Chapter 1
Huge waves were sweeping over the sides of his sailboat and buffeting the boat back and forth. At times he felt like he was in a toy sailboat in the bathtub of a rambunctious toddler. Before the storm hit, he buttoned up the cabin, dropped his sails and knew he could survive the storm. Then his engine quit and while he was working on getting that fixed, his bilge pump stopped.
It was as if God decided it was his time and no matter what he did, God had another problem to throw at him. For a few moments he tried using a bucket to bail the water out of the boat, but he knew that was useless. He tried to fix the bilge pump, but nothing worked, and water broke out of the bilge letting water flow into the cabin.
The storm seemed to be getting worse and once again he frantically renewed his efforts to fix the bilge pump. When that failed, he renewed his work on the engine and got it working again. He quickly studied his nautical charts to find any land close and found some shoals and tiny islands were the closest. He set course for the islands and within thirty minutes the engine quit. As much as he hated to admit it, he may have to abandon ship, but only at the last second.
Before he totally gave up, he sent an SOS over the radio and he even tried his satellite phone, but it couldn’t get a signal. Evan wracked his brain trying to think of a way out, but exhaustion, fear and panic left him without any options. He gathered his life raft from down below and as he exited his hatch a colossal wave bashed his head against the cowling. He dropped the raft, and it was swept overboard.
Evan looked to the heavens and shouted, “What have I done to you Lord to warrant this torment?”
He didn’t expect an answer, but he got one when a boom swung violently and hit him in the head. He went overboard and blacked out for a couple of seconds. Evan came to about ten feet from the boat, groggy and disoriented, but his instincts told him to swim to the boat. He grabbed ahold of a superfluous rope and drifted while his head cleared. The cold water initially woke him up, but the longer he stayed in the water the more hypothermic he became.
Evan gathered his strength and pulled himself into the boat. He lay on the deck, utterly defeated, but he couldn’t let it end like this. He gathered his wits, crawled across the deck and hoisted his main sail. If he could just get to the island, maybe he could find a sheltered anchor and it would give him time to fix his boat. But it seemed the storm had other plans.
A bolt of lightning crackled through the night, hit his mast, with the boom and half of the mast crashing down and through the shell of the boat. With the hull breach his boat began to sink in earnest. Water gushed towards him mixed with debris and he snatched a life preserver as it almost floated away. Evan rapidly strapped on the life preserver and soon his sailboat sank out from under him.
The vacuum of his sinking boat pulled him under the water and continued to pull at him. The buoyancy of the life preserver as well as his struggles broke the vacuum and allowed him to burst through to the surface. He looked around the black sky and driving rain with only the occasional lightning giving him a view of his bleak situation.
Evan bobbed like a cork in the frothy sea, totally at the mercy of the heartless ocean. He had no idea if he would survive the night, but his mind couldn’t give up. He tried to think of a way out, but nothing came to mind, and he continued to drift in the cold black ocean.
The cold began to seep into his body while he bobbed in the cruel sea. While he fought to stay awake, after an hour his head lolled on his chest and soon his body would be shutting down.
~~~~~
Kiera had been swimming deep to avoid the turbulent storm on the surface, when a sinking sailboat almost hit her. Her curiosity got the better of her and she began to rise to the surface. Her mermaid vision allowed her to see a lone human bobbing on the surface and she slowly approached him.
She saw his head hanging low and knew he was dying. Kiera watched him and something lit inside her. Something about this man made her want to save him. He was weathered, but incredibly handsome, strong and muscled in a way that made her want to feel herself in his arms.
Kiera grabbed his life preserver and with her strong tail began the long swim to a deserted island she knew about. It took more than a couple of hours fighting the sea while dragging dead weight, but in the end, she dragged him up onto the sand.
With the storm breaking and the horizon turning gray with the coming sunrise, she had a good view of the man she had just saved, and her heart leapt in her chest. Kiera had many dreams of what her mate should look like, and this man was in her dreams. He was strongly muscled, and his features were chiseled out of her fantasies.
She stared at him remembering how his beefy arms felt wrapped around her in her fantasies. While her eyes swept over his strong muscled body, she remembered how his kisses felt in her dreams and how his hands felt as they intimately caressed her. Poseidon must have been smiling on her as he delivered her dream lover to her.
Kiera’s mind drifted to the dreams that seemed to include his man and goosebumps erupted on her skin as she thought back to his touches, caresses and kisses. For several minutes she basked in the memories of her fantasy lover and truly hoped this was the man. She shook her head to clear her mind as she stared at him and then made a decision.
She drew her knife and put it next to her man. She stood and took several steps backwards and muttered, “If he was her dream man, then he should prove his abilities. If he can survive with just a knife, then and only then, would he be worthy.”
