Sleep With Me (Be With Me) Read Online Free Page A

don’t come back with the coast guard, it’s because I ended up on the island. Pick me up tomorrow night on the south end around sunset, okay?”
    She nodded, then shoved the dinghy away from the ship as he started up the outboard motor. Keeping the throttle low, he turned the boat and headed slowly toward the reef, scanning the water and hoping for a miracle.
     
    ***
     
    Katherine reminded herself for the tenth time not to panic. Or was it the twentieth? She’d followed Amy’s bubbles out over the center of the coral where it was much shallower than where the boat was, but there had been a few small sharks and a couple long, mean-looking fish to watch out for and when she’d finally looked forward again, the bubbles and the dim diver’s outline were gone.
    Knowing she should go back to the boat, she’d lifted her head out of the water to locate it, turning circles until she finally saw it bobbing what seemed like a much longer distance away than she’d realized. When she’d finally put her head back down to swim for it, there were more sharks circling. Reef sharks, she thought David had said, and supposedly harmless, but they were still big enough to make her nervous. Too late she realized that her frantic kicking when she was looking for the boat must have made them curious.
    With considerable effort, she forced herself to slow her movements and drift over the reef with lazier kicks. No way was she leaving the relative shallow water on top of the reef with a bunch of sharks following though, so she swam along the top of the reef until they appeared to get bored and dissipated.
    Careful to keep her movements rhythmic, she peeked above the water line again, shivering as she looked for the boat to reorient herself.
    But it appeared to be gone. She couldn’t see it no matter which way she turned, and her heart raced at the thought of being stranded alone in the vast ocean.
    She never should have left the boat.
    There was an island in the other direction, and after one more survey of the open sea with no sign of a boat or any human life at all, she decided her only chance was to swim for shore. It looked like an impossible distance, but if she got far enough, hopefully the tide would pull her in. And the island shouldn’t move, which was a bonus.
    She wished she could rest, maybe take a few good deep breaths, but having seen all the activity below the surface, she wasn’t comfortable keeping her head up for any longer than necessary. She needed to see, to make sure nothing was coming after her. Forewarned is forearmed, or whatever that saying was.
    Breathing as slowly as she could through the snorkel, she went horizontal again and started back across the coral fields with strong but steady strokes of her fins. No longer concerned with scaring the wildlife, she focused on moving as fast as possible without attracting undue attention. By the time she reached the inner edge of the reef, her legs were burning from the effort and she barely noticed the cold. But the drop-off ahead gave her pause even though she could still see the bottom, and it wasn’t nearly as dark as the side she’d just left.
    Lifting her head, she was relieved to see the island still sticking up out of the water. For a moment she’d feared having turned around and gone the opposite direction. Trembling as the cold worked its way back under her skin, she knew she needed to keep moving. The deeper water was disconcerting though, and she had to force herself to float out away from the apparent safety of the reef top.
    She couldn’t seem to warm up again as she swam over the sandy bottom. The wildlife didn’t seem to mind her presence - in fact, she wished they would mind a little more. Several rays joined her for awhile, flying gracefully under her with gentle flaps and all she could think of was that animal guy on TV who had died swimming with rays. Long, skinny eels slithered partially out of rocky homes and watched her go by with sharp,