you want me.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Well . . . Yeah. And so should you.”
Options. Jesus.
His lungs hurt. His eyes burned. What options did he have? He was a kid, a freak, stuck in a body he couldn‟t control from
a father he barely knew.
He wanted . . . Stephanie. Something.
His longing pushed and twisted inside him in great, slippery coils, fighting to bust out. He had to get out, get away, before
he exploded.
“Fine.” He pulled himself together, pushed himself to his feet, held out his hand to help her up. “Let me walk you back.”
Hesitantly, she took his hand. “Zack . . .”
But he didn‟t want to talk anymore. He didn‟t want to think. He stalked beside her without speaking until they could see the
picnic shelter, the lights and the fire and people bustling under the roof. Something was going on. He didn‟t care. He waited
until Stephanie had stumbled halfway down the slope before he took off, running, into the night.
Toward the sea.
19
THE DOCTOR IN ELIZABETH TOOK OVER, PUSHING all emotion, the regret and the pain, aside. She would deal
with Morgan and her feelings for him later.
Now she had a patient in active labor and an imminent delivery on her hands.
“We need to transport,” she ordered, her voice brisk and professional. The doctor was confident even when the woman
inside wanted to crawl away and lick her wounds.
“She won‟t make it,” Caleb said.
“Not to the hospital,” Liz agreed.
Sixty minutes by lobster boat, twenty by LifeFlight. Margred‟s contractions were less than three minutes apart and over a
minute long. If Liz hadn‟t been so focused on her own conversation with Morgan . . .
She shook her head. No time for second-guessing or guilt. “The clinic,” she said.
Margred took a few short, careful steps from the shelter toward the beach. “I am sitting now,” she announced.
Sitting was good. The risk of infection made an internal examination in the field impossible, but Liz still needed to check
Margred‟s progress. A change of position might even slow labor. But Margred was heading in the wrong direction.
“Not in the sand,” Liz said.
Caleb took his wife‟s arm. “You can sit in the Jeep.”
“Here,” Margred said. Gripping his muscled forearm, she lowered herself heavily to the beach.